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MRS. KEITH'S CRIME

 

 

CHAPTER XIX

 

MR. JOSEPHS and his daughter started yesterday for Granada. This place seems quiet and empty without them, and May (whom I have hardly seen since the night, a week ago now, when she told me of her love for Ralph) will miss Helen’s companionship, for latterly they were a good deal together.

            To-day Mrs. Greenside keeps her room; she has letters to write, and feels saying good-bye to her brother and niece so much that she is not equal to leaving it. Miss Martin reports this when she comes to inquire after Molly. She too looks dull; perhaps she misses Helen. But she says, ‘ No; people never make much difference.’ Molly, who has not forgotten her walk with Miss Martin, creeps up to her. ‘ Show mother the little knife,’ she whispers; but I see Miss Martin press her hand as a sign to be silent. ‘ Then, will you, mother? One day Miss Martin sang me a little song while you were gone down for some books. Do sing it now to dear mother, Miss Martin.’

            ‘ Yes, do,’ I say.

            Miss Martin looks almost unhappy. ‘ I can’t sing, and I never learnt to play properly. I only know a few notes my mother taught me, and the songs I learnt to please the children,’ she says.

            ‘ But take me on your knee again, and play and sing it just as you did when mother was not here,’ persists Molly, who will not be denied.

            ‘ Do, while I paint in that beggar,’ I say, turning to my easel by the window.

            Miss Martin goes to the piano. She is so nervous that she lets the lid fall back, and is visibly uneasy at the noise it makes. She sits down, and the first chord she plays shows that she is no musician, and yet she has a tremulous, nervous touch that atones for her want of skill. In a sweet but utterly untrained voice she begins to sing one of the ‘ Songs of Innocence,’—‘ Piping down the valleys wild.’

            I look up in a moment. ‘ Who taught you that song?’ something makes me ask, rudely enough, perhaps.

            ‘ My mother,’ she answers. ‘ She learnt a great many songs from a gentleman to whom she was engaged before she married my father;’ and then she adds awkwardly,

‘ He was the brother of one of her pupils, and she was engaged to him.’

            ‘ But they didn’t marry?’

            ‘ No; the family didn’t like, and so he went to India. My brother is with him there. He wrote after my father had failed—he was in business as a commission agent—and asked my mother if anything could be done.’ The colour comes to her face as she adds,

‘ My father got into trouble, and—and it made him take to drink.’

            It is a dreary little history, and I long to say something kind to her. But, though she does not understand what it has all meant, Molly speaks for me.

            ‘ Poor dear Miss Martin!’ she says, and kisses her. ‘ Sing me another song, please.’ This time nervously; when the song is finished she gets up, closes the piano, says, in her usual dull voice—

            ‘ Mrs. Greenside will require me, I think, Mrs. Keith;’ and leaves the room with the quiet, methodical air that is natural to her.

            I am still painting when José, the old serving-man brings in a note. ‘ The señorina gave it to him this morning very early, before she went off into the country with the two worshipful señors, her father and friend, and she told him to bring it in as soon as I was up, but unhappily his memory failed, and he forgot; but all is well, for now it is here;’ having delivered himself of this communication with much gravity, he departs. I open the little three-corner note, wondering what it can be. It is from May.

 

            ‘ DEAREST MRS. KEITH,— ‘ I am going for a long day’s riding with papa and Ralph, but I will come and see you directly I come back. I want you to know that I am very, very happy; and Ralph is too, I think. A kiss to Molly.

 

‘ MAY.’

 

            The tears force themselves into my eyes from simple thankfulness. I am so glad to read her words. Master Ralph is all right, then, after all. I laugh out for joy, thinking how happy they are, how saucy May will be, and wondering how much love-making his lordship permits himself to do. I should like to make a little face at him, and cannot paint any more, I am so pleased; so I get up and kiss Molly a dozen times over, and call her a pretty dickie-bird, and restlessly wonder what to do next.

            ‘ Would you like to go out, dickie-bird? Shall we have an ugly, lumbering carriage and go for a drive?’

