Читать книгу The Happy Warrior - A. S. M. Hutchinson - Страница 14

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A LOVERS' LITANY

I

Bitter days—but suddenly breaking to dawn. There came to him, on the rack of this torment, a thought that tortured him anew, yet made for healing. Audrey? Even if, as in his extremity he debated, he dared all and defied all—snatched himself out of this hell by publishing his position and crying to all concerned, "Now do and say your worst!"—even if he so made an end of it, to what would he bring her? How would she be received, suddenly proclaimed his wife when this ugly crop of suspicion and gossip was at its height? He knew, or through his distraught imagination he believed he knew; and he writhed to picture her—his gentle, unversed Audrey—thus introduced to the suspicious, uncharitable, malicious atmosphere that well he was aware his world could breathe. "Comes from a post-office somewhere, or a shop was it? Married at such and such a date—so he says!"

Thus the gate was slammed anew upon his resolution and locked and double-locked: the way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, the gossip by some means made to die, before he declared her. And with that there was unlocked and opened wide the gate that had barred up his love. Imagining the world's treatment of her, he realised his own.

It was in the tumult of these discoveries that he presented himself at the Knightsbridge flat and greeted his Audrey with a fondness that made her cry a little for happiness; she frequently cried in these days, not often for happiness. His fondness continued at that dear level through the evening. It emboldened her to urge again the step that she believed the best of all the many plans she ceaselessly revolved for curing the trouble she told herself she had brought upon him. She urged him to tell Gran. "Do tell her, dear. It will end all your worry. You're so worried, Roly. I see it—oh, how I see it! And I only add to it because I'm not—because I don't—because I vex you in so many ways. I know I do. You used to be so happy. You will be again directly this is all over. Do tell her, Roly! Roly, do!"

She had been seated on the floor, her head resting against him where he sat in a great armchair. Now, in this appeal of hers, she was turned about and on her knees, her hands enfondling his, her face lifted towards him.

He made a little choking sound, all his love for her surging; all his treatment of her wounding him; the thought of what he would bring her to if he took the course she urged filling him with remorse and with pity for her. He said in a strangled voice: "I can't; I can't," and stooping, he raised her to him so that they lay together in the big chair, their faces close, his arms about her. …

For a little space, except that she was crying softly, they were silent—clasped thus, most dear to one another; and then proclaimed that dearness in scraps of murmured sentences, the gaps filled up by what their tones and their clasped arms instructed them. …

Just murmurs, and dusky evening in the room—light, faint as their tones were faint, and in the shadows (how else seemed the air they breathed at every breath to thrill them?) spirits of true lovers that were winged down as, let us believe, lovers' spirits may when mortals love.

Just murmurs.

He said: "Audrey, Audrey, I've been so cruel—angry—thoughtless."

And she: "No … no."

And she again: "Go to her, then, Roly. Don't tell, if you think not. … Just be with her for a little. … You'll be happy then. … Leave me alone a little, dear. … Not even write."

And he: "Audrey! … Audrey!"

Her voice: "I shall be happy … if only you are happy … "

And his: "I have been mad … mad to treat you so. … Forgive. … Forgive."

Her voice—and close, close, all those lovers' spirits to hear this lovers' litany: "When you are happy … I am happy."

And his—and all these murmurs chorused from lover's wraith to lover's wraith, as watchers handing flame from hand to hand to instruct heaven love still is here: "Audrey! … Audrey!"

And she: "My dear … my dear!"

II

Happy for her, happy for him, for all that have a smile and tear for true love, to remember that from that moment never a hasty word or thought passed between them. In that lovers' litany all such were purged, the past wiped out as if it had never been. And, as if in reward, into the night that surrounded Roly came a ray like a miraculous rope thrown to one in a pit.

The way must somehow be prepared for Audrey, he had said; the gossip somehow be made to die before he could declare her.

Sir Wryford Sheringham supplied the way.

General Sir Wryford Sheringham had been his father's close friend, was Gran's much-trusted nephew and her adviser in Roly's training. Gran was sending him appealing letters in these days, imploring him to find out what it was that was wrong with her dear Roly. Chance enabled him suddenly to reply that, on the eve of his return to India, he was now returning to take command of the Frontier Expedition that the government of India had been saving up for a long time against three Border tribes, and that he purposed taking Roly with him. He could invent a corner to shove the boy into, he wrote; and she must not break her heart nor shed a single tear except for joy that the chance had come to get the boy away and to work. "Whatever it is he's been up to," Sir Wryford wrote, "this'll pull him out of it and send him back to you his father's son again."