Part 9

There was sunshine enough without to have tempted the most obstinate recluse into the fields. But as little as she had heeded November rain did Rosamond now heed the brightness of this opening December. While the old attic room held her bodily presence, her soul was once again back in the past. The past ... where, after all, she had not lived, and which (strange poignant lesson of fate!) was now to become to her more living than the present.

Those letters, those early memorials, the very thought of which had once inspired dread, now drew her like a magnet. Scarcely could she give herself to the necessary facts of life, so impatiently did she long for those solitary hours in his room, with him!

Every trifling note of his was pored over, dreamt upon in its turn. She had it in her to have lingered days upon a single line. Yet there was the sweetness of a tender surprise in every fresh sheet she took into her hands. And now it was her first "love letter" that she held.

It had come to her in the morning after their meeting in the salt wind, amid the gorse; had been brought to her--in the ugly top bedroom--on a basket brimming over with flowers. She could see them again, breathe them again: hot-house roses, languid-white and heavy-headed yellow, a huge clump of heliotrope, lily of the valley bound by its pale green sheaths, sharp-scented, waxen ... then the narcissus, the jonquil, the darling commoner herd of spring things that had pushed their way in the open gardens! All this to Rosamond, starved of beauty, Rosamond who was wont to fill her vases with the budding boughs that the hedges give the gardenless! She had buried her face in the velvet coolness, drawn in the perfume as if she was drawing in the loveliness to her soul. Through the waste of those ten years she could again feel the touch of the petals on her cheek--she was back again, back again in her maidenhood and held her first love letter between her hands. Was it possible that the faded nondescript leaf that fell from between its pages had once been part of that exquisite basketful that could still bloom for her?

DARLING (wrote Harry English)--these are all I can send you. I wanted to send you roses, love, worthy of my Rose, the only Rose, of Rosamond, Rose of the World! I half dreamed of them last night, red, red, glowing, deep-scented like my love for you. I can find nothing but these pale mawkish things, far though I have hunted this morning! ...

This morning--and it was now but nine o'clock. How early he must have risen! It was not the Rosamond, the hard young untouched Rosamond of those old days, who thought thus with a mist before the eyes; it was the new Rosamond whose heart was beginning to teach her so many things.

Early had the lover risen indeed!

I could not sleep (went on the letter) for sheer tumult of happiness. I saw the dawn break over the water out on the sea bastion of this old fort. The sea was quite wrapt in mist, and I and my heart seemed first alone high up in the air, with the wash of the invisible waters below and the restless tapping of the flag line on the staff over my head. And then the dawn came. It seemed to me the first dawn I had ever beheld, I, who have marched through many an Indian night and seen such fires as England never dreams of. But I look upon the world with new eyes. The meaning of things has become clear to me. I never saw beauty before I saw you; and through you, all other beauty is fulfilled to me. Grey and dove-coloured and pearl, faint roses and yellows and opals--the mists first became impregnated with all lovely tints and then rolled away. Then there was a straight ray of sun across the sea at my feet, and the water was gold and green. Glorious! Why do I write all this to you? I have never even thought of such things before. Will you laugh at me? I, who have known you for such a little while? But I have waited for you all the years of my manhood--this much I know at least. And you, who are the meaning of everything to me now, you will know the meaning of my heart.

All the meaning of her lover to Rosamond Tempest, in the top room over the straggling back garden, had been that he was her deliverer from an existence of utter negation. She had read his words with the same pleasure with which she had gazed upon his flowers, inhaled their fragrance: it had represented a new atmosphere of colour and beauty!

But now, as she bent over that faded leaf and read those vivid words from a hand long dust, her whole being gave itself responsive to the love that still spoke.

