"May I reachThat purest heaven, be to other soulsThe cup of strength in some great agony,Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,Be the sweet presence of a good diffusedAnd in diffusion ever more intense.So shall I join the choir invisibleWhose gladness is the music of the world."George Eliot.
"May I reachThat purest heaven, be to other soulsThe cup of strength in some great agony,Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,Be the sweet presence of a good diffusedAnd in diffusion ever more intense.So shall I join the choir invisibleWhose gladness is the music of the world."
George Eliot.
Months had passed since Lettice had written a page of her story. The arrival of the Daltons at Florence had interrupted her at a critical point. She had not yet acquired the mechanic art of stopping and going on again as at the turn of a handle, in obedience to a law of demand and supply; and she would probably have been unable to gather up her threads and continue the old woof, even if she had made the effort. But she had not made the effort, and now that she was back in London again it seemed less possible than ever that she should sit down and make it.
This was a serious matter, for the book was to have been done to order. She had undertaken to furnish the whole of the manuscript by the middle of November, and now the time had come when she was obliged to admit that this was quite impracticable. She had hoped to put such a constraint upon herself at Birchmead as would have enabled her to fulfil her promise in the spirit, and to ask a fortnight's grace for the completion of the manuscript. But circumstances had prevented her from writing a single line, and she gave up the idea as hopeless.
So when she came up to London, three days before the end of October, she called upon the publisher with whom she had made her agreement, and confessed her inability to keep her word. Mr. MacAlpine was polite, but at the same time evidently vexed. If Miss Campion had been ill he was very sorry to hear it, but he liked to be able to rely on the engagements which he made.
"Pray don't let it trouble you," he said, seeing that her face had begun to fall. "When do you think you can be ready? I must have your next story, at any rate. Take another three months."
"That is very good of you," said Lettice. "I think I can promise it before the end of January."
So it was settled, and Lettice went away contented.
The discovery which she had made in regard to Sydney and Emily Harrington had destroyed her former scruples as to the displeasure which Sydney might feel if he were to hear what she now contemplated. She had no wish to punish her brother. She thought he had been cruel, and indifferent to the suffering which he had caused; but she was not moved by anything like a vindictive feeling towards him. She had simply lost the scruples which had beset her, and there was no longer a desire in her mind to avoid a mere semblance of unconventionality for his sake.
She had chosen three rooms on the ground-floor of a house in a long and dreary terrace, the windows of which looked across an intervening waste to the walls of Alan's prison; and here she watched and waited.
The time hung heavy on her hands. She could do nothing, read nothing, think of nothing—except of the unhappy man within those walls, who had been brought to death's door, and who must have known a living death for the past six months. To her, merely looking at the walls and thinking of their victim, every minute seemed an hour, and every hour a day of blank despair. What must the minutes and hours have seemed to him, buried alive in that hideous pile of bricks, and in the yet more hideous pile of false accusations and unmerited disgrace?
She had found out the date of the trial, and procured the papers in which it was reported. The whole wretched story was before her now. She saw how the web had been weaved round him; she understood the pains which had been taken to keep her own name from being mentioned, and she noted with burning indignation the persistency with which Sydney had labored, apparently, to secure a conviction.
She was on the point of seeking out Mr. Larmer, in order to learn from him the assurance of innocence which Alan must have given to his solicitor; but she refrained. It would look as though she wanted evidence of what she believed so absolutely without any evidence; and besides, was it not one of the pleasures which she had promised herself, to hear from Alan's own lips all that he cared for her to hear?
She stood by her window in the evening, and saw the lights spring up one by one about the frowning gates of the prison. She was quite alone, Milly having gone out with her baby to buy her some clothes. Lettice was miserable and depressed, in spite of her good intentions; and as she stood, half leaning against the shutter in unconscious weariness of body, yet intent with all her mind upon the one subject that engrossed her, she heard the distant stroke of a tolling bell.
Dong!—dong!—dong! it sounded, with long intervals between the notes. Straight across the vacant ground, from the shrouded walls of Alan's dungeon, and into the contracting fibres of her own tortured heart; it smote with sudden terror, turning her blood to ice and her cheeks to livid whiteness.
Great heaven, it was a death-knell. Could it be Alan who was dead!
For a moment she felt as if she must needs rush into the street and break open those prison gates, must ascertain at once that Alan was still alive. She went out into the hall and stood for a moment hesitating. Should she go? and would they tell her at the gates if Alan was alive or dead?
The landlady heard her moving, and came out of a little apartment at the back of the house, to see what was going on.
"Were you going out, ma'am?" she asked, curiously.
"I? no; at least," said Lettice, with somewhat difficult utterance, "I was only wondering what that bell was, and——"
"Oh, that's a bell from the church close by. Sounds exactly like a passing-bell, don't it, ma'am? And appropriate too. For my son, who is one of the warders, as I think I've mentioned to you, was here this afternoon, and tells me that one of the prisoners is dead. A gentleman, too: the one that there was so much talk about a little while ago."
