There is nothing to remember in me,
Nothing I ever said with a grace,
Nothing I did that you care to see,
Nothing I was that deserves a place
In your mind, now I leave you, set you free.
How strange it were, if you had all me
As I have all you in my heart and brain,
You, whose least word brought gloom or glee,
Who never yet lifted the hand in vain
Will hold mine yet, from over the sea!
_James Lee's Wife._
Percivale strolled back alone up the garden path. The night was
motionless and heavy. A lethargy seemed to lie on his soul like a
weight. To-night he had realized a new thing. He had seen that the
wedded bliss he had figured to himself was no dream, but a human
possibility, which some attained, but which he had missed. How had he
missed it?
Was it possible that he had married the wrong woman?
"Oh, Love, Love, no!" he cried, in his remorse. The fault was his, in
some way, of that he was very sure. Had that unknown mother of his
lived, she would have been his counsellor, and have shown him where he
failed. His deep eyes filled with tears as the thought of that mother
beyond the stars came vividly upon his soul. He felt a longing to be
comforted--to have his unbroken loneliness scattered and dissipated by
tender hands which should draw his weary head down lovingly to rest on a
sympathetic breast, and, while telling him what had been his error,
whisper consolation.
If there was one thing more than another for which he could not possibly
look to his wife, it was for this. Elsa expected him to have his
attention always fixed on her and her requirements. The idea that he
could ever ail in mind or body never occurred to her.
He stood in the porch of Edge Willoughby, the suffocating sweetness of
the verbena-bush, which grew beside the door, suffusing the air all
round him. He remembered the night when he stood there with Fowler and
Claud, just a year ago, bearing the news of Elsa's innocence.
If he could but charm away this bitter sense of failure!
A sudden determination to make one desperate appeal to his wife dawned
in his heart. When first they were married he told himself she was in
awe of him, she had not understood him. Now that she knew him better,
was there not a chance that she might comprehend the fierce hunger which
was in his heart? Surely yes.
Meditatively he walked down the hall.
As he passed along, his eye was attracted by a newspaper lying on the
ground, folded tightly together as if it had fallen from some one's coat
pocket.
Stooping absently he picked it up, with intent to lay it on the
hall-table near. As he did so, his eye fell on a paragraph scored at the
side with a pencil-mark. One word in that paragraph struck him like a
blow. He started, stared, half laughed like one whom a chance
coincidence has disturbed; then, his eyes travelling on, he slowly
whitened and stiffened where he stood, his attitude that of a man
thunder-struck.
For a couple of minutes or more he remained motionless, then put up an
uncertain hand to his eyes as if to clear away a mist.
After another pause, he laid his left hand firmly against the hall-table
near which he stood, and, so fortified, read the passage through.
The word which had first caught his eye was Littsdorf, the name of the
obscure village of North Germany where his father and his mother lay
buried. Glancing higher on the page he saw his father's name printed in
full, and his own relationship to him openly proclaimed. So far, true;
but the account then became inaccurate, repeating the old story of
corruption and suicide which had so long passed current.
As it stood it was not the truth as he had told it to his wife, yet
there were certain things in it which surely no one could have known
except from his wife's lips.
Violently he repelled the thought, as if to think it were a sin. She!
What, she! To whom he had trusted his honor--in whose hands he had laid
his life and love--at whose feet he had heaped up the incense of a
devotion which was all hers, and had never for a moment leaned towards
any other woman!
And yet--yet--_Littsdorf_!
The writer of the paragraph must evidently have visited the place, to
collect the names, dates, and inscriptions on the lonely grave of his
mother in the little _Friedhof_. Chance might have taken him there; but
could chance connect the name of R---- with the name of Percivale?
In comparison with the horror of this thought, the publication of this
strange hash of truth and falsehood troubled him but little. Too many
false reports of him had been circulated for the public to pay much
extra heed to this last. If Henry Fowler questioned him, he could easily
tell him the truth; but this thought--this ghastly chill which crept
over him--this horrible suspicion that his wife had discussed the
innermost core of her husband's heart with some casual acquaintance!
It was not true. It could not be. It must not be, or there seemed an end
to all possibility of living on in the shattered temple of his broken
idol. No! It must be some other way; some strange, marvellous
coincidence must be at the root of it.
He would go to his darling and look her in the face--feel the pressure
of her little hand, and curse himself for the unworthiness of his
thought.
