Miss Starbrow did not leave London after all, but day followed day only
to find her in the same unsettled mind as at first. Having no one else
to quarrel with, she quarrelled with and mocked at herself. “I shall
wait till the heats are over,” she said, “and then stay on to see the
end of the November fogs; then I can go north to winter at Aberdeen or
some such delightful place.” But these late London days, while her mind
was in this unsatisfactory state, studying to deceive itself, had one
great pleasure--the letters which came at intervals of two or three days
from her loved friend. Even to her eyes they looked beautiful. The girl
of the period, when she writes to her friend, usually dips the handle of
her sunshade in a basin of ink, and scrawls characters monstrous in
size and form, an insult to the paper-maker's art and shocking to man's
aesthetic feelings. Now from the first Fan had spontaneously written
a small hand, with fine web-like lines and flourishes, which gave it
a very curious and delicate appearance; for, unlike the sloping prim
Italian hand, it was all irregular, and the longer curves and strokes
crossed and recrossed through words above and beneath, so that, while
easy enough to read, at first sight it looked less like writing than an
intricate pattern on the paper, as if a score of polar gnats had been
figure-skating on the surface with inked skates. To her complaint that
she was not clever, not musical, like other girls, Mary had once said:
“Ah, yes; all your cleverness and originality has gone into your
handwriting.”
“It is such a comfort, such a pleasure,” said Fan in one of her letters,
“to have you to write to and put Mary--Mary--Mary twenty times over in
a single letter, wondering whether it gives you the same pleasure to see
your name written by me as you often say it is to hear it from my lips.
Do you remember that when I promised to write everything you sneered and
told me not to forget to make the usual mental reservations? That is the
way you always talk to me, Mary; but I make no reservation, I tell you
everything, really and truly--everything I see and hear and think.
I know very well that Constance will never tell me any of her
secrets--that she will never open her heart to anyone, as one friend
does to another, except her husband; so that it was quite safe for me to
make you that promise.”
Again she wrote: “For some hidden reason Constance consented very
reluctantly to take Merton out of town, and I feel convinced that it
was not on account of the risk there would be in moving him, nor because
they were too poor to move away from Mile End. There was some other
reason, and I feel pretty sure that if the proposal had come from some
other person, even a stranger, instead of from me, it would not have
given the same feeling. That it should give her pain was a surprise to
me, and has puzzled me a great deal, because I know that Constance loves
me as much as she ever did, and that she would gladly do as much and
more for me if it were in her power at any time. Perhaps she thinks,
poor Constance, that when she and her husband suddenly went away from
Netting Hill and left no address, and never wrote to me again, although
she knew that I had no other friend in London at that time, that she had
treated me badly. Once or twice, since we have been together here, she
has mentioned that going away, so sadly, almost with tears, speaking as
if circumstances had compelled her to act unkindly, but without giving
any explanation. I do not believe, I cannot believe, she left me in that
way of her own will; I can only guess the reason, but shall probably
never really know; but I feel that this has brought a shadow into our
friendship, and that while we are as dear as ever to each other, we both
feel that there is something that keeps us apart.”
Another letter spoke more particularly of Merton: “I am sure you would
like to know what I think of him now, after living under the same roof
for the first time, and seeing so much of him every day. I cannot say
what I think of him. As a rule he is out in the garden after eleven
o'clock; and then he sends Constance away. 'You have had enough of me
now,' he says, 'and if I wish to talk, I can talk to Fan--she is a good
listener.' This reminds me of one thing which is a continual vexation to
me. He does not seem to appreciate her properly. He does not believe,
I think, that she has any talent, or, at any rate, anything worthy of
being called talent compared with his own. Just fancy, she is usually up
all night, fearing to sleep lest he should need something; and then when
he comes out, and is made comfortable on the garden-seat, he tells her
to go and have an hour if she likes at her 'idyllic pastimes,' as he
calls her writing; and if he mentions her literary work at all,
he speaks of it just as another person would of a little piece of
crochet-work or netting, or something of that sort.
“After she goes in he talks to me, for an hour sometimes, and when it
is over I always feel that I am very little wiser, and what he has said
comes back to me in such an indistinct or disconnected way that it would
be impossible for me to set it down on paper. I do wish, Mary, that you
could come and sit next to me--invisible to him, I mean--and listen for
half an hour, and then tell me what it all means.”
Mary laughed. “Tell you, sweet simple child? I wish Fan, that you
could come here and sit down next to me for half an hour and read out a
chapter from _Alice in Wonderland_, and then tell me what it all means.
It was Sir Isaac Newton, I think, who said of poetry that it was a
'beautiful kind of nonsense'; at all events, if he did not say it he
thought it, being a scientific man. And that is the best description I
can give of Merton's talk. That's his merit, his one art, which he
has cultivated and is proficient in. He reminds me of those street
performers who swallow match-boxes and tie themselves up with fifty
knots and then wriggle out of the rope, and keep a dozen plates, balls,
and knives and forks all flying about at one time in the air. The
mystery is how a woman like his wife--who is certainly clever, judging
from the sketches I have read, and beautiful, as I have good reason to
remember--should have thrown herself away on such a charlatan. Love is
blind, they say, but I never imagined it to be quite so blind as that!”
Here Miss Starbrow suddenly remembered the case of another woman, also
clever and beautiful; and with a scornful glance at her own image in the
glass, she remarked, “Thou fool, first pluck the beam out of thine own
eye!”
Then she returned to the letter: “Another thing that seems strange to
me is his cheerfulness, for he is really very bad, and Constance is
in great fear lest his cough should bring on consumption; and it is
sometimes so violent that it frightens me to hear it. Yet he is always
so lively and even gay, and sometimes laughs like a child at the things
he says himself; and I sometimes know from the way Constance receives
them that they can't be very amusing, for I do not often see the point
myself. He firmly believes that he will soon throw his illness off, and
that when he is well he will do great things. The world, he says,
knows nothing of its greatest men, and he will be satisfied to be an
obscurity, even a laughing-stock, for the next thirty or thirty-five
years. But when he is old, and has a beard, like Darwin's, covering his
breast and whiter than snow, then his name will be great on the earth.
Then it will be said that of all leaders of men he is greatest; for
whereas others led men into a barren wilderness without end, to be
destroyed therein by dragons and men-eating monsters, he led them back
to that path which they in their blind eager hurry had missed, and by
which alone the Promised Land could be reached.
“Perhaps you will think, Mary, from my telling you all this, that I am
beginning to change my mind about him, that I am beginning to think that
there is something more in him than in others, and that it will all come
out some day. But it would be a mistake; what I have always thought I
think still.”
“Sensible girl,” said Mary, putting the letter down with a smile.
And thus did these two not infallible women, seeing that which
appeared on the surface--empty quick--vanishing froth and iridescent
bubbles--pass judgment on Merton Chance.
One afternoon, coming in from a walk, Mary found a letter from Fan on
the hall table, and taking it up was startled to see a superfluous black
seal over the fastening. Guessing the news it contained, she carried it
up to her bedroom before opening it. “It is all over,” the letter ran;
“Merton died this morning, and it was so unexpected, so terribly sudden;
and I was with him at the last moment. How shall I tell you about it?
It is anguish to think of it, and yet think of it I must, and of nothing
else; and now at ten o'clock at night I feel that I cannot rest until
I have described it all to you, and imagined what you will feel and say
to-morrow when you read my letter.
“For the last two or three days he had seemed so much better; but this
morning after breakfasting he coughed violently for a long time, and
seemed so shaken after it that we tried to persuade him not to go out.
But he would not be persuaded; and it was such a lovely morning, he
said, and would do him good; and he felt more hopeful and happy than
ever--a sure sign that he had reached the turning-point and was already
on the way to recovery. So we came out, he leaning on our arms, to a
garden-seat under the trees at the end of a walk, quite near to the
house. When he had settled himself comfortably on the seat with some
rugs and cushions we had got with us, he said, 'Now, Connie, you can go
back if you like and leave me to talk to Fan. She is our guardian angel,
and will watch over me, and keep away all ugly phantoms and crawling
many-legged things--spiders, slugs, and caterpillars. And I shall repay
her angelic guardianship with wise, instructive speech.'
“'But an angel looks for no instruction--no reward,' said Constance.
