The Translation of a Savage, Complete - Gilbert Parker
He did not give her time to reply, but their eyes met honestly, kindly,
and from the look they both passed into life and time again with a fresh
courage. She did not know, nor did he, how near they had been to an
abyss; and neither ever knew. One furtive glance at the moment, one
hesitating pressure of the hand, one movement of the head from each
other's gaze, and there had been unhappiness for them all. But they were
safe.
In the Park, Frank and his wife talked little. They met many who greeted
them cordially, and numbers of Frank's old club friends summoned him to
the sacred fires at his earliest opportunity. The two talked chiefly of
the people they met, and Frank thrilled with admiration at his wife's
gentle judgment of everybody.
"The true thing, absolutely the true thing," he said; and he was
conscious, too, that her instincts were right and searching, for once or
twice he saw her face chill a little when they met one or two men whose
reputations as chevaliers des dames were pronounced. These men had had
one or two confusing minutes with Lali in their time.
"How splendidly you ride!" he said, as he came up swiftly to her, after
having chatted for a moment with Edward Lambert. "You sit like wax, and
so entirely easy."
"Thank you," she said. "I suppose I really like it too well to ride
badly, and then I began young on horses not so good as Musket
here--bareback, too!" she added, with a little soft irony.
He thought--she did not, however--that she was referring to that first
letter he sent home to his people, when he consigned her, like any other
awkward freight, to their care. He flushed to his eyes. It cut him deep,
but her eyes only had a distant, dreamy look which conveyed nothing of
the sting in her words. Like most men, he had a touch of vanity too, and
he might have resented the words vaguely, had he not remembered his talk
with his mother an hour before.
She had begged him to have patience, she had made him promise that he
would not in any circumstance say an ungentle or bitter thing, that he
would bide the effort of constant devotion, and his love of the child.
Especially must he try to reach her through love of the child.
By which it will be seen that Mrs. Armour had come to some wisdom by
reason of her love for Frank's wife and child.
"My son," she had said, "through the child is the surest way, believe me;
for only a mother can understand what that means, how much and how far it
goes. You are a father, but until last night you never had the flush of
that love in your veins. You stand yet only at the door of that life
which has done more to guide, save, instruct, and deepen your wife's life
than anything else, though your brother Richard--to whom you owe a debt
that you can never repay--has done much in deed. Be wise, my dear, as I
have learned a little to be since first your wife came. All might easily
have gone wrong. It has all gone well; and we, my son, have tried to do
our duty lovingly, consistently, to dear Lali and the child."
She made him promise that he would wait, that he would not try to hurry
his wife's affection for him by any spoken or insistent claim. "For,
Frank dear," she said, "you are only legally married, not morally, not as
God can bless--not yet. But I pray that what will sanctify all may come
soon, very soon, to the joy of us all. But again--and I cannot say it too
prayerfully--do not force one little claim that your marriage gave you,
but prove yourself to her, who has cause to distrust you so much. Will
you forgive your mother, my dear, for speaking to you?"
He had told her then that what she had asked he had intended as his own
course, yet what she had said would keep it in his mind always, for he
was sure it was right. Mrs. Armour had then embraced him, and they
parted. Dealing with Lali had taught them all much of the human heart
that they had never known before, and the result thereof was wisdom.
They talked casually enough for the rest of the ride, and before they
parted at the door Frank received his commission for Regent Street, and
accepted it with delight, as a schoolboy might a gift. He was absurdly
grateful for any favours from her, any sign of her companionship. They
met at luncheon; then, because Lali had to keep an engagement in Eaton
Square, they parted again, and Frank and Richard took a walk, after a
long hour with the child, who still so hungered for his sword that Frank
disobeyed orders, and dragged Richard off to Oxford Street to get one. He
was reduced to a beatific attitude of submission, for he knew that he had
few odds with him now, and that he must live by virtue of new virtues. He
was no longer proud of himself in any way, and he knew that no one else
was, or rather he felt so, and that was just the same.
He talked of the boy, he talked of his wife, he laid plans, he tore them
down, he built them up again, he asked advice, he did not wait to hear
it, but rambled on, excited, eager. Truth is, there had suddenly been
lifted from his mind the dread and shadow of four years. Wherever he had
gone, whatever he had been or done, that dread shadow had followed him,
and now to know that instead of having to endure a hell he had to win a
heaven, and to feel as if his brain had been opened and a mass of vapours
and naughty little mannikins of remorse had been let out, was a trifle
intoxicating even to a man of his usual vigour and early acquaintance
with exciting things.