With a strenuous effort, he steadied himself mentally and struggled for
his habitual calm. He determined not to go to his wife in the present
excited condition of his nerves, lest he might say something which he
should regret. He had not yet fully considered the bearings of the
subject. Perhaps after all his fear was groundless. Was not some other
solution possible?
Again he went out into the night, and for half-an-hour his restless feet
trod the terrace, up and down, up and down, while he tried to banish
suspicion.
What a coward and traitor was the man who could doubt his own wife
without proof! Anything else might happen--a miracle might have revealed
the closely hidden secret; anything but _that_.
The big hall clock striking midnight made him start. He must go indoors
or he would waken Elsa, and nothing so put her out of temper as to be
waked from her first sleep.
He went indoors, shutting out the hot and heavy darkness of the night
with a sigh almost of relief, drew the bolts into their places,
extinguished the hall lamp, and quietly went upstairs through the silent
house.
He expected to find his room in darkness, but, rather to his surprise,
lights were burning, and Elsa sat in an armchair, reading a novel. She
glanced up, and yawned as he entered.
The room was transformed since the arrival of Mrs. Percivale's trunks
and Mrs. Percivale's maid. A mass of various articles of apparel strewed
the chairs and sofa, the dressing table groaned under its load of
silver-topped essence-bottles, ivory brushes, hair-curling apparatus,
and so forth. The mantel-piece was adorned with knick-knack frames
containing photographs of a certain tenor who sang in the opera in
Paris, and for whom Elsa had conceived a violent admiration.
The young lady herself was in _deshabille_; she never looked more
beautiful than when half-dressed. She wore a white embroidered petticoat
and low bodice, much trimmed with lace. Her golden hair streamed all
over her creamy neck and arms.
Tossing away her book, she yawned and laughed, lifting said arms and
folding them behind her head.
"Oh, is it you? Just fancy! How late it is. I was so tired of trying to
undress myself, for Mathilde went to bed the minute she arrived, and I
won't let old Jane touch me. So I felt so hot, and I sat down to rest;
and this book was so fascinating that" (yawn) "I've been reading ever
since." The last five words were almost lost in a large yawn. "Isn't it
hot, Leon?"
"Very," he said, as he closed the door, and, drawing up a chair, took a
seat at her side. "I am glad you are up still, though. I was afraid I
should wake you."
"No; I am not very sleepy. I feel inclined to sit up and finish my
book."
"Sit up and talk to me instead," he said, taking one of her hands in
his, and looking down lovingly at its slender grace. "The coming back to
this place has put me in mind of so many things, my darling, I have been
remembering the night--just such a night as this--when I saw you lying
asleep on Miss Ellen's bed, dressed in blue----"
"Oh, yes!" her laugh broke in. "That fearful old dressing-gown of Aunt
Ellen's! What a fright I felt! I was so ashamed for you to see me. It
had shrunk in the wash. Did you notice?"
"My own, I thought you were the most perfect creature I had ever looked
upon--as I think still."
"It is rather disappointing, Leon, to find that you don't like me a bit
better, now that I really do dress properly, than when I was such a
frump. Look at that now," indicating, with a white satin-shod foot, the
wondrous toilette she had worn that evening, which lay across a chair
near. "That really _is_ pretty, if you like; but it is nonsense to tell
me that I looked well in that old blue dressing-gown."
"I tell you that you looked lovely--lovely! There you lay, calmly
sleeping, with your life shadowed over by a false accusation!" Falling
on his knees beside her chair, he caught her in his arms in an
irresistible access of love. Could he suspect her--he, the champion of
her innocence when everyone else forsook her?
His head, with its soft curls, lay against her neck. In a passing
impulse of affection, begotten of the novel she had been reading, she
bent down, kissed him, and stroked his hair.
"Be a good boy, and don't suffocate me quite," said she. "It is very hot
to-night."
He did not lift his head, but still clasped her close.
"Elsa, my sweet," he said, "I am ashamed to look in your face. I feel a
traitor; I have been thinking evil of you, my heart! I want to
confess--to tell you of it. May I?"
"I"--yawn--"suppose so. Yes. But don't be long. I think I'll go to bed
now."
"To think that I was mean enough, poor-spirited enough, in face of a few
suspicious circumstances, to dream that my wife would break her word to
me, would shatter my trust in her, by talking of my private affairs, of
the secret which I gave her to guard----"
He felt the girl start in his arms, and a corresponding thrill, a sudden
sense of horror, went through him. Letting her go out of his clasp, and
lifting his eyes to her face, he saw her crimson from brow to chin.
