Her Majesty's Minister

At last, with a feeling of oppression relieved, we rose, not, however, before Aunt Hetty had invited me to remain the night, and I had accepted. I should be compelled, I knew, to leave Charing Cross by the night mail on the morrow, much as I desired to remain a few days in that rural retreat beside the woman I loved.

For an hour or so we idled together beneath the trees in the quaint old garden, where Edith had caused the gardener to swing the hammock I had sent her from Paris. When the sun began to lose its power she put on her large flop hat of Leghorn straw trimmed with poppies, and we strolled together through the quiet village, between its rows of homely cottages, many of them covered with creepers and flowering plants, until we came to the winding Wensum river, which we followed by the footpath lined with poplars, past the old mill, and away into the country. Hand-in-hand we wandered, neither uttering a word for some little time, both of us too full of our own thoughts.

Suddenly, in Guist Wood, where the stream with its cooling music wound among the polished stems of the beeches, with the sunshine glinting down upon them through the veil of leaves, we halted, standing ankle deep in soft moss and nodding wild-flowers. Her beauty and her silence had struck a new, intolerable conviction of guilt into my heart.

She turned her flawless face to mine as though with firm resolve, and then in a hoarse, strained voice told me plainly that her love for me was all a mistake.

“A mistake that you love me, Edith!” I repeated, holding both her hands tightly in mine, and looking straight into her clear, dark, fathomless eyes.

“Yes,” she insisted. Her colour went, and her eyes fell away from mine.

“Then why have you so changed?” I asked quickly. “I have always, since that evening beside the burn, regarded you as my affianced wife.”

She closed her lips tightly, and I saw that tears welled in her eyes.

“My happy dream is over,” she said bitterly, “and the awakening has come.”

“No,” I cried, “you cannot say that, Edith. You do not mean it, I’m sure! Remember the early days of our love, and recollect that my affection for you is as strong now as then – indeed, stronger to-day than it has ever been.”

She was silent. In that moment my new-found happiness of those days in Scotland all came back to me. I remembered that summer-time of long lingering beneath the shadowy glades of the glen; of moonlight wanderings along the lanes, of love-trysts under the rising sun, by rose-garlanded and dew-spangled hedgerows. Ah! many had been the vows we had plighted in the deep heart of Scottish hills during those golden summer days, and many were the lovers’ kisses taken and given under the influences of those long balmy evenings, when merely to idle was to be instinct with the soul of passion and of poetry.

“I remember those days,” she answered. “They were the dawning days of our love. No afterglow of passion can ever give back the subtle charm of those sweet hours of unspoken joy. But it is all past, Gerald, and there is now a breach between us.”

“What do you mean?” I asked anxiously. “I do not understand.”

“I have already told you,” she answered in a hard voice. “You love another woman more than you love me. Ah, Gerald! you cannot know how I have suffered these past months, ever since the truth gradually became apparent. All through these summer days I have wandered about the country alone, revisiting our old haunts where we had lingered and talked when you were here twelve months ago. Years seem to have passed over my head since that day in June when you last stood here and held my hand in yours. But now you have slipped slowly from me. I have drunk deeply of the cup of knowledge, and life’s cruellest teachings have been branded upon my heart.”

“But why?” I cried. “I cannot see that you have any cause whatever for sadness. True, we are compelled to be apart for the present, but it will not be so always. Your life is, I know, a rather monotonous one, but soon all will be changed – when you are my wife.”

“Ah,” she sighed, “I shall never be that – never!”

“Why not?”

“Because I see – I see now,” she faltered, “that I am not fitted to become a diplomatist’s wife. I have no tact, no smartness, no experience of the kind that is so absolutely necessary for the wife and helpmate of a man who is rising to distinction. I should only be a burden. You will find some other woman more brilliant, more chic, and thoroughly versed in all the ways of Society. You must marry her;” and with a woman’s weakness she burst into tears.

“No, no!” I cried, kissing her upon the brow and drawing her closely to me in an effort to comfort her. “Who has been putting such ideas into your mind, darling? Who has told you that love can be curbed, trained, and controlled? Love does not stop to question right or wrong; it is spontaneous, irresponsible, and born of itself in one’s heart. And I love you,” I whispered into her ear.