* * * * *

In the garden below, under the nipped frost-bitten leaves, Aspasia poked about for hidden violets. From its bare brown stalks she had already culled the last dwindled chrysanthemum. When Rosamond and she, in the marshalled palace of Sir Arthur, had planned this homely occupation, it had seemed an almost deliriously joyful prospect of freedom. Now, such is the futility of the granted wish, Aspasia, as she flicked with impatient fingers among the wet foliage, was a prey to that abandonment of melancholy which is rarely known in its perfection after twenty. Indeed, poor Baby's outlook upon the world that December noon was a pitiable one. The only man she could have loved was dead before she had even known him! Another man, whom she was certain she could never have cared for, displayed the most reprehensible indifference as to whether he were as much as remembered. And those wonderful piano recitals of the gifted young genius, Miss Aspasia Cuningham, seemed hopelessly remote.

She could not even muster a smile for the kitten as it suddenly cantered across the path, every individual hair bristling, body contorted, and legs stiffened, to box a hanging leaf and fall prone on its back with four paws wildly beating the air. The very kitten was part of the general unsatisfactoriness of things. When she did have the heart to play with it, it was never to be found: but it had a Puck-like knowledge of the ripe moment when to mock her misery.

Indeed, the claims of the eager young life were somewhat neglected in this old home of dreams.

Aspasia walked, in royal dignity of dolour, back to the house, set the violets in two shallow vases, and the chrysanthemum in a high narrow one. She placed the portable easel upon the open leaf of the grand piano; she detached from its panel the portrait of Captain English with the sad stern face, propped it on the easel, arranged her flowers round it, all with the solemn air of one going through a religious rite. Then she sat down, heaved a noisy sigh from the depth of her little round chest, and began to play those throbbing strains of passion, yearning disappointment, and sorrow that, the legend says, came to Chopin one day, through the beat of raindrops against his window panes, as he waited for her who failed him.

Baby had begun to find out that even in so serious an art as music those paltry things, the emotions, will insist on finding expression. She was in a very pretty state of artistic woe when, with a sudden discord, the love notes fell mute. From the shadowy window-seat a tall figure had risen and come forward: eyes, ablaze with anger, were fixed upon her from a white and threatening face.

"Aunt Rosamond! ..." stammered the girl, too much startled to do anything but sit and stare.

"How dare you?" said Lady Gerardine, in a low voice, hardly above a whisper indeed, but charged with intense anger. She walked up to the piano and stood looking a second at the altar-like arrangement; then her eyes returned to Aspasia, who now blushed violently, guiltily, in spite of an irrepressible childish desire to giggle.

"You shameless girl!" said Rosamond. "How dare you! What have you to do with him?" She took up the picture. "He is mine," she said, "mine only!" Then, holding it clasped to her breast, she swept from the room.

"Upon my word!" said Miss Aspasia. "Good gracious goodness me!" Resentment got the better of amusement; her cheeks were flaming scarlet, she struck a series of defiant chords, as a sort of war cry in pursuit of the retreating figure. "Shameless girl, indeed; I've as much right to him, by this time, as anybody else, I should think. In heaven there's no marriage or giving in marriage ... and, if it comes to that, what about Runkle then?"

She plunged into the noisiest, most dishevelled Wagner-Liszt piece of her repertory; crashed, banged, and pounded till the staid old manor-house seemed to ring with amazement, and the exasperated player, with flying hands, loosened hair, empurpled countenance, and panting breath, could hardly keep her seat in the midst of her own gymnastics.

Henceforth there was one room in the manor-house without its presiding picture. And, opposite Rosamond's bed, where the tender child's face had once watched the mother's slumbers, the soldier now looked down sternly and sadly upon the wife.

*CHAPTER V*

"Will you answer this for me, Baby?--Tell Major Bethune that we shall be glad to see him here this week, and for as long as he cares to stay."

Aspasia took the letter between disdainful finger and thumb, and turned it over to peruse. Rosamond, leaning her chin on her hand, looked away from the breakfast-table through the small-paned windows into the wintry garden, and was lost in some dream again.

Miss Cuningham's nostrils dilated with indignation as she read the brief dry lines in which Major Bethune informed Lady Gerardine that he would be glad if she could now furnish him with some of the promised material for his work, as he was at a stand-still. He could run down for the day, if it suited, and with kind regards to her niece--begged to remain, and so forth.

"Kind regards to her niece," repeated that young lady to herself with an ominous tightness of expression. "Yes, Aunt," she said aloud, with some alacrity. "Leave it to me; I shall write to Major Bethune."

She finished her tea with a gulp and hurried to the corner of the drawing-room, where she had established her Lares and Penates, to undertake the congenial task.

Her dimples pointed deep satisfaction as she wrote. "Kind regards," indeed! This Major of Guides should be taught his proper place in the estimation of Miss Aspasia Cuningham.

DEAR MAJOR BETHUNE (she wrote)--My aunt bids me to say that she will be charmed if you can arrange your promised visit for next week. You did promise to come here, did not you? I positively forget. It seems such ages since that dreadful, dreary sea journey, that it was quite a surprise to hear from you this morning. We are having such a happy time here that India and all the rest of it seem never to have existed. We do enjoy being by ourselves. Kind regards from my Aunt, Yours very truly,

concluded Miss Aspasia with a vindictive flourish.

Having despatched this epistle in triumph, it was astonishing how much brighter became Miss Cuningham's outlook upon the world at large and the manor-house in particular. She developed a renewed interest in housekeeping details; not, as she was careful to explain, that it mattered really what they gave this gentleman to eat or to drink, only Aunt Rosamond was so fastidious.

She discovered that it was absolutely necessary for the entertainment of any visitor that a pony and cart should immediately be added to the establishment, and spent an exciting afternoon in scouring the countryside for the same.

It was, of course, the sense of duty well accomplished that gave such a sparkle to her eye and such an irrepressible tilt to the corners of her lips, as she sat waiting for the return of the above-mentioned vehicle from the station the day of Major Bethune's arrival. It had not been her intention to gratify him with a sight of her countenance so soon; but Lady Gerardine, after faithfully promising to be in attendance at the appointed time, had wandered off, in the vague way of which Aspasia was becoming resignedly tolerant, for one of her long solitary rambles; and the girl could not, for the credit of the house, but take on herself the neglected hospitable duty.

Alas for all the resolves of a noble pride! She had hardly been ten minutes in the company of the newly arrived guest before she had fallen into the old terms of confidential intimacy.

Afterwards she could not quite tell herself how it had happened; whether because of the good softening of his harsh face as he looked down at her, or of the warm close grasp of his hand which drove away at once the forlorn feeling which had possessed her poor little gregarious soul all these days; or whether it were the mollifying influence of old Mary's scones, the cosiness of the fragrant tea and the leaping fire in contrast to the dreary dusk gathering outside. Perhaps it was merely that her healthy nature could harbour no resentment, albeit the most justifiable. However it may have been, Major Bethune found his welcome at the manor-house sweet. Even the maidenly coldness of her first greeting pleased his fastidious old-fashioned notions; and the subsequent thawing of this delicate rime came upon him with something of the balm of sunshine on a frosty morning.

His face stiffened, however, at Aspasia's first confidence about her aunt, into which she plunged, after her usual manner, without the slightest preamble.

"She's awfully good to me, always; sweeter to me than ever, these last few days--when we meet! But I scarcely see her, except at meals. And then we don't seem to be living in the same world. It's like talking through the telephone," cried the girl. "Of course, I am quite aware," she went on, "that the poor darling is suffering from neu--neurasth--well, whatever they call it; that her nerves are all wrong. 'Tisn't anything so very new either," she giggled, "'tis just too much Runkle--Runkleitis.... I know myself, even I, at times, have felt as if I could scream and tear out his hair by the roots. What must it have been for her! She kept up, you see; that's her way. And now that she's free of him for a bit, it's the reaction, I suppose."

He drank his tea in sips, listening to her, his head bent. The firelight leaped and cast changing lights upon his countenance. Baby thought he looked thinner, older, sterner; yet she could never be afraid of him. There was something extraordinarily pleasant in having him there. The very loneliness of the Old Ancient House added a zest. The unsubstantial image of Harry English faded like a ghost before the dawn in the strong man's presence. She edged her chair an inch closer.

"I am sorry Lady Gerardine is no better," said he, formally, into the silence.

"Oh, better!" answered Aspasia. "Will you have another cup?" ("That makes the third." She was pleased; here was a tribute to her capacity.) "Better?--that's what is so funny, she's as well as possible. She looks young, young, with a bloom on her cheeks, and sometimes she walks about smiling to herself. It makes me creep. I can't think what she's smiling at. She comes down, singing softly to herself. Why, there are times when she looks just like a girl. No one could ever believe she's had two husbands," cried terrible Baby.

Major Bethune put down his cup, untouched. ("He didn't want it after all," commented she.) "It is rather strange," she went on aloud; "she's simply bloomed since she came here, and the whole house is full of Harry English. And she's shut up half the time, in his old rooms under the roof, routing among those old letters, you know--those letters there was all the fuss about. I thought we'd killed her over them between us," said Baby, with her little nervous laugh. "And now, I don't know, but I almost think I would rather see her cry and look pale as before. It would seem more natural. Really, I'm frightened sometimes."

Her pretty face, with its wide open eyes, took a piteous look in the firelight.

"You don't think it means anything?" she resumed. And the tears suddenly welled, the corners of her mouth drooped: she seemed no more than a child. He stretched out his arm and took her hand.

"Mean?" he said. "Why, Miss Aspasia, what should it mean? Something perhaps that your kind heart would find hard to understand. But it means, after all, nothing so very unusual. Lady Gerardine, and it is all the better for her, is of those who are quickly consoled. The country air is doing her good, and the old letters----" he dropped her hand, his tones grew incisive. "It is only when the past is more satisfactory than the present that memories are disagreeable."

"Oh," cried Aspasia. She started to her feet. "What a funny way you have of saying that!" And as the meaning of his words forced itself upon her, "How unkind! I think you hate Aunt Rosamond."

"I?" said he, startled. He rose in his turn. "What an absurd idea!" He laughed, but his lips seemed stiff. "I?--I would not presume, how could I? to have any feeling for Lady Gerardine but that of distant respect."

The door opened and in came Rosamond.

"In the dark!" she said, looking upon them unseeingly after the light of the hall. "Is that Major Bethune?"

She came forward, while Aspasia, on her knees, violently poked the fire into a blaze.

"Rose of the World," thought Bethune, as the ruddy glow fell upon the figure of his friend's widow. It was true she looked like a girl. Her cheek was rose-red from the cold wind. Her shadowed eyes brilliant. The light tendrils of her hair floated back from her white forehead.

"You are welcome," she said, and mingled with her grace and sweetness there was a timidity which was as exquisite and as indescribable an addition to her beauty as the bloom to the purple of the grape or the mist to the line of the hills at dawn. He bowed over her hand. He felt angry with himself that he had no word to say.

"Tea?" said Aspasia. As he took the cup from her to pass it to Lady Gerardine, he heard the spoon clink against the saucer with the trembling of his own hand.

*CHAPTER VI*

"It is the post, Aunt," said Aspasia; "and a letter from Runkle."

She stood at the door of the attic, looking in upon them with something unfriendly in the expression of her eyes. The tone in which she announced Lady Gerardine's correspondent was not without a shade of malicious triumph.

Rosamond and Major Bethune were sitting one at each end of the old writing-table that had been Harry English's. Between them lay a pile of papers. From the landing, Baby had heard Bethune's voice uplifted in unwonted animation, and then the ring of her aunt's laugh.

As she entered, the man rose. But Lady Gerardine merely turned her head towards the intruder with an involuntary contraction of the eyebrows.

"Dear child," she said, and Aspasia felt the impatience of interruption under the gentleness of the tone, "we are at work."

"At work! It had sounded like it," thought the girl, ironically.

"Runkle writes from Brindisi," she said, turning over in her hand the thin envelope with the foreign stamp. "We shall have him home directly."

