The Explorer Page 9

He paused. His eyes were fixed upon hers. She waited for him to go on.

  'I wanted to ask you if you would marry me.'

  She drew a long breath. Her face kept its expression of intense gravity.

  'It's very kind and chivalrous of you to suggest it. You mustn't think me ungrateful if I tell you I can't.'

  'Why not?' he asked quietly.

  'I must look after my father. If it is any use I shall go and live near the prison.'

  'There is no reason why you should not do that if you married me.'

  She shook her head.

  'No, I must be free. As soon as my father is released I must be ready to live with him. And I can't take an honest man's name. It looks as if I were running away from my own and taking shelter elsewhere.'

  She hesitated for a while, since it made her very shy to say what she had in mind. When she spoke it was in a low and trembling voice.

  'You don't know how proud I was of my name and my family. For centuries they've been honest, decent people, and I felt that we'd had a part in the making of England. And now I feel utterly ashamed. Dick Lomas laughed at me because I was so proud of my family. I daresay I was stupid. I never paid much attention to rank and that kind of thing, but it did seem to me that family was different. I've seen my father, and he simply doesn't realise for a moment that he's done something horribly mean and shameful. There must be some taint in our nature. I couldn't marry you; I should be afraid that my children would inherit the rottenness of my blood.'

  He listened to what she said. Then he went up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. His calmness, and the steadiness of his voice seemed to quieten her.

  'I think you will be able to help your father and George better if you are my wife. I'm afraid your position will be very difficult. Won't you give me the great happiness of helping you?'

  'We must stand on our own feet. I'm very grateful, but you can do nothing for us.'

  'I'm very awkward and stupid, I don't know how to say what I want to. I think I loved you from that first day at Court Leys. I did not understand then what had happened; I suddenly felt that something new and strange had come into my life. And day by day I loved you more, and then it took up my whole soul. I've never loved anyone but you. I never can love anyone but you. I've been looking for you all my life.'

  She could not stand the look of his eyes, and she cast hers down. He saw the exquisite shadow of her eyelashes on her cheek.

  'But I didn't dare say anything to you then. Even if you had cared for me, it seemed unfair to bind you to me when I was starting on this expedition. But now I must speak. I go in a week. It would give me so much strength and courage if I knew that I had your love. I love you with all my heart.'

  She looked up at him now, and her eyes were shining with tears, but they were not the tears of a hopeless pain.

  'I can't marry you now. It would be unfair to you. I owe myself entirely to my father.'

  He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back.

  'It must be as you will.'

  'But don't think I'm ungrateful,' she said. 'I'm so proud that I have your love. It seems to lift me up from the depths. You don't know how much good you have done me.'

  'I wanted to help you, and you will let me do nothing for you.'

  On a sudden a thought flashed through her. She gave a little cry of amazement, for here was the solution of her greatest difficulty.

  'Yes, you can do something for me. Will you take George with you?'

  'George?'

  He remained silent for a moment, while he considered the proposition.

  'I can trust him in your hands. You will make a good and a strong man of him. Oh, won't you give him this chance of washing out the stain that is on our name?'

  'Do you know that he will have to undergo hunger and thirst and every kind of hardship? It's not a picnic that I'm going on.'

  'I'm willing that he should undergo everything. The cause is splendid. His self-respect is wavering in the balance. If he gets to noble work he will feel himself a man.'

  'There will be a good deal of fighting. It has seemed foolish to dwell on the dangers that await me, but I do realise that they are greater than I have ever faced before. This time it is win or die.'

  'The dangers can be no greater than those his ancestors have taken cheerfully.'

  'He may be wounded or killed.'

  Lucy hesitated for an instant. The words she uttered came from unmoving lips.

  'If he dies a brave man's death I can ask for nothing more.'

  Alec smiled at her infinite courage. He was immensely proud of her.

  'Then tell him that I shall be glad to take him.'

  'May I call him now?'

