A SUMMER STORM.
MRS. COLTON entered the drawing-room by the door as Laurence Desmond
came in by the window. “I have given you the sparkling Rüdesheimer
instead of champagne, Mr. Desmond,” she said, cheerily: “Donner has put
it in a basket of rough ice; and Vokes has brought me in the finest
peaches I have seen this year, Emily. He is quite proud of them.”
After this came Lucy, pale and grave, but looking the picture of
innocence and prettiness, in her white dress, and little sailor hat
with ribbon of Oxford blue.
“Not dressed, Emily!” exclaimed Laurence, as he shook hands with Mrs.
Jerningham.
The exclamation was purely mechanical. His mind must indeed have been
pre-occupied, or he would have noticed the icy coldness of the hand
that lay so listlessly in his own.
“I have only my hat to put on. Wilson has seen to the shawls and
cloaks, no doubt. I am quite ready.”
Mrs. Jerningham took her hat from the sofa, where she had thrown it
an hour before; a very archetype of hats, bordered with the lustrous
plumage of a peacock’s breast. Of these glories she had tasted to
satiety; all the bliss that millinery can give to the heart of woman
had been hers. But there comes a time when even these things seem
vanity. To-day the peacock’s plumage might have been dust and ashes,
for any pleasure it afforded her.
They went out to the boat. The day was warm to oppressiveness, and Mrs.
Jerningham’s attire of the thinnest.
“I hope you have plenty of wraps,” said Laurence; “there’s rather an
ugly cloud to windward.”
“Oh yes; Wilson always gives us an infinity of that kind of thing,”
Mrs. Jerningham answered, glancing at the bottom of the boat, where lay
a heap of shawls and cloaks of the burnous order, just a little less
gauzy in texture than the dresses of the two ladies.
“I really am almost afraid of the day,” muttered Lawrence, looking to
the south-west, where a stormy darkness brooded over the landscape.
“I am not afraid,” replied Emily; “it is to be our last day, remember,
Laurence. Let us have our last day together.”
Something in her tone startled and touched him. He looked at her
earnestly, but the proud face gave no sign.
“It shall be as you please,” he said; “but I must not forget that you
are not out of the hands of Dr. Leonards, and you have told me he
enjoined you to be careful.”
“Oh yes; a physician always says that when he can find nothing else to
say.”
There was a little more discussion, and presently the boat shot away,
swift as a dart, with the strong sweep of the sculls. They were to
land at Chertsey, picnic at St. Ann’s Hill, and come home to Hampton
in the evening. Laurence Desmond had the proprietorial mandate in his
pocket, that for him and his friends the gates of St. Ann’s should be
opened.
Only a few big, splashing drops of rain overtook them between Hampton
and Chertsey, and when they landed, the stormy darkness seemed to
have vanished from the south-western horizon. Mr. Desmond had made
all his arrangements; a fly was in waiting, and in half an hour the
little party were wandering in the groves which have been sanctified to
history by the fame of Fox.
The picnic was to all appearance a success. The almost feverish gaiety
which had distinguished Emily Jerningham of late was especially
noticeable in her manner to-day. _Carpe diem_ was the philosophy
which sustained her in this bitter crisis. This last day would she
snatch. It was her festive supper on the eve of execution. Like
that bright band whose laughter echoed in Trophonian caves of grim
Bastille, before the dawn that was to witness their slaughter, did
Emily Jerningham pour out the sparkling vintage of the Rhineland as a
libation upon that altar where she was so soon to sacrifice her selfish
love.
The western sky was dark and louring when the revellers left the groves
of St. Ann, and were driven back to the boat-builder’s yard, where they
had landed.
“I really think it might be better to go back by road,” Laurence said,
doubtfully, as he looked at the cloudy horizon. Six o’clock chimed
from the tower of Chertsey Church as he spoke. “It will be nearly nine
o’clock before I can get you home, you see,” he added; “and if there
should be rain----”
“We will endure it without a murmur,” interposed Emily. “I am bent on
going back by water.”
“Would Dr. Leonards approve?”
“I will not hold my life on such terms as Dr. Leonards would dictate.
We shall have moonlight before we reach Hampton. Come, Laurence, I am
quite ready.”
