"Vous avez bien froid, la belle;
Comment vous appelez-vous?
Les amours et les yeux doux
De nos cercueils sont les clous.
Je suis la morte, dit-elle.
Cueillez la branche de houx."
VICTOR HUGO.
As John lay impatiently patient upon his bed in the round oak-panelled
room at Overleigh during the weeks that followed his accident, his
thoughts by day, and by night, varied no more than the notes of a
chaffinch in the trees outside.
"Oh, let the solid earth
Not fail beneath my feet,
Before I too have found
What some have found so sweet!"
That was the one constant refrain. The solid earth had nearly failed
beneath his feet, nearly--nearly. If the world might but cohere together
and not fly off into space; if body and soul might but hold together
till he had seen Di once more, till he knew for certain from her own
lips that she loved him! Unloved by any woman until now, wistfully
ignorant of woman's tenderness, even of its first alphabet learned at a
mother's knee, unread in all its later language,--in these days of
convalescence a passionate craving was upon him to drink deep of that
untasted cup which "some have found so sweet."
He had Mitty, and Mitty at least was radiantly happy during these weeks,
with John fast in bed, and in a condition to dispense with other nursing
than hers. She sat with him by the hour together, mending his socks and
shirts, for she would not suffer any one to touch his clothes except
herself, and discoursing to him about Di--a subject which she soon
perceived never failed to interest him.
"Miss Dinah," Mitty would say for the twentieth time, but without
wearying her audience--"now, there's a fine upstanding lady for my
lamb."
"Lady Alice Fane is very pretty, too," John would remark, with the happy
knack of self-concealment peculiar to the ostrich and the sterner sex.
"Hoots!" Mitty replied. "She's nothing beside Miss Dinah. If you have
Lady Fane with her silly ways, and so snappy to her maid, you'll repent
every hair of your head. You take Miss Dinah, my dear, as is only
waiting to be asked. She wants you, my precious," Mitty never failed to
add. "I tell you it's as plain as the nose on your face" (a simile the
force of which could not fail to strike him). "It's not that Lord
Hemstitch, for all his pretty looks. It's _you_."
And John told himself he was a fool, and then secretly felt under the
pillow for a certain pencilled note which Di had left with the doctor on
her hurried departure to London the morning after the ice carnival. It
had been given to him when he was able to read letters. It was a short
note. There was very little in it, and a great deal left out. It did not
even go over the page. But nevertheless John was so very foolish as to
keep it under his pillow, and when he was promoted to his clothes it
followed into his pocket. Even the envelope had a certain value in his
eyes. Had not her hand touched it, and written his name upon it?
Lindo and Fritz, who had been consumed with ennui during John's illness,
were almost as excited as their master when he hobbled, on Mitty's arm,
into the morning-room for luncheon. Lindo was aweary of sediments of
beef-tea and sticks of toast. Fritz, who had had a plethora of whites of
poached eggs, sniffed anxiously at the luncheon-tray with its roast
pheasant.
There were tricks and Albert biscuits after luncheon, succeeded by heavy
snoring on the hearthrug.
John was almost as delighted as they were to leave his sick-room. It was
the first step towards going to London. When should he wring permission
from his doctor to go up on "urgent business"? Five days, seven days?
Surely in a week at latest he would see Di again. He made a little
journey round the room to show himself how robust he was becoming, and
wound up the old watches lying in the _blue du roi_ Sevres tray, making
them repeat one after the other, because Di had once done so. Would Di
make this her sitting-room? It was warm and sunny. Perhaps she would
like the outlook across the bowling-green and low ivy-coloured
balustrade away to the moors. It had been his mother's sitting-room. His
poor mother. He looked up at the pretty vacant face that hung over the
fireplace. He had looked at it so often that it had ceased to make any
definite impression on him.
He wondered vaguely whether the happy or the unhappy hours had
preponderated in this room in which she was wont to sit, the very
furniture of which remained the same as in her quickly finished day. And
then he wondered whether, if she had lived, Di would have liked her; for
it was still early in the afternoon, and he had positively nothing to
do.
He tried to write a few necessary letters in the absence of Mitty, who
was busy washing his handkerchiefs, but he soon gave up the attempt. The
exertion made his head ache, as he had been warned it would, so he
propelled himself across the room to his low chair by the window.
What should he do till teatime? If only he had asked Mitty for a bit of
wash-leather he might have polished up the brass slave-collar in the
Satsuma dish. He took it up and turned it in his hands. It was a heavy
collar enough, with the owner's name engraved thereon. "Roger Tempest,
1698."
"It must have galled him," said John to himself; and he took up the gag
next, and put it into his mouth, and then had considerable difficulty in
getting it out again. What on earth should he do with himself till
teatime?
One of the bits of Venetian glass standing in the central niche of the
lac cabinet at his elbow had lost its handle. He got up to examine it,
and, thinking the handle might have been put aside within, pushed back
the glass in the centre of the niche, which, as in so many of its
species, shut off a small enclosed space between the tiers of drawers.
