Chapter 2.IX. Lyndall's Stranger.
A fire is burning in the unused hearth of the cabin. The fuel blazesup, and lights the black rafters, and warms the faded red lions on thequilt, and fills the little room with a glow of warmth and light madebrighter by contrast, for outside the night is chill and misty.
Before the open fireplace sits a stranger, his tall, slight figurereposing in the broken armchair, his keen blue eyes studying the firefrom beneath delicately pencilled, drooping eyelids. One white handplays thoughtfully with a heavy flaxen moustache; yet, once he starts,and for an instant the languid lids raise themselves; there is a keen,intent look upon the face as he listens for something. Then he leansback in his chair, fills his glass from the silver flask in his bag, andresumes his old posture.
Presently the door opens noiselessly. It is Lyndall, followed by Doss.Quietly as she enters, he hears her, and turns.
"I thought you were not coming."
"I waited till all had gone to bed. I could not come before."
She removed the shawl that enveloped her, and the stranger rose to offerher his chair; but she took her seat on a low pile of sacks before thewindow.
"I hardly see why I should be outlawed after this fashion," he said,reseating himself and drawing his chair a little nearer to her; "theseare hardly the quarters one expects to find after travelling a hundredmiles in answer to an invitation."
"I said, 'Come if you wish.'"
"And I did wish. You give me a cold reception."
"I could not take you to the house. Questions would be asked which Icould not answer without prevarication."
"Your conscience is growing to have a certain virgin tenderness," hesaid, in a low, melodious voice.
"I have no conscience. I spoke one deliberate lie this evening. I saidthe man who had come looked rough, we had best not have him in thehouse; therefore I brought him here. It was a deliberate lie, and I hatelies. I tell them if I must, but they hurt me."
"Well, you do not tell lies to yourself, at all events. You are candid,so far."
She interrupted him.
"You got my short letter?"
"Yes; that is why I come. You sent a very foolish reply; you must takeit back. Who is this fellow you talk of marrying?"
"A young farmer."
"Lives here?"
"Yes; he has gone to town to get things for our wedding."
"What kind of a fellow is he?"
"A fool."
"And you would rather marry him than me?"
"Yes; because you are not one."
"That is a novel reason for refusing to marry a man," he said, leaninghis elbow on the table and watching her keenly.
"It is a wise one," she said shortly. "If I marry him I shall shake himoff my hand when it suits me. If I remained with him for twelve monthshe would never have dared to kiss my hand. As far as I wish he shouldcome, he comes, and no further. Would you ask me what you might and whatyou might not do?"
Her companion raised the moustache with a caressing movement from hislip and smiled. It was not a question that stood in need of any answer.
"Why do you wish to enter on this semblance of marriage?"
"Because there is only one point on which I have a conscience. I havetold you so."
"Then why not marry me?"
"Because if once you have me you would hold me fast. I shall never befree again." She drew a long, low breath.
"What have you done with the ring I gave you?" he said.
"Sometimes I wear it; then I take it off and wish to throw it into thefire; the next day I put it on again, and sometimes I kiss it."
"So you do love me a little?"
"If you were not something more to me than any other man in the world,do you think--" She paused. "I love you when I see you; but when you areaway from me I hate you."
"Then I fear I must be singularly invisible at the present moment," hesaid. "Possibly if you were to look less fixedly into the fire you mightperceive me."
He moved his chair slightly, so as to come between her and thefirelight. She raised her eyes to his face.
"If you do love me," he asked her, "why will you not marry me?"
"Because, if I had been married to you for a year I should have come tomy senses and seen that your hands and your voice are like the hands andthe voice of any other man. I cannot quite see that now. But it is allmadness. You call into activity one part of my nature; there is a higherpart that you know nothing of, that you never touch. If I marriedyou, afterward it would arise and assert itself, and I should hate youalways, as I do now sometimes."
"I like you when you grow metaphysical and analytical," he said, leaninghis face upon his hand. "Go a little further in your analysis; say, 'Ilove you with the right ventricle of my heart, but not the left, andwith the left auricle of my heart, but not the right; and, this beingthe case, my affection for you is not of a duly elevated, intellectualand spiritual nature.' I like you when you get philosophical."
She looked quietly at him; he was trying to turn her own weapons againsther.
"You are acting foolishly, Lyndall," he said, suddenly changing hismanner, and speaking earnestly, "most foolishly. You are acting like alittle child; I am surprised at you. It is all very well to have idealsand theories; but you know as well as any one can that they must not becarried into the practical world. I love you. I do not pretend that itis in any high, superhuman sense; I do not say that I should like you aswell if you were ugly and deformed, or that I should continue to prizeyou whatever your treatment of me might be, or to love you thoughyou were a spirit without any body at all. That is sentimentality forbeardless boys. Every one not a mere child (and you are not a child,except in years) knows what love between a man and a woman means. I loveyou with that love. I should not have believed it possible that Icould have brought myself twice to ask of any woman to be my wife, moreespecially one without wealth, without position, and who--"
"Yes--go on. Do not grow sorry for me. Say what you were going to--'whohas put herself into my power, and who has lost the right of meeting meon equal terms.' Say what you think. At least we two may speak the truthto one another."
Then she added after a pause:
"I believe you do love me, as much as you possibly could love anything;and I believe that when you ask me to marry you you are performing themost generous act you ever have performed in the course of your life, orever will; but, at the same time, if I had required your generosity, itwould not have been shown me. If, when I got your letter a monthago, hinting at your willingness to marry me, I had at once written,imploring you to come, you would have read the letter. 'Poor littledevil!' you would have said, and tore it up. The next week you wouldhave sailed for Europe, and have sent me a check for a hundred and fiftypounds (which I would have thrown in the fire), and I would have heardno more of you."
The stranger smiled.
"But because I declined your proposal, and wrote that in three weeksI should be married to another, then what you call love woke up. Yourman's love is a child's love for butterflies. You follow till you havethe thing, and break it. If you have broken one wing, and the thingflies still, then you love it more than ever, and follow till you breakboth; then you are satisfied when it lies still on the ground."
"You are profoundly wise in the ways of the world; you have seen farinto life," he said.
He might as well have sneered at the firelight.
"I have seen enough to tell me that you love me because you cannot bearto be resisted, and want to master me. You liked me at first becauseI treated you and all men with indifference. You resolved to have mebecause I seemed unattainable. This is all your love means."
He felt a strong inclination to stoop down and kiss the little lips thatdefied him; but he restrained himself. He said, quietly: "And you lovedme--"
"Because you are strong. You are the first man I ever was afraid of.And"--a dreamy look came into her face--"because I like to experience, Ilike to try. You don't understand that."
br /> He smiled.
"Well, since you will not marry me, may I inquire what your intentionsare, the plan you wrote of. You asked me to come and hear it, and I havecome."
"I said, 'Come if you wish.' If you agree to it, well; if not, I marryon Monday."
"Well?"
She was still looking beyond him at the fire.
"I cannot marry you," she said slowly, "because I cannot be tied; but ifyou wish, you may take me away with you, and take care of me; thenwhen we do not love any more we can say good-bye. I will not go downcountry," she added; "I will not go to Europe. You must take me to theTransvaal. That is out of the world. People we meet there we need notsee again in our future lives."
"Oh, my darling," he said, bending tenderly, and holding his hand outto her, "why will you not give yourself entirely to me? One day you willdesert me and go to another."
She shook her head without looking at him.
"No, life is too long. But I will go with you."
"When?"
"Tomorrow. I have told them that before daylight I go to the next farm.I will write from the town and tell them the facts. I do not want themto trouble me; I want to shake myself free of these old surroundings; Iwant them to lose sight of me. You can understand that is necessary forme."
He seemed lost in consideration; then he said:
"It is better to have you on those conditions than not at all. If youwill have it, let it be so."
He sat looking at her. On her face was the weary look that rested thereso often now when she sat alone. Two months had not passed sincethey parted; but the time had set its mark on her. He looked at hercarefully, from the brown, smooth head to the little crossed feet on thefloor. A worn look had grown over the little face, and it made its charmfor him stronger. For pain and time, which trace deep lines and write astory on a human face, have a strangely different effect on one face andanother. The face that is only fair, even very fair, they mar and flaw;but to the face whose beauty is the harmony between that which speaksfrom within and the form through which it speaks, power is added by allthat causes the outer man to bear more deeply the impress of the inner.The pretty woman fades with the roses on her cheeks, and the girlhoodthat lasts an hour; the beautiful woman finds her fullness of bloomonly when a past has written itself on her, and her power is then mostirresistible when it seems going.
From under their half-closed lids the keen eyes looked down at her. Hershoulders were bent; for a moment the little figure had forgotten itsqueenly bearing, and drooped wearily; the wide, dark eyes watched thefire very softly.
It certainly was not in her power to resist him, nor any strength in herthat made his own at that moment grow soft as he looked at her.
He touched one little hand that rested on her knee.
"Poor little thing!" he said; "you are only a child."
She did not draw her hand away from his, and looked up at him.
"You are very tired?"
"Yes."
She looked into his eyes as a little child might whom a long day's playhad saddened.
He lifted her gently up, and sat her on his knee.
"Poor little thing!" he said.