"What made you say that, Leon?" she asked sharply.
"This," he said, as, scarcely knowing what he did, he laid the paper on
her knee.
She took it up and read it quickly through, the color ebbing and coming
as she sat.
His heart was beating so fast he could hardly breathe, his whole soul
sick with an awful fear. The paper fell on her lap, and she remained
still, as if not knowing what to say.
"Elsa," he cried, "how could those words have been written unless the
writer of them knew--what you know?"
The girl tossed the paper from her, flinging herself back in her chair
defiantly.
"That mean, hateful woman," she cried, with passion. "She deserves--what
does she not deserve?--when she solemnly vowed to me not to tell a
soul----"
She stopped short, the words died away. The blaze in Percivale's eyes
seemed to wither and strike her dumb.
"Elsa!" Rising, he stood before her, laying his hands on her shoulders.
"Do you mean to tell me that you have been speaking of what should be
sacred in your eyes--no, no! Consider what you are saying."
"Nonsense, Leon!" Angry tears sprang to her eyes. "Let go of me--you
hurt! You speak as if I were a criminal."
His face, as his hold relaxed and stepped back, was pitiful to behold.
"To a woman," he said. "To what woman?"
"To that odious Mrs. Orton."
"Elsa, you are mad! _Mrs. Orton?_"
"Leon, you don't know what hateful things she said of you. She said she
knew them for facts. I was obliged to tell her the real truth, I could
not stand to have her pitying me, and telling me she knew better than I
did. And she declared she would not tell. I made her promise."
He laughed harshly.
"So, though you could betray your husband's confidence, you did not
think that she could betray yours! Oh, Elsa! Elsa!... God help me!"
"Leon, it is very inconsiderate and unkind of you to frighten me so!
I--I--shall faint or something. What harm so very great have I done?
They often put stories about you in the papers. Nobody will know that
this is true."
"The world may know, for aught I care. What is the world to me? Less
than nothing. All my life I have never valued public opinion. I could
bear with perfect fortitude to be an outlaw--tabooed by society, if--if
I knew there lived on earth one woman I could trust."
He went to the window. The purple darkness outside seemed in sympathy
with him. The verbena scent welled up in waves of perfume. Elsa began to
cry bitterly, and then to let fall a torrent of excuses.
She had done it for him, because she hated to hear a spiteful woman
speak ill of him. It was because she loved him so that she had been
tempted; and there was no great harm done, and now he spoke to her as if
she were a dog. He was unkind, he terrified her. She would not bear to
be so scolded, she was not a child any more, etc.
Through it all Percivale stood immovable by the window, wondering what
could possibly happen next. He felt rather like a man who, having
received his death-blow, awaits with a dumb patience the moment when
death itself shall follow. Was this woman really the Elsa of his
adoration? Had he indeed to this slight, trifling, deceitful nature
surrendered himself body and soul as a slave? How could he live on, a
long life through, with a wife whom he despised?
Despised? His feeling came nearer to loathing than to contempt as he
looked at her. Her very beauty sickened him--the outer covering which
had won his fancy. He hated himself for ever having loved her.
She could not see that it was the act itself, not the consequences of
it, which he so condemned. So small was her nature that she was unable
even to comprehend her transgression. He could not make her understand
the horror with which he must regard such a breach of trust.
"There was no great harm done?" was her cry.
"Harm!" he said, brokenly. "There is murder done. You have killed my
faith, Elsa, for ever more."
"It is very rude and unkind to say that you will never tell me anything
again, just because I let out this one thing. And I only told one
person. I never so much as mentioned it to anyone else. I might have
published it all over London, to hear you talk!"
It was impossible to answer a speech like this. She had _only_ betrayed
him to one person! She had _not so much as mentioned it_ to anyone else!
And this was his wife, his ideal!
Claud Cranmer had said,
"If you wish to preserve your ideal, you must not marry her."
He sank into a chair, covered his face, and groaned.
"Come, Leon, don't behave like that--you are the most unreasonable
person I ever met!" cried Elsa. "Go away, please, to your dressing-room,
and leave me alone. I want to go to bed. You have made me cry so that my
eyes are scarlet, and my head feels like lead. I think you are extremely
unkind; when I have told you I am very sorry, and begged you pardon. I
don't see what more I can do."
"No, Elsa," he said, rising, "you can do nothing more. You cannot make
yourself a different woman; and nothing short of that would avail to
help us much."
He passed her without looking at her, and shut himself into his
dressing-room.
His wife crossed the room, and stared at herself in the glass.
"I know my eye-lids will be all swelled to-morrow," she thought, with a
keen sense of injury. "I never saw Leon in such a rage. I hope he will
soon get over it. I don't think he is a very good-tempered man; I call
him rather sulky. Osmond was much greater fun."
A few minutes after she was in bed, the door opened and Percivale came
in. He had changed his dress clothes for his yachting suit, and his cap
was in his hand.
"Leon! Are you mad?" cried Elsa.
"I think not," he said, gravely, as he came to her bedside,
"but--but--Elsa, forgive me, I cannot stay here and go on as if nothing
had happened. You have given me too severe a shock for me to recover
from all at once."
"Leon, what nonsense! You talk in such a strange way sometimes I think
you cannot be quite right in your head. I do not understand you."
"No," he said, his voice almost a cry, "that is the trouble, Elsa. You
do not understood me. I have not understood you either. I have been
mistaken. I was ignorant of life. I did not know you, and now that,
suddenly, I have seen you _as you are_, and not as I fancied you, I must
have time to grow used to the idea. Poor child, poor child! You could
not help it. It is I who am to blame, far more than you. Forgive me that
I expected too much."
"What are you going to do? Go away and leave me alone here with the
aunts for a punishment?"
"I am going to take the yacht round to Clovelly for Lady Mabel, as was
suggested. It will not be very long, and by the time I come back I shall
be calmer. I shall be able to face this new aspect of things better.
Elsa, Elsa, have you no word for me--nothing to heal the wound you have
made? Do you not see, my child, what you have done? Can't you realize
how despicable a part you have played! Elsa, face this conduct of
yours--what should you say of another man's wife who had betrayed her
husband's confidence to his enemy--abused the trust confided to her? Can
you not even see the nature of your fault as it is?"
"I have said I am sorry, and I will say it again if it will please you.
I know it was stupid to tell her. I thought so several times afterwards.
I did not like to tell you; but I do think you make too much fuss, Leon.
A thing is out before you know it, but I can't see that it is such a sin
as you want to make out."
He tried no more. He bowed his head to utter failure.
Stooping, he gently put his lips to his wife's pure brow, shaded with
its innocent-looking curls of gold.
"Poor child," he said, tenderly, "poor, beautiful child. Sleep, Elsa, I
must not keep you awake, or make you grieve. It would spoil your beauty;
and it is your mission to be beautiful. Good-night!--good-night! I am
not angry with you."
"Then why do you go rushing off in the middle of the night instead of
coming to bed like a Christian?" she cried, pitifully. "Leon, Leon, why
are you so strange--so unaccountable! You make me so unhappy--without my
knowing why! You--you are--so very _very_ hard on me!" Suddenly she
burst into a passion of tears. Lifting herself from her pillows, she
cast both arms round him, clinging to him. "I--I do love you," she
gasped, "don't be so cruel to me, don't!" The tears welled up in the
young man's beautiful eyes in sympathetic response.
He drew the lovely head down upon his breast, and soothed her with
infinite compassion. Like Arthur, the stainless gentleman whose wife had
failed him in another--a worse way--"his vast pity almost made him die,"
as he held her closely, caressing her like a child until her sobs had
ceased.
"You are not angry any more?" she asked at last, lifting her wet
eye-lashes with a wistful, appealing glance.
"No, Elsa, no. I am not angry. I am penitent. There is no need to make
yourself unhappy. Go to sleep."
"I am very sleepy," she sighed, "but you will wake me if you move me."
"I will sit here until you sleep."
"Thank you. You are a good, dear boy. Good-night, Leon."
"Good-night, Elsa."
There was stillness in the room--utter stillness as at last Percivale
laid his sleeping wife down, and, bending over her, bestowed a parting
kiss.
He felt somewhat as a man who gazes upon the dead form of one beloved.
His dream-Elsa was a thing of the past--vanished, dead.
What would the fresh life be like which he must begin with her? A life
of strain--of the heavy knowledge that never while he lived could he
hope for sympathy, could he satisfy the mighty craving of his soul for a
wife who should be to him what Claud Cranmer's wife was to her husband.
Everything was changed.
Never, in all his solitary youth, in all the remote wanderings of the
_Swan_, not even when he laid to rest his tutor, the one friend of his
childhood, had he felt the terror of loneliness as he felt it now. It
was grey dawn when he came down to the beach. Mueller, who was on the
look-out, saw the misty figure of his master standing upon the shore,
and at once launched the gig and took him on board.
With the gradual dawn, a faint breeze sprang up and lifted the mist that
hung over the sea.
It filled the _Swan's_ white wings as it rose and freshened, and just as
the sun rose, she sailed out of the bay, her master, silent and pallid,
standing on the deck, watching the dim roof which covered his perished
hopes.
There lay the Lower House, snug in the valley. He sent an unspoken
farewell to the good Henry, and to the happy husband and wife who were
probably just awaking to a fresh day of love and hope and mutual help.
The warm sun-rays gilded Percivale's bright head, and glorified the
still features as he stood. Old Mueller looked anxiously at him.
Something was wrong, he guessed, and yet--oh, the joy to be putting to
sea again as in old days, free and untrammelled by the fashionable wife
or the sick maid!
The old man's spirit leaped up with the red sun. His blood rose, his eye
kindled.
The bonnie yacht bounded over the freshening waves, the day laughed
broadly over the sea, and the crew, animated by Mueller's delight, sang
their _Volkslieder_ as they went about their work.
That night, the last sultry heat of autumn burst in a storm more violent
than Edge Combe had known for half a century. The first of the
equinoctial gales raged from the south west, thundering against the
battlemented crags of Cornwall, shrieking up the Devonshire valleys.
More than one large ship went to pieces on the wild coast; and fragments
of wrecks were washed ashore at Brent and in Edge Bay.
But no trace of the _Swan_ or of any of those on board of her was ever
carried by the relentless ocean within reach of the hearts that ached
and longed for tidings of her fate. She had vanished as she had first
appeared, mysteriously, in a tempest.
To the fisher-folk there seemed to be something supernatural alike in
her arrival and her disappearance.
For months they cherished among themselves the belief that she would
return one day--that somewhere, in some distant port, or in far sunny
seas she was gliding like a big white bird along her mysterious course.
They argued that some trace of her must have come ashore somewhere--she
was cruising so near the coast, some fragment of her must have been
washed up at some point--some dead sailor have been floated in on the
tide wearing the white _Swan_ worked on his jersey, to be a silent
witness of the destruction of the yacht.
But no! No news, no sign, no trace of her end was ever forthcoming. She
seemed to have melted away like a mythical ship into the regions of
legend.
And it has now become a tradition in the Combe that if ever the day
should come when some wrong done there shall cry aloud for justice, and
there is none to help, that, on that day, will be seen the white _Swan_
sailing into the bay in the sunshine, and her owner standing on her deck
like a hero of ancient story, as he stood when first he approached the
Valley of Avilion ready to champion the Truth.
THE END.
* * * * *
THE CURSE OF CARNE'S HOLD,
A STORY OF ADVENTURE.
From our perusal of the book we have no hesitation in declaring that the
Story will be enjoyed by all classes of Readers. Their sympathies will
be at once aroused in the characters first introduced to their notice,
and in the circumstances attending a lamentable catastrophe, which
breaks up a happy household in grief and despair. The hero of the story,
broken-hearted and despairing, flees to the Cape, determined if possible
to lose his life in battle. He joins the Cape Mounted Rifles, and in
active service finds the best solace for his dejected spirits. Romance
is again infused into his life by his success in rescuing from the
Kaffirs a young and beautiful lady, whom he gallantly bears on horseback
beyond reach of their spears.
From this point the Story takes up novel and startling developments. The
hero's affairs in the old country are adjusted by a surprising
discovery, and "The Curse of Carne's Hold" is brought to a happy and
satisfactory conclusion.
Few authors possess in so eminent a degree as Mr. G. A. Henty the
ability to produce stories full of thrilling situations, while at the
same time preserving and inculcating a high moral tone throughout. As a
writer of stories fitted for the home circle he is surpassed by none.
His books for boys have gained for him an honoured place in parent's
hearts. Whilst satisfying the youthful longing for adventures they
inspire admiration for straightforwardness, truth and courage, never
exceed the bounds of veracity, and in many ways are highly instructive.
From the first word to the last they are interesting--full of go,
freshness and verve. Mr. Henty fortunately for his readers, had an
extensive personal experience of adventures and "moving accidents by
flood and field," while acting as war correspondent. He has a vivid and
picturesque style of narrative, and we have reason to say "The Curse of
Carne's Hold" is written in his very best style.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Variations in hyphens left as printed.