OUR START
Ten more days passed without answer from Styria, and I was daily
awaiting Miss Emily's word: "You should start now."
She had left her room on the 22nd, and I can see again in fancy our
friend as she was that day, with her hair somewhat lax, and the little
wren on her bosom; she was palish, but one would hardly have thought
that she had come through a great illness, and more laughter than I
could quite account for, than quite pleased me perhaps, was on her lips.
Those were warm days in which much more than the daffodil had blown in
Swandale, and on the 25th of the month our friend went out of doors.
Towards evening she and I were in the pavilion--for I find that I must
tell something as to her and me, and since I must, will tell it more or
less verbatim, with reporter's blankness, as well as I can remember. We,
then, being in the pavilion (a circular temple at the end of an oblong
of water), she said to me: "those groups of lily-leaves on the lake
looking like ears must remember the music which Aubrey and I made here
most nights last summer. They will never hear us more. We used to sit in
that recess there, and this is the cupboard where we put up the violin
and harp." (A series of cupboards and old chairs went round the wall,
and there were chambers within the thickness of the marble, each with
its big window and seat; in one of the cupboards I saw still a harp in a
bag.)
"But the water-lilies will hear you and him again, Emily," I answered.
"Will they? What name shall we give him, Kitty-wren?" she asked of the
bird, "let's call him Mr Hopeful, Mr Butterlips; let's screech him down
with nicknames, Jenny"--whereat the bird from picking at the scab in her
palm broke, as if in answer, into chattering, so that we had to smile:
indeed, this tiny brown being that had come to us so strangely with its
message from Styria, and would never leave us, was seldom silent even in
the winter, and now in the spring would sometimes scatter one's talk
with its showers of music. Miss Emily touched its cocky, short tail,
saying: "Jenny knows! and the water-lilies know, too: they are never to
hear us more. Birds and herbs and women: they are in the original
obiah-dodge, and know what they do know."
"Women above all," I remember saying, though my heart was sore for her
and for me.
"Look at her now!" she cried--"perched right atop of the harp, screaming
something: the devil's in the bird, I think--pneuma akatharton echei!"
This she said with a laugh, but when the bird now suddenly hopped upon
her she stepped back from it with grave looks, brushing it off,
murmuring, "get away, you, go"; and at this I found myself bowed over
her drawn left palm, choked with her name; for she was no longer
herself, and feelings surged within me which cannot be told; but as I
held her hand, she first looked gravely at me, and then, to my wonder,
began to hum the common song: "two in a bed," whereat, with playful
reproach, I murmured "Gregorian," and let go her hand. Just then, the
bird settling afresh upon her, she said to it: "well, come then,
Kitty-wren: though you be the banshee, the very moth of death, I sha'n't
shun you--not though your mood be all of shrouds, and of thundery lone
nights in the ground, and good-bye all. Still, you were sick, you know,
and I nursed you, I have fed you, and watered you, and cleaned you, and
tamed you, and loved you, and you have a devil against me, Jenny."
"Oh, but, Emily," I said, "this little bird begins now to take up too
much of your thoughts!"
She did not answer me, but remarked thoughtfully: "she has baseness in
her nature; yes, she makes a show of affection, but how flightily she
forsook me that evening! I was just by that whitethorn bush out there,
looking down at the water-lilies, and she was on my left shoulder, when
suddenly she flew away, and before you could say 'Jenny!' a wet cloth
was over my face, my mouth was crammed, and the scream of my being made
no sound in my ears. Yet I have a sort of memory of a man, a masked man,
a lanky man with a stoop, so strong, so rude, dark as death, cruel as
the grave----"
"But, Emily, you speak of that?" I cried.
"Aubrey isn't here to hear," she said in a confidential way, "so it is
nothing. Let me talk. There's something in mere blackness without one
ray, in ravines without bottom, in bitterness so bitter that it churns
to cud in the chewing. You don't know how strong he was: I struggled
with him, but I was like a straw in his grasp; and when I felt myself
going, and no succour nor ruth in the world, and the large darkness
glooming, why then I sighed and was reconciled, and I chewed the brash
of the grave like black bread, and it was boon and good to me."
When I began now to reproach her for such melancholies she hummed a
catch of Langler's--
"In its dash
Showers down the rill,"
then at once ran to a window, crying: "look, you can see the whitethorn
from here; I must have been dragged at least forty yards from it----"
but I would no longer hear her, but drawing her down to the window-seat,
said, "hear me, dear Emily: you are not well, you are still far from
well, and for some days I have determined to ask you whether you do not
see that it would be well for you now to end my ordeal. If I have the
right----"
"Which right, Jenny?" she cried: "here is a young man who wishes to
sleep two in a bed with me--two in a bed, bed, bed, bed, bed! but he
will never sleep two in a bed with _me_, I think."
At these words I was so alarmed for her and pierced with pain, that I
could only bow my head over her knees, and I used the word "mercy."
"Mercy?" said she, "is it she who lives in Cuckoo-town? But you have not
waited long."
"Five years."
"Is that long? madly, dyingly long?... But it is only four."
"The fifth has long since begun."
"Has it? Truly? You might have reminded me!"
"On the morning when it began I begged of you a rose as symbol, and you
would not give it."
"Is that so? But perhaps I might have given some forget-me-nots, only
there were none.... You see, there's failure in you somewhere, Arthur,
there's a troubled light about your eyes, you were not born to make a
mother of me: you should buy an urn, Arthur, to blubber in."
"Well, I must, since you pronounce me so unfortunate," I said; "but
after four years and nearly a half of hope and promise----"
"Not promise."
"But of hope so warm----"
"The conditions remain: I have a brother." "But, Emily, you care----"
"For him."
"Alone?"
"They say the flowers grow fresher on maids' graves, Arthur: have you
ever heard say that?"
"Yes, but hear me: a day had to come when you must leave Aubrey--only
for a time, only partially--and for over a week it has seemed sure to me
that it is come now. You should be taken from Swandale, you should enter
upon a new life--only for a time. Hear me, Emily: you have been
fearfully ill, nigh to death; turn to me, say that you will come----"
"_To Styria?_"
"Styria! Of course, I did not mean Styria."
"Then, where does the man mean, Kitty-wren?" cried she: "he is talking
in Nephelo-coccugia, he hears a toll and thinks it a marriage-bell, I am
sure he is bewitched, he has blinkers on his eyes and morris bells on
his fingers: let's scream at him, and stop his dancing; he will take
worms to his bed, and be hugging them for his warm darling: Heaven guard
us from such a carle!"
"But pray, pray," was all that I could say, for a hunger and pity of her
possessed me.
"I am only telling you the truth," she answered, "your luck has leprosy,
your godmother must have been cross-eyed; and have I ever vowed to be
one Mrs Templeton, with your ring round my finger, whispering: '_this is
my body_'? I don't remember! I knew you when you were a young boy, and
I had a dream of you one night in which something said into my ear
nothing but 'Arthur, Arthur, Arthur'--just 'Arthur, Arthur, Arthur' for
years, and nothing else--a rum dream. But '_wife!_' '_wife!_' shrilled
the thrush, and the cuckoo answered, 'all gone,' 'all gone.' 'Wife' is a
bird-word, Jenny, it has no equivalent in my language. '_Wife!_' sing
'_wife!_' My tongue is too thick to sweet it."
"Mine isn't," I said, "if you will hear me say it. Emily, look at me, I
am praying you----"
"Idolatrously: I am wood and stone. Still, let me hear you say it."
"Say what?"
"'Wife': to hear how you pronounce the fluty f-sound and the deep i and
the wallowing w."
"Well, since that pleases you, I say--'wife.'"
"Oh, but so sheepishly? without unction? Hear _me_ say it--'_wife_.'"
"Well, so I too say it--'_wife_.'"
"Yes, that's strong. But you still speak of this? You still hope for
such a thing of me, really?"
"But may I not? Only to be allowed to take you----"
"_To Styria?_" she repeated: "oh, Arthur, the colour of your eyes and
mine don't match, you were not fashioned to be the father of a houseful
of sons, they would all squint. Deus meus! doesn't the enthronisation of
Archbishop Burton take place to-morrow, and will you not be going to
Styria the day after, or the day after?"
