"NOT THE GODS CAN SHAKE THE PAST."
There was a sad silent week of waiting before the bride set forth upon
her bridal tour, robed in deepest mourning. For six days the windows of
Mount Royal were darkened, and Leonard and his newly wedded wife kept
within the shadow of that house of death, almost as strictly as if they
had been Jewish mourners, bound by ancient ceremonial laws, whereof the
close observance is a kind of patriotism among a people who have no
fatherland. All the hot-houses at Mount Royal gave out their
treasures--white hyacinths, and rose-flushed cyclamen, gardenia, waxen
camellias, faint Dijon roses--for the adornment of the death chamber.
The corridor outside that darkened room had an odour of hot-house
flowers. The house, folded in silence and darkness, felt like some
splendid sepulchre. Leonard was deeply depressed by his mother's death;
more shocked by its suddenness, by this discordant note in his
triumphant marriage song, than by the actual fact; this loss having been
long discounted in his own mind among the evils of the future.
Christabel's grief was terrible, albeit she had lived for the last year
in constant fear of this affliction. Its bitterness was in no wise
lessened because it had been long expected. Never even in her saddest
moments had she realized the agony of that parting, the cold dull sense
of loneliness, of dismal abandonment, in a loveless, joyless, world,
when that one beloved friend was taken from her. Leonard tried his best
to console her, putting aside his own sorrow, in the endeavour to
comfort his bride; but his efforts at consolation were not happy, for
the most part taking the form of philosophical truisms which may be very
good in an almanack, or as padding for a country newspaper, but which
sound dull and meaningless to the ear of the mourner who says in his
heart there was never any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
In the low sunlight of the March afternoon they laid Mrs. Tregonell's
coffin in the family vault, beside the niche where her faithful husband
of ten years' wedded life took his last long rest. There, in the
darkness, the perfume of many flowers mixing with the cold earthy odours
of the tomb, they left her who had so long been the despotic mistress of
Mount Royal; and then they drove back to the empty house, where the
afternoon light that streamed in through newly opened windows had a
garish look, as if it had no right to be there.
The widow's will was of the simplest. She left legacies to the old
servants; her wardrobe, with the exception of laces and furs, to Dormer;
mementoes to a few old friends; two thousand pounds in trust for certain
small local charities; to Christabel all her jewels and books; and to
her son everything else of which she died possessed. He was now by
inheritance from his mother, and in right of his wife, master of the
Champernowne estate, which, united to the Tregonell property, made him
one of the largest landowners in the West of England. Christabel's
fortune had been strictly settled on herself before her marriage, with
reversion to Leonard in the failure of children; but the fact of this
settlement, to which he had readily agreed, did not lessen Leonard's
sense of importance as representative of the Tregonells and
Champernownes.
Christabel and her husband started for the Continent on the day after
the funeral, Leonard fervently hoping that change of scene and constant
movement would help his wife to forget her grief. It was a dreary
departure for a honeymoon tour--the sombre dress of bride and
bridegroom, the doleful visage of Dormer, the late Mrs. Tregonell's
faithful maid, whom the present Mrs. Tregonell retained for her own
service, glad to have a person about her who had so dearly loved the
dead. They travelled to Weymouth, crossed to Cherbourg, and thence to
Paris, and on without stopping to Bordeaux; then, following the line
southward, they visited all the most interesting towns of southern
France--Albi, Montauban, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Narbonne, Montpellier,
Nismes, and so to the fairy-like shores of the Mediterranean, lingering
on their way to look at mediæval cathedrals, Roman baths and
amphitheatres, citadels, prisons, palaces, aqueducts, all somewhat
dry-as-dust and tiresome to Leonard, but full of interest to Christabel,
who forgot her own griefs as she pored over these relics of pagan and
Christian history.