"Dick, Dick!" he said enthusiastically, "you've been royal. You always
were better than any chap I ever knew. You're always doing for others.
Hang it, Dick, where does your fun come in? Nobody seems ever to do
anything for you."
Richard gave his arm a squeeze. "Never mind about me, boy. I've had all
the fun I want, and all I'm likely to get, and so long as you're all
willing to have me around, I'm satisfied. There's always a lot to do
among the people in the village, one way and another, and I've a heap of
reading on, and what more does a fellow want?"
"You didn't always feel that way, Dick?"
"No. You see, at different times in life you want different kinds of
pleasures. I've had a good many kinds, and the present kind is about as
satisfactory as any."
"But, Dick, you ought to get married. You've got coin, you've got sense,
you're a bit distinguished-looking, and I'll back your heart against a
thousand bishops. You've never been in danger of making a fool of
yourself as I have. Why didn't you--why don't you--get married?"
Richard patted his brother's shoulder.
"Married, boy? Married? I've got too much on my hands. I've got to bring
you up yet. And when that's done I shall have to write a book called 'How
to bring up a Parent.' Then I've got to help bring your boy up, as I've
done these last three years and more. I've got to think of that boy for a
long while yet, for I know him better than you do, and I shall need some
of my coin to carry out my plans."
"God bless you, Dick! Bring me up as you will, only bring her along too;
and as for the boy, you're far more his father than I am. And mother says
that it's you that's given me the wife I've got now--so what can I
say?--what can I say?"
It was the middle of the Green Park, and Richard turned and clasped Frank
by both shoulders.
"Say? Say that you'll stand by the thing you swore to one mad day in the
West as well as any man that ever lived--'to have and to hold, to love
and to cherish from this day forth till death us do part, Amen.'"
Richard's voice was low and full of a strange, searching something.
Frank, wondering at this great affection and fondness of his brother,
looked him in the eyes warmly, solemnly, and replied: "For richer or for
poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health--so help me
God, and her kindness and forgiveness!"
CHAPTER XII
"THE CHASE OF THE YELLOW SWAN"
Frank and Lali did not meet until dinner was announced. The conversation
at dinner was mainly upon the return to Greyhope, which was fixed for the
following morning, and it was deftly kept gay and superficial by Marion
and Richard and Captain Vidall, until General Armour became reminiscent,
and held the interest of the table through a dozen little incidents of
camp and barrack life until the ladies rose. There had been an engagement
for late in the evening, but it had been given up because of Frank's
home-coming, and there was to be a family gathering merely--for Captain
Vidall was now as much one of the family as Frank or Richard, by virtue
of his approaching marriage with Marion. The men left alone, General
Armour questioned Frank freely about life in the Hudson's Bay country,
and the conversation ran on idly till it was time to join the ladies.
When they reached the drawing-room, Marion was seated at the piano,
playing a rhapsody of Raff's, and Mrs. Armour and Lali were seated side
by side. Frank thrilled at seeing his wife's hand in his mother's. Marion
nodded over the piano at the men, and presently played a snatch of
Carmen, then wandered off into the barbaric strength of Tannhauser, and
as suddenly again into the ballet music of Faust.
"Why so wilful, my girl?" asked her father, who had a keen taste for
music. "Why this tangle? Let us have something definite."
Marion sprang up from the piano. "I can't. I'm not definite myself
to-night." Then, turning to Lali: "Lali dear, sing something--do! Sing my
favourite, 'The Chase of the Yellow Swan.'"