"I do not know that," I said: "we are waiting for a letter from the
authorities there."
"But if no letter comes? Will you not be going? Will you let Aubrey go
alone?"
"I am far from certain that Aubrey is going! There are pits and
perils----"
"He shall go," she said, "though they pierce my side, too, so that out
of it gush blood mingled with tears; he will go of himself, because he
should, and he shall go, because I will tell him to."
"I know that he will if he should," I answered; "but should he? What has
Aubrey to do with the world's trouble? As for me, I tell you, Emily,
that I care for nothing in the wide earth----"
"But care you must! Kitty-wren has come, the gripe's on," said she, "and
if she hath a devil we must nourish a God in us, to match it. There is
no escape, we are under orders, and care we must, go he shall, and you
with him, though they crucify him and you, and though they fix every
muscle of me to a different tree."
"But why did this bird come to _us_?" I thought then in my pity: "there
was the world for her, and she came to Swandale"; and some despair in
our friend's face seemed to say to me, "yes, she came to us, to me, to
you, not to others, but to us: it stands recorded, two Gods are in it."
Her face showed wannish in that twilight against her violet velvet and
her furs, for the shades of night were gathering, and we looked aside
through the window upon the darkling oblong of water in silence, since I
could find nothing to answer her, nor any way out of the entanglement in
which my feet seemed to be engaged; anon her large plush hat touched my
face, anon she fingered the chords of the harp, while the bird on her
shoulder twittered its song. At last I said to her: "let it be as you
wish, Emily: but is a journey to Styria such a great matter? We will go,
and we shall return. Nothing shall be strong enough to restrain me from
returning, if you say that my ordeal shall then come to its conclusion."
She looked with sorrowful eyes over the water, and after some minutes
she murmured: "only return safe with him, and I may be fond to you,
Arthur."
We dallied there a goodly time after this, till some of the star-glints
were lit all amid the lilies of the pool; the little bird became
sullener or sleepy, and barely lisped anon; I saw a tear steal down the
cheek of our friend, as she commenced to hum, and then to sing
wistfully, and to twang out on the harp one of those artificial little
hymns of her brother, whose austere, sad music had long been dear to our
hearts: it was his Serenade, already at that time set to music by the
many-minded Ambrose Rivers of "New Church" notoriety:
"In its dash
Showers down the rill,
Raving of the hill
(Graves are on the hill),
May its streams
Mingle with thy dreams.
Rove with Robin, love:
Mumble in thy brain
Murmurs of the main.
For the cock
Drawleth as a-yawn,
Dreaming of the dawn
(Hoarily a-dawn),
And a-mount
Showereth the fount.
Almond-drugged the garth,
Showery besprayed,
Hoarily arrayed.
And of God
Worthy is the sight,
Worlds are in the night
(Walkers of the night),
And He calls
Westwardly His thralls;
Gorgeous large they glide,
Wardedly like sheep,
Walkers in a sleep.
And a brawl
Craveth in this breast,
Craving thee and rest
(God in thee and rest),
And a roar
Droneth to the shore.
Dashing raves the rill,
'Lazily they lie,
God it is to die.'"
Her rendering of it was berippled all the while by the whispering tongue
of the wren, and when she finished I said to her: "you see, the
water-lilies have heard at least you once more, Emily, and there is
hope, for Mercy is only in Cuckoo-town in so far as Cuckoo-town is in
heaven. But we should go back to the cottage now, for the stars are
looking out in crowds, and it is beginning to grow cold."
She came with me, and we paced back by the margin of the pool, through
the wood, and up a dell, to the cottage. All laughter had gone now from
her lips, her steps were laggard, for she was easily wearied and emptied
now; and I held her poor hand all the way.
