"But you are at the end of your tether. I know what I know. You can"t go on. You are nineteen and your life is unendurable to you. You are touching the fringe of despair. Break away from your life before it breaks you. Shake its dust from off your feet. Forsake all and find peace in following your art."
"You might as well say to the goldfish, jump out," said Blanche, white to the lips, pointing to the picture.
"I do say to him, "Jump out." Leap in the dark, and risk dying on a vulgar Axminster carpet, and being trodden into it, rather than pine in prison on sponge cake."
"Yes," said Blanche fiercely, "but there is the wire netting. It"s not in the picture, but _you know it"s there_. He jumps and jumps. Haven"t I said so in the picture! And it throws him back. You know that. I was like him once. I used to jump, but I always fell back. I don"t jump any more now."
And then, without any warning, she burst into a paroxysm of tears.
For a moment I stared at her stupified, and then slipped out of the room to fetch a gla.s.s of water.
When I came back M. was sunk down in his armchair, and she was crouching on the ground before him almost beside herself, holding him by the feet.
"Let me live with you," she gasped half distraught. "Arthur hates me, and I"m frightened of him. He"s mad, mad, mad, only Dr. Giles pretends he isn"t, and Mrs. Robinson pretends; everything in that dreadful house is pretence, nothing real anywhere. Let me live with you. Then he"ll divorce me, and you needn"t marry me. I don"t want to be married. I won"t be any trouble to you. No pretty clothes, no amus.e.m.e.nts, no expense. I don"t want anything except a little time to myself, to paint."
"You poor soul," said the painter faintly, and in his harsh voice was an infinite compa.s.sion.
"Help me to jump out," she shrieked, clinging to him.
"My child," he said. "I cannot help you. I am dying. I could not live long enough even to blacken your name. I have failed others in the past whom I might have succoured. Now I fail you as I failed them. There is no help in me."
He closed his eyes, but nevertheless two very small tears crept from beneath the wrinkled lids, and stood in the furrows of his cheeks.
She trembled and then rose slowly to her feet, and obediently took the gla.s.s of water which I proffered to her. She drank a little, and then placed the gla.s.s carefully on the table and drew on her gloves. I saw that she had withdrawn once more after a terrible bid for freedom into her fortress of reserve. She was once more the impa.s.sive, colourless creature whom I had seen almost daily for a year without knowing in the least until to-day what she really was.
"I ought to be going back now," she said to me.
"I will take you home," I said.
She went slowly up to M. and stood before him. I had never seen her look so beautiful.
The old man looked at her fixedly.
"I made up my mind," she said, "after I spoke to Dr. Giles that I would never try to jump out any more, but you see I did."
"Forgive me," he said brokenly, holding out a shaking hand.
"It"s not your fault," she said, clasping his hand in both of hers. "You are good, and you understand. You are the only person I have ever met who would help me if you could. But no one can help me. No one."
And very reverently, very tenderly, she kissed his leaden hand and laid it down upon his knee.
As I took Blanche home I said to her:
"And when did you appeal to me, and when did I repulse you?"
"When I spoke to you about Goldy and you weren"t sorry, you did not mind a bit. You only said he was a lucky goldfish."
"And what in Heaven"s name had that to do with you?"
She looked scornfully at me as if she were not going to be entrapped into speaking again.
I saw that she had--so to speak--ruled me out of her life. Perhaps when I first came to that unhappy house nearly a year ago she had looked to me as a possible helper, had weighed me in the balance, and had found me wanting.
I was cut to the heart, for deep down, at the bottom of my mind I saw at last, that I _had_ failed her.
She might be, she probably was, slightly deranged, but, nevertheless, she had timidly, obscurely sought my aid, and had found no help in me.
M. died the following evening, after trying to die throughout the whole day. I never left him until, at last, late at night, he laid down his courage, having no further need of it, and reached the end of his ordeal.
Next morning after breakfast I went as usual to the Robinson"s house, and, according to custom, was shown into the drawing-room. Now that M.
was out of his agony my mind reverted to Blanche. My wife and children were going to the seaside, and my wife had eagerly agreed to take Blanche with her, if she could be spared.
"But they won"t let her go," said the little woman.
"They must if I say it"s necessary," I said with professional dignity. I wondered as I waited in the immense Robinson drawing-room how best I could introduce the subject. Half involuntarily I approached the aquarium. As I drew near my foot caught on something slippery and stiff.
I looked down, and saw it was the dead body of the goldfish on the carpet. I picked it up, and was staring at it when Mrs. Robinson came in. She gave a cry when she saw it, and wrung her hands.
"Put him back in the water," she shrieked. "He may be still alive."
I put him back into his cell, but it had no longer any power over that poor captive. "Goldy" floated grotesque and upside down on the surface of the water. His release had come.
"He must have jumped out to get to me when I was not there," sobbed Mrs.
Robinson, the easy tears coursing down her fat cheeks. "My poor faithful loving little pet. But someone has taken the wire off the aquarium. Who could have been so wicked? Downright cruel I call it."
The wire, true enough, had been unhooked, and was laid among the hyacinths on the water"s edge.
"Where is Blanche?" I asked. "I want to talk to you about her. I do not think she is well, and I should advise--"
"That was just what I was going to tell you when I came in and saw that poor little darling dead in your hand. I am dreadfully worried about Blanche. She has been out all night. She hasn"t come in yet."
"Out all night?" A vague trouble seized me.
"Yes," said Mrs. Robinson, "all night. Would you have thought it possible? But between you and me it"s not the first time. Once long ago, just before you came to us, she did just the same. She--actually--ran away: ran away from her husband and me, and her beautiful home, though we had done everything in the world to make her happy. She went to her uncle at Liverpool, who never liked her. He telegraphed to us at once, and he brought her back next day. He spoke to her most beautifully, and left her with us. She seemed quite dazed at first, but she got round it and became as usual, always very silent and dull. Not the companion for Arthur. No brightness or gaiety. Blanche has been a great disappointment to me, tho" I"ve never shown it, and I"m not one to bear malice, I"ve always made a pet of her. But between you and me, Dr. Giles, Arthur is convinced that she is not quite right in her head, and that she ought to be shut up."
"But she is shut up now," I said involuntarily.
She stared at me amazed.
A servant brought in a telegram.
"I telegraphed to her uncle first thing this morning," said Mrs.
Robinson, "to ask if she was with him. Now we shall hear what he says."
She opened the envelope and spread out the contents.
"She"s _not_ with him," she said. "Then Dr. Giles, where _is_ she? Where can she be?"
Later in the day we knew that Blanche had taken refuge in the Serpentine.