She turned her face to his shoulder, and buried it against his neck; hewound his strong arm about her, and held her close to him. When she hadsat for a long while, he drew with his hand the face down, and heldit against his arm. He kissed it, and then put it back in its oldresting-place.
"Don't you want to talk to me?"
"No."
"Have you forgotten the night in the avenue?"
He could feel that she shook her head.
"Do you want to be quiet now?"
"Yes."
They sat quite still, excepting that only sometimes he raised herfingers softly to his mouth.
Doss, who had been asleep in the corner, waking suddenly, plantedhimself before them, his wiry legs moving nervously, his yellow eyesfilled with anxiety. He was not at all sure that she was not beingretained in her present position against her will, and was not a littlerelieved when she sat up and held out her hand for the shawl.
"I must go," she said.
The stranger wrapped the shawl very carefully about her.
"Keep it close around your face, Lyndall; it is very damp outside. ShallI walk with you to the house?"
"No. Lie down and rest; I will come and wake you at three o'clock."
She lifted her face that he might kiss it, and, when he had kissed itonce, she still held it that he might kiss it again. Then he let herout. He had seated himself at the fireplace, when she reopened the door.
"Have you forgotten anything?"
"No."
She gave one long, lingering look at the old room. When she was gone,and the door shut, the stranger filled his glass, and sat at the tablesipping it thoughtfully.
The night outside was misty and damp; the faint moonlight, trying toforce its way through the thick air, made darkly visible the outlines ofthe buildings. The stones and walls were moist, and now and then a drop,slowly collecting, fell from the eaves to the ground. Doss, not likingthe change from the cabin's warmth, ran quickly to the kitchen doorstep;but his mistress walked slowly past him, and took her way up the windingfootpath that ran beside the stone wall of the camps. When she cameto the end of the last camp, she threaded her way among the stones andbushes till she reached the German's grave. Why she had come there shehardly knew; she stood looking down. Suddenly she bent and put one handon the face of a wet stone.
"I shall never come to you again," she said.
Then she knelt on the ground, and leaned her face upon the stones.
"Dear old man, good old man, I am so tired!" she said (for we will cometo the dead to tell secrets we would never have told to the living)."I am so tired. There is light, there is warmth," she wailed; "why am Ialone, so hard, so cold? I am so weary of myself! It is eating mysoul to its core--self, self, self! I cannot bear this life! I cannotbreathe, I cannot live! Will nothing free me from myself?" She pressedher cheek against the wooden post. "I want to love! I want somethinggreat and pure to lift me to itself! Dear old man, I cannot bear it anymore! I am so cold, so hard, so hard; will no one help me?"
The water gathered slowly on her shawl, and fell on to the wet stones;but she lay there crying bitterly. For so the living soul will cry tothe dead, and the creature to its God; and of all this crying therecomes nothing. The lifting up of the hands brings no salvation;redemption is from within, and neither from God nor man; it is wroughtout by the soul itself, with suffering and through time.
Doss, on the kitchen doorstep, shivered, and wondered where his mistressstayed so long; and once, sitting sadly there in the damp, he haddropped asleep, and dreamed that old Otto gave him a piece of bread,and patted him on the head, and when he woke his teeth chattered, andhe moved to another stone to see if it was drier. At last he heard hismistress' step, and they went into the house together. She lit a candle,and walked to the Boer-woman's bedroom. On a nail under the lady inpink hung the key of the wardrobe. She took it down and opened the greatpress. From a little drawer she took fifty pounds (all she had in theworld), relocked the door, and turned to hang up the key. The marksof tears were still on her face, but she smiled. Then she paused,hesitated.
"Fifty pounds for a lover! A noble reward!" she said, and opened thewardrobe and returned the notes to the drawer, where Em might find them.
Once in her own room, she arranged the few articles she intended to taketomorrow, burnt her old letters, and then went back to the front room tolook at the time. There were two hours yet before she must call him. Shesat down at the dressing-table to wait, and leaned her elbows on it, andburied her face in her hands. The glass reflected the little brown headwith its even parting, and the tiny hands on which it rested. "One day Iwill love something utterly, and then I will be better," she said once.Presently she looked up. The large, dark eyes from the glass looked backat her. She looked deep into them.
"We are all alone, you and I," she
whispered; "no one helps us, no oneunderstands us; but we will help ourselves." The eyes looked back ather. There was a world of assurance in their still depths. So they hadlooked at her ever since she could remember, when it was but a smallchild's face above a blue pinafore. "We shall never be quite alone, youand I," she said; "we shall always be together, as we were when we werelittle."
The beautiful eyes looked into the depths of her soul.
"We are not afraid; we will help ourselves!" she said. She stretchedout her hand and pressed it over them on the glass. "Dear eyes! we willnever be quite alone till they part us--till then!"