The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today

by Maud Howard Peterson

  *IX.*

  At dawn Trevelyan got up and waited at the window for the sunrise. Byand by he could hear the servants moving below stairs. The long minutespassed. From a turn in the drive he could see Martin returning with themail that had come in late the night before. He watched him curiouslyas he paused to speak with McGuire, the gardener, and he wondered in anindifferent sort of way what he was saying that caused the latter tosuddenly grow so excited. He rose and went down stairs, meeting Martinat the door.

  "Anything the matter?"

  Martin jerked off his cap awkwardly, and handed him the mail and thepapers.

  "It’s them Gordon ’Ighlanders, sir," he said. "If you’ll look at thepaper—"

  Trevelyan opened the sheet.

  Martin watched him from a respectful distance. He saw Trevelyan crushthe paper suddenly in his hand and turn sharply on his heel, and go intothe library and close the door. "I thought that there would stir MasterRobert up," he muttered. "Law! that was awful fine, an’ won’t Bettystare an’ hollow!"

  An hour later the family assembled in the breakfast room.

  "Where is Robert?" asked Mrs. Stewart, sitting down.

  John shook his head.

  "His room’s empty. Must be taking a walk. What has become of themorning paper?"

  Trevelyan appeared suddenly in the doorway. He held the paper in hishand, and his face was as white as the sheet. His uncle rose hastily.

  "Great heavens, boy! What’s the matter?"

  "_Matter?_" Trevelyan’s voice rang out excitedly. "Read that!"

  Half a dozen hands reached out for the paper. Trevelyan snatched ithungrily back.

  "Let me read it to you! It’s the Gordon Highlanders." Trevelyan’swords stumbled over each other. "They’ve assaulted the Dargai Hill!The Gurkhas, Dorsets and Derbys couldn’t take it! Then General Kempsterordered the Gordon Highlanders and the Third Sikhs to reinforce thefighting line. The pipers played the ’Cock of the North,’ and then themixed troops—the Highlanders and the Dorsets and Gurkhas and Derbys andSikhs swept across! God! Look at the list of the dead!"

  Trevelyan tossed the paper to John and turned away and leaned againstthe sideboard, his elbows on it, his head in his hands.

  Young Stewart caught the paper and sat down at the table and spread itout in front of him with nervous fingers, and began to read, the restgathering around him. The Highlanders of Aberdeen!

  The breakfast stood untouched, growing colder every minute, but no onethought of it.

  Young Stewart’s voice got husky now and then, and when he was half waythrough the sheet, he pushed it over to Cameron and rose.

  "I guess you’d better finish it," he said.

  It was hard to forget that if it had not been for that India transfer,he would have been with the Highlanders!

  Trevelyan came forward suddenly, and leaned over Cary’s chair.

  "Isn’t it splendid," he said. "That’s the way we Scotch fight—" hebroke off abruptly, recoiling before the consciousness that he had notfought so.

  "It’s grand," cried the American girl, her breath coming quickly.

  The elder Stewart looked up for a moment from the paper he was readingover Cameron’s shoulder.

  "You ought to have been there, Robert! That’s just your kind of work!"

  "I wish to God I had!"

  Mrs. Stewart crossed the room and went over to where John was sitting atthe furthest end of the table, his chin in his hand. She sat down byhim and leaned forward to speak to him.

  "I know it’s hard," she said, "but think how I would have felt!"

  Stewart drew outlines on the cloth with the breakfast knife he hadpicked up.

  "We won’t talk of it," he answered, and he turned his face away.

  His mother said nothing, and by and by she rose and went back to thegroup. Something in her face as she came up to them attracted Trevelyanand he stopped short in his excited talk and looked toward the solitaryfigure at the end of the table. His grasp suddenly relaxed on Cary’schair and he went up to Stewart and sat down on the arm of his chair andgripped hard at his shoulder.

  "I’m a brute," he said in a low voice, and he kept his grip on Stewart’sarm, and it was he who by and by led the others to calm down and eattheir breakfast after some sort of a fashion.

  He was to leave at midnight, and he had come especially to see Cary, buthe scarcely saw her throughout the length of the long day. After that hedevoted himself to Stewart, forcing him to think and speak of otherthings besides the great excitement of the hour. He laughed with him;he talked to him, and they went over their boyhood again. It was as ithad once been between them, before they had grown to men. Once in thetwilight Trevelyan spoke of Cary.

