Quand on a trouve ce qu'on cherchait, on n'a pas le temps de le
dire: il faut mourir.--J. JOUBERT.
When the gray of the early morning had changed to golden sunlight, and
the first faint twittering of the birds gave place to fuller melody,
Mrs. Middleton went softly to the window, opened it and fastened it
back. She drew a long breath of the warm air fresh from the beanfields,
and, looking down into the little orchard below, saw Harry Hardwicke,
who stepped forward and looked up at her. She signed to him to wait, and
a couple of minutes later she joined him.
"How is she? How has she passed the night?" he asked eagerly.
"She is no worse. She has lived through it bravely, with one thought.
You were very right to send for Percival."
Hardwicke looked down and colored as he had colored when he spoke of him
before. "I'm glad," he said. "I'm off to fetch him in about an hour and
a half."
"Nothing from Godfrey Hammond?" she asked after a pause.
"No. I'll ask at my father's as I go by. He will either come or we shall
hear, unless he is out."
"Of course," the old lady answered. "Godfrey Hammond would not fail me.
And now good-bye, Harry, till you bring Percival."
She went away as swiftly and lightly as she had come a minute before,
and left Hardwicke standing on the turf under the apple trees gazing up
at the open casement. A June morning, sun shining, soft winds blowing, a
young lover under his lady's window: it should have been a perfect poem.
And the lady within lay crushed and maimed, dying in the very heart of
her June!
Hardwicke let himself out through the little wicket-gate, and went back
to the Latimer Arms. He entered the bedroom without disturbing Archie,
who lay with his sunburnt face on the white pillow, smiling in his
sleep. He could not find it in his heart to arouse him. The boy's lips
parted, he murmured a word or two, and seemed to sink into a yet deeper
slumber. Hardwicke went softly out, gave the landlady directions about
breakfast, and returned, watch in hand. "I suppose I must," he said to
himself.
But he stopped short. Carroll stirred, stretched himself, his eyes were
half open: evidently his waking was a pleasant one. But suddenly the
unfamiliar aspect of the room attracted his attention: he looked eagerly
round, a shadow swept across his face, and he turned and saw Hardwicke.
"It's true!" he said, and flung out his arms in a paroxysm of despair.
Harry walked to the window and leant out. Presently a voice behind him
asked, "Have you been to the farm, Mr. Hardwicke?"
"Yes," said Harry. "But there is no news. She passed a tolerably quiet
night: there is no change."
"I've been asleep," said Archie after a pause. "I never thought I should
sleep." He looked ashamed of having done so.
"It would have been strange if you hadn't: you were worn out."
"My watch has run down," the other continued. "What is the time?"
"Twenty minutes past seven. I want to speak to you, Carroll. I think you
had better go home."
"Home? To Fordborough? To Raymond?"
"No. Really home, to your own people. You can write to your cousin. You
don't want to go back to him?"
Archie shook his head. Then a sudden sense of injustice to Fothergill
prompted him to say, "Ray was never hard on me before."
"You mustn't think about that," Hardwicke replied. "People don't weigh
their words at such times. But, Carroll, you can do nothing here--less
than nothing. You'll be better away. Give me your address, and I'll
write any news there is. Look sharp now, and you can go into Fordborough
with me and catch the up train."
As they drove through the green lanes, along which they had passed the
day before, Archie looked right and left, recalling the incidents of
that earlier drive. Already he was better, possessing his sorrow with
greater keenness and fulness than at first, but not so miserably
possessed by it. Hardly a word was spoken till they stood on the
platform and a far-off puff of white showed the coming train. Then he
said, "I shall never forget your kindness, Mr. Hardwicke. If ever
there's anything I can do--"
"You'll do it," said Harry with a smile.
"That I will! And you'll write?"
Hardwicke answered "Yes." He knew too well _what_ it was he promised to
write to say a word more.
