Meryl

“ But the fact was, Meryl could not quite make up her mind what she did want. In some vague way a kind of upheaval had been taking place in her heart, and left her high and dry upon the rocks of uncertainty and dim dissatisfaction. New thoughts, new questions, new desires had risen in her during that sad month of May, and she felt as one seeking vainly she knew not what. ”

“ Meryl took it from him, thanking him in her low, sweet voice, and with a rather shy, upward glance. And Diana, in the shadow, saw the soldier suddenly flinch and suddenly grow sterner, standing in an attitude of almost unnatural rigidity.
"There is no heed to reply," Meryl said, after reading her note. "It is only a message from father to say he may be detained until afternoon. Thank you so much for bringing it. Won't you sit down? Can I offer you anything? I'm afraid there is not much choice. Father does not like luxuries in the wilderness, and we only carry whisky." ”

“ Send for The Bear, and compel him to make the best of the awful fact that Meryl possesses a fortune, and console dear Dutch Willie myself, I suppose!..." And she smiled grimly. Then her face softened, and tears unexpectedly gleamed in her eyes. She brushed them away, apostrophising herself impatiently. Then she swallowed down a sob, murmuring, "I can't bear the thought of Meryl, standing with that smile on her lips and that expression in her eyes, to be fitted for her wedding-dress. It makes one want to tear the whole world to pieces, and sink South Africa in the nethermost ocean. ”

“ The men did not take Meryl's change of heart very kindly. He, one of the most eager, now to be holding them back!
"Every yonker hath become a seer," sneered one of the older men, as Meryl was admonishing them in the poor priest's absence.
The blood rose swiftly to the young man's cheeks.
"One is never too young to learn. It seems that one may be too old," he said angrily.
"Bah! a fig for thy dreaming poor priest. Give us a torch, say I, and march upon all the castles and abbeys in the land—the sooner the better. The more we delay the more the Barons will laugh and call us but idle boasters." ”

“ Yet all his devotion was drawn to Meryl in her fairness and quiet strength, and the hope of his heart was still to win her.
As it happened, it was a very white-faced, silent Meryl who sat on the deep verandah that afternoon of his first call, and was content chiefly to listen to Diana waging her usual war. That astute young person had much to say, in her own slangy phraseology, concerning certain utterances of the Dutch extremists, openly derogatory to the English, and seemingly opposed to any spirit of racial conciliation.
"Why don't you try and teach your people to play the game?" ”

“ Yet there were others besides Richard Meryl who had eyes to read Matilda's secret. Some there were that thought it a pity to see the unselfish devotion of a lifetime go so ill rewarded. For it was a question how the Westels could have lived had it not been that young Meryl had worked their tiny tenure of land, and rendered service in their stead, giving his lord two days' ploughing for himself and two for them, and in the same way doubling his days of sowing and reaping, digging and carting, that the women might keep their modest holding. ”

“ Beyond them, what you see here, a far dream-country of untold loveliness. I said, 'O, Billy! have you lived beside this all these months?' And then I began to cry, because I didn't know what else to do, and I was so glad that I had come."
A fleeting shadow of sadness seemed to cross Meryl's face. "I envy you," she said in a low voice. "You can stay on with the man you love, and see it every day. I must go back to the tea-parties."
"Most people pity me."
"I dare say; and they envy me," with a little forlorn smile.
"You have much power, and power is good," softly. ”

“ At the same time, though many perhaps hoped that she would lead the way for the young South African heiresses, not many had much belief that she would lead it in the particular fashion they hoped; for there was ever that uncertain elusive quality about Meryl, that suggestion of the visionary and dreamer, that betold a nature not very likely to follow in any beaten path, or give overmuch value to the advantages of a high alliance from a worldly point of view. It was probable she would see things in quite a different light to the majority and act for herself. ”

“ Was it possible that Ailsa's accusation was true? One woman had been sacrificed more or less to his mad, insensate fury against his brother. Was the other perhaps to be sacrificed to his rigid, indomitable pride? One picture seemed to stamp itself upon his brain with ever-increasing strength and clearness: the picture of Meryl, leaning up against the window lintel that last evening at Bulawayo, white as a frail, exquisite lily, with the anguish in her deep eyes that she could not entirely hide. ”

