Miss Bretherton Part 13

'But why despair so soon?' she cried, rebelling against this heavy acquiescence of his and her own sense of hopelessness. 'You are a man any woman might love. Why should she not pa.s.s from the mere friendly intellectual relation to another? Don't go away from London. Stay and see as much of her as you can.'

Kendal shook his head. 'I used to dream,' he said huskily, 'of a time when failure should have come, when she would want some one to step in and shield her. Sometimes I thought of her protected in my arms against the world. But now!'

She felt the truth of his unspoken argument--of all that his tone implied. In the minds of both the same image gathered shape and distinctness. Isabel Bretherton in the halo of her great success, in all the intensity of her new life, seemed to her and to him to stand afar off, divided by an impa.s.sable gulf from this simple, human craving, which was crying to her, unheard and hopeless, across the darkness.

CHAPTER VIII

A month after the first performance of _Elvira_ Kendal returned to town on a frosty December afternoon from the Surrey lodgings on which he had now established a permanent hold. He mounted to his room, found his letters lying ready for him, and on the top of them a telegram, which, as his man-servant informed him, had arrived about an hour before. He took it up carelessly, opened it, and bent over it with a start of anxiety.

It was from his brother-in-law. '_Marie is very ill. Doctors much alarmed. Can you come to-night_?' He put it down in stupefaction. Marie ill! the doctors alarmed! Good heavens! could he catch that evening train? He looked at his watch, decided that there was time, and plunged, with his servant's help, into all the necessary preparations. An hour and a half later he was speeding along through the clear cold moonlight to Dover, realising for the first time, as he leant back alone in his compartment, the full meaning of the news which had hurried him off. All his tender affection for his sister, and all his stifling sense of something unlucky and untoward in his own life, which had been so strong in him during the past two months, combined to rouse in him the blackest fears, the most hopeless despondency. Marie dead,--what would the world hold for him! Books, thought, ideas--were they enough? Could a man live by them if all else were gone? For the first time Kendal felt a doubt which seemed to shake his nature to its depths.

During the journey his thoughts dwelt in a dull sore way upon the past. He saw Marie in her childhood, in her youth, in her rich maturity. He remembered her in the schoolroom spending all her spare time over contrivances of one kind or another for his amus.e.m.e.nt. He had a vision of her going out with their mother on the night of her first ball, and pitying him for being left behind. He saw her tender face bending over the death-bed of their father, and through a hundred incidents and memories--all beautiful, all intertwined with that lovely self-forgetfulness which was characteristic of her, his mind travelled down to an evening scarcely a month before, when her affection had once more stood, a frail warm barrier, between him and the full bitterness of a great renunciation. Oh Marie, Marie!

It was still dark when he reached Paris, and the gray winter light was only just dawning when he stopped at the door of his brother-in-law's house in one of the new streets near the Champs Elysees. M. de Chateauvieux was standing on the stairs, his smoothly-shaven, clear-cut face drawn and haggard, and a stoop in his broad shoulders which Kendal had never noticed before. Kendal sprang up the steps and wrung his hand.

M. de Chateauvieux shook his head almost with a groan, in answer to the brother's inquiry of eye and lip, and led the way upstairs into the forsaken _salon_, which looked as empty and comfortless as though its mistress had been gone from it years instead of days. Arrived there, the two men standing opposite to each other in the streak of dull light made by the hasty withdrawal of a curtain, Paul said, speaking in a whisper, with dry lips:

'There is no hope--the pain is gone; you would think she was better, but the doctors say she will just lie there as she is lying now till--till--the end.'

Kendal staggered over to a chair and tried to realise what he had heard, but it was impossible, although his journey had seemed to him one long preparation for the worst. 'What is it--how did it happen?' he asked.

'Internal chill. She was only taken ill the day before yesterday, and the pain was frightful till yesterday afternoon; then it subsided, and I thought she was better--she herself was so cheerful and so thankful for the relief--but when the two doctors came in again, it was to tell me that the disappearance of the pain meant only the worst--meant that nothing more can be done--she may go at any moment.'

There was a silence. M. de Chateauvieux walked up and down with the noiseless step which even a few hours of sickness develop in the watcher, till he came and stood before his brother-in-law, saying in the same painful whisper, 'You must have some food, then I will tell her you are here.'

'No, no; I want no food,--any time will do for that. Does she expect me?'

'Yes; you won't wait? Then come.' He led the way across a little anteroom, lifted a curtain, and knocked. The nurse came, there was a little parley, and Paul went in, while Eustace waited outside, conscious of the most strangely trivial things, of the pa.s.sers-by in the street, of a wrangle between two _gamins_ on the pavement opposite, of the misplacement of certain volumes in the bookcase beside him, till the door opened again, and M. de Chateauvieux drew him in.

He stepped over the threshold, his whole being wrought up to he knew not what solemn pageant of death and parting, and the reality within startled him. The room was flooded with morning light, a frosty December sun was struggling through the fog, the curtains had just been drawn back, and the wintry radiance rested on the polished bra.s.s of the bed, on the bright surfaces of wood and gla.s.s with which the room was full, on the little tray of tea-things which the nurse held, and on his sister's face of greeting as she lay back smiling among her pillows. There was such a cheerful home peace and brightness in the whole scene--in the crackling wood fire, in the sparkle of the tea-things and the fragrance of the tea, and in the fresh white surroundings of the invalid; it seemed to him incredible that under all this familiar household detail there should be lying in wait that last awful experience of death.

Marie kissed him with grateful affectionate words spoken almost in her usual voice, and then, as he sat beside her holding her hands, she noticed that he looked pale and haggard.

'Has he had some breakfast, Paul? Oh, poor Eustace, after that long journey! Nurse, let him have my cup, there is some tea left; let me see you drink it, dear; it's so pleasant just to look after you once more.'

He drank it mechanically, she watching him with her loving eyes, while she took one hand from him and slipped it into that of her husband as he sat beside her on the bed. Her touch seemed to have meaning in it, for Paul rose presently and went to the far end of the large room; the nurse carried away the tea-things, and the brother and sister were practically alone.

'Dear Eustace,' she began, after a few pathetic moments of silence, in which look and gesture took the place of speech, 'I have so longed to see you. It seemed to me in that awful pain that I must die before I could gather my thoughts together once more, before I could get free enough from my own wretched self to say to my two dear ones all I wished to say.

But now it is all gone, and I am so thankful for this moment of peace.

I made Dr. de Chavannes tell me the whole truth. Paul and I have always promised one another that there should never be any concealment between us when either of us came to die, and I think I shall have a few hours more with you.'

She was silent a little; the voice had all its usual intonations, but it was low and weak, and it was necessary for her from time to time to gather such strength as might enable her to maintain the calm of her manner. Eustace, in bewildered misery, had hidden his face upon her hands, which were clasped in his, and every now and then she felt the pressure of his lips upon her fingers.

'There are many things I want to say to you,' she went on. 'I will try to remember them in order. Will you stay with Paul a few days--after--? will you always remember to be good to him? I know you will. My poor Paul, oh if I had but given you a child!'

The pa.s.sion of her low cry thrilled Eustace's heart. He looked up and saw on her face the expression of the hidden yearning of a lifetime. It struck him as something awful and sacred; he could not answer it except by look and touch, and presently she went on after another pause:

'His sister will come to him very likely--his widowed sister. She has a girl he is fond of. After a while he will take pleasure in her.--Then I have thought so much of you and of the future. So often last night I thought I saw you and _her_, and what you ought to do seemed to grow plain to me. Dear Eustace, don't let anything I say now ever be a burden to you--don't let it fetter you ever--but it is so strong in me you must let me say it all. She is not in love with you, Eustace--at least, I think not. She has never thought of you in that way; but there is everything there which ought to lead to love. You interest her deeply; the thought of you stands to her as the symbol of all she wants to reach; and then she knows what you have been to all those who trusted you. She knows that you are good and true. I want you to try and carry it farther for her sake and yours.' He looked up and would have spoken, but she put her soft hand over his mouth. 'Wait one moment. Those about her are not people to make her happy--at any time if things went wrong--if she broke down--she would be at their mercy. Then her position--you know what difficulties it has--it makes my heart ache sometimes to think of it. She won my love so. I felt like a mother to her. I long to have her here now, but I would not let Paul send; and if I could think of her safe with you--in those true hands of yours. Oh, you will try, darling?' He answered her huskily and brokenly, laying his face to hers on the pillow.

'I would do anything you asked. But she is so likely to love and marry.

Probably there is some one--already. How could it not be with her beauty and her fame? Anybody would be proud to marry her, and she has such a quick eager nature.

'There is no one!' said Marie, with deep conviction in the whispered words. 'Her life has been too exciting--too full of one interest. She stayed with me; I got to know her to the bottom. She would not have hidden it. Only say you will make one trial and I should be content.'

And then her innate respect for another's individuality, her shrinking from what might prove to be the tyranny of a dying wish interposed, and she checked herself. 'No, don't promise; I have no right--no one has any right. I can only tell you my feeling--my deep sense that there is hope--that there is nothing against you. Men--good men--are so often over-timid when courage would be best. Be bold, Eustace; respect your own love; do not be too proud to show it--to offer it!' Her voice died away into silence, only Eustace still felt the caressing touch of the thin fingers clasped round his. It seemed to him as if the life still left in her were one pure flame of love, undimmed by any thought of self, undisturbed by any breath of pain. Oh, this victory of the spirit over the flesh, of soul over body, which humanity achieves and renews from day to day and from age to age, in all those n.o.bler and finer personalities upon whom the moral life of the world depends! How it burns its testimony into the heart of the spectator! How it makes him thrill with the apprehension which lies at the root of all religion--the apprehension of an ideal order--the divine suspicion

'That we are greater than we know!'

How it impresses itself upon us as the only miracle which will bear our leaning upon, and stand the strain of human questioning! It was borne in upon Eustace, as he sat bowed beside his dying sister, that through this fragile body and this failing breath the Eternal Mind was speaking, and that in Marie's love the Eternal Love was taking voice. He said so to her brokenly, and her sweet eyes smiled back upon him a divine answer of peace and faith.

Then she called faintly, 'Paul!' The distant figure came back; and she laid her head upon her husband's breast, while Eustace was gently drawn away by the nurse. Presently, he found himself mechanically taking food and mechanically listening to the low-voiced talk of the kindly white-capped woman who was attending to him. Every fact, every impression, was misery,--these details so unexpected, so irrevocable, so charged with terrible meaning, which the nurse was pouring out upon him,--that presence in the neighbouring room of which his every nerve was conscious,--and in front of him, like a frowning barrier shutting off the view of the future, the advancing horror of death! Yesterday, at the same time, he had been walking along the sandy Surrey roads, delighting in the last autumn harmonies of colour, and conscious of the dawn of a period of rest after a period of conflict, of the growth within him of a temper of quiet and rational resignation to the conditions of life and of his own individual lot, over the development of which the mere fact of his sister's existence had exercised a strong and steadying influence. Life, he had persuaded himself, was for him more than tolerable, even without love and marriage. The world of thought was warm and hospitable to him; he moved at ease within its friendly familiar limits; and in the world of personal relations, one heart was safely his, the sympathy and trust and tenderness of one human soul would never fail him at his need. And now this last tender bond was to be broken with a rough, incredible suddenness. The woman he loved with pa.s.sion would never be his; for not even now, fresh from contact with his sister's dying hope, could he raise himself to any flattering vision of the future; and the woman he loved, with that intimate tenacity of affection which is the poetry of kinship, was to be taken from him by this cruel wastefulness of premature death.

Could any man be more alone than he would be? And then suddenly a consciousness fell upon him which made him ashamed. In the neighbouring room his ear was caught now and then by an almost imperceptible, murmur of voices. What was his loss, his agony, compared to theirs?

