Henry St. John Cooper

“ Should he waken in a moment to hear Dalabey's voice, as once before? But no, she was real at least, this little maid in her black dress and her head crowned with its shining glory.
But she had called him Allan, the name had seemed to come spontaneously from her lips, as he had called her Betty! He felt shaken, life had suddenly become fantastic to him, nothing seemed very real. It was after all a world of dreams; this too, was a dream. He could almost have welcomed the voice of Dalabey, but it did not come. ”

“ She was still a little pale, still a little languid in her movements. But in her eyes there was a great and wonderful happiness and a deep tenderness and unutterable love. Love for this man beside her, this man to whom she clung, this man, who was friend, lover, husband all in one. Was ever woman so blessed as she?
Sir Josiah stood watching them, knowing that these two had found a happiness that was almost beyond his understanding.
And then he would have turned and gone quietly away, but Kathleen called to him.
"Won't you come here and sit with us in the sunshine dear? Don't go, don't go!" ”

“ Sir Josiah looked at him. "God bless my soul!" he said, and if ever there were mystification on a man's face, it was on his.
"Father, do you believe that the soul can outlast and outlive not one earthly body, but many, ten, a hundred, a thousand, that when the body perishes as all things earthly must perish, the soul can and does find another dwelling place? Ah! I don't make myself clear." He broke off, seeing the mystification deepen in the old man's face. "I am afraid I never can. Think this out, father, a man dies, the body perishes, but the soul, the ego, the spirit lives on. ”

“ Now you will be a good brave girl, you know dear that you must go because it will be kinder to—to him—to me and to yourself. You are going to someone whom I love very much and who will be kind to you, not only because I have asked him to be and for your own sake too, but because he is kindness itself. You know, Betty, that you must go, don't you? You know, child, that it is not possible that you could stay on here, and—and Betty, you are going somewhere where you will never see Abram Lestwick, you will be safe from him. ”

“ And so she sat here by her window and watched the figures of the two men, both dear to her, but one grown suddenly so wonderfully, so inexpressibly dear that the strength and depth of her love almost made her afraid.
In spite of the smile he had given Kathleen a while ago, there was this morning a cloud on Allan's brow, a weight of care on his heart. He was worried and anxious, he wanted to do what was right, he wanted to act justly and honourably, and he knew that he was afraid—afraid for himself, afraid of a man's weakness, afraid of temptation that he would willingly flee if he could. ”

“ No, no, you're a good lad. Few sons please their old fathers as you do me—we're not quarrelling, Allan lad!"
"We never have yet, father, and we never will, I think!"
"I know!" said Sir Josiah. "Ah, Allan, you're doing well, a fine woman, beautiful as a picture, tall and stately, and the daughter of an Earl. Why, boy, you ought to be in the Seventh Heaven of delight and instead you sit there with your nose in a book!"
"She is a fine and a beautiful and I believe a good woman," said Allan, "but her father—" he paused. "I could have wished her a better father!"
"An Earl, an Earl!" ”

“ A thousand things, a million things, and yet all were summed up in three words, "I love you."
He had given her everything, a man's love, a man's constancy. His heart had not beaten one throb the faster for any woman but her. His eyes had found no pleasure in looking on any other woman's face. Could man give more than he had given? What could he ask in return? Everything—and he knew that he must ask everything of her.
Kathleen was conscious of a trepidation, of a nervousness unusual to her. ”

“ If Allan Homewood, Esquire, should by chance meet his wife's maid or any other servant on the stairs, or in one of the innumerable passages of the old fashioned house, it was scarcely likely that he would give more than a passing glance and more than a passing thought to the domestic. If little Betty Hanson should happen suddenly on the master of the house at a turn in the passageway, what more becoming than she should drop her eyes demurely and go on her way? ”

“ I know that Lady Kathleen Homewood is a sweet and lovely young lady, though how she came to have such a father—at any rate I know there isn't a finer lady in this land than her, and I know that Allan Homewood is a lad who if I had had a daughter of my own I'd have liked to have seen her married to, but for all that it was old Homewood who made the marriage, his money that did it, and though they like one another and respect one another, as all the world can see, why—why—do you see, Sir Harold, it isn't the same as if it had been a love match and they had married for love, do you take me? ”