Lettice leaned against the passage wall, glad that in the gathering darkness her face could not be seen.
"Was his name—Walcott?" she asked.
"Yes, that was it. At least I think so. I know it was Wal—something. He was in for assault, I believe, and a nicer, quieter-spoken gentleman, my son says he never saw. But he died this afternoon, I understand, between five and six o'clock—just as his time was nearly out, too, poor man."
Lettice made no answer. She stole back into her sitting-room and shut the door.
So this was the end. The prisoner was released, indeed; but no mortal voice had told him he was free, no earthly friend had met him at the door.
She fell on her knees, and prayed that the soul which had been persecuted might have rest. Then, when the last stroke of the bell had died away, she sat down in mute despair, and felt that she had lost the best thing life had to give her.
Outside upon the pavement men and women were passing to and fro. There was no forecourt to the house; passers-by walked close to the windows; they could look in if they tried. Lettice had not lighted a candle, and had not drawn her blinds, but a gas-lamp standing just in front threw a feeble glimmer into the room, which fell upon her where she sat. As the shadows deepened the light grew stronger, and falling direct upon her eyes, roused her at last from the lethargy into which she had sunk.
She got up and walked to the window, intending to close the shutters. Listlessly for a moment she looked out into the street, where the gas-light flickered upon the meeting streams of humanity—old folk and young, busy and idle, hopeful and despairing, all bent on their own designs, heedless like herself of the jostling world around them.
She had the shutter in her hand, and was turning it upon its hinges, when a face in the crowd suddenly arrested her. She had seen it once, that ghastly painted face, and it had haunted her in her dreams for weeks and months afterwards. It had tyrannized over her in her sickness, and only left her in peace when she began to recover her strength under the bright Italian skies. And now she saw her again, the wife who had wrecked her husband's happiness, for whom he had lingered in a cruel prison, who flaunted herself in the streets whilst Alan's brave and generous heart was stilled for ever.
Cora turned her face as she passed the window, and looked in. She might not in that uncertain light have recognized the woman whose form stood out from the darkness behind her, but an impulse moved Lettice which she could not resist. At the moment when the other turned her head she beckoned to her with her hand, and quickly threw up the sash of the window.
"Mon Dieu!" said Cora, coming up close to her, "is it really you? What do you want with me?"
"Come in! I must speak to you."
"I love you not, Lettice Campion, and you love not me. What would you?"
"I have a message for you—come inside."
"A message! Sapristi! Then I must know it. Open your door."
Lettice closed the window and the shutters, and brought her visitor inside.
The woman of the study and the woman of the pavement looked at each other, standing face to face for some minutes without speaking a word. They were a contrast of civilization, whom nature had not intended to contrast, and it would have been difficult to find a stronger antagonism between two women who under identical training and circumstances might have been expected to develop similar tastes, and character, and bearing. Both had strong and well-turned figures, above the middle height, erect and striking, both had noble features, natural grace and vivacity, constitutions which fitted them for keen enjoyment and zest in life. But from their infancy onward they had been subjected to influences as different as it is possible to imagine. To one duty had been the ideal and the guide of existence; the other had been taught to aim at pleasure as the supreme good. One had ripened into a self-sacrificing woman, to whom a spontaneous feeling of duty was more imperative than the rules and laws in which she had been trained; the other had degenerated into a wretched slave of her instincts, for whom the pursuit of pleasure had become a hateful yet inevitable servitude. Perhaps, as they stood side by side, the immeasurable distance which divided them mind from mind and body from body was apparent to both. Perhaps each thought at that moment of the man whose life they had so deeply affected—perhaps each realized what Alan Walcott must have thought and felt about the other.
"Why have you brought me here?" said Cora at last in a defiant voice.
"It was a sudden thought. I saw you, and I wanted to speak to you."
"Then you have no message as you pretended? You are very polite, mademoiselle. You are pleased to amuse yourself at my expense?"
"No, I am not amusing myself," said Lettice. There was a ring of sadness in her tones, which did not escape Cora's attention. She argued weakness from it, and grew more bold.
"Are you not afraid?" she said, menacingly. "Do you not think that I have the power to hurt—as I have hurt you before—the power, and, still more, the will?"
"I am not afraid."
"Not afraid! You are hatefully quiet and impassive, just like—ah, like all your race! Are you always so cold and still? Have you no blood in your veins?"
"If you will sit down," said Lettice steadily, "I will tell you something that you ought to know. It is useless trying to frighten me with your threats. Sit down and rest if you will; I will get you food or coffee, if you care for either. But there is something that I want to say."
