Wilfrid Cumbermede

‘You and I seem destined to have adventures together, Clara,’ I said.

‘It seems so. But this is not so much of an adventure as that night on the leads,’ she answered.

‘You would not have thought so if you had been with me in the morning.’

‘Were you very much frightened?’

‘I was. And then to think of finding you!’

‘It was funny, certainly.’

When we reached the house, there was great jubilation over me, but Mr Forest himself was very serious. He had not been back more than half an hour, and was just getting ready to set out again, accompanied by men from the village below. Most of the boys were quite knocked up, for they had been looking for me ever since they missed me. Charley was in a dreadful way. When he saw me he burst into tears, and declared he would never let me go out of his sight again. But if he had been with me, it would have been death to both of us: I could never have got him over the ground.

Mr and Mrs Forest received their visitors with the greatest cordiality, and invited them to spend a day or two with them, to which, after some deliberation, Mr Coningham agreed.

CHAPTER XVIII. AGAIN THE ICE-CAVE

The next morning he begged a holiday for me and Charley, of whose family he knew something, although he was not acquainted with them. I was a little disappointed at Charley’s being included in the request, not in the least from jealousy, but because I had set my heart on taking Clara to the cave in the ice, which I knew Charley would not like. But I thought we could easily arrange to leave him somewhere near until we returned. I spoke to Mr Coningham about it, who entered into my small scheme with the greatest kindness. Charley confided to me afterwards that he did not take to him—he was too like an ape, he said. But the impression of his ugliness had with me quite worn off; and for his part, if I had been a favourite nephew, he could not have been more complaisant and hearty.

I felt very stiff when we set out, and altogether not quite myself; but the discomfort wore off as we went. Charley had Mr Coningham’s horse, and I walked by the side of Clara’s, eager after any occasion, if but a pretence, of being useful to her. She was quite familiar with me, but seemed shy of Charley. He looked much more of a man than I; for not only, as I have said, had he grown much during his illness, but there was an air of troubled thoughtfulness about him which made him look considerably older than he really was; while his delicate complexion and large blue eyes had a kind of mystery about them that must have been very attractive.

When we reached the village, I told Charley that we wanted to go on foot to the cave, and hoped he would not mind waiting our return. But he refused to be left, declaring he should not mind going in the least; that he was quite well now, and ashamed of his behaviour on the former occasion; that, in fact, it must have been his approaching illness that caused it. I could not insist, and we set out. The footpath led us through fields of corn, with a bright sun overhead, and a sweet wind blowing. It was a glorious day of golden corn, gentle wind, and blue sky—with great masses of white snow, whiter than any cloud, held up in it.

We descended the steep bank; we crossed the wooden bridge over the little river; we crunched under our feet the hail-like crystals lying rough on the surface of the glacier; we reached the cave, and entered its blue abyss. I went first into the delicious, yet dangerous-looking blue. The cave had several sharp angles in it. When I reached the furthest corner I turned to look behind me. I was alone. I walked back and peeped round the last corner. Between that and the one beyond it stood Clara and Charley—staring at each other with faces of ghastly horror.

Clara’s look certainly could not have been the result of any excess of imagination. But many women respond easily to influences they could not have originated. My conjecture is that the same horror had again seized upon Charley when he saw Clara; that it made his face, already deathlike, tenfold more fearful; that Clara took fright at his fear, her imagination opening like a crystal to the polarized light of reflected feeling; and thus they stood in the paralysis of a dismay which ever multiplied itself in the opposed mirrors of their countenances.

I too was in terror—for Charley, and certainly wasted no time in speculation. I went forward instantly, and put an arm round each. They woke up, as it were, and tried to laugh. But the laugh was worse than the stare. I hurried them out of the place.

We came upon Mr Coningham round the next corner, amusing himself with the talk of the half-silly guide.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘Out again,’ I answered. ‘The air is oppressive.’

‘Nonsense!’ he said merrily. ‘The air is as pure as it is cold. Come, Clara; I want to explore the penetralia of this temple of Isis.’

I believe he intended a pun.

Clara turned with him; Charley and I went out into the sunshine.

‘You should not have gone, Charley. You have caught a chill again,’ I said.

‘No, nothing of the sort,’ he answered. ‘Only it was too dreadful. That lovely face! To see it like that—and know that is what it is coming to!’

‘You looked as horrid yourself,’ I returned.

‘I don’t doubt it. We all did. But why?’

‘Why, just because of the blueness,’ I answered.

‘Yes—the blueness, no doubt. That was all. But there it was, you know.’

Clara came out smiling. All her horror had vanished. I was looking into the hole as she turned the last corner. When she first appeared, her face was ‘like one that hath been seven days drowned;’ but as she advanced, the decay thinned, and the life grew, until at last she stepped from the mouth of the sepulchre in all the glow of her merry youth. It was a dumb show of the resurrection.

As we went back to the inn, Clara, who was walking in front with her father, turned her head and addressed me suddenly.

‘You see it was all a sham, Wilfrid!’ she said.

‘What was a sham? I don’t know what you mean,’ I rejoined.

‘Why that,’ she returned, pointing with her hand. Then addressing her father, ‘Isn’t that the Eiger,’ she asked—‘the same we rode under yesterday?’

‘To be sure it is,’ he answered.

She turned again to me.

‘You see it is all a sham! Last night it pretended to be on the very edge of the road and hanging over our heads at an awful height. Now it has gone a long way back, is not so very high, and certainly does not hang over. I ought not to have been satisfied with that precipice. It took me in.’

I did not reply at once. Clara’s words appeared to me quite irreverent, and I recoiled from the very thought that there could be any sham in nature; but what to answer her I did not know. I almost began to dislike her; for it is often incapacity for defending the faith they love which turns men into persecutors.

Seeing me foiled, Charley advanced with the doubtful aid of a sophism to help me.

‘Which is the sham, Miss Clara?’ he asked.

‘That Eiger mountain there.’

‘Ah! so I thought.’

‘Then you are of my opinion, Mr Osborne?’

‘You mean the mountain is shamming, don’t you—looking far off when really it is near?’

‘Not at all. When it looked last night as if it hung right over our heads, it was shamming. See it now—far away there!’

‘But which, then, is the sham, and which is the true? It looked near yesterday, and now it looks far away. Which is which?’

‘It must have been a sham yesterday; for although it looked near, it was very dull and dim, and you could only see the sharp outline of it.’

‘Just so I argue on the other side. The mountain must be shamming now, for although it looks so far off, it yet shows a most contradictory clearness—not only of outline but of surface.’

‘Aha!’ thought I, ‘Miss Clara has found her match. They both know he is talking nonsense, yet she can’t answer him. What she was saying was nonsense too, but I can’t answer it either—not yet.’

I felt proud of both of them, but of Charley especially, for I had had no idea he could be so quick.

‘What ever put such an answer into your head, Charley?’ I exclaimed.

‘Oh! it’s not quite original,’ he returned. ‘I believe it was suggested by two or three lines I read in a review just before we left home. They took hold of me rather.’