'THE COULIN.'
The snow that shone and gleamed in the sunlight along the Berkshire
hills lay thick in the London squares, and was trampled brown and dry in
the London streets; and yet even in the City it was white enough to
throw a light upon the faces of the passers-by, until commonplace
countenances underwent a sort of transfiguration; and there was in the
atmosphere a pearly radiance that brightened the fronts of the grey
houses, and glimmered into small and dingy rooms.
"Let all the light come in," said Dove, lying in bed, with a strange
transparent colour in her cheeks, and a wan lustre in her beautiful
violet eyes; and when they let the strong light in, it fell on her face,
and painted away the shadows under the eyebrows until the head that lay
on the soft pillow acquired a strange ethereal glory--a vision coloured
with sunlight.
"You haven't played 'The Coulin' for me for a long time now, Dove," said
Mr. Anerley.
"You used never to like my playing 'The Coulin;' why do you want me to
play it now?"
"I wish you were well enough to play anything, my darling."
The girl stretched out her tiny pale hand towards his:
"How you have petted me lately! If I were to get up just now and sing
you the song I used to sing you, you wouldn't laugh at my 'meghily' any
more, would you?"
"_Meghily, meghily shall I sleep now_"--the words sounded in his ears as
the refrain of some spirit-song, heard long ago, in happy times, down in
the far-off legendary Kentish Eden, where they had once lived.
"A letter for you, papa," said Mrs. Anerley, entering the room.
"I don't want it," he said, petulantly and angrily turning
away--quarrelling with the mist of bitter tears that rose around his
eyes.
She glanced from him to Dove (her kindly eyes brightened as they met the
quiet look of the girl), laid the letter down, and left the room again.
Mechanically he took up the letter, opened it, and read it. Before he
had finished, however, he seemed to recall himself; and then he read it
again from the beginning--carefully, anxiously, with strange surprise on
his face. He looked at the envelope, again at the letter, and finally
at the bank-note which he held in his hand.
"Dove, Dove!" he said, "look at this! Here is the money that is to take
us all down to St. Mary-Kirby again--back to the old house, you know,
and your own room upstairs; and in a little while the springtime will be
in, and you and I shall go down to the river for primroses, as we used
to do. Here it is, Dove--everything we want; and we can go, whenever
you brighten up and get strong enough to move."
"But where did you get the money, papa?"
"God must have looked at your face, my darling, and seen that you wanted
to go to St. Mary-Kirby."
"And you have plenty of money, papa, to spend on anything?"
All his ordinary prudence forsook him. Even without that guarantee of
the bank-note, he would at once have believed in the genuineness of the
letter, so eager was he to believe it for Dove's dear sake.
"Plenty of money, Dove? Yes. But not to spend on anything. Only to
spend on you."
"There was Will's knock," she said; "he has just come in time to hear
the news. But go and tell him in another room, papa, for I am tired."
So he left the room, and, as Will had come in, the two men had a long
consultation over this strange letter.
"You need not remain long in suspense, sir," said Will; "write me out a
cheque for fifty pounds, and I will take it down to the bank."
"But I have none of the printed cheques of the bank."
"You don't need one. That is a vulgar error. Any bit of paper with a
stamp on it will do."
"But they must know that my signature is genuine."
"True. You must come down with me and see the manager. In any case, we
can bear the disappointment, if the thing is a hoax. When you have
ascertained that you are a rich man, father, I'll give you another piece
of good news."
Mrs. Anerley was left with Dove, and the two men drove off to the bank.
The manager had expected the visit. He warded off Will's bold inquiries
with a grave silence; he had received certain instructions--it was not
his business to say from whom.
"Before I can avail myself of this money," said Mr. Anerley, "you must
at least answer me one question. Was it placed in your hands by
Frederick Hubbard--by Count Schoenstein?"
"No."
"Thank you."
