How the world is made for each of us!How all we perceive and know in itTends to some moment's product thus,When a soul declares itself—to wit,By its fruit the thing it does!Robert Browning.
How the world is made for each of us!How all we perceive and know in itTends to some moment's product thus,When a soul declares itself—to wit,By its fruit the thing it does!Robert Browning.
How the world is made for each of us!How all we perceive and know in itTends to some moment's product thus,When a soul declares itself—to wit,By its fruit the thing it does!Robert Browning.
How the world is made for each of us!
How all we perceive and know in it
Tends to some moment's product thus,
When a soul declares itself—to wit,
By its fruit the thing it does!
Robert Browning.
The carriage rolled on its way through the snow to St. John's Wood, while its two occupants sat side by side in silence. Now that they had set out, each felt the hopelessness of the errand on which they were bound, to which only that first stifling moment of horror, that absolute need of action, had prompted them.
The brougham stopped in the road before the gate of The Sycamores.
"We had better walk up the drive," said Lord Watergate, and opened the carriage door.
By this time the snow lay deep on the road and the roofs of the houses; the trees looked mere blotches of greyish-white, seen through the rapid whirl of falling flakes, which it made one giddy to contemplate.
"A terrible night for a journey," thought Lord Watergate, as he opened the big gate; but he said nothing, fearing to arouse false hopes in the breast of his companion.
They wound together up the drive, the dark mass of the house partly hidden by the curving, laurel-lined path, and further obscured by the veil of falling snow.
Then, suddenly, something pierced through Gertrude's numbness; she stopped short.
"Look!" she cried, beneath her breath.
They were now in full sight of the house. The upper windows were dark; the huge windows of the studio were shuttered close, but through the chinks were visible lines and points of mellow light.
Lord Watergate laid his hand on her arm. He thought: "That is just like Darrell, to have doubled back. But even then we may be too late."
He said: "Miss Lorimer, if they are there, what are you going to do?"
"I am going to tell my sister that she has been deceived, and to bring her home with me."
Gertrude spoke very low, but without hesitation. Somewhere, in the background of her being, sorrow, and shame, and anger were lurking; at present she was keenly conscious of nothing but an irresistible impulse to action.
"That she has been deceived!" Lord Watergate turned away his face. Had Phyllis, indeed, been deceived, and was it not a fool's errand on which they were bent?
They mounted the steps, and he rang the bell; then, by the light of the hanging lamp, while the snow swirled round and fell upon them both, he looked into her white, tense face.
"Do not hope for anything. It is most probable that they are not there."
A long, breathless moment, then the door was thrown open, revealing the solemn manservant standing out against the lighted vestibule.
"I wish to see Mr. Darrell," said Lord Watergate, shortly.
"He's not at home, your lordship."
Gertrude pressed her hand to her heart.
"He is at home to me, as you perfectly well know."
"He has gone abroad, your lordship."
Gertrude swayed forward a little, steadying herself against the lintel, where she stood in darkness behind Lord Watergate.
"There are lights in the studio, and you must let me in," said Lord Watergate, sternly.
The man's face betrayed him.
"I shall lose my place, my lord."
"I am sorry for you, Shaw. You had better make off, and leave the responsibility with me."
The man wavered, took the coin from Lord Watergate's hand, then, turning, went slowly back to his own quarters.
Gertrude came forward into the light.
"You must not come in, Lord Watergate."
Her mind worked with curious rapidity; she saw that a meeting between the two men must be avoided.
"I cannot let you go alone. You do not know——"
"I am prepared for anything. Lord Watergate, spare my sister's shame."
She had passed him, with set, tragic face. He saw the slim, rapid figure, in the black, snow-covered dress, make its way down the passage, then disappear behind the curtain which guarded the entrance to the studio.
Gertrude had entered noiselessly, and, pausing on the threshold, hidden in shadow, remained there motionless a moment's space.
Every detail of the great room, seen but once before, smote on her sense with a curious familiarity. It had been wintry daylight on the occasion of her former presence there; now a mellow radiance of shaded, artificial light was diffused throughout the apartment, a radiance concentrated to subdued brilliance in the immediate neighbourhood of the fireplace.
A wood fire, with leaping blue flames, was piled on the hearth, its light flickering fitfully on the surrounding objects; on the tiger-skin rug, the tall, rich screen of faded Spanish leather; on Darrell himself, who lounged on a low couch, his blonde head outlined against the screen, a cloud of cigarette smoke issuing from his lips, as he looked from under his eye-lids at the figure before him.
