The nearest Way to Norway.
No such blessing as a good night's rest was in store for Violet Tempest
on that night of the first of August. She lay in a state of
half-consciousness that was near akin to delirium. When she closed her
eyes for a little while the demon of evil dreams took hold of her. She
was in the old familiar home-scenes with her dear dead father. She
acted over again that awful tragedy of sudden death. She was upbraiding
her mother about Captain Winstanley. Bitter words were on her lips;
words more bitter than even she had ever spoken in all her intensity of
adverse feeling. She was in the woody hollow by Rufus's stone,
blindfold, with arms stretched helplessly out, seeking for Rorie among
the smooth beech-boles, with a dreadful sense of loneliness, and a fear
that he was far away, and that she would perish, lost and alone, in
that dismal wood.
So the slow night wore on to morning. Sometimes she lay staring idly at
the stars, shining so serenely in that calm summer sky. She wondered
what life was like, yonder, in those remote worlds. Was humanity's
portion as sad, fate as adverse, there as here? Then she thought of
Egypt, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra--that story of a wild,
undisciplined love, grand in its lawless passion--its awful doom. To
have loved thus, and died thus, seemed a higher destiny than to do
right, and patiently conquer sorrow, and live on somehow to the dismal
end of the dull blameless chapter.
At last, with what laggard steps, with what oppressive tardiness, came
the dawn, in long streaks of lurid light above the edge of the distant
waters.
"'Red sky at morning is the shepherd's warning!'" cried Vixen, with dry
lips. "Thank God there will be rain to-day! Welcome change after the
hot arid skies, and the cruel brazen sun, mocking all the miseries of
this troubled earth."
She felt almost as wildly glad as the Ancient Mariner, at the idea of
that blessed relief; and then, by-and-by, with the changeful light
shining on her face, she fell into a deep sleep.
Perhaps that morning sleep saved Vixen from an impending fever. It was
the first refreshing slumber she had had for a week--a sweet dreamless
sleep. The breakfast-bell rang unheeded. The rain, forecast by that red
sky, fell in soft showers upon the verdant isle, and the grateful earth
gave back its sweetest perfumes to the cool, moist air.
Miss Skipwith came softly in to look at her charge, saw her sleeping
peacefully, and as softly retired.
"Poor child! the initiation has been too much for her unformed mind,"
she murmured complacently, pleased with herself for having secured a
disciple. "The path is narrow and rugged at the beginning, but it will
broaden out before her as she goes on."
Violet awoke, and found that it was mid-day. Oh, what a blessed relief
that long morning sleep had been. She woke like a creature cured of
mortal pain. She fell on her knees beside the bed, and prayed as she
had not often prayed in her brief careless life.
"What am I that I should question Thy justice!" she cried. "Lord, teach
me to submit, teach me to bear my burden patiently, and to do some good
in the world."
Her mood and temper were wondrously softened after a long interval of
thought and prayer. She was ashamed of her waywardness of
yesterday--her foolish unreasonable passion.
"Poor Rorie, I told him to keep his promise, and he has obeyed me," she
said to herself. "Can I be angry with him for that? I ought to feel
proud and glad that we were both strong enough to do our duty."
She dressed slowly, languid after the excitement of yesterday, and then
went slowly down the broad bare staircase to Miss Skipwith's parlour.
The lady of the manor received her with affectionate greeting, and had
a special pot of tea brewed for her, and insisted upon her eating some
dry toast, a form of nourishment which this temperate lady deemed a
panacea in illness.
"I was positively alarmed about you last night, my dear," she said;
"you were so feverish and excited. You read too much, for the first
day."
"I'm afraid I did," assented Vixen, with a faint smile; "and the worst
of it is, I believe I have forgotten every word I read."
"Surely not!" cried Miss Skipwith, horrified at this admission. "You
seemed so impressed--so interested. You were so full of your subject."
"I have a faint recollection of the little men in the hieroglyphics,"
said Vixen; "but all the rest is gone. The images of Antony and
Cleopatra, in Shakespeare's play, bring Egypt more vividly before me
than all the history I read yesterday."
Miss Skipwith looked shocked, just as if some improper character in
real life had been brought before her.
"Cleopatra was very disreputable, and she was not Egyptian," she
remarked severely. "I am sorry you should waste your thoughts upon such
a person."
"I think she is the most interesting woman in ancient history," said
Vixen wilfully, "as Mary Queen of Scots is in modern history. It is not
the good people whose images take hold of one's fancy, What a faint
idea one has of Lady Jane Grey, And, in Schiller's 'Don Carlos,' I
confess the Marquis of Posa never interested me half so keenly as
Philip of Spain."
"My dear, you are made up of fancies and caprices. Your mind wants
balance," said Miss Skipwith, affronted at this frivolity. "Had you not
better go for a walk with your dog? Doddery tells me that poor Argus
has not had a good run since last week."
"How wicked of me!" cried Vixen. "Poor old fellow! I had almost
forgotten his existence. Yes, I should like a long walk, if you will
not think me idle."
"You studied too many hours yesterday, my dear. It will do you good to
relax the bow to-day. _Non semper arcum tendit Apollo!_"
"I'll go for my favourite walk to Mount Orgueil. I don't think there'll
be any more rain. Please excuse me if I am not home in time for dinner.
I can have a little cold meat, or an egg, for my tea."
"You had better take a sandwich with you," said Miss Skipwith, with
unusual thoughtfulness. "You have been eating hardly anything lately."
Vixen did not care about the sandwich, but submitted, to please her
hostess, and a neat little paper parcel, containing about three ounces
of nutriment, was made up for her by Mrs. Doddery. Never had the island
looked fairer in its summer beauty than it did to-day, after the
morning's rain. These showers had been to Jersey what sleep had been to
Vixen. The air was soft and cool; sparkling rain-drops fell like
diamonds from the leaves of ash and elm. The hedge-row ferns had taken
a new green, as if the spirit of spring had revisited the island. The
blue bright sea was dimpled with wavelets.
What a bright glad world it was, and how great must be the sin of a
rebellious spirit, cavilling at the dealings of its Creator! The happy
dog bounced and bounded round his mistress, the birds twittered in the
hedges, the passing farm-labourer with his cartload of seaweed smacked
his whip cheerily as he urged his patient horse along the narrow lane.
A huge van-load of Cockney tourists, singing a boisterous chorus of the
last music-hall song, passed Vixen at a turn of the road, and made a
blot on the serene beauty of the scene. They were going to eat lobsters
and drink bottled beer and play skittles at Le Tac. Vixen rejoiced when
their raucous voices died away on the summer breeze.
"Why is Jersey the peculiar haunt of the vulgar?" she wondered. "It is
such a lovely place that it deserves to be visited by something better
than the refuse of Margate and Ramsgate."
