The Dream worked out.
Mrs. Lake was better. The bleeding was stopped, the doctor gone, and
she seemed comfortable. There was less danger than Miss Jupp had
supposed, for the blood-vessel which had broken proved to be only a
small one on the chest--not the lungs. To her husband it appeared
incomprehensible that she should be in any danger at all: his mind had
never admitted the possibility of it.
He was all alive to it now. As long as she lay in bed he scarcely left
her chamber. To talk with her much was not allowed, but he sat there,
holding her hand, looking into her eyes with the old love in his. What
his reflections were, or how great his self-reproaches, was best known
to himself. When these men, essentially kind and tender by nature,
have to indulge in such remorse, be assured it is not very light. He
could not bring himself to believe that any conduct of his had
contributed to his wife's illness; still less that he had caused it.
That was a flight of fancy not easy to him to understand; but he saw
now how ill she must have been all along, and bitterly regretted that
he had left her so much alone. Rather than have _wilfully_ ill-treated
her, he would have forfeited his life. His love had come back to him,
now that it was too late--it may be more appropriate to say his senses
had come back to him.
In a day or two she grew so much better that she was allowed to leave
her bed for a small sitting-room on the same floor, carried into it by
him. Late in the afternoon, he left her comfortably lying back in the
easy chair, and inclined to sleep. Taking his hat, he walked out.
His errand was to the doctor. His wife seemed to assume that she
should not recover; Miss Jupp and the servants the same; for all he
saw, she might be well in a week or two: and he went to put the
question. Dr. Marlow had said nothing particular to him of her state,
one way or the other, and he could not question him before his wife.
Dr. Marlow was at home, and came to him at once. The two families had
been very intimate; on familiar terms one with the other. Mr. Lake
plunged into the matter at once, speaking of the danger other people
seemed to apprehend, and of his own inability to see it.
"Is she, or is she not, in peril?" he asked. "Tell me the plain
truth."
The old man laid his hand upon the speaker's shoulder. "What if the
truth should be painful? Will you hear it--the whole of it?"
"I am come to hear it."
"Then I can only tell you that she is in danger; and I fear that a
little time will see the end."
Very rapidly beat his pulses as he listened. Repentant pulses. A whole
lifetime of repentance seemed, in that moment, to be in every one of
them.
"But what is killing her? What is it?"
"The primary cause is of course that cold she caught at Guild. It laid
hold of her system. Still, I think she might have rallied: many a
time, since she came home, I have deemed her all but well again. You
ought to know best, Master Robert, but to me it appears as though she
had some grievance on her mind, and that it has been working mischief.
I hope you have been a good husband to her, as Joan says to Hodge,"
added the doctor, turning from Mr. Lake to take a pinch of snuff.
"Your wife has possessed one of those highly sensitive, rarely-refined
temperaments, that, when joined to a fragile body, an unkind blow
would shatter. I once told you this."
He made no comment; he was battling with his pain. Dr. Marlow
continued.
"The body was a healthy body; there was no inherent disease, as I have
always believed, and I cannot see why it should not have recovered;
but the mind seemed to pull it back; two powers, one working against
the other. Between them they have conquered, and will lay her low."
"Do you call it consumption?" Mr. Lake jerked out. And really the
words were jerked out, rather than fairly spoken.
"Decidedly not. More of a decline: a waste of the system."
"Those declines are cured sometimes."
"Not often: when they fairly set in."
"Oh, doctor," he cried, clasping the old man's hand, and giving vent
to some of the anguish that was rending him, "try and save her! Save
her for my sake! You don't know the cause I have to ask it."
"I wish I could--for both your sakes. She is beyond earthly aid."
They stood looking at each other. Dr. Marlow, willing if possible to
soothe in a degree the blow, resumed.
"I suppose I must, after all, have been mistaken in her constitution.
