XXX
The serene life came all to an end very suddenly, and with no warning.One day I had been sitting with Cynthia, and the child was playing onthe floor with some little things--stones, bits of sticks, nuts--whichit had collected. It was a mysterious game too, accompanied with muchimpressive talk and gesticulations, much emphatic lecturing ofrecalcitrant pebbles, with interludes of unaccountable laughter. We hadbeen watching the child, when Cynthia leaned across to me and said:
"There is something in your mind, dear, which I cannot quite see into.It has been there for a long time, and I have not liked to ask you aboutit. Won't you tell me what it is?"
"Yes, of course," I said; "I will tell you anything I can."
"It has nothing to do with me," said Cynthia, "nor with the child; itis about yourself, I think; and it is not altogether a happy thought."
"It is not unhappy," I said, "because I am very happy and verywell-content. It is just this, I think. You know, don't you, how I wasbeing employed, before I came back, God be praised, to find you? I wasbeing trained, very carefully and elaborately trained, I won't say tohelp people, but to be of use in a way. Well, I have been wondering whyall that was suspended and cut short, just when I seemed to be finishingmy training. I have been much happier here than I ever was before, ofcourse. Indeed I have been so happy that I have sometimes thought italmost wrong that any one should have so much to enjoy. But I ampuzzled, because the other work seems thrown away. If you wonder whetherI want to leave our life here and go back to the other, of course I donot; but I have felt idle, and like a boy turned down from a high classat school to a low one."
"That is not very complimentary to me!" said Cynthia, laughing. "Supposewe say a boy who has been working too hard for his health, and has beengiven a long holiday?"
"Yes," I said, "that is better. It is as if a clerk was told that heneed not attend his office, but stay at home; and though it is pleasantenough, he feels as if he ought to be at his work, that he appreciateshis home all the more when he can't sit reading the paper all themorning, and that he does not love his home less, but rather more,because he is away all the day."
"Yes," said Cynthia, "that is sensible enough; and I am amazed sometimesthat you can be so good and patient about it all--so content to be somuch with me and baby here; but I don't think it is quite--what shall Isay?--quite healthy either!"
"Well," I said, "I have no wish to change; and here, I am glad to think,there is never any doubt about what one is meant to do."
And so the subject dropped.
How little I thought then that this was to be the end of the old scene,and that the curtain was to draw up so suddenly upon a new one.
But the following morning I had been wandering contentedly enough in thewood, watching the shafts of light strike in among the trees, upon theglittering fronds of the ferns, and thinking idly of all my strangeexperiences. I came home, and to my surprise, as I came to the door,I heard talk going on inside. I went hastily in, and saw that Cynthiawas not alone. She was sitting, looking very grave and serious, andwonderfully beautiful--her beauty had grown and increased in amarvellous way of late. And there were two men, one sitting in a chairnear her and regarding her with a look of love; it was Lucius; and I sawat a glance that he was strangely changed. He had the same spirited andmirthful look as of old, but there was something there which I hadnever seen before--the look of a man who had work of his own, and hadlearned something of the perplexity and suffering of responsibility. Theother was Amroth, who was looking at the two with an air ofirrepressible amusement. When I entered, Lucius rose, and Amroth said tome:
"Here I am again, you see, and wondering whether you can regain thepleasure you once were kind enough to take in my company?"
"What nonsense!" I said rather shamefacedly. "How often have I blushedin secret to think of that awful remark. But I was rather harried, youmust admit."
Amroth came across to me and put his arm through mine.
"I forgive you," he said, "and I will admit that I was very provoking;but things were in a mess, and, besides, it was very inconvenient for meto be called away at that moment from my job!"
But Lucius came up to me and said:
"I have come to apologise to you. My behaviour was hideous and horrible.I won't make any excuses, and I don't suppose you can ever forget what Idid. I was utterly and entirely in the wrong."
"Thank you, Lucius," I said. "But please say no more about it. My ownbehaviour on that occasion was infamous too. And really we need not goback on all that. The whole affair has become quite an agreeablereminiscence. It is a pleasure, when it is all over, to have beenthoroughly and wholesomely shown up, and to discover that one has been apompous and priggish ass. And you and Amroth between you did me thatblessed turn. I am not quite sure which of you I hated most. But I maysay one thing, and that is that I am heartily glad to see you have leftthe land of delight."
"It was a tedious place really," said Lucius, "but one felt bound inhonour to make the best of it. But indeed after that day it washorrible. And I wearied for a sight of Cynthia! But you seem to havedone very well for yourselves here. May I venture to say frankly howwell she is looking, and you too? But I am not going to interrupt you.I have got my billet, I am thankful to say. It is not a very exalted one,but it is better than I deserve; and I shall try to make up for wastedtime."