There was a meadow-path which lessened the distance between Les
Tourelles and Mount Orgueil. Vixen had just left the road and entered
the meadow when Argus set up a joyous bark, and ran back to salute a
passing vehicle. It was a St. Helier's fly, driving at a tremendous
pace in the direction from which she had come. A young man lay back in
the carriage, smoking a cigar, with his hat slouched over his eyes.
Vixen could just see the strong sunburnt hand flung up above his head.
It was a foolish fancy, doubtless, but that broad brown hand reminded
her of Rorie's. Argus leaped the stile, rushed after the vehicle, and
saluted it clamorously. The poor brute had been mewed up for a week in
a dull courtyard, and was rejoiced at having something to bark at.
Vixen walked on to the seashore, and the smiling little harbour, and
the brave old castle. There was the usual party of tourists following
the guide through narrow passages and echoing chambers, and peering
into the rooms where Charles Stuart endured his exile, and making those
lively remarks and speculations whereby the average tourist is prone to
reveal his hazy notions of history. Happily Vixen knew of quiet corners
upon the upward walls whither tourists rarely penetrated; nooks in
which she had sat through many an hour of sun and shade, reading,
musing, or sketching with free untutored pencil, for the mere idle
delight of the moment. Here in this loneliness, between land and sea,
she had nursed her sorrow and made much of her grief. She liked the
place. No obtrusive sympathy had ever made it odious to her. Here she
was mistress of herself and her own thoughts. To-day she went to her
favourite corner, a seat in an angle of the battlemented wall, and sat
there with her arms folded on the stone parapet, looking dreamily
seaward, across the blue channel to the still bluer coast of Normandy,
where the tower of Coutance showed dimly in the distance.
Resignation. Yes, that was to be her portion henceforward. She must
live out her life, in isolation almost as complete as Miss Skipwith's,
without the innocent delusions which gave substance and colour to that
lonely lady's existence.
"If I could only have a craze," she thought hopelessly, "some harmless
monomania which would fill my mind! The maniacs in Bedlam, who fancy
themselves popes or queens, are happy in their foolish way. If I could
only imagine myself something which I am not--anything except poor
useless Violet Tempest, who has no place in the world!"
The sun was gaining power, the air was drowsy, the soft ripple of the
tide upon the golden sand was like a lullaby. Even that long sleep of
the morning had not cured Vixen's weariness. There were long arrears of
slumber yet to be made up. Her eyelids drooped, then closed altogether,
the ocean lullaby took a still softer sound, the distant voices of the
tourists grew infinitely soothing, and Vixen sank quietly to sleep, her
head leaning on her folded arms, the gentle west wind faintly stirring
her loose hair.
"'Oh, happy kiss that woke thy sleep!'" cried a familiar voice close in
the slumberer's ear, and then a warm breath, which was not the summer
wind, fanned the cheek that lay upmost upon her arm, two warm lips were
pressed against that glowing cheek in ardent greeting. The girl started
to her feet, every vein tingling with the thrilling recognition of her
assailant. There was no one else--none other than he--in this wide
world who would do such a thing! She sprang up, and faced him, her eyes
flashing, her cheeks crimson.
"How dare you?" she cried. "Then it was you I saw in the fly? Pray, is
this the nearest way to Norway?"
Yes, it was Rorie; looking exactly like the familiar Rorie of old; not
one whit altered by marriage with a duke's only daughter; a stalwart
young fellow in a rough gray suit, a dark face sunburnt to deepest
bronze, eyes with a happy smile in them, firmly-cut lips half hidden by
the thick brown beard, a face that would have looked well under a
lifted helmet--such a face as the scared Saxons must have seen among
the bold followers of William the Norman, when those hardy Norse
warriors ran amuck in Dover town.
"Not to my knowledge," answered this audacious villain, in his lightest
tone. "I am not very geographical. But I should think it was rather out
of the way."
"Then you and Lady Mabel have changed your plans?" said Vixen,
trembling very much, but trying desperately to be as calmly commonplace
as a young lady talking to an ineligible partner at a ball. "You are
not going to the north of Europe?"
"Lady Mabel and I have changed our plans. We are not going to the north
of Europe."
"Oh!"
"In point of fact, we are not going anywhere."
"But you have come to Jersey. That is part of your tour, I suppose?"
"Do not be too hasty in your suppositions, Miss Tempest. _I_ have come
to Jersey--I am quite willing to admit as much as that."
"And Lady Mabel? She is with you, of course?"
"Not the least bit in the world. To the best of my knowledge, Lady
Mabel--I beg her pardon--Lady Mallow is now on her way to the
fishing-grounds of Connemara with her husband."
"Rorie!"
What a glad happy cry that was! It was like a gush of sudden music from
a young blackbird's throat on a sunny spring morning. The crimson dye
had faded from Violet's cheeks a minute ago and left her deadly pale.
Now the bright colour rushed back again, the happy brown eyes, the
sweet blush-rose lips, broke into the gladdest smile that ever Rorie
had seen upon her face. He held out his arms, he clasped her to his
breast, where she rested unresistingly, infinitely happy. Great Heaven!
how the whole world and herself had become transformed in this moment
of unspeakable bliss! Rorie, the lost, the surrendered, was her own
true lover after all!
"Yes, dear, I obeyed you. You were hard and cruel to me that night in
the fir plantation; but I knew in my heart of hearts that you were
wise, and honest, and true; and I made up my mind that I would keep the
engagement entered upon beside my mother's death-bed. Loving or
unloving I would marry Mabel Ashbourne, and do my duty to her, and go
down to my grave with the character of a good and faithful husband, as
many a man has done who never loved his wife. So I held on, Vixen--yes,
I will call you by the old pet name now: henceforward you are mine, and
I shall call you what I like--I held on, and was altogether an
exemplary lover; went wherever I was ordered to go, and always came
when they whistled for me; rode at my lady's jog-trot pace in the Row,
stood behind her chair at the opera, endured more classical music than
ever man heard before and lived, listened to my sweetheart's manuscript
verses, and, in a word, did my duty in that state of life to which it
had pleased God to call me; and my reward has been to be jilted with
every circumstance of ignominy on my wedding-morning."
"Jilted!" cried Vixen, her big brown eyes shining, in pleasantest
mockery. "Why I thought Lady Mabel adored you?"
"So did I," answered Roderick naïvely, "and I pitied the poor dear
thing for her infatuation. Had I not thought that, I should have broken
my bonds long ago. It was not the love of the Duke's acres that held
me. I still believe that Mabel was fond of me once, but Lord Mallow
bowled me out. His eloquence, his parliamentary success, and, above
all, his flattery, proved irresistible. The scoundrel brought a
marriage certificate in his pocket when he came to stay at Ashbourne,
and had the art to engage rooms at Southampton and sleep there a night
_en passant_. He left a portmanteau and a hat-box there, and that
constituted legal occupancy; so, when he won Lady Mabel's consent to an
elopement--which I believe he did not succeed in doing till the night
before our intended wedding-day--he had only to ride over to
Southampton and give notice to the parson and clerk. The whole thing
was done splendidly. Lady Mabel went out at eight o'clock, under the
pretence of going to early church. Mallow was waiting for her with a
fly, half a mile from Ashbourne. They drove to Southampton together,
and were married at ten o'clock, in the old church of St. Michael.