The glass door and its little pillars opened inwards, but not without
difficulty. It was clogged with dust. The handle of the Venetian glass
was not inside. There was nothing inside but a little old, old, very
old, glue-bottle, standing on an envelope, and a broken china cup beside
it, with the broken bits in it. The hand that had put them away so
carefully to mend, on a day that never came, was dust. They remained.
John took out the cup. It matched one that stood in the picture-gallery.
The pieces seemed to be all there. He began to fit them together with
the pleased interest of a child. He had really found something to do at
last. At the bottom of the cup was a key. It was a very small key, with
a large head, matching the twisted handles of the drawers.
This was becoming interesting. John put down the cup, and fitted the key
into the lock of one of the drawers. Yes, it was the right one. He
became quite excited. Half the cabinets in the house were locked, and
would not open; of some he had found the keys by diligent search, but
the keys of others had never turned up. Here was evidently one.
The key turned with difficulty, but still it did turn, and the drawer
opened. The dust had crept over everything--over all the faded silks and
bobbins and feminine gear, of which it was half full. John disturbed it,
and then sneezed till he thought he should kill himself. But he survived
to find among the tangle of work a tiny white garment half made, with
the rusted needle still in it. He took it out. What was it? Dolls'
clothing? And then he realized that it was a little shirt, and that his
mother had probably been making it for him and had not had time to
finish it. John held the baby's shirt that he ought to have worn in a
very reverent hand, and looked back at the picture. That bit of
unfinished work, begun for him, seemed to bring her nearer to him than
she had ever been before. Yes, it was hers. There was her ivory workbox,
with her initials in silver and turquoise on it, and her small gold
thimble had rolled into a corner of the drawer. John put back the little
remnant of a love that had never reached him into the drawer with a
clumsy gentleness, and locked it up. "I will show it Di some day," he
said.
The other drawers bore record. There were small relics of girlhood--ball
cards, cotillon ribbons, a mug with "Marion Fane" inscribed in gold on
it, a slim book on confirmation. "One of darling Spot's curls" was
wrapped in tissue-paper. John did not even know who Spot was, except
that from the appearance of the lock he had probably been a black
retriever. Her childish little possessions touched John's heart. He
looked at each one, and put it tenderly back.
Some of the drawers were empty. In some were smart note-paper with faded
networks of silver and blue initials on them. In another was an
ornamental purse with money in it and a few unpaid bills. John wondered
what his mother would have been like now if she had lived. Her sister,
Miss Fane, had a weakness for gorgeous note-paper and smart work-baskets
which he had often regarded with astonishment. It had never struck him
that his mother might have had the same tastes.
He opened another drawer. More fancy-work, a ball of silk half wound on
a card, a roll of vari-coloured embroidery, and, thrust in among them, a
half-opened packet of letters. The torn cover which still surrounded
them was addressed to Mrs. Tempest, Overleigh Castle, Yorkshire.
Inside the cover was a loose sheet which fell apart from the packet,
tied up separately. On it was written, in a large cramped hand that John
knew well--
"I dare say you are wise in your generation to prefer to break with me.
'Tout lasse,' and then naturally 'on se range.' I return your letters as
you wish it, and as you have been kind enough to burn mine already, I
will ask you to commit this last effusion to the flames."
The paper was without date or signature.
John opened the packet, which contained many letters, all in one
handwriting, which he recognized as his mother's. He read them one by
one, and, as he read, the pity in his face gave place to a white
indignation. Poor foolish, foolish letters, to be read after a lapse of
eight and twenty years. John realized how very silly his poor mother had
been; how worldly wise and selfish some one else had been.
"We ought to have been married, darling," said one of the later letters,
dated from Overleigh, evidently after her marriage with Mr. Tempest. "I
see now we ought. You said you were too poor, and you could not bear to
see me poor; but I would not have minded that one bit--did not I tell
you so a hundred times? I would have learnt to cook and mend clothes and
everything if only I might have been with you. It is much worse now,
feeling my heart is breaking and yours too, and Fate keeping us apart.
And you must not write to me any more now I am married, or me to you. It
is not right. Mother would be vexed if she knew; I am quite sure she
would. So this is the very last to my dearest darling Freddie, from poor
Marion."
Alas! there were many, many more from "poor Marion" after the very last;
little vacillating, feeble, gilt-edged notes, with every other word
under-dashed; some short and hurried, some long and reproachful; sad
landmarks of each step of a blindfold wandering on the brink of the
abyss, clinging to the hand that was pushing her over.
The last letter was a very long one.
"You have no heart," wrote the pointed, slanting handwriting. "You do
not care what I suffer. I do not believe now you ever cared. You say it
would be an act of folly to tell my husband, but you know I was always
silly. But it is not necessary. I am sure he knows. I feel it. He says
nothing, but I know he knows. Oh, if I were only dead and in my grave,
and if only the baby might die too, as I hope it will, as I pray to God
it will! If I die and it lives, I don't know what will happen to it.
