"Well?"
"How long are you going to leave Dandy there, sir?"
"Oh--for good. I am making a present of him to Mrs. Townshend."
The poor man looked bewildered. I could see he had so much to say, yet
was endeavoring his utmost to recollect his place lest he should speak
all there was in his mind.
"What's troubling you?" I asked.
"I can't quite understand it, sir," he replied, frowning heavily, as
he tried to impress it upon his mind. "Dandy--he's such a companion
to you, sir--to both of us, if I may be permitted to say so. He's
like a person about the house. The way he runs for his biscuits--the
way he sits up for you when you go out to supper. What I mean to say,
sir, he's more than a dog if he is less than a 'uman being. Why--I've
seen him, sir, of a night before you've come in, go down to the hall
at about a quarter-past twelve when I suppose he'd thought it was
half-past--I've seen him go down to the hall door and stand there
listening to the sound of every footstep as came along the street. To
every sound he'd prick up his ears, expecting it was you. Well--you've
seen him, sir, when you've come in of an evening. What I mean to say--I
don't think you'd--"
I got up quickly from my chair.
"All right, Moxon," said I. "I'm quite aware of all this. Can you be
ready to catch the night train to Fishguard?"
He did not answer. He just bent his head and left the room.
Perhaps it was for ten minutes that I leant on the mantelpiece staring
down into the fire. At last I stood up. It was no good. My mind was
made up. I stamped the letter to Bellwattle and went out to find Dandy.
He was there in the hall, where Moxon gives the illusion of life to his
biscuits, and Moxon was bending over him, saying something. I did not
hear a word he said, and at my approach, he got up quickly and walked
away, but something I saw made me hesitate more than I had hesitated
for the past three weeks. There were tears in his eyes.
"Are you going to blame me?" said I to Dandy--then I picked him up in
my arms and carried him into my room. There I told him everything. I
reminded him of that first morning in Ballysheen, how readily he had
gone out with Bellwattle for a walk, never missing me at all. I brought
back to his mind those little white jerky behinds of the rabbits which,
when they move, so excite all his proclivities for sport.
"You get none of that sort of thing here," said I.
I tried at last to read him a lecture on the psychology of dogs,
explaining how a kind master or mistress and all the stretch of an open
country will soon ease their minds of all regret.
"And you know how kind Bellwattle is," I added.
"You remember how she kissed you when you went away. But I suppose
you're accustomed to that sort of thing from ladies. It's the rabbits
you're less likely to forget."
"I knew a dog," said he, "who died of loneliness when his master left
him."
"Ah--but you won't be lonely," I answered, quickly. "You'll miss me a
bit--but you won't be lonely. Why I might call a thousand times when
you were after a rabbit and you wouldn't come back."
"Yes--but then I knew you thought I wouldn't catch it."
I think I persuaded him though that my knowledge of a dog's psychology
was quite right, and for the rest of that evening we sat together. We
had tea together. He likes his weak and out of the slop bowl.
But at last came Moxon to catch his train.
"Is Dandy ready, sir?" he asked.
"Quite," said I. It was a short word.
I fastened the chain on to his collar for the last time and patted his
head.
"Good-bye, old man," said I, and then Moxon, who is a man of much
sense, took him out of the room as I walked across to my desk and
picked up a bill to read.
The moment they were in the hall, I laid the bill back on the desk and
listened. The hall door was opened. It was closed. I half walked to the
window; then stopped. What was the good?
A moment later I heard a bark in the street. I do not know, but I
suppose after all I must be a sentimentalist. It seemed to me to
say--"Good-bye."
Anyhow, I knew by that I was alone.
CHAPTER VI
They have been gone two days. I could scarcely have believed that
forty-eight hours can so comparably measure Eternity. For two days the
house in Mount Street--so far, at least, as I am concerned with it--has
been empty. Yet I have had plenty to do. There have been numberless
letters to write. In an odd way it has amused me to find how many
people the most common necessities of life bring into one's existence.
Consider tradesmen alone! It took me one day at least of conscientious
hard work to go through and settle up all my accounts. Yesterday I
went into the Park in the morning. There may have been signs of buds
swelling on my plane tree, but possibly that was my imagination.
In the afternoon I wrote to my father and those few men to whom it
seemed I owed a letter. That did not take me long. There were only
two. As a matter of fact, I wrote two more but tore them up. Upon
re-reading, they gave me the impression that I was taking myself too
seriously.
And now this morning, the morning of the third day since Moxon's
departure, I was sitting in my room. Everything is complete. I cannot
think of one thing I have left undone. For Moxon himself, I have left
a letter. It was the last and perhaps the most difficult I had to
write. But there it is, sealed and addressed, lying on the top of the
others on my desk.
For a little while I had considered whether I should write anything to
Clarissa. I suppose this is the most selfish moment in my life. The
slightest contemplation showed me how cruel a thing it would be. The
letter is not written. And now there is nothing more to be done. I
cannot forbear smiling, just for a moment, at that bright yellow row
of crocuses which adorns my window-boxes. They have come up with such
success, but have failed so utterly to fulfil the purpose for which
they were intended. I wonder if those in Cruikshank's garden are any
better than these.
It strikes me with quaint amusement, too, that had I been able to raise
sweet peas, I might now be waiting with growing interest to see the
first sight of their little heads of green. But sweet peas do not grow
in London. I am not surprised. These later days in February can be
bitter cold. I find myself compelled for comfort's sake to close the
little strip of open window and poke up the fire into a more cheerful
blaze.
The sky is all grey outside. A faint rent of blue was visible for one
short moment this morning. Just in that single instant it brought me a
sudden rush of eagerness, eagerness to see the whole raiment without
one seam of clouds, as it was so many days last May in Ballysheen.
But the grey soon swept over it. It looks now as though we were not
far from rain. Yet, as the hall-porter at the club remarked, it is
difficult to say. There is no broad horizon from which to see the way
the weather comes. It is curious that I should wonder about it one way
or another. It matters so little. It does not matter at all.
So this is the end of my adventure. I feel that I have taken up my pen
to but little purpose. It will not be so when I put it down. In less
than half an hour the ink on it will be dry. I can scarcely believe
that not a year has passed since that morning when I sat in the Park
watching the little nursery maid with her electrician. It was the same
night that I heard the story of Clarissa and her gown of canary-colored
satin. It was the same night I horrified Moxon by introducing that poor
creature with her sodden clothes--and now!
But all this delay in a measure is unnerving me. I have nothing more to
write, I--
There is something strange in that. I have still more to write. The
bell has rung--the electric-bell which rings in Moxon's room. Probably
it is a tradesman whose account is settled by cheque, and sealed up in
one of those envelopes on my desk. Shall I answer it? It has just rung
again. He will ring once more, perhaps, and then go away.
He has rung once more. If I could only see the doorstep from the
window! Oh!--but let him ring and go away! Let him go on ringing! He
will soon tire of it, and I shall be left in peace.
CHAPTER VII
I have never yet determined to my satisfaction whether Life be
merely the spinning of a coin or a great scheme working itself
towards completion by a series of steps, undeviating in their perfect
arithmetical progression.
I know it matters little, one way or the other. The thought only
recurred to my mind by reason of the fact that had that bell been rung
only four times, I should not have answered it. But it was rung five,
whereupon it came to me in speculation that no tradesman would have
such patience as that and, rising from my chair, I went into the hall.
When I opened the door, there stood Clarissa.
I suppose it was amazement that deprived me of speech. For a moment I
could but stand and gaze at her. There was not merely the astonishment
in my mind at finding that it was she; there was bewilderment also at
the change which had taken place in her. She looked ill. But it was not
only that; she looked somehow in need of food. There was that nameless
suggestion in her appearance as when a woman has ceased to care for
her looks. It was apparent notwithstanding that her clothes were well
made and costly. I knew that something had happened, but what with the
amazement of seeing her there and the bewilderment at finding her as
she was, between the two I was at a loss for words. It must have been
half a minute that I stood waiting in silence, still holding to the
handle of the door.
"What's the matter?" I asked at last.
"I want to see you," said she.
I held the door wide open for her to pass through, and as I realized
from what her coming had saved me, all my body fell to shaking as
though a fit of ague were upon me. I felt like one who, calm though he
may have been when danger threatened, is made suddenly aware of it when
it has passed.
"Go into my sitting-room," said I, and a moment later, when I had
pulled myself together, I followed her.
She was sitting timidly on the edge of a chair near the fire and her
whole attitude was a mute apology for her presence in my room. All
through her body, I knew she was shivering. There was no outward sign
of it, but by the way she held to the arm of the chair, by the very
posture she had adopted, it was plainly to be seen that all her nerves
were trembling with vibration after a great strain. I closed the door.
"I don't know what you think of me for coming here after that letter I
returned--after--"
She began that way; then almost all sound went out of her voice. I saw
her lips move, but could hear no more than a pathetic murmuring of
words.
"I can't quite make it out," I admitted quickly, "but does that matter?
You needn't think about the letter--that was a month ago. You've come
to tell me what's happened since. What has happened?"
I drew up my chair to the fire. "It will give her the impression," I
said to myself, "that we have talked like this a hundred times before."
Of course, it may not have done so at all. I only know that women are
susceptible to such little matters as these. Doubtless they make life
easier. I am certain that the absence of them makes it more difficult.
Yet in this instance it seemed not to help Clarissa at all. She just
looked up at me with her big eyes, which I shall ever remember best of
all when they were full of anger, but still she could not answer. It
seemed as though the weight of all she had to tell was too heavily laid
upon her for speech. But knowing nothing, how could I help her? And
so we might have continued had I not thought suddenly of that look of
hunger which I imagined I had seen in her face when I first opened the
door.
"Wait a minute," said I, and I spoke easily, quickly, as though I would
interrupt her, "let's have tea first. Wouldn't you like some tea?"
The very sound of it brought a different look into her eyes. I swear
to Heaven, I believed then I could have made her happy. It is knowing
these little things about women that count so much, and a long day is
full of them. I do not know how I have learnt them. It is not from
experience. But it would seem that I have grown up with the knowledge
that to anticipate her needs is a finer jewel to a woman than any
diamond set in platinum. The fact that she would choose the diamond is
no proof that she must like it best.
Directly I saw that expression in Clarissa's face I rose and rang the
bell for my housekeeper who, in Moxon's absence, was looking after me.
"Now what shall we have to eat?" said I. "What would you like--hot
buttered toast, muffins, tea-cakes, scones?"
It pleases them also to know that there is a lot to choose from. They
love being unable to make up their minds amidst a galaxy of riches.
They like you to select for them, just so that they may realize how
your selection has eliminated the very thing they did not want.
We went through it all--every stage. She left it to me to choose.
"Tea-cake," said I, because I knew that we should have to send out to
buy them, and I wanted to buy something for her. I have said it before;
I envy the men who buy things for women. She looked doubtful.
"Scones," I suggested. We should have had to send out for scones, too.
But she chose hot buttered toast. That is just the way these things go.
When Mrs. Bullwell answered the bell, I told her to bring the whole
business as quick as she could.
"What made you think of tea?" asked Clarissa.
"It's the time," said I, "nearly five."
"I'm glad you did think of it."
"Why?"
"I'm hungry."
"Yes--I knew you were," I said quickly. "I saw it in your face. You
haven't had any lunch."
"I haven't had anything to-day."
"Good Lord! Why not?"
She looked at me nervously, as though I ought to know all about it; as
if I were asking these questions solely in order to put her to the pain
of telling me.
"Do you mean to say," I repeated, "that you haven't had one morsel of
food to-day?"
When she shook her head two or three times, I went straight to the door
and called for Mrs. Bullwell.
"What's it to be?" I asked. "Don't say a chop because it's the first
thing that comes into your head. Will you have some eggs or--?"
"A chop," said she.
I persuaded Mrs. Bullwell to promise it in ten minutes.
"And open a bottle of that claret," said I, as she departed. "We
sha'n't want any tea now. Well--I'll have some, but you can get it
afterwards."
Then I closed the door and came back to Clarissa.
"What does all this mean?" said I. I know I tried to speak as a father
speaks to his child. I tried to forget how I cared for her. It is not
to the man who is hopelessly wasting his heart on her that a woman
gives her confidence. "Something has happened to you," I added. "What
is it?"
She pulled off her gloves. She pulled them off in that nervous way by
which you knew that she was quite unconscious of her action. Then her
lip quivered. I felt the struggle in her heart to keep back the tears.
In a vain way I strove with her, too. For what should I have done had
she wept then? In all conscience it had been difficult enough on the
cliffs at Ballysheen; but now, when I knew how much she was to me,
when I saw quite clearly from what her coming had saved me, tears in
her eyes then would have been my certain undoing. For undoubtedly it
was Clarissa who had saved me. But for her, I should by this time have
been set forth upon my great adventure. It was so utterly impossible
now. Some woman at last had come to me in trouble. Some woman! It was
the very woman in all the world whose trouble I would most easily have
borne.
When I saw the tightness set firm upon her lips once more, for there
was well a moment while she struggled with its quivering, then I leant
forward. I knew I must drag the story from her; so I felt my way with
guessing, half knowing what had happened, leaving her, in little broken
syllables, to tell me all the rest.
"Come," said I, gently, "you must tell me. Has he been cruel to you?"
She bent her head in silence.
"But how? How cruel? In what way? Where is he now?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? When did you see him last?"
"Three weeks ago."
"Where?"
"Where he lived."
"Three weeks ago? Has he gone away?"
"I can't tell you. I've been back to the flat once or twice, but he
won't see me."
"_You've_ been back? Then he's there? Where have you been living, then?"
"I had a little room in Notting Hill. It's because I've got no money to
pay for my lodging--"
Her lip began its quivering once more.
"That you came to me? Because you've got no money? Where is all your
money?"
"It's spent. He says there is no more."
I could sit still no longer. It was only possible to hear her story as
I walked up and down the room.
"But why did he send you away?" I continued. "You're his wife. He must
keep you; he must support you; a thousand times more now that he has
spent every farthing that you have. He must go and work his fingers to
the bone. He must slave like a dog now--give his whole life up to the
reparation of the loss he's brought you. You've every cause to insist
upon it. You _must_ insist upon it. It's your right--your common right.
Good Lord, you're his wife!"
She looked very straightly in my face. Her own was pale as though all
anger in it had burnt to whitened ashes. The deep hollows of her eyes
were filled with ominous shadows. At that gaze of hers, I thought:
"Supposing she might die." I cannot tell why it came into my mind, for
how could I have known? A month ago I had seen her well--in a forced
gaiety of spirits. How could I have dreamed she was so near the very
climax of her suffering? So I let the thought pass on and felt it
shudder through me. I misread that steady gazing of her eyes. I never
guessed that she was asking of me more understanding than a man can
give. How should I have understood? And yet a woman would have known.
Long before this a woman would have taken the knowledge that was being
withheld from her. But in my blind innocence I struggled on, dragging
her to the very pinnacle of her shame.
"Don't you realize the rights of a wife?" I persisted. "Your husband
can't cast you off like this. He can't despoil you of everything you
have and then fling you aside. You're flesh and blood--you're not a
garment that is threadbare."