“ He had rather dreaded the honeymoon, and now had come to realise that it formed the most pleasant period of his life. But now that it had come to its end, he felt a strange reluctance to go to Homewood.
He was young and healthy minded; for such a man to brood over a dream or a vision was impossible. The effect of that May day dream of his had well nigh worn away, the vision of the girl who had come to him in the old garden and kissed him had grown vague and shadowy. ”

“ THE GOING OF BETTY
"I want, dear Sir Josiah, to feel that the child is happy and well cared for, her life here has not been a very happy one, her grandmother was trying to force her into marriage with a man she hated, a man I myself feel instinctive mistrust of. I send her to you because I know of no one so kind, so good, so generous. I know that you will do all you can for her. I do not wish her, and I do not think she herself wishes ever to come back to Homewood again. ”

“ I shall behold my dear daughter, mistress of a good house, dispensing her and her husband's hospitality with the gracious courtesy that is the birthright only of a woman of breeding. Give my kindly remembrance to your husband and believe me, my dear Kathleen, ever your fond and devoted Father, Gowerhurst.
"P.S. I am taking the liberty of bringing an old friend down with me. I know in such a mansion as Homewood, there are many rooms, may I hope that I am not encroaching in asking that one may be reserved for one for whom you once had a kindly feeling." ”

“ Was he not well enough content with life as it was? He was married to a girl for whom he felt a great liking, a growing affection, and a respect, a woman whom he realised was the sweetest and best woman he had ever known.
It was not her beauty alone that attracted him, yet he could scarcely repress a thrill of pride of possession that comes to many men when they realise the envy of others and see the looks of admiration which were no more than Kathleen's well deserved tribute.
So the honeymoon had been a very pleasant and happy time. They were frank with one another, the best of friends. ”

“ There are no flowers in the garden now, for the garden of Homewood Manor and all the world beside lies under a pall of white, for the winter is here, the winter of seventeen hundred and five, which is remembered by all men as a winter of bitter cold, of great frosts and heavy snows.
In a tiny cottage that stands a bare quarter of a mile on the Stretton Road from the Homewood gates, a man is on his knees beside a bed. ”

“ You must, oh you must, you do understand, Kathleen, don't shrink from me—you see before you the man who loves you better than he loves his life, better I think, than he loves his soul. Marriage—what is marriage, such a marriage as yours, a marriage of convenience, a marriage of accommodation, a marriage tainted by money. Can you set up such a marriage as yours against my steadfast love? ”

“ What was Kathleen thinking now? Had he surprised, even frightened her, was she hurt or angry, or could she understand and forgive that sudden wave of passion that had come to him? Love and passion for her—his own wife! His cheeks flushed a little, it seemed to him that all his little world was in strange and dire confusion.
Mrs. Hanson, standing at her own gate, tall, erect, and brown of face, beady of eyes, bobbed to him an exaggerated respectful curtsey. ”

“ Did he dream when in his eagerness and his passion and his love for you, as he penned them, never weighing his words, only eager to pour out his soul to you, that you would keep them and cherish them all these years, Kathleen, only to destroy them at last?
The unsteady writing fades and is gone. Your eyes through a mist of tears see a young, ardent, boyish face, you see eyes that plead and are filled with a hope that fights valiantly against despair. ”

“ Kathleen said briefly.
"I will see you home!" Allan said.
His lordship shrugged his shoulders. "So be it, I will go to my lonely caravanserie and a frugal meal. I'm an old fellow, an old fellow, I realise that youth must be served!" He waved a white hand. "Youth, youth!" he said. "How lightly we hold it when it is ours, how we even resent it, and how, when it is lost to us forever, do we worship and yearn and long for it. ”

“ This old garden, the garden here about us has meant so much to us both, better dear that you should go and never see it again, for then in time you will forget, and the love you speak of is not real, it cannot be real, it is born of dreams Betty and like a dream it will pass. ”

