Vincent had been ill for six weeks before Katherine sent off her
telegram. For a month of that time he had been struggling with death.
Then, when the mild weather set in, he had taken a sudden turn for the
better, and it seemed to himself and the Havilands that he had won the
victory. Only the doctor and Mrs. Rogers looked grave,--the doctor
because of his science, which taught him to be cautious in raising
people's hopes; Mrs. Rogers, because of a deep theological pessimism.
She unburdened herself to Katherine.
"I knew 'ow it 'ud be when 'e gave up them 'abits of 'is, miss. 'E's
been as good as gold for the last year. 'E 'yn't given me no trouble nor
anybody; a goin' about so soft, and bilin' of 'is corffee in 'is little
Hetna. I said to _myself_ then, 'e's going to be took. It was the same
with my pore 'usban', miss."
"Don't talk nonsense, Mrs. Rogers. Mr. Hardy hasn't the least intention
of dying; he's getting better as fast as ever he can."
"Oh, miss! don't you sy so! It gives me a turn to 'ear anybody talk so
presumptuous. Don't you do it, m'm. If 'e is a little better, it's enuff
to make the Almighty tyke 'im, jest to 'ear you, miss."
Katherine forgave Mrs. Rogers, for the affectionate woman had helped to
nurse Vincent with a zeal out of all proportion to her knowledge.
Katherine had engaged a night-nurse during the crisis of his illness;
after that, she and Ted nursed him themselves by turns--one sitting up
all night, while the other slept on a bed made up in the sitting-room,
to be within call. Katherine learned to know Ted better in those six
weeks than in all his life before. The boy seemed to be possessed by a
passion of remorse. He was as quiet as Katherine in Vincent's room, and
could do anything that had to be done there with the gentleness and
devotion of a woman. She would willingly have kept on the trained nurse,
in order to give Vincent every advantage in the fight for recovery; but
it was impossible.
For all three of them had come to the end of their resources at the same
time. The Havilands were in debt at last. Vincent had sunk nearly all
his capital in his British Columbian farm, where the agent, in whose
integrity he had guilelessly trusted, worked the land for his own
benefit, and cheated him out of the returns. His mother had left
everything to her second husband. Worse than all was the reprehensible
conduct of Sir Theophilus Parker. The old gentleman had died well within
the term his nephew had given him, but had made no mention of him in his
will, and "Lavernac and three thousand a-year" went to a kinsman of
irreproachable morals, but a Radical, and many degrees more distant
than Vincent from the blood of a Tory squire.
So, after the struggle with death, came the struggle with poverty. Work
was impossible for hands busy with service in the sick-room, and young
brains worn out with watching and anxiety. The most expensive luxuries
were poor Vincent's necessities; for everything depended now on keeping
up his strength.
One morning, after a long night's watching, instead of turning into the
next room to sleep, Katherine put on her hat and cloak and went up to
the deserted studio. She left the house with the "Witch of Atlas" under
her cloak, and carried her to every picture-dealer in Piccadilly and New
Bond Street. It was all in vain. Everywhere the Witch was pronounced to
be beautiful, but unsalable. She was bowed out of every shop-door with
polite regret, expressed in one formula: "The demand for this kind of
work is really so small that we could only offer you a nominal sum,
madam." Finally, Katherine turned into a small shop in Westminster, only
to receive the same answer. But this time she was desperate. "What do
you call a nominal sum?" The dealer looked the picture up and down; he
noted, too, the shabby cloak and worn face of the artist.
"Frame included, five guineas. Not a shilling more, miss."
"I'll take that," she said, almost greedily. And the Witch was handed
over the counter in exchange for the tenth part of her value.
But five guineas were a mere drop in the ocean of their necessities.
Two days later Katherine set out again, no longer alert and eager, but
with a white face, a firm mouth, and a bearing so emphatically resolute
that it suggested a previous agony of indecision. She took a 'bus from
Lupus Street to the City. Getting out at Leadenhall Street, she walked
on till she came to a building where an arrow painted on the doorway
guided her to the offices of Messrs. Pigott & Co., on the third floor.
