"And he the wind-whipped, any whither waveCrazily tumbled on a shingle-graveTo waste in foam."George Meredith.
"And he the wind-whipped, any whither waveCrazily tumbled on a shingle-graveTo waste in foam."George Meredith.
"And he the wind-whipped, any whither waveCrazily tumbled on a shingle-graveTo waste in foam."George Meredith.
"And he the wind-whipped, any whither wave
Crazily tumbled on a shingle-grave
To waste in foam."
George Meredith.
Towards evening Dick regained consciousness.
"Annette." That was always the first word.
"Here." That was always the second.
"I lost the way back," he said breathlessly. "I thought I should never find it, but I had to come."
He made a little motion with his hand, and she took it.
"You must help me. I have no one but you."
His eyes dwelt on her. His helpless soul clung to hers, as hers did to his. They were like two shipwrecked people—were they not indeed shipwrecked?—cowering on a raft together, alone, in the great ring of the sea.
"What can I do?" she said. "Tell me, and I will do it."
"I have made no provision for Mary or—the little one. I promised her I would when it was born. But I haven't done it. I thought of it when I fell on my head. But when I was better next day I put it off. I always put thingsoff.... And it's not only Mary. There's Hulver, and the Scotch property, and all the rest. If I die without making a will it will all go to poor Harry." He was speaking rapidly, more to himself than to her. "And when father was dying he said, 'Roger ought to have it.' Father was a just man. And I like Roger, and he's done his duty by the place, which I haven't. Heoughtto have it. Annette, help me to make my will. I was on my way to the lawyer's to make it when I met you on the bridge."
Half an hour later, in the waning day, the notary arrived, and Dick made his will in the doctor's presence. His mind was amazingly clear.
"Is he better?" asked Mrs. Stoddart of the doctor, as she and the nurse left the room.
"Better! It is the last flare up of the lamp," said the doctor. "He is right when he says he shan't get back here again. He is riding his last race, but he is riding to win."
Dick rode for all he was worth, and urged the doctor to help him, to keep his mind from drifting away into the unknown.
The old doctor thrust out his under lip and did what he could.
By Dick's wish, Annette remained in the room, but he did not need her. His French was good enough. He knew exactly what he wanted. The notary was intelligent, and brought with him a draft for Dick's signature. Dick dictated and whispered earnestly to him.
"Oui, oui," said the notary at intervals. "Parfaitement. Monsieur peut se fier à moi."
At last it was done, and Dick, panting, had made a kind of signature, his writing dwindling down to a faint scrawl after the words "Richard Le Geyt," which were fairly legible.
The doctor attested it.
"She must witness it too," said Dick insistently, pointing to Annette.
The notary glanced at the will, realized that she was not a legatee, and put the pen in her hand, showing her where to sign.
"Madame will write here."
He indicated the place under his own crabbed signature.
She wrote mechanically her full name:Annette Georges.
"But, madame," said the notary, bewildered, "is not then Madame's name the same as Monsieur's?"
"Madame is so lately married that she sometimes signs her old name by mistake," said the doctor, smiling sadly. He took a pained interest in the young couple, especially in Annette.
"I am not Monsieur's wife," said Annette.
The notary stared, bowed, and gathered up his papers. The doctor busied himself with the sick man, spent and livid on his pillow.
"Approach then, madame," he said, with a great respect. "It is you Monsieur needs." And he withdrew with the notary.
Annette groped her way to the bed. The room had become very dark. The floor rose in long waves beneath her feet, but she managed to reach the bed and sink down beside it.
What matter now if she were tired. She had done what he asked of her. She had not failed him. What matter if she sank deeper still, down and down, as she was sinking now.
"Annette." Dick's voice was almost extinct.
"Here."
"The wind is coming again. Across the sea, across the mountains, over the plains. It is the wind of the desert. Can't you hear it?"
She shook her head. She could hear nothing but his thin thread of voice.
"I am going with it, and this time I shan't come back. Good-bye, Annette."
"Good-bye, Dick."
His eyes dwelt on hers, with a mute appeal in them. The forebreath of the abyss was upon him, the shadow of "the outer dark."
She understood, and kissed him on the forehead with a great tenderness, and leaned her cold cheek against his.
And as she stooped she heard the mighty wind of which he spoke. Its rushing filled her ears, it filled the little chamber where those two poor things had suffered together, and had in a way ministered to each other.
And the sick-room with its gilt mirror and its tawdry wall-paper, and the evil picture never absent from Annette's brain, stoopedand blended into one, and wavered together as a flame wavers in a draught, and then together vanished away.
"The wind is taking us both," Annette thought, as her eyes closed.
"I was as children beWho have no care;I did not think or sigh,I did not sicken;But lo, Love beckoned me,And I was bare,And poor and starved and dry,And fever-stricken."Thomas Hardy.
"I was as children beWho have no care;I did not think or sigh,I did not sicken;But lo, Love beckoned me,And I was bare,And poor and starved and dry,And fever-stricken."Thomas Hardy.
"I was as children beWho have no care;I did not think or sigh,I did not sicken;But lo, Love beckoned me,And I was bare,And poor and starved and dry,And fever-stricken."Thomas Hardy.
"I was as children be
Who have no care;
I did not think or sigh,
I did not sicken;
But lo, Love beckoned me,
And I was bare,
And poor and starved and dry,
And fever-stricken."
Thomas Hardy.
