THE INTERCESSION
Just as I was walking away from the hotel I perceived Rosa's victoria
drawing up before the portico. She saw me. We exchanged a long look--a
look charged with anxious questionings. Then she beckoned to me, and
I, as it were suddenly waking from a trance, raised my hat, and went
to her.
"Get in," she said, without further greeting. "We will drive to the
Arc de Triomphe and back. I was going to call on Mrs. Sullivan
Smith,--just a visit of etiquette,--but I will postpone that."
Her manner was constrained, as it had been on the previous day, but I
could see that she was striving hard to be natural. For myself, I did
not speak. I felt nervous, even irritable, in my love for her.
Gradually, however, her presence soothed me, slackened the tension of
my system, and I was able to find a faint pleasure in the beauty of
the September afternoon, and of the girl by my side, in the smooth
movement of the carriage, and the general gaiety and color of the
broad tree-lined Champs Elysées.
"Why do you ask me to drive with you?" I asked her at length, abruptly
yet suavely. Amid the noise of the traffic we could converse with the
utmost privacy.
"Because I have something to say to you," she answered, looking
straight in front of her.
"Before you say it, one question occurs to me. You are dressed in
black; you are in mourning for Sir Cyril, your father, who is not even
buried. And yet you told me just now that you were paying a mere visit
of etiquette to my cousin Emmeline. Is it usual in Paris for ladies in
mourning to go out paying calls? But perhaps you had a special object
in calling on Emmeline."
"I had," she replied at once with dignity, "and I did not wish you to
know."
"What was it?"
"Really, Mr. Foster--"
"'Mr. Foster!'"
"Yes; I won't call you Carl any more. I have made a mistake, and it
is as well you should hear of it now. I can't love you. I have
misunderstood my feelings. What I feel for you is gratitude, not love.
I want you to forget me."
She was pale and restless.
"Rosa!" I exclaimed warningly.
"Yes," she continued urgently and feverishly, "forget me. I may seem
cruel, but it is best there should be no beating about the bush. I
can't love you."
"Rosa!" I repeated.
"Go back to London," she went on. "You have ambitions. Fulfil them.
Work at your profession. Above all, don't think of me. And always
remember that though I am very grateful to you, I cannot love
you--never!"
"That isn't true, Rosa!" I said quietly. "You have invited me into
this carriage simply to lie to me. But you are an indifferent liar--it
is not your forte. My dear child, do you imagine that I cannot see
through your poor little plan? Mrs. Sullivan Smith has been talking to
you, and it has occurred to you that if you cast me off, the anger of
that--that thing may be appeased, and I may be saved from the fate
that overtook Alresca. You were calling on Emmeline to ask her advice
finally, as she appears to be mixed up in this affair. Then, on seeing
me, you decided all of a sudden to take your courage in both hands,
and dismiss me at once. It was heroic of you, Rosa; it was a splendid
sacrifice of your self-respect. But it can't be. Nothing is going to
disturb my love. If I die under some mysterious influence, then I die;
but I shall die loving you, and I shall die absolutely certain that
you love me."
Her breast heaved, and under the carriage rug her hand found mine and
clasped it. We did not look at each other. In a thick voice I called
to the coachman to stop. I got out, and the vehicle passed on. If I
had stayed with her, I should have wept in sight of the whole street.
I ate no dinner that evening, but spent the hours in wandering up and
down the long verdurous alleys in the neighborhood of the Arc de
Triomphe. I was sure of Rosa's love, and that thought gave me a
certain invigoration. But to be sure of a woman's love when that love
means torture and death to you is not a complete and perfect
happiness. No, my heart was full of bitterness and despair, and my
mind invaded by a miserable weakness. I pitied myself, and at the
same time I scorned myself. After all, the ghost had no actual power
over me; a ghost cannot stab, cannot throttle, cannot shoot. A ghost
can only act upon the mind, and if the mind is feeble enough to allow
itself to be influenced by an intangible illusion, then--
But how futile were such arguments! Whatever the power might be, the
fact that the ghost had indeed a power over me was indisputable. All
day I had felt the spectral sword of it suspended above my head. My
timid footsteps lingering on the way to the hotel sufficiently proved
its power. The experiences of the previous night might be merely
subjective--conceptions of the imagination--but they were no less
real, no less fatal to me on that account.
Once I had an idea of not going to the hotel that night at all. But of
what use could such an avoidance be? The apparition was bound by no
fetters to that terrible sitting-room of mine. I might be put to the
ordeal anywhere, even here in the thoroughfares of the city, and upon
the whole I preferred to return to my lodging. Nay, I was the victim
of a positive desire for that scene of my torture.
I returned. It was eleven o'clock. The apparition awaited me. But this
time it was not seated in the chair. It stood with its back to the
window, and its gaze met mine as I entered the room. I did not close
the door, and my eyes never left its face. The sneer on its thin lips
was bitterer, more devilishly triumphant, than before. Erect,
motionless, and inexorable, the ghost stood there, and it seemed to
say: "What is the use of leaving the door open? You dare not escape.
You cannot keep away from me. To-night you shall die of sheer terror."
With a wild audacity I sat down in the very chair which it had
occupied, and drummed my fingers on the writing-table. Then I took off
my hat, and with elaborate aim pitched it on to a neighboring sofa. I
was making a rare pretence of carelessness. But moment by moment,
exactly as before, my courage and resolution oozed out of me, drawn
away by that mystic presence.
Once I got up filled with a brilliant notion. I would approach the
apparition; I would try to touch it. Could I but do so, it would
vanish; I felt convinced it would vanish. I got up, as I say, but I
did not approach the ghost. I was unable to move forward, held by a
nameless dread. I dropped limply back into the chair. The phenomena of
the first night repeated themselves, but more intensely, with a more
frightful torture. Once again I sought relief from the agony of that
gaze by retreating into the bedroom; once again I was compelled by the
same indescribable fear to return, and once again I fell down, smitten
by a new and more awful menace, a kind of incredible blasphemy which
no human thought can convey.
And now the ghost moved mysteriously and ominously towards me. With an
instinct of defence, cowed as I was upon the floor, I raised my hand
to ward it off. Useless attempt! It came near and nearer,
imperceptibly moving.
"Let me die in peace," I said within my brain.
But it would not. Not only must I die, but in order to die I must
traverse all the hideous tortures of the soul which that lost spirit
had learnt in its dire wanderings.
The ghost stood over me, impending like a doom. Then it suddenly
looked towards the door, startled, and the door swung on its hinges. A
girl entered--a girl dressed in black, her shoulders and bosom
gleaming white against the dark attire, a young girl with the
heavenliest face on this earth. Casting herself on her knees before
the apparition, she raised to that dreadful spectre her countenance
transfigured by the ecstasy of a sublime appeal. It was Rosa.
Can I describe what followed? Not adequately, only by imperfect hints.
These two faced each other, Rosa and the apparition. She uttered no
word. But I, in my stupor, knew that she was interceding with the
spectre for my life. Her lovely eyes spoke to it of its old love, its
old magnanimity, and in the name of that love and that magnanimity
called upon it to renounce the horrible vengeance of which I was the
victim.
For long the spectre gazed with stern and formidable impassivity upon
the girl. I trembled, all hope and all despair, for the issue. She
would not be vanquished. Her love was stronger than its hate; her love
knew not the name of fear. For a thousand nights, so it seemed, the
two remained thus, at grips, as it were, in a death-struggle. Then
with a reluctant gesture of abdication the ghost waved a hand; its
terrible features softened into a consent, and slowly it faded away.
As I lay there Rosa bent over me, and put her arms round my neck, and
I could feel on my face the caress of her hair, and the warm baptism
of her tears--tears of joy.
* * * * *
I raised her gently. I laid her on the sofa, and with a calm, blissful
expectancy awaited the moment when her eyes should open. Ah! I may not
set down here the sensation of relief which spread through my being as I
realized with every separate brain-cell that I was no longer a victim,
the doomed slave of an evil and implacable power, but a free man--free
to live, free to love, exempt from the atrocious influences of the
nether sphere. I saw that ever since the first encounter in Oxford
Street my existence had been under a shadow, dark and malign and always
deepening, and that this shadow was now magically dissipated in the
exquisite dawn of a new day. And I gave thanks, not only to Fate, but to
the divine girl who in one of those inspirations accorded only to
genius had conceived the method of my enfranchisement, and so nobly
carried it out.
Her eyelids wavered, and she looked at me.
"It is gone?" she murmured.
"Yes," I said, "the curse is lifted."
She smiled, and only our ardent glances spoke.
* * * * *
"How came you to think of it?" I asked.
"I was sitting in my room after dinner, thinking and thinking. And
suddenly I could see this room, and you, and the spectre, as plainly
as I see you now. I felt your terror; I knew every thought that was
passing in your brain, the anguish of it! And then, and then, an idea
struck me. I had never appealed in vain to Lord Clarenceux in
life--why should I not appeal now? I threw a wrap over my shoulders
and ran out. I didn't take a cab, I ran--all the way. I scarcely knew
what I was doing, only that I had to save you. Oh, Carl, you are
free!"
"Through you," I said.
She kissed me, and her kiss had at once the pure passion of a girl and
the satisfied solicitude of a mother.
"Take me home!" she whispered.
Outside the hotel an open carriage happened to be standing. I hailed
the driver, and we got in. The night was beautifully fine and mild. In
the narrow lane of sky left by the high roofs of the street the stars
shone and twinkled with what was to me a new meaning. For I was once
more in accord with the universe. I and Life were at peace again.
"Don't let us go straight home," said Rosa, as the driver turned
towards us for instructions. "It seems to me that a drive through
Paris would be very enjoyable to-night."
And so we told the man to proceed along the quays as far as he could,
and then through the Champs Elysées to the Bois de Boulogne. The Seine
slept by its deserted parapets like a silver snake, and only the low
rumble of the steam-car from Versailles disturbed its slumber. The
million lights of the gas-lamps, stretching away now and then into the
endless vistas of the boulevards, spoke to me of the delicious
companionship of humanity, from which I had so nearly been snatched
away. And the glorious girl by my side--what of her companionship? Ah,
that was more than a companionship; it was a perfect intercourse which
we shared. No two human beings ever understood one another more
absolutely, more profoundly, than did Rosa and myself, for we had been
through the valley and through the flood together. And so it happened
that we did not trouble much with conversation. It was our souls, not
our mouths which talked--talked softly and mysteriously in the
gracious stillness and obscurity of that Paris night. I learnt many
things during that drive--the depth of her love, the height of her
courage, the ecstasy of her bliss. And she, too, she must have learnt
many things from me--the warmth of my gratitude to her, a warmth which
was only exceeded by the transcendent fire of my affection.
Presently we had left the borders of the drowsy Seine, which is so
busy by day, so strangely silent by night. We crossed the immense
Place de la Concorde. Once again we were rolling smoothly along the
Champs Elysées. Only a few hours before we had driven through this
very avenue, Rosa and I, but with what different feelings from those
which possessed us now! How serene and quiet it was! Occasionally a
smooth-gliding carriage, or a bicyclist flitting by with a Chinese
lantern at the head of his machine--that was all. As we approached
the summit of the hill where the Arc de Triomphe is, a new phenomenon
awaited us. The moon rose--a lovely azure crescent over the houses,
and its faint mild rays were like a benediction upon us. Then we had
turned to the left, and were in the Bois de Boulogne. We stopped the
carriage under the trees, which met overhead; the delicatest breeze
stirred the branches to a crooning murmur. All around was solitude and
a sort of hushed expectation. Suddenly Rosa put her hand into mine,
and with a simultaneous impulse we got out of the carriage and
strolled along a by-path.
"Carl," she said, "I have a secret for you. But you must tell no one."
She laughed mischievously.
"What is it?" I answered, calmly smiling.
"It is that I love you," and she buried her face against my shoulder.
"Tell me that again," I said, "and again and again."
And so under the tall rustling trees we exchanged vows--vows made more
sacred by the bitterness of our experience. And then at last, much to
the driver's satisfaction, we returned to the carriage, and were
driven back to the Rue de Rivoli. I gave the man a twenty-franc
piece; certainly the hour was unconscionably late.
I bade good night, a reluctant good night, to Rosa at the entrance to
her flat.
"Dearest girl," I said, "let us go to England to-morrow. You are
almost English, you know; soon you will be the wife of an Englishman,
and there is no place like London."
"True," she answered. "There is no place like London. We'll go. The
Opéra Comique will manage without me. And I will accept no more
engagements for a very, very long time. Money doesn't matter. You have
enough, and I--oh, Carl, I've got stacks and piles of it. It's so
easy, if you have a certain sort of throat like mine, to make more
money than you can spend."
"Yes," I said. "We will have a holiday, after we are married, and that
will be in a fortnight's time. We will go to Devonshire, where the
heather is. But, my child, you will be wanting to sing again soon. It
is your life."
"No," she replied, "you are my life, aren't you?" And, after a pause:
"But perhaps singing is part of my life, too. Yes, I shall sing."
Then I left her for that night, and walked slowly back to my hotel.
THE END.