Cora stared at her scornfully. "Food! Coffee! Do you think I am starving?" she asked, with a savage little laugh. "I have as much money as I want—more than you are ever likely to have, mademoiselle. You are very naive, mon enfant. You invite me into your room—Lettice Campion invites Cora Walcott into her room!—where nobody knows us, nobody could trace us—and you quietly ask me to eat and drink! Eat and drink in this house? It is so likely! How am I to tell, for example, if your coffee is not poisoned? You would not be very sorry if I were to die! Parbleu, if you want to poison me, you should tempt me with brandy or champagne. Have you neither of those to offer me?"
Lettice had drawn back at the first hint of this insinuation, with a look of irrepressible disgust. She answered coldly, "I have neither brandy nor champagne to give you."
"Allons, donc! Why do I stay here then?" said Cora jumping up from the chair where she had seated herself. "This is very wearisome. Your idea was not very clever, Mademoiselle Lettice; you should lay your plans better if you want to trick a woman like me."
"Why should I wish to trick you?" said Lettice, with grave, quiet scorn. "What object could I have in killing you?"
"Ma foi, what object should you not have? Revenge, of course. Have I not injured you? have I not taken away your good name already? All who know you have heard my story, and many who do not know you; and nearly every one of them believes it to be true. You robbed me of my husband, mademoiselle, you know it; and you have but too good reason to wish me dead, in order that you may take a wife's place at the convict's side."
"You are mad. Listen to me——"
"I will listen to nothing. I will speak now. I will give you a last warning. Do you know what this is?"
She took a bottle from her pocket, a bottle of fluted, dark-colored glass, and held it in her hand.
"Look! This is vitriol, the friend of the injured and the defenceless. I have carried it with me ever since I followed my husband to your house at Brook Green, and saw you making signals to him at midnight. I came once after that, and knocked at your door, intending then to avenge my wrongs; but you had gone away, and I was brutally treated by your police. But if I could not punish you I could punishhim, for he belonged to me and not to you, and I had a right to make him suffer. I have made him suffer a little, it seems to me. Wait—I have more to say. Shall I make him suffer more? I have punished you through him; shall I punish him through you? For he would not like you to be maimed and disfigured through life: his sensitive soul would writhe, would it not? to know that you were suffering pain. Do you know what this magic water is? It stings and bites and eats away the flesh—it will blind you so that you can never see him again; and it will mar your white face so that he will never want to look at you. This is what I carry about for you."
Lettice watched the hand that held the bottle; but in truth she thought very little of the threat. Death had done for her already what this woman was talking about. Alan was past the love or vengeance of either of them, and all her pleasure in life was gone for ever.
"I thought I should find you here," Cora went on, "waiting at the prison for your lover! But I am waiting for him, too. I am his wife still. I have the right to wait for him, and you have not. And if you are there when he comes out, I shall stay my hand no longer. I warn you; so be prepared. But perhaps"—and she lifted the bottle, while her eyes flamed with dangerous light, and her voice sank to a sharp whisper—"perhaps it would be better to settle the question now!"
"The question," said Lettice, with almost unnatural calm of manner, "is settled for us. Alan has left his prison. Your husband is dead."
The woman gazed at her in stupefaction. Her hand fell to her side, and the light died out of her bold black eyes.
"Alan dead!' What is it you say? How do you know?"
"He had a fever in the jail to which you sent him. He has been at death's door for many weeks. Not an hour ago a warder came here and said that he was dead. Are you satisfied with your work?"
"My work?" said Cora, drawing back. "I have not killed him!"
"Yes," said Lettice, a surge of bitter anger rising in her heart, "yes, you have killed him, as surely as you tried to kill him with your pistol at Aix-les-Bains, and with his own dagger in Surrey Street. You are a murderess, and you know it well. But for you, Alan Walcott would still be living an honorable, happy life. You have stabbed him to the heart, and he is dead. That is the message I have to give you—to tell you that you have killed him, and that he is gone to a land where your unnatural hate can no longer follow him!"
Lettice stood over the cowering woman, strong and unpitying in her stern indignation, lifted out of all thought of herself by the intensity of her woe. Cora shrank away from her, slipping the bottle into her pocket, and even covertly making the sign of the cross as Lettice's last words fell upon her ear—words that sounded to her untutored imagination like a curse. But she could not be subdued for long. She stood silent for a few moments when Lettice ceased to speak, but finally a forced laugh issued from the lips that had grown pale beneath her paint.
"Tiens!" she said. "You will do the mourning for us both, it seems. Well, as I never loved him, you cannot expect me to cry at his death. And I shall get his money, I suppose; the money that he grudged me in his lifetime: it will be mine now, and I can spend it as I choose. I thank you for your information, mademoiselle, and I pardon you the insults which you have heaped upon my head to-night. If I have my regrets, I do not exhibit them in your fashion. Good-night, mademoiselle: il me faut absolument de l'eau de vie—I can wait for it no longer. Bon soir!"
