THE most heavenly of all letters,” Stellamaris repeated, as Risca made
no reply. “I loved it because it showed me you were very happy.”
“Have you ever doubted it?” he asked.
The Great Dane, the Lord High Constable, who was stretched out on
his side, with relaxed, enormous limbs, on the hearth-rug, lifted his
massive head for a second and glanced at John. Then with a half-grunt,
half-sigh, he dropped his head, and twitched his limbs and went to sleep
again.
“Now and then when you 're not looking at me,” said Stellamaris, “there
is a strange look in your eyes: it is when you 're not speaking and you
stare out of window without seeming to see anything.”
For a moment Risca was assailed by a temptation to break the Unwritten
Law and tell her something of his misery. She, with her superfine
intelligence, would understand, and her sympathy would be sweet. But he
put the temptation roughly from him.
“I am the happiest fellow in the world, Stellamaris,” said he.
“It would be difficult not to be happy in such a world.”
She pointed out to sea. The blustering wind of the day before had
fallen, and a light breeze shook the tips of the waves to the
morning sunshine, which turned them into diamonds. The sails of the
fishing-fleet of the tiny port flashed merrily against the kindly blue.
On the horizon a great steamer was visible steaming up Channel. The
salt air came in through the open windows. The laughter of fishermen's
children rose faintly from the beach far below.
“And there's spring, too, dancing over everything,” she said. “Don't you
feel it?”
He acknowledged the vernal influence, and, careful lest his eyes should
betray him, talked of the many things she loved. He had not seen her for
a fortnight, so there were the apocryphal doings of Lilias and Niphetos
to record,--Cleopatras of cats, whom age could not wither, and whose
infinite variety custom could not stale,--and there was the approaching
marriage of Arachne with a duke to report. And he told her of his
gay, bright life in London and of the beautiful Belinda Molyneux, an
imaginary Egeria, who sometimes lunched with the queen. The effort of
artistic creation absorbed him, as it always had done, under the spell
of Stellamaris's shining eyes. The foolish world of his imagination
became real, and for the moment hung like a veil before his actual world
of tragedy. It was in the nature of a shock to him when Stella's maid
entered and asked him if he could speak to Mr. Herold outside the door..
“Tell him to come in,” said Stellamaris.
“He says he will, Miss, after he has seen Mr. Risca.”
Risca found Herold on the landing.
“Well?”
“Well?” said John.
“What has happened? How did she take it?”
John looked away, and thrust his hands into his pockets.
“I 've not told her yet.”
Walter drew a breath. “But you 're going to?”
“Of course,” said John. “Do you think it 's so damned easy?”
“You had better be quick, if you 're coming back to town with me. I'm
due at rehearsal at twelve.”
“I'll go and tell her now,” said John.
“Let me just say how d' ye do to her first. I won't stay a minute.”
The two men entered the sea-chamber together. Stella welcomed her Great
High Favourite and chatted gaily for a while. Then she commanded him to
sit down.
“I 'm afraid I can't stay, Stellamaris. I have to go back to London.”
Stella glanced at the clock. “Your train does n't go for an hour.” She
was jealously learned in trains.
“I think John wants to talk to you.”
“He has been talking to me quite beautifully for a long time,” said
Stella, “and I want to talk to you.”
“He has something very particular to say, Stellamaris.”
“What is it, Belovedest?” Her eyes sparkled, and she clasped her hands
over her childish bosom. “You are not going to marry Belinda Molyneux?”
“No, dear,” said John; “I'm not going to marry anybody.”
“I'm so glad.” She turned to Herold. “Are you going to get married?”
“No,” smiled Herold.
Stella laughed. “What a relief! People do get married, you know, and I
suppose both of you will have to one of these days, when you get older;
but I don't like to think of it.”
“I don't believe I shall ever marry, Stellamaris,” said Herold.
“Why?”
Herold looked out to sea for a wistful instant. “Because one can't marry
a dream, my dear.”
