Florence L. Barclay - The Upas Tree

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[Illustration: "That figure was not his own."

From a drawing by F.H. Townsend. (_page 202_)]

The Upas Tree

_A Christmas Story for all the Year_

By

Florence L. Barclay

_Author of "The Rosary," etc_

G.P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London

The Knickerbocker Press

1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912

BY

FLORENCE L. BARCLAY

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

To

V.C.B.

53-22146 CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER PAGE

I.--WHICH SHALL SPEAK FIRST? 13

II.--THE SOB OF THE WOMAN 29

III.--HELEN TAKES THE INITIATIVE 40

IV.--FIRELIGHT IN THE STUDIO 44

PART II

V.--THE INFANT OF PRAGUE 67

VI.--AUBREY PUTS DOWN HIS FOOT 97

VII.--A FRIEND IN NEED 113

VIII.--PARADISE LOST 129

IX.--THE PINNACLE OF THE TEMPLE 137

PART III

X.--RONNIE ARRIVES IN A FOG 149

XI.--THE MIRAGE 160

XII.--A FRIEND IN DEED 174

XIII.--RONNIE FACES THE UPAS 192

XIV.--AS IN A MIRROR 200

PART IV

XV.--"THE FOG LIFTS" 209

XVI.--"HE _MUST_ REMEMBER" 223

XVII.--"HE NEVER KNEW!" 246

XVIII.--THE FACE IN THE MIRROR 258

XIX.--UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN 271

XX.--GOOD-NIGHT TO THE INFANT OF
PRAGUE 283

Part I CHAPTER I

WHICH SHALL SPEAK FIRST?

Ronald West stood at the window of his wife's sitting-room, looking
across the bright garden-borders to the wide park beyond, and wondering
how on earth he should open the subject of which his mind had been full
during their morning ride.

He had swung off his own horse a few moments before; thrown the bridle
to a waiting groom, and made his way round to her stirrup. Then he had
laid his hand upon Silverheels' mane, and looking up into his wife's
glowing, handsome face, he had said: "May I come to your room for a
talk, Helen? I have something very important to tell you."

Helen had smiled down upon him.

"I thought my cavalier was miles away from his horse and his wife,
during most of the ride. But, if he proposes taking me on the same
distant journey, he shall be forgiven. Also, I have something to tell
_you_, Ronnie, and I see the turret clock gives us an hour before
luncheon. I must scribble out a message for the village; then I will
come to you at once, without stopping to change."

She laid her hand on his shoulder, and dropped lightly to the ground.
Then, telling the groom to wait, she passed into the hall.

Ronald left her standing at the table, walked into the sitting-room
alone, and suddenly realised that when you have thought of a thing
continuously, day and night, during the best part of a week, and kept it
to yourself, it is not easy to begin explaining it to another
person--even though that other person be your always kind, always
understanding, altogether perfect wife!

He had forgotten to leave his hat and gloves in the hall. He now tossed
them into a chair--Helen's own particular chair it so happened--but kept
his riding-crop in his hand, and thwacked his leather gaiters with it,
as he stood in the bay window.

It was such a perfect spring morning! The sun shone in through the
old-fashioned lattice panes.

Some silly old person of a bygone century had scratched with a diamond
on one of these a rough cross, and beneath it the motto: _In hoc vince_.

Ronald had inveighed against this. If Helen's old ancestor, having
nothing better to do, had wanted to write down a Latin motto, he should
have put it in his pocket-book, or, better still, on the even more
transitory pages of the blotter, instead of scribbling on the beautiful
diamond panes of the old Grange windows. But Helen had laughed and said:
"I should think he lived before the time of blotters, dear! No doubt the
morning sun was shining on the glass, Ronnie, as he stood at the
window. It was of the cross gleaming in the sunlight, that he wrote: _In
this conquer_. If we could but remember it, the path of self-sacrifice
and clear shining is always the way to victory."

Helen invariably stood up for her ancestors, which was annoying to a
very modern young man who, not being aware of possessing any, considered
ancestors unnecessary and obsolete.

But to-day the glittering letters shone out to him as an omen.

He meant to conquer, in this, as in all else.

It was curious that Helen should have chanced upon the simile of a
distant journey. Another good omen! _In hoc vince!_

He heard her coming.

Now--how should he begin? He must be very tactful. He must break it to
her gently.

