"It isn"t true, it isn"t true, it isn"t true," she wailed again and again, but it was long before she could think at all; and her dry eyes ached, for she had no more tears to shed.
Presently she became aware of a withered rose in the hollow between the seat of the chair and the back. She knew it must be one of those she had thrown at him that night, perhaps the one he had carelessly twirled in his hand while they talked, now and then inhaling its perfume as he listened, watching her with quiet eyes.
"Dead! dead!" she whispered, pressing the dry petals to her lips.
Then she looked about her.
The light of day, falling on a scene which was familiar only by the subdued light of a lamp, produced an effect as of chill and bareness. She noticed worn places in the carpet, and a certain shabbiness from constant use in everything, which had not been visible at night, and now affected her in an inexpressibly dreary way. There was very little difference really, and yet there was _some_ change which, as she perceived it, began gradually to bring the great change home to her. There was the empty chair, first relic in importance and saddest in significance. There were his pipes neatly arranged on a little fretwork rack which hung where bell handles are usually put beside the fireplace. She remembered having seen him replace one of them the last time she was there, and now she went over and touched its cold stem, and her heart swelled. The stand of ferns and flowers which he had arranged with such infinite pains to please the "Boy"
stood in its accustomed place, but ferns and flowers alike were dead or drooping in their pots, untended and uncared for, and some had been taken away altogether, leaving gaps on the stand, behind which the common grate, empty, and rusted from disuse, appeared.
There was dust on her violin case, and dust on his grand piano--her violin which he kept so carefully. She opened the violin case expecting to find the instrument ruined by water. But no! it lay there snugly on its velvet cushion without a scratch on its polished surface or an injured string.
She understood. And perhaps it had been one of his last conscious acts to put it right for her. He was always doing something for her, always. They said now that his income had been insufficient, or that he gave too much away, and that the malady had been rendered hopeless from the first by his weakness for want of food. The woman who waited on him had told her so.
"He"d feed that chorister brat what come every morning," she said, "in a way that was shameful, but his own breakfast has been dry bread and coffee, without neither sugar nor milk, for many and many a day--and his dinner an ounce of meat at noon, with never a bite nor sup to speak of at tea, as often as not."
"O Israfil! Israfil!" she moaned when she thought of it. There had always been food, and wine too, for that other hungry "Boy," food and wine which the Tenor rarely touched--she remembered that now. To see the "Boy" eat and be happy was all he asked, and if hunger pinched him, he filled his pipe and smoked till the craving ceased. She saw it all now. But why had she never suspected it, she who was rolling in wealth? His face was wan enough at times, and worn to that expression of sadness which comes of privation, but the reason had never cost her a thought. And it was all for her--or for "him" whom he believed to be near and dear to her. No one else had ever sacrificed anything for her sake, no one else had ever cared for her as he had cared, no one else would ever again. Oh, hateful deception!
She threw herself down on her knees once more.
"O Israfil! Israfil!" she cried, "only forgive me, and I will be true!
only forgive me, and I will be true!"
It was trying to rain outside. The wind swept down the Close in little gusts, and dashed cold drops against the window pane, and in the intervals sprays of the honeysuckle and clematis tapped on the gla.s.s, and the leaves rustled. This roused her. She had heard them rustle like that on many a moonlight night--with what a different significance! And he also used to listen to them, and had told her that often when he was alone at night and tired, they had sounded like voices whispering, and had comforted him, for they had always said pleasant things. Oh, gentle loving heart, to which the very leaves spoke peace, so spiritually perfect was it! And these were the same creepers to which he had listened, these that tapped now disconsolately, and this was his empty chair--but where was he? he who was tender for the tiniest living thing--who had thought and cared for everyone but himself. What was the end of it all? How had he been rewarded? His hearth was cold, his little house deserted, and the wind and the rain swept over his lonely grave.
She went to the window and opened it. She would go to his grave--she would find him.
While she stood on the landing stage at the watergate waiting for the flat ferry boat, which happened to be on the farther side of the narrow river, to be poled across to her, the Tenor"s little chorister boy came up and waited too. He had a rustic posy in his hand, but there was no holiday air in his manner; on the contrary, he seemed unnaturally subdued for a boy, and Angelica somehow knew who he was, and conjectured that his errand was the same as her own. If so he would show her the way.
The child seemed unconscious of her presence. He stepped into the boat before her, and they stood side by side during the crossing, but his eyes were fixed on the water and he took no notice of her. On the other side of the landing when they reached it was a narrow lane, a mere pathway, between a high wall on the one hand and a high hedge on the other, which led up a steep hill to a road, on the other side of which was a cemetery.
