Alice Lauder/Part 2/Chapter 15

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IT is a well-known peculiarity of the nature of things that one never meets with the right person in the right place, especially if such a meeting is desired (for reasons of state) to occur by accident. Those malicious little spirits who watch over human destinies, and who cause us to forget our keys, mislay our railway tickets, lose our tempers, and, above all, to say those things we ought not to have said, and leave unsaid those things we ought to say—are ever on the watch to prevent a happy accident which would relieve us of some perplexity.

It was therefore with no well-grounded hope of meeting Arthur Campbell and handing over to him the letter entrusted to her, that Alice ordered her horse one afternoon, about a week after Mrs. Austin’s visit, and rode over the sands and towards the places he most frequented in his evening constitutionals. The rain had passed off, and the full tide of summer flooded the ​landscape again. The great plain was braided white with clover, sweetening the air with its peculiar manna fragrance, and harvested by countless reapers in the shape of velvet-coated bees. The solemn purple mountains seemed to have floated away farther into the distance; sometimes a long shaft of sunlight would pierce the veil of haze and bring them visibly nearer, as if within reach of one’s hand. Here and there a faint white pillar of smoke rose like the sign of a sacrificial altar from the stairs and peaks of the ranges, but the time of bush-fires was not yet come. Hardly more substantial than the rings of smoke, airy fragments of thistle-down slowly wavered and balanced in the wind, in a constant feathery mist, and floated away to sea. The sight of these elfin plumelets brought back to Alice’s mind the early days of her arrival. She had passed the best part of a year now in this quiet green corner of earth, and she felt reluctant to leave it. But as Mrs. Austin had observed, the time of their departure was drawing nigh, and this place would soon know them no more for ever. There was something sad in this idea. The locusts in the pine-trees near the road continued their intensely shrill, throbbing chant as she rode past, and the tiny bush-wren warbled his one little sad tune ​over and over again—the sort of tune that one hears in dreams. We are such stuff as dreams are made of; but the dreams are very sweet sometimes, and we hardly wish to awaken.

However, just as she was on the point of giving up her quest, she met the person so anxiously looked for, coming round the corner at a sharp trot. He stopped, and a more friendly smile passed between them than had been usual of late.

“Ah, well met, Miss Lauder! I was just hoping I should see you. I have permission to see the old garden at Dunstan’s Folly, which is considered a great favour. Will you come there with me? It’s a good long way, but a charming ride, and we can be home before dark.”

Alice assented, feeling this would be a capital opportunity of delivering her message, and they rode along side by side almost in silence, for each had grave matter of consideration in mind. The place they were in quest of was often spoken of, but seldom seen by the neighbourhood. A rich Englishman, some twenty years before, had laid out an elaborate pleasure-ground in the style of the old Italian gardens, and had even laid the foundations for a great house to match, on the slope of one of the bush-covered hills, some ten or twelve miles from the village. By ​some caprice he abandoned the place before the walls had begun to rise, and returned to England; but the garden was still kept up, and jealously guarded from all intrusion, by the owner’s strict orders. There was consequently a slight, but fascinating halo of mystery around the place, and a piquant difference of opinion with regard to its attractions; those who had seen it (by some special favour) lauding it as a second enchanted palace of the Sleeping Beauty; while the majority (who had been refused permission) declared it without hesitation to be nothing more than an overgrown wilderness of flowering shrubs and neglected trees. Campbell had made some acquaintance with the town agent of its eccentric owner, and had gained permission to visit it; it was a pleasant little pilgrimage for a summer afternoon.

The two riders left the shore, and went along a bridle-track which led them by many turns, and returns, and grassy circuits, deep into the heart and secrets of the thick wooded coast ranges. The low rolling hills were all covered with primeval forest, moulded by the prevailing winds into a dense evergreen thatch, that sloped away from the coast towards the peaks, and followed the contour of the land as closely as a wet cloth covers a sculptor’s clay model. The ​little streams that here and there found a way out to the sea were blinded with ferns, and muffled in from all light of sun or moon by the sombre unchanging southern forest.

