SONS OF FIRE
A Novel
By Mary Elizabeth Braddon
THE AUTHOR OF
"LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN,"
"ISHMAEL," ETC.
_IN THREE VOLUMES_
VOL. III.
LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LIMITED
STATIONERS' HALL COURT
[_All rights reserved_]
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
I. ROMAN AND SABINE
II. "IF SHE BE NOT FAIR TO ME"
III. "I GO TO PROVE MY SOUL"
IV. BLACK AND WHITE
V. THE MEETING-PLACE OF WATERS
VI. KIGAMBO
VII. MAMBU KWA MUNGU
VIII. WHERE THE BURDEN IS HEAVIEST
IX. ALL IN HONOUR
X. "AM I HIS KEEPER?"
XI. A SHADOW ACROSS THE PATH
XII. "IT IS THE STARS"
XIII. MADNESS OR CRIME?
XIV. "HE HATH AWAKENED FROM THE DREAM OF LIFE"
SONS OF FIRE.
CHAPTER I.
ROMAN AND SABINE.
Geoffrey was not to be baulked of his purpose. He sat till long after
midnight in the music-room with his mother--sat or roamed about in the
ample spaces of that fine apartment, talking in his own wild way, with
that restless, fitful romanticism which had marked him from childhood,
from the dim hours, so vaguely remembered and so sadly sweet in his
memory, when he had sat on the floor with his head leaning against
the soft silken folds of her gown, and had been moved to tears by her
playing. There were simple turns of melody, almost automatic phrases of
Mozart's, which recalled the vague heartache of those childish hours;
an idea of music so interwoven with that other idea of summer twilight
in a spacious, shadowy room, that it startled him to hear one of those
familiar movements in the broad glare of day, as if daylight and _that_
music were irreconcilable.
No arguments of his mother's could shake his purpose.
"I will see her and talk with her. She alone shall be the judge of what
is right. Perhaps when I am sure of her I may be able to teach myself
patience. But I must be sure of her love."
He was at Bournemouth by the first train that would carry him there,
and it was still early when he went roaming out towards Branksome and
the borderland of Dorset. To walk suited better with his impatience
than to be driven by a possibly stupid flyman, and to have the fly
pulled up every five minutes for the stupid flyman to interrogate
a--probably--more stupid pedestrian, who would inevitably prove "a
stranger in those parts," as if the inhabitants never walked abroad.
No, he would find Rosenkrantz, Mrs. Tolmash's villa, for himself. He
had been told it was near Branksome Chine.
Swift of foot and keen of apprehension, he succeeded in less time
than any flyman would have done. Yes, this was the villa--red-brick,
gabled, curtained with virginia creeper from chimneys downwards;
virginia creeper not yet touched by autumn's ruddy fingers; and with
roses enough climbing over the verandah and surrounding the windows to
justify the name which fancy had given. He opened the light iron gate
and went into the garden; a somewhat spacious garden. She was there,
perhaps. At any rate, he would explore before confronting servant,
drawing-room, and unknown lady of the house. The garden was so pretty,
and the morning was so fine, that, if within the precincts, surely she
would be in the garden.
He went boldly round the house by a shrubberied walk, and saw a fine
lawn on a breezy height above the Chine, facing the sunlit sea and the
wooded dip that went down to golden sands. The standard rose-trees were
blown about in the morning air, dropping a rain of pink and yellow on
the smooth short turf. He saw the sea westward--sapphire blue--through
an arch of reddest roses, and beyond that archway, close to the edge
of the cliff, as it seemed in the perspective, there was a bench with
a red and white awning, and sitting under that awning a figure in a
white frock, a slender waist, a graceful throat, a small dark head,
which he would have known from a thousand girlish heads and throats and
waists--for him the girl of girls.
He knew that restless foot, lightly tapping the grass as she looked
seaward. Was there not weariness of life, rebellion against fate,
in that quick movement of the slender foot? Was she not waiting for
happiness and for him?
He ran to her, sat down by her side, had taken both her hands in his,
before she could utter so much as a cry of surprise.
"My darling, my darling!" he murmured; "now and for ever my own!"
She snatched her hands away and started to her feet indignantly. Anger
flashed in the dark eyes and flushed the pale olive cheeks. And then
her frown changed to an ironical smile, and she stood looking at him
almost contemptuously.
"I think you forget, Mr. Wornock, that it is a long time since the
Romans ran away with the Sabines."
"You mean that I am too impetuous."
"I mean that you are too absurd."
"Is it absurd to love the sweetest woman in the world--the prettiest,
the most enchanting? Suzette, I tore back from the Hartz Mountains
because I was told you were free--free to marry the man who loves you
with all the passion of his soul. When I told you of my love months
ago, you were bound to another man, you were obstinately bent upon
keeping your promise to him. I had no option but to withdraw, to fight
my battle, and try to live without you. I did try, Suzette. I left the
ground clear for my rival. I was self-banished from my own home."
"You need not have been banished. I could have kept away from Discombe."
"That would have distressed my mother, whose happiness depends on your
society, Suzette. You know how she loves you. To see you my wife will
make her very happy. She has taken you to her heart as a daughter."
"Not so much as she has taken Allan Carew to her heart. It was for his
sake she liked me. I could see when we parted that it was of Allan she
thought; it was for him she was sorry. I don't think she will ever
forgive me for making Allan unhappy."
"Not if her only son's happiness is bought with that price? Suzette,
why do you keep me at arm's length--now, when there is nothing to part
us; now, while I know that you love me?"
"You have no right to say that. If you know it, you know more than I
know myself."
"Suzette, Suzette, do you deny your love?"
She was crying, with her hands over her averted face. He tried to draw
those hands away, eager to look into her eyes. He would not believe
mere words. Only in her eyes could he read the truth.
"I deny your right to question me now, while my heart is aching for
Allan--Allan whom I like and respect more than any man living. He is
the best friend I have in the world, after my father. He will always be
my cherished and trusted friend. If in some great unhappiness I needed
any other friend than my father--badly, wickedly as I have behaved to
him--it is to Allan I would go for help."
"What, not to me?"
"To you! No more than I would appeal to a whirlwind."
"You think me so unreasonable a creature?"
"Yes, unreasonable! It is unreasonable in you to come here to-day. You
must know that I am sorry for having behaved so badly--deeply sorry for
Allan's disappointment."
"I begin to think it a pity you disappointed him, if nobody is to
profit by your release. Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I should have
killed myself if you had persisted. At least you have saved a life. I
hope you are glad of that."
"I cannot talk to you while you are so foolish."
"Is it foolish to tell you the truth? I bare my heart to you--to the
woman I want for my wife. I am a creature full of faults; but for you I
could become anything. I would be as wax, and you might mould me into
whatever shape you chose. Oh, Suzette, is not love enough? Is it not
enough for any woman to be loved as I love you?"
"You cannot love me better than Allan did, though he never talked as
wildly as you."
"Allan! It is not in his nature to love or to suffer as I do. He was
not born under the same burning star. All the forces of nature were at
war when I was born, Suzette. My Swiss nurse told me of the tempest
that was roaring over the wilderness of peaks and crags when I came
into the world, with something of that storm in my heart and brain. Be
my good genius, Suzette. Save me from my darker, stormier self. Make
and mould me into an amiable, order-loving English gentleman. I am
your slave. You have but to command me, and I shall submit as meekly
as the trained dog who lies down at his mistress's feet and shams the
stillness of death. Tell me to fetch and carry; tell me to die. I will
do your bidding like that dog."
She gave a troubled sigh and looked at him, pale and perplexed, in deep
distress. His pleading moved her as no words of Allan's had ever done,
and yet there was more of fear than of love in the emotion that he
awakened.
"I have only one thing in the world to ask of you," she said, in a low,
agitated voice. "I ask you to leave me to myself. I came here, almost
among strangers, in order that I might be calm and quiet, and away from
the associations of the past year. You must forgive me, Mr. Wornock,
if I say that it was cruel of you to follow me to this refuge."
"Cruel for passionate love to follow the beloved! 'Mr. Wornock,' too!
How formal! Suzette, if you do not love me, if I am nothing to you, why
did you jilt Carew?"
"I asked him to release me because I felt I did not love him well
enough to be his wife."
"Only that?"
"Only that. As time went on, I felt more and more acutely that I could
not give him love for love."
"And you cared for no one else?--there was no other reason?" he
insisted, trying to take her hand.
"I have hardly asked myself that question; and I will not be questioned
by you."
She rose and moved away, he following.
"Mr. Wornock, I am going into the house. I beg you not to persecute me.
It was persecution to come here to-day."
"Give me hope. I cannot leave you without hope."
"I can say nothing more than I have said. My heart is sore for Allan.
Allan is first in my thoughts, and must be for a long time. I hate
myself for having behaved so badly to him."
"And what of your behaviour to me? How cold! how cruel!"
"Oh, thank Heaven, here come Mrs. Tolmash and her daughter. Now you
_must_ go."
Geoffrey looked round and saw a middle-aged lady in a chair being
wheeled across the lawn, a girl in a pink frock pushing the chair.
He gave Suzette a despairing look, picked up his hat from the grass,
and walked quickly away. He was in no mood to make the acquaintance of
the pink frock or the lady in the chair, though that plump, benevolent
person, with neat little grey curls clustering round a fair forehead,
looked quite capable of asking him to luncheon.
He walked back to the nearest station, angry beyond measure, and paced
the platform for an hour, waiting for the train for Eastleigh, and
with half a mind to throw himself under the first express that came
shrieking by. Yet that were basest surrender.
"She is possessed by a devil of obstinacy," he told himself. "But the
stronger devil within me shall master her."
* * * * *
While the more fiery and arrogant of Suzette's lovers was raging
against her coldness, resolved to bear down all opposing forces, to
ride roughshod over every obstacle, her gentler and more conscientious
lover was hiding his grief in the quiet of that level and unromantic
land on which his eyes had first opened. No tempest had raged when
Allan was born. He had entered life amidst no grandeurs of mountain
and glacier, arrested avalanche and roaring torrent. An English
home--English to intensity--had been his cradle; a mild, even-tempered
mother, a father in whom a gentle melancholy was the prevailing
characteristic. Growing up under such home-influences, Allan Carew had
something of womanly gentleness interwoven with the strong fibre of a
fine manly nature. He had the womanly capacity to suffer in silence, to
submit to Fate, and to take a very humble place at the banquet of life.
Well, he was not destined to be happy. She had never loved him--never.
He had won her by sheer persistency; he had imposed upon her yielding
nature, upon the amiability which makes it so hard for some women to
say no. She had always been friendly and kind and sweet, but the signs
and tokens of passionate love had been wanting. If she would have been
content to marry him upon those friendly terms, content to forego the
glamour of romantic love, all might have been well. Love would have
followed marriage in the quiet years of domestic life. The watchful
kindnesses of an adoring husband must have won her heart.
Yes, but for Geoffrey Wornock's appearance on the scene, all might have
been well. Suzette would have married Allan, and the years would have
ripened friendship into love. Geoffrey's was the fatal influence.
Contrast with that fiery nature had made Allan seem a dullard.
This is what the forsaken lover told himself as he roamed about the
autumn fields, the fertile levels, where all the soil he trod on was
his own, and had belonged to his ancestors when the clank of armed feet
was still a common thing in the land, and a stout Suffolk pad was your
swiftest mode of travel. The shooting had begun, and the houses of
Suffolk were full of guests, and the squires of Suffolk had mustered
their guns, and were doing their best to beat the record of last year
and all the years that were gone. But Allan had no heart for so much as
a morning tramp across the stubble. The flavour and the freshness were
gone out of life. He gave his shooting to a neighbour, an old friend of
his father's, while his own days were dawdled through in the library,
or spent in long walks by stream and mill-race, pine-wood and common,
in any direction that offered the best chance of solitude.
He wrote to Suzette, with grave kindness, apologizing for his angry
vehemence in the hour of their parting. He expatiated sorrowfully upon
that which might have been.
"I think I must have known all along that you had no romantic love for
me," he wrote; "but I would have been more than content to have your
liking in exchange for my passionate love. I should not have thought
myself a loser had you put the case in the plainest words. 'You idolize
me, and I--well--I think you an estimable young man, and I have no
objection to be your idol, accepting your devotion, and giving you a
sisterly regard in exchange.' There are men who would think that a bad
bargain; but I am not made of such proud stuff. Your friendship would
have been more precious to me than any other woman's love; and I should
have been happy, infinitely happy, could I have won you on those terms.
"But it was not to be--and now my heart turns cold every time the
post-bag is opened, lest it should contain the letter that will tell me
Geoffrey Wornock has won the prize that I have lost. Such things must
be, Suzette. They are happening every day, and hearts are breaking,
quietly. May you be happy--my dear lost love--whatever I may be."
Much as he might desire solitude, it was impossible for Allan to
escape his fellow-man through the month of September in such a
happy shooting-ground as that in which his property lay. In that
part of Suffolk people knew of hunting as a barbarous form of sport
somewhat affected in the midlands, and a fox was considered a beast
of prey. The guns had it all their own way in those woods which
Allan's great-grandfather had planted, and over the turnips which
Allan's tenants had sown. Among the shooters who were profiting by
his hospitality it was inevitable that he should meet some one he
knew; and that some one happened to be a man with whom he had been
on the friendliest terms five years before during a big shoot in the
neighbourhood.
They met at a dinner at the house of the jovial squire to whom Allan
had given his shooting--a five-mile drive from Fendyke. Lady Emily had
persuaded her son to accept the invitation.
His father had been dead six months. Though she, the widow, would go
nowhere, it might seem churlish in the son to hold himself aloof from
old friends.
"And you don't want to be wearing the willow for that shallow-hearted
girl, I hope," added Lady Emily, who was very angry with Suzette.
No, he did not want to wear the willow, to pose as a victim, so he
accepted Mr. Meadowbank's invitation.
It was to be only a friendly dinner, only the house party; and among
the house party Allan found his old acquaintance, Cecil Patrington,
a man who had spent the best years of his life in Africa, and had
won renown among sportsmen as a hunter of big game, a weather-beaten
athlete, brawny, strong of limb, with bronzed forehead and
copper-coloured neck.
"I think you were just back from Bechuana Land when we last met," said
Allan, in the unreserve of Squire Meadowbank's luxurious smoke-room,
"and you were going back to the Cape when the shooting was over. Have
you been in Africa ever since?"
"Yes, I have been moving about most of the time, here and there, mostly
in Central South Africa, between Brazzaville and Tabora, now on one
side of the lake, now on the other?"
"Which lake?"
"Tanganyika. It's a delightful district, only it's getting a deuced
deal too well known. Burton was a glorious fellow, and he had a
glorious career. No man can ever enjoy life in Africa like that. There
are steamers on the lake now, and one meets babies in perambulators,
genuine British babies!" with a profound sigh.
"I have looked for a record of your exploits at the Geographical."
"Oh, I don't go in for that kind of thing, you see. I read a paper
once, and it didn't pay. I am not a literary cove like Burton, and I
haven't the gift of the gab like Stanley--who is a literary cove, too,
by the way. I ain't a scientific explorer. I don't care a hang what
becomes of the water, don't you know. I like the lakes for their own
sake--and the niggers for their own sake--and the picturesqueness of it
all, and the variety, and the danger of it all. If I discovered a new
lake or an unknown forest, I should keep the secret to myself. That's
my view of Africa. I ain't a geographer. I ain't a missionary. I ain't
a trader. I like Africa because it's jolly, and because there ain't any
other place in the world worth living in for the man who has once been
there."
"Shall you ever go again?"
"Shall I ever?" Mr. Patrington laughed at the question. "I sail for
Zanzibar next November."
"Do you?" said Allan. "I should like to go with you."
"Why not?" asked Mr. Patrington.