_ PHASE V. A STAR IN DARKNESS
CHAPTER III
"Did you not know that people hide their love,
Like a flower that seems too precious to be picked?"
--WU-TI.
Sanctuary--at last! The garden of his dreams--of the world before the deluge--in the quiet--coloured end of a July evening; the garden vitally inwoven with his fate--since it was responsible for the coming of Joe Bradley and his 'beaky mother.'
Such gardens bear more than trees and flowers and fruit. Human lives and characters are growth of their soil. With the wholesale demolishing of boundaries and hedges, their influence may wane; and it is an influence--like the unobtrusive influence of the gentleman--that human nature, especially English nature, can ill afford to fling away.
Roy, poet and fighter--with the lure of the desert and the horizon in his blood--knew himself, also, for a spiritual product of this particular garden--of the vast lawn (not quite so vast as he remembered), the rose-beds and the beeches in the full glory of their incomparable leafage; all steeped in the delicate clarity of rain-washed air--the very aura of England, as dust was the aura of Jaipur.
Dinner was over. They were sitting out on the lawn, he and his father; a small table beside them, with glass coffee-machine and chocolates in a silver dish; the smoke of their cigars hovering, drifting, unstirred by any breeze. No Terry at his feet. The faithful creature--vision of abject misery--had been carried off to eat his heart out in quarantine. Tangled among tree-tops hung the ghost of a moon, almost full. Somewhere, in the far quiet of the shrubberies, a nightingale was communing with its own heart in liquid undertones; and in Roy's heart there dwelt an iridescence of peace and pain and longing shot through with hope----
That very morning, at an unearthly hour, he had landed in England, after an absence of three and a half years: and precisely what that means in the way of complex emotions, only they know who have been there. The purgatorial journey had eclipsed expectation. Between recurrent fever and sea-sickness, there had been days when it seemed doubtful if he would ever reach Home at all. But a wiry constitution and the will to live had triumphed: and, in spite of the early hour, his father had not failed to be on the quay.
The first sight of him had given Roy a shock for which--in spite of Tara's letter--he was unprepared. This was not the father he remembered--humorous, unruffled, perennially young; but a man so changed and tired-looking that he seemed almost a stranger, with his empty coat-sleeve and hair touched with silver at the temples.
The actual moment of meeting had been difficult; the joy of it so deeply tinged with pain that they had clung desperately to surface commonplaces, because they were Englishmen, and could not relieve the inner stress by falling on one another's necks.
And there had been a secret pang (for which Roy sharply reproached himself) that Tara was not there too. Idiotic to expect it, when he knew Sir James had gone to Scotland for fishing. But to be idiotic is the lover's privilege; and his not phenomenal gift of patience had been unduly strained by the letter awaiting him at Port Said.
They were coming back to-night; but he would not see her till to-morrow....
In his pocket reposed a brief Tara-like note, bidding her 'faithful Knight of the Bracelet' welcome Home. Vainly he delved between the lines of her sisterly affection. Nothing could still the doubt that consumed him, but contact with her hands, her eyes.
For that, and other reasons, the difficult meeting had been followed by a difficult day. They had wandered through the house and garden, very carefully veiling their emotions. They had lounged and smoked in the studio, looking through his father's latest pictures. They had talked of the family. Jeffers would be down to-morrow night, for the week-end; Tiny on Tuesday with the precious Baby; Jerry, distinctly coming round, and eager to see Roy. Even Aunt Jane sounded a shade keen. And he, undeserving, had scarcely expected them to 'turn a hair.' Then they discussed the Indian situation; and Roy--forgetting to be shy--raged at finding how little those at Home had been allowed to realise, to understand.
Not a question, so far, about his rapid on-and-off engagement, for which mercy he was duly grateful. And of her, who dwelt in the foreground and background of their thoughts--not a word.
It would take a little time, Roy supposed, to build their bridge across the chasm of three and a half eventful years. You couldn't hustle a lapsed intimacy. To-morrow things would go better, especially if....
Yet, throughout, he had been touched inexpressibly by his father's unobtrusive tokens of pleasure and affection: and now--sitting together with their cigars, in the last of the daylight--things felt easier.
"Dad," he said suddenly, turning his eyes from the garden to the man beside him, who was also its spiritual product. "If I seem a bit stupefied, it's because I'm still walking and talking in a dream; terrified I may wake up and find it's not true! I can't, in a twinkling, adjust the beautiful, incredible
sameness of all this, with the staggering changes inside me."
His father's smile had its friendly, understanding quality.
"No hurry, Boy. All your deep roots are here. Change as much as you please, you still remain--her son."
"Yes--that's it. The place is full of her," Roy said very low; and at present they could not trust themselves to say more.
It had not escaped Sir Nevil's notice that the boy had avoided the drawing-room, and had not once been under the twin beeches, his favourite summer retreat. No hammock was slung there now.
