Dawn
Page 77
CHAPTER LXV
When dinner was over--Miss Terry would have none--they went and satupon the moonlit deck. The little vessel was under all her canvas, forthe breeze was light, and skimmed over the water like a gull with itswings spread. In the low light Madeira was nothing but a blot on thesky-line. The crew were forward, with the solitary exception of theman steering the vessel from his elevated position on the bridge; andsitting as they were, abaft the deck-cabin, the two were utterly alonebetween the great silence of the stars and of the sea. She looked intohis face, and it was tender towards her--that night was made forlovers--and tears of happiness stood in her eyes. She took his hand inhers, and her head nestled upon his breast.
"I should like to sail on for ever so, quite alone with you. I neveragain wish to see the land or the sun, or any other sea than this, orany other eyes than yours, to hear any more of the things that I haveknown, to learn to know any fresh things. If I could choose, I wouldask that I might now glide gently from your arms into those of eternalsleep. Oh! Arthur, I am so happy now--so happy that I scarcely dare tospeak, for fear lest I should break the spell, and I feel so good--somuch nearer heaven. When I think of all my past life, it seems like astupid dream full of little nothings, of which I cannot recall anymemory except that they were empty and without meaning. But the futureis worse than the past, because it looks fair, and snakes always hidein flowers. It makes me afraid. How do I know what the future willbring? I wish that the present--the pleasant, certain present that Ihold with my hand--could last for ever."
"Who does know, Mildred? If the human race could see the pleasantsurprises in store for it individually, I believe that it would drownitself _en masse_. Who has not sometimes caught at the skirt of to-dayand cried, 'Stay a little--do not let to-morrow come yet!' You knowthe lines--
"'O temps suspends ton vol, et vous heures propices Suspendez votre cours, Laissez nous savourer les rapides delices Des plus beaux de nos jours.'
"Lamartine only crystallized a universal aspiration when he wrotethat."
"Oh! Arthur, I tell you of love and happiness wide as the great searound us, and you talk of 'universal aspirations.' It is the firstcold breath from that grey-skied future that I fear. Oh! dear, Iwonder--you do not know how I wonder--if, should you ask me again, Ishall ever with a clear conscience be able to say, 'Arthur, I willmarry you.'"
"My dear, I asked you to be my wife last night, and what I said then Isay again now. In any case, until you dismiss me, I consider myselfbound to you; but I tell you frankly that I should myself prefer thatyou would marry me for both our sakes."
"How cold and correct you are, how clearly you realize the position inwhich I am likely to be put, and in what a gentlemanlike way youassure me that your honour will always keep you bound to me! That is aweak thread, Arthur, in matters of the heart. Let Angela reappear asmy rival--would honour keep you to my side? Honour, forsooth! it islike a nurse's bogey in the cupboard--it is a shibboleth men use tofrighten naughty women with, which for themselves is almost devoid ofmeaning. Even in this light I can see your face flush at her name.What chance shall I ever have against her?"
"Do not speak of her, Mildred; let her memory be dead between us. Shewho belonged to me before God, and whom I believed in as I believe inmy God, she offered me the most deadly insult that a woman can offerto a man she loves--she sold herself. What do I care what the pricewas, whether it were money, or position, or convenience, or theapprobation of her surroundings? The result is the same. Never mentionher name to me again; I tell you that I hate her."
"What a tirade! There is warmth enough about you now. I shall becareful how I touch on the subject again; but your very energy showsthat you are deceiving yourself. I wish I could hear you speak of melike that, because then I should know you loved me. Oh! if she onlyknew it--she has her revenge for all your bitter words. You are lashedto her chariot-wheels, Arthur. You do _not_ hate her; on the contrary,you still long to see her face; it is still your secret and mostcherished hope that you will meet her again either in this or anotherworld. You love her as much as ever. If she were dead, you could bearit; but the sharpest sting of your suffering lies in the humiliatingsense that you are forced to worship a god you know to be false, andto give your own pure love to a woman whom you see debased."
He put his hands to his face and groaned aloud.
"You are right," he said. "I would rather have known her dead thanknow her as she is. But there is no reason why I should bore you withall this."
"Arthur, you are nothing if not considerate, and I do not pretend thatthis is a very pleasant conversation for me; but I began it, so Isuppose I must endure to see you groaning for another woman. You say,"she went on, with a sudden flash of passion, "that you should like tosee her dead. I say that I should like to kill her, for she has struckme a double blow--she has injured you whom I love, and she hasbeggared me of your affection. Oh! Arthur," she continued, changingher voice and throwing a caressing arm about his neck, "have you noheart left to give _me?_ is there no lingering spark that _I_ cancherish and blow to flame? I will never treat you so, dear. Learn tolove me, and I will marry you and make you happy, make you forget thisfaithless woman with the angel face. I will----" here her voice brokedown in sobs, and in the starlight the great tears glistened upon hercoral-tinted face like dew-drops on a pomegranate's blushing rind.
"There, there, dear, I will try to forget; don't cry," and he touchedher on the forehead with his lips.
She stopped, and then said, with just the faintest tinge of bitternessin her voice: "If it had been Angela who cried, you would not be socold, you would have kissed away her tears."
Who can say what hidden chord of feeling those words touched, or whatmemories they awoke? but their effect upon Arthur was striking. Hesprang up upon the deck, his eyes blazing, and his face white withanger.
"How often," he said, "must I forbid you to mention the name of thatwoman to me? Do you take a pleasure in torturing me? Curse her, mayshe eat out her empty heart in solitude, and find no living thing tocomfort her! May she suffer as she makes me suffer, till her lifebecomes a hell----"
"Be quiet, Arthur, it is shameful to say such things."
He stopped, and after the sharp ring of his voice, that echoed likethe cry wrung from a person in intense pain, the loneliness and quietof the night were very deep. And then an answer came to his mad,unmanly imprecations. For suddenly the air round them was filled withthe sound of his own name uttered in such wild, despairing accents as,once heard, were not likely to be forgotten, accents which seemed tobe around them and over them, and heard in their own brains, and yetto come travelling from immeasurable distances across the waste ofwaters.
"_Arthur! Arthur!_"
The sound that had sprung from nothing died away into nothingnessagain, and the moonlight glanced, and the waters heaved, and gave nosign of the place of its birth. It had come and gone, awful,untraceable, and in the place of its solemnity reigned silenceabsolute.
They looked at each other with scared eyes.
"_As I am a living man that voice was Angela's!_"
This was all he said.