Part 72 (1/2)
The day is overwhelmingly hot, and Payne playfully chides her for running the risk of sunstroke by standing all the morning on that dusty road, in which event he would, by the first law of nature, be compelled to spend the rest of his days speeding about the habitable and uninhabitable globe, with Claverton six hours behind him, fiercely on his trail with pistols and coffee. It is not fair of her to risk the life of a respectable father of a family, he says, even if she is tired of her own. As it is she is let down easy with a headache, whereat no one can wonder.
Poor Lilian smiles, rather faintly. Yes, she has a bit of a headache, she says; nothing much, she will go and lie down for a little while.
Once in her room, however, she does not lie down, but sits and thinks.
Then she opens a writing-case and begins a long letter to her lover.
She does not know when it may reach him, perhaps not for more than a week, the movements of the Colonial Forces are so uncertain; but still the very fact of writing it is a source of comfort to her just now. She will tell him all about her foolish fears and forebodings, and as she does so it almost seems as if the calm, tender presence on which she has learnt to lean is at her side now, and for two hours she writes on, feeling comforted and happy. She lays aside her pen at last, thinks awhile, and then begins to read over the letter. She will not send it; on second thoughts--no; she will not worry him with mere foolish and superst.i.tious fancies such as these--why should she? Has he not enough to think about up there, without having his mind troubled by such chimeras, perhaps just at the time when it should be most undisturbed to attend to the more serious game of war? As it is, she looks back to the way in which she yielded to her imaginary fears before, and will not trouble him with them now, when perhaps his life is in hourly danger.
So with a sigh, she tears up and burns the letter which has taken her hours to write. Still, the composition of it has done her good, and her spirits have in great measure returned as she goes downstairs. The house seems deserted, so quiet is it. Payne is lying fast asleep in a hammock which he has slang in the little garden at the back, and his wife is either in the same blissful state of oblivion, or has gone out; the children are at school, and, meanwhile, quiet reigns. Lilian reaches the pa.s.sage just as a man stands in the front doorway, holding the knocker in his hand as if about to knock, and, seeing her, refrains, and advances into the hall. She stops short, seeming rooted to the ground. For the man to whom she made that fatal promise which has blighted some of the best years of her life, is standing before her.
”Why, Lilian,” he exclaims, taking the hand which she mechanically holds out. ”You look as if you hardly knew me.”
”Do I? This is--rather sudden, you know. But, come in. I'll tell Mrs Payne you're here.”
”By no means,” says Truscott, quickly, placing himself between her and the door--they are in the drawing-room by now. ”This is the most fortunate thing in the world. Couldn't have been better if we had arranged it so. You don't suppose I want a third party present the very first moment we are together again after all this time.”
This bracketing of them jars horribly on Lilian's ear; but she only answers, somewhat irrelevantly:
”I thought you knew the Paynes. You do; don't you?”
”Confound the Paynes. Here have I been searching the world for you these years and found you at last, and--hang it all, Lilian, you don't seem in the least glad to see me.”
In fact, she is not. And the statement as to the comprehensiveness of his search she does not altogether believe. She cannot forget that when she was thrown upon the world, dest.i.tute almost, and alone, at a time when she most needed help, encouragement, protection, this man had held himself aloof from her, and now, when after years of desolation of spirit and of a struggle almost beyond her strength, the battle is won, and she has found happiness and rest and peace, he jauntily tells her that she doesn't seem in the least glad to see him. Her heart hardens towards him; but she checks the impulse which arises to tell him in words of withering scorn that she is not. Yet she does not contradict him, for she remembers vividly with what relief she heard that news, and how thankfully she had accepted the restfulness it brought her--a restfulness undisturbed until that morning.
”H'm, well, you don't seem very glad. And yet I've come a good way to find you, and had a narrow shave of my life, too--as narrow a shave as a man could well have and escape.”
”Yes? How was that?” she asks, hardly able to restrain her eagerness.
He sees it and is gratified. The old interest is waking, he thinks; Lilian was always tender-hearted to a fault.
”Why, out in California. Fact is, I was awfully down on my luck and went wandering. Well, I got into one of these street rows and was. .h.i.t-- hit badly. For thirteen weeks I was lying in a hospital, the most awful lazar-house you could imagine, and at the end I crawled out more dead than alive. The best of the joke is that my affectionate relatives thought I was dead, and advertised me accordingly.”
Lilian makes no answer. It was this advertis.e.m.e.nt that, seen haphazard two years ago, had emanc.i.p.ated her from her fatal bond.
”But didn't you hear of all this?” he asks.
”You know I have been out of the world for more than four years. When did it happen?”
”Only a year ago,” is his reply. And then she knows that he is lying to her--endeavouring to play upon her sympathies--for she has the number of the newspaper containing the advertis.e.m.e.nt safely locked up in an inner drawer of her writing-table, and its date is rather more than two years previous. ”Those fools Grantham, the lawyers, could tell me nothing about you, though I pestered them with inquiries, till at last I began to suspect they were telling lies just for practice, to keep their hands in. But at last I've found you?” And there is a ring of real warmth, to Lilian's ear, in his voice, which fills her with dismay. Can it be that he has not heard of her position now, that he comes upon her suddenly like this and takes possession of her in his tone, so to say?
At all risks she must tell him.
Just then a cheery voice is heard in the pa.s.sage, humming an old colonial song, and Payne walks into the room. He stops short on seeing the visitor, s.n.a.t.c.hing his pipe from his mouth with one hand, while with the other he welcomes the unexpected guest.
”How d'you do?” says Truscott, in his silkiest manner. ”I was hoping to have found Mrs Payne at home this afternoon. Meanwhile, I have been fortunate enough to renew a very old acquaintance with Miss Strange here.”
”So?” replies Payne, looking from one to the other. ”Well, I'm glad you've found your way up. I saw you this morning, at a distance, when we were seeing those men off to the front. Good all-round lot, weren't they?”
”Yes, yes; a very fair lot indeed. I suppose there's a tidy number of men in the field by now?”
”Too many. If it depended on mere numbers, the war would be finished to-morrow; but it's the management--we always break down in that. If we were allowed to go ahead in our own way, we should do the thing properly; but there's such a tremendous lot of red-tape and despatch-writing that the forces are kept doing nothing for weeks, eating their heads off in camp. By the way, have you heard anything more about your application?”