"Hear, hear!" said Amroth; "a very creditable sentiment, to be sure!"
Lucius smiled and blushed. Then he said:
"I never was much of a hand at expressing myself correctly; but you knowwhat I mean. Don't take the wind out of my sails!"
And then Amroth turned to me, and said suddenly:
"And now I have something else to tell you, and not wholly good news; soI will just say it at once, without beating about the bush. You are tocome with us too."
Cynthia looked up suddenly with a glance of pale inquiry. Amroth tookher hand.
"No, dear child," he said, "you are not to accompany him. You must stayhere awhile, until the child is grown. But don't look like that! Thereis no such thing as separation here, or anywhere. Don't make it harderfor us all. It is unpleasant of course; but, good heavens, what wouldbecome of us all if it were not for that! How dull we should be withoutsuffering!"
"Yes, yes," said Cynthia, "I know--and I will say nothing against it.But--" and she burst into tears.
"Come, come," said Amroth cheerfully, "we must not go back to the olddays, and behave as if there were partings and funerals. I will give youfive minutes alone to say good-bye. Lucius, we must start," and, turningto me, he said, "Meet us in five minutes by the oak-tree in the road."
They went out, Lucius kissing Cynthia's hand in silence.
Cynthia came up to me and put her arms round my neck and her cheek tomine. We sobbed, I fear, like two children.
"Don't forget me, dearest," she said.
"My darling, what a word!" I said.
"Oh, how happy we have been together!" she said.
"Yes, and shall be happier still," I said.
And then with more words and signs of love, too sacred even to bewritten down, we parted. It was over. I looked back once, and saw mydarling gather the child to her heart, and look up once more at me. ThenI closed the door; something seemed to surge up in my heart andoverwhelm me; and then the ring on my finger sent a sharp pang throughmy whole frame, which recalled me to myself. And I say it with all thestrength of my spirit, I saw how joyful a thing it was to suffer andgrieve. I came down to the oak. The two were waiting in silence, andLucius seemed to be in tears. Amroth put his arm through mine.
"Come, brother," he said, "that was a bad business; I won't pretendotherwise; but these things had better come swiftly."
"Yes," said Lucius, "but it is a cruel affair, and I can't sayotherwise. Why cannot God leave us alone?"
"Lucius," said Amroth very gravely, "here you may say and think as youwill--and the thoughts of the heart are best uttered. But one must notblaspheme."
"No, n
o," said Lucius, "I was wrong. I ought not to have spoken so. Andindeed I know in my heart that somehow, far off, it is well. But I wasthinking," he said, turning to me, and grasping my hand in both of hisown, "not of you, but of Cynthia. I am glad with all my heart that youtook her from me, and have made her happy. But what miserable creatureswe all are; and how much more miserable we should be if we were notmiserable!"
And then we started. It was a dreary hour that, full of deep and gnawingpain. I pictured to myself Cynthia at every moment, what she was doingand thinking; how swiftly the good days had flown; how perfectly happyI had been; and so my wretched silent reverie went on.
"I must say," said Amroth at length, breaking a dismal silence, "thatthis is very tedious. Can't you take some interest? I have verydisagreeable things to do, but that is no reason why I should be boredas well!" And he then set himself to talk with much zest of all my oldfriends and companions, telling me how each was faring. Charmides, itseemed, had become a very accomplished architect and designer; Philipwas a teacher at the College. And he went on until, in spite of myheaviness, I felt the whole of life beginning to widen and vibrate allabout me, and a sense almost of shame creeping into my mind that I hadbecome so oblivious of all the other friendships and relations I hadformed. I forced myself to talk and to ask questions, and found myselfwalking more briskly. It was not very long before we parted with Lucius.He was left at the doors of a great barrack-like like building, andAmroth told me he was to be employed as an officer, very much in thesame way as the young man who was sent to conduct me away from thetrial; and I felt what a good officer Lucius would make--smart, prompt,polite, and not in the least sentimental.
So we went on together rather gloomily; and then Amroth let me look fora little deep into his heart; and I saw that it was filled with a kindof noble pity for me in my suffering; but behind the pity lay thatblissful certainty which made Amroth so light-hearted, that it was justso, through suffering, that one became wise; and he could no more thinkof it as irksome or sad than a jolly undergraduate thinks of thetraining for a race or the rowing in the race as painful, but takes itall with a kind of high-hearted zest, and finds even the nervousness anexciting thing, life lived at high pressure in a crowded hour.