Helen, closing the door behind her, came slowly down the sunny room. The
graceful lines of her tall figure looked well, in the severe simplicity
of her riding-habit. Her mass of beautiful hair was tucked away beneath
her riding-hat. But nothing could take from the calm sweetness of her
face, nor the steady expectant kindness of her eyes. Helen's eyes always
looked out upon the world, as if they expected to behold a Vision
Beautiful.

As she moved towards the bay window, she was considering whether she
would decide to have her say first, or whether she would let Ronnie
begin. Her wonderful news was so all-important. Having made up her mind
that the time had come when she might at last share it with Ronnie, it
seemed almost impossible to wait one moment before telling him. On the
other hand, it would be so absorbing to them both, that probably
Ronnie's subject would be allowed to lapse, completely forgotten and
unmentioned. Nothing which was of even the most transitory interest to
Ronnie, ever met this fate at his wife's hands. Therefore the very
certainty that her news would outweigh his, inclined her to let him
speak first.

She was spared the responsibility of decision.

Ronald, turning quickly, faced his wife. Hesitation seemed futile;
promptness, essential. _In hoc vince!_

"Helen," he said, "I want to go to Central Africa."

Helen looked at him in silence, during a moment of immense astonishment.

Then she lifted his hat and gloves, laid them upon a table, seated
herself in her easy-chair, and carefully flicked some specks of dust
from her riding-habit.

"That is a long way to want to go, darling," she said, quietly. "But I
can see you think something of imperative importance is calling you
there. Sit down and tell me all about it, right from the beginning. It
is a far cry from our happy, beautiful life here, to Central Africa. You
have jumped me to the goal, without any knowledge of the way. Now
suppose you take me gently along your mental route."

Ronald flung himself, with a sigh of relief, into the deep basket-work
chair opposite Helen's. His boyish face cleared visibly; then
brightened into enthusiasm. He stretched out his legs, put his hands
behind his head, and looked admiringly across at his wife.

"Helen, you are so perfectly splendid in always understanding, always
making it quite easy for a fellow to tell you things. You have a way of
looking past all minor details, straight to the great essentials. Most
women would stand----"

"Never mind what most women would do, Ronnie. I never stand, if I can
sit down! It is a waste of useful energy. But you must tell me 'the
great essentials,' as they appear to you, if I am to view them properly.
Why do you want to go to Central Africa?"

Ronald leapt up and stood with his back to the mantel-piece.

"Helen, I have a new plot; a quite wonderful love-story; better than
anything I have done yet. But the scene is laid in Central Africa, and I
must go out there to get the setting vivid and correct. You remember how
thrilled we were the other day, by the account of that missionary chap,
who disappeared into the long grass, thirteen feet high, over twenty
years ago; lived and worked among the natives, cut off from all
civilisation; then, at last, crawled out again and saw a railway train
for the first time in twenty-three years; got on board, and came home,
full of wonderful tales of his experiences? Well--you know how, after he
had been out there a few years, he found he desperately needed a wife;
remembered a plucky girl he had known when he was a boy in England, and
managed to get a letter home, asking her to come out to him? She came,
and safely reached the place appointed, at the fringe of the wild
growth. There she waited several months. But at last the man who had
called to her in his need, crawled out of the long grass, took her to
himself, and they crawled in again--man and wife--and were seen no more,
until they reappeared many years later. Well--that true story has given
me the idea of a plot, which will, I verily believe, take the world by
storm! So original and thrilling! Far beyond any missionary
love-stories."

Helen's calm eyes looked into the excited shining of his.

"Dear, why shouldn't a missionary's love-story be as exciting as any
other? I don't quite see how you can better the strangely enthralling
tale to which we listened."

"Ah, don't you?" cried Ronald West. "That's because you are not a writer
of romances! My dear girl, _two_ men crawled out of the long grass
thirteen feet high, at the place where the woman was waiting! Two
men--do you see? And the man who crawled out first was _not_ the man who
had sent for her! _He_ turned up just too late. Now, do you see?"

"I see," said Helen. "Thirteen is always apt to be an unlucky number."