It was Phyllis who stood there by the little table, on which lay some fruit and some coffee, in rose-coloured cups. Phyllis, yet somebody new and strange; not the pretty child that her sisters had loved, but a beautiful wanton in a loose, trailing garment, shimmering, wonderful, white and lustrous as a pearl; Phyllis, with her brown hair turned to gold in the light of the lamp swung above her; Phyllis, with diamonds on the slender fingers, that played with a cluster of bloom-covered grapes.
For a moment, the warmth, the overpowering fragrance of hot-house flowers, most of all, the sight of that figure by the table, had robbed Gertrude of power to move or speak. But in her heart the storm, which had been silently gathering, was growing ready to burst. For the time, the varied emotions which devoured her had concentrated themselves into a white heat of fury, which kindled all her being.
The flames leapt, the logs crackled pleasantly. Darrell blew a whiff of smoke to the ceiling; Phyllis smiled, then suddenly into that bright scene glided a black and rigid figure, with glowing eyes and tragic face; with the snow sprinkled on the oldcloak, and clinging in the wisps of wind-blown hair.
"Phyllis," it said in level tones; "come home with me at once. Mr. Darrell cannot marry you; he is married already."
Phyllis shrank back, with a cry.
"Oh, Gerty, how you frightened me! What do you mean by coming down on one like this?"
Her voice shook, through its petulance; she whisked round so suddenly that her long dress caught in the little table, which fell to the ground with a crash.
Darrell had sprung to his feet with an exclamation. "By God, what brings that woman here!"
Gertrude turned and faced him.
His face was livid with passion; his prominent eyes, for once wide open, glared at her in rage and hatred.
Gertrude met his glance with eyes that glowed with a passion yet fiercer than his own.
Elements, long smouldering, had blazed forth at last. Face to face they stood; face to face, while the silent battle raged between them.
Then with a curious elation, a mightythrob of what was almost joy, Gertrude knew that she, not he, the man of whom she had once been afraid, was the stronger of the two. For one brief moment some fierce instinct in her heart rejoiced.
Phyllis, cowering in the background, Phyllis, pale as her splendid dress, shrank back, mystified, afraid. Her light soul shivered before the blast of passions in which, though she had helped to raise them, she felt herself to have no part nor lot.
Reckoned by time, the encounter of those two hostile spirits was but brief; a moment, and Darrell had dropped his eyes, and was saying in something like his own languid voice—
"To what may I ascribe this—honour?"
Gertrude turned in silence to her sister—
"Take off that——" (she indicated the shimmering garment with a pause), "and come with me."
Darrell sneered from the background; "Your sister has decided on remaining here."
"Phyllis!" said Gertrude, looking at her.
Phyllis began to sob.
"Oh, Gerty, what shall I do? Don't lookat me like that. My dress is there behind the screen; and my hat. Oh, Gerty, I shall never get it on; I am so much taller."
With rapid fingers Gertrude had unfastened her own long, black cloak, and was wrapping it about her sister.
"Great heavens," cried Darrell, coming forward and seizing her hands; "You shall not take her away! You have no earthly right to take her against her will."
With a cold fury of disgust she shook off his touch.
"Oh, Sidney, I think I'd better go. I oughtn't to have come." Phyllis' voice sounded touchingly childish.
Something in the pleading tones stirred his blood curiously.
"Do you know," he cried, addressing himself to Gertrude, who was deliberately drawing the rings from her sister's passive hands, "Do you know what a night it is? That if you take her away you will kill her? Great God, you paragon of virtue, don't you see how ill she is?"
She swept her glance over him in icy disdain; then going up to the mantelpiece, laid the rings on the shelf.
"I swear to you," he cried, "that I will leave the house this hour, this minute. That I will never return to it; that I will never see her again—Phyllis!"
At the last word, his voice had dropped to a low and passionate key; he stretched out his arms, but Gertrude coming between them put her strong desperate grasp about Phyllis, who swayed forward with closed eyes. Darrell retreated with a muffled exclamation of grief and rage and baffled purpose, and Gertrude half led, half carried her sister from the room, the hateful satin garment trailing noisily behind them from beneath the black cloak.
