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MRS. KEITH'S CRIME

 

 

 

CHAPTER XVI

 

IT is half-past eight. Molly is asleep, my dinner-tray has gone down, the window is open, and I can hear the piano going in the café opposite. Just now the last omnibus rattled past the corner, on its way back to Malaga. I wonder it goes safely along the rough, unlighted roads; but these Spanish mules have a safe and sleepy instinct that carries them anywhere without stumbling. The queer old man who serves as waiter and general attendant during the latter half of the day, brings in the lamp and a little pile of papers Dr. George has sent over, thinking I should like to see them; but I am too tired to dray myself from the lumpy cushions even to read the news from home. I fear sometimes that I am growing stupid; things are becoming a little blunted all round. I cannot think, or read, or work, or care for things as keenly as formerly; all my longing is just to get on to this sofa and rest, just to know that Molly is well, or that she is sleeping peacefully in the next room, then all the world and all it has may slip by.

            But this is just a passing phase; life is not so feeble that it cannot struggle against it, and all the hopes and longings and ambitions will come back. This place, in which we are strangers, and in which the few people we know are happier and stronger and better than ourselves, throws me back on myself too much, and deepens the shadows in my lot. In England it was easy to find so many poor and sick and sorrowful, longing for sympathy, and aching even for such little help as I could give, in sight of their lives it was impossible to cry out at one’s own griefs, almost impossible not to lose remembrance of them, to a certain extent, in the longing and eagerness to enter into their lives, and to help them and comfort and make them, even for so small a space, a little happier and brighter, a little freer from pain, a little less cold and hungry. But here one is thrown on oneself so sadly, and above all things is alone. To some men it might perhaps be best, but to a woman it is terrible. But this feeling will pass. What slaves we are to the lower side of ourselves, and how flesh and blood can master us! A little pain, a single blow, a little derangement of so many atoms, a little failure in the mere mechanical working of our bodies, and the strongest and the weakest are on the same level; and genius, and intellect, and learning, and noble aspirations, and all longings and strivings, where are they?

            Some one in the street beneath passes by, singing the gipsy chant, or what I take to be the gipsy chant. It seems as if my soul goes out to follow the voice down the dim street, along by the trees toward the still sea, over the uneven ground with the cool breeze blowing. I look up and see the light, and over the waves I go—the smooth, cold waves that have but little foam on them, and that climb and roll over and over each other from sheer restlessness, as people toss in their sleep; for in this still wind and beneath this blue sky they do not seem to be alive with all the life that is theirs in the storm, or with the joyousness that is theirs in the sunshine, and they are not full of all the strange memories that moonlight gives them. They do not know that I am going on and on, and over and over them wave after wave, towards the ship at sea. I go softly, and the little breeze hurries me on so secretly. How warm it will be on board! how cozy and bright in the saloon, with the passengers all about, and the lamps, and the books, and the bright glasses above the table, and the sound of the screw as we go on and on toward the land. What land? Oh, tell me this! what land is it they are going to? Not a strange land, but the dear one in which the woman lying on the sofa at Zahra played when she was a little girl, among the fields at Minehead; the land in which her best loved was carried home with the water dripping from his hair: the land in which her little son lies sleeping. I wonder what the bride is doing in St. John’s Wood, and if she understands the picture on the easel yet; if she ever looks at it, and thinks of the people who walked round and round the trim garden before it was all overgrown with rank tall grass, and the seaweed was piled up on the shore lower down, and—But some one is here. Ah yes, I understand; I am the woman at Zahra, and the woman in the dream is gone; she is not me, and I do not know where she may be. She is some poor soul who comes and rests in my body awhile, and goes out on strange journeys, and whispers them all into my dreaming ears, and then is gone again. I get up and smooth my rumpled hair. It is very golden, I think as I look in the glass—a pale, bright gold, like the sunshine of an early summer day. I pour some eau-de-cologne on the top of the mass of plaits, just to awaken me, and then open the door.

            ‘ I was half asleep,’ I say. ‘ Come in; I am so glad to see you both;’ and May Vincent enters, followed by a man. The man is fairly tall and well made; he has brown eyes and dark brown hair, and he is distinctly good-looking.

            ‘ Dear Mrs. Keith,’ May says gently, but in a happy satisfied voice, ‘ I have brought Ralph to see you.’