Mr. Desmond submitted, and placed his fair companions in the boat with
all due care. Then, after the preliminary pushing-off, the oars dipped
softly in the water, and the boat sped homewards.
Mrs. Jerningham’s gaiety left her with a strange abruptness. She leant
back against the cushioned rail of the boat, silent and thoughtful, and
with fixed, dreamy eyes.
“You are tired, I fear,” Laurence remarked by and by, wondering at her
silence.
“Yes; I am a little tired.”
It would seem as if Lucy too were tired, for she also was silent, and
sat watching the changing landscape with a thoughtful gaze. But upon
her silence Laurence Desmond made no remark. She had, indeed, been
silent and thoughtful all the day, and yet not unhappy. Unhappy!--he
loved her! She had been telling herself that fact over and over again,
with ever-delightful iteration. He loved her! To know that it was so
constituted an all-sufficient happiness.
The water-journey with one pair of sculls between Chertsey and Hampton
is a long one, and many are the locks which arrest the swift progress
of the voyager, and often echoes the cry of “Lo-o-óck!” over the quiet
waters; but so bright and changing is the landscape, so soothing the
influence of the atmosphere, that the voyager must be dull indeed who
finds the way too long.
The changing banks shifted past Mrs. Jerningham like pictures in a
dream. A profound silence had fallen upon the boat. The rower dipped
his oars with a measured mechanical motion, and his grave face might
have been the countenance of Charon himself, conveying a boatload of
shadows to the Rhadamanthine shore. To Emily it seemed as if they were
indeed voyagers on some mystic, symbolical river, rather than on the
friendly breast of Thames. The end of her life had come. What had she
to do but die? All that she held dear--the one sustaining influence of
her weak soul, the very keystone of the edifice of her life--this she
was to lose. And what then?
Beyond this point she could not look. That a dismal duty, a bitter
sacrificial act, must be performed by her, she knew. But that by the
doing of that act she might possibly attain peace, consolation, release
from a long and harassing bondage, she could not foresee.
“I will give him up,” she said to herself; “soon--to-night. It is like
the bitter medicine they made me take sometimes when I was a child. I
cannot take it too soon.”
And then she looked at Lucy, and her lip curled ever so little as she
scrutinized the fair but not altogether perfect face.
She measured her charms against those of her happier rival, and told
herself that all the advantage was on her own side. And yet, and
yet--this fair-faced girl was dearer to him, by an infinite degree,
than she who had loved him so many years.
While silence still held the voyagers as by a spell, the rain came
splashing heavily down, and the perils of the journey began. They had
not yet reached Sunbury, and some miles of winding water lay between
them and Hampton.
“I am afraid we are in for it,” Laurence said. “We had better land at
Sunbury, and get back in a fly.”
Mrs. Jerningham was opposed to this. She declared that she had not
the slightest objection to the rain; she was wrapped up to an absurd
degree; and she drew her gauzy burnous round her in evidence of the
fact, while Lucy adjusted a second cloak of thin scarlet fabric over
the gauzy white burnous. Laurence, however, insisted on landing, and
did his utmost to procure a vehicle; while the two ladies shivered in a
chilly inn-parlour, their garments already damp with the heavy rain. He
came back to them in despair. No fly was to be had at Sunbury for love
or money. There was a Volunteer ball at Chertsey that very evening, and
every vehicle was engaged.
“I had much rather go back in the boat,” said Emily.
“But the doctor said you were to be so careful,” suggested Lucy.
“I do not believe in the doctor. Come, Laurence, it is better to
encounter another shower than to wait shivering here for unattainable
flies.”
To this Mr. Desmond unwillingly assented. There was a pause in the
summer storm--a faint glimmer of watery sunlight low in the cloudy
west. The boat seemed the only possible means of getting home.
“If you would stay here all night,” he suggested, “it would be better
than running any risk.”
“I could not exist a night in a strange hotel,” replied Mrs.
Jerningham, glancing round the bare, bleak-looking room, with a
shudder. “Please take us home, Mr. Desmond, if you are not afraid of
the rain yourself.”
There seemed no alternative; so Laurence assented to an immediate
return to the boat, comforting himself with the hope that the gleam of
sunlight was the harbinger of a fine evening. He insisted, however,
upon borrowing a thick shawl and a railway rug from the landlady at
Sunbury, in case of the worst.