She was silenced, as a true woman must always be by her lover’s voice, no matter how specious may be his protestations; for there is no argument that can withstand the magic of the lover’s touch or the light in the eyes of the man a woman loves, and the glamour of low, caressing words that steal their way to her innermost heart.

“Are you sure, quite sure, that you really love me sufficiently to sacrifice yourself for my sake?” she faltered through her tears.

“Sacrifice myself!” I echoed. “It is no sacrifice, darling. We love each other, and in future the course of our lives must be along the same path, no matter what may be the obstacles.”

“I wish I could think so,” she said; while a faint smile, sweet and tender as the sunshine of May, gleamed for a moment about her eyes and lips.

The heart of a woman who loves is the most complex and subtle thing on earth; and often when most she protests, she most longs to be faithless to the spirit of her own protestation.

I looked at her now fully and firmly. There was, I think, terror in my eyes – the terror of losing her, which her last words had suddenly conjured up.

“But cannot I convince you?” I cried. “Will you not accept what I tell you as the truth, darling? Will you not believe that I love you still?”

I stooped, and taking her fair face in my hands, tenderly kissed her brow, just as I had kissed her in the days when our love had dawned.

“I have tried,” she answered bitterly, “but cannot. Alas! it is a woman’s part to suffer;” and her breast heaved slowly and fell again.

How pathetic were her great dark eyes, how attractive was the delicate face with its refined outline, how tenderly seductive those tremulous lips which no man had kissed save myself! That she suffered an agony of heart because of the suspicion that I no longer loved her truly was more than plain. It became her creed – the creed of the martyr and the enthusiast, which comes to some women by nature with the air they breathe, and is an accentuation of one of the finest instincts of human nature.

“But you shall not suffer thus, my darling!” I cried. “You shall not, for I love you truly, honestly, and well. You shall be my wife. You have already promised, and you shall not draw back, for I love you – I love you!”

Chapter Eighteen

By Day and by Night

She put up both her small white hands as though to stay the torrent of passionate words which I poured forth; but I grasped her wrists and held her to me until I had told her all the longings of my soul.

What she had said had caused me a stab of unutterable pain, for my conscience was pricked by the knowledge that I had for a brief moment forsaken her in favour of Yolande. But she could not know the real truth. It was only by her woman’s natural intuition that she held me in suspicion, believing that by my neglect to write I had proved myself attracted by some member of that crowd of feminine butterflies who flit through the embassies, showing their bright colours and dazzling effects.

At last she lifted her face, and in a low, faltering voice said:

“I do not wish that we should part, Gerald. I have no one but you.”

“And God knows – God knows, darling, I have no one but you!” I cried brokenly; and as I uttered these words she cast her arms about my neck, clinging to me, sobbing, with her face lying close against my breast.

“My darling – my own darling!” was all I could murmur as I kissed away the tears that rained down her checks. I could say nothing more definite than that.

“You will not be false, will you?” she implored at last. “You will not break your promise, will you?”

“I will never do that, dearest,” I assured her. “I love you, upon my word of honour as a man. I have loved you ever since that day when we first met at the house-party up in Scotland – the night of my arrival when you sat opposite me at dinner. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” she answered, smiling, “I remember. My love for you, Gerald, has never wavered for one single instant.”

“Then why should you be unhappy?” I asked.

“I really cannot tell,” she answered. She turned her face, and I saw that there was a shadow across it, as though the sunshine of her life had gone behind a bank of cloud. “All I can compare this strange foreboding to is the shadow of an unknown danger which seems of late to have arisen, and to stand in a wall of impenetrable blackness between us.”

“No, no!” I hastened to urge, “the sweet idyll of our blameless love must be preserved. That fancy of yours is only a vague, unfounded one.”

She shook her head dubiously.

“It is always with me. During my long, solitary wanderings here I think of you, and then it arises to overshadow me and crush out all my happiness,” she said in a tone of sorrow.

“Your life is dismal and lonely here,” I said. “You’ve become nervous and melancholy. Why not have a change? Persuade your aunt to bring you to Paris, or, if not, to some place near, where we may meet often.”

