XIX
A Fairy-Duet
The year—what an eventful year it had been for me!—was drawing to a close, and the brief wintry day hardly gave light enough to recognise the old familiar objects, bound up with so many happy memories, as the train glided round the last bend into the station, and the hoarse cry of “Elveston! Elveston!” resounded along the platform.
It was sad to return to the place, and to feel that I should never again see the glad smile of welcome, that had awaited me here so few months ago. “And yet, if I were to find him here,” I muttered, as in solitary state I followed the porter, who was wheeling my luggage on a barrow, “and if he were to ‘strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home,’ I should not—no, ‘I should not feel it to be strange’!”
Having given directions to have my luggage taken to my old lodgings, I strolled off alone, to pay a visit, before settling down in my own quarters, to my dear old friends—for such I indeed felt them to be, though it was barely half a year since first we met—the Earl and his widowed daughter.
The shortest way, as I well remembered, was to cross through the churchyard. I pushed open the little wicket-gate and slowly took my way among the solemn memorials of the quiet dead, thinking of the many who had, during the past year, disappeared from the place, and had gone to “join the majority.” A very few steps brought me in sight of the object of my search. Lady Muriel, dressed in the deepest mourning, her face hidden by a long crape veil, was kneeling before a little marble cross, round which she was fastening a wreath of flowers.
The cross stood on a piece of level turf, unbroken by any mound, and I knew that it was simply a memorial-cross, for one whose dust reposed elsewhere, even before reading the simple inscription:—
In loving Memory of
Arthur Forester, M.D.
whose mortal remains lie buried by the sea:
whose spirit has returned to God who gave it.“Greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends.”
She threw back her veil on seeing me approach, and came forwards to meet me, with a quiet smile, and far more self-possessed than I could have expected.
“It is quite like old times, seeing you here again!” she said, in tones of genuine pleasure. “Have you been to see my father?”
“No,” I said: “I was on my way there, and came through here as the shortest way. I hope he is well, and you also?”
“Thanks, we are both quite well. And you? Are you any better yet?”
“Not much better, I fear: but no worse, I am thankful to say.”
“Let us sit here awhile, and have a quiet chat,” she said. The calmness—almost indifference—of her manner quite took me by surprise. I little guessed what a fierce restraint she was putting upon herself.
“One can be so quiet here,” she resumed. “I come here every—every day.”
“It is very peaceful,” I said.
“You got my letter?”
“Yes, but I delayed writing. It is so hard to say—on paper—”
“I know. It was kind of you. You were with us when we saw the last of—” She paused a moment, and went on more hurriedly. “I went down to the harbour several times, but no one knows which of those vast graves it is. However, they showed me the house he died in: that was some comfort. I stood in the very room where—where—.” She struggled in vain to go on. The floodgates had given way at last, and the outburst of grief was the most terrible I had ever witnessed. Totally regardless of my presence, she flung herself down on the turf, burying her face in the grass, and with her hands clasped round the little marble cross, “Oh, my darling, my darling!” she sobbed. “And God meant your life to be so beautiful!”
I was startled to hear, thus repeated by Lady Muriel, the very words of the darling child whom I had seen weeping so bitterly over the dead hare. Had some mysterious influence passed, from that sweet fairy-spirit, ere she went back to Fairyland, into the human spirit that loved her so dearly? The idea seemed too wild for belief. And yet, are there not “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy?”
“God meant it to be beautiful,” I whispered, “and surely it was beautiful? God’s purpose never fails!” I dared say no more, but rose and left her. At the entrance-gate to the Earl’s house I waited, leaning on the gate and watching the sun set, revolving many memories—some happy, some sorrowful—until Lady Muriel joined me.
She was quite calm again now. “Do come in,” she said. “My father will be so pleased to see you!”
The old man rose from his chair, with a smile, to welcome me; but his self-command was far less than his daughter’s, and the tears coursed down his face as he grasped both my hands in his, and pressed them warmly.
My heart was too full to speak; and we all sat silent for a minute or two. Then Lady Muriel rang the bell for tea. “You do take five o’clock tea, I know!” she said to me, with the sweet playfulness of manner I remembered so well, “even though you can’t work your wicked will on the Law of Gravity, and make the teacups descend into Infinite Space, a little faster than the tea!”
This remark gave the tone to our conversation. By a tacit mutual consent, we avoided, during this our first meeting after her great sorrow, the painful topics that filled our thoughts, and talked like lighthearted children who had never
