H. Rider Haggard

“ It was Madame Riennes.
“Ah!” she said, in her hateful, remembered voice, “so my little Godfrey who has grown such a big Godfrey now—yes, big in every way, had recognition of his dear Godmamma, did he? Oh! do not deny it; I saw you jump with joy. Well, I knew what was happening—never mind how I knew—and though I am so poor now, I travelled here to assist and give my felicitations. Eleanor, too, she sends hers, though you guess of what kind they are, for remember, as I told you long ago, speerits are just as jealous as we women, because, you see, they were women before they were speerits.” ”

“ He stared at Mars through the large Hall telescope, and saw, or imagined that he saw the canals, also the snow-caps and the red herbage. Isobel stared too and saw, or swore that she saw—nothing at all—after which they argued until their throats were dry.
“It’s all nonsense,” said Isobel. “If only you’ll study the rocks and biology, and Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ and lots of other things, you will see how man came to develop on this planet. He is just an accident of Nature, that’s all.”
“And why shouldn’t there be an accident of Nature on Mars and elsewhere?” queried Godfrey. ”

“ Lady Jane looked at her and smiled, and then said:
“No, darling, you can’t help it now, but I am sure that a time must come when you will think differently. I say this because something tells me that it is so, and the knowledge makes me very happy. You see we must all of us go through darkness and storms in life; that is if we are worth anything, for, of course, there are people who do not feel. Yet at the end there is light, and love, and peace, for you as well as for me, Isobel; yes, and for all of us who have tried to trust and to repent of what we have done wrong.” ”

“ After all, ruling out the primary impulses which would make a scullery maid congenial to a genius upon a desert isle, what was there in a Juliette to appeal to a Godfrey? And, with the same qualification, what was there in a Godfrey to appeal to a Juliette? As once, with an accidental touch of poetry, she said to her mother, when at his side she felt as though she were walking over a snow-covered crevasse in the surrounding Alps. All seemed firm beneath her feet, but she never knew when the crust would break, and he would vanish into unfathomed depths, perchance dragging her with him. ”

“ A little quiver ran through her, causing her dress to shake and the gold Mexican gods on her necklace to tinkle against each other. Then she grew still as a stone, and raising those large and steady eyes of hers, looked him up and down, finally fixing them upon his own.
“Is that true?” she asked.
“True! It is as true as life and death, or as Heaven and Hell.”
“I don’t know anything about Heaven and Hell; they are hypothetical, are they not? Life and death are enough for me,” and she stopped.
“Then by life and death, for life and death, and for ever, I love you, Isobel.” ”

“ You, you rejoice, yes, and shall rejoice—for though sometimes I hate you I must tell it. Yet I am sorry if I have harmed you, and should you be able, I pray you, say a good word in the World of Speerits for your sinful old godmamma Riennes. So fare you well, who thinking that you have lost, have gained all. It is I, I who have lost. Again farewell, and bid that old Pasteur to pray for me, which he, who is good, will do, although I was his enemy and cursed him.”
“See that she lacks for nothing till the end, and comfort her if you can,” said Godfrey to the Pasteur. ”

“ But do not think that you will be happy, my Godfrey, for you will not get that girl you want for a long, long while, and then only for the shortest of time, just enough to kiss and say, ‘Oh! my pretty, how nice you are!’ And then au revoir to the world of speerits. Meanwhile, being a little fool, you will go empty and hungry, since you are not one of those who hate the woman, which, after all, is the best thing in life for the man while he is young, like, so the spirits tell me, does your dear papa. ”

“ He saw it, ah, clearly, and knew that informing its changeful loveliness was all which had been Isobel upon the earth.
“Fear nothing,” he thought it said, “for I am with you and others greater than I. Know, Godfrey, that everything has a meaning and that all joy must be won through pain. Our lives seem to have been short and sad, but these are not the real life, they are but its black and ugly door, whereof the threshold must be watered with our tears and the locks turned by the winds of Faith and Prayer. ”