It was five months later, the middle of February. Annette was lying in a deck-chair by the tank in the shade of the orange trees. All was still, with the afternoon stillness of Teneriffe, which will not wake up till sunset. Even the black goats had ceased to bleat and ring their bells. The hoopoe which had been saying Cuk—Cuk—Cuk all the morning in the pepper tree was silent. The light air from the sea, bringing with it a whiff as from a bride's bouquet, hardly stirred the leaves. The sunlight trembled on the yellow stone steps, and on the trailing, climbing bougainvillea which had flung its mantle of purple over the balustrade. Through an opening in a network of almond blossom Annette could look down across the white water-courses and green terraces to the little town of SantaCruz, lying glittering in the sunshine, with its yellow and white and mauve walls and flat roofs and quaint cupolas, outlined as if cut out in white paper, sharp white against the vivid blue of the sea.
A grey lizard came slowly out of a clump of pink verbena near the tank, and spread itself in a patch of sunlight on a little round stone. Annette, as she lay motionless with thin folded hands, could see the pulse in its throat rise and fall as it turned its jewelled eyes now to this side, now to that, considering her as gravely as she was considering it.
A footfall came upon the stone steps. The lizard did not move. It was gone.
Mrs. Stoddart, an erect lilac figure under a white umbrella, came down the steps, with a cup of milk in her hand. Her forcible, incongruous countenance, with its peaked, indomitable nose and small, steady, tawny eyes under tawny eyebrows, gave the impression of having been knocked to pieces at some remote period and carelessly put together again. No feature seemed to fit with any other. If her face had not been held together by a certain shrewd benevolence which was spread all over it, she would have been a singularly forbidding-looking woman.
Annette took the cup and began dutifully to sip it, while Mrs. Stoddart sat down near her.
"Do you see the big gold-fish?" Annette said.
Her companion put up her pince-nez and watched him for a moment, swimming lazily near the surface.
"He seems much as usual," she said.
"It is not my fault if he is. I threw a tiny bit of stick at him a few minutes ago, and he bolted it at once; and then, just when I was beginning to feel anxious, he spat it out again to quite a considerable distance. He must have a very strong pop-gun in his inside."
Mrs. Stoddart took the empty cup from her and put it down on the edge of the tank.
"You have one great quality, Annette," she said: "you are never bored."
"How could I be, with so much going on round me? I have just had my first interview with a lizard. And before that a mantis called upon me. Look, there he is again, on that twig. Doesn't he look exactly like a child's drawing of a dragon?"
A hideous grey mantis, about three inches long, walked slowly down an almond-blossomed branch.
"He really walks with considerable dignity, considering his legs bend the wrong way," said Mrs. Stoddart. "But I don't wish for his society."
"Oh, don't you? Look! Now he is going to pray."
And the mantis suddenly sat up and appeared to engage in prayer.
Annette watched him, fascinated, until hisorisons were over, and he slowly went down again on all fours and withdrew himself into the bougainvillea.
Mrs. Stoddart looked searchingly at her, not without a certain pride. She had still the bruised, sunken eyes of severe illness, and she rolled them slowly at Mrs. Stoddart, at the mantis, at the sky, at everything in turn, in a manner which exasperated the other occupants of the pension—two ladies from Hampstead who considered her a mass of affectation. The only thing about Annette which was beautiful was her hands, which were transparent, blue-veined, ethereal. But her movements with them also were so languid, so "studied," that it was impossible for spectators as impartial as the Hampstead ladies not to deplore her extreme vanity about them. To Mrs. Stoddart, who knew the signs of illness, it was evident that she was still weak, but it was equally evident that the current of health was surely flowing back.
"I remember," said Mrs. Stoddart, "being once nearly bored to extinction, not by an illness, but by my convalescence after it."
"I have no time to be bored," said Annette, "even if there is no mantis and no lizard. Since I have been better so many things come crowding into my mind, that though I lie still all day I hardly have time to think of them all. The day is never long enough for me."
There was a short silence.
"I often wonder," said Annette slowly, "aboutyou."
"About me?"
"Yes. Why you do everything for me as if I were your own child, and most of all why you never ask me any questions—why you never even hint to me that it is my duty to tell you about myself."
Mrs. Stoddart's eyes dropped. Her heart began to beat violently.
"When you took charge of me you knew nothing of me except evil."
"I knew the one thing needful."
"What do you mean?"
"That you were in trouble."
"For a long time," said Annette, "I have been wanting to tell you about myself, but I couldn't."
"Don't tell me, if it distresses you."
"Nothing distresses me now. The reason I could not was because for a long time I did not rightly know how things were, or who I was. And I saw everything distorted—horrible. It was as if I were too near, like being in a cage of hot iron, and beating against the bars first on one side and then on the other, till it seemed as if one went mad. You once read me, long ago, that poem of Verlaine's ending 'Et l'oubli d'ici-bas.' And I thought that was better than any of the promises in the Bible which you read sometimes. I used to say it over to myself like a kind of prayer: 'Et l'oubli d'ici-bas.' That would be heaven—at least, it would have beento me. But since I have got better everything has gone a long way off—like that island." And she pointed to the Grand Canary, lying like a cloud on the horizon. "I can bear to think about it and to look at it."
"I understand that feeling. I have known it."
"It does not burn me now. I thought it would always burn while I lived."
"That is the worst of pain—that one thinks it will never lessen. But it does."
"Yes, it lessens. And then one can attend to other things a little."
And Annette told Mrs. Stoddart the long story of her life. For at twenty-two we have all long, long histories to unfold of our past, if we can find a sympathetic listener. It is only in middle age that we seem to have nothing of interest to communicate. Or is it only that we realize that when once the talisman of youth has slipped out of our hand, our part is to listen?
Mrs. Stoddart certainly listened. She had been ready to do so for a long time.
And Annette told her of her childhood spent in London under the charge of her three spinster aunts. Her mother, an Englishwoman, had been the only good-looking one of four sisters. In the thirties, after some disappointment, she had made a calamitous run-away marriage with a French courier.
"I always thought I could understand mother running away from that home," said Annette. "I would have run away too, if Icould. I did once as a small child, but I only got as far as Bethnal Green."
"Then your mother died when you were quite small?"
"Yes; I can just remember being with her in lodgings after she left father—for she had to leave him. But he got all her money from her first—at least, all she had it in her power to give up. I can remember how she used to sob at night when she thought I was asleep. And then, my next remembrance is the aunts and the house in London. They meant to be kind. They were kind. I was their niece, after all. But they were Nevills. It seems it is a very noble, mysterious thing to be a Nevill. Now, I was only half a Nevill, and only half English, and dark like father. I take after father. And of course I am not quite a lady. They felt that."
"You look like one," said Mrs. Stoddart.
"Do I? I think that is only because I hold myself well and know how to put on my clothes."
"My dear Annette! As if those two facts could deceive me for a moment!"
"But I am not one, all the same," said Annette. "Gentle-people, I don't mean only the aunts but—others, don't regard me as their equal, or—or treat me so."
She was silent for a moment, and her lip quivered. Then she went on quietly—
"The minute I was twenty-one and independent I came into a hundred a year, andI left the aunts. I made them a sort of little speech on my birthday. I can see them now, all three staring at me. And I thanked them for their kindness, especially Aunt Cathie, and told them my mind was quite made up to go and live with father and become a professional singer. I had meant to do it since I was twelve."
"Did they mind much?"
"I did not think so at the time. But I see now they were so astonished that, for the moment, it overcame all other feelings. They were so amazed at my wish to make any movement, go anywhere, do anything. Aunt Harriet the invalid wrung her hands, and said that if only she had not been tied to a sofa my upbringing would have been so different, that I should not have wished to leave them. And Aunt Maria said that she, of all people, would be the last to interfere with a vocation, but she did not consider the stage was a suitable profession for a young girl. Aunt Cathie did not say anything. She only cried. I felt leaving Aunt Cathie. She had been kind. She had taken me to plays and concerts. She hated music, but she sat through long concerts for my sake. Aunt Maria never had time, and Aunt Harriet never was well enough to do anything she did not like. Aunt Cathie used to slave for them both, and when she had time—for me. I used to think that if the other two died I could have lived with Aunt Cathie.But existing in that house was like just not suffocating under a kind of moral bindweed. When you were vexed with me the other day for tiring myself by tearing the convolvulus off that little orange tree, it was because I could not bear to see it choked. I had been choked myself. But I broke away at last. And I found father. He had married again, a woman in his own rank of life, and was keeping a cabaret in the Rue du Bac. I lived with them for nearly six months, till—last September. I liked the life at first. It was so new and so unaccustomed, and even the slipshodness of it was pleasant after the dry primness of my upbringing. And after all I am my father's daughter. I never could bear her, but he was kind to me in a way, while I had money. He had been the same to mother. And like mother, I did not find him out at first. I was easily taken in. And he thought it was a capital idea that I should become a singer. He was quite enthusiastic about it. I had a pretty voice. I don't know whether I have it still. But the difficulty was the training, and the money for it. And he found a man, a well-known musician, who was willing to train me for nothing when he had heard me sing. And I was to pay him back later on. And father was very keen about it, and so was I, and so was the musician. He was rather a dreadful man somehow, but I did not mind that. He was a real artist. But after a little bit I foundhe expected me to pay him another way, and I had to give up going to him. I told father, and he laughed at me for a fool, and told me to go back to him. And when I wouldn't he became very angry, and asked me what I had expected, and said all English were hypocrites. I ought to have known from that that I could not trust father. And then, when I was very miserable about losing my training, an English gentleman began to be very kind to me."
Annette's voice faltered and stopped. Mrs. Stoddart's thin cheek flushed a little.
Across the shadow of the orange trees a large yellow butterfly came floating. Annette's eyes followed it. It settled on a crimson hibiscus, hanging like a flame against the pale stem of a coral tree. The two ardent colours quivered together in the vivid sunshine.
Annette's grave eyes watched the yellow wings close and expand, close and expand, and then rise and float away again.
"He seemed to fall in love with me," she said. "Of course now I know he didn't really; but he seemed to. And he was a real gentleman—not like father, nor that other one, the man who offered to teach me. He seemed honourable. He looked upright and honest and refined. And he was young—not much older than myself, and very charming-looking. He was unlike any of the people in the Quartier Latin. I fell in love with him after a little bit. At first I hung back, because Ithought it was too good to be true, too like a fairy story. I had never been in love before. I fell in—very deep. And I was grateful to him for loving me, for he was much above me, the heir to something large and a title—I forget exactly what—when his old uncle died. I thought it was so kind of him not to mind the difference of rank.... I am sure you know what is coming. I suppose I ought to have known. But I didn't. I never thought of it. The day came when he asked me very gravely if I loved him, and I said I did, and he told me he loved me. I remember when I was in my room again alone, thinking that whatever life took from me, it could never take that wonderful hour. I should have that as a possession always, when I was old and white-headed. I am afraid now Ishallhave it always."