While the distracted Duchess and her women were hunting everywhere for
the bride, and all the visitors at Ashbourne were arraying themselves
in their wedding finery, and the village children were filling their
baskets with flowers to strew upon the pathway of the happy pair,
emblematical of the flowers which do _not_ blossom in the highway of
life, the lady was over the border with Jock o' Hazeldean! Wasn't it
fun, Vixen?"
And the jilted one flung back his handsome head and laughed long and
loud. It was too good a joke, the welcome release coming at the last
moment.
"At half-past ten there came a telegram from my runaway bride:
"'Ask Roderick to forgive me, dear mamma. I found at the last that my
heart was not mine to give, and I am married to Lord Mallow. I do not
think my cousin will grieve very much.'
"That last clause was sensible, anyhow, was it not, Vixen?"
"I think the whole business was very sensible," said Vixen, with a
sweet grave smile; "Lord Mallow wanted a clever wife and you did not.
It was very wise of Lady Mabel to find that out before it was too late."
"She will be very happy as Lady Mallow," said Roderick. "Mallow will
legislate for Ireland, and she will rule him. He will have quite enough
of Home Rule, poor beggar. Hibernia will be Mabelised. She is a dear
good little thing. I quite love her, now she has jilted me."
"But how did you come here?" asked Vixen, looking up at her lover in
simple wonder. "All this happened only yesterday morning."
"Is there not a steamer that leaves Southampton nightly? Had there not
been one I would have chartered a boat for myself. I would have come in
a cockle-shell--I would have come with a swimming-belt--I would have
done anything wild and adventurous to hasten to my love. I started for
Southampton the minute I had seen that too blessed telegram; went to
St. Michael's, saw the register with its entry of Lord Mallow's
marriage, hardly dry; and then went down to the docks and booked my
berth. Oh, what a long day yesterday was--the longest day of my life!"
"And of mine," sighed Vixen, between tears and laughter, "in spite of
the Shepherd Kings."
"Are those Jersey people you have picked up?" Rorie asked innocently.
This turned the scale, and Vixen burst into a joyous peal of laughter.
"How did you find me here?" she asked.
"Very easily. Your custodian--what a grim-looking personage she is,
by-the-way--told me where you were gone, and directed me how to follow
you. I told her I had a most important message to deliver to you from
your mother. You don't mind that artless device, I hope?"
"Not much. How is dear mamma? She complains in her letters of not
feeling very well."
"I have not seen her lately. When I did, I thought her looking ill and
worn. She will get well when you go back to her, Vixen. Your presence
will be like sunshine."
"I shall never go back to the Abbey House."
"Yes, you will--for one fortnight at least. After that your home will
be at Briarwood. You must be married from your father's house."
"Who said I was going to be married, sir?" asked Vixen, with delicious
coquetry.
"I said it--I say it. Do you think I am too bold, darling? Ought I to
go on my knees, love, and make you a formal offer? Why I have loved you
all my life; and I think you have loved me as long."
"So I have, Rorie," she answered softly, shyly, sweetly. "I forswore
myself that night in the fir-wood. I always loved you; there was no
stage of my life when you were not dearer to me than anyone on earth,
except my father."
"Dear love, I am ashamed of my happiness," said Roderick tenderly. "I
have been so weak and unworthy. I gave away my hopes of bliss in one
foolishly soft moment, to gratify my mother's dying wish--a wish that
had been dinned into my ear the last years of her life--and I have done
nothing but repent my folly ever since. Can you forgive me, Violet? I
shall never forgive myself."
"Let the past be like a dream that we have dreamt. It will make the
future seem so much the brighter."
"Yes."
And then under the blue August sky, fearless and unabashed, these happy
lovers gave each other the kiss of betrothal.
"What am I to do with you?" Vixen asked laughingly. "I ought to go home
to Les Tourelles."
"Don't you think you might take me with you? I am your young man now,
you know. I hope it is not a case of 'no followers allowed.'"
"I'm afraid Miss Skipwith will feel disappointed in me. She thought I
was going to have a mission."
"A mission!"
"Yes; that I was going for theology. And for it all to end in my being
engaged to be married! It seems such a commonplace ending, does it not?"
"Decidedly. As commonplace as the destiny of Adam and Eve, whom God
joined together in Eden. Take me back to Les Tourelles, Vixen. I think
I shall be able to manage Miss Skipwith."
They left the battlements, and descended the narrow stairs, and went
side by side, through sunlit fields and lanes, to the old Carolian
manor house, happy with that unutterable, immeasurable joy which
belongs to happy love, and to love only; whether it be the romantic
passion of a Juliet leaning from her balcony, the holy bliss of a
mother hanging over her child's cradle, or the sober affection of the
wife who has seen the dawn and close of a silver wedding and yet loves
on with love unchangeable--a monument of constancy in an age of easy
divorce.
The distance was long; but to these two the walk was of the shortest.
It was as if they trod on flowers or airy cloud, so lightly fell their
footsteps on the happy earth.
What would Miss Skipwith say? Vixen laughed merrily at the image of
that cheated lady.
"To think that all my Egyptian researches should end in--Antony!" she
said, with a joyous look at her lover, who required to be informed
which Antony she meant.
"I remember him in Plutarch," he said. "He was a jolly fellow."
"And in Shakespeare."
"_Connais pas_," said Rorie. "I've read some of Shakespeare's plays, of
course, but not all. He wrote too much."
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at Les
Tourelles. They had loitered a little in those sunny lanes, stopping to
look seaward through a gap in the hedge, or to examine a fern which was
like the ferns of Hampshire. They had such a world of lovers' nonsense
to say to each other, such confessions of past unhappiness, such
schemes of future bliss.
"I'm afraid you'll never like Briarwood as well as the Abbey House,"
said Rorie humbly. "I tried my best to patch it up for Lady Mabel; for,
you see, as I felt I fell short in the matter of affection, I wanted to
do the right thing in furniture and decorations. But the house is
lamentably modern and commonplace. I'm afraid you'll never be happy
there."
"Rorie, I could be happy with you if our home were no better than the
charcoal-burner's hut in Mark Ash," protested Vixen.
"It's very good of you to say that. Do you like sage-green?" Rorie
asked with a doubtful air.
"Pretty well. It reminds me of mamma's dress-maker, Madame Theodore."
"Because Mabel insisted upon having sage-green curtains, and
chair-covers, and a sage-green wall with a chocolate dado--did you ever
hear of a dado?--in the new morning-room I built for her. I'm rather
afraid you won't like it; I should have preferred pink or blue myself,
and no dado. It looks so much as if one had run short of wall-paper.
But it can all be altered by-and-by, if you don't like it."