When consumption showed itself in her brother, and he died of it, I
watched her all the closer. But I could detect nothing wrong: though
she was always one of those blossoms that a sharp wind would blow
away. The disease was there, we must assume, and I failed to detect
it."
"You say--you said but now--that it is not consumption," returned Mr.
Lake, speaking sharply in his pain.
"Neither is it. But when unsoundness is inherent in the constitution
it does not always show itself in the same form. Sometimes it comes
out in one shape, sometimes in another."
There was no more to be said; nothing further to be learnt. Mr. Lake
returned home with his burden of knowledge, wondering how much of this
dread fiat Clara suspected, how much not. The shades of evening were
on the room when he entered it, imparting to it a semi-gloom, but the
rays of the fire-light fell on his wife's wasted face. Stirring the
coals into a bright blaze, he sat down by her chair, and took her hand.
Her wasted fingers entwined themselves fondly with his.
"I know where you have been, Robert. And I guess for what purpose."
"Ah. You are wise, my little wife. I went out to get a breath of fresh
air."
"You have been to Dr. Marlow's. Margaret Jupp called, and she said she
saw you turn into his house. You went to ask him whether I should get
well. He told you No: for he knows I shall not. Was it not so?"
She leaned a little forward to look at him. He suddenly clasped her to
his breast with a gush of passionate tenderness, and his hot tears
fell upon her face.
"Oh, my darling! my darling!"
"It must be," she softly whispered. "There is no appeal against it
now."
"Clara, if we are indeed to part, at least let perfect confidence be
restored between us," he resumed, controlling his emotion with an
effort. "What is the trouble that has been upon you?"
"The trouble?"
"Some of them are hinting at such a thing," he said, thinking of the
doctor and of Miss Jupp: "I must know from you what it is."
"Need you ask?"
"Yes. For I cannot comprehend it. My darling, you must tell me."
"If _she_ had never come between us, I do not think I should have been
ill now."
"I _cannot_ understand it," he repeated, a wailing sound in his
emphasized words. "I have been foolish, thoughtless, wrong: though not
to the extent you may possibly have imagined. But surely, taking it at
its worst, that was not cause sufficient to bring you to death."
"Your love left me for another. It seemed to me--it seemed to me--more
than I could bear."
Partly from the agitation the topic called up, partly that she was in
hesitation how to frame her words, the pauses came. It was as if she
would fain have said more.
"My love? oh no. It was but a passing--" the word at his tongue's end
was "fancy," but he substituted another--"folly. Clara! do not give me
more than my share of blame; that will be heavy enough, Heaven knows.
The old man says that the violent cold you caught at Guild, was the
primary cause of decay: surely that cannot be charged upon me."
She was silent a few moments--but, as he had said, there ought to be
full confidence between them now--and she had been longing to tell him
the whole unreserved truth; a longing that had grown into a sick
yearning.
"I will tell you now how I caught that cold. Do you remember the
night?"
"Not particularly." He was of a forgetful nature, and the events of
the night had only been those of many another.
"_Don't_ you remember it? When you were walking with--her--in the
shrubbery in the raw twilight.--"
Mr. Lake slightly shook his head in the pause she made. Twilight
shrubbery walks were lying in numbers on his conscience.
"She complained of cold, and you went to get her shawl out of the
summer-house, leaving her seated on the bench in front of the green
alcove. She sang a song to herself: I think I could repeat its words
now. You brought the shawl and folded it lovingly around her, and
kissed her afterwards, and called her--"
In great astonishment he raised his wife's face to gaze into it. Where
had she learnt that little episode? Had she dreamt it? He did not ask:
he only stared at her.
She bent down her head again to its resting-place, and folded her arm
round him in token of forgiveness. "And called her '_My dearest_.' I
was standing there, Robert, behind the bench. I saw and heard all."
Not a word spoke he. He hardly dared to accept the loving sign of
pardon, or to press her to him. Had she glanced up she would have seen
his face in a hot glow. These little private episodes may be very
gratifying in the passing, but it is uncommonly disagreeable to find
out that your wife has made a third at them.