It was a relief to him when Carroll was gone and he could pace the
platform and watch for the London train. He looked through the open
doorway, and saw his dog-cart waiting in the road and the horse tossing
his head impatiently in the sunshine. Through all his anxiety--or rather
side by side with his anxiety--he was conscious of a current of interest
in all manner of trivial things. He thought of the price he had given
for the horse five months before, and of Latimer's opinion of his
bargain. He noticed the station-master in the distance, and remembered
that some one had said he drank. He watched a row of small birds sitting
on the telegraph-wires just outside the station, and all at once the
London train came gliding rapidly and unexpectedly out of the cutting
close by, and was there.
A hurried rush along the line of carriages, with his heart sinking lower
at every step, a despairing glance round, and he perceived the man he
came to meet walking off at the farther end of the platform. He came up
with him as he stopped to speak to a porter.
"Ah! I am in time, then?" said Percival when he looked round in reply to
Hardwicke's hurried greeting.
"Yes, thank God! I promised to drive you over to Ashendale at once."
Percival nodded, and took his place without a word. Not till they were
fairly started on their journey did he turn to his companion. "How did
it happen?" he asked.
Hardwicke gave him a brief account of the accident. He listened eagerly,
and then, just saying "It's very dreadful," he was silent again. But it
was the silence of a man intent on his errand, leaning slightly forward
as if drawn by a powerful attraction, and with eyes fixed on the point
where he would first see the ruins of Ashendale Priory above the trees.
Hardwicke did not venture to speak to him. As the man whom Sissy Langton
loved, Percival Thorne was to him the first of men, but, considered from
Hardwicke's own point of view, he was a fellow with whom he had little
or nothing in common--a man who quoted poetry and saw all manner of
things in pictures and ruins, who went out of his way to think about
politics, and was neither Conservative nor Radical when all was done--a
man who rather disliked dogs and took no interest in horses. Hardwicke
did not want to speak about dogs, horses or politics then, but the
consciousness of their want of sympathy was in his mind.
As they drove through the village they caught a passing glimpse of a
brougham. "Ha! Brackenhill," said Thorne, looking after it. They dashed
round a corner and pulled up in front of the farmhouse. Hardwicke took
no pains to spare the noise of their arrival. He knew very well that the
sound of wheels would be music to Sissy's ears.
A tall, slim figure, which even on that June morning had the air of
being wrapped up, passed and repassed in the hall within. As the two
young men came up the path Horace appeared in the porch. Even at that
moment the change which a year had wrought in him startled Percival. He
was a mere shadow. He had looked ill before, but now he looked as if he
were dying.
[Illustration: "SEE HERE, SISSY," SAID PERCIVAL, "WE ARE FRIENDS."--Page
698.]
"She will not see me," he said to Hardwicke. His voice was that of a
confirmed invalid, a mixture of complaint and helplessness. He ignored
his cousin.
"She will see you now that Percival has come," said Mrs. Middleton,
advancing from the background. "She will see you together."
And she led the way. Horace went in second, and Percival last, yet he
was the first to meet the gaze of those waiting eyes. The young men
stood side by side, looking down at the delicate face on the pillow. It
was pale, and seemed smaller than usual in the midst of the loosened
waves of hair. On one side of the forehead there was a dark mark, half
wound, half bruise--a mere nothing but for its terrible suggestiveness.
But the clear eyes and the gentle little mouth were unchanged. Horace
said "Oh, Sissy!" and Sissy said "Percival." He could not speak, but
stooped and kissed the little hand which lay passively on the coverlet.
"Whisper," said Sissy. He bent over her. "Have you forgiven him?" she
asked.
"Yes." The mere thought of enmity was horrible to him as he looked into
Sissy's eyes with that spectral Horace by his side.
"Are you sure? Quite?"
"Before God and you, Sissy."
"Tell him so, Percival."
He stood up and turned to his cousin. "Horace!" he said, and held out
his hand. The other put a thin hot hand into it.--"See here, Sissy,"
said Percival, "we are friends."
"Yes, we're friends," Horace repeated. "Has it vexed you, Sissy? I
thought you didn't care about me. I'm sorry, dear--I'm very sorry."
