The Farringdons Part 41

That summer's day was one which Elisabeth could never forget as long as she lived; it stood out from the rest of her life, and would so stand out forever. We all know such days as this--days which place a gulf, that can never be pa.s.sed over, between their before and after. She travelled down to Sedgehill by a morning train; and her heart was heavy within her as she saw how beautiful the country looked in the summer sunshine, and realized that the home she loved was to be taken away from her and given to another. Somehow life had not brought her all that she had expected from it, and yet she did not see wherein she herself had been to blame. She had neither loved nor h.o.a.rded her money, but had used it for the good of others to the best of her knowledge; yet it was to be taken from her. She had not hidden her talent in a napkin, but had cultivated it to the height of her powers; yet her fame was cold and dreary to her, and her greatness turned to ashes in her hands. She had been ready to give love in full measure and running over to any one who needed it; yet her heart had asked in vain for something to fill it, and in spite of all its longings had been sent empty away. She had failed all along the line to get the best out of life; and yet she did not see how she could have acted differently. Surely it was Fate, and not herself, that was to blame for her failure.

When she arrived at Sedgehill she drove straight to Christopher's house, and learned from the nurse who was attending him how serious his illness was--not so much on account of the violence of the cold which he had taken in Germany, as from the fact that his vitality was too feeble to resist it. But she could not guess--and there was no one to tell her--that his vitality had been lowered by her unkindness to him, and that it was she who had deliberately snapped the mainspring of Christopher's life. It was no use anybody's seeing him, the nurse said, as he was delirious and knew no one; but if he regained consciousness, she would summon Miss Farringdon at once.

Then Elisabeth went alone into the big, oak-panelled dining-room, with the c.r.a.pe masks before its windows, and opened the safe.

She could not find the plans at once, as she did not know exactly where to look for them; and as she was searching for them among various papers, she came upon a letter addressed to herself in Christopher's handwriting. She opened it with her usual carelessness, without perceiving that it bore the inscription "Not to be given to Miss Farringdon until after my death"; and when she had begun to read it, she could not have left off to save her life--being a woman. And this was what she read:

"MY DARLING--for so I may call you at last, since you will not read this letter until after I am dead;

"There are two things that I want to tell you. _First_, that I love you, and always have loved you, and always shall love you to all eternity.

But how could I say this to you, sweetheart, in the days when my love spelled poverty for us both? And how could I say it when you became one of the richest women in Mershire, and I only the paid manager of your works? Nevertheless I should have said it in time, when you had seen more of the world and were capable of choosing your own life for yourself, had I thought there was any chance of your caring for me; for no man has ever loved you as I have loved you, Elisabeth, nor ever will.

You had a right to know what was yours, when you were old enough to decide what to do with it, and to take or leave it as you thought fit; and no one else had the right to decide this for you. But when you so misjudged me about my journey to Australia, I understood that it was I myself, and not my position, that stood between us; and that your nature and mine were so different, and our ideas so far apart, that it was not in my power to make you happy, though I would have died to do so. So I went out of your life, for fear I should spoil it; and I have kept out of your life ever since, because I know you are happier without me; for I do so want you to be happy, dear.

"There is one other thing I have to tell you: I am George Farringdon's son. I shouldn't have bothered you with this, only I feel it is necessary--after I am gone--for you to know the truth, lest any impostor should turn up and take your property from you. Of course, as long as I am alive I can keep the secret, and yet take care that no one else comes forward in my place; and I have made a will leaving everything I possess to you. But when I am gone, you must hold the proofs of who was really the person who stood between you and the Farringdon property. I never found it out until my uncle died; I believed, as everybody else believed, that the lost heir was somewhere in Australia. But on my uncle's death I found a confession from him--which is in this safe, along with my parents' marriage certificate and all the other proofs of my ident.i.ty--saying how his sister told him on her death-bed that, when George Farringdon ran away from home, he married her, and took her out with him to Australia. They had a hard life, and lost all their children except myself; and then my father died, leaving my poor mother almost penniless. She survived him only long enough to come back to England, and give her child into her brother's charge. My uncle went on to say that he kept my ident.i.ty a secret, and called me by an a.s.sumed name, as he was afraid that Miss Farringdon would send both him and me about our business if she knew the truth; as in those days she was very bitter against the man who had jilted her, and would have been still bitterer had she known he had thrown her over for the daughter of her father's manager. When Maria Farringdon died and showed, by her will, that at last she had forgiven her old lover, my uncle's mind was completely gone; and it was not until after his death that I discovered the papers which put me in possession of the facts of the case.

"By that time I had learned, beyond all disputing, that I was too dull and stupid ever to win your love. I only cared for money that it might enable me to make you happy; and if you could be happier without me than with me, who was I that I should complain? At any rate, it was given to me to insure your happiness; and that was enough for me. And you said that I didn't care what became of you, as long as I laid up for myself a nice little nest-egg in heaven! Sweetheart, I think you did me an injustice. So be happy, my dearest, with the Willows and the Osierfield and all the dear old things which you and I have loved so well; and remember that you must never pity me. I wanted you to be happy more than I wanted anything else in the world, and no man is to be pitied who has succeeded in getting what he wanted most.

"Yours, my darling, for time and eternity, "CHRISTOPHER FARRINGDON."

Then at last Elisabeth's eyes were opened, and for the first time in her life she saw clearly. So Christopher had loved her all along; she knew the truth at last, and with it she also knew that she had always loved him; that throughout her life's story there never had been--never could be--any man but Christopher. Until he told her that he loved her, her love for him had been a fountain sealed; but at his word it became a well of living water, flooding her whole soul and turning the desert of her life into a garden.

At first she was overpowered with the joy of it; she was upheld by that strange feeling of exaltation which comes to all of us when we realize for a moment our immortality, and feel that even death itself is powerless to hurt us. Christopher was dying, but what did that signify?

He loved her--that was the only thing that really mattered--and they would have the whole of eternity in which to tell their love. For the second time in her life she came face to face with the fact that there was a stronger Will than her own guiding and ruling her; that, in spite of all her power and ability and self-reliance, the best things in her life were not of herself but were from outside. As long ago in St.

Peter's Church she had learned that religion was G.o.d's Voice calling to her, she now learned that love was Christopher's voice calling to her; and that her own strength and cleverness, of which she had been so proud, counted for less than nothing. To her who longed to give, was given; she who desired to love, was beloved; she who aspired to teach, had been taught. That strong will of hers, which had once been so dominant, had suddenly fallen down powerless; she no longer wanted to have her own way--she wanted to have Christopher's. Her warfare against him was at last accomplished. To the end of her days she knew she would go on weighing herself in his balances, and measuring herself according to his measures; but now she would do so willingly, choosing to be guided by his wisdom rather than her own, for she no more belonged to herself but to him. The feeling of unrest, which had oppressed her for so many years, now fell from her like a cast-off garment. Christopher was the answer to her life's problem, the fulfilment of her heart's desire; and although she might be obliged to go down again into the valley of the shadow, she could never forget that she had once stood upon the mountain-top and had beheld the glory of the promised land.

And she never remembered that now her fortune was secured to her, and that the Willows and the Osierfield would always be hers; even these were henceforth of no moment to her, save as monuments of Christopher's love.

So in the dingy dining-room, on that hot summer's afternoon, Elisabeth Farringdon became a new creature. The old domineering arrogance pa.s.sed away forever; and from its ashes there arose another Elisabeth, who out of weakness was made stronger than she had ever been in her strength--an Elisabeth who had attained to the victory of the vanquished, and who had tasted the triumph of defeat. But in all her exaltation she knew--though for the moment the knowledge could not hurt her--that her heart would be broken by Christopher's death. Through the long night of her ignorance and self-will and unsatisfied idealism she had wrestled with the angel that she might behold the Best, and had prayed that it might be granted unto her to see the Vision Beautiful. At last she had prevailed; and the day for which she had so longed was breaking, and transfiguring the common world with its marvellous light. But the angel-hand had touched her, and she no longer stood upright and self-reliant, but was bound to halt and walk lamely on her way until she stood by Christopher's side again.

This exalted mood did not last for long. As she sat in the gloomy room and watched the blazing sunshine forcing its way through the darkened windows, her eye suddenly fell upon two notches cut in the doorway, where she and Christopher had once measured themselves when they were children; and the familiar sight of these two little notches, made by Christopher's knife so long ago, awoke in her heart the purely human longing for him as the friend and comrade she had known and looked up to all her life. And with this longing came the terrible thought of how she had hurt and misunderstood and misjudged him, and of how it was now too late for her to make up to him in this life for all the happiness of which she had defrauded him in her careless pride. Then, for the first time since she was born, Elisabeth put her lips to the cup of remorse, and found it very bitter to the taste. She had been so full of plans for comforting mankind and helping the whole world; yet she had utterly failed toward the only person whom it had been in her power actually to help and comfort; and her heart echoed the wail of the most beautiful love-song ever written--"They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept."

As she was sitting, bowed down in utter anguish of spirit while the waves of remorse flooded her soul, the door opened and the nurse came in.

"Mr. Thornley is conscious now, and is asking for you, Miss Farringdon,"

she said.

Elisabeth started up, her face aglow with new hope. It was so natural to her not to be cast down for long. "Oh! I am so glad. I want dreadfully to see him, I have so much to say to him. But I'll promise not to tire or excite him. Tell me, how long may I stay with him, Nurse, and how quiet must I be?"

The nurse smiled sadly. "It won't matter how long you stay or what you say, Miss Farringdon; I don't think it is possible for anything to hurt or help him now; for I am afraid, whatever happens, he can not possibly recover."

As she went upstairs Elisabeth kept saying to herself, "I am going to see the real Christopher for the first time"; and she felt the old, shy fear of him that she had felt long ago when Richard Smallwood was stricken. But when she entered the room and saw the worn, white face on the pillow, with the kind smile she knew so well, she completely forgot her shyness, and only remembered that Christopher was in need of her, and that she would gladly give her life for his if she could.

"Kiss me, my darling," he said, holding out his arms; and she knew by the look in his eyes that every word of his letter was true. "I am too tired to pretend any more that I don't love you. And it can't matter now whether you know or not, it is so near the end."

Elisabeth put her strong arms round him, and kissed him as he asked.

"Chris, dear," she whispered, "I want to tell you that I love you, and that I've always loved you, and that I always shall love you; but I've only just found it out."

Christopher was silent for a moment, and clasped her very close. But he was not so much surprised as he would have been had Elisabeth made such an astounding revelation to him in the days of his health. When one is drawing near to the solution of the Great Mystery, one loses the power of wondering at anything.

"How did you find it out, my dearest?" he asked at last.

"Through finding out that you loved me. It seems to me that my love was always lying in the bank at your account, but until you gave a cheque for it you couldn't get at it. And the cheque was my knowing that you cared for me."

"And how did you find that out, Betty?"

"I was rummaging in the safe just now for the plans of the Osierfield, and I came upon your letter."

"I didn't mean you to read that while I was alive; but, all the same, I think I am rather glad that you did."

"And I am glad, too. I wish I hadn't always been so horrid to you, Chris; but I believe I should have loved you all the time, if only you had given me the chance. Still, I was horrid--dreadfully horrid; and now it is too late to make it up to you." And Elisabeth's eyes filled with tears.

"Don't cry, my darling--please don't cry. And, besides, you have made it up to me by loving me now. I am glad you understand at last, Betty; I did so hope you would some day."

"And you forgive me for having been so vile?"

"There is nothing to forgive, sweetheart; it was my fault for not making you understand; but I did it for the best, though I seem to have made a mess of it."

"And you like me just the same as you did before I was unkind to you?"

"My dear, don't you know?"

"You see, Chris, I was wanting you to be nice to me all the time--nothing else satisfied me instead of you. And when you seemed not to like me any longer, but to care for doing your duty more than for being with me, I got sore and angry, and decided to punish you for making a place for yourself in my heart and then refusing to fill it."

"Well, you did what you decided, as you generally do; there is no doubt of that. You were always very p.r.o.ne to administer justice and to maintain truth, Elisabeth, and you certainly never spared the rod as far as I was concerned."

"But now I see that I was wrong; I understand that it was because you cared so much for abstract right, that you were able to care so much for me; a lower nature would have given me a lower love; and if only we could go through it all again, I should want you to go to Australia after George Farringdon's son."

Christopher's thin fingers wandered over Elisabeth's hair; and as they did so he remembered, with tender amus.e.m.e.nt, how often he had comforted her on account of her dark locks. Now one or two gray hairs were beginning to show through the brown ones, and it struck him with a pang that he would no longer be here to comfort her on account of those; for he knew that Elisabeth was the type of woman who would require consolation on that score, and that he was the man who could effectually have administered it.

"I can see now," Elisabeth went on, "how much more important it is what a man is than what a man says, though I used to think that words were everything, and that people didn't feel what they didn't talk about. You used to disappoint me because you said so little; but, all the same, your character influenced me without my knowing it; and whatever good there is in me, comes from my having known you and seen you live up to your own ideals. People wonder that worldly things attract me so little, and that my successes haven't turned my head; so they would have done, probably, if I had never met you; but having once seen in you what the ideal life is, I couldn't help despising lower things, though I tried my hardest not to despise them. n.o.body who had once been with you, and looked even for a minute at life through your eyes, could ever care again for anything that was mean or sordid or paltry. Darling, don't you understand that my knowing you made me better than I tried to be--better even than I wanted to be; and that all my life I shall be a truer woman because of you?"

But by that time the stupendous effort which Christopher had made for Elisabeth's sake had exhausted itself, and he fell back upon his pillows, white to the lips, and too weak to say another word. Yet not even the great Shadow could cloud the love that shone in his eyes, as he looked at Elisabeth's eager face, and listened to the voice for which his soul had hungered so long. The sight of his weakness brought her down to earth again more effectually than any words could have done; and with an exceeding bitter cry she hid her face in her arms and sobbed aloud--

"Oh! my darling, my darling, come back to me; I love you so that I can not let you go. The angels can do quite well without you in heaven, but I can not do without you here. Oh! Chris, don't go away and leave me, just now that we've learned to understand one another. I'll be good all my life, and do everything that you tell me, if only you won't go away.

My dearest, I love you so--I love you so; and I've n.o.body in the world but you."

Christopher made another great effort to take her in his arms and comfort her; but it was too much for him, and he fainted away.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILLS

Shall I e'er love thee less fondly than now, dear?

Tell me if e'er my devotion can die?

Never until thou shalt cease to be thou, dear; Never until I no longer am I.