When he softly returned into the room he found Marie lying as though asleep upon, her husband's arm. It seemed to him that since he had left her there had been a change. The face was more drawn, the look of exhaustion more defined. Paul sat beside her, his eyes riveted upon her.

He scarcely seemed to notice his brother-in-law's entrance; it was as though he were rapidly losing consciousness of every fact but one; and never had Kendal seen any countenance so grief-stricken, so pinched with longing. But Marie heard the familiar step. She made a faint movement with her hand towards him, and he resumed his old place, his head bowed upon the bed. And so they sat through the morning, hardly moving, interchanging at long intervals a few words--those sad sacred words which well from the heart in the supreme moments of existence--words which, in the case of such natures as Marie de Chateauvieux, represent the intimate truths and fundamental ideas of the life that has gone before. There was nothing to hide, nothing to regret. A few kindly messages, a few womanly commissions, and every now and then a few words to her husband, as simple as the rest, but pregnant with the deepest thoughts and touching the vastest problems of humanity,--this was all. Marie was dying as she had lived--bravely, tenderly, simply.

Presently they roused her to take some nourishment, which she swallowed with difficulty. It gave her a momentary strength. Kendal heard himself called, and looked up. She had opened the hand lying on the bed, and he saw in it a small miniature case, which she moved towards him.

'Take it,' she said--oh, how faintly!--'to her. It is the only memento I can think of. She has been ill, Eustace: did I tell you? I forget. I should have gone--but for this. It is too much for her,--that life. It will break her down. You can save her and cherish her--you will. It seems as if I saw you--together!'

Then her eyes fell and she seemed to sleep--gently wandering now and then, and mentioning in her dying dream names and places which made the reality before them more and more terrible to the two hushed listeners, so different were the a.s.sociations they called up. Was this white nerveless form, from which mind and breath were gently ebbing away, all that fate had grudgingly left to them, for a few more agonised moments, of the brilliant, high-bred woman who had been but yesterday the centre of an almost European network of friendships and interests! Love, loss, death,--oh, how unalterable is this essential content of life, embroider it and adorn it as we may!

Kendal had been startled by her words about Isabel Bretherton. He had not heard of any illness; it could hardly be serious, for he vaguely remembered that in the newspapers he had tried to read on the journey his eye had caught the familiar advertis.e.m.e.nt of the _Calliope_. It must have happened while he was in Surrey. He vaguely speculated about it now and then as he sat watching through the afternoon. But nothing seemed to matter very much to him--nothing but Marie and the slow on-coming of death.

At last when the wintry light was fading, when the lamps were being lit outside, and the bustle of the street seemed to penetrate in little intermittent waves of sound into the deep quiet of the room, Marie Raised herself and, with a fluttering sigh, withdrew her hand softly from her brother, and laid her arm round her husband's neck. He stooped to her--kissed the sweet lips and the face on which the lines of middle age had hardly settled--caught a wild alarm from her utter silence, called the nurse and Kendal, and all was over.

CHAPTER IX

The morning of Marie's funeral was sunny but bitterly cold; it was one of those days when autumn finally pa.s.ses into winter, and the last memory of the summer warmth vanishes from the air. It had been the saddest, dreariest laying to rest. The widowed sister, of whom Marie had spoken in her last hours, had been unable to come, and the two men had gone through it all alone, helped only by the tearful, impulsive sympathy and the practical energy of the maid who had been with Marie ever since her marriage, and was as yet hardly capable of realising her mistress's death.

It was she who, while they were away, had done her best to throw a little air of comfort over the forsaken _salon_. She had kindled the fire, watered the plants, and thrown open the windows to the sunshine, finding in her toil and movement some little relief from her own heart-ache and oppression. When Paul came back, and with numb, trembling fingers had stripped himself of his scarf and his great-coat, he stepped over the threshold into the _salon_, and it seemed to him as though the sunlight and the open windows and the crackling blaze of the fire dealt him a sudden blow. He walked up to the windows, and, shuddering, drew them down and closed the blinds, Felicie watching him anxiously from the landing through the half-open door. Then he had thrown himself into a chair; and Kendal, coming softly upstairs after him, had gently closed the door from the outside, said a kind word to Felicie, and himself slipped noiselessly down again and out into the Champs Elysees. There he had paced up and down for an hour or more under the trees, from which a few frosty leaves were still hanging in the December air.