  "Things are all going to pull straight between you," he said.

  But Stewart, remembering the look on Cary’s face, when she had beenwatching Trevelyan the day before, shook his head.

  It was not until Trevelyan went to dress for dinner that he realizedthat the real hardness of the task lay undone. He would leave atmidnight, and only God knew when he would come to Aberdeen again—and Godwas silent. To-night would mean "good-bye."

  After dinner he went up to Cary as she was sitting at the piano in themusic room.

  "Won’t you come for a walk on the beach?"

  She looked up, flushed, and her hands fell back upon the keysdiscordantly.

  "Why—I don’t know. Isn’t it too cold?"

  "It isn’t cold," he said, picking up a white cashmere shawl and flingingit across her bare shoulders. "Come."

  A tone in his voice caught and held her wavering and turned it todecision. She rose.

  They passed Stewart in the hall, on his way to the music room, his flutein his hand.

  "We’re going down to the shore for a little while," said Trevelyan,pausing before moving on.

  Stewart nodded.

  "Oh, all right. Don’t get cold, Cary."

  And he went on to the deserted music room.

  Trevelyan led her down the little path to the beach. He talked in amatter of fact way on indifferent subjects, as though to set her at herease. He smiled grimly to the darkness.

  "She’s afraid I’ll forget myself," he kept thinking.

  They came from out of the strip of woods and its shadows to the beach,stretching away on either hand in the distance, and sloping ahead ofthem into the sea that kissed it and then receded, holding it at arm’slength before it embraced it again, as a lover does his sweetheart. Theslow creeping up and retreating of the waters came faintly andsoothingly to their ears. Far off a faint light appeared in theheavens, marking the rising moon. The burden of the day and theexcitement of the battle crept off and were lost in the shadows.

  "I haven’t seen the moon rise on the beach since I was a youngster,"said Trevelyan.

  "It’s beautiful," said Cary. "I always get near the moonlight when Ican."

  "Do you? Well, it pays one. It is beautiful. I don’t believe I everquite appreciated the moon and the beach here when I was a little chap."

  "Your aunt once told me how unhappy you were when they brought youhere—to Aberdeen county."

  "I fancy that’s pretty straight. I never took kindly to the levelbeach. I wanted my crags and my breakers and old Mactier. Mactier andthe crags and the breakers were always associated together in my smallmind."

  He laughed.

  "I suppose so; but it’s so peaceful here—" Cary broke off.

  "Yes; but do you know I’ve a notion that some day or other, you’ll comeoften to the old place in Argyll and you’ll love it as I love it now."

  Cary looked up at him quickly. Could it be that he still hoped thatsome day—

  She shook her head.

  "It’s beautiful," she said, "but it’s terrible! The beat of the sea onthe crags always seems to be chanting something that I can’t understand.It’s a foolish idea, isn’t it?"

  Trevelyan walked down to the water’
s edge.

  "It’s been chanting to me ever since I was born," he replied.

  He looked out over the quiet waters.

  "The sea here don’t talk to me," he went on. "It never did. It isn’tlike my Scotland! Come, we’d better walk a little; you’ll get coldstanding."

  She gathered the cashmere that had slipped from her shoulders aroundher, and brought it up, covering her head. Her face white as the whitemoonlight looked out from its folds. Once a wave bolder than itsfellows, crept up and wet her feet and the edge of the long skirt shewas holding with one hand. She scarcely noticed it. Once she turnedher face away from Trevelyan’s and looked out across the shining sea, towhere it lay dark against the horizon. A great pity and a great awe, ofsomething she could not define, lay heavy upon her and made her silent.It was as if this "good-bye" was to be the longest she had ever said.From the house, showing through the trees, came a stream of light. Itwas from the music room and it mingled with the white radiance that layacross the sea. And then through the quiet, there stole the first,faint notes of John’s flute. The music began softly and caressingly,and rose and filled the spaces all around them. It sobbed and moanedand called entreatingly to her, and then it sank into a marvelouscrescendo; only to throb again against the silence—still entreating herto return, before it faded slowly and died away altogether.

  The sobbing and the moaning of it pulsed in Trevelyan’s brain. This wasgood-bye. It was good-bye as he had never dreamed it. He could havefallen down before that white moon-touched face and cried the good-byeout, clinging to her feet. He could have cried it out, his head uponher breast; he could have cried it out, with her resting in his arms,but silence laid its seal on him instead.