“I've married hundreds,” said Stella, softly.
If they had been alone together, they would have talked dreams and
visions and starshine and moonshine, and their conversation would
have been about as sensible and as satisfactory to each other and as
intelligible to a third party as that of a couple of elves sitting on
adjacent toadstools; but elves don't talk in the presence of a third
party, even though he be John Risca and Great High Belovedest. And
Stellamaris, recognizing this instinctively, turned her eyes quickly to
Risca.
“And you, dear--will you ever marry?”
“Never, by Heaven!” cried John, with startling fervency.
Stella reached out both her hands to the two men who incorporated the
all in all of her little life, and each man took a hand and kissed it.
“I don't want to be horrid and selfish,” she said; “but if I lost either
of you, I think it would break my heart.”
The men exchanged glances. John repeated his query: “Do you think it's
so damned easy?”
“Tell us why you say that, Stellamaris,” said Herold.
John rose suddenly and stood by the west window, which was closed.
Stella's high bed had been drawn next to the window open to the south.
The room was warm, for a great fire blazed in the tall chimneypiece. He
rose to hide his eyes from Stella, confounding Herold for a marplot. Was
this the way to make his task easier? He heard Stella say in her sweet
contralto:
“Do you imagine it 's just for silly foolishness I call you Great High
Belovedest and Great High Favourite? You see, Walter dear, I gave John
his title before I knew you, so I had to make some difference in yours.
But they mean everything to me. I live in the sky such a lot, and it's
a beautiful life; but I know there 's another life in the great world--a
beautiful life, too.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Oh, it 's so difficult
to explain! It's so hard to talk about feelings, because the moment you
begin to talk about them, the feelings become so vague. It's like trying
to tell any one the shape of a sunset.” She paused for a moment or two;
Herold smiled at her and nodded encouragingly. Presently she went on:
“I 'll try to put it this way. Often a gull, you see, comes hovering
outside here and looks in at me, oh, for a long time, with his round,
yellow eyes; and my heart beats, and I love him, for he tells me all
about the sea and sky and clouds, where I'll never go,--not really,--and
I live the sky life through him, and more than ever since you sent me
that poem--I know it by heart--about the sea-gull. Who wrote it?”
“Swinburne,” said Herold.
“Did he write anything else?”
“One or two other little things,” replied Herold, judiciously. “I 'll
copy them out and bring them to you. But go on.”
“Well,” she said, “yesterday afternoon a little bird--I don't know what
kind of bird it was--came and sat on the window-sill, and turned his
head this way and looked at me, and turned his head that way and looked
at me, and I did n't move hand or foot, and I said, 'Cheep, cheep!' And
he hopped on the bed and stayed there such a long time. And I talked
to him, and he hopped about and looked at me and seemed to tell me all
sorts of wonderful things. But he did n't somehow, although he came from
the sky, and was a perfect dear. He must have known all about it, but he
did n't know how to tell me. Now, you and John come from the beautiful
world and tell me wonderful things about it; and I shall never go there
really, but I can live in it through you.”
Constable, the Great Dane, known by this abbreviated title in familiar
life, rose, stretched himself, and went and snuggled his head beneath
John's arm. John turned, his arm round the hound's neck.
“But you can live in it through anybody, dear,” said he--“your Uncle
Oliver, your Aunt Julia, or anybody who comes to see you.”
Stellamaris looked at Herold for a characteristically sympathetic
moment, and then at John. She sighed.
“I told you it was hard to explain. But don't you see, Belovedest? You
and Walter are like my gull. Everybody else is like the little bird. You
know how to tell me and make me live. The others are darlings, but they
don't seem to know how to do it.”
John scratched his head.
“I see what you mean,” said he.
“I should hope so,” said Herold.
He looked at his watch and jumped to his feet. “Star of the Sea,” said
he, “to talk with you is the most fascinating occupation on earth; but
managers are desperate fellows, and I 'll get into boiling water if I
miss my rehearsal.” He turned to John. “I don't see how you are going to
catch this train.”
