CHAPTER XXXIIITHE SIXTEENTH OF FEBRUARY--LONDONThe abhorrence of Nature for a vacuum, is nothing to her abomination of unfinished work. In the great Tapestry which Time sits eternally weaving with the coloured threads of circumstance, there are no loose ends allowed. Every little picture which finds its way into the mighty subject of that vast material, must be complete in its symbol of accomplished Destiny. No ragged edges must there be; no lines unfinished, no shadow left out. And even, in so inconsequent a matter as a story of Beautiful Nonsense, some definite completion must be shown to round the whole, to leave no hanging thread by which the picture might be unravelled.When John said good-bye to Jill on the steps of thefondamenta, when the last wave of her little white handkerchief had fluttered into a curling light upon the water, he had turned back into the house, believing that the story was irretrievably ended. The last word had been written. So far as Jill was concerned, he might well close the book and thank the pen of Chance that it had shown him an ideal as high above the common conception of life as it is good for the eyes of a man to lift.But he had not, in this calculation, counted the presence of those two white heads in the window up above. For him, so far as his eye could see, Destiny had had its fill, had drained the cup of possibility to its utmost dregs. But this was not so for them. They had yet to be appeased. For them, the matter had only just begun. To them, it was the last shuttle, whose speeding to and fro, would weave in the past with the present and so fulfil their final justification.From that day, the little old white-haired lady looked forward to John's marriage with Jill as to the consummation of her whole life's desire. She lived--she thought--she ordered her existence for nothing else. Her disappointment was pathetic to witness when she received Jill's little note telling her departure the next day. But her beliefs were not shaken; her hopes were not thwarted. She still saw the last burning of her romance before the flame should flicker and become a light no more.She spoke to John about it of course. Sitting in the window one day, the window that looked down on to the old gentleman's garden, she told him what she knew; what was not the slightest use his contradicting. They loved each other. Oh, not a doubt of it! She spoke authoritatively, as women will on these subjects. Who better able to than they?"You really think she loves me, mother?" he asked in a quick moment of hopefulness.She took his hand. She lifted one tired arm about his neck."Why do you think she came like that to Venice?" she asked. "There's not a thing she wouldn't do for you--not a place she wouldn't go to in order to see you. Don't you realise that?"It was unfortunate she should have chosen that phrase. There were things, Jill would not do for him. It had needed every effort from him to find the full value of unselfishness in what she was about to do; but he could not think that she loved him as his mother would have him believe. It was unfortunate, her choosing of that phrase. From that moment, John shrank into himself. He could not bring himself to tell her the whole truth of it; therefore, it was no good talking any more."Her people are too well off," he said, rising with a gesture of despair from the seat in the window. "They're in a different position altogether. I've no right to tell her. I've no right to try and win her affection. It would only be a hopeless business all through."From that moment, he avoided the subject; from that moment, he became impregnable whenever the little old white-haired lady tried to assail him with the weapons of her worldly knowledge."I can get John to say nothing," she said one night to her husband. "He won't speak about it at all."He put his arms round her in the darkness."You're worrying yourself, little woman," he said, sleepily. "I woke up once last night and you were wide awake. Did you sleep at all?""Very little," she admitted."Well--you mustn't worry. Leave it to Nature. John will tell her everything about it one of these days. Young men are always getting on the high horse and trying to tilt against Nature, and women are forever offering to assist Nature, thinking she must come off the worst. It's waste of time either way, my dearest. Nature's a windmill. It'll grind the flour out of everyone of us when the wind blows. It's no good tilting at it on a windy day; and it's no good trying to turn the sails round when it's calm. The wind'll blow,"--he yawned and turned over on his side--"soon enough." And he was asleep.She believed so much in what her husband said, did the little old white-haired lady. It is not often, that after twenty odd years of married life, a man keeps still alive that ideal of unquestionable reliability which his wife first found in everything he said. Usually there comes a time--sad enough in its way, since ideals are almost everything--when those which once were words of wisdom, fall tainted with the odour of self-interest. It becomes a difficult thing to believe in then, that aphorism of your philosopher, which brings him the warmest seat in the chimney corner, or the softest place in the bed. And that is the wisdom of a lot of people--a philosophy of self, translated into a language for others.By some kink of chance perhaps--though rather it would be kinder to think, by some quality of mutual affection--the old gentleman had avoided this tragedy. It is a tragedy; for no man likes a mean motive to be attributed to his philosophy--especially when it is true. And so, the old lady still believed in the infallibility of her husband's wisdom which in its way was quite good. That night at least then, she worried no more. She turned over her white head in his direction and she fell asleep. And whenever he turned through the night, she turned as well. After twenty years or so, these things become mechanical. Life is easier after twenty years, if you can bear with it till then.But before John had left, her worries began again and, not daring to speak to him any more, she was driven to bear her trouble in silence.She hoped up to the last that he would mention it once more, and a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, decoyed their conversations into topics which would suggest it to his mind. Yet always with the caution of some wary animal pursued, John avoided it--sheered off and chose another path.Even on the day of his departure, she yet thought that he would speak and, clinging gently to him, with her arms about his neck, she whispered:"Have you nothing to say to me, John?""Nothing--nothing, dearest," he replied, adding the term of endearment as he saw the bitter look of disappointment in her eyes.Then he was gone. For another year that vast chamber with its high windows, and that tiny room which peeped out into it, would be silent of the sound of his voice. For another year, night after night, these two old people would continue to look up in surprise when Claudina entered for the ceremony; they would continue to exclaim: "You don't mean to say it's ten o'clock, Claudina!" And perhaps, as the days wore on and the year drew itself out to the thin grey thread, the surprise would get fainter, the note of exclamation not so emphatic as it used to be. She took her breath in fear as she thought of it. Supposing the year were to pass and John had not married Jill? She went into the little altar in her bedroom and commenced a novena--one of the many that she began and dutifully finished, before that year had gone.So, it may be seen, in these two old people, who have woven themselves so inextricably into this whole story of Nonsense, how Time has by no means finished with the picture it set itself the weaving on that mysterious 18th of March, whereof the calendar still keeps its secret.John went back to his labours in London, but he left behind him, forces at work of which he knew nothing. The old gentleman was quite right. Nature has no need of the meddling hand. The seed had been transplanted into the mind of the little old white-haired lady and, in her, will the completion of Destiny be found.For the first few weeks, she wrote her usual letters to John, avoiding the subject with a rigid perseverance which, she might have known, which certainly her husband knew, she could never hope to maintain. This perseverance did not break down all at once. She began with inconsequent allusions to Jill; then at last, when they called forth no word of a reply from John, she gave way to the passionate desire that was consuming her, commencing a long series of letters of counsel and advice such as an old lady will give, who believes that the world is the same place that it was when she was a girl."Have you ever spoken to her, John?" she asked in one of her letters. "With your eyes you have. I saw you do it that afternoon at tea. But the language of the eyes is not enough for a woman, who has never heard the sound of the spoken word in her ears.""Tell her you love her--ask her to marry you, and if she says no--don't believe her. She doesn't mean it. It's more or less impossible for a woman to say yes the first time. It's over so soon.""You say her people are wealthy; that they are in a very different position to you. Of course, I know blood is thicker than water, but love is stronger than them both. And, after all, their position is one of luxury--that is of the body. Your's is a position of the mind. There is no comparison.""I lie awake sometimes at night, thinking of all the trials and troubles your father and I had to go through before we found our corner in the world, and then I know how much more worth than youth or luxury, pleasure or ease, is love.""I believe in that short time she was here, she became very fond of me, and in one of those moments when one woman shows her heart to another--they are very seldom--it was when she came to wash her hands after eating the jam sandwiches--she said she thought you were very like me. Now comparisons, with women, are not always odious; it is generally the only way they have of describing anything.""I am sending you a bracelet of jade to give to her. It is very old. I will send you the history of it another time. I have it all written out somewhere. Anyhow, it belonged to one of the great Venetian ladies when Leonardo Loredano was Doge. Give it to her as coming from you. It does come from you. I give it you. A gift, however small, however poor, means a great deal to a woman. She reads a meaning into it--the very meaning I send with this.""Oh, my dear boy, will you tell me nothing. Don't you know how my heart must be aching to hear some news of your happiness. It is the last happiness I shall know myself. Don't delay it too long."These extracts from the letters written by the little old white-haired lady to her son, John, over that period of the first three months after her meeting with Jill, could occupy the space of many a page in this history. But these few which, with John's permission, I have quoted here, are sufficient to show how close her heart was wrapt up in the fortunes of his love-making.Hoping, that, in his reticence on the subject, she might in time grow to lose interest, finally even forgetting Jill's existence altogether, John procrastinated, putting off, putting off the day when he must tell her all the truth. There was, too, he has admitted it, some fanciful sense of satisfaction intricately woven in with the pain he felt when he read those letters of hers every week. It was nonsense again, perhaps, but it kept the idea a living reality in his mind. He came to look forward