On and on she went, up the broad stone stairs, with a sick heart and
trembling knees, the steepest, weariest climb she had ever made in a
life of climbing. When she reached the third floor she almost turned
back at the sight of the closed door marked "Private." Then the thought
of Vincent lying in his wretched room, a sudden blinding vision of his
white face laid back on the pillows, overcame the last rebellion of her
pride. She knocked; a well-regulated voice answered, "Who is there?" She
brushed her eyelashes with her hand and walked in.
"It's me, uncle."
Mr. Pigott almost started from his seat. "You, Katherine? Bless me! Dear
me, dear me!" He put on his spectacles, and examined her as if she had
been some curious animal. And he, too, noticed not only her frayed skirt
and the worn edges of the fur about her cloak, but the sharp lines of
her face and the black shadows under her eyes.
"Sit down, my dear."
She obeyed, putting her elbow on the office table and resting her head
in her hand. She looked defiantly, almost fiercely, before her, and
spoke in a cold, hard voice--
"I've come to ask you if you'll lend us some money. We're in debt----"
"In debt? Tt-t-t-tt--that's bad."
"I know it is. But we've had illness in the house, and expenses that we
had to meet."
"Bless me! Is the boy ill?"
"No; it's not Ted----" But as she tried to explain who it was she broke
down utterly, and burst into tears. Then uncle James took off his
spectacles and wiped them. He waited till she could speak coherently;
and when he had heard, he took his cheque-book out of his drawer, asking
no questions and making no comments--for which Katherine respected him.
"How much will clear you, Katherine, and see you to the end of this
business?"
"Twenty pounds would clear us; but----"
Uncle James looked very grave, and he wrote with a slow and terrible
deliberation. But he smiled lavishly as he handed her a cheque for a
hundred guineas. He had made it guineas.
"Remember, there's plenty more where that came from."
"I--I don't know how to thank you, uncle; we'll repay it gradually, with
the interest."
"Interest, indeed; you'll do nothing of the kind. And we won't say
anything about repayment either, this time. Only keep out of debt--keep
out of debt, and don't make a fool of yourself, Katherine."
Katherine hesitated, and her voice trembled. "I--I'm not----"
"No, I don't say you are. I ask no questions; and, Katherine!" he looked
up, but she was still standing beside him.
"Yes."
"Always come to me at once when you want money; and go to your aunt Kate
when you want advice. She'll help you better than I can, my dear."
"Thank you--thank you very much indeed. You are too good to me." She
stooped down and kissed him on the forehead, pressing his hand in hers,
and was gone before he could see her tears. Perhaps they would have
gratified him. But he was amply rewarded by her kiss and the compliment
paid him by his own conscience, which told him that he had not forced
his niece's confidence, as he might have done, nor yet chuckled, as he
might have done, over her fallen pride. It was a remarkable fulfilment
of prophecy, too.
When she got back to Devon Street, Vincent was asleep, with Mrs. Rogers
watching over him, and Ted was waiting for her to come to lunch. He
looked terribly depressed.
She showed him her cheque in silence.
"You never asked _him_, that stern old Puritan father?"
"Don't, Ted. Yes, I did. I thought it would kill me; but it didn't. Oh,
Ted, we _have_ done him an injustice. He was kindness itself. I had to
tell him about Vincent, too, and he never said a word--only gave me the
cheque, and said we weren't to pay it back."
"H'm, that wasn't half bad of him, poor old thing." That admission meant
a great deal from Ted.
"There's a letter there for you,--from Knowles, I think."
"What's he writing about?" She tore open the envelope. To her intense
surprise she found a cheque for fifty guineas in it, and this note:--
"DEAR MISS HAVILAND,--Forgive my saying so, but when you want to
sell your pictures, why don't you consult your friends instead of
going to a thieving dealer? I found the Witch in the hands of such
an one, and rescued her, for I won't say how little. As I could not
possibly keep my ill-gotten gains on any other terms, please accept
the enclosed, which with what you probably received will make up
something like her real value. I need not tell you how delighted I
am to possess so exquisite a specimen of your best work."
"Ted, what am I to do? Send it back again?"
"No, you little fool! Keep it, and never do _that_ again--for any one."
For any one? What was there that she would not do for Vincent? But Ted,
having said that, looked more depressed than ever. He went to the
fireplace, and leaned against the chimneypiece, shading his face with
his hand.