“ Madame Riennes uttered a stifled scream, more she could not do for rage choked her. Her big eyes rolled, she clenched and unclenched her hands, and bent forward as though she were about to fly at the Pasteur like a wild cat. Still poised upon the fragments of the mummy he lifted the point of the umbrella to receive the charge as it came, and taking advantage of Madame’s temporary paralysis of speech, went on:
“Hearken! daughter of Beelzebub. You have the curse and it shall work upon your soul, but, yes, it shall work well. Still your body remains, and of that too I would say something. ”

“ Alas! how easy it is for the most innocent to be misjudged, and apparently, not without reason.
This reflection brought something to Godfrey’s mind which had escaped it in his first disturbance, also connected with a flower. There came before him the vision of a London square, and of a tall, pale girl, in an antique dress, giving a rose to a man in knight’s armour, which rose both of them kissed simultaneously. Of course, when he saw it he had ruled out the rose and only thought of the kisses, although, now that he came to think of it, a rose is of a much thicker texture than a lily. ”

“ The building was full of dead and dying people. By the altar, dressed in his savage witch-doctor’s gear, stood Alulu, a lamp in his hand, with which evidently he had been firing the church, for tongues of flame ran up the walls. On the altar itself was something that had a white cloth thrown over it, as do the sacred vessels. Catching sight of Godfrey, with a yell the brute tore away the napkin, revealing the severed head of Mr. Tafelett, whose surplice-draped body Godfrey now distinguished lying in the shadows on one side of the altar! ”

“ Godfrey, by a kind of instinct, sped at once to the willow log by the stream, where, through an outreaching of the long arm of coincidence, he found Isobel seated. After casually remarking that the swallows were flying neither high nor low that day, but as it were in mid-air, she added that she had not seen him for a long while.
“No, you haven’t—say for three years,” he answered, and detailed his tribulations.
“Ah!” said Isobel, “that’s always the way; one is never left at leisure to follow one’s own fancies in this world. ”

“ In fact, the tragedy was complete, since Jane loathed her husband, whose real nature she had read from the beginning, as much as she adored the high-church curate from whom in some terrible hour she parted with broken words. Even when he died a few years later, she continued to adore him, so much that her one hope was that she might meet him again in the land where there is no marrying or giving in marriage. But all of this she kept locked in her poor little heart, and meanwhile did her duty by her husband with an untroubled brow, though those mouse-like eyes of hers grew ever more piteous. ”

“ If so, of course, I shall be happy.”
“No,” said Godfrey, shaking his head.
“Then,” replied the Pasteur, “I may say that I am equally happy. It is not everyone that has a call for this vocation, and there are more ways of doing good in the world than from the floor of a pulpit. Myself, I have wondered sometimes—but let that be; it is the lot of certain of us, who think in our vanity that we could have done great things, to be obliged to do the small things, because God has so decreed. To one He gives the ten talents, to the other only one talent, or even but a franc. ”

“ Set in the splendid surroundings of the old Abbey, through the painted windows of which gleamed the winter sun, Godfrey in his glittering Indian uniform and orders, and his bride in her quaint, rich dress, made a striking pair at the altar rail. Indeed it is doubtful whether since hundreds of years ago the old Crusader and his fair lady, whose ashes were beneath their feet, stood where they stood for this same purpose of marriage, clad in coat of mail and gleaming silk, a nobler-looking couple had been wed in that ancient fane. ”

“ Do you suppose that I wish to see my only child, who will have half a million of money and might be a countess, or half a dozen countesses, to-morrow, married to the son of a beggarly sniveller like you, for as you are so fond of the pure and sacred truth, I’ll give it you—a fellow who can come and peach upon your own boy and his girl.”
“My conscience and my duty——” began Mr. Knight.
“Oh! drat your conscience and blow your duty. You’re a spy and a backbiting tell-tale, that’s what you are. Did you never kiss a girl yourself?” ”

