Kitabı oku: «Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, December 1878», sayfa 6
CHAPTER LI.
BY THE EXPRESS
Mr. Hardwicke, not knowing Percival Thorne's precise address, had telegraphed to Godfrey Hammond, begging him to forward the message without delay. A couple of days earlier Hammond had suddenly taken it into his head that he was tired of being in town and would go away somewhere. In a sort of whimsical amusement at his own mood he decided that the Land's End ought to suit a misanthrope, and promptly took a ticket for Penzance as a considerable step in the right direction.
It made no difference to Percival, for Hammond had left full directions with a trustworthy servant in case any letters should come for Mr. Thorne, and the man sent the message on to Brenthill at once. But it made a difference to Hammond himself. When Hardwicke despatched the telegram to his address in town Godfrey lay on the turf at the Lizard Head, gazing southward across the sunlit sea, while the seabirds screamed and the white waves broke on the jagged rocks far below.
But with Percival there was no delay. The message found him in Bellevue street, though he did not return there immediately after his parting with Judith. He wanted the open air, the sky overhead, movement and liberty to calm the joyful tumult in heart and brain. He hastened to the nearest point whence he could look over trees and fields. The prospect was not very beautiful. The trees were few—some cropped willows by a mud-banked rivulet and a group or two of gaunt and melancholy elms. And the fields had a trodden, suburban aspect, which made it hardly needful to stick up boards describing them as eligible building-ground. Yet there was grass, such as it was, and daisies sprinkled here and there, and soft cloud-shadows gliding over it. Percival's unreal and fantastic dream had perished suddenly when Judith put her hand in his. Now, as he walked across these meadows, he saw a new vision, that dream of noble, simple poverty, which, if it could but be realized, would be the fairest of all.
When he returned from his walk, and came once more to the well-known street which he was learning to call "home," he was so much calmer that he thought he was quite himself again. Not the languid, hopeless self who had lived there once, but a self young, vigorous, elate, rejoicing in the present and looking confidently toward the future.
This I can tell,
That all will go well,
was the keynote of his mood. He felt as if he trod on air—as if he had but to walk boldly forward and every obstacle must give way. The door of No. 13 was open, and a boy who had brought a telegram was turning away from it. Hurrying in with eager eyes and his face bright with unspoken joy, Percival nearly ran up against Mrs. Bryant and Emma, whose heads were close together over the address on the envelope.
"Lor! Mr. Thorne, how you startled me! It's for you," said his landlady.
He went up the stairs two at a time, with his message in his hand. Here was some good news—not for one moment did he dream it could be other than good news—come to crown this day, already the whitest of his life. He tore the paper open and read it by the red sunset light, hotly reflected from a wilderness of tiles.
He read it twice—thrice—caught at the window-frame to steady himself, and stood staring vaguely at the smoke which curled upward from a neighboring chimney. He was stunned. The words seemed to have a meaning and no meaning. "This is not how people receive news of death, surely?" he thought. "I suppose I am in my right senses, or is it a dream?"
He made a strong effort to regain his self-command, but all certainties eluded him. This was not the first time that he had taken up a telegram and believed that he read the tidings of Sissy's death. He had misunderstood it now as then. It could not be. But why could he not wake?
"Ashendale." Yes, he remembered Ashendale. He had ridden past the ruins the last day he ever rode with Sissy, the day that Horace came home. It belonged to the Latimers—to Walter Latimer. And Sissy was dying at Ashendale!
All at once he knew that it was no dream. But the keen edge of pain awoke him to the thought of what he had to do, and sent him to hunt among a heap of papers for a time-table. He drew a long breath. The express started at 10.5, and it was now but twenty minutes past eight.
He caught up his hat and hurried to the office. Mr. Ferguson, who seldom left much before that time, was on the doorstep. While he was getting into his dog-cart Percival hastily explained that he had been summoned on a matter of life and death. "Sorry to hear it," said the lawyer as he took the reins—"hope you may find things better than you expect. We shall see you again when you come back." And with a nod he rattled down the street. Percival stood on the pavement gazing after him, when he suddenly remembered that he had no money. "I might have asked him to give me my half week's salary," he reflected. "Not that that would have paid my fare."