She turned and left the house as rapidly as she had come. Lettice sank down upon a couch, and hid her face in the cushion. She could not shed a tear, but she was trembling from head to foot, and felt sick and faint.
As Cora sauntered along the pavement, turning her head restlessly from side to side, her attention was caught by a young woman carrying a child, who went in at Lettice's door. Mrs. Walcott stopped short, and put her finger to her forehead with a bewildered air. "Now where have I seen that face?" she muttered to herself.
After a moment's reflection, she burst into a short, harsh laugh, and snapped her fingers at the blind of Lettice's room. "I know now," she said. "Oh yes, I know where I have seen that face before. This will justify me in the eyes of the world as nothing else has done. Bon soir, Madame Lettice. Oh, I have a new weapon against you now."
And then she went upon her way, leaving behind her the echo of her wicked laugh upon the still night air.
If Lettice had not seen Cora when she did, she would probably have gone to the prison that evening, to ask whether she could not arrange for Alan's funeral, as she could not arrange for his release. Her spirit was crushed by the blow which had fallen on her, but she could not give way so long as his body was there to receive the last token of her love. When the Frenchwoman left her it was too late to see Captain Haynes, even if she had been physically able to make the attempt.
It never occurred to her to think that any mistake could have been made in the information she had received from her landlady. The struggle which had been going on in her mind, the consciousness that she had broken with all her old friends, the exaltation which had possessed her since she resolved to give to Alan all that was possible for her to give, or seemed to be worth her giving, the death of his aunt and the thought of his loneliness, had combined to make her nervously apprehensive. As soon as she had settled down under the shadow of the prison walls, the idea took hold of her with unaccountable force that the life of Alan was hanging by a thread, and the news of his death came to her only as the full confirmation of her fears.
But, as it happened, there was another man in the prison named Walters, who had been convicted of an assault upon his wife some time previously, and had been ill for many months of an internal complaint which was certain, sooner or later, to end fatally.
A sleepless night brought Lettice no ray of hope, and it was with a heavy and despairing heart that she went to the governor's residence next morning, and sent up to him the note which she had written before leaving her room.
Captain Haynes remembered her former visit, and being disengaged at the moment, he came down at once.
"My dear lady," he said, bustling into the room, "what is the meaning of this letter? What makes you talk of burying your friend? He has been in this tomb of stone long enough to purge him of all his offenses, and I am sure you don't want to bury him alive again!"
Lettice started to her feet, gazed at the speaker with straining eyes, and pressed her hands upon her tumultuous heart.
"Is—he—alive?" she gasped, in scarcely audible words.
"Of course he is alive! I told you when you were here before that he was out of danger. All he wants now is careful nursing and cheerful company; and I must say that you don't quite look as if you could give him either."
"Alive—alive! Thank God!"
A great wave of tenderness swept through her heart, and gushed from her eyes in tears that were eloquent of happiness.
"I was told that he was dead!" She looked at the governor with a smile which disarmed his bluff tongue.
"I am on the borderland of a romance," he thought, "and a romance of which the ending will be pleasanter than the beginning, unless I am much mistaken. This is not the wife; it is the woman he was writing his verses to before he took the fever. The doctor says she has written the best novel of the year. Novels and poetry—umph! not much in my line."
Then aloud, "you are under a mistake. A man named Walters died yesterday; perhaps that is how you have been misled. Some rumor of his death must have got abroad. Mr. Walcott is getting over his illness very nicely; but he will need a good rest, good food, and as much cheerfulness as you can give him. I told him, just now, that you had arranged to meet him to-morrow, and I fancy it roused him more than anything Dr. Savill has done for him. I must wish you good-morning, madam!—but let me impress upon you again, before you go, that he is to be kept perfectly quiet, free from anxiety, and as cheerful as you can manage to make him."
Captain Haynes was rather ashamed of the laxity into which Miss Campion had drawn him. He was not accustomed to display so much sympathy with his prisoners, whatever he may have felt in his own mind. But, to be sure, the case was quite exceptional. He did not have prisoners like Alan or visitors like Lettice every day. So he had no difficulty in finding excuses for himself.
Lettice walked on air as she came out of the precincts of the jail, which had now lost all its terrors. In less than twenty-four hours she was to come again, and transport her hero—whom the dense and cruel world had branded as a criminal—from slavery to freedom, from misery to peace and joy. The world had cast him out; well, then, let the world stand aside, that she might give this man what was his due.
What would she say to him? Ah, she dare not think of that beforehand!
What would she do for him? For one thing, she would give him back his self-respect. He had been the object of scorn and the victim of lying scandals. He should find that the woman he loved intended from henceforth to take those paltry burdens on herself, and to know no other praise or merit than that which came to her from him.