"What is it, Ted?"
He made no answer. A terrible fear clutched at her heart, and he saw it
in her eyes.
"He's all right now; he's sleeping. But----"
"But _what_? Tell me, Ted."
"Well, Crashawe was here this morning, and he says he isn't really
better."
"But he _is_ better. He said so himself when he examined him yesterday."
"Yes, so he is, in a way. That is, you see, his lungs are all right.
It's his heart that's bad now. Crashawe says it must always have been
more or less weak. And now----" He stopped short.
"Ted----" she implored.
"It may stop beating any minute."
She said nothing; she only took off her hat and cloak and put on her
artist's overall,--it was her nurse's apron now. She must go to Vincent.
But a thought struck her before she reached the door.
"Does he know?"
"No; but I think he has some idea. He told Crashawe this morning not to
interfere with the course of nature." Ted smiled a dreary smile at the
recollection.
Katherine dismissed Mrs. Rogers and took up her post at Vincent's
bedside. He was still sleeping, with his face turned towards hers as she
sat. And as she looked at him she had hope. She was still young, and it
was inconceivable to her that anything she loved so much should die. It
was not, she pleaded, as if she had been happy, as if her love had any
chance of a return, or had asked for anything better than to spend
itself like this continually.
And as she sat on watching, it seemed to her that it was better as it
was. Better that love should live by immortal things, by things
intangible, invisible, by pity, by faith, by hope, breaking little by
little every link with earth. She tried to make herself believe this
pleasant theory, as she had tried many a day and many a night before,
her heart having nothing else to warm it but the fire of its own
sacrifice. It was better as it was.
And yet, she said again, in this last six weeks he had been hers in a
way in which he could be no other woman's, not even Audrey's. He was
hers by her days of service, her nights of watching, by all that had
gone before, by her part in his new life. After all, that could never be
undone. She was almost happy.
Ted took her place for an hour in the evening, but that was all the rest
she gave herself. She meant to sit up with Vincent again to-night.
"Do you know, Kathy, your eyes are very pretty."
It had struck midnight, and Vincent had been awake and looking at her
for the last two minutes. She smiled and blushed, and that made her
whole face look pretty too. And as he looked into her eyes the blindness
fell from his own, and he saw as a dying man sometimes does see.
"Come here, Sis." He stretched out his arm on the counterpane, and as
she knelt beside him he put back her hair from her forehead.
"I wonder if I was wrong when I thought you couldn't love anybody?"
Then she knew that he was dying.
"Yes, very wrong indeed. For--I loved you then, Vincent." Her face was
transfigured as she spoke. He had to be spared all sudden emotions, but
she knew that _her_ confession would do him no harm. And indeed he took
it quite calmly, without the least change of pulse.
"I'm not ungrateful----"
"There's nothing to be grateful for. I couldn't help it."
"I would have loved you more, Kathy, if it hadn't been for Audrey."
He spoke without emotion, in the tone of a man stating a simple matter
of fact. Then he remarked in the same matter-of-fact voice that, as it
happened, he was dying, so it made no difference. Perhaps he wanted her
to know that a grave was ready for the secret she had just told him.
There was no need to remind her of that,--she was sure of it before she
spoke.
Her kneeling attitude, and hands outstretched on the counterpane,
suggested an order of ideas that had never been very far from him during
his illness. For Vincent had been wide awake and thinking difficult
thoughts many a time when he lay with his eyes closed, and Katherine had
thought he was asleep.
"I want you to read to me," he said at last.
"What would you like?"
"Well--the New Testament, I think, if it's all the same to you."
She rose from her knees and looked helplessly round the room. There was
a Bible somewhere upstairs, but--
"You'll find one in the drawer there, where my handkerchiefs are."
She looked, rummaging gently among his poor things. She came on a small
muslin pocket-handkerchief, stained with blood, also a loop of black
ribbon of the kind that little girls tie their hair with. Some fine
reddish hairs were still tangled in the knot. At last she found a small
pocket Testament mixed up with some of his neckties. It was old and
worn. Katherine wondered at that, though she could hardly have said why.