For half a mile the faint streak of sunshine lighted the voyagers,
and then the worst came; the floodgates of the sky were opened, and a
summer deluge descended upon the quiet river. Mr. Desmond packed his
two charges in the borrowed wraps, and sculled with a desperate vigour.
“It’s most unlucky,” he said; “there’s nothing for it between this and
home.”
The rain fell in torrents and without ceasing, until the lights of
Hampton shone upon them, blotted and blurred by the storm. Long peals
of thunder grumbled in the distance; vivid lightnings lit the pale
faces of the women; while Mr. Desmond pulled steadily on, lifting the
boat over a broad sweep of water with every swoop of his sculls.
One of the voyagers in that boat took a kind of pleasure in the storm.
To Emily Jerningham this splashing of rain and sonorous pealing of
thunder seemed better than the summer twilight, the calm June sky, and
glassy water--that outward peace which had so jarred upon the tempest
within.
“Oh, if we could go on through storm and rain to the end! if we could
drift out of this earthly river into the thick darkness of the great
ocean!” she said to herself; “if the tangled skein of life could be
severed with one stroke of the witch’s scissors! But we have to unravel
the skein with our own weary fingers, and lay the threads smoothly out
before we dare say our work is done, and lie down beside it to die.”
They were at River Lawn by this time, drenched to the skin, despite the
borrowed wraps. Mrs. Jerningham’s butler was waiting at the top of the
landing-stage with umbrellas, and within there were fires burning and
warm garments ready for the drenched travellers. Wilson took forcible
possession of her dripping mistress in the hall.
“Oh, mum, with your cough!” she exclaimed, in tones of horror; while
Mrs. Colton assisted in drawing off the pulpy mass of limp gauze that
had been such airy silken fabric in the morning.
“Never mind my cough, Wilson,” said Mrs. Jerningham, impatiently.
“Pray see to Lucy, aunt; she was less protected by the railway-rug
than I. Good-night, Laurence, since I suppose I shall not be allowed
to appear again this evening. Mr. Desmond will stop here to-night of
course, aunt; will you see that he has a warm room, and that he drinks
brandy-and-water, and that kind of thing? Let me see you to-morrow,
please, Laurence; good-night.”
After this Mrs. Jerningham consented to be carried off by the devoted
Wilson, who did all she could to undo the mischief done by that watery
voyage from Sunbury.
More than one dweller beneath the pretty, fantastic roof of that
river-side villa lay wakeful and restless throughout the summer night,
listening to the pattering of the rain, the sobbing gusts of wind among
the trees, and at daybreak the shrill clamour of distant farmyards.
Three there were in that house for whom life’s journey seemed to lie
through the thick wilderness--a wilderness unlighted by sun, moon, or
stars; pathless, painful obscurity.
In the breakfast-room that morning there was no sign of Mrs.
Jerningham. Wilson sent to say that her mistress had slept very little,
and was altogether too ill to rise; and on this Mrs. Colton repaired
to her niece’s room, leaving Lucy and Laurence alone together at the
breakfast-table, sorely embarrassed to find themselves so left.
Lucy looked down at her plate, and to all appearance became absorbed
in a profound meditation upon the pattern of the china. Laurence cut
open the _Times_, and made a conventional remark upon the previous
night’s debate, concerning the subject whereof Lucy knew about as much
as she knew of lunar volcanoes.
Mrs. Colton returned very quickly, much alarmed by her niece’s
condition. She sent a messenger for the local doctor immediately, while
Lucy ran away from the breakfast-table to see if she could be of any
use to the invalid.
“I trust Emily is not much the worse for last night’s business,” said
Laurence, alarmed by Mrs. Colton’s evident anxiety.
“I fear it has done her great harm,” replied the matron; “her cough is
very trying, and she is in a high fever. I hope Mr. Canterham will come
at once.”
“I will wait to see him, and then run up to town for Dr. Leonards,”
said Laurence.
The local doctor came speedily. He looked very grave when he returned
from his patient’s room. He confessed that there was fever, and some
danger of inflammation.
“I will bring down Dr. Leonards,” said Laurence.
“I think it would be wise to do so,” replied the Hampton surgeon,
wondering who this gentleman was who took so decided a part.
Mr. Desmond lost no time in carrying out his intention; and Dr.
Leonards arrived at River Lawn at four o’clock that afternoon,
accompanied by Laurence, who could not rest in London.
“I warned Mrs. Jerningham of her danger,” said the physician, gravely.
“Indeed? I never heard that there was any cause for alarm. Did you make
her understand as much?”
“I spoke as plainly as one dares speak to a patient, and I begged her
to let me talk to her aunt. But she forbade this, and promised to take
all possible care.”
“And she has taken no care. Great God, it is a kind of suicide!”
The passionate exclamation startled the doctor, and he looked at
Laurence, wondering what relationship he bore to the lady of whom they
had been speaking. Laurence saw the wondering look, and divined its
meaning.
“I have known Mrs. Jerningham for many years,” he said. “Her father was
one of my oldest and closest friends. It was at my instigation that she
consulted you, but I had no idea there was danger.”
There was no more said. Dr. Leonards saw the patient, and conversed
with the Hampton surgeon. That there was danger he made no attempt to
deny, when closely questioned by Mrs. Colton, who was half-distracted
by this sudden calamity. He did not indeed say that the case was
hopeless, but his manner was by no means hopeful.
“The cough has been obstinately neglected for months,” he said; “and
the maid tells me there has been frequent spitting of blood.”
“And it has all been hidden from me,” cried Mrs. Colton; “how
cruel--how cruel!”
“Yes, it is sad that there should have been such concealment. I was
very angry with the maid; but she told me she dared not disobey her
mistress. I cannot conceal from you that there has been great mischief
done.”
This interview took place in the drawing-room, while Mr. Desmond paced
to and fro the lawn, outside the open windows, anguish-stricken.
This sudden peril to the woman he had loved--to whom he was so
closely bound by a tie so binding, so intangible--came upon him as an
overwhelming calamity. A sense of guilt, remorse unspeakable, smote his
heart. He had grown weary of his bondage; yet the possibility of his
freedom appalled him. There was grief, there was horror in the thought
of liberty so regained. In this hour of Emily Jerningham’s peril, the
man who had loved her forgot everything except that she had been dear
to him. The old tenderness was re-awakened in his breast. He forgot her
jealousies, her sneers, her caprices, her fretfulness,--everything but
the one alarming fact of her illness.
He intercepted Dr. Leonards, and obtained from him a clearer statement
than the physician had cared to make to Mrs. Colton. The great man
admitted that the symptoms were as bad as they could be.
“I shall see Mrs. Jerningham again to-morrow,” he said. “If we can get
her safely through this crisis, and send her to a warmer climate for
the autumn, we may patch her up. But a permanent cure is quite out of
the question; _that_ was hopeless from the first.”
“From the first? From the time of her first visit to you?”
“Yes.”
Laurence went back to London sorely distressed. The remorseful sense
of shortcoming that oppresses the mourner in every earthly severance
weighed heavily upon him. Few and infrequent had been the reproaches
that had escaped his lips; but in his heart he had often rebelled
against Emily Jerningham’s tyranny. And she had loved him only too
dearly; her jealousy, her despotism, had been alike the evidence of
that too-exacting affection. Could he be so ungrateful as to revolt
against so tender a tyranny, so flattering a despotism?
He had rebelled; he had found his chains almost intolerable; and he
could not forgive himself this secret treason.
For a fortnight he went to and fro between London and River Lawn,
neglecting everything, except the indispensable work of his paper, for
these daily journeys; but in all those fourteen days he saw neither the
invalid nor her faithful nurse, Lucy Alford. He heard from the doctors
that Miss Alford’s fidelity was beyond all praise, and from Mrs. Colton
he also heard of Lucy’s devotion. For a week the patient continued in
extreme danger, then there came a happy change,--nature rallied. At
the end of the fortnight the Hampton doctor was triumphant, the London
physician gravely satisfied. Mrs. Jerningham was able to come down to
the drawing-room, to take a slow turn once a day on the sunlit strip of
lawn before the windows, to eat a few mouthfuls of chicken or jelly,
with some faint show of appetite. It was settled that she and her aunt
should go to Madeira for the autumn and winter, and for the immediate
benefit of the sea-voyage, as soon as she could well be moved.
“In the meantime I have a little business to arrange,” said Mrs.
Jerningham.
“Let the business wait till next spring, my dear Emily,” pleaded Mrs.
Colton.
“I think not, auntie,” the invalid answered, with a mournful smile.
On the following day she wrote her husband a brief note, which was
addressed to Park Lane, and forwarded thence to Greenlands. The letter
ran thus:
“DEAR MR. JERNINGHAM,--I have been very ill, and my doctors
insist on my spending the autumn abroad. As there is always in such
cases a risk of one’s not returning, I should like much to see you
before I go. Please come to Hampton at your earliest convenience, and
oblige yours faithfully,
E. J.”
Having despatched this letter, Mrs. Jerningham abandoned herself to the
delight of a long, quiet afternoon with Mr. Desmond, who was to see
her that day for the first time since her illness.
He found her much changed; but the change had only increased her
beauty. An almost supernal delicacy of tint and spirituality of
expression characterized the thin face, the large, luminous eyes. The
first sight of that loveliness, which was not of this earth, sent
a sharp anguish to his heart. It cost him a struggle to return the
invalid’s greeting with a cheerful countenance, and to speak hopefully
of her improved health.
“I shall never forgive myself that water-journey,” he said.
“You have no cause to reproach yourself with that. It was I who
obstinately faced the danger from first to last. But the doctors say
the water-journey was only my culminating imprudence.”
She changed the subject after this, and begged that no one would talk
to her of her health. Laurence was surprised to find her so serene, so
cheerful, so thoughtful of others, and forgetful of her own weakness.
Never had she appeared to him more beautiful, never so estimable. Her
manner to Lucy was peculiarly kind and tender.
“You can never know what this dear girl has been to me!” she said,
holding Lucy’s hand in both her own as she praised her. “In those long,
miserable nights of delirium--I was delirious every night for more than
a week, Laurence--I used to see her kind, pitying face watching me; and
there was comfort in it when I was at the worst. Wilson was very good,
and Aunt Fanny all that is kind and devoted; but this dear child seems
to have been created to comfort the sick.”
“I used to nurse poor papa when he was ill,” the girl answered, simply.
“He was often delirious--much worse than you, Mrs. Jerningham; and he
used to want to throw himself out of the window, or to kill himself
with his razors. And then he would grow angry, and say that flies were
tormenting him, and try to catch them,--when there were no flies, you
know. It was very dreadful.”
By and by Mrs. Jerningham asked to be left alone with her friend.
“I want to ask Mr. Desmond’s advice about business affairs, auntie,”
she said. “He knows as much law as most lawyers, you know.”
Mrs. Colton discreetly withdrew, accompanied by Lucy.
“It is nearly ended, Laurence,” said Mrs. Jerningham, when they were
gone. She looked up at Mr. Desmond with a tender, earnest look, and
held out her wasted hand. He took the pale, semi-transparent hand and
raised it to his lips.
“What is nearly ended, my dear Emily?” he asked, gently.
“Your bondage.”
“God forbid, if that means that I am to lose you.”
“Yes, Laurence, that is inevitable. I doubt if the knot could ever have
been disentangled; but it can be cut. Death makes an easy end of many
difficulties; and I think nothing less than death could have ended our
perplexities. I am not going to preach a sermon, dear friend. I only
want you to understand that my doom is sealed, and that I know it is
so, and am not altogether sorry.”
“Oh, Emily, what a bitter reproof to me!”
“No, Laurence, a reproof to myself. My own short-sighted selfishness
has been the cause of all our sufferings; for we have suffered acutely,
both of us. I had no right to absorb your life; no right to hinder you
from forming ties without which the most prosperous life seems blank
and dreary; no right to stand between you and a home. But it is all
over. I am drifting out of the troubled sea into a quiet harbour, and I
can afford to be, not generous, but just.”
“Emily!”
“Hear me patiently, dear. I will not talk of these things again. I know
where your heart has been given, and what a pure unselfish love you
have, almost unconsciously, won for yourself. I knew of that innocent
love months ago; but I only knew your sentiments on the day of our
Chertsey picnic. I was in the fernery when you told Lucy your secret.
