A SHEAF OF MEMORIES
It was over. The master of Barrow had been carried shoulder-high to the
great vault where countless Lovells slept their last sleep, the blinds
had been drawn up, letting in the wintry sunlight once again, and the
mourners had gone their ways. Only the new owner of the Court still
lingered, and even he would be leaving very soon now.
Sara, her slim, boyish build, with its long line of slender hip,
accentuated by the clinging black of her gown, moved listlessly across
the hall to where Major Durward was standing smoking by the big open
fire, waiting for the car which was to take him to the station.
He made as though to throw his cigarette away at her approach, but she
gestured a hasty negative.
“No, don't,” she said. “I like it. It seems to make things a little more
natural. Uncle Pat”--with a wan smile--“was always smoking.”
Her sombre eyes were shadowed and sad, and there was a pinched, drawn
look about her nostrils. Major Durward regarded her with a concerned
expression on his kindly face.
“You will miss him badly,” he said.
“Yes, I shall miss him,”--simply. She returned his glance frankly. “You
are very like him, you know,” she added suddenly.
It was true. The big, soldierly man beside her, with his jolly blue
eyes, grey hair, and short-clipped military moustache, bore a striking
resemblance to the Patrick Lovell of ten years ago, before ill-health
had laid its finger upon him, and during the difficult days that
succeeded her uncle's death Sara had unconsciously found a strange kind
of comfort in the likeness. She had dreaded inexpressibly the advent of
the future owner of Barrow, but, when he had arrived, his resemblance
to his dead cousin, and a certain similarity of gesture and of voice,
common enough in families, had at once established a sense of
kinship, which had deepened with her recognition of Durward's genuine
kind-heartedness and solicitude for her comfort.
He had immediately assumed control of affairs, taking all the inevitable
detail of arrangement off her shoulders, yet deferring to her as though
she were still just as much mistress of the Court as she had been before
her uncle's death. In every way he had tried to ease and smooth matters
for her, and she felt proportionately grateful to him.
“Then, if you think I'm like him,” said Durward gently, “will you let me
try to take his place a little? I mean,” he explained hastily, fearing
she might misunderstand him, “that you will miss his guardianship and
care of you, as well as the good pal you found in him. Will you let
me try to fill in the gaps, if--if you should want advice, or
service--anything over which a male man can be a bit useful? Oh----”
breaking off with a short, embarrassed laugh--“it is so difficult to
explain what I do mean!”
“I think I know,” said Sara, smiling faintly. “You mean that now that
Uncle Pat has gone, you don't want me to feel quite adrift in the
world.”
The big man, hampered by his masculine shyness of a difficult situation,
smiled back at her, relieved.
“Yes, that's it, that's it!” he agreed eagerly. “I want you to regard me
as a--a sort of sheet-anchor upon which you can pull in a storm.”
“Thank you,” said Sara. “I will. But I hope there won't be storms of
such magnitude that I shall need to pull very hard.”
Durward smoked furiously for a moment. Then he burst forth--
“You can't imagine what a brute I feel for turning you out of the Court.
I wish it need not be. But the Lovells have always lived at the old
place, and my wife--”
“Naturally.” She interrupted him gently. “Naturally, she wishes to live
here. I owe you no grudge for that,” smiling. “When--how soon do you
think of coming? I will make my arrangements accordingly.”
“We should like to come as soon as possible, really,” he admitted
reluctantly. “I have the chance of leasing Durward Park, if the tenant
can have what practically amounts to immediate possession. And of
course, in the circumstances, I should be glad to get the Durward
property off my hands.”
“Of course you would.” Sara nodded understandingly. “If you could let me
have a few days in which to find some rooms--”
“No, no,” he broke in eagerly. “I want you still to regard Barrow as
your headquarters--to stay on here with us until you have fixed some
permanent arrangement that suits you.”
She was touched by the kindly suggestion; nevertheless, she shook her
head with decision.
“It is more than kind of you to think of such a thing,” she said
gratefully. “But it is quite out of the question. Why, I am not even a
cousin several times removed! I have no claim at all. Mrs. Durward--”
“Will be delighted. She asked me to be sure and tell you so. Please,
Miss Tennant, don't refuse me. Don't”--persuasively--“oblige us to feel
more brutal interlopers than we need.”
Still she hesitated.
“If I were sure--” she began doubtfully.
“You may be--absolutely sure. There!”--with a sigh of relief--“that's
settled. But, as I can see you're the kind of person whose conscientious
scruples will begin to worry you the moment I'm gone”--he smiled--“my
wife will write to you. Promise not to run away in the meantime?”
