IMMORTELLES.
O lieb so lang du lieben kannst,
O lieb so lang du lieben magst,
Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt.
Wo du am Graben stehst und klagst.
Frank Raban, having left the three standing silent and sorry in the calm
sunset room, ran down to his own apartment on the floor beneath. He was
to go back to England that night: he felt he could not stay in that
place any longer; the memories seemed to choke him, and to rise up and
madden him. As he came now down the echoing stairs he heard the voices
of his servants: the front door was wide open. The concierge was
standing in the passage in his shirt-sleeves; M. Adolphe was
discoursing; a milliner was waiting with her bill. 'Not two years
married,' he heard them saying; 'as for him, he will console himself.'
Their loud voices suddenly hushed as he appeared. Adolphe flung the door
open still wider for his master; but the master could not face them all,
with their curious eyes fixed upon him, and he turned and fled
downstairs. Only two years since he had carried her away from her home
in the quiet suburban cottage--poor Emma, who wanted to be married, and
who had never loved him! Where was she now? Married only two years! What
years! And now his remorse seemed almost greater than he could bear. He
crossed the crowded road, heedless of the warning cries of the drivers,
pushing his way across the stream; then he got into a deserted country
close upon the bustle of the main thoroughfare (they call it Beaujon),
where great walls run by lonely avenues, and great gates stand closed
and barred. Would they burst open? Would _she_ come out with a pale
avenging face and strike him? She, poor child! Whom did she ever strike
in word or thought? Once he got a little ease: he thought he had been a
very long way, and he had wandered at last into an ancient lane by a
convent wall, beyond the modern dismal Beaujon, in the friendly older
quarter. Lime-trees were planted in this tranquil place. There was a dim
rain-washed painting upon the wall, a faint vista of fountains and
gardens, the lilac-trees were blooming behind it, and the vesper song of
the nuns reached his ears. He stood still for an instant, but the song
ceased.
The old avenue led back to the great round Place in front of the Arc;
for, in those days, neither the ride nor the great new roads were made
which now lead thronging to the Bois. And the tide came streaming to the
end of the long avenue of the Champs Elysees and no farther, and turned
and ebbed away again from the gates of the Douane. Beyond them, the
place was silent. The young man hurried on, not caring where he went. If
I had loved her, if I had loved her--was the burthen of his remorse. It
was almost heavier than he could bear. There were some children swinging
on the chains that separate the great arch from the road; the last rays
of the sun were lighting the stones and the gritty platform; twilight
was closing in. I think if it had not been for the children, he would
have thrown himself down upon the ground. They screamed shrilly at their
play, and the echo from under the great vault gave back their voices. A
few listless people were standing about; a countryman spelling out by
the dying lights the pompous lists of victories that had been carved
into the stone--Jena, Marengo, Austerlitz. Chiller and more deathlike
came the twilight creeping on: the great carved figures blew their
trumpets, waved their stony laurels, of which the shadows changed so
many times a day. He staggered to a bench; he said to himself, 'I should
like this Arc to fall down upon my head and crush me. I am a devil, I am
not a man. I killed her with neglect, with reproach, and suspicion! But
for me she would have been alive now, smiling as when I first saw her. I
will go away and never be heard of any more. Go away--how can I go from
this curse? could Cain escape?' Then he began to see what was all round
about him again, see it distorted by his mad remorse. All the great
figures seemed writhing their arms and legs; the long lists of battle
seemed like funeral processions moving round and round him, fighting and
thundering and running into one another. The Arc itself was a great tomb
where these legions lay buried. Was it not about to fall with a
stupendous crash; and would the dead people come rising round about at
the blast of the trumpets of stone. Here was an Emperor who had wanted
to conquer the whole world, and who had all but attained his object.
Here was he, a man who had not striven for victory, but yielded to
temptation; a man who had deserted his post, betrayed his trust, cursed
a life that he should have cherished. Though his heart were broken on a
wheel and his body racked with pain, that would not mend the past,
sanctify it, and renew it again.