            ‘ Yes,’ she cries joyfully, infected with my good spirits. We quickly put on our things, and look so nice in our white shady hats that we laugh again as we see our two selves in the glass; then we go hand-in-hand downstairs, and drive towards the vega.

            ‘ I like it so,’ Molly says, as she looks out at the palms and olives, and up at the blue sky; ‘ I like it so, dear mother.’

            ‘ And so do I, my darling,’ I say; and my heart is full of rest, for May is happy, and the day is bright, and I turn from the sunshine that is sparkling on the sea to look at Molly’s face. She looks so well that once more the tears force themselves into my eyes—tears of thankfulness and not of sorrow; and all the past is forgotten, and all the future trusted, for the sake of the blessedness that is in my heart to-day.

            We are tired when we come back, but we have been so happy this morning that we do not mind. As we enter the Fonda de Madrid, the patio looks shady and green, the divans are soft and low, the wicker chairs are cozy, and the little table is there with newly-arrived papers; so we stay, instead of going back to our own rooms, and Molly has a long rest on the cushions.

            In the afternoon, after luncheon, the Bexleys and Mrs. Vincent keep us company.

            ‘ It is always dull without May,’ the latter says; ‘ but it did me good to see her go this morning, she looked so happy.’

            ‘ Perhaps she felt happy,’ I say.

            ‘ Yes; I hope she did,’ Mrs. Vincent answers, with a long-drawn sigh. ‘ I often wonder,’ she goes on, looking at the Bexleys, whom she knows much more intimately than she does me—‘ I often wonder how May will take sorrow. It is sure to come to her one day, I suppose.’

            She pushes her hair back, and waits anxiously to hear what they will say. She has a soft, kind face, and her hair is grey, though she looks French, though she has the timid, confidential little manner very characteristic of a certain type of English-woman.

            ‘ She will take it bravely,’ Lord Bexley says warmly, ‘ for she will be brave about everything; but I think she will feel little sorrows less and great ones more than most women.’

            ‘ It will be a terrible thing if she marries a man she does not love.’

            ‘ She never will,’ Lord Bexley answers; and, judging from the present state of things, she will not have the chance.’

            ‘ Mr. Vincent and I have often talked it over,’ Mrs. Vincent goes on. ‘ I would rather see her married to a man she cared for, even if he had faults, than to the most perfect being for whom she had not an overwhelming love.’

            ‘ It doesn’t matter what a man is, provided, of course, he is up to a certain mark, if a woman is only head and ears in love with him. Her imagination supplies him with any number of virtues and accomplishments,’ Lord Bexley replies.

            ‘ Nothing but a great love—I mean a great love satisfied—will prevent May’s life from becoming almost tragic,’ Mrs. Vincent says softly, in her most confidential voice; and then she whispers to Lady Bexley, ‘ It is a great pity.’

            Lady Bexley perhaps thinks it is a wrong time for getting deeper in the subject, for she changes it by turning to me and asking if I have heard that Mrs. Greenside is going to Pau with them.

            ‘ Yes; I was surprised,’ I answer.

            ‘ I am sure you were. We did not take kindly to poor Mrs. Greenside at first, I fear. Her great recommendation to us all was that we supposed her to be a very intimate friend of yours and dear little Molly’s.’

            Molly looks up and smiles at the description of herself, and puts out her hand to show that she is pleased at it; then she leans back again, and, with her great eyes wide open, listens as before to all that goes on.

            ‘ No, that was a mistake; for I only met her on board ship,’ I explain.

            ‘ Oh yes; so we found out afterwards,’ Lady Bexley laughs. ‘ By the way, Mrs. Keith, was the portrait of the niece over painted? We heard a great deal about it.’

            ‘ No; I think Mrs. Greenside forgot it, or perhaps there was not time. There was so much riding and driving to do.’

            ‘ Ah:’ Lady Bexley laughs. ‘ The fact is, Mrs. Keith, I fear we have supplanted you. She is very inconstant, and likes new people.’