Annette passed her blue-veined hand over her eyes in a manner that would have outraged the other residents, and then went on:—
"We sat a long time together that evening, with his arm round me, and he talked and I listened, but I was not listening to him. I was listening to love. I knew then that I had never lived before, never known anything before. I seemed to have waked up suddenly in Paradise, and I was dazed. Perhaps he did not realize that. It was like walking in a long, long field of lilies under a new moon. I told him it was like that, and he said it was the same to him. Perhaps he thought he had said things to showme his meaning. Perhaps he thought father had told me. But I did not understand. And then—a few hours later—I had to understand suddenly, without any warning. I thought he had gone mad, but it was I who went mad. And I locked myself into my room, and crept out of the house at dawn, when all was quiet. I realized father had sold me. That was why I told you I had no home to go to.... And I walked and walked in the early morning in the river mist, not knowing what I was doing. At last, when I was worn out, I went and sat where there was a lot of wood stacked on a great wharf. No one saw me because of the mist. And I sat still and tried to think. But I could not think. It was as if I had fallen from the top of the house. Part of me was quite inert, like a stupid wounded animal, staring at the open wound. And the other part of me was angry with a cold anger that seemed to mount and mount: that jeered at everything, and told me I had made a fuss about nothing, and I might just as well go back and be his mistress—anybody's mistress: that there was nothing true or beautiful or pure or clean in the world. Everything was a seething mass of immorality and putrefaction, and he was only the same as all the rest.... And all the time I could hear the river speaking through the mist, hinting at something it would not quite say. At last, when the sun was up, the mist cleared, and workmen came, and I had to go.And I wandered away again near the water. I clung to the river, it seemed to know something. And I went and stood on the Pont Neuf and made up my mind. I would go down to Melun and drown myself there.... And then Mr. Le Geyt came past, whom I knew a little—a very little. And he asked me why I was looking at the water. And I said I was going to drown myself. And he saw I meant it, and made light of it, and advised me to go down to Fontainebleau with him instead, for a week. And I did not care what I did. I went with him. I was glad in a way. I thought—he—would hear of it. I wanted to hurt him."
"You did not know what you were doing."
"Oh yes, I did. I didn't misunderstand again—I was not so silly asthat. It was only the accident of Dick's illness which prevented my going wrong with him."
Mrs. Stoddart started.
"Then you never——" she said diffidently, but with controlled agitation.
"No," said Annette, "but it's the same as if I had. I meant to."
There was a moment's silence.
"No one," thought Mrs. Stoddart, "but Annette would have left me all these months believing the worst had happened—not because she was concealing the truth purposely, but because it did not strike her that I could regard her as innocent when she did not consider herself so."
"It is not the same as if you had," said Mrs. Stoddart sternly. "If you mean to do a good and merciful action, and something prevents you, is it the same as if you had done it? Is anyone the better for it?"
"No."
"Well, then, remember, Annette, that it is the same with evil actions. You were not actually guilty of it. Be thankful you were not."
"I am."
"When I saw you that first night at Fontainebleau, I thought you were on the verge of brain fever. I never slept for thinking of you."
"Well, you were right," said Annette tranquilly. "I suppose that is what you nursed me through. But that night I had no idea I was ill."
"You were absolutely desperate."
"Was I? I was angry. I must never be angry like that again. Dick said that, and he was right. Do you know what I was thinking of when you came out to me with the milk? Once, long ago, when I was a child, I was sent to a country farm after an illness, and I saw one of the farm hands moving some faggots. And behind it on the ground was a nest with a hen, a common hen, sitting on it, and a little baby-chicken looking out from under her wing. She was just hatching them out. I was quite delighted. I had never seen anything so pretty before. And the stupid men frightened her, and she thought they were coming for her youngones. And first she spread out her wings over them, and then she became angry. A kind of dreadful rage took her. And she trod down the eggs with her great feet, the eggs she had sat patiently on so long; and then she killed the little chickens with her strong beak. I can see her now, standing at bay in her broken nest with her bill streaming, making a horrible low sound. Don't laugh at me when I say that I felt just like that old hen. I was ready to rend everything to pieces, myself included, that night. When I was a child I thought it so strange of the hen to behave like that. I laughed at her at the time—just as Dick laughed at me. But I understand her now—poor thing."
"The larger the nature the less susceptible to personal injury."
It was a few days later. Annette, leaning on Mrs. Stoddart's arm, had made a pilgrimage as far as the low garden wall to look at the little golden-brown calf on the other side tethered to a twisted shrub of plumbago, the blue flowers of which spread themselves into a miniature canopy over him. Now she was lying back, exhausted but triumphant, in her long chair, with Mrs. Stoddart knitting beside her.
"I shall be walking up there to-morrow," she said audaciously, pointing to the fantastic cactus-sprinkled volcanic hills rising steeply behind the house on the northern side.
Mrs. Stoddart vouchsafed no reply. Annette, more tired than she would allow, leaned back. Her eyes fell on the same view, which might have been painted on a drop scene so fixed was it, so identical in colour and light day after day. But to-day it proved itself genuine by the fact that a large German steamer, not there yesterday, was moored in the bay, so placed that it seemed to be impaled on the spike ofthe tallest tower, and keeping up the illusion by making from time to time a rumbling and unseemly noise as if in pain.
"You must own now that I am well," said Annette.
"Very nearly. You shall come up to the tomato-gardens to-morrow, and see the Spanish women working in their white trousers."
"My head never aches now."
"That is a good thing."
"Has the time come when I may ask a few questions?"
Mrs. Stoddart hardly looked up from her knitting as she said tranquilly—
"Yes, my child, if there is anything on your mind."
"I suppose Dick Le Geyt is—dead. I felt sure he was dying that last day at Fontainebleau. It won't be any shock to me to know that he is dead."
"He is not dead."
A swift glance showed Mrs. Stoddart that Annette was greatly surprised.
"How is he?" she asked after a moment. "Did he really get well again? I thought it was not possible."
"It was not."
"Then he is not riding again yet?"
"No. I am afraid he will never ride again."
"Then his back was really injured, after all?"
"Yes. It was spinal paralysis."
"He did enjoy life so," said Annette. "Poor Dick!"
"I made inquiries about him again a short time ago. He is not unhappy. He knows nothing and nobody, and takes no notice. The brain was affected, and it is only a question of time—a few months, a few years. He does not suffer."
"For a long time I thought he and I had died together."
"You both all but died, Annette."
"Where is he now?"
"In his aunt's house in Paris. She came down before I left."
"I hope she seemed a kind woman."
"She seemed a silly one. She brought her own doctor and Mr. Le Geyt's valet with her. She evidently distrusted the Fontainebleau doctor and me. She paid him up and dismissed him at once, and she as good as dismissed me."
"Perhaps," said Annette, "she thought you and the doctor were in collusion withme. I suppose some lurid story, with me in the middle of it, reached her at once."
"No doubt. The valet had evidently told her that his master had not gone down to Fontainebleau alone. She arrived prepared for battle."
"And where was I all the time?"
"You were in the country, a few miles out of Fontainebleau, at a house the doctor knew of. He helped me to move you there directly youbecame unconscious. Until you fell ill you would not leave Mr. Le Geyt. It was fortunate you were not there when his aunt arrived."
"I should not have cared."
"No. You were past caring about anything. You were not in your right mind. But surely, Annette,"—Mrs. Stoddart spoke very slowly,—"you carenow?"
Annette evidently turned the question over in her mind, and then looked doubtfully at her friend.
"I am grateful to you that I escaped the outside shame," she said. "But that seems such a little thing beside the inside shame, that I could have done as I did. I had been carefully brought up. I was what was calledgood. And it was easy to me. I had never felt any temptation to be otherwise, even in the irresponsiblemilieuat father's, where there was no morality to speak of. And yet—all in a minute—I could do as—as I did, throw everything away which only just before I had guarded with such passion.Hewas bad, and father was bad. I see now that he had sold me. But since I have been lying here I have come to see that I was bad too. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other. There was nothing to choose between the three of us. Poor Dick with his unpremeditated escapade was snow-white compared to us, the one kindly person in the sordid drama of lust and revenge."
"Where do I come in?" asked Mrs. Stoddart.
"As an unwise angel, I think, who snatched a brand from the burning."
"You are the first person who has had the advantage of my acquaintance who has called me unwise," said Mrs. Stoddart, with the grim, benevolent smile which Annette had learnt to love. "And now you have talked enough. The whole island is taking its siesta. It is time you took yours."
Mrs. Stoddart thought long over Annette and her future that night. She had made every effort, left no stone unturned at Fontainebleau, to save the good name which the girl had so recklessly flung away. When Annette succumbed, Mrs. Stoddart, quick to see whom she could trust, confided to the doctor that Annette was not Mr. Le Geyt's wife and appealed to him for help. He gravely replied that he already knew that fact, but did not mention how during the making of the will it had come to his knowledge. He helped her to remove Annette instantly to a private lodging kept by an old servant of his. There was no luggage to remove. When Mr. Le Geyt's aunt and her own doctor arrived late that night, together with Mr. Le Geyt's valet, Annette had vanished into thin air. Only Mrs. Stoddart was there, and the nurse to hand over the patient, and to receive the cautious, suspicious thanks of Lady Jane Cranbrook, whocontinually repeated that she could not understand the delay in sending for her. It was, of course, instantly known in the hotel that the pretty lady who had nursed Monsieur so devotedly was not his wife, and that she had fled at the approach of his family. Mrs. Stoddart herself left very early next morning, before Lady Jane was up, after paying Annette's hotel-bill as well as her own. She had heard since through the nurse that Mr. Le Geyt, after asking plaintively for Annette once or twice, had relapsed into a state of semi-unconsciousness, in which he lay day after day, week after week. It seemed as if his mind had made one last effort, and then had finally given up a losing battle. The stars in their courses had fought for Annette, and Mrs. Stoddart had given them all the aid she could, with systematic perseverance and forethought.
She had obliged Annette to write to a friend in Paris as soon as she was well enough, rather before she was well enough to hold a pen, telling her she had been taken ill suddenly at Fontainebleau but was with a friend, and asking her to pack her clothes for her and send them to her at Melun. Later on, before embarking at Marseilles, she had made her write a line to her father saying she was travelling with her friend Mrs. Stoddart, and should not be returning to Paris for the present. After a time, she made her resume communications with her aunts, and inform them who she was travelling withand where she was. The aunts wrote rather frigidly in return at first, but after a time became more cordial, expressed themselves pleased that she was enjoying herself, and opined that they had had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Stoddart's sister, Lady Brandon. They were evidently delighted that she had left her father, and even graciously vouchsafed fragments of information about themselves. Aunt Maria had just brought out another book,Crooks and Coronets, a copy of which found its way to Teneriffe. Aunt Harriet, the invalid, had become a Christian Scientist. Aunt Catherine, the only practical one of the family, had developed a weak heart. And they had all decided to leave London, and were settling in a country farm in Lowshire, where they had once spent a summer years before.
Mrs. Stoddart with infinite care had re-established all the links between Annette's past life and her present one. The hiatus, which after all had only occupied six days, was invisible. Her success had apparently been complete.
"Only apparently," she said to herself. "Something may happen which I cannot foresee. Mr. Le Geyt may get better, though they say he never will; or at any rate he may get well enough to give her away, which he would never do if he were in full possession of his faculties. Or that French chamber-maid who was so endlessly kind may take service in England, and run up againstAnnette; or the valet who, she says, did not see her at the station, may have seen her after all, and may prove a source of danger. Or, most likely of all, Annette may tell against herself. She is quite capable of it."
Next day she said to Annette—
"Remember your reputation is my property. You threw it away, and I picked it up off the dunghill. It belongs to me absolutely. Now promise me on your oath that you will never say anything about this episode in your past to anyone, to any living creature except one—the man you marry."