Nice was in all its glory of late spring when, after a lingering
progress, they arrived at that Brighton of the south. It was nearly six
weeks since that March sunset which had lighted the funeral procession
in Minster Churchyard, and Christabel was beginning to grow accustomed
to the idea of her aunt's death--nay, had begun to look back with a dim
sense of wonder at the happy time in which they two had been together,
their love unclouded by any fear of doom and parting. That last year of
Mrs. Tregonell's life had been Christabel's apprenticeship to grief. All
the gladness and thoughtlessness of youth had been blighted by the
knowledge of an inevitable parting--a farewell that must soon be
spoken--a dear hand clasped fondly to-day, but which must be let go
to-morrow.
Under that soft southern sky a faint bloom came back to Christabel's
cheeks, which had not until now lost the wan whiteness they had worn on
her wedding-day. She grew more cheerful, talked brightly and pleasantly
to her husband, and put off the aspect of gloom with the heavy
crape-shrouded gown which marked the first period of her mourning. She
came down to dinner one evening in a gown of rich lustreless black silk,
with a cluster of Cape jasmine among the folds of her white crape fichu,
whereat Leonard rejoiced exceedingly, his being one of those philosophic
minds which believe that the too brief days of the living should never
be frittered away upon lamentations for the dead.
"You're looking uncommonly jolly, Belle," said Leonard, as his wife took
her seat at the little table in front of an open window overlooking the
blue water and the amphitheatre of hills, glorified by the sunset. They
were dining at a private table in the public room of the hotel, Leonard
having a fancy for the life and bustle of the table d'hôte rather than
the seclusion of his own apartments. Christabel hated sitting down with
a herd of strangers; so, by way of compromise, they dined at their own
particular table, and looked on at the public banquet, as at a
stage-play enacted for their amusement.
There were others who preferred the exclusiveness of a separate table:
among these two middle-aged men--one military, both new arrivals--who
sat within earshot of Mr. and Mrs. Tregonell.
"That's a fascinating get-up, Belle," pursued Leonard, proud of his
wife's beauty, and not displeased at a few respectful glances from the
men at the neighbouring table which that beauty had elicited.
"By-the-by, why shouldn't we go to the opera to-night? They do
'Traviata;' none of your Wagner stuff, but one of the few operas a
fellow _can_ understand. It will cheer you up a bit."
"Thank you, Leonard. You are very good to think of it; but I had rather
not go to any place of amusement--this year."
"That's rank rubbish, Belle. What can it matter--here, where nobody
knows us? And do you suppose it can make any difference to my poor
mother? Her sleep will be none the less tranquil."
"I know that: but it pleases me to honour her memory. I will go to the
opera as often as you like next year, Leonard."
"You may go or stay away, so far as I'm concerned," answered Leonard,
with a sulky air. "I only suggested the thing on your account. I hate
their squalling."
This was not the first time that Mr. Tregonell had shown the cloven foot
during that prolonged honeymoon. He was not actually unkind to his wife.
He indulged her fancies for the most part, even when they went counter
to his; he would have loaded her with gifts, had she been willing to
accept them; he was the kind of spouse who, in the estimation of the
outside world, passes as a perfect husband--proud, fond, indulgent,
lavish--just the kind of husband whom a sensuous, selfish woman would
consider absolutely adorable from a practical standpoint; supplementing
him, perhaps, with the ideal, in the person of a lover.
So far, Christabel's wedded life had gone smoothly; for in the measure
of her sacrifice she had included obedience and duty after marriage. Yet
there was not an hour in which she did not feel the utter want of
sympathy between her and the man she had married--not a day in which she
did not discover his inability to understand her, to think as she
thought, to see as she saw. Religion, conscience, honour--for all these
husband and wife had a different standard. That which was right to one
was wrong to the other. Their sense of the beautiful, their estimation
of art, were as wide apart as earth and heaven. How could any union
prove happy--how could there be even that smooth peacefulness which
blesses some passionless unions--when the husband and wife were of so
different a clay? Long as Leonard had known and loved his cousin, he was
no more at home with her than he would have been with Undine, or with
that ivory image which Aphrodite warmed into life at the prayer of
Pygmalion the sculptor.