And when I saw her poor white face staring into mine, I gave the wrench
its final turn to make her agony of mind more sure. God knows I little
thought.
"You're treating yourself as though you were a worthless woman, as
though you were property he had bought and might chuck away at will.
But you're his wife and if you never see him again--you might thank God
if you didn't--you must make him support you with the last penny he
has."
It was then she said it--said it in a voice that was colorless and
dead; in a voice as when a prisoner pleads guilty to the vilest
possibility of crime.
"I'm not his wife," she murmured.
Her voice was low, almost to a whisper and yet, had she shouted it, the
silence coming after could not have been so great. The whole house in
one moment was made quiet. Even a hansom jangling down the street came
to my ears as such a sound is meant to reach you in play.
"I shall remember afterwards," I said to myself, "that I heard a hansom
rattling down the street." And I have remembered it; but that thought
is the only one that returns to my mind. I can see things as they were.
I can see her eyes trying to reach to mine, then falling till her hands
had covered them. I can see the little, huddled-up figure, full of
pathos, that she presented to my eyes. I can see Mrs. Bullwell coming
in through the door with her tray of things, the uncorked bottle of
claret standing high and black above the dishes.
But she came too late. As she closed the door behind her, the pathetic
little figure before me crumpled up like a garment that can no longer
stand upon the firmness of its texture. With a weary sigh that drove
a sickness to my throat, Clarissa tumbled from her chair. I found her
curled, as Dandy curls himself, into a circle at my feet. But she was
so still. Her body was stiller than if she slept.
CHAPTER VIII
"Oh dear! Oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Bullwell, "the poor thing's fainted!"
There was a comfortable sound in that homely phrase, yet still it
seemed more than mere fainting to me. Doubtless women are accustomed
to these little misadventures. They think nothing of them. But with a
man, and when it is the woman whom he loves, I defy him to look with
equanimity at the still white face, the closed eyes and that apparent
cessation of all breathing.
We lifted her on to the settee and Mrs. Bullwell began to apply those
remedies which, among her sex, will never pass out of use. She undid
Clarissa's collar and her dress. She patted her hands and all with that
quiet assurance of manner as though it were just in the day's work.
"Poor thing, poor thing," she kept on muttering. "She do look pale,
don't she? You'd think she was dead to look at her--you would indeed."
"My God! Get some brandy!" said I, "while I telephone for a doctor."
"My goodness, sir, don't go to the expense of a doctor, she'll be all
right in a minute or two. It's only a little weakness. I have 'em
myself sometimes in the summer when it's hot in the kitchen. It passes
off if I sit down a bit."
"Get that brandy," I repeated, and I rang up my friend Perowne.
"Will the cooking brandy do, sir?" she asked, as she went to the door.
"Cooking! Good Lord, no! Liqueur!"
By good fortune Perowne was in and promised to be with me at once.
Then I turned to Clarissa. Much against her will, Mrs. Bullwell had
gone for the best brandy and we were alone. I leant down my head to
listen for her breathing. It was so faintly audible that I had to hold
my own that I might hear it. And then, as I bent still lower, my cheek
touched her lips. They were so cold; yet they set the blood racing hot
in me. I rose quickly from my knees and walked to the open window.
That must have been what a young man feels when first he is kissed by
the first woman he loves. Events had passed so quickly with me in the
last half-hour. I had been so near to one great adventure and now was
near to the greatest adventure of all. It left the pulses beating in my
forehead, my throat dry and every muscle in my body vibrating.
No doubt it was well that Mrs. Bullwell should come in at that moment
with the brandy. It gave me something else to think about. We put
the glass to her lips, but she made no effort to swallow. The brandy
trickled down her chin and fell in drops upon her dress.
"She's thin, poor dear," said Mrs. Bullwell.
"Do you think," I whispered, "do you think she'll come round?"
"Why, of course she will, sir. I've never heard of no woman dying in a
faint. Yes--I 'ave, though. A cousin of mine when she was a young girl,
just like this young lady, she died in a faint--never came to again.
We laid her on a couch just like this. We patted her hands, we gave
her--well, there was no brandy in the house--but we gave her a drop of
gin. But she never took no notice of nothing. She went off as though
she'd gone to sleep and that was the end of her. The doctor made sure
she was quite dead before we buried her."
I felt I could listen to no more of that. Another word or two from Mrs.
Bullwell of that nature and she would have guessed my secret. I went
out to the hall door and waited on the steps. When Perowne arrived I
brought him straight into the room. He asked for no explanation. How I
blessed him for that!
"Shall I go out of the room?" I asked.
"Stay where you are," said he.
So I stood staring out of the window, and not one vehicle that passed,
not one human being who went by did I see. All my senses were strained
to the hearing of the first sound of Clarissa's voice.
"He'll bring her round," I continually said to myself. "He'll bring her
round, if any one can."
But the silence was unbroken. It came at last to be more than I could
bear. I faced round into the room.
"Can't you do anything?" said I. "Can't you bring her round again?"
He stood up and looked at me. I knew he guessed it all by then. But he
only asked if there were a bed where we could put her.
"She must go to bed at once," said he.
"There's Mr. Moxon's bed," began Mrs. Bullwell.
"I'll sleep there," said I. "Put her in my room."
There was no surprise in Perowne's face, but I am sure that if Mrs.
Bullwell had described her feelings she would have made some allusion
to that feather which has the power to lay low a woman even of her
proportions.
So we carried her upstairs and laid her on my bed. I wonder shall I
ever forget the strangeness of that first sensation which the sight of
Clarissa's head upon my pillow brought me. But I was not allowed to
look at her for long. Perowne told me to go downstairs and wait.
"I'll come and tell you how we're getting on in a minute or two. Don't
worry yourself. Have some tea."
My Lord! They are casual, these doctors! It strikes you like that when
they are dealing with some one in the hollow of whose hand lies your
only hope of happiness.
I went out of the room and closed the door behind me. But to take tea
when such an issue as Clarissa's life was weighing in the balance! I
cannot remember walking downstairs to my room. The first thing that
comes back to me is the memory of standing by my table with that
little weapon in my hand which was to have done for me such wonders of
legerdemain. With one touch of its bright steel trigger I was to have
passed from that pit of depression--to what? The forgetfulness, the
oblivion I suppose which, since my visit to Ballysheen, I had lost all
power to conjure in my mind.
I think I must have stood some moments looking at it, holding it out
in the palm of my open hand. At last I locked it away in an empty
drawer. I had no further use for it then. I had come back to the power
of something better than oblivion. Since that moment when Clarissa's
lips had touched my cheek, I had discovered once more that priceless
secret of remembrance. If Clarissa's life were safe it mattered little
to me what issue should befall. She had come to me in trouble. I might
never win her more than that. Indeed, I scarcely hoped of it. Her words
on the cliffs that day at Ballysheen were always ringing in my ears.
"You're ugly! You couldn't tell the truth!"
Perhaps she believed the truth was possible to me now. That she had
come to me, and alone, was almost proof of it. But nothing could ever
alter the other accusation. She might trust me implicitly by this, but
any passion for me, that I knew was impossible. It was sufficient for
me that she had placed herself in my hands. It was more than sufficient
that now, with all her tragedy and her disillusionment, she might
come to look upon me as her protector. Who could tell but one day,
impoverished as she was, she might let me take her to some dressmaker's
and say: "Show this lady the best dresses that you've got."
Possibly that is not the way it is done. But I may learn one of these
days how women manage such things.
Whatever the issue might be I knew then that I had plenty to live for.
She was penniless. She was at the mercy of all I could do for her.
But suddenly came the fear that she might ask me to send her back to
Dominica. Yet even that, cruel a return to such hopes of mine as it
might seem, would still leave me with the consciousness that I had
justified my existence.
"But she won't do that," said I. "She couldn't do that. Women have
bigger hearts than that--moreover, women understand. She couldn't do
that."
Yet I suppose I must really have feared it, but when the door opened
and Perowne closed it after him, all thoughts of what might happen
in the future were gone from me. The immediate present looked at me
forebodingly from his eyes.
"Well," I said quickly, "what is it? Is she better? What's happened?
Have you brought her to?"
He put his hand on my shoulder.
"I suppose you know about this?" said he.
"About what?"
"She's going to have a child."
CHAPTER IX
So far as women are concerned it has left me severely alone. Times
out of number in the ambling course of these pages I have wished that
it were otherwise. Now was ever the wish of a man more completely
gratified than mine?
Suddenly to find myself with this child of a woman in my house,
confined to my own bed, with such prospect before her is presented to
my mind an attitude of incomparable bewilderment. Had the infant been
placed in my arms then and there I should have known no better how to
behave or what to do. For the first day I was as one who has lost his
way in an elaborate maze. Turn which path I would, there seemed no way
out of the business. I, whose knowledge of women was that which is
attained at a respectful distance, had in one moment found myself, as
it were, the expectant father of a child, with all his anxieties, all
his apprehensions and alarms.
I had to learn to walk tip-toe in my room. Moxon being absent I was
sent out for medicines, the prescriptions of which made me grow hot as
I handed them over the chemist's counter. It is at times like these, I
found, that a man realizes the utter littleness of his being. He is no
more than a slave, attendant at the court of the highest monarch in the
world.
A nurse was immediately sent for. Her deprivations of the previous days
had made Clarissa's condition precarious. She could not be moved.
When I had explained everything to Perowne he nodded his head, then he
scratched it.
"How are you going to explain it to the nurse?" he asked. "Some of
these women are touchy creatures. They have their ideas of babies born
out of wedlock."
"Do you mean to say she'd make it uncomfortable for Clarissa?" I asked.
"Of course, you need not explain anything," he replied. "There's no
essential reason why you should. Let her suspect if she likes."
"And show her suspicions! My Lord! You ought to know the judgment
of a virtuous woman who barely suspects her sister of folly. Do you
think I'd let that poor child suffer all the thousand little stings
and arrows from the tongue of a woman who imagines her sex has been
outraged? You know what she'd say. You know the way she'd say it. Never
with a word. No--by Jove--if she says Mrs. Bellairs to me, I'll say
Mrs. Bellairs to her."
He shrugged his shoulders and went away. I now almost believe he has
guessed nothing. And how easily would a woman have known. It was but
poor satisfaction, whatever way you looked at it. But I was determined
that not the slightest measure of reproach should ever reach Clarissa's
ears. She had followed her Fate. God knows she has paid the woman's
utmost penalty. I can conceive no greater price. In no man's reckoning
enters such a sum of atonement as this. He pays with remorse, with
shame and with dishonor; but what are these beside two living eyes that
gaze and gaze and gaze into your own as long as the days run on from
one year to another?
There came no judgment to my mind of her. I know no man, and certainly
no woman, who is qualified to judge of another in such an issue as
this. It is the greatest law that Nature has made, and God--if you
would differentiate between them two--has laid down His seal upon it in
the little village of Bethlehem. It may violate then a million times
the earthly social law; but who is there to sit in judgment over God?
And besides all this, it was Clarissa. In the heart of me, I almost
think I thanked the bitter cause that had sent her thither. It
brought so much that I could do for her, more than I had ever had the
opportunity for doing for any other woman in the world. Surely I had
cause for gratitude there.
When the nurse arrived I was more determined than before that the
truth of Clarissa's condition should never be known. Nurse Barham
was elderly, but unmarried--a woman of florid face and thin lips,
who, having helped at the birth of so many children, had lost all
proportion of romance, and, never knowing such romance of her own, had
come to regard life with bitter calculation.
Immediately after my interview with her I sent for Mrs. Bullwell before
they could find opportunity to exchange their confidences.
"Mrs. Bullwell," said I, "I don't know what your morals are, but that
lady upstairs is my wife."
"Glory, sir!" was all she exclaimed.
"If that's an expression of praise," said I, "or satisfaction, so much
the better. But you understand it, don't you? To Nurse Barham, to me,
to everybody in this house, that lady is Mrs. Bellairs, and if I hear
of your spreading the faintest suspicion of her being anything else, we
shall have to find another place for you."
She clasped her hands as though she would pray to God that such
catastrophe might never befall her. Her moral sense came second, and
with an impulsive gesture she laid a fat, red hand upon my arm.
"But you will marry the poor thing, won't you, sir?" she begged. "You
will marry her when it's all over?"
I took hold of the fat, red hand. There are not many moments in life
when one can do these things, preserving that dignity we choose to call
essential; there are not many moments, but, undoubtedly, this was one.
I took hold of the fat, red hand.
"I suppose that would make you quite happy, Mrs. Bullwell," I said.
"It would, sir--believe me, there's no happiness in this world, not
without you have the marriage-lines."
"But once you've got those," said I.
Her expression became ecstatic then; whereupon I gently let go her hand.
"You'd be much happier then, sir," said she.
"I should," said I.
Taking it all round, that was not such a difficult situation. I have
passed through worse. It was played moreover with a woman. By no means
did I relish so much the thought of telling Moxon when he returned.
However, it had to be done, and when the next day he arrived back
from Ireland I collared him before even a sight of Nurse Barham was
permitted him.
"Moxon," said I, "here--in my room."
He came obediently and I shut the door. When I turned round, every
single word I had prepared to say was gone out of my head. And I had
made it up so excellently, contriving Moxon should have been spared
all confusion and I what little dignity I liked to call my own. But
there it was, the whole elaborate preparation had vanished. All that I
could think of was that I was no longer sleeping in my own bed, but in
Moxon's. It seemed more necessary then to inform him of that than of
anything else, and somehow or other I stammered it out.
"But it's all right," I added quickly, when I saw the utter
consternation in his face. "It's all right. You can find a room for me
to-morrow, somewhere near and I'll sleep out. It's better that I should
sleep out--at least, I suppose it is. I don't exactly know what the
husband would do under these circumstances; I suppose he'd remain in
the house."
At that moment, when Moxon's face was such a picture as memory will
make graphic to my mind for the rest of my life, Nurse Barham opened
the door, and in the astringent acid of her voice she said:
"Mrs. Bellairs would like to see you for a moment, sir--as soon as you
can come up. It must only be for a moment."
I looked at Moxon. I know just how I looked. I meant to. He never said
a word; he just watched me as I followed the nurse out of the room.
When I reached the door I turned back.
"You can stay here, Moxon," said I, "in this room till I come
downstairs again."
Then as I climbed up to my bedroom, all thoughts of the difficulties
of that situation went clean from me. Clarissa wanted to speak to me,
and I could not stop the beating of my heart. This was the first time
I had seen her since we had laid her tired little head on my pillow,
when I had left the room with the vision of her closed eyes and the
transparent whiteness of her cheeks. That vision had lasted with me
till now. Now I was to see her awake; but her head would still be on my
pillow.
At the door I paused, partly, I confess, to control the confusion of my
emotions.
"How long may I stay?" I whispered.
"I'll come back in five minutes," the nurse replied, as she opened the
door. I crept upon the tips of my toes into the room, and she closed
the door after me. She closed it far less gently than I should have
done, for at the sound of it, Clarissa raised her head from the pillow.
Directly she saw it was me, she let it fall back again. Perhaps it was
my fancy, but I think a warm flush swept over her cheeks. Doubtless
she was timid; but she could not have been so timid as was I. I crept
quietly to the side of the bed, and it seemed then, in that still room,
as though my heart, beating, were the only thing that moved or broke
the silence.