A sort of cold sweat lay upon his forehead; some children were playing,
and had come up to the stone bench where he was sitting, and were making
little heaps of dust upon it. One of them looked into his face and saw
him clench his hand, and the little thing got frightened and burst out
crying. The other, who was older, took the little one by the hand and
led it away.
Of what good was it thinking over the past? It was over. Emma was dead,
lying up on the heights towards which Dolly had been looking from her
window. He had been to blame: but not to blame as he imagined in his mad
remorse and despair. He had been careless and impatient, and hard upon
her, as he was now hard upon himself. He had married her from a sense of
honour, when his boyish fancy was past. His duty was too hard for him,
and he had failed, and now he was free.
* * * * *
It was that very evening--Dolly remembered it afterwards--a letter came
from her mother, written on thin lilac paper, in a large and twisted
handwriting, sealed and stamped with many Indian stamps. Dolly's
mother's letters always took a long time to read; they were written up
and down and on different scraps of paper. Sometimes she sent whole
bouquets of faded flowers in them to the children, sometimes patterns
for dresses to be returned. Henriette brought the evening's mail in with
the lamp and the tea-tray, and put the whole concern down with a clatter
of cups and saucers on the table before Lady Sarah. There was also a
thick blue lawyer-looking letter with a seal. The little girls peeped up
shyly as Lady Sarah laid down her correspondence unopened beside her.
She was a nervous woman and afraid of unread letters: but after a little
she opened the lilac epistle, and then began to flush, and turned
eagerly to the second.
'Who is that from?' Dolly asked at last. 'Is it from Captain Palmer?'
Her aunt laid one thin brown hand upon the letter, and went on pouring
out the tea without speaking. Rhoda looked for a moment, and then
stooped over her work once more. Long years afterwards the quiet
atmosphere of that lamp-lit room used to come round about Dolly again.
The log fire flamed, the clock ticked on. How still it was! the leaves
of her book scraped as she turned them, and Rhoda stuck her silken
stitches. The roll of the carriages was so far away that it sounded like
a distant sea. They were still sitting silent, and Dolly was wondering
whether she might speak of the letter again and of its contents, when
there came an odd muffled sound of voices and exclamations from the room
underneath.
'Listen!' said Rhoda.
'What can it be?' said Dolly, shutting up her book and starting up from
her chair as Henriette appeared at the door, with her white cap-strings
flying, breathless.
'They were all disputing downstairs,' she said. 'Persons had arrived
that evening. It was terrible to hear them.'
Lady Sarah impatiently sent Henriette about her business, and the sounds
died away, and the little girls were sent off to bed. In the morning,
her aunt's eyes were so red that Dolly felt sure she must have been
crying. Henriette told them that the gentleman was gone. 'Milady had
been sent for before he left: she had lent him some money,' said
Henriette, 'and paid the milliner's bill;' but the strange people who
had come had been packing up and carrying off everything, to Julie's
disgust.
Events and emotions come very rarely alone, they fly in troops, like the
birds. It was that very day that Lady Sarah told Dolly that she had had
some bad news--she had lost a great deal of money. An Indian bank had
failed in which they all had a share.
'Your mamma writes in great trouble,' said Lady Sarah, reading out from
a lilac scrap. '"Tell my precious Dolly that this odious bank will
interfere once more with my heart's longing to see her. Captain Palmer
insists upon a cruel delay. I am not strong enough to travel round the
Cape as he proposes. You, dear Sarah, might be able to endure such
fatigue; but I, alas! have not the power. Once more my return is
delayed."'
'Oh, Aunt Sarah, will she ever come?' said Dolly, struggling not to
cry.... Dolly only cheered up when she remembered that they were ruined.
She had forgotten it, in her disappointment, about her mother. 'Are we
really ruined?' she said, more hopefully. 'We should not have spent that
money yesterday. Shall we have to leave Church House? Poor mamma! Poor
Aunt Sarah!'
'Poor Marker is most to be pitied,' said Lady Sarah, 'for we shall have
to be very careful, and keep fewer maids, and wear out all our old
dresses; but we need not leave Church House, Dolly.'