This was a song which in the later days at Greyhope, Lali had sung for
Marion, first in her own language, with the few notes of an Indian chant,
and afterwards, by the help of the celebrated musician who had taught her
both music and singing, both of which she had learned but slowly, it was
translated and set to music. Lali looked Marion steadily in the eyes for
a moment and then rose. It cost her something to do this thing, for while
she had often talked much and long with Richard about that old life, it
now seemed as if she were to sing it to one who would not quite
understand why she should sing it at all, or what was her real attitude
towards her past--that she looked upon it from the infinite distance of
affectionate pity, knowledge, and indescribable change, and yet loved the
inspiring atmosphere and mystery of that lonely North, which once in the
veins never leaves it--never. Would he understand that she was feeling,
not the common detail of the lodge and the camp-fire and the Company's
post, but the deep spirit of Nature, filtering through the senses in a
thousand ways--the wild ducks' flight, the sweet smell of the balsam, the
exquisite gallop of the deer, the powder of the frost, the sun and snow
and blue plains of water, the thrilling eternity of plain and the
splendid steps of the hills, which led away by stair and entresol to the
Kimash Hills, the Hills of the Mighty Men?
She did not know what he would think, and again on second thought she
determined to make him, by this song, contrast her as she was when he
married her, and now--how she herself could look upon that past
unabashed, speak of it without blushing, sing of it with pride, having
reached a point where she could look down and say: "This was the way by
which I came."
She rose, and was accompanied to the piano by General Armour, Frank
admiring her soft, springing steps, her figure so girlish and lissom. She
paused for a little before she began. Her eyes showed for a moment over
the piano, deep, burning, in-looking; then they veiled; her fingers
touched the keys, wandered over them in a few strange, soft chords,
paused, wandered again, more firmly and very intimately, and then she
sang. Her voice was a good contralto, well balanced, true, of no great
range, but within its compass melodious, and having some inexpressible
charm of temperament. Frank did not need to strain his ears to hear the
words; every one came clear, searching, delicately valued:
"In the flash of the singing dawn,
At the door of the Great One,
The joy of his lodge knelt down,
Knelt down, and her hair in the sun
Shone like showering dust,
And her eyes were as eyes of the fawn.
And she cried to her lord,
'O my lord, O my life,
From the desert I come;
From the hills of the Dawn.'
And he lifted the curtain and said,
'Hast thou seen It, the Yellow Swan?'
"And she lifted her head, and her eyes
Were as lights in the dark,
And her hands folded slow on her breast,
And her face was as one who has seen
The gods and the place where they dwell;
And she said: 'Is it meet that I kneel,
That I kneel as I speak to my lord?'
And he answered her: 'Nay, but to stand,
And to sit by my side;
But speak, thou hast followed the trail,
Hast thou found It, the Yellow Swan?'
"And she stood as a queen, and her voice
Was as one who hath seen the Hills,
The Hills of the Mighty Men,
And hath heard them cry in the night,
Hath heard them call in the dawn,
Hath seen It, the Yellow Swan.
And she said: 'It is not for my lord;'
And she murmured, 'I cannot tell,
But my lord must go as I went,
And my lord must come as I came,
And my lord shall be wise.'
"And he cried in his wrath,
'What is thine, it is mine,
And thine eyes are my eyes
Thou shalt speak of the Yellow Swan!'
But she answered him: 'Nay, though I die.
I have lain in the nest of the Swan,
I have heard, I have known;
When thine eyes too have seen,
When thine ears too have heard,
Thou shalt do with me then as thou wilt!'
"And he lifted his hand to strike,
And he straightened his spear to slay,
But a great light struck on his eyes,
And he heard the rushing of wings,
And his long spear fell from his hand,
And a terrible stillness came.
And when the spell passed from his eyes,
He stood in his doorway alone,
And gone was the queen of his soul,
And gone was the Yellow Swan."
Frank Armour listened as in a dream. The song had the wild swing of
savage life, the deep sweetness of a monotone, but it had also the fine
intelligence, the subtle allusiveness of romance. He could read between
the lines. The allegory touched him where his nerves were sensitive.
Where she had gone he could not go until his eyes had seen and known what
hers had seen and known; he could not grasp his happiness all in a
moment; she was no longer at his feet, but equal with him, and wiser than
he. She had not meant the song to be allusive when she began, but to
speak to him through it by singing the heathen song as his own sister
might sing it. As the song went on, however, she felt the inherent
suggestion in it, so that when she had finished it required all her
strength to get up calmly, come among them again, and listen to their
praises and thanks. She had no particular wish to be alone with Frank
just yet, but the others soon arranged themselves so that the husband and
wife were left in a cosey corner of the room.