"Are you better?" I whispered.
My body found a chair on which to seat itself.
At last I saw two eyes, full of remorse, looking at me from out of a
little window made up by the bedclothes.
"Will you--will you ever forgive me?" she said, faintly.
"Forgive what?" said I. "You mustn't talk like that. Are you worrying
yourself all these hours with the idea that you've got to find
forgiveness? You'll never get well that way. Besides, what is there to
forgive?"
"I'm in your bed," she whispered. "Where do you sleep?"
"Is that all!" said I, laughing. "Why, do you imagine that I'm one of
those fussy beggars who can't turn in anywhere but to their own bed
and their own pillow? It is comfortable though; isn't it?"
She nodded her head and squeezed down under the clothes. How could that
devil ever have left her!
"But that's not all," she continued, presently, from the little hive of
bedclothes within which she lay curled; "that's not all. You haven't
heard what the nurse calls me."
"I have indeed," said I, "but don't be angry with me for that. It
couldn't be helped. It was the only way. I did it because of the nurse.
I think she's a silly woman. At any rate, she wouldn't have understood.
It's a false position for you I know. But you mustn't be angry with me.
I did it for the best."
I suppose her illness had made her weak; but even then I cannot quite
understand it, for when I said that she buried her face in the pillows
and all her body shook with weeping. Of course, the nurse came in at
that moment. I might have expected it. I believe they have an uncanny
way of knowing when they are not wanted; moreover, if they see the
faintest sign of affection they will put a stop to it. No doubt they
are quite right. They hate it. This creature must have hated it more
than most, for when she found Clarissa crying she turned on me in the
severest contempt.
"Why have you been making her cry?" she said. "Surely she's weak enough
without distressing her like that!"
Upon my soul I felt a fool. The man who is swayed between two emotions
is bound to fall between them and look ridiculous. I wanted to turn the
detestable woman out of the house straight away. On the other hand,
there was Clarissa crying her heart out, and I knew well enough it was
bad for her.
"Will you kindly go now?" she continued. "I can't have my patient unset
like this."
I went, as quietly too as I had come. But when I got downstairs I
could have cheerfully kicked anything that came in my way. It was a
bad prospect for Moxon. I nearly slammed the door as I came in, but
remembered just in time. At a violent strain I caught it just before it
closed.
Things cut both ways in life. At least that is what I find. This little
burst of irritation went far towards making it easier for me to tell
Moxon. I flung the information at him then.
"Now," said I, when I had finished, "if this sort of establishment
has become one with which you have no desire to be connected, don't
hesitate to say so. I don't know when the child will be born--nobody
knows. It's supposed to be in three months' time; but however long it
is, if it were the whole nine months, Miss Fawdry would still stay
here under my protection till it was over. To begin with, she's ill.
She can't be moved. And when she's well again the position will be no
different. I tell you this plainly, because I don't want there to be
any misunderstanding. Of course, when she's well again she may say
that she doesn't wish to stay. That'll be a different matter. I shall
do my best to persuade her, and so long as she's here under these
circumstances she's Mrs. Bellairs. Now, you've heard this, if you don't
want to stay on I'd sooner you said so. I know your ideas about this
sort of thing. You remember my asking you that night last April, when I
sent you to fetch a taxi for that woman who was drenched with rain, you
remember my asking you if you would refuse to help a woman in trouble."
"Do you happen to remember my answer, sir?"
"Well,"--upon my soul, for the minute, it had gone clean out of
my mind--"I don't remember the exact words," said I. "I fancy you
disapproved."
"Excuse me, sir, but I think I remarked that to my knowledge I hadn't
said nothing about no woman."
I suppose if two negatives make an affirmative, one may take it that
three in the ordinary course of progression revert to the former order
of things. He had said nothing about a woman. I did remember that. I
remembered also how that tactful observation had nonplussed me. It had
much the same effect now. I felt that I was losing ground, and dignity
with it too; for dignity, after all, is only the ground you stand upon.
There was only one thing to do, to return as quickly as possible to
what I had been saying.
"Well, you see the situation," said I; "if you wish to get another
place, I shall be pleased to give you the best possible recommendation."
Of course, I could see that it was a terrible shock to him. To any
man who would preserve an attitude of disapproval towards all women,
it would be an uncomfortable position in which to find himself. I
sympathized with him sincerely, but there was no help for it. I had to
put it that way for his own sake, though I knew well what his answer
would be. He no more disapproves of women than do I. It is only this
attitude which he adopts as a counterblast for the want of approval
in women for him. Even Mrs. Bullwell he treats with a stern aloofness
of manner, though I have known him take a vase of daffodils which I
had condemned as faded and place them in her kitchen. He was careful
enough to tell her that it was by my instructions. She thanked me for
them herself, but I said nothing to him. And now to have to accept
the circumstance of a woman in the house, to be compelled to speak
of her as Mrs. Bellairs, to know that she was occupying my bed, that
in the near future she would be performing that most terrible of all
functions--which I have heard him thank God was left only to women to
do--the bringing of a child into the world; to be driven to all this
and still to maintain his dignity as a man who has avowed his superior
toleration of the whole sex--it was a bad business for Moxon. He did
not like the look of it at all.
But I had given him the only loophole for escape. To tell the honest
truth, I could not possibly have done without him, and putting it this
way, laying myself under an obligation to him should he consent to
remain, was the only method I could devise on the moment for keeping
him with me.
"What are you going to decide?" said I.
"Well, sir," and he paused. It is this way he gathers weight for his
utterances. "I think I know my place. I shouldn't question anything you
do, sir, not if I was to be in your service for a hundred years."
"That means you're going to question it now," said I.
"Not at all, sir, I was only going to say that you're the best judge of
what you do."
"When any one says that," I observed, "they mean you are the very worst
judge possible. Go on. It's extremely interesting to hear what you say
and know what you mean. I am behaving extremely injudiciously--well?"
This was far too much for Moxon. To have all his tactful diplomacy
shorn of its tinsel wrappings and before his very eyes was more than
he could bear. His wit, moreover, was not equal to it. At last I had
nonplussed him. His last effort was merely a _tour de force_; but it
was too good for me.
"Do you want me to go, sir?" said he.
Well, I had to throw up my hand then. In a matter of this kind some one
or the other has to make a sacrifice of dignity. I have never been
engaged in such an encounter where both retained it till the end.
"Want you to go," said I. "Upon my soul, I don't know what I should do
without you."
A big smile of gratitude spread all over his face. It was as good as if
he had held out his hand, and far more respectful.
"Well, if there's anything I can do for Mrs. Bellairs, sir--"
Of course, this was overdoing it. He meant well, but you can see
yourself that it was overdoing it. Accordingly, he got no more than he
deserved. I sent him out to the chemist with an awful prescription.
CHAPTER X
I believe one can disarm even Destiny. God knows what might not have
happened had that child been born in such surroundings as Clarissa
found herself before she came to me. You may be sure the poor little
mite would have been sorely in the way. God knows what might not have
happened.
But so far as I was concerned with Clarissa, it was welcome. It would
give her something to live for who had so little of her own. I was
prepared to do my best that it should not be ushered into a world which
shuddered at its coming.
Once only in the few times that I saw her Clarissa spoke of it.
"It will be so terrible for you," she said.
"Terrible?" said I. "But why? It's your child. By no right or
consideration is it his. You've suffered for it. That's the only right
of possession. It won't be terrible at all. I just think of it as your
child. He doesn't enter my head."
That was a lie, but worth telling, since it made her mind the easier.
He does enter into my thoughts. I burn hot with foolish anger sometimes
when I think of him. But all this was disarming Destiny, and Destiny
disarmed does strange and unexpected things.