Remember, if he casts it off, it is your child. Oh, Freddie, surely it
can't be all quite a mistake. You were fond of me once, before you made
me wicked, and when I am dead you won't feel so angry and impatient with
me as you do now. And if the child lives and has no friend, you will
remember it is yours, won't you? I am so miserable that I think God will
surely let me die. And the child may come any day now. Last night I felt
so ill that I dared not put off any longer, and this morning I burned
all your letters to me, every one, even the first about the white
violets. Do you remember that letter? It is so long ago now; no, you
have forgotten. It is only I who remember, because it was only I who
cared. And I burned the locket you gave me with your hair in it. It felt
like dying to burn it. Everything is all quite gone. But I can't rest
until you have sent me back my letters. I can't trust you to burn them.
I know what trusting to you means. Send them all back to me, and I will
burn them myself. Only be quick, be quick; there is so little time. If
they come when I am ill, some one else may read them. I hope if I live I
shall never see your face again; and if I die, I hope God will keep you
away from me. Oh! I don't mean it, Freddie, I don't mean it; only I am
so miserable that I don't know what I write. God forgive you. I would
too if I thought you cared whether I did or not. God forgive us
both.--M."
* * * * *
John looked back at the cover of the packet. The Overleigh postmark was
blurred but legible. June the 8th, and the year----. _It was his
birthday._
Her lover had sent back her letters, then, with those few harsh lines
telling her she was wise in her generation. Even the last he had
returned. And they had reached her on the morning of the day her child
was born. Had it been a sunny day, with no fire on the hearth before
which Lindo and Fritz now lay stretched, into which she could have
dropped that packet? Had she not had time even to burn them? She had
glanced at them, evidently. Had she been interrupted, and had she thrust
them for the moment with her work into that drawer?
Futile inquiry. He should never know. And she had had her wish. She had
been allowed to die, to hide herself away in the grave. John's heart
swelled with sorrowing pity as at the sight of a child's suffering. She
had been very little more. She should have her other wish, too.
He gathered up the letters, and, stepping over the dogs, dropped them
into the heart of the fire. They were in the safe keeping of the flames
at last. They reached their destination at last, but, a little
late--twenty-eight years too late.
And suddenly, as he watched them burn, like a thunderbolt falling and
tearing up the ground on which he stood, came the thought, "Then I am
illegitimate."
* * * * *
The minute-hand of the clock on the mantelpiece had made a complete
circuit since John had dropped the letters into the fire, yet he had not
stirred from the armchair into which he had staggered the moment
afterwards.
His fixed eyes looked straight in front of him. His lips moved at
intervals.
"I am illegitimate," he said to himself, over and over again.
But no, it was a nightmare, an hallucination of illness. How many
delusions he had had during the last few weeks! He should wake up
presently and find he had been torturing himself for nothing. If only
Mitty would come back! He should laugh at himself presently.
In the mean while, and as it were in spite of himself, certain facts
were taking a new significance, were arranging themselves into an
unexpected, horrible sequence. Link joined itself to link, and
lengthened to a chain.
He remembered his father's evident dislike of him; he remembered how
Colonel Tempest had contested the succession when he died. As he had
lost the case, John had supposed, when he came to an age to suppose
anything, that the slander was without foundation, especially as Mr.
Tempest had recognized him as his son. He had known of its existence, of
course, but, like the rest of the world, had half forgotten it. That
Lord Frederick Fane (evidently the Freddie of the letters) was even his
supposed father, had never crossed his mind. If he was like the Fanes,
why should he not be so? He might as naturally resemble his mother's as
his father's family. He recalled Colonel Tempest's inveterate dislike of
him, Archie's thankless reception of anything and everything he did for
him.
"I believe," said John, in astonished recollection of divers passages
between himself and them--"I believe they think I know all the time, and
am deliberately keeping them out."
That, then, was the reason why Mr. Tempest had not discarded him. To
recognize him as his son was his surest means of striking at the hated
brother who came next in the entail.
"I was made use of," said John, grinding his teeth.
It was no use fighting against it. This hideous, profane incredibility
was the truth. Even without the letters to read over again he knew it
was true.
"Remember, if he casts it out, it is your child." The long-dead lips
still spoke. His mother had pronounced his doom herself.
"I am illegitimate," said John to himself. And he remembered Di and hid
his face in his hands, while his mother simpered at him from the wall.
The solid earth had failed beneath his feet.
Let us beware how we sin, inasmuch as by God's decree we do not pay. We
could almost conceive a right to do as we will, if we could keep the
penalty to ourselves, and pay to the uttermost farthing. But not from
us is the inevitable payment required. The young, the innocent, the
unborn, smart for us, are made bankrupt for us; from them is exacted the
deficit which we have left behind. The sins of the fathers are visited
on the children heavily--heavily.