Aunt Harriet, standing by, laid her hand on his arm. She had held aloof
for that long year, feeling that he was in the wrong. He had not acted
as a Thorne should, and he could never be the same to her as in old
days. But she had wanted her boy, nevertheless, right or wrong, and
since Percival had pardoned him, and since it was partly Godfrey's
hardness that had driven him into deceit, and since he was so ill, and
since--and since--she loved him, she drew his head down to her and
kissed him. Horace was weak, and he had to turn his face away and wipe
his eyes. But, relinquishing Percival's hand, he held Aunt Harriet's.
Percival stooped again, in obedience to a sign from Sissy. "Ask him to
forgive me," she said.
"He knows nothing, dear."
"Ask him for me."
"Horace," said Percival, "Sissy wants your forgiveness."
"I've nothing to forgive," said Horace. "It is I who ought to ask to be
forgiven. It was hard on me when first you came to Brackenhill, Percy,
but it has been harder on you since. I hardly know what I said or did on
that day: I thought you'd been plotting against me."
"No, no," said Sissy--"not he."
"No, but I did think so.--Since then I've felt that, anyhow, it was not
fair. I suppose I was too proud to say so, or hardly knew how,
especially as the wrong is past mending. But I do ask your pardon now."
"You have it," said Percival. "We didn't understand each other very
well."
"But I never blamed you, Sissy--never, for one moment. I wasn't so bad
as that. I've watched for you now and then in Fordborough streets, just
to get a glimpse as you went by. I thought it was you who would never
forgive me, because of Percival."
"He has forgiven," said Sissy. But her eyes still sought Percival's.
"Look here, Horace," he said. "There was a misunderstanding you knew
nothing of, and Sissy feels that she might have cleared it up. It _was_
cleared up at last, but I think it altered my grandfather's manner to
you for a time. If you wish to know the whole I will tell you. But since
it is all over and done with, and did not really do you any harm, if you
like best"--he looked steadily at Horace--"that we should forgive and
forget on both sides, we will bury the past here to-day."
"Yes, yes," said Horace. "Sissy may have made a mistake, but she never
meant me any harm, I know."
"Don't! don't! Oh, Horace, I did, but I am sorry."
"God knows I forgive you, whatever it was," he said.
"Kiss me, Horace."
He stooped and kissed her, as he had kissed her many a time when she was
his little pet and playmate. She kissed him back again, and smiled:
"Good-bye, Horry!"
Mrs. Middleton interposed. "This will be too much for her," she
said.--"Percival, she wants you, I see: be careful." And she drew Horace
gently away.
Percival sat down by the bedside. Presently Sarah came in and went to
the farther end of the room, waiting in case she should be wanted. Sissy
was going to speak once, but Percival stopped her: "Lie still a little
while, dear: I'm not going away."
She lay still, looking up at this Percival for whom she had watched and
waited through the dreary night, and who had come to her with the
morning. And he, as he sat by her side, was thinking how at that time
the day before he was in the office at Brenthill. He could hardly
believe that less than twenty-four hours had given him the assurance of
Judith's love and brought him to Sissy's deathbed. He was in a strangely
exalted state of mind. His face was calm as if cast in bronze, but a
crowd of thoughts and feelings contended for the mastery beneath it. He
had eaten nothing since the night before, and had not slept, but his
excitement sustained him.
He met Sissy's eyes and smiled tenderly. How was it that he had
frightened her in old days? Could he ever have been cruel to one so
delicate and clinging? Yet he must have been, since he had driven away
her love. She was afraid of him: she had begged to be free. Well, the
past was past, but at least no word nor look of his should frighten or
grieve the poor child now.
After a time she spoke: "You have worked too hard. Isn't it that you
wanted to do something great?"
"That isn't at all likely," said Percival with a melancholy smile. "I'm
all right, Sissy."
"No, you are pale. You wanted to surprise us. Oh, I guessed! Godfrey
Hammond didn't tell me. I should have been glad if I could have waited
to see it."
"Don't talk so," he entreated. "There will be nothing to see."