A matter of life and death! Sissy waiting for him at Ashendale, and no money to pay for a railway-ticket! It would have been absurd if it had not been horrible. What had he to sell or pawn? By the time he could go to Bellevue street and return would not the shops be shut? It was a quarter to nine already. He did not even know where any pawnbroker lived, nor what he could take to him, and the time was terribly short. He was hurrying homeward while these thoughts passed through his mind when Judith's words came back to him: "I have a pound or two to spare, and I feel quite rich." He took the first turning toward Miss Macgregor's house.
Outside her door he halted for a moment. If they would not let him see Judith, how was he to convey his request? He felt in his pocket, found the telegram and pencilled below the message, "Sissy Langton was once to have been my wife: we parted, and I have never seen her since. I have not money enough for my railway-fare: can you help me?" He folded it and rang the bell.
No, he could not see Miss Lisle. She was particularly engaged. "Very well," he said: "be so good as to take this note to her, and I will wait for the answer." His manner impressed the girl so much that, although she had been carefully trained by Miss Macgregor, she cast but one hesitating glance at the umbrella-stand before she went on her errand.
Percival waited, eager to be off, yet well assured that it was all right since it was in Judith's hands. Presently the servant returned and gave him a little packet. The wax of the seal was still warm. He opened it where he stood, and by the light of Miss Macgregor's hall-lamp read the couple of lines it contained:
"I cannot come, but I send you all the money I have. I pray God you may be in time. Yours, Judith."
There were two sovereigns and some silver. He told the girl to thank Miss Lisle, and went out into the dusk as the clocks were striking nine. Ten minutes brought him to Bellevue street, and rushing up to his room he began to put a few things into a little travelling-bag. In his haste he neglected to shut the door, and Mrs. Bryant, whose curiosity had been excited, came upon him in the midst of this occupation.
"And what may be the meaning of this, Mr. Thorne, if I may make so bold as to ask?" she said, eying him doubtfully from the doorway.
Percival explained that he had had bad news and was off by the express.
Mrs. Bryant's darkest suspicions were aroused. She said it was a likely story.
"Why, you gave me the telegram yourself," he answered indifferently while he caught up a couple of collars. He was too much absorbed to heed either Mrs. Bryant or his packing.
"And who sent it, I should like to know?"
Percival made no answer, and she began to grumble about people who had money enough to travel all over the country at a minute's notice if they liked, and none to pay their debts—people who made promises by the hour together, and then sneaked off, leaving boxes with nothing inside them, she'd be bound.
Thus baited, Percival at last turned angrily upon her, but before he could utter a word another voice interposed: "What are you always worrying about, ma? Do come down and have your supper, and let Mr. Thorne finish his packing. He'll pay you every halfpenny he owes you: don't you know that?" And the door was shut with such decision that it was a miracle that Mrs. Bryant was not dashed against the opposite wall. "Come along," said Lydia: "there's toasted cheese."
Percival ran down stairs five minutes later with his bag in his hand. He turned into his sitting-room, picked up a few papers and thrust them into his desk. He was in the act of locking it when he heard a step behind him, and looking round he saw Lydia. She had a cup of tea and some bread and butter, which she set down before him. "You haven't had a morsel since the middle of the day," she said. "Just you drink this. Oh, you must: there's lots of time."
"Miss Bryant, this is very kind of you, but I don't think—"
"Just you drink it," said Lydia, "and eat a bit too, or you'll be good for nothing." And while Percival hastily obeyed she glanced round the room: "Nobody'll meddle with your things while you're gone: don't you trouble yourself."
"Oh, I didn't suspect that any one would," he replied, hardly thinking whether it was likely or not as he swallowed the bread and butter.
"Well, that was very nice of you, I'm sure, I should have suspected a lot if I'd been you," said Lydia candidly. "But nobody shall. Now, you aren't going to leave that tea? Why, it wants twenty minutes to ten, and not six minutes' walk to the station!"
Percival finished the tea: "Thank you very much, Miss Bryant."
"And I say," Lydia pursued, pulling her curl with less than her usual consideration for its beauty, "I suppose you have got money enough? Because if not, I'll lend you a little. Don't you mind what ma says, Mr. Thorne. I know you're all right."
"You are very good," said Percival. "I didn't expect so much kindness, and I've been borrowing already, so I needn't trouble you. But thank you for your confidence in me and for your thoughtfulness." He held out his hand to Lydia, and thus bade farewell to Bellevue street.