Then she saw written on the fly-leaf, in a sprawling girl's hand,
"Vincent, with Audrey's best love," and a date that went back to their
childhood. It was the only present that Audrey had ever made him, and
one that had cost her nothing.
"What part shall I read?"
She was afraid that Vincent would lay the burden of choice on her.
But he did not--he had very decided ideas of his own.
"The eighth of Romans, if you don't mind."
An eagle's feather floated out from between the pages at the eighth of
Romans. It had been picked up on the snows of the Rocky Mountains. If
she had wondered at first, she soon saw why Vincent had chosen that
chapter of all others.
"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after
the flesh.
"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Vincent was
dying.
She read on, and as she read she saw behind the edges of the veil that
divides the seen from the unseen.
"For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by
reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope;
"Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
Her heart beat faster and her breast heaved, but the words lifted her
above pathos and tears, and prepared her for the consolation of the
close.
"Do you believe all that?" he asked suddenly, when she had finished. She
had not expected that.
"I didn't, but I do now."
"Why?" His eyes were fixed on hers, scrutinising, pathetic.
"Because I _must_."
That reason seemed to be hardly enough for Vincent. He was still
hesitating and uncertain, as if he were looking for something that she
could not give him. Then he lay back again with his eyes closed.
It was Katherine's turn to think. But Vincent's peace of mind was of
more importance to her than the truth or falsehood of a creed. She had
realised that there were things that even her love could not do for him.
With a sudden flash of recollection she thought of the young priest she
had once met at Audrey's house. If any one could help Vincent now, it
might be Mr. Flaxman Reed. She was probably mistaken (nobody is very
wise between twelve and one in the morning), but at least she could try.
"Vincent," she whispered, "would you like to see a clergyman?"
She smiled, for after all it might be the very last thing that he
wanted. He smiled too, a little consciously. His mood had changed for
the time being--he had come back again to earth.
"No; thank you, Sis. But I should like----"
"What? Tell me."
"To see--Audrey."
The three words gave her a shock, but they told her nothing new.
"You shall. I'll send for her first thing in the morning."
He turned round with his face away from her, and settled himself again
to sleep. And Katherine watched. He would be Audrey's to-morrow. He was
hers at least for that one night.
No--never, never again. To-morrow had come, and the image of Audrey was
between them. It always had been there.
Was it better so?
The next day Audrey had to be found. Ted went to Chelsea Gardens early
in the morning, supposing her to be there. The house was shut up, and
the caretaker had mislaid her address. He went back to Devon Street.
Katherine and Ted were in despair; Vincent alone was equal to the
emergency. His mind was on the alert--it had grasped all the necessary
details. He gave them Dean Craven's address, and told Ted to wire to
Oxford for Audrey's. That was how Audrey never got the telegram till one
o'clock.
That morning the doctor pronounced Vincent decidedly better. The change,
he said, was something miraculous. He took Katherine out of the room to
tell her so.
"Keep him quiet, and he _may_ pull through yet. I don't say he will,
but he may. Only--he mustn't have any excitement."
"He's had a great deal this morning. If it lasts all day, and if--he has
any more of it to-night, will it hurt him? It's pleasant excitement, you
know."
The doctor looked keenly at her. To judge by her white face she was not
sharing in the pleasant excitement.
"Well, I can't say. Pleasure does less harm than pain, sometimes. Don't
let him have any suspense, though. Suspense will kill him."
But suspense was what he had to bear.
Katherine knew that he was living on in the hope of Audrey's coming.
Well, she would be with him by nine at the latest, as she had said.
At half-past eight Vincent began to listen for every bell. At nine he
asked to have the door set ajar, that he might hear the wheels of her
cab in the street. But though many cabs went by, none stopped.
"She's missed her train. We didn't give her much time. Look out the
next, Kathy."
Katherine looked it out. "She'll be here by eleven if she catches the
three-o'clock. It gets to Paddington at ten."
Vincent closed his eyes and waited patiently till ten. Then he became
excited again, the nervous tension increasing with every quarter of an
hour. By eleven the street was still, and Vincent strained his ears for
every sound. But no sounds were to be heard.
It was half-past eleven. A look of fear had come over his face.
Katherine could bear it no longer. She went into the next room, where
Ted was standing at the window. She laid her hands on his shoulder,
clinging to him.
