A month after the first performance of _Elvira_ Kendal returned to town
on a frosty December afternoon from the Surrey lodgings on which he had
now established a permanent hold. He mounted to his room, found his
letters lying ready for him, and on the top of them a telegram, which, as
his man-servant informed him, had arrived about an hour before. He took
it up carelessly, opened it, and bent over it with a start of anxiety.
It was from his brother-in-law. '_Marie is very ill. Doctors much
alarmed. Can you come to-night_?' He put it down in stupefaction. Marie
ill! the doctors alarmed! Good heavens! could he catch that evening
train? He looked at his watch, decided that there was time, and plunged,
with his servant's help, into all the necessary preparations. An hour and
a half later he was speeding along through the clear cold moonlight to
Dover, realising for the first time, as he leant back alone in his
compartment, the full meaning of the news which had hurried him off. All
his tender affection for his sister, and all his stifling sense of
something unlucky and untoward in his own life, which had been so strong
in him during the past two months, combined to rouse in him the blackest
fears, the most hopeless despondency. Marie dead,--what would the world
hold for him! Books, thought, ideas--were they enough? Could a man live
by them if all else were gone? For the first time Kendal felt a doubt
which seemed to shake his nature to its depths.
During the journey his thoughts dwelt in a dull sore way upon the
past. He saw Marie in her childhood, in her youth, in her rich
maturity. He remembered her in the schoolroom spending all her spare
time over contrivances of one kind or another for his amusement. He
had a vision of her going out with their mother on the night of her
first ball, and pitying him for being left behind. He saw her tender
face bending over the death-bed of their father, and through a hundred
incidents and memories--all beautiful, all intertwined with that lovely
self-forgetfulness which was characteristic of her, his mind travelled
down to an evening scarcely a month before, when her affection had once
more stood, a frail warm barrier, between him and the full bitterness of
a great renunciation. Oh Marie, Marie!
It was still dark when he reached Paris, and the gray winter light was
only just dawning when he stopped at the door of his brother-in-law's
house in one of the new streets near the Champs Elysées. M. de
Châteauvieux was standing on the stairs, his smoothly-shaven, clear-cut
face drawn and haggard, and a stoop in his broad shoulders which Kendal
had never noticed before. Kendal sprang up the steps and wrung his hand.
M. de Châteauvieux shook his head almost with a groan, in answer to the
brother's inquiry of eye and lip, and led the way upstairs into the
forsaken _salon_, which looked as empty and comfortless as though its
mistress had been gone from it years instead of days. Arrived there, the
two men standing opposite to each other in the streak of dull light made
by the hasty withdrawal of a curtain, Paul said, speaking in a whisper,
with dry lips:
'There is no hope--the pain is gone; you would think she was better,
but the doctors say she will just lie there as she is lying now
till--till--the end.'
Kendal staggered over to a chair and tried to realise what he had heard,
but it was impossible, although his journey had seemed to him one long
preparation for the worst. 'What is it--how did it happen?' he asked.
'Internal chill. She was only taken ill the day before yesterday, and the
pain was frightful till yesterday afternoon; then it subsided, and I
thought she was better--she herself was so cheerful and so thankful for
the relief--but when the two doctors came in again, it was to tell me
that the disappearance of the pain meant only the worst--meant that
nothing more can be done--she may go at any moment.'
There was a silence. M. de Châteauvieux walked up and down with the
noiseless step which even a few hours of sickness develop in the watcher,
till he came and stood before his brother-in-law, saying in the same
painful whisper, 'You must have some food, then I will tell her you are
here.'
'No, no; I want no food,--any time will do for that. Does she expect me?'
'Yes; you won't wait? Then come.' He led the way across a little
anteroom, lifted a curtain, and knocked. The nurse came, there was a
little parley, and Paul went in, while Eustace waited outside, conscious
of the most strangely trivial things, of the passers-by in the street, of
a wrangle between two _gamins_ on the pavement opposite, of the
misplacement of certain volumes in the bookcase beside him, till the
door opened again, and M. de Châteauvieux drew him in.
He stepped over the threshold, his whole being wrought up to he knew not
what solemn pageant of death and parting, and the reality within startled
him. The room was flooded with morning light, a frosty December sun was
struggling through the fog, the curtains had just been drawn back, and
the wintry radiance rested on the polished brass of the bed, on the
bright surfaces of wood and glass with which the room was full, on the
little tray of tea-things which the nurse held, and on his sister's face
of greeting as she lay back smiling among her pillows. There was such a
cheerful home peace and brightness in the whole scene--in the crackling
wood fire, in the sparkle of the tea-things and the fragrance of the tea,
and in the fresh white surroundings of the invalid; it seemed to him
incredible that under all this familiar household detail there should be
lying in wait that last awful experience of death.
Marie kissed him with grateful affectionate words spoken almost in her
usual voice, and then, as he sat beside her holding her hands, she
noticed that he looked pale and haggard.
'Has he had some breakfast, Paul? Oh, poor Eustace, after that long
journey! Nurse, let him have my cup, there is some tea left; let me see
you drink it, dear; it's so pleasant just to look after you once more.'
He drank it mechanically, she watching him with her loving eyes, while
she took one hand from him and slipped it into that of her husband as he
sat beside her on the bed. Her touch seemed to have meaning in it, for
Paul rose presently and went to the far end of the large room; the nurse
carried away the tea-things, and the brother and sister were practically
alone.
'Dear Eustace,' she began, after a few pathetic moments of silence, in
which look and gesture took the place of speech, 'I have so longed to see
you. It seemed to me in that awful pain that I must die before I could
gather my thoughts together once more, before I could get free enough
from my own wretched self to say to my two dear ones all I wished to say.
But now it is all gone, and I am so thankful for this moment of peace.
I made Dr. de Chavannes tell me the whole truth. Paul and I have always
promised one another that there should never be any concealment between
us when either of us came to die, and I think I shall have a few hours
more with you.'
She was silent a little; the voice had all its usual intonations, but it
was low and weak, and it was necessary for her from time to time to
gather such strength as might enable her to maintain the calm of her
manner. Eustace, in bewildered misery, had hidden his face upon her
hands, which were clasped in his, and every now and then she felt the
pressure of his lips upon her fingers.
'There are many things I want to say to you,' she went on. 'I will try to
remember them in order. Will you stay with Paul a few days--after--? will
you always remember to be good to him? I know you will. My poor Paul, oh
if I had but given you a child!'
The passion of her low cry thrilled Eustace's heart. He looked up and saw
on her face the expression of the hidden yearning of a lifetime. It
struck him as something awful and sacred; he could not answer it except
by look and touch, and presently she went on after another pause:
'His sister will come to him very likely--his widowed sister. She has a
girl he is fond of. After a while he will take pleasure in her.--Then I
have thought so much of you and of the future. So often last night I
thought I saw you and _her_, and what you ought to do seemed to grow
plain to me. Dear Eustace, don't let anything I say now ever be a burden
to you--don't let it fetter you ever--but it is so strong in me you must
let me say it all. She is not in love with you, Eustace--at least, I
think not. She has never thought of you in that way; but there is
everything there which ought to lead to love. You interest her deeply;
the thought of you stands to her as the symbol of all she wants to reach;
and then she knows what you have been to all those who trusted you. She
knows that you are good and true. I want you to try and carry it farther
for her sake and yours.' He looked up and would have spoken, but she put
her soft hand over his mouth. 'Wait one moment. Those about her are not
people to make her happy--at any time if things went wrong--if she broke
down--she would be at their mercy. Then her position--you know what
difficulties it has--it makes my heart ache sometimes to think of it. She
won my love so. I felt like a mother to her. I long to have her here now,
but I would not let Paul send; and if I could think of her safe with
you--in those true hands of yours. Oh, you will try, darling?' He
answered her huskily and brokenly, laying his face to hers on the pillow.
'I would do anything you asked. But she is so likely to love and marry.
Probably there is some one--already. How could it not be with her beauty
and her fame? Anybody would be proud to marry her, and she has such a
quick eager nature.
'There is no one!' said Marie, with deep conviction in the whispered
words. 'Her life has been too exciting--too full of one interest. She
stayed with me; I got to know her to the bottom. She would not have
hidden it. Only say you will make one trial and I should be content.'
And then her innate respect for another's individuality, her shrinking
from what might prove to be the tyranny of a dying wish interposed, and
she checked herself. 'No, don't promise; I have no right--no one has any
right. I can only tell you my feeling--my deep sense that there is
hope--that there is nothing against you. Men--good men--are so often
over-timid when courage would be best. Be bold, Eustace; respect your
own love; do not be too proud to show it--to offer it!' Her voice died
away into silence, only Eustace still felt the caressing touch of the
thin fingers clasped round his. It seemed to him as if the life still
left in her were one pure flame of love, undimmed by any thought of
self, undisturbed by any breath of pain. Oh, this victory of the spirit
over the flesh, of soul over body, which humanity achieves and renews
from day to day and from age to age, in all those nobler and finer
personalities upon whom the moral life of the world depends! How it burns
its testimony into the heart of the spectator! How it makes him thrill
with the apprehension which lies at the root of all religion--the
apprehension of an ideal order--the divine suspicion
'That we are greater than we know!'
How it impresses itself upon us as the only miracle which will bear our
leaning upon, and stand the strain of human questioning! It was borne in
upon Eustace, as he sat bowed beside his dying sister, that through this
fragile body and this failing breath the Eternal Mind was speaking, and
that in Marie's love the Eternal Love was taking voice. He said so to her
brokenly, and her sweet eyes smiled back upon him a divine answer of
peace and faith.