She stood for a moment looking after him. Only a few hours before she would have rejoiced in any small trouble or difficulty which might have befallen Mr. Thorne. But when he turned round upon her mother and herself as they stood at his door, her spite had vanished before the sorrowful anxiety of his eyes. She had frequently declared that Mr. Thorne was no gentleman, and that she despised him, but she knew in her heart that he was a gentleman, and she was ashamed of her mother's behavior. Lydia was capable of being magnanimous, provided the object of her magnanimity were a man. I doubt if she could have been magnanimous to a woman. But Percival Thorne was a young and handsome man, and though she did not know what his errand might be, she knew that she was not sending him to Miss Lisle. Standing before his glass, she smoothed back her hair with both hands, arranged the ribbon at her throat and admired the blue earrings and a large locket which she wore suspended from a chain. Even while she thought kindly of Mr. Thorne, and wished him well, she was examining her complexion and her hands with the eye of a critic. "I don't believe that last stuff is a mite of good," she said to herself; "and it's no end of bother. I might as well pitch the bottle out of the window. It was just as well that he'd borrowed the money of some one else, but I'm glad I offered it. I wonder when he'll come back?" And with that Lydia returned to her toasted cheese.
Percival had had a nervous fear of some hinderance on his way to the station. It was so urgent that he should go by this train that the necessity oppressed him like a nightmare. An earthquake seemed a not improbable thing. He was seriously afraid that he might lose his way during the five minutes' walk through familiar streets. He imagined an error of half an hour or so in all the Brenthill clocks. He hardly knew what he expected, but he felt it a relief when he came to the station and found it standing in its right place, quietly awaiting him. He was the first to take a ticket, and the moment the train drew up by the platform his hand was on the door of a carriage, though before getting in he stopped a porter to inquire if this were the express. The porter answered "Yes, sir—all right," with the half smile of superior certainty: what else could it be? Thorne took his place and waited a few minutes, which seemed an eternity. Then the engine screamed, throbbed, and with quickening speed rushed out into the night.
A man was asleep in one corner of the carriage, otherwise Percival was alone. His nervous anxiety subsided, since nothing further depended upon him till he reached town, and he sat thinking of Sissy and of that brief engagement which had already receded into a shadowy past. "It was a mistake," he mused, "and she found it out before it was too late. But I believe her poor little heart has been aching for me, lest she wounded me too cruelly that night. It wasn't her fault. She would have hid her fear of me, poor child! if she had been able. And she was so sorry for me in my trouble! I don't think she could be content to go on her way and take her happiness now while my life was spoilt and miserable. Poor little Sissy! she will be glad to know—"
And then he remembered that it was to a dying Sissy that the tidings of marriage and hope must be uttered, if uttered at all. And he sat as it were in a dull dream, trying to realize how the life which in the depths of his poverty had seemed so beautiful and safe was suddenly cut short, and how Sissy at that moment lay in the darkness, waiting—waiting—waiting. The noise of the train took up his thought, and set it to a monotonous repetition of "Waiting at Ashendale! waiting at Ashendale!" If only she might live till he could reach her! He seemed to be hurrying onward, yet no nearer. His overwrought brain caught up the fancy that Death and he were side by side, racing together through the dark, at breathless, headlong speed, to Sissy, where she waited for them both.
Outside, the landscape lay dim and small, dwarfed by the presence of the night. And with the lights burning on its breast, as Sissy saw them in her half-waking visions, the express rushed southward across the level blackness of the land, beneath the arch of midnight sky.
CHAPTER LII
Quand on a trouvé ce qu'on cherchait, on n'a pas le temps de le dire: il faut mourir.
—J. Joubert.
When the gray of the early morning had changed to golden sunlight, and the first faint twittering of the birds gave place to fuller melody, Mrs. Middleton went softly to the window, opened it and fastened it back. She drew a long breath of the warm air fresh from the beanfields, and, looking down into the little orchard below, saw Harry Hardwicke, who stepped forward and looked up at her. She signed to him to wait, and a couple of minutes later she joined him.
"How is she? How has she passed the night?" he asked eagerly.
"She is no worse. She has lived through it bravely, with one thought. You were very right to send for Percival."
