Читать книгу Beau Ideal - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 18

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I suppose that among the very happiest days of my whole life were those I spent on my next journey from New York to Southampton and Brandon Regis. I must have seemed insufferably joyous and pleased with myself. When not actually whistling or singing with my mouth, I was doing it in my heart. I loved everybody. What is less certain is whether everybody loved me. I loved the glorious sunshine, the perfect sea, the splendid ship, the jolly food, the passengers, every one of them, the young, the old, the merry, the grumpy, the active, the lazy, the selfish, the unselfish.... If all the world loves a lover, surely a lover loves all the world ... the great grand glorious world that lies at his exalted feet.... The world that contains, and exists to contain, the one and only woman in the world....

I loved the stars, the moon, the marvellous night-sky, the floor of Heaven pierced with millions of little holes through which shone rays of the celestial light—and I sat late and alone, gazing, thinking, dreaming, longing.

I loved the dawn, and late as I may have sat upon the boat-deck at night, I was there again to see the East grow grey and pink and golden, there to welcome and to greet the sun that ushered in one more milestone day upon the brief and lovely road that led to Brandon Abbas and to Isobel.

Brandon Abbas and Isobel!... One day, when a poor rich youth whom I comprehended in my universal love—in spite of his pimples, poor jokes, unpleasing ways and unacceptable views—asked me if I were going to Paris, and I replied, “No—to Brandon Abbas,” and he, astonished, inquired where that might be, and I answered:

“Next door to Paradise,” he rightly concluded that I was out of my mind or else drunk. Doubly right was he, for I was beside myself with joy and drunk with happiness.

Yes; I loved all things; I loved all men; and greatly I loved God.

At Southampton I let the boat-train go upon its foolish way to London, and at the terminus hotel of the South Western Railway I awaited the far far better one that meanders across the green and pleasant land of England to the little junction where one may get one better still, one that proceeds thence to Exeter where waits the best of all—the final and finest train in the wide world—that carries its blest occupants to Brandon Abbas.

I was not sitting in a train made with mortal hands, but in a chariot of fire that was carrying me, ecstatic and uplifted, to the heaven of my dreams, my night-and-day dreams of many years.

From the station I drove, in what to the dull eye of the ordinary beholder was a musty, mouldy carriage, drawn by a moth-eaten and dilapidated parody of a horse, to High Gables, and was welcomed with the apparently caustic kindness and grim friendliness with which my wonderful old Grandmother Hankinson hid her really tender and loving nature.

And next day I walked over to Brandon Abbas.

I remember trying, on the way, to recollect some lines I fancied I had read. Were they written by the Marquis of Montrose or had Queen Elizabeth scratched them with a diamond on a window-pane for the encouragement of some young adorer? Was it, “He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To win or lose it all.”...? Something like that anyhow, and probably written by Montrose.

Well, my deserts were small enough, and at times I feared my fate, but I was certainly going to put it to the touch before I went away, if I stayed for a year or a life-time.

I was going to tell Isobel that I loved her—had loved her unceasingly and increasingly, from the moment that I had seen her, a lovely child sitting in a dog-cart, and much concerned about a dog.

True—I was utterly and wholly unworthy of her, but so was everybody else. I had nothing to recommend me but an absolutely perfect and unquenchable love—but I was not ineligible from the point of view of such a person as Lady Brandon, for example. I was a foreigner, an American, but I had roots in this very soil, through my Mother. I was obscure and unknown, but that could very quickly be put right if I became Isobel’s husband. That alone would be a great distinction, but I would undertake to add to it, and to promise that Isobel’s husband should one day be the American Ambassador to St. James’s, to Paris, to St. Petersburg—any old where she liked.... President of the United States of America, if she set her heart on his being that.... I was very far from being poor, and should not be far from being very rich, someday.

Thirty-cent things of that sort would be quite germane and material in the eyes of Queen Elizabethan Lady Brandon. To my mind, the only really relevant thing was that I loved Isobel to the point of worship and adoration, and that this love of mine had not only stood the test of time, but had gained from Time himself—for the wine of love had mellowed and matured, grown better, richer, sweeter, nobler, year by year....

Poor boy!...

I turned in at the Lodge gates, and walked up the long drive of which I knew every Norman tree.

Good old Burdon, the perfect butler, fine flower of English retainerhood, was in the hall as I appeared in the porch, and greeted me in the perfect manner of the perfect servant, friendly, welcoming, respectful.

But Her Ladyship was Not at Home....

Miss Claudia was Not at Home....

Miss Isobel was Not at Home....

Mr. Michael, Mr. Digby, and Mr. John were Away from Home....

Nothing for it but to leave my cards and depart, more than a little dashed and damped.

I walked down the drive less buoyantly than I had walked up it. It actually had not entered my silly head that one could go to Brandon Abbas and not find Isobel there.... The sunshine was not so bright nor the sky so blue, and what had been the sweet singing of the birds, was just a noise....