Perowne came late one night at a summons from the nurse. I heard the
door of Clarissa's bedroom open and close many times that night.
All through the hours I lay awake listening, revolving in my mind a
thousand meanings of what it could be. At last I could bear the vague
speculation of it no longer. I crept out of my room and button-holed
Perowne as he came downstairs.
"I can't stand this," said I. "What is it?"
"The child," said he.
"Born?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Dead."
Dead? It meant nothing to me. I knew then it had never held life at all
in my mind. That it was still-born seemed to me then the only natural
thing that could happen.
"It was what I expected," he added, "after the condition we found her
in when she first came here. She was half-starved."
"How is she now?" I asked.
"Not very lively. She'll get all right again though, if she takes it
quietly."
So we crept silently through the month of March to that glorious
First of April, when the whole world awakes to the great gladness
of its folly. For the first two weeks of that month of March I was
not permitted to see her. Then I would spend my mornings in the
park, intent no longer upon watching the romance of others, but
contemplating in long silences the wonderful possibilities of my own.
What would it be when she was well again? All hope that I might win her
for myself I counted beyond the utmost probability. Such disfigurement
as is mine, once a woman has expressed her horror of it, is not
forgotten so easily as that. So at least it seemed to me. And as I sat
or walked in the park, journeying so far sometimes as the gardens in
Kensington to see the crocuses and the young tulips rising above the
earth, I thought it all out, making in my imagination the future I
would have for her.
I built a cottage then in the country--an old-fashioned place standing
far back from the road, with a tiny orchard of gnarled apple trees
and a garden where all the sweet peas in the world could grow in such
profusion as would shame even Cruikshank himself. It should be within
fifty miles of London, so that whenever she needed me I could easily
reach her. For a few hundred pounds the freehold of a place like that
could be bought, and it should be her very own. The little that it
would cost for her to live there, she would surely accept at my hands.
"She's at my mercy," I told myself, cheerfully. "Can she possibly want
anything better than that?"
There were other schemes too. I spent a glorious morning devising them.
But none pleased me better than this, and I longed for the moment when
I might tell her of it.
In the afternoons of that fortnight I wrote long letters to
Bellwattle, telling her everything, leading up slowly by the most
gradual degrees to that moment when I could ask for my gift to be
returned to me. It is a mean thing to do, to give a thing and take a
thing. Surely there is some condemnatory couplet which treats of such
instability as this.
"Give a thing and take a thing--"
I have long forgotten how it goes. But surely, with a lonely man and
his dog it were excusable. I had word from her that he was happy
enough when out on the cliffs alone with her, where there was ever the
great adventure of the chase. But she hinted sometimes how in the long
evenings he would sit thoughtfully before the fire taking no notice
of any word that was said to him. I like to think it was then that he
thought of me.
At length came that morning when the nurse told me Clarissa was up in
her room, sitting before the fire, and that I might take my tea with
her in the afternoon.
Before breakfast then Moxon and I went to Covent Garden.
"I just want to get a few flowers," said I.
We staggered back under the weight of those flowers. Freezias,
tulips--even lilac there was. Moxon's face grew scarlet among the
yellow tulips as he bore them bravely homeward. I sent them up to
Clarissa's room before me. When at last I knocked at the door and was
admitted, I found her with her face buried in a great bowl of flowers,
and her eyes were closed. If you would see into the very heart of the
spring, your eyes must be closed. Nurse Barham was not in the room, so
I just stood by waiting till she should open them.
Presently she raised her head. The look in her eyes was as though the
spring still filled them, and out went my heart quickly beating to it.
I would have given much had that glance been meant for me. That in some
measure I had been the cause of it was good enough to know.
"When you're able to get out again," said I, "you'll find everything
like that in the country."
"Ah, yes," she replied, "in the country. I suppose all the banks in
Ballysheen now are filled with primroses."
"No doubt they've opened their current account," said I. Then I sat
down and looked closely at her face. "Do you mean to tell me," I went
on, "that you're regretting Ballysheen now?"
"Seeing a little of Ballysheen was better than seeing a lot of London,"
she admitted. "You don't know how often I've tossed and turned, lying
awake in that bed, thinking how right you were. Oh--you were right!"
"When?"
"All that you said to me on the cliff that day--all about
everything--about forgetting that you lived--about remembering that you
lived. I've been trying so hard to forget," she sighed, deeply, "and
I'm so tired of trying. If you hadn't taken care of me, I should have
given up trying. Perhaps that would have been best too. I sometimes
think it would have been much the best."
"Wait till you see the country again," I said. "You won't be sorry
then. The tulips are up in Kensington Gardens--all the almond trees are
pink. You wait till you get up--wait, too, till you've heard what I've
got to suggest."
She glanced at me quickly.
"I can't take anything more from you," she began.
"You can wait," said I, "till you hear what I've got to say. Shall we
have tea now or afterwards?"
"Afterwards. Perhaps you want your tea, though."
"So far as I am concerned," I replied, "everything can wait."
"Well, then--go on."
For a moment I wondered whether we had better not have tea, whether
it were not wiser to wait until that light of excitement had gone out
of her eyes. When again she begged me go on, I forgot about it; I was
excited myself. For a whole two weeks I had pictured this moment of
telling her. The best of us are inconsiderate when it comes to such a
pass as this. I was going to show her my little castle in Spain, and it
is these habitations of which we are proudest. With my own hands, as I
sat in the park those mornings, I had built that little Tudor cottage
with its apple orchard, where the sheep grazed in and out between the
white-washed trunks. With my own hands I had laid the old garden,
planting it with all those old flowers that will remain in every garden
so long as England is what she is. Is there any wonder I was proud of
it--any wonder that I wanted to tell her of it all just so fast as I
could?
She listened with eyes round in wonder. Sometimes her fingers clasped
and unclasped, and she beat her little hands about like a child who has
something good to eat.
"There are hundreds of places like that in Kent," said I, when I had
finished. "Kent is full of them; and when the apple blossom is out and
lambs are in the orchard, I can tell you you want to live then. You
want to be up with the sun lest you should miss an hour of it. I've
been all round the world, but I've never seen anything to touch an
apple orchard in Kent, or any English meadow in the heat of summer. I
know nothing like it--I know nothing equal to it, unless it is those
cliffs at Ballysheen when the gorse and the heather are out and the
whole place throbs with the humming of bees. That, perhaps, is as
good. But it's too far away. I want you to have a place where, if ever
you need me, you can send for me at a moment's notice. There would be
times, perhaps, when you might feel lonely."
She had been looking down into the fire, interlacing her fingers, doing
and undoing them as in an idle moment, a child plaits rushes in the
silent meadows. But when I said she might feel lonely, she looked up
quickly to my face.
"Did you mean to go alone?" she asked, "to live there--quite alone?"
"There would be some one to help you look after it," said I.
"Yes--but--otherwise, alone."
"Who else is there that you know?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"No one?"
"I don't know anybody."
"But if you feel what you do about the country," said I, "I don't think
you'd be lonely. And if ever you wanted me--at any time--I could come
down. There'd be some inn at the village where I could put up."
"Where you could put up?"
"Yes--where I could sleep."
She gazed at me quite strangely, and so direct were her eyes that I
remember wondering was she forgetting how repulsive I was. I believe
that thought would have grown upon me. I believe, had she looked at
me thus a moment longer, I should have taken the bull of fortune by
the horns. I should have tried my luck, risking that refusal which I
believed to be inevitable, whereby it would have been thrown back at
me once more the eternal knowledge of myself. But at that moment two
things occurred. I, who will have no mirror in my room, was suddenly
confronted by my reflection in a little handglass of Clarissa's that
leant against the back of an empty chair. She had been arranging
herself, no doubt, before I came into the room; for it is ever the
way with women that they must appear at their best, even to those whom
least it should concern.