“No,” she replied in a harsh tone. “My presence in Paris is not wanted. You are better without me. You must leave England again to-morrow – and you must forget.”

“Forget!” I gasped. “Why?”

“It is best to do so,” she faltered with emotion. “I am unfitted to become your wife.”

“But you shall – you must!” I cried. “You have already given me your promise. You will not desert me now!”

She made no response. I pressed her again for an answer, but she maintained silence. Her attitude was one of firm resolve, and gave me the distinct impression that she had gained some knowledge of the reason of our brief estrangement.

“Tell me the reason of your sudden disbelief in my declarations,” I urged, looking earnestly into her eyes. “Surely I have given you no cause to regard our love as a mere irresponsible flirtation?”

“I have no reason to disbelieve you, Gerald,” she answered seriously; “yet I recognise the impossibility of our marriage.”

“Why is it impossible? We are both controllers of our own actions. You will not remain here with your aunt all your days?”

“We may marry, but we should not be happy, I feel certain.”

“Why?”

“Because if I were your wife I could not bear to think you were out each night dancing attendance upon a crowd of foreign women at the various functions which you are in duty bound to attend.”

I smiled at her argument. Ignorant of the world and its ways, and knowing nothing of Society beyond that gossiping little circle of tea-drinkers and tennis-players which had its centre in the town of Fakenham, and had as leader the portly wife of the estimable incumbent, she saw herself neglected among the brilliant crowd in Paris as described by the so-called “Society” papers.

I hastened to reassure her, and as we strolled on through the wood and, following the meandering of the river, emerged upon the broad grass-lands before Sennowe Hall, I used every argument of which I was capable in order to dispel her absurd apprehensions. My protestations of love I repeated a hundred times, striving to impress upon her that I was actually in earnest; but she repelled me always, until of a sudden I halted beneath the willows, and, placing my arm around her slim waist, narrowly girdled by its crimson ribbon, I drew her again to me, saying:

“Tell me, Edith, plainly, whether or no you love me. These cold words of yours have struck me to the heart, and I feel somehow that in my absence you have found some other man who has your gratitude, your respect, and your love.”

She raised her hand, as though to stay the flow of my words.

“No, no!” I went on passionately. “You must hear me, for you seem to be gradually slipping away from me. You must hear me! Cast away this cold sweetness that is enough to madden any man. Give me a right to your love; give me a right to it! You cannot be indifferent to such a love as mine unless you love someone else.”

“Stop!” she cried, moved by a sudden generous impulse. “I love no one else but you.”

“And you admit that you still love me? You will be the same to me as before?” I cried eagerly.

“If you will swear that there is no thought of another woman in your heart,” she answered seriously.

A pang of conscience smote me; but inwardly I reassured myself that all the fascination of Yolande had been dispelled and that my love was free.

“I swear,” I said; then slowly I bent until our lips touched.

Hers met mine in a fierce, passionate caress, and by that I knew our compact was sealed.

“I admit,” she said, “that my instinct, if it were instinct, was wrong. You have, after all, proved yourself loyal to me.”

“And I shall remain so, darling,” I assured her, kissing her again upon the brow. “For the present you must be content to remain with your aunt; but nevertheless, try to persuade her to come to Paris. Then we can spend many happy days together.”

“She hates the Continent and foreigners,” answered my love with a brightening smile. “I fear I can never persuade her to move from here. She went to Switzerland twenty years ago, and has never ceased condemning foreign travel.”

“If she will not come, then why not engage a chaperon? You surely know some pleasant woman who would be pleased to have a holiday jaunt.”

“Well,” she answered dubiously, “I’ll try, but I fear Aunt Hetty will never hear of it.”

“The life in the profound stillness of that house and the rigid seclusion from all worldly enjoyment are producing an ill effect upon your health, darling,” I said presently. “You must have a change. It is imperative.”

But she only sighed, smiled rather sadly, and answered in a low voice:

“The quietness of life here is nothing to me, as long as I am confident that your love for me is just the same as it was when you first told me the secret of your heart.”

“It is,” I assured her – “it is, darling. I love you – and you alone.”

There was an instant’s hesitation, and then her arms stole gently to my neck, and her lips were pressed to the cheek I bent to them, but only for a second; then my lips were upon hers, clinging to them softly, passionately; and in those moments of ecstasy I drew my soul’s life from that sweet mouth.

Heedless of time, we stood there in each other’s embrace, repeating our vows of love and devotion, until the sun went down behind the low hills beyond Raynham, and the broad pastures were flooded by the purple glow of the dying day. Happy and content in each other’s affection, we were careless of the past, and recked not of the future. Edith loved me, and I wished for naught else in all the world.

Now as I sit committing this strange story of my life – this confidential chapter in the modern history of Europe – to paper, I recall every detail of those hours we spent down by the riverside, and contrast it with the curious events which followed – events which were so strange as to be inexplicable until the ghastly truth became revealed. But I loved, and my affection was reciprocated. That surely was sufficient, for I knew that I had gained the purest, most beautiful, and sweetest woman I had ever met.

At last the fading sunlight impressed upon us the fact that the dinner-hour was approaching; and, knowing Miss Foskett’s punctuality at meals, we were compelled to strike along the footpath over Dunham Hill, and take the shortest cut across the fields through the little hamlet of Gateley, and thence by a grass-grown by-road back to Great Ryburgh, where we arrived just as the gong sounded.

When we re-entered the dining-room, Aunt Hetty glanced at us keenly, as though she wished to make some sarcastic comment upon our long absence; but our pleasant demeanour apparently silenced her, and she contented herself by taking her seat at table and inquiring of me if I had had a pleasant walk, and whether I found the country agreeable after the dusty boulevards of Paris.

“Of course,” I answered, “I always find England charming, and I’m very frequently homesick, living as I do among foreigners always. But why don’t you come abroad for a month or so, and bring Edith?”

“Abroad!” screamed the old lady, holding up her hands. “Never! I went to Lucerne once, and found it horrible.”

“But that was some years ago, was it not? If you went now, you would find that travelling has greatly improved, with a through sleeping-car from Calais to Basle; hotels excellent, and food quite as good as you can obtain in England. During the past few years hotel-keepers on the Continent have awakened to the fact that if they wish to be prosperous they must cater for English visitors.”

“Oh, do let us go abroad, aunt!” urged Edith. “I should so much enjoy it!”

“Paris in summer is worse than London, I’ve heard, my dear,” answered Miss Foskett, in her high-pitched tone.

“But there are many pretty places within easy reach of the capital,” I remarked. “Edith speaks French; therefore you need have no hesitation on that score.”

“No,” said the old lady decisively, “we shall not move from Ryburgh this summer, but perhaps next winter – ”

“Ah!” cried Edith joyously. “Yes, capital! Let us go abroad next winter, to the Riviera, or somewhere where it’s warm. It would be delightful to escape all the rain and cold, and eat one’s Christmas dinner in the sunshine. You know the South, Gerald? What place do you recommend?”

“Well,” I said, “any place along the Riviera except, perhaps, Monte Carlo.”

“Monte Carlo!” echoed Aunt Hetty. “That wicked place! I hope I shall never see it. Mr Harbur told us in his sermon the other Sunday about the frightful gambling there, and how people hanged themselves on the trees in the garden. Please don’t talk of such places, Edith.”

“But, aunt, there are many beautiful resorts in the neighbourhood,” her niece protested. “All along the coast there are towns where the English go to avoid the winter, such as Cannes, Nice, Mentone, and San Remo.”

“Well,” responded Miss Foskett with some asperity, “we need not discuss in August what we shall do in December. Ryburgh is quite pleasant enough for me. When I was your age I employed my time with embroidery and wool-work, and never troubled my head about foreign travel. But nowadays,” she added with a sigh, “I really don’t know what young people are coming to.”

“We’ve advanced with the times, and they’ve emancipated women in England,” responded Edith mischievously, glancing merrily across at me.

Miss Foskett drew herself up primly, and declared that she hoped her niece would never become one of “those dreadful creatures who ape the manners of men;” to which my love replied that liberty of action was the source of all happiness.

Fearing that this beginning might end in a heated argument, I managed to turn the conversation into a different channel.

“If all we read in the newspapers is true, it would seem,” observed Aunt Hetty presently, “that you diplomatists have a most difficult task in Paris.”

