The Shadow of the Past Part 6

She felt distinctly aggrieved. And she held a prejudice against these expeditions when her young companion formed one of the number. There was something not altogether seemly in the idea.

"I hope you won't be very late," she said.

Brenda followed the party from the house, and contrived to separate from it outside the gate. She took an unnecessary turn round a block of buildings, and came out again upon the main road and made her way on to the beach. Matheson came forward eagerly and caught her hands.

"Didn't I say you'd manage it?--clever person! Now, which is it to be?--into town, or a last pilgrimage to the spot we visited that first evening? It depends on whether your mood demands amus.e.m.e.nt or solitude."

Her answer pleased him.

"My mood demands neither... I want companionship, and the old spot."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

There are a thousand beauties of the night, as there are varied shades in the qualities of light and colour, many of them so subtly blended, so dependent on sympathetic conditions, that they are not revealed to every one equally. Beauty is interpreted according to the mood and temperament of the individual. There is beauty in a brick wall when the mind is in harmony with its subject; there is beauty in ugliness where ugliness is not divorced from the soul; there is beauty in everything when youth stands on the threshold of its wonder world and gazes into the shining distances that disclose romance. Romance coruscates in shining distances, like the splendid bewilderment of the Northern Lights: one cannot reach out and grasp these wonders--to take hold of romance is to lose it; to attempt to decrease the distance is to dull the golden vista and distort the fine sense of proportions. As well attempt to bottle material fact with imagination; fermentation would inevitably set up and the result be catastrophe.

With feet planted lightly on the slippery rocks, and a strong hand holding her hand to steady her progress over the wet weed, Brenda looked out across the expanse of darkening ocean that flowed away to the horizon, beyond it, till it flung its spent waters upon the quiet sh.o.r.es on the other side of the world, and her eyes were big, and filled with the wondering content that is born of happiness. All the beauties that were in the night were revealed to her. The sensuous warmth enfolded her like the embrace of a lover; the sound of the sea was magic music in her ears, and the salt breath of the spray, which tightened the tendrils of her hair into ringlets, pressed with the flavour of salt kisses on her lips, acrid kisses, moist and stimulating, that stung the lips they caressed. And behind and above her towered the dark mystery of the land, the frowning heights of grey rock that defied the sea's advance and guarded that vast hinterland so jealously hidden behind the mountain-girt sh.o.r.es.

She came to a halt abruptly, and stood still, and looked down at the sea which bubbled at her feet in the interstices of the rocks, and made a soft splashing sound amongst the weed. She was not observing things consciously; her mind was intent on the man beside her, busy with the moment, and, despite the moment's happiness, oppressed with the sense of finality which the impending parting conveyed. She desired to be a bright and cheerful companion, and instead she was proving, she feared, rather dull. The warm, firm clasp of his hand somewhat confused her ideas. The baldest commonplace was all the utterance she found it possible to make.

"To-morrow at this time you will be in the train," she remarked suddenly, snapping the silence which was beginning to embarra.s.s her.

"Yes," he answered. "Awful bore, isn't it? The heat will be intolerable. I shall be cursing fate, and wishing myself back here...

on this rock with you. It's good, isn't it? Lift your face and feel the breeze on your cheek. It's like a breath--nature's cool sweet breath. And that jolly little duck of the sea between the rocks...

Will you come here again afterwards?"

"No," she replied, and did not give, nor did he ask for, a reason. "We go back in a week," she added.

"And then the holiday comes to an end?"

"Yes."

"Well, my play time is finished too. I thought it would last longer, but necessity demands that I should earn a living. Why wasn't I born a Kaffir? No Kaffir need work unless he wants to. He settles down on another man's land, and eats another man's mealies, and makes pretence of being useful in return. It's an enviable existence."

"Oftener he lives by his wife's exertions," she said.

"There are white Kaffirs who do that," he rejoined--"plenty of them across the water. I don't fancy civilisation can reproach him there. I rather like the coloured man. Do you?"

"Custom is everything; I'm used to him," she said. "I'm South African, you know--born in the Colony. I have never been home."

It occurred to him as odd that she should speak of a country she had never seen as "home." He had noticed this peculiarity frequently since he had arrived in the country. To the Colonial of British extraction England was always home. It conveyed a sense of unwilling exile that struck like a reproach at the golden welcome of this radiant land which men of many nations have suffered and died for, and women also in the days of the early pioneers. The sting of ingrat.i.tude lay in the idea.