to them as to the expression of a life that was too wonderful, except to dream of. And so, as an Eastern takes his opium and, retiring into the gloomy shadows of his den, is transported into the glorious heavens of a phantom creation, John read these letters of his mother's in his room in Fetter Lane. There, the passings to and fro of Mrs. Rowse, the hawker's cries and the screams of the parrot on the other side of the road, had no power to waken him from his sleep, so long as it lasted.For nearly three months--week after week--he received these letters, dreamed his dreams and, in writing back to the little old white-haired lady, tried to allay the expectancy of her mind.At last it could be done no longer. You may put back the hands of a clock to your heart's content, but there is no warding off of the inevitable. There came a letter saying she would write of it no more. It was not impatient, it was not in anger, but in the spirit, as when an old lady lays down her sewing in her lap as the sun sets and, gently tells you, she can see the stitches no longer.It was then, that John, knowing what he had lost, conceived another felonious means of transport--this time the transport of the mind.Jill was only known to his people as Miss Dealtry. They did not know where she lived. They knew nothing of her relations. They could not communicate with her in any way.For a long while he sat looking at that last letter of his mother's, where she had said she would write no more of Jill."She wants a love story--bless her heart," he said musingly--and Mrs. Morrell's sandy cat coming at that moment into the room, he repeated it for the cat's benefit--"She wants a love story," he said. The cat blinked its eyes, curled a rough red tongue lovingly about its whiskers, and sat down as though, having half an hour to spare and the tortoiseshell not being in the way, it was quite ready to listen to it then."And, by Jove!" exclaimed John--"She shall have it!"Miss Morrell curled her tail comfortably round her in the most perfect attitude of attention."I'll write her a story," said John to Miss Morrell--"a story of beautiful nonsense--some of it true and some of it made up as I go along."And, therewith, he sat himself down to answer her letter.It was necessary, if he were to re-create the interest of the little old white-haired lady, for him to meet Jill again. Accordingly, with some ingenious preamble, in which he explained his silence of the preceding months, he began with the description of his second meeting with Jill in Kensington Gardens--that time when she came and spent the entire morning in telling him that she could not come and meet him that day."Undoubtedly God could have made a place more fitted for Romance than Kensington Gardens," he began--"but unquestionably He never did."And this was how the last tissue of nonsense came to be woven.Of course, he told her, that it was all a secret. Jill had to keep it a secret from her people. He had to do that. Well--surely it was true? He put the question boldly for his conscience to answer, and a look of the real thing came into his eyes. It was as well, however, that he thought of doing it, for the old lady was nearly landing him in an awkward predicament. She enclosed a letter to Jill and asked him to forward it, as, of course, she did not know the address.He made a grimace at Miss Morrell when he received it, as though asking her what she would do under the circumstances. Miss Morrell yawned. It was so simple. So far, she had taken an interest in the case, had come in every day since the writing of the first letter to get her saucer of milk and hear the latest. But if he was going to put questions to her like this, there was all probability that she would be bored. Of course there was only one thing to be done. Miss Morrell could see that. And John did it. He answered the letter himself--wrote in a woman's hand; which is to say, he wrote every letter slanting backwards--said all that was important when the letter was finished, and scribbled it in and out between the date and the address, then, with a last effort at realism, spelt two words wrong on every page.By this means, he was getting two letters every week, answering them both himself with as much industry and regularity as he ever put into his work.This was all very well--all very simple so long as it lasted. But even Miss Morrell, whose eye to the main chance was unerring when it concerned a saucer of milk, warned him of what would follow. One morning, he received a letter from the little old white-haired lady, asking him when they were going to be married.Quite placidly, he sat down and wrote----"We're to be married on the 16th of February. I've taken a small cottage down in the country. It costs forty pounds a year. I thought it wise to begin on economical lines. There's a little rustic porch to the front door, with William Allan Richardson roses climbing all over it. In the front, there are ten feet of garden, protected from the road by a wooden railing about two foot and a brick high with a tiny gate that's always locked to prevent burglars getting in. Three pink chestnuts combine to give it the appearance of an ambrosial park. At the back, there's a little lawn, just large enough for pitch and toss--I've measured it myself, it takes thirty-nine and a half of the longest steps I can take. And in the middle there's an apple tree,--that's likely to have a crop of three this year."Miss Morrell closed her eyes in silent acquiescence when he read it out to her. It is possible that she may have considered him extravagant and, having that eye to the main chance, wondered whether he would be able to afford her her basin of milk with all this expenditure on two establishments. She did not say it, however, and listened patiently when he told her of other arrangements he had made."I forgot to tell you," he said, taking Miss Morrell on his knee--"that Lizzie Rowse is going to give up sticking labels on the jam-jars at Crosse and Blackwell's and is coming to do housemaid, cook, and general help for seven and sixpence a week--including beer money as she doesn't drink. I wanted to pay her more, but she wouldn't take it. I asked her why and she said, because she mightn't get it; that it was better to be certain of things in this world, rather than spending your life in hoping for what was too good to be true. It was no good my telling her that the whole business was only going to be transacted on paper, and that black and white would be the colour of everything she'd ever make out of it. But no! Seven and six was what she stuck at. As it was, it was a rise of sixpence to what she was getting at the jam-jars, and she wouldn't take a penny more. She said I'd been too kind to her as it was."Miss Morrell listened to all this with contempt. Mrs. Rowse was not in good repute just then. They thought very nasty things about her on the third and second floors--what is more, they said them, and in tones quite loud enough for Miss Morrell and her tortoiseshell companion to hear.Mrs. Rowse, it appeared, had spilt some water on the landing mid-way between the first and second floor where was the water cock common to the entire uses of the whole establishment. Five drops would convey an idea of about the amount she had spilled. At a first glance, this may seem very slight, but when it is explained that the stairs from the first to the second floor were covered with linoleum specially purchased by Mrs. Brown to make the approach to her residence the more ornate, it will be easily understood what a heinous offence this was.Mrs. Brown had spoken about it and the untidy habits of the people on the first floor generally, in tones so opprobrious and so loud that not only the first floor, but indeed the whole house had heard her. Following this, there had appeared, stuck upon the wall so that all who approached the fountain must read, the accompanying notice--"If persons spill the water, will they have the kindness to slop it up."It may be imagined how, in the effort to compose so reserved a notice as this, the feelings of Mrs. Brown, aided and abetted by Mrs. Morrell, must have overflowed in speech, all of which, of course, Miss Morrell would undoubtedly have heard. Hence her contempt.When John had finished his dissertation upon the generosity and good qualities of Lizzie Rowse, Miss Morrell climbed down quietly from his knee. She was too dignified to say what she thought about it and so, with tail erect, stiffened a little perhaps for fear he might not perceive the full value of her dignity, she walked from the room.The time passed by. It grew perilously near to that 16th of February. But John took it all very placidly; probably that is the way, when one does these things on paper. He invented all day long, and took as much pride in the ingenuity and construction of those letters as ever he took over his work."We went last night to the pit of a theatre," he said one morning to Miss Morrell. "Took Mrs. Rowse and Lizzie and Maud. The two girls persisted in eating oranges till Maud put a piece of a bad one in her mouth; then they both stopped. I was rather glad, Maud got hold of a bad one, because I was just racking my brains to know how I could stop them without giving offence."Miss Morrell looked quietly up into his face."You shouldn't take those sort of people to a theatre," said she.John took no notice of her grammar. "It was Jill's idea," he replied.On the 16th of February, right enough, they were married. Miss Morrell came that morning to drink her saucer of milk in honour of the event.She walked in without knocking. It was her privilege. John was seated at his table, with his head buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking like a woman's with sobs that had no tears in them. And there, before him, with their paper wrappings all scattered about the place, were a pair of Dresden china shepherds, playing gaily on their lutes. Hanging about the neck of one of them was a card, on which was written: "To John on his wedding day--from his loving father."CHAPTER XXXIVTHE DISSOLUBLE BONDAGEIf only it were that these things could continue--but alas! they cannot! We make our bubbles with all the colours of heaven in them, but cannot abide to see them only floating in the air. The greens and purples, the golds and scarlets, they seem so real upon the face of that diaphanous, crystal disc, that to touch them, to find their glorious stain upon the fingers, becomes the desire of every one of us. Out stretches the hand, the fingers tighten! The bubble is gone!That was much the way with John's beautiful bubble of Nonsense. So long as Jill knew nothing of it; so long as he played with the fairy thing by himself, it was enough; but the every-day business of life, in which death is one of the unavoidable duties, intervened. One cannot play at these wonderful games for long. You cannot be married on paper--more perhaps is the pity. There would be fewer separations, fewer misunderstandings if you could. Life unfortunately does not permit of it. The law of Gravity is universal. You come down to earth.When John had been living a married life of unbroken happiness for two months, there came two letters on the same day to Fetter Lane. He looked at one with no greater bewilderment than he did at the other. The first was from Venice in a strange handwriting; the second, from Jill. He opened it apprehensively. It could not be an invitation to her wedding? She could not have done that? Then what?"Is there any reason why we should not see each other again? I shall be in Kensington Gardens to-morrow at 11.30."He laid it down upon the table. For