"It was very thoughtless of me to run out from the heated room on that
cold damp night without anything on," she resumed hastily, as if
conscious of the feeling and wishing to cover it "But oh! I was so
unhappy--scarcely, I think, in my senses. I thought you had not
returned from Guild: Fanny came in and said you had been home a long
while and were with her. An impulse took me that I would go and see: I
never did such a thing in my life; never, never, before or since: and
I opened the glass doors and went out. I was half way down the
shrubbery when I heard you coming into it from a cross walk, and I
darted into the green alcove, and stood back to hide myself; not to
spy upon you."
She paused, but was not interrupted. Mrs. Lake began to hurry over her
tale.
"So you see that, in a measure, she was the cause of the cold which
struck to me. And then I was laid up; and many a time when you deemed
I should fancy you were out shooting, or had gone to Guild, or
something or other, you were with her. I knew it all. And since we
came home, you have been ever restless to go to her--leaving me
alone--even on Christmas-day."
Ay: even on Christmas-day. He almost gnashed his teeth, in his
self-condemnation. She, with her impassioned and entire love for him,
with her rare and peculiar temperament that, as the doctor had
observed, a rude blow would destroy! The misery of mind reacting upon
a wasted frame! He no longer wondered why she was dying.
"Why could you not speak out and tell me this?"
"But that the world seems to have nearly passed away from me, and that
earthly passions--pride, self-reticence, shame, I mean the shame of
betraying one's dearest feelings, are over--I could not tell you now."
"But don't you see the bed of remorse you have made for me? Had I
suspected the one quarter of what you tell me you felt, the woman
might have gone to the uttermost ends of the earth, for me. I wish you
had spoken."
"It might not have prevented it. My belief is that it would not. It
was to be."
Mr. Lake looked at her.
"You remember the dream: how it shadowed forth that I was to meet, in
some way, my death through going to Mrs. Chester's."
"Child! Can you still dwell upon that dream?"
"Yes. And so will you when the hearse comes here to take me away.
Never was a dream more completely worked out. Not quite yet: it will
be shortly. I have something else to tell you; about it and her."
Mr. Lake passed his hand across his brow. It seemed to him that he had
heard enough already.
"The very first moment, when I met Lady Ellis at your sister's, her
eyes puzzled me: those strange, jet-black eyes. I could not think
where I had seen them. They seemed to be familiar to my memory, and I
thought and thought in vain, even when the weeks went on. On this same
night that we are speaking of, I alarmed you by my looks. Mrs. Chester
happened to look at me as I sat by the fire; she called out; and you,
who were at chess with--with her, came up. You all came round me. I
was shaking, and my cheeks were scarlet, somebody exclaimed: I believe
you thought I was seized with an ague-fit. Robert, I was shaking with
fear, with undefined dread: for an instant before, as I sat looking at
her eyes, it flashed into my mind whose eyes they were."
"Well, whose?" he asked, for she paused.
"They were those of the man who drove the hearse in my dream," she
whispered in an awestruck tone. "The very same. You must recollect my
describing them to you when I awoke: 'strangely black eyes, the
blackest eyes I ever saw,' though of his face I retained no
impression. It was singular it should have struck upon me then, when I
had been for weeks trying unsuccessfully to get the thread of the
mystery."
"Oh Clara, my darling, these superstitious feelings are very sad!" he
remonstrated. "You ought not to indulge them."
"Will you tell me how I could have avoided them? It was not my fault
that the dream came to me: or that the eyes of the driver were _her_
eyes: or that my death had been induced through going to Mrs.
Chester's. Both you and Mrs. Chester seemed to help me on to it in my
dream: and as surely as the man appeared to drive me to the grave in
the hearse, so has she driven me to it in reality. I wrote out the
dream in full at the time, and you will find the paper in my desk.
Read it over when I am gone, and reflect how completely it has been
fulfilled."
