The Four Feathers

by A. E. W. Mason

  CHAPTER XVII

  THE MUSOLINE OVERTURE

  Mrs. Adair, on her side, asked for no explanations. She was naturally,behind her pale and placid countenance, a woman of a tortuous andintriguing mind. She preferred to look through a keyhole even when shecould walk straight in at the door; and knowledge which could be gainedby a little maneuvering was always more desirable and precious in hereyes than any information which a simple question would elicit. Sheavoided, indeed, the direct question on a perverted sort of principle,and she thought a day very well spent if at the close of it she hadoutwitted a companion into telling her spontaneously some trivial andunimportant piece of news which a straightforward request would have atonce secured for her at breakfast-time.

  Therefore, though she was mystified by the little white feather uponwhich Ethne seemed to set so much store, and wondered at the good newsof Harry Feversham which Captain Willoughby had brought, and vainlypuzzled her brains in conjecture as to what in the world could havehappened on that night at Ramelton so many years ago, she betrayednothing whatever of her perplexity all through lunch; on the contrary,she plied her guest with conversation upon indifferent topics. Mrs.Adair could be good company when she chose, and she chose now. But itwas not to any purpose.

  "I don't believe that you hear a single word I am saying!" sheexclaimed.

  Ethne laughed and pleaded guilty. She betook herself to her room as soonas lunch was finished, and allowed herself an afternoon of solitude.Sitting at her window, she repeated slowly the story which Willoughbyhad told to her that morning, and her heart thrilled to it as to musicdivinely played. The regret that he had not come home and told it a yearago, when she was free, was a small thing in comparison with the storyitself. It could not outweigh the great gladness which that brought toher--it had, indeed, completely vanished from her thoughts. Her pride,which had never recovered from the blow which Harry Feversham had dealtto her in the hall at Lennon House, was now quite restored, and by theman who had dealt the blow. She was aglow with it, and most grateful toHarry Feversham for that he had, at so much peril to himself, restoredit. She was conscious of a new exhilaration in the sunlight, of aquicker pulsation in her blood. Her youth was given back to her uponthat August afternoon.

  Ethne unlocked a drawer in her dressing-case, and took from it theportrait which alone of all Harry Feversham's presents she had kept. Sherejoiced that she had kept it. It was the portrait of some one who wasdead to her--that she knew very well, for there was no thought ofdisloyalty toward Durrance in her breast--but the some one was a friend.She looked at it with a great happiness and contentment, because HarryFeversham had needed no expression of faith from her to inspire him,and no encouragement from her to keep him through the years on the levelof his high inspiration. When she put it back again, she laid the whitefeather in the drawer with it and locked the two things up together.

  She came back to her window. Out upon the lawn a light breeze made theshadows from the high trees dance, the sunlight mellowed and reddened.But Ethne was of her county, as Harry Feversham had long ago discovered,and her heart yearned for it at this moment. It was the month of August.The first of the heather would be out upon the hillsides of Donegal, andshe wished that the good news had been brought to her there. The regretthat it had not was her crumpled rose-leaf. Here she was in a strangeland; there the brown mountains, with their outcroppings of granite andthe voices of the streams, would have shared, she almost thought, in hernew happiness. Great sorrows or great joys had this in common for EthneEustace, they both drew her homewards, since there endurance was moreeasy and gladness more complete.

  She had, however, one living tie with Donegal at her side, for Dermod'sold collie dog had become her inseparable companion. To him she made herconfidence, and if at times her voice broke in tears, why, the dog wouldnot tell. She came to understand much which Willoughby had omitted, andwhich Feversham had never told. Those three years of concealment in thesmall and crowded city of Suakin, for instance, with the troops marchingout to battle, and returning dust-strewn and bleeding and laurelled withvictory. Harry Feversham had to slink away at their approach, lest someold friend of his--Durrance, perhaps, or Willoughby, or Trench--shouldnotice him and penetrate his disguise. The panic which had beset himwhen first he saw the dark brown walls of Berber, the night in theruined acres, the stumbling search for the well amongst the shiftingsandhills of Obak,--Ethne had vivid pictures of these incidents, and asshe thought of each she asked herself: "Where was I then? What was Idoing?"

  She sat in a golden mist until the lights began to change upon the stillwater of the creek, and the rooks wheeled noisily out from the tree-topsto sort themselves for the night, and warned her of evening.

  She brought to the dinner-table that night a buoyancy of spirit whichsurprised her companions. Mrs. Adair had to admit that seldom had hereyes shone so starrily, or the colour so freshly graced her cheeks. Shewas more than ever certain that Captain Willoughby had brought stirringnews; she was more than ever tortured by her vain efforts to guess itsnature. But Mrs. Adair, in spite of her perplexities, took her share inthe talk, and that dinner passed with a freedom from embarrassmentunknown since Durrance had come home to Guessens. For he, too, threw offa burden of restraint; his spirits rose to match Ethne's; he answeredlaugh with laugh, and from his face that habitual look of tension, thelook of a man listening with all his might that his ears might make goodthe loss of his eyes, passed altogether away.

  "You will play on your violin to-night, I think," he said with a smile,as they rose from the table.

