"I shouldn't deserve you. But, then, who could?"
Sally tacitly refuses to help in answering this question.
"I vote for neither of us marrying anybody else, but going on like now," says she thoughtfully.
Sally, you see, was recovering herself after a momentary alarm, produced by the gust of resolution on Dr. Conrad's part. She had shut her window on the storm in his soul, and felt safe in resuming her identity. All through this walk, ever since the hand-incident, she had been hard at work ignoring suggestions of her inner mind that her companion was a loaded gun, and not quite safe to play with. Now she felt she had established a sort ofmodus vivendiwhich would not involve her in the horrors of a formal engagement, with the concomitants of dissension and bitterness that she had noticed in friends' families on such occasions. Why shouldn't she and poor Prosy walk about together as much as they liked—yes, even call in at a church and get married if they liked—and have no one else fussing over them? The sort of semi-trothplight she had just hushed into silence would do for a good long time to come, because she understood Prosy down to the ground, and, of course, she knew that his mistrusting her was out of the question.
As for the doctor, his was the sort of temperament one often meets with in very fair men of his type—intensely shy, but with a backing of resolution on occasion shown, bred of a capacity for high-strung passion. He had formed his intention fully and clearly of telling Sally the whole truth before they arrived at St. Sennans that evening, and had been hastened to what was virtually an avowal by a premature accident, as we have seen. Now the murder was out, and he was walking home slowly beside the marvel, the mystery, that had taken possession of the inmost recesses of his life—very much in her pocket, if the truth must be told—with an almost intolerable searching fire of joy finding every moment a new untouched recess in his innermost heart. He could have fallen at her feet and kissed them, could have poured out his very soul in passionate protestations, could and would have done anything that would have given a moment's respite to the tension of his love for this all-absorbing other creature that was absolutely here—a reality, and no dream—beside him. But he was going to be good, at her bidding, and remaina sane and reasonable general practitioner, however much his heart beat and his head swam. Poor Prosy!
No! On consideration, Agur, the son of Jakeh, didn't know all about it. He only knew the Oriental temperament. He was quite up to date, no doubt, but neither he nor Ithiel nor Ucal nor King Solomon could reckon with spiritual volcanoes. Probably nothing in the world could have explained to either of them the meaning of one or two bits of music Schubert wrote on this subject of Love—we don't flinch from our phraseology; we know that all will understand it whom we care should do so. By-the-bye, Dr. Vereker was partly German, and a musician. Agur can have had no experience of either. The ancestors of Schubert and Beethoven were splendid savages in his day, sleeping on the snow-wreaths in the forests of the north; and somewhere among them there was a germ of a love-passion that was one day to ring changes on the peals that were known to Agur, the son of Jakeh.
But this is wandering from the point, and all the while Sally and her lover have been climbing that hill again, and are now walking over the lonely down above, towards the sun, and their shadows are long behind them—at least, their shadow; for they have but one, and we fancy we have let some of our record slip, for the man's arm is round the girl's waist. Yes, some further clearer understanding has come into their lives, and maybe Sally sees by now that the vote she passednem. con.may be rescinded in the end.
If you had been near them then, invisible, we know you would not have gone close and listened. You would have been too honourable. But you would only have heard this—take our word for it!
"Do you know what I always call you behind your back? I always call you Prosy. I don't know why."
"Because Iamprosy—level-headed, slow sort of card—but prosy beyond a doubt."
"No, you're not. I don't think you know the least what you're like. But I shall call you Prosy, all the same, or whatever I choose!"
"You don't take to Conrad, somehow?"
"It sounds so reproachful. It's like William."
"Does William sound reproachful?"
"Of course it does! Willy-yum! A most reproachful name. No, Prosy dear, I shall call you Prosy, whatever the consequences may be. People must put their own construction upon it."
"Mother calls me Conny very often."
"When she's not taking exception to you ... oh, no! I know. I was only joking ... there, then! we won't quarrel and go home opposite ways about that. Besides, I'm the young lady...."
"Oh, Sally darling, dearest, it does make me feel such a fool. Please don't!"
"Stuff and nonsense, Prosy dear! I shall, if I choose. So there!... No, but seriously—whydid you think I shouldn't get on well with your mother?" Poor Prosy looks very much embarrassed at this point; his countenance pleads for respite. But Sally won't let him off. And he is as wax in her hands, and she knows it, and also that every word that passes her coral lips seems to the poor stricken man a pearl of wisdom. And she is girl enough to enjoy her power, is Sally.
"Whydo you think I shan't get on with her?" Note the slight variation in the question, driving the nail home, leaving no escape. The doctor's manner in reply is that of one who appeals to Truth herself to help him, before a court that acknowledges no other jurisdiction.
"Because ... I must say it because it's true, only it seems so ... so disloyal, you might say, to mother...."
"Well! Because what?"
"Because then it won't be the same asyourmother. It can't be."
"Why not?"
"Oh, Sally—dearest love—how can it?"
"Well! Perhapswhy notwas fibs. And, of course, mother's an angel, so it's not fair. But, Prosy dear, I'll tell you one thing Idothink—that affectionate sons make very bad medical attendants for their ma's; and I should say the same if they had all the degrees in Christendom."
"You think a nervous element comes in?..."