He was silent. A nasty feeling of superstition was beginning to creep
over himself.
"Will you let me ask you something?" she whispered, presently.
He bent his tearful face down upon hers. "Ask me anything."
"When--I--am--no longer here, shall you marry her?"
Robert Lake darted up with a tremendous word, almost flinging his
wife's face from him. His anger bubbled over for a few moments: not at
his wife's question, but at the idea it suggested. For remorse was
very strong upon him then; the image of Lady Ellis in consequence
distasteful.
"Mary _her!_ Her! I would rather take a pistol, and shoot myself
through the heart--and--sin that it implies--I assert it before my
Maker."
Clara gave utterance to a faint sigh of relief, and unclasped her
arms. "Then you do not love her as you have loved me?"
He flung himself on his knees before her, and sobbed aloud in his
repentant anguish. She leaned over him endearingly, stroking his face
and his hair.
"I only wanted to know that. The misery is over now, darling. For the
little while we have to be together, let us be as happy as we used to
be."
Emotion shook him to the very centre as he listened. Scarcely twice in
a lifetime can a man give way to such. For the little while they had
to be together! Ay. As Mary Jupp had said, he could not recall her back
to life: he could not keep her here to make reparation.
Mrs. Lake lay back in her chair exhausted. Her husband stood by the
mantelpiece gazing at her with his yearning eyes, hot and feverish
after their tears. Silence had succeeded to the interview of
agitation: these strong emotional storms always bring their reaction.
A knock at the room door, followed by the entrance of Elizabeth. She
came to say that Mrs. Chester was below, asking if she might come up.
A moment's pause, and Mrs. Lake answered "yes." The impulse to deny it
had been upon her, but she wished to be at peace with all the world.
Mr. Lake, less forgiving than his wife, did not care to meet Mrs.
Chester, and quitted the room to avoid her. In his propensity to blame
somebody else for the past as well as himself, he felt very much
inclined to curse Mrs. Chester.
But she had been very quick, and encountered him outside the door,
inquiring after his wife in a whisper. Mr. Lake muttered some
unintelligible answer, and passed on.
"There's a friend in the drawing-room waiting to see you, Robert," she
called after him.
Now, strange though it may seem, the thought of who the "friend"
really was, did not occur to Mr. Lake. After the explosion of
Christmas-day, brought about by Miss Jupp, he had never supposed that
Lady Ellis would show herself at his house. He went downstairs
mechanically, expecting to see nobody in particular; some acquaintance
might have called. In another moment he stood face to face with
her--Angeline Ellis. The exceeding unfitness of her visit, the bad
taste which it displayed after that public explosion, struck him with
dismay. Perhaps the recent explanation with his wife, their
reconciliation, and his own bitter repentance helped the feeling. He
bit his angry lips.
She extended to him her delicately-gloved hand, lavender, sewn with
black, and melted into her sweetest smile. But the smiles had lost
their power. He glanced at her coal-black eyes, as they flashed
in the rays of the lamp, remembered the eyes of his wife's dream,
and--shuddered.
"You have become a stranger to Guild," she said. "Has that mad woman,
Mary Jupp, persuaded you that you will be poisoned if you come?"
He did not choose to see her proffered hand "I can no longer spare
time from my wife, Lady Ellis: I have spared too much from her."
The resentful tone struck her with wonder; the cold manner chilled her
unpleasantly: but she smiled yet.
"Is it really true that your wife is so very ill?" she asked. "The
maid says so. We had news that she was better, recovering fast; and of
course treated Miss Jupp's assertion for what it was worth--as we did
the rest she said."
Had he been covered with quills like a porcupine every one of them
would have bristled up on end in defence of his wife. Surely her
ladyship should have exercised better judgment an' she wished to win
him back to her.
Never again! Never again!
"She is dying," he hoarsely answered; "dying through our folly. I beg
your pardon, my lady," he added, speaking the two last words in, as it
struck her, the refinement of mockery, "it had been better perhaps
that I had said my folly."