"You mustn't work too hard--promise," she whispered.
"No, dear, I won't."
"Percival, will you be good to me?"
"If I can I will indeed. What can I do?"
"I want you to have my money. It is my own, and I have nobody." Sissy
remembered the terrible mistake she had once made, and wanted an
assurance from his own lips that her gift was accepted.
Percival hesitated for a moment, and even the moment's hesitation
alarmed her. It was true, as she said, that she had nobody, and her
words opened a golden gateway before Judith and himself. Should he tell
her of that double joy and double gratitude? He believed that she would
be glad, but it seemed selfish and horrible to talk of love and marriage
by that bedside. "I wish you might live to need it all yourself, dear,"
he answered, and laid his hand softly on hers. The strip of embroidery
caught his eye. "What's this?" he said in blank surprise. "And your
thimble! Sissy, you mustn't bother yourself about this work now." He
would have drawn it gently away.
The fingers closed on it suddenly, and the weak voice panted: "No,
Percival. It's mine. That was before we were engaged: you spoilt my
other."
"O God!" he said. In a moment all came back to him. He remembered the
summer day at Brackenhill--Sissy and he upon the terrace--the work-box
upset and the thimble crushed beneath his foot. He remembered her pretty
reproaches and their laughter over her enforced idleness. He remembered
how he rode into Fordborough and bought that little gold thimble--the
first present he ever made her. All his gifts during their brief
engagement had been scrupulously returned, but this, as she had said,
was given before. And she was dying with it in her hand! She had loved
him from first to last.
"Percival, you will take my money?" she pleaded, fearing some
incomprehensible scruple.
"For God's sake, Sissy! I must think a moment." He buried his face in
his hands.
"Oh, you are cruel!" she whispered.
How could he think? Sissy loved him--had always loved him. It was all
plain to him now. He had been blind, and he had come back to find out
the truth the day after he had pledged himself to Judith Lisle!
"Don't be unkind to me, Percival: I can't bear it, dear."
How could he stab her to the heart by a refusal of that which he so
sorely needed? How could he tell her of his engagement? How could he
keep silence, and take her money to spend it with Judith?
"Say 'Yes,' Percival. It is mine. Why not? why not?"
He spoke through his clasped hands: "One moment more."
"I shall never ask you anything again," she whispered. "Oh, Percival, be
good to me!"
He raised his head and looked earnestly at her. He must be true, happen
what might.
"Sissy, God knows I thank you for your goodness. I sha'n't forget it,
living or dying. If only you might be spared--"
"No, no. Say 'Yes,' Percival."
"I will say 'Yes' if, when I have done, you wish it still. But it must
be 'Yes' for some one besides myself. Dear, don't give it to me to make
amends in any way. You have not wronged me, Sissy. Don't give it to me,
dear, unless you give it to Judith Lisle."
As he spoke he looked into her eyes. Their sweet entreaty gave place to
a flash of pained reproach, as if they said "So soon?" Then the light in
them wavered and went out. Percival sprang up. "Help! she has fainted!"
Sarah hurried from her post by the window, and the sound of quick
footsteps brought back Mrs. Middleton. The young man stood aside,
dismayed. "She isn't dead?" he said in a low voice.
Aunt Harriet did not heed him. A horrible moment passed, during which he
felt himself a murderer. Then Sissy moaned and turned her face a little
to the wall.
"Go now: she cannot speak to you," said Mrs. Middleton.
"I can't. Only one more word!"
"What do you mean? What have you done? You may wait outside, and I will
call you. She cannot bear any more now: do you want to kill her
outright?"
He went. There was a wide window-seat in the passage, and he dropped
down upon it, utterly worn out and wretched. "What have I done?" he
asked himself. "What made me do it? She loved me, and I have been a
brute to her. If I had been a devil, could I have tortured her more?"
Presently Mrs. Middleton came to him: "She cannot see you now, but she
is better."
He looked up at her as he sat: "Aunt Harriet, I meant it for the best.
Say what you like: I was a brute, I suppose, but I thought I was doing
right."