            ‘ How do you do?’ he says, and looks at me for full a quarter of a minute, shaking my hand, as if while he did so he thought of all the bygone days. ‘ How strange we should come across each other at last. I have often thought of you.’

            They come in, we gather round the open window, and by the dim lamplight he and I look at each other again, long and curiously, across the memories of all the years that have passed since we met.

            ‘ Why, we used to see each other nearly every morning;’ he laughs, and I wonder if he is thinking of the kiss we climbed up the fence to give each other the day we parted. He has a merry laugh, and his face lights up and is at its best when he is amused.

            ‘ I remember it all so well,’ I say; and we look at each other again. It is so strange to meet as man and woman, we who have always thought of ourselves as children together, whenever we thought at all.

            ‘ You were rather a pretty little girl, Maggie.’ I almost start; it is so long since any one called me by that name. ‘ May tells me you contemplate calling me Mr. Bricknell,’ he remarks, as if he understood how odd the sound of my own name had been to me.

            ‘ People contemplate many things they never do,’ I answer; and then we talk the old days and haunts of childhood over, wondering if it be really true that we are grown-up people now.

            ‘ I asked Mrs. Keith if you used to bully her, Ralph, and she assures me that you did,’ May says, when we have laughed over our old squabbles. ‘ I believe you were a very disagreeable boy.’

            ‘ Do you, miss?’ he answers grandly, just in the manner he used to answer me years ago. It brings mornings in the fields and games in the wood all back before my eyes with a rush. ‘ I never bullied any one; I was particularly amiable when I was a boy, as I am now,’ he adds solemnly.

            ‘ Oh!’ she cries.

            ‘ I believe we used to be sweethearts,’ he says, looking at me with another laugh.

            ‘ Then the sweetness was all on my side,’ I answer, rather ungraciously; but I am thinking of his pinches.

            ‘ And the heart too,’ he answers; ‘ for you certainly had mine in those days.’

            ‘ I did not deserve so pretty a speech as that,’ I reply humbly.

            ‘ That is so like you,’ he says; and then he turns to May. ‘ She always used to acknowledge when she was wrong, even in a trifle. She was very humble and repentant when she had offended me.’

            ‘ Well?’ she says.

            ‘ Well,’ he echoes, ‘ why don’t you repent when you offend me, and acknowledge when you are wrong?’ They are just like big boy and girl together; it is very curious to watch them.

            ‘ So I do,’ she says, after a moment’s hesitation; ‘ I always do. I am too proud not to do so. Only a coward is afraid to make amends, or to own when he is in the wrong.’

            She looks proud enough as she says it; her voice is eager, and her eyes are raised to his for a moment. He looks at her, and then at me, and then at her again; and I know perfectly that he is thinking how beautiful she is, and that there is a beautiful nature behind those fearless eyes. He is thinking, too, how bright she is, with her youth and happiness and utter unconsciousness of sorrow; and I do not know why, but I feel somehow that he is resolving in his heart that he will guard her from all the sorrow and pain that have set their mark for ever on me. He turns from her and looks at my hands. They are lying on my lap, little thin white hands, with the wedding-ring so loose that it slips, and would fall off but for the band of pearls that guards it. Then he looks up at my face, and while I know that he is sorry for me, I feel it is less on account of all I have suffered than for the traces it has left.

            ‘ It is so strange to meet you again,’ he says gravely. ‘ I can hardly believe it is you, and that you—you have been married and have children; only one child, though, is it?

            ‘ One now; there were two.’

            ‘ Why, it’s twenty years since we met. You must be nearly thirty, Maggie.’

            It is not a wise speech to make to a woman. Happily I do not mind it.

            ‘ It must be quite twenty years,’ I answer, ‘ for I was thirty a month ago.’

            ‘ Were you, Mrs. Keith?’ May exclaims. ‘ You look about seven-and-twenty; Mamma was saying so to-night. Why, you are two years younger than Ralph.’

            ‘ Yes, it is very odd to meet as old fogies,’ I say to him, looking across the girl between us.

            ‘ I don’t feel in the least like an old fogie,’ he answers.

            ‘ Neither do I.’

            ‘ There is not the least occasion to get old unless one chooses,’ he says. ‘ I intend to be as independent of Time as the world itself, which gets young again every year.’

            ‘ And old also,’ I add maliciously.

            ‘ We’ll forget that side of the argument,’ he laughs. ‘ Is that your child’s portrait?’ he asks; he gets up and examines it critically. ‘ It is rather well done,’ he says, with some hesitation, as if he had half expected it to be badly done, and is surprised.

            ‘ Do you think she is pretty?’ I ask, for he has said nothing about Molly’s face, and yet I have caught its sweetest, dreamiest look.

            ‘ It is a nice, little face,’ he answers;—‘ children are a great deal alike, you know,’ he adds, with a little laugh, as if he thought the remark a joke.

            ‘ We are here for her health’s sake,’ I tell him. ‘ She is not strong.’

            ‘ So May said;’ but he does not add a word of sympathy. ‘ I wonder Bournemouth, or some of those places, would not have done as well for her,’ he remarks, in a voice that gives me to understand that he really thinks the coming here to have been over-great an effort to make for so young a child.

            ‘ Do you like children?’ I ask him, as I put the easel a little on one side.

            ‘ I do not think I do particularly,’ he answers; ‘ but I shall like to see your little girl;’ and then he says gently, ‘ I thought of you, Maggie, when I saw your father’s death in the paper years ago. I should have written, only I did not know whether you would remember me; or where you were.’ May is some little distance off while he speaks, and seems not to hear what he is saying.

            ‘ Thank you, Ralph,’ I say gratefully. ‘ Do you remember him well?’

            ‘ Perfectly,’ he answers, ‘ and can see him riding along the Minehead lanes now. He always sat bolt upright, and had a way of looking over the hedges as he went along, as if he expected to drop on a poacher.’

            There is  frank manliness and certain simplicity about him as he speaks; I begin to understand why May likes him. Suddenly I hear Molly coughing uneasily in her sleep, and go to her. As I leave the room a guitar is twanging in the street, and they step out on to the balcony to listen to it.

            I stay a few minutes with Molly, arranging her pillow and listening to her breathing, and gently smoothing her soft hair. It is a comfort to be with her again after the hour’s absence, and they will not miss me in the next room. I sit and think of all that life has given me since the days when Ralph and I were playfellows, and am thankful enough for my lot, even for all the sorrows—that they have been mine to bear, and not another woman’s.

            Presently, when Molly is sleeping soundly again, and has ceased to cough, I go back to my visitors. They are still on the balcony, and do not see me for a moment. I hear Ralph say,

‘ You little goose,’ and he puts his hand on her shoulder just for a moment, but she shakes it off. I cannot quite make them out. They are evidently very fond of each other; there seems to be some understanding between them, and yet they do not seem to be exactly engaged. May looks round and sees me.

            ‘ Do come on the balcony, Mrs. Keith,’ she says; ‘ it is so lovely.’

            So I go out; a clock close by begins to strike, and a bell rings out in the distance; we hear a man’s voice singing, and listen till it dies away. We stand silently looking at the stars and the sky, and the white church opposite; far beyond we see the twinkling lights at sea—not many, only two or three perhaps, but they se me journeying into the far-off again, and I think of the picture on the easel, and the rocking-horse in the nursery, and of the little bride, and wonder if she is laughing. I must not forget to write to poor nurse to-morrow. When we left England she was broken-hearted at all that had happened, and was going to Germany, to her son’s wife.

            May gives a long sigh. ‘ The world is very lovely,’ she says softly, ‘ if people were only worthy of it.’

            ‘ And pray, who is unworthy?’ Ralph asks, evidently rather astonished at the remark.

            She laughs a little. ‘ You and I, perhaps,’ she says.

            ‘ I don’t feel particularly unworthy,’ he answers.

            ‘ You self-righteous person,’ she says repoachfully; and then she adds, ‘ I promised Lord Bexley to remind you of the billiards at nine o’clock, and nine o’clock struck half an hour ago.’

            ‘ Then why didn’t you remind me half an hour ago?’

            ‘ Don’t speak in a masterful tone, sir. I told Mrs. Keith that you liked being masterful.’

            ‘ Did you?’ he answers, in a still more masterful manner. ‘ You seem to have been amusing yourself by abusing me to Mrs. Keith to your heart’s content.’

