The Gateless Barrier Part 15

And that such accomplishment drew on as the summer went forward he could not doubt. For his fairy-lady had grown less timid than of old, braving now the earlier dusk, now the later dawn, as the fancy took her; while a veritable shadow clung unquestionably to her little feet, and lengthened behind or beside her. Though no less slender and graceful than before, her person was less ethereal. It appeared to gain a certain substance, a greater opacity; while her movements were more measured. Once or twice Laurence had fancied he saw her pale face flush under sudden emotion, as though blood once more began to course beneath the clear, smooth skin.

Her talk, moreover, was less of the past than of the present. At times she would ask questions, not wholly easy for him to answer without revealing those things regarding which he had agreed with himself to keep silence. But on many matters he had come to speak to her freely, telling her of his daily occupations and affairs, of the books he read, even of pa.s.sing events of public interest. And to all his talk she listened now thoughtfully, now with pretty mirth, offering not only sympathy, but discreet counsel, while sometimes a touch of far-reaching and singularly mature wisdom gave a significant value to her speech.

There were moments, indeed, when Laurence gazed at her in wonder, for she betrayed a depth and daring of thought impossible to a young girl, however good her training and notable her natural talents--thought only possible to one who had discounted the many subterfuges and illusions of life, as most mortals see and live it, by apprehension of things supramundane, eternal, and so of infinite moment to the conscience and the heart.

She grew in womanhood, and she grew in the charm of distinction and of a fine equality. Yet the mystery surrounding her was to Laurence in no wise lessened. For he began to perceive that, if he held back somewhat from her knowledge concerning himself, she, notwithstanding her transparent sincerity and the perfection of her love, held back somewhat from him. She played with him, she eluded him; and he perceived that her lovely soul--did he dwell with her for a thousand years--would still have its surprises for him, and its secret places, adorably difficult of access. Then, too, for all her increasing humanity, the way of her coming at sundown, and going at sunrise remained unexplained as ever.

One morning in late June, standing in the bay-window, with the fragrance of the blossoming garden and the songs of awakening birds saluting them, he questioned her on this matter. Her hand rested in his--no longer perceptible as a mere pulsation, such as might be caused by the fluttering wings of a captive b.u.t.terfly. It had substance now, actual, though very delicate, weight. And feeling this, amazement and ecstasy invaded Laurence. His eyes were alight and his blood hot.

"You are going?" he asked. "But why should you go? Stay and see the day in its beauty."

But she smiled on him, a serious and enigmatic smile, though very full of tenderness.

"The day does not belong to me yet," she answered. "I cannot take that which is not mine."

"Everything is ours if we dare take it," Laurence said. "Possession is in the act, not in the fact. You create law by believing in and submitting to it. Cease to believe, cease to submit, the prohibition, the obligation, vanishes into fine air. The day is yours, dear love, and all the vigorous life and joy of it, if you will but venture. Have just a little courage. Try--"

But she shook her pretty head, still smiling, though, as it seemed to Laurence, rather mournfully.

"Then tell me where you go," he said. "Tell me where you pa.s.s all the hours when you are not here? See, I have been very patient, I have asked you no questions. And yet, loving you as I do, I have a right to hear."

"Ah!" she answered playfully, though with a touch of sadness--"what an importunate being you have suddenly become! Yet why?--Half your life is hidden from me, dear Laurence, and I do not ask to have it otherwise.

Why, then, should not half of mine be hidden from you? Indeed, it is always so between man and woman, I think, whether they know it--as we do--or know it not."

But Laurence was not in the humour to have his inquiry put aside thus lightly.

"Still tell me--tell me," he insisted. "Look here, really I am not unreasonable." He laughed a little, looking at her very charmingly in mingled eagerness and command,--"For your exits and entrances are not as those of other women, Agnes, so tell me. Or let me go with you wheresoever you go. Or just--it is very simple--don't go--stay right here, and brave the glory of the sunrise. Stay!--"

As he spoke, long shafts of pale, golden light shot through the openings between the high-standing trees of the eastern woodland, and lay in misty radiance along the dewy lawns, touching the heads of the cypresses, and flashing upon the upspringing waters of the fountains.

