Inventions, the details of which she could not understand, meant, as she knew well, long days and weeks of solitary brooding; therefore inventions, and, indeed, all unnecessary work, were in his case to be discouraged. Such solitary brooding also drew from the mind of Morris a vague mist of thought about matters esoteric which, to Mary"s belief, had the properties of a miasma that crept like poison through his being.
She wished for no more star-gazing, no more mysticism, and, above all, no more memories of the interloping woman who, in his company, had studied its doubtful and dangerous delights.
Although since the day of Morris"s confession Mary had never even mentioned the name of Stella to him, she by no means forgot that such a person once existed. Indeed, carelessly and without seeming to be anxious on the subject, she informed herself about her down to the last possible detail; so that within a few months of the death of Miss Fregelius she knew, as she thought, everything that could be known of her life at Monksland. Moreover, she saw three different pictures of her: one a somewhat prim photograph which Mr. Fregelius, her father, possessed, taken when she was about twenty; another, a coloured drawing made by Morris--who was rather clever at catching likenesses--of her as she appeared singing in the chapel on the night when she had drawn the page-boy, Thomas, from his slumbers; and the third, also a photograph, taken by some local amateur, of her and Morris standing together on the beach and engaged evidently in eager discussion.
From these three pictures, and especially from Morris"s sketch, which showed the spiritual light shining in her eyes, and her face rapt, as it were, in a very ecstasy of music, Mary was able to fashion with some certainty the likeness of the living woman. The more she studied this the more she found it formidable, and the more she understood how it came about that her husband had fallen into folly. Also, she learned to understand that there might be greater weight and meaning in his confession than she had been inclined to allow to it at the time; that, at any rate, its extravagances ought not to be set down entirely, as her father-in-law had suggested with such extreme cleverness, to the vagaries of a mind suffering from sudden shock and alarm.
All these conclusions made Mary anxious, by wrapping her husband round with common domestic cares and a web of daily, social incident, to bury the memory of this Stella beneath ever-thickening strata of forgetfulness; not that in themselves these reminiscences, however hallowed, could do her any further actual harm; but because the train of thought evoked thereby was, as she conceived, morbid, and dangerous to the balance of his mind.
The plan seemed wise and good, and, in the case of most men, probably would have succeeded. Yet in Morris"s instance from the commencement it was a failure. She had begun by making his story and ideas, absurd enough on the face of them, an object of somewhat acute sarcasm, if not of ridicule. This was a mistake, since thereby she caused him to suppress every outward evidence of them; to lock them away in the most secret recesses of his heart. If the lid of a caldron full of fluid is screwed down while a fire continues to burn beneath it, the steam which otherwise would have pa.s.sed away harmlessly, gathers and struggles till the moment of inevitable catastrophe. The fact that for a while the caldron remains inert and the steam invisible is no indication of safety. To attain safety in such a case either the fire must be raked out or the fluid tapped. Mary had screwed down the lid of her domestic caldron, but the flame still burned beneath, and the water still boiled within.
This was her first error, and the second proved almost as mischievous.
She thought to divert Morris from a central idea by a mult.i.tude of petty counter-attractions; she believed that by stopping him from the scientific labours and esoteric speculation connected with this idea, that it would be deadened and in time obliterated.
As a matter of fact, by thus emptying his mind of its serious and accustomed occupations, Mary made room for the very development she dreaded to flourish like an upas tree. For although he breathed no word of it, although he showed no sign of it, to Morris the memory of the dead was a constant companion. Time heals all things, that is the common saying; but would it be possible to formulate any fallacy more complete?
There are many wounds that time does not heal, and often enough against the dead it has no power at all--for how can time compete against the eternity of which they have become a part? The love of them where they have been truly loved, remains quite unaltered; in some instances, indeed, it is emdued with a power of terrible and amazing growth.
On earth, very probably, that deep affection would have become subject to the natural influences of weakening and decay; and, in the instance of a man and woman, the soul-possessing pa.s.sion might have pa.s.sed, to be replaced by a more moderate, custom-worn affection. But the dead are beyond the reach of those mouldering fingers. There they stand, perfect and unalterable, with arms which never cease from beckoning, with a smile that never grows less sweet. Come storm, come shine, nothing can tarnish the pure and gleaming robes in which our vision clothes them. We know the worst of them; their faults and failings cannot vex us afresh, their errors are all forgiven. It is their best part only that remains unrealised and unread, their purest aspirations which we follow with leaden wings, their deepest thoughts that we still strive to plumb with the short line of our imagination or experience, and to weigh in our imperfect balances.
