The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today
Page 41
*XX.*
Trevelyan’s father stopped when he reached the foot of the stairs.
"Why, hello, boy, when did you get back? Thought you were in London fora fortnight."
"I thought so, too, sir, but you see, I—"
"Ho-ho, that’s it, is it?" His uncle laughed. "Well, I can’t blame you.She isn’t here, though—out with Maggie for a walk." He looked upquizzically into his nephew’s face, and then he looked away abruptly.Robert, too, loved the girl.
"Is she?" asked Stewart absently, and he turned toward the library,conscious that in the morning it was deserted, and that he could tellhim there without fear of interruption. "The fact is, sir—"
Trevelyan’s father stopped short and looked his nephew over.
"What is it? What’s the trouble?" he asked concisely.
"Who—with me, sir? Nonsense; I’m all right."
"Was it Sir Archibald or that bit of diplomatic work?" The old mansmiled grimly.
"Sir Archibald! I’m dismissed from his books long ago, sir. Thediplomatic work promises well. By the way, have you heard the latestfrom Essex—" He sat down easily on the arm of a big leather chair andlounged across it; his face in shadow—. "It’s reported that Davidson isgoing to raise that dead and buried claim again."
"’A fool and his money—’" said the old officer, and sat down.
"Where’s the Little Madre?"
"Out listening to Margie’s woes. If her rheumatism don’t carry her offsoon I’ll be inclined to do the job myself. Your mother is turning intoher slave!" said his uncle testily.
"Margie’s rheumatism isn’t any worse than Ann Grafton’s stiff knee orSam’s lame back," replied Stewart, swinging one foot against the side ofthe chair. "Mother always has been at the mercy of the tenants."
How was he to begin, he wondered.
He mechanically commenced to pull off his gloves.
"See here, John—" he glanced up quickly at Trevelyan’s father sitting ina black walnut chair carved a hundred years ago, his face shining outweather-beaten and grim from the dark background, and his voice moredecided than Stewart had ever heard it—"Why did Robert leave the army?"
A glove dropped and lay at Stewart’s feet unnoticed. He movedrestlessly.
"Why shouldn’t he? He had served his sub-lieutenancy. He got hiscommission—"
"To resign it. Exactly! Why?"
"He never liked the Army, sir; it was always the Navy with him from thefirst—"
"Is he with the Navy now?" The old officer tapped the floor impatientlywith his heavy stick. "Why is he in India doing an orderly’s workinstead of in the line?"
"Did you ever know Robert to stick to anything very long, sir?"
"Only one," said the old Briton shortly, and he thought of Cary. "Youhaven’t answered me."
Stewart rose, and his tone was final.
"Indeed, sir, it is not for me to say."
Trevelyan’s father clasped his hands over the knob of his stick, restedhis chin on them and looked up at Stewart from under his shaggybrows—curiously.
"Well—well, since you won’t, you won’t, I suppose! I’ll have to waituntil Robert comes back—"
Stewart wheeled abruptly and went over to the east window.
"After all, the boy is his own master," Trevelyan’s father said. "He’swhimsical and headstrong, too—" he broke off—"Everything was allstraight, though—his getting out, I mean?" The deep eyes peeredanxiously from the old officer’s weather-beaten face.
Stewart remained at the window, looking at the stretch of lawn. For thefirst time since his interview at the Secretary’s, his voice was broken.
"You need not be ashamed of Rob."
The old Briton drew a deep breath and he laughed a little—"After all,nothing else matters! I was sure of it!" and then again,"I—was—sure—of—it!"
Stewart began mechanically to count the number of rose bushes at the endof the terrace, and he made a great effort to steady his voice.
"By the way, this last idea of Robert’s—this cholera business—is a riskything. Do you ever feel anxious, sir?"
"The boy’s foolhardy, but he’s got sense—" the Briton frowned.
"But even sense sometimes——"
The room was still. A bit of summer sunlight sifted through the orielwindow. From the distance crept in the murmur of water breaking on thesand. McGuire was busy at the rose bushes near the terrace and thedecided "click" of his shears and the soft music of the sea, were theonly sounds that broke the quiet of the room.
"_John!_"
Trevelyan’s father rose and stood rigid by the old carved chair. YoungStewart turned and leaned against the woodwork. He grew afraid andtrembled. He could not look upon that face.
"_Robert!_ That is why you have come back?"
He nodded.
The sunlight still sifted through the windows and played fitfully aroundthe walnut carvings of the room and touched for a brief moment a bronzepaper weight of the Dying Gaul. Someone standing in the open casementwindow at the south, stirred a little, and then Cary came swiftly downthe length of the long room. A bit of heather from the armful she hadgathered on the slope slipped from the bunch. The rest she threw uponthe table as she passed it, and it lay there—its first, faint pinkshining out against the black walnut. She went and stood by Trevelyan’sfather, resting her hand upon his arm, and she looked up into his face.
