THE BRIDGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3867, 24 April 1928, Page 81

THE BRIDGE.

By

C. R. Allen.

(Copybight.—For the Otago Witness.;

Rodney was always glad when Girda come to stay at Melbury Court, because she could always be relied upon to play the game. There was no one else in the world who was so docile in the matter of Rodd’s constructive passion. Rodd’s acquaintance with the world wa» somewhat circumscribed. There were the two boys from the rectory, who laughed his plans and specifications out of court, or, it may be, bore with him for a season, and then, when the building was well on the way to completion, sent the whole edifice into limbo with one unconsidered kick, and went on their predatory way rejoicing. . There was his own father, who allowed him the use of the turning lathe, but imposed all manner of harassing restrictions, and harped monotonously on the utilitarian note.

Only Girda questioned not, and proffered undeviating discipleship. She was never bored with Rodd’s plans. Girda was never bored with anything, nor did it appear that she was ever caught up by an enthusiasm. Like Caryle’s American transcendentalist, she accepted the universe, of which Rodd’s little osmology was an integral part. So when sire came to stay at Melbury she was impressed for service as seconder of some creative scheme, and in due., course assisted at the building of Rodney’s bridge. lhe bridge was built on the suspension principle, and was thrown across a little runnel at a point some two miles from the homestead. The place was a secret which Rodd shared with the kingfishers and the minnows. It is possible that cattle might have passed that way, though there were no hoof marks on the soft turf which carpeted the foreshore on the further side of the bridge. The place seemed to be a fortuitous ford, a space of sunlight cutting asunder the dark little ravine down which the creek made its way. Beyond the pigmy meadow, which I have already named, there rose a wooded hill, so that’ the bridge stood in a kind of amphitheatre. As Rodd and Girda wrought, they had above their heads a patch of blue sky, and all about them the shade, of trees and creepers. .Had Rodd ever heard of a aiad he might have likened his cousin to one such, for Girda, in the ecstasy of creation, had frequently run sopping hands through her abundant biack hair with picturesque results. As she laboured in that space of sunlight it seemed that the texture of her skin showed even more finely than on such ceremonial occasions as demanded grooming. It was always said of Girda that she had the Taverner skin. The Taverner pallor did not bode an untimely end. The Taverners were of a very hardy stock. Any but Rodd might have paused to consider Girda a younger sister of Melisande in the wood, but Rodd had eyes but for one kind of symmetry. He was wholly preoccupied with the contours of his bridge. Rodd had not the Taverner pallor. His was that candour of colouring that goes with red hair. His freckles scarcely showed in the dappled sunlight, and the square cut of his chin gave him an air of precocious gravity, which may or may not have impressed Girda. One never knew what was going on behind the ramparts of Girda's mind.

The sun was showing a red hall through the wooded slope when Rodd at last straightened himself, and hopped to the summit of a clav cliff f or a better view of his handiwork. Girda remained on the further side of the creek contemplat ing the bridge, while she wiped her wet hands down the sides of her short serge skirt. In the red westering light she looked almost pre-Raphaelitish. “ She’ll do,” said Rodd. and then Girda for the first time challenged the theory of art for art’s sake. “What for, Rodd?” she asked. Had Rodney been as resourceful in the imaginative realm as he 'was in the mechanical, he might have replied, “ For Titania to pass by.” But., the boy was merely put out of countenance by’ hearing the utility of his bridge called in question. A sudden breeze shivered through the trees on the western slope. “Let’s go home,” said . Girda. They put on their shoes and stockings, and left the beautiful bridge to be wrapped about by the thickening shadows. Rodd" was silent on the way home. Only as the lights of Melbury came into sight he pronounced a pact with . himself.

“ Some day I’ll build a real bridge,” he said.

‘‘‘When you’re a man, Rodd,” the little girl replied. “ Let’s run.’ 5 She slipped her hand into his, and they made for the lodge gates as if all the spirits of the trees and the brooks were after them.

Girda returned to town a few days after that red evening, and before she went she paid one pilgrimage to the little cleft in the clay-banked canyon where stood Rodd’s bridge. A sharp shower of rain had washed it clean, and now it glistened in the morning sunlight like a bridge transmuted. Surely the fairies must have gone by that golden way. Girda and Rodney stood a little while in silence.

I wonder if it will be there when you come back,” said Rodd. ■ ' -

“ I wonder.” said Girda.’ Then they faced' for Melbury.

I cannot eay how long the bridge survived. The question is not apposite to this story, for Girda never came back to Melbury. She from childhood to womanhood, and in the fulness of time she married Harry Dover, and followed him to his plantation in the manner of all good and faithful wives. “It is hardly necessary to say that she was faithful to her man. Harry was not given to retrospect, and she knew less of his childhood than is usually the case with happily married couples. Their own babv and the plantation seemed to absorb all their thought. There did not seem to be any leisure for “ once upon a time.”

“ Rodd grew up, too, and disappeared from Melbury. The Forsyths were a close family. No one seemed to know the precise nature of Rodd’s quarrel with his father. He simply disappeared, and if any one ever gave a thought to the quiet, intense little boy who always seemed so preoccupied. with chimerical schemes, it was not noticeable that such thought ever found expression in a Browningesque question. “ What’s become of Waring,” the poet wrote of Alfred who left his friends for the Antipodes one fine morning. As a matter of fact this is what Rodney Forsyth had done. There is nothing very original in becoming a rolling stone. He disappears for the time being and w e are concerned once more with Girda *i nd kjby. She would sometimes tell the little boy stories of England. Melbury was, o f course, the heart of England. The child might well have been excused for confusing the whereabouts of Melbury and heaven. When Girda -railed clouds of glory the clouds would always be the blue mantle that wrapped itself about the site of Rodd’s bridge on autumn evenings, or the opalescent mantle that sometimes draped the hills about Melbury. Then there came a sudden end to the te.ling of pretty stories. The disaffected natives took advantage of a sudden rise in the river to rise too. The only bridge w . .. c .h connected the plantation with civilisation was swept away. The Dovers tound themselves in the position of a beleaguered garrison. Had it been in the aero P sanes the white woman and the child might have been rescued in a day or two As it was, they had to wait the relief force from the coast. When at length the way to the coast was clear, Girda lay upon her bed in a delirium. She had no knowledge of the pontoon bridge that Rodney Forsyth was building across the great flood. She lay and babbled of another bridge. Oh, Rodd, isn’t she a beautv. I am sure I could walk over it if I* thought myself small like Alice.” * What is it, dearest?” implored her distracted husband. “ The bridge. Rodd’s bridge,” Girda chanted. Harry Dover turned to the nurse. “ If she should die,” he said, “ now that help s come. There’d he irony in that, wouldn't there, sister? It’ s the way of things.” “ Pull yourself together,” said the nurse. “ She’s not going to die.” I have already stated' that, Taverner. Pallor was not indicative of a lack of vitality. Girda recovered, and in course of time was carried over Rodd's bridge in a litter. Of course she did not know it was Rodd’s but the man with the stoop and the red hair, who had built the fairwav, watched her passing, and smiled a little grimly to himself. J The Mem Sahib is well pleased,” remarked his second in command. I’m pleased she’s pleased, - ’ replied the engineer. He had not made himself known to Harry Dover. . After all, Girda had to marry somebody, and >t was not exped’ent to marry one’s cousin. When tlie little cavalcade had passed Rodney horsy th turned his attention to the problem .of cleaning up the mess contingent upon. his— bridge. In this respect he showed an advance upon the boy Rodd who never tidied up after himself. That may have been the cause of the quarrel with, his father. That night the bridge-builders held revel on the banks of the river. Rodneysat alone in the midst of the company and listened to the strains of “My o id Dutch.” Under cover of the asthmatical concertina he spoke to himself in the manner of lonely men. “ I told her I’d build a real bridge some day, he said.