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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter LVI. 'The Lights are Growing Dim.'

Chapter LVI. 'The Lights are Growing Dim.'

The coolness of night was falling on the earth. The longest day of the year was a thing of the past, though days were still long and fiercely hot. But the season of soft night dews was approaching, and already burnt grasses and parched flowers were beginning to be glad.

This day—this long long day at Yoanderruk—had seemed to one soul there a day alive and intense with expectation and presentiment. Edgar Paget would be home before the end of it. The very trees seemed expectant; seemed to hush themselves and listen. Every detail of each hour appeared curiously important; every commonplace event struck upon the tensely strung fibres of this waiting woman's nature as the deep tone of a bell upon the ears of one watching and numbering the dead hours of night. The Indian summer beauty of the earth and sky bore in upon her soul with a tender force that drove page 361her to relief in tears; tears that soothed and calmed her a while until the passionate longing impatience surged over her again like a storm.

Oh, the length of the day! And yet as the shadows of the tall trees reached further and further along the sward she felt afraid, and would fain have set the sinking sun higher in the heavens, so that the fateful moment might be less near.

Twice, thrice, and yet thrice again, she had entered her chamber, locked the door, and with beating heart and trembling hands examined something she had hidden there. A robe— soft-hued like the breast of a dove, with a shimmer of satin upon it; a silent robe, because she felt afraid of the sound of feminine rustle. She had tried it upon herself twice. Yes; it suited her—as well as anything might until she had time to grow womanly again. With lace about the neck and this bit of bright ribbon through her hair, she would be not so very unlovely after all. There was a little of the old self yet, as she remembered it standing before the mirror in her chamber in Dunedin on the day before her wedding. Ah! the memory of it all stopped her breath with a sob. In her ears came the sound of fierce wind; before her eyes the sight of grey mist and glimmering lights. Then the sudden roar of the sea and the crash of breaking timbers and the vision of a brave dark resolute face close bending above her own. How brief a time seemed gone since all that, and yet how much—stars in the heaven!—how much had passed between! How much of anguish—how much of toil—how much of weariness—how much of loneliness!

Well, but the goal was nigh; and if won at last, how precious beyond all the price of earning!

And;

'The warm sun riseth and setteth,
The night bringeth moist'ning dew,
But the soul that longeth forgetteth
The warmth and the moisture too;
In the hot sun rising and setting
There is nought but feverish pain;
There are tears in the night-dews wetting—
Thou comest not back again.
page 362 'Thy voice in mine ear still mingles
With the voices of whisp'ring trees,
Thy kiss on my cheek still tingles
At each kiss of the summer breeze;
While dreams of the past are thronging
For substance of shades in vain,
I am waiting, watching, and longing—
Thou comest not back again.'

'The last line will not do for me now, my poet-king,' said Philiberta; 'I am waiting, watching, and longing, and my love cometh back again.'

A step in the passage outside her door, and Janet's voice calling. Philiberta thrust the soft grey robe out of sight with swift stealth.

'Ye're no for your cup of tea?'

'Oh yes, I am,' with cheerful alacrity. How good of you to think of my weakness, Janet!'

'Perhaps I should not if it was no a weakness of my own,' said Janet, always quick to disclaim any title to approval. 'But ye're a very old woman for tea, Mr. Tempest; as bad as; mysel'.'

Philiberta laughed. Her name—the name she had borne so long—had never struck her with such a sense of incongruity as now. Then she fell into musing again, and her face resumed its intense expectant aspect.

'What's wrong with ye? You're not yourself the day,' said Janet, in the curt abrupt fashion peculiar to her.

'With me!' Philiberta roused herself. 'Oh, there is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well.'

'In one way you may be. But there's something on your mind,' said Janet positively. 'And if there is, let it out. Speak it—if it is a trouble. Trouble's ill kept in the heart, laddie.'

Janet's accent was intermittent; she prided herself on having forgotten how to talk Scotch, but the accent and peculiarity of expression would come back at odd times.

'And if ye have trouble—heart trouble, my callant—remember that "every cloud hath its silver lining."'

page 363

Philiberta looked at the old woman in surprise. It was so rarely that Janet said so much, displayed so much intention of sympathy.

'I have heard that before, Janet,' she said, smiling. 'I don't think it is always true, though. Sometimes, in people's lives, the dark side of the cloud is so long all that is visible, that the promise of silver light beyond seems merest mockery. So long is the cloud in turning its brightness hitherwards—the weeks, and the months, and the years, go so slowly—that the waiting soul is tempted to wait no longer, but to pass quickly out of this world round to the silver lining. The light and the warmth of gladness are so long withheld from some poor tired hearts.' 'From yours?' questioned Janet, peering curiously out from under her old bent brows.

'No, not from mine, Janet, not from mine, thank God! The silver lining of my cloud is very near to-night; to-morrow all the darkness will be gone, to return no more to me for ever. If only the gladness and brightness do not send me mad or blind, Janet'

'I never knew anybody driven mad or blind with pure joy,' said Janet. 'Of all the people I have known, there is none that hasn't had plenty of sorrow to balance with joy.'

'Why, Janet, joy itself is half sorrow. Did you ever have a gladness that was not tinged with pain? If a good thing comes to you unexpectedly, the shock of its coming is a pang. If it is a good that your very soul has sickened with longing for— fainted sometimes almost into indifference over—desired with a desire that had nothing in it of hope—nothing but a sense of despair and sacrifice and injustice, if a good like that is given to you at last, why, the pain of the joy seems to make my heart stand still!'

