“I have seen so many peaceful death-beds that I can hardly realise the fear of death,” said the Rector, “any more than I can conceive the fear of sleep.”
“Ah, but the everlasting sleep, that’s the rub. Not the dreams that Hamlet talks about, but the dreamless blank! ‘This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod!’ To give up everything!”
“Hard indeed, if we had no hope of fairer worlds.”
“A hope! A mirage,- Mr. Gilstone. I can fully understand that it is your duty, as a minister of the Gospel, to hold that mirage before the dying eyes of your parishioners. But do you mean to tell me, after your long life of knowledge and of thought, that the fantastic vision of an after-world can be any comfort to you? Where is the link that can unite the dwindling dust below those grave-stones with other planets or with future time? New worlds and fairer there may be; new stars may teem with beings of grander frame and nobler minds than ours, star after star, in endless evolution, till there be worlds peopled with gods; but for me, for you, for this dust here, there is nothing more. We have no more account in those glories to come than last summer’s butterflies have. We have had our day. Do you remember how Cæsar urged that Cataline and his followers should be punished in their lives, not by death, since death is only the release from suffering, and beyond death there is no place either of joy or sorrow? And you think because ninety years after Cæsar spoke those words a village carpenter, gifted beyond the average of highly gifted humanity, codified the purest system of morals ever revealed to man, and threw out random hints of a future existence, and because in after-generations tradition ascribed to this gifted man a miraculous return from death to life — you think, because Jesus talked of a day of judgment and an afterworld, that the stern truths of science and fact are to weigh as nothing against those vague promises of a rustic teacher?”
“My dear friend, I will not admit that science has all the strongest arguments on her side, and that faith can only sit with folded hands and wait —
‘The Shadow, cloak’d from head to foot,
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds;’
but I am no dialectician, and will not attempt to argue against the barren creed which modern metaphysicians give out with as much delight as if they were bringing us new hopes instead of trying to kill the old ones. I will only say, as St. Paul said, ‘It in, this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable.”’
“St. Paul was a dreamer and an enthusiast; just the right man to make a new religion; an intellectual force, great enough to change the face of Europe, and last nineteen hundred years. But I fear the axe is laid to the root of the tree, and that before the twentieth century is sped Christianity will be at best a State religion — a system of ceremonials and embroidered vestments, as it was in Pagan, as it is in Papal Rome.”
The tranquil monotony of life at Lowcombe Rectory was not unpleasing to Gerard. His health was too weak for London pleasures. It suited him best to spend his days in a dreamy idleness, nursing his shrunken stock of vitality as the poor sempstress nurses her tiny fire, lest the pitiful half hundred of coal should burn too quickly. He was glad to be away from the gay world, and from the house whose splendours and luxuries had long palled upon him. Here, at least, he had rest. Even the rustic simplicity of his surroundings had a soothing influence, recalling his childish days in the old parsonage beside the mouth of the Exe. Here he was at peace, and here he was able to face the inevitable with more resignation than he had felt hitherto.
He knew that he had not long to live. He had seen Dr. South once again since his return to England, and had heard the verdict which he meant to be final. He would question science no more, since science could do so little for him, giving him at most certain rules of dietary, and a prescription which any village druggist could make up. He had to face a future which might be but a few weeks, or which, if he were careful, and Fate and climate were kind, might be spun out yet a little longer.
Here, sauntering by the river on the bright May mornings, he was able to plan that remnant of life, as it was to be spent when Hester should be restored to health and reason, and might go with him where he pleased. He would not lose an hour in making her his lawful wife, and then he would take her to Spezia as fast as boat and train could carry them, and install her in the luxurious nest which had been prepared for another bride. And then they two would sail away together to the fairest shores of the fair inland sea, and so, death kept at bay to the utmost, should at last come upon him with gentlest aspect, and find him in his wife’s fond arms, her tender hand wiping the last dews from his brow, her kisses on his darkening eyelids.
He revisited some of the old spots where he had walked with Hester in the late summer time of last year, and these rambles gave him only too just a measure of his vanishing strength. The fields over winch he had trodden so lightly last September seemed now an impossible journey. He was fain to haunt the willowy bank between the churchyard and the Rosary, a distance of less than a mile. This marked the limit of his power, and he had often to rest in the Rosary garden before be could attempt the walk back to the Rectory.
The garden was in perfect order, as in the days when Hester had moved about it, “Queen rose of the roses.” Everything was to be kept as it had been under her brief tenancy of the house that he had bought for her. She might wish to go back there some day, despite all that she had suffered within those walls. In any case it was her home, and he desired that it should he kept in order for her. In all this time he had ignored his own kindred. His mother and father, Lilian and her husband knew nothing of his return to England. He meant to see his sister again, were it only for half an hour, before he went back to Italy; but he did not want to see her until Hester was his wife, and he could bring sister and wife together. He wanted to secure this one faithful friend for Hester before he died.