  Alec nodded. She rang the bell and told the servant who came that she wished to see her brother. George came in. The strain of the last fortnight, the horrible shock of his father's conviction, had told on him far more than on Lucy. He looked worn and ill. He was broken down with shame. The corners of his mouth drooped querulously, and his handsome face bore an expression of utter misery. Alec looked at him steadily. He felt infinite pity for his youth, and there was a charm of manner about him, a way of appealing for sympathy, which touched the strong man. He wondered what character the boy had. His heart went out to him, and he loved him already because he was Lucy's brother.

  'George, Mr. MacKenzie has offered to take you with him to Africa,' she said eagerly. 'Will you go?'

  'I'll go anywhere so long as I can get out of this beastly country,' he answered wearily. 'I feel people are looking at me in the street when I go out, and they're saying to one another: there's the son of that swindling rotter who was sentenced to seven years.'

  He wiped the palms of his hands with his handkerchief.

  'I don't mind what I do. I can't go back to Oxford; no one would speak to me. There's nothing I can do in England at all. I wish to God I were dead.'

  'George, don't say that.'

  'It's all very well for you. You're a girl, and it doesn't matter. Do you suppose anyone would trust me with sixpence now? Oh, how could he? How could he?'

  'You must try and forget it, George,' said Lucy, gently.

  The boy pulled himself together and gave Alec a charming smile.

  'It's awfully ripping of you to take pity on me.'

  'I want you to know before you decide that you'll have to rough it all the time. It'll be hard and dangerous work.'

  'Well, as far as I'm concerned it's Hobson's choice, isn't it?' he answered, bitterly.

  Alec held out his hand, with one of his rare, quiet smiles.

  'I hope we shall pull well together and be good friends.'

  'And when you come back, George, everything will be over. I wish I were a man so that I might go with you. I wish I had your chance. You've got everything before you, George. I think no man has ever had such an opportunity. All our hope is in you. I want to be proud of you. All my self-respect depends on you. I want you to distinguish yourself, so that I may feel once more honest and strong and clean.'

  Her voice was trembling with a deep emotion, and George, quick to respond, flushed.

  'I am a selfish beast,' he cried. 'I've been thinking of myself all the time. I've never given a thought to you.'

  'I don't want you to: I only want you to be brave and honest and steadfast.'

  The tears came to his eyes, and he put his arms around her neck. He nestled against her heart as a child might have done.

  'It'll be awfully hard to leave you, Lucy.'

  'It'll be harder for me, dear, because you will be doing great and heroic things, while I shall be able only to wait and watch. But I want you to go.' Her voice broke, and she spoke almost in a whisper. 'And don't forget that you're going for my sake as well as for your own. If you did anything wrong or disgraceful it would break my heart.'

  'I swear to you that you'll never be ashamed of me, Lucy,' he said.

  She kissed him and smiled. Alec had watched them silently. His heart was v
ery full.

  'But we mustn't be silly and sentimental, or Mr. MacKenzie will think us a pair of fools.' She looked at him gaily. 'We're both very grateful to you.'

  'I'm afraid I'm starting almost at once,' he said. 'George must be ready in a week.'

  'George can be ready in twenty-four hours if need be,' she answered.

  The boy walked towards the window and lit a cigarette. He wanted to steady his nerves.

  'I'm afraid I shall be able to see little of you during the next few days,' said Alec. 'I have a great deal to do, and I must run up to Lancashire for the week-end.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'Won't you change your mind?'

  She shook her head.

  'No, I can't do that. I must have complete freedom.'

  'And when I come back?'

  She smiled delightfully.

  'When you come back, if you still care, ask me again.'

  'And the answer?'

  'The answer perhaps will be different.'

  VIII

  A week later Alec MacKenzie and George Allerton started from Charing Cross. They were to go by P. & O. from Marseilles to Aden, and there catch a German boat which would take them to Mombassa. Lady Kelsey was far too distressed to see her nephew off; and Lucy was glad, since it gave her the chance of driving to the station alone with George. She found Dick Lomas and Mrs. Crowley already there. When the train steamed away, Lucy was standing a little apart from the others. She was quite still. She did not even wave her hand, and there was little expression on her face. Mrs. Crowley was crying cheerfully, and she dried her eyes with a tiny handkerchief. Lucy turned to her and thanked her for coming.