As we entered upon the bridge, there stood Langler at a door of the
cottage, a letter in his hand, which, when we had gone into the
dining-room, he handed to me openly before Miss Emily. It was the letter
from Upper Styria come at last, signed by a certain Oberpolizeirath
Tiarks, whose face I was destined one day to see. I read it with a greed
which I could not hide. But it consisted mostly of a gorgeous heading,
the writing being in two lines only, and these cold enough but for their
salute of "high-born sir!" It merely acknowledged the receipt of our
"honoured but somewhat insubstantial [ungegründet!] communication"; and
there it ended.
It was for this that we had waited! The paper was actually perfumed.
It had upon me an effect of gloom, and I felt now that our departure was
about to be, but nothing was said of the letter at dinner, nor was it
till near ten in the night that we three met to talk of it in Langler's
study. Miss Emily closed the shutter, we felt like plotters, and laid
our heads together with low voices. Our friend seemed now quite
business-like and herself: she proposed that we should leave England in
four days' time, our purpose of going being kept quite secret meantime,
and that I should start first, to await Langler in London. All this was
arranged; also that Miss Emily should stay mainly with the Misses
Chambers during our absence, and it was not till towards one in the
morning that, at the third knocking of a nurse, we rose and parted to go
to bed.
After all this I was naturally not a little surprised to hear Langler
say the next morning to his old butler, Davenport: "Davenport, I am
about to take a long voyage from home, as you will soon see for
yourself!" It was _a propos_ of nothing! The old fellow had brought in
some sour milk, and was retiring, when Langler stretched back his neck
and made the remark! No one, indeed, could be safer than old Davenport,
but still, the confidence seemed so needless.... "But it is a secret,
Davenport," I said pointedly.
Well, I left Alresford for London that evening, and from the next
morning, the 27th--the morning after Dr Burton was enthroned--set to
work to gather all the information which would be useful to our
undertaking: I engaged an agent, named Barker, to accompany us, I wrote
letters, did business, relearned German and the map of Styria, kept
clear of friends, and even bought a number of things, including some
revolvers. On my second morning in London I got a letter from Langler,
and another the next morning, with a note from his sister: he said that
he was ready, and would be with me at three P.M. of the 29th.
During the evening of the 28th, I being at home alone, reading, a letter
was handed me, consisting only of the three words: "_All is known_,"
scribbled across half-a-sheet of note-paper, with a criss-cross for
crest. After much reflection I made up my mind not to write of it to the
Langlers, but it robbed me of sleep that night.
At three P.M. the next day I was at the station to meet Langler, but he
did not come, and from then I underwent the keenest anxiety till six,
when I got a telegram: "About to start now"; and near nine Langler,
thick in furs, stood smiling before me, with the words: "_eh bien, me
voici_."
"The luggage below?" I asked.
"No, I took it direct to Victoria."
"Oh, but I thought, Aubrey, that you were to bring it here, as the
safest way?"
"Well, to save a double nuisance...."
"All right: I hope it doesn't matter. And as to Emily?"
"Well, thank God, and strong in heart."
"And you, how do you feel after the voyage?"
He smiled in his wistful way.
"Well, let us dine," I said, pulling the bell. "I mean to have you in
bed by eleven, after no more than two pipes, for our train starts as the
clock strikes nine in the morning."
I had kept back dinner for him, and we were soon at table. We were
eating fish when my man brought me in two telegrams, and the moment I
saw them in his hand, before ever I opened or touched them, my heart
sank: for I think that only the farther future is quite unknown, but we
know a moment hence, as when a heavy weight is to drop we feel it
beforehand. Tearing open one of the telegrams, I glanced at the sender's
name--"Lizzie Chambers"; she had written: "Emily ill, don't go away"; I
tore open the other: it, too, was from Miss Chambers, and she wrote:
"Emily's other hand has been nailed."
Into the gloom of my mind grew the understanding that the milder of the
telegrams must be for Langler's eyes, the sterner for mine alone: but I
showed him neither, I left him there at the table, and in another room
called out upon Almighty God for help and strength. When I returned to
the outer room I could speak.
But I showed him neither of the telegrams, for I had not the heart, and
he slept in peace that night. The next morning I told him when he came
to my bedside that I feared I should not be able to go to Styria, since
I was ill; and indeed I was very ill.