"Folly? Oh!"
"It has been a folly that will entail upon me a lifetime of
repentance. Were my whole days to be spent in striving to work it off,
as we work off a debt, they could not make atonement. There are
follies that leave their results behind them--a heavy burthen to be
borne afterwards throughout life. Take a seat, I beg, while you wait
for Mrs. Chester."
He quitted the room; and she compressed her thin lips, which had
turned white, for she fully understood him to imply that he had
quitted herself and the "folly" for ever. Rarely had her ears heard
such truths spoken, and they set on to glow with resentment. She saw
Mr. Lake walk out at the garden gate and up the road, all to avoid
her. Why? She had committed no wrong--as she counted wrong, as the
world counts it: never a woman less likely to commit that than Lady
Ellis. She had but amused herself, and he the same; and she really
could not understand why Mrs. Lake should make a fuss over it.
Mrs. Chester, meanwhile, seated with Clara, was in her most amiable
mood. That the episode of Christmas-day had taken her aback far more
than it had taken Lady Ellis, was indisputable; but she was one of
those easy-going women who never retain unpleasant impressions long.
Besides, she had her way to make in the world. Before Mr. Lake had
left her house many minutes, Miss Jupp in his wake, she had recovered
her equanimity, and was laughing over the matter with my lady,
assuring her that Mary Jupp was taken with these fits sometimes, and
tried to set the world to-rights--the result of bile. Anything rather
than that Lady Ellis should quit her now, in the depth of winter. They
had come over today, my lady fully understanding and tacitly falling
into her plans, hoping to patch up a reconciliation. He was but a
light-headed fellow at best--turned about any way, as the wind turns a
feather, mentally argued Mrs. Chester; and he was safe not to have
said anything to his wife.
"You are looking so very much better than I expected, dear Clara. All
you want is complete rest, with good nursing; as I remarked to Anna
Chester the day after Christmas-day, when she came over to inquire
about you. I was glad you saw her. I couldn't come myself--I had one
of my wretched sick-headaches."
She spoke quickly, running one sentence into another. Clara sat back
in her chair, meek, quiet, calm, a smile of peace upon her face.
"I should not have asked your husband to dine with us that day without
you," spoke Mrs. Chester, deliberating how to heal breaches--"we
should never have cared to see him at any time unaccompanied by you,
but that you were not able to come."
Mrs. Lake made no reply.
"Clara, I must speak out. There's poor Lady Ellis downstairs wanting
to see you. She says she has talked and laughed with Mr. Lake, and is
terribly afraid now that you might not have liked it. She meant
nothing. He is ten years younger than she is. Goodness me, child! you
could never have thought ill of it. Surely you will see her?"
"I could not talk with her about--about the past," murmured poor
Clara, the hectic cheeks becoming crimson.
"Good gracious me! who said anything of talking about it with her?"
exclaimed Mrs. Chester. "My dear Clara, she'd not speak of it for the
world. She has not spoken of it to me; but I can see what she feels.
She's so afraid you should reproach her in your heart; she would so
like to be reconciled in spirit. Oh! my dear, there's nothing like
peace."
With the peace on her own spirit; with the fresh love of her husband
in her heart; with the consciousness that she should soon be with Him
who has enjoined love and peace on earth if we would inherit Heaven,
Clara did not hesitate. Lady Ellis could do her no harm with her
husband now: and a sudden wish for at least a tacit proof of the full
forgiveness she accorded, arose within her. But she did not speak
immediately; and Mrs. Chester was impatient.
"You would not bear malice, Clara?"
"I will see Lady Ellis. As to bearing malice, if you only knew how
different it is! All that kind of feeling has passed away from me. I
wish you would note what I say now, Mrs. Chester, and--and repeat it,
should you think it might be acceptable after I am dead. Should
anybody in the world have injured me, intentionally or unintentionally,
I give them my free and full forgiveness, as I hope to be myself
forgiven. I trust we shall meet in Heaven; you, and I, and Lady Ellis,
and all the world, and live together in happy bliss for ever. There's
a great joy upon me when I say this."