  'Shall I drive you back in the carriage?' sobbed Mrs. Crowley.

  'I think I'll take a cab, if you don't mind,' Lucy answered quietly. 'Perhaps you'll take Dick.'

  She did not bid them good-bye, but walked slowly away.

  'How exasperating you people are!' cried Mrs. Crowley. 'I wanted to throw myself in her arms and have a good cry on the platform. You have no heart.'

  Dick walked along by her side, and they got into Mrs. Crowley's carriage. She soliloquised.

  'I thank God that I have emotions, and I don't mind if I do show them. I was the only person who cried. I knew I should cry, and I brought three handkerchiefs on purpose. Look at them.' She pulled them out of her bag and thrust them into Dick's hand. 'They're soaking.'

  'You say it with triumph,' he smiled.

  'I think you're all perfectly heartless. Those two boys were going away for heaven knows how long on a dangerous journey, and they may never come back, and you and Lucy said good-bye to them just as if they were going off for a day's golf. I was the only one who said I was sorry, and that we should miss them dreadfully. I hate this English coldness. When I go to America, it's ten to one nobody comes to see me off, and if anyone does he just nods and says "Good-bye, I hope you'll have a jolly time."'

  'Next time you go I will come and hurl myself on the ground, and gnash my teeth and shriek at the top of my voice.'

  'Oh, yes, do. And then I'll cry all the way to Liverpool, and I shall have a racking headache and feel quite miserable and happy.'

  Dick meditated for a moment.

  'You see, we have an instinctive horror of exhibiting our emotion. I don't know why it is, I suppose training or the inheritance of our sturdy fathers, but we're ashamed to let people see what we feel. But I don't know whether on that account our feelings are any the less keen. Don't you think there's a certain beauty in a grief that forbids itself all expression? You know, I admire Lucy tremendously, and as she came towards us on the platform I thought there was something very fine in her calmness.'

  'Fiddlesticks!' said Mrs. Crowley, sharply. 'I should have liked her much better if she had clung to her brother and sobbed and had to be torn away.'

  'Did you notice that she left us without even shaking hands? It was a very small omission, but it meant that she was quite absorbed in her grief.'

  They reached Mrs. Crowley's tiny house in Norfolk Street, and she asked Dick to come in.

  'Sit down and read the paper,' she said, 'while I go and powder my nose.'

  Dick made himself comfortable. He blessed the charming woman when a butler of imposing dimensions brought in all that was necessary to make a cocktail. Mrs. Crowley cultivated England like a museum specimen. She had furnished her drawing-room with Chippendale furniture of an exquisite pattern. No chintzes were so smartly calendered as hers, and on the walls were mezzotints of the ladies whom Sir Joshua had painted. The chimney-piece was adorned with Lowestoft china, and on the silver table was a collection of old English spoons. She had chosen her butler because he went so well with the house. His respectability was portentous, his gravity was never disturbed by the shadow of a smile; and Mrs. Crowley treated him as though he were a piece of decoration, with an impertinence that fascinated him. He looked upon her as an outlandish freak, but his heavy British heart was surrendered to her entirely, and he watched over her with a solicitude that amused and touched her.

  Dick thought that the little drawing-room was very comfortable, and when Mrs. Crowley returned, after an unconscionable time at the toilet-table, he was in the happiest mood. She gave a rapid glance at the glasses.

  'You're a perfect hero,' she said. 'You've waited till I came down to have your cocktail.'

  'Richard Lomas, madam, is the soul of courtesy,' he replied, with a flourish. 'Besides, base is the soul that drinks in the morning by himself. At night, in your slippers and without a collar, with a pipe in your mouth and a good book in your hand, a solitary glass of whisky and soda is eminently desirable; but the anteprandial cocktail needs the sparkle of conversation.'

  'You seem to be in excellent health,' said Mrs. Crowley.

  'I am. Why?'

  'I saw in yesterday's paper that your doctor had ordered you to go abroad for the rest of the winter.'