Yes, there they stand, and smile, and beckon, while ever more radiant grow their brows, and more to be desired the knowledge of their perfect majesty. There is no human pa.s.sion like this pa.s.sion for the dead; none so awful, none so holy, none so changeless. For they have become eternal, and our desire for them is sealed with the stamp of their eternity, and strengthens in the shadow of its wings till the shadows flee away and we pa.s.s to greet them in the dawn of the immortal morning.
Yes, within the secret breast of Morris the flame of memory still burned, and still seethed those bitter waters of desire for the dead.
There was nothing carnal about this desire, since the pa.s.sions of the flesh perish with the flesh. Nor was there anything of what a man may feel when he sees the woman whom he loves and who loves him, forced to another fate, for to those he robs death has this advantage over the case of other successful rivals: his embrace purifies, and of it we are not jealous. The longing was spiritual, and for this reason it did not weaken, but, indeed, became a part of him, to grow with the spirit from which it took its birth. Still, had it not been for a chance occurrence, there, in the spirit, it might have remained buried, in due course to pa.s.s away with it and seek its expression in unknown conditions and regions unexplored.
In a certain fashion Morris was happy enough. He was very fond of his wife, and he adored his little children as men of tender nature do adore those that are helpless, and for whose existence they are responsible.
He appreciated his public reputation, his wealth, and the luxury that lapped him round, and above all he was glad to have been the means of restoring, and, indeed, of advancing the fortunes of his family.
Moreover, as has been said, above all things he desired to please Mary, the lovely, amiable woman who had complimented him with her unvarying affection; and--when he went astray--who, with scarcely a reproach, had led him back into its gentle fold. Least of all, therefore, was it his will to flaunt before her eyes the spectre from a past which she wished to forget, or even to let her guess that such a past still permeated his present. Therefore, on this subject settled the silence of the dead, till at length Mary, observant as she was, became well-nigh convinced that Stella Fregelius was forgotten, and that her fantastic promises were disproved. Yet no mistake could have been more profound.
It was Morris"s habit, whenever he could secure an evening to himself, which was not very often, to walk to the Rectory and smoke his pipe in the company of Mr. Fregelius. Had Mary chanced to be invisibly present, or to peruse a stenographic report of what pa.s.sed at one of these evening calls--whereof, for reasons which she suppressed, she did not entirely approve--she might have found sufficient cause to vary her opinion. On these occasions ostensibly Morris went to talk about parish affairs, and, indeed, to a certain extent he did talk about them. For instance, Stella who had been so fond of music, once described to him the organ which she would like to have in the fine old parish church of Monksland. Now that renovated instrument stood there, and was the admiration of the country-side, as it well might be in view of the fact that it had cost over four thousand pounds.
Again, Mr. Fregelius wished to erect a monument to his daughter, which, as her body never had been found, could properly be placed in the chancel of the church. Morris entered heartily into the idea and undertook to spend the hundred pounds which the old gentleman had saved for this purpose on his account and to the best advantage. In affect he did spend it to excellent advantage, as Mr. Fregelius admitted when the monument arrived.
It was a lovely thing, executed by one of the first sculptors of the day, in white marble upon a black stone bed, and represented the mortal shape of Stella. There she lay to the very life, wrapped in a white robe, portrayed as a sleeper awakening from the last sleep of death, her eyes wide and wondering, and on her face that rapt look which Morris had caught in his sketch of her, singing in the chapel. At the edge of the base of this remarkable effigy, set flush on the black marble in letters of plain copper was her name--Stella Fregelius--with the date of her death. On one side appeared the text that she had quoted, "O death, where is thy sting?" and on the other its continuation, "O grave, where is thy victory?" and at the foot part of a verse from the forty-second psalm: "Deep calleth unto deep. . . . All Thy waves and storms have gone over me."
Like the organ, this monument, which stood in the chancel, was much admired by everybody, except Mary, who found it rather theatrical; and, indeed, when n.o.body was looking, surveyed it with a gloomy and a doubtful eye.
That Morris had something to do with the thing she was quite certain, since she knew well that Mr. Fregelius would never have invented any memorial so beautiful and full of symbolism; also she doubted his ability to pay for a piece of statuary which must have cost many hundreds of pounds. A third reason, which seemed to her conclusive, was that the face on the statue was the very face of Morris"s drawing, although, of course, it was possible that Mr. Fregelius might have borrowed the sketch for the use of the sculptor. But of all this, although it disturbed her, occurring as it did just when she hoped that Stella was beginning to be forgotten, she spoke not a word to Morris.