They found Miss Skipwith pacing the weedy gravel walk in front of her
parlour window, with a disturbed air, and a yellow envelope in her hand.
"My dear, this has been an eventful day," she exclaimed. "I have been
very anxious for your return. Here is a telegram for you; and as it is
the first you have had since you have been staying here, I conclude it
is of some importance."
Vixen took the envelope eagerly from her hand.
"If you were not standing by my side, a telegram would frighten me,"
she whispered to Roderick. "It might tell me you were dead."
The telegram was from Captain Winstanley to Miss Tempest:
"Come home by the next boat. Your mother is ill, and anxious to see
you. The carriage will meet you at Southampton."
Poor Vixen looked at her lover with a conscience-stricken countenance.
"Oh, Rorie, and I have been so wickedly, wildly happy!" she cried, as
if it were a crime to have so rejoiced. "And I made so light of mamma's
last letter, in which she complained of being ill. I hardly gave it a
thought."
"I don't suppose there is anything very wrong," said Rorie, in a
comforting tone, after he had studied those few bold words in the
telegram, trying to squeeze the utmost meaning out of the brief
sentence. "You see, Captain Winstanley does not say that your mother is
dangerously ill, or even very ill; he only says ill. That might mean
something quite insignificant--hay-fever or neuralgia, or a nervous
headache."
"But he tells me to go home--he who hates me, and was so glad to get me
out of the house."
"It is your mother who summons you home, no doubt. She is mistress in
her own house, of course."
"You would not say that if you knew Captain Winstanley."
They were alone together on the gravel walk, Miss Skipwith having
retired to make tea in her dingy parlour. It had dawned upon her that
this visitor of Miss Tempest's was no common friend; and she had
judiciously left the lovers together. "Poor misguided child!" she
murmured to herself pityingly; "just as she was developing a vocation
for serious things! But perhaps if is all for the best. I doubt if she
would ever have had breadth of mind to grapple with the great problems
of natural religion."
"Isn't it dreadful?" said Vixen, walking up and down with the telegram
in her hand. "I shall have to endure hours of suspense before I can
know how my poor mother is. There is no boat till to-morrow morning.
It's no use talking, Rorie." Mr. Vawdrey was following her up and down
the walk affectionately, but not saying a word. "I feel convinced that
mamma must be seriously ill; I should not be sent for unless it were
so. In all her letters there has not been a word about my going home. I
was not wanted."
"But, dearest love, you know that your mother is apt to think seriously
of trifles."
"Rorie, you told me an hour ago that she was looking ill when last you
saw her."
Roderick looked at his watch.
"There is one thing I might do," he said, musingly. "Has Miss Skipwith
a horse and trap?"
"Not the least in the world."
"That's a pity; it would have saved time. I'll get down to St. Helier's
somehow, telegraph to Captain Winstanley to inquire the exact state of
your mother's health, and not come back till I bring you his answer."
"Oh, Rorie, that would be good of you!" exclaimed Vixen. "But it seems
too cruel to send you away like that; you have been travelling so long.
You have had nothing to eat. You must be dreadfully tired."
"Tired! Have I not been with you? There are some people whose presence
makes one unconscious of humanity's weaknesses. No, darling, I am
neither tired nor hungry; I am only ineffably happy. I'll go down and
set the wires in motion; and then I'll find out all about the steamer
for to-morrow morning, and we will go back to Hampshire together."
And again the rejoicing lover quoted the Laureate:
"And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold;
And far across the hills they went,
In that new world which is the old."
Rorie had to walk all the way to St. Helier's. He dispatched an urgent
message to Captain Winstanley, and then dined temperately at a French
restaurant not far from the quay, where the _bon vivants_ of Jersey are
wont to assemble nightly. When he had dined he walked about the
harbour, looking at the ships, and watching the lights beginning to
glimmer from the barrack-windows, and the straggling street along the
shore, and the far-off beacons shining out, as the rosy sunset darkened
to purple night.
He went to the office two or three times before the return message had
come; but at last it was handed to him, and he read it by the
office-lamp:
"_Captain Winstanley, Abbey House, Hampshire, to Mr. Vawdrey, St.
Heliers_.
"My wife is seriously ill, but in no immediate danger. The doctors
order extreme quiet; all agitation is to be carefully avoided. Let Miss
Tempest bear this in mind when she comes home."
Roderick drove back to Les Tourelles with this message, which was in
some respects reassuring, or at any rate afforded a certainty less
appalling than Violet's measureless fears.
Vixen was sitting on the pilgrim's bench beside the manor house
gateway, watching for her lover's return. Oh, happy lover, to be thus
watched for and thus welcomed; thrice, nay, a thousandfold happy in the
certainty that she was his own for ever! He put his arm round her, and
they wandered along the shadowy lane together, between dewy banks of
tangled verdure, luminous with glow-worms. The stars were shining above
the overarching roof of foliage, the harvest moon was rising over the
distant sea.
"What a beautiful place Jersey is!" exclaimed Vixen innocently, as she
strolled lower down the lane, circled by her lover's arm. "I had no
idea it was half so lovely. But then of course I was never allowed to
roam about in the moonlight. And, indeed, Rorie, I think we had better
go in directly. Miss Skipwith will be wondering."
"Let her wonder, love. I can explain everything when we go in. She was
young herself once upon a time, though one would hardly give her credit
for it; and you may depend she has walked in this lane by moonlight.
Yes, by the light of that very same sober old moon, who has looked down
with the same indulgent smile upon endless generations of lovers."
"From Adam and Eve to Antony and Cleopatra," suggested Vixen, who
couldn't get Egypt out of her head.
"Antony and Cleopatra were middle-aged lovers," said Rorie. "The moon
must have despised them. Youth is the only season when love is wisdom,
Vixen. In later life it means folly and drivelling, wrinkles badly
hidden under paint, pencilled eyebrows, and false hair. Aphrodite
should be for ever young."
"Perhaps that's why the poor thing puts on paint and false hair when
she finds youth departed," said Vixen.
"Then she is no longer Aphrodite, but Venus Pandemos, and a wicked old
harridan," answered Rorie.
And then he began to sing, with a rich full voice that rolled far upon
the still air.
"Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying,
"Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry."
"What a fine voice you have, Rorie!" cried Vixen.
"Have I really? I thought that it was only Lord Mallow who could sing.
Do you know that I was desperately jealous of that nobleman, once--when
I fancied he was singing himself into your affections. Little did I
think that he was destined to become your greatest benefactor."
"I shall make you sing duets with me, sir, by-and-by."
"You shall make me stand on my head, or play clown in an amateur
pantomime, or do anything supremely ridiculous, if you like. 'Being
your slave what can I do----'"
"Yes, you must sing Mendelssohn with me. 'I would that my love,' and
'Greeting.'"
"I have only one idea of greeting, after a cruel year of parting and
sadness," said Rorie, drawing the bright young face to his own, and
covering it with kisses.
Again Vixen urged that Miss Skipwith would be wondering, and this time
with such insistence, that Rorie was obliged to turn back and ascend
the hill.
"How cruel it is of you to snatch a soul out of Elysium," he
remonstrated. "I felt as if I was lost in some happy dream--wandering
down this path, which leads I know not where, into a dim wooded vale,
such as the fairies love to inhabit?"
"The road leads down to the inn at Le Tac, where Cockney excursionists
go to eat lobsters, and play skittles," said Vixen, laughing at her
lover.
They went back to the manor house, where they found Miss Skipwith
annotating a tremendous manuscript on blue foolscap, a work whose
outward semblance would have been enough to frighten and deter any
publisher in his right mind.
"How late you are, Violet," she said, looking up dreamily from her
manuscript. "I have been rewriting and polishing portions of my essay
on Buddha. The time has flown, and I had no idea of the hour till
Doddery came in just now to ask if he could shut up the house. And then
I remembered that you had gone out to the gate to watch for Mr.
Vawdrey."
"I'm afraid you must think our goings on rather eccentric," Rorie began
shyly; "but perhaps Vix----Miss Tempest has told you what old friends
we are; that, in fact, I am quite the oldest friend she has. I came to
Jersey on purpose to ask her to marry me, and she has been good
enough"--smiling blissfully at Vixen, who tried to look daggers at
him--"to say Yes."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Skipwith, looking much alarmed; "this is very
embarrassing. I am so unversed in such matters. My life has been given
up to study, far from the haunts of man. My nephew informed me that
there was a kind of--in point of fact--a flirtation between Miss
Tempest and a gentleman in Hampshire, of which he highly disapproved,
the gentleman being engaged to marry his cousin."
"It was I," cried Rorie, "but there was no flirtation between Miss
Tempest and me. Whoever asserted such a thing was a slanderer and----I
won't offend you by saying what he was, Miss Skipwith. There was no
flirtation. I was Miss Tempest's oldest friend--her old playfellow, and
we liked to see each other, and were always friendly together. But it
was an understood thing that I was to marry my cousin. It was Miss
Tempest's particular desire that I should keep an engagement made
beside my mother's death-bed. If Miss Tempest had thought otherwise, I
should have been at her feet. I would have flung that engagement to the
winds; for Violet Tempest is the only woman I ever loved. And now all
the world may know it, for my cousin has jilted me, and I am a free
man."
"Good gracious! Can I really believe this?" asked Miss Skipwith,
appealing to Violet.
"Rorie never told a falsehood in his life," Vixen answered proudly.
"I feel myself in a most critical position, my dear child," said Miss
Skipwith, looking from Roderick's frank eager face to Vixen's downcast
eyelids and mantling blushes. "I had hoped such a different fate for
you. I thought the thirst for knowledge had arisen within you, that the
aspiration to distinguish yourself from the ruck of ignorant women
would follow the arising of that thirst, in natural sequence. And here
I find you willing to marry a gentleman who happens to have been the
companion of your childhood, and to resign--for his sake--all hopes of
distinction."
"My chances of distinction were so small, dear Miss Skipwith," faltered
Vixen. "If I had possessed your talents!"
"True," sighed the reformer of all the theologies. "We have not all the
same gifts. There was a day when I thought it would be my lot to marry
and subside into the dead level of domesticity; but I am thankful to
think I escaped the snare."
"And the gentleman who wanted to marry you, how thankful must he be!"
thought Rorie dumbly.
"Yet there have been moments of depression when I have been weak enough
to regret those early days," sighed Miss Skipwith. "At best our
strength is tempered with weakness. It is the fate of genius to be
lonely. And now I suppose I am to lose you, Violet?"
"I am summoned home to poor mamma," said Vixen.
"And after poor mamma has recovered, as I hope she speedily may, Violet
will be wanted by her poor husband," said Rorie. "You must come across
the sea and dance at our wedding, Miss Skipwith."
"Ah," sighed Miss Skipwith, "if you could but have waited for the
establishment of my universal church, what a grand ceremonial your
marriage might have been!"
Miss Skipwith, though regretful, and inclined to take a dismal view of
the marriage state and its responsibilities under the existing
dispensation, was altogether friendly. She had a frugal supper of cold
meat and salad, bread and cheese and cider, served in honour of Mr.
Vawdrey, and they three sat till midnight talking happily--Miss
Skipwith of theology, the other two of themselves and the smiling
future, and such an innocent forest life as Rosalind and Orlando may
have promised themselves, when they were deep in love, and the banished
duke's daughter sighed for no wider kingdom than a shepherd's hut in
the woodland, with the lover of her choice.
There were plenty of spare bedrooms at the manor house, but so bare and
empty, so long abandoned of human occupants, as to be fit only for the
habitation of mice and spiders, stray bat or wandering owl. So Roderick
had to walk down the hill again to St. Helier's, where he found
hospitality at an hotel. He was up betimes, too happy to need much
sleep, and at seven o'clock he and Vixen were walking in the dewy
garden, planning the wonderful life they were to lead at Briarwood, and
all the good they were to do. Happiness was to radiate from their home,
as heat from the sun. The sick, and the halt, and the lame were to come
to Briarwood; as they had come to the Abbey House before Captain
Winstanley's barren rule of economy.
"God has been so good to us, Rorie," said Vixen, nestling at her lover's
side. "Can we ever be good enough to others?"
"We'll do our best, anyhow, little one," he answered gently. "I am not
like Mallow, I've no great ideas about setting my native country in
order and doing away with the poor laws; but I've always tried to make
the people round me happy, and to keep them out of the workhouse and
the county jail."
They went to the court-yard where poor Argus lived his life of
isolation, and they told him they were going to be married, and that
his pathway henceforward would be strewn with roses, or at all events
Spratt's biscuits. He was particularly noisy and demonstrative, and
appeared to receive this news with a wild rapture that was eminently
encouraging, doing his best to knock Roderick down, in the tumult of
his delight. The lovers and the dog were alike childish in their
infinite happiness, unthinking beings of the present hour, too happy to
look backward or forward, this little space of time called "now"
holding all things needful for delight.
These are the rare moments of life, to which the heart of man cries,
"Oh stay, thou art so beautiful!" and could the death-bell toll then,
and doom come then, life would end in a glorious euthanasia.
Violet's portmanteaux were packed. All was ready. There would be just
time for a hurried breakfast with Miss Skipwith, and then the fly from
St. Helier's would be at the gate to carry the exile on the first stage
of the journey home.
"Poor mamma!" sighed Vixen. "How wicked of me to feel go happy, when
she is ill."
And then Rorie comforted her with kindly-meant sophistries. Mrs.
Winstanley's indisposition was doubtless more an affair of the nerves
than a real illness. She would be cheered and revived immediately by
her daughter's return.
"How could she suppose she would be able to live without you!" cried
Rorie. "I know I found life hard to bear."