After a considerable gap, Roy remarked carelessly: "I suppose they must have got home by now?"
"About an hour ago, to be exact," said Sir Nevil; and Roy's involuntary start moved him to add: "You're not running round there to-night, old man. They'll be tired. So are you. And it's only fair I should have first innings. I've waited a long time for it, Roy."
"
Dads!" Roy looked at once penitent and reproachful--an engaging trick of schoolroom days, when he felt a scolding in the air. "You never said--you never gave me an idea."
"
You never sounded as if the idea would be acceptable."
"Didn't I? Letters are the devil," murmured Roy--all penitence now. "And if it hadn't been for Tara----" He stopped awkwardly. Their eyes met, and they smiled. "Did you know ... she wrote? And that's why I'm here?"
"Well done, Tara! I didn't know. I had dim suspicions. I also had a dim hope that--my picture might tempt you----"
"Oh, it
would have--letter or no. It's an inspired thing."--He had already written at length on that score.--"You were mightily clever--the two of you!"
His father twinkled. "That as may be. We had the trifling advantage of knowing our Roy!"
They sat on till all the light had ebbed from the sky and the moon had come into her own. It was still early; but time is the least ingredient of such a day; and Sir Nevil rose on the stroke of ten.
"You look fagged out, old boy. And the sooner you're asleep--the sooner it will be to-morrow! A pet axiom of yours. D'you remember?"
Did he not remember?
They went upstairs together; the great house seemed oppressively empty and silent. On the threshold of Roy's room they said good-night. There was an instant of palpable awkwardness; then Roy--overcoming it--leaned forward and kissed the patch of white hair on his father's temple.
"God bless you," Sir Nevil said rather huskily. "You ought to sleep sound in there. Don't dream."
"But I love to dream," said Roy; and his father laughed.
"You're not so staggeringly changed inside! As sure as a gun, you'll be late for breakfast!"
And he did dream. The moment his lids fell--she was there with him, under the beeches, their sanctuary--she who all day had hovered on the confines of his spirit, like a light, felt not seen. There were no words between them, nor any need of words; only the ineffable peace of understanding, of reunion....
Dream--or visitation--who could say? To him it seemed that only afterwards sleep came--the dreamless sleep of renewal....
* * * * *
He woke egregiously early: such an awakening as he had not known for months on end. And out there in the garden it was a miracle of a morning: divinely clear, with the mellow clearness of England; massed trees, brooding darkly; the lawn all silver-grey with dew; everywhere blurred outlines and tender shadows; pure balm to eye and spirit after the hard brilliance and contrasts of the East.
Madness to get up; yet impossible to lie there waiting. He tried it, for what seemed an endless age: then succumbed to the inevitable.
While he was dressing, clouds drifted across the blue. A spurt of rain whipped his open casement; threatening him in playful mood. But before he had crept down and let himself out through one of the drawing-room windows, the sky was clear again, with the tremulous radiance of happiness struck sharp on months of sorrow and stress.
Striding, hatless, across the drenched lawn, and resisting the pull of his beech-wood, he pressed on and up to the open moor; craving its sweeps of space and colour unbosomed to the friendly sky that seemed so much nearer earth than the passionate blue vault of India.
It was five years since he had seen heather in bloom--or was it five decades? The sight of it recalled that other July day, when he had tramped the length of the ridge with his head full of dreams and the ache of parting in his heart.
To him, that far-off being seemed almost another Roy in another life. Only--as his father had feelingly reminded him--the first Roy and the last were alike informed by the spirit of one woman; visible then, invisible now; yet sensibly present in every haunt she had made her own. The house was full of her; the wood was full of her. But the pangs of reminder he had so dreaded resolved themselves, rather, into a sense of indescribable, ethereal reunion. He asked nothing better than that his life and work should be fulfilled with her always: her and Tara--if she so decreed....
Thought of Tara revived impatience, and drew his steps homeward again.
Strolling back through the wood, he came suddenly upon the open space where he had found the Golden Tusks, and lingered there a little--remembering the storm and the terror and the fight; Tara and her bracelet; and the deep unrealised significance of that childish impulse, inspired by
her, whose was the source of all their inspirations. And now--seventeen years afterwards, the bracelet had drawn him back to them both; saved him, perhaps, from the unforgiveable sin of throwing up the game.
On he walked, along the same mossy path, almost in a dream. He had found the Tusks. His High-Tower Princess was waiting--his 'Star far-seen.'
Again, as on that day--he came unexpectedly in view of their tree: and--wonder of wonders (or was it the most natural thing on earth?), there was Tara herself, approaching it by another path that linked the wood with the grounds of the black-and-white house, which was part of the estate.
Instantly he stepped back a pace and stood still, that he might realise her before she became aware of him:--her remembered loveliness, her new dearness.
Loveliness was the quintessence of her. With his innate feeling for words, he had never--even accidentally--applied it to Rose. Had she, too, felt impatient? Was she coming over to breakfast for a 'surprise'?
At this distance, she looked not a day older than on that critical occasion, when he had realised her for the first time; only more fragile--a shade too fragile. It hurt him. He felt responsible. And again, to-day--very clever of her--she was wearing a delphinium blue frock; a shady hat that drooped half over her face. No pink rose, however--and he was thankful. Roses had still a too baleful association. He doubted if he could ever tolerate a Marechal Niel again--as much on account of Lance, as on account of the other.
Tara was wearing his flower--sweet-peas, palest pink and lavender. And, at sight of her, every shred of doubt seemed burnt up in the clear flame of his love for her:--no heady confusion of heart and senses, but a rarefied intensity of both, touched with a coal from the altar of creative life. The knowledge was like a light hand reining in his impatience. Poet, no less than lover, he wanted to go slowly through the golden mist....
But the moment he stirred, she heard him; saw him....
No imperious gesture, as before; but a lightning gleam of recognition, of welcome and--something more----?
He hurried now....
Next instant, they were together, hands locked, eyes deep in eyes. The surface sense of strangeness between them, the undersense of intimate nearness--thrilling as it was--made speech astonishingly difficult.
"Tara," he said, just above his breath.
Her sensitive lips parted, trembled--and closed again.
"
Tara!" he repeated, dizzily incredulous, where a moment earlier he had been arrogantly certain. "
Is it true ... what your eyes are telling me? Can you forgive ... my madness out there? Half across the world you called to me; and I've come home to
you ... with every atom of me ... I'm loving you; and I'm still ... bracelet-bound...."
This time her lips trembled into a smile. "And it's not one of the Prayer-book affinities!" she reminded him, a gleam of that other Tara in her eyes.
"No, thank God--it's not! But you haven't answered me, you know...."
"Roy, what a story! When you know I really said it first!" Her eyes were saying it again now; and he, bereft of words, mutely held out his arms.
If she paused an instant, it was because she felt even dizzier than he. But the power of his longing drew her like a physical force--and, as his lips claimed hers, the terror of love and its truth caught her and swept her from known shores into uncharted seas....
This was a Roy she scarcely knew. But her heart knew; every pulse of her awakened womanhood knew....
Presently it became possible to think. Very gently she pushed him back a little.
"O-oh--I never knew ... you were ... like
that! And you've crushed my poor sweet-peas to smithereens! Now--behave! Let me
look at you ... properly, and see what India's done to you. Give me a chance!"
He gave her a chance, still keeping hold of her--to make sure she was real.
"High-Tower Princess, are we truly US? Or is it a 'bewitchery'?" he asked, only half in joke. "Will you go turning into a butterfly presently----?"
"Promise I won't!" Her low laugh was not quite steady. "We're US--truly. And we've got to Farthest-End, where your dreams come true. D'you remember--I always said they couldn't. They were too crazy. So I don't deserve----"
"It's
I that don't deserve," he broke out with sudden passion. "And to find you under our very own tree! Have you forgotten--that day? Of course
you went to the 'tipmost top; and I didn't. It's queer--isn't it?--how
bits of life get printed so sharply on your brain; and great spaces, on either side, utterly blotted out. That day's one of my bits. Is it so clear--to you?"
"To
me----?" She could scarcely believe he did not know.... Unashamedly, she wanted him to know. But part of him was strange to her--thrillingly strange: which made things not quite so simple.
"Roy," she went on, after a luminous pause, twisting the top button of his coat. "I'm going to tell you a secret. A big one. For me that Day was ... the beginning of everything.--Hush--listen!"--Her fingers just touched his lips. "I'm feeling--rather shy. And if you don't keep quiet, I can't tell. Of course I always ... loved you, next to Atholl. But after that ... after the fight, I simply ... adored you. And ... and ... it's never left off since...."
"Tara! My loveliest!" he cried, between ecstasy and dismay; and gathering her close again, he kissed her softly, repeatedly, murmuring broken endearments. "And there was
I...!"
"Yes. There were you ... with your poems and Aunt Lila and your dreams about India--always with your head among the stars..."
"In plain English, a spoilt boy--as you once told me--wrapped up in myself."
"No, you weren't. I won't
have it!" she contradicted him in her old imperious way. "You were wrapped up in all kinds of wonderful things. So you just ... didn't see me. You looked clean over my head. Of course it often made me unhappy. But--it made me love you more. That's the way we women are. It's not the men who run after us; it's the other kind...! I expect you looked clean over poor Aruna's head. And if I asked her, privately, she'd confess that was partly why ... and the other girl too ... if ..."