He himself had been so stunned and bewildered by the loss which had fallen upon him, that, when he found himself alone and out of doors again, he was for a while scarcely able to think consecutively about it.

He walked along conscious for some time of nothing but a sort of dumb physical congeniality in the sunshine, in the clear blue and white of the sky, in the cheerful distinctness and sharpness of every outline. And then, little by little, the cheated grief rea.s.serted itself, the numbed senses woke into painful life, and he fell into broken musings on the past, or into a bitter wonder over the precarious tenure by which men hold those good things whereon, so long as they are still their own, they are so quick to rear an edifice of optimist philosophy. A week before, his sister's affection had been to him the one sufficient screen between his own consciousness and the desolate threatening immensities of thought and of existence. The screen had fallen, and the darkness seemed to be rushing in upon him. And still, life had to be lived, work to be got through, duties to be faced. How is it done? he kept vaguely wondering.

How is it that men live on to old age and see bond after bond broken, and possession after possession swept away, and still find the years tolerable and the sun pleasant, still cherish in themselves that inexhaustible faith in an ideal something which supplies from century to century the invincible motive power of the race?

Presently--by virtue of long critical and philosophical habit--his mind brought itself to bear more and more steadily upon his own position; he stepped back, as it were, from himself and became his own spectator. The introspective temper was not common with him; his mind was naturally turned outward--towards other people, towards books, towards intellectual interests. But self-study had had its charm for him of late, and, amongst other things, it was now plain to him that up to the moment of his first meeting with Isabel Bretherton his life had been mostly that of an onlooker--a bystander. Society, old and new, men and women of the past and of the present, the speculative achievements of other times and of his own,--these had const.i.tuted a sort of vast drama before his eyes, which he had watched and studied with an ever-living curiosity. But his interest in his particular _role_ had been comparatively weak, and in a.n.a.lysing other individualities he had run some risk of losing his own.

Then love came by, and the half-dormant personality within him had been seized upon and roused, little by little, into a glowing, although a repressed and hidden energy. He had learnt in his own person what it means to crave, to thirst, to want. And now, grief had followed and had pinned him more closely than ever to his special little part in the human spectacle. The old loftiness, the old placidity of mood, were gone. He had loved, and lost, and despaired. Beside those great experiences how trivial and evanescent seemed all the interests of the life that went before them! He looked back over his intercourse with Isabel Bretherton, and the points upon which it had turned seemed so remote from him, so insignificant, that for the moment he could hardly realise them. The artistic and aesthetic questions which had seemed to him so vital six months before had faded almost out of view in the fierce neighbourhood of sorrow and pa.s.sion. His first relation to her had been that of one who knows to one who is ignorant; but that puny link had dropped, and he was going to meet her now, fresh from the presence of death, loving her as a man loves a woman, and claiming from her nothing but pity for his grief, balm for his wound,--the answer of human tenderness to human need.

How strange and sad that she should be still in ignorance of his loss and hers! In the early morning after Marie's death, when he woke up from a few heavy hours of sleep, his mind had been full of her. How was the news to be broken to her? He himself did not feel that he could leave his brother-in-law. There was a strong regard and sympathy between them; and his presence in the house of mourning would undoubtedly be useful to Paul for a while; besides, there were Marie's words--'Will you stay with him a few days--after--?'--which were binding on him. He must write, then; but it was only to be hoped that no newspaper would bring her the news before his letter could reach.

However, as the day wore on, Paul came noiselessly out of the quiet room where the white shrouded form seemed still to spread a tender presence round it, and said to Eustace with dry, piteous lips: