“monimé!” he repeated. “don’t you know me? i’m jim—jim easton.”
for a moment yet she did not speak. he could feel her hand trembling a little in his, and the movement of her breast revealed the haste of her breathing. she leaned back against the jamb of the door, and her eyes turned towards the garden behind her, as though she were contemplating flight into its shadows.
when at last she spoke, her words came rapidly. “why have you come to cyprus?” she asked passionately; and the sound of her voice brought a half-forgotten alexandrian night racing back to his consciousness. “you couldn’t have known i was here, and nobody knows who i am. how did you find out where i lived?” she moved her head from side to side in a kind of anguish which he did not understand. “i don’t know that there is any need for you in the villa nasayan.”
“nasayan?” he repeated, in query. “is that the name of this house?” she nodded her head. “that’s the arabic for ‘forgetfulness,’” he said. “why did you give it such a name?”
her answer faltered. the serenity with which he associated her in his memory had temporarily left her. “there was much to forget,” she replied, “and much has been forgotten. cyprus is called ‘the[196] island of forgetfulness.’ it is wonderful how bad one’s memory becomes here.”
she laughed nervously, and again put her hand to her head. the fingers of her other hand drummed upon the wall. “why have you come?” she repeated.
“there was no reason,” he said. “i just thought i’d like to see cyprus. i had no idea you were here. i only arrived to-day: i was just strolling about after dinner....”
“it’s more than four years,” she murmured. “four years is a very long time. it was all so long ago, jim, wasn’t it? nobody can remember things as long ago as that, can they?”
she withdrew her hand from his, and stood staring at him with a baffling half-smile upon her lips. his heart sank, for it seemed to him that she was not minded to revive that dream of the past which to him had suddenly leapt once more into vivid reality.
“i have never forgotten,” he whispered, though he knew that the words needed qualification. “i knew it was you, almost before i saw your face.” he hesitated. “may i come into your garden?”
she allowed him to enter, and closed the door behind him. together they walked in silence to a stone bench which stood in the moonlight beneath a dark cypress-tree; and here they seated themselves, side by side.
for a while they talked; but it was a sort of fencing with words, he thrusting and she parrying. he did not know what he said; for all his actual consciousness went out to her, not through speech, but through a kind of contact of their hidden hearts.
[197]
then, without further preliminaries, she turned on him. “you say you have never forgotten,” she laughed. “but when you say that you are deceiving yourself, or trying to deceive me. i don’t like to hear you making conventional remarks, jim: i have always thought of you as frank to the point of rudeness. be frank with me now, and admit that you regarded our time together as a little episode in your wandering life, and that you went on your way without another thought for me....”
he interrupted her. “was that how you felt about me?—you forgot me, too, didn’t you?”
“with a woman it is different,” she replied. “one is not always able to forget so soon.”
“but why didn’t you tell me your name, or give me some address?” he asked. “i wrote to you from the ship: i posted the letter at marseilles. didn’t you get it?”
“no,” she answered. “i stayed on at the beaux-esprits for a week or so, but nothing came. i left an address when i went away: i’m sure i did.”
he laughed. “i think you must have forgotten to. we are both just tramps....”
she made a gesture of deprecation. “at first i wanted to find you again very badly,” she said, turning her face from him. “i made inquiries, but nobody seemed to know anything about you. i remembered you said you’d inherited some property, and i even got a friend in england to look up recent wills and bequests for the name of easton, but no trace could be found. then, somehow, it didn’t seem to matter any more, and i told him not to look for you further.”
[198]
“then you did care ...?”
“who can tell?” she smiled, and her words baffled him, as did also the expression of her face in the moonlight.
“why didn’t you tell me your name?” he asked. “i don’t yet know it.”
she looked at him in surprise. “my name is still ‘smith,’” she laughed.
“i don’t believe you,” he answered.
she shrugged her shoulders. “they all know me as that in this place—just ‘mrs. smith.’”
“it used to be miss smith,” he said.
“one causes less comment as a married woman,” she explained. “such friends as i have suppose that i am a widow who, being an artist, has come to live here because of the picturesqueness of the place and its cheapness.”
“and what is the real reason?” he asked, looking intently into her eyes.
of a sudden she rose from the bench, and stood before him, her back to the moon, the light of which made a shining aureole round her hair. her left hand was laid across her breast; the other was clenched at her side.