Hardwicke looked down and colored as he had colored when he spoke of him before. "I'm glad," he said. "I'm off to fetch him in about an hour and a half."
"Nothing from Godfrey Hammond?" she asked after a pause.
"No. I'll ask at my father's as I go by. He will either come or we shall hear, unless he is out."
"Of course," the old lady answered. "Godfrey Hammond would not fail me. And now good-bye, Harry, till you bring Percival."
She went away as swiftly and lightly as she had come a minute before, and left Hardwicke standing on the turf under the apple trees gazing up at the open casement. A June morning, sun shining, soft winds blowing, a young lover under his lady's window: it should have been a perfect poem. And the lady within lay crushed and maimed, dying in the very heart of her June!
Hardwicke let himself out through the little wicket-gate, and went back to the Latimer Arms. He entered the bedroom without disturbing Archie, who lay with his sunburnt face on the white pillow, smiling in his sleep. He could not find it in his heart to arouse him. The boy's lips parted, he murmured a word or two, and seemed to sink into a yet deeper slumber. Hardwicke went softly out, gave the landlady directions about breakfast, and returned, watch in hand. "I suppose I must," he said to himself.
But he stopped short. Carroll stirred, stretched himself, his eyes were half open: evidently his waking was a pleasant one. But suddenly the unfamiliar aspect of the room attracted his attention: he looked eagerly round, a shadow swept across his face, and he turned and saw Hardwicke. "It's true!" he said, and flung out his arms in a paroxysm of despair.
Harry walked to the window and leant out. Presently a voice behind him asked, "Have you been to the farm, Mr. Hardwicke?"
"Yes," said Harry. "But there is no news. She passed a tolerably quiet night: there is no change."
"I've been asleep," said Archie after a pause. "I never thought I should sleep." He looked ashamed of having done so.
"It would have been strange if you hadn't: you were worn out."
"My watch has run down," the other continued. "What is the time?"
"Twenty minutes past seven. I want to speak to you, Carroll. I think you had better go home."
"Home? To Fordborough? To Raymond?"
"No. Really home, to your own people. You can write to your cousin. You don't want to go back to him?"
Archie shook his head. Then a sudden sense of injustice to Fothergill prompted him to say, "Ray was never hard on me before."
"You mustn't think about that," Hardwicke replied. "People don't weigh their words at such times. But, Carroll, you can do nothing here—less than nothing. You'll be better away. Give me your address, and I'll write any news there is. Look sharp now, and you can go into Fordborough with me and catch the up train."
As they drove through the green lanes, along which they had passed the day before, Archie looked right and left, recalling the incidents of that earlier drive. Already he was better, possessing his sorrow with greater keenness and fulness than at first, but not so miserably possessed by it. Hardly a word was spoken till they stood on the platform and a far-off puff of white showed the coming train. Then he said, "I shall never forget your kindness, Mr. Hardwicke. If ever there's anything I can do—"
"You'll do it," said Harry with a smile.
"That I will! And you'll write?"
Hardwicke answered "Yes." He knew too well what it was he promised to write to say a word more.
It was a relief to him when Carroll was gone and he could pace the platform and watch for the London train. He looked through the open doorway, and saw his dog-cart waiting in the road and the horse tossing his head impatiently in the sunshine. Through all his anxiety—or rather side by side with his anxiety—he was conscious of a current of interest in all manner of trivial things. He thought of the price he had given for the horse five months before, and of Latimer's opinion of his bargain. He noticed the station-master in the distance, and remembered that some one had said he drank. He watched a row of small birds sitting on the telegraph-wires just outside the station, and all at once the London train came gliding rapidly and unexpectedly out of the cutting close by, and was there.
A hurried rush along the line of carriages, with his heart sinking lower at every step, a despairing glance round, and he perceived the man he came to meet walking off at the farther end of the platform. He came up with him as he stopped to speak to a porter.
"Ah! I am in time, then?" said Percival when he looked round in reply to Hardwicke's hurried greeting.
"Yes, thank God! I promised to drive you over to Ashendale at once."
Percival nodded, and took his place without a word. Not till they were fairly started on their journey did he turn to his companion. "How did it happen?" he asked.