A tall figure came forward from the doorway; the door was standing open; and the white whirlpool was visible against the darkness outside.
"She has fainted," said Gertrude, in a low voice.
Lord Watergate lifted her gently in his arms. At the same moment Darrell emerged from the studio, then remained rooted to the spot, dismayed and sullen, at the sight of his friend.
"You are a scoundrel, Darrell," said Lord Watergate, in very clear, deliberate tones;then, his burden in his arms, he stepped out into the darkness, Gertrude closing the door behind them.
Half an hour later the brougham stopped before the house in Upper Baker Street.
Lord Watergate, when he had carried the fainting girl upstairs, went himself for a doctor.
"I think I have killed her," said Gertrude, before he went, looking up at him from over the prostrate figure of her sister; "and if it were all to be done again—I would do it."
Mrs. Maryon asked no questions; her genuine kindness and helpfulness were called forth by this crisis; and her suspicions of Gertrude had vanished for ever.
A riddle that one shrinksTo challenge from the scornful sphinx.D. G. Rossetti.
A riddle that one shrinksTo challenge from the scornful sphinx.D. G. Rossetti.
A riddle that one shrinksTo challenge from the scornful sphinx.D. G. Rossetti.
A riddle that one shrinks
To challenge from the scornful sphinx.
D. G. Rossetti.
The doctor's verdict was unhesitating enough. Phyllis's doom, as more than one who knew her foresaw, was sealed. The shock and the exposure had only hastened an end which for long had been inevitable. Consumption, complicated with heart disease, both in advanced stages, held her in their grasp; added to these, a severe bronchial attack had set in since the night of the snowstorm, and her life might be said to hang by a thread. It might be a matterof days, said the cautious physician, of weeks, or even months.
"Would a journey to the south, at an earlier stage of her illness, have availed to save her?" Gertrude asked, with white, mechanical lips.
It was possible, was the answer, that it would have prolonged her life. But almost from the first, it seemed, the shadow of the grave must have rested on this beautiful human blossom.
"Death in her face," muttered Mrs. Maryon, grimly; "I saw it there, I have always seen it."
Meanwhile, people came and went in Upper Baker Street; sympathetic, inquisitive, bustling.
Fanny, dismayed and tearful, appeared daily at the invalid's bedside, laden with grapes and other delicacies.
"Poor old Fan," said Phyllis; "how shocked she would be if she knew everything. Don't you think it is your duty, Gerty, to Mr. Marsh, to let him know?"
Aunt Caroline drove across from Lancaster Gate, rebuke implied in every fold of her handsome dress.
"I cannot think," she remarked to herfriends, "how Gertrude could have reconciled such culpable neglect of that poor child's health to her conscience."
Gertrude avoided her aunt, saying to herself, in the bitterness of her humiliation: "It is the Aunt Carolines of this world who are right. I ought to have listened to her. She understood human nature better than I."
The Devonshires, who had not long returned from Germany, were unremitting in their kindness, the slackened bonds between the two families growing tight once more in this hour of need.
Lord Watergate made regular inquiries in Baker Street. Gertrude found his presence more endurable than that of the people with whom she had to dissemble; he knew her secret; it was safe with him and she was almost glad that he knew it.
Gertrude had written a brief note to Lucy, telling her that Phyllis was very ill, but urging her to remain a week, at least, in Cornwall.
"She will need all the strength she can get up," thought Gertrude. She herself was performing prodigies of work without any conscious effort.
Frozen, tense, silent, she vibrated between the studio and the sick-room, moving as if in obedience to some hidden mechanism, a creature apparently without wants, emotions, or thoughts.
She had gathered from Phyllis' cynically frank remarks, that it was by the merest chance she had not been too late and that Darrell had returned to The Sycamores.
"We were going to cross on our way to Italy that very night," Phyllis said. "We drove to Charing Cross, and then the snow began to fall, and I had such a fit of coughing that Sidney was frightened, and took me home to St. John's Wood."
Gertrude, who had received these confidences in silence, turned her head away with an involuntary, instinctive movement of repugnance at the mention of Darrell's Christian name.
"Gerty," said Phyllis, who lay back among the pillows, a white ghost with two burning red spots on her cheeks, "Gerty, it is only fair that I should tell you: Sidney isn't as bad as you think. He went away in the summer, because he was beginning to care about me too much; he only came back because he simply couldn'thelp himself. And—and, you will go out of the room and never speak to me again—I knew he had a wife, Gerty; I heard them talking about her at the Oakleys, the very first day I saw him. She was his model; she drinks like a fish, and is ten years older than he is——I put that in the letter about getting married, because I didn't quite know how to say it. I thought that very likely you knew."