If she had hoped to create a sensation with her news, here was a failure. Bethune stood impassive. Lady Gerardine had all the air of one to whom Sir Arthur's movements were the least of concerns. She turned with a little impatient gesture to Major Bethune!

"Do sit down again," she said, "and go on. You have not told me whether Harry won the race. Oh, he must have won. I never saw any one ride as he did."

Aspasia's pretty, defiant countenance changed. Of late she had occasionally known an undefined lurking anxiety about her aunt--it now sprang out of ambush and seized her again. She put one hand over Rosamond's clasped fingers, and with the other held the letter before the abstracted eyes.

"But you must read it," she said, half tenderly, half authoritatively.

"Presently," said Lady Gerardine. And then, as if irritated by the disturbing document, seized it and laid it on one side. "Here, Baby," said she, "come and take your favourite place on the floor, and Major Bethune will begin his story again. You will like to hear how Harry took the conceit out of these Lancers who thought that nobody could ride a horse but themselves."

Baby flung a swift look at Bethune, half appeal, half fright. He was gnawing the corner of his moustache and staring under his heavy brows at Rosamond's lace--beautiful, unconscious, eager. He seemed perplexed.

"But, my goodness," cried Aspasia, and for very little more she would have burst into tears, "you know what the Runkle is, both of you. Don't you see this is perfectly idiotic? Some one will have to read his letter and see what he's got to say."

"Read it you, then," retorted Lady Gerardine, with sudden heat. Her eyes flashed, the blood rushed into her cheeks. She was as angry as the sleeper who is shaken from some fair dream that he would fain hold fast. Thereupon Baby's temper flamed likewise. She shrugged her shoulders, snapped the letter from the table, tore it open. Lady Gerardine began to sort the papers before her, once more determinedly abstracted from the situation. The girl flung herself down on the window-seat below the dormer, and, with pouting lips and scornfully uplifted eyebrows, set to work to peruse the marital document.

"Poor Runkle hopes," she cried sarcastically, "that you have not been making yourself ill again with anxiety about him because he missed the last mail. (Fancy, if we'd only known dear Runkle missed the last mail!) You must forgive him, Aunt. Lady Aspasia insisted on being taken to Agra, to see the Taj.... Runkle will be in England almost as soon as this letter. (Oh, joy!) Lady Aspasia has insisted on his going to stay at Melbury Towers first. She is having all sorts of interesting people to meet him. (Aren't you jealous, Aunt?) When once she's got him, she doesn't mean to let him go--(Fancy, the Runkle!)--Oh----" She dropped her hands with the crinkling thin sheet and surveyed Lady Gerardine with some gravity: "He wants us to join him there!"

"Who--where?"

"Us--you and me, Aunt Rosamond, at Melbury. We're to meet him there, he says, immediately, and stay over Christmas. Lady Aspasia will write."

"I cannot go," said Rosamond, quietly, as if that decided the question.

Once again Aspasia hesitated in distress between the advisability of discussion with any one so unreasonable, and the danger of exciting a highly nervous patient. With a despairing shake of her fluffy head, she finally returned to the letter and read on in a voice from which all the angry zest had departed.

"'I shall spend a couple of days in Paris. Lady Aspasia has implored me to give her my opinion upon some old furniture. I propose, however, to send Muhammed Saif-u-din--my native secretary, you remember--straight to you at Saltwoods. He has some important work to finish for me, and Jani will know how to look after him. He will arrive about the evening of the tenth.' That's to-morrow," said the girl, breaking off. "Lord, I'm glad you're here, Major Bethune! Gracious! This old place is creepy enough without having a black man wandering about the passages and the orchards.... Fancy us, all alone in the middle of the downs! He might cut all our throats, and nobody know anything, till the baker came. I do think our Runkle might keep his own blackamoors to himself."

Rosamond looked indifferent. She drummed the table softly with her fingers, as if in protest against the waste of time. Bethune still stood without speaking. His attitude had not changed a fraction, neither had his brooding face. Aspasia thought that she could have flung the inkpot at him with much satisfaction.