“Neither do I,” said John. “I shall go by the one after.”
Herold took his leave, promising to run down for the week-end. Constable
accompanied him to the door in a dignified way, and this ceremony of
politeness accomplished, stalked back to the hearth-rug, where he threw
himself down, his head on his paws, and his faithful eyes fixed on his
mistress. John sat down again by the bedside. There was a short silence
during which Stellamaris smiled at him and he smiled at Stellamaris.
“Does n't the Great High Belovedest want to smoke?”
“Badly,” said John.
She held out her hand for the pipe and tobacco-pouch. He gave them to
her, and she filled the pipe. For a while he smoked peacefully. From
where he sat all he could see of the outside world was the waste of
sun-kissed waters stretching away and melting into a band of pearly
cloud on the horizon. He might have been out at sea. Possibly this time
next week he would be, and the salt air would be playing, as now, about
his head. But on board that ship would be no spacious sea-chamber like
this, so gracious in its appointments--its old oak and silver, its
bright chintzes, its quiet old engravings, its dainty dressing-table
covered with fairy-like toilet-articles, its blue delft bowls full of
flowers, its atmosphere so dearly English, yet English of the days when
Sir Bedivere threw Excalibur into the mere. In no other spot on the
globe could be found such a sea-chamber, with its high bed, on which lay
the sweet, elfin face, half child's, half woman's, framed in the soft,
brown hair.
Risca smoked on, and Stellamaris, seeing him disinclined to talk, gazed
happily out to her beloved Channel, and dreamed her dreams. They had
often sat like this for an hour together, both feeling that they were
talking to each other all the time; and often Stella would break the
silence by telling him to listen. At such times, so people said,
an angel was passing. And he would listen, but could not hear. He
remembered Walter Herold once agreeing with her, and saying:
“There's a special little angel told off to come here every day and
beat his wings about the room so as to clear the air of all troubling
things.”
In no other spot on the globe could be found such a sea-chamber,
wing-swept, spirit-haunted, where pain ceased magically and the burden
of intolerable suffering grew light. No other haven along all the coasts
of the earth was a haven of rest such as this.
And the Furies were driving him from it! But here the Furies ceased from
driving. Here he had delicious ease. Here a pair of ridiculously frail
hands held him a lotus-fed prisoner. He smoked on. At last he resisted
the spell. The whole thing was nonsensical. His pipe, only lightly
packed by the frail hands, went out. He stuffed it in his pocket, and
cleared his throat. He would say then and there what he had come to say.
Stellamaris turned her head and laughed; and when Stellamaris laughed,
the sea outside and the flowers in the delft bowl laughed, too.
“The angel has been having a good time.”
John cleared his throat again.
“My dear,” said he, and then he stopped short. All the carefully
prepared exordiums went out of his head. How now to break the news to
her he did not know.
“Are you very tired?” she asked.
“Not a bit,” said John.
“Then be a dear, and read me something. Read me 'Elaine.' ”
The elevated and sophisticated and very highly educated may learn
with surprise that “The Idylls of the King” still appeal to ingenuous
fifteen. Thank God there are yet remaining also some sentimentalists of
fifty who can read them with pleasure and profit!
“But that is so sad, Stellamaris,” said John. “You don't want to be sad
this beautiful spring morning.”
Which was a very inconsistent remark to make, seeing that he was about
to dash the young sun from her sky altogether.
“I like being sad sometimes, especially when the world is bright.
And Lancelot was such a dear,”--here spoke ingenuous fifteen,--“and
Elaine--oh, do read it!”
So John, secretly glad of a respite, drew from the bookcase which held
her scrupulously selected and daintily bound library the volume of
Tennyson and read aloud the idyll of Lancelot and Elaine. And the
sea-wind blew about his head and fluttered the brown hair on the pillow,
and the log-fire blazed in the chimney, and the great dog slept, and a
noontide hush was over all things. And Risca read the simple poem with
the heart of the girl of fifteen, and forgot everything else in the
world.