But it was not that which kept back the words then faltering on my
lips. Clarissa's lip had trembled. Before another moment had passed
she was in tears. It was not only weakness this time. Some spirit of
courage had broken within her. She had given way.
Amazed though I was, I let her cry awhile before I questioned her;
then, leaning nearer, I begged her tell me what it was.
"I--I couldn't be there alone," she faltered. "I-I couldn't bear it
alone. Oh--I must have a little pride! I can't take anything more from
you. You have given me so much as it is. I want to go home. I want to
go back to Dominica. I wish to God I'd gone when you told me to last
year. I should have been spared all this. You would have been spared
it, too. Let me go back to Dominica."
"You'd sooner that," said I, "than the castle in Spain--the cottage in
Kent?"
"Yes--I couldn't be there alone. Oh--I know what a disgrace I am. Do
let me go."
"You're sure of what you say?" I repeated.
"Yes--yes--quite sure."
I shrugged my shoulders and rose to my feet.
"God who made women," said I, "must understand 'em. You shall go back
to Dominica."
And I left her.
CHAPTER XI
It was a day early in the month of May when I said good-bye to
Clarissa. The next day following that afternoon when she had expressed
her wish to go home, I went away myself, leaving her in the care of
Moxon with instructions that when she was ready to return to Dominica
I should be sent for. How could I have stayed on there in the house,
seeing her possibly every day, knowing that each hour was drawing
nearer to that moment when my life was to be empty once more? It was
better to train myself to the knowledge of it at once, wherefore I went
away seeking the loneliness that was bound to come.
I sometimes think she felt my absence a little during her
convalescence; but there is more hope than belief in the thought.
We were very silent as we drove to the station. What, indeed, was there
to say? I find that it is not only sufficient that a woman should come
to you in trouble, for when she goes, she leaves a whole world of
trouble behind her. I suppose I must have taken it for granted in my
mind that if she came, she would stay. It can only be then that I am
utterly ignorant of women. How indeed should I be otherwise?
I did my best, but so hopelessly failed to understand her tears when,
just before the train started, she broke down completely and wept.
"But you're going home," said I, "you're doing the thing you have
chosen to be best."
Yet still she cried and muttered brokenly of the kindness I had shown
her.
"No one in the world could have been so kind," she said.
"It's been the best time of my life," I replied. "There have even been
moments when I've thanked God for your troubles since, in a way, I was
able to bear them."
At that she buried her face in her hands and for some moments I could
get no word from her at all. She sobbed as though her heart were
breaking and I sat there on the seat opposite to her wondering why God
had made creatures so incomprehensible as women. She wanted of her own
accord to return to Dominica, yet here she was at her departure, crying
as though a very world of desolation was before her. It was more than I
could understand.
I had to leave the carriage at last. She still sat there weeping, with
the bundle of picture papers which I had bought lying on her lap. It
was only as the train began to move out of the station that she threw
them on to the seat beside her and, rising impulsively to her feet, she
leant out of the window.
"Why," she whispered excitedly, "why have you been so good to me?"
I could have laughed at that. For surely she must have guessed by this;
but thank God a sense of the ludicrous saved me from telling her then
that I loved her. Imagine the declaration of a lover, running by the
side of the carriage as a train steamed out of the station.
"God bless you," was all I said and for a long while I stood watching
that little white face of hers as she leant out of her carriage window.
Suddenly then, so quickly as if some one had drawn her back within, she
disappeared. At that I turned away and walked home alone.
It was two days later that Moxon brought me a telegram to my room.
"_Come over at once_," it read, "_most important that I should see
you._" And it was signed Bellwattle.
"Is the boy waiting for an answer?" I asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Give me a form then."
He brought it to me.
"_Coming_," I wrote and handed it back to him. "Pack my things," said
I, "I'm off to Ireland this evening."
I acted with as little hesitation as that, for I more than welcomed
the thought of leaving London. There was beading of green through all
that black lace-work of the trees, and often I had felt the yearning
that must come to every one of us, that calling of the land, when one's
eyes need to be filled with the broad stretches, when one's feet long
for the springy turf and all one's heart aches for the great freedom
of God's heaven above one's head. And beside all that, I knew I should
soon be seeing Dandy once more.
It would be impossible to count the memories that filled my mind when
again I mounted Quin's car and set out upon that nine-mile journey from
Youghal to Ballysheen. Every corner of the road brought back to my
remembrance the day when I had arrived, the day also when I had gone
back to London feeling how utterly the madness of my mission had failed.
It was a long time before I spoke a word to Quin who, though the day
was fine enough, drove just as ever with that fixed despondency of
expression in his face.
"Are you never cheerful," said I at last, "not even on a day like this?"
He looked at me in astonishment.
"What would I be cheerful about?" he asked.
"Good God, man!" said I; "look all round you."
"What for?" said he.
"For everything. God's in His heaven."
"He is indeed," said Quin. "And as far as this country's concerned I'm
afraid 'tis the way He'll stay there."
I laughed at that; but his face had no sign of mirth in it.
"They're goin' to give us Home Rule," he continued. "Shure, Glory be
to God, what'll we be doin' rulin' ourselves whin Tim Burke and Jim
Reilly were fightin' yesterday at the council meeting as to whether
the new lamp-post in Dorgan Street should be put opposite Jim Reilly's
house or Tim Burke's?"
"And which did they decide?" I asked.
"Shure, they didn't decide at all. Why would they? They fought like two
creatures from hell till Michael Mahony got up and said the only way
to settle it was to have no lamp-post at all. 'Twas the judgment av
Solomon, he said--but yirrah, what the divil's the judgment of Solomon
to do with Dorgan Street? Shure, I dunno know who Solomon was. He
might have been a Jew by the sounds av him. 'Tis Dorgan Street anyways
that'll have no lamp-post and 'tis as dark there in that street on a
night ye couldn't see yeer own fisht to shtrike a man with. Ye could
not. An' if they come to do with the land as they did with Dorgan
Street, I want to know what the hell is Home Rule goin' to be to us
thin?"
"But, good heavens!" said I. "You've been crying for Home Rule for more
than a century!"
"We have indeed," said he, "but God help us, we never expected to
get ut. An' now they're talkin' of Johnnie Redmond, the hero. Faith,
the only heroes in Ireland are the min like Emmet, who died for his
country, and didn't get what he wanted even then. Shure, Johnnie
Redmond is no hero. He's a prosperous man. He'll be wearin' a diamond
shtud in his shirt front before long, and dhrivin' down Pathrick Street
in Cork in a carriage and pair on a Sathurday afternoon for the people
to look at him. Shure, that's no hero. 'Tis he'll have the lamp-post in
front of his house if there are any goin'. He will indeed."
"The fact of the matter is," said I, when I had done with laughing,
"that if they give you Home Rule you'll have nothing to complain about,
and this'll be a dead country."
"I dunno will ut be a dead country," he replied. "Ye wouldn't have
called ut a dead country if ye'd heard what Jim Reilly said to Tim
Burke at the last council meetin'. An' it'll all be just about as alive
as that."
"What did he say?"
"I should have to be very hot in anger to repeat ut," said he.
So as I drove again from Youghal to Ballysheen I received my second
lesson in this glorious sad country. Dead or alive I was glad to be
back in it. Even those few weeks the year before had been long enough
to plant the call of it in my heart. For there is something in Ireland
to those who know it well, which cries to you in the long nights and,
in the summer days, holds out its arms mutely appealing to you to
return. Indeed, I was glad to be back, and when at the gateway I was
met by Dandy and Bellwattle I knew only of one other thing I could
have wished more earnestly to see. Even that I forgot while Bellwattle
was gripping my hand and Dandy was leaping wildly by my side.