Every country has its own stamp and nationality of woodland. In England the soft misty English sunlight appears to pervade the very trees themselves, and softens every outline with its tender chiaroscuro. In Australia the pale transparent foliage, the strong sunshine which seems to absorb every spot of shade as well as every drop of moisture, the wild dry wind , and warm atmosphere all give an impression of life and freedom, and have a peculiar native charm of their own. But these South Pacific forests abide in a semi-tropical density and darkness, undisturbed by flying shapes of sun and shadow. There is no variation between the “night of green of the bush” and the “sacred high eternal moon” of the open peaks.

There was a certain pleasure in being together again, and they loved this wild nature so well that the primeval woods seemed to breathe “an ampler ether, a diviner air,” to them both. The vague cloud that had hung between them was for the moment dispelled, and they talked together in the happy open companionship of former days. Yet all the world might have ​overheard their conversation, as they rode side by side along the narrow pathway. The dim sunlight which for centuries had never fully penetrated the leafy roof above; the mystic whisper of the woods, moving round them like some invisible presence; the cool damp air and mossy fragrance, all combined to tune their thoughts into harmony. Sometimes a small blue kingfisher darted across their path like a falling sapphire, or the reed-warbler repeated his one sad little melody, as if he were saying, “All in vain—all in vain—all in vain,” with musical but heart-breaking persistency.

Alice found herself talking of her recollections of childhood—a sign of the last downward step of intimacy between two young people. She spoke of the many roving expeditions she had made with her father over the great island continent; of long summer days spent in riding over the immense inland plains, sun-bleached and swept by the dreaded hot wind of the interior; of winter nights when they camped out beside some great marshes, and heard the pelicans trumpeting to each other, or startled a flock of wild swans from the swamp into the still frosty night. She boasted that she had learned to distinguish between the different water-birds, not only by their notes, but by the ​noise of their flight through the air,—the wild ducks making a noise like that of scythes in wet grass, the heavy beat of the bittern’s wings like muffled drums; and many other fond reminiscences of those early years. Then they exchanged some recollections of the secret, half-remembered ideas of childhood. “Have you ever seen a little bush-owl?” said Alice, in affectionate remembrance. “They are the sweetest little fluffy creatures, but they often attack the young birds in their nests, and eat up the fledgelings. Long ago I used to imagine myself a little bird sitting cosily in my nest in the cypress-tree, when this great brown monster with glaring yellow eyes suddenly pounced upon me and ate me up. Don’t you think that a brown owl must be much more appalling than any of the ogres or giants of our legends? Perhaps these stories have arisen from a shadowy recollection of such a time in some previous state of existence! And once, when my canary got out of its cage and flew off into the woods, I would not cry, for I thought it must feel exactly as if it had gone straight to heaven, without dying, like the old prophet.”

“I don’t know much about birds, but I do know something of what horses and dogs think about. I think the nicest thing that Huxley ​has written is that about ‘our useful officer and servant—I had almost said colleague—the horse.’ Is that how it goes? Well, we must ask our colleagues to move on a little faster, if we want to get there and back before dark.”

“How far have we to go?”

“Oh, not more than a mile or so. There is a little clearing just over that hill, and I expect we shall find our enchanted garden near it. Just stop for a moment now, and look back. Perhaps we shall never see this again. I for one must leave this country soon, and go back to India’s torrid clime, as our hymn-books call it.”

“You are going away?—Soon?”

“Yes. I have overstayed my welcome here, I’m afraid,” he said, looking straight at Alice. “I have wasted my time, and lost ground in my work. I begin to think I have been a fool—in fact, I am sure of it.”

This was not very enlivening, and it did not appear there was anyone to blame, except himself. Alice made no reply, but gazed instead on the dark hollows and purple slopes of the hills, as they flowed and interlaced in their wooded progress inland, only changing colour from the fluctuations of light and shade as the clouds floated over them. Here and there a scarlet-flowered rata-tree triumphed over the ​verdure, and with a burst of crimson illuminated the hillside against the blue sky, like a vertical burning bush in the desert.

There is something a little oppressive in the unchanging soberness of our ever-green forests. Seasons return, but not to them returns the time of budding, and leafing, and the vivid autumnal radiance of deciduous trees. It was almost a relief when they passed on and came to a gate, and a little farther found a clear space of grass, a small white veranda-house, such as country settlers generally build, and the usual cheerful bark of dogs and clacking of poultry to announce their arrival.

“Surely this isn’t the enchanted palace!” exclaimed Alice, surprised at such a commonplace termination to their journey. “I am very glad to see a house and chimney again, and to have a prospect of some Christian tea; but this isn’t a bit what I expected.”

“Wait a minute or two. This is the place the manager lives in. We must be near the sea again. I hear it rolling in, though we can’t see it.”

A boy appeared, and took their horses, and let them know that their arrival was expected. “Mother is getting you some tea yonder,” he ​said, pointing to an enormously high hedge of impenetrable cypress, which ran in a straight line along the hillside.

Campbell opened a little door in the hedge and they passed through, the cypress grating on the hinges as they pushed it open. It formed a living green wall some eight or ten feet thick, like the rampart of an ancient castle. All at once they found themselves in a lovely terraced garden, with a smooth plateau of lawn, a fountain laughing and playing in the wind, and a terraced walk and parapet, half-buried in passion-flowers and ivy. Flowers were everywhere in the wildest confusion—rivers of roses, hedges of heliotrope, islands of orange blossoms. A high brick wall defended one angle of the hillside from the bolts and arrows of the prevailing winds, and was covered with fruit-trees, carefully trained and tended. From this wall every now and then a heavy ripe peach or apricot would drop down with a sudden thud in the stillness—“like the first of a thunder-shower.”

But it was not the charm of this fairy garden, lovely and fantastic as it seemed after the dark native landscape, which made Alice and her companion utter a sudden exclamation of delight.

Far, far below, floating to an immeasurable ​azure horizon, the stainless polished floor of the Pacific Ocean stretched out before their eyes. It was a wonderful blue aërial world; only the faintest cloud-shadows wavered over the pale blue depths; only a few rocky islets broke the intense delicious calm. A soft palpable haze, like the bloom of ripe grapes, or the dust on a butterfly’s velvet wing, vested the distant islets and the coast-line with a visionary beauty. The colour of the sea was indescribably pure and lovely, melting into the sky-line without a break. One or two ships in full sail seemed to hang on the blue margin of heaven, and the breakers gathered in long curving lines, and rolling inshore, broke unheard on the rocks below, so far above the beach was the garden plateau where they stood.

It was almost too beautiful to talk about, and they gazed on it in silence, as if it were some lovely evidence of the things that are unseen and eternal; while the evening sunshine lowered, and the clouds moved as in sleep, slowly, slowly, slowly, across the deep, and faded away in the pale blue distance.

“Come, we will have something to eat after all this splendour,” said Arthur at last. “I see our hostess is arranging a table at the other end of the terrace, and I think we shall rather astonish her when we once begin.”

​A pleasant-voiced, white-aproned Scotchwoman met them and made them welcome. “It’s but seldom we see a young leddy here, in these benighted parts, and lonely it is for me all the year round,” she murmured, like another discontented Eve in this beautiful Eden.

Alice talked with her for a time, or rather listened to her repinings, all uttered in the same gentle mournful tones, like the cooings of a wood-pigeon.

“Isn’t it strange that a woman always wants to know ‘what is worn,’ even in a paradise like this?” she observed to Arthur, as the good lady went off at last, in search of more delicacies for her guests.

“I feel much more anxious to know what is eaten,” he replied, looking affectionately at the table, where the shining snowfield of the damask cloth threw into relief the bright silver urn, delicate china, and heaped-up dishes of fruit. “Figs, too! and green almonds in the shells! ‘The Swiss Family Robinson’ was nothing to this, even in our youngest days!”

The two companions at the table might have formed a picture for some Italian painter of the Renaissance, as they sat on the stone terrace, against the rich, leafy, fruited background of the old garden. Something in the situation reminded ​them both of the hour they had once spent together in the tropical garden in Ceylon. History repeats itself, even in our own little experiences, very often; it seemed almost as if they had been sitting there all these years under the spell of some enchanter—“the world forgetting, by the world forgot.”

But suddenly Alice remembered the letter, which had passed entirely from her thoughts during their ride. She took it out and handed it to him, saying rather hurriedly:

“Mrs. Austin came to see me, and asked me to give you this, and to say good-bye for her. She is going away—in fact, she must have sailed by this time. I saw her on Thursday last.”

