Christmas Roses and Other Stories Part 25

She had been standing still all this while, near the evening primroses; but now, with the great sigh that lifted her breast, she moved forward again, and a bird, disturbed in its rest, flew out from the thick tangle of honeysuckle at the entrance to the summer-house, startling her. As she stopped, her eyes drawn to the spot, she saw, suddenly, that a pale figure was sitting in the summer-house, closely shrunken to one side; hoping in its stillness,--that was apparent,--to remain undiscovered.

Ever since she had entered the garden it must have been sitting there; and ever since she had entered the garden it must have been watching her. But why? How strange!

Dispelling a momentary qualm, she stooped her head under the honeysuckle and entered; and then, clearly visible, with her pale hair and face,--as pale, as evident as an evening's primrose,--the girl sitting there, wide-eyed, revealed, with her ident.i.ty, that haunting a.n.a.logy of a little while ago. Of course, it came in a flash now, that was what they reminded her of. Long ago she had thought--conceding them their most lovable a.s.sociation--that Pamela Braithwaite looked like an evening primrose.

"My dear Pamela," she said, almost as gently as she would have said it to a somnambulist; for, like the flowers, again, she was sad, even uncanny; although Pamela's uncanniness too,--sweet, homely creature,--could never be sinister. She put a hand upon her arm, for the girl had started to her feet.

"Oh--do forgive me, Mrs. Hayward!" Pamela gasped. Sad? It was more than that. She was broken, spent with weeping. "I didn't know you were coming. I sit here sometimes in the evenings. I thought you wouldn't mind."

"My dear child, why should I mind? I'm thankful to you for coming to the sad little place. It's much less lonely to think about, for you have always been so much of our life here."

This, she knew, was an exaggeration; but she must be more than kind to such grief as this: she must find some comfort, if that were possible.

And to feel herself accepted, welcomed, did give comfort; for, sinking again on the seat, bending her face on her hands, Pamela sobbed, "Oh, how kind you are!"

"Poor child, poor, poor child!" said Rosamund. She was only five years older, but she felt as a mother might feel towards the stricken girl.

She put an arm around her, murmuring, "Can you tell me what it is? Don't cry so, dear Pamela."

Pamela Braithwaite had been a girl of eighteen when they had come, in the first year of their marriage, to Crossfields. The Braithwaites lived a mile away, near the river, a large, affectionate, desultory family, in a large, dilapidated house. Already Pamela mothered the younger brood, and mothered the widowed father as well--a retired tea-planter, who had brought from Ceylon some undefined but convenient complaint that enabled him to pa.s.s the rest of his days wrapped in a number of coats, eating very heartily, and, as he expressed it, "sitting about." A peaceful, idle man, legs outstretched in sun or firelight, hat-brim turned down over his eyes (he had a curious way, even in the house, of almost always wearing his hat), pipe between his teeth; good-looking, too, tall and fair, like his daughters, and with a touch in his appearance, though not in his character, of amicable distinction.

Pamela, except for a brother already married and in Ceylon, was the eldest, with a long gap between her and the group of younger brothers, of whom Rosamund thought mainly as a reservoir of Boy Scouts until they had had to be thought of as a reservoir of volunteers. There were three or four younger sisters, too, some of whom had married and some of whom had gone forth into the world--always with an extreme light-heartedness and confidence--as companions or secretaries. These again were hardly individualized in Rosamund's recollection, except for the fact that, since Pamela was always making blouses or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g hats for them, she had become aware that it was Phyllis who wore pink and Marjory blue.

But whoever went, Pamela always stayed; and even when the war broke upon the world, with Frank, the Braithwaite baby, just old enough to enlist, and Phyllis and Marjory at once enrolling themselves as V.A.D.'s, Pamela remained rooted. Who, indeed, had she gone, would have taken care of Mr. Braithwaite, and of the brothers and sisters home on leave, and of the garden earnestly dedicated to potatoes, or the small family of Ceylon nephews and nieces deposited continually in her charge by their parents?

