XXIII

Pulling out the heavy curtain, Laurence paused, for an unwonted sound

saluted his ears, to which, at first, they refused credence. He opened

the door quietly. The sound continued. The keys of the piano were struck

so softly that they gave forth little more than the echo of a melody.

His fairy-lady sat at the instrument; and, so absorbed was she in the

making of this dainty music, that the young man had crossed the room and

leaned his elbows on the edge of the flat piano-case opposite to her

before she looked up at him. Nor, meeting his eyes, did she leave

playing, but let her fingers still draw forth that procession of slender

phrases from the discoloured, ivory notes--phrases not only exquisitely

refined, but with a tremulous _coquetterie_ in them, the music of some

polite and graceful minuet, in which Boucher's fine fanciful, little

figures of lover and mistress, courtier and prince, painted upon the

satin-wood escritoire, might have moved and postured, with a hundred

pretty arts and invitations at the court of Louis the Fifteenth, over a

century ago.

The fine-drawn, little melody, and all its suggestions of past

intrigues, heart-burnings, elegant if questionable joys, and luxurious

living, knocked at the door of the listener's heart with rather perilous

pathos, notwithstanding his stern humour. Agnes Rivers's eyes too, as

she looked steadily at him, were at once grave with thought and

beseeching as those of a child, covetous of a possible pleasure, yet

ready to swallow its poor tears should that pleasure be denied. Her lips

were parted, but she did not speak. She only gazed and gazed at

him--while still calling forth those frail and courteous harmonies--as

though she sought to penetrate the most hidden recesses of his nature.

And all this worked strongly upon Laurence, stirring in him memories of

just such hot evenings, when, with windows set wide upon the fragrant

garden, and the wild brightness of the summer lightning pulsing--as

now--upon the far horizon, they had sat together making music, she and

he, nearly a hundred years back. That first love of theirs had been

shattered by cruel calamity of wounds and death. It had never found its

consummation; and now the ache of its frustration was added to the ache

of the present--of his passion so strongly held in check during the last

many weeks; of his long-sustained effort, now touching on attainment; of

his so recently made resolution to let honour go by the wall rather than

again be defrauded of his love.

At length he could no longer endure the playful, yet in a way tragical,

music, nor the sustained scrutiny of those grave yet wistful eyes.

"That's enough, Agnes; that's enough," he cried, and, leaning across the

case of the piano, laid hold on her hands and raised them off the

keyboard. And as he did so the blood leapt in his veins, for the fact

was no longer open to question--those hands were firm and softly warm as

a living woman's hand should be, and the clasp of them met and clung in

his. He drew her up, making the sweet musician stand opposite to him,

while, bending down, he kissed and kissed those dear, warm hands,

looking at her, his face on a level with hers. And as he did so her

cheeks lost their waxen pallor and became beautifully flushed with clear

colour, while--so it seemed to him--he could hear the beating of her

heart. And thus for a space they stood speechless, consumed by a very

ecstasy of love.

Laurence was the first to break that enchanted silence. For he was

feverish to complete the working of the miracle--to establish her in

this earthly life upon which she was re-entering, to chain her spirit to

this recovered human body by some corporeal act. He was feverish to set

a seal upon her new condition, which it should not be possible for her

to evade or to break.

"The perfect hour has come," he said, with fierce exultation. "Do you

understand what has happened? You asked me once what was lacking. Well,

that which was lacking has been restored to you. But it won't do to rest

here. We must go on, go forward, so as to make security doubly secure."

Yet she sighed, turning her face away and gently releasing her hands

from his grasp.

"Ah! the perfect hour has come--yes," she said. "But, dear Laurence, it

came once before, and, remember, along with it came the call for you to

depart. Sorrow trod hard on the heels of joy; and I fear--how can I do

otherwise?--lest it should do so again to-night."

Laurence felt his throat go dry and his lips stiffen, so that speech did

not come quite readily.

"It lies with you to prevent that catastrophe," he answered. "Only be

brave. Do as I ask you, and we can put all fear behind us for ever and a

day. All the world may call me; I shall not go. It may howl at me, even,

using foul names; but what does that matter? I have chosen. I abide by

my choice."

As he spoke she moved a little further from him, while the thunder

growled and muttered in the north, and the lightning showed fitfully, as

with the glare of a burning town, low down in the night sky.

"What has taken you, Laurence?" she asked. "You are strange in manner

and in voice. I hardly know you thus. Yet indeed I would do anything you

ask, however difficult, if that which you would have me do is not in

itself sinful or wrong."

"And this is right," he declared; "incontestably, everlastingly right.

Indeed, it is little more than bare justice--the restitution of that

which was once ours, the paying of a long-owed debt. In past years

happiness was snatched from us by jealous fate. Fate has

repented--though late--and gives us back our happiness. We should be

fools not to take it."

He stood by her holding out his hand, his eyes alight as with a dull

flame, the determination of conquest very forceful in him.

"See," he said hoarsely, "I have loved you back into life again, Agnes;

and so your life belongs to me as no woman's life has ever belonged to a

man before. That which I ask, you must do; for, believe me, I comprehend

this matter and all the issues of it best."

He led her towards the door and she came meekly, yet with a certain

wonder and reserve in her bearing, as one who ponders and questions

silently even while they obey. He threw the door wide open revealing

the back of the leather-lined curtain. But on the threshold she

hesitated and drew back.

"I have never crossed this," she said with gentle decision. "I cannot

cross it."

"But you must cross it," he answered, "or all is lost."

A strong shuddering ran through her. The corners of her sweet mouth

turned down and quivered, while her hand grew very cold.

"Ah, me! ah, me! my love," she cried, "then I fear indeed all must needs

be lost. For to cross this threshold is to force some barrier which I

have neither the strength or the right to force. I do not know its name,

but it is ancient and venerable, and forbids my passage with authority."

"All the more shall you force it then," Laurence replied. "Just now,

sweetheart, I tell you I admit no authority but my own. And barriers are

made to be forced, that's the use of them. The more apparently ancient

and venerable, the more must they go; so that the new may supersede the

decrepit and old, truth may supersede superstition, hope fear, and the

living the dead."

He laughed a little, partly in defiance of that more sane and modest

self of his, with whom for the time being he had parted company, partly

to rally his dear companion's courage, and compel her faltering steps.

"Come," he said; "don't I love you better than my own soul? Would I, of

all men, do you any injury, do you think? Surely you can trust

me--come."

But still that strong shuddering ran through her and she hung back. Then

Laurence lost patience.

"You foolish child," he said, "you are very much a woman. Your words are

so wise; yet you prove so weak in action and scare yourself with

self-invented terrors."

He set his back against the heavy curtain, pushing it outward. Then he

took her delicate body in his arms, lifted her over the threshold, and

set her feet on the crimson carpet of the sombre and stately corridor

without. The curtain swept back into its place across the door with a

dull thud, which mingled ominously with the muttering thunder. Against

the panes of the long range of windows the lightning peeped and

flickered, as in malicious curiosity of that going forward within,

while the Roman emperors looked on, supercilious, impassive, with

sightless, marble eyes. His fairy-lady's delicate body had been light as

a feather, so light that, lifting it, Laurence had trembled lest it

should slip out of his encircling arms, as the little summer winds might

slip should one strive to embrace them; and yet that same lifting of her

had taxed every muscle in his frame, and set his heart thumping like a

steam hammer. It was the very oddest sensation, suggesting that there

was something very much more than a narrow piece of polished, oak

flooring and deep, pile carpet to lift her across. He stood now,

breathless, singularly shaken by the effort, notwithstanding his natural

vigour and physical strength--shaken, yet triumphant.

"There, my beloved," he cried, "there! It's not such a very dangerous

experiment after all, you see, to go out at an open door!--And now you

are redeemed from slavery, free to range the pleasant earth at will and

accept all the glad chances of it."

But she shrunk against him, trembling, all her pretty pride humbled,

like that of a little child detected in a fault. Her countenance had

become shy and wild, moreover, and clear reason had ceased to sit

enthroned in her serious and lovely eyes. She looked now, as she had

looked on the night he first found her flitting to and fro in the yellow

parlour, searching, searching, vainly and hopelessly, for the lost key

of the satin-wood escritoire. And Laurence, seeing her thus, was smitten

with self-reproach and alarm. Was it possible that, along with the

restoration of her body, had returned that alienation of mind from

which--as he had learned from her own testimony, and from the

well-authenticated tradition of Armstrong, the agent--she had formerly

and so pitifully suffered? As more than once before, an immense

compassion filled the young man; so that, coaxing her, and using tender

and endearing names--such as even the wisest of lovers weakly decline

upon at times--he half-led, half-carried her past the doorways of all

those brightly-lighted, silent rooms, through the square hall--its

flying staircase gleaming upward step above step--until finally the

dining-room was reached.