And so the conversation ripples on, a quiet undertone of perfect confidence, freedom without reserve as to another self, suddenlydiscovered in the working identity of a fellow-creature. It ripples on just thus, all the distance of the walk along the topmost down, in the evening sunlight, and then comes a pause to negotiate the descent to their handy little forest below. Then a sense that they are coming back into a sane, dry world, and must be a lady and a gentleman again. But there must be a little farewell to the enchanted land they are leaving behind—a recognition of its story, under the beech-trees as the last gleam goes, and leaves us our inheritance of twilight.
"Do you remember, darling, how we climbed up there, coming, and had hold to the top?" His lips find hers, naturally and without disguise. It is the close of the movement, and company-manners will be wanted directly. But just a bar or two, and a space, before the music dies!...
"I remember," says Sally. "That began it. Oh, what a long time ago that does seem now! What a rum start it all is—the whole turn-out!" For the merpussy is her incorrigible self, and will be to the last.
When Sally reached home, very late, she was not displeased, though she was a little surprised, to find that Mrs. Lobjoit was keeping dinner back, and that her mother and Fenwick had not reappeared, having been away since they parted. Not displeased, because it gave her time to settle down—the expression she made use of, to think with; not with any admission, however, that she either felt or looked unusuallyexaltée—but surprised, because it was eight o'clock, and she felt that even Mrs. Lobjoit's good-nature might have limits.
But while she was settling down, in a happy, excited dream she half wondered that she did not wake from, back came the truants; and she heard from her room above Mrs. Lobjoit's report that Miss Sally was gone upstairs to get ready, with the faintest hint of reproach in the tone. Then her mother's "Don't stop to read letters, Gerry—that'll do after," and Fenwick's "All right!" not followed by immediate obedience. Then, after half a moment's delay, in which she felt some surprise at herself for not going out to meet them coming up the stairs, her mother's voice approaching, that asked where the kitten was.
"Oh, here you are, chick!—how long have you been in? Why, Sallykin!what is it, child?... Oh, Gerry—Gerry—come up here and hear this!" For the merpussy, in spite of many stoical resolutions, had merged a beginning of verbal communication in a burst of happy tears on her mother's bosom.
And when Fenwick, coming upstairs three steps at a time, filled the whole house with "Hullo, Sarah! what's the latest intelligence?" this young lady had only just time to pull herself together into something like dignified self-possession, in order to reply ridiculously—how could she have been our usual Sally, else?—"We-ell! I don't see that it's anything so very remarkable, after all. I've been encouraging my medical adviser's attentions, if you want to know, Jeremiah."
Was it only a fancy of Sally's, as she ended off a hurried toilet, for Mrs. Lobjoit's sake, or did her mother say to Fenwick, "Well!—thatis something delightful, at any rate"? As though it were in some sense a set-off against something not delightful elsewhere.
OF A RECURRENCE FROMAS YOU LIKE ITAND HOW FENWICK DIDN'T. WHY A SAILOR WOULD NOT LEARN TO SWIM. THE BARON AGAIN. OF A CUTTLE-FISH AND HIS SQUIRT. OF THE POWER OFA PRIORIREASONING. OF SALLY'S CONFESSION, AND HOW FENWICK WENT TO A FIRST-CLASS HOTEL
When Fenwick turned back towards home, ostensibly to shorten Rosalind's visit to the doctor's mother, he had no intention of doing so early enough to allow of his rejoining his companions, however slowly they might walk. Neither did he mean to deprive old Mrs. Vereker of Rosalind until she had had her full allowance of her. In an hour would do—or three-quarters. He discounted twenty-five per cent., owing to a recollection of the green veil and spectacles. Then he felt unkind, and said to himself, that, after all, the old woman couldn't help it.
Fenwick felt he was making a great concession in giving up three-quarters of an hour of Rosalind. As soon as he had had exercise enough for the day, and was in a mood to smoke and saunter about idly, he wanted Rosalind badly, and was little disposed to give her up. But the old Goody was going away to-morrow, and he would be liberal. He would take a turn along the sea-front—would have time to get down to the jetty—and then would invade the cave of the Octopus and extract the prisoner from its tentacles.
His intention in forsaking Sally and the doctor was half suspected by the latter, quite clear to himself, and only unperceived by his opaque stepdaughter. As he idled down towards the old fisher-dwellings and the net-huts, he tried to picture the form the declaration would take, and the way it would be received. That this would be favourable he never doubted for a moment; but he recalled the speech of Benedict to Beatrice, "By my troth I take thee for pity," and fancied Sally's response might be of the same complexion. His recollection of these words produced amental recurrence, a distressing and imperfect one, connected with the earlier time he could not reach back to, of the words being used to himself by a girl who ascribed them to Rosalind inAs You Like It, and a discussion after of their whereabouts in Shakespeare.
The indescribable wrench this gave his mind was so painful that he was quite relieved to recall Vereker's opinion that it was always the imperfection of the memory and the effort that gave pain, not the thing remembered. And in this case there could be no doubt that it was a mere dream, for the girl not only took the form of his Rosey he was going back to directly, but actually claimed her name, saying distinctly, "like my namesake, Celia's friend, in Shakespeare." Could any clearer proof be given that it was mere brain-froth?
The man with "Bessie" and "Elinor" tattooed on his arm was enjoying a pipe and mending a net, not to be too idle. The glass might be rising—or not. He was independent of Science. A trifle of wind in the night was his verdict, glass or no! The season was drawing nigh to a close now for a bathing-resort, as you might say. Come another se'nnight, you wouldn't see a machine down, as like as not. But you could never say, to a nicety. He'd known every lodging in the old town full, times and again, to the end of September month, before now. But this year was going to fall early, and your young lady would lose her swimming.
"She's a rare lass, too, for the water," he concluded, without any consciousness of familiarity in the change of phrase. "Not that I know much myself, touching swimming and the like. For I can't swim myself, never a stroke."
"That's strange, too, for a seaman," said Fenwick.
"No, sir! Not so strange as you might think it. You ask up and down among we, waterside or seafaring, and you'll find a many have never studied it, for the purpose. Many that would make swimmers, with a bit of practice, will hold off, for the reason I tell you. Overboard in mid-ocean, and none to help, and not a spar, would you soonest drown, end on, or have to fight for it, like it or no?"
"Drown! The sooner the better." Fenwick has no doubt about the matter.
"Why, sure! So I say, master. And I've put no encouragement on young Benjamin, over yonder, to give study to the learning of it, for the same reason. And not a stroke can he swim, any more than his father."
"Well! I can't swim myself, so there's three of us!" said Fenwick. "My daughter swims enough for the lot." It gave him such pleasure to speak thus of Sally boldly, where there need be no exact definition of their kinship. The net-mender pursued the subject with the kind of gravity on him that always comes on a seaman when drowning is under discussion.
"She's a rare one, for sure. Never but three, or may be fower, have I seen in my time to come anigh to her—man nor woman. The best swimmer a long way I've known—Peter Burtenshaw by name—I helped bring to after drowning. He'd swum—at a guess—the best part of six hours afower we heard the cry of him on our boat. Too late a bit we were, but we found him, just stone-dead like, and brought him round. It was what Peter said of that six hours put me off of letting 'em larn yoong Benjamin to swim when he was a yoongster. And when he got to years of understanding I told him my mind, and he never put himself to study it."
Fenwick would have liked to go on talking with the fisherman, as his mental recurrence about Shakespeare had fidgeted him, and he found speech a relief. But some noisy visitors from the new St. Sennans on the cliff above had made an irruption into the little old fishing-quarter, and the attention of the net-mender was distracted by possibilities of a boat-to-day being foisted on their simplicity; it was hardly rough enough to forbid the idea. Fenwick, therefore, sauntered on towards the jetty, but presently turned to go back, as half his time had elapsed.
As he repassed the net-mender with a short word or two for valediction, his ear was caught by a loud voice among the party of visitors, who were partly sitting on the beach, partly throwing stones in the water. Something familiar about that voice, surely!
"I gannod throw stoanss. I am too vat. I shall sit on the peach and see effrypotty else throw stoanss. I shall smoke another cigar. Will you haff another cigar, Mr. Prown? You will not? Ferry well! Nor you, Mrs. Prown? Not for the worlt? Ferrywell! Nor you, Mr. Bilkington? Ferry well! I shall haff one myself, and you shall throw stoanss." And then, as though to remove the slightest doubt about the identity of the speaker, the voice broke into song:
"Ich hatt' einen Kameraden,Einen bessern findst du nicht—"
but ended on "Mein guter Kamerad," exclaiming stentorianly, "Opleitch me with a madge," and lighting his cigar in spite of his companions' indignation at the music stopping.
Fenwick stood hesitating a moment in doubt what to do. His inclination was to go straight down the beach to his old friend, whom—of course, you understand?—he now remembered quite well, and explain the strange circumstances that had rendered their meeting in Switzerland abortive. But then!—what would the effect be on his present life, in his relation to Rosalind and (almost as important) to Sally? Diedrich Kreutzkammer had been, for some time in California, a most intimate friend. Fenwick had made him the confidant of his marriage and his early life, all that he had since forgotten, and he had it now in his power to recover all this from the past. Strange to say, although he could remember the telling of these things, he could only remember weak, confused snatches of what he told. It was unaccountable—but there!—he could not try to unravel that skein now. He must settle, and promptly, whether to speak to the Baron or to run.
He was not long in coming to a decision, especially as he saw that hesitation was sure to end in the adoption of the former course—probably the wrong one. He just caught the Baron's last words—a denunciation of the hotel he was stopping at, loud enough to reach the new St. Sennans, of which it was the principal constituent—and then walked briskly off. He arrived at Iggulden's within the hour he had first conceded to the Octopus, and got Rosalind out for a walk, as originally proposed.
There was no apparent reason why the impossibility of overtaking Sally and the doctor should be interpreted into an excuse for going in the opposite direction; but each accepted it as such, or as a justification at least. Rosalind had not so distinct a reason as her husband for wishing not to break in upon them, as hehad not reported the whole of his last talk with Vereker. But though she did not know that Dr. Conrad had as good as promised to make a clean breast of it before returning to London, she thought nothing was more likely than that he should do so, and resolved to leave the stage clear for the leading parts. She may even have flattered herself that she was showing tact—keeping an unconscious Gerry out of the way, who might else interfere with the stars in their courses, in the manner of the tactless. Rosalind suspected this of Sally, that whatever she might think she thought, and whatever parade she made of an even mind no sentiments whatever prevailed in, there was in her inmost heart another Sally, locked in and unconfessed, that had strong views on the subject. And she wanted this Sally to be let out for a spell, or for poor Prosy to be allowed into her cell long enough to speak for himself. Anyhow, this was their last chance here, and she wasn't going to spoil it.