The child followed this path, and then Angelica knew that she had been right in her conjecture, and had only to follow him. He led her quite across the cemetery to a quiet corner where was an open gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce away from the other graves. Two sides of it were sheltered by great horse chestnuts, old and umbrageous, and from where she stood she caught a glimpse of the city below, of the cathedral spire appearing above the trees, of Morne in the same direction, a crest of masonry crowning the wooded steep, and, on the other side, the country stretching away into a dim blue hazy distance. It was a lovely spot, and she felt with a jealous pang that the care of others had found it for him. In life or death it was all the same; he owed her nothing.
The gra.s.s was trampled about the grave; there must have been quite a concourse of people there the day before. It was covered with floral tokens, wreaths and crosses, with anchors of hope and hearts of love, pathetic symbols at such a time.
But was he really there under all that? If she dug down deep should she find him?
The little chorister boy had gone straight to the grave and dropped on his knees beside it. He looked at the lovely hothouse flowers and then glanced ruefully at his own humble offering--sweetwilliam chiefly, snapdragon, stocks, and nasturtium. But he laid it there with the rest, and Angelica"s heart was wrung anew as she thought of the tender pleasure this loving act of the child would have been to the Tenor. Yet her eyes were dry.
The boy pressed the flowers on the grave as if he would nestle them closer to his friend, and then all at once as he patted the cold clay his lip trembled, his chest heaved with sobs, his eyes overflowed with tears, and his face was puckered with grief.
Having accomplished his errand, he got up from the ground, slapped his knees to knock the clay off them, and, still sniffing and sobbing, walked back the way he had come in st.u.r.dy dejection.
All that was womanly in Angelica went out to the poor little fellow. She would like to have comforted him, but what could she say or do? Alas!
alas! a woman who cannot comfort a child, what sort of a woman is she?
Presently she found herself standing beside the river looking up to the iron bridge that crossed it with one long span. There were trees on one side of the bridge, and old houses piled up on the other picturesquely.
Israfil had noticed them the last time they rowed down the river. The evening was closing in. The sky was deepening from gray to indigo. There was one bright star above the bridge. But why had she come here? She had not come to see a bridge with one great star above it! nor to watch a sullen river slipping by--unless, indeed--She bent over the water, peering into it. She remembered that after the first plunge there had been no great pain--and even if there had been, what was physical pain compared to this terrible heartache, this dreadful remorse, an incurable malady of the mind which would make life a burden to her forevermore, if she had the patience to live? Patience and Angelica! What an impossible a.s.sociation of ideas! Her face relaxed at the humour of it, and it was with a smile that she turned to gather her summer drapery about her, bending sideways to reach back to the train of her dress, as the insane fashion of tight skirts, which were then in vogue, necessitated. In the act, however, she became aware of someone hastening after her, and the next moment a soft white hand grasped her arm and drew her back.
"Angelica! how can you stand so near the edge in this uncertain light? I really thought you would lose your balance and fall in."
It was Lady Fulda who spoke, uttering the words in an irritated, almost angry tone, as mothers do when they relieve their own feelings by scolding and shaking a child that has escaped with a bruise from some danger to life and limb. But that was all she ever said on the subject, and consequently Angelica never knew if she had guessed her intention or only been startled by her seeming carelessness, as she professed to be. The sudden impulse pa.s.sed from Angelica, as is the way with morbid impulses, the moment she ceased to be alone. The first word was sufficient to take her out of herself, to recall her to her normal state, and to readjust her view of life, setting it back to the proper focus. But still she looked out at the world from a low level, if healthy; a dull, dead level, the mean temperature of which was chilly, while the atmosphere threatened to vary only from stagnant apathy to boisterous discontent, positive, hopeless, and unconcealed.
Moved by common consent, the two ladies turned from the river, and walked on slowly together and in silence. The feeling uppermost in Angelica"s mind was one of resentment. Her aunt had appeared in the same unexpected manner at the outset of her acquaintance with the Tenor, and she objected to her reappearance now, at the conclusion. It was like an incident in a melodrama, the arrival of the good influence--it was absurd; if she had done it on purpose, it would have been impertinent.
The entrance to Ilverthorpe was only a few hundred yards from where they had met, and they had now reached a postern which led into the grounds.
Angelica opened it with a latchkey and then stood to let her aunt pa.s.s through before her.
"I suppose you will come in," she said ungraciously.
But Lady Fulda forgave the discourtesy, and the two walked on together up to the house--pa.s.sing, while their road lay through the park, under old forest trees that swayed continually in a rising gale; and somewhat buffeted by the wind till they came to a narrow path sheltered by rows of tall shrubs, on the thick foliage of which the rain, which had fallen at intervals during the day, had collected, and now splashed in their faces or fell in wetting drops upon their dresses as the bushes, struck by the heavy gusts, swayed to and fro.
Angelica, whose nervous system was peculiarly susceptible to discomfort of the kind, felt more wretched than ever. She thought of the desolate grave with mud-splashed, bedraggled flowers upon it and of the golden head and beautiful calm face beneath; thought of him as we are apt to think of our dead at first, imagining them still sentient, aware of the horror of their position, crushed into their narrow beds with a terrible weight of earth upon them, left out alone in the cold, uncomforted and uncared for, while those they loved and trusted most recline in easy chairs round blazing fires, talking forgetfully. Something like this flashed through Angelica"s mind, and a cry as of acute pain escaped from her unawares.
Her companion"s features contracted for a moment, but otherwise she made no sign of having heard.
They had not exchanged a word since they had entered the grounds, but now the gentle Lady Fulda began again--with some trepidation, however, for Angelica"s manner continued to be chilling, not to say repellent, and she could not tell how her advances would be received.
"I was looking for you," she said.
"For me?" raising her eyebrows.
"Yes. I went to his house this afternoon and heard from the housekeeper that a young lady had been there, and I felt sure from the description and--and likelihood--that it must be you. She said you had been wholly unprepared for the dreadful news, and it had been a great shock to you.
And I thought you would probably go to see his grave. It is always one"s first impulse. And I was going to look for you there when I saw you in the distance on the towing path."
Angelica preserved her ungracious silence, but her attention was attracted by the way in which her aunt spoke of the Tenor in regard to herself, apparently as if she had known of their intimacy. Lady Fulda resumed, however, before Angelica had asked herself how this could be.
"I am afraid you will think me a very meddling person," she said, speaking to her young niece with the respect and una.s.suming diffidence of high breeding and good feeling; "but perhaps you know--how one fancies that one can do something--or say something--or that one ought to try to. I believe it is a comfort to one"s self to be allowed to try."
"Yes," Angelica a.s.sented, thinking of her desire to help the child, and thawing with interest at this expression of an experience similar to her own. "I felt something of that--a while ago."
They had reached the house by this time, and Angelica ushered her aunt in, then led her to the drawing room where she herself usually sat, the one that opened onto the terrace. This was the sheltered side of the house that day, and the windows stood wide, open, making the room as fresh as the outer air. They sat themselves down at one of them from which they could see the tops of trees swaying immediately beneath, and further off the river, then the green upland terminating in a distance of wooded hills.
"I always think this is prettier than the view from Morne, although not so fine," Lady Fulda remarked tentatively. She was a little afraid of the way in which Angelica in her present mood might receive any observation of hers, however inoffensive. She had been looking out of the window when she spoke, but the silence which followed caused her to turn and look at Angelica. The latter had risen for some purpose--she could not remember what--and now stood staring before her in a dazed way.
"I am afraid you are not well, dear," Lady Fulda said, taking her hand affectionately.
"Oh, I am well enough," Angelica answered, almost s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand away, and making a great effort to control another tempest of tears which threatened to overwhelm her. "But don"t--don"t expect me to be polite--or anything--to-day. You don"t know--" She took a turn up and down the room, and then the trouble of her mind betrayed her. "O Aunt Fulda!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands, and wringing them, "I have done such a dreadful thing!"
"I know," was the unexpected rejoinder.
Angelica"s hands dropped, and she stared at her aunt, her thoughts taking a new departure under the shock of this surprise. "Did he tell you?" she demanded.
"No," Lady Fulda stammered. "I saw you with him--several times. At first I thought it was Diavolo, and I did not wonder, he is so naughty--or rather he used to be. But when I asked with whom he was staying, everybody was amazed, and maintained that he had not been in the neighbourhood at all.
So I wrote to him at Sandhurst, and his reply convinced me that I must have been mistaken. Then I began to suspect. In fact I was sure--"
Lady Fulda spoke nervously, and with her accustomed simplicity, but Angelica felt the fascination of the singular womanly power which her aunt exercised, and resented it.
"Is that all!" she said defiantly. "Why didn"t you interfere?"
"For one thing, because I did not like to."