Hardwicke gave him a brief account of the accident. He listened eagerly, and then, just saying "It's very dreadful," he was silent again. But it was the silence of a man intent on his errand, leaning slightly forward as if drawn by a powerful attraction, and with eyes fixed on the point where he would first see the ruins of Ashendale Priory above the trees. Hardwicke did not venture to speak to him. As the man whom Sissy Langton loved, Percival Thorne was to him the first of men, but, considered from Hardwicke's own point of view, he was a fellow with whom he had little or nothing in common—a man who quoted poetry and saw all manner of things in pictures and ruins, who went out of his way to think about politics, and was neither Conservative nor Radical when all was done—a man who rather disliked dogs and took no interest in horses. Hardwicke did not want to speak about dogs, horses or politics then, but the consciousness of their want of sympathy was in his mind.
As they drove through the village they caught a passing glimpse of a brougham. "Ha! Brackenhill," said Thorne, looking after it. They dashed round a corner and pulled up in front of the farmhouse. Hardwicke took no pains to spare the noise of their arrival. He knew very well that the sound of wheels would be music to Sissy's ears.
A tall, slim figure, which even on that June morning had the air of being wrapped up, passed and repassed in the hall within. As the two young men came up the path Horace appeared in the porch. Even at that moment the change which a year had wrought in him startled Percival. He was a mere shadow. He had looked ill before, but now he looked as if he were dying.
"She will not see me," he said to Hardwicke. His voice was that of a confirmed invalid, a mixture of complaint and helplessness. He ignored his cousin.
"She will see you now that Percival has come," said Mrs. Middleton, advancing from the background. "She will see you together."
And she led the way. Horace went in second, and Percival last, yet he was the first to meet the gaze of those waiting eyes. The young men stood side by side, looking down at the delicate face on the pillow. It was pale, and seemed smaller than usual in the midst of the loosened waves of hair. On one side of the forehead there was a dark mark, half wound, half bruise—a mere nothing but for its terrible suggestiveness. But the clear eyes and the gentle little mouth were unchanged. Horace said "Oh, Sissy!" and Sissy said "Percival." He could not speak, but stooped and kissed the little hand which lay passively on the coverlet.
"Whisper," said Sissy. He bent over her. "Have you forgiven him?" she asked.
"Yes." The mere thought of enmity was horrible to him as he looked into Sissy's eyes with that spectral Horace by his side.
"Are you sure? Quite?"
"Before God and you, Sissy."
"Tell him so, Percival."
He stood up and turned to his cousin. "Horace!" he said, and held out his hand. The other put a thin hot hand into it.—"See here, Sissy," said Percival, "we are friends."
"Yes, we're friends," Horace repeated. "Has it vexed you, Sissy? I thought you didn't care about me. I'm sorry, dear—I'm very sorry."
Aunt Harriet, standing by, laid her hand on his arm. She had held aloof for that long year, feeling that he was in the wrong. He had not acted as a Thorne should, and he could never be the same to her as in old days. But she had wanted her boy, nevertheless, right or wrong, and since Percival had pardoned him, and since it was partly Godfrey's hardness that had driven him into deceit, and since he was so ill, and since—and since—she loved him, she drew his head down to her and kissed him. Horace was weak, and he had to turn his face away and wipe his eyes. But, relinquishing Percival's hand, he held Aunt Harriet's.
Percival stooped again, in obedience to a sign from Sissy. "Ask him to forgive me," she said.
"He knows nothing, dear."
"Ask him for me."
"Horace," said Percival, "Sissy wants your forgiveness."
"I've nothing to forgive," said Horace. "It is I who ought to ask to be forgiven. It was hard on me when first you came to Brackenhill, Percy, but it has been harder on you since. I hardly know what I said or did on that day: I thought you'd been plotting against me."
"No, no," said Sissy—"not he."
"No, but I did think so.—Since then I've felt that, anyhow, it was not fair. I suppose I was too proud to say so, or hardly knew how, especially as the wrong is past mending. But I do ask your pardon now."
"You have it," said Percival. "We didn't understand each other very well."
"But I never blamed you, Sissy—never, for one moment. I wasn't so bad as that. I've watched for you now and then in Fordborough streets, just to get a glimpse as you went by. I thought it was you who would never forgive me, because of Percival."
"He has forgiven," said Sissy. But her eyes still sought Percival's.