  'My doctor received the two guineas, and I wrote the prescription,' returned Dick. 'Do you remember that I explained to you the other day at length my intention of retiring into private life?'

  'I do. I strongly disapprove of it.'

  'Well, I was convinced that if I relinquished my duties without any excuse people would say I was mad and shut me up in a lunatic asylum. I invented a breakdown in my health, and everything is plain sailing. I've got a pair for the rest of the session, and at the general election the excellent Robert Boulger will step into my unworthy shoes.'

  'And supposing you regret the step you've taken?'

  'In my youth I imagined, with the romantic fervour of my age, that in life everything was irreparable. That is a delusion. One of the greatest advantages of life is that hardly anything is. One can make ever so many fresh starts. The average man lives long enough for a good many experiments, and it's they that give life its savour.'

  'I don't approve of this flippant way you talk of life,' said Mrs. Crowley severely. 'It seems to me something infinitely serious and complicated.'

  'That is an illusion of moralists. As a matter of fact, it's merely what you make it. Mine is quite light and simple.'

  Mrs. Crowley looked at Dick reflectively.

  'I wonder why you never married,' she said.

  'I can tell you easily. Because I have a considerable gift for repartee. I discovered in my early youth that men propose not because they want to marry, but because on certain occasions they are entirely at a loss for topics of conversation.'

  'It was a momentous discovery,' she smiled.

  'No sooner had I made it than I began to cultivate my powers of small talk. I felt that my only chance was to be ready with appropriate subjects at the smallest notice, and I spent a considerable part of my last year at Oxford in studying the best masters.'

  'I never noticed that you were particularly brilliant,' murmured Mrs. Crowley, raising her eyebrows.

  'I never played for brilliancy, I played for safety. I flatter myself that when prattle was needed, I have never been found wantin
g. I have met the ingenuousness of sweet seventeen with a few observations on Free Trade, while the haggard efforts of thirty have struggled in vain against a brief exposition of the higher philosophy.'

  'When people talk higher philosophy to me I make it a definite rule to blush,' said Mrs. Crowley.

  'The skittish widow of uncertain age has retired in disorder before a complete acquaintance with the Restoration dramatists, and I have frequently routed the serious spinster with religious leanings by my remarkable knowledge of the results of missionary endeavour in Central Africa. Once a dowager sought to ask me my intentions, but I flung at her astonished head an article from the Encyclopedia Brittanica. An American divorcée swooned when I poured into her shell-like ear a few facts about the McKinley Tariff. These are only my serious efforts. I need not tell you how often I have evaded a flash of the eyes by an epigram, or ignored a sigh by an apt quotation from the poets.'

  'I don't believe a word you say,' retorted Mrs. Crowley. 'I believe you never married for the simple reason that nobody would have you.'

  'Do me the justice to acknowledge that I'm the only man who's known you for ten days without being tempted by those coal-mines of yours in Pennsylvania to offer you his hand and heart.'

  'I don't believe the coal has anything to do with it,' answered Mrs. Crowley. 'I put it down entirely to my very considerable personal attractions.'

  Dick looked at the time and found that the cocktail had given him an appetite. He asked Mrs. Crowley if she would lunch with him, and gaily they set out for a fashionable restaurant. Neither of them gave a thought to Alec and George speeding towards the unknown, nor to Lucy shut up in her room, given over to utter misery.

  * * *

  For Lucy it was the first of many dreary days. Dick went to Naples, and enjoying his new-won idleness, did not even write to her. Mrs. Crowley, after deciding on a trip to Egypt, was called to America by the illness of a sister; and Lady Kelsey, unable to stand the rigour of a Northern winter, set out for Nice. Lucy refused to accompany her. Though she knew it would be impossible to see her father, she could not bear to leave England; she could not face the gay people who thronged the Riviera, while he was bound to degrading tasks. The luxury of her own life horrified her when she compared it with his hard fare; and she could not look upon the comfortable rooms she lived in, with their delicate refinements, without thinking of the bare cell to which he was confined. Lucy was glad to be alone.