'Then it is nothing after all,' said Dolly, again disappointed. 'I
thought we should have had to go away and keep a shop, and that I should
have worked for you. I should like to be your support in your old age,
and mamma's too.'
Then Lady Sarah suddenly caught Dolly in her arms, and held her tight
for a moment--quite tight to her heart, that was beating tumultuously.
The next time Rhoda came out of her school for a day's holiday, Lady
Sarah took the little girls to a flower-shop hard by. In the window
shone a lovely rainbow of sun-rays and flowers; inside the shop were
glass globes and china pots, great white sprays of lilacs, lilies,
violets, ferns, and hyacinths, and golden bells, stuck into emerald-blue
vases, all nodding their fragrant heads. Lady Sarah bought a great bunch
of violets, and two yellow garlands made of dried immortelles.
'Do you know where we are going?' she asked.
Dolly didn't answer; she was sniffing, with her face buried in a green
pot of mignonette.
'May I carry the garlands?' said Rhoda, raising her great round eyes. 'I
know we are going to the poor lady's grave.'
Then they got into the carriage, and it rolled off towards the heights.
They went out beyond the barriers of the town by dusty roads, with
acacia-trees; they struggled up a steep hill, and stopped at last at the
gate of the cemetery. All round about it there were stalls, with more
wreaths and chaplets to sell, and little sacred images for the mourners
to buy for the adornment of the graves. Children were at play, and birds
singing, and the sunlight streamed bright. Dolly cried out in admiration
of the winding walks, shaded with early green, the flowers blooming, the
tombs and the garlands, and the epitaphs, with their notes of
exclamation. She began reading them out, and calling out so loudly, that
her aunt had to tell her to be quiet. Then Dolly was silent for a
little, but she could not help it. The sun shone, the flowers were so
bright; sunshine, spring-time, sweet flowers, all made her tipsy with
delight; the thought of the kind, pretty lady, who had never passed her
without a smile, did not make her sad just then, but happy. She ran away
for a little while, and went to help some children, who were picking
daisies and tying them by a string.
When she came back, a little sobered down, she found that her aunt had
scattered the violets over a new-made grave, and little Rhoda had hung
the yellow wreath on the cross at its head.
Dolly was silent, then, for a minute, and stood, looking from her aunt,
as she stood straight and grey before her, to little Rhoda, whose eyes
were full of tears. What was there written on the cross?
TO EMMA,
THE WIFE OF FRANCIS RABAN,
AND ONLY DAUGHTER OF DAVID PENFOLD, OF EARLSCOURT,
IN THE PARISH OF KENSINGTON.
DIED MARCH 20, 18--. AGED 22.
'Aunt Sarah,' Dolly cried, suddenly, seizing her aunt's gown, 'tell me,
was that young Mr. Raban from John Morgan's house and Emma from the
cottage? When he looked at me once I thought I knew him, only I didn't
know who he could be.'
'Yes, my dear,' said Lady Sarah; 'I did not suppose that you would
remember them.'
'I remembered,' said Rhoda, nodding her head; 'but I thought you did not
wish me to say so.'
'Why not?' asked Lady Sarah. 'You are always imagining things, Rhoda. I
had forgotten all about them myself; I had other things on my mind at
the time they married,' and she sighed and looked away.
'It was when Dolly's papa----' Rhoda began.
'Mr. Raban reminded me of Kensington before he left, said Lady Sarah,
hastily, in her short voice. 'I was able to help him, foolish young man.
It is all very sad, and he is very unhappy and very much to blame.'
This was their only visit to poor Emma Raban's grave. A few days after,
Lady Sarah, in her turn, left Paris, and took Dolly and little Rhoda,
whose schooling was over, home to England. Rhoda was rather sorry to be
dropped at home at the well-known door in Old Street, where she lived
with her Aunt Morgan. Yes, it would open in a minute, and all her old
life would begin again. Tom and Joe and Cassie were behind it, with
their loud voices. Dolly envied her; it seemed to her to be a noisy
elysium of welcoming exclamations into which Rhoda disappeared.