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The Greenstone Door

Chapter XV Parted

page 211

Chapter XV Parted

After my father's first hasty visit, he paid several others at no very long intervals. He told me that business—our business, as he was careful to call it—had expanded greatly. He had purchased a schooner of his own, and already there was need for another. The decline of the mana of Te Huata had led to the establishment of branch stores in many fresh districts, and correspondence with an agent would no longer suffice to the proper carrying out of the business of Purcell and Tregarthen. I already knew much of this from the multifarious accounts in Mr. Brompart's books with which my father's name was connected; but even when the fact had been given weight I fancy that a reborn desire to meet men who were his mental equals exerted a superior influence. Sir George was always told of his visits and, so far as his duties allowed, he welcomed him to his intimate society. Night after night would the two engage in high discourse, with perhaps none to note save Helenora and myself.

But I am coming to the end of die schöne Zeit; it only remains to record the end itself. As, with a fearful joy, I gathered each month into my harvest, I knew that its passage brought me inevitably nearer to the time when my life would lie fallow. Yet a blow seldom falls where or when it is anticipated. No recall came for Sir George Grey. Mr. Fox and his partisans petitioned in vain. page 212Earl Grey, to his everlasting credit, stood firm. It was the bad reports the Governor received of the health of his mother that achieved what his enemies had found themselves powerless to perform. The end came suddenly. Sir George applied for leave of absence, and in the same moment began his preparations for departure. It was Helenora who gave me the news. I had parted from her unsuspectingly but a few hours before, and now she launched this bombshell.

Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed with excitement. "We are going," she said. "It is all arranged. We are going by the Commodore."

I suppose there was something in my manner of receiving the news that brought her to a full stop and then set her stammering that of course for some reasons she would be very sorry to go.

"Ah, don't!" I said, in the bitterness of my misery. "I can bear your delight, but not your mock regrets."

"Mock!" she began, half angrily; then continued more gently—"But Cedric, you knew that I should have to go soon."

"Oh yes, I knew it! I know that some day I shall have to die, but that will not make it any easier when it comes."

"I am sorry. Truly, truly sorry," she said tremulously. "Now don't you believe me?"

"Yes, dear, yes. I was a brute to speak as I did."

"No, it was my fault. I was a brute. I was so excited, I didn't think. And the Bishop is going, and Mrs. Selwyn. Won't it be lovely to have Mrs. Selwyn?"

"Yes. I am glad she is going—that is, I am glad you will have her company. I am very fond of Mrs. Selwyn." There was a dull feeling in my head, as though my brains had been turned into cotton-wool.

"And your great friend, Serjeant-Major Freeman, is going with all his family."

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"Freeman? … Oh yes…. The Commodore, you say?" "Oh, Cedric! I do wish you were coming too."

That came from her heart and fell warm on mine, restoring my courage.

"Why won't you?"

"I could only come on your account, Helenora. We have thrashed it all out. You have said that I would not be the same to you if I yielded because I loved you."

"Yes, but now I am not sure. Would you come if I told you?"

"Tell me in three years' time."

She was silent.

Everyday, and often several times in the day, we returned to the subject; but Helenora was not always in the same mood. Sometimes I was aware of far-off lightning and the threatening of a storm that never broke. As the day of our parting drew near a strange thoughtfulness and abstraction developed in her manner. For my part, I could think and speak of nothing but my approaching loss and the distant future which was to compensate me for present sufferings. She heard me restlessly, often endeavouring to change the topic, and, when I would not be moved, giving signs of irritation. For these, however, she was ready to apologise humbly if I complained.

"Forget me. What is the use? It is all so far off." "A million years couldn't make me."

"Why do you love me? I have been hateful to you…. Yes, don't deny it. I have, I have! How could you be so blind?"

"Helenora——"

"It was because of what you could give me. You could not be so dishonourable if your life hung upon it."

Dumbfounded at this outburst, I could think of nothing but to take her hand. After a moment's surrender, she snatched it away.

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"I wish I was made of steel," she declared. "I suppose it is the stuff we are formed from that causes us to be so fickle. It changes from one thing to another at a touch. But I am worse than other girls. They can avenge an injury weeks afterwards, and enjoy it.—You would never forget an injury."

All this was so much Greek to me. I could only follow her lead, and hope to come on the thought that underlay her words. "I do not think that mine is a revengeful nature," I replied.

"Why, you are avenging your father now. You don't care what it costs you so that you be revenged."

"No, it is not vengeance. I don't wish to hurt my grandfather. Merely I cannot bring myself to take anything from him."

"Do you think the knowledge of that can please him? You couldn't devise any way of hurting him more."

