Chapter 9

Dora got up and strolled on to her balcony. The last attempt had apparently been unsuccessful, for Claude was starting again, and next moment with great strides his long legs were taking him across the grass that sloped down to the lake. This time it looked as if he would easily succeed, for the sixth leap had taken him well beyond the half-distance. The eleventh took him within a couple of yards of the edge, and next moment Dora joined in the shout of laughter that came from Jim. For it had not apparently occurred to Claude what happened next, if you leap at top speed to the margin of a lake. But he knew now, as he vanished in a fountain of spray. It was the deep end of the lake too.

Jim had collapsed altogether on the ground by the time Claude swam to shore, and Dora was equally helpless on the balcony, but by the time the involuntary bather had wrung his clothes out, Jim had recovered sufficiently to find the shilling he had lost to him.

“Oh! it was cheap at the price,” he said. “I wish it had been a florin.”

Claude walked up the terrace to the house, leaving a trail of water on the paving stones, and in a moment his dressing room door opened with a crack, and a head and naked shoulder came round the corner.

“Darling! I’ve been making a fool of myself,” he said“I must change first, and then shall I come in to read to you?”

“Yes, do,” she said, still laughing. “I saw it. I thought I should have a fit. Can’t you do it again before you change? It was too heavenly.”

“Yes, if you wish,” said he. “But I shall have to put on my wet clothes again.”

She laughed again.

“No, there would be no ‘first fine careless rapture’ the second time,” she said.

“What’s that?” asked Claude.

“Nothing. Browning. Change, and then come and read to me.”

It was not long before he joined her, and seated himself on the floor by the side of the sofa where she lay, with his back against it. The book he was reading was “Esmond,” and that evening they came to the chapter in which Harry comes home, on December 29th, and goes to the service in Winchester Cathedral. And Claude read:

“‘She gave him her hand, her little fair hand: there was only her marriage ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief and estrangement had passed. They had never been separated.’”

Dora’s hand lay on her husband’s arm, and he felt a soft pressure of her fingers.

“Oh, Claude,” she said, “how nice! He was so faithful and patient, and it all came right.”

He let the book fall to the ground. As soon as she spoke he ceased to think of Esmond, and though Dora’s words referred to him, she was not thinking of him either.

“‘They had never been separated,’”she went on, still quoting, but still not thinking of the book. “They hadn’t really been separated, because their love was present all the time, but she had let it get covered up with irritation and impatience. Was it like that it happened?”

“I can’t remember,” he said, “indeed I cannot. Everything seems unreal that isn’t perfect.”

“And there is something more coming,” she said, “coming soon, perhaps in a few days now. So to-night, dear, let us talk a little instead of reading even that beautiful chapter. I am glad we got to it to-day. I like stopping just at those very words, and I want you to tell me just once, what really I know so well, that you feel as if we had never been separated, that you forgive all my stupidity and shallowness. I want to let it all pass from my mind for ever: to know that I needn’t ever reproach myself any more. I think I have learned my lesson: I do indeed. Just tell me, if you can, that you think I have!”

He had turned himself about as she spoke, and now instead of sitting he knelt by her side, she leaning on her elbow toward him. In the humility of the simple words, there was something exquisite to him, they flooded his heart with a tender protectiveness.

“Oh, my darling, you say that to me! Indeed, indeed, I never reproached you.”

Dora was still grave.

“I know that,” she said, “but I reproached myself. How could I help it? But, Claude, the sting has gone out of my self-reproach. I can’t help it: it has. You have to tell me, if you truly can, that I needn’t barb it again.”

He saw she wanted the direct answer.

“You need not,” he said. “And I think you cannot. You can’t make an old bruise ache again when it is well.”

“Then it has gone,” she said. “Pull me up, dear, with those strong hands.”

He raised her to her feet, and she clung to him a moment.

“Oh, Claude! it is getting near the best time of all,” she said. “Your mother once told me that to bear a child was the best thing God ever thought of for women. Oh dear! and she was so funny at tea. Dad said something about a foreman he had discharged with nine children and another coming, and she pulled him up. How beautifully laughter and the biggest things in the world go together. They don’t interfere with one another in the least.”

“Lord! and to think that once I used to believe you weren’t respectful enough to Dad and her,” said he.

“And you were quite right. I can laugh at them now I love them. It’s that which makes the difference.”

She strolled to the window.

“Let’s come out on the balcony for a little,” she said. “What an evening!”

The sun had set, but not long, and in the west a flash of molten red lay along the horizon. That melted into orange, which again faded into pale green. Higher up the sky was of velvet blue, and little wisps of feathery cloud flushed with rose colour were flecked over it. The stars were already lit, and some noble planet near to its setting flamed jewel-like in that green strip of sky. Already the colours were half withdrawn from the gardenbeds, but a hint of the flower presences came to them in the little fragrant breeze that fluttered moth-like in the stillness. Beyond lay the lake, screened from the glory of sunset by the tall clumps of rhododendrons on its far side, and in the shadow the water was dark and steel-like in tone. Birds still chuckled in the bushes, and from far away came the pulse of some hurrying train. And in the hush and quiet of the hour they spoke together of the dear event that was coming and would not be long delayed.

“So I wanted,” she said at last, “to clear everything off my mind which could make me look backward. I want nothing to exist for me except you and our love for each other. Even Dad and Mother must get a little dim. I can’t explain.”

“I think I understand very well,” said he.

“And you won’t be frightened for me, Claude?” she asked. “Yet I needn’t ask you. I saw what you were when mother was ill.”

He did not answer.

“What then, dear?” asked Dora.

“Well, it’s you, you see, now,” he said. “I can’t help it. But I’ll do my best.”

A week more passed quietly enough. Lady Austell arrived, and that somehow was the last straw for Uncle Alf, for she was so extraordinarily appropriate, and he persuaded Jim to come back to Richmond with him. Lady Austell had very thoughtfully let the house at Deal most advantageously for the whole month of September, and intended to have a nice long stay at Grote. Really it was quite too wonderful that Dora’s baby should be born at Grote. It was a clear case of special Providence.

Then came a day when the house was very still, and the hot hours passed with leaden foot. To Claude it seemed that the morning would never pass to noon, and when noon was over each hour the more seemed an eternity twice told. But just before sunset there was heard the cry of a child.

Later, he was allowed to see Dora for a moment, and in a cot by her bed, tiny and red and crumpled, lay that which had come into the world.

“Oh Claude!” she said softly, as he came up to her bed, “all three of us—you and your son and I.”

THE END

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THE MESSAGE.Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.

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SAUL OF TARSUS. By Elizabeth Miller. Illustrated by André Castaigne.

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THE MASTERLY AND REALISTIC NOVELS OF

FRANK NORRIS

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GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, — New York

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