CHAPTER XLV
Wherein a Poet burns his Verse to keep his Feet Warm
Inthe waning of a bleak March day, Betty walked briskly home to her rooms. It was the eve of her marriage. Noll and she were to go to Paris straight from the ceremony. Betty had the tickets for the journey in her pocket. Horace had secured them lodgings.
When the girl had entered the house, mounting the stairs to her attic, she felt a pang. She was going to a glorious life, and leaving the old home to increasing dinginess—it would become shabbier and more shabby; whilst she—stepped it blithely to the seven heavens.
And the little faded Miss Flora! Who was to tend her?...
The mirth went out of her heart.
Someone must always suffer.
She stopped at the door, and knocked.
She had some flowers at her belt—she would leave them for the little lady—she must see her again before she went. More——
She must break the tidings.
She knocked again—the knock of indecision.
Not a sound.
She opened the door gently, and entered.
In the room, in her old-world taffeta-covered chair, before the fire, very still, sat Miss Flora Jennyns; and the girl knew by the quick instinct within her that Death waited at the window.
About the narrow shoulders was drawn the India shawl, the weary hand holding the overlapping ends at the withered throat; and on the third finger of the hand was the ring of splendid jewels that sparkled in paint in the picture beyond her.
Here was the picture—grown old—vanishing.
And the old shoe that peeped from the crumpled threadbare skirts upon the quaint old wool-worked footstool—ah, how shabby! worn with careful brushings—of what gentle uncomplaining penury were these things not sign and emblem!
So she sat, fading away in the winter’s light, her dying eyes on the fire’s warmth, and her lips smiling on her little triumphs of long ago—a little withered roseleaf, blown across the footlights of the world’s rude theatre.
Betty ran to her, knelt down beside her, and touched the pale white hand that lay upon the chair’s arm:
“Miss Flora!” she whispered in a strange wonder and alarm.
“Mother of God!” the old lady’s lips murmured—“the child is come!”
She smiled; put out her slender bloodless fingers, and placed them upon the girl’s fresh brown hair:
“Dear sweet heart!” said she—“in my love for thee, and in thy gentleness to me, I have known something of motherhood.... I have not—been—wholly—barren.”
Betty took the bloodless hand between hers, kissed it and chafed it. It was very cold. She could not speak for tears.
The old eyes smiled upon the girl. After a while the dying poetess added:
“Nor have I been wholly alone.”
She sighed; and, with a smile, she died.
Betty, her eyes filled with tears, put out her dainty milk-white hand, with rosy fingers, to the dead eyelids and drew down the blinds that curtained the windows of the departed soul.
In the deepening dusk, Betty went out to find Eustace Lovegood.... She mounted the bare creaking stairs to his lodgings, and reaching his high attic, was glad to hear his deep-voiced growl to enter at her knocking.
The big man, in a threadbare dressing-gown, arose, with his wonted grand manner, to welcome her; and when he saw who was his visitor his heavy face was lighted with a smile:
“Mistress Betty!” said he—“by all that’s charming!”
He came to her and, the greetings over, with courtly etiquette led her to his chair—it was the only one in all the bare room.
“You look serious,” he said—“sit down and tell me.”
Betty hesitated:
“There is something on fire—a smell of paper burning,” she said.
Lovegood laughed his big laugh:
“I am making coffee,” he said.
She saw that the kettle in the narrow fireplace was being heated by burning balls of crumpled manuscript.
“But why do you heat the kettle with paper?” she asked.
He smiled drily:
“Ah, Betty—you push me to the extremity of truth. Well, it is because I have nothing else to burn.... Only my rejected poems. And I am badly in need of the coffee. The weather is very severe.”
Betty’s eyes filled with tears:
“I am sorry,” she said.
“Tut, tut! you mustn’t damp the spirits of the kettle, Betty—it begins to boil.... Wonderfully heating thing—poetry!”
He went to the kettle.
“You shall have first brew,” he added—“that you may never again despise coffee warmed by the passionate glow of verse....There is a dearth of cups—and my landlady has a gouty leg—and the journeyings of the little maid-of-all-work make my heart ache—but I usurp the news.”
As the big man busied himself with his hospitalities, Betty told him of her errand—begged him to come back with her and give his counsel and aid.
He was for going straight away; but she insisted on sitting there until he had drunk his coffee.
At the threshold, across the steps of the house, in the twilight of the silent street, lay the dead body of the Man of Pallid Ideals—a nosegay of pale flowers near his gloved hand, his white face turned upwards to the still skies, lit by the pale light of the mystic moon.
He had seen the drawn blinds—guessed their significance—gone to her doors, stunned with dread—fallen in the moment of his last act of homage....