"Ah, have patience--but a little trifle of patience yet, dearest love,"

Agnes Rivers pleaded. "Only wait, and that which is to be will surely declare itself. I would so gladly stay--or gladly take you with me, going; but I can do neither, though why, I do not at present fully comprehend."

She turned, and for a moment stood facing the sunlight, bright in its royal brightness, looking out on the fair, summer landscape, an infinite hope and yearning in her lovely face. Then she folded her hands high upon her bosom--slightly ruffling the smooth surface of her dainty, muslin cape--bowed her head meekly as in worship, and moved away. As she pa.s.sed, Laurence--standing a little behind her--for the first time heard the soft sound of her rapid footfall, and the whisper of her silken gown.

The young man, too, worshipped the rising sun after his manner--a manner, it must be admitted, by no means of the meekest. The room was empty, but he did not greatly care, for his great purpose seemed so close upon consummation. The crisis was very near now. Before that splendid, June sun rose to-morrow--so he told himself--his work would be complete. She was so nearly human, his dear fairy-lady; her pure spirit so strangely, yet sensibly, in process of clothing itself with sweet, living flesh. He would set bread and wine before her, in the small hours when this bright day was dead. She should eat and drink of a sacramental feast, designed to secure, not eternal life to the soul, in this case, but mortal life to the beautiful, young body which he so desired and loved.

Thus did Laurence Rivers hail the sunrise, filled with an immense pride of his own action, his own will, and the powers of his race, deeming himself a worker of miracles and equal of the immortal G.o.ds.

XXII

Laurence swung himself down from the high, two-wheeled dogcart at the front door. The sky was lowering, the evening sultry after a burning day. Down in the south-east a storm was brewing, with low mutterings of thunder. The air was curiously still, yet now and again, among the thick foliage of the limes and chestnuts, a few leaves would flutter tumultuously as though stricken with panic, and then become motionless as suddenly and causelessly as they had become agitated. Laurence was late and had driven home rapidly, not sparing his horse--a young, thorough-bred brown, which he had bought about a fortnight before, and which was new as yet to harness. It was all of a lather and sweat, and stood with outstretched neck and open, heavily-breathing nostrils. He looked at it with a slight sense of compunction, and gave some orders to the groom. It was a little hard to have pressed the poor beast; but he had been out all the afternoon, mapping out the projected course of the light railway to the Hazledown quarries, with Armstrong and an engineering expert, and he had been kept later than he antic.i.p.ated. As it was, he had barely time for a bath, and to dress, before dinner at a quarter-past eight. His mind still ran upon questions of gradients and detail of expenditure. He had thrown himself energetically into practical work. It was best to do so, with the climax of his great adventure looming so large just ahead. All day he had been conscious of a quiet, sustained excitement engendered by the double life he was leading. It stimulated the action of his brain. The engineer had warmly approved some of his suggestions and adopted them. This pleased Laurence. It was not a little satisfactory to find himself thus capable and "on the spot," while interests of so very different a character formed the under-current of his thought. It fed self-confidence, and justified his determination of daring action.

After a look, first at the sweating horse and then at the lowering sky, he hurried into the hall. The storm, if it came up at all, would not break yet. Probably it would travel along the northern horizon following the line of the Downs. How hot it was, though! The house felt cool by comparison with the atmosphere outside. Then, just inside the door, the two men-servants met him, Renshaw with a salver in his hand.

"A telegram for you, sir," he said--adding--"do you wish dinner put off for a quarter-of-an-hour or so, sir?"

"No--no," Laurence answered absently, "I shall be down in plenty of time."

As he spoke he tore open the ugly, orange-coloured envelope. The sheet of dirty-pink paper within contained but a few words.

"Wanted here immediately. Return next steamer. Virginia."

Laurence bathed, dressed, dined, while at intervals the thunder muttered far away in the east, and the dark came swiftly as with great strides.

In the centre of the table the cut-gla.s.s bowl, upheld by the dancing, golden figures, again to-night, as on the second night of Laurence's visit to Stoke Rivers--which now seemed such an incredibly long time ago--held fantastic, single flowers and sprays of orchids, some mottled, warty, toad-like, some tiger-coloured striped with black. These last gave off a heavy, musky scent. The oppressive heat, too, was suggestive of that earlier evening,--though the windows now stood wide open. But then, whatever the discomfort of his physical sensations, Laurence had been light-hearted enough. His life, if not particularly full of purpose, had at least been free of entanglement. He had neither climbed heights nor sounded depths. His honour was untarnished, by so much as a questionable thought. Now the splendour of life had got him, he was in the full swing of his great opportunity; but his conscience was not clear as at that former period, and that--which seemed not a little ironical--though he had lived more austerely than of old, abjuring all frivolity and denying himself all bodily indulgence.

Laurence juggled neither with himself or with the facts of the case. He did not whimper or grumble. In accepting the risks of his own action, he had of necessity accepted this one. It was just the fortune of war--not an altogether pretty fortune for a man who plumed himself on a nice taste in matters of honour, perhaps, but that was hardly to the point.

The present position was an inevitable consequence of all which had preceded it, and was bound to present itself sooner or later. Remorse and anger were alike futile and out of place. The question resolved itself into this--what to do next?

Laurence dropped the stump of his cigarette into his finger-bowl, and sat resting his elbows on the table and his forehead in his hands, thinking.--For Virginia meant what she said. Of course she did. Virginia always meant what she said, sometimes a little more--certainly never less. And her reasons for saying that which she said were always perfectly convincing to herself. Virginia was never impulsive; her action was always the outcome of intention. Therefore it was useless to temporise or ask explanations by means of that far-flashing cable. In her letters Virginia had lately commented upon the length of his absence--quite good-temperedly. Virginia was always good-tempered; partly, perhaps, because she had never had occasion to learn what opposition meant. This telegram was her ultimatum; but whether delivered of her own free will and initiative, or in deference to some unusual circ.u.mstance, illness, accident, or sudden financial crisis, he could not, of course, divine. Yet even so, the position remained very simple.

There were but two paths. One or other he must choose. Either he must obey her, and that unquestioningly and directly--this was Thursday, the next American mail left Liverpool at the end of the week--or he must refuse; and that, he believed, meant a break with Virginia.

Laurence remained very still for a time. A break with Virginia?--Yes; the storm was working round by the north as he had antic.i.p.ated.--He had no complaint to make against Virginia, Heaven forbid! She was just precisely that which she had always been--in her own sphere and connection, from the modern and mundane point of view, an eminently and admirably clever person. He agreed with her disciple, Mrs. Bellingham, that in social affairs she possessed a _savoir faire_ and intelligence amounting to positive genius. She was absolutely self-reliant. She had never been surprised or nonplussed in all her life, and--and--

Laurence rose to his feet, crossed the room and rang the bell. His face had grown singularly hard. It bore but slight resemblance to that of his namesake, the gallant and debonair young Laurence Rivers of the Cosway miniature. Indeed, his eyes were coldly brilliant, his lips almost as thin as those of Montagu Rivers, his uncle, but lately dead.--Well, he proposed to enlarge Virginia's experience. He proposed to surprise, to nonplus her. It was a blackguardly thing to do, and she, of all women, would be the last to forgive it. So much the better, he did not want her to forgive it. He proposed to repudiate Virginia, he proposed to desert her--and then, fortunately, the American divorce laws are easy.