She had gone near to making up her mind—after her sufferings from Gwenny's mamma in the morning—to attempt, at any rate, a communication of their joint story to her husband. But itmustdepend on circumstances and possibilities. She foresaw a long period of resolutions undermined by doubts, decisions rescinded at the last moment, and suddenly-revealed ambushes, and perhaps in the end self-reproach for a mismanaged revelation that might have been so much more skilfully done. Never mind—it was all in the day's work! She had borne much, and would bear more.
"How do you know they are all nonsense, Gerry darling?" We catch their conversation in the middle as they walk along the sands the tide is leaving clear, after accommodating the few morning-bathers with every opportunity to get out of their depths. "How do youknow? Surely the parts that youdoseem to remember clearlymustbe all right, however confused the rest is."
Fenwick gives his head the old shake, dashes his hair across his brow and rubs it, then replies: "The worst of the job is, you see, that the bits I remember clearest are the greatest gammon. What do you make of that?"
Rosalind's hand closes on her nettle. "Instance, Gerry!—give me an instance, and I shall know what you mean."
Fenwick is outrageously confident of the safety of his last imperfect recollection. He can trust to its absurdity if he can trust to anything.
"Well! For instance, just now—an hour ago—I recollected something about a girl who would have it Rosalind inAs You Like Itsaid, 'By my troth I take thee for pity,' to Orlando. And all the while it was Benedict said it to Beatrice inAll's Well that Ends Well."
The hand on the nettle tightens. "Gerrydearest!" she remonstrates. "There's nothing inthat, as Sallykin says. Of course itwasBenedict said it to Beatrice."
"Yes—but the gammon wasn't in that. It was the girl that said it. When I tried to think who it was, she turned intoyou! I mean, she became exactly like you."
"But I'm a woman of forty." This was a superb piece of nettle-grasping; and there was not a tremor in the voice that said it, and the handsome face of the speaker was calm, if a little pale. Fenwick noticed nothing.
"Like what I should suppose you were as a girl of eighteen or twenty. It's perfectly clear how the thing worked. It was from something else I seem to recollect her saying, 'Like my namesake, Celia's friend in Shakespeare.' The moment she said that, of course the name Rosalind made me think you into the business. It was quite natural."
"Quite natural! And when I was that girl that was what I said." She had braced herself up, in all the resolution of her strong nature, to the telling of her secret, and his; and she thought this was her opportunity. She was mistaken. For as she stood, keeping, as it were, a heartquake in abeyance, till she should see him begin to understand, he replied without the least perceiving her meaning—evidently accounting her speech only a variant on "If Ihadbeen that girl," and so forth—"Of course you did, sweetheart," said he, with a laugh in his voice, "whenyou were that girl. And I expect that girl said it when she was herself, whoever she was, and the name Rosalind turned her into you? Look at this cuttlefish before he squirts."
For a moment Rosalind Fenwick was almost two people, so distinctly did the two aspects or conditions of herself strike her mind. The one was that of breath drawn freely, of a respite, a reprieve,a heartquake escaped; for, indeed, she had begun to feel, as she neared the crisis, that the trial might pass her powers of endurance. The other of a new terror—that the tale, perhaps,could not be told at all! that, unassisted by a further revival of her husband's memory, it would remain permanently incredible by him, with what effect of a half-knowledge of the past God only knew. The sense of reprieve got the better of the new-born apprehension—bid it stand over for a while, at least. Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof.
Meanwhile, Gerry, absolutely unconscious of her emotion, and seeming much less disconcerted over this abortive recollection than over previous ones, stood gazing down into the clear rock-pool that contained the cuttlefish. "Do come and look at him, Rosey love," said he. "His manners are detestable, but there can be no doubt about the quality of his black."
She leaned a bit heavily on the arm she took as they left the cuttlefish to his ill-conditioned solitude. "Tired, dearest?" said her husband; and she answered, "Just a little!" But his mind was a clean sheet on which his story would have to be written in ink as black as the cuttlefish's Parthian squirt, and in a full round hand without abbreviations, unless it should do something to help itself. Let it rest while she rested and thought.
She thought and thought—happy for all her strain of nerve and mind, on the quiet stretch of sand and outcrop of chalk, slippery with weed, that the ebbing tide would leave safe for them for hours to come. So thinking, and seeing the way in which her husband's reason was entrenched against the facts of his own life, in a citadel defended by human experience at bay, she wavered in her resolution of a few hours since—or, rather, she saw the impossibility of forcing the position, thinking contentedly that at least if it was so impracticable to her it would be equally so to other agencies, and he might be relied on to remain in the dark. Thestatus quowould be the happiest, if it could be preserved. So when, after a two hours' walk through the evening glow and the moonrise, Rosalind came home to Sally's revelation, as we have seen, the slight exception her voice took to universal rejoicing was the barest echo of the tension of her absolutely unsuccessful attempt to get in the thin end of the wedge of an incredible revelation.
Quite incredible! So hopeless is the case of a mere crude, unadulterated fact against an irresistiblea prioribelief in its incredibility.
Sally was reserved about details, but clear about the outcome of her expedition with Prosy. They perfectly understood each other, and it wasn't anybody else's concern; present company's, of course, excepted. Questioned as to plans for the future—inasmuch as a marriage did not seem inconsequent under the circumstances—Sally became enigmatical. The word "marriage" had not been so much as mentioned. She admitted the existence of the institution, but proposed—now and for the future—to regard it as premature. Wasn't even sure she would tell anybody, except Tishy; and perhaps also Henriette Prince, because she was sure to ask, and possibly Karen Braun if she did ask. But she didn't seem at all clear what she was going to say to them, as she objected to the expression "engaged." A thing called "it" without an antecedent, got materialised, and did duty for something more intelligible. Yes!—she would tell Tishy about It, and just those one or two others. But if It was going to make any difference, or there was to be any fuss, she would just break It off, and have done with It.
