Those Who Wait
A faint draught from the hills found its way through the wide-flung dooras the sun went down. It fluttered the papers on the table, and stirreda cartoon upon the wall with a dry rustling as of wind in corn.The man who sat at the table turned his face as it were mechanicallytowards that blessed breath from the snows. His chin was propped on hishand. He seemed to be waiting.The light failed very quickly, and he presently reached out and drew areading-lamp towards him. The flame he kindled flickered upward,throwing weird shadows upon his lean, brown face, making the sunkenhollows of his eyes look cavernous.He turned the light away so that it streamed upon the open doorway. Thenhe resumed his former position of sphinx-like waiting, his chin upon hishand.Half an hour passed. The day was dead. Beyond the radius of the lampthere hung a pall of thick darkness--a fearful, clinging darkness thatseemed to wrap the whole earth. The heat was intense, unstirred by anybreeze. Only now and then the cartoon on the wall moved as if at thetouch of ghostly fingers, and each time there came that mocking whisperthat was like wind in corn.At length there sounded through the night the dull throbbing of ahorse's feet, and the man who sat waiting raised his head. A gleam ofexpectancy shone in his sombre eyes. Some of the rigidity went out ofhis attitude.Nearer came the hoofs and nearer yet, and with them, minglingrhythmically, a tenor voice that sang.As it reached him the man at the table pulled out a drawer with a sharpjerk. His hand sought something within it, but his eyes never left thecurtain of darkness that the open doorway framed.Slowly, very slowly at last, he withdrew his hand empty; but he onlypartially closed the drawer.The voice without was nearer now, was close at hand. The horse's hoofshad ceased to sound. There came the ring of spurred heels without, aman's hand tapped upon the doorpost, a man's figure showed suddenlyagainst the darkness."Hallo, Conyers! Still in the land of the living? Ye gods, what afiendish night! Many thanks for the beacon! It's kept me straight formore than half the way."He entered carelessly, the lamplight full upon him--a handsome,straight-limbed young Hercules--tossed down his riding-whip, and lookedround for a drink."Here you are!" said Conyers, turning the rays of the lamp full uponsome glasses on the table."Ah, good! I'm as dry as a smoked herring. You must drink too, though.Yes, I insist. I have a toast to propose, so be sociable for once. Whathave you got in that drawer?"Conyers locked the drawer abruptly, and jerked out the key."What do you want to know for?"His visitor grinned boyishly."Don't be bashful, old chap! I always guessed you kept her there. We'lldrink her health, too, in a minute. But first of all"--he was splashingsoda-water impetuously out of a syphon as he spoke--"first of all--quiteready, I say? It's a grand occasion--here's to the best of good fellows,that genius, that inventor of guns, John Conyers! Old chap, yourfortune's made. Here's to it! Hip--hip--hooray!"His shout was like the blare of a bull. Conyers rose, crossed to thedoor, and closed it.Returning, he halted by his visitor's side, and shook him by theshoulder."Stop rotting, Palliser!" he said rather shortly.Young Palliser wheeled with a gigantic laugh, and seized him by thearms."You old fool, Jack! Can't you see I'm in earnest? Drink, man, drink,and I'll tell you all about it. That gun of yours is going to be anenormous success--stupendous--greater even than I hoped. It's true, bythe powers! Don't look so dazed. All comes to those who wait, don't youknow. I always told you so.""To be sure, so you did." The man's words came jerkily. They had an odd,detached sound, almost as though he were speaking in his sleep. Heturned away from Palliser, and took up his untouched glass.But the next instant it slipped through his fingers, and crashed uponthe table edge. The spilt liquid streamed across the floor.Palliser stared for an instant, then thrust forward his own glass."Steady does it, old boy! Try both hands for a change. It's thisinfernal heat."He turned with the words, and picked up a paper from the table, frowningover it absently, and whistling below his breath.When he finally looked round again his face cleared."Ah, that's better! Sit down, and we'll talk. By Jove, isn't itcolossal? They told me over at the fort that I was a fool to come acrossto-night. But I simply couldn't keep you waiting another night. Besides,I knew you would expect me."Conyers' grim face softened a little. He could scarcely have said how hehad ever come to be the chosen friend of young Hugh Palliser. Theintimacy had been none of his seeking.They had met at the club on the occasion of one of his rare appearancesthere, and the younger man, whose sociable habit it was to knoweveryone, had scraped acquaintance with him.No one knew much about Conyers. He was not fond of society, and, as anatural consequence, society was not fond