            Mrs. Vincent looks round, and says in her lowest, more confidential voice, ‘ She likes to fasten herself on to people. She is a very vulgar person.’

            ‘ Come, come; I won’t let you abuse her,’ Lord Bexley says. ‘ She is the only person who ever praised my book. My wife treated it with silent indifference.’

            ‘ No, dear, I didn’t,’ his wife says earnestly; ‘ only I thought you might have done it so much better.’

            ‘ It is very odd,’ I cannot help saying, ‘ that Mrs. Greenside should go and leave the relations whom she was so anxious about to their own devices, for I believe they are coming back here.’

            ‘ She has been a great deal of trouble to them,’ Mrs. Vincent says, as if she knew it for a fact.

            ‘ Don’t you think we are very kind to take her and Miss Martin in charge all the way to Pau?’ Lord Bexley asks.

            ‘ Very,’ I answer.

            ‘ She is not going to stay with us,’ Lady Bexley explains. ‘ We only said, when she expressed a desire to go there, that it would be very nice if we could all go together; but of course, when we are there, we shall go our separate ways. She will want to go somewhere else after a time, and so shall we.’

            ‘ I am very sorry for her,’ I say. ‘ She is quite alone in the world; she has no husband or children, and I don’t think her brother cares much for her: he merely looks after her as a matter of duty.’

            ‘ I shall be glad when she is gone,’ Mrs. Vincent says. ‘ She is not a person I like.’

            ‘ Pity us, then,’ Lady Bexley says. ‘ Her loneliness and misery are all a part of herself,’ she adds, turning to me. ‘ She would be miserable without a little misery. You know what I mean.’

            Somehow the conversation makes me indignant.

            ‘ I cannot understand,’ I say, ‘ why you have invited her to go with you. It does not seem quite fair to make much of a person you do not like. She may not be very charming, but she is a person to be sorry for, and she is very good-hearted.’ And then I tell them how kind she was to us when we first came, and had no one else to speak to; how she took us out driving, and invited us to cozy afternoon teas, here where tea is a luxury and comfort almost unknown; and how she made much of Molly; and insisted on giving me a soft shawl she valued greatly when one day she saw that I was chilly.

            Perhaps she is vulgar and patronizing, but she is also kind and generous, and I fear that I have hardly been just to her in my thoughts, so I speak out warmly, thinking the while that, if we could look into poor Mrs. Greenside’s heart, we should doubtless find it aching enough, for, save wealth, she has little to make it otherwise. Lady Bexley is not all offended.

            ‘ I think you are right,’ she says frankly, ‘ and I feel quite reproved; but I do not wonder at any one being kind to you and little Molly.’ And then she gives me a great surprise, for she asks suddenly, ‘ Do you know Mr. Cohen, Mrs. Keith?’

            ‘ Yes, indeed; but do you know him?’

            ‘ We have know him for a long time. My husband has a great regard for him.’

            ‘ Yes, that I have,’ Lord Bexley puts in. ‘ He is a great friend of mine. We heard from him some days ago. He said that he knew that we were here from you.’

            ‘ Yes; I told him the names of all the English here.’

            ‘ You liked Miss Josephs, did you not?’ Lady Bexley asks, with the air of a woman who has a secret that pleases her, and I begin to wonder how much she knows of the sardine’s affairs. ‘ I will tell you something,’ she whispers: ‘ it was Mr. Cohen who suggested that perhaps Mrs. Greenside would like to go to Pau with us; she would have a larger field there, he said. Now do you understand? We want to do a friend a good turn, and we are not such impostors as we seem, for I really think that Mrs. Greenside will take Pau, and I have found out that she and her brother never agree long together.’

            Suddenly a carriage stops before the hotel door: we can see all that goes on outside from the patio where we are sitting. Two people alight from the carriage and enter, and look round. Then one of the old serving-men attached to the Fonda de Madrid comes indolently forward, and the new arrivals, who prove themselves to be English, ask if they can have rooms. It is quite an event for us.

            ‘ Yes, certainly, if they wish it, the señor and the señora can have rooms,’ the old man answers, without any excitement, and goes to the landlady.

            She is dozing in the little room beyond, hoping to be awake and lively for the evening and Don Carlos, perhaps. She does not trouble herself to come forward, though strangers are few and far between. The old man returns with a key, and asks the arrivals if they will follow him. We silently watch them disappearing up the staircase, wondering if they are surprised at the dust and dirt that distinguish its marble way, or whether by staying at many Spanish inns they have learnt to think such features natural to the climate. They are young people and good-looking we think they must be newly married. They come down again after a few minutes, dismiss the driver of the fly, and pay the lazy beggars outside for having carried in their luggage; for here, as at Malaga, there are no people attached to the hotel to do these little services.

            ‘ Quite an excitement,’ we all say to each other.

            ‘ It makes dinner something to look forward to, though of course they will be at the other end,’ Lady Bexley says.

            ‘ Where do all the people who appear at luncheon come from?’ I ask, for the table is always full of dull-looking Spaniards.

            ‘ Some of them are staying in the house,’ Lady Bexley answers, ‘ and some just come in to their food. I suppose they are the main props of the inn. I never understand where the women feed, or if there are any women, and if so, whether they ever get anything to eat.’

            ‘ What becomes of the Spaniards who are staying in the hotel, for we never see them except at table?’

            ‘ They have a separate sitting-room. They are men engaged in commerce, I think, or having duties of some sort in the place. It is much larger than you think, Mrs. Keith, and I fancy that the men we see at table have business dealing in Zahra. When they have nothing to do they idle away their time at the café opposite, for some people must support that café and the ceaseless piano.’

            The new arrivals find their way to the landlady’s room, and we hear them ask if there are any letters for Mr. or Mrs. Walters.

            It is getting late, and Molly is tired. Lord Bexley offers to carry her up, and when he has done so he stays for a few minutes looking at Molly’s portrait and the little bits of Zahra which I have been painting lately.

            ‘ I wish you would let me carry two or three of them away,’ he says, ‘ and consider that they were commissions—that is, if they are not bespoken, and if you do not want them.’

            ‘ I did them to give away,’ I answer, for in my mind I had planned to give them to Mrs. Marshall and the sardine; ‘ but if you want them, I could easily paint some more for myself.’

            ‘ I should like them very much. What a delightful balcony you have, Mrs. Keith,’ he says, and steps out. He looks towards the sea at one end and the street at the other, at the church across the way, and at the beggars about its entrance. ‘ It is a comfort that the Spaniards make picturesque beggars, since there are so many of them,’ he remarks.

            Suddenly, on her way downstairs, seeing my door open, Mrs. Greenside enters, and in a moment the whole place seems full of her. She takes in the situation at once, and, in her most earnest manner, asks—

            ‘ Has Lord Bexley been looking at your paintings, Mrs. Keith? He is a born artist.’

            ‘ And a born writer too—don’t forget that, please, Mrs. Greenside,’ he says. ‘ By the way, I have been asking Mrs. Keith if she had finished your niece’s portrait, but she says it is not even begun.’

            ‘ Oh, she has not been well enough,’ Mrs. Greenside answers, as if she thought him rather cruel for even thinking of it. ‘ I could not ask her to do it. Besides, I shall see so much of her when we are all back in London.’

            ‘ I am sure you will,’ he says: and then he tells her the great piece of news.

‘ Some people have just arrived—a charming young couple, still on their honeymoon by the look of them. Don’t you think it is rather a pity we are going away before we can cultivate them?’

            ‘ But there will be so many charming people at Pau, it really doesn’t matter,’ she says thoughtfully. ‘ Now, tell me, Mrs. Keith, how is your child? I hope Miss Martin has been to inquire after her every morning? I told her to do so.’

            ‘ Yes, she has, thank you,’ I answer, wondering if she thinks there is some healing power in the inquires, for she speaks as if they had been made for no other reason; and then I remember poor Mrs. Greenside’s own troubles, and add, ‘ I fear you miss your brother and niece very much?’

            ‘ Oh yes,’ she answers, with a long sigh; ‘ but I felt that it was better to send them away; it was far better for them than staying with me any longer.’

            ‘ It was very kind of you,’ Lord Bexley says solemnly; ‘ but you should think of yourself, Mrs. Greenside.’

            ‘ Oh no,’ she says, with another sigh, as she takes him downstairs, ‘ I cannot; I never think of myself, dear Lord Bexley.’

            And then, while Molly lies still and watches me, I go on with the painting of the Spanish beggars, thinking the while of Mr. Josephs and his hereditary theory. I do not like it in so far as it makes one feel like a puppet dancing to the strings in dead men’s hands. For if we who are here to-day shape the natures and determine the emotions and characteristics of those who come after us, surely by that same reasoning we ourselves are but creatures of the past, and our best deeds as well as our worst are but the working of those whose bodies have fallen away from their stronger wills. And yet I like to imagine that if Molly grows up and bears children, all her sweetness may be handed down to future generations. It is a strange thing to think that those we love best were, after all, as far as our eyes and ears could take in, but the least part of themselves; that they were but the tangible manifestation of a greater power than physical life could express or retain in one individual; that they were an echo, a spark, a fragment belonging to a power that finds a shelter here and a voice there in one form or another—a power that, for want of some other word to describe it, we call divine. And yet, ah, poor humanity, with all its foolish longings, with all its individual feelings, where is the comfort for you in that? Let me go over to my child, and put my face against hers, for in human love there is rest for me and the like of me.

            Half an hour later the light is not good enough for work, and I sit singing in a very low voice to Molly. Suddenly there is a sound. It brings a smile to my lips, for it is the trampling of horses’ feet, and it means that May and Ralph and Mr. Vincent have come back from their long ride. A few minutes later, and there is May’s light, swift step on the stairs. It sets my heart beating with pleasure to see her. Her riding-skirt is gathered up in her left hand, a flush of happiness and excitement is on her face.

            ‘ Dear Mrs. Keith,’ she says, kneeling down in front of me and putting her arms round my neck,  ‘ are you better? And how is dear little Molly?’ She goes over and kisses Molly, then comes back to me. ‘ I have had such a happy day,’ she says, with a long-drawn sigh of contentment. ‘ We rode a long way out into the country, and found a little green wood, where we lunched beneath some cork trees. Oh, it was lovely!’

            ‘ Yes, dear?’

            ‘ I wanted to tell you something last night,’ she goes on, in her sweet, low voice.

‘ I came to your door and listened, but heard no sound, so I thought you had gone to bed, and was afraid to disturb you, and this morning you were not up when we started. I gave José a note for you. Did you get it, dear?’ then she raises her head and shows me her happy, shy eyes, and laughs a little and turns them away again, as if she were half ashamed and half afraid to tell the rest.

            ‘ Well?’ I ask, smoothing her hair.

            ‘ It is all right between us,’ she says softly. ‘ He says he never thinks of life without me, and last night he asks me if I really thought I could put up with him for all my days.’

            ‘ What did you say?’ and I laugh for joy, just because it does me good to see how happy she is.

            ‘ I told him yes, I could;’ she lifts up her head and says it proudly. ‘ And he asks me if I really cared about him, and I told him yes, I did, more than for the whole wide world; and I do.’

            ‘ And what did he say to that nice little confession?’

            ‘ He said he couldn’t understand it, but he looked very happy; and then we walked up and down outside and round by the sugar-canes, and all the time we could hear the waltz that is always being played at the café opposite. I shall remember that piano as long as I live, I think.’

            ‘ So shall I—that and the church bell opposite; and so you and Ralph are really going to be happy together?’

            ‘ I hope so; I do hope so. I will never vex him again if I can help it. It has been all my fault that we ever had any squabbles at all. Oh, Mrs. Keith,’ she says, with another long-drawn sigh, ‘ I am so very happy; it makes me half afraid.’ I stoop and kiss her, and wonder if he cares enough.

 

            I sit all the evening thinking of them in a vague, dreamy way, for the day has tired me too much for active thought. I wish that she and Dr. George had chanced to love each other, for in his wise and gentle hands she would be safe. It is not Ralph’s heart I doubt, but only his gentleness. With Dr. George—and, as if my thought had had some power to bring him he enters.

            It is long after dark, the waltz is being played at the café opposite, and May, perhaps, is strolling with her lover again beneath the soft Spanish sky. There is comfort in the sound of Dr. George’s step; with him there comes a dim sense of rest and safety.

            ‘ I was not quite easy about Molly this morning,’ he says, ‘ so I thought I would come and see her.’

            But having seen her, he is evidently more satisfied, and stays talking with me for a little while, looking at me with the sad, wondering expression in his kind eyes that sometimes half frightens me, for it seems as if they knew some secret about us of which they would not yet allow his lips to speak. ‘ I wish you were not so entirely alone,’ he says; ‘ if you had only some one—’

            ‘ I have the child; she is all I want.’

            He looks at me again, long and gravely. ‘ Why do you always wear a shawl?’ he asks.

            ‘ It is comfortable; it wraps me round. I like it.’

            He goes up to Molly’s portrait; and then, as if one innocent thing set hum thinking of another, he says, ‘ I made a great discovery to-day. At the end of the garden, just beyond the orange trees and myrtles, there are some primrose; the first ones opened their eyes this morning.’

            ‘ I must come and see them.’

            ‘ I will have a root put into a pot and brought to you. Have you seen the violets? There are lots of them.’

            ‘ No. It is like the coming of spring; it makes one happy to hear about them,’ I say.

            He looks up and the answer is in his eyes. Dr. George always seems to find his happiness in the simplest, purest things of life; and for children and sick people he has sympathy and understanding. Oh, why didn’t May fall in love with him? Life would not be the game of chance that it may be now, if she and he cared for each other.

            ‘ I wish you would come more often to the garden,’ he says. ‘ I am in Malaga all day long, so should not disturb you. Philip would wait on you, and Molly could pick flowers and oranges while you painted.’

            ‘ We will go to-morrow. Perhaps it will amuse Philip to sit to me, if he has time.’

            ‘ Time!’ he laughs. ‘ Time is the one thing that every Spaniard has, for he never does anything with it.’

            ‘ But he wastes so much,’ I answer; and then he laughs and bids me good-night.

            ‘ Be sure to go to the garden,’ he says, holding my hand for a moment. ‘ I shall like to think of you there, and of Molly seeking for violets.’

            I listen to his footsteps as he goes. He has to turn the corner, and pass beneath my window to get to his own house. He looks up and sees me on the balcony.

             ‘ Good-night,’ he says, and passes on.

            Mr. and Mrs. Walters, the people who arrived to-day, come by a moment later. They are very close together; they look like lovers. I hear him say, ‘ We will go there next year, my darling.’ They are arranging for their future. It makes me shudder. I go back into the room, and get down a book from the little shelf in the corner, and suddenly stagger and fall against the sofa. … ‘ We will go there next year, my darling.’ They are making plans for the future, those happy people who passed…Next year!— I shall stand on the balcony and watch for the New Year. … I shall feel it coming over the sea and down from the sky, wrapping the hushed world in a new, strange mantle of hopes and fears; and the old sorrows and the old joys, where will they be? Will they slip down into the earth? Ah, no; the New Year will wrap them all in. …Oh, this misery, how it twines round and round and stifles me. …no, I will not watch the New Year come. I will hold Molly close and tight, and it shall find us so. …this pain is going a little farther and farther away…is it seeking some other poor soul? Perhaps May is hearing her lover say he loves her; if he is only true—it will be bitterest pain of all for you, my dear, if he is false; and yet I cannot bear just this silently….Oh, but I will….it will not matter if you get well, little Molly; if you get well, my sweet…

 

 

 

 

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