The Weavers Part 32

A quick laugh pa.s.sed David's lips. "Men are not made so easily. I think I know the trowel and the mortar that built that wall! Thee will marry him, friend?"

Her eyes burned as she looked at him. She had been eternally dispossessed of what every woman has the right to have--one memory possessing the elements of beauty. Even if it remain but for the moment, yet that moment is hers by right of her s.e.x, which is denied the wider rights of those they love and serve. She had tasted the cup of bitterness and drunk of the waters of sacrifice. Married life had no lure for her. She wanted none of it. The seed of service had, however, taken root in a nature full of fire and light and power, undisciplined and undeveloped as it was. She wished to do something--the spirit of toil, the first habit of the life of the poor, the natural medium for the good that may be in them, had possession of her.

This man was to her the symbol of work. To have cared for his home, to have looked after his daily needs, to have sheltered him humbly from little things, would have been her one true happiness. And this was denied her. Had she been a man, it would have been so easy. She could have offered to be his servant; could have done those things which she could do better than any, since hers would be a heart-service.

But even as she looked at him now, she had a flash of insight and prescience. She had, from little things said or done, from newspapers marked and a hundred small indications, made up her mind that her mistress's mind dwelt much upon "the Egyptian." The thought flashed now that she might serve this man, after all; that a day might come when she could say that she had played a part in his happiness, in return for all he had done for her. Life had its chances--and strange things had happened. In her own mind she had decided that her mistress was not happy, and who could tell what might happen? Men did not live for ever!

The thought came and went, but it left behind a determination to answer David as she felt.

"I will not marry Jasper," she answered slowly. "I want work, not marriage."

"There would be both," he urged.

"With women there is the one or the other, not both."

"Thee could help him. He has done credit to himself, and he can do good work for England. Thee can help him."

"I want work alone, not marriage, sir."

"He would pay thee his debt."

"He owes me nothing. What happened was no fault of his, but of the life we were born in. He tired of me, and left me. Husbands tire of their wives, but stay on and beat them."

"He drove thee mad almost, I remember."

"Wives go mad and are never cured, so many of them. I've seen them die, poor things, and leave the little ones behind. I had the luck wi' me. I took the right turning at the cross-roads yonder."

"Thee must be Jasper's wife if he asks thee again," he urged.

"He will come when I call, but I will not call," she answered.

"But still thee will marry him when the heart is ready," he persisted.

"It shall be ready soon. He needs thee. Good-bye, friend. Leave Soolsby alone. He will be safe. And do not tell him that I have seen him so." He stooped over and touched the old man's shoulder gently.

He held out his hand to her. She took it, then suddenly leaned over and kissed it. She could not speak.

He stepped to the door and looked out. Behind the Red Mansion the sun was setting, and the far garden looked cool and sweet. He gave a happy sigh, and stepped out and down.

As he disappeared, the woman dropped into a chair, her arms upon a table. Her body shook with sobs. She sat there for an hour, and then, when the sun was setting, she left the drunken man sleeping, and made her way down the hill to the Cloistered House. Entering, she was summoned to her mistress's room. "I did not expect my lady so soon," she said, surprised.

"No; we came sooner than we expected. Where have you been?"

"At Soolsby's hut on the hill, my lady."

"Who is Soolsby?"

Kate told her all she knew, and of what had happened that afternoon--but not all.

CHAPTER XXI. "THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED"

A fortnight had pa.s.sed since they had come to Hamley--David, Eglington, and Hylda--and they had all travelled a long distance in mutual understanding during that time, too far, thought Luke Claridge, who remained neutral and silent. He would not let Faith go to the Cloistered House, though he made no protest against David going; because he recognised in these visits the duty of diplomacy and the business of the nation--more particularly David's business, which, in his eyes, swallowed all. Three times David had gone to the Cloistered House; once Hylda and he had met in the road leading to the old mill, and once at Soolsby's hut. Twice, also, in the garden of his old home he had seen her, when she came to visit Faith, who had captured her heart at once.

Eglington and Faith had not met, however. He was either busy in his laboratory, or with his books, or riding over the common and through the woods, and their courses lay apart.

But there came an afternoon when Hylda and David were a long hour together at the Cloistered House. They talked freely of his work in Egypt. At last she said: "And Nahoum Pasha?"

"He has kept faith."

"He is in high place again?"

"He is a good administrator."

"You put him there!"

"Thee remembers what I said to him, that night in Cairo?"

Hylda closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Had there been a word spoken that night when she and David and Nahoum met which had not bitten into her soul! That David had done so much in Egypt without ruin or death was a tribute to his power. Nevertheless, though Nahoum had not struck yet, she was certain he would one day. All that David now told her of the vicissitudes of his plans, and Nahoum's sympathy and help, only deepened this conviction. She could well believe that Nahoum gave David money from his own pocket, which he replaced by extortion from other sources, while gaining credit with David for co-operation.

Armenian Christian Nahoum might be, but he was ranged with the East against the West, with the reactionary and corrupt against advance, against civilisation and freedom and equality. Nahoum's Christianity was permeated with Orientalism, the Christian belief obscured by the theism of the Muslim. David was in a deadlier struggle than he knew. Yet it could serve no good end to attempt to warn him now. He had outlived peril so far; might it not be that, after all, he would win?

So far she had avoided Nahoum's name in talks with David. She could scarcely tell why she did, save that it opened a door better closed, as it were; but the restraint had given way at last.

"Thee remembers what I said that night?" David repeated slowly.

"I remember--I understand. You devise your course and you never change.

It is like building on a rock. That is why nothing happens to you as bad as might happen."

"Nothing bad ever happens to me."

"The philosophy of the desert," she commented smiling. "You are living in the desert even when you are here. This is a dream; the desert and Egypt only are real.

"That is true, I think. I seem sometimes like a sojourner here, like a spirit 'revisiting the scenes of life and time.'" He laughed boyishly.

"Yet you are happy here. I understand now why and how you are what you are. Even I that have been here so short a time feel the influence upon me. I breathe an air that, somehow, seems a native air. The spirit of my Quaker grandmother revives in me. Sometimes I sit hours thinking, scarcely stirring; and I believe I know now how people might speak to each other without words. Your Uncle Benn and you--it was so with you, was it not? You heard his voice speaking to you sometimes; you understood what he meant to say to you? You told me so long ago."

David inclined his head. "I heard him speak as one might speak through a closed door. Sometimes, too, in the desert I have heard Faith speak to me."

"And your grandfather?"

"Never my grandfather--never. It would seem as though, in my thoughts, I could never reach him; as though ma.s.ses of opaque things lay between.

Yet he and I--there is love between us. I don't know why I never hear him."

"Tell me of your childhood, of your mother. I have seen her grave under the ash by the Meeting-house, but I want to know of her from you."

"Has not Faith told you?"

"We have only talked of the present. I could not ask her; but I can ask you. I want to know of your mother and you together."