“ And it did not require much thought on Meryl's part to see now where this spirit of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice seemed to call her. South Africa was at the cross-roads; she was at the period of her most urgent need for great women as well as great men. The only question that seemed to arise was, what did she specially want of the women ready to serve her?
In her own case Meryl found an answer from the lips of Carew himself. "Intermarriage," he had said; "that is the real solution to this great barrier of racialism. The same hopes united upon the same hearth." ”

“ Meryl had not yet returned from his mission. Matilda lived in a blessed companionship [257] with her Saviour, sharing in every act of His life, letting every precious word that had fallen from His lips sink deeply into her heart. It was a marvellous experience, which broadened and developed her receptive nature. She burned with a passionate desire to make His Presence real to those about her. She resolved to take up that part of Robert's work—the bringing of the Gospel to the people. There could be no greater service on earth, and there was comfort in the consciousness of continuing his work. ”

“ Meryl doesn't want to marry van Hert, and van Hert doesn't want to marry Meryl; they both want to marry someone else; and yet they both mean to go on to the bitter end, because of some rotten-cotton notion about serving South Africa. O! I've no patience with these heroic attitudes! They are not suited to commonplace everyday life. If they'd a little more sound common sense, and a little less of the noble and lofty soul spirit, they would perceive they will only do more harm than good by going against nature and trying to force inclinations. ”

“ The eyes of the visionary, who sees great things and dreams great dreams, and, alas! how often, breaks a heart that of its very fineness could only do or die.
Yet better, how much better, to hope and dare and die upon the heights, than linger content in the warm, snug valley of little joys and little sorrows!
And then across her dreams broke the sound of a sleepy voice from the room behind her.
"If you stay out there any longer, Meryl, you will grow wings and fly away. Do be rational enough to come in and go to bed." ”

“ Sufficient for him that he knew himself in the danger zone, and therefore it behoved him to be very wary. Not by act or word, if he could help it, must he let Meryl see how she had disturbed his peace. And there, again, it would seem, Fate had played with him. A subtler man would have perceived that an added rigidity was not entirely the safeguard he needed now. Meryl already knew him too well for that. Had he talked and laughed a little, she might have been puzzled and baffled. But Carew was not subtle. ”

“ Meryl was rather pale, but she managed to reply lightly, "I can't see why you seem so surprised. He is only acting as he has done all along. It is his affair, whether he keeps it up to the last, or suddenly changes altogether and becomes the polite, conventional society man. ”

“ XXVII DIANA BEGINS TO GROW PERPLEXED
In the meantime the household at Hill Court was a restless, uneasy, depressed one. No person in it, except Meryl, seemed undisturbed by the unsatisfactory atmosphere. She by taking thought, had, contrary to the old dictum, added to her stature; but it was the stature of her mind. The spirit that takes a woman through the troubled waters at hand, with all her consciousness set upon the great goal ahead, upheld her now ”

“ It is not worth while. I merely 'express an opinion,' having the good fortune to belong to a race in which women are permitted such an indulgence," and she threw a laughing glance back at him from the window before she stepped out.
Meryl watched her with a swift look of deep affection in her eyes, and then glanced at her father. Henry Pym's face was expressionless, but his eyes seemed to reply to her unspoken question, and tell her that he, too, recognised a little more thoroughly that under the surface flippancy and light raillery there was depth. ”

“ Meryl, do come down and be rational. I just feel as if I could shake you." She got up and roamed round the room, then returned to the window-seat and leaned out of the window watching some workmen who were painting the balcony below them. Meryl sat on silently, still seeking some sort of a solution to something she could not name.
"There's such a good-looking workman," Diana remarked presently, "I'm sure he's an artist. ”