Gertrude had walked to the window, and was pulling down the blind with stiff, blundering fingers. It was growing dusk and in less than half an hour Lucy would be home. It was just a week since she had set out for Cornwall.
"Shall you tell Lucy?" came the childish voice from among the pillows.
"I don't know. Lie still, Phyllis, and I will see if Mrs. Maryon has prepared the jelly for you."
"Kind old thing, Mrs. Maryon."
"Yes, indeed. She quite ignores the fact that we have no possible claim on her."
Gertrude met Mrs. Maryon on the dusky stairs, dish in hand.
"Do go and lie down, Miss Lorimer; orwe shall have you knocked up too, and where should we be then? You mustn't let Miss Lucy see you like that."
Gertrude obeyed mechanically. Going into the sitting-room, she threw herself on the little hard sofa, her face pressed to the pillow.
She must have fallen into a doze, for the next thing of which she was aware was Lucy's voice in her ear, and opening her eyes she saw Lucy bending over her, candle in hand.
"Have you seen her?" she asked, sitting up with a dazed air.
"I am back this very minute. Gertrude, what have you been doing to yourself?"
"Oh, I am all right." She rose with a little smile. "Let me look at you, Lucy. Actually roses on your cheek."
"Gertrude, Gertrude, what has happened to you? Have I come—Oh, Gerty, have I come too late?"
"No," said Gertrude, "but she is very ill."
Lucy put her arms round her sister.
"And I have left you alone through these days. Oh, my poor Gerty."
They went upstairs together, and Lucypassed into the invalid's room, Gertrude remaining in the outer apartment, which was her own.
In about ten minutes Lucy came out sobbing. "Oh, Phyllis, Phyllis," she wept below her breath.
Gertrude, paler than ever, rose without a word, and went into the sick-room.
"Poor old Lucy, she looked as if she were going to cry. I asked her if she had any message for Frank," said Phyllis, as her sister sat down beside her, and adjusted the lamp.
"You are over-exciting yourself. Lie still, Phyllis."
"But, Gerty, I feel ever so much better to-night."
Silence. Gertrude sewed, and the invalid lay with closed eyes, but the flutter of the long lashes told that she was not asleep.
"Gerty!" In about half an hour the grey eyes had unclosed, and were fixed widely on her sister's face.
"What is it?"
"Gerty, am I really going to die?"
"You are very ill," said Gertrude, in a low voice.
"But to die—it seems so impossible, so difficult, somehow. Frank died; that was wonderful enough; but oneself!"
"Oh, my child," broke from Gertrude's lips.
"Don't be sorry. I have never been a nice person, but I don't funk somehow. I ought to, after being such a bad lot, but I don't. Gerty!"
"What is it?"
"Gerty, you have always been good to me; this last week as well. But that is the worst of you good people; you are hard as stones. You bring me jelly; you sit up all night with me—but you have never forgiven me. You know that is the truth."
Gertrude knelt by the bedside, a great compunction in her heart; she put her hand on that of Phyllis, who went on—
"And there is something I should wish to tell you. I am glad you came and fetched me away. The very moment I saw your angry, white face, and your old clothes with the snow on, I was glad. It is funny, if one comes to think of it. I was frightened, but I was glad."
Gertrude's head drooped lower and lower over the coverlet; her heart, which had beenfrozen within her, melted. In an agony of love, of remorse, she stretched out her arms, while her sobs came thick and fast, and gathered the wasted figure to her breast.
"Oh, Phyllis, oh, my child; who am I to forgive you? Is it a question of forgiveness between us? Oh, Phyllis, my little Phyllis, have you forgotten how I love you?"
Just as another woman sleeps.D. G. Rossetti.
Just as another woman sleeps.D. G. Rossetti.
Just as another woman sleeps.D. G. Rossetti.
Just as another woman sleeps.
D. G. Rossetti.
It was not till a week or two later that Gertrude brought herself to tell Lucy what had happened during her absence. It was a bleak afternoon in the beginning of December; in the next room lay Phyllis, cold and stiff and silent for ever; and Lucy was drearily searching in a cupboard for certain mourning garments which hung there. But suddenly, from the darkness of the lowest shelf, something shone up at her, a white, shimmering object, lying coiled there like a snake.
It was Phyllis's splendid satin gown,which Gertrude had flung there on the fateful night, and, from sheer repugnance, had never disturbed.
"But you must send it back," Lucy said, when in a few broken words her sister had explained its presence in the cupboard.
Lucy was very pale and very serious. She gathered up the satin gown, which nothing could have induced Gertrude to touch, folded it neatly, and began looking about for brown paper in which to enclose it.
The ghastly humour of the little incident struck Gertrude. "There is some string in the studio," she said, half-ironically, and went back to her post in the chamber of death.
In her long narrow coffin lay Phyllis; beautiful and still, with flowers between her hands. She had drifted out of life quietly enough a few days before; to-morrow she would be lying under the newly-turned cemetery sods.
Gertrude stood a moment, looking down at the exquisite face. On the breast of the dead girl lay a mass of pale violets which Lord Watergate had sent the day before, and as Gertrude looked, there flashed through her mind, what had long since vanished from it,the recollection of Lord Watergate's peculiar interest in Phyllis.
It was explained now, she thought, as the image of another dead face floated before her vision. That also was the face of a woman, beautiful and frail; of a woman who had sinned. She had never seen the resemblance before; it was clear enough now.
Then she took up once again her watcher's seat at the bed-side, and strove to banish thought.
To do and do and do; that is all that remains to one in a world where thinking, for all save a few chosen beings, must surely mean madness.
She had fallen into a half stupor, when she was aware of a subtle sense of discomfort creeping over her; of an odour, strong and sweet and indescribably hateful, floating around her like a winged nightmare. Opening her eyes with an effort, she saw Mrs. Maryon standing gravely at the foot of the bed, an enormous wreath of tuberose in her hand.
Gertrude rose from her seat.
"Who sent those flowers?" she said, sternly.
"A servant brought them; he mentioned no name, and there is no card attached."
The woman laid the wreath on the coverlet and discreetly withdrew.
Gertrude stood staring at the flowers, fascinated. In the first moment of the cold yet stifling fury which stole over her, she could have taken them in her hands and torn them petal from petal.
One instant, she had stretched out her hand towards them; the next, she had turned away, sick with the sense of impotence, of loathing, of immeasurable disdain.
What weapons could avail against the impenetrable hide of such a man?
"She never cared for him," a vindictive voice whispered to her from the depths of her heart.
Then she shrank back afraid before the hatred which held possession of her soul. The passion which had animated her on the fateful evening of Phyllis's flight, the very strength which had caused her to prevail, seemed to her fearful and hideous things. She would fain have put the thought of them away; have banished them and all recollection of Darrell from her mind for ever.
It was a bleak December morning, with a touch of east wind in the air, when Phyllis was laid in her last resting-place.
To Gertrude all the sickening details of the little pageant were as the shadows of a nightmare. Standing rigid as a statue by the open grave, she was aware of nothing but the sweet, stifling fragrance of tuberose, which seemed to have detached itself from, and prevailed over, the softer scents of rose and violet, and to float up unmixed from the flower-covered coffin.
Lucy stood on one side of her, silent and pale with down-dropt eyes; Fanny sobbed vociferously on the other. Lord Watergate faced them with bent head. The tears rolled down Fred Devonshire's face as the burial service proceeded. Aunt Caroline looked like a vindictive ghost. Uncle Septimus wept silently.
It seemed a hideous act of cruelty to turn away at last and leave the poor child lying there alone, while the sexton shovelled the loose earth on to her coffin; hideous, but inevitable; and at midday Gertrude and Lucy drove back in the dismal coach to Baker Street, where Mr. Maryon had put up alternate shutters in the shop-window,and the umbrella-maker had drawn down his blinds.
Gertrude, as she lay awake that night, heard the rain beating against the window-panes, and shuddered.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Gertrude was sitting by the window with Constance Devonshire one bleak January afternoon.
Conny's face wore a softened look. The fierce, rebellious misery of her heart had given place to a gentler grief, the natural human sorrow for the dead.
This was a farewell visit. The next day she and her family were setting out for the South of France.
"I tried to make Fred come with me to-day," Constance was saying; "but he is dining with some kindred spirits at the Café Royal, and then going on to theGaiety. He said there would be no time."
Fred had been once to Baker Street since the unfortunate interview with Lucy; had paid a brief visit of condolence, when he had been very much on his dignity and very afraid of meeting Lucy's eye. The re-establishment of the old relations was not more possible than it usually is in such cases.
"How long do you expect to be at Cannes?" Gertrude said, after one of the pauses which kept on stretching themselves baldly across the conversation.
"Till the end of March, probably. Isn't Lucy coming up to say 'good-bye' to a fellow?"
"She will be up soon. She is much distressed about the over-exposure of some plates, and is trying to remedy the misfortune. Do you know, by the by, that we are thinking of taking an apprentice? Mr. Russel has found a girl—a lady—who will pay us a premium, and probably live with us."
"I think that is a good plan," said Conny, staring wistfully out of window.
How strange it seemed, after all thathad happened, to be sitting here quietly, talking about over-exposed negatives, premiums, and apprentices.
Looking out into the familiar street, with its teeming memories of a vivid life now quenched for ever, she said to herself, as Gertrude had often said: "It is not possible."
One day, surely, the door would open to give egress to the well-known figure; one day they would hear his footstep on the stairs, his voice in the little room. Even as the thought struck her, Constance was aware of a sound as of some one ascending, and started with a sudden beating of the heart.
The next moment Matilda flung open the door, and Lord Watergate came, unannounced, into the room.
Gertrude rose gravely to meet him.
Since the accident, which had brought him into such intimate connection with the Lorimers' affairs, his kindness had been as unremitting as it had been unobtrusive.
Gertrude had several times reproached herself for taking it as a matter of course; for being roused to no keener fervour of gratitude; yet something in his attitudeseemed to preclude all expression of commonplaces.
It was no personal favour that he offered. To stretch out one's hand to a drowning creature is no act of gallantry; it is but recognition of a natural human obligation.
Lord Watergate took a seat between the two girls, and, after a few remarks, Constance declared her intention of seeking Lucy in the studio.
"Tell Lucy to come up when she has soaked her plates to her satisfaction," said Gertrude, a little vexed at this desertion.
To have passed through such experiences together as she and Lord Watergate, makes the casual relations of life more difficult. These two people, to all intents and purposes strangers, had been together in those rare moments of life when the elaborate paraphernalia of everyday intercourse is thrown aside; when soul looks straight to soul through no intervening veil; when human voice answers human voice through no medium of an actor's mask.
We lose with our youth the blushes, the hesitations, the distressing outward marks of embarrassment; but, perhaps, with mostof us, the shyness, as it recedes from the surface, only sinks deeper into the soul.
As the door closed on Constance, Lord Watergate turned to Gertrude.
"Miss Lorimer," he said, "I am afraid your powers of endurance have to be further tried."
"What is it?" she said, while a listless incredulity that anything could matter to her now stole over her, dispersing the momentary cloud of self-consciousness.
Lord Watergate leaned forward, regarding her earnestly.
"There has been news," he said, slowly, "of poor young Jermyn."
Gertrude started.
"You mean," she said, "that they have found him—that there is no doubt."
"On the contrary; there is every doubt."
She looked at him bewildered.
"Miss Lorimer, there is, I am afraid, much cruel suspense in store for you, and possibly to no purpose. I came here to-day to prepare you for what you will hear soon enough. I chanced to learn from official quarters what will be in every paper in England to-morrow. There is a rumour that Jermyn has been seen alive."
"Lord Watergate!" Gertrude sprang to her feet, trembling in every limb.
He rose also, and continued, his eyes resting on her face meanwhile:—
"Native messengers have arrived at head-quarters from the interior, giving an account of two Englishmen, who, they say, are living as prisoners in one of the hostile towns. The descriptions of these prisoners correspond to those of Steele and Jermyn."
"Lucy!" came faintly from Gertrude's lips.
"It is chiefly for your sister's sake that I have come here. The rumour will be all over the town to-morrow. Had you not better prepare her for this, at the same time impressing on her the extreme probability of its baselessness?"
"I wish it could be kept from her altogether."
"Perhaps even that might be managed until further confirmation arrives. I cannot conceal from you that at present I attach little value to it. It was in the nature of things that such a rumour should arise; neither of the poor fellows having actually been seen dead."
"What steps will be taken?" askedGertrude, after a pause. She had not the slightest belief that Frank would ever be among them again; she and Lucy had gone over for ever to the great majority of the unfortunate.
