 | CHAPTER XIV. El Fureidîs |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
The dwelling of M. Trefoil at all times wore an air of
quiet and repose; but there was this evening something
painful, almost ominous to Meredith, in the perfect stillness
and seclusion which pervaded the house and grounds, and
which formed a striking contrast with the scenes and excitements
of his day among the mountains The fatigue of
travel and the rapid succession of incident had somewhat
subdued his mental restlessness; but as he passed through
the little garden, whose silence was only broken by the rippling
fountain, and entered the saloon allotted to his use,
where only Bachmet attended to bid him welcome, he became
the victim of a tumult of emotions quite at variance
with the peacefulness of the place Thus his manner was
marked by a degree of haste, uncertainty, and indecision
wholly foreign to his usual habits. He entered upon the
duties of his toilette with as much nervous rapidity as if
hurrying to fulfil an appointment; but, before they were
completed, seemed to forget or abandon his intentions, and,
assuming a Persian dressing-gown, threw himself into an
arm-chair, a complete representative of gentlemanly leisure.
He declined Bachmet's offer of refreshments, and expressed
a preference for sitting in a room darkened by the shadows
of nightfall; but the boy had scarcely left the apartment
before the capricious Englishman sounded the silver whistle
with which he was wont to summon a servant, called, a little
and, as soon as the latter were brought, applied himself to
overlooking a heap of English letters and papers which
lay upon his table. He had scarcely time to master any
of their contents, when Geita's voice was heard on a balcony
outside the saloon, in familiar gossip with Bachmet.
As if it had for the first time occurred to Meredith that his
return might be reported to the household, and his nonappearance
wondered at, he hastily huddled his papers together,
readjusted his dress, and with an air of settled
determination proceeded courageously to the house-top,
where the family, however scattered during the day, were
almost sure to assemble at nightfall.
He found only M. Trefoil and M. Lapierre, who, seated
upon the terraced roof, seemed to be engaged in desultory
conversation. They greeted him as usual, or, if the manner
of M. Trefoil was slightly embarrassed, it was covered
by the refined and benignant grace of the missionary, the
sweet serenity of whose deportment nothing could ruffle or
disturb. The latter immediately instituted inquiries concerning
Meredith's mountain exploits, the absence of Abdoul
and the horses and dogs having sufficiently indicated that
their master was on a hunting-excursion. Meredith gave
a brief outline of his adventures, the prominent feature of
which—his visit to Eptedeen—at once afforded unlimited
scope for conversation.
M. Trefoil interrogated his guest with many eager and
flurried inquiries regarding the assemblage at the palace;
and M. Lapierre, instigated by the manufacturer, furnished
for Meredith's benefit a graphic sketch of the private life
and political career of the Emir Beshir Shehâab, that powerful
Druse prince, who ruled the Lebanon for many years
with impartial rigor, and whose memory will ever be associated
monument of his architectural taste.
It was half ludicrous, half painful to see with what nervous
and awkward effort M. Trefoil labored to maintain and
foster an unbroken stream of talk, with what embarrassment
he strove to fill up the pauses, with what visible trepidation
he foresaw the probability of the old pastor's leaving him
alone with his guest. Twice, M. Lapierre, whose simple
habits sent him early to rest, rose to depart, but was detained
by some earnest solicitation on the part of the host;
and when the missionary had finally taken leave, the agitation
of poor M. Trefoil became such as to rob him of all
self-control. He launched abruptly upon a variety of topics,
but suddenly foundered in all; for no avenue of thought
seemed open to him which did not lead him face to face
with the truth he dreaded to tell, or bring him stumbling
upon the verge of that disclosure which he weakly sought
to postpone.
After several blundering attempts, therefore, during which
Meredith maintained an obstinate silence, the manufacturer
relaxed his efforts at conversation, nervously removed his
Turkish fez, wiped his heated forehead with his handkerchief,
peered into the crown of the red tarboosh, as if hoping
it might reveal some clew to him in his perplexity, and, this
last resort having failed, clapped the cap upon his head again,
and looked the very picture of despair.
Vexed and chagrined at his host's behavior, but completely
calmed in view of his overwhelming embarrassment,
Meredith for a while maintained a proud composure, scorning
to seek the communication which he felt ought to be
volunteered, yet willing to afford M. Trefoil an opportunity
for a candid explanation.
As the latter took no advantage of the pause, however,
night.
“Going! so soon!” exclaimed M. Trefoil, speaking in
a deprecating tone, but nevertheless starting to his feet
with an alacrity which seemed to welcome the motion.
“It is not late,” he added, with a second protest; followed
immediately by the counter-phrase, “But I dare say you
are fatigued.”
Smiling a half-bitter, half-ironical smile, Meredith answered
merely by a nod, and commenced descending the
staircase, pursued closely by M. Trefoil, who, his tongue
once more loosed, was profuse in hospitable entreaties and
attentions.
“Nothing at all, my dear sir,—nothing at all, I thank
you,”—was Meredith's reply to the various offers of refreshment
and service with which M. Trefoil followed him to
the edge of the balcony. “My wants are most bountifully
supplied.”
“But stay!” continued the manufacturer, catching his
guest by the sleeve, as he was about to descend the steps
that led to the garden, and thence to his own apartments,
in the opposite wing. “I forgot—how—what—ch—”
The kind-hearted man, who had begun with brave energy,
here evidently abandoned his first intention, and faltered
forth the commonplace, “What do you mean to do to-morrow?”
“I? do? O, nothing that I know of,” responded Meredith,
breaking away with petulant haste.
“O, indeed! nothing? Good-night, then,” said M. Trefoil,
with an awkward, unsatisfied air, and turning to re-enter
the house.
The young man ran down the steps, but was once more
arrested by the same voice, speaking in a tone half resolute,
Meredith turned, and, seeing that M. Trefoil awaited
him, slowly mounted the steps again.
There was a world of meaning in the tender, emphatic
manner with which the elder man laid his hand on the
shoulder of the younger. The words that followed were
scarcely more expressive, though coming as they did in
the rapid, vehement utterance with which one speaks
who has braced himself for the occasion. “About that
matter we were talking of yesterday! I had it almost as
much at heart as you did,—you know that,—but it won't
do; we must say no more about it,—so there's an end of
the whole thing. It is a hard case, but we must bear it the
best way we can.”
There was no affectation in M. Trefoil's thus assuming
that the disappointment was mutual and equal. He felt it
to be so; the heaving of his broad chest proved that he
did,—the choking of his voice, the tears that filled his
eyes, proclaimed how deeply the whole man was moved.
He evidently looked to Meredith for a response, almost for
sympathy; but there was no sound or movement to indicate
that he whom he addressed had even heard him.
The simple-hearted M. Trefoil was awed and grieved by
this monumental silence, more than he would have been by
a sarcasm or a torrent of bitter words. He even went so
far, in the earnest affectionateness of his nature, as to pass
his stout arm half around the neck of the immovable
young man, at the same time clasping in his one of the
hands which hung listlessly down, and offered no returning
pressure. “Don't distress yourself, my dear fellow, now
don't!” he continued, in a consolatory tone, “We were mistaken,
we men are so ignorant. I thought her little heart
have plead your cause myself, my friend,—upon my word
I would, but it would have been of no use,—the child has
made her own decision, and it seems there is no appeal
from that, for the mother says so,—and the mother knows.”
These interjectional phrases, honestly intended to soothe
their object, but each in reality carrying with it the sting
of a barbed arrow, were uttered with spasmodic efforts,
and with a sufficient interval between them to admit of
some reply. But they called forth none. With fixed
attitude, and eyes fastened rigidly on the face of M. Trefoil,
Meredith's countenance and figure expressed merely
the simple query, “Is this all? Have I heard the
whole?”
Either the unsophisticated manufacturer so interpreted
this air of dumb and stoical patience, or the agitation of his
own feelings forbade further words; for he withdrew a step
in the direction of the house, made an attempt to utter something
more, but failed, and darted within the door-way, half
convulsed by the vain attempt to repress a sob.
“What will the Englishman do? Has he turned to stone?
Will he stand there all night?” So M. Trefoil inwardly
questioned himself, as, having climbed an upper balcony, he
leaned cautiously over and played the spy upon a grief
which he dared not otherwise face. “Poor lad!” he exclaimed,
as he drew in his head, after making a cautious
observation. “Poor lad!” he again ejaculated, as a second
survey revealed Meredith still standing in the same spot.
Here the clumsy man, while zealously striving to be unheard,
stumbled over his own shadow, grasped at the trellis-work
of the balcony in order to save himself from falling, and,
startled at the noise which he thus made, retreated precipitately,
saying to himself, “He's got a stroke, a heart-stroke.
and I believe it.”
And the man who, crossed in almost everything else, had
never been crossed in love, hurried away to seek the customary
relief to his anxieties in Ianthe's sympathy.
Meredith was not conscious of hearing any noise; he did
not even ask himself the cause of the rustling of the vine-branches
just above his head; he was not aware that he
listened to M. Trefoil's retreating footsteps. These slight
sounds must, however, have played upon his senses, for it
could have been nothing short of volition on his part which
caused him to stand motionless as a statue until the last
footfall had ceased to echo in the night stillness, and then to
turn and depart like a sentinel dismissed from his post. It
must have been his own act, thought it seemed the effect of
mechanism, as his tall figure swayed slowly round, like
a heavy Eastern door turning on its sunken pivot; it must
have been obedience to an impulse, though it looked rather
like resistance, as he dragged his limbs heavily down the
stone steps, and crossed the garden with the weary air of
one oppressed by a heavy weight. So, with the step of a
paralytic and the bent form of an old man, he descended one
terrace after another, crossed the mulberry-orchard, and
gained the little foot-bridge.
And now the powers that had been benumbed began to
force themselves into play. The whole man had encountered
the shock; but pride, the outer bulwark of the man,
was the first to feel the sting. His veins throbbed, the
blood mounted to his temples and tingled to his finger-ends.
Despised! rejected! dismissed! The thought was intolerable.