"Oh, don't joke!" cried Ronald. "I haven't time to tell you, now, how it
all works out. But it's quite the strongest thing I've thought of yet.
And do you see what it means to me? Think of the weird, mysterious
atmosphere of Central Africa, as a setting for a really strong
love-interest. Imagine three quite modern, present-day people, learning
to know their own hearts and each other's, fighting out the crisis of
their lives according to the accepted rules and standards of twentieth
century civilisation--yet all amongst the wild primitive savagery of
uncivilised tribes, and the extraordinary primeval growths of the
unexplored jungles, where plants ape animals, and animals ape men, and
all nature rears its head with a loose rein, as if defying method, law,
order and construction! Why, merely to walk through some of the tropical
houses at Kew gives one a sort of lawless feeling! If I stay long among
the queer gnarled plants--all spiky and speckled and hairy; squatting,
plump and ungainly on the ground, or spreading huge knotted arms far
overhead, as if reaching out for things they never visibly attain--I
always emerge into the ordinary English atmosphere outside, feeling
altogether unconventional. As I walk across the well-kept lawns, I find
it almost difficult to behave with decorum. It takes me quite a long
time to become really common-place and conventional once more."

Helen smiled. "Darling," she said, "I think you must have visited the
tropical plants in Kew Gardens more frequently than I realised! I shall
have to forbid Kew, when certain important County functions are
pending."

"Oh, bother the County!" cried Ronnie. "I never went in for a French
dancing-master to bid me mind my P's and Q's! But, seriously, Helen,
don't you understand how much this means to me? Both my last novels have
had tame English settings. I can't go on forever letting my people make
love in well-kept gardens!"

"Dear Ronnie, you have a good precedent. The first couple on record made
love in a garden."

"Nonsense, darling! Eden was a quite fascinating jungle, in which all
the wild animals conversed with intelligence and affability. You don't
suppose Eve would have stood there alone, calmly listening while the
serpent talked theology, unless conversations with animals had been an
every-day occurrence. Think how you'd flee to me, if an old cow in the
park suddenly asked you a question. But do let's keep to the point. I've
got a new plot, and I must have a new setting."

"Why not be content to do as you have done before, Ronnie; go on
writing, simply and sincerely, of the life you live and know?"

"Because, my dear girl, in common with the Athenians, people are always
wanting either to tell or to hear some new thing. I've got hold of a
jolly new thing, and I'm going to run it for all it's worth."

Helen considered this in silence.

Ronald walked over to the window, and beat a tattoo upon the _In hoc
vince_ pane.

"Do you see?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, slowly. "I see your point, but I also see danger
ahead. I am so anxious that, in your work, you should keep the object
and motive at the highest; not putting success or popularity in their
wrong place. Let success be the result of good work well
done--conscientiously done. Let popularity follow unsought, simply from
the fact that you have been true to yourself, and to your instinctive
inspiration; that you have seen life at its best, and tried to portray
it at its highest. To go rushing off to Central Africa in order to find
a startling setting, is an angling after originality, which will by no
means ensure doing really better work. Oh, Ronnie, my advice is: be
content to stay at home, and to write truly and sincerely of the things
you know."

Ronald came back to his chair; sat down, his elbows on his knees, his
chin in his hands, and looked earnestly into the troubled eyes of his
wife.

"But, Helen," he said, "that really is not the point. Can't you see that
I am completely possessed by this new plot? Also, that Central Africa is
its only possible setting? It is merely a satisfactory side-issue, that
it varies my _mise-en-scene_."

"Must you go off there, Ronnie, in order to write it? Why not get all
the newest and best books on African travel, and read up facts----"

"Never!" cried Ronald, on his feet again, and walking up and down the
room. "I must be steeped in the wonderful African atmosphere, before I
can sub-consciously work it into my book. No account of other men's
travels could do this for me. Besides, one might get all the main things
correct, yet make a slip in some little unimportant detail. Then,
by-and-by, some Johnny would come along, who could no more have written
a page of your book than he could fly, but who happens to be intimately
acquainted with the locality. He ignores the plot, the character-study,
all the careful work on the essentials; but he spots your trivial error
concerning some completely unimportant detail. So off he writes to the
papers, triumphantly airing his little tit-bit of superior information;
other mediocre people take it up--and you never hear the end of it."

Helen laughed, tender amusement in her eyes.

"Ronnie dear, I admit that not many Johnnies could write your books.
But most Johnnies can fly, now-a-days! You must be more up-to-date in
your similes, old boy; or you will have your wife writing to the papers,
remarking that you are behind the times! But, seriously, Ronnie, you
should be grateful to anybody who takes the trouble to point out an
error, however small, in one of your books. You are keen that your work
should be perfect; and if a mistake is mentioned, it can be set right.
Why, surely you remember, when you read me the scene in the manuscript
you wrote just after our marriage, in which a good lady could not sit
down upon a small chair, owing to her _toupet_, I--your admiring and
awestruck wife--ventured to point out that a _toupet_ was not a
crinoline; and you were quite grateful, Ronnie. You did not consider me
an unappreciative Johnny, nor even a mediocre person! Who has, unknown
to me, been trampling on your susceptibilities?"

"Nobody, thank goodness! I have never written a scene yet, of which I
had not carefully verified every detail of the setting. But it has
happened lots of times to people I know. Unimportant slips never seem to
me to matter in another fellow's work, but they would matter
desperately, horribly, appallingly in one's own. Therefore, nothing will
ever induce me to place the plot of a novel of mine, in surroundings
with which I am not completely familiar. Helen--I must go to Central
Africa."

CHAPTER II

THE SOB OF THE WOMAN

Helen took off her riding-hat, and passed her fingers through the
abundant waves of her hair.

"How long would it take you, Ronnie?" "Well--including the journey out,
and the journey back, I ought to have a clear seven months. If we could
get off in a fortnight, we might be back early in November; anyway, in
plenty of time for Christmas."

"Why do you say 'we,' darling?"

"Why not say 'we'? We always do, don't we?"

"Yes, dear. For three happy years it has always been 'we,' in
everything. We have not been parted for longer than twelve hours at a
time, Ronnie. But I fear Central Africa cannot be 'we.' I do not feel
that I could go out there with you."

"Helen! Why not? I thought you would be keen on it. I thought you were
game to go anywhere!" Amazement and dismay were in his eyes.

She rose slowly, went over to the mantel-piece, moved some little
porcelain figures, then put them back again.

When at length she spoke, she steadied her voice with an effort.

"Ronnie dear, Central Africa is not a place for a woman."

"But, my dearest girl, a woman arrives there in my story! She crawls
into the long grass with the man she loves, and disappears. Our
missionary's bride did it. Where a woman could not go, _I_ must not go
for my local colour. Oh, I say, Helen! You won't fail me?"

He walked over to the window, and drummed again, with restless, nervous
fingers, upon the _In hoc vince_ pane.

She came behind him, laying her hand on his shoulder.

"Darling, it will break my heart if you think I am failing you. But,
while you have been talking, I have faced the matter out, and--I must
tell you at once--I cannot feel it either right or possible to go. I
could not be away just now, for seven months. This place must be looked
after. Think of the little church we are building in the village; the
farms changing tenants this summer; the hundred and one things I, and I
only, must settle and arrange. You never see the bailiff; you hardly
know the tenants; you do not oversee the workpeople. So you can scarcely
judge, dear Ronnie, how important is my presence here; how almost
impossible it would be for me suddenly to go completely out of reach. My
darling--if you keep to it, if you really intend to go, we must face the
fact that it will mean, for us, a long parting."

The tension of suspense held the stillness of the room.

Then: "It is my profession," said Ronald West, huskily. "It is my
career."

She moved round and faced him. They stood looking at one another,
dumbly.

She knew all that was in his mind, and most that was in his heart.

He knew nothing of that which filled her mind at the moment, and only
partly realised the great, unselfish love for him which filled her
heart.

He was completely understood. He rested in that fact, without in the
least comprehending his own lack of comprehension.

Moving close to him, she laid both hands upon his shoulders, hiding her
face in silence against his breast.

He stroked her soft hair--helplessly, tenderly.

With his whole heart he loved her, leaned upon her, needed her. She had
done everything for him; been everything to him.

But he meant to carry his point. He intended to go to Central Africa,
and it was no sort of good pretending he did not. You never pretended
with Helen, because she saw through you immediately, and usually told
you so.

He had not spent a single night away from her since that wonderful day
when, calm and radiant, she had moved up the church in presence of an
admiring crowd, and taken her place at his side.

He was practically unknown then, as a writer. No one but Helen believed
in him, or understood what he had it in him to accomplish. Whereas Helen
herself was the last representative of an ancient County family, owner
of Hollymead Grange, and of a considerable income; courted, admired,
sought after. Yet she gave herself to him, in humble tenderness. Helen
had a royal way of giving. The very way she throned you in her heart,
dropped you on one knee before her footstool.