Sentiments of this sort provoked telegraphic interchanges of smile-suggestion between her hearers all through the evening meal that was so unusually late. This lateness received sanction from the fact that Mr. Fenwick would very likely have letters by the morning post that would oblige him to return to town by the afternoon train. If so, this was his last evening, and clearly nothing mattered. Law and order might be blowed, or hanged.
It was, under these circumstances, rather a surprise to his hearers when he said, after smoking half through his first cigar, that he thought he should walk up to the hotel in the new town, because he fancied there was a man there he knew. As to his name, he thought it was Pilkington, but wasn't sure. Taunted with reticence, he said it was nothing but business. As Rosalind could easily conceive that Gerry might not want to introduce all the Pilkingtons he chanced across to his family, she didn't press for explanation. "He'll very likely call round to see your young man, chick, when he's done with Pilkington." To which Sally replied,"Oh,he'llcome round here. Told him to!" Which he did, at about ten o'clock. But Fenwick had never called at Iggulden's, neither had he come back to his own home. It was after midnight before his foot was on the stairs, and Sally had retired for the night, telling her mother not to fidget—Jeremiah would be all right.
OF AN OBSERVANT AND THOUGHTFUL, BUT SNIFFY, WAITER; AND HOW HE OPENED A NEW BOTTLE OF COGNAC. HOW THE BARON SAW FENWICK HOME, WITHOUT HIS HAT. AN OLD MEMORY FROM ROSALIND'S PAST AND HIS. AND THEN FACE TO FACE WITH THE WHOLE. SLEEP UPON IT! BUT WHAT BECAME OF HIS HORRIBLE BABY?
At eleven o'clock that night a respectable man with weak eyes and a cold was communing with a commanding Presence that lived in a bureau—nothing less!—in the entrance-hall of the big hotel at the new St. Sennans. It was that of a matron with jet earrings and tube-curls and a tortoise-shell comb, and an educated contempt for her species. It lived in that bureau with a speaking-pipe to speak to every floor, and a telephone for the universe beyond. He that now ventured to address it was a waiter, clearly, for he carried a table-napkin, on nobody's behalf and uselessly, but with a feeling for emblems which might have made him Rouge Dragon in another sphere. As it was, he was the head waiter in the accursed restaurant or dining-salonat the excruciating new hotel, where he would bring you cold misery from the counter at the other end, or lukewarm depressionà la cartefrom the beyond—but nothing that would do you any good inside, from anywhere.
"Are those parties going, in eighty-nine, do you make out?" The Presence speaks, but with languid interest.
"Hapathetic party, and short customer. Takes you up rather free. Name of Pilkington. Not heard 'em say anything!"
"Who did you say was going?"
"The German party. Party of full 'abit. Call at seven in the morning. Fried sole and cutletsà lamangtynong and sweet omelet at seven-thirty sharp. Too much by way of smoking all day, in my thinking! But they say plums and greengages, took all through meals, is a set-off."
"I don't pretend to be an authority. Isn't that him, in the smoking-room?"
"Goin' on in German? Prob'ly." Both stop and listen. What they hear is the Baron, going on very earnestly indeed in German. What keeps them listening is that another voice comes in occasionally—a voice with more than mere earnestness in it; a voice rather of anguish under control. Then both voices pause, and silence comes suddenly.
"Who's the other party?"
"In a blue soote, livin' in one of the sea-'ouses down on the beach. Big customer. Prodooces a rousin' impression!"
"Is that his daughter that swims?... That's him—coming away."
But it isn't. It is the Baron, wrathful, shouting, swearing, neither in German nor English, but in either or both. Where is that tamned kellner? Why does he not answer the pell? This is anabscheulicheshotel, and every one connected with it is anEsel. What he wants is some cognac and a doctor forthwith. His friend has fainted, and he has been pressing the tamned puddon, and nobody comes.
The attitude of the lady with the earrings epitomizes the complete indifference of a hotel-keeper to the private lives of its guests nowadays. That bell must be seen to, she says. Otherwise she is callous. The respectable waiter hurries for the cognac, and returns with a newly-drawn bottle and two glasses to the smoking-room, to find that the gentleman has recovered and won't have any. He suggests that our young man could step round for Dr. Maccoll; but the proposed patient says, "The devil fly away with Dr. Maccoll!" which doesn't look like docility. The respectable waiter takes note of his appearance, and reports of it to his principal on dramatic grounds, not as a matter into which human sympathies enter.
"Very queer he looks. Doo to reaction, or the coatin's of the stomach. Affectin' the action of the heart.... No, there's nobody else in the smoking-room. Party with the 'ook instead of a hand's watching of 'em play penny-pool in the billiard-room." Surely a tale to bring a tear to the eye of sensibility! But not to one that sees in mankind only a thing that comes and goes and pays its bill—or doesn't. The lady in the bureau appears to listen slightly to the voices that come afresh from the smoking-room, but their duration is all she is concerned with. "He'sgoing now," she says. He is; and he does look queer—very queer. His companion does not leave him at the door, but walks out into the air with him without his hat, speaking to him volubly and earnestly, always in German. His speech suggests affectionate exhortation, and the way he takes his arm is affectionate. The voices go out of hearing, and it is so long before the Baron returns, hatless, that he must have gone all the way to the sea-houses down on the beach.