When he had finished, the foolish eyes of both were moist. “The dead
oar'd by the dumb,” with the lily in her hand,--dead for the love of
Lancelot,--affected them both profoundly.
“I think I should die, too, like that, Great High; Belovedest,” said
Stellamaris, “if any one I loved left me.”
“But what Lancelot is going to leave you, dear?” said John.
She shook the thistledown of sadness from her brow and laughed.
“You and Walter are the only Lancelots I've got.”
“The devil 's in the child to-day,” said Risca to himself.
There was a short pause. Then Stella said:
“Belovedest dear, what was the particular thing that Walter said you had
to tell me?”
“It 's of no consequence,” said John. “It will do to-morrow or the day
after.”
Stella started joyously,--as much as the rigid discipline of years would
allow her,--and great gladness lit her face.
“Darling! Are you going to stay here to-day and to-morrow and the next
day?”
“My dear,” said John, “I've got to get up to town this morning.”
“You won't do that,” said Stella. “Look at the clock.”
It was a quarter to one. He had spent the whole morning with her, and
the hours had flown by like minutes.
“Why did n't you tell me that I ought to be catching my train?”
She regarded him in demure mischief.
“I had no object in making you catch your train.”
And then Her Serene High-and-Mightiness, the nurse (who had been called
in for Stella when first she was put to bed in the sea-chamber, and,
falling under her spell, had stayed on until she had grown as much
involved in the web of her life as Sir Oliver and Lady Julia and
Constable and Herold and Risca), came into the room and decreed the end
of the morning interview.
Risca went down-stairs, his purpose unaccomplished. He walked about the
garden and argued with himself. Now, when a man argues with himself, he,
being only the extraneous eidolon of himself, invariably gets the worst
of the argument, and this makes him angry. John was angry; to such a
point that, coming across Sir Oliver, who had just returned from an
inexplicably disastrous game of golf and began to pour a story of
bunkered gloom into his ear, he gnashed his teeth and tore his hair and
told Sir Oliver to go to the devil with his lugubrious and rotten game,
and dashed away to the solitude of the beach until the luncheon-bell
summoned him back.
“I'm going by the 3:50,” said he at the luncheon-table.
At three o'clock Stella was free to see him again. He went up to her
room distinctly determined to shut his heart against folly. The sun
had crept round toward the west and flooded the head and shoulders of
Stellamaris and the dainty bedspread with pale gold, just as it flooded
the now still and smiling sea. Again paralysis fell upon John. The words
he was to speak were to him, as well as to her, the words of doom, and
he could not utter them. They talked of vain, childish things. Then
Stellamaris's clock chimed the three-quarters. There are some chimes
that are brutal, others ironic; but Stellamaris's chimes (the clock was
a gift from John himself) were soft, and pealed a soothing mystery, like
a bell swung in a deep sea-cave.
It was a quarter to four, and he had missed his train once more. Well,
the train could go to--to London, as good a synonym for Tophet as any
other. So he stayed, recklessly surrendering himself to the pale, sunlit
peace of the sea-chamber, till he was dislodged by Lady Blount.
An attempt to catch a six o'clock train was equally unsuccessful. He did
not return to town that night. Why should a sorely bruised man reject
the balm that healed? To-morrow he would be stronger and more serene,
abler to control the driving force of the Furies, and therefore fitted
to announce in gentler wise the decrees of destiny. So Risca went to bed
and slept easier, and the room which Stellamaris had made for him became
the enchanted bower of a Fair Lady of All Mercy.
In their simple human way Sir Oliver and Lady Blount besought him to
stay for his health's sake in the fresh sea-air; and when he yielded,
they prided themselves, after the manner of humans, on their own powers
of persuasion. One morning Sir Oliver asked him point-blank:
“When are you going to Australia?”
