The Story of an African Farm Part 47

When Gregory went into the bedroom he only found her moved, her body curled up, and drawn close to the wall. He dared not disturb her. At last, after a long time, she turned.

"Bring me food," she said, "I want to eat. Two eggs, and toast, and meat--two large slices of toast, please."

Wondering, Gregory brought a tray with all that she had asked for.

"Sit me up, and put it close to me," she said; "I am going to eat it all." She tried to draw the things near her with her fingers, and re-arranged the plates. She cut the toast into long strips, broke open both eggs, put a tiny morsel of bread into her own mouth, and fed the dog with pieces of meat put into his jaws with her fingers.

"Is it twelve o'clock yet?" she said; "I think I do not generally eat so early. Put it away, please, carefully--no, do not take it away--only on the table. When the clock strikes twelve I will eat it."

She lay down trembling. After a little while she said:

"Give me my clothes."

He looked at her.

"Yes; I am going to dress tomorrow. I should get up now, but it is rather late. Put them on that chair. My collars are in the little box, my boots behind the door."

Her eyes followed him intently as he collected the articles one by one, and placed them on the chair as she directed.

"Put it nearer," she said, "I cannot see it;" and she lay watching the clothes, with her hand under her cheek.

"Now open the shutter wide," she said; "I am going to read."

The old, old tone was again in the sweet voice. He obeyed her; and opened the shutter, and raised her up among the pillows.

"Now bring my books to me," she said, motioning eagerly with her fingers; "the large book, and the reviews and the plays--I want them all."

He piled them round her on the bed; she drew them greedily closer, her eyes very bright, but her face as white as a mountain lily.

"Now the big one off the drawers. No, you need not help me to hold my book," she said; "I can hold it for myself."

Gregory went back to his corner, and for a little time the restless turning over of leaves was to be heard.

"Will you open the window," she said, almost querulously, "and throw this book out? It is so utterly foolish. I thought it was a valuable book; but the words are merely strung together, they make no sense.

Yes--so!" she said with approval, seeing him fling it out into the street. "I must have been very foolish when I thought that book good."

Then she turned to read, and leaned her little elbows resolutely on the great volume, and knit her brows. This was Shakespeare--it must mean something.

"I wish you would take a handkerchief and tie it tight round my head, it aches so."

He had not been long in his seat when he saw drops fall from beneath the hands that shaded the eyes, on to the page.

"I am not accustomed to so much light, it makes my head swim a little,"

she said. "Go out and close the shutter."

When he came back, she lay shrivelled up among the pillows.

He heard no sound of weeping, but the shoulders shook. He darkened the room completely.

When Gregory went to his sofa that night, she told him to wake her early; she would be dressed before breakfast. Nevertheless, when morning came, she said it was a little cold, and lay all day watching her clothes upon the chair. Still she sent for her oxen in the country; they would start on Monday and go down to the Colony.

In the afternoon she told him to open the window wide, and draw the bed near it.

It was a leaden afternoon, the dull rain-clouds rested close to the roofs of the houses, and the little street was silent and deserted.

Now and then a gust of wind eddying round caught up the dried leaves, whirled them hither and thither under the trees, and dropped them again into the gutter; then all was quiet. She lay looking out.

Presently the bell of the church began to toll, and up the village street came a long procession. They were carrying an old man to his last resting-place. She followed them with her eyes till they turned in among the trees at the gate.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"An old man," he answered, "a very old man; they say he was ninety-four; but his name I do not know."

She mused a while, looking out with fixed eyes.

"That is why the bell rang so cheerfully," she said. "When the old die it is well; they have had their time. It is when the young die that the bells weep drops of blood."

"But the old love life?" he said; for it was sweet to hear her speak.

She raised herself on her elbow.

"They love life, they do not want to die," she answered, "but what of that? They have had their time. They knew that a man's life is three-score years and ten; they should have made their plans accordingly!

"But the young," she said, "the young, cut down, cruelly, when they have not seen, when they have not known--when they have not found--it is for them that the bells weep blood. I heard in the ringing it was an old man. When the old die-- Listen to the bell! it is laughing--'It is right, it is right; he has had his time.' They cannot ring so for the young."

She fell back exhausted; the hot light died from her eyes, and she lay looking out into the street. By and by stragglers from the funeral began to come back and disappear here and there among the houses; then all was quiet, and the night began to settle down upon the village street.

Afterward, when the room was almost dark, so that they could not see each other's faces, she said, "It will rain tonight;" and moved restlessly on the pillows. "How terrible when the rain falls down on you."

He wondered what she meant, and they sat on in the still darkening room.

She moved again.

"Will you presently take my cloak--and new grey cloak from behind the door--and go out with it. You will find a little grave at the foot of the tall gum-tree; the water drips off the long, pointed leaves; you must cover it up with that."

She moved restlessly as though in pain.

Gregory a.s.sented, and there was silence again. It was the first time she had ever spoken of her child.

"It was so small," she said; "it lived such a little while--only three hours. They laid it close by me, but I never saw it; I could feel it by me." She waited; "its feet were so cold; I took them in my hand to make them warm, and my hand closed right over them they were so little."

There was an uneven trembling in the voice. "It crept close to me; it wanted to drink, it wanted to be warm." She hardened herself--"I did not love it; its father was not my prince; I did not care for it; but it was so little." She moved her hand. "They might have kissed it, one of them, before they put it in. It never did any one any harm in all its little life. They might have kissed it, one of them."

Gregory felt that some one was sobbing in the room.

Late on in the evening, when the shutter was closed and the lamp lighted, and the rain-drops beat on the roof, he took the cloak from behind the door and went away with it. On his way back he called at the village post-office and brought back a letter. In the hall he stood reading the address. How could he fail to know whose hand had written it? Had he not long ago studied those characters on the torn fragments of paper in the old parlour? A burning pain was at Gregory's heart.

If now, now at the last, one should come, should step in between! He carried the letter into the bedroom and gave it to her. "Bring me the lamp nearer," she said. When she had read it she asked for her desk.

Then Gregory sat down in the lamp-light on the other side of the curtain, and heard the pencil move on the paper. When he looked round the curtain she was lying on the pillow musing. The open letter lay at her side; she glanced at it with soft eyes. The man with the languid eyelids must have been strangely moved before his hand set down those words:

"Let me come back to you! My darling, let me put my hand round you, and guard you from all the world. As my wife they shall never touch you.

I have learnt to love you more wisely, more tenderly, than of old; you shall have perfect freedom. Lyndall, grand little woman, for your own sake be my wife!