Love Eternal - H. Rider Haggard (ereader ebook .TXT) 📗

"Beautiful! /I/? Those Alpine snows affect the sight, don't they? I felt like that on Popocatepetl. Or is it the twilight that I have to thank? Oh! you silly old Godfrey, you must have been living among very plain people."

"You /are/ beautiful," he replied stubbornly, "the most beautiful woman I ever saw. You always were, and you always will be."

Again she laughed, for who of her sex is there that does not like to be called beautiful, especially when she knows that it is meant, and that whatever her personal shortcomings, to the speaker she is beautiful? But this time the only answer she attempted was:

"You said you were late, and you are getting later. Run home, there's a good little boy."

"Why do you laugh at me?" he asked.

"Because I am laughing at myself," she answered, "and you should have your share."

Then very nearly he kissed her, only he was in such a hurry, also the willow log, a large one, was between them; possibly she had arranged that this should be so. So he could only press her hand and depart, muttering something indistinguishable. She watched him vanish, after which she sat down again on the log and really did laugh. Still, it was a queer kind of merriment, for by degrees it turned into little sobs and tears.

"You little fool, what has happened to you?" she asked herself. "Are you--are you--and if so, is he--? Oh! nonsense, and yet, something has happened, for I never felt like this before. I thought it was all rubbish, mere natural attraction, part of Nature's scheme and so on, as they write in the clever books. But it's more than that--at least it would be if I were---- Besides, I'm ages older than he is, although I was born six months later. I'm a woman full-grown, and he is only a boy. If he hadn't been a boy he would have taken his advantage when he must have known that I was weak as water, just for the joy of seeing him again. Now he has lost his chance, if he wanted one, for by to-morrow I shall be strong again, and there shall be no more----"

Then she looked at the backs of her hands which she could not see because of the gathering darkness, and as they were invisible, kissed them instead, just as though they belonged to someone else. After this she sat a while brooding and listening to the pulsing of her heart, which was beating with unusual strength this night. As she did so in that mysterious hour which sometimes comes to us in English summers, a great change fell upon her. When she sat down upon that fallen tree she was still a girl and virginal; when she rose from it she was a developed, loving woman. It was as though a spirit had visited her and whispered in her ear. She could almost hear the words. They were:

"Fulfil your fate. Love and be loved with body and with spirit, with heart and soul and strength."

At length she rose, and as she did so said aloud:

"I do not know who or what I have to thank for life and all that makes me, me. But I am glad to have been born, now, who have often wished that I had never been born. Even if I knew that I must pass away to-night, I should still be glad, since I have learned that there is something in me which cannot die. It came when that man kissed my hands, and it will endure for ever."

Godfrey was late for dinner, very late, and what was worse, his father /had/ waited for him.

"I suppose you forgot that I dined at seven, not at eight," was his cold greeting, for Mr. Knight, a large eater like many teetotallers, was one of those people who make a fetish of punctuality at meals, and always grow cross when they are hungry.

Godfrey, whose mind had not been steadied by the events of the afternoon, became confused and replied that he was extremely sorry, but the fact was he had met Isobel and, in talking to her, had not noticed the time.

"Isobel!" exclaimed his father, whose voice was now icy. "What Isobel?"

"I never knew but one, Father."

"Oh! I suppose you mean Miss Blake. I had no idea she was here; indeed, I thought she was still in Mexico. But doubtless you were better informed."

"No, Father, I met her accidentally. She has returned to England."

"That is obvious, Godfrey----"

"She has come down," he continued in a hurry, "to get the house ready for Sir John, who arrives shortly."

"Oh! has she? What a strange coincidence! All the years of our separation while you were way she was away, but within two days of your return she returns."

"Yes, it does seem odd," agreed the flustered Godfrey, "but it's lucky, isn't it, for, of course, I am glad to see her again."

Mr. Knight finished carving himself a helping of beef, and let the knife fall with a clatter into the dish. Then he said in carefully chosen words:

"You may think it lucky--or well arranged--but I must differ. I tell you at once that I consider Miss Blake a most pernicious young woman, and as your father I can only express the hope that you do not intend to allow her to re-assert her evil influence over you."

Godfrey was about to answer with wrath, but changed his mind and remained silent. So the topic dropped, but that it stood very straight upon its feet in Mr. Knight's mind was clear from the compression of his thin lips and the ill-humour of his remarks about the coldness and overdone character of the beef and sundry other household matters. As soon as the meal was concluded and he had washed it down with a last glass of water and with a very wry face thanked Providence for all that he had received, he retired into his study and was seen no more till prayer-time.