“I don't know,” said John. “There 's no immediate hurry.”
“I hope, dear,” said Julia, “you 'll give up the idea altogether.”
“Have n't I told you that I've made up my mind?” said John, in his gruff
tone of finality.
“When are you going to break the news to Stella?” asked Sir Oliver.
“Now,” said John, who had begun to loathe the mention of the doomful
subject; and he stalked away--the three were strolling in the garden
after breakfast--and went to Stella's room, and of course made no
mention of it whatsoever.
Then Herold came down for the week-end, and when he heard of Risca's
pusillanimity he threw back his head and laughed for joy; for he knew
that John would never go to Australia without telling Stellamaris, and
also that if he could not tell Stellamaris in the first madness of his
agony, he would never be able to tell her at all.
And so, in fact, the fantastically absurd prevailed. Before the
Unwritten Law, mainly promulgated and enforced by Risca himself, which
guarded the sea-chamber against pain and sorrow, the driving Furies
slunk with limp wing and nerveless claw. And one day Risca was surprised
at finding himself undriven. Indeed, he was somewhat disconcerted. He
fell into a bad temper. The Furies are highly aristocratic divinities
who don't worry about Tom, Dick, or Harry, but choose an Orestes at
least for their tormenting; so that, when they give up their pursuit
of a Risca, he may excusably regard it as a personal slight. It was the
morose and gloomy nature of the man.
“I know I 'm a fool,” he said to Herold, when every one had gone to bed,
“but I can't help it. Any normal person would regard me as insane if
I told him I was stopped from saving the wreck of my career by
consideration for the temporary comfort of a bedridden chit of a girl
half my age, who is absolutely nothing to me in the world (her uncle
married my first cousin. If that is anything of a family tie, I'm weak
on family feeling); but that's God's truth. I'm tied by her to this
accursed country. She just holds me down in the hell of London, and I
can't wriggle away. It's senseless, I know it is. Sometimes when I 'm
away from her, walking on the beach, I feel I 'd like to throw the whole
of this confounded house into the sea; and then I look up and see the
light in her room, and--I--I just begin to wonder whether she 's asleep
and what she's dreaming of. There 's some infernal witchcraft about the
child.”
“There is,” said Herold.
“Rot!” said Risca, his pugnacious instincts awakened by the check on
his dithyrambics. “The whole truth of the matter is that I'm simply a
sentimental fool.”
“All honour to you, John,” said Herold.
“If you talk like that, I 'll wring your neck,” said Risca, pausing for
à second in his walk up and down Sir Oliver's library, and glaring down
at his friend, who reclined on the sofa and regarded him with a smile
exasperatingly wise. “You know I'm a fool, and why can't you say it? A
man at my time of life! Do you realize that I am twice her age?”
And he went on, inveighing now against the pitifully human conventions
that restrained him from hurting the chit of a child, and now against
the sorcery with which she contrived to invest the chamber wherein she
dwelt.
“And at my age, too, when I 've run the whole gamut of human misery,
the whole discordant thing--_toute la lyre_--when I've finished with the
blighting illusion that men call life; when, confound it! I 'm thirty.”
Sir Oliver, unable to sleep, came into the room in dressing-gown and
slippers. He looked very fragile and broken.
“Here 's John,” laughed Herold, “saying that he 's thirty, and an old,
withered man, and he 's not thirty. He 's nine-and-twenty.”
Sir Oliver looked at John, as only age, with awful wistfulness, can
look at youth, and came and laid his hand upon the young man's broad
shoulders.
“My lad,” said he, “you've had a bad time; but you 're young. You've
the whole of your life before you. Time, my dear boy, is a marvellous
solvent of human perplexity. Once in a new world, once in that
astonishing continent of Australia--”
John threw a half-finished cigar angrily into the fire.
“I'm not going to the damned continent,” said he.