Poor little Pamela! She had had a burdened life; the a.s.siduities of maternity and none of its initial romance. With her large, clear eyes, very far apart, she had always a wistful look; but it was that of a child watching a game and waiting for its turn to come in, and no creature could have given less the impression of weariness or routine.

For she had remained, even at thirty-three, the merely bigger sister; an atmosphere of schoolroom tea and the nurture of rabbits and guinea-pigs still hanging about her; her resource and cheerfulness seeming concerned always with the organizing of games, the care of pets, and the soothing of unimportant distresses. Tall, in her scant tweed skirts, her much-repaired white blouse, her slender feet laced into heavy boots, gardening gloves on her hands, so Rosamund had last seen her, a year ago, just before Charlie had been killed, when she had straightened herself from moulding potatoes in the lawn borders and had come forward with her pretty smile to greet her visitor and take her in to tea. Frank had been killed since then, as well as Charlie, but at that time, for both households, the war was splendid adventure rather than sorrow.

Mr. Braithwaite, in the sunny, shabby drawing-room, had stumbled up among his wrappings, to point out to her his accurate flags, advancing or retreating on the many maps that were pinned upon the walls. Frank's last letter had been read to her, and d.i.c.k's and Eustace's; and Pamela had come in and out, helping the maid with the tea (the Braithwaite maids were always as cheerful and desultory as the family, and Rosamund never remembered seeing one of them who had not her cap askew or her cuffs untied), standing to b.u.t.ter the bread herself, the side of the loaf before cutting the slice, after her old schoolroom fashion; her discreet yet generous use of the b.u.t.ter--the crust covered to a nicety and no lumps on the crumb--seeming to express her, as did the pouring out of the excellent tea, drawn to a point and never over, and the pleasant, capacious cups with their gilt rims and the immersed rose which, as one drank, discovered itself at the bottom.

A sweet, old-fashioned, homely creature; like the evening primroses; like them, obliterated, unnoticed in daylight; and like them now, becoming visible, becoming personal, even becoming tragic at this nocturnal hour; for was this really Pamela, sweet, prosaic Pamela, sobbing so broken-heartedly beside her? How meagre, intellectual, and unsubstantial her own grief seemed to Rosamund as she listened, almost aghast, her arm about Pamela's shoulders; and her instinct told her: "It is a man. It is some one she loves--not Frank, but some one she loves far more--who is dead. It is something final and fatal that has broken her down like this." And aloud she repeated: "Can you tell me, Pamela dear? Please try to tell me. It may help you to tell." Her own heart was shaken and tears were in her own eyes.

Between her sobs Pamela answered, "I love him--I love him so much. He is dead. And sometimes I can't bear it."

Rosamund had never heard of a love-affair. But these years of war had done many things, had found out even the hidden Pamelas.

"I didn't know.--My poor child!--I never heard. Were you engaged?"

She had Pamela's ringless hand in hers.

"No! No! It wasn't that. No--I've never had any one like that. No one ever knew. He never knew." Pamela lifted her head. Her face seemed now only a message emerging from the darkness; shadowed light upon the shadow, it was expression rather than form. "May I tell you?" she said.

"Can you forgive my telling you--here and now,--and to-night, when you've come to be with him? It was Mr. Hayward I loved. I've always loved him. He has been all my life. Ever since you first came here to live."

Rosamund gazed at her, and through all her astonishment there ran an undertone of accomplished presage. Yes, that was it, of course. Had she not been feeling it, seeking it all the evening?--or had it not been seeking her? Here it was, then, the lacking emptiness. Desolate voids seemed to open upon her in Pamela's shadowy eyes. She tightly held the ringless hand and felt, presently, that she pressed it against her heart where something pierced her. Was it pity for Pamela? or for Charlie?

This was his; had always been his. And Pamela, who had had nothing, had lost everything. "My dear!" she murmured.

"Oh, how kind you are!" said Pamela. She sat quiet, looking down at their two hands held against Rosamund's heart. And with all the austerity of her grief she had never been more childlike in Rosamund's eyes. Like a child, once the barriers of shyness were down and trust established, she would confide everything.