"What do you mean?" Her tone was gentler: she detected the misery in
his.
Percival took her hand and laid it on his forehead. "You can't think I
meant to be cruel to our Sissy," he said. "You will let me speak to
her?"
She softly pushed back his hair. After all, he was the man Sissy loved.
"What was it?" she asked: "what did you do?"
He looked down. "I'm going to marry Miss Lisle," he said.
She started away from him: "You told her that? God forgive you,
Percival!"
"I should have been a liar if I hadn't."
"Couldn't you let her die in peace? It is such a little while! Couldn't
you have waited till she was in her grave?"
"Will she see me? Just one word, Aunt Harriet." And yet while he pleaded
he did not know what the one word was that he would say. Only he felt
that he must see her once more.
"Not now," said Mrs. Middleton. "My poor darling shall not be tortured
any more. Later, if she wishes it, but not now. She could not bear it."
"But you will ask her to see me later?" he entreated. "I must see her."
"What is she to you? She is all the world to me, and she shall be left
in peace. It is all that I can do for her now. You have been cruel to
her always--always. She has been breaking her heart for you: she lived
through last night with the hope of your coming. Oh, Percival, God knows
I wish we had never called you away from Miss Lisle!"
"Don't say that."
"Go back to her," said Aunt Harriet, "and leave my darling to me. We
were happy at Brackenhill till you came there."
He sprang to his feet: "Aunt Harriet! have some mercy! You know I would
die if it could make Sissy any happier."
"And Miss Lisle?" she said.
He turned away with a groan, and, leaning against the wall, put his hand
over his eyes. Mrs. Middleton hesitated a moment, but her haste to
return to Sissy triumphed over any relenting feelings, and she left him,
pausing only at the door to make sure of her calmness.
Noon came and passed. Sissy had spoken once to bid them take the
needlework away. "I've done with it," she said. Otherwise she was
silent, and only looked at them with gentle, apathetic eyes when they
spoke to her. Dr. Grey came and went again. On his way out he noticed
Percival, looked keenly at him, but said nothing.
Henry Hardwicke's desire to be useful had prompted him to station
himself on the road a short distance from the farm, at the turning from
the village. There he stopped people coming to inquire, and gave the
latest intelligence. It was weary work, lounging there by the wayside,
but he hoped he was serving Sissy Langton to the last. He could not even
have a cigar to help to pass the time, for he had an idea that Mrs.
Middleton disliked the smell of smoke. He stared at the trees and the
sky, drew letters in the dust with the end of a stick, stirred up a
small ants' nest, examined the structure of a dog-rose or two and some
buttercups, and compared the flavors of different kinds of leaves. He
came forward as Dr. Grey went by. The doctor stopped to tell him that
Miss Langton was certainly weaker. "But she may linger some hours yet,"
he added; and he was going on his way when a thought seemed to strike
him. "Are you staying at the farm?" he asked.
"No: they've enough without me. I'm at the little public-house close
by."
"Going there for some luncheon?"
Hardwicke supposed so.
"Can't you get young Thorne to go with you? He looks utterly exhausted."
Hardwicke went off on his mission, but he could not persuade him to
stir. "All right!" he said at last: "then I shall bring you something to
eat here." Percival agreed to that compromise, and owned afterward that
he felt better for the food he had taken.
The slow hours of the afternoon went wearily by. The rector of
Fordborough came; Dr. Grey came again; Mrs. Latimer passed two or three
times. The sky began to grow red toward the west once more, and the
cawing rooks flew homeward, past the window where Percival sat waiting
vainly for the summons which did not come.
Hardwicke, released from his self-imposed duty, came to see if Percival
would go with him for half an hour or so to the Latimer Arms. "I've got
a kind of tea-dinner," he said--"chops and that sort of thing. You'd
better have some." But it was of no use. So when he came back to the
house the good-natured fellow brought some more provisions, and begged
Lucy Greenwell to make some tea, which he carried up.
"Where are you going to spend the night?" asked Harry, coming up again
when he had taken away the cup and plate.
"Here," said Percival. He sat with his hands clasped behind his head and
one leg drawn up on the seat. His face was sharply defined against the
square of sunset sky.
Hardwicke stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at him. "But
you can't sleep here," he said.
"That doesn't matter much. Sleeping or waking, here I stay."
A sudden hope flashed in his eyes, for the door of Sissy's room opened,
and, closing it behind her, Mrs. Middleton came out and looked up and
down the passage. But she called "Harry" in a low voice, and Percival
leant back again.
Harry went. Mrs. Middleton had moved a little farther away, and stood
with her back toward Percival and one hand pressed against the wall to
steady herself. Her first question was an unexpected one: "Isn't the
wind getting up?" Her eyes were frightened and her voice betrayed her
anxiety.
"I don't know--not much, I think." He was taken by surprise, and
hesitated a little.
"It is: tell me the truth."
"I am--I will," he stammered. "I haven't thought about it. There is a
pleasant little breeze, such as often comes in the evening. I don't
really think there's any more."
"It isn't rising, then?"
"Wait a minute," said Hardwicke, and hurried off. He did not in the
least understand his errand, but it was enough for him that Mrs.
Middleton wanted to know. If she had asked him the depth of water in the
well or the number of trees on the Priory farm, he would have rushed
away with the same eagerness to satisfy her. His voice was heard in the
porch, alternating with deeper and less carefully restrained tones. Then
there was a sound of steps on the gravel-path. Presently he came back.
Mrs. Middleton's attitude was unchanged, except that she had drawn a
little closer to the wall. But though she had never looked over her
shoulder, she was uneasily conscious of the young man half sitting, half
lying in the window-seat behind her.
"Greenwell says it won't be anything," Hardwicke announced. "The glass
has been slowly going up all day yesterday and to-day, and it is rising
still. He believes we have got a real change in the weather, and that it
will keep fine for some time."
"Thank God!" said Mrs. Middleton. "Do you think I'm very mad?"
"Not I," Harry answered in a "theirs-not-to-reason-why" manner.
"A week or two ago," she said, "my poor darling was talking about dying,
as you young folks will talk, and she said she hoped she should not die
in the night, when the wind was howling round the house. A bitter winter
night would be worst of all, she said. It won't be _that_ but I fancied
the wind was getting up, and it frightened me to think how one would
hear it moaning in this old place. It is only a fancy, of course, but
she might have thought of it again lying there."
Hardwicke could not have put it into words, but the fancy came to him
too of Sissy's soul flying out into the windy waste of air.
"Of course it is nothing--it is nonsense," said Mrs. Middleton. "But if
it might be, as she said, when it is warm and light!--if it might be!"
She stopped with a catching in her voice.
Harry, in his matter-of-fact way, offered consolation: "Dear Mrs.
Middleton, the sun will rise by four, and Greenwell says there won't be
any wind."
"Yes, yes! And she may not remember."
"I hope you have been taking some rest," he ventured to say after a
brief silence.
"Yes. I was lying down this afternoon, and Sarah will take part of the
night." She paused, and spoke again in a still lower tone: "Couldn't you
persuade him to go away?"
"Mr. Thorne?"
She nodded: "I will not have her troubled. I asked her if she would see
him again, and she said, 'No.' I wish he would go. What is the use of
his waiting there?"
Hardwicke shrugged his shoulders: "It is useless for me to try and
persuade him. He won't stir for me."
"I would send for him if she wanted him. But she won't."
"I'll speak to him again if you like," said Harry, "though it won't do
any good."
Nor did it when a few minutes later the promised attempt was made. "I
shall stay here," said Percival in a tone which conveyed unconquerable
decision, and Hardwicke was silenced. The Greenwells came later,
regretting that they had not a room to offer Mr. Thorne, but suggesting
the sofa in the parlor or a mattress on the floor somewhere. Percival,
however, declined everything with such courteous resolution that at last
he was left alone.
Again the night came on, with its shadows and its stillness, and the
light burning steadily in the one room. To all outward seeming it was
the same as it had been twenty-four hours earlier, but Mrs. Middleton,
watching by the bedside, was conscious of a difference. Life was at a
lower ebb: there was less eagerness and unrest, less of hope and fear,
more of a drowsy acquiescence. And Percival, who had been longed for so
wearily the night before, seemed to be altogether forgotten.
Meanwhile, he kept his weary watch outside. He said to himself that he
had darkened Sissy's last day: he cursed his cruelty, and yet could he
have done otherwise? He was haunted through the long hours of the night
by the words which had been ever on his lips when he won her--
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
and he vowed that never was man so forsworn as he. Yet his one desire
had been to be true. Had he not worshipped Truth? And this was the end
of all.
His cruelty, too, had been worse than useless. He had lost this chance
of an independence, as he had lost Brackenhill. He hated himself for
thinking of money then, yet he could not help thinking of it--could not
help being aware that Sissy's entreaty to him to take her fortune was
worth nothing unless a will were made, and that there had been no
mention of such a thing since she spoke to him that morning. And he was
so miserably poor! Of whom should he borrow the money to take him back
to his drudgery at Brenthill? Well, since Sissy no longer cared for his
future, it was well that he had spoken. Better poverty than treachery.
Let the money go; but, oh, to see her once again and ask her to forgive
him!
As the night crept onward he grew drowsy and slept by snatches, lightly
and uneasily, waking with sudden starts to a consciousness of the window
at his side--a loophole into a ghostly sky where shreds of white cloud
were driven swiftly before the breeze. The wan crescent of the moon
gleamed through them from time to time, showing how thin and
phantom-like they were, and how they hurried on their way across the
heavens. After a time the clouds and moon and midnight sky were mingled
with Percival's dreams, and toward morning he fell fast asleep.
Again Aunt Harriet saw the first gray gleam of dawn. Slowly it stole in,
widening and increasing, till the candle-flame, which had been like a
golden star shining out into the June night, was but a smoky yellow
smear on the saffron morning. She rose and put it out. Turning, she
encountered Sissy's eyes. They looked from her to a window at the foot
of the bed. "Open," said Sissy.
Mrs. Middleton obeyed. The sound of unfastening the casement awoke
Sarah, who was resting in an easy-chair. She sat up and looked round.
The breeze had died away, as Harry had foretold it would, and that day
had dawned as gloriously as the two that had preceded it. A lark was
soaring and singing--a mere point in the dome of blue.
Sissy lay and looked a while. Then she said, "Brackenhill?"
Aunt Harriet considered for a moment before she replied: "A little to
the right, my darling."
The dying eyes were turned a little to the right. Seven miles away, yet
the old gray manor-house rose before Aunt Harriet's eyes, warm on its
southern slope, with its shaven lawns and whispering trees and the long
terrace with its old stone balustrade. Perhaps Sissy saw it too.
"Darling, it is warm and light," the old lady said at last.
Sissy smiled. Her eyes wandered from the window. "Aunt, you promised,"
she whispered.
"Yes, dear--yes, I promised."
There was a pause. Suddenly, Sissy spoke, more strongly and clearly than
she had spoken for hours: "Tell Percival--my love to Miss Lisle."
"Fetch him," said Mrs. Middleton to Sarah, with a quick movement of her
hand toward the door. As the old woman crossed the room Sissy looked
after her. In less than a minute Percival came in. His dark hair was
tumbled over his forehead, and his eyes, though passionately eager, were
heavy with sleep. As he came forward Sissy looked up and repeated
faintly, like an echo, "My love to Miss Lisle, Percival." Her glance met
his and welcomed him. But even as he said "Sissy!" her eyes closed, and
when, after a brief interval, they opened again, he was conscious of a
change. He spoke and took her hand, but she did not heed. "She does not
know me!" he said.
Her lips moved, and Aunt Harriet stooped to catch the faint sound. It
was something about "Horry--coming home from school."
Hardly knowing what she said--only longing for one more look, one smile
of recognition, one word--Aunt Harriet spoke in painfully distinct
tones: "My darling, do you want Horace? Shall we send for Horace?"