Sally retired to her own couch in order to supply an inducement to her mother to go to bed herself, and sit up no longer for Gerry's return, which might be any time, of course. Rosalind conceded the point, and was left alone under a solemn promise not to be a goose and fidget. But she was very deliberate about it; and though she didn't fidget, she went all the slower that she might think back on a day—an hour—of twenty years ago, and on the incident that Gerry had half recalled, quite accurately as far as it went, but strangely unsupported by surroundings or concomitants.
It came back to her with both. She could remember even the face of her mother's coachman Forsyth, who had driven her with Miss Stanynaught, herchaperonin this case, to the dance where she was to meet Gerry, as it turned out; and how Forsyth was told not to come for them before three in the morning, as he would only have to wait; and how Miss Stanynaught, her governess of late, who was over forty, pleaded for two, and Forsythdidhave to wait; and how she heard the music and the dancing above, for they were late; and how they waded upstairs against a descending stream of muslin skirts and marked attentions going lawnwards towards the summer night, and bent on lemonade and ices; and then their entry into the dancing-room, and an excited hostess and daughters introducing partners like mad; and an excited daughter greeting a gentleman who had come upstairs behind them, with "Well, Mr. Palliser, youarelate. You don't deserve to be allowed to dance at all." And that was Jessie Nairn, of course, who added, "I've jilted you for Arthur Fenwick."
How well Rosalind could remember turning round and seeing a splendid young chap who said, "What a jolly shame!" and didn't seem to be oppressed by that or anything else; also Jessie's furtherspeech, apologizing for having also appropriated Miss Graythorpe's partner. So they would have to console each other. What a saucy girl Jessie was, to be sure! She introduced them with a run, "Mr. Algernon Palliser, Miss Rosalind Graythorpe, Miss Rosalind Graythorpe, Mr. Algernon Palliser," and fled. And Rosalind was piqued about Arthur Fenwick's desertion. It seemed all so strange now—such a vanished world! Just fancy!—she had been speculating if she should accept Arthur, if he got to the point of offering himself.
But a shaft from Cupid's bow must have been shot from a slack string, for Rosalind could remember how quickly she forgot Arthur Fenwick as she took a good look at Gerry Palliser, his great friend, whom he had so often raved about to her, and who was to be brought to play lawn-tennis next Monday. And then to the ear of her mind, listening back to long ago, came a voice so like the one she was to hear soon, when that footstep should come on the stair.
"I can't waltz like Arthur, Miss Graythorpe. But you'll have to put up with me." And the smile that spread over his whole face was so like him now. Then came the allusion toAs You Like It.
"I'll take you for pity, Mr. Palliser—'by my troth,' as my namesake Rosalind, Celia's friend, in Shakespeare, says to what's his name ... Orlando...."
"Come, I say, Miss Graythorpe, that's not fair. It was Benedict said it to Beatrice."
"Did he? And did Beatrice say she wouldn't waltz with him?"
"Oh, please! I'm so sorry. No—it wasn't Benedict—itwasRosalind."
"That's right! Now let me button your glove for you. You'll be for ever, with those big fingers." For both of us, thought Rosalind, were determined to begin at once and not lose a minute. That dear old time ... before...!
Then, even clearer still, came back to her the dim summer-dawn in the garden, with here and there a Chinese lantern not burned out, and the flagging music of the weary musicians afar, and she and Gerry with the garden nearly to themselves. She could feel the cool air of the morning again, and hear the crowing of a self-important cock. And the informal wager which would livethe longer—a Chinese lantern at the point of death, or the vanishing moon just touching the line of tree-tops against the sky, stirred by the morning wind. And the voice of Gerry when return to the house and a farewell became inevitable. She shut her eyes, and could hear it and her own answer.
"I shall go to India in six weeks, and never see you again."
"Yes, you will; because Arthur Fenwick is to bring you round to lawn-tennis...."
"That won't make having to go any better. And then when I come back, in ever so many years, I shall find you...."
"Gone to kingdom come?"
"No—married!... Oh no, do stop out—don't go in yet...."
"We ought to go in. Now, don't be silly."
"I can't help it.... Well!—a fellow I know asked a girl to marry him he'd only known two hours."
"What very silly friends you must have, Mr. Palliser! Did she marry him?"
"No! but they're engaged, and he's in Ceylon. But you wouldn't marry me...."
"How on earth can you tell, in such a short time? What a goose you are!... There!—the music's stopped, and Mrs. Nairn said that must be the last waltz. Come along, or we shall catch it."
They had known each other exactly four hours!
Rosalind remembered it all, word for word. And how Gerry captured a torn glove to keep; and when he came, as appointed, to lawn-tennis, went back at once to Shakespeare, and said he had looked it up, and itwasBeatrice and Benedict, and not Rosalind at all. She could remember, too, her weary and reproachfulchaperon, and the well-deserved scolding she got for the way she had been going on with that young Palliser. Eight dances!