"I would rather not promise that," said Annette. "I feel as if some time or other I might have to say something. One never can tell."
Mrs. Stoddart cast at her a lightning glance in which love and perplexity were about evenly mixed. This strange creature amused and angered her, and constantly aroused in her opposite feelings at the same moment. The careful Scotchwoman felt a certain kindly scorn for Annette's want of self-protective prudence and her very slight realization of the dangers Mrs. Stoddart had worked so hard to avert. But mixed in with the scorn was a pinch of respect for something unworldly in Annette, uncalculating of her own advantage. She was apparently one of that tiny band who are not engrossed by the duty of "looking after Number One."
Mrs. Stoddart, who was not easily nonplussed, decided to be wounded.
"You are hard to help, Annette," she said. "I do what I can for you, and you often say how much it is, and yet you can tranquilly talk of all my work being thrown away by some chance word of yours which you won't even promise not to say."
Annette was startled.
"I had not meant that," she said humbly. "I will promise anything you wish!"
"No, my dear, no," said Mrs. Stoddart, ashamed of her subterfuge and its instant success. "I was unreasonable. Promise me instead that, except to the man you are engaged to, you will never mention this subject to anyone without my permission."
"I promise," said Annette.
And Mrs. Stoddart, who never kissed anyone if she could help it, kissed her on the forehead.
"Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can turn my steps."—Koltsov.
It was the middle of April. The ginger tree had at last unsheathed the immense buds which it had been guarding among its long swordlike leaves, and had hung out its great pink and white blossoms at all their length. The coffee trees had mingled with their red berries the dearest little white wax flowers. The paradise tree which Annette had been watching day by day had come out in the night. And this morning, among its innumerable hanging golden balls, were cascades of five-leaved white stars with violet centres.
Annette was well again, if so dull and tame a word can be used to describe the radiance which health had shed upon her, and upon the unfolding, petal by petal, of her beauty. The long rest, the slow recovery, the immense peace which had enfolded her life for the first time, the grim, tender "mothering" of Mrs. Stoddart, had all together fostered and sustained her. Her life, cut back to its very root by a sharp frost, had put out a superb new shoot. Her coltishnessand a certain heavy, naïve immaturity had fallen from her. Her beauty had shaken them off and stood clear of them, and Mrs. Stoddart recognized, not without anxiety, that the beauty which was now revealed was great. But in the process of her unduly delayed and then unduly forced development it was plain that she had lost one thing which would have made her mother's heart ache if she had been alive. Annette had lost her youth. She was barely twenty-two, but she had the dignity and the bearing of a woman of thirty. Mrs. Stoddart watched her standing, a gracious slender figure in her white gown under the paradise tree, with a wild baby-canary in the hollow of her hands, coaxing it to fly back to its parents, calling shrilly to it from a neighbouring thicket of lemon-coloured honeysuckle. She realized the pitfalls that lie in wait for persons as simple and as inapprehensive as Annette, especially when they are beautiful as well, and she sighed.
Presently the baby-canary fluttered into the honeysuckle, and Annette walked down the steep garden path to meet Victor the butler, who could be seen in the distance coming slowly on the donkey up the white high road from Santa Cruz, with the letters.
Mrs. Stoddart sighed again. She had safeguarded Annette's past, but how about her future? She had pondered long over it, which Annette did not seem to do at all. Teneriffe was becoming too hot. The two ladies fromHampstead had already gone, much mollified towards Annette, and even anxious to meet her again, and attributing her more alert movements and now quite unrolling eyes to the fact that they had made it clear they would not stand any nonsense, or take "airs" from anyone. Mrs. Stoddart was anxious to get home to London to her son, her one son Mark. But what would happen to Annette when they left Teneriffe? She would gladly have kept her as her companion till she married,—for, of course, she would marry some day,—but there was Mark to be considered. She could not introduce Annette into her household without a vehement protest from Mark to start with, who would probably end by falling in love with her. It was hopeless to expect that Annette would take an interest in any man for some time to come. Would she be glad or sorry if Annette eventually married Mark? She came to the conclusion that in spite of all the drawbacks of Annette's parentage and the Le Geyt episode, she would rather have her as her daughter-in-law than anyone. But there was Mark to be reckoned with, a very uncertain quantity. She did not know how he would regard that miserable episode, and she decided that she would not take the responsibility of throwing him and Annette together.
Then what was to be done? Mrs. Stoddart had got through her own troubles with such assiduous determination earlier in life that shewas now quite at liberty to attend to those of others, and she gave a close attention to Annette's.
She need not have troubled her mind, for Annette was coming towards her up the steep path between the high hedges of flowering geraniums with a sheaf of letters in her hand, and her future neatly mapped out in one of them.
She sat down at Mrs. Stoddart's feet in the dappled shade under the scarlet-flowering pomegranate tree, and they both opened their letters. Annette had time to read her two several times while Mrs. Stoddart selected one after another from her bundle. Presently she gave an exclamation of surprise.
"Mark is on his way here. He will be here directly. Let me see, theFürstinis due to-morrow or next day. He sends this by the English mail to warn me. He has not been well, overworked, and he is coming out for the sake of the sea-journey and to take me home."
Mrs. Stoddart's shrewd eyes shone. A faint colour came to her thin cheeks.
"Then I shall see him," said Annette. "When he did not come out for Christmas I was afraid I should miss him altogether."
"Does that mean you are thinking of leaving me, Annette?"
"Yes," said Annette, and she took her friend's hand and kissed it. "I have beenconsidering it some time. I am thinking of staying here and setting up as a dressmaker."
"As a dressmaker!" almost gasped Mrs. Stoddart.
"Yes. Why not? My aunt is a very good dressmaker in Paris, and she would help me—at least, she would if it was worth her while. And there is no one here to do anything, and all that exquisite work the peasant women make is wasted on coarse or inferior material. I should get them to do it for me on soft fine nainsook, and make a speciality of summer morning gowns and children's frocks. Every one who comes here would buy a gown of Teneriffe-work from me, and I can fit people quite well. I have a natural turn for it. Look how I can fit myself. You said yesterday that this white gown I have on was perfect."
Mrs. Stoddart could only gaze at her in amazement.
"My dear Annette," she said at last, "you cannot seriously think I would allow you to leave me to become a dressmaker! What have I done that you should treat me like that?"
"You have done everything," said Annette,—"more than anyone in the world since I was born,—and I have accepted everything—haven't I?—as it was given—freely. But I felt the time was coming when I must find a little hole of my own to creep into, and I thought this dressmaking might do. I would rather not try to live by my voice. It would throw me into thekind of society I knewbefore. I would rather make a fresh start on different lines. At least, I thought all these things as I came up the path ten minutes ago. But these two letters have shown me that I have a place of my own in the world after all."
She put two black-edged letters into Mrs. Stoddart's hand.
"Aunt Catherine is dead," she said. "You know she has been failing. That was why they went to live in the country."
Mrs. Stoddart took up the letters and gave them her whole attention. Each of the bereaved aunts had written.
"My dear Annette(wrote Aunt Maria, the eldest),—I grieve to tell you that our beloved sister, your Aunt Catherine, died suddenly yesterday, from heart failure. We had hoped that the move to the country undertaken entirely on her account would have been beneficial to her, entailing as it did a great sacrifice on my part who need the inspiration of a congenial literarymilieuso much. She had always fancied that she was not well in London, in which belief her doctor encouraged her—very unwisely, as the event has proved. The move, with all the inevitable paraphernalia of such an event, did her harm, as I had feared it would. She insisted on organizing the whole affair, and though she carried it through fairly successfully, except that several of my MSS have been mislaid, the strain had a bad effect on her heart. The doctor said that she ought to have gone away to the seaside while themove was done in her absence. This she declared was quite impossible, and though I wrote to her daily from Felixstowe begging her not to over-fatigue herself, and to superintend the work of others rather than to work herself, there is no doubt that in my absence she did more than she ought to have done. The heart attacks have been more frequent and more severe ever since, culminating in a fatal one on Saturday last. The funeral is to-morrow. Your Aunt Harriet is entirely prostrated by grief, and I may say that unless I summoned all my fortitude I should be in the same condition myself, for of course my beloved sister Catherine and I were united by a very special and uncommon affection, rare even between affectionate sisters."I do not hear any more of your becoming a professional singer, and I hope I never shall. I gather that you have not found living with your father quite as congenial as you anticipated. Should you be in need of a home when your tour with Mrs. Stoddart is over, we shall be quite willing that you should return to us; for though the manner of your departure left something to be desired, I have since realized that there was not sufficient scope for yourself and Aunt Catherine in the same house. And now that we are bereaved of her, you would have plenty to occupy you in endeavouring, if such is your wish, to fill her place.—Your affectionate aunt,Maria Nevill."
"My dear Annette(wrote Aunt Maria, the eldest),—I grieve to tell you that our beloved sister, your Aunt Catherine, died suddenly yesterday, from heart failure. We had hoped that the move to the country undertaken entirely on her account would have been beneficial to her, entailing as it did a great sacrifice on my part who need the inspiration of a congenial literarymilieuso much. She had always fancied that she was not well in London, in which belief her doctor encouraged her—very unwisely, as the event has proved. The move, with all the inevitable paraphernalia of such an event, did her harm, as I had feared it would. She insisted on organizing the whole affair, and though she carried it through fairly successfully, except that several of my MSS have been mislaid, the strain had a bad effect on her heart. The doctor said that she ought to have gone away to the seaside while themove was done in her absence. This she declared was quite impossible, and though I wrote to her daily from Felixstowe begging her not to over-fatigue herself, and to superintend the work of others rather than to work herself, there is no doubt that in my absence she did more than she ought to have done. The heart attacks have been more frequent and more severe ever since, culminating in a fatal one on Saturday last. The funeral is to-morrow. Your Aunt Harriet is entirely prostrated by grief, and I may say that unless I summoned all my fortitude I should be in the same condition myself, for of course my beloved sister Catherine and I were united by a very special and uncommon affection, rare even between affectionate sisters.
"I do not hear any more of your becoming a professional singer, and I hope I never shall. I gather that you have not found living with your father quite as congenial as you anticipated. Should you be in need of a home when your tour with Mrs. Stoddart is over, we shall be quite willing that you should return to us; for though the manner of your departure left something to be desired, I have since realized that there was not sufficient scope for yourself and Aunt Catherine in the same house. And now that we are bereaved of her, you would have plenty to occupy you in endeavouring, if such is your wish, to fill her place.—Your affectionate aunt,Maria Nevill."
Mrs. Stoddart took up the second letter.
"My dear Annette,—How can Itellyou—how can Ibeginto tell you—ofthe shattering blowthat has fallen upon us? Life canneverbe thesame again.Deathhas entered our dwelling. Dearest Cathie—your Aunt Catherine—has been taken from us. She wasquitewell yesterday—at least well forher—at quarter-past seven when she was rubbing my feet, and byseven-thirtyshe was in a precarious condition. Mariainsistedon sending for a doctor, which of course I greatly regretted, realizing as I do full wellthat the ability to save life is not with them, and thatall drugs have only the power in them which we by wrong thought have given to them. However, Maria had her way asalways, but our dear sister succumbed before he arrived, so I do notin any wayattribute her death tohim. We were both with her, each holding one of her dear hands, and the end was quite peaceful. I could have wished forone last word of love, but I do not rebel. Maria feels itterribly, though she always hasgreatself-control. But of course the loss cannot be toher, immersed in her writing, what it is tome, my darling Cathie's constant companion and adviser. We wereall in allto each other. What I shall do without her I cannot evenimagine. Maria will naturally expect—she alwayshasexpected—to find all household matters arrangedwithout any participation on her part. And I am, alas! so feeble that for many years past I have had to confine my aid to that of consolation and encouragement. My sofa has indeed, I am thankful to think, been acentrefrom which sympathy and love have flowed freely forth. This is as it should be. We invalidslive in the lives of others. Theirjoysareourjoys.Theirsorrows areoursorrows. How I have rejoiced over your delightful experiences at Teneriffe—the islands of the blest! When it has snowed here, how often I have said to myself, 'Annette is in the sunshine.' Andnow, dear Annette, I am wondering whether,when you leave Teneriffe, you could make your home with us again for a time. You would find one very loving heart here to welcome you,everready with counsel and support for a young girl's troubles and perplexities.Inever blamed you for leaving us. I knowtoowell that spirit of adventure, though my lot bidsmesternly silence its voice. And, darling child, does it not seempointed out for youto relinquish this strange idea of being a professional singer for a life to which the call of duty is soplain? I know from experience what a great blessing attendsthose who give up their own will to live for others. The surrender of the will!Thatis wheretruepeace and happiness lie, if the youngcould only believe it.I will say no more.—With fondest love, your affectionateAunt Harriet."
"My dear Annette,—How can Itellyou—how can Ibeginto tell you—ofthe shattering blowthat has fallen upon us? Life canneverbe thesame again.Deathhas entered our dwelling. Dearest Cathie—your Aunt Catherine—has been taken from us. She wasquitewell yesterday—at least well forher—at quarter-past seven when she was rubbing my feet, and byseven-thirtyshe was in a precarious condition. Mariainsistedon sending for a doctor, which of course I greatly regretted, realizing as I do full wellthat the ability to save life is not with them, and thatall drugs have only the power in them which we by wrong thought have given to them. However, Maria had her way asalways, but our dear sister succumbed before he arrived, so I do notin any wayattribute her death tohim. We were both with her, each holding one of her dear hands, and the end was quite peaceful. I could have wished forone last word of love, but I do not rebel. Maria feels itterribly, though she always hasgreatself-control. But of course the loss cannot be toher, immersed in her writing, what it is tome, my darling Cathie's constant companion and adviser. We wereall in allto each other. What I shall do without her I cannot evenimagine. Maria will naturally expect—she alwayshasexpected—to find all household matters arrangedwithout any participation on her part. And I am, alas! so feeble that for many years past I have had to confine my aid to that of consolation and encouragement. My sofa has indeed, I am thankful to think, been acentrefrom which sympathy and love have flowed freely forth. This is as it should be. We invalidslive in the lives of others. Theirjoysareourjoys.Theirsorrows areoursorrows. How I have rejoiced over your delightful experiences at Teneriffe—the islands of the blest! When it has snowed here, how often I have said to myself, 'Annette is in the sunshine.' Andnow, dear Annette, I am wondering whether,when you leave Teneriffe, you could make your home with us again for a time. You would find one very loving heart here to welcome you,everready with counsel and support for a young girl's troubles and perplexities.Inever blamed you for leaving us. I knowtoowell that spirit of adventure, though my lot bidsmesternly silence its voice. And, darling child, does it not seempointed out for youto relinquish this strange idea of being a professional singer for a life to which the call of duty is soplain? I know from experience what a great blessing attendsthose who give up their own will to live for others. The surrender of the will!Thatis wheretruepeace and happiness lie, if the youngcould only believe it.
I will say no more.—With fondest love, your affectionateAunt Harriet."
"H'm!" said Mrs. Stoddart, "and so the only one of the trio whom you could tolerate is the one who has died. They have killed her between them. That is sufficiently obvious. And what do you think, Annette, of this extremely cold-blooded suggestion that you should live for others?"
"I think it is worth a trial," said Annette, looking gravely at her. "It will have the charm of novelty, at any rate. And I haven't made such a great success of living for myself so far."
Mrs. Stoddart did not answer.
Even she, accustomed as she was to them by now, always felt a tremor when those soft veiled violet eyes were fixed upon her. "Sweetesteyes were ever seen," she often said to herself.
Annette went on: "I see that I have been like the man in the parable. When I was bidden to the feast of life I wanted the highest seat, I took it as my right. I was to have everything—love, honour, happiness, rank, wealth. But I was turned out, as he was. And I was so angry that I flung out of the house in a rage. If Dick had not stopped me at the door I should have gone away altogether. The man in the parable behaved better than that. He took with shame the lowest seat. I must do like him—try and find the place intended for me, where Ishan'tbe cast out."
"Well, this is the lowest seat with a vengeance."
"Yes, that is why I think it may be just what I can manage."
"You are sure you are not doing this from a false idea of making an act of penance?"
"No, directly I read the letters I thought I should like it. I wish now I had never left them. And I believe now that I have been away I could make a success of it."
"I have no doubt you could, but——"
"I should like to make a success ofsomething, after being such a failure. And—and——"
"And what, my child?"
"I had begun to think there was no corner in the world for me, as if the Giver of the Feast had forgotten me altogether. And this looksas if He hadn't. I have often thought lately that I should like—if I could—to creep into some little place where I should not be thrust out, where there wouldn't be any more angels with flaming swords to drive me away."