Then she called faintly, 'Paul!' The distant figure came back; and she
laid her head upon her husband's breast, while Eustace was gently drawn
away by the nurse. Presently, he found himself mechanically taking food
and mechanically listening to the low-voiced talk of the kindly
white-capped woman who was attending to him. Every fact, every
impression, was misery,--these details so unexpected, so irrevocable, so
charged with terrible meaning, which the nurse was pouring out upon
him,--that presence in the neighbouring room of which his every nerve was
conscious,--and in front of him, like a frowning barrier shutting off the
view of the future, the advancing horror of death! Yesterday, at the same
time, he had been walking along the sandy Surrey roads, delighting in the
last autumn harmonies of colour, and conscious of the dawn of a period of
rest after a period of conflict, of the growth within him of a temper of
quiet and rational resignation to the conditions of life and of his own
individual lot, over the development of which the mere fact of his
sister's existence had exercised a strong and steadying influence. Life,
he had persuaded himself, was for him more than tolerable, even without
love and marriage. The world of thought was warm and hospitable to him;
he moved at ease within its friendly familiar limits; and in the world of
personal relations, one heart was safely his, the sympathy and trust and
tenderness of one human soul would never fail him at his need. And now
this last tender bond was to be broken with a rough, incredible
suddenness. The woman he loved with passion would never be his; for not
even now, fresh from contact with his sister's dying hope, could he raise
himself to any flattering vision of the future; and the woman he loved,
with that intimate tenacity of affection which is the poetry of kinship,
was to be taken from him by this cruel wastefulness of premature death.
Could any man be more alone than he would be? And then suddenly a
consciousness fell upon him which made him ashamed. In the neighbouring
room his ear was caught now and then by an almost imperceptible, murmur
of voices. What was his loss, his agony, compared to theirs?
When he softly returned into the room he found Marie lying as though
asleep upon, her husband's arm. It seemed to him that since he had left
her there had been a change. The face was more drawn, the look of
exhaustion more defined. Paul sat beside her, his eyes riveted upon her.
He scarcely seemed to notice his brother-in-law's entrance; it was as
though he were rapidly losing consciousness of every fact but one; and
never had Kendal seen any countenance so grief-stricken, so pinched with
longing. But Marie heard the familiar step. She made a faint movement
with her hand towards him, and he resumed his old place, his head bowed
upon the bed. And so they sat through the morning, hardly moving,
interchanging at long intervals a few words--those sad sacred words which
well from the heart in the supreme moments of existence--words which, in
the case of such natures as Marie de Châteauvieux, represent the intimate
truths and fundamental ideas of the life that has gone before. There was
nothing to hide, nothing to regret. A few kindly messages, a few womanly
commissions, and every now and then a few words to her husband, as simple
as the rest, but pregnant with the deepest thoughts and touching the
vastest problems of humanity,--this was all. Marie was dying as she had
lived--bravely, tenderly, simply.
Presently they roused her to take some nourishment, which she swallowed
with difficulty. It gave her a momentary strength. Kendal heard himself
called, and looked up. She had opened the hand lying on the bed, and he
saw in it a small miniature case, which she moved towards him.
'Take it,' she said--oh, how faintly!--'to her. It is the only memento I
can think of. She has been ill, Eustace: did I tell you? I forget. I
should have gone--but for this. It is too much for her,--that life. It
will break her down. You can save her and cherish her--you will. It seems
as if I saw you--together!'
Then her eyes fell and she seemed to sleep--gently wandering now and
then, and mentioning in her dying dream names and places which made the
reality before them more and more terrible to the two hushed listeners,
so different were the associations they called up. Was this white
nerveless form, from which mind and breath were gently ebbing away, all
that fate had grudgingly left to them, for a few more agonised moments,
of the brilliant, high-bred woman who had been but yesterday the centre
of an almost European network of friendships and interests! Love, loss,
death,--oh, how unalterable is this essential content of life, embroider
it and adorn it as we may!
Kendal had been startled by her words about Isabel Bretherton. He had not
heard of any illness; it could hardly be serious, for he vaguely
remembered that in the newspapers he had tried to read on the journey his
eye had caught the familiar advertisement of the _Calliope_. It must have
happened while he was in Surrey. He vaguely speculated about it now and
then as he sat watching through the afternoon. But nothing seemed to
matter very much to him--nothing but Marie and the slow on-coming of
death.
At last when the wintry light was fading, when the lamps were being lit
outside, and the bustle of the street seemed to penetrate in little
intermittent waves of sound into the deep quiet of the room, Marie
Raised herself and, with a fluttering sigh, withdrew her hand softly from
her brother, and laid her arm round her husband's neck. He stooped to
her--kissed the sweet lips and the face on which the lines of middle age
had hardly settled--caught a wild alarm from her utter silence, called
the nurse and Kendal, and all was over.