"A rescue-party is to be organised at once. The war being practically at an end, it would probably resolve itself into a case of ransom, if there were any truth in the whole thing. I may be in possession of further news a little before the newspapers. Needless to say that I shall bring it here at once."
He took up his hat and stood a moment looking down at her.
"Lord Watergate, we do not even attempt to thank you for your kindness."
"I have been able, unfortunately, to do so little for you. I wish to-day that I had come to you as the bringer of good tidings; I am destined, it seems, to be your bird of ill-omen."
He dropped his eyes suddenly, and Gertrude turned away her face. A pause fell between them; then she said—
"Will it be long before news of any reliability can reach us?"
"I cannot tell; it may be a matter of days, of weeks, or even months."
"I fear it will be impossible to keep the rumour from my poor Lucy."
"I am afraid so. I trust to you to save her from false hopes."
"So I am to be Cassandra," thought Gertrude, a little wistfully. She was always having some hideousrôleor other thrust upon her.
Lord Watergate moved towards the door.
A sudden revulsion of feeling came over her.
"Perhaps," she said, "it is true."
He caught her mood. "Perhaps it is."
They stood smiling at one another like two children.
Constance Devonshire coming upstairs a few minutes later found Gertrude standing alone in the middle of the room, a vague smile playing about her face. A suspicion that was not new gathered force in Conny's mind. Going up to her friend she said, with meaning—
"Gerty, what has Lord Watergate been saying to you?"
"Conny, Conny, can you keep a secret?"
And then Gertrude told her of the new hope, vague and sweet and perilous, which Lord Watergate had brought with him.
"But it is true, Gerty; it really is," Conny said, while the tears poured down her cheeks; "I have always known that the other thing was not possible. Oh, Gerty, just to see him, just to know he is alive—will not that be enough to last one all the days of one's life?"
But this mood of impersonal exaltation faded a little when Constance went back to Queen's Gate, where everything was in a state of readiness for the projected flitting. She lay awake sobbing with mingled feelings half through the night.
"Even Gerty," she thought; "I am going to lose her too." For she remembered the smile in Gertrude's eyes that afternoon when she had found her standing alone after Lord Watergate's visit; a smile to which she chose to attach meanings which concerned the happiness of neither Frank nor Lucy.
O thou of little faith, what hast thou done?
O thou of little faith, what hast thou done?
O thou of little faith, what hast thou done?
O thou of little faith, what hast thou done?
Lucy has always since maintained that the days which followed Lord Watergate's communication were the very worst that she ever went through. The fluctuations of hope and fear, the delays, the prolonged strain of uncertainty coming upon her afresh, after all that had already been endured, could be nothing less than torture even to a person of her well-balanced and well-regulated temperament.
"To have to bear it all for the second time," thought poor Gertrude, whose efforts to spare her sister could not, in the nature of things, be very successful.
A terrible fear that Lucy would break down altogether and slip from her grasp, haunted her night and day. The world seemed to her peopled with shadows, which she could do nothing more than clutch at as they passed by, she herself the only creature of any permanence of them all. But gradually the tremulous, flickering flame of hope grew brighter and steadier; then changed into a glad certainty. And one wonderful day, towards the end of March, Frank was with them once more: Frank, thinner and browner perhaps, but in no respect the worse for his experiences; Frank, as they had always known him—kind and cheery and sympathetic; with the old charming confidence in being cared for.
"And I was not there," he cried, regretful, self-reproachful, when Lucy had told him the details of their sad story.
"I thought always, 'If Frank were here!'"
"I think I should have killed him," said Frank, in all sincerity; and Lucy drew closer to him, grateful for the non-fulfilment of her wish.
They were standing together in the studio. It was the day after Jermyn's return, andGertrude was sitting listlessly upstairs, her busy hands for once idle in her lap. In a few days April would have come round again for the second time since their father's death.
What a lifetime of experience had been compressed into those two years, she thought, her apathetic eyes mechanically following the green garment of the High School mistress, as she whisked past down the street.
She knew that it is often so in human life—a rapid succession of events; a vivid concentration of every sort of experience in a brief space; then long, grey stretches of eventless calm. She knew also how it is when events, for good or evil, rain down thus on any group of persons.—The majority are borne to new spheres, for them the face of things has changed completely. But nearly always there is one, at least, who, after the storm is over, finds himself stranded and desolate, no further advanced on his journey than before.
