A Sovereign Remedy Part 35

Was it Love standing between Birth and Death, or was it something better? Something beyond both. Something of which but a glimpse could be caught during that journey between the Cradle and the Grave?

So, for one brief moment as she stood looking at the iris she saw that Something, beyond Birth, beyond Death, beyond even Love. A shimmer came to the air, her pulses caught the rhythm, and lo! she was no more, the One was All, and from the uttermost end of s.p.a.ce came back the ceaseless Wave of Unity.

And then?...

Then the fear of death re-a.s.serted itself. Surely the flags of the iris showed limp! The dear thing must not stop there without due foothold on the round world, else would it lose the immortality of new birth.

So, tired as she was, she lifted it up, saxifrage and all, in both her hands, went downstairs, and so across the lawn to a place she wotted of where it might grow undisturbed by fear of old Adam's meddling fork. There was a certain solemnity about her necessarily slow movements, and she felt almost as if she were conducting a funeral.

And so in truth it was; a funeral of her careless girlhood. She was a woman now; she had begun to understand herself. Yet as she laid the flower on the spot where she intended to plant it and went for her trowel, the pity of the funeral hit her hard, and when she returned Ned's blue eyes seemed to look at her appealingly from the iris's broad face. His were such beautiful eyes!

She dug furiously, forgetful of everything but her desire to bury, until a step sounded beside her, and she looked up to see another pair of blue eyes broader, bolder, looking down at her.

"What are you digging," said Ted with a ring of aggrievedness in his voice; "a grave? Oh! I beg your pardon, dear, I oughtn't to have said that, I oughtn't to have reminded you--but I've been expecting you to return for such a long while--and--oh! my poor little girl--I'm so sorry for it all--it must have been horrible."

His normal sympathy brought her back to normal. She realised as she had not realised with Ned, that after all she was but a mere girl who needed cossetting and comforting after the terrible shock of the morning.

"It was horrible," she replied, with a little shiver; "you can't think how horrible--somehow, after it all, it is good to see you just--just yourself."

She felt indeed grateful to him for his size, his solidity, his undoubted affection: perhaps unconsciously she was grateful to him for his failure to disturb her inmost soul.

"It must have been awful," he said, his blue eyes showing all the kindness in the world. "I can't think how you got through with it as you have; but you are so brave--far braver than I should be--but come, don't let us talk or think of it any more. Don't let us spoil my last afternoon."

She stood up startled. "Your last!" she cried, in quick concern. "Oh!

Ted, why is it your last?"

He took a step nearer to her, his face lit up with content. "I'm so glad you care--I suppose it's selfish--but I am glad. Yes! I have to go. Hirsch has business for me in Paris--most important business, and I must leave by the mail to-night."

Even as he spoke, his mind running on ahead, thought with a different content of what this visit to Paris might mean to them both, if things turned out as he hoped they might.

"Must you?" she echoed wistfully. It seemed to her as if every friend she had had was leaving; and Ted had been such a help to her during the last few anxious days. "How shall we manage without you?" she went on doubtfully; "grandfather will miss you so much--and I----"

There were almost tears in her voice, and Ted felt a wild desire then and there to come to explanations. But he knew it was wiser to wait.

"I will come back at once if I am wanted," he replied; "but I hope I shan't be wanted--at least not in any hurry; for of course I shall come back again soon--and then--but I really haven't time now. I have to put up my things you see. I stayed as long as I could with him thinking you would be sure to come in at once----" there was the faintest reproach in his tone.

An instant pang of remorse shot through the girl. She had stopped talking sentimental rubbish to Ned while he--Ted--was doing her duty.

"I will go in to him in a moment," she said hurriedly, "I have only to plant this flower."

She set to work hurriedly, Ted lingering to look down superciliously at the iris.

"It's rather pretty," he said; "did you find it in the woods?"

Aura's blush was hidden as she hastily filled in to proper dimensions the perfect grave she had previously dug.

"No. Ned gave it me as--as a New Year's gift."

Ted half smiled, thinking that if he had had as much money as Lord Blackborough he would have known better how to spend it on the girl he loved; but, of course, if Ned chose to be so n.i.g.g.ardly in some things, so lavish in others, it was his own lookout.

"I hope you liked the book; the binding wasn't quite so nice as I should have wished," he began.

Aura interrupted him heartily.

"I liked it ever so much--thanks so many! And I shall always like it.

That is the best of books--summer and winter they are always the same"--she became taken with her own thought and pursued it--"they aren't like flowers--you haven't to watch for their blooming time--you haven't even to smell their scent--you haven't to think for them of storms or slugs or frost and field mice"--here she smiled at her own alliterations--"but if you want them, there they are, ready to make you happy. Do you know, you've been a regular book to me lately, Ted?"

He flushed up with pleasure. "Have I?" he said frankly; "that's good hearing. I--I wish I were your whole library----" Once more he paused, obsessed by that idea of the night-mail to Paris.

As he went off to pack his things he almost wished that she had come in a little earlier; but then he would not have had such an eminently satisfactory talk with her grandfather. So far as he, at any rate, was concerned it was all plain sailing, for the old man, distressed at hearing of Ted's sudden departure, had for the first time taken him into his confidence. It was not exactly a pleasing confidence, but it was only what Ted had expected. Aura would be penniless, since years before Sylva.n.u.s Smith had sunk all his money in an annuity which would cease with his death. Under the circ.u.mstances, Ted had felt that both the kindest and the wisest thing was to allay anxiety--that tardy anxiety which was in itself but another form of selfishness--by speaking of his own love for Aura, and his earnest desire to marry her, if she would have him.

"Of course she will marry you!" Mr. Sylva.n.u.s Smith had said with calm shrewdness. "Who else is there for her to marry?"

Whereupon Ted, divided as to whether he was doing a magnanimous or a mean thing, had suggested Lord Blackborough. It had produced a perfect storm of incredulous irritation. The bare idea was absurd.

Blackborough, like all in his rank, was merely amused by a pretty face. He, Sylva.n.u.s Smith, had only tolerated him as Ted's friend, and he would forbid him the house in future; no granddaughter of his should marry a lord!

Briefly, the old man whose life had been spent in preaching socialism and liberty in the abstract, who denied the existence of social rank, and proclaimed the right of the individual to independent action, was ready to forswear both tenets, and pose as a relentless parent of the good old type.

Ted had forborne to smile, and, feeling really magnanimous this time, had attempted to smooth over the old man's irritation, which none the less he knew to be points in his favour.

So, as he packed his portmanteau, he whistled lightheartedly.

Aura, meanwhile having finished her burial, went off to the book-room where she found her grandfather, as usual, busy with pen and paper, the writing-table drawn up to the fire, the solitary extra chair in which Ted had been sitting looking lone and outcast, camped away in the open beyond the leather screen which in winter always surrounded Mr. Smith's socialism and the fire.

He was looking a little flushed, and she paused, ere sitting down on the floor by the hearth to say anxiously, "You haven't been vexing yourself, I hope, grandfather, while I was away--I--I had rather a headache--so I went up the hills. Martha----"

"Martha has been excellent, as usual," he replied, "on the whole she does Parkinson's work fairly well; though I could wish----" here he sighed--"the absence of a suitable cap and ap.r.o.n is certainly to be deplored, but she makes an excellent omelette." He turned again to his work of writing a pamphlet on the Simple Life.

Aura sat watching him, as she had watched him as long as she could remember. She was very fond, very proud of him. Extremely well read, curiously quick in mind, he had taught her everything she knew, and she was but just beginning to find out that this everything was more than most women are supposed to know. She had found no difficulty in holding her own with Ned and Ted, and Dr. Ramsay and Mr. Hirsch, except so far as mere knowledge of the world went, and that was not worth counting.

To her mind grandfather had had the best of any argument she had ever heard; but then Ned would never argue with him.

Still he had not taught her all things. He had never mentioned love or marriage, or birth or death, though these surely were the chief factors in life--in a woman's life anyhow.

Suddenly, out of the almost bewildering ramifications of her thought, she put, almost thoughtlessly, a question.

"Grandfather, was my father fond of me?"

Mr. Sylva.n.u.s Smith looked up startled, and distinctly pale. "I had not the honour of your father's acquaintance," he said icily, "therefore I cannot say." Then he, as it were, pulled himself together. "And you will oblige me," he continued, "by not asking any more questions of the sort. I cannot answer them."

He went on writing, but his hand trembled a little. She had heard this formula more than once, but after a time, moved thereto by the new stress in her thoughts, the girl rose, and going up behind him stood looking over his shoulder.

"Grandfather," she said, "I am not going to ask any more questions about the past. I don't see that it matters at all. I should like to have known that my father was--was glad of me; my mother must have been, I think, though she died so soon. But I should like to know what is in the future. What--what do you expect me to do? Do you wish me to marry?"

He turned round in his chair, and looked at her helplessly.

"That is rather a peculiar question, my dear," he said feebly, "but, of course----"

"Don't answer it if it worries you, please," she urged quickly; "but if you could speak of it--it would be a great help."