"We're so glad to have you back," said she. "Look at him."
She pointed to Dandy, who stood upon his hind legs, rending the air
with hilarious laughter.
"Hooray! hooray!" he yelled, and had he worn a thousand hats on his
head he would have flung them all up in the air at once. A welcome like
that is worth coming many miles for. Even Cruikshank in his quiet way
was exuberant in spirits.
"Good man!" he kept saying. "Good man." As though I had accomplished
some feat of virtue by my arrival.
But it was not till we sat down to lunch that I asked what had been the
meaning of that important telegram.
"Why was it most important that you should see me?" I asked, and looked
from one to the other as I put the question.
Cruikshank kept his eyes fixed upon his plate, whereby I knew that this
was a moment when silence was expected of him. I turned my eyes to
Bellwattle.
"Well!" said I.
She drank some water from her glass before she answered me. The pause,
in fact, was most elaborate.
"It's to do with the cottage," she replied, at last.
"What cottage?"
"In the hollow. Cruikshank has done it up, furnished it, with the idea
of letting it for the spring and summer. Autumn, too, if any one wanted
it. We thought you'd like to stay there this summer--not, of course, to
our letting but our invitation. We--"
"You'd better say yes," interrupted Cruikshank.
"He needn't say yes till he's seen it," Bellwattle broke in again.
I looked from one to the other. My eyes rested last on Bellwattle.
"Like a true prophet," said I, "you're working hard to bring your
prophecy true."
"What prophecy?"
"That I should come to the cottage this year. But if I do stay it won't
be true to the letter. There'll only be a coloring of truth in it. You
said live there. I told you that was impossible."
"Oh--eat your lunch," said Cruikshank, "and go up with Bellwattle
afterwards. There's no compulsion for you to stay if you don't like it.
There's a bedroom ready for you here."
"Is he cross?" I inquired.
"Do I look it?" asked Cruikshank.
I had to admit that he did not. There was a twinkle of light in his eye
the whole time that he was speaking.
It was soon after lunch then that I found myself with Bellwattle and
Dandy making our way once more up that old boreen where they tell me
the white hemlocks grow so high in summer and the wild geraniums
break, in patches of color, the ever freshening wonder of the glorious
green.
Heavens! What a rush of memory it brought, carrying me back to that
first morning when Bellwattle had brought me up to see the cottage in
the hollow. Were they the same sheep grazing there, lifting their heads
to stare at us as we swung open the same old gate, whose rusty hinges
played the very tune it had played last year? Doubtless they were the
very same. This crying for everlasting change is only the restless
craving of a neurotic race. There is change enough in the seasons,
change enough in the sky to fulfil every requirement of my soul; only
that I need another to note those changes with me.
Here the whole summer, the whole autumn and winter had passed with
every varied color and design. The spring was back again, and the whole
world about us was the same once more as it had been the previous year.
The gulls were beating up against the thrusting wind; the songs of
larks rose like glittering bells, trilling and tinkling in the bright
air above us. Now the gorse was in its full blazonry of yellow, and all
the heather buds shook out their music to each little breeze.
As my feet first felt the yielding turf beneath them, I stood still,
took off my hat, threw back my head and let the warm, white sun burn
down upon my skin.
"Oh, my God!" I muttered, "how wonderful this is!"
"And you might have had it always," said Bellwattle.
I looked at her swiftly. There was more than just what she said. In the
tone of her voice I detected a thousand things to which my imagination
leapt for answer.
"What do you mean?" said I.
"Why did you send Clarissa home?" she asked.
"Why? Because it was her own wish. Because she wanted to go."
"Never tell me you know anything about women again," said she.
"I was not aware that I'd said anything about any woman," I replied,
and then I tried hard to think where I had heard that excellently
evasive remark before. For the moment I could not trace it. I was,
moreover, too interested in what she had yet to say. "Wasn't that a
good enough reason?" I added.
She shook her head as she smiled at me.
"Clarissa never wanted to go home. Do you think a woman ever wants to
leave a man who has treated her as you did?"
"If she finds him as repulsive to look at as Clarissa found me," said I.
For a few steps we walked without speaking again. Then she stopped me
and looked squarely in my face. There was almost that light in her
eyes which I have seen in Dandy's, which I remember having seen in my
mother's. I felt almost then as though I might be as other men are.
"Do you know," said she, gently, "that you're morbid about--about--"
"My ugliness."
"You can call it that if you like. You think it debars you from
winning. It doesn't. It's only a handicap. I never saw any one so easy
first as you must have been with Clarissa."
I gripped her arm quickly. My fingers must have hurt her, for she just
winced but made no effort to draw away. It was like a mother giving her
boy a hand to squeeze while he was in pain.
"How do you know this?"
"I guessed it."
"When? How?"
"When we went to see Clarissa at Queenstown on her way through."
"You saw her, then?"
"Yes--we went straight off, Cruikshank and I, directly we heard she was
coming."
"And she told you?"
"No--I guessed it."
"Then why didn't she stay when I offered her the cottage in Kent?"
"You offered it for her alone. It was like hitting her in the face
when she knew she deserved it. She had lived with another man. You had
nothing better to offer her than that. But you would have offered her
better, wouldn't you?"
"Great heavens, yes! If I thought she'd have taken it."
"I think she would," said Bellwattle. "Now I'm going to sit down here.
I'm tired. You go on to the cottage. Don't stay too long. Cruikshank's
waiting for us. Go on. Don't mind me."
I think I was glad to be alone then. I wanted to go back every step
in my memory of those days in London and count if she were right. So,
retracing it all, I came at last to the cottage.
The ground was already being laid out for the garden, and there I
stood for some moments thinking what yet might be possible, if all
that Bellwattle had said were true. If it should ever be so, we would
make that garden together, Clarissa and I, remembering with every seed
we sowed, with every flower we tended, that not one moment of Life
is to be forgotten--that the whole world, as was that little plot of
ground, is a garden of resurrection, where the seeds of promise are
ever bringing forth the flowers of remembrance, whose seed again is
scattered to the generous earth by the autumn winds.
I made up my mind then that if ever such contentment of Life should
come to me, I would make it a hobby to cultivate some new species of
sweet pea. Of how these things are done I am as ignorant as the babe
unborn. Still, in that moment, I made the determination.
"I will call it Clarissa," said I.
Then every year together we would sow the seeds of it afresh, planting
in the mould by their side that little stake of wood, washed white with
lime, whereon Clarissa's name should be inscribed. It would serve to
help us to remembrance even of death--the remembrance that burial is
but the sowing of a seed in God's great garden of resurrection. And
then, if ever it came to be my lot to see the small white gravestone on
which Clarissa's name should be engraved, I might remember the words
of Maeterlinck, "There are no dead," and in the years that followed,
myself sow and look forward to the sweet pea in my own small garden
and, finding it, achieve some understanding.
"All this shall be," said I, "if what Bellwattle has said is true."
Then at last I opened the door. The kitchen had been turned into a
sitting-room. A chair was drawn up to a cheery fire before which, as I
entered, some one rose to meet me. I felt my heart beat sick with joy.
It was Clarissa!
Clarissa in her gown of canary-colored satin.
THE END
_BY E. TEMPLE THURSTON_
THE GARDEN OF RESURRECTION
THE GREATEST WISH IN THE WORLD
SALLY BISHOP
THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE
THE PATCHWORK PAPERS
THE APPLE OF EDEN
TRAFFIC
THE REALIST
THE EVOLUTION OF KATHERINE
MIRAGE