“ In a sense he was unselfish in this matter, or rather his hate mastered his selfishness. He knew very well that Isobel would be a great match for Godfrey, and he was by no means a man who underrated money and position and their power. He guessed, too, that she really loved him and would have made him the best of wives; that with her at his side he might do almost anything in the world. But these considerations did not in the least soften his loathing of the very thought of such a marriage. Incredible as it may seem, he would rather have seen Godfrey dead than the happy husband of Isobel. ”

“ Godfrey was not one of these, because the hand of Circumstance had managed his affairs otherwise. Isobel was no mess of potage, but with all her faults and failings, a fair and great inheritance for him who could take seisin of her. Still, as he believed, she had first treated him badly, then utterly neglected him whose pride she had outraged, by not even taking the trouble to write him a letter, and finally, had vanished away. And he was young, with manhood advancing in his veins, like the pulse of spring, and women are many in the world, some of whom have pretty faces and proper figures. ”

“ Hearken again, Godfrey. Everybody things me an old fool. How can it be helped with such a face as mine, and these blue spectacles, which I must wear? But even an old fool sees things sometimes. Thus, I have seen that Madame, who had once plenty of money to play with, and longs, poor dear, for the fine things of life, is very anxious that her Juliette should make a good marriage. ”

“ Besides, some new sentiment had entered into his relations with Isobel, whereby these were half spoiled. Of course, although he did not altogether understand it, this was the eternal complication of sex which curses more than it blesses in the world; of sex, the eating fire that is so beautiful but burns. For when that fire has passed over the flowers of friendship, they are changed into some new growth, that however gorgeous it may be, yet always smells of flame. ”

“ Having investigated Godfrey till he felt cold down the back, Madame turned her searchlight eyes upon Miss Ogilvy, who shrank beneath them. Then of a sudden she exclaimed with a kind of convulsive shudder:
“The Power possesses and guides me. It tells me that you will be the first, Sister Helen. I see you among the immortal Lilies with the Wine of Life flowing through your veins.” ”

“ I feel that I must find that answer for myself.”
Monsieur Boiset removed his blue spectacles and looked at him.
“Such searches are dangerous,” he said. “Believe me, Godfrey, it is better to accept.”
“Then why do you find fault with the Roman Catholics, Monsieur?”
The question was like a match applied to a haystack. At once the Pasteur took fire:
“Because they accept error, not truth,” he began. “What foundation have they for much of their belief? It is not here,” and again he slapped the Bible. ”

“ Thus, and in these few words, although she never became altogether orthodox, or took quite the same view of such mysteries as did Godfrey, Isobel made her great recantation, for which probably there would never have been any need had she been born in different surroundings and found some other spiritual guide in youth than Mr. Knight. As the cruelties and the narrow bitterness of the world had bred unfaith in her, so did supreme love breed faith, if of an unusual sort, since she learned that without the faith her love must die, and the love she knew to be immortal. ”

“ I hoped that he would pull you over the edge, so that in one short minute you became nothing but a red plum-pudding at the bottom of the gulf. For you know that the sweetest-tempered fairy godmother can be made cross by wicked ingratitude and evil treatment. Do not think, little Brother, that I have forgiven you for bringing that old pasteur-fool to insult and threaten me. Not so. I pray the speerits night and day to pay you back in your own coin, you who have insulted them also. ”

“ Godfrey watched her tall form vanish through the churchyard gate and over the slope of a little hill that lay between it and Hawk’s Hall, and that was the last sight he had of her for many a year. When she was quite lost to view, he spoke to the two men who still stood irresolute before him.
“Isobel I shall meet again,” he said, “but not either of you, for I have done with you both. It is not for me to judge you. Judge yourself and be judged.” ”

“ That is your case and Eleanor’s. At present you are upon different spheres, but in the future, no doubt, you will find yourselves side by side again, as you have often been, in due course to be driven apart once more by the winds of Destiny, and perhaps, after ages, finally to be united. Meanwhile she plays the part of one of your guardian angels.”
“Then I wish she wouldn’t,” said Godfrey, with vigour. “I don’t care for a guardian angel of whom I have no memory, and who seems to fall on you like snow upon a hot day. If anybody does that kind of thing I should prefer a living woman.” ”