  "Yes," she answered, "I will--with all my heart."

  Durrance laughed and held open the door. The violin had remained lockedin its case during these last two months. Durrance had come to look uponthat violin as a gauge and test. If the world was going well with Ethne,the case was unlocked, the instrument was allowed to speak; if the worldwent ill, it was kept silent lest it should say too much, and open oldwounds and lay them bare to other eyes. Ethne herself knew it for anindiscreet friend. But it was to be brought out to-night.

  Mrs. Adair lingered until Ethne was out of ear-shot.

  "You have noticed the change in her to-night?" she said.

  "Yes. Have I not?" answered Durrance. "One has waited for it, hoped forit, despaired of it."

  "Are you so glad of the change?"

  Durrance threw back his head. "Do you wonder that I am glad? Kind,friendly, unselfish--these things she has always been. But there is morethan friendliness evident to-night, and for the first time it'sevident."

  There came a look of pity upon Mrs. Adair's face, and she passed out ofthe room without another word. Durrance took all of that great change inEthne to himself. Mrs. Adair drew up the blinds of the drawing-room,opened the window, and let the moonlight in; and then, as she saw Ethneunlocking the case of her violin, she went out on to the terrace. Shefelt that she could not sit patiently in her company. So that whenDurrance entered the drawing-room he found Ethne alone there. She wasseated in the window, and already tightening the strings of her violin.Durrance took a chair behind her in the shadows.

  "What shall I play to you?" she asked.

  "The Musoline Overture," he answered. "You played it on the firstevening when I came to Ramelton. I remember so well how you played itthen. Play it again to-night. I want to compare."

  "I have played it since."

  "Never to me."

  They were alone in the room; the windows stood open; it was a night ofmoonlight. Ethne suddenly crossed to the lamp and put it out. Sheresumed her seat, while Durrance remained in the shadow, leaningforward, with his hands upon his knees, listening--but with anintentness of which he had given no sign that evening. He was applying,as he thought, a final test upon which his life and hers should bedecided. Ethne's violin would tell him assuredly whether he was right orno. Would friendship speak from it or the something more thanfriendship?

  Ethne played the overture, and as she played she forgot that Durrancewas in the room behi
nd her. In the garden the air was still andsummer-warm and fragrant; on the creek the moonlight lay like a solidfloor of silver; the trees stood dreaming to the stars; and as the musicfloated loud out across the silent lawn, Ethne had a sudden fancy thatit might perhaps travel down the creek and over Salcombe Bar and acrossthe moonlit seas, and strike small yet wonderfully clear like fairymusic upon the ears of a man sleeping somewhere far away beneath thebrightness of the southern stars with the cool night wind of the desertblowing upon his face.

  "If he could only hear!" she thought. "If he could only wake and knowthat what he heard was a message of friendship!"

  And with this fancy in her mind she played with such skill as she hadnever used before; she made of her violin a voice of sympathy. The fancygrew and changed as she played. The music became a bridge swung inmid-air across the world, upon which just for these few minutes she andHarry Feversham might meet and shake hands. They would separate, ofcourse, forthwith, and each one go upon the allotted way. But these fewminutes would be a help to both along the separate ways. The chords rangupon silence. It seemed to Ethne that they declaimed the pride which hadcome to her that day. Her fancy grew into a belief. It was no longer "Ifhe should hear," but "He _must_ hear!" And so carried away was she fromthe discretion of thought that a strange hope suddenly sprang up andenthralled her.

  "If he could answer!"

  She lingered upon the last bars, waiting for the answer; and when themusic had died down to silence, she sat with her violin upon her knees,looking eagerly out across the moonlit garden.

  And an answer did come, but it was not carried up the creek and acrossthe lawn. It came from the dark shadows of the room behind her, and itwas spoken through the voice of Durrance.

  "Ethne, where do you think I heard that overture last played?"

  Ethne was roused with a start to the consciousness that Durrance was inthe room, and she answered like one shaken suddenly out of sleep.

  "Why, you told me. At Ramelton, when you first came to Lennon House."

  "I have heard it since, though it was not played by you. It was notreally played at all. But a melody of it and not even that really, but asuggestion of a melody, I heard stumbled out upon a zither, with manyfalse notes, by a Greek in a bare little whitewashed cafe, lit by oneglaring lamp, at Wadi Halfa."

  "This overture?" she said. "How strange!"

  "Not so strange after all. For the Greek was Harry Feversham."

  So the answer had come. Ethne had no doubt that it was an answer. Shesat very still in the moonlight; only had any one bent over her witheyes to see, he would have discovered that her eyelids were closed.There followed a long silence. She did not consider why Durrance, havingkept this knowledge secret so long, should speak of it now. She did notask what Harry Feversham was doing that he must play the zither in amean cafe at Wadi Halfa. But it seemed to her that he had spoken to heras she to him. The music had, after all, been a bridge. It was not evenstrange that he had used Durrance's voice wherewith to speak to her.

  "When was this?" she asked at length.

  "In February of this year. I will tell you about it."

  "Yes, please, tell me."

  And Durrance spoke out of the shadows of the room.