CHAPTER XXIII.
"THE KING OF MY KINGDOM."
The afternoon was very still. Overhead, the sky of October was mistilyblue, the autumn sunshine flooded upland and valley with a goldenglory; in the air was that quietness, that sense of waiting andbrooding, which marks an autumn day. From the cottages in the valley,thin trails of blue smoke mounted straight into the veiled softness ofthe sky. The touch of autumn's hand was already visible upon thetrees. In the copse over the brow of the hill, the hazels wereyellowing; the beech-trees showed orange and gold amongst their leaves;the hawthorns wore a brave array of crimson and yellow leaves, andbright red berries. Long ago the heather had faded, a soft dun colourhad taken the place of the royal purple, which earlier in the year hadcarpeted the uplands, and the bracken blazed golden and brown upon themoorland slopes. From the place where Christina sat, she could see thewhite road that wound away across the heather to Graystone, and tothose far blue hills, about which the afternoon sun was weaving a veilof light. In the valley to her right, the trunks of the pine-treeswere turning crimson in the sun's level beams, the birches' delicatebranches outlined against the blue of the sky, the soft amber of thelarches contrasting with the sombre green of the pines, and beneath thetrees, the carpet of bright bracken touched to gold by the sunshine.From far away across the moor, came the sound of chiming bells, fromthe copse across the road a robin sang his wonderful song of spring,that will follow winter, of life that will come after death; and fromsomewhere amongst the trees of the valley, a thrush was fluting thefirst notes of his next year's song, that he had yet to learn. Theworld was a very peaceful world on that October afternoon; andChristina, sitting on a hummock of dry heather, rested her chin on herhands, and looked over the wide landscape, with a great sense of itsabiding restfulness. The chiming bells, the robin's song, theoccasional soft murmur of the little breeze in the pines, harmonisedwith the brooding peace of autumn, that seemed to be over all the land,and the girl smiled, as she let the sense of restful peace sink deepinto her soul. She and Baba were spending a week with Mrs. Nairne atGraystone, and on this Sunday afternoon, leaving the child in Mrs.Nairne's charge, she had walked over the hill to the little churchyard,to visit Margaret's grave.
In that sunny corner of the churchyard, close to the old grey wall, shehad found violets in bloom, filling the air with their sweetness justas they had filled it on the April day, when Margaret had been laid torest; and Christina held some of the purple, fragrant blossoms in herhand, whilst she sat looking out over the great sweep of country, tothe golden sky behind the hills. Her thoughts were very full of thebeautiful woman whose life had so strangely crossed her own, and fromher thoughts of Margaret, by a natural transition, her mind wandered onto the remembrance of the man who had stood by her side, at Margaret'sfuneral. She recalled the look of heartbreak in Rupert Mernside'seyes, when they had met hers; she remembered that glimpse she had hadinto the man's tortured soul. How many times since that day, hadCicely speculated about Rupert's friendship with Margaret, wonderingwhether he had cared for her more deeply than as a friend, discussingthe why and wherefore of his disappearance from the midst of his owncircle, whilst all the time Christina knew in her heart, that she couldif she would, have answered all these questions. She knew thatRupert's feeling for Margaret was not merely that of friendship, neverhad been friendship only; and she knew, intuitively, that his usualround of life had become intolerable to him, after Margaret's death.She felt an odd sense of triumph in her knowledge of him; of triumph,and of awe as well. For to Christina's simple and straightforwardnature, there was something awe-inspiring, in this strange, intimateunderstanding of another human being's soul.
Seated there upon the heather, she was so wrapped up in her thoughtsthat she did not observe a figure moving slowly across the valley; andnot until the figure had detached itself from amongst the trees, andwas walking along the high-road in her direction, did she see that theobject of her thoughts was coming towards her. That he should havecome at that particular moment, struck her first as so extraordinary acoincidence, that she could hardly believe the evidence of her owneyes. But as the figure came a few paces nearer, she knew that she hadmade no mistake; it was Rupert's face into which she looked, as shesprang to her feet, Rupert's grey eyes that met hers with a smile,despite their expression of haunting sadness.
"I never dreamt of seeing you here," were his first unconventionalwords of greeting; "and yet it seems natural to find you."
Perhaps he was hardly aware himself why he spoke the last half of hissentence, and although Christina's heart leapt as she heard it,something within her seemed to respond to the spirit of his words. Toher, too, it seemed "natural," that they should meet out here on theheather, in the sunlight, close to Margaret's grave. For the littlechurchyard lay only just over the brow of the hill, and Rupert'sexplanation of his presence on the moorland, was not needed by thegirl, who knew without any words of his that he had come to visit thatcorner by the sunny wall, where the violets scented the air with theirfragrance. After that brief greeting, he made Christina sit down againupon the heather, and flung himself beside her, his face turned, likehers, to the western horizon. "I am glad they put those words on thestone," he said abruptly; "whose thought were they?"
"I think I thought of them first," Christina answered; "they seemed thefittest and most beautiful words for her."
"Love--never faileth," he quoted slowly, his thoughts going back to thewhite cross, upon which the words were engraved, "Love never faileth;yes, you could not have chosen a better epitaph for her. Her soul wasbuilt up of love, and her love never failed, never for a single moment.It is a wonderful thing--the love of such a woman. Perhaps, in all theworld, there is nothing more wonderful than a woman's love." He seemedto be speaking his thoughts aloud, rather than addressing her directly,and she did not answer his speech, only sat very still, her handsfolded in her lap, her eyes looking out towards the golden west, alittle smile on her lips.
"You know--I have been wandering over the earth--since--that day,"Rupert went on, speaking with singular abruptness. "I felt like thatman who went out, seeking rest--and finding none. I have found none."
The ring of bitterness in his voice hurt the girl. She turned alittle, and looked down into his face.
"I am sorry," she said; "so very sorry."
"Are you?" he answered. "It is not worth while being sorry for a manwho has made a mess of things, as I have done."
"Why do you say that," she said quickly. "You made the most of abeautiful friendship; you did Aunt Margaret no wrong in loving her.You were always her helpful friend. And now----"
"Now?" he echoed when she paused.
"Perhaps you will think me impertinent for saying what I was going tosay," she answered, the colour creeping into her face; "but I was goingto say, now you will not waste your life, in regretting what is pastand over. You are not the sort of person to waste life in regrets. Ishould think you would take all the best of the love and friendship,and work them into your life, to make it better."
The words were as simply spoken, as they were simple in themselves.Their very simplicity made an appeal to the man who heard them, for,like all the best men, Rupert, man of the world though he was, had avery simple nature.
"Weave the past into the future," he answered thoughtfully. "Not sweepit away and try to forget it, but let it be woven into my life? Isthat what you mean?"
"Yes, that is what I mean, only you have put it into better words. Inever think it is quite right to try and sweep away a past, even if ithas hurt us. It always seems as if it must be so much better to useall that was good in the past, and let it help to make the futurebetter. I don't think I believe in stamping things out, and buryingthem, and being ruthless over them. Isn't it better to take the goodfrom them, and bury the rest?"
Rupert's eyes were fixed on the girl's face, which had grown eager andintent over the thoughts she was trying to express, and as he watchedher a smile broke up the rug
gedness of his own features. She was quiteunconscious of his gaze, but a soft colour had come into her cheeks asshe spoke, her eyes were very deep and bright, and the man who lookedat her realised that hers was more than mere girlish prettiness. Shehad taken off her hat, and the sunlight fell upon the dusky masses ofher hair, showing golden gleams in its dark threads. Her eyes, greenand deep and very soft, made Rupert think of a stream in Switzerland,beside which he had stood only a few weeks back, a stream whose watersshone in the sunbeams, showing dark and green and soft in the shade.The colour that had crept into the pure whiteness of her cheeks, tintedthem as a white rose is sometimes tinted; and for the first time Rupertwas aware of a faint, yet definite likeness, between the girl at hisside and the woman he had loved. Perhaps it was in her expression morethan in any actual resemblance between the two women's faces, that thelikeness lay, for something of Margaret's nobility and serenity, seemedto be reflected on the younger countenance, and with that flashingthought, there flashed into his mind, too, the words Margaret hadspoken to him, before she died. He had never remembered those wordsagain until now, and they recurred to him with extraordinary force.
