Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance — A Bunch of Heather
A BUNCH OF HEATHER
It was a glorious morning, and so warm that I went up on deck without any hat or cloak, glad to have the sunlight playing on my hair and the soft breeze blowing on my face.
The scene was perfectly enchanting; the mountains were bathed in a delicate rose-purple glow reflected from the past pomp of the sun's rising,--the water was still as an inland lake, and every mast and spar of the 'Diana' was reflected in it as in a mirror.
A flock of sea-gulls floated round our vessel, like fairy boats--some of them rising every now and then with eager cries to wing their graceful flight high through the calm air, and alight again with a flash of silver pinions on the translucent blue.
While I stood gazing in absorbed delight at the beauty which everywhere surrounded me, Captain Derrick called to me from his little bridge, where he stood with folded arms, looking down.
"Good morning!
What do you think of the mystery now?"
"Mystery?"
And then his meaning flashed upon me.
"Oh, the yacht that anchored near us last night!
Where is she?"
"Just so!"
And the captain's look expressed volumes--"Where is she?"
Oddly enough, I had not thought of the stranger vessel till this moment, though the music sounding from her deck had been the last thing which had haunted my ears before I had slept--and dreamed!
And now--she was gone!
There was not a sign of her anywhere.
I looked up at the captain on his bridge and smiled.
"She must have started very early!"
I said.
The captain's fuzzy brows met portentously.
"Ay!
Very early!
So early that the watch never saw her go.
He must have missed an hour and she must have gained one."
"It's rather strange, isn't it?"
I said--"May I come on the bridge?"
"Certainly."
I ran up the little steps and stood beside him, looking out to the farthest line of sea and sky.
"What do you think about it?"
I asked, laughingly, "Was she a real yacht or a ghost?"
The captain did not smile.
His brow was furrowed with perplexed consideration.
"She wasn't a ghost," he said--"but her ways were ghostly.
That is, she made no noise,--and she sailed without wind.
Mr. Harland may say what he likes,--I stick to that.
She had no steam, but she carried full sail, and she came into the Sound with all her canvas bellying out as though she were driven by a stormy sou'wester.
There's been no wind all night--yet she's gone, as you see--and not a man on board heard the weighing of her anchor.
When she went and how she went beats me altogether!"
At that moment we caught sight of a small rowing boat coming out to us from the shore, pulled by one man, who bent to his oars in a slow, listless way as though disinclined for the labour.
"Boat ahoy!"
shouted the captain.
The man looked up and signalled in answer.
A couple of our sailors went to throw him a rope as he brought his craft alongside.
He had come, so he slowly explained in his soft, slow, almost unintelligible Highland dialect, with fresh eggs and butter, hoping to effect a sale.
The steward was summoned, and bargaining began.
I listened and looked on, amused and interested, and I presently suggested to the captain that it might be as well to ask this man if he too had seen the yacht whose movements appeared so baffling and inexplicable.
The captain at once took the hint.
"Say, Donald," he began, invitingly--"did you see the big yacht that came in last night about ten o'clock?"
"Ou ay!"
was the slow answer--"But my name's no Tonald,--it's just Jamie."
Captain Derrick laughed jovially.
"Beg pardon!
Jamie, then!
Did you see the yacht?"
"Ou ay!
I've seen her mony a day.
She's a real shentleman."
I smiled.
"The yacht?"
Jamie looked up at me.
"Ah, my leddy, ye'll pe makin' a fule o' Jamie wi' a glance like a sun-sparkle on the sea!
Jamie's no fule wi' the right sort, an' the yacht is a shentleman, an' the shentleman's the yacht, for it's the shentleman that pays whateffer."
Captain Derrick became keenly interested.
"The gentleman?
The owner of the yacht, you mean?"
Jamie nodded--"Just that!"
--and proceeded to count out his store of new-laid eggs with great care as he placed them in the steward's basket.
"What's his name?"
"Ah, that's ower mickle learnin',"--said Jamie, with a cunning look--"I canna say it rightly."