Nor was he seen then by Godfrey, who had gone out to smoke his pipe since his father could not bear the smell of tobacco in the house, and wandered unconsciously towards the Hall. There he stood, gazing at a light which he knew came from Isobel's window, and lost in this unfruitful contemplation, once more forgot the time. When he arrived home it was to find the house in darkness and a note in his father's handwriting on the hall table requesting him to be careful to lock the door, as everyone had gone to bed.

He went, too, but could not sleep, for, strangely enough, that disturbance of body and spirit which had afflicted Isobel possessed him also. It seemed wonderful to him that he should have found her again, whom he thought to be so utterly lost, and grown so sweet and dear. How could he have lived all this while without her, he wondered, and, another thought, how could he bear to part with her once more? Oh! she was his life, and--why should they part? She had not minded when he kissed her hands, at which, of course, she might have been angry; indeed, she left them to be kissed for quite a long while, though not half long enough. Perhaps she did not wish that they should part either, or perhaps she only desired that they should be just friends as before. It seemed almost impossible that they could become more than friends, even if she cared to do so, which he could scarcely hope.

What was he? A young fellow, twenty, with only a little money and all his way to make in the world. And what was she? A grand young lady, rather younger than himself, it was true, but seeming years older, who was a great heiress, they said, and expected to marry a lord, someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth, whose fortune had been made for him by other people. Moreover, his father hated her because their religious views were different, and her father hated him, or used to, for other reasons.

Yes, it was quite impossible--and yet Nature seemed to take no account of that: Nature seemed to tell him that it was absolutely possible, and indeed right, and what she, Nature, wished. Also this same persistent Nature seemed to suggest to him that Isobel was her most willing and obedient pupil, and that perhaps if he could look into her heart he would find that she did care, and very much more than for the wealth and the hypothetical lord.

Nature seemed to suggest, too, that Isobel's thoughts were with him at that moment; that she was uncommonly near to him in soul if not in body; that she was thinking about him as he was thinking about her, and saying much the same things to herself as he was saying to himself. Indeed, he even began a whispered conversation with her, of a sort he would not have ventured upon had she been there, pausing between the sentences for her answers, which, as he imagined them, were very satisfactory indeed.

By degrees, however, question and answer grew less frequent and further apart as he dozed off and finally sank into a deep sleep. So deep was it, indeed, that he was awakened only by the clamour of the breakfast bell, and when he arrived downstairs, to be confronted by some cold bacon on an uncovered dish, his father had departed to the Diocesan Conference. Well, this fact had its consolations, and bacon, however cold, with contentment is better than bacon hot where contention is.

So he ate it and anything else he could find with appetite, and then went upstairs to shave and do his hair nicely and to put on a new suit of clothes, which he considered became him. Also, as he had still three-quarters of an hour to spare, he began to write a little poem about Isobel, which was a dismal failure, to tell the truth, since he could think of no satisfactory rhyme to her name, except "O well!" which, however he put it, sounded silly.

At last, rather too early, he threw the sheet of paper into the fireplace and started, only to find that although it still lacked a quarter of an hour to eleven, Isobel was already seated on that tree.

"What have you been doing to yourself?" she asked, "putting on those smart London clothes? I like the old grey things you had on last night ever so much better, and I wanted you to climb a tree to get me some young jackdaws. And--good gracious! Godfrey, your head smells like a whole hairdresser's shop. Please come to the other side, to leeward of me."

He murmured something about liking to look tidy, and then remarked that she seemed rather finely dressed herself.

"It's only my Mexican hat," she answered, touching the big sombrero, woven from the finest Panama grass, which she was wearing, "and the necklace is made of little gold Aztec idols that were found in a grave. They are very rare; a gentleman gave them to me, and afterwards I was horrified to find that he had paid an awful lot for them, £200, I believe. Do you understand about the Aztec gods? If not I will explain them all to you. This big one in the middle is Huitzilcoatl, the god of----"

"No, no," interrupted Godfrey, "I don't and I don't want to. I think them very ugly, and I always understood that ladies did not accept such expensive presents from gentlemen. Who was he?"

"An American millionaire who didn't wear armour," she answered blandly. Then she changed the subject with the original remark that the swallows were flying higher than they had done on the previous evening, when they looked as though one could almost catch them with one's hand.

Godfrey reflected to himself that other things which had seemed quite close on the previous night were now like the