the moment, he forgot the existence of the other letter. In the midst of all his make-believe, this message from Jill was hard to realise; no easy matter to reconcile with all the phantoms in whose company he had been living.What strange and unexpected things were women! Did ever they know what they wanted? or, knowing, and having found it, did any of them believe it to be what they had thought it at first?Was she married? Since he had come back from Venice, the world might have been dead of her. He had heard nothing--seen nothing--and now this letter. Like the falling of some bolt of destruction from a heaven of blue, it had dropped into his garden, crushing the tenderest flowers he had planted there, in its swift rush of reality.She wanted to see him again. The mere wish was a command; the mere statement that she would be in Kensington Gardens, a summons. All his sacrifice, his putting her away from him that day of her departure in Venice, was in one moment gone for nought. All this dream in which he had been living, became the bubble broken in the hand of such circumstance as this. While it had lasted, while he had continued to hear nothing of her, it had been real enough. Up till that moment, he had been happily married, quietly living down at Harefield in the county of Middlesex, in his cottage with its William Allan Richardson roses and its insurmountable wooden railing, two foot and a brick high. Every day, he had been coming up to London to work in Fetter Lane and to get his letters. Some very good reason, he had given to the old people why they should write to him there. And now, because he must obey this summons to go to Kensington Gardens and talk of things, perhaps, that little mattered, for fear they might embark upon the sea of those things that did, all his dream had vanished. The only reality left him, was that he was alone.With a deep breath of resignation, he turned to the other letter and opened it."Dear Mr. Grey--I am writing this for your mother, to tell you the unfortunate news that your father is very ill. He has had a heart seizure, and, I fear, cannot live more than a few days. I am told by Mrs. Grey to ask you and your wife to come here as soon as possible. He knows the worst, and is asking to see you before he dies."The paper hung limply in John's fingers. He stared blindly at the wall in front of him. One hand of ice seemed laid upon his forehead; the cold fingers of another gripped his heart.Death--the end of everything--the irrevocable passing into an impenetrable darkness. It was well enough to believe in things hereafter; but to put it into practice wanted a power greater than belief. The old gentleman was going to die. The little old white-haired lady was to be left alone. How could he believe it? Would she believe it? Old people must die. He had said that often enough to himself while they had been well, while there had been no fear of it. He had said it, as the philosopher says that everything that is, is for the best. Now, as the philosopher so frequently has to do, he had to put it to the test.His father was going to die. In a few days, he would see the last of him. Then pictures--scenes in his father's life--rode processionally through his mind. Last of all, he saw him, hands trembling, eyes alight and expression eager, placing back the Dresden Shepherd in the window of the Treasure Shop--that same gay figure in china which, with its fellow, he had sent to John on his imaginary wedding day.With that picture, came the tears tumbling from his eyes. The wall opposite became a blurred vision in shadow as he stared at it. And all the time, the two Dresden Shepherds, perched upon his mantel-piece, played gaily on their lutes.In the light-heartedness of his imagination, he had not conceived of this aspect of his deception. His father had asked to see his wife before he died. Now, he would give the world that the description had never been. Already, he could see the look of pain in the old gentleman's eyes, when he should say--as say he must--that he had had to leave her behind. Already, he could feel the sting of his own conscience when, by that bedside in the little room, he invented the last messages which Jill had sent to make his passing the easier.It had been simple matter enough to conceive a thousand of these messages and write them upon paper; it had been simple matter enough to write those letters, which they were to suppose had come from Jill's own hand. But to act--to become the mummer in mask and tinsel, beside his father's death-bed, hurt every sensibility he possessed. It was beyond him. He knew he could not do it. Jill must know. Jill must be told everything, the whole story of this flight of his imagination. He trusted the gentle heart of her, at least, to give him some message of her own; something he could repeat for his father to hear, without the deriding knowledge in his heart that it was all a lie, all a fabrication, which, if the old gentleman did but know, he would reproach him with in his last moments.There, then, with the tears still falling down his cheeks, he wrote to Jill, telling her everything; enclosing the last letter which he had just received."Give me something to say," he begged--"something which comes from the kindness of your heart and not from the fiendishness of my imagination. In those few moments you saw him, he must have shown you some of the gentleness of his nature; must have shown you something which, putting aside the blame which I deserve at your hands for all I have said, expects this generosity from you. I have become a beggar, an importunate beggar, scarcely to be denied; but I become so with all humility. Just write me a line. You can see now, that I dare not meet you to-morrow, now that you know. But send me a line as soon as you receive this, which I may learn by heart and repeat to him with a conscience made clear, in so much as I shall know that such words have actually been said by you."When he had posted this, John began the packing of those things which he would require for the journey. Into the chapel of unredemption he marched and made an indiscriminate offering of everything he possessed on his list of sacrificial objects. The high priest swept them all into his keeping and winked at his acolytes.The next morning came Jill's reply. John tore it open, and read and re-read and re-read again."Meet me on Friday morning on the Piazetta at 12 o'clock."CHAPTER XXXVTHE WONDER OF BELIEFTo believe, is the greater part of reality.Despite all argument that flung itself at his credulity, John believed that Jill would be true to her word. Reasons in multitude there were, why it should be impossible for her to take such a journey and at such short notice. He admitted them all, as his mind presented them before him; yet still he believed. Though his faith trembled a thousand times in the balance; though common sense warned him insistently that hope was fruitless; nevertheless, he believed. Even when the little men on the Plaza began the striking of their twelve strokes on that Friday morning and, searching the gondolas as they rode in sight, searching them with eyes burning and pupils dilated in nervous expectancy, yet finding no sight of Jill, he still had faith that triumphed above all reason and overcame all doubt.The vibrations of the last stroke from the great clock in the Square had died down to the faint trembling in his ear; the single bell in all the churches was tolling for the Angelus; hope was just beginning to flicker in John's heart as a candle trembles that feels its approaching end and then, round the corner of theRio San Luca, shooting quickly into the Grand Canal, came the twentieth gondola John had espied, in which one solitary lady was seated. Something about the haste with which this gondolier plied his oar, something in the attitude of the lady as she half leant forward, half reclined upon the cushion at her back, something even in the crisp, swift hiss of the water as it shot away from the bows, brought him the conviction at last that it was Jill. When instinct is once awake, it finds a thousand little proofs to give it assurance.As the gondola came nearer, the lady moved her position. She had observed John waiting. He strained his eyes to see through the glare of light that sparkled up from the dancing water. Then a little white handkerchief darted out, and fluttering, shook the beating of his heart with realisation. It was Jill.In another moment, he was holding her hands and saying the most common-place words of greeting, but in a voice that held in it all the joy of his heart. The gondolier stood by smiling, waiting to be paid. The signora had wanted to be taken quickly to thePiazetta, and he had travelled as fast as if they were going to a funeral. It was almost payment enough to see her meeting with the signor. Not quite enough, however, for when they walked away, forgetting, in the embarrassement of their happiness, what he was owed, he stepped forward and, very politely, touched John's arm."Doue lire, signor," he said and showed some wonderful teeth in a brilliant smile. John thought of a London cabby under similar circumstances, giving him three and a smile as well.Then he turned back to Jill."Well--are you going to explain it all?" he asked."There's nothing to explain," she said, half laughing. "I'm here--isn't that enough?""But your husband?""We're not married yet. I pleaded for a long engagement.""Then your people?""Aren't you satisfied that I'm here?" she said gently. "Does it matter how I got here? You might just as well be curious to know whether I came by the St. Gothard or the Simplon. But you don't ask that. I'm here--you don't worry about that. Then why worry about the other?" and her eyes twinkled with mystery."Is it Mrs. Crossthwaite again?"She nodded her head with a laugh."She's with you?""No--she's at her cottage in Devonshire.""But you'll be found out.""Not if I go back to-morrow.""And you are going back?""Yes.""And you came all this way----?""Yes--here I am--in the City of Beautiful Nonsense again.""The little old white-haired lady was right then!" he exclaimed."How right?""She said that you would come anywhere, that you would do anything for me."Jill tried to meet his eyes."When did she say that?" she asked."Last year--after you had gone."He watched her as he waited for her to reply, but she kept silent. It was not a moment in which she dared to speak; moreover, other matters were waiting.In St. Mark's, beneath the image of St. Anthony, where they had met the year before, they chose to go and make their arrangements. There is everything that is conservative about Romance. Places become dear for themselves, for the spirit of the Romance which, like a lingering perfume, still hangs about their corners. The times alter perhaps, sometimes even the woman herself is different; but the spirit, the Romance and with them often the place, remain the same."You understand all it means, your coming to see them?" he asked when they were seated. "You understood my letter? You realise what I've been saying?""Yes, every word.""Then why did you come?""I couldn't bear to think of his dying without----" she hesitated, or did she hang upon the words--"without seeing your--your wife as he wanted to. Oh, John! Why did you say it? It wasn't right of you! You ought not to have done it!"She was angry! His beautiful nonsense had offended her! Might he not have known that? What woman in the world was there who could have understood so well as to sympathise with the trick which he had played."If it has annoyed you," said he, "why did you come? Of course, I know it was unpardonable; but then, I