“I promise,” said Sara. She held out her hand. “And--thank you.” Her
eyes, suddenly misty, supplemented the baldness of the words.
He took the outstretched hand in a close, friendly grip.
“Good. That's the car, I think,” as the even purring of a motor sounded
from outside. “I must be off. But it's only _au revoir_, remember.”
She walked with him to the door, and stood watching until the car was
lost in sight round a bend of the drive. Then, as she turned back into
the hall, the emptiness of the house seemed to close down about her all
at once, like a pall.
Amid the manifold duties and emergencies of the last few days she had
hardly had time to realize the immensity of her loss. Practical matters
had forcibly obtruded themselves upon her consideration--the necessity
of providing accommodation for the various relatives who had attended
the funeral, the frequent consultations that Major Durward, to all
intents and purposes a stranger to the ways of Barrow, had been obliged
to hold with her, the reading of the will--all these had combined
to keep her in a state of mental and physical alertness which had
mercifully precluded retrospective thought.
But now the necessity for _doing_ anything was past; there were no
longer any claims upon her time, nothing to distract her, and she had
leisure to visualize the full significance of Patrick's death and all
that it entailed.
Rather languidly she mounted the stairs to her own room, and drawing up
a low chair to the fire, sat staring absently into its glowing heart.
Virtually, she was alone in the world. Even Major Durward, who had been
so infinitely kind, was not bound to her by any ties other than those
forged of his own friendly feelings. True, he had been Patrick's cousin.
But Patrick, although he had made up Sara's whole world, had been
entirely unrelated to her.
Her heart throbbed with a sudden rush of intense gratitude towards the
man who had so amply fulfilled his trust as guardian, and she glanced
up wistfully at the big photograph of him which stood upon the
chimney-piece.
Propped against the photo-frame was a square white envelope on which
was written: _To be given to my ward, Sara Tennant, after my death_.
The family solicitor had handed it to her the previous day, after the
reading of the will, but the demands upon her time and attention had
been so many, owing to the number of relatives who temporarily filled
the house, that she had laid it on one side for perusal when she should
be alone once more.
The sight of the familiar handwriting brought a swift mist of tears to
her eyes, and she hesitated a little before opening the sealed envelope.
It was strange to realize that here was some message for her from
Patrick himself, but that no matter what the envelope might contain,
she would be able to give back no answer, make no reply. The knowledge
seemed to set him very far away from her, and for a few moments she
sobbed quietly, feeling utterly solitary and alone.
Presently she brushed the tears from her eyes and slit open the flap of
the envelope. Inside was a half-sheet of notepaper wrapped about a small
old-fashioned key, and on the outer fold was written: “_The key of the
Chippendale bureau_.” That was all.
For an instant Sara was puzzled. Then she remembered that amongst
Patrick's personal bequests to her had been that of the small mahogany
bureau which stood near the window of his bedroom. It had not occurred
to her at the time that its contents might have any interest for her; in
fact, she had supposed it to be empty. But now she realized that there
was evidently something within it which Patrick must have valued, seeing
he had guarded the key so carefully and directed its delivery to her
through the reliable hands of his solicitor.
Rather glad of anything that might help to occupy her thoughts, she
decided to investigate the bureau at once, and accordingly made her way
to Patrick's bedroom.
On the threshold she paused, her heart contracting painfully as the
spick and span aspect of the room, its ordered absence of any trace of
occupation, reminded her that its one-time owner would never again have
any further need of it.
Everything in the house seemed to present her grief to her anew, from
some fresh angle, forcing comparison of what had been with what was--the
wheeled chair, standing vacant in one of the lobbies, the tobacco
jar perched upon the chimney-piece, the pot of heliotrope--Patrick's
favourite blossom--scenting the library with its fragrance.
And now his room--empty, swept, and garnished like any one of the score
or so of spare bedrooms in the house!
With an effort, Sara forced herself to enter it. Crossing to the window,
she pulled a chair up to the Chippendale bureau and unlocked it.
Then she drew out the sliding desk supports and laid back the flap of
polished mahogany that served as a writing-table. She was conscious of
a fleeting sense of admiration for the fine-grained wood and for the
smooth “feel” of the old brass handles, worn by long usage, then her
whole attention was riveted by the three things which were all the
contents of the desk--a packet of letters, stained and yellowing with
age and tied together with a broad, black ribbon, a jeweller's velvet
case stamped with faded gilt lettering, and an envelope addressed to
herself in Patrick's handwriting.
Very gently, with that tender reverence we accord to the sad little
possessions of our dead, Sara gathered them up and carried them to her
own sitting-room. She felt she could not stay to examine them in that
strangely empty, lifeless room that had been Patrick's; the terrible,
chill silence of it seemed to beat against the very heart of her.
Laying aside the jeweller's case and the package of letters, she opened
the envelope which bore her name and drew out a folded sheet of paper,
covered with Patrick's small, characteristic writing. Impulsively she
brushed it with her lips, then, leaning back in her chair, began to
read, her expression growing curiously intent as she absorbed the
contents of the letter. Once she smiled, and more than once a sudden
rush of unbidden tears blurred the closely written lines in front of
her.
“When you receive this, little pal Sara”--ran the letter--“I shall have
done with this world. Except that it means leaving you, my dear, I shall
be glad to go, for I'm a very tired man. So, when it comes, you must try
not to grudge me my 'long leave.' But there are several things you ought
to know, and which I want you to know, yet I have never been able to
bring myself to speak of them to you. To tell you about them meant
digging into the past--and very often there is a hot coal lingering
in the heart of a dead fire that is apt to burn the fingers of whoever
rakes out the ashes. Frankly, then, I funked it. But now the time has
come when I can't put it off any longer.
“Little old pal, have you ever wondered why I loved you so much--why you
stood so close to my heart? I used to tease you and say it was because
we were no relation to each other, didn't I? If you had been really my
niece, proper respect (on your part, of course, for your aged uncle!)
and the barrier of a generation would have set us the usual miles apart.
But there was never anything of that with us, was there? I bullied you,
I know, when you needed it, but we were always comrades. And to me, you
were something more than a comrade, something almost sacred and always
adorable--the child of the woman I loved.
“For we should have been married, Sara, your mother and I, had I not
been a poor man. We were engaged, but at that time, I was only a younger
son, with a younger son's meager portion, and the prospect of my falling
heir to Barrow seemed of all things the most improbable. And Pauline
Malincourt, your mother, had been taught to abhor the idea of living
on small means--trained to regard her beauty and breeding as marketable
assets, to go to the highest bidder. For, although her parents came of
fine old stock--there's no better blood in England than the Malincourt
strain, my dear--they were deadly hard-up. So hard-up, that when they
died--as the result of a carriage accident which occurred a week after
Pauline's marriage--they left nothing behind them but debts which your
father liquidated.
“Of your father, Caleb Tennant, the millionaire, I will not write,
seeing that, after all, you are his child. It is enough to say that
he was a hard man, and that he and your mother led a very unhappy life
together, so unhappy that at last she left him, choosing rather to live
in utter poverty than remain with him. He never forgave her for leaving
him, and when he died, he willed every penny he possessed to some
scoundrelly cousin of his--who is presumably enjoying the inheritance
which should have been yours.
“That is your family history, my dear, and it is right that you should
know it--and know what you have to fight against. To be a Malincourt
is at once to have a curse and a blessing hung round your neck. The
Malincourts were originally of French extraction--descendants of the
_haute noblesse_ of old France--cursed with the devil's own pride and
passionate self-will, and blessed with looks and brains and charm above
the average. They never bend; they break sooner. And I think you've got
the lot, Sara--the full inheritance.
“Your mother was a true Malincourt. She could not bend, and when things
went awry, she broke.
“You must never think hardly of her, for she had been brought up in that
atmosphere of almost desperate pride which is too frequently the curse
of the poverty-stricken aristocrat. She made a ghastly mistake, and paid
for it afterwards every day of her life. And she was urged into it by
her father, who declined to recognize me in any way, and by her mother,
who made her life at home a simple hell--as a clever society woman can
make of any young girl's life if she chooses.
“Just before she died, she sent for me and gave you into my care,
begging me to shield you from spoiling your life as she had spoiled
hers.
“I've done what I could. You are at least independent. No one can drive
you with the spur of poverty into selling yourself, as she was driven.
But there are a hundred other rocks in life against which you may wreck
your happiness, and remember, in the long run, you sink or swim by your
own force of character.
“And when love comes to you, _as it will come_,--for no woman with your
eyes and your mouth ever yet lived a loveless life!--never forget
that it is the biggest thing in the world, the one altogether good and
perfect gift. Don't let any twopenny-halfpenny considerations of worldly
advantage influence you, nor the tittle-tattle of other folks, and
even if it seems that something insurmountable lies between you and the
fulfillment of love, go over it, or round it, or through it! If it's a
real love, your faith must be big enough to remove the mountains in the
way--or to go over them.
“The package of letters you will find in the bureau were those your
mother wrote to me during the few short weeks we belonged to each other.
I'm a sentimental old fool, and I've never been able to bring myself to
burn them. Will you do this for me?