No answer. There was a long pause, and then the indistinct murmur
recommenced. It was still "Horry," and "Rover," and presently they
thought she said "Langley Wood."
"Horace used to take her there for a treat," said Mrs. Middleton.--"Oh,
Sissy, don't you know Aunt Harriet?"
Still, from time to time, came the vague murmur of words. It was
dark--the trees--she had lost--
Percival stood in silent anguish. There was to him a bitterness worse
than the bitterness of death in the sound of those faint words. Sissy
was before him, yet she had passed away into the years when she did not
know him. He might cry to her, but she would not hear. There was no word
for him: the Sissy who had loved him and pardoned him was dead. This was
the child Sissy with whom Horace had played at Brackenhill.
The long bright morning seemed an eternity of blue sky, softly rustling
leaves, birds singing and golden chequers of sunlight falling on walls
and floor. Dr. Grey came in and stood near. The end was at hand, and yet
delayed. The sun was high before the faint whispers of "Auntie," and
"Horry," ceased altogether, and even then there was an interval during
which Sissy still breathed, still lingered in the borderland between
living and dying. Eagerly though they watched her, they could not tell
the moment when she left them.
It was late that afternoon. Hardwicke lounged with his back against the
gate of the orchard and his hands in his pockets. When he lifted his
eyes from the turf on which he stood he could see the white blankness of
a closed window through the boughs.
He was sorely perplexed. Not ten minutes earlier Mrs. Latimer had been
there, saying, "Something should be done: why does not Mr. Thorne go to
her? Or could Dr. Grey say anything if he were sent for? I'm sure it
isn't right that she should be left so."
Mrs. Middleton was alone with her dead in that darkened room. She was
perfectly calm and tearless. She only demanded to be left to herself.
Mrs. Latimer would have gone in to cry and sympathize, but she was
repulsed with a decision which was almost fierce. Sarah was not to
disturb her. She wanted nothing. She wanted nobody. She must be by
herself. She was terrible in her lonely misery.
Hardwicke felt that it could not be his place to go. Somewhere in the
priory ruins was Percival Thorne, hiding his sorrow and himself: should
he find him and persuade him to make the attempt? But Harry had an
undefined feeling that Mrs. Middleton did not want Percival.
He stood kicking at a daisy-root in the grass, feeling himself useless,
yet unwilling to desert his post, when a hand was pressed on his
shoulder and he started round. Godfrey Hammond was on the other side of
the gate, looking just as cool and colorless as usual.
"Thank God you're come, Mr. Hammond!" Harry exclaimed, and began to
pour out his story in such haste that it was a couple of minutes before
Godfrey fully understood him. The new-comer listened attentively, asking
a question or two. He brushed some imperceptible dust from his gray
coat-sleeve, and sticking his glass in his eye he surveyed the
farmhouse.
"I think I should like to see Mrs. Middleton at once," he said when
Hardwicke had finished.
Sarah showed him the way, but he preferred to announce himself. He
knocked at the door.
"Who is there?" said the voice within.
"It is I, Godfrey Hammond: I may come in?"
"Yes."
He opened the door and saw her sitting by the bedside, where something
lay white and straight and still. She turned her head as he entered,
then stood up and came a step or two to meet him. "Oh, Godfrey!" she
said in a low voice, "she died this morning."
He put his arm about her. "I would have been here before if I could," he
said.
"I knew it." She trembled so much that he drew her nearer, supporting
her as tenderly as if he were her son, though his face above her was
unmoved as ever.
"She died this morning," Mrs. Middleton repeated. She hid her face
suddenly and burst into a passion of tears. "Oh, Godfrey! she was hurt
so! she was hurt so! Oh my darling!"
"We could not wish her to linger in pain," he said softly.
"No, no. But only this morning, and I feel as if I had been alone for
years!"
Still, through her weeping, she clung to him. His sympathy made a faint
glimmer of light in the darkness, and her sad eyes turned to it.