The lightning has not smitten him, nor the waters drowned him, nor has any stranger vessel borne him to other shores. He is only battered, and shattered, and weary with the struggle; has lost, perhaps,all he cared for, and is permanently disabled for further travelling. Gertrude smiled to herself as she pursued the little metaphor, then, rising, walked across the room to the mirror which hung above the mantelpiece. As her eye fell on her own reflection she remembered Lucy Snowe's words—
"I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning dress, a faded, hollow-eyed vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle.... I still felt life at life's sources."
That was the worst of it; one was so terribly vital. Inconceivable as it seemed, she knew that one day she would be up again, fighting the old fight, not only for existence, but for happiness itself. She was only twenty-five when all was said; much lay, indeed, behind her, but there was still the greater part of her life to be lived.
She started a little as the handle of the door turned, and Mrs. Maryon announced Lord Watergate. She gave him her hand with a little smile: "Have you been in the studio?" she said, as they both seated themselves.
"Yes; Jermyn opened the door himself, and insisted on my coming in, though, to tell you the truth, I should have hesitatedabout entering had I had any choice in the matter—which I hadn't."
"Lucy has picked up wonderfully, hasn't she?"
"She looks her old self already. Jermyn tells me they are to be married almost immediately."
"Yes. I suppose they told you also that Lucy is going to carry on the business afterwards."
"In the old place?"
"No. We have got rid of the rest of the lease, and they propose moving into some place where studios for both of them can be arranged."
"And you?"
"It is uncertain. I think Lucy will want me for the photography."
"Miss Lorimer, first of all you must do something to get well. You will break down altogether if you don't."
Something in the tone of the blunt words startled her; she turned away, a nameless terror taking possession of her.
"Oh, I shall be all right after a little holiday."
"You have been looking after everybody else; doing everybody's work, bearingeverybody's troubles." He stopped short suddenly, and added, with less earnestness, "Quis custodet custodiem?Do you know any Latin, Miss Lorimer?"
She rose involuntarily; then stood rather helplessly before him. It was ridiculous that these two clever people should be so shy and awkward; those others down below in the studio had never undergone any such uncomfortable experience; but then neither had had to graft the new happiness on an old sorrow; for neither had the shadow of memory darkened hope.
Gertrude went over to the mantelshelf, and began mechanically arranging some flowers in a vase. For once, she found Lord Watergate's presence disturbing and distressing; she was confused, unhappy, distrustful of herself; she wished when she turned her head that she would find him gone. But he was standing near her, a look of perplexity, of trouble, in his face.
"Miss Lorimer," he said, and there was no mistaking the note in his voice, "have I come too soon? Is it too soon for me to speak?"
She was overwhelmed, astonished, infinitely agitated. Her soul shrank backafraid. What had the closer human relations ever brought her but sorrow unutterable, unending? Some blind instinct within her prompted her words, as she said, lifting her head, with the attitude of one who would avert an impending blow—
"Oh, it is too soon, too soon."
He stood a moment looking at her with his deep eyes.
"I shall come back," he said.
"No, oh, no!"
She hid her face in her hands, and bent her head to the marble. What he offered was not for her; for other women, for happier women, for better women, perhaps, but not for her.
When she raised her head he was gone.
The momentary, unreasonable agitation passed away from her, leaving her cold as a stone, and she knew what she had done. By a lightning flash her own heart stood revealed to her. How incredible it seemed, but she knew that it was true: all this dreary time, when the personal thought had seemed so far away from her, her greatest personal experience had been silently growing up—no gourd of a night, but a tree to last through the ages. She, who had beenso strong for others, had failed miserably for herself.
Love and happiness had come to her open-handed, and she had sent them away. Love and happiness? Oh, those will o' the wisps had danced ere this before her cheated sight. Love and happiness? Say rather, pity and a mild peace. It is not love that lets himself be so easily denied.
Happiness? That was not for such as she; but peace, it would have come in time; now it was possible that it would never come at all.
All the springs of her being had seemed for so long to be frozen at their source; now, in this one brief moment of exaltation, half-rapture, half-despair, the ice melted, and her heart was flooded with the stream.
Covering her face with her hands, she knelt by his empty chair, and a great cry rose up from her soul:—the human cry for happiness—the woman's cry for love.