"Least said, soonest mended," is a good if a homely motto, or so thought Mary.
The monument had been in place a year, but whenever he was at home Morris"s visits to Mr. Fregelius did not grow fewer. Indeed, his wife noticed that, if anything, they increased in number, which, as the organ was now finished down to the last allegorical carvings of its case, seemed remarkable and unnecessary. Of course, the fact was that on these occasions the conversation invariably centred on one subject, and that subject, Stella. Considered in certain aspects, it must have been a piteous thing to see and hear these two men, each of them bereaved of one who to them above all others had been the nearest and dearest, trying to a.s.suage their grief by mutual consolations. Morris had never told Mr. Fregelius all the depth of his attachment to his daughter, at least, not in actual, unmistakable words, although, as has been said, from the first her father took it for granted, and Morris, tacitly at any rate, had accepted the conclusion. Indeed, very soon he found that no other subject had such charms for his guest; that of Stella he might talk for ever without the least fear that Morris would be weary.
So the poor, childless, unfriended old man put aside the reserve and timidity which clothed him like a garment, and talked on into those sympathetic ears, knowing well, however--for the freemasonry of their common love taught it to him--that in the presence of a third person her name, no allusion to her, even, must pa.s.s his lips. In short, these conversations grew at length into a kind of seance or solemn rite; a joint offering to the dead of the best that they had to give, their tenderest thoughts and memories, made in solemn secrecy and with uplifted hearts and minds.
Mr. Fregelius was an historian, and possessed some interesting records, upon which it was his habit to descant. Amongst other things he instructed Morris in the annals of Stella"s ancestry upon both sides, which, as it happened, could be traced back for many generations. In these discourses it grew plain to his listener whence had sprung certain of her qualities, such as her fearless att.i.tude towards death, and her tendency towards mysticism. Here in these musty chronicles, far back in the times when those of whom they kept record were half, if not wholly, heathen, these same qualities could be discovered among her forbears.
Indeed, there was one woman of whom the saga told, a certain ancestress named Saevuna, whereof it is written "that she was of all women the very fairest, and that she drew the hearts of men with her wonderful eyes as the moon draws mists from a marsh," who, in some ways, might have been Stella herself, Stella unchristianized and savage.
This Saevuna"s husband rebelled against the king of his country, and, being captured, was doomed to a shameful death by hanging as a traitor.
Thereon, under pretence of bidding him farewell, she administered poison to him, partaking of the same herself; "and," continues the saga, "they both of them, until their pains overcame them, died singing a certain ancient song which had descended in the family of one of them, and is called the Song of the Over-Lord, or the Offering to Death. This song, while strength and voice remained to them, it is the duty of this family to say or sing, or so they hold it, in the hour of their death. But if they sing it, except by way of learning its words and music from their mothers, and escape death, it will not be for very long, seeing that when once the offering is laid upon his altar, the Over-Lord considers it his own, and, after the fashion of G.o.ds and men, takes it as soon as he can. So sweet and strange was the singing of this Saevuna until she choked that the king and his n.o.bles came out to hear it, and all men thought it a great marvel that a woman should sing thus in the very pains of death. Moreover, they declared, many of them, that while the song went on they could think of nothing else, and that strange and wonderful visions pa.s.sed before their eyes. But of this n.o.body can know the truth for certain, as the woman and her husband died long ago."
"You see," said Mr. Fregelius, when he had finished translating the pa.s.sage aloud, "it is not wonderful that I thought it unlucky when I heard that you had found Stella singing this same song upon the ship, much as centuries ago her ancestress, Saevuna, sang it while she and her husband died."
"At any rate, the omen fulfilled itself," answered Morris, with a sigh, "and she, too, died with the song upon her lips, though I do not think that it had anything to do with these things, which were fated to befall."
"Well," said the clergyman, "the fate is fulfilled now, and the song will never be sung again. She was the last of her race, and it was a law among them that neither words nor music should ever be written down."
When such old tales and legends were exhausted, and, outside the immediate object of their search, some of them were of great interest to a man who, like Morris, had knowledge of Norse literature, and was delighted to discover in Mr. Fregelius a scholar acquainted with the original tongues in which they were written, these companions fell back upon other matters. But all of them had to do with Stella. One night the clergyman read some letters written by her as a child from Denmark.