So they went out into the free air, and lo! London was changed. It was
no longer a cruel and bitter mother, starving her children, heedless of
their cries and their sufferings; but a gracious empress, profuse of
feasts, with stores of pleasures in her capacious lap. And this
generous creature was to exercise all her power on behalf of Dove; and
pure air, and the sweet sunlight, and the sharp hunger of health, were
once more to make the young girl's face less shadowy and unreal.
"Now for your news, Will," said the old man, cheerfully.
"Nothing much, sir," said he. "Only that I have gained the appointment,
and the company guarantees me 1000*l.* a year for three years. It never
rains but it pours, you see; and if Heaven would only send one more
good----"
"My poor girl's health," said the old man; and he would have given up
all his money, and been glad to suffer far greater privations than he
had done for the rest of his life, only to secure that one supreme
blessing.
When they returned to the house, Mrs. Anerley came to say that Dove
wanted to see Will, alone. He went into the room, and stooped over her,
and kissed her forehead, and took her hand. She looked very pleased and
happy.
"Papa won't be vexed any more. He has got plenty of money, has he not?"
she said.
"Yes; but that money is for them. _Our_ money, Dove, must come from me;
and I have got it--I have got the appointment--and so hurry, hurry fast
and get well; and then, hey! for a carriage, and cream-white horses, and
jingling bells to take my Dove to church."
She pressed his hand slightly; and her eyes were wistful and absent.
The beautiful land lay along the horizon, and she strained her vision to
see it, and the sight of it--for it was so very beautiful--made her sad.
"Come close down, Will, and let me whisper to you. I have taken a fancy
into my head lately. I never spoke of it, for I knew neither you nor
papa had money; but now it is different. You said we were to be
married."
"Why talk of our 'maghiage' in that melancholy way, you provoking
mouse!"
"Don't laugh at me, Will! What I have been thinking is this: that I
should like to know that I could be married to you at any time without
having to wait until I was better--which might be for such a long, long
time; and I should like to know that at any moment I could say to you,
'Will, make me your wife _now_,' and you could come into the room, and
all the people would know that I was your wife."
There are ghastly dreams in which the sleeper, gazing on a broad and
sunny landscape, suddenly becomes conscious of a cold and terrible
pressure, and lifting up his eyes sees a broad cloth, white and black
like a funeral pall, descending slowly from the sky, and shutting out
the glad sunlight, and gliding down upon the earth. All living things
fly from it; if they remain, they grow fixed and immovable, and their
eyes become glazed as the eyes of death.
As terrible as such a dream was the vague, scarcely-to-be-imagined
suggestion which these patient simple words of Dove bore with them; and
Will, horror-stricken by the picture on which her absent eyes seemed now
to be gazing (with its dreadful hint about the people standing around),
demanded why she should ask this thing, or why she troubled her mind
with it.
"My dearest," she said, with a faint smile stealing across the childlike
face, "it does not vex me. It pleases me. There is nothing dreadful
about the idea to you, is there? I cannot go with you to church to be
married. When you talk of a carriage, and white horses, and bells, it
seems to me to be so far off--so very, very far away--that it is of no
use, and it makes me miserable. But now, if we were married here, how I
should like to hear you call me your wife, as you went about the room!"
"And so you shall, my pet, whenever you please. But for you to turn such
a dreadful heretic, Dove, and imagine that a marriage outside a church
is a marriage at all! Why, even a dispensation from the Archbishop of
Canterbury seems sacrilegious where there are no bridecake, and old
slippers, and a lot of carriages."
"Now you're becoming kind again, Will. And you'll do as I ask without
bothering me about reasons? What I should like, you know, would be the
power of getting married when I wanted--if I could have the
dispensation, as you say, all ready, and just at any moment I might
terrify you by crying out, 'Will, come and marry me!' I might be
merciful, too, you know, Will; and perhaps let you off, if you were very
good and attentive. I'd tell you some day to go to the drawer and take
out the paper and burn it. It would be like giving a slave his
freedom."
"You will be such a dreadful tyrant when you're married, Dove, that I
shudder to think of what you'll do to me."
"I think I should have been very kind to you, Will," said the girl,
suddenly bursting into tears, and turning away her face from him.
Next morning Dove was a great deal better, everybody thought. Even the
doctor spoke cheerfully, and the whole house was radiant. A thaw had
set in; the air was foggy, and damp, and close; and the streets were in
that condition which melted snow and drizzling rain generally produce in
London; but inside the house there was sunlight enough for all
concerned. And when, on the following morning, the weather cleared, and
the sun painted bars of yellow on the curtains of the windows, it seemed
as if the old sad anxious time were past, and the dawn of a new and
happy life had broken over them.
Nevertheless, Dove did not give up her idea of the special licence and
the private marriage. Rather she lay and brooded over it; and sometimes
her face was moved with a happy delight which those around her could not
well understand. Indeed, her heart was so bent upon it, that they all
agreed to acquiesce in her wishes, and the necessary steps were taken to
secure the legalization of the ceremony. The covert opposition which
the proposal had met was surely not due to any opposition to the
marriage, on the part of any one concerned, but to another and vaguer
feeling, which no one of them dared to reveal to the other.
Said Dove to him suddenly this morning--
"Is Miss Brunel in town, Will?"
"I don't know, Dove."
"It is such a long time since she came to see me; I wonder if it was
because you treated her so coldly the last time she was here."
"I?"
"You did not speak to her as you ought to have clone. You kept near me,
and kept speaking to me, as if you imagined I was afraid she would take
you away from me again. I know you did it to please me; but I could see
something in her face, Will, that seemed to say that I needn't be
afraid, and that she wouldn't come again. I should be sorry for that.
Will you go and ask her to come again?"
"Certainly, if you wish it."
"And you will speak to her just as you speak to me. I can't be jealous,
Will--of her, because she did not try to take you from me."
"I will go if you like, Dove," said Will; "but considering----"
"I have considered" (with petulant haste). "I have nothing to do all
day but lie and consider--and how many things I have considered within
this day or two! I have altered my mind completely about the marriage.
I won't have you marry me, Will----"
"But all the forms have been gone through----"
She lay silent and meditative for some time, and then she said--
"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble; but I should like to
alter all my plans. You know the betrothals they have in French stories
and in the operas: I should like to have a betrothal, Will, and all you
will have to get for me is a big sheet of paper and a marriage-ring."
How eagerly he accepted the offer! This pretty notion of hers, which
was obviously only meant to please a passing whim, was so much more
grateful to him than the marriage proposal, with its black background:
"We will have it at once, Dove; and I think you are so well that you
might drink a little champagne with us to grace the ceremony. Then I
shall be able to call you my wife all the same, and you shall wear the
wedding-ring; and then, you know, we can have the white horses and the
carriages afterwards. But I am afraid the betrothal contract will be
frightfully inaccurate; I don't know the terms----"
"Get a sheet of paper, Will, and I will tell you what to write down."
He got the paper, and, at her dictation, wrote down the following
words--
"We two, loving each other very dearly, write our names underneath in
token that we have become husband and wife, and as a pledge of our
constant love."
She smiled faintly when he placed the writing before her, and then she
leant back on the pillow, with a satisfied air. Mrs. Anerley now came
into the room, and Will, obeying some further commands, went off to see
whether Annie Brunel was yet in her old lodgings, and also to purchase a
wedding-ring for the ceremony on which Dove had set her heart.
Miss Brunel's landlady told Will that her lady-lodger would probably
return the next day, with which piece of information he returned. He
also showed Dove the wedding-ring; and she placed it on her finger, and
kept it there.
But that evening the insidious disease from which the girl was suffering
withdrew the treacherous semblance of health it had lent to her burning
cheeks, and it was obvious that she had grown rapidly worse. They all
saw it, and would not confess it to each other. They only noticed that
Mrs. Anerley did not stir now from Dove's bedside.
Mr. Anerley spent nearly the whole of that night in walking up and down
his own room--from time to time stealthily receiving messages, for they
would not admit to Dove that they felt much anxiety about her. The man
seemed to have grown greyer; or perhaps it was the utter wretchedness of
his face that made him look so old and careworn. Will sate in an
easy-chair, gloomily staring into the fire. The appointment he had so
eagerly sought and so joyfully gained, fancying it was to bring them all
back again into pleasant circumstances, was only a bitter mockery now.
He could not bear to think of it. He could bear to think of nothing when
this terrible issue was at stake in the next room.
In the morning, when the first grey light was sufficiently clear to show
Dove's face to the nurse and Mrs. Anerley, the latter looked at the girl
for a long time.
"Why do you look at me so, mamma?" she asked.
She could not answer. She went into the next room, and crying, "Oh,
Hubert, Hubert, go and look at my Dove's face!" burst into tears on her
husband's bosom. And yet there was nothing remarkable about the girl's
face--except, perhaps, to one who had watched it critically all the
night through, and was alarmed by the transition from the ruddy
lamplight to the grey and haggard tone of the morning.
The doctor came, and went away again, saying nothing.
Towards the forenoon, Dove said to Will--
"I want to hear 'The Coulin'----"
"Not 'The Coulin,' Dove," he pleaded.
"When Miss Brunel comes, perhaps she will play it. The music is simple.
Put it on the piano--and--and send for her."
He himself went for her--out into the bright light of that fresh spring
morning. Annie Brunel, when he found her, was in her poor lodgings,
dressed in the simple black dress in which he had last seen her.
"I was going up to see Dove," she said, "when I heard she had sent for
me. But--is there anything the matter?"
"Dove is ill," he said, abruptly. "I--I cannot tell you. But she wants
you to come and--play a piece of music for her."
Neither of them spoke a word all the way to the house. When Annie
Brunel, pale and calm and beautiful, went to the girl, and took up her
white hand, and kissed her, there was a pleased smile on Dove's face.
"Why didn't they tell me you were ill?" she said. "I should have been
here before."
"I know that," said Dove, in a whisper, "for--for you have always been
kind to me. You have come in time--but I am too weak to tell you--ask
Will--the betrothal----"
The brief explanation was speedily given; and then Dove said--
"I am very tired. Will you go into the next room, and play me 'The
Coulin;' and when you come back----?"
She went to Dove's piano, and found there the air which she knew so
well. And as she played it, so softly that it sounded like some bitter
sad leave-taking that the sea had heard and murmured over, Dove lay and
listened with a strange look on her face. Will's hand was in hers, and
she drew him down to her, and whispered--
"I could have been so happy with you, Will: so very happy, I think. But
I had no right to be. Where is the--the paper--I was to sign?"
He brought it, and put it on the table beside her bedside; and Miss
Brunel came into the room, and went over to Dove.
"That is the paper I must sign," said the girl. "But how can I? Will
you--will you do it for me? But come closer to me and listen, for I
have--a secret----"
When Annie Brunel bent down her head to listen, Dove drew the
wedding-ring off her finger, kissed it tenderly, and put it on her
companion's hand; and then she said, looking Annie in the face with a
faint smile in the peaceful violet eyes--"It is your own name you must
sign."
At the same moment she lay back exhausted, and to Mr. Anerley, who had
hurriedly stepped forward to take her hand, she sighed wearily--"I am so
tired; I shall rest." And presently a beautiful happy light stole over
the girlish features; and he heard her murmur indistinctly--as if the
words were addressed to him from the other world--the old familiar line,
"_Meghily, meghily shall I sleep now_."
They were the last words that Dove uttered; and the cause of the last
smile that was on her sweet face.
THE END.