thought you'd never know. I didn't understand how much a fabrication, an invention it was, until I heard that he was dying and wanted to see you before the end. It had been so easy to make up till then. I'd become infatuated with my own success. Then, when I got the letter from the doctor, I realised that I was done. I couldn't go to his death-bed, making up lies, giving him messages that had never passed your lips, never entered into your thoughts. I was done. And I hoped you'd understand. I hoped--like a fool, I suppose--that you wouldn't be offended.""But I'm not offended."He stared at her. Even St. Anthony stared, because St. Anthony does not know so much about women as you would expect. He knows full well their extraordinary valuation of trifles, but on serious matters such as these, he is as ignorant of them as the rest of us."You're not offended!" echoed John."No.""Then why did you say I was wrong? Why did you say I ought not to have done it?""Because it was not fair to them. They might have found out. The little old white-haired lady may find out even now.""Then you don't think it was unfair to you?""You thought I should?"He nodded emphatically two or three times."That, I believe, is the way you judge women. That is why their actions are so incomprehensible to you. You form an opinion of them and then, naturally, everything they do seems a mystery, because you won't change your opinion. They're not the mystery. I assure you women are very simple. The mystery is that their actions don't conform with your pre-conceived opinion." She stumbled over those last big words. She was not quite sure of them. They sounded very large, moreover, they sounded as if they expressed what she felt. What they really meant was another matter. She could have told you nothing about that. That is not the way women choose their words."Well now," he said--"we must be going. Of course I haven't been, though I arrived last night. I counted on your coming.""Yes," she whispered, "that's the wonderful part about you--you believe."She thought of her father--she thought of the man with the brown beard like St. Joseph. They believed nothing until it was before their eyes. But a woman likes to be trusted, because at least, she means to do what she says; sometimes--God knows--she does it.CHAPTER XXXVITHE PASSINGIt was a greater ordeal than they knew of, for Death, though he is for ever in our midst, always covers his face, and you may never recognise the features until that last moment when, with the sweeping gesture of the arm, he throws aside the folds that enshroud him, and in his quiet voice, so low, yet so distinct, announces "It is finished."At the opening of the little door, they beheld the dear old white-haired lady. Her arms fell about them both and, in her feeble way, she clasped them to her. It was not hysterical, not that cry of the witless woman who is faced with the stern matters of life and will lean upon any shoulder to support her weight. She was losing that which was hers alone, and these two, though she thought they belonged irrevocably to each other, belonged also in their way to her. They were all now that was left her."How is he?" asked John, as she led them down that vast chamber to the deep-set door which opened to the tiny bedroom."You're only just in time," she replied. "The priest is with him. It's just the end."There was a true, a steady note of reconciliation in her voice. She knew and had accepted the inevitable with that silent courage which brave women have. You knew that there would be no sudden passionate outburst of cries and tears when at last it actually was all over. His time of departure had come. She recognised it; had faced it bravely for the last few days. On Claudina's ample bosom, the first wild torrent of weeping had been made; for your servant, your meanest slave is a woman when she understands in such moments as these. When her agony had passed, she had raised her head, brushed away the tears. With warm water, Claudina had bathed her eyes and then, bravely setting a smile upon her trembling lips, she had gone to watch by his bedside.Gently, now, she opened the door and admitted them, then silently closed it behind her. The jalousies were closed. In faint bars of light, the sunshine stole into the room and lit it faintly as though stained through the amber-coloured glass of church windows. In a deep shadow, burnt the tiny flame of red upon their bedroom altar. Bowed humbly down before it, knelt the priest, whose even, muttered tones just stirred in a gentle vibration of sound as of some hive of bees muffled with a heavy cloth and, only with the sibilant lisping of the breath between his lips as he pronounced certain letters, did it seem that a man was speaking at all. It was all so quiet, so even, so monotonous, a gentle noise to waft a spirit to its last sleep.In a dark corner of the room, away from the rest, almost lost in the shadow, knelt Claudina, her head bent low upon her breast, her shoulders gently lifting and falling in sobs that were tuned low to the silence. She did not look up as they entered. The priest did not move his head. It all continued, just as if nothing had happened and, lying still, inert upon the pillow, almost lost in the big bed, was that silent figure of the old white-haired gentleman, who never stirred, nor uttered any sound, as though the chanting of the priest had already lulled him to his infinite sleep.They all knelt down by the bedside, buried their faces in their hands, and the chanting continued.What thoughts passed through the minds of those two who knelt there, playing their part, acting the life which both of them knew could never be real, it would be impossible to say. In the face of death, the mind has such simple thoughts, that words can scarcely touch their expression. Remorse may have scourged them; it may have been that, in seeing the peaceful passing of his spirit, they were satisfied that what they did was for the best; or, in the deepest secrets of their hearts they may have been longing that it all were true. Yet, there they both knelt, with the little old white-haired lady by their side. For all the world you might have thought, as did all the others in the room, that they were husband and wife on the very threshold of that journey through the years of which this death-bed meeting was the gate where all must pass out into the land that is in the blue haze beyond.Presently, the voice of the priest became silent. The heads of all sank lower in their hands as the Extreme Unction was given. God visits the earth in great silences. It was a wonderful silence then. The wine gurgling softly into the cup, the unfolding of the little napkin, the patten lying on the tongue, the last brave effort as the old gentleman swallowed the sacred bread, were all noises that thrilled and quivered in that silence.Then it was all passed, all finished, the spirit cleansed, the last gentle confession made of such sins of thought and deed as a brave and generous gentleman is capable of. The priest rose to his feet and, taking his little vessels with him in their case, stole quietly from the room. A moment or so passed in still deeper silence. At last Claudina rose. She crossed herself as she passed the little altar, crept also to the door and went away.Now the silence was still deeper than before, as though, in the mere functions of their living, these two had taken with them their disturbing elements of full-blooded life from this place where life was so fainting and so weak. When they had gone, the very vibrations of air seemed more still and a greater quietness fell with their absence.And the three who remained, continued there motionless on their knees--motionless, until, in the midst of the silence, came the whispering of a tired voice--a voice, pronouncing with infinite difficulty, one, single word,"John--John."John knelt quickly upright. He stretched out his hand and found a hand to meet it, a hand that could not hold, that only lay in tender submission upon his own."Father," he said; and that, after all, is the only word that a son can say--father or mother--they are the last words left in the deepest heart of a man. He utters them, incoherently almost, when emotion is choking speech."Where is Jill?" the voice whispered again.Jill crept round on her knees to his side. With one hand below in the darkness, John held hers. They clasped them and unclasped them as the sobs rose and broke silently in their throats.The old gentleman's eyes took a light into them, as he saw their heads together by his bedside. With a great effort, he strained himself to rise upon one elbow in the bed and, laying the other hand upon their heads, he whispered that blessing which it has been in the power of the father to give from time immemorial."God bless you," he whispered. "Make your lives out of love, as I have made mine. Make your children out of love, as I have made mine. Make your work out of love--as I have made mine."His voice burnt low, but yet it burnt. The flame of it was there. It seared into the very hearts of them. Jill's fingers lay in John's as a bird that is starved and cold, lies limply in the hand that succours it. Her cheeks were ashen white. Her eyes stared wildly before her at the pattern on the counter-pane and tears rolled from them without heed or stay.The moments passed then, as the old gentleman leant back upon his pillows. Without moving, they stayed there with heads bowed down before him. At last, he moved again. His hand stretched out once more and felt for John's."God bless you my boy," he said, as his son bent over him. "You've made us very happy. You've set your life just as we could wish. Now do your work. I expect I shall hear how you get on. They won't keep that from me. They'll let me see your first happy ending. It's the only way to end--like this. Now kiss me--you don't mind--this time--do you?"John kissed him, as pilgrims kiss the feet of God."And tell me----" the old gentleman whispered. He paused to breathe as the thought came swiftly on him. "Tell me--why did you kiss me--on the forehead--that night--a year ago?""I'd seen you in the Treasure Shop, sir--and I----" the words wrestled in his throat--"I thought you were the finest man I'd ever known."The old gentleman lay back again upon his pillows. The light of a great pride was flashing in his eyes. His son had called him--sir. That was all. Yet in that moment, he felt like a Viking being borne out upon his burning ship into the sea of noble burial. His son had called him, sir. He lay still, listening to the great sound of it, as it trumpeted triumphantly in his ears. His son, who was going to be far greater than he had ever been, whose work was above and beyond all work that he had ever done--his son had called him--sir.Then, for some time, everything was still once more. They bent their heads again within their hands. At last, the little old white-haired lady, like
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE SIXTEENTH OF FEBRUARY--LONDON
The abhorrence of Nature for a vacuum, is nothing to her abomination of unfinished work. In the great Tapestry which Time sits eternally weaving with the coloured threads of circumstance, there are no loose ends allowed. Every little picture which finds its way into the mighty subject of that vast material, must be complete in its symbol of accomplished Destiny. No ragged edges must there be; no lines unfinished, no shadow left out. And even, in so inconsequent a matter as a story of Beautiful Nonsense, some definite completion must be shown to round the whole, to leave no hanging thread by which the picture might be unravelled.