“Yes, I know. I am awfully sorry. It quite knocked me off my perch, as our friend is so fond of saying, when I first heard of it. I shall miss her awfully. She was so good to me. I have been away up the country, you know, and hurried back hoping to see her. But she had already started.”

Alice made no reply, but sat with her eyes fixed on the ground, tracing out the pattern of some leaves on the gravel with her riding-whip. A great mulberry-tree shaded this end of the terrace, and its ripe berries lay on the ground ​all round them. They both felt a peculiar sense of pleasure and companionship in thus being together—a pleasure not altogether damped by the slight fragrance of forbidden fruit which pervaded the situation. Alice was vaguely aware that there was something not quite en règle in thus spending her afternoon, and thought that very probably she was breaking some unpublished law in so doing. Well, if it were so, she would pay the price. The Medes and Persians might be scandalized, but she would bid defiance to their wrath for one day—just for this one long, lovely, but now swiftly-fading afternoon.

Arthur seemed much in the same frame of mind, but at last he broke the spell, and opened the note which she had handed to him. It contained one line only, written in Lizzie’s large straggling hand, with the thickest of quill-pens, but with no address or signature. He read the words over two or three times: “I don’t believe she is engaged—ask her yourself.”

At last he handed the little note over to Alice. “Will you be so kind as to answer this for me?” he said, just as if he had asked her to pass the cream-jug.

She started and looked blankly at the paper; then replied in a rather frigid tone, “I haven’t the slightest idea of what you mean.”

​“Are you engaged to Piper? Tell me the truth, I beg of you.”

“Engaged to the professor? Certainly not!”

“But he told me so himself.”

“Oh no! you are making some strange mistake.”

“He told me that you were going home with him, and that it had been a long engagement.”

A light broke in over the situation, and Alice replied, half laughing, but angry too.

“He means that I am engaged to sing the soprano part in his cantata at the festival next spring. It is an old promise, and I am glad that I can fulfil my part of it now. He could not get his music taken up before this, and now I am just ready to sing again.”

“Why, what a fool I have been! Of course he meant that, and he is a fine old chap after all. I did feel surprised that you should have taken him, but I thought it was all your old love of a musical career. Well, now the coast is clear, and it won't take me long to say two words. Will you have me instead? We have known each other a long time now, and I have never seen anyone like you. I have thought of you all these years, though I really didn’t know how much I cared. Tell me now—you will—won’t you?”

​“Oh, I don’t know!” she murmured, pale and troubled. “I can’t change all at once. I have given my promise. It’s a sort of sacred thing with me now.”

“No, no! What does it matter if you have given a dozen promises? Listen to your own heart—and to mine.”

“I must not give up my work—indeed I must not; and I know you could not bear me to sing in public———”

“No, that I certainly could not. You must choose now between us, once for all. I could not have a wife who belonged to the public first. It may be a prejudice, but that is my idea.”

“Oh, you don’t know—you don’t understand. It is so hard to explain. I must go on—I must work. Don’t you remember that Balzac says that the artist must work with the energy of a miner buried under a landslip,” she added, trying to smile, and to bring the conversation down to an everyday level again.

“Well, that’s just what I don’t want to see you doing. You ought to let somebody else do the landslip business for you. You are making a great mistake. There is something better than even an artistic career—you may bet your life on that,” he added, quite unconsciously ​quoting poor Lizzie’s parting injunction. “Suppose, after all, your voice breaks down again! Don’t think me a brute for saying so. However, I do believe that you have a great success before you. But what then? Will you be happy? No, I am sure you won’t. You care for me in your secret heart, I am sure you do; and yet you throw me over, just for the sake of singing old Piper’s music to a crowd at five shillings a head—a crowd who don’t care a straw for you yourself, only for what you can give them. I am not an artist—thank Heaven for that!—but I know more about it than you imagine.” There was a long pause again between them, and Campbell seemed to be trying to think of further arguments. But at last he exclaimed abruptly, “I can’t stand any more of this. It may be play with you, but it’s life and death with me. Tell me, once for all, will you trust me, or will you not? I can’t ask you again.”

Alice remained silent, pale and shaken. She could argue no longer, and a secret traitor in her heart was almost undoing the bolt and letting the enemy in. Arthur bent over towards her, his dark, manly face bright with an expression of tenderness which she had never seen before. If he could have taken her hand there and then, perhaps the battle had been won; but a large ​bowl of curds and cream interposed intrusively on the table between them.

