The Way of the Spirit

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

with his usual chivalry, Rupert, ignoring the Dick side of the business, came to the rescue and explained that he, and he alone, was responsible for Edith’s stopping in England, giving the reasons with which we are acquainted.

Lady Devene listened patiently as she always did to Rupert while he blundered through his story.

When it was finished, Edith, who had found time to collect herself, said in a somewhat offended voice:

“You see now you were unjust to me, Tabitha. I – I wished to go.”

Next moment she wished something else, namely, that she had remained silent, for Lady Devene answered with calm conviction:

“Indeed – is it so? Then I am sorry you have not more influence with him. It would have been better that you should go. Why did you tell him that you were afraid of the hot sun and of the cholera sickness? He would not have thought of it himself, who is afraid of nothing. Come, the subject is unpleasant; let us go upstairs and talk of the wedding presents.”

So they went and not too soon, for what between doubt, anger, and a guilty conscience, Edith was on the verge of tears.

That night after Rupert had departed Edith and Lord Devene spoke together in the library.

“What is the meaning of all this?” he said to her. “First, tell me, who engineered this mission of Rupert’s? Did you?”

“No, indeed,” she answered, with passion, filled for once with conscious innocence. “How can you accuse me of such a thing?”

151

H. RIDER HAGGARD

“I am glad to hear it,” he replied, taking no notice of her indignation. “Then, as I thought, it was Dick. Be quiet and listen! Rupert’s employment was suggested more than a week ago. I heard about it in the House of Lords and put a stopper on it. I know that Dick saw Southwick yesterday, because the latter mentioned it in a note to me, since which time the idea has revived. You can form your own conclusions.”

“It is impossible,” broke in Edith. “He would never be so mean.”

“You have a high idea of your cousin, whom, for my part, I think capable of anything low. Well, it does not matter, it is done and cannot be undone. Now of course Tabitha was right. I admire her power of getting to the heart of things. Whatever may have passed between you, it was you who would not go to Egypt, not Rupert who would not take you. You know well enough that you could have made him take you; you could have refused to be left behind; but you talked about sea-sick- ness and heat and cholera – he let it all out at table.”

Edith sat silent. As other women had found before her, it was useless to argue with this remorseless man, especially when he had truth upon his side.

“Now,” he went on, “why did you refuse to go? Oh, pray, save yourself the trouble of invention. I will tell you. As Tabitha says, because there is still too much Dick. You do not like the man who is going to be your husband, Edith; you shrink from him; oh, I have seen you clench your hand and set your lips when he touched you. You are glad of this opportunity to postpone your married life. It has even occurred to you,” and he bent over her and looked her in the eyes, “that from such mis-

152

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

sions as this, men often do not come back, as it has occurred to Dick. They pass away in a blaze of glory and become immortal, like Gordon, or they vanish silently, unnoted, and unremembered, like many another man almost as brave and great as he.” Edith could bear it no longer, but sprang to her feet with a

cry of: “Not that! Not that!”

“Not that, as yet, but all the rest, eh?”

“If so, am I responsible?” she answered. “Did I make my own heart, and who forced me into this marriage?”

“Oh, please understand me, Edith. I do not in the least blame you for disliking Rupert; indeed it is a sentiment in which you have my hearty sympathy, for no one can dislike him more than I do, or, I may add, with better cause. As for the rest, I suggested the marriage to you, I did not force you into that marriage. I still suggest it for the most excellent reasons which far over-ride petty personal likes or dislikes, but still I do not force you. Make this mission of Rupert’s an excuse for postponing it if you will, after which it can quietly drop out of sight. Only then, remember, that a document which I have signed to-day goes into the fire, or rather two documents, a settlement and a will. Remember that Dick goes out of this house, and as a consequence, out of the house of Commons also and into the gutter which Nature has fitted him to adorn. And lastly, remember that henceforth you make your own way in the world and provide for your own necessities. Now you will understand that I force you to nothing, for where that precious organ which they call their hearts are concerned, high-minded women – like yourself – will not let such material trifles weigh with them.”

153

H. RIDER HAGGARD

Edith stood still as a statue. Then drawing the rose from her bosom she began to tear it to pieces, petal by petal. Lord Devene lit a cigarette, and waited till the rose was stripped down to its calyx.

“Well,” he asked, “does the oracle declare itself? I daresay it is as likely to be correct as any other,” and he glanced at the petals on the floor and the stalk in her hand.

“Why are you so cruel to me?” Edith moaned, thereby acknowledging that she had found her master, and letting the stalk fall. “It is not manly to mock a defenceless woman who has many troubles.”