"Home, as you call it, is but another lump of mother earth set down under colder skies," he said. "And our skins over there aren't all white although they ought to be. I like new countries. If I possess the indolence of a Kaffir, the push and the enterprise of youth appeals to me. A young country is unspoilt; it offers immense possibilities.

And the route isn't mile-stoned with precedents which may not be ignored. Incidentally, there are greater facilities for getting on without interest, and sometimes with an infinitesimal degree of energy."

"No," she contradicted; "it is seldom the lazy man who gets on out here."

"Don't discourage me," he pleaded, and turned a smiling face towards her, and looked deep into her eyes. "I'm for taking the smooth path all the way. Why not? Why make such a business of living? It ought to be quite a simple thing."

He was standing very close to her, still holding her hand which he pressed against his side. Her face in the deepening dusk showed misty and uncertain of outline, and the eyes meeting his in the dimness were just dark shadows glowing in their white setting; but he knew that the soft pensive look was in them which he liked to see there had the light been sufficient to reveal it.

"I wonder if I might kiss you?" he said, and bent forward in the warm dusk and found her lips.

"It was sweet of you to allow that," he said. "A little kindness is a touch of heaven to a lonely man."

He was not to know how much more that kiss signified to the girl than it did to him. No man had ever kissed her before that night. She did not then respond to the caress, but she accepted it. As his lips descended warmly upon her mouth she felt her face grow hot, and was grateful to the darkness for hiding her confusion; her heart gave a bound and started racing at a great rate; it seemed to her that, standing so close, he must hear it pounding inside her chest.

If he observed her emotion he did not remark on it. The touch of the cool unresponding lips with the salt flavour of the sea upon them moved him unaccountably; but some quality that was compounded of the audacity and sensitiveness of youth, nicely balanced with the discretion of a more matured mind, decided him to ignore the little episode until he had further determined its importance in relation to events. It was never wise to precipitate things.

"Let's get off the rocks," he said. "There's our little strip of sand waiting for us up yonder. The moon will be later to-night. But it doesn't matter, does it? We're in no hurry. And anyway we should never get back in the dark without coming to grief."

He tucked his hand under her arm and a.s.sisted her over the rocks. She slipped once, and clutched at him desperately, and nearly upset his balance as well as her own. When with difficulty he maintained his ground and succeeded in holding her up, they remained for a moment or two with his arms about her and laughed recklessly over the averted mishap.

"You're so strong," she said.

"It's just luck," he observed, "that we aren't playing at mixed bathing instead of standing high and dry. There's a certain excitement in walking on the rocks. I'm enjoying this."

Brenda was enjoying it also; she felt rather sorry when they reached the sand and sat down, and, there being no longer a reason for the attention, he released her hand.

"I want you, if you will," he said presently, "to give me some address that will find you after you leave here. I want to write to you--if I may."

She was silent for a s.p.a.ce. He was lying on the sand beside her, looking up into her face; while she hesitated she looked down at him.

"I thought it was a case of ships that pa.s.s in the night," she said.

"No," he answered quietly; "I never intended it should be that."

"I can give you Mrs Graham's address," she said, after a further pause.

"But that, of course, is only temporary."

"How about your home address?" he suggested.

"I haven't one," she answered, and started to play with the sand. "We broke that up when my father... He was unfortunate," she finished in a flattened voice.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. He felt that he had blundered upon a painful subject; the father was evidently one of those people whom their relations prefer to ignore. "I'll have Mrs Graham's address anyhow, and follow up the changes. This friendship has got to develop, you know. It wouldn't be fair to me if you drew bade now after extending the hand of good-fellowship."

"Oh! I'm not drawing back," she said, and ceased fidgeting with the sand and sat nursing her knees, and watching the moving blackness below.

"I've derived much pleasure from the friendship. It's been... Well, there have been perfect moments..."

"To-night?" he questioned.

"To-night--yes."

Her voice dropped to a whisper in making the admission; she spoke with an effort; there was a suggestion of a great deal which she might have said but determinedly repressed in her manner. The darkness crept closer and hid the blush that warmed her face.

"It's rotten having to go to-morrow," he said. "I'm sorry I have to go.

I've enjoyed this week--oh! more than I have enjoyed anything since landing. I would have liked to have seen the holiday out with you.

Perhaps some day..."