“jim, i beg you ...” she said. “this is the island of forgetfulness, and you have strayed here, bringing memory with you. there is no need for you in nasayan. for my sake, for your own sake, go, i beg you. there is something here which we have in common, and yet which separates us: something which to me is a garland of paradise, and which to you might be like the chains of hell. i beg you, i beg you: go away! go back to the open road[199] and the bedouin life. leave me in nasayan, in oblivion. i don’t want you to know more than this. i swear to you there is no call for you to stay. you have your wandering life: the hills and the valleys and the cities of the whole world are before you. don’t stay here, don’t try to look into nasayan....”
her voice faltered, her gestures were those of pleading, yet even so she appeared to him to have that regal attitude which he remembered now so well.
the meaning of her words, the cause of their intensity, were obscure to him. his mind was confused, and there was a quality of dream in their situation. the black cypress trees which shot up around them into the pale sky like monstrous sentinels; the little orange-trees fantastically decked with their golden fruit; the tiled and moon-splashed pathways; the white walls of the villa, clad with rich creepers; the heavy scent of luxuriant flowers; the sparkling water in the marble basin of the fountain—all these things seemed unreal to him. they were like a legendary setting for the mysterious figure standing before him, a figure, so it seemed to him, of a queen of some kingdom of the old world, left solitary amongst the living long ages after her advisers and her palaces had crumbled to dust in the grasp of time.
“i don’t understand,” he said, rising and confronting her. “what is the secret about you?—there was always mystery around you.”
“no,” she answered. “there was no mystery four years ago, except the mystery of our dream. my secret then was only a small matter. i was just a runaway. i had left my husband because i wanted[200] my freedom, and to follow my art in freedom. i had changed my name because i feared to be called back. but now he is dead, and i have nothing to fear in that direction.... no, there was no secret—then.”
“but now?—please tell me, monimé,” he urged. “i want to know, i must know.”
once more she fenced with him, and their words became useless. at length, however, his questions brought a crisis near to them again. she clenched and unclenched her hands. “i beg you, go away now,” she urged. “forget me; go back to your freedom. there is something here which will trap you if you stay. oh, can’t you understand? don’t you see that i can’t tell whether fate has brought you here for your happiness, or even for my happiness, or whether it is for our sorrow that you have been brought. i can’t tell, i can’t tell! we are almost strangers to one another.”
he put his arms about her and held her to him. she neither shrank from him, nor responded to him. at that moment all else in time, all else in life, was blotted from his mind, and he knew only that he had found again the lost gateway of his dreams.
“you must speak out,” he cried. “i must know all that there is to know about you. you must explain what you mean.”
she made a movement from him, and suddenly it seemed that her mind was resolved. “very well, then,” she said. “come with me into the house.”
she led the way in silence down the pathway, and through a doorway almost hidden beneath the[201] creepers. a dark passage, screened by a curtain, led into a square hall, softly lit by candles; and at one side of this a stone staircase passed up to a gallery from which two doors opened.
to one of these doors she brought him, a shaded candle held in her hand. her face was turned from him as they entered the room, and he could not tell what her expression might be; but her step was stealthy and her finger was held up.
then, suddenly, as in a flash, he understood; and instantly he knew what he was going to see in the little bed which stood against the wall.
she held the candle aloft and motioned him silently to approach the bed. it was only a mop of dark curls that he could see, and a chubby face half buried in the pillows.
he turned to her with a burning question on his lips, but the beating of his heart seemed to deprive him of the power of speech. she nodded gently to him, her face once more serene and calm, and now, too, very proud.
“he is your son,” she said.
with a quick eager movement he pulled the light blanket back, and snatched up the sleeping little figure in his arms. even though the eyes were tight shut, the mouth absurdly open, and the head falling loosely from side to side, he saw at once the likeness to himself, and to all the tundering-wests at whose portraits he had gazed during those years at eversfield. his heart leapt within him.