He had fully justified her belief in him; but he well knew how much of
his success he owed to her. Their love had taught him lessons, given him
ideals which had not been his before.

But there was nothing selfish or sentimental about Helen. When the most
sacred of their experiences crept into his work, and stood revealed for
all the world to read; when his art transferred to hard type, and to the
black and white of print and paper, the magic thrill of Helen's
tenderness, so that all her friends could buy it for four shillings and
sixpence, and discuss it at leisure, Helen never winced. She only smiled
and said: "The world has a right to every beautiful thing we can give
it. I have always felt indignant with the people who collect musical
instruments which they have no intention of playing; who lock up Strads
and Cremonas in glass cases, thus holding them dumb for ever to the
eager ear of a listening world."

Only once, when he had put into a story a tender little name by which
Helen sometimes called him, unable to resist giving his hero the bliss
he, on those rare occasions, himself felt--he found a firm pencil line
drawn through the words, when he looked at the proof sheets, after Helen
had returned them to his desk. She never mentioned the matter to him,
nor did he speak of it to her; but his hero had to forego that
particular thrill, and it was a long time before Ronald himself heard
again the words Helen had deleted.

He heard them now, however--murmured very softly; and he caught her to
him with sudden passion, kissing her hair.

Yet he meant to go. _In hoc vince_. He must conquer his very need of
her, if it came between him and the best thing he had yet done in his
work.

He could not face the thought of the parting; but there was no need to
face that as yet. A whole fortnight intervened. It is useless to suffer
a pang until the pang is actually upon you. Besides, every
experience--however hard to bear--is of value. How much more harrowing
and vivid would be his next description of a parting----

Then, suddenly, Ronald felt ashamed. His arms dropped from around her.
He knew himself unworthy--in a momentary flash of self-revelation he
knew himself utterly unworthy--of Helen's generous love, and noble
womanhood.

"My wife," he said, "I won't go. It isn't worth it."

Her arms strained around him, and he heard her sob; and, alas--it was
the sob of the woman in the long grass, when she clung to the man who
had crawled out first. His plot stood out to him once more as the
supreme thing.

"At least," he added, "it wouldn't be worth it, if it costs you so much.
It _is_ my strongest plot, but I will give it up if you would rather I
stayed at home."

Then Helen loosed her detaining arms, and lifting a brave white face,
smiled at him through her tears.

"No, Ronnie," she said. "I promised, when we married, always to help you
with your work and to make it easy. I am not going to fail you now. If
the new book requires a parting, we will face it bravely. At the present
moment we both need luncheon, and I must get out of my habit. Ring, and
tell them we shall not be ready for a quarter of an hour, there's a dear
boy! And think of something really funny to tell me at lunch.
Afterwards we will discuss plans."

She had reached the door when Ronald suddenly called after her: "Helen!
Hadn't you something to tell me, too?"

She turned in the doorway. Her face was gay with smiles.

"Oh, mine must wait," she said. "Your new plot, and the wonderful
journey it involves, require our undivided attention."

The sun shone very brightly just then. It touched the halo of Helen's
soft hair, turning it to gold. _In hoc vince_ gleamed upon the pane.

For a moment she stood in the doorway, giving him a chance to insist
upon hearing that which she had to tell. But Ronald, easily satisfied,
turned and rang the bell.

"All right, sweet," he said. "How lovely you look in the sunshine! If it
was business, or anything worrying, I would certainly rather not hear it
now. You have bucked me up splendidly, Helen. Seven months seem nothing;
and my whole mind is bounding forward into my story. I really must give
you an outline of the plot." He followed her into the hall. "Helen! Do
come back for a minute."

But Helen was half way up the stairs. He heard her laugh as she reached
the landing.

"I am hungry, dear," she called over the banisters, "and so are you,
only you don't know it! Crawl out of your long grass, and make yourself
presentable before the gong sounds; or I shall send bananas for one, to
your study!"

"All right!" he shouted; gave Helen's message to the butler; then went
through the billiard-room, whistling gaily.

"Why, she is as keen as I am," he said to himself, as he turned on the
hot and cold water taps. "And she is perfectly right about not coming
with me. Of course it's jolly hard to leave her; but I believe I shall
do better work alone."

His mind went back to Helen's bright face in the doorway. He realised
her mastery, for his sake, of her own dread of the parting.

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