“ I can't bear any more to-day." And they went silently back through the lovely plantations to the hotel.
But in the evening, in the moonlight, her mood changed again.
"I feel a little like you to-night, Meryl. The big things do matter, of course. If I'm such a silly little goat I can't do anything big myself, I guess I'll help you whenever it's possible. And, of course, even humans matter a little, though I do like dogs and horses so much better; but there's something so calm and big and strong about the waters to-night, they are telling me all the time that the big things matter. ”

“ We haven't much time left, and we must plan something. Meryl will come here and call for me soon in the motor. She knows I have come to see a friend, but she does not know whom. She will not come in herself, because she is shy about being seen just now. ”

“ I don't think he has spoken two words all day."
"Is there some special haste then?"
"O no; it is just his mood. He gets a sort of black day sometimes, when he barely answers if you speak to him, and looks like a bronze figure. Then he grinds away at something or other as if his life depended on it, and Moore and I have to just shut up."
When they had gone away up the valley Meryl sat on alone in the shade, thinking deeply. Evidently he had some reason of his own for not following up his promise, and she need not any longer expect him. ”

“ Meryl went quietly to bed with only a few words, and either slept, or feigned sleep. Diana loitered on the verandah, and looked at the stars. She hardly knew why, only some strange half-consciousness was springing up inside her that made her restless. Somehow van Hert seemed to be gaining a hold over her. She could not gauge how, nor why, nor wherefore; but as she thought of his fine dark eyes in the starlight, with that luminous, glad expression when he looked at her, she had a sense of violent antipathy one moment, and of a gladness that made her blush secretly the next. ”

“ Nothing banal, nothing mediocre in the actual phenomenon—just a riot of colouring, a riot of splendour, a riot of revelation. It is not a glory in the west spreading a little way overhead. It is an all around, north, south, east, and west, colouring beyond all telling—something aloof, overpowering, incomprehensible, with the remote majestic splendour of the Rockies, or the Sahara, or the Victoria Falls.
Neither Carew nor Meryl spoke. They were of those who know that the highest appreciation of all is in silence. ”

“ What joy of life! What lust of manhood! What splendid, whole-hearted young inconsequence! In his heart he smiled a little grimly. Peter Carew of the Blues had been no shunner of women in those days; no taciturn, silent, unappreciative onlooker. Rather he had loved too many, kissed too freely, ridden away too light-heartedly.
Until the blue-grey eyes, so like Meryl's, looked shyly up, and then in their turn ran away from him. Of course, he had followed blindly like the hot-headed, hard-riding sportsman he was—followed blindly, wooed irresistibly, and won gloriously. ”

“ My good Roger!" said a broken voice, which, Merrylips felt, could only in a dream be Lady Sybil's voice. "What shall I do? What can I do? This child—my little lass! She hath fallen ill. I cannot take her with me in my flight. Yet I cannot leave her."
Old Roger answered in a voice that rang through the dream.
"'Tis a sweet little lady and winsome,—ay, and dear unto mine old heart, your Ladyship! But the king's cause is dearer than any child unto us, who are your father's poor servants. Your Ladyship, 'tis to save your wealth for the good cause you go. 'Tis for the king you ride to-night!" ”

“ As death is true. This Merlin is not mine,
But Vivian’s. My crown is less than hers,
And I am less than woman to this man.”
Then Merlin, as one reading Arthur’s words
On viewless tablets in the air before him:
“Now, Arthur, since you are a child of mine—
A foster-child, and that’s a kind of child—
Be not from hearsay or despair too eager
To dash your meat with bitter seasoning,
So none that are more famished than yourself
Shall have what you refuse. For you are King,
And if you starve yourself, you starve the state ”

“ But dearer to Merrylips even than Roger, the butler, or Goody Trot, the old nurse, or even Mawkin, her own kind maid from Walsover, was her godmother, Lady Sybil. For Lady Sybil, dwelling in that forgotten corner of Sussex, with only her few servants, was, as she had said, a lonely woman. She had a heartful of love to give to Merrylips, and it was a love that had wisdom to find the way to lead the little maid to what was for her good. So Merrylips, to her own surprise, found herself presently sewing seams and making tarts and toiling over lessons. ”