Lali's heart fluttered a little at first, for the day had been trying,
and she was not as strong as she could wish. Admirably as she had gone
through the season, it had worn on her, and her constitution had become
sensitive and delicate, while yet strong. The life had almost refined her
too much. Always on the watch that she should do exactly as Marion or
Mrs. Armour, always so sensitive as to what was required of her, always
preparing for this very time, now that it had come, and her heart and
mind were strong, her body seemed to weaken. Once or twice during the day
she had felt a little faint, but it had passed off, and she had scolded
herself. She did not wish a serious talk with her husband to-night, but
she saw now that it was inevitable.
He said to her as he sat down beside her: "You sing very well indeed. The
song is full of meaning, and you bring it all out."
"I am glad you like it," she responded conventionally. "Of course it's an
unusual song for an English drawing-room."
"As you sing it, it would be beautiful and acceptable anywhere, Lali."
"Thank you again," she answered, closing and unclosing her fan, her eyes
wandering to where Mrs. Armour was. She wished she could escape, for she
did not feel like talking, and yet though the man was her husband she
could not say that she was too tired to talk; she must be polite. Then,
with a little dainty malice: "It is more interesting, though, in the
vernacular--and costume!"
"Not unless you sang it so," he answered gallantly, and with a kind of
earnestness.
"You have not forgotten the way of London men," she rejoined.
"Perhaps that is well, for I do not know the way of women," he said, with
a faint bitterness. "Yet, I don't speak unadvisedly in this,"--here he
meant to be a little bold and bring the talk to the past,--"for I heard
you sing that song once before."
She turned on him half puzzled, a little nervous. "Where did you hear me
sing it?"
He had made up his mind, wisely enough, to speak with much openness and
some tact also, if possible. "It was on the Glow Worm River at the Clip
Claw Hills. I came into your father's camp one evening in the autumn,
hungry and tired and knocked about. I was given the next tent to yours.
It was night, and just before I turned in I heard your voice singing. I
couldn't understand much of the language, but I had the sense of it, and
I know it when I hear it again."
"Yes, I remember singing it that night," she said. "Next day was the
Feast of the Yellow Swan."
Her eyes presently became dreamy, and her face took on a distant, rapt
look. She sat looking straight before her for a moment.
He did not speak, for he interpreted the look aright, and he was going to
be patient, to wait.
"Tell me of my father," she said. "You have been kind to him?"
He winced a little. "When I left Fort Charles he was very well," he said,
"and he asked me to tell you to come some day. He also has sent you a
half-dozen silver-fox skins, a sash, and moccasins made by his own hands.
The things are not yet unpacked."
Moccasins?--She remembered when last she had moccasins on her feet--the
day she rode the horse at the quick-set hedge, and nearly lost her life.
How very distant that all was, and yet how near too! Suddenly she
remembered also why she took that mad ride, and her heart hardened a
little.
"You have been kind to my father since I left?" she asked.
He met her eyes steadily. "No, not always; not more than I have been kind
to you. But at the last, yes." Suddenly his voice became intensely direct
and honest. "Lali," he continued, "there is much that I want to say to
you." She waved her hand in a wearied fashion. "I want to tell you that I
would do the hardest penance if I could wipe out these last four years."
"Penance?" she said dreamily--"penance? What guarantee of happiness would
that be? One would not wish another to do penance if--"
She paused.
"I understand," he said--"if one cared--if one loved. Yes, I understand.
But that does not alter the force or meaning of the wish. I swear to you
that I repent with all my heart--the first wrong to you, the long
absence--the neglect--everything."
She turned slowly to him. "Everything-Everything?" she repeated after
him. "Do you understand what that means? Do you know a woman's heart? No.
Do you know what a shameful neglect is at the most pitiful time in your
life? No. How can a man know! He has a thousand things--the woman has
nothing, nothing at all except the refuge of home, that for which she
gave up everything!"