“'Not so,' he replied. 'An angel is not above being taught even by a
creature of earth. And in Fan there is one thing lacking, angel though
she be, and this I shall point out to her. I can find no mysticism in
her: what she knows she knows, and with the unknowable, which may yet
be known, she concerns herself not. Who shall say of the seed I scatter
that it will not germinate in this fair garden without weeds and tares,
and strike root and blossom at last? For why should she not be a mystic
like others?'
“Constance laughed and answered, 'Can an angel be a mystic?'
“'Yes, certainly,' he said. 'An angel need not necessarily be a mystic,
else Fan were no angel, but even to angels it adds something. It is not
that splendour of virtue and immortality which makes their faces shine
like lightning and gives whiteness to their raiment; but it is the
rainbow tint on their wings, the spiritual melody which they eternally
make, which the old masters symbolised by placing harps and divers
strange instruments in their hands--that melody which faintly rises even
from our own earthly hearts.'
“Constance smiled and looked at me--at the white dress I had on--shall
I ever wear white again?--and answered that she had first liked me in
white, and thought it suited me best, and would have to see the rainbow
tints before saying that they would be an improvement.
“Then she went back to the house, and from the end of the walk turned
round and gave us a smile, and Merton threw her a kiss.
“Then he turned to me and said, 'Fan, do you hear that robin--that
little mystic robin-redbreast? Listen, he will sing again in less than
twenty seconds.' And almost before he had finished speaking, while I was
looking at him, a change came over him, and his face was of the colour
of ashes; and he said, with a kind of moan and so low that I could
scarcely catch the last words, 'Oh, this is cruel, cruel!' And almost
at the same moment there came a rush of blood from his mouth, and he
started forward and would have fallen to the ground had I not caught him
and held him in my arms. I called to Constance, over and over again, but
she did not hear me--no one in the house heard me. Oh, how horrible
it was--for I knew that he was dying--to hear the sounds of the house,
voices talking and the maid singing, and a boy whistling not far off,
and to call and call and not be heard! Then a dreadful faintness came
over me, and I could call no more; I shivered like a leaf and closed my
eyes, and my heart seemed to stand still, and still I held him, his head
on my breast--held him so that he did not fall. Then at last I was able
to call again, and someone must have heard, for in a few moments I saw
Constance coming along the walk running with all her speed, and the
others following. But I knew that he was already dead, for he had grown
quite still, and his clenched hand opened and dropped like a piece of
lead on my knee.
“After that I only remember that Constance was kneeling before him,
calling out so pitifully, 'Oh, Merton, my darling, what is it? Merton,
Merton, speak to me--speak to me--one word, only one word!' Then I
fainted. When I recovered my senses I was lying on a sofa in the house,
with some of them round me doing what they could for me; and they told
me that they had sent for a doctor, and that Merton was dead.
“But how shall I tell you about Constance? I have done nothing but cry
all day, partly from grief, and partly from a kind of nervous terror
which makes me imagine that I am still covered with those red stains,
although I took off all my things, even my shoes and stockings, and made
the servant-girl take them away out of my sight. But she does not shed a
tear, and is so quiet, occupied all the time arranging everything about
the corpse. And there is such a still, desolate look on her face; her
eyes seem to have lost all their sweetness; I am afraid to speak to
her--afraid that if I should attempt to speak one word of comfort she
would look at me almost with hatred. This afternoon I was in the room
where they have laid him, and he looked so different, younger, and his
face so much clearer than it has been looking, that it reminded me of
the past and of the first time I saw him, when he spoke so gently to me
at Dawson Place, and asked me to look up to show my eyes to him. I could
not restrain my sobs. And at last Constance said, 'Fan, if you go on in
this way you will make me cry for very sympathy.' I could not bear it
and left the room. It was so strange for her to say that! Perhaps I am
wrong to think it, but I almost believe from her tone and expression
that all her love for me has turned to bitterness because I, and not
she, was with him at the end, and heard his last word, and held him in
my arms when he died.
“She has refused to sleep in my room, and now that the whole house is
quiet I am almost terrified at being alone, and to think that I must
spend the night by myself. I know that if I sleep I shall start up from
some dreadful dream, that I shall feel something on my hands, after so
many washings, and shall think of that last look on his ashen face, and
his last bitter words when he knew that the end had so suddenly come to
him. I wish, I wish, Mary, that I had you with me to-night, that I could
rest with your arms about me, to gain strength with your strength, for
you are so strong and brave, I so weak and cowardly. But I am alone in
my room, and can only try to persuade myself that you are thinking of
me, that when you sleep you will be with me in your dreams.”