"I left Maggie—I came ahead—I overheard—" she began disjointedly,"Robert—the cholera—Robert—?" and then as neither of the men spoke, shecried, "Oh, sir, indeed it may be a mistake—sometimes, you know thenames—"
Trevelyan’s father looked down at the girl, and into her eyes full ofunshed tears, and on the small white hand on his arm he placed hisown—the one that had held the sabre at Inkerman. It was an old hand,thin and vividly veined, and it trembled.
"The report was signed by Mackenzie," said Stewart at last.
"There is some mistake—there _must_ be—the letters—" cried Cary.
"We will have to wait for the letters, child." Trevelyan’s fatherturned away.
Stewart came up to her.
"It was at the India Office yesterday—the Secretary—after all—" he brokeoff.
She looked from one to the other, but she still stood by Trevelyan’sfather. Suddenly she sat down in the high backed chair he had occupied,clinging to his hand, her eyes on his face. Stewart went back to thewindow.
"But think what he did——"
Trevelyan’s father looked down at her again and his face twitched.
"He was always a brave laddie," he said, and his face was wet withtears.
Cary raised the hand she was holding and pressed it to her cheek, andshe held it there—brown and thin and heavily veined—against the delicatetexture, and caressed it in the way that women have.
"He was a great soul. I always knew it! I—always—knew—it—" she toldthem brokenly.
"He was a Briton," said the old officer of the Empire. "I didn’t alwaysunderstand him—I blamed him for doing an orderly’s work. I’m proud ofhim—but if it had been anything but the cholera—I saw it once myself inBombay; I ran away from it—" he raised his head, "anything but _that_!But—I’m proud of him!"
Stewart still stood by the oriel window leaning against his arm flungover his head, and he was crying—hardly and bitterly as a man cries. Thestillness of the outside world increased. The sun crept into the cornerof the room.
"I can’t quite take it in—" said the old man slowly, looking past thegirl to a far-off field of thistle and staring at the purplish bloom."It’s hard to think of Robert—gone!"
And then:
"I can’t think of the rest—the details—" he clenched his hands fiercely,"the pain—the thirst—" and his eyes came back to Cary. "There! There!There’s something about it all that we can’t understand, I fancy, butthere is the honor—that thing which does not perish with the using!"
Stewart had not moved from the window, and Cary went and stood besidehim, gravely looking out at the sunlight shifting on the lawn. She didnot say anything, but as though conscious that they were alone, hespoke, his face still hidden on his arm.
"I did it," he said at last in a broken voice of confession. "I _did_think to help him best by making him get away from the old crowd and theregiment—but it was because I thought of the Service, too—and I judged_him_——!"
She waited, and she did not speak, but she slipped one of her hands intothe pocket of his tweed coat and held on to it.
"I broke his life—he loved _me_ better than that—" he began.
"Do you call a life that ended _so_—broken?"
He raised his face from his arm and looked at her.
"No—no—I didn’t mean that—but think of my judging him! All last nightit came back to me—I thought I was going stark mad." And he brushedaway the tears clumsily.
"It all hurts _so_! But, by and by—" she looked straight out of theoriel window, and she spoke disjointedly, and somehow she thought ofwestern Scotland, and his sword. "I knew when we got those letters fromArgyll—when I got my letter—Rob wasn’t coming back to us."
Stewart drew her to him.
"Oh! Cary, tell me that it doesn’t mean to you all—all that it mighthave done! Lassie—tell me——"
She smiled a little.
"You are foolish," she told him. "You know I love you," and thenlooking into his eyes—"It is only you."
He hid his mouth against the soft coil of her hair.
"Last night, I was almost jealous of the dead," he whispered, "and thenwhen I passed the heather fields to-day—and the bracken—" his voicebroke.
"I know," she said simply. "It is always the bracken and theheather—and Rob—isn’t it?"
From the south window the sun poured into the room and lighted up theheavy carvings of black walnut. The bit of heather still lay upon thefloor and withered there. A silent linnet perched itself upon thewindow sill.
Somewhere from beyond the turn in the wooded drive, Maggie was cominghome, singing:
"Some talk of Alexander, And some of Hercules, Of Hector and Lysander, And such great names as these!"
A man’s heavy halting step came from the back terrace. In the stillnessthey could hear him mount the stairs.
"But of all the world’s great heroes— There’s none that—"
Somewhere upstairs a door closed.
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