A shade of compunction passed across his steely face, of affection even.

“Forgive me,” he said, “I do not wish to hurt you, but we are people of the world, and have to deal with facts, not with sentiments and fancies. I put the facts clearly, that is all.”

“What are your facts?” went on Edith. “That I am in love with Dick Learmer. I deny it. I am not, and never have been; but this is true, that he does in some way attract me, one side of me, even when with my mind I dislike and despise him. That I detest Rupert whom I am going to marry. I deny it; but it is true that he repels me, one side of me, even when with my mind I appreciate and honour him, who is worth all of us, except perhaps Tabitha. As a father or a brother I should adore Rupert Ullershaw. Now you think that I am going to marry him for the money and the prospects, and from fear of your anger – it is not altogether so. I do not know if you will understand me, or even if I can make myself intelligible. But I tell you that although it would ruin me, for I know you keep your

154

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

word, I would do what you suggest and postpone this marriage as a preliminary to breaking it off, were it not for one thing. It is this. I feel as though that personal aversion which I have is but accidental and temporary, that a time may and must come when it will break down and vanish, and that then I shall love him as I desire to do, with my heart, my body, and my soul.”

Lord Devene stared at her.

“Curious and most interesting,” he said. “No; that is not satire. I quite believe you, and I think it very likely that what you feel in yourself will come about – probably too late. Meanwhile, to deal with the evil of the present day, are you going to accompany him to Egypt or will you await the coming of this – this psychological change of the inner woman?”

Edith evidently had no spirit left to enable her to reply to this barbed shaft. She only said:

“I will offer again to go to Egypt with him. Indeed now I wish to go, away from all of you. And I wish, too, that I might die there, even of that horrid cholera,” she added fiercely. “But I tell you that I know Rupert, and that it is now, as you say, too late. After that wretched scene at dinner he will never take me, because he will think that to do so would be to cast a reflection upon me, and to admit that it was I who did not wish to accompany him, not he who did not wish to take me.”

“Possibly,” answered Lord Devene. “I have always found the loosing of knots very difficult; the wise people are those who do not tie them.”

Then she crept away to bed broken and sore-hearted. After she had gone Lord Devene smoked two more cigarettes. Next he sat down and drafted a letter with great care, which ulti-

155

H. RIDER HAGGARD

mately he copied out, directed to Colonel Ullershaw, and put away.

Here it may be stated that Edith proved to be absolutely right. Although he would have given nearly all he had to take her with him, when it was put to him on the morrow in the presence of Lord Devene, in spite of everything that Edith could say, Rupert positively refused to consent to her coming, and for the exact reasons which she foresaw would sway him. He was too loyal to do anything which he thought would in the smallest degree asperse her. When Lord Devene intervened, moreover, he only answered haughtily that he was the best judge of the matter which concerned his wife and himself alone.

Thus, then, this question was finally decided.

* * *

The impression left upon Rupert’s mind by his wedding was hazy and tumultuous. Most of that morning he had been obliged to spend at the War Office arranging the details of his mission. Thence he rushed home to finish his packing, dress, and convey his luggage to Charing Cross, finally arriving at St. George’s, Hanover Square, only a few minutes before the bride.

The best man, his old Indian friend whom he had gone to stay with on the day after his engagement, hustled him into a pew, scolding him for being late, telling him to put on his gloves, and asking him what he had done with the ring, which was only discovered after great difficulty. Vaguely Rupert noticed that the place was crowded with fashionable-looking people, who all seemed to be staring at him, as he thought, because his hair was untidy, which it was. Then the organ began to play, and the fashionable congregation turned and stared

156

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

down the aisle, while his friend trod on his foot, poked him in the ribs, and adjured him in a loud whisper to wake up and look alive, as the bride was coming.

He looked, and there, followed by her train of bridesmaids – tall, pale, lovely – white and wonderful in her shimmering satin and pearls, Edith floated towards him up the aisle like a vision out of heaven. From that moment Rupert saw nothing else, not even Lord Devene, who gave her away. The brilliant congregation, the robed bishop and clergymen, the fussy and ubiquitous best man, the smiling bridesmaids, the stony Lord Southwick, all vanished into space. Nothing remained save the pale, earnest face of Edith in which the eyes shone like stars at dawn. Nothing did he seem to hear save her whispered “I will.”