"Yet you bore it for more than a year with admirable patience,"
retorted Vixen, laughing at him; "and I do not find you particularly
altered or emaciated."
"Oh, I used to eat and drink," said Rorie, with a look of
self-contempt. "I'm afraid I'm a horribly low-minded brute. I used even
to enjoy my dinner, sometimes, after a long country ride; but I could
never make you understand what a bore life was to me all last year, how
the glory and enjoyment seemed to have gone out of existence. The
dismal monotony of my days weighed upon me like a nightmare. Life had
become a formula. I felt like a sick man who has to take so many doses
of medicine, so many pills, so many basins of broth, in the twenty-four
hours. There was no possible resistance. The sick-nurse was there, in
the shape of Fate, ready to use brute force if I rebelled. I never did
rebel. I assure you, Vixen, I was a model lover. Mabel and I had not a
single quarrel. I think that is a proof that we did not care a straw
for each other."
"You and I will have plenty of quarrels," said Vixen. "It will be so
nice to make friends again."
Now came the hurried breakfast--a cup of tea drunk, standing, not a
crumb eaten; agitated adieux to Miss Skipwith, who wept very womanly
tears over her departing charge, and uttered good wishes in a choking
voice. Even the Dodderys seemed to Vixen more human than usual, now
that she was going to leave them, in all likelihood for ever. Miss
Skipwith came to the gate to see the travellers off, and ascended the
pilgrim's bench in order to have the latest view of the fly. From this
eminence she waved her handkerchief as a farewell salutation.
"Poor soul!" sighed Vixen; "she has never been unkind to me; but oh!
what a dreary life I have led in that dismal old house!"
They had Argus in the fly with them, sitting up, with his mouth open,
and his tail flapping against the bottom of the vehicle in perpetual
motion. He kept giving his paw first to Vixen and then to Rorie, and
exacted a great deal of attention, insomuch that Mr. Vawdrey exclaimed:
"Vixen, if you don't keep that dog within bounds, I shall think him as
great a nuisance as a stepson. I offered to marry you, you know, not
you and your dog."
"You are very rude!" cried Vixen.
"You don't expect me to be polite, I hope. What is the use of marrying
one's old playfellow if one cannot be uncivil to her now and then? To
me you will always be the tawny-haired little girl I used to tease."
"Who used to tease you, you mean. You were very meek in those days."
Oh, what a happy voyage that was, over the summer sea! They sat side by
side upon the bridge, sheltered from wind and sun, and talked the happy
nonsense lovers talk: but which can hardly be so sweet between lovers
whose youth and childhood have been spent far apart, as between these
two who had been reared amidst the same sylvan world, and had every
desire and every thought in unison. How brief the voyage seemed. It was
but an hour or so since Roderick had been buying peaches and grapes, as
they lay at the end of the pier at Guernsey, and here were the Needles
and the chalky cliffs and undulating downs of the Wight. The Wight!
That meant Hampshire and home!
"How often those downs have been our weather-glass, Rorie, when we have
been riding across the hills between Lyndhurst and Beaulieu," said
Vixen.
She had a world of questions to ask him about all that had happened
during her exile. She almost expected to hear that Lyndhurst steeple
had fallen; that the hounds had died of old age; that the Knightwood
Oak had been struck by lightning; or that some among those calamities
which time naturally brings had befallen the surroundings of her home.
It was the strangest thing in the world to hear that nothing had
happened, that everything was exactly the same as it had been when she
went away. That dreary year of exile had seemed long enough for
earthquakes and destructions, or even for slow decay.
"Do you know what became of Arion?" asked Vixen, almost afraid to shape
the question.
"Oh, I believe he was sold, soon after you left home," Rorie answered
carelessly.
"Sold!" echoed Vixen drearily. "Poor dear thing! Yes, I felt sure
Captain Winstanley would sell him. But I hoped----"
"What?"
"That some one I knew might buy him. Lord Mallow perhaps."
"Lord Mallow! Ah, you thought he would buy your horse, for love of the
rider. But you see constancy isn't one of that noble Irishman's
virtues. He loves and he rides away--when the lady won't have him, bien
entendu. No, Arion was sent up to Tattersall's, and disposed of in the
usual way. Some fellow bought him for a covert hack."
"I hope the man wasn't a heavy weight," exclaimed Vixen, almost in
tears.
She thought Rorie was horribly unfeeling.
"What does it matter? A horse must earn his salt."
"I had rather my poor pet had been shot, and buried in one of the
meadows at home," said Vixen plaintively.
"Captain Winstanley was too wise to allow that. Your poor pet fetched a
hundred and forty-five guineas under the hammer."
"I don't think it is very kind of you to talk of him so lightly," said
Vixen.
This was the only little cloud that came between them in all the
voyage. Long before sunset they were steaming into Southampton Water,
and the yellow light was still shining on the furzy levels, when the
brougham that contained Vixen and her fortunes drove along the road to
Lyndhurst.
She had asked the coachman for news of his mistress, and had been told
that Mrs. Winstanley was pretty much the same. The answer was in some
measure reassuring: yet Violet's spirits began to sink as she drew
nearer home, and must so soon find herself face to face with the truth.
There was a sadness too in that quiet evening hour; and the shadowy
distances seemed full of gloom, after the dancing waves, and the gay
morning light.
The dusk was creeping slowly on as the carriage passed the lodge, and
drove between green walls of rhododendron to the house. Captain
Winstanley was smoking his cigar in the porch, leaning against the
Gothic masonry, in the attitude Vixen knew so well of old.
"If my mother were lying in her coffin I daresay he would be just the
same," she thought bitterly.
The Captain came down to open the carriage-door. Vixen's first glance
at his face showed her that he looked worn and anxious.
"Is mamma very ill?" she asked tremulously.
"Very ill," he answered, in a low voice. "Mind, you are to do or say
nothing that can agitate her. You must be quiet and cheerful. If you
see a change you must take care to say nothing about it."
"Why did you leave me so long in ignorance of her illness? Why did you
not send for me sooner?"
"Your mother has only been seriously ill within the past few days. I
sent for you directly I saw any occasion for your presence," the
Captain answered coldly.
He now for the first time became aware of Mr. Vawdrey, who had got out
of the brougham on the other side and came round to assist in the
unshipment of Violet's belongings.
"Good evening, Mr. Vawdrey. Where in Heaven's name did you spring
from?" he inquired, with a vexed air.
"I have had the honour of escorting Miss Tempest from Jersey, where I
happened to be when she received your telegram."
"Wasn't that rather an odd proceeding, and likely to cause scandal?"
"I think not; for before people can hear that Miss Tempest and I
crossed in the same boat I hope they will have heard that Miss Tempest
and I are going to be married."
"I see," cried the Captain, with a short laugh of exceeding bitterness;
"being off with the old love you have made haste to be on with the new."
"I beg your pardon. It is no new love, but a love as old as my
boyhood," answered Rorie. "In one weak moment of my life I was foolish
enough to let my mother choose a wife for me, though I had made my own
choice, unconsciously, years before."
"May I go to mamma at once?" asked Vixen.
The Captain said Yes, and she went up the staircase and along the
corridor to Mrs. Winstanley's room. Oh, how dear and familiar the old
house looked, how full of richness and colour after the bareness and
decay of Les Tourelles; brocaded curtains hanging in heavy folds
against the carved oaken framework of a deep-set window; gleams of
evening light stealing through old stained glass; everywhere a rich
variety of form and hue that filled and satisfied the eye; a house
worth living in assuredly, with but a little love to sanctify and
hallow all these things. But how worthless these things if discord and
hatred found a habitation among them.
The door of Mrs. Winstanley's room stood half open, and the lamplight
shone faintly from within. Violet went softly in. Her mother was lying
on a sofa by the hearth, where a wood-fire had been newly lighted.
Pauline was sitting opposite her, reading aloud in a very sleepy voice
out of the _Court Journal:_ "The bride was exquisitely attired in ivory
satin, with flounces of old _Duchesse_ lace, the skirt covered with
_tulle_, _bouilloné_, and looped with garlands of orange-blossom----"
"Pauline," murmured the invalid feebly, "will you never learn to read
with expression? You are giving me the vaguest idea of Lady Evelyn
Fitzdamer's appearance."
Violet went over to the sofa and knelt by her mother's side and
embraced her tenderly, looking at her earnestly all the while, in the
clear soft lamp-light. Yes, there was indeed a change. The always
delicate face was pinched and shrunken. The ivory of the complexion had
altered to a dull gray. Premature age had hollowed the cheeks, and
lined the forehead. It was a change that meant decline and death.
Violet's heart sank as she beheld it: but she remembered the Captain's
warning, and bravely strove to put on an appearance of cheerfulness.
"Dear mother, I am so happy to come home to you," she said gaily; "and
I am going to nurse and pet you, for the next week or so; till you get
tremendously well and strong, and are able to take me to innumerable
parties."
"My dear Violet, I have quite given up parties; and I shall never be
strong again."
"Dearest, it has always been your habit to fancy yourself an invalid."
"Yes, Violet, once I may have been full of fancies: but now I know that
I am ill. You will not be unkind or unjust to Conrad, will you, dear?
He sent for you directly I asked him. He has been all goodness to me.
Try and get on with him nicely, dear, for my sake."
This was urged with such piteous supplication, that it would have
needed a harder heart than Violet's to deny the prayer.
"Dear mother, forget that the Captain and I ever quarrelled," said
Vixen. "I mean to be excellent friends with him henceforward. And,
darling, I have a secret to tell you if you would like to hear it."
"What secret, dear?"
"Lady Mabel Ashbourne has jilted Roderick!"
"My love, that is no secret. I heard all about it day before yesterday.
People have talked of nothing else since it happened. Lady Mabel has
behaved shamefully."
"Lady Mabel has behaved admirably. If other women were wise enough to
draw back at the last moment there would be fewer unhappy marriages.
But Lady Mabel's elopement is only the prologue to my story."
"What can you mean, child?"
"Roderick came to Jersey to make me an offer."
"So soon! Oh, Violet, what bad taste!"
"Ought he to have gone into mourning? He did not even sing willow, but
came straight off to me, and told me he had loved me all his life; so
now you will have my _trousseau_ to think about, dearest, and I shall
want all your good taste. You know how little I have of my own."
"Ah, Violet, if you had only married Lord Mallow! I could have given my
whole mind to your _trousseau_ then; but it is too late now, dear. I
have not strength enough to interest myself in anything."
The truth of this complaint was painfully obvious. Pamela's day was
done. She lay, half effaced among her down pillows, as weak and
helpless-looking as a snowdrop whose stem is broken. The life that was
left in her was the merest remnant of life. It was as if one could see
the last sands running down in the glass of time.
Violet sat by her side, and pressed her cold hands in both her own.
Mrs. Winstanley was very cold, although the log had blazed up fiercely,
and the room seemed stifling to the traveller who had come out of the
cool night air.
"Dear mother, there will be no pleasure for me in being married if you
do not take an interest in my _trousseau_," pleaded Vixen, trying to
cheer the invalid by dwelling on the things her soul had most loved in
health.
"Do not talk about it, my dear," her mother exclaimed peevishly. "I
don't know where the money is to come from. Theodore's bill was
positively dreadful. Poor Conrad had quite a struggle to pay it. You
will be rich when you are of age, but we are awfully poor. If we do not
save money during the next few years we shall be destitute. Conrad says
so. Fifteen hundred a year, and a big house like this to maintain. It
would be starvation. Conrad has closed Theodore's account. I am sure I
don't know where your _trousseau_ is to come from."
Here the afflicted Pamela began to sob hysterically, and Vixen found it
hard work to comfort her.
"My dearest mother, how can you be poor and I rich?" she said, when the
invalid had been tranquillised, and was lying helpless and exhausted.
"Do you suppose I would not share my income with you? Rorie has plenty
of money. He would not want any of mine. You can have it all, if you
like."
"You talk like a child, Violet. You know nothing of the world. Do you
think I would take your money, and let people say I robbed my own
daughter? I have a little too much self-respect for that. Conrad is
doing all he can to make our future comfortable. I have been foolish
and extravagant. But I shall never be so any more. I do not care about
dress or society now. I have outlived those follies."
"Dear mother, I cannot bear to hear you talk like that," said Vixen,
feeling that when her mother left off caring about fine dresses she
must be getting ready for that last garment which we must all wear some
day, the fashion whereof changes but little. "Why should you relinquish
society, or leave off dressing stylishly? You are in the prime of life."
"No, Violet, I am a poor faded creature," whimpered Mrs. Winstanley,
"stout women are handsome at forty, or even"--with a
shudder--"five-and-forty. The age suits their style. But I was always
slim and fragile, and of late I have grown painfully thin. No one but a
Parisian dressmaker could make me presentable; and I have done with
Paris dresses. The utmost I can hope for is to sit alone by the
fireside, and work antimacassars in crewels."
"But, dear mother, you did not marry Captain Winstanley in order to
lead such a life as that? You might as well be in a _béguinage_."
Vain were Vixen's efforts to console and cheer. A blight had fallen
upon her mother's mind and spirits--a blight that had crept slowly on,
unheeded by the husband, till one morning the local practitioner--a
gentleman who had lived all his life among his patients, and knew them
so well externally that he might fairly be supposed to have a minute
acquaintance with their internal organism--informed Captain Winstanley
that he feared there was something wrong with his wife's heart, and
that he thought that it would be well to get the highest opinion.
The Captain, startled out of his habitual self-command, looked up from
his desk with an ashy countenance.
"Do you mean that Mrs. Winstanley has heart disease--something
organically wrong?"