“In the little velvet case you will find her miniature, which I give
to you. It is very like her--and like you, too, for you resemble her
wonderfully in appearance. Often, to look at you has made my heart ache;
sometimes it almost seemed as if the years had rolled back and Pauline
herself stood before me.
“And now that the order for release is on its way to me, it is rather
wonderful to reflect that in a few weeks--a few days, perhaps--I shall
be seeing her again. . . .
“Good-bye, little pal of mine. We've had some good times together,
haven't we?
“Your devoted, PATRICK.”
Sara sat very still, the letter clasped in her hand. She had always
secretly believed that some long-dead romance lay behind Patrick's
bachelorhood, but she had never suspected that her own mother had been
the woman he had loved.
The knowledge illumined all the past with a fresh light, investing it
with a tender, reminiscent sentiment. It was easy now to understand the
almost idyllic atmosphere Patrick had infused into their life together.
Sara recognized it as the outcome of a love and fidelity as beautiful
and devoted as it is rare. Patrick's love for her mother had partaken
of the enduring qualities of the great passions of history. Paolo and
Francesca, Abelard and Heloise--even they could have known no deeper, no
more lasting love than that of Patrick Lovell for Pauline.
The love-letters of the dead woman lay on Sara's lap, still tied
together with the black ribbon which Patrick's fingers must have knotted
round them. There were only six of them--half-a-dozen memories of a love
that had come hopelessly to grief--tangible memories which her lover had
never had the heart to destroy.
Sara handled them caressingly, these few, pathetic records of a bygone
passion, and at length, with hands that shook a little, she removed the
ribbon that bound them together. Where it had lain, preserving the strip
of paper beneath it from contact with the dust, bands of white traversed
the faint discoloration which time had worked upon the outermost
envelopes--mutely witnessing to the long years that had passed away
since the letters had been penned in the first rapturous glow of hot
young love.
Slowly, with a rather wistful sense of regret that it must needs be
done, Sara dropped them one by one, unread, into the fire, and watched
them flare up with a sudden spurt of flame, then curl and shrivel into
dead, grey ash--those last links with the romance of his youth which
Patrick had treasured so long and faithfully.
She wondered what manner of woman her mother could have been to inspire
so great a love that even her own unfaith had failed to sour it.
Her childish recollection, blurred by the passage of years, was of a
white-faced, rather haggard-looking woman with deep-set, haunted
eyes and a bitter mouth, but whose rare smile, when it came, was so
enchanting that it wiped out, for the moment, all remembrance of the
harsh lines which hardened her face when in repose.
With eager hands the girl picked up the little velvet case that held the
miniature, and snapped open the lid. The painting within, rimmed in old
paste, was of a girl in her early twenties. The face was oval, with a
small, pointed chin and a vivid red mouth, curling up at the corners.
There was little colour in the cheeks, and the black hair and
extraordinarily dark eyes served to enhance the creamy pallor of the
skin. It was not altogether an English face; the cheek-bones were too
high, and there was a definiteness of colouring, a decisive sharpness
of outline in the piquant features, not often found in a purely English
type.
Seen thus, the face looked strangely familiar to Sara, and yet no memory
of hers could recall her mother as she must have been at the time this
portrait was painted.
The miniature still in her hand, she moved hesitatingly to a mirror, so
placed that the light from the window fell full upon her as she faced
it. In a moment the odd sense of familiarity was explained. There,
looking back at her from the mirror, was the same sharply angled face,
the same warm ivory pallor of complexion, accentuated by raven hair and
black, sombre eyes. What was it Patrick had written? “_No woman with
your eyes and your mouth ever yet lived a loveless life._”
With a curious deliberation, Sara examined the features in question. The
eyes were long, and the lids, opaquely white and fringed with jet-black
lashes, slanted downwards a little at the outer corners, bestowing a
curiously intense expression, such as one sometimes sees in the eyes of
an actor, and the mouth was the same vividly scarlet mouth of the face
in the miniature, at once passionate and sensitive.
The French strain in the Malincourt family had reproduced itself
indubitably, both in the appearance of Pauline and of Pauline's
daughter. Would the mother's tragedy, fruit of her singular charm and of
a pride which had accorded love but a secondary place in her scheme of
life, also be re-enacted in the case of the daughter? It seemed almost
as though Patrick must have had pre-vision of some like fiery ordeal
though which his “little old pal” might have to pass, so urgent had been
the warning he had uttered.
Sara shivered, as if she, too, felt a prescience of coming disaster. It
was as though a shadow had fallen across her path, a shadow of which the
substance lay hidden, shrouded in the mists which veil the future.