ALL IN HONOUR.
It was nearly a month after Lady Emily's appearance at Discombe, and
there had been no letter from Geoffrey. Every day had increased Mrs.
Wornock's anxiety, and in the face of an ever-growing fear there had
been a tacit avoidance of all mention of the absent son, both on the
part of his mother and of Suzette. They had talked of music, of the
gardens, of the poor, and of the latest developments in that science of
the supernatural in which Mrs. Wornock's interest had never abated, and
in which her faith had never been entirely shaken.
Once, in the midst of discussing the last number of the _Psychical
Magazine_ with Suzette--a sad sceptic--she said quietly--
"Whatever has happened, I know he is not dead. I must have seen him. I
must have known. There would have been some sign."
Suzette was silent. Not for worlds would she have dashed a faith which
buoyed up the fainting spirit. Yet it needed but some dreadful dream,
she reflected, a dead face seen amidst the clouds of sleep, to change
this blind confidence into despair.
It was in the evening following this conversation that Suzette was
sitting at her piano alone in her own drawing-room, playing from
memory, and losing herself in the web of a Hungarian nocturne, which
was to her like thinking in music--the composer's learned sequences and
changes of key seeming only a vague expression of her own sadness. Her
father was dining out--a man's dinner--a dissipation he rarely allowed
himself; and Suzette was relieved from her evening task of playing
chess, reading aloud, or listening to tiger-stories, which had lost
none of their interest from familiarity, the fondly loved father being
the hero of every adventure.
She was glad to be alone to-night, for her heart was full of dread of
the news which the next African letter might bring. She had tried to
make light of the leader's death; yet she, too, thought with a shudder
of the two young men alone, inexperienced, and one of them, at least,
reckless and daring even to folly.
The wailing Hungarian reverie with its minor modulations seemed to
shape itself into a dream of Africa, the endless jungle, the vastness
of swamp and river, the beauty and the terror of gigantic waterfalls,
huge walls of water, a river leaping over a precipice into a gulf of
darkness and snow-white foam. The scenes of which she had been reading
lately crowded into her mind, and filled it with aching fears.
"Suzette!"
A voice called to her softly from the open window. She looked up,
trembling and cold with an awful fear. His voice--Geoffrey's--a
spectral voice; the voice of a ghost calling to her, the unbeliever,
from the other side of the world--calling in death, or after death, to
the woman the living man had loved.
She rose, with a faint scream, and rushed to the window, and was
clasped in the living Geoffrey's arms, on the threshold, between the
garden and the room. Had she flung herself into his arms in her fear
and great surprise? or had he seized her as she ran to him? She could
not tell. She knew only that she was sobbing on his breast, clasped in
two gaunt arms, which held her as in a grasp of iron.
"Geoffrey, Geoffrey! Alive and well! What delight for your poor mother!
Was she not wild with happiness?" she asked, when he released her,
after a shower of kisses upon forehead and lips, which she pretended to
ignore.
She could not begin quarrelling with him in these first moments of
delighted surprise.
He followed her into the room, and she saw his face in the light of the
lamp on the piano--worn, wan, haggard, wasted, but with eyes that were
full of fire and gladness.
"Suzette, Suzette!" he cried, clasping her hands, and trying to draw
her to his heart again, "it was worth a journey over half the world to
find you! So sweet, so fair! All that my dreams have shown me, night
after night, night after night! Ah, love, we have never been parted.
Your image has never left me."
"Africa has done you no good. You are as full of wild nonsense as
ever," she said, trying to take the situation lightly, yet trembling
with emotion, her heart beating loud and fast, her eyes hardly daring
to meet the eyes that dwelt upon her face so fondly. "Tell me about
your mother. Was she not surprised--happy?"
"I hope she will be a little glad. I haven't seen her yet."
"Not seen--your mother?"
"No, child. A man can't have two lode-stars. I came straight from
Zanzibar to this house. I came home to _you_, Suzette."
"But you will go to the Manor directly? Your poor mother has been so
miserable about you. Don't lose a minute in making her happy."
"Lose! These minutes are gold; the most precious minutes of my life.
Oh, Suzette, how cruel you were! Why did you drive me from you?"
She was in his arms again, held closely in those wasted arms, caught in
the coils of that passionate love, she scarcely knew how. He was taking
everything for granted; and she knew not how to resist him. She had no
argument to offer against that triumphant love.
"Cruel, cruel, cruel Suzette! Two years of exile--two wasted lonely
years--years of fond longing and looking back! Why did you send me
away? No, I won't ask. It was all in honour, all in honour. My dearest
is made up of honourable scruples, and delicate sympathies, which this
rough nature of mine can't understand. But you loved me, Suzette.
You loved me from the first, as I loved you. Our hearts went out to
meet each other over the bridge of my violin--flew out to each other
in a burst of melody. And we will go on loving each other till the
last breath--the last faint glimmer of life's brief candle. Ah, love,
forgive me if I rave. I am beside myself with joy."
"I think you are a little out of your mind," she faltered.
She let him rave. She accepted the situation. Ah, surely, surely it was
this man she loved. It was this eager spirit which had passed like a
breath of fire between her and Allan; this masterful nature which had
possessed itself of her heart, as of a mere chattel that must needs
be the prize of the strongest. She submitted to the tyranny of a love
which would not accept defeat; and presently they sat down side by side
in the soft lamplight, close to the piano which she loved only a little
less than if it were human. They sat down side by side, his arm still
round the slim waist, plighted lovers.
"Poor Allan!" she sighed, with a remorseful pang. "Has he gone down to
Suffolk?"
"To Suffolk? He is on the Congo--past Stanley Falls, I hope, by this
time."
"On the Congo! You have left him! Quite alone! Oh, Geoffrey, how could
you?"
"Why not? He is safe enough. He knows the country as well as I. I left
him near Kassongo, where he could get as big a train and as many stores
as he wanted; though we have done nowadays with long trains, armies of
porters, and a mountainous load of provisions."
"What will Lady Emily say? She will be dreadfully unhappy. I could not
have believed you and Allan would part company--after Mr. Patrington's
death."
"Why not? We were both strangers in the land. He knows how to take care
of himself as well as I do."
"But two men--companions and friends--surely they would be safer than
one Englishman travelling alone?" said Suzette, deeply distressed at
the thought of what Allan's mother would suffer when she knew that her
son's comrade had left him.
"Do you think two men are safer from fever, poisoned arrows, the
bursting of a gun, the swamping of a canoe? My dearest, Allan is just
as safe alone as he was when he was one of three. He had learnt a good
deal about the country, and he knew how to manage the natives, and he
had stores and ammunition, and the means of getting plenty more. Don't
let me see that sweet face clouded. Ah, my love, my love, I shall never
forget your welcoming smile--the light upon your face as you ran to the
window. I had always believed in your love--always--even when you were
cruellest; but to-night I know--I know that I am the chosen one."
He let his head sink on her shoulder, and nestled against her, like
a child at rest near his mother's heart. How could she resist a love
so fervent, so resolute--a spirit like Satan's--not to be changed by
place or time. It is the lover who will not be denied--the selfish,
impetuous, unscrupulous lover who has always the better chance; and in
a case like this it was a foregone conclusion that he who came back
first would be the winner. The first strong appeal to the heart that
had been tried by absence and anxiety, the first returning wave of
romantic love. It was something more than a lover's return. It was the
awakening of love from a long sleep that had seemed dull and grey and
hopeless as death.
"I thought you would never come back," sighed Suzette, resigning
herself to the tyranny of the conqueror, content at last to be taken
by a _coup de main_. "I was afraid you and Allan would be left in
that dreadful country. And I had to make believe to think you as safe
as if you were in the next parish. I had to be cheerful and full of
hopefulness, for your mother's sake. Your poor mother," starting up
suddenly. "Oh, Geoffrey, how cruel that we should be sitting here while
she is left in ignorance of your return; and she has suffered an agony
of fear since she heard of poor Mr. Patrington's death. It is shameful!
You must go to her this instant."
"Must I, my queen and mistress?"
"This instant. It will be a shock to her--even in the joy of your
return--to see how thin and haggard you have grown. What suffering you
must have gone through!"
"Only one kind of suffering--only one malady, Suzette. I was sick
for love of you. Love made me do forced marches; love kept me awake
of nights. Impatience was the fever that burnt in my blood--love and
longing for you. Yes, yes, I am going," as she put her hand through his
arm and led him to the window. "I will be at my mother's feet in half
an hour, kneeling to ask for her blessing on my betrothal. There will
be double joy for her, Suzette, in my home-coming and my happiness. I
left her a restless, unquiet spirit. I go back to her tamed and happy."
"Yes, yes, only go! Remember that every minute of her life of late has
been a minute of anxiety. And she loves you so devotedly, Geoffrey. She
has only you to love."
"I am going; but not till you have told me how soon, Suzette."
"How soon--what?"
"Our marriage."
"Geoffrey, how absurd of you to talk about that, when I hardly know
that we are engaged."
"I know it. We are bound and plighted as never lovers were, to my
knowledge, since Romeo and Juliet. How long did Romeo wait, Suzette?
Twenty-four hours, I think. I shall have to wait longer--for a special
licence."
"Geoffrey, unless you hurry away to the Manor this instant, I will
never speak civilly to you again."
"Why, what a fury my love can be! What an exquisite termagant! Yes, I
will wait for the licence. Come to the gate with me, Suzette."
They went through the dusky garden to the old-fashioned five-barred
gate which opened on to a circular drive. The night was cool and grey,
and the white bloom of a catalpa tree gleamed ghost-like among the dark
masses of the shrubbery. A bat wheeled across the greyness in front of
the lovers, as they kissed and parted.
"Until I can get the licence," he repeated, with his happy laugh.
"We'll wait for nothing else."
"You will have to wait for me," she answered, tossing up her head, and
running away, a swift white figure, vanishing in the bend of the drive
as he stood watching her.
"Thank God!" he ejaculated. "The reward is worth all that has gone
before."