Here the musky odour of the tiger-coloured orchids met them, with the

effect, as it seemed, of a presence rather than a scent. It was full of

subtle suggestions, that seeming presence, wooing them with insidious

provocations of sense to partake of the mysterious, sacramental feast

set out before them--a feast designed to wed, irrevocably, the sweet

spirit to its so lately recovered body, and rivet upon it once again not

only the natural joys, but the inevitable cares and pains, all the

grievous burdens of mortal life.

The cloth had been withdrawn and upon the dark surface of the bare

table, doubled by vertical reflections, a service of costly china,

antique silver, and fine glass, was spread. Rare wines filled the

long-necked bottles and quaint high-shouldered decanters; while the

painted and gilded dishes held velvet-skinned, hot-house peaches,

red-gold nectarines, little black Italian figs, and pyramids of fragrant

strawberries set in a fringe of fresh and lustrous leaves. The loaf of

white bread was there also, a simple and humble item offering something

of contrast to its ornate surroundings.

Laurence placed his fairy-lady in the carven armchair at the head of the

table. Seated there, her slight figure, in its high-waisted, rose-red,

silken gown and transparent lace and muslin cape, looked singularly

youthful and fragile. Her graceful head and white throat showed up

against the dark panelling of the wall. Her hands rested languidly upon

the arms of her chair. The corners of her mouth still quivered, and her

eyes were wide with inarticulate distress. And all the while, opposite

to her, in at the windows at the far end of the room, the lightning,

away there in the north, peeped evilly and flickered, and sometimes

glared, a broad sheet of pale flame, behind the blackness of the distant

woods crowning the rounded hills.

Laurence stood close beside her. He filled her glass with wine and

placed fruit upon her plate, speaking to her very gently; possessed,

meanwhile, by an adoration of her extreme and pensive beauty, a great

resolution to complete his work in respect of her, and a distrust lest

that work was going sorely amiss. But though he did his best to secure

her attention, for many minutes she neither moved nor uttered any sound.

"See, dear love," the young man pleaded--"see, I have made you a dainty

supper. Remember, this is the first time I ask you to eat a meal in my

house. You were Dudley's guest often enough in old days, and did not

refuse what was set before you. Surely it is pleasanter to you to be my

guest than his? So do not wander off, even for a little while, to walk

those dim and dreary interspaces between two worlds. All that is over.

Don't become intangible and remote, or yield yourself to malign

influences which would enthrall you and draw you away. Lay hold of your

womanhood, sweetheart; and let human love wrap you about, and keep you

safe and warm. There is nothing, nothing in all this to fear, if you

will but believe me. Eat, my beloved, you have fasted long. You have

come from very far--how far heaven only knows! You are faint and weary

with the length of the way. Therefore eat, drink--let your body be

refreshed and let your heart grow glad."

And presently, while he thus encouraged her, slowly, as one who shakes

off the torpor of exhaustion, she stretched, sitting very upright in the

great, high-backed chair. The distress and desolation of her expression

began to give place to a gentle curiosity. She looked at the costly

furnishings of the table, the dancing, golden figures in their flowing

robes, the fantastic flowers, the delicious fruits; fingered a silver

spoon, and seeing her own reflection in the bowl of it, quaintly

distorted, smiled. Then suddenly putting up both hands and covering her

face she gave a quick, little sneeze--sign in the East of Life, but in

the West precursor of Death. Of whichever the sign in the present case,

incontestible it was, that, with this same little sneeze a change was

perceptible in her, which her lover noting, hailed as indicative of

success. So he urged her yet more.

"Yes, my beloved, you are tired," he said; "and it is so long since you

have sat at table in this room, that very simple things appear

perplexing to you. But that's a small matter. The old habits will soon

re-assert themselves, and all be natural and obvious enough. For in the

coming days I intend we shall very constantly sit here together, you and

I; and perhaps others will sit here with us as time goes on"--Laurence

paused, his voice shook a little--"our children, fair girls and handsome

lads, whom we shall greatly love, and in whose youth our own youth will

live again. But to secure all that, Agnes, you must eat and drink now in

plain, honest fashion, sleep sound of nights, wake in the kindly

sunshine, put morbid fears and fancies far from you and grow strong. You

are compounded of too tenuous and sublimated stuff for motherhood as

yet. Therefore eat, dear love. Delay no longer. The hours run on towards

the morning and this matter must be assured before the morning comes. Do

not be wayward. In the name of your love for me, and of all your

sorrows, I entreat you, eat and be strong!"

Once again she covered her face with her hand and gave a quick, little

sneeze. Then looking full at him, she smiled, though somewhat sadly.

"Let it be even as you wish," she said very meekly. "Give me bread."

Laurence, mightily rejoicing, cut the loaf, and placed the bread upon

her plate. Tremblingly, as though putting a great force upon herself,

she broke it into little pieces, carried one to her lips, then laid it

back beside the others on her plate; next stretched out her hand for

the glass of wine her lover held towards her, but shook her head, and

set it down untasted. While he, eager to the point of desperation, yet

dreading in any way to affright her and so defeat his own ends, fell to

coaxing her once more, with a certain playful seriousness.

"See here," he said, "learn by experience. The threshold which you

declared impassable was very easily crossed. And this affair of your

little supper is exactly parallel. You are the victim of your own

imagination. What after all holds you back?"

Once more she essayed valiantly to obey him; but once more laid the

morsel of bread down on her plate. The thunder rolled from east to west

along the northern heights, and the lightning flickered; but both had

grown faint and very distant, while a soft, cool air wandered in at the

open window, dispelling the clinging and insidious odour of the orchids,

purifying the heavy atmosphere of the room, and lightly stirring the

little lace frills of Agnes Rivers's muslin cape.

"What after all holds you back?" he demanded, with some agitation. For

that cool draw of air, though pleasant, affected him unexpectedly. It

appeared to blow across the valley from Stoke Rivers churchyard, where,

in the spring morning three months before, he had watched the little

shadows cast by the feathery branches of the age-old yew-trees dance and

beckon among the grass-grown graves.

But his fairy-lady pushed her plate aside. All her gentle dignity had

returned to her, and a wisdom born of knowledge more profound than that

granted to most human creatures sat once again enthroned in her eyes.

There was an effulgence in her loveliness which almost awed him, yet she

did that which during all their intercourse she had never done before.

Calmly, fearlessly, and as of right, she put up her sweet lips and

kissed him.

"This holds me back," she said, "that at last all the confusion which

oppressed my mind is gone, and that I understand who and what I am. I

have striven, and ah! how gladly would I have proved victorious in that

strife, for all my heart goes forth in natural desire, not only to obey

your dear wishes, but to secure to myself those things which your wishes

would bring. I perceive that to eat is to live, not the shadowy,

unrelated life of a disembodied spirit, divorced from the activities of

earth, yet--by some inherent wilfulness--still so wedded to earth that

it cannot enter the peaceful regions of the Faithful Departed. To eat is

to live, as you live--and rightly--in the shock and tumult of the world;

to love as you love--needs must, dear heart--with all the passions of

the unstable flesh, as well as the pure and immutable passion of the

soul. I have dallied too long with temptation, and in my weakness

brought sorrow on you--perhaps worse than sorrow, disgrace. But the

temptation was so potent, the promise of it so enchanting, that, until

to-night, I had not grasped its full significance and scope. As to our

first mother Eve, ages back, in the mystic garden, so to me to-night to

eat, O my love, is sin!"

Laurence straightened himself up, and all the fierceness, the

relentlessness of his race, stiffened itself within him; yet he kept

himself in hand because love still was paramount to all other emotions.

"And if it be sin, it is too late to vex ourselves about that. You have

forced the barrier after all. The curtain, which closes the entrance to

your not very cheerful Eden, has swung back into place. I have you, and

I keep you. I have fought for you, won you, not wholly without personal

loss. So you are to me as the spoils of battle, which a man having

taken, is very certainly in no humour hurriedly to give up. And even

were this so, had I not these claims on your obedience, to eat, my dear,

couldn't be sin. On the contrary, it is bare common-sense--just the next

move, logically necessary, in the particularly delicious game which you

and I, for cause unknown, are ordained to play together. With logic and

common-sense as backers, how can sin have a word to say in the matter?"

"Thus," she answered--"because now as once before, when the perfect hour

had come, and things showed so fair that to better them appeared almost

impossible, the call has come for you to leave me, and leave me you

surely must."

"You are mistaken," Laurence answered hoarsely. "You confuse both the

events and obligations of the past with those of the present. The call

has not come."

Then Agnes Rivers rose up, pushing the carven chair away from her, and

standing with a certain graceful independence before the sumptuously

spread table, in the centre of the highly-lighted room, between the open

window and the open door. Her person, thus seen, suggested some clear

jewel of infinite value in a dark and heavy though splendid setting; or

some tender, solitary flower amid the lifeless magnificence of a desert

city, rich with the tombs of long-dead kings. A gentle daring, a

self-assertion strong as steel yet soft as a silken thread, seemed to

animate her whole being.