"If it be so, I am not responsible. That is the Nemesis of wrong-doing."

"Your grandfather did no wrong," she flashed.

Often in the past had she thrown out such a challenge, and once or twice I had been moved to take it up; but now nothing was of moment to me save the fact that I was about to lose her.

"When will the Commodore reach England?" I asked, resolutely dismissing the subject.

"Captain Broadfoot says we may not be there till May."

"Then it will be seven or eight months before I can hear of you." The terrors of space may become accentuated when expressed in quantities of time. Involuntarily the words escaped my lips—"How can I endure it!"

She gazed at me and I saw her eyes dilate and her lips tremble. "Is love-like that?" she whispered, in a tone that blended curiosity and pity.

"Yes," I said, in my desperation—God knows if at that page 215moment a dim gleam of comprehension had come to me—"it is misery, all misery."

For a moment she sat still, her face working; then, with a sound like a sob in her throat, she rose and fled from the room.

Lady Wylde had never entirely abandoned hope that eventually I would change my mind, and now, as the time of departure approached, she renewed her efforts to induce me to join them on the Commodore.

"There is still time to arrange with Mr. Purcell," she said. "Do you think that I have any motive save a desire for your welfare?"

"No, no," I cried, and, taking her hand, I covered it with kisses.

"Is there nothing that will move you, child?"

"How can there be if I refuse the kindest heart in the world?"

"Yet there may be something. I wonder if you have considered one thing." A delicate colour mantled in her cheeks—for even now Lady Wylde would blush like a young girl—but she continued to regard me steadily. "Cedric, I have never spoken to you about it, yet, of course, I have seen. Every one has teased Helenora for years. You know best what is in your own heart. Have you considered?"

"Oh, Lady Wylde!" I answered, as red as she. "It will be like death to lose her, for I love her till nothing seems of value in comparison; but if, because of my love for her, I do something which makes me a traitor to myself, will that help me to win her?"

"Do you think that Helenora loves you?"

"She likes me. She is fond of me."

"So much was inevitable. And she will miss you—more, perhaps, than she realises—but love! You do not even think so. Then what is to come of it? Do you page 216suppose that she will not attract others as she has attracted you?—that the men will leave her alone? In three or four years she will be a woman. How do you propose to recover her, if you let her go out of your life now?"

"She has promised that she will be my wife."

"You cannot bind a woman by the promise of a child."

"Some way I will get her back. I must. I will never give up fighting for her."

"I admire your courage, but not your good sense. Perhaps you are hoping that Sir George will return. I do not think so for a moment. His work here is done, and he is destined for greater affairs. But even if he did return we should not be with him. Captain Wylde is anxious to join his regiment in the Crimea, and Helenora will need two or three years in a finishing school."

"She is educated already," I said despondently.

"Yes, thanks to you, dear. And without you I should have been compelled to send her home long ago. But there are other things besides Greek and German that a young lady has to learn before she is fit to go out in the world."

I doubt if until that moment I had fully realised the difficulties which lay in front of me. Probably I had exaggerated the value of Helenora's promises. I had failed to recognise how much my hopes depended on her and how little on anything I could do myself. Lady Wylde's words had conjured up for me the great world to which my beloved was going. I saw myself returning to the darkness of the native village, from which I had suddenly emerged, as a butterfly from its chrysalis. I saw Helenora passing into the city of lights, of music and dancing and gaiety. It opened its arms to receive her. Noble men and beautiful women surrounded her. On she went, smiling and radiant, and so vanished from my gaze—for ever. "Can't you come, dear?"

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Dumbly I shook my head. "Why not?"

"I don't know. I want to come. But there's something in me, strong as death, that bids me stand fast."

That was the last struggle. From that time, save for a word at the very end, no one attempted to shake my resolution. I was free to inflict on myself what suffering I would.

It was on a hot December morning, the last day of the year, that I stepped into the canoe held in readiness for me by my friend Tetere. Our acquaintance had ripened into friendship since the day he had pulled me ashore from the Esmeralda and refused payment for the service, three years before. Care was on his brow as he dipped his paddle in the still water, for this, as he observed briefly and thereafter maintained silence, was a sad day for the tribes.

You who cry out that the Maori is incapable of gratitude, not bethinking you how rare a virtue that is in any people—study first the attitude of the natives on this occasion; become a witness of the gloom and sorrow which descended upon them when those bulwarks of their nation, Grey and Selwyn, were thus at one moment withdrawn. The town was full of sad-voiced natives, come to say farewell to their "Father." Through the midst of them I had come, greeting many old friends on the way, and hearing from the lips of all the same expression of regret. The Governor was holding an undress levee that morning, being due to reach the ship immediately afterwards; but Lady Wylde and Helenora were already on board the Commodore, and thither in silence over the glassy waters Tetere transported me.