"Can you say it wrongly?"
I suggested.
"I wadna!"
he replied, and he lifted his eyes, which were dark and piercing, to my face--"I daurna!"
"Is he such a very terrible gentleman, then?"
enquired Captain Derrick, jocosely.
Jamie's countenance was impenetrable.
"Ye'll pe seein' her for yourself whateffer,"--he said--"Ye'll no miss her in the waters 'twixt here an' Skye."
He stooped and fumbled in his basket, presently bringing out of it a small bunch of pink bell-heather,--the delicate waxen type of blossom which is found only in mossy, marshy places.
"The shentleman wanted as much as I could find o' this,"--he said--"An' he had it a' but this wee bittie.
Will my leddy wear it for luck?"
I took it from his hand.
"As a gift?"
I asked, smiling.
"I wadna tak ony money for't,"--he answered, with a curious expression of something like fear passing over his brown, weather-beaten features--"'Tis fairies' making."
I put the little bunch in my dress.
As I did so, he doffed his cap.
"Good day t'ye!
I'll be no seein' ye this way again!"
"Why not?
How do you know?"
"One way in and another way out!"
he said, his voice sinking to a sort of meditative croon--"One road to the West, and the other to the East!
--and round about to the meeting-place!
Ou ay!
Ye'll mak it clear sailin'!"
"Without wind, eh?"
interposed Captain Derrick--"Like your friend the 'shentleman'?
How does he manage that business?"
Jamie looked round with a frightened air, like an animal scenting danger,--then, shouldering his empty basket, he gave us a hasty nod of farewell, and, scrambling down the companion ladder without another word, was soon in his boat again, rowing away steadily and never once looking back.
"A wild chap!"
said the captain--"Many of these fellows get half daft, living so much alone in desolate places like Mull, and seeing nothing all their time but cloud and mountain and sea.
He seems to know something about that yacht, though!"
"That yacht is on your brain, Captain!"
I said, merrily--"I feel quite sorry for you!
And yet I daresay if we meet her again the mystery will turn out to be very simple."
"It will have to be either very simple or very complex!"
he answered, with a laugh--"I shall need a good deal of teaching to show me how a sailing yacht can make steam speed without wind.
Ah, good morning, sir!"
And we both turned to greet Mr. Harland, who had just come up on deck.
He looked ill and careworn, as though he had slept badly, and he showed but faint interest in the tale of the strange yacht's sudden exit.
"It amuses you, doesn't it?"
--he said, addressing me with a little cynical smile wrinkling up his forehead and eyes--"Anything that cannot be at once explained is always interesting and delightful to a woman!
That is why spiritualistic 'mediums' make money.
They do clever tricks which cannot be explained, hence their success with the credulous."
"Quite so"--I replied--"but just allow me to say that I am no believer in 'mediums.'
" "True,--I forgot!"
He rubbed his hand wearily over his brows--then asked--"Did you sleep well?"
"Splendidly!
And I must really thank you for my lovely rooms,--they are almost too luxurious!
They are fit for a princess."
"Why a princess?"
he queried, ironically--"Princesses are not always agreeable personages.
I know one or two,--fat, ugly and stupid.
Some of them are dirty in their persons and in their habits.
There are certain 'princesses' in Europe who ought to be washed and disinfected before being given any rooms anywhere!"
I laughed.
"Oh, you are very bitter!"
I said.
"Not at all.
I like accuracy.
'Princess' to the ingenuous mind suggests a fairy tale.
I have not an ingenuous mind.
I know that the princesses of the fairy tales do not exist,--unless you are one."
"Me!"
I exclaimed, in amazement--"I'm very far from that--" "Well, you are a dreamer!"
he said, and resting his arms on the deck rail he looked away from me down into the sunlit sea--"You do not live here in this world with us--you think you do,--and yet in your own mind you know you do not.
You dream--and your life is that of vision simply.
I'm not sure that I should like to see you wake.