"She would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife.She has a sweet, strong soul."
"A sweet, strong soul." Those words rang in his brain with oddpersistence, whilst his eyes watched Christina's profile, as she satsilently looking out again across the moorlands.
A--sweet--strong soul. And there was such a strange restfulness, too,about the personality of the girl, young though she was; he rememberedhow conscious he had been of that restfulness on the day when he hadsat and talked to her, in Mrs. Nairne's parlour. That same restfulnessstole over him now, and some of the haunting misery within him diedaway.
"So you don't believe in a ruthless chopping away of the past?" heasked, going back to her last words.
"Oh! no," she exclaimed vehemently. "I am sure we are meant to use thepast as a foundation stone for the future. Each thing in turn comesinto our lives--joy, sorrow, pain, difficulty; and they all have tohelp together to build it up into perfection. But--I have no businessto be sitting here preaching sermons," she added lightly. "I must gohome, and relieve Mrs. Nairne of Baba, and write to Cicely, and----"
"No; wait here a little longer," he interrupted imperiously, laying ahand on her arm, as she attempted to rise. "I am a returned traveller,and you are to tell me all the news before you go back to Baba, who, Iam morally convinced, is supremely happy with Mrs. Nairne."
"Supremely," Christina laughed. "She was going to help warm the sconesfor tea; perhaps you will come and help us eat them," she added shyly."Baba would be so pleased if you came to have tea with us again."
"And you? Would you be pleased?"
"Of course," but she looked away from him as she spoke, and the softrose tints on her face deepened ever so slightly, "Baba and I were veryproud of giving you tea in the little parlour, last December."
"I liked that parlour. I have pleasant recollections of it," heanswered. "I liked the low ceiling, and the oak panelled walls, andthe queer old-fashioned furniture. Yes, I will come and have tea withyou and Baba to-day, but first tell me all about everybody."
"You know Cicely has married Dr. Fergusson?"
"I saw it in a chance paper. I have heard no details. I have simplydrifted over Europe, where my fancy, or the demon of unrest led me, andI let nobody know where I was. I know practically nothing. Why didCicely marry the doctor? He is a thorough good fellow, but----"
"There isn't any 'but,'" Christina answered firmly. "Denis Fergussonis one of the very best men in the world, and Cicely has been radiantever since--they were engaged. They were only married three weeks ago,and I wish you could have seen her face, when she walked down thechurch. You would not have said 'but' then!"
"Were her people annoyed?"
"A little, but only a little, and only at first. I think theyrecognised how completely the marriage was for Cicely's happiness.After all, Denis is a gentleman, an absolute and perfect gentleman, anda good man; and those two things are all that matter."
"Yes, those things are all that matter. It is only sheer worldlinessthat demands more. And if Cicely is happy, why--let worldliness gohang. Poor little Cicely certainly needed a man to take care of her,and Baba, and that big property; but--is Fergusson willing to give uphis work?"
"Cicely won't hear of his giving it up. The surgery in South London isto go on as usual, and Cicely has insisted on having an assistantthere, to do the work when Denis cannot go himself, so that, as sheexpresses it, she is not depriving a poor man of his living, inallowing a rich man to profit by the surgery and its practice."
"I confess to being a little surprised that Fergusson ever got himselfup to the scratch of asking a rich woman to marry him," Rupert said,with some hesitation. "It doesn't seem--quite like the man."
"It wasn't in the least like the man," Christina answered demurely."And--I'm afraid--I--made myself into a kind of--of matchmaker--or godin the machine, or something of that sort."
Rupert laughed outright.
"It was all your doing, was it?" he questioned, looking at her withsmiling kindliness. "Did you----"
"I don't think I can exactly tell you how I--I--worked the trick," shelaughed a little confusedly. "But Cicely says it wouldn't ever havehappened but for me. And I am glad."
"So am I--very glad. Fergusson is a lucky man. A man who gets a womanlike Cicely to take care of him, may consider a part of every day wellspent, if he spends it in singing a _Te Deum_ of his own. And SirArthur's lost pendant--was it ever found?"
"Yes; eventually the police traced the woman who had been in therailway carriage with Lady Congreve's bag, and she confessed to havingstolen the jewel."
After these words, silence again fell between them, until Christinaonce more made an attempt to rise.
"I ought to go back," she said, when Rupert's detaining hand again fellon her arm. "Baba----"
"Why should you go back when I want you here," was the audaciousresponse. "I want you much more than Baba does."
The hand he had laid on her arm lingered there; over the latter half ofhis sentence, his voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and the rosetints on Christina's cheeks brightened. "I believe I have been wantingyou for quite a long time," he went on, deliberately, his eyes watchinghow the colour came and went on her face, his hand still resting on herarm. "Would you like to know how often, when I was wandering about thebyways of Europe, I thought of that evening in Mrs. Nairne'soak-panelled parlour, when I told you so many things about myself?Would you like to know how often you came into my mind?"
Christina's dark head was a little bent, her eyes were fastened on aclump of bracken, blazing golden in the level sun-rays, her voice wasvery low and a little shaky.
"I--shouldn't have thought you would remember me at all," she said, thetouch of his hand upon her arm filling her with a sensation of strangegladness.
"On that afternoon I told you, I am sure I told you, how restful youwere," Rupert continued, speaking with an eagerness that gave him anoddly boyish manner; "something in your personality rested me then, andI have never forgotten it. You rest me now," he added suddenly, hishand slipping from her arm, and folding itself over her hand. "I camehere to-day, feeling as if the world were a sorry enough place, and I apoor fool who had messed up my life, and was at the end of my tether.But when I saw you, sitting here in the sunshine, I felt as if--someday--the sunlight might come back to my life."
"Could _I_--bring it back?" Her voice still shook, but she lifted hereyes bravely to look into his face, and he bent nearer to her, andgathered both her hands into his.
"Little Christina," he said. "I don't know whether it is fair, even tothink of asking you to spend your fresh young life in bringing sunshineback to mine, but--because I am a selfish brute--because--I--wantyou--I am going to ask you what I believe I have no right to ask you.And yet--it was Margaret's thought, too--Margaret's wish," he
added,under his breath.
"Aunt Margaret's wish!" the girl exclaimed. "That I--that you----"She broke off confusedly, trying instinctively to draw her hands fromhis, but feeling his clasp tighten over them.
"Shall I tell you what she said to me about you the very last time Isaw her?" he asked. "I think she knew I was going to be very lonely,and she spoke of you. I have not forgotten the actual words she used;they came back to me just now, as I sat here beside you; she said: 'Shewould make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife. Shehas a sweet, strong soul.'"
More and more vividly the colour deepened on Christina's face, and shedid not answer, because speech at that moment was a physicalimpossibility. Only her hands lay passive in his grasp, she no longertried to draw them away.
"I think Margaret knew--how I should learn to need you," Rupert wenton, his voice vibrating along the girl's nerves, and sending littlethrills of happiness through her whole being. "She understood how muchyou could help me, if you would."
"_If I would?_" she echoed, a tremulous gladness in her voice."But--I--am so young, so ignorant, not a bit worthy of--of all yousay," she ended incoherently.
"Could you some day learn to care for me, if I tried to make you care?"was his answer. "Could you--some day--care for an old fellow like me,who hasn't even the best of his life and love to offer you? Could youdo that, little girl?"
"I don't call you an old fellow," she said indignantly; "and--I--don'tthink--I have got to learn to care. I--think--I have--learnt--already."
Very gently, with a sort of tender reverence, he drew her into his armsand kissed her, then put her away from him again, and said quietly--
"Is it fair to you, I wonder; is it fair to you to take all your best,and give you only the second best in return?"
"But if I would rather have your second best, than the best from anyother man in the world?" she said quickly. "What then? If it is agreater joy to me to think of being your rest and sunshine, than to beanything else in the world; what then?"
She put her hands upon his shoulders, pushing him a little further fromher, that she might look fully into his eyes. "I don't believe any manreally ever understands a woman," she added, inconsequently, with alaugh.
"Where have you learnt your knowledge of mankind?" he questioned; "andwhat makes you say we don't understand the other half of the world?"
"Because, if you did, you would know that when a woman cares for a man,she would rather just be a servant in his house than go altogether outof his life. Perhaps we all prefer the best, but a woman who cares,would rather have the second best, than nothing at all."
"And are you a woman--who cares?" he whispered, drawing her back intohis arms, with a sudden sense of her sweetness, her desirableness;"would you rather be----"
"You haven't asked me yet to be anything," she answered, with a touchof audacity, that sat charmingly upon her--"at least, you onlymentioned rest, and sunshine, and--and intangible things of that sort."
"And if I asked you to be my wife?" His lips were very near to hers,his voice in itself was a caress, and Christina's heart beats nearlychoked her. "If--I want you for my wife, little girl?"
Her answer was quite inarticulate, if indeed she answered him at all,but she allowed him to kiss her lips, and Rupert knew that her answerwas given him with that kiss.
"You would not let any man kiss your lips, unless you loved him wellenough to marry him," he said, after a moment's pause, and Christinalooked at him with happy, laughing eyes.
"I would not let any man kiss me at all, unless I--wanted to marryhim," she answered; "and----"
"You want to marry me?" Rupert interrupted with a boyishly spontaneouslaugh, such as she had never heard from him before.
"Yes, I want to marry you," she said demurely, drawing herself awayfrom him again, and looking mischievously into his face; "and, do youknow, this--isn't the first time I--I have thought of marrying you?"
"What do you mean?" Rupert's mystified expression brought a dimplingsmile out upon her face.
"Do you remember the girl who answered your advertisement in thematrimonial column of a certain Sunday paper? That girl----"
"Was it you?" he exclaimed. "Were you the girl to whom I wrote? Thegirl I appointed to meet at Margaret's house? Could any coincidence bemore strange?"
"I was C.M. who answered that advertisement, because she was at thevery end of her resources, her hope," Christina answered gravely. "Ifelt horrible when I did it. I felt you would think the very worst ofme for writing to you at all, but I was nearly in despair that day;there seemed just a loophole of escape for me, if I found--youwere--kind and good."
"Poor little girl, my poor little girl." His arm drew her close. "Youwrote the dearest, most simple little letter. I never thought theworse of you. I never thought badly of you at all. I made up my mindto help you get work; and I recommended you to Cicely; at least, I wentso far as to tell Cicely I knew of someone who might do for Baba."
"But she didn't take me on your recommendation?"
"No, she said references were necessary, and----"
"And in the end she took me practically with no references at all,and--the story has just worked itself out to this wonderful ending."
"Is it such a wonderful ending?" He helped her to her feet, and theystood watching the golden sun drop slowly towards the golden hills."Is it--the ending you would have chosen for yourself?"
"When I told Baba fairy stories, the prince used to have a curiousfamily resemblance to you," she answered. "I--liked to make my fairyprince like you--because----"
"Because?"
"Because--I think I knew you were the best prince in all the world,"she whispered, "the king--of my kingdom."
THE END.
LONDON: WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED.
Ward, Lock & Co.'s
POPULAR FICTION
A. E. W. MASON
LAWRENCE CLAVERING. 6s.
STANLEY WEYMAN
MY LADY ROTHA. 6s.
A Romance of the Thirty Years' War;
THE SATURDAY REVIEW.--"No one who begins will lay it down before theend, it is so extremely well carried on from adventure to adventure."
SIR A. CONAN DOYLE
A STUDY IN SCARLET. 3s. 6d.
With a mite on Sherlock Holmes by Dr. Joseph Bell. Illustrations byGeorge Hutchinson.
Christina Page 23