And as I rounded a turn in the drive, my heart rounded and turned and drove, for a girl was riding toward me, a little girl on a big horse. The loveliest, dearest, kindest girl in all the wide world....

My heart turned right-side-up, pulled itself together, and let me get my breath again.... Isobel....

The sun shone gloriously bright and warm, the sky was a deep Italian blue, the English song-birds were birds from Paradise—and Isobel held out a gloved hand which I took and pressed to my lips as she smiled sweetly and kindly and said:

“Why! It’s our nice American Boy come back! I am so glad ... Otis ...” and then I knew that something was wrong. Her voice was different; older. Her face was different; older. She was unhappy....

“What is the matter, Isobel?” I asked, still holding her little hand as she bent toward me from her big horse.

“Oh ... Otis.... How did you know?... John has gone.... The boys have gone away....”

Her lip trembled and there was a suspicion of moisture in her eyes.

“Can I help?... Let me help you, Isobel,” I begged.

“There’s nothing you can do—thank you so much,” she said. “It’s nice of you.... I am so glad to see you again, Otis.... I have been so wretched. There is no-one I can talk to, about it....”

“There is,” I said. “There’s me,” and I think that moment marked the absolute top-most pinnacle of happiness that I have ever known, for Isobel pressed my hand hard.

“I’ll tell you a great secret,” she said, and smiled so sweetly through the unshed tears that I could scarcely forbear to reach up and lift her from her horse, lift her into my arms, my heart, and my life.

“I’ll tell you, Otis.... Keep it a secret though,” she added. And then Isobel said the words that in that second cut my life into two distinct halves....

“John and I are engaged to be married....”

No—she couldn’t have said that. I assured myself that she had not said that. These queer hallucinations and strange waking dreams!... She had not said that.... I was not standing staring and open-mouthed, and watching, watching, watching for years and life-times and ages and æons, while two great tears slowly formed and gathered and grew and rolled from her eyes.... One did not splash upon my hand as she said:

“And he has had to go away.... And I am so miserable, Otis.... We were engaged one evening and he was gone the next morning!... And I have no-one to talk to, about him.... I am so glad you have come....”

But a tear did splash on my hand. She did say it.

“You and John Geste are engaged to be married, Isobel?” I asked, gently and carefully, very very gently and very very carefully, to keep my voice level and steady, to keep myself well under control....

I heard myself say the words, and I watched her face to see whether I had said them normally.... Or had I not said them at all?... I had uttered some words certainly....

Her face did not change....

“Yes, Otis,” she said. “And I had to tell somebody! ... I am glad it was you. You are the only person, now, who knows. You’ll be the first to congratulate me....”

Yes. I should be the first person to congratulate her!

“I congratulate John—and you—Isobel,” I said, “and from the bottom of my heart I hope that every hour of your life will be a happy one.”

“Thank you, Otis,” she said. “That is nice and dear of you.... Oh, I shall be almost too happy to breathe ... when John comes back....

“You’ll come and see us again, won’t you? Aunt Patricia will be delighted to see you.... And we’ll go for some rides, you and I.... I do so want to talk to you—about John.”

Words of excuse rose to my lips. I must go to London to-morrow. I must hurry over to Paris. Some business for my Father. After that I must go quickly back to America, and so forth.... But before I had spoken, I had a swift vision of a face I knew well, though I had only seen it in dreams. A hard clean-cut cruel face, grim, stern and stoical, the face of that Indian Chief who was the father of my father’s grandmother—the face of a man from whom no sign of anguish was ever wrung, a man to whom pain was as a friend, proven and proving.

“Thank you very much indeed, Isobel,” I said. “I shall love to ride with you—and—talk about John.”...

(Thank you, also, great-great-grandfather.)

Yes, it would give her pleasure. I would ride with her—and talk about John!

During the next month I saw Isobel almost daily, Lady Brandon occasionally, the Chaplain once or twice, and the girl, Claudia, from time to time.

Isobel and I talked unceasingly of John. I thought of things that would please her—dug up what had been fragrant joyous memories.

She did not tell me where he was, being, I supposed, pledged to secrecy, and I asked her no questions as I realized that there was some secret which she was hiding. It occurred to me though, that it must be a mighty strong inducement, an irresistible compulsion, that took John Geste from Brandon Abbas on the day after the declaration of his love for Isobel!

And then, thank God, she went away to stay with friends, and I fled to Paris, plunged into the wildest dreariest round of dissipation (Good God! is there anything so devastatingly dreary as pleasure pursued?) and quickly collapsed as reaction set in, reaction from the dreadful strain of those days with Isobel—Isobel and the ever-present absent John.

I was very ill indeed for some weeks, and, when able to do so, crawled home—dropped back again, the burnt charred stick of that joyous rocket that had rushed with such brilliant soaring gaiety into the bright sky of happiness....

Finished and down—like a dead rocket....