More than once during these six weeks of matrimony Leonard had betrayed
a jealous temper, which threatened evil in the future. His courtship had
been one long struggle at self-repression. Marriage gave him back his
liberty, and he used it on more than one occasion to sneer at his wife's
former lover, or at her fidelity to a cancelled vow. Christabel had
understood his meaning only too well; but she had heard him in a
scornful silence which was more humiliating than any other form of
reproof.
After that offer of the opera, Mr. Tregonell lapsed into silence. His
subjects for conversation were not widely varied, and his present
position, aloof from all sporting pursuits, and poorly provided with the
London papers, reduced him almost to dumbness. Just now he was silent
from temper, and went on sulkily with his dinner, pretending to be
absorbed by consideration of the wines and dishes, most of which he
pronounced abominable.
When he had finished his dinner, he took out his cigarette case, and
went out on the balcony to smoke, leaving Christabel sitting alone at
her little table.
The two Englishmen at the table in the next window were talking in a
comfortable, genial kind of way, and in voices quite loud enough to be
overheard by their immediate neighbours. The soldier-like man sat back
to back with Christabel, and she could not avoid hearing the greater
part of his conversation.
She heard with listless ears, neither understanding nor interested in
understanding the drift of his talk--her mind far away in the home she
had left, a desolate and ruined home, as it seemed to her, now that her
aunt was dead. But by-and-by the sound of a too familiar name rivetted
her attention.
"Angus Hamleigh, yes! I saw his name in the visitor's book. He was here
last month--gone on to Italy," said the soldier.
"You knew him?" asked the other.
"_Dans le temps._ I saw a good deal of him when he was about town."
"Went a mucker, didn't he?"
"I believe he spent a good deal of money--but he never belonged to an
out-and-out fast lot. Went in for art and literature, and that kind of
thing, don't you know? Garrick Club, behind the scenes at the swell
theatres--Richmond and Greenwich dinners--Maidenhead--Henley--lived in a
houseboat one summer, men used to go down by the last train to moonlit
suppers after the play. He had some very good ideas, and carried them
out on a large scale--but he never dropped money on cards, or
racing--rather looked down upon the amusements of the million. By-the-by
I was at rather a curious wedding just before I left London."
"Whose?"
"Little Fishky's. The Colonel came up to time, at last."
"Fishky," interrogated the civilian vaguely.
"Don't you know Fishky, alias Psyche, the name by which Stella Mayne
condescended to be known by her intimate friends, during the run of
'Cupid and Psyche.' Colonel Luscomb married her last week at St.
George's, and I was at the wedding."
"Rather feeble of him, wasn't it?" asked the civilian.
"Well, you see, he could hardly sink himself lower than he had done
already by his infatuation for the lady. He knew that all his chances at
the Horseguards were gone; so if a plain gold ring could gratify a young
person who had been surfeited with diamonds, why should our friend
withhold that simple and inexpensive ornament? Whether the lady and
gentleman will be any the happier for this rehabilitation of their
domestic circumstances, is a question that can only be answered in the
future. The wedding was decidedly queer."
"In what way?"
"It was a case of vaulting ambition which o'er-leaps itself. The Colonel
wanted a quiet wedding. I think he would have preferred the registrar's
office--no church-going, or fuss of any kind--but the lady, to whom
matrimony was a new idea, willed otherwise. So she decided that the nest
in St. John's Wood was not spacious enough to accommodate the wedding
guests. She sent her invitations far and wide, and ordered a _recherché_
breakfast at an hotel in Brook Street. Of the sixty people she expected
about fifteen appeared, and there was a rowdy air about those select
few, male and female, which was by no means congenial to the
broad glare of day. Night birds, every one--painted cheeks--dyed
moustachios--tremulous hands--a foreshadowing of del. trem. in the very
way some of them swallowed their champagne. I was sorry for Fishky, who
looked lovely in her white satin frock and orange-blossoms, but who had
a piteous droop about the corners of her lips, like a child whose
birthday feast has gone wrong. I felt still sorrier for the Colonel--a
proud man debased by low surroundings."
