The Sword of Islam Page 8

  Pale and gasping, with thumping heart and twitching hands he told his story; now halting and stammering, now plunging headlong into a torrent of verbiage and incoherence.

  And she, while contemplating the pattern of her dainty shoe, dimly realised that he was asking her to become his wife. And having guessed, her heart began to beat. Not so much out of sympathy as out of dread lest he should capsize the boat before he had finished.

  At last he stopped, and signified by mopping the perspiration from his forehead and the blood from his cheeks, that he had finished.

  A crafty and designing woman of the world would no doubt have commented upon the suddenness of the proposal. The simple unsophisticated child before him did otherwise. Raising for a mo­ment her soft dark eyes, and favouring him with a glance half coy half tender —

  “I am so happy, Andrew,” she murmured, “so happy!”

  The enraptured lover would have fallen upon his knees had he not remembered in time the disastrous results which might follow upon so rash an act. He had to content himself with stretching across the boat and seizing the hand she half extended towards him.

  “You love me? You really love me?” the poor boy whispered incredulously.

  “More than I can tell you,” she answered, casting down her eyes. Upon this followed many touching words, many sighs and many impassioned glances. But the sun will set, in spite of lovers, and presently with one more sigh, Andrew was obliged to release the boat from the bush and turn his way homewards.

  He was more eager than ever to see her home, when they had landed at Stollbridge. But she insisted upon going alone, and de­spite his remonstrances and expressions of contempt for public opinion, alone she went.

  Notwithstanding this, as Andrew Barrington made his way home, he felt himself indeed a happy man, and many were the thoughts of pleasant anticipation he bestowed upon the morrow. But the morrow brought him a perfumed note containing a disappointment. She had been suddenly called to town, she wrote, by a telegram which informed her that her dear Aunt was dangerously ill. Would he write?

  He put the note down on the table. Then snatched it up, and blushing furiously he crumpled it into his pocket as the maid-of-all-work entered with his breakfast tray.

  He felt better when she had gone and began to think. He drew her note from his pocket and read it again. At the word “Aunt” he came to a full stop. It suggested a family. And with the suggestion came a sickening dread that her people — whoever they might be — should oppose their union. The anxiety was too awful to be borne. He must do something. Again his eye fell upon the note. “Will you write?” Yes, he would write at once. He got the necessary materials together, and, sitting down, he pondered deeply for perhaps half an hour. At last with a sigh he took up the pen and began. He worked assiduously for an hour, and the contents of his waste paper basket grew steadily during that time. But in the end his critical spirit was satisfied, and he appended his signature to one of the most richly tinted flowers of rhetoric that ever bloomed between the leaves of a parson’s blotting-pad. What he had written might have been summed up concisely into three sentences. “I love you. I shall never love anyone else. If your parents forbid our marriage I shall be disconsolate.”

  But, as everyone versed in such matters must know, these three sentences afford very considerable scope for elaboration. It need not, therefore, cause great surprise that by a zealous regard for detail, Andrew was enabled to cover eight pages of notepaper with closely-written matter. Although there may be many who could do better, still, for a saint, Andrew did very well.

  The reply came promptly, and set him in a fever of delight. She had no parents, and therefore no wishes but her own to consult. Her Aunt was better, and she hoped to return to Stollbridge in a day or two. She loved him, and she trusted that he was devoting a little of his thoughts to her. Then came the signature “Ella” — a name which Andrew kept uttering aloud, until the maid-of-all-work disgusted him into silence by putting her head into the room and inquiring whether he had called her.

  Ella would return in a day or two! And here again those novels read in early youth came to his aid, and he remembered what was expected of him. He had no time to lose, he must run up to town at once and buy the ring.

  He put his hat on — a trifle jauntily for a saint — and went round to the vicarage to obtain his superior’s sanction of the jour­ney.

