Windyridge Part 24

The fact is, he has become indifferent to life, and that is against him."

"What is really the matter with him?"

"Now, there you corner me," he replied. "He has a weak heart, bronchial trouble, some diabetic tendencies and disordered nerves; but what is really the matter with him I have not discovered. Can you tell me?"

"I should have thought all these things were matter enough," I answered; "but what really ails him, I believe, is what is commonly termed a 'broken heart.' He is always mourning the loss of his wife and always dwelling upon reunion."

"He never told me that," replied the doctor thoughtfully; "I am glad to know it."

"Why should he remain abroad all this time?" I asked.

"Because he shouldn't!" he replied. "In my judgment he has been ill advised; but it is largely his own fault, too. I think he did well to leave England for the winter, but he ought to have gone home when the warm weather came. His medical advisers have always prescribed change of scene: told him to go anywhere he liked, and 'buck up' a bit, and he has gone. France, Spain, Egypt, Italy, and now Zermatt. And the old chap is dying of loneliness. Gottlieb shakes his mournful old head, and goes out to arrange with the English chaplain where to bury him.

I'd bury them both! If you take my advice you'll pet him and make him think the world is a nice place to live in, and then we'll take him home, and let old Gottlieb find another tenant for his grave. If you will second me we'll have him out of this hole in a week's time."

I felt so cheered, and I will certainly follow his lead. I wrote a long, explanatory letter to the Cynic, an apologetic one to Rose, and a picture postcard, promising a longer communication, to Mother Hubbard, and then turned in and slept like a top.

CHAPTER XXII

THE HEATHER PULLS

The sensation of dazzling light and the sound of tinkling silvery bells woke me early, and I jumped up and looked out of the window. The bells belonged to a herd of goats which were being driven slowly to pasture.

Stalwart guides, with stout alpenstocks in their hands, and apparently heavy cloth bags upon their backs, were standing near the hotel and on the station platform. Tourists of both s.e.xes were getting ready to accompany the guides, and there was much loud questioning and emphatic gesticulation on both sides. A few mules stood near, presumably for the use of the ladies. It was all too provocative, and I flung myself into my clothes and went out.

If I were writing a guide book I could wax eloquent, I believe, in my descriptions of Zermatt; but I am not, and I therefore refrain.

The squire was delighted with my enthusiasm, and insisted upon my "doing" the place thoroughly. He did not rise until noon, so that my mornings were always free, and the Greys took me all the shorter excursions. One day we had quite a long trip to the top of the Gorner Grat, whence one gets an unrivalled view of snow peaks and glaciers; and from thence we walked to the Schwarz See, where the Matterhorn towers in front of you like an absolute monarch in loneliness and grandeur.

Oh, those ravines, where the glacier-fed streams rage furiously in their rapid descent! Oh, those gorges, in whose depths the pent-up waters leap onward between high walls of rock to which the precarious gangway clings where you stand in momentary fear of disaster! Oh, those woods, with the steep and stony footpaths, and the sudden revelation of unsuspected objects: of kine munching the green herbage; of the women who tend them, working industriously with wool and needle; of wooden _chalets_ with stone-protected roofs; of trickling cascades and roaring waterfalls!

Oh, those pastures, green as emerald, soft as velvet, where one might lie as on a couch of down and feast the eye on mountain and vale and sky, and never tire! Oh, those sunsets, and particularly the one which struck my imagination most, when the sky was not crimson, but topaz-tinted, and the huge cloud which hung suspended from the neck of the Matterhorn was changed in a second into beaten gold, as though touched by the rod of the alchemist; when the Breithorn flushed deep for a moment at the sun's caress, and the land lay flooded in a translucent yellow haze that spread like a vapour over the works of G.o.d and man, and turned mere stones and mortar into the fairy palaces of Eastern fable!