Presently she broke off, and something sprang up and caught her in the
throat. Years of indignation were at work in her. "I have had a home,"
she said, in a low, thrilling voice--"a good home; but what did that cost
you? Not one honest sentiment of pity, kindness, or solicitude. You
clothed me, fed me, abandoned me, as--how can one say it? Do I not know,
if coming back you had found me as you expected to find me, what the
result would have been? Do I not know? You would have endured me if I did
not thrust myself upon you, for you have after all a sense of legal duty,
a kind of stubborn honour. But you would have made my life such that some
day one or both of us would have died suddenly. For"--she looked him with
a hot clearness in the eyes--"for there is just so much that a woman can
bear. I wish this talk had not come now, but, since it has come, it is
better to speak plainly. You see, you misunderstand. A heathen has a
heart as another--has a life to be spoiled or made happy as another. Had
there been one honest passion in your treatment of me--in your marrying
me--there would be something on which to base mutual respect, which is
more or less necessary when one is expected to love. But--but I will not
speak more of it, for it chokes me, the insult to me, not as I was, but
as I am. Then it would probably have driven me mad, if I had known; now
it eats into my life like rust."
He made a motion as if to take her hands, but lifting them away quietly
she said: "You forget that there are others present, as well as the fact
that we can talk better without demonstration."
He was about to speak, but she stopped him. "No, wait," she said; "for I
want to say a little more. I was only an Indian girl, but you must
remember that I had also in my veins good white blood, Scotch blood.
Perhaps it was that which drew me to you then--for Lali the Indian girl
loved you. Life had been to me pleasant enough--without care, without
misery, open, strong and free; our people were not as those others which
had learned the white man's vices. We loved the hunt, the camp-fires, the
sacred feasts, the legends of the Mighty Men; and the earth was a good
friend, whom we knew as the child knows its mother."
She paused. Something seemed to arrest her attention. Frank followed her
eyes. She was watching Captain Vidall and Marion. He guessed what she was
thinking--how different her own wooing had been from theirs, how
concerning her courtship she had not one sweet memory--the thing that
keeps alive more love and loyalty in this world than anything else.
Presently General Armour joined them, and Frank's opportunity was over
for the present.
Captain Vidall and Marion were engaged in a very earnest conversation,
though it might not appear so to observers.
"Come, now, Marion," he said protestingly, "don't be impossible. Please
give the day a name. Don't you think we've waited about long enough?"
"There was a man in the Bible who served seven years."
"I've served over three in India since I met you at the well, and that
counts double. Why so particular to a day? It's a bit Jewish. Anyhow,
that seven years was rough on Rachel."
"How, Hume? Because she got passee?"
"Well, that counted; but do you suppose that Jew was going to put in
those seven years without interest? Don't you believe it. Rachel paid
capital and interest back, or Jacob was no Jew. Tell me, Marion, when
shall it be?"
"Hume, for a man who has trifled away years in India, you are strangely
impatient."
"Mrs. Lambert says that I have the sweetest disposition."
"My dear sir!"
"Don't look at me like that at this distance, or I shall have to wear
goggles, as the man did who went courting the Sun."
"How supremely ridiculous you are! And I thought you such a sensible,
serious man."
"Mrs. Lambert put that in your head. We used to meet at the annual
dinners of the Bible Society."
"Why do you tell me such stuff?"
"It's a fact. Her father and my aunt were in that swim, and we were
sympathisers."
"Mercenary people!"
"It worked very well in her case; not so well in mine. But we conceived a
profound respect for each other then. But tell me, Marion, when is it to
be? Why put off the inevitable?"
"It isn't inevitable--and I'm only twenty-three."
"Only twenty-three,
And as good fish in the sea"
he responded, laughing. "Yes, but you've set the precedent for a
courtship of four years and a bit, and what man could face it?"
"You did."
"Yes, but I wasn't advertised of the fact beforehand. Suppose I had seen
the notice at the start: 'This mortgage cannot be raised inside of four
years--and a bit!' There's a limit to human endurance."
"Why shouldn't I hold to the number, but alter the years to days?"
"You wouldn't dare. A woman must live up to her reputation."
"Indeed? What an ambition!"
"And a man to his manners."
"An unknown quantity."
"And a lover to his promises."
"A book of jokes." Marion had developed a taste for satire.
"Which reminds me of Lady Halwood and Mrs. Lambert. Lady Halwood was more
impertinent than usual the other day at the Sinclairs' show, and had a
little fling at Mrs. Lambert. The talk turned on gowns. Lady Halwood was
much interested at once. She has a weakness that way. 'Why,' said she, 'I
like these fashions this year, but I'm not sure that they suit me.
They're the same as when the Queen came to the throne.' 'Well,' said Mrs.
Lambert sweetly, 'if they suited you then--' There was an audible titter,
and Mrs. Lambert had an enemy for life."