Swirling Waters Part 19

Inside a room, closely shuttered to keep out the light, Riviere was talking earnestly with Elaine a few days later. The agony of the first days had died down, but she was absolutely helpless. Her eyes were bandaged, and she was dependent on the sister of mercy and Mme Giras for everything.

"Crau is in prison," said he. "I've given formal evidence against him, and he is remanded for trial a month hence. When you are well again, they will take your evidence on commission. He will undoubtedly be sentenced to hard labour for some years."

"What does it matter to me--now?" There was despair in her voice.

"The doctor is very hopeful for you, if you will put yourself under Hegelmann's care."

"He can do nothing for me, I feel it. Only useless expense. No man can give me back the sight I want for my work."

"In time," said Riviere gently, but he could not force conviction into his voice. It went hard with him to lie to the woman he cared for most in the world, even to bring temporary comfort to her.

"My work. Barreze and the Odeon," she murmured slowly, speaking to herself rather than to him. "My work was my life. I remember your saying to me in the garden, by the arbour, only a few days ago: 'If Fate were to deny you your freedom!' I shivered even at the words.... Do you believe in Fate?"

Riviere's fist was clenched as he answered: "I'll fight Fate for both of us."

She was silent for a few moments. Then she asked: "Will you write a letter for me?"

He brought pen and ink, and waited for her dictation.

"My dear Barreze," she dictated slowly, "you must find someone else to paint your scenes of Provence. I am blinded for life----"

"Don't ask me to write that!"

"I am blinded for life," she continued with the clear tones of one whose mental vision sees the future unveiled. "They want me to go to Hegelmann at Wiesbaden. He is a great man, and will do for me all that surgical skill can do. There will be an operation--several, perhaps. It may perhaps give me a faint gleam of light--enough to tell light from darkness and to realize more keenly all that I have lost. I shall never see the theatre again--never paint again. I shall live on the memories of the past and the bitter thoughts of what might have been----"

"I can't write it!" he cried, torn with the pathos of the words she bade him put to paper.

"----of what might have been. My friends of the theatre must pa.s.s out of my life. They can have no use for a crippled, helpless woman, nor do I wish to cloud their happiness with my unwanted presence. Say good-bye to them for me. And you, my dear Barreze, I would thank for the chance you gave me. Your encouragement would have had its reward if I had kept my sight. But it is gone--gone for always--and I am wreckage on the rocks...."

"Elaine, Elaine!" he cried. "You have me by your side! I ask you to let me devote my life to you!"

The answer came gently: "I must not accept such a sacrifice. You offer it out of pity for me. Later, you would repent of it. You have your work to do and your life to live in the open sunshine.... Yet don't think me ungrateful. I am deeply grateful. I shall remember what you said out of pity for me, and treasure it amongst my dearest thoughts."

"It's not pity, Elaine, but----"

He stopped abruptly. The accusing hand of memory had touched him on the shoulder. He had no right to make any such offer--it had come from his heart in pa.s.sionate sincerity, but it was not his to give. Olive was still his wife. Disguise it as he would, he was still Clifford Matheson.

He must leave Elaine to think that pity alone had moulded his words. To explain to her now the shackles of circ.u.mstance that bound him fast would be sheer cruelty, for if she knew the whole truth, she would send him away from her and refuse even the temporary help he could give her.

For Elaine's sake he must keep silent.

A pause of bitter reflection raised a barrier of stone between them.

When he spoke again, it was from the other side of the barrier. "At least you will let me stay by you until you leave Hegelmann's charge?

That I claim.... And I believe he will be able to do for you much more than you imagine. He has worked wonders before. He will do so again. He is the foremost specialist in the world. All that money can command shall be yours."

"Money is terribly useless," said Elaine sadly.

CHAPTER XVI

ONLY PITY!

What was Elaine to do with her life?

In those weary days of the sick-room at Nimes, and on the long railway journey through Lyons, Besancon and Strasburg to Wiesbaden, Elaine had turned over and over, in feverishly restless search for hope, the possibilities that lay before her.

Her total capital was comprised in a few hundred pounds and the furniture of the flat she shared in Paris with a girl friend--a student at the Conservatoire. The money would see her through the expenses of Dr Hegelmann's nursing home and for a few months afterwards--a year at the outside. After that she must inevitably be dependent on the charity of friends or on some charitable inst.i.tution.

The thought of the time when her capital would be gone was like an icy hand gripping at her heart. "Money is terribly useless," she had said to Riviere, but there were times when she wished pa.s.sionately that she had the money with which to buy comforts for a life of blindness. Those were craven moments, however--moments which she despised when they were past.

Of what use to her would be the silken-padded cage she had longed to buy, when life held for her no work, no love?

Riviere she had thought of a thousand times. His every action and word in the days of their first acquaintanceship came back to her with the wonderful inner clarity of sight and hearing that belongs to those who have no outer vision.

She saw him at the arena of Arles, standing on the topmost tier a few yards distant from her, watching the red ball of the sun sink down into the mists of the grey Camargue. He was aloof and cold--icy, unapproachable, masked in reserve.

She saw him in the _ruelle_ of Arles, with the light from the shuttered window falling on him in bars of yellow and black, fighting with Berserk fury against the bare knife of the Provencal youth. Here he was primitive man unchained--a Rodin figure with muscles knotted in a riot of hot-blooded pa.s.sion. He was battling for her.

No, not for her, but for the duty that a man owes to womankind. "I didn't even know it was you," he had said curtly. That had hurt her at the time, but now it seared into her. The rescue had meant nothing--it had brought him no nearer to her. He was still cold and aloof.

She saw him in the Jardin de la Fontaine, lifting his hat with formal politeness and making to move on. Still aloof, still encased in cold reserve.

With deliberate intent she had set herself to melt him, and she had succeeded. By the arbour of the Villa Clementine she saw him, chatting animatedly in keen enjoyment of her frank camaraderie. But that was only casual friendship. Still aloof in what now mattered vitally to her.

She saw him seeking her out by the Maison Carree, standing to watch her sketch and pa.s.sing to her the compliment of candid praise. Then he had come nearer, but by such a little!

She saw him silvered in the moonlight by the Druids' Tower, standing at her easel. Here he would surely have revealed himself if he had had thoughts to utter of inner feelings. But he had remained silent.

Then there rang in her ears his pa.s.sionate declaration of the sick-room: "Elaine! Elaine! You have me by your side! I ask you to let me devote my life to you!"

She weighed it scrupulously in the balance of reason, and judged it Pity. It was the hasty word of a chivalrous man torn by the sight of her helplessness. If it had been love, he would not have been stopped by her refusal. Love is insistent, headstrong, ruthless of obstacles. Love would have forced his offer upon her again and again. Love would have divined the doubt in her mind. Love would have drowned it in kisses.

It was not Love but Pity that Riviere felt for her. And while she silently thanked him for it, it was not enough. She would not enc.u.mber the life of a man who felt merely Pity for her. That would be degradation worse than the acceptance of public charity.

Out of all the turmoil of her fevered thoughts there came this one conclusion: when her last money had been spent, when there only remained for her the bitter bread of charity, she would pa.s.s quietly out of life to a world where the outer sight would matter nothing.

Meanwhile, every casual word of Riviere's was weighed and re-weighed, tested and a.s.sayed by her for the gold that might be hidden within.

CHAPTER XVII

RIVIeRE IS CALLED BACK