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MRS. KEITH'S CRIME

 

 

CHAPTER XXV

 

 

THERE was something very strange in Dr. Murray’s manner this morning. He is an odd, self-contained man, but I cannot help fancying that he has taken a violent dislike to me. It is almost visible in his manner; it is a manner that shows he somehow doubts me, but how or why I cannot tell. He spoke to me this morning about Molly.

            ‘ My brother tells me that you insisted on knowing the exact state of your child,’ he said.

            ‘ Yes,’ I answered, trembling; for, do what I will, I cannot still my quaking limbs at the mention of what is coming—‘ yes, I know perfectly what her condition is, as far as words can tell me.’

            ‘ He is very sorry for you,’ he said slowly.

            ‘ I know he is; he is so good. I cannot tell you how kind he has been to us. He is very fond of children, and makes them fond of him. Molly quite loves him.’ Speaking of Dr. George put me off my guard, and I forgot that I was speaking to this formal brother.

            ‘ I am glad to hear that he has been of use to you,’ he answered. ‘ He is, as you say, always very kind to children, or to any one in any sort of trouble.’

            ‘ Yes,’ I answered. There was something almost unpleasant in his manner.

            ‘ He tells me that you did not wish any one to know her condition. May I ask why? I should have thought, as no doubt there are some here with whom you are intimate, that you would have been glad to get the sympathy of one of your own sex, for instance. It is a sad thing to see any one so utterly alone as you appear to be.’ He said the last words in a kinder voice than the first ones.

            ‘ There is no one here whose knowing it would make any actual difference; and sympathy could do me no good—I am better without it. No matter how many people know of them, the great sorrows of life have to be borne alone.’

            He was silent for a few minutes. ‘ Mrs. Keith,’ he said slowly, ‘ you are young to have no relations, no ties at all in the world except your child.’

            ‘ Yes. I have had none these last years, except my children. These were never many at best; but they were enough,’ I added, for the memory of the happy days flashed across me.

            ‘ And have you no friend in the world who could come out to you?’

            ‘ No, not one. Perhaps I have known Mr. Cohen and Mr. Bicknell, who are here, longer than other people; they are very old friends of mine. Mr. Cohen has been one of my best and truest friends, but I have no claim of his time, and he has other concerns; besides, I want to be alone. I shall be better alone.’

            ‘ But, Mrs. Keith, have you no relations or friends of your own sex?’

            ‘ No. I have one kind friend, but she is in Australia; and I have a cousin, Mrs. Grey—she lives in London.’

            ‘ Would not she come to you?’

            The question made me almost smile. ‘ No—no, she would not come,’ I said; ‘ she would think it too much trouble.’

            ‘ And is this why you wish my brother to stay?’

            ‘ I!’ I exclaimed, with a start. ‘ I know nothing about his staying or going. Dr. Murray, what have I to do with it?’

            ‘ Then I wish you would persuade him to go to England,’ he said. ‘ I came back here at great inconvenience to myself, in order that he might go. He telegraphed to me not to come, but still I came.’

            ‘ Why?’

            ‘ There is a post in London which he is almost certain to get if he shows himself and applies for it. But I cannot persuade him to go.’

            ‘ Why not?’

            ‘ Because of your child; because he thinks he may be of use to you.’

            ‘ Did he tell you so?’

            ‘ Not in actual words, but he implied it, and I know that that is the reason.’

            ‘ Dear Dr. George, how good he is.’

            ‘ It is ruining his career,’ he said coldly.

            ‘ But, Dr. Murray, I would rather he went. I want every one to go. The only longing I have left in the world is to be quite alone. It is very, very kind of him, but I would rather he went. He can do no good by staying; no one can.’

            ‘ No,’ he repeated slowly; ‘ no one can do any good. Then you will use your influence to make him go?’

            ‘ My influence? but I have no influence with him.’

            The look of doubt crept over his face again. ‘ He is staying on your account,’ he answered, ‘ and missing, perhaps, the great opportunity of his life.’

            ‘ Let me talk to him. Ask him to come and see me, and I will make him go. He can do no good, and I want to be away from even my best friends on earth. I will tell him so.’

            ‘ Thank you,’ he said. ‘ I will tell him what you have said, and I will ask him to come over and see you to-night. You will do him a great service by insisting on his going, and at once. He ought to have gone before.’

            I think his manner was better after that, but I do not like him, and never shall.

