Christina Part 36

"Is it so difficult to say you care for me," he answered, with a low laugh of triumphant gladness. "I have got dozens of patients waiting downstairs for me, but I don't want to do anything except go on telling you how much I care for you, so much that I could not stay in England, and not tell you the truth."

"And why didn't you tell me?" she said reproachfully, lifting her head to look again into his radiant face.

"Because--your rank, and money, and surroundings--oh! everything about you, put you far out of my reach," he answered, with a sudden return to his old abruptness. "Even now I have not the smallest right to take advantage of the wonderful thing you have done to-day. What will your people say? What will the world say? What----"

"Need you and I mind what the rest of mankind thinks, or says?" she answered, a little flash of defiance in her eyes. "Perhaps in coming here to-day I have been unwomanly and horrible; and yet, I had to come, because I knew that happiness is too big a thing to be sacrificed to pride, or to other people's opinions."

"And--this is your happiness?" His voice was strangely softened. "Do you really mean me to know that you could be happy with me, with a rough sort of fellow like me?"

"With a rough sort of fellow like you," she answered, laughing, a tender mockery in her words. "I can't be happy without you, and--I came to-day, to tell you so!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

"THE KING OF MY KINGDOM."

The afternoon was very still. Overhead, the sky of October was mistily blue, the autumn sunshine flooded upland and valley with a golden glory; in the air was that quietness, that sense of waiting and brooding, which marks an autumn day. From the cottages in the valley, thin trails of blue smoke mounted straight into the veiled softness of the sky. The touch of autumn's hand was already visible upon the trees. In the copse over the brow of the hill, the hazels were yellowing; the beech-trees showed orange and gold amongst their leaves; the hawthorns wore a brave array of crimson and yellow leaves, and bright red berries. Long ago the heather had faded, a soft dun colour had taken the place of the royal purple, which earlier in the year had carpeted the uplands, and the bracken blazed golden and brown upon the moorland slopes. From the place where Christina sat, she could see the white road that wound away across the heather to Graystone, and to those far blue hills, about which the afternoon sun was weaving a veil of light. In the valley to her right, the trunks of the pine-trees were turning crimson in the sun's level beams, the birches' delicate branches outlined against the blue of the sky, the soft amber of the larches contrasting with the sombre green of the pines, and beneath the trees, the carpet of bright bracken touched to gold by the sunshine.

From far away across the moor, came the sound of chiming bells, from the copse across the road a robin sang his wonderful song of spring, that will follow winter, of life that will come after death; and from somewhere amongst the trees of the valley, a thrush was fluting the first notes of his next year's song, that he had yet to learn. The world was a very peaceful world on that October afternoon; and Christina, sitting on a hummock of dry heather, rested her chin on her hands, and looked over the wide landscape, with a great sense of its abiding restfulness. The chiming bells, the robin's song, the occasional soft murmur of the little breeze in the pines, harmonised with the brooding peace of autumn, that seemed to be over all the land, and the girl smiled, as she let the sense of restful peace sink deep into her soul. She and Baba were spending a week with Mrs. Nairne at Graystone, and on this Sunday afternoon, leaving the child in Mrs.

Nairne's charge, she had walked over the hill to the little churchyard, to visit Margaret's grave.

In that sunny corner of the churchyard, close to the old grey wall, she had found violets in bloom, filling the air with their sweetness just as they had filled it on the April day, when Margaret had been laid to rest; and Christina held some of the purple, fragrant blossoms in her hand, whilst she sat looking out over the great sweep of country, to the golden sky behind the hills. Her thoughts were very full of the beautiful woman whose life had so strangely crossed her own, and from her thoughts of Margaret, by a natural transition, her mind wandered on to the remembrance of the man who had stood by her side, at Margaret's funeral. She recalled the look of heartbreak in Rupert Mernside's eyes, when they had met hers; she remembered that glimpse she had had into the man's tortured soul. How many times since that day, had Cicely speculated about Rupert's friendship with Margaret, wondering whether he had cared for her more deeply than as a friend, discussing the why and wherefore of his disappearance from the midst of his own circle, whilst all the time Christina knew in her heart, that she could if she would, have answered all these questions. She knew that Rupert's feeling for Margaret was not merely that of friendship, never had been friendship only; and she knew, intuitively, that his usual round of life had become intolerable to him, after Margaret's death.

She felt an odd sense of triumph in her knowledge of him; of triumph, and of awe as well. For to Christina's simple and straightforward nature, there was something awe-inspiring, in this strange, intimate understanding of another human being's soul.

Seated there upon the heather, she was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she did not observe a figure moving slowly across the valley; and not until the figure had detached itself from amongst the trees, and was walking along the high-road in her direction, did she see that the object of her thoughts was coming towards her. That he should have come at that particular moment, struck her first as so extraordinary a coincidence, that she could hardly believe the evidence of her own eyes. But as the figure came a few paces nearer, she knew that she had made no mistake; it was Rupert's face into which she looked, as she sprang to her feet, Rupert's grey eyes that met hers with a smile, despite their expression of haunting sadness.

"I never dreamt of seeing you here," were his first unconventional words of greeting; "and yet it seems natural to find you."

Perhaps he was hardly aware himself why he spoke the last half of his sentence, and although Christina's heart leapt as she heard it, something within her seemed to respond to the spirit of his words. To her, too, it seemed "natural," that they should meet out here on the heather, in the sunlight, close to Margaret's grave. For the little churchyard lay only just over the brow of the hill, and Rupert's explanation of his presence on the moorland, was not needed by the girl, who knew without any words of his that he had come to visit that corner by the sunny wall, where the violets scented the air with their fragrance. After that brief greeting, he made Christina sit down again upon the heather, and flung himself beside her, his face turned, like hers, to the western horizon. "I am glad they put those words on the stone," he said abruptly; "whose thought were they?"

"I think I thought of them first," Christina answered; "they seemed the fittest and most beautiful words for her."

"Love--never faileth," he quoted slowly, his thoughts going back to the white cross, upon which the words were engraved, "Love never faileth; yes, you could not have chosen a better epitaph for her. Her soul was built up of love, and her love never failed, never for a single moment.

It is a wonderful thing--the love of such a woman. Perhaps, in all the world, there is nothing more wonderful than a woman's love." He seemed to be speaking his thoughts aloud, rather than addressing her directly, and she did not answer his speech, only sat very still, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes looking out towards the golden west, a little smile on her lips.

"You know--I have been wandering over the earth--since--that day,"

Rupert went on, speaking with singular abruptness. "I felt like that man who went out, seeking rest--and finding none. I have found none."

The ring of bitterness in his voice hurt the girl. She turned a little, and looked down into his face.

"I am sorry," she said; "so very sorry."

"Are you?" he answered. "It is not worth while being sorry for a man who has made a mess of things, as I have done."

"Why do you say that," she said quickly. "You made the most of a beautiful friendship; you did Aunt Margaret no wrong in loving her.

You were always her helpful friend. And now----"

"Now?" he echoed when she paused.

"Perhaps you will think me impertinent for saying what I was going to say," she answered, the colour creeping into her face; "but I was going to say, now you will not waste your life, in regretting what is past and over. You are not the sort of person to waste life in regrets. I should think you would take all the best of the love and friendship, and work them into your life, to make it better."

The words were as simply spoken, as they were simple in themselves.

Their very simplicity made an appeal to the man who heard them, for, like all the best men, Rupert, man of the world though he was, had a very simple nature.

"Weave the past into the future," he answered thoughtfully. "Not sweep it away and try to forget it, but let it be woven into my life? Is that what you mean?"

"Yes, that is what I mean, only you have put it into better words. I never think it is quite right to try and sweep away a past, even if it has hurt us. It always seems as if it must be so much better to use all that was good in the past, and let it help to make the future better. I don't think I believe in stamping things out, and burying them, and being ruthless over them. Isn't it better to take the good from them, and bury the rest?"

