THE PASSING VAGABOND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21698, 13 January 1934, Page 9 (Supplement)

THE PASSING VAGABOND

BY TE MTKAnO

The sun was rising over the river when the man left his whare to take his usual morning dip. He was a very big man, though deft and light of movement, and as he descended the short path to the river he whistled a little, but broke off. abruptly as he came on a small huddled figure that lay in a chequered patch of sunlight. The golden curls clung in a damp mass to her head; the sweater and boyish shorts she wore were still sodden. When he knelt and raised her in his arms the face exposed was flushed with fever and when the golden eyes opened they watched him vaguely, questioningly, then slowly she nodded. " Hello," she said huskily, "huve you found me? You see, I have run away. I have what you call —bolted 1" Even as she spoke her head fell forward against him and she was unconscious. He did nob swim that morning. He gathered her closely and carried her to his whare, where his sure hands removed her damp clothing and put her to bed.

His grey eyes were grave and puzzled, his hands were gentle; but beneath the close-cropped beard his mouth was set grimly as he wondered from whom this child with her golden eyes and small plain face had bolted, and from where. She proved to be a very sick patient, and compassionately he nursed her, held damp to her cracked, parched lips and listened to her feverish mutterings, trying in vain to piece together the story that lay behind the tragedy of her eyes. There were times when she would cry out in sudden fear and clutch him, her disjointed words telling him of a night of terror when, lost in the bush, she had stumbled- along, till at last she had come upon the river with its beckoning lights on the further bank, and swam across only to lie exhausted, unable to ascend the steep path to safe harbourage. Then there came a night of terror when, gazing again upon scenes through which she had just passed, she screamed wildly for the sun; till, at last, tired and weary-eyed, he leaned over her and raised the blind for the newly-risen sun to help him save the life he feared was slipping from him. Eagerly she held up her face to welcome, the lids flickering over her shadowy eyes, for here at last was a friend who could dispel the tragedy of terror-filled nights, and, as if in answer to the man's prayer, she slept peacefully, secure in her patch of s.unlight. When at last she awakened and turned her queer-feeling head on the pillows she was still a very sick patient, the questing eyes still retaining a little of their fever; frowningly they watched this big man as he moved with that grace and lightness that spoke of a well-trained body. His face was turned to her, and she shuddered a little 1 at the disfiguring soar that ran across his nose to lose itself in the close-cropped beard, in so doirjg suggesting something virulent, veiling itself from human eyes. He looked up and smiled, but as she met the level, searching look, sho shrank back as if to hide, and when he spoke she caught back a scream, for his voice brought the leaves, of memory falling. For the better part of two days she lay quietly, silently watching in her waking hours, contemplating, steeling herself to meet his eyes, to hear his voice, while inwardly she made a little_ bow to fato who had guided her to this man, who was the counterpart of "the one from whom she had run away. Often sho would try to visualise his face. If his nose had not that scar upon it, would it be slightly Roman? Did that beard hide a strong cleft chin, and a face bronzed by African sun?

A morning came, the birds singing with the joy of life and the river rippling below them when she turned and broke her silence.

"Was I—lightheaded at all?" " Yes, sometimes," he answered and caught the swift challenge of her eyes as she steeled herself to ask: " What do you know?" He considered her awhile before ho answered:

"You once said something about running away from a phantom .husband." She turned her face to the sun as she answered, her voice holding a trace of irony. "And ran into you I" A gleam came into his eyes. " So!" he said, and she had screamed before the back of her hand had caught her mouth, and, as if her sudden, startled scream were not ringing in his ears, ho asked:

" AVhy into me?" 1 J.lie made him no answer. She kept her face turned to the windows, to the comforting warmth, putting her arm across her eyes as if to hide herself from him.

The following morning she "again steeled herself to speech. " How long must I stay hero?" she asked.

" A week or so," he answered, and her sick eyes were mutinous as she again turned away, and with something like despair schooled herself to accept him calmly. Bub before a week was gone, she was telling him] a little more coherently than in her fevered wanderings, just a little at a time, and as he listened, he tried to understand why she had run away. " Do you not think," he once asked her, " that it is much better to* face things? It is much more satisfactory than running away." " But I did not really run away," she explained wearily. " I was so uncertain I came away to think things out. You see, across tho river I lived with my father, and his grave lies over there." " I see," he answered gravely, and added: "So!" She did not scream, but shrinking back she again turned her face from him, aching a little from memories. With the sun playing in the mass of golden cobwebs that was her hair, she again turned to him. " My husband is a doctor like you," she said, and queried sharply: " You are a dootor, aren't you?" " Yes," he answered quietly. " I am a doctor." Her lips twisted a little; it was scarcely a smile; and as the man's grey eyes watched her she realised they would never be young and gay like her husband, Burke's. " He was so wonderfully young and alive," she said a shade wistfully, "and when my father died and I was all alone and penniless he took care of me. He had not been here for long and I think he felt sorry for me; you see, I had never been more than a few miles either side of our home; we were so desperately poor. When he suggested ho had better marry me, that it was the better way out of my difficulties, 1 agreed. I loved hirrl so; he was so gay and beautiful. I did not realise the handicap I would be to him. And he was too much of a gentleman to suggest ib. That is why we were married," she ended simply, " and seeing that he had to leave immediately for South Africa, where he would be on research, he left me over hero to be educated." those grave eyes were studying her, and lost in her story, he said: " So!" and the quick stab of pain filled her eyes. " Who are you," she broke out, who use an expression of Burke's? Who are you, and what might have been his eyes, his voice, his 'So,' and living in this place that was his?" " I am only a passing vagabond," was the quiet reply. " Who are you?" Her laughter rose over a sob. " Let me be a vagabond too," she said huskily, and to this man whom

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she barely knew, she wanted to cry out, from the pain in her heart: " But do not let me be passing. Let me stay. Keep me here in this peace with you." There came a morning when she marked the calendar. " Burke arrives in New Zealand to-day," she Baid. " After five years he has come back for me." " Soon you will be able to go to him," he said; but she shook her head, a little in doubt. " I do not want to go to him," she answered steadily, and the man raised his dark brows. "Would you have me go to a montebank?" she cried out. " You do not know. You do not realise the things that he has done, and always, no doubt, laughing in his heart, has he written me beautiful letters. Surely he could not have known all that he meant to me, or he could never have been so cruel?" " Tell me," the man said evenly, and she told him. " It was a woman who wrote to me, telling me that she and Burke wanted to marry, but he did not wish to hurt me. But she wrote. She said they had a right \to their happiness For a long time r pondered over Burke, and over that letter, and to me, it did not ring true. So I showed the letter to a friend who was going over, and commissioned her to cable me the truth." Again her lips twisted; but not to smile. "The cable was a terrible revelation. It appeared Burke was a man of light fancies Long since had he forgotten the writer of my letter and had had an affair with a Spanish dancer, who, on learning of his fickleness, stabbed him.. So you see why I do not want to go back and face Burke? For he does not know I know these things. He sailed before I could write and now he is here."

She could not hope to read the expression of his eyes as he spoke.

" Go back and face him with your knowledge," he said. " Let him tell you the truth as ho knows it." " The truth," she said bitterly. " What could be his truth?"

" That though these things were true, he loves you. That from the day he first saw you he loved you; but in five years one's memories become a little dimmed, and one may stray a little."

She half rose on the pillows, her eyes eager and searching. " You speak as if you know," she whispered. "I do know," he answered, " for Burke has told me."

The, eagerness faded from her eyes; she considered him a moment, then leaned back dejectedly. " So you know him," sho said, and he answered:

" Yes. I know him. We happen to be related; and out there in Africa he used to dream of you, of the child he had married. Little and sweet, he called you; and had he not been in a fever-infested spot, long since would you have been with him." " I would have gone to the ends of the world with him," she muttered. " I loved him so! "

" That is why he has come," the man answered. "To take you to the ends of the world with him."

"He has come too late, 1 ' she said simply; and those grave eyes studied her.

"Why too late? " he asked, and a trifle shakily she answered: i "Is it so very strange, that in five years I should change; that lately I have discovered that the love I thought was real, > was only glamour, and glamour is, transitory? "

For a long time he was silent; his head bent over his fishing tackle. But when he raised his face, his eyes held their habitual graveness; as also was the line of his lips hidden.

"So! You love another man?" he questioned. " No. After all that is not so strange." She wanted to scream out at him; to break through his icy reserve; she wanted to sting him into indiscretion; but she did none of these things. " Don't you ever laugh? " she asked him. " Don't you ever enjoy life? " He smiled a little. " When you are with this Burke, then X shall enjoy life," he told her. ■

She wanted to retort rudely; but ignored him; and in the days that followed proved to be very exacting; but she could not break down his calm; and on the, day his motor launch was waiting to take her away, she knew herself to be beaten. She jfcook her last look of the whare with head held high and went down to the river. (

But her high courage faltered a little when she was saying good-bye. " Why do you treat me as if I do not exist? " she asked him bitterly. " Am I so far beneath your notice? " and in simple truth he answered: " Because, I too, love you. Is that so very strange? "

"Love me?" she breathed/ her small, plain face transfigured; and with her eager hands gripping his she demanded :

" Oh, then why were you so cruel? Didn't you know, couldn't you see that I was loving you too? " His eyes had lost their graveness; but they remained guarded, still denying her. , " There is Burke," he said. " How do you know, until you have seen him again, that after all it was only glamour, five years ago? " She laughed a little, joy in her eyes. " As if I could doubt my love for you!" she said. " But I too, travel to the ends of the world. Would you brave the ends of the world with me? " " Yes, yes," she answered. ' 'Anywhere with you! " He smiled again as with his quiet authority ho handed her into tho train. " Au. revoir," he said softly. "You will find me waiting, should you return." With her eyes blinded by tears she watched him from sight; while she sought to comfort herself with the sure knowledge, that this passing vagabond would not yet kiss the lips that may still belong to Burke.

She entered the hotel lounge where she had asked Burke to meet her; instantly she saw him as he towered above his companions; and tho sheer wonder of him brought a pain to her heart. That strong, cleft chin; those firm lips softened by laughter; those grey eyes, gay and debonair, that claimed her as he came forward; those light deft movements! In an agony of fear she closed her eyes and tried to recall the grave ones of the passing vagabond"; but the eyes that alone could help her, would not come back. Burke held her hands in his close, warm clasp. " How beautiful you are," he said. " My wife! " And with a sense of dismay she realised that five years ago her love had not been glamour; it had been 'real. Burke was claiming her again in that golden web of magic that he forever wove; and for always, back there, befiide the river, the passing vagabond would wait in vain. " Was I cruel to you ? " Burke was asking; " but you deserved it, for doubting your love for me!" Her eyesy opened, a little sad for tho things that had passed; but sweet and golden; and then, in exalted wonder, she raised one tremulous hand and touched it—the scar across his nose that eijded on his cheek!