So long ago! And she could think through it all again. And to him it had become a memory of shreds and patches. Let it remain so, or become again oblivion—vanish with the rest of his forgotten past! Her thought that it would do so was confidence itself as she sat there waiting for his footstep on the stair. For had she not spoken of herself unflinchingly as the girl who said thosewords from Shakespeare, and had not her asseveration slipped from the mind that could not receive it as water slips from oil? She could wait there without misgiving—could even hope that, whatever it was due to, this recent stirring of the dead bones of memory might mean nothing, and die away leaving all as it was before.
Sally, acknowledging physical fatigue with reluctance, after her long walk and swim in the morning, went to bed. It presented itself to her as a thing practicable, and salutary in her state of bewilderment, to lie in bed with her eyes closed, and think over the events of the day. It would be really quiet. And then she would be awake when Jeremiah came in, and would call out for information if there was a sound of anything to hear about. But her project fell through, for she had scarcely closed her eyes when she fell into a trap laid for her by sleep—deep sleep, such as we fancy dreamless. And when Fenwick came back she could not have heard his words to her mother, even had they risen above the choking undertone in which he spoke, nor her mother's reply, more audible in its sudden alarm, but still kept down—for, startled as she was at Gerry's unexpected words, she did not lose her presence of mind.
"What is it, Gerry darling? What is it, dear love? Has anything happened? I'll come."
"Yes—come into my room. Come away from our girl. She mustn't hear."
She knew then at once that his past had come upon him somehow. She knew it at once from the tone of his voice, but she could make no guess as to the manner of it. She knew, too, that that heartquake was upon her—the one she had felt so glad to stave off that day upon the beach—and that self-command had to be found in an emergency she might not have the strength to meet.
For the shock, coming as it did upon her false confidence—a sudden thunderbolt from a cloudless sky—was an overwhelming one. She knew she would have a moment's outward calm before her powers gave way, and she must use it for Sally's security. What Gerry said was true—their girlmust nothear.
But oh, how quick thought travels! By the time Rosalind, after stopping a second outside Sally's door, listening for any movement,had closed that of her husband's room as she followed him in, placing the light she carried on a chair as she entered, she had found in the words "our girl" a foretaste of water in the desert that might be before her.
Another moment and she knew she was safe, so far as Gerry himself went. As he had himself said, he would be the same Gerry to her and she the same Rosey to him, whatever wild beast should leap out of the past to molest them. She knew it was as he caught her to his heart, crushing her almost painfully in the great strength that went beyond his own control as he shook and trembled like an aspen-leaf under the force of an emotion she could only, as yet, guess at the nature of. But the guess was not a wrong one, in so far as it said that each was there to be the other's shield and guard against ill, past, present, and to come—a refuge-haven to fly to from every tempest fate might have in store. She could not speak—could not have found utterance even had words come to her. She could only rest passive in his arms, inert and dumb, feeling in the short gasps that caught his breath how he struggled for speech and failed, then strove again. At last his voice came—short, spasmodic sentences breaking or broken by like spans of silence:
"Oh, my darling, my darling, remember!... remember!... whatever it is ... it shall not come between us ... it shall not ... itshallnot.... Oh, my dear!... give me time, and I shall speak ... if I could only say at once ... in one word ... could only understand ... that is all ... to understand...." He relaxed his hold upon her; but she held to him, or she might have fallen, so weak was she, and so unsteady was the room and all in it to her sight. The image of him that she saw seemed dim and in a cloud, as he pressed his hands upon his eyes and stood for a moment speechless; then struggled again to find words that for another moment would not come, caught in the gasping of his breath. Then he got a longer breath, as for ease, and drawing her face towards his own—and this time the touch of his hand was tender as a child's—he kissed it repeatedly—kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. And in his kiss was security for her, safe again in the haven of his love, come what might. She felt how it brought back to her the breath she knew would fail her, unless her heart, that had beaten so furiously a momentsince, and then died away, should resume its life. The room became steady, and she saw his face and its pallor plainly, and knew that in a moment she should find her voice. But he spoke first, again.
"That is what I want, dear love—to understand. Help me to understand," he said. And then, as though feeling for the first time how she was clinging to him for support, he passed his arm round her gently, guiding her to sit down. But he himself remained standing by her, as though physically unaffected by the storm of emotion, whatever its cause, that had passed over him. Then Rosalind found her voice.
"Gerry darling—let us try and get quiet over it. After all, we are both here." As she said this she was not very clear about her own meaning, but the words satisfied her. "I see you have remembered more, but I cannot tell how much. Now try and tell me—have you rememberedall?"
"I think so, darling." He was speaking more quietly now, as one docile to her influence. His manner gave her strength to continue.
"Since you left Mr. Pilkington—your friend at the hotel—didn't you say the name Pilkington?"
"No—there was no Pilkington! Oh yes, there was!—a friend of Diedrich's...."
"Has it come back, I mean, since you left the house? Who is Diedrich?"
"Stop a bit, dearest love! I shall be able to tell it all directly." She, too, was glad of a lull, and welcomed his sitting down beside her on the bed-end, drawing her face to his, and keeping it with the hand that was not caressing hers. Presently he spoke again, more at ease, but always in the undertone, just above a whisper, that meant the consciousness of Sally, too, near. Rosalind said, "She won't hear," and he replied, "No; it's all right, I think," and continued:
"Diedrich Kreutzkammer—he's Diedrich—don't you remember? Of course you do!... I heard him down on the beach to-day singing. I wanted to go to him at once, but I had to think of it first, so I came home. Then I settled to go to him at the hotel. I had not remembered anything then—anything to speak of—I had not remembered IT. Now it is all back upon me,in a whirl." He freed the hand that held hers for a moment, and pressed his fingers hard upon his eyes; then took her hand again, as before. "I wanted to see the dear old fellow and talk over old times, at 'Frisco and up at the Gold River—that, of course! But I wanted, too, to make him repeat to me all the story I had told him of my early marriage—oh, my darling!—ourmarriage, and I did not know it! I know it now—I know it now."