For as long as you can dream you will believe in the fairy tale;--the 'princess' of Hans Andersen and the Brothers Grimm holds good--and that is why you should have pretty things about you,--music, roses and the like trifles,--to keep up the delicate delusion."
I was surprised and just a little vexed at his way of talking.
Why, even with the underlying flattery of his words, should he call me a dreamer?
I had worked for my own living as practically as himself in the world, and if not with such financially successful results, only because my aims had never been mere money-spinning.
He had attained enormous wealth,--I a modest competence,--he was old and I was young,--he was ill and miserable,--I was well and happy,--which of us was the 'dreamer'?
My thoughts were busy with this question, and he saw it.
"Don't perplex yourself,"--he said,--"and don't be offended with me for my frankness.
My view of life is not yours,--nor are we ever likely to see things from the same standpoint.
Yours is the more enviable condition.
You are looking well,--you feel well--you are well!
Health is the best of all things."
He paused, and lifting his eyes from the contemplation of the water, regarded me fixedly.
"That's a lovely bit of bell-heather you're wearing!
It glows like fiery topaz."
I explained how it had been given to me.
"Why, then, you've already established a connection with the strange yacht!"
he said, laughing--"The owner, according to your Highland fellow, has the same blossoms on board,--probably gathered from the same morass!
--surely this is quite romantic and exciting!"
And at breakfast, when Dr. Brayle and Mr. Swinton appeared, they all made conversation on the subject of my bunch of heather, till I got rather tired of it, and was half inclined to take it off and throw it away.
Yet somehow I could not do this.
Glancing at my own reflection in a mirror, I saw what a brilliant yet dainty touch of colour it gave to the plain white serge of my yachting dress,--it was a pretty contrast, and I left it alone.
Miss Catherine did not get up to breakfast, but she sent for me afterwards and asked if I would mind sitting with her for a while.
I
did mind in a way,--for the day was fair and fine,--the 'Diana' was preparing to pursue her course,--and it was far pleasanter to be on deck in the fresh air than in Miss Catherine's state-room, which, though quite spacious for a yacht's accommodation, looked rather dreary, having no carpet on the floor, no curtains to the bed, and no little graces of adornment anywhere,--nothing but a few shelves against the wall on which were ranged some blue and black medicine bottles, relieved by a small array of pill-boxes.
But I felt sorry for the poor woman who had elected to make her life a martyrdom to nerves, and real or imaginary aches and pains, so I went to her, determined to do what I could to cheer and rouse her from her condition of chronic depression.
Directly I entered her cabin she said: "Where did you get that bright bit of heather?"
I told her the whole story, to which she listened with more patience than she usually showed for any talk in which she had not first share.
"It's really quite interesting!"
she said, with a reluctant smile--"I suppose it was the strange yacht that had the music on board last night.
It kept me awake.
I thought it was some tiresome person out in a boat with a gramophone."
I laughed.
"Oh, Miss Harland!"
I exclaimed--"Surely you could not have thought it a gramophone!
Such music!
It was perfectly exquisite!"
"Was it?"
And she drew the ugly grey woollen shawl in which she was wrapped closer about her sallow throat as she sat up in her bed and looked at me--"Well, it may have been, to you,--you seem to find delight in everything,--I'm sure I don't know why!
Of course it's very nice to have such a happy disposition--but really that music teased me dreadfully.
Such a bore having music when you want to go to sleep."
I was silent, and having a piece of embroidery to occupy my hands I began to work at it.
"I hope you're quite comfortable on board,"--she resumed, presently--"Have you all you want in your rooms?"
I assured her that everything was perfect.
She sighed.
"I wish I could say the same!"
she said--"I really hate yachting, but father likes it, so I must sacrifice myself."
Here she sighed again.
I
saw she was really convinced that she was immolating herself on the altar of filial obedience.
"You know he is very ill,"--she went on--"and that he cannot live long?"
"He told me something about it,"--I answered--"and I said then, as I say now, that the doctors may be wrong."
"Oh no, they cannot be wrong in his case," she declared, shaking her head dismally--"They know the symptoms, and they can only avert the end for a time.
I'm very thankful Dr. Brayle was able to come with us on this trip."
"I suppose he is paid a good deal for his services?"
I said.
"Eight hundred guineas"--she answered--"But, you see, he has to leave his patients in London, and find another man to attend to them during his absence.
He is so very clever and so much sought after--I don't know what I should do without him, I'm sure!"
"Has he any special treatment for you?"
I asked.
"Oh yes,--he gives me electricity.
He has a wonderful battery--he has got it fitted up here in the next cabin--and while I hold two handles he turns it on and it runs all over me.
I feel always better for the moment--but the effect soon passes."
I looked at her with a smile.
"I should think so!
Dear Miss Harland, do you really believe in that way of administering electricity?"
"Of course I do!"
she answered--"You see, it's all a question of what they call bacteriology nowadays.
Medicine is no use unless it can kill the microbes that are eating us up inside and out.
And there's scarcely any drug that can do that.
Electricity is the only remedy.
It gives the little brutes a shock;"--and the poor lady laughed weakly--"and it kills some, but not all.
It's a dreadful scheme of creation, don't you think, to make human beings no better than happy hunting grounds for invisible creatures to feed upon?"
"It depends on what view you take of it,"--I said, laying down my work and trying to fix her attention, a matter which was always difficult--"We human beings are composed of good and evil particles.
If the good are encouraged, they drive out the evil,--if the evil, they drive out the good.
It's the same with the body as the soul,--if we encourage the health-working 'microbes' as you call them, they will drive out disease from the human organism altogether."
She sank back on her pillow wearily.
"We can't do it,"--she said--"All the chances are against us.
What's the use of our trying to encourage 'health-working microbes'?
The disease-working ones have got the upper hand.
Just think!
--our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are to blame for half our evils.
Their diseases become ours in various new forms.
It's cruel,--horrible!
How anyone can believe that a God of Love created such a frightful scheme passes my comprehension!
The whole thing is a mere business of eating to be eaten!"
She looked so wan and wild that I pitied her greatly.
"Surely that is not what you think at the bottom of your heart?"
I
said, gently--"I should be very sorry for you if I thought you really meant what you say."
"Well, you may be as sorry for me as you like"--and the poor lady blinked away tears from her eyes--"I need someone to be sorry for me!
I
tell you my life is a perfect torture.
Every day I wonder how long I can bear it!
I have such dreadful thoughts!
I picture the horrible things that are happening to different people all over the world, nobody helping them or caring for them, and I almost feel as if I must scream for mercy.
It wouldn't be any use screaming,--but the scream is in my soul all the same.
People in prisons, people in shipwrecks, people dying by inches in hospitals, no good in their lives and no hope--and not a sign of comfort from the God whom the Churches praise!
It's awful!
I don't see how anybody can do anything or be ambitious for anything--it's all mere waste of energy.
One of the reasons that made me so anxious to have you come on this trip with us is that you always seem contented and happy,--and I want to know why?
It's a question of temperament, I suppose--but do tell me why!"
She stretched out her hand and touched mine appealingly.
I took her worn and wasted fingers in my own and pressed them sympathetically.
"My dear Miss Harland,"--I began.
"Oh, call me Catherine"--she interrupted--"I'm so tired of being Miss Harland!"
"Well, Catherine, then,"--I said, smiling a little--"Surely you know why I am contented and happy?"
"No, I do not,"--she said, with quick, almost querulous?
eagerness--"I don't understand it at all.
You have none of the things that please women.
You don't seem to care about dress though you are always well-gowned--you don't go to balls or theatres or race-meetings,--you are a general favourite, yet you avoid society,--you've never troubled yourself to take your chances of marriage,--and so far as I know or have heard tell about you, you haven't even a lover!"
My cheeks grew suddenly warm.
A curious resentment awoke in me at her words--had I indeed no lover?
Surely I had!
