The Shadow of the Past Part 30

"No. I suppose I never imagined you would be satisfied to sit still and look on."

He felt for her hand and held it, and they walked on together in the dusky starlight, rather silent and preoccupied, thinking of many things.

"This settles any chance of honeymooning," he said presently. "We'll have to have that later. It's rough on you all round."

She drew closer to him.

"I'm not minding that. Those things don't seem to matter any more. If only you come through!"

He squeezed her hand hard, and they were silent again. The possibility of losing him had wrought a considerable change in Brenda's view of things. Her own phrase perhaps best expressed this alteration:

"Those things don't seem to matter any more." The sting of bitterness had gone out of her sorrow. Those minor distresses, the jealousy of another's claim, and the knowledge that she did not possess his entire heart, shrunk to inconsiderable dimensions in the face of this greater disaster--before the haunting spectre of possible death for him. The fear of losing him in a sudden and tragic manner made him very precious to her. There was no room in her mind for any but loving thoughts.

"What a lot of things have happened," he said presently, "since you and I first mooned about this beach! I remember having a feeling in those days that you had come into my life to some purpose... come to stay.

One knows somehow instinctively the people who are going to count."

He stooped suddenly and kissed her lips.

"Salt kisses," he said... "like the salt kisses I first took from you."

He held her chin in his hand and tilted her face upward slightly. "The spray has got into your dear eyes... There were no tears there on that other occasion."

She smiled at him and attempted to wink the tears away.

"It's only spray... don't heed that. Go on talking... I want to hear you talk. These remembrances... I love to hear them."

"Confidence for confidence," he said teasingly. "Tell me something of your early impressions. Did you ever dream of me?--I've dreamed of you."

"No." She laughed happily. "I don't dream. But I used to lean from my bedroom window and think and think and think."

"What about?" he asked.

"You... You peopled my world from the outset. There were nights when I lost count of time, and leaned there and watched the dawn break."

"That last night?" he asked.--"When we said good-bye under the oleanders?"

"That last night of course," she answered. "I stayed at the window until the sun rose."

"Dear little lonely watcher!" he said. "I wish I could have been with you... And you were in trouble too that night."

"I hadn't time to think of that. I was enjoying in retrospect my perfect hour. The troubles began next day." She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder caressingly. "We won't talk of that I refuse to remember unpleasant things."

"Wise little woman! ... Stand here a moment. I want to listen with you to the wash of the waves between the rocks. How often have we stood here like this?" he said with his arm about her. "There is no other music--is there?--like the music of the sea."

"With you beside me--no. When I listen to it in your absence it will be as sound divorced from the spirit of music."

Bending over her, he asked quickly:

"You wouldn't wish to keep me back?"

He thought of Macfarlane's words: "You've got a girl now. You have to consider her." He had not considered her in this matter at all. He had not even consulted her. He had taken her approval for granted.

"Of course I wouldn't keep you back. Only I hate war. You can't expect me to be glad."

"There isn't much in it to occasion any one gladness," he replied.

"It's a bad business however one lodes at it." The old reckless smile shone for a moment in his eyes. "Though, if it wasn't for a certain young woman, I think I could find the prospect somewhat alluring. Man was born to kill his enemy."

"It's high time man had outgrown his primitive instincts," she said, smiling with him.

"That he will never do," he answered with conviction. "Love and hate, the primordial emotions, hang together--the ant.i.thesis of each other, irreconcilable yet inseparable. Humanity without love is inconceivable--and so is a world without hate. At best civilisation teaches us to control these elemental pa.s.sions--and our control is about as effective in a crisis as the outer petals which conceal the canker in the heart of a flower. If you look close enough you see the stain of evil showing through."

He discussed their immediate plans for a while, and referred to the growing difficulties of the South African situation. Her own brothers had joined the Union forces: he felt that it caused her surprise that he did not do the same. Her mother had taken it for granted that he would.