"Unhappily I fear it is so. I have been for some time aware that she
had a weak heart. Her complexion, her feeble circulation, several
indications have pointed to that conclusion. This morning I have made a
thorough examination, and I find mischief, decided mischief."
"That means she may die at any moment, suddenly, without an instant's
warning."
"There would always be that fear. Or she might sink gradually from want
of vital power. There is a sad deficiency of power. I hardly ever knew
anyone remain so long in so low a state."
"You have been attending her, off and on, ever since our marriage. You
must have seen her sinking. Why have you not warned me before?"
"It seemed hardly necessary. You must have perceived the change
yourself. You must have noticed her want of appetite, her distaste for
exertion of any kind, her increasing feebleness."
"I am not a doctor."
"No; but these are things that speak plainly to every eye--to the eye
of affection most of all."
"We are slow to perceive the alteration in anyone we see daily and
hourly. You should have drawn my attention to my wife's health. It is
unfair, it is horrible to let this blow come upon me unawares."
If the Captain had appeared indifferent hitherto, there was no doubt of
the intensity of his feeling now. He had started up from his chair, and
walked backwards and forwards, strongly agitated.
"Shall we have another opinion?" asked Dr. Martin.
"Certainly. The highest in the land."
"Dr. Lorrimer, of Harley Street, is the most famous man for heart
disease."
"I'll telegraph to him immediately," said the Captain.
He ordered his horse, rode into Lyndhurst and dispatched his telegram
without the loss of a minute. Never had Dr. Martin seen anyone more in
earnest, or more deeply stricken by an announcement of evil.
"Poor fellow, he must be very fond of her," mused the surgeon, as he
rode off to his next call. "And yet I should have thought she must be
rather a tiresome kind of woman to live with. Her income dies with her
I suppose. That makes a difference."
The specialist from Harley Street arrived at the Abbey House on the
following afternoon. He made his examination and gave his opinion,
which was very much the same as Dr. Martin's, but clothed in more
scientific language.
"This poor lady's heart has been wearing out for the last twenty
years," he told the local surgeon; "but she seems, from your account,
to have been using it rather worse for the last year or so. Do you know
if she has had any particular occasion for worry?"
"Her only daughter has not got on very well with the second husband, I
believe," said Dr. Martin. "That may have worried her."
"Naturally. Small domestic anxieties of that kind are among the most
potent causes of heart disease." And then Dr. Lorrimer gave his
instructions about treatment. He had not the faintest hope of saving
the patient, but he gave her the full benefit of his science. A man
could scarcely come so far and do less. When he went out into the hall
and met the Captain, who was waiting anxiously for his verdict, he
began in the usual oracular strain; but Captain Winstanley cut him
short without ceremony.
"I don't want to hear details," he said. "Martin will do everything you
tell him. I want the best or the worst you can tell me in straightest
language. Can you save my wife, or am I to lose her?"
"My dear sir, while there is life there is hope," answered the
physician, with the compassionate air that had grown habitual, like his
black frock-coat and general sobriety of attire. "I have seen wonderful
recoveries--or rather a wonderful prolongation of life, for cure is, of
course, impossible--in cases as bad as this. But----"
"Ah!" cried the Captain, bitterly, "there is a 'but.'"
"In this case there is a sad want of rallying power. Frankly, I have
very little hope. Do all you can to cheer and comfort your wife's mind,
and to make her last days happy. All medicine apart, that is about the
best advice I can give you."
After this the doctor took his fee, gave the Captain's hand a cordial
grip, expressive of sympathy and kindliness, and went his way, feeling
assured that a good deal hung upon that little life which he had left
slowly ebbing away, like a narrow rivulet dwindling into dryness under
a July sun.
"What does the London doctor say of me, Conrad?" asked Mrs. Winstanley,
when her husband went to her presently, with his countenance composed
and cheerful. "He tired me dreadfully with his stethoscope. Does he
think me very ill? Is there anything wrong with my lungs?"
"No, love. It is a case of weakness and languor. You must make up your
mind to get strong; and you will do more for yourself than all the
physicians in London can do."
"But what does he say of my heart? How does he explain that dreadful
fluttering--the suffocating sensation--the----?'
"He explains nothing. It is a nervous affection, which you must combat
by getting strong. Dear love!" exclaimed the Captain, with a very real
burst of feeling, "what can I do to make your life happy? what can I do
to assure you of my love?"
"Send for Violet," faltered his wife, raising herself upon her elbow,
and looking at him with timorous eagerness. "I have never been happy
since she left us. It seems as if I had turned her out of doors--out of
her own house--my kind husband's only daughter. It has preyed upon my
mind continually, that--and other things."
"Dearest, I will telegraph to her in an hour. She shall be with you as
soon as the steamer can bring her."
"A thousand thanks, Conrad. You are always good. I know I have been
weak and foolish to think----"
Here she hesitated, and tears began to roll down her hollow cheeks.
"To think what, love?" asked her husband tenderly.
If love, if tenderness, if flattery, if all sweetest things that ever
man said to a woman could lure this feeble spirit back to life, she
should be so won, vowed the Captain. He had never been unkind to her,
or thought unkindly of her. If he had never loved her, he had, at
least, been tolerant. But now, clinging to her as the representative of
fortune, happiness, social status, he felt that she was assuredly his
best and dearest upon earth.
"To think that you never really cared for me!" she whimpered; "that you
married me for the sake of this house, and my income!"
"Pamela, do you remember what Tom Jones said to his mistress when she
pretended to doubt his love?"
"My dear Conrad, I never read 'Tom Jones,' I have heard dear Edward
talk of it as if it was something too dreadful."
"Ah, I forgot. Of course, it is not a lady's book. Tom told his Sophia
to look in the glass, if she were inclined to question his love for
her, and one look at her own sweet face would convince her of his
truth. Let it be so with yourself, dear. Ask yourself why I should not
love the sweetest and most lovable of women."
If sugarplums of speech, if loverlike attentions could have cured
Pamela Winstanley's mortal sickness, she might yet have recovered. But
the hour had gone by when such medicaments might have prevailed. While
the Captain had shot, and hunted, and caught mighty salmon, and
invested his odd hundreds, and taken his own pleasure in various ways,
with almost all the freedom of bachelor life, his wife had, unawares,
been slowly dying. The light had burned low in the socket; and who
shall reillumine that brief candle when its day is over? It needed now
but a breath to quench the feeble flame.
"Great Heaven!" cried Captain Winstanley, pacing up and down his study,
distraught with the pangs of wounded self-interest; "I have been taking
care of her money, when I ought to have taken care of her. It is her
life that all hangs upon: and I have let that slip through my fingers
while I have planned and contrived to save a few beggarly hundreds.
Short-sighted idiot that I have been! Poor Pamela! And she has been so
yielding, so compliant to my every wish! A month--a week, perhaps--and
she will be gone: and that handsome spitfire will have the right to
thrust me from this house. No, my lady, I will not afford you that
triumph. My wife's coffin and I will go out together."