“All is not true,” I laughed. “Much of what you read exists only in the minds of those imaginative gentlemen called Paris correspondents.”

“I suppose,” remarked Edith, smiling, “that it is impossible for either a diplomatist or a journalist to tell the truth always.”

“Truth, no doubt, is all very well in its place, and now and then in diplomacy, but only a sparing use should be made of it as a rule,” I answered. “But there should be no waste. Only those should be allowed to handle it who can use it with discretion, and who will ladle it out with caution.”

“Mr Ingram, I am surprised!” interrupted Miss Foskett, scandalised.

“It is our creed,” I went on, “that truth should be always spoken in a dead or foreign language, no home-truths being for a moment tolerated. Now think what a happy land this England of ours would be if only we were not so wedded to the bare, cold truth! Suppose for its own good purposes our Government has thought right to make a hasty dash for the back seats in the international scrimmage, and to adhere to them with all the tenacity of a limpet, why, for all that, should the Opposition journals blurt out the fact for our humiliation, when by a few deft scratches of the pen the leader-writer might easily make us believe that no back seat had ever in any circumstances been occupied by Britain, and that the nose of the lion had never been pulled out of any hole into which it had once been inserted? The itch for truth is, judged from a diplomatists point of view, responsible for the ruin of our policy towards our enemies.”

“Shocking, Mr Ingram! I’m surprised to find that you hold such views,” said Miss Foskett in a soured tone; while Edith laughed merrily, declaring that she fully agreed with my argument, much to her aunt’s discomfiture.

The old lady loved the harsh truth as propounded by the precisionist.

And so the dinner proceeded, each of us vying with the other to dispel Aunt Hetty’s deep-seated prejudices and narrow-minded views of the world and its ways.

Coffee was served in the drawing-room, where Edith went to the piano and sang in her sweet contralto several of my favourite songs, after which, at an early hour, as was usual with the household at Ryburgh, we all retired.

To sleep so quickly after dinner was to me impossible; therefore, on gaining my room, I lit a cigar, and, taking a novel from my bag, sat reading. The book proved interesting; and time had passed unnoticed, until of a sudden my attention was attracted by the sound of low voices. I listened, glancing at the clock, and noticed that it was nearly two in the morning.

A suspicion of burglars at once flashed across my mind. I blew out my candles, so as not to attract attention, noiselessly opened the wooden shutters before my window, and cautiously gazed out. The lawn, garden, and wide sweep of country beyond lay bathed in the bright moonlight, and at first I distinguished no one. Peering down, however, until I could see the path running in the shadow just below my window, I distinguished two figures with hands clasped, as though in parting. I looked again, scarce believing my own eyes. But I was not mistaken. One figure was that of a woman, her dark cloak open at the throat, revealing her white dress beneath; while the other was the tall dark figure of a man in a long black overcoat, the collar of which was turned up as though to conceal his features. Even though they stood together in the dark shadow, the astounding truth was plain to me. The woman who had kept that midnight assignation was Edith Austin, my well-beloved.

My heart stood still.

Chapter Nineteen

Whispered Words

The revelation held me rigid. I stood there, peering down, watching their movements, and straining my ears to catch the whispered words. As I feared to open the window lest the noise should attract them, I could do no more than remain a spectator of Edith’s perfidy. To me it seemed as though she had been walking with him, and he had accompanied her back to the house. As he held her hand, he was bending, whispering some earnest words into her ear. She did not attempt to withdraw; indeed, it was apparent that she was not unwilling. The conclusion to be made was that they were lovers.

Reader, can you imagine my feelings at this astounding discovery? Only six hours before we had stood beside the river, and she had vowed that for no man save myself had she any place in her heart; yet with my own eyes I was watching her while she believed me sleeping in calm ignorance of her movements. That she had been walking with him was apparent, because of the shawl she wore wrapped about her head; while the fact that the stranger carried a stout stick showed that he had walked, or was about to walk, a considerable distance. Because his hat was drawn over his brow and his coat collar turned up, I could not see his features. To me, as he stood there, he appeared to be slightly round-shouldered, but, nevertheless, a strongly built fellow, seemingly rather above the average height.