of him. He occupied the humbleposition of a subordinate clerk in an engineer's office. The work washard, but it did not bring him prosperity. He was one of those men whogo silently on week after week, year after year, till their veryexistence comes almost to be overlooked by those about them. He neverseemed to suffer as other men suffered from the scorching heat of thattropical corner of the Indian Empire. He was always there, whateverhappened to the rest of the world; but he never pushed himself forward.He seemed to lack ambition. There were even some who said he lackedbrains as well.But Palliser was not of these. His quick eyes had detected at a glancesomething that others had never taken the trouble to discover. From thevery beginning he had been aware of a force that contained itself inthis silent man. He had become interested, scarcely knowing why; and,having at length overcome the prickly hedge of reserve which was atfirst opposed to his advances, he had entered the private place which itdefended, and found within--what he certainly had not expected tofind--a genius.It was nearly three months now since Conyers, in a moment of unusualexpansion, had laid before him the invention at which he had beenworking for so many silent years. The thing even then, though completein all essentials, had lacked finish, and this final touch youngPalliser, himself a gunner with a positive passion for guns, had beenable to supply. He had seen the value of the invention and had given ithis ardent support. He had, moreover, friends in high places, and couldobtain a fair and thorough investigation of the idea.This he had accomplished, with a result that had transcended his highhopes, on his friend's behalf; and he now proceeded to pour out hisinformation with an accompanying stream of congratulation, to whichConyers sat and listened with scarcely the movement of an eyelid.Hugh Palliser found his impassivity by no means disappointing. He wasused to it. He had even expected it. That momentary unsteadiness onConyers' part had astonished him far more.Concluding his narration he laid the official correspondence before him,and got up to open the door. The night was black and terrible, the heatcame in overwhelming puffs, as though blown from a blast furnace. Heleaned against the doorpost and wiped his forehead. The oppression ofthe atmosphere was like a tangible, crushing weight. Behind him thepaper on the wall rustled vaguely, but there was no other sound. Afterseveral minutes he turned briskly back again into the room, whistling asentimental ditty below his breath."Well, old chap, it was worth waiting for, eh? And now, I suppose,you'll be making a bee-line for home, you lucky beggar. I shan't be longafter you, that's one comfort. Pity we can't go together. I suppose youcan't wait till the winter.""No, my boy. I'm afraid I can't." Conyers spoke with a faint smile, hiseyes still fixed upon the blue official paper that held his destiny."I'm going home forthwith, and be damned to everything andeverybody--except you. It's an understood thing, you know, Palliser,that we are partners in this deal.""Oh, rot!" exclaimed Palliser impetuously. "I don't agree to that. I didnothing but polish the thing up. You'd have done it yourself if Ihadn't.""In the course of a few more years," put in Conyers drily."Rot!" said Palliser again. "Besides, I don't want any pelf. I've quiteas much as is good for me, more than I want. That's why I'm going to getmarried. You'll be going the same way yourself now, I suppose?""You have no reason whatever for thinking so," responded Conyers.Palliser laughed lightheartedly and sat down on the table. "Oh, haven'tI? What about that mysterious locked drawer of yours? Don't be shy, Isay! You had it open when I came in. Show her to me like a good chap! Iwon't tell a soul.""That's not where I keep my love-tokens," said Conyers, with a grimtwist of the mouth that was not a smile."What then?" asked Palliser eagerly. "Not another invention?""No." Conyers inserted the key in the lock again, turned it, and pulledopen the drawer. "See for yourself as you are so anxious."Palliser leaned across the table and looked. The next instant his glanceflashed upwards, and their eyes met.There was a sharply-defined pause. Then, "You'd never be fool enough forthat, Jack!" ejaculated Palliser, with vehemence."I'm fool enough for anything," said Conyers, with his cynical smile."But you wouldn't," the other protested almost incoherently. "A fellowlike you--I don't believe it!""It's loaded," observed Conyers quietly. "No, leave it alone, Hugh! Itcan remain so for the present. There is not the smallest danger of itsgoing off--or I shouldn't have shown it to you."He closed the drawer again, looking steadily into Hugh Palliser's face."I've had it by me for years," he said, "just in case the Fates shouldhave one more trick in store for me. But apparently they haven't, thoughit's never safe to assume anything.""Oh, don't talk like an idiot!" broke in Palliser heatedly. "I've nopatience with that sort of thing. Do you expect me to believe that afellow like you--a fellow who knows how to wait for his luck--would giveway to a cowardly impulse and destroy himself all in a moment becausethings didn't go quite straight? Man alive! I know you better than that;or if I don't, I've never known you at all.""Ah! Perhaps not!" said Conyers.Once more he turned the key and withdrew it. He pushed back his chair sothat his face was in shadow."You don't know everything, you know, Hugh," he said."Have a smoke," said Palliser, "and tell me what you are driving at."He threw himself into a bamboo chair by the open door, the lightstreaming full upon him, revealing in every line of him the arrogantsplendour of his youth. He looked like a young Greek god with the worldat his feet.Conyers surveyed him with his faint, cynical smile. "No," he said, "youcertainly don't know everything, my son. You never have come a cropperin your life.""Haven't I, though?" Hugh sat up, eager to refute this criticism."That's all you know about it. I suppose you think you have had themonopoly of hard knocks. Most people do.""I am not like most people," Conyers asserted deliberately. "But youneedn't tell me that you have ever been right under, my boy. For younever have.""Depends what you call going under," protested Palliser. "I've been downa good many times, Heaven knows. And I've had to wait--as you have--allthe best years of my life.""Your best years are to come," rejoined Conyers. "Mine are over.""Oh, rot, man! Rot--rot--rot! Why, you are just coming into your own!Have another drink and give me the toast of your heart!" Hugh Pallisersprang impulsively to his feet. "Let me mix it! You can't--you shan't bemelancholy to-night of all nights."But Conyers stayed his hand."Only one more drink to-night, boy!" he said. "And that not yet. Sitdown and smoke. I'm not melancholy, but I can't rejoice prematurely.It's not my way.""Prematurely!" echoed Hugh, pointing to the official envelope."Yes, prematurely," Conyers repeated. "I may be as rich as Croesus, andyet not win my heart's desire.""Oh, I know that," said Hugh quickly. "I've been through it myself. It'sinfernal to have everything else under the sun and yet to lack the onething--the one essential--the one woman."He sat down again, abruptly thoughtful. Conyers smoked silently, withhis face in the shadow.Suddenly Hugh looked across at him."You think I'm too much of an infant to understand," he said. "I'mnearly thirty, but that's a detail.""I'm forty-five," said Conyers."Well, well!" Hugh frowned impatiently. "It's a detail, as I saidbefore. Who cares for a year more or less?""Which means," observed Conyers, with his dry smile, "that the one womanis older than you are.""She is," Palliser admitted recklessly. "She is five years older. Butwhat of it? Who cares? We were made for each other. What earthlydifference does it make?""It's no one's business but your own," remarked Conyers through a hazeof smoke."Of course it isn't. It never has been." Hugh yet sounded in somefashion indignant. "There never was any other possibility for me after Imet her. I waited for her six mortal years. I'd have waited all my life.But she gave in at last. I think she realized that it was sheer waste oftime to go on.""What was she waiting for?" The question came with a certain wearinessof intonation, as though the speaker were somewhat bored; but HughPalliser was too engrossed to notice.He stretched his arms wide with a swift and passionate gesture."She was waiting for a scamp," he declared."It is maddening to think of--the sweetest woman on earth, Conyers,wasting her spring and her summer over a myth, an illusion. It was anaffair of fifteen years ago. The fellow came to grief and disappointedher. She told me all about it on the day she promised to marry me. Ibelieve her heart was nearly broken at the time, but she has got overit--thank Heaven!--at last. Poor Damaris! My Damaris!"He ceased to speak, and a dull roar of thunder came out of the nightlike the voice of a giant in anguish.Hugh began to smoke, still busy with his thoughts."Yes," he said presently, "I believe she would actually have waited allher life for the fellow if he had asked it of her. Luckily he didn't goso far as that. He was utterly unworthy of her. I think she sees it now.His father was imprisoned for forgery, and no doubt he was in the know,though it couldn't be brought home to him. He was ruined, of course, andhe disappeared, just dropped out, when the crash came. He had been onthe verge of proposing to her immediately before. And she would have hadhim too. She cared."He sent a cloud of smoke upwards with savage vigour."It's damnable to think of her suffering for a worthless brute likethat!" he exclaimed. "She had such faith in him too. Year after year shewas expecting him to go back to her, and she kept me at arm's length,till at last she came to see that both our lives were being sacrificedto a