Rosalind could feel the thrill that ran through him as his hand tightened on hers. She spoke, to turn his mind for a moment. "How came Baron Kreutzkammer at St. Sennans?"
"Diedrich? He has a married niece living at Canterbury. Don't you remember? He told you and you told me...." Rosalind had forgotten this, but now recalled it. "Well, we talked about the States—all the story I shall have to tell you, darling, some time; but, oh dear, how confused I get!Thatwasn't the first. The first was telling him my story—the accident, and so on—and it was hard work to convince him it was really me at Sonnenberg. That was rather a difficulty, because I had sent him in the name I had in America, and he only saw an old friend he thought was dead. Allthatwas a trifle; but, oh, the complications!..."
"What was the name you had in America?"
Fenwick answered musingly, "Harrisson," and then paused before saying, "No, I had better not...." and leaving the sentence unfinished. She caught his meaning, and said no more. After all, it could matter very little if she never heard his American experiences, and the name Harrisson had no association for her. She left him to resume, without suggestion.
"He might have reminded me of anything that happened in the States, and I should just have come back here and told it you, because, you see, I should have been sure it was true, and no dream. It was India. I had told him all, don't you see? And I got him to repeat it, and then it all came back—all at once, the moment I saw it wasyou, my darling—you yourself! It all became quite easy then. It wasus—you and me! I know it now—I know it now!"
"But, dearest, what made you see that it was us?"
"Why, of course, because of the name! He told me all I had toldhim from the beginning in German. We always spoke German. He could not remember your first name, but he remembered your mother's—it had stayed in his mind—because of the German wordNachtigallbeing so nearly the same. As he said the word my mind got a frightful twist, and I thought I was mad. I did, indeed, my dearest love—raving mad!"
"And then you knew it?"
"And then I knew it. I nearly fainted clean off, and he went for brandy; but I came round, and the dear old boy saw me to this door here. It has all only just happened." He remained silent again for a little space, holding her hand, and then said suddenly: "Ithashappened, has it not? Is it all true, or am I dreaming?"
"Be patient, darling. It is all true—at least, I think so. It is all true if it is like this, because remember, dear, you have told me almost nothing.... I only know that it has come back to you that I am Rosey and that you are Gerry—the old Rosey and Gerry long ago in India...." She broke down over her own words, as her tears, a relief in themselves, came freely, taxing her further to keep her voice under for Sally's sake. It was only for a moment; then she seemed to brush them aside in an effort of self-mastery, and again began, dropping her voice even lower. "It is all true if it is like this. I came out to marry you in India ... my darling!... and a terrible thing happened to me on the way ... the story you know more of now than I could tell you then ... for howcouldI tell it ... think?..."
Her husband started up from her side gasping, beating his head like a madman. She was in terror lest she had done wrong in her speech. "Gerry, Gerry!" she appealed to him in a scarcely raised voice, "think of Sally!" She rose and went to him, repeating, "Think of Sally!" then drew him back to his former place. His breath went and came heavily, and his forehead was drenched with sweat, as in epilepsy; but the paroxysm left him as he sank back beside her, saying only, "My God! that miscreant!" but showing that he had heard her by the force of the constraint he put upon his voice. It gave her courage to go on.
"I could not get it told then. I did not know the phrases—and you were so happy, my darling—so happy when you met me at the station! Oh, how could I? But I was wrong. I oughtnot to have let you marry me, not knowing. And then ... it seemed deception, and I could not right it...." Her voice broke again, as she hid her face on his shoulder; but she knew her safety in the kiss she felt on her free hand, and the gentleness of his that stroked her hair. Then she heard his almost whispered words above her head, close to her ear:
"Darling, forgive me—forgive me! It wasIthat was in fault. I might have known...."
"Gerry, dear ... no!..."
"Yes, I might. There was a woman there—had been an officer's wife. She came to me and spoke rough truths about it—told me her notion of the tale in her own language. 'Put her away from you,' she said, 'and you won't get another like her, and won't deserve her!' And she was right, poor thing! But I was headstrong and obstinate, and would not hear her. Oh, my darling,howwe have paid for it!"
"But you have found me again, dear love!" He did not answer, but raised up her face from his shoulder, parting the loose hair tenderly—for it was all free on her shoulders—and gazing straight into her eyes with an expression of utter bewilderment. "Yes, darling, what is it?" said she, as though he had spoken.
"I am getting fogged!" he said, "and cannot make it out. Was it pure accident? Surely something must have happened to bring it about."
"Bring what about?"
"How came we to find each other again, I mean?"
"Oh, I see! Pure accident, I should say, dear! Why not? It would not have happened if it had not been possible. Thank God it did!"
"Thank God it did! But think of the strangeness of it all! How came Sally in that train?"
"Why not, darling? Where else could she have been? She was coming back to tea, as usual."
"And she put me in a cab—bless her!—she and Conrad Vereker—and brought me home to you. But did you know me at once, darling?"
"At once."
"But why didn't you tell me?"