When Renshaw answered the bell he said--

"Leave the fruit and wine on the table, and bring an uncut loaf of new, white bread. Don't sit up. I shall be late, and I wish to have the house to myself to-night."

XXIII

Pulling out the heavy curtain, Laurence paused, for an unwonted sound saluted his ears, to which, at first, they refused credence. He opened the door quietly. The sound continued. The keys of the piano were struck so softly that they gave forth little more than the echo of a melody.

His fairy-lady sat at the instrument; and, so absorbed was she in the making of this dainty music, that the young man had crossed the room and leaned his elbows on the edge of the flat piano-case opposite to her before she looked up at him. Nor, meeting his eyes, did she leave playing, but let her fingers still draw forth that procession of slender phrases from the discoloured, ivory notes--phrases not only exquisitely refined, but with a tremulous _coquetterie_ in them, the music of some polite and graceful minuet, in which Boucher's fine fanciful, little figures of lover and mistress, courtier and prince, painted upon the satin-wood escritoire, might have moved and postured, with a hundred pretty arts and invitations at the court of Louis the Fifteenth, over a century ago.

The fine-drawn, little melody, and all its suggestions of past intrigues, heart-burnings, elegant if questionable joys, and luxurious living, knocked at the door of the listener's heart with rather perilous pathos, notwithstanding his stern humour. Agnes Rivers's eyes too, as she looked steadily at him, were at once grave with thought and beseeching as those of a child, covetous of a possible pleasure, yet ready to swallow its poor tears should that pleasure be denied. Her lips were parted, but she did not speak. She only gazed and gazed at him--while still calling forth those frail and courteous harmonies--as though she sought to penetrate the most hidden recesses of his nature.

And all this worked strongly upon Laurence, stirring in him memories of just such hot evenings, when, with windows set wide upon the fragrant garden, and the wild brightness of the summer lightning pulsing--as now--upon the far horizon, they had sat together making music, she and he, nearly a hundred years back. That first love of theirs had been shattered by cruel calamity of wounds and death. It had never found its consummation; and now the ache of its frustration was added to the ache of the present--of his pa.s.sion so strongly held in check during the last many weeks; of his long-sustained effort, now touching on attainment; of his so recently made resolution to let honour go by the wall rather than again be defrauded of his love.

At length he could no longer endure the playful, yet in a way tragical, music, nor the sustained scrutiny of those grave yet wistful eyes.

"That's enough, Agnes; that's enough," he cried, and, leaning across the case of the piano, laid hold on her hands and raised them off the keyboard. And as he did so the blood leapt in his veins, for the fact was no longer open to question--those hands were firm and softly warm as a living woman's hand should be, and the clasp of them met and clung in his. He drew her up, making the sweet musician stand opposite to him, while, bending down, he kissed and kissed those dear, warm hands, looking at her, his face on a level with hers. And as he did so her cheeks lost their waxen pallor and became beautifully flushed with clear colour, while--so it seemed to him--he could hear the beating of her heart. And thus for a s.p.a.ce they stood speechless, consumed by a very ecstasy of love.

Laurence was the first to break that enchanted silence. For he was feverish to complete the working of the miracle--to establish her in this earthly life upon which she was re-entering, to chain her spirit to this recovered human body by some corporeal act. He was feverish to set a seal upon her new condition, which it should not be possible for her to evade or to break.

"The perfect hour has come," he said, with fierce exultation. "Do you understand what has happened? You asked me once what was lacking. Well, that which was lacking has been restored to you. But it won't do to rest here. We must go on, go forward, so as to make security doubly secure."

Yet she sighed, turning her face away and gently releasing her hands from his grasp.

"Ah! the perfect hour has come--yes," she said. "But, dear Laurence, it came once before, and, remember, along with it came the call for you to depart. Sorrow trod hard on the heels of joy; and I fear--how can I do otherwise?--lest it should do so again to-night."

Laurence felt his throat go dry and his lips stiffen, so that speech did not come quite readily.