On another he produced certain dolls which she had dressed at the same period of her life in the costume of the peasants of that country. On a third he repeated a piece of rather indifferent poetry composed by her when she was a girl of sixteen. Its strange t.i.tle was, "The Resurrection of Dead Roses." It told how in its author"s fancy the flowers which were cut and cast away on earth bloomed again in heaven, never to wither more; a pretty allegory, but treated in a childish fashion.
Thus, then, from time to time, as occasion offered, did this strange pair celebrate the rites they thought so harmless, and upon the altar of memory make offerings to their dead.
CHAPTER XX
STELLA"S DIARY
It seems to be a law of life that nothing can stand completely still and changeless. All must vary, must progress or retrograde; the very rocks in the bowels of the earth undergo organic alterations, while the eternal hills that cover them increase or are worn away. Much more is this obvious in the case of ephemeral man, of his thoughts, his works, and everything wherewith he has to do, he who within the period of a few short years is doomed to appear, wax, wane, and vanish.
Even the conversations of Mr. Fregelius and Morris were subject to the working of this universal rule; and in obedience to it must travel towards a climax, either of fruition, however unexpected, or, their purpose served, whatever it may have been, to decay and death, for lack of food upon which to live and flourish. The tiniest groups of impulses or incidents have their goal as sure and as appointed as that of the cl.u.s.ter of vast globes which form a constellation. Between them the princ.i.p.al distinction seems to be one of size, and at present we are not in a position to say which may be the most important, the issue of the smallest of unrecorded causes, or of the travelling of the great worlds.
The destiny of a single human soul shaped or directed by the one, for aught we know, may be of more weight and value than that of a mult.i.tude of h.o.a.ry universes naked of life and spirit. Or perhaps to the Eye that sees and judges the difference is nothing.
Thus even these semi-secret interviews when two men met to talk over the details of a lost life with which, however profoundly it may have influenced them in the past, they appeared, so far as this world is concerned, to have nothing more to do, were destined to affect the future of one of them in a fashion that could scarcely have been foreseen. This became apparent, or put itself in the way of becoming apparent, when on a certain evening Morris found Mr. Fregelius seated in the rectory dining-room, and by his side a little pile of ma.n.u.script volumes bound in shabby cloth.
"What are those?" asked Morris. "Her translation of the Saga of the Cave Outlaws?"
"No, Morris," answered Mr. Fregelius--he called him Morris when they were alone--"of course not. Don"t you remember that they were bound in red?" he added reproachfully, "and that we did them up to send to the publisher last week?"
"Yes, yes, of course; he wrote to me yesterday to say that he would be glad to bring out the book"--Morris did not add, "at my risk."--"But what are they?"
"They are," replied Mr. Fregelius, "her journals, which she appears to have kept ever since she was fourteen years of age. You remember she was going to London on the day that she was drowned--that Christmas Day?
Well, before she went out to the old church she packed her belongings into two boxes, and there those boxes have lain for three years and more, because I could never find the heart to meddle with them. But, a few nights ago I wasn"t able to sleep--I rest very badly now--so I went and undid them, lifting out all the things which her hands had put there. At the bottom of one of the boxes I found these volumes, except the last of them, in which she was writing till the day of her death.
That was at the top. I was aware that she kept a diary, for I have seen her making the entries; but of its contents I knew nothing. In fact, until last night I had forgotten its existence."
"Have you read it now?" asked Morris.
"I have looked into it; it seems to be a history of her thoughts and theories. Facts are very briefly noted. It occurred to me that you might like to read it. Why not?"
"Yes, yes, very much," answered Morris eagerly. "That is, if you think she will not mind. You see, it is private."
Mr. Fregelius took no notice of the tense of which Morris made use, for the reason that it seemed natural to him that he should employ it. Their strange habit was to talk of Stella, not as we speak of one dead, but as a living individuality with whom they chanced for a while to be unable to communicate.
"I do not think that she will mind," he answered slowly; "quite the reverse, indeed. It is a record of a phase and period of her existence which, I believe, she might wish those who are--interested in her--to study, especially as she had no secrets that she could desire to conceal. From first to last I believe her life to have been as clear as the sky, and as pure as running water."
"Very well," answered Morris, "if I come across any pa.s.sage that I think I ought not to read, I will skip."
"I can find nothing of the sort, or I would not give it to you," said Mr. Fregelius. "But, of course, I have not read the volumes through as yet. There has been no time for that. I have sampled them here and there, that is all."