He had borne troubles and suffered injuries which before now had driven men to suicide, or madness, or self-abandonment. In order to save him from any of these things she meant to give herself into his hands, without terms or conditions, in order that the wrong-doing of the world might be righted by her act, were it ever so little.
Who could call that a sacrifice which made her heart so light, her step so elastic, her eyes so bright with hope and satisfaction? It was no sacrifice, but a triumph and reward of the highest kind that she was preparing for herself. How should she not be happy?
There was no time to be lost if she was to provide all that was necessary for the well-being and comfort of her patient before to-morrow morning. Everything had to be done at the last moment. She had been so long in coming to a definite and final resolution to treat this friendless discharged prisoner as a hero and a king, that it was almost too late to make arrangements. Why had she not done yesterday something of what she had left to be done to-day? She scarcely realized to herself that her mind was only just made up. That facile belief in the report of Alan's death was only the outcome of her distress and perplexity—of the failure of her courage on the threshold of decision and action.
With a cold shudder she thought of the dust which she had unwittingly thrown in Cora's eyes. She had told her that her husband was dead, and the tale had been readily believed, for the very opposite reason to that which had prevailed with herself. She had been convinced by her fears—Cora by her hopes and greed. And now she could not undeceive the woman, for she did not know where to find her. Would she if she could? Perhaps it was the the best thing which could have happened; for it would be terrible if Alan were to step out of his prison back into the hell on earth which that woman had created for him.
Well, now, at any rate, she must devote herself to the task which she had undertaken. She felt as a sister might feel who had been suddenly commissioned to provide a home within twenty-four hours for an invalided traveler; and she set about the work with enthusiasm.
She began by taking Milly in some measure into her confidence, and giving her a number of directions as to what she was to do in the course of the day. Then she hired a cab, and went to a house-agent whose name she remembered. That seemed the quickest way of getting what she wanted—a small furnished house, cheerful and yet retired, which she could take at any rate for a month, and for longer if she needed it. The agent by good chance had the very thing she asked for. He turned over the leaves of his register, and presently came upon a desirable bijou residence, plainly but adequately furnished, containing three reception rooms and five bedrooms, conservatory, with large and well-stocked garden, lawn and shrubbery, coach-house and stable. Vacant for three months; very moderate terms to a suitable tenant. That sounded well. The "very moderate terms" came to something more than Lettice wanted to give; but she had a hundred pounds in her pocket, and a spirit which disdained to grudge in such a service.
So, having journeyed to Chiswick, and found Bute Lodge to be, if not precisely a jewel amongst lodges, at any rate clean and comfortable, she came back to the agent with an offer to take it from month to month, and with a roll of notes ready to clinch the bargain. Money is the best reference, as she found when she paid a month's rent on the spot, and promised that all her payments should be in advance. But, as the agent had asked her for a reference of another kind, Lettice, who had expected this demand, and was prepared for it, gave the name of James Graham. She ought not to have made use of him without asking him beforehand. She might have referred to the owner of Maple Cottage, where she had lived when last in London, or even to her publisher. But she wanted to go and see her old friend Clara; and, woman-like, did a more important thing to serve as a pretext for a less important.
Clara Graham was delighted to see her again, and the two women had a long and confidential talk.
"I, at any rate," said Clara, "have never doubted his innocence, and I was sure that you would not."
"Yet you never told me what troubles had fallen upon him!"
"My dear, I thought you must have heard about it all. But the fact was that James asked me not to mention the trial. Remember, you were not well at the time; and it was a difficult case. I could not quite assume that your interest would be strong enough to justify me in risking the loss of your health—perhaps of your life. Really, it is a hard question to deal with—like one of those cases of conscience (didn't they call them?) which men used to argue for the sake of having something to do. I stood up for poor Mr. Walcott with my husband; but you know it is useless to argue against him."
"He believes with the rest of them?"
"Everybody believes alike. I never heard of one who thought that he did not do it."
"Only yourself!"
"Yes, and that was, perhaps, for your sake," said Clara, affectionately.
"And I suppose that I believe in him for his own sake."
"That is natural; but will people think that it is logical?"
"No, they won't," said Lettice, "at all events, not at first. But, gradually perhaps, they will. I am perfectly convinced that Alan did not stab his wife—because I feel it with a force that amounts to conviction. You see, I know his character, his past history, the character and history of his wife, the circumstances in which they were placed at the time. I am sure he is innocent, and I am going to act up to it. Alan will live down this horrible accusation and punishment—he will not give way, but will keep his self-respect, and will do infinitely better work for all the torture he has gone through. And our hope must be this—that when the world sees him stronger than ever, stronger in every way, and doing stronger work in his vocation, it will come to believe in him, one by one, beginning with us, until his vindication is brought about, not by legal proof, which is impossible, but by the same feeling and conviction which to-day only draw two weak women to the side of an unhappy and discredited man."
"Are you calling yourself a weak woman? You have the strength of a martyr, and in days when they used to burn women you would have chosen to be a martyr."
"I am not so sure. It is one thing to do what one likes, but quite another thing to burn, which no one likes."
"Well, you are very brave, and you will succeed as you deserve. But not at first."
"No, not at first. The hardest task will be with Alan, who has been in despair all these months, and at death's door with fever. He will come out weak, helpless, hopeless; there will be constant danger of a relapse; and, even if he can be made to forget his despair, it will be very difficult to restore him to cheerfulness." Her eyes filled with pitying tears as she spoke.
"Only one thing can do that!" Clara stroked her friend's bright brown hair, and kissed her on the cheek. "With you for his doctor he will soon be well."
"Only two things can do it—a joy greater than his sorrow, and a self-respect greater than his self-abasement."
Lettice stood up; and the far reaching look that Clara knew so well came into the true and tender grey eyes, strong with all the rapt purpose of a devoted woman. Her resolutions were forming and strengthening as she went on. She had been guided by instinct and feeling, but they were guiding her aright.
There was one thing more in which Clara was a help to her. She took her to an old woman, the mother of her own parlor-maid, exceptionally clean and respectable, whom Lettice engaged to go at once to Bute Lodge, taking a younger daughter with her, and make everything ready for the morrow.
"I shall come and see you soon," said Clara, as they wished each other good-bye.
"Do! And if you can convert your husband——"
"If not, it will not be for want of trying."
It was evening before Lettice was at her lodging again. She had done all that she could think of—made every preparation and taken every precaution—and now there was nothing left but to wait until the appointed hour should strike, and Alan should be a free man again.
One concession she made to Mrs. Graham's sense of propriety. There was an old lady who had once been Clara's governess—a gentle, mild-tongued, unobservant person, who was greatly in want of a home. Mrs. Alison was easily induced to promise the support of her presence to Lettice during the days or weeks which Lettice hoped to spend at Bute Lodge. She was a woman of unimpeachable decorum and respectability, and her presence in the house would, in Clara's opinion, prove a bulwark against all dangers; but, although evil tongues might be silenced by the fact of her presence, the old lady was singularly useless in the capacity of chaperon. She was infirm, a little deaf, and very shy; but her presence in the house was supposed to be a sop to Cerberus, in the person of Mrs. Grundy, and Clara was less afraid for her friend than she had been before Mrs. Alison was installed at Bute Lodge.
Punctually at ten o'clock on the 29th of October a brougham drove up to the gates of the prison in which Alan Walcott had spent his six months of retreat from the world; and almost immediately Alan made his appearance, leaning on the arm of a warder.
Lettice hurried to meet him, displacing the warder with a few words of thanks, and repressing with an effort the painful throbbing of her heart and throat. The sight of his shrunken form and hollow eyes, as he looked at her with pathetic and childlike trust, for a moment took away all her strength; but when his hand was laid upon her arm, and she accommodated her steps to his slow and unsteady movements, he found in her no trace of the weakness she had overcome.
It was clear that he had not yet made a good recovery from his fever. Lettice's last little qualm of doubt as to the use or need for what she had done disappeared as she saw this wreck of the man whom she loved—whom she believed to be innocent of offense and persecuted by an evil fate. What might have become of him if he had been left to crawl out of his prison into the cold and censorious world, without a friend, a hope, or an interest in life? What lowest depth of despair might he not have touched if in such a plight as this he should be found and tortured anew by his old enemy, whose cruelty was evidently not assuaged by the sufferings she had heaped upon him? Who now would say that he had no need of succor, that her service was unasked, unwarranted, unwomanly, that the duty of a pure and delicate soul was to leave him either to his own wife or to the tender mercies of strangers?
The carriage was piled with cushions and shawls, the day was bright and warm, Lettice was full of light gossip and cheerfulness, and Alan had reason to think that he had never had a more delightful drive.
"Where are you taking me?" he said, with a smile of restful gratitude, which clearly implied, "I do not care where it is, so long as I am taken by you!"
"You are going to a convalescent home, where you will be the only patient. If you obey the rules, you may get well in a month, and the first rule is that you are not to ask questions, or to think about unpleasant things."
"Are you my nurse?"
"That is the first breach of rules! They are very strict at this home, I can tell you!"
She spoke in a playful mood, but it left him with the impression that he was really being taken to a "home" of some kind, where he was to be nursed until he was well. He had no objection to make. He would have gone anywhere with equal pleasure, if he could be sure that she would be there to look after him. His one thought in prison, when he lay in the grip of fever, was that he must surely die before his sentence had run out. That was his hope and belief from day to day; and only when he heard that Lettice had come and made inquiries about him, and promised to fetch him as soon as he was released, did any real desire for life return to him. Now, in her presence, he was so completely happy that he forgot all his former sufferings and despair.
Weak as he was, he would have found words to tell her of his gratitude—and of much more than gratitude; but this because of, not in spite of, weakness—if she had not carefully checked him whenever he tried to speak. Fortunately, it was not at all hard to check him. He was infirm in mind as in body. Apart from the illness, which sapped his energies and paralyzed his power of thought, he had never thrown off the cloud of callous and despairing indifference which fell upon him after the fatal scene in Surrey Street. Add to this that the surrender of his independence to Lettice was in itself a pleasure to him, and we need not wonder that her self-imposed task seemed to her fairly easy of accomplishment.
At Bute Lodge they found everything very nice and comfortable. Mrs. Jermy and Mrs. Beadon (as Milly was to be called), who had come earlier in the morning with a cabful of yesterday's purchases, had carried out Lettice's instructions to the letter. The best room in the house looked out upon a delightful garden landscape—two borders, backed by well-grown box and bay-trees, holly, Irish yews, and clambering roses, with a lessening crowd of herbaceous plants in front, dwindling down to an edge of brilliant annuals on either side; and between these a long and level lawn, broken near the house by a lofty deodara, and ending in a bowling-green, and a thickly-planted bank of laurels, beyond which lay a far-off vista of drooping fruit-trees. The garden was reached through a small conservatory built outside a French window at one end of the room, and a low verandah ran along the remainder of the garden front.
Inside, all was as Lettice had planned it. A square writing table in front of the window was covered with a dozen of the books which had made most noise during the past season, with the November magazines, and the weekly papers which Alan had been wont to read. Milly had cut them all over night, and here they lay, with an easy-chair beside them, ready to tempt the student when he felt inclined and able to read. That was not just yet; but Alan saw the pile, and darted at his guardian angel another look of gratitude from his lustrous, melancholy eyes.
"Why, here," he said, looking round the room and out upon the garden, "a man must get well only too soon! I shall steadily refuse to mend."
"You will not be able to help yourself," said Lettice. "Now you are going to be left alone——"
"Not alone!"
"For half an-hour at the very least. All this floor belongs to you, and you are to have nothing to do with stairs. When you want anything you are to ring this bell, and Milly, whom you saw when we came in, will attend on you. Here, on this sideboard, are wine, and biscuits, and jelly, and grapes. Sit down and let me give you a glass of wine. We will have some lunch at one, tea at four, and dinner at seven—but you are to be eating grapes and jelly in between. The doctor will come and see you every morning."
"What doctor?"
"Why, the doctor of the Establishment, to be sure!"
"Oh, this is an Establishment?"
"Yes."
"It is more rational in its plan than some I have heard of, since it takes in your nurse and your nurse's maid. Will this precious doctor dine with us?"
"This precious! You are to have great faith in your doctor; but I am sorry to say he will not be able to dine with us. He has other occupations, you see; and for company I am afraid you will have to be content with such as your nurse may be disposed to give you!"
Before he could say anything else, she had left the room.
He was alone—alone and happy.
Straight from prison to paradise. That was what the morning's work meant for him, and he could not think with dry eyes of the peri who had brought him there.
Oh, the bitterness of that dungeon torture, when his heart had been branded with shame and seared with humiliation; when he had sworn that life had no more hope or savor for him, and the coming out from his cell had seemed, by anticipation, worse than the going in!
This was the coming out, and he was already radiant with happiness, oblivious of suffering, hopeful of the future. It was enough, he would not probe it, he would not peer into the dark corners of his prospect; he would simply realize that his soul had been lost, that it had been found by Lettice, and that it was hers by right of trover, as well as by absolute surrender.
The mid-day sun shone in at his window and tempted him to the verandah outside. Here he found one of those chairs, delightful to invalids and lazy men, which are constructed of a few crossed pieces of wood and a couple of yards of sacking, giving nearly all the luxury of a hammock without its disturbing element of insecurity. And by its side, wonderful, to relate, there was a box of cigarettes and some matches. Since they were there, he might as well smoke one. His last smoke was seven or eight months ago—quite long enough to give a special relish to this particular roll of Turkish tobacco.
As he lay back in his hammock chair, and sent one ring chasing another to the roof of the verandah, he heard a step on the gravel beneath him. Lettice, with a basket in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other, was collecting flowers and leaves for her vases. Unwilling to leave him too much alone, until she saw how he would bear his solitude, she had come out into the garden by a door at the other end of the house, and presently, seeing him in the verandah, approached with a smile.
"Do I look as if I were making myself at home?" he said.
"Quite."
"As soon as I began to smoke, all kinds of things came crowding into my mind."
"Not unpleasant things, I hope?" She said this quickly, being indeed most afraid lest he should be tempted to dwell on the disagreeable past.
"No, almost all pleasant. And there are things I want to say to you—that I must say to you, very soon. Do you think I can take for granted all you have done, and all you are doing for me? Let me come down and join you!"