            ‘ Not to my heart’s content at all,’ she says, with merry mock humility, ‘ but quite the reverse, indeed. Alas, alas.’

            ‘ Why didn’t you tell me when it was nine o’clock, miss?’

            ‘ An’ please, sir, we found your company so pleasant I thought it would be a pity to lose it,’ she answers saucily; at which he laughs and gives his head a little toss, and says he wishes she would learn to treat her elders with respect.

            ‘ Respect!’ she laughs. ‘ It is so absurd to expect respect, isn’t it? When you are at home and official, then it is quite different.’ She does not explain what she means, and I do not like to ask.

            ‘ I can’t fancy Ralph official,’ I say.

            ‘ Can’t you?’ he says absently. ‘ Well, I shall have to go back soon, I fear, and then you must fancy it if you think of me at all.’ He looks at May again for a minute. ‘ I am teaching her Spanish,’ he says.

            ‘ And scolds me dreadfully,’ she interrupts. ‘ But I am stupid, and he will go to such very difficult writers.’

            ‘ We have been learning some maxims in the “Conde Lucanor.” Let us see, May; what was it you stumbled over so long? ‘ Quien te alabare con lo—’

            ‘ I won’t listen,’ she cries merrily, and stuffs her fingers into her ears. ‘ I am not in school to-night.’

            ‘ Obstinate thing!’ he exclaims; and then they wish me good-night, and he asks if he may come again, ‘ without this frivolous young person,’ looking at May with an expression in his eyes that must surely satisfy her; and then they go away together, laughing and chattering down the staircase like a couple of merry school-children. I listen to their voices curiously; they are like an echo that has travelled on through all the years.

            How strange it has been to meet him again. I sit down to wonder a bit about all that is between them, and how it will end; but instead, I find my thoughts going off to the old days at Minehead—not to the days when Ralph and I were boy and girl together, but to the days when my husband first came to the inn to paint. He was there a whole summer, and we knew him only by sight; but when he came a second summer, my father thought he had earned a right to be recognised and, having made acquaintance, liked him. After that he was always at our house, and almost without knowing it we seemed to grow to each other. It was not that we fell in love—that seems to signify something too sudden and violent; it was just that our two lives grew together, until insensibly they became one. And at last it hardly seemed necessary to tell me he loved me; there was no occasion for promises and vows between us such as most lovers bind themselves with. I knew he loved me long before he spoke, just as he knew, before any saying of  ‘ yes’ or ‘ no,’ that when he asked me I should be his wife. Do we not turn naturally to our own home when the time comes to go to it? and so I turned to him, the home that knew and welcomed me, and had waited till I was ready. I had no thought of his not loving me, no fear, no dread of his not understanding this or that, no more than he had of my failing him. We knew that all the world might pass, and all the stars sweep by, but we should just stand together, without doubt or fear or question of each other. Was it a very tame love-making? I do not think so. It was the calm, still beauty of a summer that does not wane. We did not need storms and clouds and cold gusts, and sudden sunshine, and all that more uncertain lovers need, to test our strength. There is a love that knows no doubt or fear or change, that is far deeper and more passionate than that which is always protesting and making signs to show it has not vanished. The sea is not deepest where the restless waves ebb and flow and toss their snowy crests upon the shingly beach; but far out, where it flows still and smooth and there are no stones and rocks to spend its strength upon. It seemed so strange that we had ever been apart, there was no fear of anything coming between us when we were once together. How strange it seems that even Death had power to take one and leave the other. Yet even death is not so strong as love, and it has left us that, though one sleeps on not knowing, and the other sits here and waits. I think sometimes that death must be a sadder thing to those who love less. Ah! but I am speaking in spite of my own heart. But it is so; for had we loved each other less, had there been doubts, and fears, and hopes, and misgivings, as there are between those two who went laughing down the stairs just now, I could not have borne the agony of the end, the vanishing of all possibilities, the thinking it all over—of wondering how this had been, and what that had meant, the sense that never again could one thing be set right and another explained, or protestations tell how much or how little we had felt. The love that wanes, and squabbles, and changes with the wind, and grows cold when time and space have come between, or that hangs on a word, and is for ever questioning itself and its fellow, is it worth having; is it worth calling love at all? Ah, poor heart that has to depend on it, you have perhaps the little joys of earth, but you miss the calm of heaven.

 

 

 

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