  He had not seen the vicar since their somewhat unhappy part­ing of some three days ago, and it was not without a certain restlessness of mind that he entered the presence of that worthy man. The Reverend Mr. Ritson turned from the papers with which he had been occupied, to greet Andrew.

  He was a man of medium height, with iron-grey hair and a rosy clean-shaven face. The levity suggested by a slight upward tilt of his nose was redeemed by the portly dignity of his figure.

  “Ah, good morning, Andrew. Won’t you sit down?”

  Andrew sat down and dangled his hat between his knees in a nervous fashion. “I have come to ask you whether it would be inconvenient if I were to run up to town for a day or two.”

  “Certainly not,” the vicar answered with a kindly smile. “Go by all means if you —”

  Mr. Ritson stopped abruptly, and the smile died from his good-humoured lips. He suddenly remembered having learnt that Miss de Vaud had left Stollbridge two days ago. He was a man of some insight and some worldly experience, and the conclusion he arrived at by a simple process of deduction, was not flattering to Andrew. He turned his clear hazel eyes sternly upon the young man.

  “Might I inquire,” he said coldly, “what your motives are for going to London?”

  “I was about to tell you, Sir.”

  “Oh!” The vicar concluded from this disposition to confess, that his apprehensions were certainly unfounded and he hastened to relax the rigorous position of his facial muscles, being anxious to make up in kindness to Andrew for the slight his imagination had for a moment cast upon the young man.

  “You see, Mr. Ritson, I was twenty-four years of age I last birthday. And — and — I have been thinking about getting married.”

  The vicar raised his eyebrows in surprise, and passing his hands under his coat tails, smiled again.

  “You are thinking of marrying! Ah, well, well — a very praise­wothy resolution.”

  Being a bachelor, the vicar was in a position to make an assertion of this character without any qualms regarding its veracity.

  Andrew gathered courage from the words and explained the motive of his visit to London.

  “Of course, of course,” the vicar agreed, “but you haven’t said anything about the lady of your choice, yet. Come, what is she like? One of my parishioners?”

  Andrew remembered their last conversation, and grew distinctly nervous.

  “I think you know her, sir,” he answered, “I had the misfortune to disagree with you the other day, about the conversational topic I was affording Stollbridge. I have decided to set matters right by marrying Miss de Vaud, whom I very dearly — for whom I have a very deep regard.”

  The vicar did not say much. But what he did say was pregnant with meaning of an eminently discourteous and even sinister character.

  “But — but,” stammered Andrew, “I don’t understand.”

  “Great Heavens, sir,” Mr. Ritson interrupted. “Have you taken leave of your senses, or has this woman ensnared you into —”

  “Sir!” cried Andrew, rising indignant, and confronting him.

  The vicar looked at him for a moment, then shook his head sorrowfully.

  “So? It’s so bad as all that, is it?” he murmured. “Well, well, I’m sorry for you, Andrew — you are a young man of great promise. But — think it over carefully, and come to me again.”

  “My mind is quite made up, sir.”

  “Yes, but it may change. I hope it will, for although it would give me very great pain, if you persist in your mad intention of marrying an actress —”

  “Marrying a what?” e
jaculated Andrew.

  “An actress, I said.”

  Andrew laughed curiously. “There is some misunderstanding, I didn’t mention an actress.”

  He uttered the word “actress,” as if it were an improper expression which contaminated his saintly tongue. Mr. Ritson gazed at the young man in undisguised amazement, and began to entertain a very deep concern anent his sanity.

  “Did you, or did you not say that you were going to marry Miss de Vaud; Miss Elialine de Vaud; to make myself plainer still — the Miss Ellaline de Vaud with whom you have been philandering on the river, much to every right-minded person’s disgust?”

  Andrew might have taken objection at another time to the impropriety of the word “philandering.” But the season was inopportune for any subtle diagnosis of English vocables. He merely allowed his parched lips to murmur an assent.

  “Well then —” the vicar stopped abruptly, as new light broke in upon his mind.

  “Do you mean to tell me that you did not know she was an actress? That she was the very woman on whose account you changed your rooms?”

