Beyond The Rocks Part 35

All had gone well with his business in the City the day before, and in the afternoon he had run down to Bessington Hall, returning late at night.

He was feeling unusually well and self-important, and his thoughts turned to pleasant things: To the delight of having Theodora once more as a wife; of his hope of founding a family--the Browns of Bessington--why not? Had not a boy at the gate called him squire?

"Good-day to 'e, squire," he had said, and that was pleasant to hear.

If only his tiresome cough would keep off in the autumn, he might himself shoot the extensive coverts he had ordered to be stocked on the estate. He had heard there were schools for would-be sportsmen to learn the art of handling a gun, and he would make inquiries.

All the prospect was fair.

He picked up his letters and turned them over. Nothing of importance.

Ah, yes! there was Theodora's. The first letter she had ever written him, and such a long one! What could the girl have to say? Surely not all that about trains! He opened the envelope with a knife which lay by his plate, and this is what he read--read with whitening face and sinking heart:

"BEECHLEIGH, _June 5th_.

HECTOR, MY BELOVED!--Oh, for this last time I must think of you as that! Dearest, we are parted now and may never meet again, and the pain of it all kept me silent yesterday, when my heart was breaking with the anguish and longing to tell you how I loved you, how you were not going away suffering alone. Oh, it has all crept upon us, this great, great love! It was fate, and it was useless to struggle against it. Only we must not let it be the reason of our doing wrong--that would be to degrade it, and love should not live in an atmosphere of degradation. I could not go away with you, could not have you for my lover without breaking a bargain--a bargain over which I have given my word. Of course I did not know what love meant when I was married. In France one does not think of that as connected with a husband. It was just a duty to be got through to help papa and my sisters. But my part of the bargain was myself, and in return for giving that I have money and a home, and papa and Sarah and Clementine are comfortable and happy. And as Josiah has kept his side of it, so I must keep mine, and be faithful to him always in word and deed. Dearest, it is too terrible to think of this material aspect to a bond which now I know should only be one of love and faith and tenderness. But it _is_ a bond, and I have given my word, and no happiness could come to us if I should break it, _as Josiah has not broken his_. And oh, Hector, you do not know how good he has always been to me, and generous and indulgent! It is not his fault that he is not of our cla.s.s, and I must do my utmost to make him happy, and atone for this wound which I have unwittingly given him, and which he is, and must always remain, unconscious of. Oh, if something could have warned me, after that first time we met, that I would love you--had begun to love you--even then there would have been time to draw back, to save us both, perhaps, from suffering. And yet, and yet, I do not know, we might have missed the greatest and n.o.blest good of all our lives. Dearest, I want you to keep the memory of me as something happy. Each year, when the spring-time comes and the young fresh green, I want you to look back on our day at Versailles, and to say to yourself, 'Life cannot be all sad, because nature gave the earth the returning spring.' And some spring must come for us, too--if only in our hearts.

"And now, O my beloved, good-bye! I cannot even tell to you the anguish which is wringing my heart. It is all summed up in this. I love you! I love you! and we must say forever a farewell!

"THEODORA.

"P.S.--I am sending this to your home."

As he read the last words the paper slipped from Josiah's nerveless hands, and for many minutes he sat as one stricken blind and dumb. Then his poor, plebeian figure seemed to crumple up, and with an inarticulate cry of rage and despair he fell forward, with his head upon his out-stretched arms across the breakfast-table.

How long he remained there he never knew. It seemed a whole lifetime later when he began to realize things--to know where he was--to remember.

"Oh, G.o.d!" he said. "Oh, G.o.d!"

He picked up the letter and read it all over again, weighing every word.

Who was this thief who had stolen his wife? Hector? Hector? Yes, it was Lord Bracondale; he remembered now he had heard him called that at Beechleigh. He would like to kill him. But was he a thief, after all? or was not--he--Josiah the thief? To have stolen her happiness, and her life. Her young life that might have been so fair, though how did he know that at the time! He had never thought of such things. She was what he desired, and he had bought her with gold. No, he was not a thief, he had bought her with gold, and because of that she was going to keep to her bargain, and make him a true and faithful wife.

"Oh, G.o.d!" he said again. "Oh, G.o.d!"

Presently the business method of his life came back to him and helped him. He must think this matter over carefully and see if there was any way out. It all looked black enough--his future, that but an hour ago had seemed so full of promise. He rang for the waiter and gave orders to have the breakfast things taken away. That accomplished, he requested that he should not be disturbed upon any pretext whatsoever. And then, drawn up to his writing-table, he began deliberately to think.

Yes, from the beginning Theodora had been good and meek and docile. He remembered a thousand gentle, unselfish things she had done for him. Her patience, her kindness, her unfailing sympathy in all his ills, the consideration and respect with which she treated him. When--when could this thing have begun? In Paris? Only these short weeks ago--was love so sudden a pa.s.sion as that? Then he turned to the letter again and once more read it through. Poor Theodora, poor little girl, he thought. His anger was gone now; nothing remained but an intolerable pain. And this lord--of her own cla.s.s--her own cla.s.s! How that thought hurt. What of him? He was handsome and young, and just the mate for Theodora. And she had said good-bye to him, and was going to do her best to make him--Josiah--happy. He gave a wild laugh. Oh, the mockery of it all, the mockery of it all! Well, if she could renounce happiness to keep her word, what could he do for her in return? She must never know of the mistake she had made in putting the letters into the wrong envelopes.

That he could save her from. But the man? He would know--for he must have got the note intended for him--Josiah. What must be done about that? He thought and thought. And at last he drew a sheet of paper forward and wrote, in his neat, clerklike hand, just a few lines.

And these were they:

"MY LORD,--You will have received, I presume, a communication addressed to you and intended for me. The enclosed speaks for itself. I send it to you because it is my duty to do so.

If I were a young man, though I am not of your cla.s.s, I would kill you. But I am growing old, and my day is over. All I ask of you is never, _under any circ.u.mstances_, to let my wife know of her mistake about the letters. I do not wish to grieve her, or cause her more suffering than you have already brought upon her.

"Believe me, "Yours faithfully, "JOSIAH BROWN."

Then he got down the _Peerage_ and found the correct form of superscription he must place upon the envelope.

He folded the two letters, his own and Theodora's, and, slipping them in, sealed the packet with his great seal which was graven with a deep J.B. And lest he should change his mind, he rang the bell for the waiter, and had it despatched to the post at once--to be sent by express. If possible it must reach Lord Bracondale at the same time as the other letter--Theodora's letter to himself in the wrong envelope.

And then poor Josiah subsided into his chair again, and suffered and suffered. He was conscious of nothing else--just intense, overwhelming suffering.

When his secretary, from his office in the City, came in about luncheon-time to transact some important business, he was horrified and distressed to see the change in his patron; for Josiah looked crumpled and shrivelled and old.

"I caught a chill coming from Bessington last night," he explained, "and I will send for Toplington to give me a draught if you will kindly touch the bell."

Then he tried to concentrate his mind on his affairs and get through the day. But the gray look kept growing and growing, and the secretary decided towards evening to suggest sending for Theodora. Josiah, however, would not hear of this. He was not ill, he said, it was merely a chill; he would be quite restored by a night's rest, and Mrs. Brown would be with him, anyway, in the morning. Of what use to alarm her unnecessarily. But he had unfortunately mislaid her letter with the exact time of her train, so he had better telegraph to her before six o'clock to make sure. He wrote it out himself. Just:

"Stupidly mislaid your letter. What time did you say for the carriage to meet your train?

"JOSIAH."

And about eight o'clock her reply came, and then he went to bed, wondering if he had reached the summit of human suffering or if there would be more to come.

XXIX

Late that night, in the old panelled library at Bracondale, Hector walked up and down. He, too, was suffering, suffering intensely, his only grain of comfort being that he was alone. His mother was away in the north with Anne, and he had the place to himself. In his hand was Theodora's letter. As Josiah had calculated, knowing cross-country posts, both his and hers had arrived at the same time.

Hector paced and paced up and down, his thoughts maddening him.

And so three people were unhappy now--not he and his beloved one alone.

This was the greater calamity.

But how he had misjudged Josiah! The common, impossible husband had behaved with a n.o.bility, a justice, and forbearance which he knew his own pa.s.sionate nature would not have been capable of. It had touched him to the core, and he had written at once in reply, enclosing Theodora's letter about the arrival of the train.

"DEAR SIR,--I am overcome with your generosity and your justice. I thank you for your letter and for your magnanimity in forwarding the enclosure it contained. I understand and appreciate the sentiment you express when you say, had you been younger you would have killed me, and I on my side would have been happy to offer you any satisfaction you might have wished, and am ready to do so now if you desire it. At the same time, I would like you to know, in deed, I have never injured you. My deep and everlasting grief will be that I have brought pain and sorrow into the life of a lady who is very dear to us both. My own life is darkened forever as well, and I am going away out of England for a long time as soon as I can make my arrangements. I will respect your desire never to inform your wife of her mistake, and I will not trouble either of you again. Only, by a later post, I intend to answer her letter and say farewell.

"Believe me, "Yours truly, "BRACONDALE."

This he had despatched some hours ago, but his last good-bye to Theodora was not yet written. What could he say to her? How could he tell her of all the misery and anguish, all the pain which was racking his being; he, who knew life and most things it could hold, and so could judge of the fact that nothing, nothing, counted now but herself--and they should meet no more, and it was the end. A blank, absolute end to all joy.

Nothing to exist upon but the remembrance of an hour or two's bliss and a few tender kisses.

And as Josiah had done, he could only say: "Oh, G.o.d! Oh, G.o.d!"

On top of his large escritoire there stood a minute and very perfect copy of the fragment of Psyche, which he had so intensely admired. He turned to it now as his only consolation; the likeness to Theodora was strong; the exact same form of face, and the way her hair grew; the pure line of the cheek, and the angle which the head was set on to the column of her throat--all might have been chiselled from her. How often had he seen her looking down like that. Perhaps the only difference at all was that Theodora's nose was fine, and not so heavy and Greek; otherwise he had her there in front of him--his Theodora, his gift of the G.o.ds, his Psyche, his soul. And wherever he should wander--if in wildest Africa or furthest India, in Alaska or Tibet--this little fragment of white marble should bear him company.

It calmed him to look at it--the beautiful Greek thing.

And he sat down and wrote to his loved one his good-bye.

[Ill.u.s.tration: What Could He Say to Her.]

He told her of his sorrow and his love, and how he was going away from England, he did not yet know where, and should be absent many months, and how forever his thoughts from distant lands would bridge the s.p.a.ce between them, and surround her with tenderness and worship.

And her letter, he said, should never leave him--her two letters; they should be dearer to him than his life. He prayed her to take care of herself, and if at any time she should want him to send for him from the ends of the earth. Bracondale would always find him, sooner or later, and he was hers to order as she willed.

And as he had ended his letter before, so he ended this one now: