"The law of England takes no count, unfortunately, of things of the spirit," said I.
"What are things of the spirit?"
"The things, my dear," said I, "that you are beginning to understand." I bent down and kissed the child as it lay on her lap. "Poor little Marcus Ordeyne," I said. "My poor quaintly fathered little son, I"m afraid there is much trouble ahead of you, but I"ll do my best to help you through it."
"Bless you, dear," said Carlotta, softly.
I looked at her in wonder. She had spoken for the first time like a grown woman--like a woman with a soul.
A few weeks later.
We were sitting at breakfast. The morning newspaper contained the account of a battle and the lists of British officers killed. I scanned as usual the melancholy columns, when a name among the dead caught my eye--and I stared at it stupidly. Pasquale was dead, killed outright by a Boer bullet. The wild, bright life was ended. It seemed a horrible thing, and, much as he had wronged me, my first sentiment was one of dismay. He was too gallant and beautiful a creature for death.
Carlotta poured out my tea and came round with the cup which she deposited by my side. To prevent her peeping over my shoulder at the paper, as she usually did, I laid it on the table; but her quick eye had already read the great headlines.
"Great Battle. British officers killed. Oh, let me see, Seer Marcous."
"No, dear," said I. "Go and eat your breakfast."
She looked at me strangely. I tried to smile; but as I am an incompetent actor my grimace was a proclamation of disingenuousness.
"Why shouldn"t I read it?" she asked, quickly.
"Because I say you mustn"t, Carlotta."
She continued to look at me. She had suddenly grown pale. I stirred my tea and made a pretence of sipping it.
"Go on with your breakfast, my child," I repeated.
"There is something--something about him in the paper," said Carlotta.
"He is a British officer."
In the face of her intuition further concealment appeared useless.
Besides, sooner or later she would have to know.
"He is a British officer no longer, dear," said I.
"Is he dead?"
My mind flew back to an evening long ago--long, long ago it seemed--when another newspaper had told of another death, and my ears caught the echo of the identical question that had then fallen from her lips. I dreaded lest she should say again, "I am so glad."
I beckoned her to my side, and pointing with my finger to the name watched her face anxiously. She read, stared for a bit in front of her and turned to me with a piteous look. I drew her to me, and she laid her face against my shoulder.
"I don"t know why I"m crying, Seer Marcous, dear," she said, after a while.
I made her drink some of my tea, but she would eat nothing, and presently she went upstairs. She had not said that she was glad. She had wept and not known the reason for her tears. I railed at myself for my doubts of her.
She was subdued and thoughtful all the day. In the evening, instead of curling herself up in the sofa-corner among the cushions, she sat on a stool by my feet as I read, one hand supporting her chin, the other resting on my knee.
"I am glad he was a brave man," she said at last, alluding to Pasquale for the first time since the morning. "I like brave men."
"_Dulce et decorum est._ He died for his country," said I.
"It does not hurt me now so much to think of him," said Carlotta.
I could not help feeling a miserable pang of jealousy at Pasquale"s posthumous rehabilitation as a hero in Carlotta"s heart. Yet, was it not natural? Was it not the way of women? I saw myself far remote from her, and though she never spoke of him again I divined that her thoughts dwelt not untenderly on his memory. I was absurd, I know. But I had begun almost to believe in my make-believe paternity, and I was jealous of the rightful claims of the dead man.
And yet had he lived he might have come back one day with his conquering air and his irresistible laugh, and carried them both away from me. In sparing me this crowning humiliation I thanked the high G.o.ds.
But never to this day has she mentioned his name again.
CHAPTER XXIV
How shall I set down that which happened not long afterwards?
The death of a baby is so commonplace, so unimportant. Few reasoning people, viewing the matter in the abstract, can do otherwise than rejoice that a human being is saved from the weariness of the tired years that make up life. For who shall disprove the pessimist"s a.s.sertion that it is better not to have been born than to come into the world, and that it is better to die than to live? But those from whom the single hope of their existence is ravished find little consolation in reason. Grief is the most intensely egotistical of emotions. I have lost all that makes life beautiful to me. Is not that enough for the stricken soul?
To Carlotta it meant a pa.s.sage through the valley of the shadow. To me, at first, it meant the life of Carlotta, and then a blank in my newly ordered scheme of things. The curse of ineffectuality still pursued me. I had allotted to myself my humble task--the development of the new generation in the form of Carlotta"s boy, and even that small usefulness was I denied by Fate.
A chill, a touch of croup, an agonised watching, and the tiny thing lay dead. Antoinette and I had to drag it stone cold from Carlotta"s bosom.
I alone carried it to burial. The little white coffin rested on the opposite seat of the hired brougham, and on it was a bunch of white flowers given by Antoinette. In the cemetery chapel another fragment of humanity awaited sepulture, and the funeral service was read over both bodies. I stood alone by the little white coffin. A crowd of mourners were grouped beside the black one. I glanced at the inscription as I pa.s.sed: "Jane Elliot, in the eighty-sixth year of her age." The officiant referred in the service to "our dear brother and sister, here departed." It was either an awful jest or an awful verity.
My "quaintly fathered little son" had small need of my help through the troubles of his life. His mother needed all that I could give. Without me she would have died. That I verily believe. I was her solitary plank in the welter wherein she would have been submerged. She clung to me--literally clung to me. I sat for hours with her grasp upon me. To feel a.s.sured of my physical presence alone seemed to bring her calm.
Recent as are those sleepless days and nights, their memory is all confused. The light burning dimly in the familiar chamber which I had once sealed up as a tomb; the shadows on the wall; the fevered face and great hollow eyes of Carlotta against the pillows; her little hand clutching mine in desperation; the soft tread of the nurse, that is all I remember. And when she recovered her wits and grew sane, although for a long time she spoke little, and scarcely noticed me otherwise, she claimed me by her side. She was still dazed by the misery of her darkness. It was only then that I realised the part the child had played in her development. Her nature had been stirred to the quick; the capacity for emotion had been awakened. She had left me without a qualm.
She had given herself to Pasquale without a glimmer of pa.s.sion. She had returned to me like a wounded animal seeking its home. For the child alone the pa.s.sionate human love had sprung flaming from the seed hidden in her soul. And now the child was dead, and the sun had gone from her sky, and she was benumbed with the icy blackness of the world.
Then came a time when her speech was loosened and she talked to me incessantly of the child, until one day she spoke of it as living and clamoured for it, and relapsed into her fever.
At last one morning she awakened from a sound sleep and found me watching; for I had relieved the nurse at six o"clock. She smiled at me for the first time since the child fell sick, and took my hand and kissed it.
"It is like waking into heaven to see your face, Seer Marcous, darling,"
she whispered.
"I hope heaven is peopled by a better-looking set of fellows," I said.
"_Hou!_" laughed Carlotta. "Don"t you know you are beautiful?"
"You mustn"t throw an old jest in my teeth, Carlotta," said I, and I reminded her how she had once screamed with laughter when I had told her I was very beautiful.
Carlotta listened patiently until I had ended, and then she said, with a little sigh: