CHAPTER III

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 December 1900, Page 196

CHAPTER 111

THE EVENING AND THE MORNiNG,

Howard turned to the fire, which the chill of the autumn evening made acceptable, following as it did the heat of the day. With one foot on the fender and his head resting against the cushion of the chair, he stretched himself out lazily, smoking contentedly.

The vision of the departing figure of Prank Osmond crossed his mental eyesight, and he recollected the MS. in his overcoat. Howard reached for the coat that he had thrown across a chair, and taking the roll of paper from the pocket, removed a broad elastic band which held numerous closelywritten sheets.

" Neat," he commented critically, examining the handwriting which was exquisitely small and distinct.

" At the end of the first paragraph he turned the leaves over quickly, dipped into a sentence here and there, then laid the MS. carefully down upon the table, moved the lamp close to his elbow — just examining it to see that it was plentifully supplied with oil — then helping himself to some of Sawyer Thomas' whisky, lit a cigar and settled down to read. At the end of an hour he had scarcely moved except to turn a leaf ; if he turned two at a time he carefully went back.

His cigar went out, his face paled, the line between his brows was cut deep, and once he cried out, "My God !" in a quick sharp way as though he suffered.

When the sawyer came in to show him his bedroom he roused and looked at him vacantly, making some unintelligible reply. " 'E's a bit of a crank," said Thomas to Polly, " them writin 5 chaps mostly is, but they've got their morals, an' not that 'eathenish either. Blest if I wouldn't back 'em, cranks, an' all, against some o' the religion I've been initiated inter." The fii'e burned itself into a red ash, and Howard only shifted his position to spread the MS. sheets on the table before him, and to bend over them, his head leaning upon his hand. He was absorbed, fascinated. Defiance that was almost blasphemous, pathos that exacted tears, passion and strength that swept argument before them he met in the pages the young ex-convict had told him "to burn or do as he liked with." The story was without constructive ability, save that which the mood of the hour had stamped upon it. But "It is genius," he said, with the artist's appreciation, " genius." Then again very humbly, " genius ! Not mechanism, not talent, not art." The white dawn was struggling with the darkness when Howard, looking worn and old, crossed to the window. With his hands in his trouser pockets he leant against the frame, and with tired eyes looked towards the east. Light ! Light ! That was the first essential. It proceeded formation — heralded life. This weakling (?) had that light of intuition which found in a flash what the scientist searched for all his life — what the plodder never reached. What he would never reach. For the first time in his life Howard Grey was lonely ; he felt a castaway. As a lad all by himself at his tasks he had peopled his world with the tobe aud to-come of his own creation. " I — myself " had been his rectitude, his sufficiency, but his visions and dreams of greatness had off into nothingness as the early morning vapours would disappear before the rising sun. Bereft of his visions life was bare hard fact to him.

" I am an artimn," he said, with merciless self-judgment. "lam my father's son — I should have made a careful craftsman ! I have a keen interest with the carpenter who finishes his common wood with a layer of veneer." Impatieut anger rose in his heart against the man so richly endowed, who had sold his birthright for a mess of potage ; ho must be made to understand. " Fool and blind !" ho thought, " to spond an hour in regret. Ho must work, and work, and work. He wept for a lost world He can charm it to his mood ; make it weop or laugh at his will." He walked up and down the room restlessly. He forgot all that ho had himself accomplished. He had boon patient, ho told himself; he had the knack of waiting while things developed, had not been in haste to pluck unripe fruit ; could balance one foot on a stone while he planted tho other before him, but at this hour he felt his way had no beyond. " I envy him !" exclaimed tho successful man, thinking of the lad he had lately despised, as he rested his hand on the MS — " I have missed just — this." Howard threw himself upon the rough couch, and fell asleep, worn out with his conflict. When Frank Osmond turned away that afternoon the sense of his own physical and moral deterioration overwhelmed him. He plunged on, unheeding where he went, blind with pain, conscious of nothing but the stifling pressure of his own misery. The impoverishment of his life— spoiled by his own hand — faced him as it had never done. It was hideous in its barrenness ; far as his thought could reach it spread out dun. and grey under the shadow of disgrace. What would he not give for the chance he had discarded, the honour thrown away; like Howard Grey with his face turned cityward. He stopped and turned instinctively where his companion had gone. Hin pale cheeks flushed involuntarily — a " gaolbird " had no place among honourable men 1

The death-pang of the thought so weakened him that his knees trembled under him. He sat down on a stone beside one of the pools passed in the morning, and with eyes that did not see the shadows deepening upon its surface, although they stared fixedly upon the transparent water. He re-lived his boyhood, his early manhood, with its one fatal hour of weakness blasting all its promise — branding him and his with shame.

The sun drew in its last gold lance ; the ruddy glow faded in the west, and inquisitive stars peeped over the peaks ; mist-scarves wound round the mountain's shoulders, and the reeds and flax bushes were ghostly on the margin of the pools before Frank Osmond stirred. A stray mongrel had crept up beside him and licked the hanging hand, which presently lifted, and unconsciously stroked the shaggy head. At this encouragement a stumpy tail beat the turf.

" Another disreputable — eh, vagabond ?"

The vagabond whined with comprehension"

Frank fed him with the last of the sandwiches, and the dog lay at his caterer's feet, resting his head on a dusty boot, with a sigh of beatitude.

"I am not disgraced in your eyes, eh ? Pakeha ? In prison, or university, or pulpit I should be alike hero to you ?"

Thump, thump, answered the approving tail, but no human response.

At length the mooa arose, coming up from the under world, round and yellow in it's autumn effulgence. Matamata-harakeke demonstrated its name. " The tips of flax leaves " were picked out in silver as far as the eye could reach. Wherever the moonlight touched the rock or water in this primitive waste the ebon was silver chased.

Frank Osmond, with the stray dog at his heels, walked on through a wilderness of mist and shadow, without landmark or definite termination. The wildness and indefiniteness of the scene was an image of his own consciousness, and his imaginative and impressionable mind was influenced by the indescribable melancholy and loneliness of his surroundings. He gazed into that

iuner life of his, and found there no vicious discord, but harmony with peace and purity. He — ex-convict 99 ! The great expanse of heaven spread overhead, dusted with countless worlds ; the wide free plains of earth stretched out to meet the limitless horizon, and a son of this inheritance was chained in thought to a small stone ceil, where he had paid man's toll to fellow man. He did not know that he was free; that in the eternal justice of things there was no uusettled score against his name. He owed no man anything ; he had loved for love ; been loyal in friendship ; clean in body, and had served his term for his sin against the law. He was free. Payment had set him free ; honour released him — yet socially he was an outcast for ever and ever — unless ? Unless — oh ! had he the power — ? Unless he could rise from his death triumphant creator of a new world ! He knew the small, mean, paltry spite of small souls ; the mockery and disdain of men not large enough to risk the world's opinion even in loyalty to a dishonoured friend. The vagabond dog was more of a gentleman ! He fought an unequal battle with his strife — to-night it conquered him. For months he had been ber.umbed, but the coming of Howard Grey, keen and eager from a woi'ld of live men, made by comparison his own living death, too ghastly to be accepted. When he reached the river he lay down with his face in the damp sweet grass, and as he lay there called himself a coward that he should chafe under the death sentence he had pronounced upon his own life. The dog pawed him distressfully, and ran from the water a little way as though to entice him, but finding that he did not move crouched down beside the man he had elected to serve.

Time and place were unheeded in that trance of pain ; the face of old companions looked at him out of the darkness ; he heard old greetings and adieus, in voices of honest joy and regret. He was contending again in the student's race, experiencing the worker's enthusiasm, anticipating the

triumph that had an honest man's unaffected wladuess in it — then his shoulders heaved convulsively, and the hot tears that saved his brain from madness trickled through his fingers, to fall among the grass. At last he rose, and the dog barked with relief.

" No, Pakeha, we are not going horne — I can't. To chain her life to mine and daily crush her," he murmured presently, " is no longer possible. Caroline will die with me daily as long as I live — I will die to her once for all. One wrench, and it will be over."

And closely followed by Pakeha, he turned iv an opposite direction.

Awakening suddenly, Howard found himself stiff and uncomfortable. lie stood up and stretched bis cramped limbs, shivering a little in the early morning chill. Drawing up the blind he saw the sun had risen, and remembering that in the adjoining bedroom he had noticed bath and water, he had a hasty tub, which refreshed and invigorated him. He then dressed with the same dispatch, but with a neatness characteristic of him — if he was to be hanged that morning Howard Grey would have carefully trimmed his nails — then with determination in face and movements made for the open, and set off in a bee-line towards The Whare. He smiled a little grimly as he recollected how glad he had been to turn his back on it the day before. "Kismet!" he said to himself. He was destined at least to show another man the road to fame if he could not find it himself.

How would Caroline Osmond take the news that might mean emancipation and resurrection ? Would it infuse into the lad sufficient energy and patience to hold on doggedly to the drudgery necessary for the matriculation into a literary career ? Were the irritable nerves capable of sustained control ? Indulgence in mental passion had weakened him; he was self-distrustful. Was he a moral dyspeptic who could not digest the wholesome news? He was jealous for this new gift he had discovered, aud gloried in it as a miser gloried in gold. The personality of the artist was a mere

nothing to him — ho did not calculate how far it might have entered into his creation— the idea was all important. It must bo worked up, the gem must be polished with delicacy and subtlety, and if necessary ho must remain and show this young man how. But not for the man's sake — for the sake of his thought.

He was disquieted, and lifted his head and throw back liis shoulders with a gesture of almost proud defiance against the Fate that seemed to mock him.

The morning was only half awake, and drowsily, withautumu sluggishness, diverting itself of the night garments of mist. Tho sun shone through a haze, and myriad cobwebs, dew traced, were patterned on tho ferns or linking reed to reed. The cool air was fragrant with earth scouts, and grasN scents, and the breath of the snow river, and magnetic with early morning prophecies and the possibilities of a new day.

Howard was conscious of ;t fooling of well-being, offspring of his circulating blood, an enjoyment purely physical. He knew it as such ; he was critical enough to know just exactly where he stood, and he knew that he hated what was to him tho humiliation of this hour. Lowliness or self-forgetfulness or generosity had nothing to do with his act ; his abnegation was to the only power he recognised, genius !

As ho walked he always heard the river. Its subdued murmur made an accompaniment to his thoughts — unconsciously it drew him till he stood upon its bank. He stopped and watched it flowing swift and deep under the high precipitous bank, with swirl and eddy falling over rock to a lower and deeper pool at the bend. The whito spray-foam threw up ghostly, appealing arms; arms that seemed lifted despairingly and disappeared. Again, as when he crossed the bridge, he felt himself drawn and drawn, engulfed and carried away.

He drew back, and his eye fell on a blue serge cap, and all about it the grass flattened and crushed. His face paled ; he drew in his breath with a gasp. For a moment his brain was confused. He had come back so

suddenly from that mental plunge that he was dazed. He lifted his hat from his head, and passed his hand over his forehead, then gazed interrogatively over the desolate sweep of country which, in its sunlit wildness, looked indescribably forsaken. His gaze shortened, his eyes dropped — here at at his feet seemed the only answer. A man had lain there all night — no dew was on the crushed grass, his steps were traceable to the river's brink — and that man deemed his life over ; he was mad with despair !

Howard stooped down and picked up the cap. He was cold, his teeth chattered ; he pushed his way through the scrub to the higher ground — there was more sunlight on the open space. He walked on quickly, at the interval of a hundred yards or two, looking at the cap in his hand. He recalled the face under which he had seen it yesterday — that old, young face, haggard with misery. He stood still for a moment and listened to the rushing of the river — then went on again — to meet Caroline. He shrank a little at the thought. The farstretching moor, the relentless sunlight — momentarily re-asserting itself after all the night-shadows might have hidden — picked out every object on the plateau distinctly, and there, coming to meet him, was Caroline. He knew her while she was yet but a slight shadow that came on steadily against the background of gold and blue, taking on form aud individuality as it came, giving definite meaning to the indefinite scene. At last she was so near that the swish of her grey dress over the* grass was to Howard the only sound in the universe, until her voice reached him.

"My brother ? — he is not with you !" Intense questioning, followed by alarm was in the voice.

"Am I my brother's keeper ?" The words all but rose to Howard Grey's lips. There was an assumption in the woman's tone that he was responsible. He pulled himself together, met the eyes that were dull with fear and sleeplessness, noted the quivering lips, the drawn whiteness of the small oval face, and with uncovered head responded.

" We parted at sundown last night."

She compelled the truth from him ; frail and white as she was, he could not soften what he felt to be a blow. He had buttoned the serge cap under his coat at first sight of her, and it lay now heavy, like a hand pressing on his heart. Yet face to face with her he could not dissemble ; she had again struck the discordant note in him; jarred him in some inexplicable way. She seemed so independent, so apart from all need or sympathy. For a moment she seemed to sway ; he held out his hand with instinctive protectiveness, but the next instant she stood so firmly that he did not touch her. It all passed in a flash — a momentarily impulse checked by her quiet "At sundown?" Then all at once she showed her heart.

" Oh, Mr. Grey, what do you fear ?" Her hand was resting on his arm, her large grey eyes searching his face.

" I fear nothing !" lie responded, prevaricating, to assure her the moment she made her appeal, " except that your brother found himself over-tired last night. He accompanied me to Pine Mill. I remarked on his weariness, but he assured me he was fit. Do not distress yourself, Miss Osmond, he has most likely put up at one of the settler's houses, and will come along presently, all the better for his rest."

She did not believe him, he saw. She turned away without answering, and shading her eyes with her hand looked over the landscape. Her thin lips were compressed. Presently her hand dropped to her side. She turned to Howard unexpectedly, and asked abruptly :

" Were you expecting to see my brother this morning ? Had you an appointment ?"

"No appointment, but I started off quite early in the hope of breakfasting with him, and so catching him before he went out. I had a suggestion to make . . . regarding a confidence he gave me yesterday. It

concerned

She interrupted him a little stiffly,

"Do not imagine that lam inquisitive. I am only very anxious. You are keeping something back. Mr. Grey. Of that I

am sure. You have some knowledge " "No ; no knowledge, I assure you " " A suspicion then, a fear. I saw it in your face when we met, and hear it now in your voice. Besides you were not surprised to see me out at this early hour, alono." She looked at him with appeal. " Don't hesitate to hurt me. lam not afraid of pain — " Her lips twitched. " I have met it before — and — besides ■" she was half suffocating with emotion he could see, " I think I know." Her voice was only just audible. " You do not expect my brother to return to me ?"

Her eyes were brilliant with a strange light as they held his. A tide of compassion swept over him, the strong mind with its tenacious holding on and propping up of the weak, bat loved brother, had worn her body to frailty. She stood on a small mound directly in front of him, her grey gown clinging to her girlish form, her personality giving an intense meaning to the solitary scene. She might have so stood on the graye of all her joy, independently of support, demanding still the truth of life, whatever it might be.

She would not cry out, or faint, or make ado ; indeed, she put his own fears into

words

" Frank will not return ; we need not wait for him," she said, moving as she spoke slowly towards home. " I felt that all night while I waited. As you saw, he had lost — control. Once during the night I heard him cry out to me ; he never does that unless his Buffering is intolerable."

Howard was watching her closely. She looked straight in front of her; her face was pinched and old. Had the night's suspense made her delirious ? But her

voice was quite natural as she added : " I wish I could know whether ho called me from flu's side or the other." " Of the river ?" A quiver passed over her face. She turned and looked at her companion. "Of life." "Dear Miss Osmond, is it not premature to take this hopeless view ? Ho may he even now waiting breakfast for you ut The Whare ?" She shook her head. " Sometimes one knows — it is idle then to conjecture. How you know 1 shall ask you presently. My knowledge is not of fact ; it is of another sort — intuitive, but I am sure that Frank has gone. Where, how far, whether he is alive or what you call dead (and what \ call living in another sphere) I do not know — of one thing I am sure — he has Jet his hold i/o oj wie." " How is it possible for you to tell ?" exclaimed Howard, surprised into astonished tones. " 1 can feel it. It is quite natural. I have lived for and with Frank — mentally with him — so long that I know ho has cut me adrift. It is quite natural," she repeated, "it is simply tho sympathy which is the basis of true relationship, and according to nature. Don't you remember the words of the Teacher in the crowd when ho felt virtue — magnetism, strength — go out of Him — who touched Me? We always know !" How utterly worn out and tired, body and heart, she was, Howard understood when they reached the cottage door, and she stretched out her hand and felt by the wall of the porch as one blind, groping her way into the familiar room.

TO BE CONTINUED,

Vol. 11.-No. 15.-15.