It was over; he remembered signing a book, kissing his wife and mother, and driving with the former in a fine carriage to Grosvenor Square. She asked him whether he had got all his luggage safely to the station, and then it seemed that of a sudden, before he had even time to answer, they arrived at the house, where policemen were keeping a passage clear beneath an awning. As he helped Edith to descend from the carriage an old woman remarked audibly:

“Pore fellow, he don’t know what he’s in for!” which struck him as an unkind saying.

Then came the reception, a long, long ceremony, remarkable for the multitude of strange faces and for a room set out with wedding gifts which were “numerous and costly.” Champagne was drunk also, and the bride’s health proposed by Lord Southwick, who described her as one of the loveliest and most

157

H. RIDER HAGGARD

charming young ladies in London, a truth at which everyone cheered, for it was obvious. He ended with a panegyric on Rupert himself, briefly recapitulating his services and the distinctions which he had won, which were, he was convinced, only earnests of those greater distinctions that remained for him to win. Finally, he regretted that the call of duty, to which this gallant officer had never been able to turn a deaf ear, forced him to separate, he was glad to say for but a short while only, from his beautiful and new-wed wife.

Rupert replied, thanking the proposer and the company for their good wishes. He added that there were trials which all men had to face unexpectedly, and this early and sudden separation was one of the greatest that had come to him, especially as it had obliged him to refuse his wife’s first request, that she might be allowed to accompany him to Egypt, which he was forced to do because of the cholera that was raging there.

Then he stopped, and Edith thanked him for his words with a grateful smile while the guests began to melt away. Dick sauntered up, beautifully arrayed, and remarking sympathetically that they had only three hours before the departure of the train, asked, in a voice loud enough to attract general attention, where they had finally decided to spend their honeymoon.

Edith drew herself up and answered: “Here in London when Rupert returns from the Soudan, or perhaps in Egypt,” after which public announcement, until they were together in the carriage going to the station, her husband found it impossible to secure even a private word with her. Again the subtle Dick had succeeded in adding one more course to the wall which it was his evil aim to build between Rupert and his wife.

158

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

The one thing which always stood out in Rupert’s mind above the level of the grey and dim confusion of this marriage, like a black mountain-point from an evening mist, was his farewell to his mother. While he made his last preparations for his journey, finding that Edith was not with him, she came timidly to the room and sat by his side. Mrs. Ullershaw was sad, but strove to conquer her mood, or at any rate, to hide it, speaking cheerfully of the honour that had been done him by the Government and the advantage that he might hope for as a consequence. Rupert, too, strove to be cheerful, though the forest of gloom that fell on him, colder and yet more cold, nipped his heart and killed all joy. She felt it, and at length, poor loving woman, her grief got the better of her and she burst into tears.

“Oh, why does not Edith accompany you?” she said. “I cannot bear to think of your going out there alone within three hours of your marriage. If only I could have had a little more time, ill and feeble as I am, I would have come with you as far as Cairo, for, my boy, my boy! how can I know that I shall ever see you again?”

Then after his manner Rupert turned and faced the situation, simply and plainly.

“You can’t know, dearest mother,” he said, “neither of us can know; but what does it matter? Sooner or later that separation must come, but fortunately we are both of us convinced that it will be the last. Even to-day when I should be so happy, I cannot pretend that the world satisfies me; indeed it seems as full of pains and troubles as ever, for things have gone wrong, and my anxieties are increased. Well, very soon the world will

159

H. RIDER HAGGARD

pass from beneath our feet, and then, as you have taught me and I am sure, the true life begins. This I promise, as I promised you years ago, that while I live I will try to be honest and upright as you are, so that at the last we may be together again. If you go first, then wait for me, as, if I should be called away, I will wait for you.”

She turned her streaming face towards him and smiled and there was something in the smile that frightened and thrilled him, for it was not altogether of the earth.

“I know it,” she whispered – “all, all. It is true, and I bless God who has tied us together everlastingly. They are calling you. Go, Rupert. No, I cannot come, I do not wish those people to see my grief. Go; and God’s blessing and mine go with you, as they shall,” and she laid her trembling hand upon his head in benediction while he knelt beside her.

Then he kissed her and they parted.

In the hall they were all waiting, Edith in the charming travelling-dress which she had designed for her going away. He said good-bye to them, Lord Devene remarking with a smile that he was afraid he was already beginning to find out that even matrimony, though it was said to have descended from on high, could not escape its share of the shadow. Dick congratulated him warmly upon things in general and wished that he had his chance which, he was sure, would bring him every sort of good fortune, whereon Lady Devene muttered, “Unberufen!” and looked indignantly at Edith, and the saturnine butler, who, thrusting aside the footman, showed him to the carriage – for he was really attached to Rupert – muttered

160