--one that I knew well and had known for a long time,--one for whom I had guarded my life sacredly as belonging to another as well as to myself,--a lover who loved me beyond all power of human expression,--here the rush of strange and inexplicable emotion in me was hurled back on my mind with a shock of mingled terror and surprise from a dead wall of stony fact,--it was true, of course, and Catherine Harland was right--I had no lover.
No man had ever loved me well enough to be called by such a name.
The flush cooled off my face,--the hurry of my thoughts slackened,--I took up my embroidery and began to work at it again.
"That is so, isn't it?"
persisted Miss Harland--"Though you blush and grow pale as if there was someone in the background."
I met her inquisitive glance and smiled.
"There is no one,"--I said--"There never has been anyone."
I paused; I could almost feel the warmth of the strong hand that had held mine in my dream of the past night.
It was mere fancy, and I went on--"I should not care for what modern men and women call love.
It seems very unsatisfactory."
She sighed.
"It is frequently very selfish,"--she said--"I want to tell you my love-story--may I?"
"Why, of course!"
I answered, a little wonderingly, for I had not thought she had a love-story to tell.
"It's very brief,"--she said, and her lip quivered--"There was a man who used to visit our house very often when I first came out,--he made me believe he was very fond of me.
I was more than fond of him--I almost worshipped him.
He was all the world to me, and though father did not like him very much he wished me to be happy, so we were engaged.
That was the time of my life--the only time I ever knew what happiness was.
One evening, just about three months before we were to be married, we were together at a party in the house of one of our mutual friends, and I heard him talking rather loudly in a room where he and two or three other men had gone to smoke.
He said something that made me stand still and wonder whether I was mad or dreaming.
'Pity me when I'm married to Catherine Harland!'
Pity him?
I listened,--I knew it was wrong to listen, but I could not help myself.
'Well, you'll get enough cash with her to set you all right in the world, anyhow,'--said another man, 'You can put up with a plain wife for the sake of a pretty fortune.'
Then he,--my love!
--spoke again--'Oh, I shall make the best of it,' he said--'I must have money somehow, and this is the easiest way.
There's one good thing about modern life,--husbands and wives don't hunt in couples as they used to do, so when once the knot is tied I shall shift my matrimonial burden off my shoulders as much as I can.
She'll amuse herself with her clothes and the household,--and she's fond of me, so I shall always have my own way.
But it's an awful martyrdom to have to marry one woman on account of empty pockets when you're in love with another.'
I heard,--and then--I don't know what happened."
Her eyes stared at me so pitifully that I was full of sorrow for her.
"Oh, you poor Catherine!"
I said, and taking her hand, I kissed it gently.
The tears in her eyes brimmed over.
"They found me lying on the floor insensible,"--she went on, tremulously--"And I was very ill for a long time afterwards.
People could not understand it when I broke off my engagement.
I told nobody why--except HIM.
He seemed sorry and a little ashamed,--but I think he was more vexed at losing my fortune than anything else.
I said to him that I had never thought about being plain,--that the idea of his loving me had made me feel beautiful.
That was true!
--my dear, I almost believe I should have grown into beauty if I had been sure of his love."
I understood that; she was perfectly right in what to the entirely commonplace person would seem a fanciful theory.
Love makes all things fair, and anyone who is conscious of being tenderly loved grows lovely, as a rose that is conscious of the sun grows into form and colour.
"Well, it was all over then,"--she ended, with a sigh, "I never was quite myself again--I think my nerves got a sort of shock such as the great novelist, Charles Dickens had when he was in the railway accident--you remember the tale in Forster's 'Life'?
How the carriage hung over the edge of an embankment but did not actually fall,--and Dickens was clinging on to it all the time.
He never got over it, and it was the remote cause of his death five years later.
Now I have felt just like that,--my life has hung over a sort of chasm ever since I lost my love, and I only cling on."
"But surely,"--I ventured to say--"surely there are other things to live for than just the memory of one man's love which was not love at all!
You seem to think there was some cruelty or unhappiness in the chance that separated you from him,--but really it was a special mercy and favour of God--only you have taken it in the wrong way."