“don’t wake him!” she exclaimed, hastening forward; and as she laid the child upon the bed once more jim saw her revealed in a new aspect—that of[202] a mother. her attitude as she bent over the sleeping form, the encircling, protecting arms, the crooning words—they were tokens of a sort of universal motherhood. she was isis, the mother-goddess of egypt; she was hathor; she was venus genetrix; she was mary. upon her broad bosom she nursed for ever the child of man; and her lips smiled eternally with the pride of creation.
silently he watched her as she smoothed the pillows, and there came to him the memory of that day at alexandria when he had awakened from unconsciousness to find her leaning over him, her hand upon his forehead; and suddenly he seemed to understand the nature of one of the veils of mystery which enwrapped her, and which, indeed, enwraps all women who are true to their sex. it is the veil which hangs before the sanctuary of motherhood aglow with the inner illumination of the everlasting wisdom of maternity.
an overwhelming emotion shook his life to its foundations: he could have gone down on his knees and kissed the hem of her garment. he could not trust himself to speak, but silently he took her hand in his and pressed it to his dry lips.
she led him out of the room and down the stairs; and presently they were seated once more upon the bench in the moonlight. in answer to his eager questions, she told him in a low voice how she had hidden herself in constantinople when her time was approaching, and how the baby was born in a convent-hospital. she had found in the city an english nurse, the widow of a soldier, and at length with her[203] she had taken ship to cyprus, and had rented this house.
“i want you to understand,” she said, “that there is no obligation of any kind upon you. here in nicosia there are a few english people: they have received me without question, and i am not lonely. i send my pictures to london from time to time, and the money i receive for them is ample for my needs. when my boy is a little older i will take him to some place in italy or france where he can be educated and i can paint. don’t think that there is any call upon you: don’t feel that here is a chain to bind you....”
he stopped her with an excited gesture. “you don’t understand. this is the most wonderful thing that could possibly have happened to me. i want you to let me stay on at the hotel, and come over to see you every day.... may i come to-morrow morning?—i must see that boy when he’s awake. my son! he’s my son! good lord!—i’ve never felt so all up in the air before.”
a sudden thought frenzied him. if only he had known her address, or she had known his, his disastrous marriage would never have taken place. he would have married monimé, and ultimately this little son of theirs would have been the tundering-west of eversfield manor. but now, the boy was nameless, and the inheritance was gone as the price of freedom.
“oh, monimé,” he cried. “how can you ever forgive me? oh, why, why didn’t i cable to you after i left egypt?—why didn’t we keep in touch?”
he paced to and fro, running his fingers through[204] his dark hair and pulling at it so that it fell over his forehead. his eyes were wild, and his face looked white and haggard in the moonlight.
“the fault was as much mine as yours,” she declared. “it was just bedouin love, and we let it slip from us. we dreamed our dreams, and in the morning we went our ways, like the tramps that we are. and then when i found that i had need of you, it was too late....”
“but now we must make up for it,” he said. “we must never lose each other again. i love you, monimé. i believe i have always loved you, somewhere at the back of my mind.”
she smiled the wise smile of the old gods. “it was four years ago,” she said, “and our little dream was so short. in a way we are strangers to one another.”
presently she rose, and told him that he must go. “the hotel keeps early hours,” she said.
she led him to the door of the garden, but to his fervent adieux she gave no great response. the expression on her face was placid once more, and his excited senses could make nothing of it.
he walked down the silent, medi?val street oblivious to his surroundings. behind a shuttered window there were sounds of the rhythmic beating of a tambourine and the twanging of some sort of stringed instrument; but he heeded them not. a cloaked and hooded figure, leaning upon a staff, passed him, and bade him “good-night” in arabic; but he did not respond. he entered the hotel, and walked up the steps to his bedroom without any real consciousness of his actions.
his whole being was, as it were, in an uproar, and[205] his emotions were playing riot with his reason. he had chanced again upon the woman he had loved and almost forgotten, the woman he ought to have married; and suddenly the great miracle had been wrought within him, and he was deeply, wildly, madly in love with her. she was the mother of his son—his son, his son, his son!
over and over again, he repeated it to himself, and the words seemed to go roaring like a tempest through the crowded halls of his thoughts. but presently, as he sat upon the foot of his bed, new whirlwinds of actuality came to the assault, and scattered the shouting multitude of his dreams.
if he married monimé he would be a bigamist, and within the reach of the law. if he told her that he was married he might lose her for ever. even if he kept his real identity a secret, and risked detection, the fact remained that he had thrown away his home and his fortune, and had nothing in prospect when his present means were exhausted.
for the first time since the early days of his inheritance he realized the value of the property to which he had succeeded, he realized the merit of the name he had abandoned. in later years how could he ever look his son in the face, and tell him of the home and income that had been thrown away? yet if he kept his secret, how could he endure to live daily to monimé a fundamental lie?
bitterly he reproached himself for his past actions. bitterly he cursed dolly for her part in the dilemma. there seemed no way out of the mess; and far into the night he sat with his head resting upon his hands, his fingers deep in his hair.