The words were a little different from any anticipated by Mrs.
Chester. She rubbed her face with her handkerchief and stared; and her
tone, as she rejoined, partook in a degree of the solemnity of that
other one.
"After you are dead, Clara! You are not surely going to die?"
Mrs. Lake did not answer in words. She looked full at Mrs. Chester
with her clear brown eyes, and the wan face from which the hectic was
fading.
"Good patience me!" thought that lady, "I hope I shan't dream of her
as she looks now."
Elizabeth entered with a cup of tea on a waiter. "Here comes my tea,"
said Clara. "Would you like some?"
"Indeed I should: my mouth is quite parched. And poor Lady Ellis? You
will let her drink one, too, here with us, Clara? It will be the seal
of peace."
"Bring two cups of tea and some bread and butter," said Clara to the
maid in a low tone. Certainly she had not intended to invite the lady
downstairs to tea with her; but Mrs. Chester had put it in a point of
view scarcely rejectable.
Now Mrs. Chester, crafty and clever, had been drawing largely upon her
own active imagination. It had never occurred to Lady Ellis to wish
for the kiss of peace, or for any token of reconciliation whatsoever.
Therefore when Mrs. Chester brought her up and introduced her to the
room, the two--her ladyship and the dying woman--were inwardly at
cross purposes.
Nothing of which was betrayed, or likely to be. Lady Ellis's
delicately-gloved hand met that attenuated one in a moment's greeting,
and she sat down with calm composure. A few remarks passed upon
indifferent topics between the three, and Elizabeth came in with the
tea. The next moment another visitor appeared on the scene--Mary Jupp,
shown in by Mr. Lake. To describe their faces of astonishment at
seeing the ladies there, would take the pen of a great artist in
words. Not seeing Lady Ellis downstairs, he thought they had left.
Miss Jupp stood with a stony stare; and her companion bit his annoyed
lips.
"Come in, Mary; come in."
Mrs. Lake's invitation bore a hurried pleading sound to Miss Jupp's
ear, as if she had been uneasy in her company, and welcomed the
relief. But for that, the strong-minded lady had turned away again
without leaving behind her so much as a word. She came forward and sat
down.
"Elizabeth shall bring you some tea."
"Tea for me!" cried Miss Jupp, bluntly. "I couldn't drink a drop. It
would choke me."
"Is your throat bad, Mary Jupp?" asked Mrs. Chester.
"No; only my temper."
A frightened look in Clara's eyes, a pleading gaze that went right
into Mary Jupp's. The young lady, doing violence to her inclinations,
shut up her month resolutely, and folded her hands upon her lap, and
spoke not another word, good, bad, or indifferent.
The curious meeting came to an end, brought to a summary close by Mrs.
Chester. That lady, not altogether liking the aspect of affairs, and
privately wishing Miss Jupp at the antipodes, thought it good to take
herself away, and leave, so to say, well alone. Lady Ellis and Clara
Lake shook hands for the last time in life.
"I wish you well," Clara whispered.
"Thanks," airily answered my lady.
Mr. Lake, in the very commonest politeness, went down with them. As
they stood in the garden Mrs. Chester went back to get her muff, and
they waited for her.
"Are you reconciled to me, Mr. Lake?" asked Lady Ellis.
"I wish to beg your pardon for aught I may have said that was
unwarrantable," he rejoined. "I had no right to reproach you when the
fault of the past was mine."
Mrs. Chester came forth, and he held the gate open for them. But my
lady noticed that he did not choose to see her hand when she held it
out.
My lady gave a little toss to her head. If this was to be the end of
platonic friendships, keep her from them in future.
And Robert Lake, a whole world of self-condemning bitterness in his
face, leaned on the gate, and looked after them.
PART THE SECOND.