“ Who, to look about one now, seeing those beautiful rooms with their exquisite furnishing, that garden, a thing of delight and perfect beauty, could reconcile it all with the desolate and derelict wilderness of a place it had been three short months before?
"I'd like that there Van Norden, or whatever his name is, to see it, I would!" Sir Josiah thought. "Hang me, I'd like him to take a stroll around now! Them Americans are smart and wonderful skilful, aye, and what's more a fine nat'ral taste they've got, appreciating fine things and old things more than we do! ”

“ I have seen it—and you—always you—and yet my memory never did you justice Kathleen. To-day you are more beautiful, more sweetly gracious, more lovable——"
"Hush!" she said.
"Why should I be silent when silence would be but pretence? Ten years ago I loved you with all my heart and soul, for ten years my love has been constant, my dreams and my memories of you were sweeter to me than the living realty of other women—I cared nothing for them, my heart was all yours."
"Harold!" she said. "Harold!" She put her hand on his arm. "The past is dead and it must lie dead and—and forgotten——"
"Forgotten! ”

“ Why should Betty dis-like Abram Lestwick—a man earning his thirty-five shillings a week and with a cottage to himself and all keen set as he be——?"
"I have seen the man and can understand her dislike for him. He lays in wait for her, outside the gates; she is afraid to venture out of nights because of this man, whom she fears and hates. And you, can you not understand the child's aversion for such a man as Lestwick, Mrs. Hanson?"
"That I cannot and will not! A proper man be Abram and rare grateful and glad any maid should be attracting the like of he!" ”

“ Perhaps it had been so with her—yet she had loved him—she had thrilled to the passion in his boyish voice, to the love in his boyish, ardent eyes. A child's love, a school girl's love, her father had said. "My dear child, I'm a man of the world and you are a young Miss who has only just learned to do her back hair up; accept it from me, the person who marries his or her first love lives to regret it. First love is merely a kind of preliminary canter, it's good exercise, provided you don't take it too seriously, but if you do take it seriously why then it is the deuce and all." ”

“ She was listening to him with a smile on her lips. Now she glanced at him, at the tall, big young man by her side—her husband!
"Allan," she said suddenly, "Allan, you seem to be very happy!"
"Happy!" he was startled. "Of course I am happy. Why—why did you say that? I am happy and content. I Have the dearest and best man in the world for father. I have a wife who is friend and comrade——" he pressed her hand. "I have a home, the like of which there is not to be found in all England! Happy—why not, Kathleen?" ”

“ To-night Allan felt in no mood to join his father and his friends, had Sir Josiah been alone it would have been different. Kathleen was interested in her friend. His lordship was asleep, Allan crossed the room quietly, opened a French window, and passed out into the garden.
When a man is face to face with a problem, he must wrestle with it, find an answer to it and act on his own finding. A man who thrusts the thing behind him and leaves it all in the hands of Fate is little better than a coward, and Allan Homewood was no coward. ”

“ He does not hear a light step on the long stone pathway, for it is scarce heavier than a bird might make. From the house a little maid comes hurrying. Now she stands hesitatingly and looks about her, her finger on her lips, as one a little fearful, a little anxious. Again and yet again, she pauses, as she looks about her, then comes to where beyond the great hedge of clipped yew trees the green waters of the pool reflect the golden, sunshine. ”

“ And then, filled with wonder, filled with a strange sense of fear, she ran to the house and so back through the door which she bolted and barred after her, and up the steep stairs to her own little room and to sit on the bed with her hands clasped and her eyes staring into vacancy, a vacancy which yet seemed to hold many things, and one thing she saw very plainly, a man who was young, a man whom she knew instantly as he whom she had seen so often at his work in the old garden. ”

“ Kathleen asked brightly.
His lordship was like a bear with a very sore head, the Stanwys manner was not in evidence. He growled and cursed under his breath. He flung poisoned darts of wit, sneers and jibes at Coombe and they glanced harmless enough from that gentleman's toughened hide, but they went home when he turned his battery on Sir Josiah.
"Poisonous old devil he is," Coombe muttered to himself as he put away a huge breakfast. ”