"Will you wait for me, Tetere?" I asked, as I caught a rope on the vessel's side.

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"For ever, friend," he answered.

I drew myself up and stood on the decks, all newly holystoned in preparation for the reception of the distinguished voyagers. A short distance away stood a group of ladies—Mrs. Selwyn, Miss Temple, Lady Wylde, Helenora, tall and slim, at her mother's side.

Ah, how dear to me she was! How dear!

Slowly and gravely she came to me and we stood together in silence, looking towards the shore.

"The Governor will be here in half an hour, Helenora."

"Yes."

"I should like you to take me over the ship."

"But you have been all over it several times."

"Still I want you to show it to me."

"Of course."

I do not know that for that half-hour we spoke more than a dozen words. I am convinced that during the whole of that time, though my eyes never left her, she did not look at me once in return. She took me to the part of the ship which she would inhabit for so many months, showed me the cabin, the state rooms, and her own berth and bunk. The noise of the Governor's arrival broke on my misery as the trump of doom.

"Will you wait here, Helenora?" I asked. "I want to say good-bye to you last of all."

She nodded without speaking, and, leaving her standing against the bunk, I rushed up on deck.

The first person I encountered was Miss Temple. She was on the point of descending the companion-way as I ran up.

"Good-bye, Miss Temple," I cried, in as cheerful a voice as I could muster, extending my hand.

"Good-bye, Mr. Tregarthen," she responded. "Or if you will allow me to say Good-bye, Cedric, it will better express my feelings. I used to hate boys, my dear; but page 219I shall love them all for the sake of your gentleness, and kindness. I am sure you will grow into a very noble man. And, Cedric," the good creature went on, placing the corner of her handkerchief in each eye alternately, "what I can do for you I will. You shall not be forgotten, my dear."

I had not expected this from Miss Temple, being unconscious that I had done anything to deserve it; and there was a dimness in my own eyes as I went forward to bid my adieux to the rest. The Governor's last words were that I must not fail to join his army of correspondents, and in my case the oftener he heard from me the better he would be pleased. The Bishop wrung my hand until it was numb, said he should see me again, and that we would have many a bush ramble together yet. Lady Wylde drew me to her and, with one of her pretty blushes, kissed me on the forehead. "Even now it is not too late," she whispered; then, after a wistful searching of my face, kissed me again. Captain Broadfoot, ruddy and hearty of voice, firmly planted with legs apart on his snowy deck, gave me a hand that did not disgrace his name, and, in response to my question, said he would up-anchor in a quarter of an hour, and that if I were not off the ship then he would take me to England. So when the last good-bye had been said, I returned to Helenora.

"I must go in a few minutes," I said, "but before I bid you good-bye there is one thing I must say. It was a chance word of your mother's that suggested it to me; perhaps but for that I should have failed to see that I ought to say it."

For the first time that day she lifted her eyes and looked at me steadily.

"When I first saw you, dear," I continued, my heart sinking in my breast, "I was only a boy and you were page 220only a girl. Even now we are not much better. So I want to say … to tell you that I—I do not hold you to any promise you made me when you were a child, or have repeated since. I should not think you dishonourable if … if, by and by, you should change your mind. I know that if you had not meant what you said, you would not have said it, and … if I lose you, I shall at least be able to remember that once you liked me enough to wish to become my wife."

What it cost me to stammer through this only my leaden heart knew.

I ceased, having no more to say, and, my eyes on her downcast face, stood expecting a reply; but still she neither moved nor answered. The minutes allowed me by the Captain were flying apace. What spirit was it that had risen up and stood between us at the very last? If Love looks coldly on Age, he frequently meets an enemy in Youth.

"I must go, Helenora. There is only to say good-bye."

She gave a little shiver and lifted her eyes quickly with a sort of fear to my face.

"Good-bye, dear … dearest."

Her hand crept timidly into mine. "Good-bye, Cedric."

"I have bought three kisses from you in three years, Helenora … I have nothing to offer you for one now."

The expression of her eyes changed then. I saw the tears well up and flood them and, sure at last that our hearts beat in unison, I gathered her in my arms. For long we clung together, mingling our tears with kisses and broken utterances.

From overhead there came a sharp cry of command, followed by a shrill whistle and the rapid scuffling of feet.

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"I did not know it would be like this," she sobbed, as I tore myself away, "or I would never have consented to your staying behind."

So my beloved stirred in her sleep. So in that moment I lost her.