Rosamund knew how it must help her to confide. "Tell me if you will,"

she said. "I am glad you loved him, if it has not hurt you too much. You understand, don't you, that I must be glad--for him?"

"Yes, oh, yes; I understand. How beautiful of you to see it all!--Even though it's so little, it is his; something he did; and so you must care. But I don't think there's much to tell; nothing about him that you don't know."

"About you, then. About what he was to you."

"That would simply be my whole life," said Pamela. "It's so wonderful of you to understand and not to blame me. So many people would have thought it wrong; but it came before I knew what it was going to be, and I never can feel that it was wrong. He never knew. And even if he had, it couldn't have made any difference. It must be because of that that I can tell you. If you hadn't been so happy, if it hadn't been so perfect--for you and him--I don't think that I could have told. I should just have rushed away when you came in and hidden from you."

"Why?" asked Rosamund after a moment. She heard something in her own voice that Pamela would not hear.

"I don't quite know why," said Pamela; "but don't you feel it too?

Perhaps if it hadn't been so perfect, even my little outside love might have hurt you--or troubled you--to hear about. But I see now that you are the only person in the world who could care to hear. It is a comfort to tell you. I am so glad you came." Pamela turned her eyes upon her and it was almost with her smile. "When I see you like this I can believe that he is here, listening with you, and sorry for me, too."

How like an evening primrose she was! Rosamund could see her clearly now: the candid oval of the face, the eyes, the innocent, child forehead with thick, fair hair falling across it.

"Yes. Go on," she said, smiling back.

She was not worthy of Pamela, and poor Charlie was not worthy of her; but no human being is worthy of a flower. And though so innocent, she was not stupid; subtlety like a fragrance was about her as she said, "You can comfort me because you have so much to comfort with."

"So much grief, or so much remembered happiness?"

"They go together, don't they?" said Pamela. "Every sort of fulness. But I needn't try to get it clear. You understand. I always thought that perhaps people who had fulness couldn't; now I see that I was mistaken."

"Have you been very unhappy, dear child?"

"Until now? While he was here? Oh, no, I have been lonely. Even before he came, even though my life was so crowded, it was rather lonely. I never had any one of my own, for myself. But afterwards, even if I felt lonely, I was happy. At least, after just at first. Because, just at first, it was miserable, for I couldn't help longing to see him more and to have him like me more, and that made me understand that I was in love with him, and I was frightened. I can't explain clearly about it, even to myself. But I was very, very unhappy. Perhaps you remember the time when I was twenty, and got so run down, and they sent me to Germany to my old governess--the only time I ever went away from home, out of England. It was a miserable time. I tried not to think of him and not to care. But I had to come back, and he was there, and I knew I couldn't stop caring, and that all I could do about it was to try to be better because of him,--you know,--and make people happier, and not think of myself, but of him and them. And everything changed after that. I was never frightened any more, and though perhaps it wasn't exactly happiness, it was, sometimes, I believe, almost better. I can't explain it, but what I mean is in some poetry. I never cared much about poetry till he came. Then I seemed to understand things I'd never understood before, and to feel everything that was beautiful.

"You remember how dear he was to us all--to the boys and me. I always shared in everything they did. Every bit of this country is full of him; I could never bear to go away and leave it. I want always to stay here till I die.--Flowers and birds--wasn't he wonderful about them? And our walks in the woods! He saw everything, and made us see it. I never woke in the morning without thinking, Will he come to-day? What will he say and do? I was never tired of watching him and listening to him. All his little ways--you know. When I pleased him,--sometimes I saw the bird we were watching for first, or caught my trout well,--it was a red-letter day. And in big things--to feel I should have pleased him if he'd known.

It was he who helped me in every way, without knowing it. And I took more and more joy in you. At first I had felt dreadfully shy with you--and afraid of you. You were so clever, with all your books and music and friends, and you didn't seem to need anything. But afterwards you were so kind, that, though I was always shy, I was not frightened any longer. I used to think about you so much, and imagine what he felt about you--and you about him.--You won't mind my saying it, I know.

Perhaps you remember the way I used so often, in the evenings, to walk past with the children, and say good-night over the wall. That was to see you and him walking together. You were so beautiful! You are far and far away the most beautiful person I've ever known. I always noticed everything you wore, and how your hair was done. I was glad when you took it down from the knot and had it all at the back, as you do now.

And the lovely pale blue dress, with the little flounces--do you remember?--a summer dress of lawn. I did love that. And the white linen coats and skirts, and the big white hat with the lemon-coloured bow.

Your very shoes--those grey ones you always had, with the low heels and little silver buckles. No one had such lovely clothes. And the way you poured out tea and looked across the table at one. Always like a beautiful muse--you don't mind my saying it?--a little above everything, and apart, and quietly looking on.--How I understood what he felt for you! I felt it, too, I think, with him."

Yes, dear flower and child, she had: offering to Charlie that last tribute of a woman's worship, the imaginative love of the woman he loves; cherishing the cruelly sweet closeness of that piercing community. How she had idealized them both. How she had idealized Charlie's love. Charlie had never seen her like this. Charlie had never dreamed of her as a muse, above, apart, and quietly watching. Why, with Pamela's Charlie she herself could almost have been in love!

"What did you talk about, you and he," she asked, "when you were together?" Their sylvan life, Pamela's and Charlie's, was almost as unknown to her as that of the birds they watched. She had almost a soft small hope that perhaps Pamela could show her something she had missed.

"Did you ever talk about poetry, for instance?"

"No; never about things like that," Pamela answered. "He talked more to the boys than to me; he talked to us all together--about what we were doing. But I used to love listening to him when he came and talked to father. Politics, you know; and the way things ought to be done. He was a great deal discouraged, you remember, by the way they _were_ being done. All those unjust taxes, you know. He wanted, he used always to say, to _give_ to the poor himself; he _loved_ taking care of them. But he hated that his money should be taken from him like that, against his will. And he always, always foresaw the war; always knew that Germany was plotting, and how England swarmed with spies. He thought we ought to have declared war upon her long ago and struck first.--I'm rather glad we didn't, aren't you? because then, in a way, we should have been in the wrong rather than they; but of course he felt it as a statesman, not like an ignorant woman.--You think Germany plotted, too?"

"Yes, oh, yes." How glad Rosamund was to be able to think it, to be able, here, with a clear conscience, to remember that, on the theme of Germany's craft and crime, she and Charlie had thought quite sufficiently alike. "But I am with you about not striking first."

"Are you really?" There was surprise in Pamela's voice. She did not dwell on the slight perplexity. "Of course, he always worsted father if he disagreed. It was rather wicked of me, but I couldn't help enjoying seeing father worsted. He'd never thought things out, as Mr. Hayward had. But that's what he talked about--things like that--and you."

"Me?" Rosamund's voice was gentle, meditative--her old voice of the encounters with Charlie. How she could hear him through all Pamela's candid recitative!

"He was always thinking about you. 'My wife says so and so. My wife agrees with me about it. I brought my wife last night to see it as I do.' Oh, you were with him in everything! It was so beautiful to see and hear! I used to imagine that the Brownings were like that--after I read their lives. He was a sort of poet, wasn't he? Any one so loving and so happy is a sort of poet--even if they don't write poetry. Down in the meadows one day, when we were watching lapwings, he and I and the boys,--he wanted to show us a nest; you know how difficult they are to find,--you pa.s.sed up on the hillside, with Philip and Giles. We could see you against the larchwood, they in their holland smocks and you in white, with the white-and-yellow hat. I shall never forget the way he stood up and smiled, his eyes following you. 'There's Rosamund and the progeny,' he said.--You know the dear, funny way he had of saying things."

Yes--she knew it. Yet tears had risen to Rosamund's eyes. Dear old Charlie; dear, old, tiresome Charlie! The tears had come as she saw him standing to look after her and his boys; but there was nothing more, nothing that she could give to Pamela, not one crumb of enrichment from what Pamela believed to be her great store. Pamela had seen all--and more than all--that there was to see.

In her own silence now she was aware of a growing oppression. She was too silent, even for one mute from the depth and sacredness of memory.