He found it more difficult to deal with Mrs Upton; she required explanations. He was a little uncertain how she would receive the news of their immediate marriage. Although she liked him, and approved of the engagement, she had expressed the hope that they would do nothing hastily, but would learn to know one another more thoroughly before taking any decisive step.

He went back with Brenda that night to break the news to her, braced to meet opposition, and bent on overcoming it. But when he faced her and made his half-defiant announcement, he saw by the look in her eyes that there was no opposition to fear. She lifted a serious, unsurprised face to his, and said quietly:

"I've been expecting this... You want to marry before joining up?"

"Yes. It's awfully jolly of you to take it like this."

She smiled briefly.

"When it comes to war," she said, "we stand aside and yield your s.e.x first place. It's your hour. You've a right to consideration. But for the war, I would rather you had waited--years."

"You don't mean that?" he said, and scrutinised her closely. "There is a little distrust at the back of your mind which I haven't succeeded in allaying."

She changed colour, showing signs of embarra.s.sment, and turned away a little disconcerted at this outspoken attack.

"Do you suppose any mother ever thinks a man good enough for her girl?"

she asked with a slightly nervous laugh.

"If that's all..." he said, and waited.

She faced round again and held out both her hands to him in an impulsive appeal.

"You will be good to her?" she cried... "Oh! you will be good to her?"

"Surely," he answered earnestly, "you know I will be?" and took her hands and kissed them.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

There was a task which, when he had little knowledge of the nearness and the overwhelming nature of the tragedy that had since befallen, Matheson had allocated to himself with every intention of going through with it; the task included fixing the guilt of incitement to rebellion on to Holman. He meant to bring Holman to account for his treachery.

Amid the hurried preparations for his wedding, which was to precede his enlistment for Home service, he had no thought of evading this task. It was inconvenient at the moment to give his time to outside matters; but the tracking down of this man--this German spy who for years had been fostering a spirit of hatred among the Boers to the end that these people whom his country was deluding would, when the hour struck, serve his country to their own undoing--the confronting him with his treachery and the bringing of him to justice was a matter of vital importance to him. In his desire to punish Holman he was moved primarily by resentment, fierce, bitter resentment that was mainly concerned with Honor, with the pernicious effect of this mischievous doctrine upon Honor's warm responsive nature. It seemed to him that the punishment of Holman, the punishment of all those who had planned and a.s.sisted in this devil's work, was an act of bare retribution, incomplete and wholly inadequate though the utmost punishment meted out to the individual could be in consideration of the evil resulting from the insidious poison inculcated for many years into the receptive minds of a simple and credulous people--a people labouring under a sense of past injustice. It had been an easy task for a nation accomplished in crooked measures, this sowing and untiring cultivation of the seed of rebellion. For years this work had been going forward in the Colony unsuspected. Germans who had lived on seemingly friendly relations with their English neighbours for nearly a lifetime had been steadily pursuing this system of intrigue, and secretly sowing dissension among the peoples of the country. Now the trouble had come to a head and the persons most criminally responsible had for the greater part fled to Europe.

So far as Matheson knew, Holman might also have gone. He had no knowledge of his whereabouts. The most likely source from whence to glean any information concerning him was the man's own office in Johannesburg, though in all probability he would find the office deserted if he made the journey. There was, however, the clerk: if he could discover this youth he might possibly learn something of his employer's movements. In any case it was worth the attempt.

He decided to start immediately; and found himself wondering how he should explain this abrupt journey to Brenda. Finally he decided to explain nothing, and left her to infer that business took him up the line. She was much occupied in getting ready for her marriage, and preparing to sail for Europe if necessary with her husband. If he served in France, she purposed serving also in some capacity behind the fixing line. It was understood between them that where he went she would follow whenever practicable. In all things they were to be comrades: only in the matter of Honor did he keep her outside his life.

He had confided to her the essential facts in regard to his relations with Honor Krige; he did not deem it expedient after that to go into further detail. That part of his life was finished--he believed it to be finished; but a man cannot finish with a part of his life at will: life has a habit of facing about upon the person who would ignore it.