When John said good-bye to Jill on the steps of thefondamenta, when the last wave of her little white handkerchief had fluttered into a curling light upon the water, he had turned back into the house, believing that the story was irretrievably ended. The last word had been written. So far as Jill was concerned, he might well close the book and thank the pen of Chance that it had shown him an ideal as high above the common conception of life as it is good for the eyes of a man to lift.
But he had not, in this calculation, counted the presence of those two white heads in the window up above. For him, so far as his eye could see, Destiny had had its fill, had drained the cup of possibility to its utmost dregs. But this was not so for them. They had yet to be appeased. For them, the matter had only just begun. To them, it was the last shuttle, whose speeding to and fro, would weave in the past with the present and so fulfil their final justification.
From that day, the little old white-haired lady looked forward to John's marriage with Jill as to the consummation of her whole life's desire. She lived--she thought--she ordered her existence for nothing else. Her disappointment was pathetic to witness when she received Jill's little note telling her departure the next day. But her beliefs were not shaken; her hopes were not thwarted. She still saw the last burning of her romance before the flame should flicker and become a light no more.
She spoke to John about it of course. Sitting in the window one day, the window that looked down on to the old gentleman's garden, she told him what she knew; what was not the slightest use his contradicting. They loved each other. Oh, not a doubt of it! She spoke authoritatively, as women will on these subjects. Who better able to than they?
"You really think she loves me, mother?" he asked in a quick moment of hopefulness.
She took his hand. She lifted one tired arm about his neck.
"Why do you think she came like that to Venice?" she asked. "There's not a thing she wouldn't do for you--not a place she wouldn't go to in order to see you. Don't you realise that?"
It was unfortunate she should have chosen that phrase. There were things, Jill would not do for him. It had needed every effort from him to find the full value of unselfishness in what she was about to do; but he could not think that she loved him as his mother would have him believe. It was unfortunate, her choosing of that phrase. From that moment, John shrank into himself. He could not bring himself to tell her the whole truth of it; therefore, it was no good talking any more.
"Her people are too well off," he said, rising with a gesture of despair from the seat in the window. "They're in a different position altogether. I've no right to tell her. I've no right to try and win her affection. It would only be a hopeless business all through."
From that moment, he avoided the subject; from that moment, he became impregnable whenever the little old white-haired lady tried to assail him with the weapons of her worldly knowledge.
"I can get John to say nothing," she said one night to her husband. "He won't speak about it at all."
He put his arms round her in the darkness.
"You're worrying yourself, little woman," he said, sleepily. "I woke up once last night and you were wide awake. Did you sleep at all?"
"Very little," she admitted.
"Well--you mustn't worry. Leave it to Nature. John will tell her everything about it one of these days. Young men are always getting on the high horse and trying to tilt against Nature, and women are forever offering to assist Nature, thinking she must come off the worst. It's waste of time either way, my dearest. Nature's a windmill. It'll grind the flour out of everyone of us when the wind blows. It's no good tilting at it on a windy day; and it's no good trying to turn the sails round when it's calm. The wind'll blow,"--he yawned and turned over on his side--"soon enough." And he was asleep.
She believed so much in what her husband said, did the little old white-haired lady. It is not often, that after twenty odd years of married life, a man keeps still alive that ideal of unquestionable reliability which his wife first found in everything he said. Usually there comes a time--sad enough in its way, since ideals are almost everything--when those which once were words of wisdom, fall tainted with the odour of self-interest. It becomes a difficult thing to believe in then, that aphorism of your philosopher, which brings him the warmest seat in the chimney corner, or the softest place in the bed. And that is the wisdom of a lot of people--a philosophy of self, translated into a language for others.
By some kink of chance perhaps--though rather it would be kinder to think, by some quality of mutual affection--the old gentleman had avoided this tragedy. It is a tragedy; for no man likes a mean motive to be attributed to his philosophy--especially when it is true. And so, the old lady still believed in the infallibility of her husband's wisdom which in its way was quite good. That night at least then, she worried no more. She turned over her white head in his direction and she fell asleep. And whenever he turned through the night, she turned as well. After twenty years or so, these things become mechanical. Life is easier after twenty years, if you can bear with it till then.
But before John had left, her worries began again and, not daring to speak to him any more, she was driven to bear her trouble in silence.
She hoped up to the last that he would mention it once more, and a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, decoyed their conversations into topics which would suggest it to his mind. Yet always with the caution of some wary animal pursued, John avoided it--sheered off and chose another path.
Even on the day of his departure, she yet thought that he would speak and, clinging gently to him, with her arms about his neck, she whispered:
"Have you nothing to say to me, John?"
"Nothing--nothing, dearest," he replied, adding the term of endearment as he saw the bitter look of disappointment in her eyes.
Then he was gone. For another year that vast chamber with its high windows, and that tiny room which peeped out into it, would be silent of the sound of his voice. For another year, night after night, these two old people would continue to look up in surprise when Claudina entered for the ceremony; they would continue to exclaim: "You don't mean to say it's ten o'clock, Claudina!" And perhaps, as the days wore on and the year drew itself out to the thin grey thread, the surprise would get fainter, the note of exclamation not so emphatic as it used to be. She took her breath in fear as she thought of it. Supposing the year were to pass and John had not married Jill? She went into the little altar in her bedroom and commenced a novena--one of the many that she began and dutifully finished, before that year had gone.
So, it may be seen, in these two old people, who have woven themselves so inextricably into this whole story of Nonsense, how Time has by no means finished with the picture it set itself the weaving on that mysterious 18th of March, whereof the calendar still keeps its secret.
John went back to his labours in London, but he left behind him, forces at work of which he knew nothing. The old gentleman was quite right. Nature has no need of the meddling hand. The seed had been transplanted into the mind of the little old white-haired lady and, in her, will the completion of Destiny be found.
For the first few weeks, she wrote her usual letters to John, avoiding the subject with a rigid perseverance which, she might have known, which certainly her husband knew, she could never hope to maintain. This perseverance did not break down all at once. She began with inconsequent allusions to Jill; then at last, when they called forth no word of a reply from John, she gave way to the passionate desire that was consuming her, commencing a long series of letters of counsel and advice such as an old lady will give, who believes that the world is the same place that it was when she was a girl.
"Have you ever spoken to her, John?" she asked in one of her letters. "With your eyes you have. I saw you do it that afternoon at tea. But the language of the eyes is not enough for a woman, who has never heard the sound of the spoken word in her ears."
"Tell her you love her--ask her to marry you, and if she says no--don't believe her. She doesn't mean it. It's more or less impossible for a woman to say yes the first time. It's over so soon."
"You say her people are wealthy; that they are in a very different position to you. Of course, I know blood is thicker than water, but love is stronger than them both. And, after all, their position is one of luxury--that is of the body. Your's is a position of the mind. There is no comparison."
"I lie awake sometimes at night, thinking of all the trials and troubles your father and I had to go through before we found our corner in the world, and then I know how much more worth than youth or luxury, pleasure or ease, is love."
"I believe in that short time she was here, she became very fond of me, and in one of those moments when one woman shows her heart to another--they are very seldom--it was when she came to wash her hands after eating the jam sandwiches--she said she thought you were very like me. Now comparisons, with women, are not always odious; it is generally the only way they have of describing anything."
"I am sending you a bracelet of jade to give to her. It is very old. I will send you the history of it another time. I have it all written out somewhere. Anyhow, it belonged to one of the great Venetian ladies when Leonardo Loredano was Doge. Give it to her as coming from you. It does come from you. I give it you. A gift, however small, however poor, means a great deal to a woman. She reads a meaning into it--the very meaning I send with this."
"Oh, my dear boy, will you tell me nothing. Don't you know how my heart must be aching to hear some news of your happiness. It is the last happiness I shall know myself. Don't delay it too long."
These extracts from the letters written by the little old white-haired lady to her son, John, over that period of the first three months after her meeting with Jill, could occupy the space of many a page in this history. But these few which, with John's permission, I have quoted here, are sufficient to show how close her heart was wrapt up in the fortunes of his love-making.
Hoping, that, in his reticence on the subject, she might in time grow to lose interest, finally even forgetting Jill's existence altogether, John procrastinated, putting off, putting off the day when he must tell her all the truth. There was, too, he has admitted it, some fanciful sense of satisfaction intricately woven in with the pain he felt when he read those letters of hers every week. It was nonsense again, perhaps, but it kept the idea a living reality in his mind. He came to look forward to them as to the expression of a life that was too wonderful, except to dream of. And so, as an Eastern takes his opium and, retiring into the gloomy shadows of his den, is transported into the glorious heavens of a phantom creation, John read these letters of his mother's in his room in Fetter Lane. There, the passings to and fro of Mrs. Rowse, the hawker's cries and the screams of the parrot on the other side of the road, had no power to waken him from his sleep, so long as it lasted.
For nearly three months--week after week--he received these letters, dreamed his dreams and, in writing back to the little old white-haired lady, tried to allay the expectancy of her mind.
At last it could be done no longer. You may put back the hands of a clock to your heart's content, but there is no warding off of the inevitable. There came a letter saying she would write of it no more. It was not impatient, it was not in anger, but in the spirit, as when an old lady lays down her sewing in her lap as the sun sets and, gently tells you, she can see the stitches no longer.
It was then, that John, knowing what he had lost, conceived another felonious means of transport--this time the transport of the mind.
Jill was only known to his people as Miss Dealtry. They did not know where she lived. They knew nothing of her relations. They could not communicate with her in any way.
For a long while he sat looking at that last letter of his mother's, where she had said she would write no more of Jill.
"She wants a love story--bless her heart," he said musingly--and Mrs. Morrell's sandy cat coming at that moment into the room, he repeated it for the cat's benefit--"She wants a love story," he said. The cat blinked its eyes, curled a rough red tongue lovingly about its whiskers, and sat down as though, having half an hour to spare and the tortoiseshell not being in the way, it was quite ready to listen to it then.
"And, by Jove!" exclaimed John--"She shall have it!"
Miss Morrell curled her tail comfortably round her in the most perfect attitude of attention.
"I'll write her a story," said John to Miss Morrell--"a story of beautiful nonsense--some of it true and some of it made up as I go along."
And, therewith, he sat himself down to answer her letter.
It was necessary, if he were to re-create the interest of the little old white-haired lady, for him to meet Jill again. Accordingly, with some ingenious preamble, in which he explained his silence of the preceding months, he began with the description of his second meeting with Jill in Kensington Gardens--that time when she came and spent the entire morning in telling him that she could not come and meet him that day.
"Undoubtedly God could have made a place more fitted for Romance than Kensington Gardens," he began--"but unquestionably He never did."
And this was how the last tissue of nonsense came to be woven.
Of course, he told her, that it was all a secret. Jill had to keep it a secret from her people. He had to do that. Well--surely it was true? He put the question boldly for his conscience to answer, and a look of the real thing came into his eyes. It was as well, however, that he thought of doing it, for the old lady was nearly landing him in an awkward predicament. She enclosed a letter to Jill and asked him to forward it, as, of course, she did not know the address.
He made a grimace at Miss Morrell when he received it, as though asking her what she would do under the circumstances. Miss Morrell yawned. It was so simple. So far, she had taken an interest in the case, had come in every day since the writing of the first letter to get her saucer of milk and hear the latest. But if he was going to put questions to her like this, there was all probability that she would be bored. Of course there was only one thing to be done. Miss Morrell could see that. And John did it. He answered the letter himself--wrote in a woman's hand; which is to say, he wrote every letter slanting backwards--said all that was important when the letter was finished, and scribbled it in and out between the date and the address, then, with a last effort at realism, spelt two words wrong on every page.
By this means, he was getting two letters every week, answering them both himself with as much industry and regularity as he ever put into his work.
This was all very well--all very simple so long as it lasted. But even Miss Morrell, whose eye to the main chance was unerring when it concerned a saucer of milk, warned him of what would follow. One morning, he received a letter from the little old white-haired lady, asking him when they were going to be married.
Quite placidly, he sat down and wrote----
"We're to be married on the 16th of February. I've taken a small cottage down in the country. It costs forty pounds a year. I thought it wise to begin on economical lines. There's a little rustic porch to the front door, with William Allan Richardson roses climbing all over it. In the front, there are ten feet of garden, protected from the road by a wooden railing about two foot and a brick high with a tiny gate that's always locked to prevent burglars getting in. Three pink chestnuts combine to give it the appearance of an ambrosial park. At the back, there's a little lawn, just large enough for pitch and toss--I've measured it myself, it takes thirty-nine and a half of the longest steps I can take. And in the middle there's an apple tree,--that's likely to have a crop of three this year."
Miss Morrell closed her eyes in silent acquiescence when he read it out to her. It is possible that she may have considered him extravagant and, having that eye to the main chance, wondered whether he would be able to afford her her basin of milk with all this expenditure on two establishments. She did not say it, however, and listened patiently when he told her of other arrangements he had made.
"I forgot to tell you," he said, taking Miss Morrell on his knee--"that Lizzie Rowse is going to give up sticking labels on the jam-jars at Crosse and Blackwell's and is coming to do housemaid, cook, and general help for seven and sixpence a week--including beer money as she doesn't drink. I wanted to pay her more, but she wouldn't take it. I asked her why and she said, because she mightn't get it; that it was better to be certain of things in this world, rather than spending your life in hoping for what was too good to be true. It was no good my telling her that the whole business was only going to be transacted on paper, and that black and white would be the colour of everything she'd ever make out of it. But no! Seven and six was what she stuck at. As it was, it was a rise of sixpence to what she was getting at the jam-jars, and she wouldn't take a penny more. She said I'd been too kind to her as it was."
Miss Morrell listened to all this with contempt. Mrs. Rowse was not in good repute just then. They thought very nasty things about her on the third and second floors--what is more, they said them, and in tones quite loud enough for Miss Morrell and her tortoiseshell companion to hear.
Mrs. Rowse, it appeared, had spilt some water on the landing mid-way between the first and second floor where was the water cock common to the entire uses of the whole establishment. Five drops would convey an idea of about the amount she had spilled. At a first glance, this may seem very slight, but when it is explained that the stairs from the first to the second floor were covered with linoleum specially purchased by Mrs. Brown to make the approach to her residence the more ornate, it will be easily understood what a heinous offence this was.
Mrs. Brown had spoken about it and the untidy habits of the people on the first floor generally, in tones so opprobrious and so loud that not only the first floor, but indeed the whole house had heard her. Following this, there had appeared, stuck upon the wall so that all who approached the fountain must read, the accompanying notice--"If persons spill the water, will they have the kindness to slop it up."
It may be imagined how, in the effort to compose so reserved a notice as this, the feelings of Mrs. Brown, aided and abetted by Mrs. Morrell, must have overflowed in speech, all of which, of course, Miss Morrell would undoubtedly have heard. Hence her contempt.
When John had finished his dissertation upon the generosity and good qualities of Lizzie Rowse, Miss Morrell climbed down quietly from his knee. She was too dignified to say what she thought about it and so, with tail erect, stiffened a little perhaps for fear he might not perceive the full value of her dignity, she walked from the room.
The time passed by. It grew perilously near to that 16th of February. But John took it all very placidly; probably that is the way, when one does these things on paper. He invented all day long, and took as much pride in the ingenuity and construction of those letters as ever he took over his work.
"We went last night to the pit of a theatre," he said one morning to Miss Morrell. "Took Mrs. Rowse and Lizzie and Maud. The two girls persisted in eating oranges till Maud put a piece of a bad one in her mouth; then they both stopped. I was rather glad, Maud got hold of a bad one, because I was just racking my brains to know how I could stop them without giving offence."
Miss Morrell looked quietly up into his face.
"You shouldn't take those sort of people to a theatre," said she.
John took no notice of her grammar. "It was Jill's idea," he replied.
On the 16th of February, right enough, they were married. Miss Morrell came that morning to drink her saucer of milk in honour of the event.
She walked in without knocking. It was her privilege. John was seated at his table, with his head buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking like a woman's with sobs that had no tears in them. And there, before him, with their paper wrappings all scattered about the place, were a pair of Dresden china shepherds, playing gaily on their lutes. Hanging about the neck of one of them was a card, on which was written: "To John on his wedding day--from his loving father."
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE DISSOLUBLE BONDAGE
If only it were that these things could continue--but alas! they cannot! We make our bubbles with all the colours of heaven in them, but cannot abide to see them only floating in the air. The greens and purples, the golds and scarlets, they seem so real upon the face of that diaphanous, crystal disc, that to touch them, to find their glorious stain upon the fingers, becomes the desire of every one of us. Out stretches the hand, the fingers tighten! The bubble is gone!
That was much the way with John's beautiful bubble of Nonsense. So long as Jill knew nothing of it; so long as he played with the fairy thing by himself, it was enough; but the every-day business of life, in which death is one of the unavoidable duties, intervened. One cannot play at these wonderful games for long. You cannot be married on paper--more perhaps is the pity. There would be fewer separations, fewer misunderstandings if you could. Life unfortunately does not permit of it. The law of Gravity is universal. You come down to earth.
When John had been living a married life of unbroken happiness for two months, there came two letters on the same day to Fetter Lane. He looked at one with no greater bewilderment than he did at the other. The first was from Venice in a strange handwriting; the second, from Jill. He opened it apprehensively. It could not be an invitation to her wedding? She could not have done that? Then what?
"Is there any reason why we should not see each other again? I shall be in Kensington Gardens to-morrow at 11.30."
He laid it down upon the table. For the moment, he forgot the existence of the other letter. In the midst of all his make-believe, this message from Jill was hard to realise; no easy matter to reconcile with all the phantoms in whose company he had been living.
What strange and unexpected things were women! Did ever they know what they wanted? or, knowing, and having found it, did any of them believe it to be what they had thought it at first?
Was she married? Since he had come back from Venice, the world might have been dead of her. He had heard nothing--seen nothing--and now this letter. Like the falling of some bolt of destruction from a heaven of blue, it had dropped into his garden, crushing the tenderest flowers he had planted there, in its swift rush of reality.
She wanted to see him again. The mere wish was a command; the mere statement that she would be in Kensington Gardens, a summons. All his sacrifice, his putting her away from him that day of her departure in Venice, was in one moment gone for nought. All this dream in which he had been living, became the bubble broken in the hand of such circumstance as this. While it had lasted, while he had continued to hear nothing of her, it had been real enough. Up till that moment, he had been happily married, quietly living down at Harefield in the county of Middlesex, in his cottage with its William Allan Richardson roses and its insurmountable wooden railing, two foot and a brick high. Every day, he had been coming up to London to work in Fetter Lane and to get his letters. Some very good reason, he had given to the old people why they should write to him there. And now, because he must obey this summons to go to Kensington Gardens and talk of things, perhaps, that little mattered, for fear they might embark upon the sea of those things that did, all his dream had vanished. The only reality left him, was that he was alone.
With a deep breath of resignation, he turned to the other letter and opened it.
"Dear Mr. Grey--I am writing this for your mother, to tell you the unfortunate news that your father is very ill. He has had a heart seizure, and, I fear, cannot live more than a few days. I am told by Mrs. Grey to ask you and your wife to come here as soon as possible. He knows the worst, and is asking to see you before he dies."
The paper hung limply in John's fingers. He stared blindly at the wall in front of him. One hand of ice seemed laid upon his forehead; the cold fingers of another gripped his heart.
Death--the end of everything--the irrevocable passing into an impenetrable darkness. It was well enough to believe in things hereafter; but to put it into practice wanted a power greater than belief. The old gentleman was going to die. The little old white-haired lady was to be left alone. How could he believe it? Would she believe it? Old people must die. He had said that often enough to himself while they had been well, while there had been no fear of it. He had said it, as the philosopher says that everything that is, is for the best. Now, as the philosopher so frequently has to do, he had to put it to the test.
His father was going to die. In a few days, he would see the last of him. Then pictures--scenes in his father's life--rode processionally through his mind. Last of all, he saw him, hands trembling, eyes alight and expression eager, placing back the Dresden Shepherd in the window of the Treasure Shop--that same gay figure in china which, with its fellow, he had sent to John on his imaginary wedding day.
With that picture, came the tears tumbling from his eyes. The wall opposite became a blurred vision in shadow as he stared at it. And all the time, the two Dresden Shepherds, perched upon his mantel-piece, played gaily on their lutes.
In the light-heartedness of his imagination, he had not conceived of this aspect of his deception. His father had asked to see his wife before he died. Now, he would give the world that the description had never been. Already, he could see the look of pain in the old gentleman's eyes, when he should say--as say he must--that he had had to leave her behind. Already, he could feel the sting of his own conscience when, by that bedside in the little room, he invented the last messages which Jill had sent to make his passing the easier.
It had been simple matter enough to conceive a thousand of these messages and write them upon paper; it had been simple matter enough to write those letters, which they were to suppose had come from Jill's own hand. But to act--to become the mummer in mask and tinsel, beside his father's death-bed, hurt every sensibility he possessed. It was beyond him. He knew he could not do it. Jill must know. Jill must be told everything, the whole story of this flight of his imagination. He trusted the gentle heart of her, at least, to give him some message of her own; something he could repeat for his father to hear, without the deriding knowledge in his heart that it was all a lie, all a fabrication, which, if the old gentleman did but know, he would reproach him with in his last moments.
There, then, with the tears still falling down his cheeks, he wrote to Jill, telling her everything; enclosing the last letter which he had just received.
"Give me something to say," he begged--"something which comes from the kindness of your heart and not from the fiendishness of my imagination. In those few moments you saw him, he must have shown you some of the gentleness of his nature; must have shown you something which, putting aside the blame which I deserve at your hands for all I have said, expects this generosity from you. I have become a beggar, an importunate beggar, scarcely to be denied; but I become so with all humility. Just write me a line. You can see now, that I dare not meet you to-morrow, now that you know. But send me a line as soon as you receive this, which I may learn by heart and repeat to him with a conscience made clear, in so much as I shall know that such words have actually been said by you."
When he had posted this, John began the packing of those things which he would require for the journey. Into the chapel of unredemption he marched and made an indiscriminate offering of everything he possessed on his list of sacrificial objects. The high priest swept them all into his keeping and winked at his acolytes.
The next morning came Jill's reply. John tore it open, and read and re-read and re-read again.
"Meet me on Friday morning on the Piazetta at 12 o'clock."
CHAPTER XXXV
THE WONDER OF BELIEF
To believe, is the greater part of reality.
Despite all argument that flung itself at his credulity, John believed that Jill would be true to her word. Reasons in multitude there were, why it should be impossible for her to take such a journey and at such short notice. He admitted them all, as his mind presented them before him; yet still he believed. Though his faith trembled a thousand times in the balance; though common sense warned him insistently that hope was fruitless; nevertheless, he believed. Even when the little men on the Plaza began the striking of their twelve strokes on that Friday morning and, searching the gondolas as they rode in sight, searching them with eyes burning and pupils dilated in nervous expectancy, yet finding no sight of Jill, he still had faith that triumphed above all reason and overcame all doubt.
The vibrations of the last stroke from the great clock in the Square had died down to the faint trembling in his ear; the single bell in all the churches was tolling for the Angelus; hope was just beginning to flicker in John's heart as a candle trembles that feels its approaching end and then, round the corner of theRio San Luca, shooting quickly into the Grand Canal, came the twentieth gondola John had espied, in which one solitary lady was seated. Something about the haste with which this gondolier plied his oar, something in the attitude of the lady as she half leant forward, half reclined upon the cushion at her back, something even in the crisp, swift hiss of the water as it shot away from the bows, brought him the conviction at last that it was Jill. When instinct is once awake, it finds a thousand little proofs to give it assurance.
As the gondola came nearer, the lady moved her position. She had observed John waiting. He strained his eyes to see through the glare of light that sparkled up from the dancing water. Then a little white handkerchief darted out, and fluttering, shook the beating of his heart with realisation. It was Jill.
In another moment, he was holding her hands and saying the most common-place words of greeting, but in a voice that held in it all the joy of his heart. The gondolier stood by smiling, waiting to be paid. The signora had wanted to be taken quickly to thePiazetta, and he had travelled as fast as if they were going to a funeral. It was almost payment enough to see her meeting with the signor. Not quite enough, however, for when they walked away, forgetting, in the embarrassement of their happiness, what he was owed, he stepped forward and, very politely, touched John's arm.
"Doue lire, signor," he said and showed some wonderful teeth in a brilliant smile. John thought of a London cabby under similar circumstances, giving him three and a smile as well.
Then he turned back to Jill.
"Well--are you going to explain it all?" he asked.
"There's nothing to explain," she said, half laughing. "I'm here--isn't that enough?"
"But your husband?"
"We're not married yet. I pleaded for a long engagement."
"Then your people?"
"Aren't you satisfied that I'm here?" she said gently. "Does it matter how I got here? You might just as well be curious to know whether I came by the St. Gothard or the Simplon. But you don't ask that. I'm here--you don't worry about that. Then why worry about the other?" and her eyes twinkled with mystery.
"Is it Mrs. Crossthwaite again?"
She nodded her head with a laugh.
"She's with you?"
"No--she's at her cottage in Devonshire."
"But you'll be found out."
"Not if I go back to-morrow."
"And you are going back?"
"Yes."
"And you came all this way----?"
"Yes--here I am--in the City of Beautiful Nonsense again."
"The little old white-haired lady was right then!" he exclaimed.
"How right?"
"She said that you would come anywhere, that you would do anything for me."
Jill tried to meet his eyes.
"When did she say that?" she asked.
"Last year--after you had gone."
He watched her as he waited for her to reply, but she kept silent. It was not a moment in which she dared to speak; moreover, other matters were waiting.
In St. Mark's, beneath the image of St. Anthony, where they had met the year before, they chose to go and make their arrangements. There is everything that is conservative about Romance. Places become dear for themselves, for the spirit of the Romance which, like a lingering perfume, still hangs about their corners. The times alter perhaps, sometimes even the woman herself is different; but the spirit, the Romance and with them often the place, remain the same.
"You understand all it means, your coming to see them?" he asked when they were seated. "You understood my letter? You realise what I've been saying?"
"Yes, every word."
"Then why did you come?"
