"Dear Pam,"—she began abruptly—"I am going away with Victor Joyselle. I wonder if you will blame me? In case you do, here is my only defence. I hate my present life, I am miserable without Joyselle, and he is miserable without me. My mother, with whom I have been on fairly decent terms since Tommy has been ill, is hopeless. Gerald Carron shot himself to-day, and mother, just, I honestly believe, to indulge her own taste for sentimental scenes, turned on me about him and pretended to believe a story he told her just before I left Pont Street—that I was Joyselle's mistress, in fact. If she believed the story I would forgive her, though it is not true, but I cannot forgive the kind of mind that can amuse itself with such vulgar melodrama. I have always disliked my mother, and now I simply cannot bear her any longer."And I have no other ties except Tommy. Tommy, to whom I shall write before long, is nearly well. He will be forbidden to come to see me, but he will come, and I do not think it will hurt him."As to Théo, Pam, I am deeply grieved. He is a remarkably nice young man, but I cannot marry him, and the mere fact of his father's loving me will not much hurt him. Whatever his father does, Théo in the long run thinks right, and he, too, will forgive us."Then there is poor Félicité. She has been very kind to me, but she has been stupid and over-self-confident, and I cannot consider her. I must consider him. She will suffer and I am indeed sorry, poor soul, but he—he shall be happy. So good-bye, Pam. Remember your own father and mother, and understand. We go to Paris by the eleven o'clock train to-morrow, and thence—to Arcadia, as your people used to say. My love to you.Brigit."
"Dear Pam,"—she began abruptly—"I am going away with Victor Joyselle. I wonder if you will blame me? In case you do, here is my only defence. I hate my present life, I am miserable without Joyselle, and he is miserable without me. My mother, with whom I have been on fairly decent terms since Tommy has been ill, is hopeless. Gerald Carron shot himself to-day, and mother, just, I honestly believe, to indulge her own taste for sentimental scenes, turned on me about him and pretended to believe a story he told her just before I left Pont Street—that I was Joyselle's mistress, in fact. If she believed the story I would forgive her, though it is not true, but I cannot forgive the kind of mind that can amuse itself with such vulgar melodrama. I have always disliked my mother, and now I simply cannot bear her any longer.
"And I have no other ties except Tommy. Tommy, to whom I shall write before long, is nearly well. He will be forbidden to come to see me, but he will come, and I do not think it will hurt him.
"As to Théo, Pam, I am deeply grieved. He is a remarkably nice young man, but I cannot marry him, and the mere fact of his father's loving me will not much hurt him. Whatever his father does, Théo in the long run thinks right, and he, too, will forgive us.
"Then there is poor Félicité. She has been very kind to me, but she has been stupid and over-self-confident, and I cannot consider her. I must consider him. She will suffer and I am indeed sorry, poor soul, but he—he shall be happy. So good-bye, Pam. Remember your own father and mother, and understand. We go to Paris by the eleven o'clock train to-morrow, and thence—to Arcadia, as your people used to say. My love to you.Brigit."
Re-reading this letter, which she was far too self-engrossed to consider selfish, Brigit addressed it.
Then she looked over her clothes, packed them in three boxes, one of which she labelled, "To be called for," the other two of which were to go with her.
It was long after one when she had finished her work and sat down to rest. She was not tired, nor did she feel any special excitement. It had happened, that was all, and it seemed to her that she had always foreseen this night, with its letter writing and packing.
To-morrow at this time they, she and Victor, would be in Paris. And then they would go—where-ever he chose. She did not care.
And, although she did not know it, this unformulated mental attitude was the first sign in her of any approach to an unselfish love.
Through the long hours she sat in her brilliantly lighted little sitting-room, waiting for day. At five o'clock she switched off the electricity and opened the blinds. A wan light came in.
"It is day. It isto-day," she told herself aloud, her beautiful mouth quivering with happiness. "In four hours he will come."
She made herself a cup of tea and then lay down on the sofa where her mother had lain the day before, and went to sleep.
She dreamed that she stood in a sloping, very green meadow; in the distance a flock of dingy sheep browsed, and some invisible person was playing a pipe! "Il etait une bergère hé ron, ron, ron,"—it was the nursery song Joyselle had played to Tommy when the little boy was ill. She smiled and moved her head.