            I shall miss Dr. George sorely; but perhaps, even for the selfish point of view, it is better that he should go too. I begin to realize now how kind he has been to us, and am half afraid to think of what the silence and loneliness will be without him. The others, good and kind though they are, I want to go. I feel so pent up, so unnatural while they are all here; but Dr. George—well, he shall go too; he must go now—it would make me miserable if he stayed.

            In the afternoon Nellie Josephs offers to play a little while; it seems as if she has done the one thing in the world that could rest and soothe me. And so he begins, and as Molly and I lean back and listen, the old blessed dreaminess steals over me, and all things present melt away. So far we go, into strange lands, within reach of faint perfumes, that link the land we dream in to the land we dream of, for between the golden fruit and the smooth dark leaves on the orange-trees below, the white blossom is opening and filling the air with its fragrance. How some music has power to open the unseen doors—the doors through which the sound wander away, so that you hardly hear them until it seems as if a soft hand, touched you, or some unknown voice whispered to you, and then, listening, you rise and hurry after the music, almost faint in the distance. And by it you guide yourself on and on into the places where sweet sounds are and soft dreams stay before they steal across the sleeper’s brain at night. The silent voices of all our dear ones speak there, the vanished faces look at us once again, and those who have loved us and have perchance forgot steal near, and for a moment the days of old come back. And there are strange tracts of country waiting for the painter to see and paint, and words which only poets may hear and  write down; and oh, somewhere through those doors is peace—peace and rest and happiness that were all our own, but that a chain holds us fast.

            Suddenly the sounds cease, and the doors are shut, and I look round half dazed. It is but my soul that has been wandering away, seeing and hearing a hundred things that I, who am here, cannot grasp or understand. Just one thing now and again flashes across me, but that is all, and I wonder what the strange though means, or why these words seem familiar, or why my eyes half recognize that picture. For the dull senses cannot understand how the swift spirit has been on apace, and has seen and heard and returned, but perforce keeps its journeying half a secret.

            She stops for a few moments, and then she plays a little bit of Schumann. With a start  I awake and listen. Long since, once I loved best translated a passionate song of Heine’s and set it to this music. He is a difficult poet to translate, and perhaps this was not very well done, and yet the words are written on my heart, and will be while I live:

 

‘ Sweet, when I look at you,

Into your eyes;

All my pain, fearing you,

Passes and flies.

*        *        *        *

‘ When your soul tells me you

Love me at last,

Darling, my tears will flow

Bitter and fast.’

 

            Oh, Molly, I cannot bear it; I cannot—cannot—and I put my face down on the cushion and sob, as every note sinks into my heart.

 

 

            All the evening I have been wondering what to say to Dr. George. I will put it entirely on my own shoulders, or perhaps he will not hear me or agree to do what is best. I will not hear me or agree to do what is best. I will not say that his brother has spoken; only tell him that I want to be alone, and that it is better for me that he should go.

            It is late when he comes. I always think when he enters that he finds it some sort of rest, for he sits down with a look of content in his eyes, like a man who is at home among his own people.

            ‘ Dr. George,’ I ask, ‘ when are you going to England?’

            ‘ Not yet,’ he answers.

            ‘ Why not yet?’

            ‘ I like being here.’

            ‘ But you will be too late. You will lose your chance of getting that post if you delay much longer.’

            ‘ Never mind; it does not matter,’ he says quietly. ‘ Something else will turn up in time.’

            ‘ But tell me why you stay. You would like the appointment, and your brother says you would be sure to get it. Why don’t you go?’

            ‘ I want to stay here.’

            ‘ But tell me why?’ I say half-entreatingly.

            He hesitates for a moment. ‘ I want to watch Molly. She knows me now, and I am fond of her. I was always fond of children,’ he adds apologetically, and then he is silent.

            Dr. Murray is right. I see it all in a second. He is waiting because his heart is too tender to leave a little child. But his career shall not be injured for us. Besides, he can do no good; we are only keeping him from those to whom he might be of use—from the whole world, which will surely be the better for him.

            ‘ I wish you would go,’ I say. ‘ I want you to go, and every one to go, and leave me alone with Molly. I told you it was easier, that it would be easier, if none knew or looked on.’

            ‘ But I have known all this time; why should I not stay a little longer? I cannot bear to go and leave you to come home alone,’ he answers, an intense longing to help and comfort me betraying itself in his voice.