"Look here, Horace," he said. "There was a misunderstanding you knew nothing of, and Sissy feels that she might have cleared it up. It was cleared up at last, but I think it altered my grandfather's manner to you for a time. If you wish to know the whole I will tell you. But since it is all over and done with, and did not really do you any harm, if you like best"—he looked steadily at Horace—"that we should forgive and forget on both sides, we will bury the past here to-day."
"Yes, yes," said Horace. "Sissy may have made a mistake, but she never meant me any harm, I know."
"Don't! don't! Oh, Horace, I did, but I am sorry."
"God knows I forgive you, whatever it was," he said.
"Kiss me, Horace."
He stooped and kissed her, as he had kissed her many a time when she was his little pet and playmate. She kissed him back again, and smiled: "Good-bye, Horry!"
Mrs. Middleton interposed. "This will be too much for her," she said.—"Percival, she wants you, I see: be careful." And she drew Horace gently away.
Percival sat down by the bedside. Presently Sarah came in and went to the farther end of the room, waiting in case she should be wanted. Sissy was going to speak once, but Percival stopped her: "Lie still a little while, dear: I'm not going away."
She lay still, looking up at this Percival for whom she had watched and waited through the dreary night, and who had come to her with the morning. And he, as he sat by her side, was thinking how at that time the day before he was in the office at Brenthill. He could hardly believe that less than twenty-four hours had given him the assurance of Judith's love and brought him to Sissy's deathbed. He was in a strangely exalted state of mind. His face was calm as if cast in bronze, but a crowd of thoughts and feelings contended for the mastery beneath it. He had eaten nothing since the night before, and had not slept, but his excitement sustained him.
He met Sissy's eyes and smiled tenderly. How was it that he had frightened her in old days? Could he ever have been cruel to one so delicate and clinging? Yet he must have been, since he had driven away her love. She was afraid of him: she had begged to be free. Well, the past was past, but at least no word nor look of his should frighten or grieve the poor child now.
After a time she spoke: "You have worked too hard. Isn't it that you wanted to do something great?"
"That isn't at all likely," said Percival with a melancholy smile. "I'm all right, Sissy."
"No, you are pale. You wanted to surprise us. Oh, I guessed! Godfrey Hammond didn't tell me. I should have been glad if I could have waited to see it."
"Don't talk so," he entreated. "There will be nothing to see."
"You mustn't work too hard—promise," she whispered.
"No, dear, I won't."
"Percival, will you be good to me?"
"If I can I will indeed. What can I do?"
"I want you to have my money. It is my own, and I have nobody." Sissy remembered the terrible mistake she had once made, and wanted an assurance from his own lips that her gift was accepted.
Percival hesitated for a moment, and even the moment's hesitation alarmed her. It was true, as she said, that she had nobody, and her words opened a golden gateway before Judith and himself. Should he tell her of that double joy and double gratitude? He believed that she would be glad, but it seemed selfish and horrible to talk of love and marriage by that bedside. "I wish you might live to need it all yourself, dear," he answered, and laid his hand softly on hers. The strip of embroidery caught his eye. "What's this?" he said in blank surprise. "And your thimble! Sissy, you mustn't bother yourself about this work now." He would have drawn it gently away.
The fingers closed on it suddenly, and the weak voice panted: "No, Percival. It's mine. That was before we were engaged: you spoilt my other."
"O God!" he said. In a moment all came back to him. He remembered the summer day at Brackenhill—Sissy and he upon the terrace—the work-box upset and the thimble crushed beneath his foot. He remembered her pretty reproaches and their laughter over her enforced idleness. He remembered how he rode into Fordborough and bought that little gold thimble—the first present he ever made her. All his gifts during their brief engagement had been scrupulously returned, but this, as she had said, was given before. And she was dying with it in her hand! She had loved him from first to last.
"Percival, you will take my money?" she pleaded, fearing some incomprehensible scruple.
"For God's sake, Sissy! I must think a moment." He buried his face in his hands.
"Oh, you are cruel!" she whispered.
How could he think? Sissy loved him—had always loved him. It was all plain to him now. He had been blind, and he had come back to find out the truth the day after he had pledged himself to Judith Lisle!
"Don't be unkind to me, Percival: I can't bear it, dear."
How could he stab her to the heart by a refusal of that which he so sorely needed? How could he tell her of his engagement? How could he keep silence, and take her money to spend it with Judith?