miserable dream. Well, it's my innings now, anyway. And we aregoing to be superbly happy to make up for it."Again he flung out his arms with a wide gesture, and again out of thenight there came a long roll of thunder that was like the menace of atortured thing. A flicker of lightning gleamed through the open door fora moment, and Conyers' dark face was made visible. He had ceased tosmoke, and was staring with fixed, inscrutable eyes into the darkness.He did not flinch from the lightning; it was as if he did not see it."What would she do, I wonder, if the prodigal returned," he saidquietly. "Would she be glad--or sorry?""He never will," returned Hugh quickly. "He never can--after fifteenyears. Think of it! Besides--she wouldn't have him if he did.""Women are proverbially faithful," remarked Conyers cynically."She will stick to me now," Hugh returned with confidence. "The otherfellow is probably dead. In any case, he has no shadow of a right overher. He never even asked her to wait for him.""Possibly he thought that she would wait without being asked," saidConyers, still cynical."Well, she has ceased to care for him now," asserted Hugh. "She told meso herself."The man opposite shifted his position ever so slightly. "And you aresatisfied with that?" he said."Of course I am. Why not?" There was almost a challenge in Hugh's voice."And if he came back?" persisted the other. "You would still besatisfied?"Hugh sprang to his feet with a movement of fierce impatience. "I believeI should shoot him!" he said vindictively. He looked like a splendidwild animal suddenly awakened. "I tell you, Conyers," he declaredpassionately, "I could kill him with my hands if he came between usnow."Conyers, his chin on his hand, looked him up and down as thoughappraising his strength.Suddenly he sat bolt upright and spoke--spoke briefly, sternly, harshly,as a man speaks in the presence of his enemy. At the same instant afrightful crash of thunder swept the words away as though they had neverbeen uttered.In the absolute pandemonium of sound that followed, Hugh Palliser, witha face gone suddenly white, went over to his friend and stood behindhim, his hands upon his shoulders.But Conyers sat quite motionless, staring forth at the leapinglightning, rigid, sphinx-like. He did not seem aware of the man behindhim, till, as the uproar began to subside, Hugh bent and spoke."Do you know, old chap, I'm scared!" he said, with a faint, shamedlaugh. "I feel as if there were devils abroad. Speak to me, will you,and tell me I'm a fool!""You are," said Conyers, without turning."That lightning is too much for my nerves," said Hugh uneasily. "It'salmost red. What was it you said just now? I couldn't hear a word.""It doesn't matter," said Conyers."But what was it? I want to know."The gleam in the fixed eyes leaped to sudden terrible flame, shone hotlyfor a few seconds, then died utterly away. "I don't remember," saidConyers quietly. "It couldn't have been anything of importance. Have adrink! You will have to be getting back as soon as this is over."Hugh helped himself with a hand that was not altogether steady. Therehad come a lull in the tempest. The cartoon on the wall was flutteringlike a caged thing. He glanced at it, then looked at it closely. It wasa reproduction of Dore's picture of Satan falling from heaven."It isn't meant for you surely!" he said.Conyers laughed and got to his feet. "It isn't much like me, is it?"Hugh looked at him uncertainly. "I never noticed it before. It mighthave been you years ago.""Ah, perhaps," said Conyers. "Why don't you drink? I thought you weregoing to give me a toast."Hugh's mood changed magically. He raised his glass high. "Here's to youreternal welfare, dear fellow! I drink to your heart's desire."Conyers waited till Hugh had drained his glass before he lifted his own.Then, "I drink to the one woman," he said, and emptied it at a draught.* * * * *The storm was over, and a horse's feet clattered away into the darkness,mingling rhythmically with a cheery tenor voice.In the room with the open door a man's figure stood for a long whilemotionless.When he moved at length it was to open the locked drawer of thewriting-table. His right hand felt within it, closed upon something thatlay there; and then he paused.Several minutes crawled away.From afar there came the long rumble of thunder. But it was not thisthat he heard as he stood wrestling with the fiercest temptation he hadever known.Stiffly at last he stooped, peered into the drawer, finally closed itwith an unfaltering hand. The struggle was over."For your sake, Damaris!" he said aloud, and he spoke without cynicism."I should know how to wait by now--even for death--which is all I haveto wait for."And with that he pulled the fluttering paper from the wall, crushed itin his hand, and went out heavily into the night.
Those Who Wait was featured as
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Mon, Sep 30, 2013
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