He must escape from the thought, and he quickened
his pace. Thus he crossed the bridge with nervous haste,
and struck into the steep path which led upward to Ayn el
pursued him, and he fled from the thought. With determined
strides he began scaling the mountain-side; but
the thought gained upon him, and he commenced running.
With a now vehement energy he sprung from rock to rock,
defying obstacles. The moon had not yet risen, and the
night was dark; loose stones rattled beneath his feet, and
came tumbling down the slopes and crags. Sly jackals, that
were nearing the village under cover of the darkness, fled
at his approach; rushing water-courses strove to oppose his
passage;—but he hurried on. He paused a moment at
Ayn el Bered; he stood on the very spot where Havilah
had first burst upon him from the thicket. He heard again
the merry laugh with which she had greeted his surprise.
How sweetly it had rung in his ears ever since that day!
but now it seemed to mock, to taunt him.
The mocking laugh, the maddening thought,—how they
chased and spurred him! how they fired his blood, and lent
wings to his flight, as, leaving Ayn el Bered far behind him,
he labored up the dreary waste of pasture-ground and peak
beyond!
What cold horror would have crept over him at some
soberer moment, could he have known how, more than once,
his foot had slipped at a point where a measureless ravine
gaped beneath, and destruction was the price of a false
or careless step! What a sense of miraculous deliverance
would have seized him, had daylight revealed the rock-strewn
or watery abyss across which he had leaped with an
accuracy wholly accidental! But passion is self-engrossed;
danger has no existence to a madman, and secret darkness
never betrayed how death lay in wait for life that night.
Morning was dawning on the mountains,—cold, early
morning. The sun was yet far below the horizon, and only
mist crept up from the valleys,—a chill mist dissolved
from the clouds. The stunted herbage was saturated
with moisture, the rocks were black and dripping. But
colder was the chill at the heart, heavier the dew on the
forehead of the man, who, stretched on the mountain-top,
lay with his face upturned to the sky. He had thrown
himself down, hot, feversih, exhausted; but hours had
passed since then; the scarching night-wind and cold rain
had penetrated every pore, and an icy hand seemed to have
been laid upon him. Passion and pride had spent themselves,
the bolt had pierced beneath the surface, and the
manly heart of Meredith had taken home the wound. The
past was past, the future a blank, the present only a dull,
cold sense of pain. Hopeless! desolate! bereaved! was
the cry of the grieved spirit. It was no taunting word, no
stinging sarcasm; it was not a thing to flee from, to struggle
with, or to silence; it was the heart's own cry.
He had outrun his pride; solitude, cold, and darkness
had dispelled his fever of mortification and surprise; but
there was nothing in the leaden sky above or the hard
earth beneath him to minister to his despair.
Now for the first time he understood himself; now he
felt the strength of the chain which had bound him so long
to El Fureidis; now in his bitter wretchedness and humiliation
he could rightly measure the love he cherished for
Havilah.
Simple M. Trefoil had labored to soften the blow; he flattered
himself, kind soul! that he had lessened its severity;
but had he sought through his whole vocabulary of words
he could not have found any so effectual and so stunning to
a lover as those he had innocently ejaculated,—“Her heart
is like a rock!” How the words rung through the young
nature! The hooting of the night-owl gave them harsh
utterance; the winds whistling round the mountain-top
caught them up; the huge cliffs re-echoed them. The soft
pattering rain-drops, the cold, gray moon, both whispered in
his ear, “Her heart is like a rock!” and the young man,
wrapped in an apathy of despair, felt that on this rock the
freight of all his rich hopes had foundered.
Despair has no rebellious workings. It is the cessation
of struggle. So he lay stiff and motionless, with his hands
clutching the thin rank grass and his face upturned to the
pitiless sky, unconscious of the fog which shrouded him, forgetful
that he could not lie there forever.
Was it strange that this man's pride, the first thing to feel
the blow, was the first to rally? Was it strange that he
who alone with his grief had been insensible to the elements,
shrunk from the eye of a clown? Yet so it was. The first
faint streaks of dawn had scarcely crept up the eastern sky,
when a Kurdish shepherd came climbing up the mountain-side
in search of his scattered flock. Wrapped in his soiled
sheep-skin capote, roughest specimen of the roughest race,
this rude goatherd might almost have been mistaken for
some wild beast of the mountain; and it was with shy, brutish
curiosity that, as he passed the spot where Meredith lay, he
surveyed the figure of the prostrate stranger. His idiotic
stare, however, had power to excite the Englishman's ire,
restore his self-control, and awaken that stern British pride
which, rent as it had been, was still his best armor and defence.
The inner citadel, it is true, was undermined, but he
could yet patch up the outer defences, and present a fair
front to the enemy.
With resentful impetuosity he raised himself on one
elbow, and fixed on the goatherd an eye so full of sternness
even venturing to look back. Meredith watched him with
an angry frown until he had turned an angle in the pathway.
As he disappeared from sight the young man rose, looked
round for his hat, became conscious that he had left the
villa cloakless and bareheaded, glanced at his wet garments,
ran his fingers through his damp hair, and walked
deliberately back to the village.
| CHAPTER XIV. El Fureidîs | |