"Rather is it you that are mistaken," she answered; "but whether with

your consent or against it, I cannot tell. It is you that dream just

now, my love, and suffer, perhaps subscribe to, delusion--strong man

though you are--and I that wake. For the call has come to you; and

though you should employ all the eloquence of all the sages to convince

me it is otherwise, I could not be convinced."

"You are very stubborn," he said.

"And yet, I spare you," she replied, in a tone of half mirthful, half

tender, reproach; "for I only assert the fact. The exact nature of the

call I do not know, and I do not ask you to tell it me. I am

sufficiently human--you have brought me so far on the backward road,

which my naughty feet were only too willing to tread--to greatly long to

know the exact nature of that call. Yet, did I know it, I fear it might

provoke a wicked spirit of jealousy in me, and of envy towards one who

has, in the natural sequence of things, that which I have not, yet fain

would have. Therefore do not try me too far, lest my courage fail and I

decline from right, and break the perfect circle of our dealings with

one another, so painting both past and future with the ugly colours of

remorseful regret. You told me you would never leave me again unless I

bade you do so. Well, now, the time has come. Redeem your word."

Laurence would have spoken; but, still with that air of almost heavenly

mirth, she laid her hand upon his mouth. There was hardly perceptible

substance or weight in it; and once again--now with despair, though the

sensation was in itself delicious--he felt that fluttering, as of the

wings of a captive butterfly, against his lips.

"No, no," she protested, "do not speak, for I am woman enough to be

resolved to have the last word. Put away delusion and all

extravagance.--Think, after all, what do you leave? Not much, believe

me. For I am but a ghost. I have no right to any earthly dwelling-place,

no right to lie in the arms of living man. It would be monstrous, a

thing abhorrent to nature, an insult to the awful and unbroken order of

cause and effect that has operated from the beginning of being and of

time, that I should force the barrier completely, and project myself, at

once unburied and unborn, for a second time into the arena of earthly

life. It would be an act of rebellion, of self-seeking, beside which

that of Lucifer grows pale--for he at least was an archangel, which

might give reasonable cause of pride--whereas I?--No, God in His

infinite mercy has granted me fulness of understanding just in time; and

I have no fear but that, since I voluntarily resign myself, curb my

imperious will and forego the desire of my heart, He will further grant

me access to that place of refreshment, light, and peace, in which souls

wait until their final beatitude. In God's hands are all things, and I

now see that behind the loves of earth, just in proportion as those

loves are noble and have in them a seed of permanence, stands for ever

the love of God Himself, sure and faithful, full of a satisfaction that

can never lessen or pass away. I have been blind and very wilful, loving

Him too little, loving you too much. But He who made all men and sees

how beautiful they are, so that in loving them--they being made in His

image--we unconsciously all the while but love His image evident in

them--He will surely understand me and forgive."

There Laurence broke in madly--"Ah, stop talking, stop talking! What are

words at such a time as this? You are mine by right of conquest, as I

have already told you. For God and the eternities I care not, just now,

one little bit. You belong to me. I have bought you at a great price. I

love you and will enter into possession of my own."

And he essayed to lay hold of her, his blood on fire, for the moment,

with frustrated pride, the agony of relinquishment, and passion baulked.

"And I love you too," she answered fearlessly, "so greatly, so

absorbingly, that I have broken all bonds of time and space, and defied

all laws of life and death, to find you, and behold you, and speak with

you again--"

Yet even as she made this declaration, she slipped away from his urgent

embrace, even as a rosy snow-wreath slips from the cliff edge, when the

sun climbs high in heaven, drawing back to itself, by the power of its

strength and heat, snow and vapours, dews and fair, dissolving mists,

such as cling at dawn along the water-courses and haunt the quiet

underspaces of the woods. There were tears in her sweet eyes, and that

airy frame of hers was shaken by sobs; yet her face very brave and of a

marvellous brightness.

"Go back to the world, dear love," she said, "and play your part in the

great game finely to the close. Let no shame touch you, or breath of

dishonour smirch any page of your record. I will go back too--yet rather

go forward--reaching a fairer world than yours, a world which in my

folly I disdained, being blinded by the things of sense. There I shall

await your coming; and we shall be one at last, being one with Almighty

and Eternal God."

She passed from the room; but, though Laurence followed her swiftly, he

found the corridor empty. The yellow drawing-room, when he entered it,

was vacant too, though retaining its gracious and friendly aspect. A

cool wind blew through it, laden with the scent of the rose borders of

the Italian garden. The storm was over, and the night sky was clear and

very full of stars.