THE MOONLIGHT SONATA.
"The depth and dream of my desire,
The bitter paths wherein I stray,
Thou knowest, who hast made the Fire,
Thou knowest, who hast made the Clay."
--KIPLING.
When the bedroom door opened, Desmond lifted his head, in a distracted
attempt to see more of his wife than the shade would permit, and held
out his hand.
"Come, Ladybird. I want you."
She came at his bidding, and put her hand in his. But, unwittingly,
she stood no nearer than the action demanded; and in her bewildered
misery she forgot that he would expect her to stoop and kiss him. It
was a fatal omission--how fatal she did not realise till later.
He drew her closer with quiet decision; and she submitted, as she
would have submitted to anything he might have chosen to do just then.
"Am I so very dreadful that you can't bear to come near me?" he asked,
with a brave attempt at lightness.
"Oh, Theo, don't say that," she pleaded. It came too painfully near
the truth. "Only--I can't seem able to believe that--it is really
you."
"Well, I give you my word it _is_ really me--the very same Theo who
won the Punjab Cup, and danced with you at Lahore three months ago."
Then he bit his lip sharply; for the thought smote him that he might
never sit a pony or dance with her again.
The sob that had been clutching at her throat escaped, in spite of
herself. "Lahore!" she murmured. "It was all so beautiful at Lahore!"
"Don't cry about it, darling. It will be just as beautiful again, in
time. Sit down on the floor--here, close to me. I can't get a sight of
you any other way."
She sat down, but in such a position that he had only a scant view of
her tear-disfigured face. He pushed the damp ringlets back from her
forehead. In his eyes it was her misfortune, rather than her fault,
that she should be so inexorably chained to her own trouble.
Her spirit and her love revived under the magic of his touch. She
caught his hand and pressed it against her burning cheek. It was cool
and steady and sustaining--the hand of a brave man.
"Poor child," he said gently. "I'm an uncomfortable sort of husband
for you. But little accidents of this kind will happen to soldiers.
Don't say you wish you hadn't married this one!" And he smiled.
"No--no. But, Theo, did you get all these wounds and things trying to
save the Boy?"
"Yes; more or less."
"And it wasn't a scrap of use?"
"No. One had the satisfaction of killing the men who did for him. That
was all!"
"And you might just as well have come back strong and splendid, like
you went away?"
"No use thinking of what might have been, darling. We've got to set
our teeth and face what _is_."
"Oh, Theo--you are very brave."
"Needs must, Ladybird. If a man fails in that, he had better not have
been born. And you are going to be brave too,--my wife."
"Yes,--I hope so. But--it's much more horrible than I ever imagined;
and if it's going on for weeks and weeks----"
The prospect so unnerved her that she leaned her head against him,
sobbing bitterly.
"Oh, I can't--I can't----!"
The low cry came straight from her heart; and Desmond understood its
broken protest to the full. The effort to uphold her was to be
useless after all. He compressed his lips and gently released her
hand.
"If it's as bad as that, my dear, and you really feel it will be too
much for you," he said in a changed tone, "I might arrange for Honor
to take you away in a day or two, till I am well enough to follow on.
They all know here that you are not strong. One need not degrade you
by telling--the whole truth."
"But, Theo, I couldn't leave you like that--just now, could I?"
His smile had a hint of scorn.
"Goodness knows! There is nothing to prevent you----"
"Yes--there is!" she spoke hurriedly, with downcast eyes. "Honor would
never take me. She thinks it's dreadful that I should go. I never saw
her so angry before. She--she said--terrible things----"
"Good God! What do--you--mean?"
Desmond spoke slowly. Anger and amazement sounded in his deep voice;
and his wife saw what she had done.
"Theo!--Theo!" she cried, clasping her hands, and wringing them in
distraction at her own foolishness, "I never meant to say that.
I--I----"
"No--but you meant to do it," he said, breathing hard and speaking
with an effort. "You actually thought of--going--before I came? You
would have simply--bolted, and left me to come back to an empty house,
if Honor had not prevented you? Great heavens! I can well believe she
said terrible things."
His wife knelt upright now and caught at his hand. But he withdrew it
hastily.
"Theo--will you listen to me and not be so angry? You are very
unkind!"
"Am I? Don't you think it is the other way about? I confess I'm in no
humour to listen to you just now. I've had about as much as I can
stand to-night; and Mackay told me I must not upset myself about
things." He laughed harshly--a sound that chilled her blood. "But no
mere man could anticipate _this_!"
"Well, I never _meant_ to say it, and I think you're horrid, you don't
understand----"
"No; thank God, I don't understand--cowardice and desertion. Get up
now and leave me alone, please. It's the greatest kindness you can do
me; and yourself also, I imagine."
"Oh, don't say that. It's not true; and I'm not going to dream of
leaving you. Won't you let me explain?"
"To-morrow, Evelyn, to-morrow," he answered wearily. "I shall be able
to give you a fairer hearing by then; and I pray God I may have
misjudged you. Now--go."
She bent down and kissed his hand; then rose and slipped silently back
into her own room.
* * * * *
Theo Desmond lay motionless, like a man stunned. This third blow,
dealt him in quick succession, left him broken in heart and spirit, as
he had never been broken in all his days.
It is written that a man must be defeated in order to succeed; and in
that moment Desmond bit the dust of the heart's most poignant tragedy
and defeat--the shattering of faith in one who is very near to us. Nor
was it the shattering of faith alone. The shock of his wife's
unwitting revelation, coming when he stood supremely in need of her
loyalty and tenderness, struck a mortal blow at his love for her;
though in his present state he was not capable of recognising the
truth. He only knew that, for the first time in his life, he felt
unutterably alone--alone in a dimness which might deepen to permanent
darkness; and that the wholesome vigorous realities of life seemed to
have slipped for ever out of reach. He only knew that his wife would
have turned her back upon him in his hour of extremity--openly
disgracing herself and him--but for the intervention of Honor
Meredith.
Her mere name called up a vivid vision of her beauty, a remembrance of
the infinite compassion in her voice when she had knelt beside him,
soothing and strengthening him by some miracle of womanly intuition,
urging him to make allowance for his wife's distress.
A sudden glow thrilled through him from head to foot. He stirred
slightly; and tried, without success, to turn in his chair. It was as
if the compelling spirit of her had dragged him back from the brink
of nothingness to renewed life, to the assurance that in his utmost
loneliness he was not--nor ever would be--alone. And, in that moment
of awakening, the voice of sympathy came to him--tender, uplifting,
clear as speech.
Honor Meredith had begun to play.
By way of prelude she chose a piece of pure organ music--the
exquisitely simple Largo of the Second Sonata. From that she passed on
to the Pastoral itself, opening it, as of custom, with the fine
Andante movement--the presage of coming storm.
None among all that wondrous thirty-two is so saturate with open-air
cheerfulness and vigour as this Sonata, aptly christened the Pastoral.
Here we are made accomplices of Nature's moods, and set in the midst
of her voices. Here, in swift succession, are storm and sunshine;
falling rain-drops; the plash and ripple of mountain streams; bird
notes of rare verisimilitude, from the anxious twitterings before the
thunder-shower, to the chorus of thanksgiving after it has swept
vigorously past. And Theo Desmond, lying in semi-darkness, with pain
for his sole comrade, knew that the hand of healing had been again
outstretched to him,--not all in vain.
The Sonata ended in a brisk ripple of sound; and for a while Honor sat
motionless, her shapely hands resting on the keyboard as if awaiting
further inspiration.
Desmond moved again uneasily. He wondered what her unfailing intuition
of his need would lead her to play next; and even as he wondered,
expectancy was lulled into a great rest by the measured tranquillity
of Beethoven's most stately and divine Adagio--the Moonlight Sonata.
There are some people who get deeper into a piano than others, who
breathe a living soul into the trembling wires. The magic of Honor's
music lay in this capacity; and she exerted it now to the limit of her
power.
The Moonlight Sonata is cumulative from start to finish, passing from
the exalted calm of the Adagio, through the graciousness of the
Allegretto, to that inspired and inspiring torrent of harmony the
Presto Agitato. Its incomparable effect of the rush and murmur of many
waters, through which the still small voice of melody rings clear as
a song dropped straight from heaven, leaves little room in a
listener's soul for the jangling discords of earth. Into that movement
the great deaf musician seems to have flung the essence of his
impatient spirit;--that rare mingling of ruggedness and simplicity, of
purity and passionate power, which went to make up the remarkable
character of the man, and which sets Beethoven's music apart from the
music of his compeers. Wagner, Chopin, Grieg,--these range the whole
gamut of emotion for its own sake. But in the hands of the master it
becomes what it should be--the great uplifting lever of the world.
The listener in the darkened room drew a long breath, and clenched his
teeth so forcibly that a spasm of pain passed, like a fused wire,
through the wound in his cheek. But the keener stress of mind and
heart dulled his senses to the pin-prick of the flesh. For in the
brief space of time since the music began, Theo Desmond--the soldier
of proven courage and self-forgetfulness--had fought the most
momentous battle of his life;--a battle in which was no flourish of
trumpets, no clash of arms, no medal or honour for the winning.
But the price of conquest had still to be paid. There were still
practical issues to be faced, and he faced them with the
straightforward simplicity that was his. He saw as in a
lightning-flash, the hidden meaning of this girl's power to stimulate
and satisfy him; saw the unnameable danger ahead; and in the same
breath decided that Honor must go. There must be no risk of disloyalty
to Evelyn, were it only in thought.
He could not as yet see how he was to retract his request for her
presence. His stunned brain refused to cope with such harassing
details. The thing must be said; and no doubt he would find strength
to say it aright. For him that was enough; and he deliberately turned
his back on the subject.
The Presto was drawing to a close now in a cascade of single notes, as
stirring to the ear as the downrush of a waterfall to the eye; and
during the silence that followed upon the last crashing chords, the
bitter thought came to him that Honor's departure would mean not only
the loss of her comradeship, but of the music, which had again become
one of the first necessities of his life.
With a sensation altogether strange to him, since it had in it an
element of fear, he heard her shut the piano and come towards the door
of his room. Closing his eyes, he lay very still, in the hope that she
might believe him to be asleep. Ordinary speech with her seemed an
impossibility just then.
He felt her come in, and pause beside his chair. His stillness clearly
deceived her, for she said nothing; neither did she move away, as he
had devoutly hoped she would do.
Remembering that his eyes were hidden, he opened them; and was
rewarded by the sight of her cream-coloured skirt, and her hands
hanging loosely clasped upon it. An intolerable longing came upon him
to push off the shade; to satisfy himself with one glimpse of her face
before banishing it out of his life. But strength was given him to
resist, and to realise his own cowardice in deceiving her thus.
Then, because he was incapable of doing anything by halves, he made a
slight movement and put out his hand.
"Thank you," he said simply. "You have heartened me more than I can
say."
"I am so glad," she answered in a low tone, allowing her hand to rest
for a mere instant in his. "Now I want you to shut all trouble out of
your mind, and go to sleep for a long time. Will you?"
At that the corners of his mouth went down.
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid. But it's sound advice; and I'll do
my best to act upon it."
"In that case--you are bound to succeed."
And, without waiting for his possible answer, she slipped quietly out
of the room.