"I couldn't bear to think of his dying without----" she hesitated, or did she hang upon the words--"without seeing your--your wife as he wanted to. Oh, John! Why did you say it? It wasn't right of you! You ought not to have done it!"
She was angry! His beautiful nonsense had offended her! Might he not have known that? What woman in the world was there who could have understood so well as to sympathise with the trick which he had played.
"If it has annoyed you," said he, "why did you come? Of course, I know it was unpardonable; but then, I thought you'd never know. I didn't understand how much a fabrication, an invention it was, until I heard that he was dying and wanted to see you before the end. It had been so easy to make up till then. I'd become infatuated with my own success. Then, when I got the letter from the doctor, I realised that I was done. I couldn't go to his death-bed, making up lies, giving him messages that had never passed your lips, never entered into your thoughts. I was done. And I hoped you'd understand. I hoped--like a fool, I suppose--that you wouldn't be offended."
"But I'm not offended."
He stared at her. Even St. Anthony stared, because St. Anthony does not know so much about women as you would expect. He knows full well their extraordinary valuation of trifles, but on serious matters such as these, he is as ignorant of them as the rest of us.
"You're not offended!" echoed John.
"No."
"Then why did you say I was wrong? Why did you say I ought not to have done it?"
"Because it was not fair to them. They might have found out. The little old white-haired lady may find out even now."
"Then you don't think it was unfair to you?"
"You thought I should?"
He nodded emphatically two or three times.
"That, I believe, is the way you judge women. That is why their actions are so incomprehensible to you. You form an opinion of them and then, naturally, everything they do seems a mystery, because you won't change your opinion. They're not the mystery. I assure you women are very simple. The mystery is that their actions don't conform with your pre-conceived opinion." She stumbled over those last big words. She was not quite sure of them. They sounded very large, moreover, they sounded as if they expressed what she felt. What they really meant was another matter. She could have told you nothing about that. That is not the way women choose their words.
"Well now," he said--"we must be going. Of course I haven't been, though I arrived last night. I counted on your coming."
"Yes," she whispered, "that's the wonderful part about you--you believe."
She thought of her father--she thought of the man with the brown beard like St. Joseph. They believed nothing until it was before their eyes. But a woman likes to be trusted, because at least, she means to do what she says; sometimes--God knows--she does it.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE PASSING
It was a greater ordeal than they knew of, for Death, though he is for ever in our midst, always covers his face, and you may never recognise the features until that last moment when, with the sweeping gesture of the arm, he throws aside the folds that enshroud him, and in his quiet voice, so low, yet so distinct, announces "It is finished."
At the opening of the little door, they beheld the dear old white-haired lady. Her arms fell about them both and, in her feeble way, she clasped them to her. It was not hysterical, not that cry of the witless woman who is faced with the stern matters of life and will lean upon any shoulder to support her weight. She was losing that which was hers alone, and these two, though she thought they belonged irrevocably to each other, belonged also in their way to her. They were all now that was left her.
"How is he?" asked John, as she led them down that vast chamber to the deep-set door which opened to the tiny bedroom.
"You're only just in time," she replied. "The priest is with him. It's just the end."
There was a true, a steady note of reconciliation in her voice. She knew and had accepted the inevitable with that silent courage which brave women have. You knew that there would be no sudden passionate outburst of cries and tears when at last it actually was all over. His time of departure had come. She recognised it; had faced it bravely for the last few days. On Claudina's ample bosom, the first wild torrent of weeping had been made; for your servant, your meanest slave is a woman when she understands in such moments as these. When her agony had passed, she had raised her head, brushed away the tears. With warm water, Claudina had bathed her eyes and then, bravely setting a smile upon her trembling lips, she had gone to watch by his bedside.
Gently, now, she opened the door and admitted them, then silently closed it behind her. The jalousies were closed. In faint bars of light, the sunshine stole into the room and lit it faintly as though stained through the amber-coloured glass of church windows. In a deep shadow, burnt the tiny flame of red upon their bedroom altar. Bowed humbly down before it, knelt the priest, whose even, muttered tones just stirred in a gentle vibration of sound as of some hive of bees muffled with a heavy cloth and, only with the sibilant lisping of the breath between his lips as he pronounced certain letters, did it seem that a man was speaking at all. It was all so quiet, so even, so monotonous, a gentle noise to waft a spirit to its last sleep.
In a dark corner of the room, away from the rest, almost lost in the shadow, knelt Claudina, her head bent low upon her breast, her shoulders gently lifting and falling in sobs that were tuned low to the silence. She did not look up as they entered. The priest did not move his head. It all continued, just as if nothing had happened and, lying still, inert upon the pillow, almost lost in the big bed, was that silent figure of the old white-haired gentleman, who never stirred, nor uttered any sound, as though the chanting of the priest had already lulled him to his infinite sleep.
They all knelt down by the bedside, buried their faces in their hands, and the chanting continued.
What thoughts passed through the minds of those two who knelt there, playing their part, acting the life which both of them knew could never be real, it would be impossible to say. In the face of death, the mind has such simple thoughts, that words can scarcely touch their expression. Remorse may have scourged them; it may have been that, in seeing the peaceful passing of his spirit, they were satisfied that what they did was for the best; or, in the deepest secrets of their hearts they may have been longing that it all were true. Yet, there they both knelt, with the little old white-haired lady by their side. For all the world you might have thought, as did all the others in the room, that they were husband and wife on the very threshold of that journey through the years of which this death-bed meeting was the gate where all must pass out into the land that is in the blue haze beyond.
Presently, the voice of the priest became silent. The heads of all sank lower in their hands as the Extreme Unction was given. God visits the earth in great silences. It was a wonderful silence then. The wine gurgling softly into the cup, the unfolding of the little napkin, the patten lying on the tongue, the last brave effort as the old gentleman swallowed the sacred bread, were all noises that thrilled and quivered in that silence.
Then it was all passed, all finished, the spirit cleansed, the last gentle confession made of such sins of thought and deed as a brave and generous gentleman is capable of. The priest rose to his feet and, taking his little vessels with him in their case, stole quietly from the room. A moment or so passed in still deeper silence. At last Claudina rose. She crossed herself as she passed the little altar, crept also to the door and went away.
Now the silence was still deeper than before, as though, in the mere functions of their living, these two had taken with them their disturbing elements of full-blooded life from this place where life was so fainting and so weak. When they had gone, the very vibrations of air seemed more still and a greater quietness fell with their absence.
And the three who remained, continued there motionless on their knees--motionless, until, in the midst of the silence, came the whispering of a tired voice--a voice, pronouncing with infinite difficulty, one, single word,
"John--John."
John knelt quickly upright. He stretched out his hand and found a hand to meet it, a hand that could not hold, that only lay in tender submission upon his own.
"Father," he said; and that, after all, is the only word that a son can say--father or mother--they are the last words left in the deepest heart of a man. He utters them, incoherently almost, when emotion is choking speech.
"Where is Jill?" the voice whispered again.
Jill crept round on her knees to his side. With one hand below in the darkness, John held hers. They clasped them and unclasped them as the sobs rose and broke silently in their throats.
The old gentleman's eyes took a light into them, as he saw their heads together by his bedside. With a great effort, he strained himself to rise upon one elbow in the bed and, laying the other hand upon their heads, he whispered that blessing which it has been in the power of the father to give from time immemorial.
"God bless you," he whispered. "Make your lives out of love, as I have made mine. Make your children out of love, as I have made mine. Make your work out of love--as I have made mine."
His voice burnt low, but yet it burnt. The flame of it was there. It seared into the very hearts of them. Jill's fingers lay in John's as a bird that is starved and cold, lies limply in the hand that succours it. Her cheeks were ashen white. Her eyes stared wildly before her at the pattern on the counter-pane and tears rolled from them without heed or stay.
The moments passed then, as the old gentleman leant back upon his pillows. Without moving, they stayed there with heads bowed down before him. At last, he moved again. His hand stretched out once more and felt for John's.
"God bless you my boy," he said, as his son bent over him. "You've made us very happy. You've set your life just as we could wish. Now do your work. I expect I shall hear how you get on. They won't keep that from me. They'll let me see your first happy ending. It's the only way to end--like this. Now kiss me--you don't mind--this time--do you?"
John kissed him, as pilgrims kiss the feet of God.
"And tell me----" the old gentleman whispered. He paused to breathe as the thought came swiftly on him. "Tell me--why did you kiss me--on the forehead--that night--a year ago?"
"I'd seen you in the Treasure Shop, sir--and I----" the words wrestled in his throat--"I thought you were the finest man I'd ever known."
The old gentleman lay back again upon his pillows. The light of a great pride was flashing in his eyes. His son had called him--sir. That was all. Yet in that moment, he felt like a Viking being borne out upon his burning ship into the sea of noble burial. His son had called him, sir. He lay still, listening to the great sound of it, as it trumpeted triumphantly in his ears. His son, who was going to be far greater than he had ever been, whose work was above and beyond all work that he had ever done--his son had called him--sir.
Then, for some time, everything was still once more. They bent their heads again within their hands. At last, the little old white-haired lady, like