"Darling--
don't!" he pleaded. "I'm ashamed, beyond words. I'll tell you every atom of it truthfully ... my Tara. But this is
our moment. I want more--about you.--Sit. It's full early. Then we'll go in (of course you're coming to breakfast) and give Dad the surprise of his life.... Bother your old hat! It gets in the way. And I want to see your hair."
With a shyness new to him--and to Tara, poignantly dear--he drew out her pins; discarded the offending hat, and took her head between his hands, lightly caressing the thick coils that shaded from true gold to warm delicate tones of brown.
Then he set her on the mossy seat near the trunk; and flung himself down before her in the old way, propped on his elbows--rapt, lost in love; divinely without self-consciousness.
"I'm
not looking over your head now," he said, his eyes deep in hers:--deep and deeper, till the wild-rose flush invaded the delicate hollows of her temples; and leaning forward she laid a hand across those too eloquent eyes.
"Don't blind me altogether--darling. When people have been shut away from the sun a long time----"
"But, Tara--why
were you...?" He removed the hand and kept hold of it. "I begged you to come. I wanted you. Why
did you...?"
She shook her head, smiling half wistfully. "That's a bit of my old Roy! But you're man enough to know--now, without telling. And I was woman enough to know--then. At least, by instinct, I knew...."
"Then it wasn't because ... because--I'm half ... Rajput?"
"
Roy!" But for all her surprise and reproach, intuition told him the idea was not altogether new to her. "What made you think--of
that?"
"Well--because it partly ... broke things off--out there. That startled me. And when Dad's miracle of a picture woke me up with a vengeance ... it terrified me. I began wondering.... Beloved, are you
quite sure about Aunt Helen ... Sir James...?"
She paused--a mere breathing-space; her free hand caressed his hair. (This time, he did not shift his head.) "I'm utterly sure about Mother. You see ... she knows ... we've talked about it. We're like sisters, almost. As for Father ... well, we're less intimate. I did fancy he seemed the wee-est bit relieved when ... your news came...." The pain in his eyes checked her. "My blessed one, I won't have you
daring to worry about it. I'm feeling simply beyond myself with happiness and pride. Mother will be overjoyed. She realises ... a
little ... what I've been through. Of course--in our talks, she has told me frankly what tragedies often come from mixing such 'mighty opposites.' But she said all of you were quite exceptional. And she knows about such things. And
she's the point. She can always square Father if--there's any need. So just be quiet--inside!"
"But ... that day," he persisted, Roy-like, "
you didn't think of it----?"
"Faithfully, I didn't. I only felt your heart was too full up with Aunt Lila and India to have room enough for me. And I wanted
all the room--or nothing. Vaguely, I knew it was
her dream. But my wicked pride insisted it should be
your dream. It wasn't till long after, that Mother told me how--from the very first--Aunt Lila had planned and prayed, because she knew marriage might be your one big difficulty; and she could only speak of it to Mummy. It was their great link; the idea behind everything--the lessons and all. So you see, all the time, she was sort of creating me ... for you. And the bitter disappointment it must have been to her! If I'd had a glimmering ... of all that--I don't believe I could have held out against you----"
"Then I wish to heaven you'd had a glimmering--because of her and because of
us. Look at all the good years we've wasted----"
"We've not--we've
not!" she protested vehemently. "If it had happened then, it wouldn't have come within miles--of this. You simply hadn't it
in you, Roy, to give me ... all I can feel you giving me now. As for me--well, that's for you to find out! Of course, the minute I'd done it, I was miserable: furious with myself. For I couldn't stop ... loving you. My heart had no shame, in spite of my important pride. Only ... after
she went--and Mother told me all--something in me seemed to know her free spirit would be near you--and bring you back to me ... somehow:
till ... your news came. And--
look! The Bracelet! I hesitated a long time. If you hadn't been engaged, I'm not sure if I would have ventured. But I did--and you're here. It's all been her doing, Roy, first and last. Don't let's spoil any of it with regrets."
He could only bow his head upon her hand in mute adoration. The courage, the crystal-clear wisdom of her--his eager Tara, who could never wait five minutes for the particular sweet or the particular tale she craved. Yet she had waited five years for him--and counted it a little thing. Of a truth his mother had builded better than she knew.
"You see," Tara added softly. "There wouldn't have been ... the deeps. And it takes the deeps to make you realise the heights----"
* * * * *
Lost in one another--in the wonder of mutual self-revealing--they were lost, no less, to impertinent trivialities of place and time; till the very trivial pang of hunger reminded Roy that he had been wandering for hours without food.
"Tara--it's a come down--but I'm fairly starving!" he cried suddenly--and consulted his watch. "Nine o'clock. The wretch I am! Dad's final remark was, 'Sure as a gun, you'll be late for breakfast.' And it seemed impossible. But sure as guns we
will be! Put on the precious hat. We must jolly well run for it."
And taking hands, like a pair of children, they ran.... _