Rosalie carried to the hospital that afternoon a lighter heart than she
had known for many a day. The sight of Jo Portugais’ dogs had roused
her out of the apathy which had been growing on her in this patient
but hopeless watching beside her father. She had always a smile and a
cheerful word for the poor man. A settled sorrow hung upon her face,
however, taking away its colour, but giving it a sweet gravity which
made her slave more than one young doctor of the hospital, for whom,
however, she showed no more than a friendly frankness, free from
self-consciousness. For hours she would sit in reverie beside her
sleeping father, her heart “over the water to Charley.” As in a trance,
she could see him sitting at his bench, bent over his work, now and
again lifting up his head to look across to the post-office, where
another hand than hers sorted letters now.
Day by day her father weakened and faded away. All that was possible to
medical skill had been done. As the money left by her mother dwindled,
she had no anxiety, for she knew that the life she so tenderly cherished
would not outlast the gold which lengthened out the tenuous chain of
being. This last illness of her father’s had been the salvation of her
mind, the saving of her health. Maybe it had been the saving of her
soul; for at times a curious contempt of life came upon her--she who had
loved it so eagerly and fully. There descended on her then the bitter
conviction that never again would she see the man she loved. Then not
even Mrs. Flynn could call back “the fun o’ the world” to her step and
her tongue and her eye. At first there had been a timid shrinking,
but soon her father and herself were brighter and better for the old
Irishwoman’s presence, and she began to take comfort in Mrs. Flynn.
Mrs. Flynn gave hopefulness to whatever life she touched, and Rosalie,
buoyant and hopeful enough by nature, responded to the living warmth and
the religion of life in the Irishwoman’s heart.
“‘Tis worth the doin’, ivery bit of it, darlin’, the bither an’ the
swate, the hard an’ the aisy, the rough an’ the smooth, the good an’ the
bad,” said Mrs. Flynn to her this very Easter morning. “Even the avil
is worth doin’, if so be ‘twas not mint, an’ the good is in yer heart in
the ind, an’ ye do be turnip’ to the Almoighty, repentin’ an’ glad to
be aloive: provin’ to Him ‘twas worth while makin’ the world an’ you, to
want, an’ worry, an’ work, an’ play, an’ pick the flowers, an’ bleed o’
the thorns, an’ dhrink the sun, an’ ate the dust, an’ be lovin’ all the
way! Ah, that’s it, darlin’,” persisted Mrs. Flynn, “‘tis lovin’ all the
way makes it aisier. There’s manny kinds o’ love. There’s lad an’
lass, there’s maid an’ man. An’ that last is spring, an’ all the birds
singin’, an’ shtorms now an’ thin, an’ siparations, an’ misthrust, an’
God in hivin bein’ that aisy wid ye for bein’ fools an’ children, an’
bringin’ ye thegither in the ind, if so be ye do be lovin’ as man an’
maid should love, wid all yer heart. Thin there’s the love o’ man an’
wife. Shure, that’s the love that lasts, if it shtarts right. Shure,
it doesn’t always shtart wid the sun shinin.’ ‘Will ye marry me?’ says
Teddy Flynn to me. ‘I will,’ says I. ‘Then I’ll come back from Canaday
to futch ye,’ says he, wid a tear in his eye.
“‘For what’s a man in ould Ireland that has a head for annything but
puttaties! There’s land free in Canaday, an’ I’m goin’ to make a home
for ye, Mary,’ says he, wavin’ a piece of paper in the air. ‘Are ye,
thin?’ says I. He goes away that night, an’ the next mornin’ I have a
lether from him, sayin’ he’s shtartin’ that day for Canaday. He hadn’t
the heart to tell me to me face. Fwaht do I do thin? I begs, borrers,
an’ stales, an’ I reached that ship wan minnit before she sailed. There
was no praste aboord, but we was married six weeks afther at Quebec. And
thegither we lived wid ups an’ downs--but no ups an’ downs to the love
of us for twenty years, blessed be God for all His mercies!”
Rosalie had listened with eyes that hungrily watched every expression,
ears that weighed eagerly every inflection; for she was hearing the
story of another’s love, and it did not seem strange to her that a
woman, old, red-faced, and fat, should be telling it.
Yet there were times when she wept till she was exhausted; when all her
girlhood was drowned in the overflow of her eyes; when there was a
sense of irrevocable loss upon her. Then it was, in her fear of soul
and pitiful loneliness, that her lover--the man she would have died
for--seemed to have deserted her. Then it was that a sudden hatred
against him rose up in her--to be swept away as swiftly as it came by
the memory of his broken tale of love, his passionate words: “I have
never loved any one but you in all my life, Rosalie.” And also, there
was that letter from Chaudiere, which said that in the hour when the
greatest proof of his love must be given he would give it. Reading
the letter again, hatred, doubt, even sorrow, passed from her, and her
imagination pictured the hour when, disguise and secrecy ended, he would
step forward before all the world and say: “I take Rosalie Evanturel to
be my wife.” Despite the gusts of emotion that swayed her at times, in
the deepest part of her being she trusted him completely.