  Andrew gasped beneath the load of this revelation. He glanced wildly about him, and out through the window. Someone passing at that moment riveted his attention. Springing across the room, he drew aside the curtains.

  “Who’s that?” he asked excitedly.

  The vicar looked out and beheld a woman crossing the road. She wore a gown of prismatic hues and her hair was of a golden yellow.

  “That, I believe,” he answered slowly, “is Miss de Vaud’s maid, or dresser, or whatever they call such creatures.”

  “It is the woman I fled from — I understand it all now.” And dropping into a chair, Andrew mopped his face.

  Mr. Ritson laid his hand kindly upon the young man’s shoul­der, and sought to console him.

  “Fortunately there is no real harm done, Andrew,” he said presently. “I suppose you have not written to her?”

  “Oh, but I have,” cried Andrew wringing his hands. “And such a letter.”

  “Good Heavens, man! Oh, Andrew, how could you? Think — think of the disgrace to the cloth if this designing woman drags you into a breach of promise action!”

  Andrew groaned, and the vicar — being unable to think of anything more appropriate — groaned to keep him company.

  A week went by without any fresh developments, saving the departure of the maid, which, the vicar contended, was a sign that Miss de Vaud was not returning to Stollbridge. Andrew received two letters from her. The first was a passionate appeal to his affections and a gentle chiding for his silence. He almost wept over it — and had not the vicar intervened in time, he might have gone the length of answering it.

  The second one, which came four days later, was somewhat abusive, and contained a veiled menace. Andrew wept no more — he perspired.

  Then another week followed, during which the poor errant saint lived day and night in a torture of apprehension.

  His health was threatening to give way when at last the gods saw fit to turn their thumbs up, and his suspense was ended.

  The vicar was the first to bring him the joyful and unexpected tidings that Miss de Vaud was Miss de Vaud no longer. She was married. Yes there was no doubt about it. Andrew read the an­nouncement himself in the Telegraph, and the brief sketch of her career which was now supposed to have terminated.

  He was able to smile, and to feel very thankful at his escape. The same day a letter bearing the London post-mark and in a familiar hand-writing was delivered to him. It ran:

  You will no doubt have learnt before this reaches you of the marriage of that woman for whom you professed such deep and lasting affection, and whom you were horrified afterwards to learn — as I gather from your silence — was nothing more than a designing, wicked actress. I am sorry if I have wounded your vanity or your heart, but I could not withstand the temptation of testing the mettle of the young curate who fled in pious horror from under the roof which had the misfortune to shelter an actress. I hope that I have succeeded in proving to you at least that the horror you felt was only inspired by a word, and that after all an actress may still be sufficiently a woman to cause even a saint to come down from his pedestal and woo her.

  She concluded by informing him that she had told her husband everything there was to tell concerning their “flirtation” — he gnashed his teeth at the word — and she enclosed the passionate letter which he had written her and for which she had no further use.

  He had not the courage to read his own letter over again. But he took the immediate precaution of burning the two epistles in the same fire.

  He has since become an ardent advocate of the celibacy of the clergy, and a trite aphorism which he is never tired of uttering is that appearances are extremely deceptive.

  THE FOSTER-LOVER

  Up the hill from Horsebridge, dust-clogged in every pore, jaded and saddle-worn, I urged my weary nag — the second that I had spent since leaving London at daybreak on my traitor’s errand. On the hill’s crest I drew rein, as much out of instinct and sheer habit as out of mercy for the poor beast that bore me.

  On my left a long line of shadow, tall and black, stretched the trees of Dunstock Park adown the hill half-way to Romsey town. And yonder, through the thinning topmost branches, was a golden glory where the moon was rising, big as a millstone, yellow as a guinea. Here, close at hand, atop its flight of terraces, stood Dun­stock House, holding the thing dearest to me in all the world; and Dunstock House, to my vast surprise, was now one blaze of light, its windows glowing like jewels in the setting of the cool, fragrant night.

