"Yes, dear?"
"I don't want to get off at Naples, and I don't want you or Maud to
leave me at Naples: I want to go _on_ and on in this steamer till we
reach England.... And, Roger! If I die before we get there, _don't_
throw me into the sea as they generally do with people who die on ...
board ... ship ... take me on with you to England ... take me home,
won't you? Then I shan't mind dying. We've all got to die some day ...
that's what makes it all so sad.... I can't believe there can come an
end to love, not love like mine for you; but it's horrible to think of
lying at the bottom of the sea, and you perhaps in a grave on shore...."
"You mustn't talk like this or you'll break my heart ... but if it eases
your mind, I promise you that you shall be taken home."
Then comes Maud--with the ship's doctor--and a hospital nurse, always
carried on board for such cases. There is going to be transfusion of
blood, and Roger bares his arm....
A pause afterwards and she sleeps, sleeps and wakes, dreams she is with
her children and they only call her "Aunt Sibyl," dreams she is once
more at Mr. Callaway's, waiting to know if Roger is going to marry
her.... Mr. Callaway? Didn't she overhear Roger asking after him from
some one who came on board, and didn't they reply "Died of blackwater
fever, years ago"? We must all die sooner or later, but oh, why might
it not be later in her case? So much to live for!
She is awake again, looking at the brilliant sunlight on the dancing
waves and the flying fish that rise in mechanical parabolas of flight
that become monotonous. Some form is presently standing between her and
this effulgence of sun on water.... It is the ship's captain, a big
burly man with a close-clipped, russet beard and kind blue eyes.
"_Zo_," he says, with a mixture of gravity and lightness, "that is
bet-ter, _moch_ bet-ter. A ... leetle ... colour ... now ... in ... the
... cheeks...." But his well-meant encouragement trails away into
pitiful silence before her ethereal beauty and other-worldliness. Tired
middle age has passed from her face with this infusion of Roger's blood.
"What a pretty woman she must have been at one time!" he says to
himself. His blue eyes fill with tears, and he turns away thanking his
German God that his own Frau is not in the least likely to die of
anaemia....
The heat and airlessness of the Red Sea bring back a lowering of
vitality.... The poor sick brain, insufficiently supplied with red
blood, even inspires a peevish tone in the dying woman. "Oh, Roger!
I've spoilt your life! You only married me 'to do the right thing'! I
ought to have refused.... I broke your career," she wailed.
"_Lucy_! How can you say such cruel things. Here, drink this. This'll
put life and sense into you. Haven't I told you, _over and over
again_--Aren't your children a testimony to our love? But there! It's
cruel to argue with an invalid. I shall send Maud to talk sense to
you."
"No, stay with me. I want to be with you every minute of the life that
remains to me."
They pass through the Suez Canal, but she is insensible mostly now to
changes of scenery or to noises, or to anything but the absence of Roger
from her side. The fresh breezes of the Mediterranean cause a revival of
mentality. "My poor Roger," she says one day when the snow peaks of
Crete give hope of an approaching Europe, "_how_ grey you have grown! I
never noticed it before. Greyer than you ought to be at your age." And
she caresses his hair with an emaciated hand....
"Tell Maud--I never see her now, _you_ are with me always, but tell Maud
I love her better than any one in the world, except you. Better than my
children. _They_ won't miss me. Africa has always come between us.
Still, all the same I send my thanks to Sibyl ... and poor mother....
And tell Mrs. Baines I thought kindly of her ... I was to blame.... But
something tells me John has long since understood and forgiven....
"And, Roger? Are you there?" ...
"Always here, darling." ...
"Do something for the Miss Calthorps--you know--where I was at school.
Some one told me they were in poor circumstances. They must be quite
old now."
"They shall be seen to."
The ship passed through the Straits of Messina. Etna behind them on the
south-west, with its coronet of snow. Far away to the north-west was
the chain of the Lipari Islands, blue pyramids with spectacular columns
of yellow-purple smoke issuing from their craters against the
approaching sunset. The Tyrrhenian Sea was incarnadine under the level
rays of the sinking sun. To the east rose the green and furrowed
heights of Aspromonte, green-gold and violet in the light of the sunset,
dotted, especially along the sea-base, with pink-white houses and
churches with their campanili-like pink fingers pointing upwards.
Lucy's eyes gazed their last on this splendid spectacle of earthly
beauty. Roger, still holding her hand, lay half across her bed, more
haggard than she, unshaven, hollow-cheeked, emaciated with futile
blood-letting, worn out with want of sleep and no appetite for eating,
and the long vigil over his dying wife. He slept now, soundly. Her
eyes gazed at his closed eyelids for one moment; then motion and life
passed from them.
* * * * *
It was always Maud's function in this sad world to attend to the plain
matters of business whilst others gave way to a grief that knew no
solace, or a joy that spurned formalities. So it was she who left the
ship at Naples, called on Roger's old friend, Ted Parsons, the
Consul-General, sent telegrams in all the necessary directions, and
fulfilled all necessary forms and ceremonies. Whether it was an unusual
concession or not, it was at once agreed that the body of Mrs. Brentham,
enclosed in a "shell"--they obtained what was necessary from
Naples--should be carried on with her grief-distraught husband and her
husband's sister to Southampton. There all three of them were landed,
and thence they proceeded in a very humdrum way by South-Western and
Great-Western railways to Reading, where the two live ones put up at an
hotel so commonplace and out of date that it momentarily wiped up
sentiment and froze the tears in their tear-glands; while poor Lucy's
remains were temporarily lodged in a kind of _Chapelle ardente_ used by
the chief undertaker, who did things in style. No sign of life from
Sibyl. Evidently there was no one at home at Engledene. Lucy's parents
and Lucy's children were communicated with, and in due course the
funeral took place at Aldermaston. Roger even sent word of
it--remembering Lucy's message--to Mrs. Baines at Theale; and to the
intense surprise of every one in the neighbourhood Mrs. Baines stalked
into the church and churchyard, attended the burial, and then strode
away to the station, and so back to Theale, refusing hospitality at
Church Farm by a simple shake of the gaunt grey head, down the cheeks of
which, however, a tear or two had trickled.
Lucy came to rest at last in the churchyard of Aldermaston, under the
boughs of one of those superb blue cedars of the Park which lean out
over the walls of mellow brick. She had so admired these cedars in her
dawning sense of beauty when she taught in the neighbouring school; and
when she was wont to pace up and down the Mortimer Road considering
whether or not she should go out to Africa to marry John Baines.
*CHAPTER XXIII*
*THE END OF SIBYL*
For three weeks after Lucy's burial, Roger scarcely knew what he did or
whom he saw. His boys and girls went back to school and college; Maud
busied herself in reconnoitring for a home, some place not too expensive
to keep up, where the children might come in school holidays, where
Roger might find rest, isolation, the healing power of country life when
he was wearied with towns and travel. She designed to acquire for him
and her the old Vicarage at Farleigh Wallop. The Vicar who had
succeeded their father, instead of being an archaeologist, to whom
present-day life was a wearisome fact that must obtrude itself as little
as possible on his studies, liked to reside where the population was
thickest. Of the two villages, therefore, within his cure of souls he
chose Cliddesden for his residence as being the more populous, and let
the vicarage at Farleigh whenever he could find a tenant. This of course
was the old home of the Brenthams and the place where Maud had lived up
to the time of her father's death. She had no inquiries to make as to
drainage or water. She knew its charms and its weaknesses; and finding
it untenanted she soon concluded an agreement with the Vicar to take it
on a reasonable rent and with some security of tenure. To live there
once more would be for her and Roger--and for Maurice too, and Geoffrey
when he chose to come and see them--a pleasant linking-up of past with
present.
Meantime, Roger returned from three weeks of aimless wanderings on a
bicycle or in a motor, and from visits to bankers, tailors, and the
Foreign Office in London, to spend a few days with Maurice at Englefield
Lodge.
The first question he put to his brother was, "Where _on earth_ is
Sibyl?"
_Maurice_: "I didn't like to tell you before, Sibyl is rather under the
weather, as Geoffrey would say. Silchester--Clithy, as she always will
call him--came of age last year, as you know. Sibyl seemed a bit off
colour then, and began really to look somewhere near her age--at last.
But she carried off things well. Gave fetes on all the different
properties and attended most of them.... Gave political dinner parties
in London to introduce her son to such great pots as she could get to
come to them, before he took his seat in the House of Lords. She was
present at the Trustees' meetings to give an account of her stewardship.
They congratulated her--and me--and you, in retrospect--on the way in
which the Estate had been managed during the long minority; and told
Master Clithy he was remarkably lucky to have such a mother and such
Agents. He took it all with a certain amount of pompous
acquiescence.... He has grown into an awful prig, you will find, and
thinks a tremendous lot of himself. Whether I shall stay on with him I
hardly know. I've saved a bit, haven't spent any of my share in Dad's
money, and I could always go back to the Bar. P'raps if you returned to
Africa I'd go with you if you'd let me? I'm rather fed up with England
and office work....
"However, about Sib.... She came down here last summer and _didn't_
have a house party. Lived quite alone with your kids. They've come to
look upon Engledene as quite their home. Of course, when she couldn't
put 'em up I had them here. Well, as I say, she seemed 'under the
weather.' Once or twice when I rather bounced in on Estate business, I
thought she'd been crying. Wasn't my business to ask what for. She
wasn't an easy person to question and could lay you out with her tongue
if you seemed to be meddling with what didn't concern you. Then all at
once last October I had a note from her to say that she had gone into a
nursing home to have an operation, that I wasn't to fuss about it or
come to inquire, that if she was away at Christmas time your children
were to come here from school just the same and I was to represent her
as host...."
_Roger_: "What was the operation for? All this is news to me."
_Maurice_: "So I guessed. She made me promise not to write and tell you
or Lucy ... said it would be all over, long before you were back, and
turn out to be a fuss about nothing. As to what it _was_, why I suppose
she had reached a certain stage in life when most women have
complications and ten per cent. of 'em are operated on--glands, cysts,
tumours....
"The operation took place--she was jolly careful to keep it out of the
papers--I doubt if even Clithy knew anything till it was well over. He
was travelling in Russia to study the Russian theatres and their
arrangements about scenery.... After she recovered the doctors sent her
to Aix and then to St. Tropez on the Riviera.... Clithy joined her
there. I sent her the telegram about ... about ... Lucy's death. I
dare say you noticed the perfectly magnificent wreaths they both sent
for the funeral. Clithy's came down from some place in Regent Street
and had a card on it 'To my dear Aunt Lucy.' ... Only human touch about
him ... awfully fond of your wife ... always said he liked her much more
than his mother.... But he needn't have said it so often, though Sibyl
only used to laugh. Her wreath was made here from the very best things
we had got in the hot-houses ... only because Sibyl wrote that Lucy so
loved to walk in these houses and fancy she was back in Africa....
However, I had a letter from her three days ago...." (Takes it out and
reads: "Tell Roger not to dream of coming out here, because I am just
going away. I am writing him in a few days.") "There! Now she'll soon
tell you everything about herself...."
"What about _you_? Have you made any plans as yet?"
_Roger_: "Lucy's death has cut my life in two; I shall have to alter all
the programme we used, to plan out together, she and I and Maud. Of
course there are the children to think about.... Where are the matches?
I'll light a pipe and tell you my ideas...." (A silence ... puffs ...)
... "I've not done badly out of this Happy Valley Concession. I've sold
my shares in it--all but five hundred, kept _them_ just to retain an
interest, don't you know, get the Company's reports from time to
time--I've sold my shares at two pounds a share to the Schraeders'
group. That brings me in close upon L75,000. I haven't saved much
besides ... purposely lived well out there and entertained a good deal,
and gave ... Lucy ... and Maud all they wanted, and had to pay for the
little 'uns' schooling at home. However, there I am at this moment with
about L75,000 at my bank on deposit and twelve hundred or so outstanding
to my current account.... I'm going first of all to give ten thousand
pounds _down_ to Maud. I consider she has _earned_ it.
"And then I must make a new will ... and I want to ask you, old chap, to
be one of the executors. Will you? And p'raps Geoff the other. After
all, it isn't Geoff we dislike, it's that confounded, pious doe-rabbit
of a wife of his. However....
"Well then, about my plans. I suppose I ought to stay at home at
Farleigh--I shall look out for a decent flat in London--and get to know
my children. Somehow it's _that_ I can't take to. They have grown up so
outside all my thoughts and schemes and interests. They don't care a
hang about Africa. John has been making a young fool of himself at
Sandhurst ... been betting and borrowing and getting into debt. I'm
glad his mother didn't know.... Well, I shall square up all that, but I
shall insist on his going in for the Indian Army--Staff Corps--same as I
did.... A man if he's got ability couldn't have a better education....
He's a good-looking boy, John--I expect he thinks me an old fogey from
the backwoods.... India's the school for him. And as to Ambrose, he
must go to Cambridge, when he leaves Harrow, and I shall try and get him
a nomination for the Consular Service.... That's the other good school
for a British citizen. You'll think me jolly conceited, just because
those are the two careers _I've_ followed. But..." (smokes and puffs).
"Well then, there are the two girls. Fat Maud--she was furious because
I revived the old name--says long ago 'Aunt Sibyl' agreed it should be
compromised by her being called Fatima.... Fatima, I gather, is
eighteen, and young Sibyl is fourteen.... For the present Maud will look
after them, and I shall have 'em up to London every now and then for a
few weeks. In course of time I suppose they'll want to be presented.
Dare say old Sibyl will do that, or if she's away, Lady Dewburn. By the
bye, _she_ wrote me an awfully sweet letter about Lucy..." (ponders and
smokes).
"In due time the girls'll marry, and if they pick up the right kind of
husband I shall give 'em each a portion of my ill-gotten wealth. There!
That's what I've planned out, and I dare say it 'ud ha' been quite
different if my darling Luce had lived. I should have been reconciled
then to settling down at home. As it is--I shall travel a bit--Go to
Germany and try to find out what the Germans are up to.... Go back to
Africa p'raps ... _I_ don't know...."
A few days after this conversation, Roger received a letter from Sibyl:
Villa les Pins,
Grimaud, pres St. Tropez,
Var, June 12, 1909.