  Out in India, with Mackenzie, in the awful shadow of the plague, hewould remember her so, with her white moon-touched face.

  What had he done to hope for such a good-bye? Only a man who has won awoman could cry out his heart’s fullness so; and he had lost her! Whatright had he to tell her that he was going away, hoping so to wrest fromher some word of approbation or of pity? Might she not say somethingthat she would regret afterwards? He could go back home, and he couldwrite her briefly. Then she would remember this night. Then, whateverhe had said or left unsaid to-night or in the note, she wouldunderstand.

  As for him—out in India with Mackenzie, in the awful shadow of theplague, he would remember her so, with her white moon-kissed face. Hewould hear again, louder than the moans of sufferings, the wondrous lovemusic of Stewart’s flute and the song of the sea. It seemed to him hewould hear it and see her so, if he were dying. And yet, he toldhimself, he would have given up his life right there before she shouldthink that he had done this thing because of her approbation or herpity.

  If he could only have been with the Highlanders at the assault!If—well, death would never come to him so. He had fought that out inthe hospital and again the other night at home.

  The music sobbed itself into silence.

  "The old beach is a good deal prettier by night than I ever used tofancy it could be, as a little chap," he said after awhile. "I’llremember it when I’m back in—Argyll."

  "Why in the world are you in such a hurry to get back?" asked Cary.

  "Oh, there are some things to be looked out for, and accounts to be goneover with Mactier. I couldn’t do without him."

  "No, indeed. You’re going to stay there during the winter, I suppose.You’ll go back to London for the season?"

  "I guess not this year," he said. "I’m not much on the society act."

  "You’ll be lonely—won’t you?"

  Trevelyan stopped and beat his foot against the sand and looked down atit.

  "Oh, I’ve been a lonely kind of a chap all my life," he said in a matterof fact tone.

  Cary caught her breath quickly, turning away that he might not see herface.

  "It’s all my own doing," he went on. "I know it. I never was verysociable. I fancy I was born cross and horrid and crooked."

  He laughed a little.

  Cary turned to him and she put out her hand and for a moment it restedon his sleeve. He looked down at her upturned face, on which the moonwas shining. A faint smile was folded around her mouth, hiding the pitybeneath. She shook her head.

  "Oh, no, you’re not!" she said. "You’re brave and you’re strong, andsome day—"

  He looked into her eyes.

  "Yes—and ’some day’?"

  "You’re going to do something fine!"

  He shook his head in denial.

  "I lost my chance," he said slowly.

  "You will have another," she said, the hope of all the world in hervoice. "We all have our second chance."

  "Not like that—not like those Highlanders—" he broke off and his handscame up swiftly to either side of the lifted, moon-lit face. He couldhave crushed it, white and radiant as it was, between his hands; hecould have kissed and kissed and kissed it!

  And then his hands came up slowly, and he held her face as gently as theCaptain would have done.

  "I am going to take you back to the house," he said, looking down ather. "You are shivering. I might have known you would take cold."

  She shrank back, trembling from the dumb anguish in his eyes, andcovered her own with her hands.

  Why couldn’t he have been with the Highlanders?

  He drew one of her hands slowly down.

  "Don’t," he said; "Don’t act so. Did I hurt you?"

  She shook her head.

  He raised the hand he held to his lips and he kissed it passionately,holding it close against his mouth for a moment, as though to seal thekiss there.

  "I’m awfully glad you believe in me," he said, "I’m awfully glad forthat ’some day’ you think of. Shall I tell you about a ’some day,’too?"

  She nodded in silence.

  "Well, then, ’some day’ you’ll marry just like all the girls do, butyou’ll marry some out of sight fellow—" he broke off, and retraced hissteps to the house, adjusting his military walk to her slower one.

  She pulled at the edge of her shawl. She was thinking if it had notbeen for Trevelyan, Stewart would have been at the Dargai Hill.

  She bent her head as she entered the strip of wood, and the twigs feltout caressingly and touched her dress as she passed. The breath of theone red rose on her bosom came up to her like the voice of love, andover her white face there stole the faintest color of the rose, and shebreathed quicker, remembering the music of the flute.

  Stewart turned from the long window. He could see them emerging fromthe darkness of the wood into the moon-lit open. Trevelyan had spokento him of Cary but what if Cary cared for Trevelyan after all! And helaid the silent flute away.