  Sir William entertained — that much was plain — and I had known nothing of it; but then, where was the wonder of that, since for three weeks I had lain close in London, waiting to receive and bear my lord the news for which all true lovers of King James, the exile, were now athirst? A ball, it seemed, was toward. The scrape of fiddles reached me there at the park gates; aye, and the shuffle of feet, I could have sworn, so calm and silent was the summer night.

  I sat awhile, what time my horse, with pendent head and neck outstretched, breathed raucously in its greed for air. And as I waited there the gavotte came to an end, the fiddling ceased, and in its room arose a babble of many voices, touched off with frequent laughter, and out on to the terrace came by twos and threes Sir William’s guests to breathe the grateful cool.

  It occurred to me then that I need ride no farther. Here was my goal; for if Sir William entertained, there was little doubt — aye, and the thought was bitter enough, God knows! — that here I should find my lord. So I roused the mare and urged her through the gates and up the broad avenue, black now in the shadow of the elms. A truer motive lay, no doubt, in the hope of seeing another than my lord — Alicia, whom I never tired of seeing, whom I sought every chance to see, although I knew that she was not for me. She was a matter that lay between Captain Percy, whom she loved, and my lord, whom she detested, yet who was insistent and persistent, and being a great man, had every hope of winning her, her detestation notwithstanding. As for me — But why say more of myself, who, after all, am of small account — the foster-lover, no more — in this tale of that sweet lady’s nuptials?

  Erebus was not so black as were the shadows there beneath the elms, and when my horse had stumbled twice I thought I should be safer afoot. I tethered the brute to a tree and went on. Quitting the avenue, I struck a well-known shorter road, a pathway through the shrubbery, leading to the lower terrace; and Fate herself, I think, must have been leading me.

  At the shrubbery’s end I paused, however, on the edge of the gloom. The sweep of lawn before me was now alight from the risen moon, and I bethought me that I was proceeding a thought recklessly. How should I, charged with that secret business, present myself thus, all grimed and dusty from the road, to seek my lord among Sir William’s guests? Such an advent must fire the train of much surmising; and all surmising was dangerous to my lord and me, and to the Cause itself. I paused
then and pondered. Aye, I were better away to Romsey, to await my lord’s coming. But since my lord would not yet be leaving — you see, I had no doubt touching his presence at that dance — there was time to spare, and it was sweet and fragrant in the shrubbery after the dust of the high road; sweet it was to know — although the stiffness and the impression of it still abode with me — that there was no horse between my knees; sweet to spy upon the merry-makers, what time I stretched my legs and snatched a brief rest, to which the great diligence I had made that day gave me the title; and there was the greatest sweet of all — and this may have been the real truth of my abiding — the chance of a glimpse of my dear Alicia.

  And presently this glimpse I had and more. A couple descended the steps from the upper terrace, where other couples sauntered; a man, tall and graceful in a lilac satin that gleamed silvery in the moonlight, and a lady, more graceful still though not so tall, a white ghost in that ghostly radiance. They were Alicia and Captain Percy, the man to whom her heart was given. A good fellow enough he was, a blundering, honest, good-natured lad, yet scarce worthy to be the custodian of that treasure. But then — where was the man of whom I should not think the same? Moreover, she loved him, as I knew, for she herself had told me. Was not I her friend — the sometime playmate of her childhood, who had now the confidence of her adolescence — and was it not to me she came for counsel when she had need of it? And that was scarce as often as I could have wished.

  More than once as they advanced she looked behind her, and the impulse of that backward glancing was not to be mistaken. It was fear. Lest I should have played the eavesdropper on that pair of lovers, I had departed then, but those timid, over-shoulder glances argued trouble. The thought of my lord surged on the instant in my mind, and I decided to remain.

  “Nay, nay, sweetheart,” I caught his ardent murmur. “Never tremble. Let the ogre come and be — eaten.”