At last, after a long month of hope and expectancy, the happy chance came. Hester’s wearied brain slowly awakened from its troubled sleep, and memory and recognition of familiar faces came back one summer morning with the opening of the June roses that clustered about her window.
“Gerard,” she cried, looking up at him affectionately, as he stood beside her chair, where he had so often waited for the faintest sign of returning memory. “You have come back from Italy at last! How long you have been away! How dreadfully long!”
He sat with her for an hour talking of indifferent things. Memory came back gradually. It was not till the next day that she remembered her father’s death, and the doctor hoped that the night of her wandering by the river, and the loss of her baby, would be blotted out. But that was not to be. As her mind recovered its balance, the memory of all she had suffered and done in the long hours of delirium came back with agonising distinctness. She remembered the watchful care of her nurses, which had seemed to her a cruel tyranny. She remembered creeping out of the house, and through the darkness of the dewy garden, and along by the river, to that favourite spot where she and Gerard had spent so many happy hours. She remembered how she had thought that death was best for her and for her child, the one refuge from a world in which no one loved them or wanted them, she a deserted mistress, he a nameless child. She remembered the plunge in the darkness, the buoyant feeling of the water as it wrapped her round — and then no more, except the monotony of quiet days and kindly faces, sunlit rooms and sweet-scented flowers at the Rectory, a time in which she had for the most part fancied herself a child again, sinless, happy, full of childish thoughts.
They were married in the shadowy old parish church at half-past eight o’clock one June morning, Hester, pale and wan, but with a delicate loveliness which ill-health could not spoil. She was dressed in a grey tweed gown, and neat little hat, ready for a long journey. Gerard was flushed and anxious-looking, hollow-eyed and hollow cheeked, and far more nervous than his wife.
They drove from the church to the station on their way to London, charged with many blessings from the Rector and his sister, who, with th
e parish clerk, had alone witnessed the ceremony.
“She is fast your wife,” quoted the Rector, “the finest choral service in Westminster Abbey could not make the bond any stronger.” Gerard had telegraphed to his sister to meet him at luncheon at Hillersdon House, where he and Hester arrived between twelve and one.
He spent the hour before Lilian’s arrival in showing Hester his house. “It is yours now,” he said, “yours as much as the Rosary, which I bought to be your plaything. It will be yours for many a year, I hope, when I am at rest.”
She gave him a heart-rending look. Could he think that this splendour would comfort her when he was gone — or that she could ever cease to think of him and of her child — the child her madness had sacrificed? She would not pain him by one mournful word, on this day above all other days, when he had done all that he could do to give her back her good name. She went with him from room to room, praising his taste, admiring this and that, till she came to his sanctum on the upper floor.
She had scarcely crossed the threshold when she saw the faun, and gave a little cry of disgust.
“Mr. Jermyn,” she said.
“Only a chance likeness — but a good one, ain’t it?”
“Why do you have his likeness in your room? It is an odious face, and he is a hateful man. I cannot understand how you could ever have chosen him for your friend.”
“He has never been my friend, Hester. I have no friend but Mr. Gilstone. That old man is the first person from whom I have experienced real friendliness since I became a millionaire. Jermyn has been my companion — an amusing companion — and I have never found any harm in him.”
Hester looked at everything with fond interest. It was here he had lived before he knew her. It was this luxurious nest he had left for his riverside home with her. She looked at the books, and the curios on the carved oak cabinet, bronzes, ivories, jade; and finally stopped before a curtain of Japanese embroidery, which hung against the panelling.
“Is there a picture behind this curtain,” she asked, “a picture which no one must look at without permission?”
“No, it is not a picture. You may look, if you like, Hester. I have no secrets from the other half of my soul.”
Hester drew back the curtain, and saw a large sheet of drawing-paper, scrawled over with black lines, conspicuous among them a long downward sweep of the pen, thick and blurred.
“What a curious thing!” she cried. “What does it mean?”
“It is the chart of my life, Hester. The downward stroke means the end.”
He ripped the sheet off the panel upon which it had been neatly fastened with tiny copper nails, and then tore it into fragments and flung them into the waste-paper basket.
“I am reconciled to the end, Hester,” be said softly, as she clung to him biding her tears upon his shoulder, “now that you and I are together — will be together to the last.’’
He heard Lilian’s step upon the stair, and in another minute she was in the room, looking at Hester in glad astonishment.
“Hester! He has found you then, and all is well,” cried Lilian; “ but, oh, my poor dear, how pale and wan you are looking! Has the world gone so badly with you since we met?”
“Ask her no questions, Lilian, but take her to your heart as your sister and my wife.”
“Your wife — since when, Gerard?”
“That is a needless question. She is my wife — my loved and honoured wife.”
Lilian looked at him wonderingly for a moment. Yes, be was in earnest, evidently, and this union of which she had never dreamed was an actuality. She turned to Hester without a word and kissed her.
