The Top of the World - Ethel May Dell (read novels website txt) 📗

and assured him that she was not the lucky one.
He looked as if he suspected ridicule behind her mirth, and changed the subject. Guy Ranger had disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him. Some people thought he was dead, like Kieff. Again he looked searchingly at Sylvia, but she did not joke over this information. She began to peel some potatoes as if she had not heard it. And Piet Vreiboom sat back in his chair and stared at her, till the hot colour rose and spread over her face and neck, and then he puffed forth a cloud of vile smoke and laughed.
At that juncture Mrs. Merston came forward with unusual briskness. "You had better go," she said, with great decision. "There is going to be a storm."
He began to dispute the point, but meeting most unexpected lightning in her pale eyes he thought better of it, and after a few seconds for deliberation and the due assertion of his masculine superiority, he lumbered to his feet and prepared to depart.
Mrs. Merston followed him firmly to the door, reiterating, her belief in a coming change. Certainly the sky was overcast, but the clouds often came up thickly at night and dispersed again without shedding any rain. There had not been rain for months.
Very grimly Matilda Merston watched the departure of her unwelcome visitor, enduring the dust that rose from his horse's hoofs with the patience of inflexible determination. Then, when she had seen him go and the swirling dust had begun to settle again, she turned inwards and proceeded to wash the glass that the Boer had used with an expression of fixed disgust.
Suddenly she spoke. "I shouldn't believe anything that man said on oath."
"Neither should I," said Sylvia quietly. She did not look up from her task, and Matilda Merston said no more.
There was a brief silence, then Sylvia spoke again. "You are very good to me," she said.
"My dear!" said Matilda almost sharply.
Sylvia's hands were trembling a little, but she continued to occupy them. "You must sometimes wonder why Guy is so much to me," she said. "I think it has been very sweet of you never to ask. But I feel I should like to tell you about it."
"Of course; if you want to," said Matilda.
"I do want you to know," Sylvia said, with slight effort. "You have taken me so much on trust. And I never even told you how I came to meet--and marry--Burke."
"There was no necessity for you to tell me," said Matilda.
"Perhaps not. But you must have thought it rather sudden--rather strange." Sylvia's fingers moved a little more rapidly. "You see, I came out here engaged to marry Guy."
"Good gracious!" said Matilda.
Sylvia glanced up momentarily. "We had been engaged for years. We were engaged before he ever came here. We--loved each other. But--" Words failed her suddenly; she drew a short, hard breath and was silent.
"He let you down?" said Matilda.
She nodded.
Matilda's face hardened. "That was Burke's doing."
"No--no!" Sylvia found her voice again with an effort. "It isn't fair to say that. Burke tried to help him,--has tried--many times. He may have been harsh to him; he may have made mistakes. But I know he has tried to help him."
"Was that why he married you?" asked Matilda, with a bitter curl of the lip.
Sylvia winced. "No. I--don't quite know what made him think of that. Perhaps--in a way--he felt he ought. I was thrown on his protection, and he never would believe that I was capable of fending for myself."
"Very chivalrous!" commented Matilda. "Men are like that."
Sylvia shivered. "Don't--please! He--has been very good to me."
"In his own way," said Matilda.
"No, in every way. I can't tell you how good till--till Guy came back. He brought him back to please me." Sylvia's voice was low and distressed. "That was when things began to go wrong," she said.
"There was nothing very magnanimous in that," commented Matilda. "He wanted you to see poor Guy when he was down. He wanted to give you a lesson so that you should realize your good luck in being married to him. He didn't count on the fact that you loved him. He expected you to be disgusted."
"Oh, don't!" Sylvia said quickly. "Really that isn't fair. That isn't--Burke. He did it against his judgment. He did it for my sake."
"You don't know much about men, do you?" said Matilda.
"Perhaps not. But I know that much about Burke. I know that he plays fair."
"Even if he kills his man," suggested Matilda cynically.
"He always plays fair." Sylvia spoke firmly. "But he doesn't know how to make allowances. He is hard."
"Have you found him so?" said Matilda.
"I?" Sylvia looked across at her.
Their eyes met. There was a certain compulsion in the elder woman's look.
"Yes, you," she said. "You personally. Has he been cruel to you, Sylvia? Has he? Ah no, you needn't tell me! I--know." She went suddenly to her, and put her arm around her.
Sylvia was trembling. "He didn't--understand," she whispered.
"Men never do," said Matilda very bitterly. "Love is beyond them. They are only capable of passion. I learnt that lesson long ago. It simplified life considerably, for I left off expecting anything else."
Sylvia clung to her for a moment. "I think you are wrong," she said. "I know you are wrong--somehow. But--I can't prove it to you."
"You're so young," said Matilda compassionately.
"No, no, I am not." Sylvia tried to smile as she disengaged herself. "I am getting older. I am learning. If--if only I felt happy about Guy, I believe I should get on much better. But--but--" the tears rose to her eyes in spite of her--"he haunts me. I can't rest because of him. I dream about him. I feel torn in two. For Burke--has given him up. But I--I can't."
"Of course you can't. You wouldn't." Matilda spoke with warmth. "Don't let Burke deprive you of your friends! Plenty of men imagine that when you have got a husband, you don't need anyone else. They little know."
Sylvia's eyes went out across the _veldt_ to a faint, dim line of blue beyond, and dwelt upon it wistfully. "Don't you think it depends upon the husband?" she said.


CHAPTER VIII
OUT OF THE DEPTHS

That night the thunder rolled among the _kopjes_, and Sylvia lay in her hut wide-awake and listening. The lightning glanced and quivered about the distant hills and threw a weird and fitful radiance about her bed, extinguishing the dim light thrown by her night-lamp.
Bill Merston had brought her back a written message from her husband, and she lay with it gripped in her hand. For that message held a cry which had thrown her whole soul into tumult.
"I want you," he had written in a hand that might have been Guy's. "I can't get on without you. I am coming to-morrow to fetch you back--if you will come."
If she would come! In those last words she seemed to hear the appeal of a man's agony. What had he been through before he had brought himself to write those words? They hurt her unutterably, piercing her to the soul, when she remembered her own half-hearted offer to return. Yet she would have given all she had for a few days' respite. The hot fierce longing that beat in those few words frightened her by its intensity. It made her think of one of those overwhelming _veldt_ fires, consuming everything in its path, leaving behind it the blackness of desolation. Yes, he wanted her now because she had been denied to him. The flame of his desire had been fanned to a white heat. She seemed to feel it reaching out to her, scorching her, even as she lay. And she shrank with a desperate sense of impotence, feeling her fate to be sealed. For she knew that she must go to him. She must pass through the furnace anew. She must endure her fate. Afterwards--it might be--when it had burnt itself out, some spark of the Divine would be found kindled among the ashes to give her comfort.
And ever the thought of Guy waited at the back of her mind, Guy who had failed her so hopelessly, so repeatedly. Was she going to fail him now? Was she going to place herself so completely out of his reach that even if he called to her for help she would be powerless to stretch forth a hand to him? The thought tormented her. It was the one thing that she felt she could not face, the one point upon which she and Burke would be for ever at variance. Ah no! Whatever else she surrendered, she could not yield to him in this. She could not, she would not, leave Guy to sink while there remained the smallest chance of saving him.
So she told herself, lying there alone, while the thunder rolled now near, now far, like a menacing monster wandering hither and thither in search of prey. Earlier in the night she had tried to pray, but it had brought her no relief. She had not really prayed since that terrible journey to Brennerstadt when she had poured out her whole soul in supplication and had met only failure. She felt in a fashion cut off, forgotten in this land of strangers. The very effort to bridge the gulf seemed but to emphasize her utter impotence. She had come to that barren part of the way where even the most hopeful traveller sometimes feels that God has forgotten to be gracious. She had never felt more alone in all her life, and it was a loneliness that frightened her.
Weirdly the lightning played about her bed. She watched it with eyes that would not close. She wondered if Burke were watching it also, and shivered with the thought of the morrow, asking herself for the first time why she had ever consented to marry him, why she had not rather shouldered her fate and gone back to her father. She would have found work in England. He would have helped her if she had only had the courage to return, the strength to be humble. Her thoughts lingered tenderly about him. They had been so much to each other once. Did he ever regret her? Did he ever wish her back?
A burning lump rose in her throat. She turned her head upon the pillow, clasping her hands tightly over her eyes. Ah, if she had but gone back to him! They had loved each other, and somehow love would have conquered. Did not love always conquer? What were those words that she had read cut deep in the trunk of a dead tree? They flashed through her brain more vividly than the glancing lightning--the key to every closed door--the balm for every wound--the ladder by which alone the top of the world is reached. _Fide et Amore_! By Faith and Love!
There came again to her that curious feeling of revelation. Looking back, she saw