She put one hand on her breast as she spoke and leaned her head upon the other, and her great dark eyes filled full of light and tears.

And then came a sound of wheels.

'He has come!'

'Impossible,' said Janet, going to the open window. 'It is too early, because he is sure to stop at Tarragut.'

page 364

When she looked round from the window to say it was two people in a tilbury, she saw that Tempest had fled.

'Is Mr. Paget at home?' inquired Tom Biglow.

'No, he is not back from town yet,' replied Janet

'Oh, I am so sorry,' said Miss Fitzroy. 'When do you xpect him back, please?'

'The night.' Janet, you will see, had no superfluity of language or politeness.

'Then pray will you tell him when he returns that an old friend wants him over at Tarragut?'

'Aye, I'll tell him.'

The tilbury was gone, and Janet went to Tempest's room again.

'It was only some o' they Tarragut folks,' she called. 'Come out and finish your tea.'

Two hours later, and the moon had risen, yellow and round, over the tops of the great grey trees; and Philiberta sat watching the road from Tarragut Philiberta, robed in soft silvery dove-coloured drapery, with fine lace wound about her throat, and a bright ribbon through her hair.

Philiberta, watching for the stiver radiance beyond the cloud that had darkened all her fairest and best young life.

Again the light sound of wheels upon the grassy turf, then voices, a man's voice—surely his; but who was the woman? Now they were alighted from the buggy and walking down to the creek. And now Philiberta must go to him, for waiting was no longer possible. She must see him face to face, speak to him, touch him, for she could not endure another moment. The throbbing of her heart, the straining of its chords, would kill her. She ran out swiftly, and almost forgot that he was not alone. Her feet touched the ground noiselessly, her dress made no sound; but had it been otherwise, these two were far too busy with themselves to have heard.

Philiberta was close now; only a tall broad tree stood between her and them.

'Now tell me your news, Mr. Paget'

Surely that was a voice Philiberta knew! She stopped in perplexity, and listened.

page 365

'No, you must tell me yours first, Miss Fitzroy.'

Madge Fitzroy!

'Certainly not. You sent poor Tom Biglow off home and brought me back here to tell me something. Tell me now, for what I came to tell you will keep.'

'Then I will tell you, though you know it well enough already, Madge—I love you. I want you for my wife. I love you.'

The next sentence fell upon Philiberta's ears distinctly enough, but without sense or meaning to her.

'Mr. Paget, you must be mad. Why, I came to tell you that I am going to marry Leslie Hugill.'

Well, what did that matter?

Philiberta died then; the after-death—the hours leading to it—were as nought Death's great bitterness can come but once. The waiting—the watching—the longing——

'Let me go,' she said, only there was no sound of her voice. 'Let me go while there is yet time.' And she turned and fled. And even then those two by the tree were so busy with themselves that they neither saw nor heard her.

What strength she had! The ground passed under her feet, and she scarce felt it. She only felt, as far as she could feel, that the world, wide, wide as it was, could never be wide enough now for her. There was no stopping for doubt or analysis of pain, Everything closed for her in the one reality that to the man she loved she was as nothing. Yet he had said once that he might quarrel with her, love her, hate her, but could never be indifferent to her. When was it that he had said that? Yesterday, or a century ago? When was it that he had said her memory would always be the dearest thing on earth to him, that her grave was in his heart? Surely that was lately.

And so she sped on and on through the night, through the ghostly grey trees, whose leaves whispered mysterious things to her as she swiftly fled! through the rushing whirr of the wings of startled birds; through patches of scrub where strange things fled from under her feet, and the howl of the dingo sounded close; over long stretches of billowy plain and through a mighty flock of sheep which gave way before her, and then, panic-struck,page 366 began that weird, rushing circle—the awful sound of the hoof-beats following her far on. Now, who was it that spoke to her once about that same sound of hoof-beats? Ah, yes; she remembered; the lonely man who peopled the plain with souls.

A rustling reed-bed next, and then a live fence. Another patch of scrub, that held her here and there, and tore off shreds of the pretty, dove-grey robe. The purple sky was all athrob with stars; the moon sailed higher and higher, and then sank lower and lower, and was very near the west horizon ere the exhausted wanderer fell and lay with her face to the ground.

When the heat of the sun goaded her up again, she stood and looked round upon a wide, brown, barren plain. All day she walked, not knowing where she was, and travelling small distances, because of her weakness. All night she lay on the plain, and tried to count the stars. Another day, and still no end to the plain. Once more night; cool refreshing night, with the dews falling. She pressed her face to the ground for moisture. She felt about blindly for a blade of grass broad enough to have already caught a dewdrop to cool her parched tongue. Presently she lay full length, stretching out her tired limbs feebly, and panting to the sky. Presently came sleep, or something like it, and dreaming, or delirium. The time was, oh, so many years ago, and the place Merlyn Creek.

'Mother, you are so thirsty—and I ran—and ran—all the way. But look! I have got it cold and clear—clear and cold; you can see to the very—Ah! mother, mother, you might have waited!'

A high hot sun; a dreary wide expanse of parched land, met at the horizon by a hazy, blue-grey, changeless, rainless sky; two eaglehawks poised uncertainly in mid-air.

And below, a ragged, travel-stained, dead woman—at rest, at rest.