Alice recovered herself with a great effort, rose from the table, and walked over towards the parapet.

“I can’t,” she murmured, almost with a sob. “I have put my hands to the plough, and I must go on.”

“Very well, we will say no more about it. It is time for us to be starting. I will go and look after the horses, and bring them round in a few minutes.”

He did not look at her again, and Alice remained standing on the terrace alone, gazing absently at the beautiful ocean scene before her. The afternoon was deepening, and the azure of the distant sea was almost unearthly in its purity. Nearer to the land long stripes and shadows of green and purple floated in with the shadows of the cliffs, and in the west a long ladder of sunshine rose step after step through the clouds. But all the joy had faded out of the afternoon. A thin wall of ice seemed slowly building up round her, shutting out the pleasant everyday world of cloud and sunshine, and she could have exclaimed with the poet:

​But there was no opportunity for her to retrace her steps, even had she wished to do so. She had made her decision, and she knew that she must abide by it.

The ride home was very silent, and not a little depressing. Neither of the riders spoke more than was necessary; they both seemed to have too much to think of. Something new and strange had risen in the girl’s heart, some unconscious rebellion against her own choice; and it was hard enough to maintain the composure and dignity suitable to the occasion, and at the same time to subdue with a strong hand the civil war which was stubbornly battling in her inmost thoughts .

Campbell, however, seemed to be resigned to his fate. He rode beside her with an air of cold self-possession, and the manner with which he showed her some little formal attentions plainly declared that he had accepted her decision without appeal. The daylight had almost faded from the valleys, and the dense bush oppressed their spirits with its solitary gloom. It was fortunate that their horses were accustomed to the rough bridle-track, for they could hardly see to guide them. What a contrast this dusky path presented to the shining limitless view from the heights!

​Alice could hardly help asking herself whether she had indeed chosen wisely in turning away from the natural sunshine earth, all for the sake of some fantastic ideal which now seemed to die away into the twilight, instead of supporting her with strong inward faith.

Perhaps they might have remained in the shadows up to this very moment, but that a sudden turn in the path brought them in sight of the sea again. The gloomy arches of the forest framed in a long vista of heavenly azure, and far beyond, half resting on the horizon, half hid in summer clouds, a long range of snow-clad mountain-peaks shone out with startling purity, white and dazzling as if they had been the houses of angels. Just at that moment the horse that Alice was riding stumbled over the root of a tree in the rough pathway, and she fell forward, half losing her balance. Campbell was by her side in the same instant, and lifted her into the saddle again, when something he saw in her tearful, half-averted eyes caused him to stop and remain standing by her side, his arm still round her, while some long, long explanation passed in silence between them. So long did they remain in this enchanted silence that the little reed-warbler in the bush near them thought they had departed, and began once more to try ​over the only tune he knew, his one sweet poignant melody—“all in vain, all in vain, all in vain;” the two sheep-dogs yawned and stretched themselves, and looked reproachfully at the horses; and the sunset faded over the blue fields of the Pacific, and left only a faint rosy glow on the far immeasurable snow-peaks that floated between sea and sky at the other side of the bay.

In almost every lifetime there comes a pause now and then when the noises of this world and the roar of its streets die away into silence; moments when we attain the power of seeing the invisible, and hearing the “incommunicable song” of our dreams; moments that the poet and the musician are ever striving to arrest. Sometimes this visitation seizes us while listening to some strain of intensely sad music, whose sadness nevertheless causes us no distress, but rather moves a deeper feeling than delight; or it may be in gazing upon some snow-sheeted, unattainable mountain-peak; or perhaps in the secret pang of self-renunciation unnoticed or misunderstood by all around. All too soon the illumination fades away, but it has taught us much that can never be forgotten. Such a moment came to Alice amid the rustling branches of the primeval forest; and it was ​with the feeling of one who lays his gift on the altar and goes silently away into the city that she at last waved farewell to the shadows, as they turned their horses towards the hospitable lights of the little village. Of these two lovers, one would never fully know what the other had sacrificed; but perhaps their cup of love and happiness was not less blessed because it was mingled with the ever-rising, ever-flowing immemorial fountain of human tears.

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