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MRS. KEITH’S CRIME
CHAPTER VIII
DID you ever sit
alone after some terrible storm in your life had passed and left you blankly
staring the future in the face, half wondering, half doubting that you were
living still, and think sadly over your old day-dreams?—the things that years
ago you had meant to do in the happy days to come, things that seemed as if
they would be so easy and pleasant, and so certain to wait on time and
opportunity? I sit thinking over my old dreams this afternoon, here in the
little drawing-room once more.
To-morrow we start for Malaga, Molly
and I. I wonder when we shall return, or if either of us will? This house is
let to a young married couple. He is an artist. It is rather a comfort to me
that he is; it seems natural that he should come to live and work here. They
both appeared to like the little bits of rubbish about the place—the sketches,
and the pots and pans and plants; but they did not appreciate the poor picture
on the easel any more than the sardine did. Yet to me it has always been so
strangely pathetic, and now I seem to know what it all means. It dawned upon me
while the little bride and her husband were here the other day, going through
the rooms with merry laughter, thinking how cosy they would be in our little
home. They laughed at the rocking-horse, and the bride stroked it, and said it
was a ‘dear big beast,’ like one she had had at home, and then they both
laughed; and while they were laughing, I was forcing back my tears, and
listening to a voice, the merriest voice that ever mother’s heart answered to,
singing—
‘The
four and twenty sailors that walk about the decks.’
When they had made their
arrangements, in the careless, happy-go-lucky fashion of youth and belief in
the world, and had gone away, then I sat thinking of the picture, as I had many
times before. Now I understood it, and knew what the dead people sleeping over
the hill had looked like; how they had laughed, and cried, and hoped, and
sorrowed; and how thankful they had been to lay their heads down at last. The
waves had gone on dashing over the shingly beach year after year towards the
garden wall; the seaweed had been heaped up here and there higher and higher, and
then the pitiful sea took it back again; and farther up I saw the flowers
dying, and heard the last hum of birds and bees, and knew when the swallows had
journeyed south, and quiet and silence and forgetfulness reigned over all, and
the tired ones slept soundly. But now all was changing. The birds were singing
again, and the sun shining, and soon the flowers would bloom, and all around
would be alive and happy, ‘bright with a summer to be.’ But the sleepers over
the hill would know nothing and care nothing; for what would it matter to them
to whom nothing would matter more?
‘We will take it for a couple of
years, if you like, Mrs. Keith,’ the husband said, as he followed his bride out
of the house; so we may be wanderers for as long as we please.
Only a year ago—nay, less, last winter—I sat many a long hour
thinking how happy the children should be as they grew up, what merry days they
should have to remember, to what bright ones they should look forward. It is a
good thing to have a happy childhood: it keeps the heart green through all
after troubles; it sends a little perpetual current of youth through a whole
life. My children should have this at
least. It seemed such a blessed thing to have these two little lives, and I used to think that if I brought
them up to be good and true and pure and above all selfishness, it would be
good work enough. For every woman who gives to the world even one sweet woman
or one good citizen, has given it something in return for all it has given her.
So many plans I made in those happy dreaming hours, thinking how in the long
evenings I would tell them fairy stories, till quite gradually they learnt to
like best to hear stories that were true; and then, just as Mazzini advised
mothers to do in the twilight hour, I would tell them about ‘the great men who
had worked and loved the people.’ It has been something to imagine their little
upturned faces, and to see by the firelight the eagerness in their eyes.
But it is useless to go over it all,
and I must not break down, for there are many things to do yet, and at nine
o’clock to-morrow we start. The sardine was coming to say good-bye, but
telegraphed just now that he was prevented, and would meet us at the station in
the morning to see us off; so one of the two people who have been so kind to us
will see the last of us, and the other is coming this afternoon.
Mr. Beecles wrote after Jack died,
and said he could raise the money now that a reasonable security was possible.
But I felt that Mr. Cohen would be sorely disappointed if his help were, after
all, not taken; so I refused Mr. Beecles, and felt some satisfaction in doing
it. I have made the will at which the sardine laughed, and left him the little
picture he liked, and arranged for the repayment of the debt; and then, if Molly
does not survive me or dies under age, all there is will be divided between the
only two friends we possessed in the world.
All this I have been thinking over,
sitting here waiting for Mrs. Marshall. The door opens at last, and she enters.
She wears a black gown; the lines in her face are softened; the tones of her
voice are different.
‘I am almost afraid to come,’ she
says; but I knew that before she spoke. ‘It must be so painful to you to see
me.’
‘It makes me think, of course, of
painful things; but it is a great comfort to see you. I have been longing for
you;’ and this is true; I have indeed. Can I ever forget how good she was to
Jack, how gentle and how tender? I would give anything to put my arms round her
neck and sob my heart out on her shoulder, and to feel that she was not only
sorry for me, but loved me just a little bit. But that will never be.
‘And you really start to-morrow?’
‘Yes; to-morrow morning.’
‘And you are quite sure that it is
wise to go alone, without a nurse or maid of any kind?’
‘Oh yes,’ I answer. ‘I have always
waited on myself, and I should not let any one else wait on Molly. One child
and two hands; surely they are enough. They can do everything for her. It would
have been different if—’
‘I know,’ she says hastily. ‘How is
Molly?’
‘She is just the same.’
‘She will be better soon. Climate
does so much.’
‘Sometimes I think it will do
nothing for her,’ I answer doggedly, ‘and that it is folly to go.’
‘You must not say that,’ she answers
gently. ‘Be thankful that you can go. So many see their dear ones die, thinking
that some things they could not get would have saved them.’
The force of this comes home to me
keenly. ‘I know,’ I answer quickly, ‘and am only too thankful that we are able
to go; after a little while when I am used to—having Molly alone, I shall be
brave again. Overmuch happiness has spoilt me for sorrow, and made me
impatient; but I shall be better soon. It is a terrible thing to be born with a
great capacity for happiness, and to feel that one has hardly had one’s share;’
and I try to laugh, and fail.
She is silent for a few minutes, and
then she asks, in a sad, broken voice, ‘Did your husband love you, my dear?’
‘Oh yes, yes,’ I cry, ‘with all his
heart.’
‘As you did him?’
‘As I did him,’ I answer, trembling
with eagerness and passionate remembrance. She sits still, watching me wearily
and wonderingly.
‘And you had your children when he
was here?’ she asks, with a long-drawn sigh.
‘Yes; there was little Jack. He was
such a pretty baby; we laughed for joy as we watched him—’
‘And Molly?’
‘And Molly was coming; there was the
hope of her, the looking forward. Oh, it was perfect.’
She takes my hands, just as she did
on that morning a month ago, and looks me sadly in the face in her eyes I see a
blank hopelessness that drives my own sorrow out of my hear, and leaves it full
of compassion for hers.
‘Then, be satisfied,’ she says
gently; ‘you have had your share. If you had only possessed all you have for a
single hour, you would have had your share. Be thankful for that. There are
many women with capacity as great as yours for happiness, who are hungry for it
all their lives, and yet are never satisfied for a single hour.’
I look at her silently, while the
tears slowly gather in her eyes. Now I understand all her coldness and silence,
the hard lines, the almost grim voice, and all that had seemed half resentful
in her before. I cannot speak, only we look at each other—she who remembers so
little, and I who remember so much.
‘There are some things worse than
death,’ she says, as the tears roll down her cheeks; and I stoop and kiss her
hands and whisper—
‘Yes, you are right. Oh, forgive me,
and I will cry out no more.’
‘Ah, my dear, it is hard to keep
one’s mouth shut when the blow falls; but remember that to bear silently is to
show that you think even your bitterest woe not too great a price to pay for
your past happiness. You would not have refused to bear the sorest pain for
those you—?’
‘Oh no, no!’ I cry.
‘And you are bearing this for them.
You would not have sorrowed so if you have had your loved ones to bear your
sorrow for.’ And then she gets up and pulls the cloak round her shoulders. ‘I
want to see Molly,’ she says; and I go and fetch Molly from the little room
adjoining, where the housemaid has been reading a fairy story aloud.
Good-bye, little woman,’ Mrs.
Marshall says, in a voice so kind and gently that Molly looks up and has
confidence, and its sweetness catches my ear, and I long to hear her speak again;
and yet her voice is usually so hard. She takes Molly up in her arms, holding
her in that longing, half-wondering manner just dashed with fear that is so
characteristic of childless women. Then she puts her down, and watches me while
I wrap a shawl about my little one, and carry her back to the other room again.
She is still standing when I return. She hesitates for a moment, and half
doubtfully, half awkwardly, she comes forward and kisses me tenderly on both
cheeks, though she thought she might never see it more; and then she goes. I
follow her to the street door, and watch her go down the garden. She turns
round at the gate, and says quickly, as if she suddenly remembered something
she had forgotten—
‘I hope the child will get well.
Good-bye.’ She takes yet another last look at me, and so she vanishes, and I go
back to the little empty drawing-room and shut the door.
It seems as if we shall never be
ready, as if the night and the things to be done will never come to an end; but
at last the morning dawns, and the work is finished, and with one last look
round at the dear little home—the home in which my husband had painted and Jack
had played—we depart. The sardine is at the station before us, looking pleased
and businesslike.
‘You are in good time. Quite right,
always be in good time for a journey,’ he says approvingly. ‘I have got a
compartment for you, so you have only to get in, and I’ll look after the
luggage.’
‘Why, Mr. Cohen, you did not surely
get a whole compartment for us?’—for we are not used to such luxuries.
‘Merely a little corruption,’ he
remarks, with extreme satisfaction; and, stopping before a carriage door, he
unlock it with his key and helps us in. ‘Always corrupt the guard, or the
station-master, or some one or other. Do it on principle, you know.’
‘Oh, but it is wrong, surely—’
‘Never mind that. Never
over-cultivate your conscience; it’s a great mistake, spoils one’s enjoyment,
and makes everything cut and dried.’ The sardine always talks as if he had no
serious feelings, as if the whole of him was on the surface. He told me once
that one of his ‘ideas’ in regard to life was to get as much enjoyment as
possible out of everything, and to forget everything in two minutes. He is
delighted at having surprised us by his cleverness. ‘Wouldn’t it have been a
bore, now,’ he asks, ‘if you had had two fat women, or half a dozen children,
all anxious to quarrel with Molly, in the carriage with you?’
‘Indeed it would,’ I answer, amused
at the idea of Molly quarrelling with any one. ‘How do you think Molly looks?’
I ask him, for he has hardly spoken to her yet, and she looks sweeter than ever
this morning in her little travelling-hood, and with the flush that excitement
has brought to her face.
‘Oh, she’s all right,’ he says,
putting his long fingers under her little soft chin. ‘She looks ever so much
better than you do,’ he remarks. ‘You’ll have to look out, or you will chump
up, and then what would the programme be, I should like to know?’
‘It would be very awkward,’ I answer
cheerfully. ‘I think you would have to adopt Molly.’
‘That would be a joke,’ he says
thoughtfully.
‘You would have to get a stepmother
for her,’ I say, trying to amuse him. ‘The “little party,” you know.’
He shakes his head gravely. ‘Oh no;
that will never come to anything,’ he says. ‘You must get well. You will now;
going away will soon set you up, and Molly too. Well, here we are—time to
start. Write and tell me how they treat you, and how the young’un prospers.
Good-bye.’ He shakes my hand, and kisses Molly, in another minute I am
straining my eyes to see the last of him as we whirl away.
When he is out sight I turn to
Molly, who is sitting opposite, looking pretty and bright and almost well. As I
looked at her a sudden hope seizes me, and, forgetting everything else, I kneel
down and put my arms round her, and kiss her, and I hold her close, and hide my
face in her lap, while all my strength goes forth in a wild hope and prayer
that she may live and be strong.