Kitabı oku: «Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty», sayfa 19

Chapter Thirty Seven
Peace

Three days after that night of watching there was a double funeral in the cemetery at Bordighera, and the last Baron Haredale, and the only heir to his title, were laid to rest under a foreign sky, far away from the home they had forfeited; for there was no money to spare for funeral journeys, or for ceremonies at the end of them. Haredale was mortgaged up to its chimney-tops, and the title died with its direct male heirs. There had been no time for more than telegrams from the solicitors in charge of the miserable family affairs; but it was hoped that some provision would be saved out of the wreck for Lady Haredale and her four young daughters.

There was much talk and much scandal among all the English colonies along the Riviera, and the misdeeds of the two last Haredales were whispered in drawing-rooms and discussed in clubs in all quarters. Nevertheless, the subjects of the scandal had been the possessor of, and the heir to, an English peerage, and various gentlemen presented themselves to follow the funeral; while every one looked with pity on the four tall girls, so young and so handsome, whose condition was all the more forlorn, because they could not really regret the loss either of father or brother.

Miss Haredale wept as much for the fall of her family as for the loss of her brother and nephew; and the white wreath, which Carrie Carisbrooke laid on Charles Haredale’s coffin, symbolised the kindliest feeling he had ever inspired. Mr Riddell arrived in time to conduct the funeral, and, by Lucian’s express desire, both his mother and Sylvester left his side to follow it.

Two of the nearest were absent. Lady Haredale would not go, she shut herself into her room overpowered by a real passion, of what kind her daughters could hardly tell, – whether of grief for her husband, nervous fright at the shock of the two sudden deaths, or of chagrin at her changed position.

“You see, I always liked my poor dear lord so much better than any one else, at bottom,” she said, with tears, to Amethyst; and then she added, “He was such a protection, I shall have to be so careful in future.”

Lady Clyste had fled from the scene of death the moment the watching of that awful night was over. She would not stay, she cried, as if passionately repenting the impulse that had brought her to the spot, and went away from Monte Carlo back to whence she came, so that the brief hours of the night when they had watched together seemed to Amethyst like a vision. They did not know where she lived, or the manner of her life, and she evidently meant to take no part in theirs.

It was not an occasion when plans and intentions could be put off or left untouched upon, and when the funeral was over, the four sisters went out, and sat under the olive trees together and talked over the future that lay before them, – not without a certain renewal of courage, for was it not far more in their own hands than it had ever been before?

“I suppose we shall be very poor,” said Kattern dolefully.

“But we shall know what we have got,” said Una, “and then I suppose we can manage accordingly.”

“I have quite made up my mind,” said Tory. “I don’t mean to be a poor swell, with every one afraid of being let in for marrying me. I shall be a teacher. They let me try to take the little ones at Saint Etheldred’s, and I was no end of a success. You see I always knew what the worst were up to. They couldn’t astonish me. I shall go back there. It won’t cost much, and I’ll just grind. I should like to go to college if I could afford it, and by and by I’ll get a teachership. Then I will live in a lodging, and go on the top of omnibuses, and – owe no man a penny.”

“I think Saint Etheldred’s is very strict and very dull,” said Kattern.

“Yes, they’re strict, but they mean well. They have got more patience than if they weren’t so good,” said Tory, astutely. “I believe in Miss Halliday and I’m very interesting to her, I’m such a new type. She’ll enjoy training me.”

“Have you any thoughts, Una dear?” said Amethyst, speaking for the first time.

“They’re a long way ahead,” said Una, “for myself, but I wish mother would live at Cleverley. Of course the Hall will be sold, but there’s that nice little house not far from the Rectory; perhaps we could take that I suppose Carrie will get Aunt Anna to live with her at Ashfield Mount, and I do hope we shall have a home and not wander about.”

“If I’d had such chances as you and Amethyst,” said Kattern, “I’d have had a home fast enough.”

“Well, when you’ve secured one of the Royal Family, we’ll settle near you,” said Tory, cynically.

She got up as she spoke and walked on, up the hill, with a rapid determined step, while Kattern followed her with her dawdling, graceful tread. Una remained, looking out over the sea; presently she said —

“I have had a letter from Miss Waterhouse; she is so pleased with the work I have done for her. Perhaps some time she’ll let me do a little more to help her. I shall try and learn now, that’s what I should like.”

“Perhaps!” said Amethyst, gently.

“And I shall try and be good with mother,” said Una. “You see, she was a young girl once, and perhaps things began to go wrong with her then.” It was a strange thought to come into a daughter’s mind, but it represented a real impulse in Una’s heart, to have patience with the mother who had never had any motherly care for her. Amethyst could make no plans. The terrible night at Monte Carlo had worn her out mind and body, and yet her nerves were quiet and her spirit at rest.

Presently she saw Sylvester coming up the hill, and went quickly forward to meet him.

“Have you come to fetch me?” she said.

“Yes, – if you can bear to come. My father is ready, and Lucy is getting so weak. Will it be too much for you to come to-day?”

“There can be no better day,” said Amethyst, as she walked away with him. Sylvester looked very tired and sad. He did not speak till they came near the house, then he looked round at her and said huskily —

“The dear boy has not much more to suffer.”

Amethyst silently put her hand in his, and so let him lead her in.

If she had lately seen, in its worst form, the terror of death, what she saw now was indeed “Death as a friend.”

The quiet room, full of flowers and subdued light, the preparations for the Holy Feast; Lucian’s fair face, white and peaceful.

He looked at Amethyst and smiled, while Mrs Leigh kissed her and drew her to her side, and at once the service was begun. It was an hour of which Amethyst never spoke, but which she never forgot to her life’s end.

When it was over, he made a little sign, and she went up to him, and took his hand, then he smiled again and said —

“Good-bye;” and then – “Say the verse now, Amethyst – ‘amethysts unpriced.’”

And then back upon Amethyst came the memory of the boy lover, whom she had reproved for connecting her name with the hymn of the heavenly city, and told him with girlish propriety, that he ought not to think about her in church.

It thrilled her with a depth of meaning now, and choked her voice, but she managed to repeat it —

 
“Thine ageless walls are bonded
With amethysts unpriced,
And the saints build up the fabric,
And the corner-stone is Christ.”
 

“It’s true,” said Lucian. “Now I understand. Good-bye, Amethyst, give me a kiss.”

She kissed him, and this time no flush of pain crossed his face, he smiled once more, so that she saw him, for the last time, smiling and watching her.

That happy smile was never again driven away by cruel pain. The agony with which it had been feared life might end, never came. Lucian kissed his mother, then fell asleep with the peaceful look still on his face, and with his head on Sylvester’s arm, and so passed away where there is no more pain, into a peace never to be broken.

“Keep innocency and do the thing that is right, and that shall bring a man peace at the last,” said Mr Riddell; and in due time, the words were cut on the white marble beneath which he rested, in the cemetery at Bordighera.

This had been his own choice, he having, with characteristic directness, told his mother that he should like it best, and that she could put very handsome brasses in the churches at Toppings and Cleverley.

Lucian was at peace, and there was much repose for those who had been watching him, in the sense that all his suffering was ended.

There were loving interviews with Mrs Leigh, and much talk over Lucian’s last hours, almost, on the mother’s side, as if there had been no breach of the betrothal. Mrs Leigh gave Amethyst back the photograph of Lucian as she had first known him, with its perfect outlines, like a Greek masque, and firm, unvarying expression, and another, much more beautiful in Amethyst’s eyes, taken during his last illness, with all the forms sharpened and chiselled away, the lines of pain round eyes and mouth, but with the look that made it like the picture of Lucian’s soul instead of his body.

Amethyst took them as treasures indeed, but she was the comforter, not the comforted, in the intercourse with Lucian’s mother, for the admiration of him was sweeter to her than the loss was sad.

Then came a great surprise, the bequest from Lucian of 5,000 pounds, “as a token that if I could, I would have given her all I possess.”

The codicil to his will was dated after he had given her back her ring, and Mrs Leigh told her that he had often thought of it, but had not ventured to do it till she had once more given him the right, and that he had said that he wished her to have her life in her own hands.

Then she knew that he had fully understood her difficulties, and what a difference independence might make to her. One thing that she had dreaded was saved her.

Carrie Carisbrooke wrote so clear a history to her uncle of the appearance of Lady Clyste at Monte Carlo, that he made no attempt to see Amethyst again; but wrote that he would meet his niece on business matters when she returned to England, and Amethyst was saved from an interview, of which she could only think with a shudder of horror.

Lucian was buried on a still, bright day, when the spring seemed to have made a great advance, and the air was warm and sweet. Amethyst went out on the hill afterwards and sat down in her favourite place among the olive woods, and presently Sylvester came and joined her. He was pale and anxious, though his eyes were bright and eager.

“I have brought this to show you,” he said gravely, taking out a little Russia-leather pocket-book, worn and shabby.

“It was Lucy’s,” he said, sitting down by her side. “He kept it as long as he could, and then one day, he pushed it into my hand, and told me to look at it – afterwards.”

The pocket-book contained old dates as to the starting of trains and steamers, records of the slaughter of tigers and elephants, little notes of matters to be attended to on the estate at Toppings. In the pocket was a little old photograph of Amethyst, and a note asking him to come over and play tennis, dated in the second week of her acquaintance with him, and never returned with the “love letters” written afterwards. Sylvester showed her these relics in silence, then he turned to the blank pages at the end of the book on which was written in faint broken characters, very different from the small distinct writing of the earlier entries —

“Dear Syl, – I want to thank you for nursing me, and for ‘Iris.’ It showed me how to love her. Don’t wait to take care of her. She wants you now. It is all quite right, and makes me happy.

“Your old friend, —

“Lucy.”

Sylvester watched her read with trembling intentness, then he sank on his knee by her side.

“Oh, Amethyst!” he said, “you know – you always have known. You understand – you know these words almost break my heart, and yet fill it with happiness. Oh, my dearest, we have known this long time. Will you let him give you to me now?”

“No,” said Amethyst, “for – for he knew that I did not belong to him. But I will give myself, and – and oh, help me to be worthy of the love he gave me.”

“Help you? Oh, my love, is it possible that you love me? I have hoped it – half believed it – but now it seems beyond belief.”

“Oh,” said Amethyst with full conviction, “I never could have given all my love to any one else in the world! I can be good with you!”

“There is one thing I must tell you,” said Sylvester, when at last they were sitting side by side and talking more quietly; “you know I have never had enough work to fill up my life. Whatever other men have made of my position, I have taken it easy. Now, through friends at Oxford, I have been asked to undertake the head-mastership of a new public school, which is going to be started in the Midlands. It will be a great concern, and will have to be organised, and begun from the very beginning. I used to talk over the first idea of it with some of the men interested; and that, and my degree, have, I suppose, led them to think of me. It would be hard anxious work, and out of society; but it is a great opening, and – is it utterly throwing you away, to think of taking you there?”

“Oh,” cried Amethyst, eagerly, “I should like it. I like work; I would help you all I can. Last year I had quite made up my mind that I would take to teaching myself. I think it would be delightful to begin and see everything grow and prosper. Nothing can be too different from what I have known lately.”

Her eyes shone and her lips smiled. Her strong young spirits sprang up once more, and she looked ready indeed for the stir of life.

“There comes my father – ” said Sylvester. “Father; she will!”

Mr Riddell took Amethyst in his arms and kissed her tenderly, then dropped a kiss on his son’s brow, and pressed his hand.

“So,” he said with a smile, “Iris is won. Now, my children, look for the Heavenly vision together. They were very pretty verses, Syl, with some genuine stuff in them, and I have read them over several times with much pleasure.”

“They have been honoured above their desert,” said Sylvester, speaking low, and thinking of Lucian’s words.

There is little more to say. The plan sketched out in the four sisters’ conversation took shape. Lady Haredale lived at Cleverley, and marvellously accommodated herself to the life there expected of her.

Mrs Leigh and her daughters came back to Ashfield Mount; for Carrie Carisbrooke’s fortune did not come intact out of her uncle’s hands, and she preferred to settle herself with Miss Haredale at Silverfold.

Tory went to school and began her career of independence. Kattern became the star of the Cleverley country, and some people thought her “more pleasing than the beauty, if not so handsome.” If she has chances, she will probably be able to use them.

And Una waited. No one’s story is all told at eighteen, no one’s trials are over so early. But she will always be one of those who stretch out helping hands to others, whether she remains solitary, or whether her heart awakens to new hopes. Her life will never be without struggle, but the battle each time will be fought on higher and higher ground. And Amethyst and Sylvester went into a world of great, numerous, and wholesome interests, in which they took their parts nobly, and were more and more helpmeets to each other, as Amethyst’s story ran on to its close.

The Haredale amethysts disappeared for ever in the crash of the family fortunes. But Lucian’s ring was the symbol of a memory that will guard Amethyst till she becomes indeed a jewel in that Heavenly City, to which he is gone before.

The End.