Rupert's eyes were fixed on the girl's face, which had grown eager and intent over the thoughts she was trying to express, and as he watched her a smile broke up the ruggedness of his own features. She was quite unconscious of his gaze, but a soft colour had come into her cheeks as she spoke, her eyes were very deep and bright, and the man who looked at her realised that hers was more than mere girlish prettiness. She had taken off her hat, and the sunlight fell upon the dusky ma.s.ses of her hair, showing golden gleams in its dark threads. Her eyes, green and deep and very soft, made Rupert think of a stream in Switzerland, beside which he had stood only a few weeks back, a stream whose waters shone in the sunbeams, showing dark and green and soft in the shade.

The colour that had crept into the pure whiteness of her cheeks, tinted them as a white rose is sometimes tinted; and for the first time Rupert was aware of a faint, yet definite likeness, between the girl at his side and the woman he had loved. Perhaps it was in her expression more than in any actual resemblance between the two women's faces, that the likeness lay, for something of Margaret's n.o.bility and serenity, seemed to be reflected on the younger countenance, and with that flashing thought, there flashed into his mind, too, the words Margaret had spoken to him, before she died. He had never remembered those words again until now, and they recurred to him with extraordinary force.

"She would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife.

She has a sweet, strong soul."

"A sweet, strong soul." Those words rang in his brain with odd persistence, whilst his eyes watched Christina's profile, as she sat silently looking out again across the moorlands.

A--sweet--strong soul. And there was such a strange restfulness, too, about the personality of the girl, young though she was; he remembered how conscious he had been of that restfulness on the day when he had sat and talked to her, in Mrs. Nairne's parlour. That same restfulness stole over him now, and some of the haunting misery within him died away.

"So you don't believe in a ruthless chopping away of the past?" he asked, going back to her last words.

"Oh! no," she exclaimed vehemently. "I am sure we are meant to use the past as a foundation stone for the future. Each thing in turn comes into our lives--joy, sorrow, pain, difficulty; and they all have to help together to build it up into perfection. But--I have no business to be sitting here preaching sermons," she added lightly. "I must go home, and relieve Mrs. Nairne of Baba, and write to Cicely, and----"

"No; wait here a little longer," he interrupted imperiously, laying a hand on her arm, as she attempted to rise. "I am a returned traveller, and you are to tell me all the news before you go back to Baba, who, I am morally convinced, is supremely happy with Mrs. Nairne."

"Supremely," Christina laughed. "She was going to help warm the scones for tea; perhaps you will come and help us eat them," she added shyly.

"Baba would be so pleased if you came to have tea with us again."

"And you? Would you be pleased?"

"Of course," but she looked away from him as she spoke, and the soft rose tints on her face deepened ever so slightly, "Baba and I were very proud of giving you tea in the little parlour, last December."

"I liked that parlour. I have pleasant recollections of it," he answered. "I liked the low ceiling, and the oak panelled walls, and the queer old-fashioned furniture. Yes, I will come and have tea with you and Baba to-day, but first tell me all about everybody."

"You know Cicely has married Dr. Fergusson?"

"I saw it in a chance paper. I have heard no details. I have simply drifted over Europe, where my fancy, or the demon of unrest led me, and I let n.o.body know where I was. I know practically nothing. Why did Cicely marry the doctor? He is a thorough good fellow, but----"

"There isn't any 'but,'" Christina answered firmly. "Denis Fergusson is one of the very best men in the world, and Cicely has been radiant ever since--they were engaged. They were only married three weeks ago, and I wish you could have seen her face, when she walked down the church. You would not have said 'but' then!"

"Were her people annoyed?"

"A little, but only a little, and only at first. I think they recognised how completely the marriage was for Cicely's happiness.

After all, Denis is a gentleman, an absolute and perfect gentleman, and a good man; and those two things are all that matter."

"Yes, those things are all that matter. It is only sheer worldliness that demands more. And if Cicely is happy, why--let worldliness go hang. Poor little Cicely certainly needed a man to take care of her, and Baba, and that big property; but--is Fergusson willing to give up his work?"

"Cicely won't hear of his giving it up. The surgery in South London is to go on as usual, and Cicely has insisted on having an a.s.sistant there, to do the work when Denis cannot go himself, so that, as she expresses it, she is not depriving a poor man of his living, in allowing a rich man to profit by the surgery and its practice."