Then suddenly she was awake, and Théo stood before her. "Brigit," he said quietly, "my mother is dead. Will you come to father?"
Félicité had died in her sleep beside her husband. An hour before he had waked, and, lying quietly by her, thinking no doubt of the woman for whom he was going to desert her, he had by chance touched her hand as it lay on the counterpane, with the shabby black rosary in it, and—the hand was cold.
They had not called a doctor, for there was no doubt that she was dead, and she had hated doctors. She had been very happy the day before, and in the evening she had asked Joyselle to play to her, a thing she very rarely did. He had played, they had drunk some Norman cider, and gone to bed early.
"Father was tired," Théo added, as the hansom stopped.
Brigit dared not speak. Could it be that Joyselle had told her, after they had gone to their room? He would have had to tell her either then or the next day—to-day. He had not feared to tell her, for his delirium was such that he feared nothing, and besides, she was always very gentle.
"She will understand," he had told Brigit, "that I cannot help it."
Had he told her? Had the last beats of that gentle heart been unhappy ones, or had the Madonna, to whom she prayed with such simple confidence, spared her that supreme shock, and allowed her to die happy, with her man beside her?
"Father has not spoken since—since the first," Théo whispered as they crept up the stairs. "I—he rather frightens me."
The door of Félicité's room was closed, and for several seconds Brigit dared not open it. Then, very softly, she turned the handle, and motioning Théo not to follow her, went in.
On the bed, the counterpane drawn smoothly over it, the little figure, with the rosary still between its fingers; and kneeling by the pillow, his silvery hair flowing forward, Joyselle.
He started on hearing the door open, and after a pause, rose.
"She is dead," he said slowly. "My wife is dead."
Brigit caught at a chair as she saw his face, for it was the face of an old man, blanched and wrinkled and hollow-eyed.
"My wife is dead," he repeated.
Then he turned to the table, and seeing her shabby old red-lined work-basket, took it up and held it to his breast.
As he stood, his back to her, as to one who did not belong there, who was an intruder, he began to cry, great slow tears dropping into the basket, wetting the red lining, and, no doubt, rusting the very needle she had used yesterday.
Brigit saw his face in the glass.
"Oh, Victor," she faltered, her hands clasped.
He turned and pointed to the bed.
"You will excuse me," he said, with an evident effort to be polite, "but I cannot talk. My wife is dead."
And the girl turned and crept from the room. She understood. And she left him as he wished, alone with his wife, who was dead.
Going quietly downstairs, she went to the nearest flower shop and bought a great mass of the yellow-crumple-leaved roses that Joyselle had once told her grew in Normandy.
Then she went back to Golden Square.
"He will not leave her, Brigitte," Théo told her as he met her on the stairs, "and the doctor is troubled about him. He says—the shock has been almost too great for—for his mind. I—I knew he loved her—oh,petite mère chérie—but I never knew how much. Ah, my dear, they had grown together in the twenty-six years they were man and wife, and now she has left him——" The young man put his arm on the balustrade and wept quite simply and unrestrainedly.
Joyselle, who was sitting by his wife, looked up when Brigit entered with the roses, but he did not speak.
"I have brought these—forher—Beau-papa," the girl faltered, and he rose.
"Thank you. Yes, she loved roses—ma Félicité."
Brigit noticed, with a thrill of horror, remembering what the doctor had said, that he spoke not quite distinctly; his tongue was a little thick.
"Let us," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, "thank God that she died so happily, with you by her side."
He passed his hand over his forehead where the halo of hair lay so untidy.
"Yes. Let us thank God. You see,ma fille—I have not been a good man. I have loved many women—or thought I did. I have betrayed her love for me; I have—enfin, I have not been good. But—it all meant nothing. She was the bride of my youth, the companion of my—of my young manhood." He stammered again, and went on with the slight difficulty she had noticed before, "and—I know now that after all, and in spite of all, I have loved only her.Félicité, ma vieille, tu m'entends?"
He laid the roses on the pillow near her little peaceful face, and then sat down again.
"My wife is—dead," he added.
THE END.