“You shall be to me as a sister,” she said gently, “and I will not ask you what trouble has made you so sad and pale, or why my brother has kept his marriage a secret from me until to-day.”
After this they went downstairs to luncheon, a luncheon at which but little was eaten, yet which was the happiest meal Gerard had shared in for many a day. That shadow of the past which darkened Hester’s life touched him but lightly. For him the future was so brief that the past mattered very little. He could not feel any poignant regret for the child whose face he had never seen; for had that child lived his part in the young fresh life would have been too brief to reckon. The son could have never known a father’s love.
They left for Turin by the evening train, Lilian only parting with them at the station, where the two pale faces vanished from her view, side by side. One of those faces she had faintest hope of ever seeing again in this world.
EPILOGUE.
THE London season was waning, and Justin Jermyn was beginning to talk about taking his cure — of nothing particular — in the Pyrenees, when the gossips of those favourite literary, artistic, and social clubs, the Sensorium and the Heptachord, were interested by a brief announcement in the Times list of deaths.
“On July 19th, on board the Jersey Lily, at Corfu, Gerard Hillersdon, aged 29.”
“So that is the end of Hillersdon’s luck,” said Larose, “and one of the most live-able houses in London will come into the market. It is only a year and a half since it was finished, and we spent his money like water, I can assure you. We could hardly spend it fast enough to please him. The sensation was delicious from its novelty.”
“What was his luck? Got a million or so left him for picking up an old chap’s umbrella, wasn’t it?”
“No; he saved the old man’s life, and almost missed the fortune by not picking up the umbrella.”
“Mr. Jermyn loses a useful friend. He was always about with Hillersdon. And who gets all the money? Or did Hillersdon contrive to run through it?”
“Not he,” said a gentleman of turfy tastes. “He was a poor creature, and I don’t believe he ever backed a horse from the day he left Oxford. Such a man couldn’t spend a million, much less two millions. He was the sort of fellow who would economise and live upon the interest of his money. Those are not the men who make history.”
“He began his career as a scribbler,” said some one else. “Wrote a sentimental story, and set all the women talking about him, and then took to writing for the papers, and was in very low water when he came into his millions.”
“He ought to have run a theatre,” said another.
“Not he! The man didn’t know how to spend money. He was distinguished in nothing.”
“He gave most delightful breakfasts,” said Larose.
“Yes, to half a dozen fellows who talk fine, like you and Reuben Gambier. I say he was a poor creature, upon whom good luck was wasted.”
This was the final verdict of the smoking-room. The dead man had wasted golden opportunities.
It was on the same day that Mr. Crafton, of Messrs. Crafton and Cranberry, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, received a visitor, who called by appointment, made by telegraph that morning. The visitor was Justin Jermyn, whom Mr. Crafton had met only once in his life at a dinner given by his client, Gerard Hillersdon. —
The solicitor received Mr. Jermyn with grave cordiality, the recent death of an important client demanding an air of suppressed mournfulness.
“Sad news from Corfu,” said Jermyn. “You saw the announcement in the Times, of course?”
“Yes; but it was not news to me. I bad a telegram within two hours of the event — which was not unexpected. Our client has been slowly fading out of life ever since he left England in June. You have not been yachting with him, Mr. Jermyn?” interrogatively.
“No; I have written to him two or three times offering myself for a short cruise. It was I who bought the yacht for him, and superintended her fitting out. But his replies were brief, and” — with something of his familiar laugh, subdued to meet the circumstances—” he evidently didn’t want me; but as there was a lady in the case I was not offended. Well, he is gone, poor fellow. A brilliant life, only too brief. One would rather jog on for a dull fourscore, even without his supreme advantages.”
There was a pause. Mr. Crafton looked politely anticipative
of he knew not what. And then, as the other sat smiling and did not speak, be himself began —
“You may naturally suppose, that, as a friend of Mr. Hillersdon’s, you may have been remembered for some graceful gift, or even a money legacy,” he said blandly, “but I am sorry to tell you there are no such gifts or legacies. Our lamented client died intestate.”
“How do you know that — and so soon?” asked Jermyn, still smiling.
“We have the fact under his own hand, in a letter dated only three days before his death. The letter is here,” taking it from a brass rack on the table. “I will read you the passage.”
He cleared his throat, sighed, and read as follows —
“‘My doctor, who has been hinting at wills and testaments for the last month, tells me that if I have to make my will I must make it without loss of an hour. But I am not going to make any will. My fortune will go just where I am content that it shall go, and I can trust those who will inherit to deal generously with others whom I might have named had I nerved myself to the horror of will-making. I would as soon assist in the making of my coffin. I shall leave it to my father to make a suitable acknowledgment, on my behalf, to you and Mr. Cranberry, whose disinterested care of my estate,’ hum, hum, hum,” murmured the lawyer, folding the letter. “I need read no further.”
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