"Oh Ted, Ted," she whispered, fiercely. "She'll kill him. He'll _die_ if
she doesn't come. And--she isn't coming."
Ted had never known his sister do that before. It was horrible, like
seeing a man cry. He put his arms round her (he had almost to hold her
up), and comforted her as best he could. But she put him from her
gently, and went back to her post.
"She'll come to-morrow, Vincent," she said.
"No. If she were coming, she would have wired."
But that was just what Audrey had forgotten to do. By the time she had
reached Barnstaple, she was too much taken up with her own tragic
importance to think of any small detail of the kind.
Vincent had turned over on his side. He had no more hope, and nothing
mattered now. He had done his best, but was not going to carry on a
trivial dispute with death.
But though his spirit had given up the struggle, his body still fought
on with its own blind will, a long, weary fight that seemed as if it
would never end. Towards morning he became to all appearance
unconscious.
At seven o'clock the front-door bell rang; there was a stir in the hall
and the sound of Mrs. Rogers' voice whispering.
Then the door opened and closed softly. Audrey was standing there, a
strange figure in the dim white room, wrapped in her bearskins, and
glowing with life and the fresh morning air.
At first she could distinguish nothing in the shaded light. Then she
made out Ted, sitting with his back to her at the foot of the bed, and
Katherine standing at the head of it. But when she saw the motionless
figure raised by pillows, and vaguely defined under the disordered
bedclothes, a terror seized her, and she hid her face in her hands.
"Come here, Audrey," said Katherine, gently. And she came--gliding,
trembling, as she had come to him that afternoon at Chelsea, a year and
a half ago. But she kept her eyes fixed on Katherine. She was afraid to
look _there_.
"Take his hand. Speak to him."
Audrey looked round, but Ted had left the room. Her small white hand
slid out of her muff, warm with the warm fur, and rested on Vincent's
hand; but no words came. She was sick with fear.
The touch was enough. Warm and caressing, the little fingers curled into
the hollow of his hand and Vincent woke from his stupor. He opened his
eyes, but their look was vague and wondering; he was not conscious yet.
Katherine moved aside and drew up the blind, and the faint daylight fell
on Audrey's face, as her eyes still followed Katherine.
For one instant his brain seemed to fill suddenly with light. It
streamed from his brain into the room, and he saw her standing in the
midst of it.
"Audrey!" The loud hoarse voice startled Katherine, and made Audrey
shake with fright. His hand closed tightly on hers, and he sank back
into unconsciousness.
For two hours the two women kept watch together by his bed: Katherine at
the head, holding Vincent in her strong arms; Audrey sitting at the foot
with her back turned to him, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth. At
nine o'clock she shivered and looked round, as Vincent's head sank
forward on his breast.
Katherine, standing at the back of the bed, first saw what had happened
by the change on Audrey's face. The corners of her mouth had suddenly
straightened, and she started up, white and rigid.
"He's dead! Take me away, Katherine--take me away!"
But this time Katherine neither saw nor heard her.
* * * * *
"No; he was bound to die. What else could you expect after the life he
led, poor fellow?"
It was all over. Audrey had dragged herself out of the room, she
scarcely knew how--dragged herself up to Katherine's room and thrown
herself on the bed in a passion of weeping; and Katherine, kneeling for
the second time by Vincent's side, could hear the verdict of science
through the half-open door. Dr. Crashawe was talking to Ted.
Neither Audrey nor Katherine knew how they got through the next three
days. Audrey was afraid to sleep alone, and Katherine had her with her
night and day. Audrey would have gone back to Chelsea but for her fear,
and for a feeling that to leave Devon Street would be a miserable
abandonment of a great situation. All those three days Katherine was
tender to her for Vincent's sake. Happily for her, Audrey disliked going
into his room; she was afraid of the long figure under the straight
white sheet. Katherine could keep her watch with him again alone; she
had no rival there.
Once indeed they stood by his bed together, when Katherine drew back the
sheet from his face, and Audrey laid above his heart a wreath of
eucharis lilies, the symbol of purity.
They stood beside him, the woman who loved him and the woman he had
loved; and they envied him, one the peace, the other the glory of
death.