When she reached the hospital this Sunday afternoon her step was quick,
her smile bright--though she had not been to confession as was her duty
on Easter day. The impulse towards it had been great, but her secret was
not her own, and the passionate desire to give relief to her full heart
was overborne by thought of the man. Her soul was her own, but this
secret of their love was his as well as hers. She knew that she was the
only just judge between.
Soon after she entered the ward, the chief surgeon said that all that
could be done for her father had now been done, and that as M. Evanturel
constantly asked to be taken back to Chaudiere (he never said to die,
though they knew what was in his mind), he might now make the journey,
partly by river, partly by land. It seemed to the delighted and excited
Rosalie that Jo Portugais had been sent to her as a surprise, and that
his team of dogs was to take her father back.
She sat by her father’s bed this beautiful, wonderful Sunday afternoon,
and talked cheerfully, and laughed a little, and told M. Evanturel of
the dogs, and together they looked out of the window to the far-off
hills, in their golden purple, beyond which, in the valley of the
Chaudiere, was their little home. With her father’s hand in hers the
girl dreamed dreams again, and it seemed to her that she was the very
Rosalie Evanturel of old, whose thoughts were bounded by a river and a
hill, a post-office and a church, a catechism and a few score of books.
Here in the crowded city she had come to be a woman who, bitterly shaken
in soul, knew life’s sufferings; who had, during the past few months,
read with avidity history, poetry, romance, fiction, and the drama,
English and French; for in every one she found something that said: “You
have felt that.” In these long months she had learned more than she had
known or learned in all her previous life.
As she sat looking out into the eastern sky she became conscious
of voices, and of a group of people who came slowly down the ward,
sometimes speaking to the sick and crippled. It was not a general
visitors’ day, but one reserved for the few to come and say a kindly
word to the suffering, to bring some flowers and distribute books.
Rosalie had always been absent at this hour before, for she shrank from
strangers; but to-day she had stayed on unthinking. It mattered nothing
to her who came and went. Her heart was over the hills, and the only tie
she had here was with this poor cripple whose hand she held. If she
did not resent the visit of these kindly strangers, she resolutely held
herself apart from the object of their visit with a sense of distance
and cold dignity. If she had given Charley something of herself, she
had in turn taken something from him, something unlike her old self,
delicately non-intime. Knowledge of life had rationalised her emotions
to a definite degree, had given her the pride of self-repression. She
had had need of it in these surroundings, where her beauty drew not
a little dangerous attention, which she had held at arm’s-length--her
great love for one man made her invulnerable.
Now, as the visitors came near, she did not turn towards them, but still
sat, her chin on her hand, looking out across the hills, in resolute
abstraction. She felt her father’s fingers press hers, as if to draw her
attention, for he, weak man, was ever ready to open his hand and heart
to any friendly soul. She took no notice, but held his hand firmly, as
though to say that she had no wish to see.
She was conscious now that they were beside her father’s bed. She hoped
that they would pass. But no, the feet stopped, there was whispering,
and then she heard a voice say, “Rather rude!” then another, “Not
wanted, that’s plain!”--the first a woman’s, the second a man’s. Then
another voice, clear and cold, and well modulated, said to her father:
“They tell me you have been here a long time, and have had much pain.
You will be glad to go, I am sure.”
Something in the voice startled her. Some familiar sound or inflection
struck upon her ear with a far-off note, some lost tone she knew. Of
what, of whom, did this voice remind her? She turned round quickly and
caught two cold blue eyes looking at her. The face was older than her
own, handsome and still, and happy in a placid sort of way. Few gusts of
passion or of pain had passed across that face. The figure was shapely
to the newest fashion, the bonnet was perfect, the hand which held two
books was prettily gloved. Polite charity was written in her manner and
consecrated every motion. On the instant, Rosalie resented this fine
epitome of convention, this dutiful charity-monger, herself the centre
of an admiring quartet. She saw the whispering, she noted the well-bred
disguise of interest, and she met the visitor’s gaze with cold courtesy.
The other read the look in her face, and a slightly pacifying smile
gathered at her lips.
“We are glad to hear that your father is better. He has been ill a long
time?”
Rosalie started again, for the voice perplexed her--rather, not the
voice, but the inflection, the deliberation.
She bowed, and set her lips, but, chancing to glance at her father, she
saw that he was troubled by her manner. Flashing a look of love at him,
she adjusted the pillow under his head, and said to her questioner in a
low voice: “He is better now, thank you.”
