The Crown of Life Part 54

"I miss the connection," said Irene, with a puzzled air.

"Forgive me. I am fond of music, and it has been in my mind all the time--the hope that you would play again."

"Oh, that was merely the slow music, as one might say, of the drawing-room mysteries--an obligato in the after-dinner harmony. I play only to amuse myself--or when it is a painful duty."

Piers was warned by his tactful conscience that he had held Miss Derwent quite long enough in talk. A movement in their neighbourhood gave miserable opportunity; he resigned his seat to another expectant, and did his best to converse with someone else.

Her voice went with him as he walked homewards across the Park, under a fleecy sky silvered with moonlight; the voice which now and again brought back so vividly their first meeting at Ewell. He lived through it all again, the tremors, the wild hopes, the black despair of eight years ago. How she encountered him on the stairs, talked of his long hours of study, and prophesied--with that indescribable blending of gravity and jest, still her characteristic--that he would come to grief over his examination. Irene! Irene! Did she dream what was in his mind and heart? The long, long love, his very life through all labours and cares and casualties--did she suspect it, imagine it? If she had received his foolish verses (he grew hot to think of them), there must have been at least a moment when she knew that he worshipped her, and does such knowledge ever fade from a woman's memory?

Irene! Irene! Was she brought nearer to him by her own experience of heart-trouble? That she had suffered, he could not doubt; impossible for her to have given her consent to marriage unless she believed herself in love with the man who wooed her. It could have been no trifling episode in her life, whatever the story; Irene was not of the women who yield their hands in jest, in pique, in lighthearted ignorance. The change visible in her was more, he fancied, than could be due to the mere lapse of time; during her silences, she had the look of one familiar with mental conflict, perhaps of one whose pride had suffered an injury. The one or two glances which he ventured whilst she was talking with the man who succeeded to his place beside her, perceived a graver countenance, a reserve such as she had not used with him; and of this insubstantial solace he made a sort of hope which winged the sleepless hours till daybreak.

He had permission to call upon Mrs. Borisoff at times alien to polite routine. Thus, when nearly a week had pa.s.sed, he sought her company at midday, and found her idling over a book, her seat by a window which viewed the Thames and the broad Embankment with its plane trees, and London beyond the water, picturesque in squalid hugeness through summer haze and the sagging smoke of chimneys numberless. She gave a languid hand, pointed to a chair, gazed at him with embarra.s.sing fixity.

"I don't know about the Castle," were her first words. "Perhaps I shall give it up."

"You are not serious?"

Piers spoke and looked in dismay; and still she kept her heavy eyes on him.

"What does it matter to _you_?" she asked carelessly.

"I counted on--on showing you the dales----"

Mrs. Borisoff nodded twice or thrice, and laughed, then pointed to the prospect through the window.

"This is more interesting. Imagine historians living a thousand years hence--what would they give to see what we see now!"

"Oh, one often has that thought. It's about the best way of making ordinary life endurable."

They watched the steamers and barges, silent for a minute or two.

"So you had rather I didn't give up the castle?"

"I should be horribly disappointed."

"Yes--no doubt you would. Why did you come to see me to-day? No, no, no! The real reason.

"I wanted to talk about Miss Derwent," Piers answered, bracing himself to frankness.

Mrs. Borisoff's lips contracted, in something which was not quite a smile, but which became a smile before she spoke.

"If you hadn't told the truth, Mr. Otway, I would have sent you about your business. Well, talk of her; I am ready."

"But certainly not if it wearies you----"

"Talk! talk!"

"I'll begin with a question. Does Miss Derwent go much into society?"

"No; not very much. And it's only the last few months that she has been seen at all in London--I mean, since the affair that people talked about."

"Did they talk--disagreeably?"

"Gossip--chatter--half malicious without malicious intention--don't you know the way of the sweet creatures? I would tell you more if I could.

The simple truth is that Irene has never spoken to me about it--never once. When it happened, she came suddenly to Paris, to a hotel, and from there wrote me a letter, just saying that her marriage was off; no word of explanation. Of course I fetched her at once to my house, and from that moment to this I have heard not one reference from her to the matter. You would like to know something about the hero? He has been away a good deal--building up the Empire, as they say; which means, of course, looking after his own and other people's dividends."

"Thank you. Now let us talk about the Castle."

But Mrs. Borisoff was not in a good humour to-day, and Piers very soon took his leave. Her hand felt rather hot; he noticed this particularly, as she let it lie in his longer than usual--part of her absent-mindedness.

Piers had often resented, as a weakness, his susceptibility to the influence of others' moods; he did so to-day, when having gone to Mrs.

Borisoff in an unusually cheerful frame of mind, he came away languid and despondent. But his scheme of life permitted no such idle brooding as used to waste his days; self-discipline sent him to his work, as usual, through the afternoon, and in the evening he walked ten miles.

The weather was brilliant. As he stood, far away in rural stillness, watching a n.o.ble sunset, he repeated to himself words which had of late become his motto, "Enjoy now! This moment will never come again." But the intellectual resolve was one thing, the moral apt.i.tude another. He did not enjoy; how many hours in all his life had brought him real enjoyment? Idle to repeat and repeat that life was the pa.s.sing minute, which must be seized, made the most of; he could not live in the present; life was to him for ever a thing postponed. "I will live--I will enjoy--some day!" As likely as not that day would never dawn.

Was it true, as admonishing reason sometimes whispered, that happiness cometh not by observation, that the only true content is in the moments which we pa.s.s without self-consciousness? Is all attainment followed by disillusion? A man aware of his health is on the verge of malady. Were he to possess his desire, to exclaim, "I am happy," would the Fates chastise his presumption?

That way lay asceticism, which his soul abhorred. On, rather, following the great illusion, if this it were! "The crown of life"--philosophise as he might, that word had still its meaning, still its inspiration.

Let the present pa.s.s untasted; he preferred his dream of a day to come.

Next morning, very unexpectedly, he received a note from Mrs. Borisoff inviting him to dine with her a few days hence. About her company she said nothing, and Piers went, uncertain whether it was a dinner _tete-a-tete_ or with other guests. When he entered the room, the first face he beheld was Irene's.

It was a very small party, and the hostess wore her gayest countenance.

A delightful evening, from the social point of view; for Piers Otway a time of self-forgetfulness in the pleasures of sight and hearing. He could have little private talk with Irene; she did not talk much with anyone; but he saw her, he heard her voice, he lived in the glory of her presence. Moreover, she consented to play. Of her skill as a pianist, Otway could not judge; what he heard was Music, music absolute, the very music of the spheres. When it ceased, Mrs. Borisoff chanced to look at him; he was startlingly pale, his eyes wide as if in vision more than mortal.

"I leave town to-morrow," said his hostess, as he took leave. "Some friends are going with me. You shall hear how we get on at the Castle."

Perhaps her look was meant to supplement this bare news. It seemed to offer rea.s.surance. Did she understand his look of entreaty in reply?

Music breathed about him in the lonely hours. It exalted his pa.s.sion, lulled the pains of desire, held the flesh subservient to spirit. What is love, says the physiologist, but ravening s.e.x? If so, in Piers Otway's breast the primal instinct had undergone strange transformation. How wrought?--he asked himself. To what destiny did it correspond, this winged love soaring into the infinite? This rapture of devotion, this utter humbling of self, this ardour of the poet soul singing a fellow-creature to the heaven of heavens--by what alchemy comes it forth from blood and tissue? Nature has no need of such lyric life her purpose is well achieved by humbler instrumentality. Romantic lovers are not the ancestry of n.o.blest lines.

And if--as might well be--his love were defeated, fruitless, what end in the vast maze of things would his anguish serve?

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

After his day's work, he had spent an hour among the pictures at Burlington House. He was lingering before an exquisite landscape, unwilling to change this atmosphere of calm for the roaring street, when a voice timidly addressed him:

"Mr. Otway!"

How altered! The face was much, much older, and in some indeterminable way had lost its finer suggestions. At her best, Olga Hannaford had a distinction of feature, a singularity of emotional expression, which made her beautiful in Olga Florio the lines of visage were far less subtle, and cla.s.sed her under an inferior type. Transition from maidenhood to what is called the matronly had been too rapid; it was emphasised by her costume, which cried aloud in its excess of modish splendour.

"How glad I am to see you again!" she sighed tremorously, pressing his hand with fervour, gazing at him with furtive directness. "Are you living in England now?"

Piers gave an account of himself. He was a little embarra.s.sed but quite unagitated. A sense of pity averted his eyes after the first wondering look.

"Will you--may I venture--can you spare the time to come and have tea with me? My carriage is waiting--I am quite alone--I only looked in for a few minutes, to rest my mind after a lunch with, oh, such tiresome people!"