            ‘ It will be far better,’ I say; ‘ it will be better and kinder to go. I would rather that you did. I should like no one to be here who cared for her. Dr. Murray is cold and formal.’

            I did not mean to say it; the words slipped out unawares. He hastens to defend his brother.

            ‘ He does not mean it,’ he says. ‘ It is only manner and temperament; it is not want of feeling. He has been so anxious about you too, even more than about Molly.’

            ‘ I know; but it will be far better for me—better that I should have him near me rather than you; better that I should know that I must not give way, or he will despise me. Oh, Dr. George, if you would do what I wish most, you will go. It will help me most.’

            ‘ But I shall think of you so. Let me stay,’ he pleads. ‘ You cannot make that long journey home alone. Let me stay and help you, and take you. I cannot bear to think of you here alone after—’ He puts out his hands as if to touch mine, but quickly draws them back, afraid, and stops. I look up at him, and in his eyes there is an infinite pity, a longing, a something that I cannot define, the expression of a tender, manly nature that loves, and is not ashamed of loving, a little child—an understanding of all that is and is to come. It sets me swiftly thinking of the refuge and help that some women must find in their brothers; but I had never one to help me.

            ‘ I want you to go,’ I repeat. ‘ I want to be quite alone. If you would do the best and kindest thing of all for me, go. I want to be alone with Molly; to feel that no one will care or sympathise, or come in at odd moments with words of kindness that would be worse than reproaches and blows.’

            He is silent for a minute. ‘ I will do what you wish me to do, however hard it is,’ he says.

            ‘ Then go,’ I answer, holding out my hand. ‘ It is better; it is far better.’

            He is silent, and stands hesitating. ‘ Your child is all the world to you?’ he says, with a sigh.

            ‘ Oh yes, the whole wide world.’

            ‘ And no one else is of any good to you or help?’

            ‘ No, I think not. It is hard to say it; but it is not because I am ungrateful. If I had room other feelings, if Molly were well, if things had been bright and prosperous, I could have cared for my friends more. I have no room now for anything or any one in my heart or life but the child.’ I stop for a moment, but he is silent and I go on. ‘ But I am grateful, I am very grateful, dear Dr. George, for all that you have done and been to me. The days would have been very different without you. It will always be something to know that a clever man like you, with so much to think about as you have, could care for a little child like Molly. I shall always remember it.’

            ‘ You will let me see you when you come home?’ he asks, speaking as if he had hardly been listening to my last words.

            ‘ Yes.’

            ‘ And you will come—you will come?’ he says, and in his voice there is something like pain and terror.

            ‘ Yes, I shall come. I want to walk through the rooms at home once more and see the rocking-horse and the picture. I wonder if it has changed. I shall come. Oh, I must see it all once more,’ I cry, clasping my hands.

            ‘ Very well,’ he says slowly. ‘ Then I will go, since you wish it—it is only because you wish it—and I will wait for you there. I will not come after to-night to say good-bye to you or Molly. Let me take my last look now. Promise me you will come?’ he almost beseeches. What does he mean?

            ‘ I promise,’ I answer; ‘ but there is no necessity to promise. You do not know or understand;—there are things calling me just as if they had human voices.’

            He is silent again, a long dreary silence: at last, sad and loth, he gets up to go, and I look at him with a long, long look, for in my heart there is a secret, and I dread and fear lest he should guess it. If he only goes to-morrow. Oh, my good and kind friend, why do I wish you away? He walks, without a word more, into Molly’s room. I do not follow him, but I can see him stoop and kiss her, just as if she had been his own child, or as if he loved her not only for the sake of her sweetness, but of ties of kinship. He looks round, when he comes back, at the flowers—the flowers he sent—at the little row of books, at Molly’s portrait still on the easel.

            ‘ I shall remember this room,’ he says, ‘as long as I live.’ Then he wrings my hand.

‘ Good-bye,’ he says. ‘ I will start to-morrow. I shall think of you. If ever there is an hour in which it comforts you to know that I am with you in thought, know it. Good-bye;’ and so he leaves me. I go out into the balcony, and listen, just as I did one night last year, for his footsteps coming round the corner. I hear them come, I see his face turned towards the window. He says

‘ Good-night,’ and waves his hand. I watch him out of sight, I look at the starry sky and over at the white church, and come in and shut the window. It is time to go back to Molly.

 

 

 

 

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