Having finished reading the letter, Mary covered her eyes with her hand
and cried to herself quietly for a while. Cried for despised Merton
Chance; and remembered, no longer with mocking laughter, some fragments
of the “beautiful nonsense” which he had spoken to her in bygone days.
For in that bright sunshine of the late summer, among the garden trees,
the Black Angel had come without warning to him, and with one swift
stroke of his weapon had laid him, with all his dreams and delusions,
in the dust; and its tragic ending had given a new dignity, a touch of
mournful glory, and something of mystery, to the vain and wasted life.
After a while, drying her eyes, she rose and went out again, and in
Westbourne Grove ordered a wreath for Merton's coffin, and instructed
the florist to send it on the following day to the house of mourning.
That mention of her first meeting with Merton in the girl's letter
had brought up the past very vividly to Mary's mind; at night, after
partially undressing, as she sat combing out her dark hair before the
glass, she thought of the old days when Fan had combed it for her, and
of her strange mixed feelings, when she had loved the poor girl she had
rescued from misery, and had studied to hide the feeling, being ashamed
of it, and at the same time had scorned herself for feeling shame--for
being not different from others in spite of her better instincts and
affected independence of a social code meant for meaner slavish natures.
How well she remembered that evening when Merton had amused her with his
pretty paradoxes about women not being reasonable beings, and had come
back later to make her an offer of marriage; and how before going to bed
she had looked at herself in the glass, proud of her beauty and strength
and independence, and had laughed scornfully and said that to no Merton
Chance would she give her hand; but that to one who, although stained
with vice, had strength of character, and loved her with a true and
not a sham love, she might one day give it. And thus thinking the blood
rushed to her face and dyed it red; even her neck, shoulders, and bosom
changed from ivory white to bright rose, and she turned away, startled
and ashamed at seeing her own shame so vividly imaged before her.
And moving to the bedside, while all that rich colour faded away, she
dropped languidly into a chair, and throwing her white arms over the
coverlid, laid her cheek on them with a strange self-abandonment, “Do
you call me strong and brave, Fan?” she murmured sadly. “Ah, poor child,
what a mistake! I am the weak and cowardly one, since I dare not tell
you this shameful secret, and ask you to save me. Oh, how falsely I put
it to you when I said that there are things in every heart which cannot
be told, even to the nearest and dearest! when I hinted to you that you
had not told me _all_ the story of your acquaintance with Arthur Eden.
That which you kept back was his secret as well as yours. This is mine,
only mine, and I have no courage to tell you that you are only working
my ruin--that the heart you are trying to soften has no healthy hardness
in it. I shall never tell you. Only to one being in the whole world
could I tell it--to my brother Tom. But to think of him is futile; for I
shall keep my word, and never address him again unless he first begs
my forgiveness for insulting me at Ravenna, when he called me a demon.
Never, never, and he will not do that, and there is no hope of help
from him. You shall know the result of your work one day, Fan, and how
placable this heart is. And it will perhaps grieve you when you know
that your own words, your own action, gave me back this sickness of the
soul--this old disease which had still some living rootlet left in me
when I thought myself well and safe at last. How glad I shall be to
see you again, Fan! And you will not know that under that open healthy
gladness there will be another gladness, secret and base. That I shall
eagerly listen again to hear the name my false lips forbade you to
speak--to hear it spoken with some sweet word of praise. And in a little
while I shall sink lower, and be glad to remember that my courage was
so small; and lower still, and give, reluctantly and with many protests,
the forgiveness which will prove to you--poor innocent child!--that I
have a very noble spirit in me. How sweet it is to think of it, and
how I loathe myself for the thought! And I know what the end will be. I
shall gain my desire, but my gain will be small and my loss too great to
be measured. And then farewell to you, Fan, for ever; for I shall never
have the courage to look into your eyes again, and the pure soul that
is in them. I shall be a coward still. Just as all that is weak and
unworthy in me makes me a coward now, so whatever there is that is good
in me will make me a coward then.”