Encouraged, the other rejoined: “May I leave one or two books for him
to read--or for you to read to him?” Then added hastily, for she saw a
curious look in Rosalie’s eyes: “We can have mutual friends in books,
though we cannot be friends with each other. Books are the go-betweens
of humanity.”
Rosalie’s heart leapt, she flushed, then grew slightly pale, for it
was not tone or inflection alone that disturbed her now, but words
themselves. A voice from over the hills seemed to say these things to
her. A haunting voice from over the hills had said them to her--these
very words.
“Friends need no go-betweens,” she said quietly, “and enemies should not
use them.”
She heard a voice say, “By Jove!” in a tone of surprise, as though it
were wonderful the girl from Chaudiere should have her wits about her.
So Rosalie interpreted it.
“Have you many friends here?” asked the cold voice, meant to be kindly
and pacific. It was schooled to composure, because it gave advantage in
life’s intercourse, not from any inner urbanity.
“Some need many friends, some but a few. I come from a country where one
only needs a few.”
“Where is your country, I wonder?” said the cold echo of another voice.
Charley had passed out of Kathleen’s life--he was dead to her, his
memory scorned and buried. She loved the man to whom she supposed she
was married; she was only too glad to let the dust of death and time
cover every trace of Charley from her gaze; she would have rooted out
every particle of association: yet his influence on her had been so
great that she had unconsciously absorbed some of his idiosyncrasies--in
the tone of his voice, in his manner of speaking. To-day she had even
repeated phrases he had used.
“Beyond the hills,” said Rosalie, turning away.
“Is it not strange?” said the voice. “That is the title of one of the
books I have just brought--‘Beyond the Hills’. It is by an English
writer. This other book is French. May I leave them?”
Rosalie inclined her head. It would make her own position less dignified
if she refused them. “Books are always welcome to my father,” she said.
There was an instant’s pause, as though the fashionable lady would offer
her hand; but their eyes met, and they only bowed. The lady moved on
with a smile, leaving a perfume of heliotrope behind her.
“Where is your country, I wonder?”--the voice of the lady rang in
Rosalie’s ears. As she sat at the window again, long after the visitors
had disappeared, the words, “I wonder--I wonder--I wonder!” kept beating
in her brain. It was absurd that this woman should remind her of the
tailor of Chaudiere.
Suddenly she was roused by her father’s voice. “This is beautiful--ah,
but beautiful, Rosalie!”
She turned towards him. He was reading the book in his hand--‘Beyond the
Hills’. “Listen,” he said, and he read, in English: “‘Compensation
is the other name for God. How often is it that those whom disease or
accident has robbed of active life find greater inner rejoicing and a
larger spiritual itinerary! It would seem that withdrawal from the ruder
activities gives a clearer seeing. Also for these, so often, is granted
a greater love, which comes of the consecration of other lives to
theirs. And these too have their reward, for they are less encompassed
by the vanities of the world, having the joy of self-sacrifice.’” He
looked at Rosalie with an unnatural brightness in his eyes, and she
smiled at him now and stroked his hand.
“It has been all compensation to me,” he said, after a moment. “You have
been a good daughter to me, Rosalie.”
She shook her head and smiled. “Good fathers think they have good
daughters,” she answered, choking back a sob.
He closed the book and let it lie upon the coverlet. “I will sleep now,”
he said, and turned on his side. She arranged his pillow, and adjusted
the bedclothes to his comfort.
“Good-night,” he said, as, with a faint hand, he drew her head down and
kissed her. “Good girl! Goodnight!”
She patted his hand. “It is not night yet, father.”
He was already half asleep. “Good-night!” he said again, and fell into a
deep sleep.
She sat down by the window, in her hand the book he had laid down. A
hundred thoughts were busy in her brain--of her father; of the woman who
had just left; of her lover over the hills. The woman’s voice came
to her again--a far-off mockery. She opened the book mechanically and
turned over the pages. Presently her eyes were riveted to a page. On it
was written the word Kathleen.
For a moment she sat transfixed. The word Kathleen and the haunting
voice became one, and her mind ran back to the day when she had said to
Charley: “Who is Kathleen?”
She sprang to her feet. What should she do? Follow the woman? Find out
who and what she was? Go to the young surgeon who had accompanied them,
ask him who she was, and so learn the clue to the mystery concerning her
lover?
In the midst of her confusion she became sharply conscious of two
things: the approach of Mrs. Flynn, and her father’s heavy breathing.
Dropping the book, she leaned over her father’s bed and looked closely
at him. Then she turned to the frightened and anxious Mrs. Flynn.
“Go for the priest,” she said. “He is dying.”
“I’ll send some one. I’m stayin’ here by you, darlin’,” said the old
woman, and hurried to the room of the young surgeon for a messenger.
As the sun went down, the cripple went out upon a long journey alone.