When Christian went that evening to her uncle's room he was sitting up
in bed, and at once began to talk. “Chris,” he said, “I can't stand this
dying by inches. I'm going to try what a journey'll do for me. I want
to get back to the old country. The doctor's promised. There's a shot
in the locker yet! I believe in that young chap; he's stuck to me like
a man.... It'll be your birthday, on Tuesday, old girl, and you'll be
twenty. Seventeen years since your father died. You've been a lot to
me.... A parson came here today. That's a bad sign. Thought it his duty!
Very civil of him! I wouldn't see him, though. If there's anything
in what they tell you, I'm not going to sneak in at this time o' day.
There's one thing that's rather badly on my mind. I took advantage of
Mr. Harz with this damned pitifulness of mine. You've a right to look at
me as I've seen you sometimes when you thought I was asleep. If I hadn't
been ill he'd never have left you. I don't blame you, Chris—not I! You
love me? I know that, my dear. But one's alone when it comes to the
run-in. Don't cry! Our minds aren't Sunday-school books; you're finding
it out, that's all!” He sighed and turned away.
The noise of sun-blinds being raised vibrated through the house. A
feeling of terror seized on the girl; he lay so still, and yet the
drawing of each breath was a fight. If she could only suffer in his
place! She went close, and bent over him.
“It's air we want, both you and I!” he muttered. Christian beckoned to
the nurse, and stole out through the window.
A regiment was passing in the road; she stood half-hidden amongst the
lilac bushes watching. The poplar leaves drooped lifeless and almost
black above her head, the dust raised by the soldiers' feet hung in
the air; it seemed as if in all the world no freshness and no life were
stirring. The tramp of feet died away. Suddenly within arm's length of
her a man appeared, his stick shouldered like a sword. He raised his
hat.
“Good-evening! You do not remember me? Sarelli. Pardon! You looked like
a ghost standing there. How badly those fellows marched! We hang, you
see, on the skirts of our profession and criticise; it is all we are fit
for.” His black eyes, restless and malevolent like a swan's, seemed to
stab her face. “A fine evening! Too hot. The storm is wanted; you feel
that? It is weary waiting for the storm; but after the storm, my dear
young lady, comes peace.” He smiled, gently, this time, and baring his
head again, was lost to view in the shadow of the trees.
His figure had seemed to Christian like the sudden vision of a
threatening, hidden force. She thrust out her hands, as though to keep
it off.
No use; it was within her, nothing could keep it away! She went to Mrs.
Decie's room, where her aunt and Miss Naylor were conversing in low
tones. To hear their voices brought back the touch of this world of
everyday which had no part or lot in the terrifying powers within her.
Dawney slept at the Villa now. In the dead of night he was awakened by
a light flashed in his eyes. Christian was standing there, her face pale
and wild with terror, her hair falling in dark masses on her shoulders.
“Save him! Save him!” she cried. “Quick! The bleeding!”
He saw her muffle her face in her white sleeves, and seizing the candle,
leaped out of bed and rushed away.
The internal haemorrhage had come again, and Nicholas Treffry wavered
between life and death. When it had ceased, he sank into a sort of
stupor. About six o'clock he came back to consciousness; watching his
eyes, they could see a mental struggle taking place within him. At last
he singled Christian out from the others by a sign.
“I'm beat, Chris,” he whispered. “Let him know, I want to see him.”
His voice grew a little stronger. “I thought that I could see it
through—but here's the end.” He lifted his hand ever so little, and let
it fall again. When told a little later that a telegram had been sent to
Harz his eyes expressed satisfaction.
Herr Paul came down in ignorance of the night's events. He stopped in
front of the barometer and tapped it, remarking to Miss Naylor: “The
glass has gone downstairs; we shall have cool weather—it will still go
well with him!”
When, with her brown face twisted by pity and concern, she told him that
it was a question of hours, Herr Paul turned first purple, then
pale, and sitting down, trembled violently. “I cannot believe it,” he
exclaimed almost angrily. “Yesterday he was so well! I cannot believe
it! Poor Nicholas! Yesterday he spoke to me!” Taking Miss Naylor's hand,
he clutched it in his own. “Ah!” he cried, letting it go suddenly, and
striking at his forehead, “it is too terrible; only yesterday he spoke
to me of sherry. Is there nobody, then, who can do good?”
“There is only God,” replied Miss Naylor softly.
“God?” said Herr Paul in a scared voice.
“We—can—all—pray to Him,” Miss Naylor murmured; little spots of colour
came into her cheeks. “I am going to do it now.”
Herr Paul raised her hand and kissed it.
“Are you?” he said; “good! I too.” He passed through his study door,
closed it carefully behind him, then for some unknown reason set his
back against it. Ugh! Death! It came to all! Some day it would come to
him. It might come tomorrow! One must pray!
The day dragged to its end. In the sky clouds had mustered, and,
crowding close on one another, clung round the sun, soft, thick,
greywhite, like the feathers on a pigeon's breast. Towards evening
faint tremblings were felt at intervals, as from the shock of immensely
distant earthquakes.
Nobody went to bed that night, but in the morning the report was the
same: “Unconscious—a question of hours.” Once only did he recover
consciousness, and then asked for Harz. A telegram had come from him,
he was on the way. Towards seven of the evening the long-expected
storm broke in a sky like ink. Into the valleys and over the crests of
mountains it seemed as though an unseen hand were spilling goblets
of pale wine, darting a sword-blade zigzag over trees, roofs, spires,
peaks, into the very firmament, which answered every thrust with
great bursts of groaning. Just beyond the veranda Greta saw a glowworm
shining, as it might be a tiny bead of the fallen lightning. Soon the
rain covered everything. Sometimes a jet of light brought the hilltops,
towering, dark, and hard, over the house, to disappear again behind the
raindrops and shaken leaves. Each breath drawn by the storm was like the
clash of a thousand cymbals; and in his room Mr. Treffry lay unconscious
of its fury.
Greta had crept in unobserved; and sat curled in a corner, with Scruff
in her arms, rocking slightly to and fro. When Christian passed, she
caught her skirt, and whispered: “It is your birthday, Chris!”
Mr. Treffry stirred.
“What's that? Thunder?—it's cooler. Where am I? Chris!”
Dawney signed for her to take his place.
“Chris!” Mr. Treffry said. “It's near now.” She bent across him, and her
tears fell on his forehead.
“Forgive!” she whispered; “love me!”
He raised his finger, and touched her cheek.
For an hour or more he did not speak, though once or twice he moaned,
and faintly tightened his pressure on her fingers. The storm had died
away, but very far off the thunder was still muttering.
His eyes opened once more, rested on her, and passed beyond, into that
abyss dividing youth from age, conviction from conviction, life from
death.
At the foot of the bed Dawney stood covering his face; behind him
Dominique knelt with hands held upwards; the sound of Greta's breathing,
soft in sleep, rose and fell in the stillness.