The History of David Grieve Part 78

And the priests--'

She smiled again, little meditative smiles, as though she were recalling her experiences.

'Well, I don't know that there's much about them,' she said at last; 'they're queer, and they're awfully clever, and they want to manage you, of course.'

She stopped, quite unable to express herself any more fully. But it was evident that the traditional relation of the Catholic priest to his penitent had been to her a subject of curiosity and excitement--that she would gladly know more of it.

David could hardly believe his ears. He sat lost at first in the pure surprise of it, in the sense of Louie's unlikeness to any other human creature he had ever seen. Then a gleam of satisfaction arose. He had heard of the hold on women possessed by the Catholic Church, and maintained by her marvellous, and on the whole admirable, system of direction. For himself, he would have no priests of whatever Church. But his mind harboured none of the common Protestant rules and shibboleths. In G.o.d's name, let the priests get hold of this sister of his:--if they could--when he--

'Marry this man, then!' he said to her at last, breaking the silence abruptly,' and square it with the Church, if you want to.'

'Oh, indeed!' she said mockingly. 'So you have nothing to say against my turning Catholic? I should like to see Uncle Reuben's face.'

Her voice had the exultant mischief of a child. It was evident that her spirits were rising, that her mood towards her brother was becoming more amiable.

'Nothing,' he said dryly, replying to her question.

Then he got up and looked for his hat. She watched him askance.

'What are you going for? I could get you some tea. _He_ won't be in for hours.'

'I have said what I had to say. These'--taking a paper from his pocket and laying it down, 'are all the directions, legal and other, that concern you, as to the marriage. I drew them up this morning, with Mr. O'Kelly. I have given you his address. You can communicate with him at any time.'

'I can write to you, I suppose?'

'Better write to him,' he said quietly, 'he has instructions. He seemed to me a good sort.'

'Where are you going?'

'Back to Paris, and then--home.'

She placed herself in his way, so that the sunny light of the late afternoon, coming mostly from behind her, left her face in shadow.

'What'll you do without that money?' she asked abruptly.

He paused, getting together his answer with difficulty.

'I have the stock, and there is something left of the sixty pounds Uncle Reuben brought. I shall do.'

'He'll muddle it all,' she said roughly. 'What's the good?'

And she folded her arms across her with the recklessness of one quite ready and eager, if need be, to fight her own battle, with her own weapons, in her own way.

'Get Mr. O'Kelly to keep it, if you can persuade him, and draw it by degrees. I'd have made a trust of it, if it had been enough; but it isn't. Twenty-four pounds a year: that's all you'd get, if we tied up the capital.'

She laughed. Evidently her acquaintance with Montjoie had enlarged her notions of money, which were precise and acute enough before.

'He spends that in a supper when he's in cash. I'll be curious to see whether, all in a lump, it'll be enough to make him marry me.

Still, he is precious hard up: he don't stir out till dark, he's so afraid of meeting people.'

'That's my hope,' said David heavily, hardly knowing what he said.

'Good-bye.'

'Hope!' she re-echoed bitterly. 'What d'you want to tie me to him for, for good and all?'

And, turning away from him, she stared, frowning, through the dingy gla.s.s door in to the darkening garden. In her mind there was once more that strange uprising swell of reaction--of hatred of herself and life.

Why, indeed? David could not have answered her question. He only knew that there was a blind instinct in him driving him to this, as the best that remained open--the only _ainde_ possible for what had been so vilely done by himself, by her, and by the man who had worked out her fall for a mere vicious whim. There was no word in any mouth, it seemed to him, of his being in love with her.

There were all sorts of whirling thoughts in his mind--fragments cast up by the waves of desolate experience he had been pa.s.sing through--inarticulate cries of warning, judgment, pain. But he could put nothing into words.

'Good-bye, Louie!'

She turned and stood looking at him.

'What made you get ill?' she inquired, eyeing him.

His thirsty heart drank in the change of tone.

'I don't sleep,' he said hurriedly. 'It's the noise. The Nord station is never quiet. Well, mind you've got to bring that off.

Keep the papers safe. Good-bye, for a long time'.

'I can come over when I want?' she said half sullenly.

'Yes,' he a.s.sented, 'but you won't want.'

He drew her by the hand with a solemn tremulous feeling, and kissed her on the cheek. He would have liked to give her their father's dying letter. It was there, in his coat-pocket. But he shrank from the emotion of it. No, he must go. He had done all he could.

She opened the door for him, and took him to the garden-gate in silence.

'When I'm married,' she said shortly, 'if ever I am--Lord knows!--you can tell Uncle Reuben and Dora?'

'Yes. Good-bye.'

The gate closed behind him. He went away, hurrying towards the Auteuil station.

When he landed again in the Paris streets, he stood irresolute.

'One more look,' he said to himself, 'one more.'

And he turned down the Rue Chantal. There was the familiar archway, and the light shining behind the porter's door. Was her room already stripped and bare, or was the broken gla.s.s--poor dumb prophet!--still there, against the wall?

He wandered on through the lamp-lit city and the crowded pavements.

Elise--the wraith of her--went with him, hand in hand, ghost with ghost, amid this mult.i.tude of men. Sometimes, breaking from this dream-companionship, he would wake with terror to the perception of his true, his utter loneliness. He was not made to be alone, and the thought that nowhere in this great Paris was there a single human being to whose friendly eye or hand he might turn him in his need, swept across him from time to time, contracting the heart.

Dora--Mr. Ancrum--if they knew, they would be sorry.

Then again indifference and blankness came upon him, and he could only move feebly on, seeing everything in a blur and mist. After these long days and nights of sleeplessness, semi-starvation, and terrible excitement, every nerve was sick, every organ out of gear.

The lights of the Tuileries, the stately pile of the Louvre, under a gray driving sky.--There would be rain soon--ah, there it came!

the great drops hissing along the pavement. He pushed on to the river, careless of the storm, soothed, indeed, by the cool dashes of rain in his face and eyes.