"No!" she said, with a great deal of firmness in her gesture and tone. "You must not do anything of the kind until the doctor has seen you; and besides, we can speak very well here."
The verandah was only a few feet above the ground, so that Lettice's head was almost on a level with his own.
"There is no difficulty about speaking," she went on, "but I want you to let me have the first word, instead of the last. This is something I wanted to say to you, but I did not know how to manage it before. It is really very important that you should not fatigue or excite yourself by talking, and the doctor will tell you so when he comes. Now if you think that you have anything at all to thank me for, you will promise not to speak to me on any personal matters, not even your own intentions for the future, for one clear month from to-day! Don't say it is impossible, because, you see, it is as much as my place (as nurse) is worth to listen to you! If you will promise, I can stay; and if you will not promise, I must go away."
"That is very hard!"
"But it is very necessary. You promise?"
"Have I any choice? I promise."
"Thank you!" She said this very earnestly, and looked him in the eyes with a smile which was worth a faggot of promises.
"But you don't expect me to be deaf and dumb all the time?" said Alan.
"No, of course not! I have been told that you ought to be kept as cheerful as possible, and I mean to do what I can to make you so. Do you like to be read to!"
"Yes, very much."
"Then I will read to you as long as you please, and write your letters, and—if there were any game——"
"Ah, now, if by good luck you knew chess?"
"I do know chess. I played my father nearly every evening at Angleford."
"What a charming discovery! And that reminds me of something. Is there any reason why I should not write to Mr. Larmer? He has some belongings of mine, for one thing, which I should like him to send me, including a set of chess-men."
"No reason at all. But you ought not to write or talk of business, if you can help it, until you are quite strong."
"Well, then, I won't. I will ask him to send what I want in a cab; and then, when I am declared capable of managing my own affairs, I will go into town and see him. But the fact is, that I really feel as well as ever I did in my life!"
"You may feel it, but it is not the case."
And later in the day, Alan was obliged to confess that he had boasted too soon, for there was a slight return of fever, and the doctor whom Lettice had called in was more emphatic than she had been as to the necessity for complete rest of mind and body.
So for the next week he was treated quite as an invalid, to his great disgust. Then he fairly turned the corner, and things began to change for the better again. Lettice read to him, talked, played chess, found out his tastes in music and in art (tastes in some respects a little primitive, but singularly fine and true, in spite of their want of training), and played his favorite airs for him on the piano—some of Mendelssohn's plaintive Lieder, the quainter and statelier measures of Corelli and Scarlatti, snatches of Schumann and Grieg, and several older and simpler melodies, for most of which he had to ask by humming a few bars which had impressed themselves on his memory.
As the month wore itself out, the success of Lettice's experiment was in a fair way of being justified. She had charmed the evil spirit of despair from Alan's breast, and had won him back to manly resistance and courageous effort. With returning bodily strength came a greater robustness of mind, and a resolution—borrowed, perhaps, in the first instance, from his companion—to be stronger than his persecutors, and rise superior to his troubles.
In the conversations which grew out of their daily readings, Lettice was careful to draw him as much as possible into literary discussions and criticisms, and Alan found himself dwelling to an appreciative listener on certain of his own ideas on poetic and dramatic methods. There is but a step from methods to instances; and when Lettice came into his room one morning—she never showed herself before mid-day—she saw with delight on the paper before him an unmistakable stream of verses meandering down the middle of the sheet.
He had set to work! Then he was saved—saved from himself, and from the ghouls that harbor in a desolate and outraged mind.
If, beyond this, you ask me how she had gained her end, and done the good thing on which she had set her heart, I cannot tell you, any more than I could make plain the ways in which nature works to bring all her great and marvelous mysteries to pass. Lettice's achievement, like her resolution, argued both heart and intellect. Alan would not have yielded to anyone else, and he yielded to her because he loved her with the feelings and the understanding together. She had mastered his affections and his intelligence at the same time: she left him to hunger and thirst up to the moment of his abject abasement, and then she came unasked, unhoped, from her towering height to his lowest deep, and gave him—herself!
"Do you remember," he said to her once, when he had got her to talk of her successful story, "that bit of Browning which you quote near the end? Did you ever think that I could be infatuated enough to apply the words to myself, and take comfort from them in my trouble?"
She blushed and trembled as he looked at her for an answer.
"I meant you to do it!".
"And I knew you meant it!" he said, not without a dangerous touch of triumph in his voice. "If I were a little bolder than I am, I would carry you to another page of the poet whom we love, and ask if you ever remembered the words of Constance—words that you did not quote——"
Ten times more deeply she blushed at this, knowing almost by instinct the lines of which he thought. Had he not asked her to read "In a Balcony" to him the night before, and had she not found it impossible to keep her voice from trembling when she read Constance's passionate avowal of her love?