It seems now like a wonderful dream, but, thank G.o.d! it is something much less transient. For a memory is infinitely better than a dream: the memory of an experience such as this is a continual feast, whereas a dream too often excites hopes that may never be realised, and presents visions of delight which are as elusive as the grapes of Tantalus.

I stored up every detail for the squire's benefit. I cultivated my powers of observation more for his sake than my own, and reaped a double reward. All I saw is impressed still upon my brain with photographic sharpness, and it will be a long, long time before the image becomes faded or blurred. But what was better still, I saw the squire's eyes brighten and the "yonderly" look depart, as he came back to earth evening by evening and followed the story of my adventures.

I believe he would have been content to stay on indefinitely and give me as good a time as my heart could have desired, but that would not have been right. I had not gone out to enjoy a frolic, and at times I felt almost ashamed of myself for enjoying life so much. "Grace Holden," I said, "you are a very considerable fraud. Your special role just now is supposed to be that of the ministering angel, whereas you are flinging away your own time and somebody else's money like an irresponsible tripper."

Dr. Grey laughed when I told him that I had qualms of conscience on this score.

"Don't worry," he said; "Providence has her own notions of how angels can best minister, and I fancy you are carrying out her scheme pretty successfully, It's three days since the old gentleman spoke a word about dying, and I'm certain he is not nearly as anxious to be gone as he was before you came. But cannot you tempt him back to England by any means? My wife and I cannot remain here much longer, and I would like to help you to take him home."

I did my best, but I made little headway. The squire seemed to have lost all desire for home, and had quite made up his mind that his body would soon be laid to rest amid the eternal snows. He was constantly antic.i.p.ating some further attack which would cut him down without warning, and Gottlieb seemed to find a mournful satisfaction in encouraging these forebodings, less perhaps by what he said than by what he left unsaid.

A tinge of annoyance began to mix with Dr. Grey's laugh, and he spoke to the squire with a touch of asperity. He had subjected him again to a thorough examination, and on its conclusion he broke out:

"Look here, Mr. Evans, I stake my professional reputation upon my verdict that you are not a dying man physically. If you die it's your own fault. There is no reason why we should not start for home to-morrow."

The squire took his hand and held it. "Grey," he said, "has science taught you that man has an inward voice that sometimes speaks more authoritatively and convincingly than doctor or parson, and that insists upon its dicta? Miss Holden knows it and calls it her 'Inner Self.'"

"No, sir," he replied, "science has taught me nothing of the kind. I am no psychologist, for my business is with the body rather than the soul. But science has taught me what the body is and is not able to accomplish, and whatever your 'Inner Self' may say I am convinced that your body is quite competent to take that perverse autocrat home if he will let it. But it cannot otherwise."

"Intuition is sometimes more powerful than logic," said the squire.

"Grey, you are a good fellow and I owe you a debt of grat.i.tude, but don't inconvenience yourself on my account. Go home, if you must, and believe me, I am sincerely thankful for all your goodness and attention."

The doctor tackled me again at dinner. "I'm not going home," he said, "and I'm not going to let him die without a struggle. But you'll have to make that Inner Self of his listen to reason. Now put your thinking cap on, and good luck to you."

"I cannot understand him," I replied; "he was always inclined to melancholy, but he was not morbid and listless as he now shows himself.

He seems sometimes pitiably weak and childish, whereas ordinarily he is full of shrewd common sense."

"Of course he is," said the doctor, "and will be again. His Inner Self is sick just now, consequent upon his long seclusion from friends and home a.s.sociations. It needs to be roused. If you can once make him _want_ to go home, his body will take him there hard enough. I can't do that: you must. Can't you tell him you have got to go back?"

I had thought of that. I had left my work at the busiest season of the year, and, after all, it was my living. And there was Mother Hubbard, who had learned to lean upon me, and had yielded me so willingly to the more pressing duty. I owed something to her. As I thought upon these things a feeling of homesickness stole over me, and I went in and sat at the squire's feet.

It was falling dusk, and the cool breath of evening fanned our cheeks as we sat by the open window and watched the lights twinkling in the celestial dome, and the mountains growing more black and mysterious with the advancing night.

"It is very lovely," murmured the squire.

"Yes," I said, "it is. But close your eyes and I will paint you a more attractive picture than this. You will not interrupt me, will you? and I will try to tell you what I saw not long ago, and what I am aching to see again."

"No, my child," he replied, pressing my hand fondly "I will be quite still and you shall paint your picture on my brain."

I hesitated a moment, and I think a wordless, formless prayer for help ascended to heaven. I endeavoured to visualise the scene in its fairest colours, and trembled lest my effort should be in vain. I closed my own eyes, too, for I feared distraction. Then I began:

"I am standing in a country lane, with ragged hedges on either hand.

The hedges are brightly green, for they have been newly washed with the warm rain of summer, and they sparkle like gems in the bright sunshine of a glorious morning. There is a bank of gra.s.s, rank, luxurious gra.s.s, on one side of the roadway, and I clamber up to secure a wider view of the bounties nature has provided.

"There is a merry, frolicsome breeze--a rude one, in truth, for it winds my skirt about my limbs and blows my hair over my ears and eyes; and yet I love it, for it means no harm, and its crisp touch braces my body and gives me the taste of life.

"From my elevated standpoint I see the distant horizon, miles and miles away. Far off upon my right the clouds lie in long grey strata, like closely-piled packs of wool, but on my left the remoter sky is washed in silver, with here and there a rent revealing wonderfully delicate tints of blue.

"Overhead the wool-packs have been burst open by the wind which is tearing them apart and scattering their contents over the deep blue zenith. They are dazzlingly white, whether heaped together in ma.s.sive bulk, or drawn out--as so many of them are--into transparent fluff which drifts in the rapid air current like down of thistles.

"The morning is cold and the air is keen, so that the sky-line is sharply defined and hints a threat of rain. But who cares about the evil of the hour after next when there are so many glories to delight the present sense? See, the sky-line of which I speak is dusky purple and reddish-brown, but broad, flat washes of verdigris stretch up to it, with here and there a yellow patch betokening fields of grain, and in the foreground meadows and pastures of brighter hue.

"In front of me is a clump of trees--fine, tall trees they are, with shining grey boles--standing erect and strong in spite of the fury of the gales. Sycamore and beech and elm, majestic, beautiful. I hear the cawing of the rooks from out the dark shadows.

"I climb over the wall a little farther on and walk fifty paces forward. I now see a grey Hall, a dear old place, stone-roofed and low, with tiny old-world window-panes around which the dark-hued ivy clings tenaciously. There are brightly coloured flower-beds in front, and a green lawn to one side, and a cl.u.s.ter of beeches stands sentinel before the closed door. For the door, alas! is closed, and as I look a thick thundercloud hangs over the house, and I turn away depressed and seek the sunshine on the other side.

"And now it is waste land upon which my delighted eyes rest, and the west wind brings to my nostrils the scent of the moors. Waste land!

Who shall dare to call that russet-coloured hillside with the streaks of green upon it, waste? That stretch of country, bracken-covered, ending in the long expanse of heath which is now violet-purple in tint, but will soon be glowing and aflame when the heather bursts its bonds--can that be waste? Surely not!

"I see tiny cottages from whose chimneys the blue smoke is being twisted into fantastic forms by the wind's vagaries, and gardens gay with bloom, and a green-bordered street, and through an open door the dancing flame on a homely hearth. It is all very lovely and peaceful, and when I turn for a last look at the old Hall where the door is closed, lo! the thunder-cloud has gone, and the sky is blue over the smokeless stacks, and hope arises within my breast, and I go on my way with joy and peace in my heart. That is my picture!"

I stopped and opened my eyes. A tear was stealing down the squire's face, and the grasp on my hand had tightened.

"Have you finished, Grace?"