Yes, Laurence, I listened. It was a contemptible act, of course; but
I was too desperate to consider that. I heard all you said--all. I
heard enough to know your devotion, your generosity; to hate my own
selfishness. All that day I felt myself the vilest of creatures.
I knew that it was my duty to set you free; but I shrank, with a
miserable cowardly shrinking, from the sacrifice. I knew that for you
and me together there could be no such thing as happiness, either in
the present or the future; but I was capable of chaining you to my
wretchedness rather than of seeing you happy with another. All that is
most base and selfish in my nature was in the ascendant that day. No
words can tell how I struggled with my wickedness. I was not strong
enough to vanquish it. I knew that it was my duty to surrender every
claim upon you; but I could not bring myself to face that duty. From
the maze of my perplexities, extrication seemed impossible. Happily for
all of us, Providence has given me a means of escape. I may keep you
my prisoner to the end of my life, Laurence, and yet be guilty of no
supreme selfishness, for my days are numbered.”
“My dear Emily, why imagine this?”
“I know it, Laurence. I did not need to read it in the faces of my
doctors, as I have read it. For a long time I have felt a sense of age
creeping upon me; a weariness of life, which is not natural to a woman
of thirty. Death has approached me very slowly, but his hold is so
much the more sure. Comfort me as much as you like, Laurence, but do
not delude me. I know that I have a very short time to spend upon this
earth; let me spend some of it with you.”
“I will be your slave, dear.”
“And when I am gone you will forget how sorely I have tried you? You
will remember me with tenderness? Yes, I know you will. And your young
wife shall be no loser by my friendship, Laurence. I have the power
to will away some of the money settled on me by Mr. Jerningham, and
I shall divide it between my aunt and Lucy. My aunt has a very good
income of her own, you know, and needs nothing from me, except as a
proof of my affection for her. Your young wife shall not come to you
dowerless, Laurence! Your wife! How sweet that word ‘wife’ can sound! I
can fancy you in your home. You will not marry _very_ soon after I
am gone, Laurence?”
“My dearest,” cried Laurence, with a sob, “do you think old ties are
so easily broken? No, Emily, the love I have borne for you is a part
of my manhood. It cannot be put away. That innocent girl, with her
tender homelike sweetness, stole my heart before I was aware it could
change; but she cannot blot out the past. If ever she is my wife, I
shall love her dearly and faithfully, and a home shared with her will
be very pleasant to me; but in the sacred corner of my heart must for
ever remain the image of my first love. Men do not forget these things,
Emily; nor is the second love the same as the first; and the man who
outlives the faith of his youth feels that ‘there hath passed away a
glory from the earth.’”
“You will remember me, and there will be some regret in the
remembrance. I ask no more of Fate. Oh, Laurence, we have had some
happy hours together! Try to remember those. My life within the past
year or two has been a long disease. Try to forget how I have worried
you with my causeless jealousies, my selfish exactions.”
Very tender and reassuring were the words which Laurence Desmond spoke
to his first love after this. An almost extinguished affection revives
in such an hour as this. As the candle of life burns brightest at the
close, so too Love’s torch has its expiring splendour, and flames anew
before we turn it down for ever.
When Lucy and Mrs. Colton returned from their walk they found the
invalid unusually cheerful. The voyage to Madeira was discussed, and
Emily talked with delight of that distant island. Mr. Desmond was well
up in the topography of the remote settlement, and planned everything
in the pleasantest manner for the avoidance of fatigue to the invalid.
“I wish Potter were more used to travelling,” said Mrs. Colton, of the
River Lawn butler. “We shall have to take him with us, I think; but he
will be quite lost among Spaniards and Portuguese, and I don’t know
how he will be able to arrange affairs for us with regard to hotel
accommodation, and so on.”
“I will relieve Potter from all responsibility upon that question,”
said Mr. Desmond.
“You!” cried Emily.
“Yes, if you will permit me to be your escort. I spent a week in
Madeira when I was on my Spanish wanderings.”
“And you will leave London and your literary work in order to make our
journey pleasant for us?”
“I would hazard more important interests than those I have at stake.”
Mrs. Jerningham’s eyes grew dim, and she had no words in which to
thank the faithful slave from whom a few months before she would have
haughtily demanded such allegiance, and bitterly resented its refusal.