"He will take her off the stage, I suppose," suggested the other.
"Naturally, he will try to do so. He'll make a good fight for it, I dare
say; but whether he can keep Fishky from the footlights is an open
question. I know he's in debt, and I don't very clearly see how they are
to live."
"She is very fond of him, isn't she?"
"Yes, I believe so. She jilted Hamleigh, a man who worshipped her, to
take up with Luscomb, so I suppose it was a case of real affection."
"I was told that she was in very bad health--consumptive?"
"That sort of little person is always dying," answered the other
carelessly. "It is a part of the _métier_--the Marguerite Gauthier,
drooping lily kind of young woman. But I believe this one _is_ sickly."
Christabel heard every word of this conversation, heard and understood
for the first time that her renunciation of her lover had been
useless--that the reparation she had deemed it his duty to make, was
past making--that the woman to whose wounded character she had
sacrificed her own happiness was false and unworthy. She had been
fooled--betrayed by her own generous instincts--her own emotional
impulses. It would have been better for her and for Angus if she had
been more worldly-minded--less innocent of the knowledge of evil. She
had blighted her own life, and perhaps his, for an imaginary good.
Nothing had been gained to any one living by her sacrifice.
"I thought I was doing my duty," she told herself helplessly, as she sat
looking out at the dark water, above which the moon was rising in the
cloudless purple of a southern night. "Oh! how wicked that woman was to
hide the truth from me--to let me sacrifice my love and my
lover--knowing her own falsehood all the time. And now she is the wife
of another man! How she must have laughed at my folly! I thought it was
Angus who had deserted her, and that if I gave him up, his own
honourable feeling would lead him to atone for that past wrong. And now
I know that no good has been done--only infinite evil."
She thought of Angus, a lonely wanderer on the face of the earth; jilted
by the first woman he had loved, renounced by the second, with no close
ties of kindred--uncared for and alone. It was hard for her to think of
this, whose dearest hope had once been to devote her life to caring for
him and cherishing him--prolonging that frail existence by the tender
ministrations of a boundless love. She pictured him in his loneliness,
careless of his health, wasting his brief remnant of life--reckless,
hopeless, indifferent.
"God grant he may fall in love with some good woman, who will cherish
him as I would have done," was her unselfish prayer; for she knew that
domestic affection is the only spell that can prolong a fragile life.
It was a weak thing no doubt next morning, when she was passing through
the hall of the hotel, to stop at the desk on which the visitors' book
was kept, and to look back through the signatures of the last three
weeks for that one familiar autograph which she had such faint chance of
ever seeing again in the future. How boldly that one name seemed to
stand out from the page; and even coming upon it after a deliberate
search, what a thrill it sent through her veins! The signature was as
firm as of old. She tried to think that this was an indication of health
and strength--but later in the same day, when she was alone in her
sitting-room, and her tea was brought to her by a German waiter--one of
those superior men whom it is hard to think of as a menial--she ventured
to ask a question.
"There was an English gentleman staying here about three weeks ago: a
Mr. Hamleigh. Do you remember him?" she asked.
The waiter interrogated himself silently for half a minute, and then
replied in the affirmative.
"Was he an invalid?"
"Not quite an invalid, Madame. He went out a little--but he did not seem
robust. He never went to the opera--or to any public entertainment. He
rode a little--and drove a little--and read a great deal. He was much
fonder of books than most English gentlemen."
"Do you know where he went when he left here?"
"He was going to the Italian lakes."
Christabel asked no further question. It seemed to her a great privilege
to have heard even so much as this. There was very little hope that in
her road of life she would often come so nearly on her lost lover's
footsteps. She was too wise to desire that they should ever meet face to
face--that she, Leonard's wife, should ever again be moved by the magic
of that voice, thrilled by the pathos of those dreamy eyes; but it was a
privilege to hear something about him she had lost, to know what spot of
earth held him, what skies looked down upon him.