Chapter Twenty Eight.
“Dead Separate Souls...”
She turned as he overtook her. For a moment they thus stood face to face. Then he spoke.
“I have come to say good-bye.”
“To say—good-bye?” echoed Mona, dully, staring at him as though she were walking in her sleep.
“Yes. There is a gulf between us now such as can never be bridged, never. It is not good that you should even so much as speak with a murderer. A murderer, I repeat.”
The faces of both were white as death. The frames of both were rigid and motionless, as they stood confronting each other beneath the willows—there, where they had first met, there, where those passionate words of undying love had been interchanged, there, where those long, long kisses had stamped their seal upon that love. And here they had met again—to part.
“Roden, say it was not true!” she gasped at last. “You were acquitted at the trial. It is not true; it cannot be true! Say it is not; say it is not!”
“But, what if it is?”
The words forced themselves out with something of a snarl. His lips seemed drawn back, and his eyes glowed like those of a cornered wild beast, as he watched her troubled face.
“But it is not! No, you could never have done such a thing—you! You could never have been a cold-blooded midnight murderer, and robber. No, Roden, I will not believe it!”
“But you do believe it. You believed it from the first, because that half-start away from me when our eyes first met this morning meant nothing short of belief. That little act of shrinking fixed my mind irrevocably—reft a gulf between us never to be passed in this life. A cold-blooded midnight murderer—and robber—and robber!” he repeated; and now indeed the expression of his face was more than ever like that of a dangerous animal at bay. “And you believe that!”
“But say it is not true! Oh, Roden, say it! Your bare word will be sufficient to restore me, to restore us both, to the blissful heaven we were in before!” she adjured, her voice quivering with anguish.
“Nothing on earth will ever restore that. You killed the possibility that little lightning-like moment when you half turned away from me, looked at me with doubting horror. Now I will say nothing—nothing, you understand. Form your own opinion and hold it, for henceforth it can be nothing to me. We disappear out of each other’s lives for ever.”
Mona made no reply; her face half averted, her lips compressed, her beautiful form erect and rigid. Why was he so terribly strong, with a strength of purpose that was almost appalling, demoniacal, scarcely human in its unparalleled inflexibility? Why did he give no sign of softness, of yielding? She had, as he said, involuntarily, though half-unconsciously, shrunk from him. That was enough. Never again would she see those eyes gladden to the light of hers, never again hear the love tone of that voice. And yet, amid the awful agony of her loss and its realisation, there was still room for that same feeling of shrinking as from the perpetrator of a hideous and sordid crime; and like the mocking whoop of demons in her ears came that cutting, stinging, gibing refrain—the echo of his words, spoken there:—
“Nothing lasts! Nothing lasts!”
She had reached that point where mental anguish becomes physical pain, without in any way losing itself therein. Her brain seemed bursting, her heart refusing to beat. The climax came. She sank down in swooning unconsciousness.
Even then that human being turned to iron repressed the step which he had made towards her—repressed it with a shiver, but still repressed it. Not his the right to touch her—he from whom she had shrunk as from a murderer and midnight robber. Then another thought struck him.
“Yes, it is better so,” he muttered, stepping to the side of the unconscious form, its nobly moulded lines as beautiful as ever in insensibility. “It is better so. Looked at thus for the last time, I can think of her ever as though I had looked upon her in death.”
Then he struggled with himself, fought to restrain the overmastering impulse, for the last time to bend down and press his lips long and hard to her unconscious ones—fought, and conquered, and refrained.
“It would be a murderer’s kiss,” he muttered, between his teeth. Then turning, he lifted up his voice and sent forth a long, loud call.
“Miss Ridsdale has fainted, Suffield,” he said, as the latter came running up. “You had better get her taken to the house. Good-bye, Suffield!”
“Stop, Musgrave, stop!” cried Suffield, who was now supporting Mona’s head. “Don’t go away like that, man. Hang it! after all this time, you know.”
“I won’t shake hands with you, Suffield,” answered Roden without pausing, as he was walking rapidly away to where he had left his horse, still saddled. “You don’t want to take the hand of a murderer—and thief, especially the thief. Good-bye, Suffield.”
He rode away in the broad glare of noontide, the shimmer of heat from the scorching plains rising mirage-like in the distance. The screech of cricket vibrated shrilly upon the burning, glowing atmosphere, to cease abruptly in a silence that was well-nigh as oppressive; then bursting forth again with a strident suddenness which brought back the nerve-racking din tenfold. In the cloudless blue of the heavens, high overhead above the brink of the rock-embattled crest of the mountain range, something black was wheeling and soaring. He looked up, drawn by the distant and raucous cry of the huge bird. It was a dasje-vanger of noble size, like that which he had shot on the eventful day whereon the secret of this new love had been opened to him, and now, in his fierce and hard despair, it seemed that the great eagle was the sprite of the one which he had slain, shrieking forth its hate and exultation.
This then was love! A thing that could take sides with the spiteful clamour of the mob against its object. This then was the Ever Endurable! The first adverse blast had scattered it to the winds. “Mine for ever, throughout all the years,” had been the declaration of that love, yet the course of but a few months had sifted the passionate vow, and had left—a few husks of chaff!
He had gained the “neck” where the waggon road crossed it, and beneath lay the unprepossessing little township. There not a friendly hand would be extended to him, not a friendly voice be lifted in greeting. Those who looked on him would turn their backs, any group he approached would quickly melt away. Yet, for such as these what cared he? Hugging themselves in the security of their sordid daily swindles, in whose very pettiness lay their safety, they would thank God devoutly they were not as he, not as one who had struck down life, sacred life! No, not for the good word, the good fellowship of such as these, cared he. But his mind, seared beyond all further capacity for feeling, reverted to that one heart which was shut towards him, to the pallid death-like face upon whose lips he had refrained from pressing that last kiss, upon those eyes into whose depths he had looked his last upon earth, as surely as though the dull echo of the clods was sounding above a coffin. Yet now—now, while realising the ever-impassable gulf which lay between, he loved her as he had never loved. Yet now he would have given all the world for the one consoling memory of that last kiss, which he had refrained from, had refused. The sterility of those long pent-up springs of love had lent tenfold force to the effort by which at last they should burst their rock-prison—only to end thus. Yet towards the eternal ruling of things it was that all bitterness of feeling was due, not towards her, for had not his uttered premonition from the very first been, “Nothing lasts, nothing lasts?”
That afternoon he sought out his official superior. The latter looked coldly surprised, also a little uncomfortable.
“I desire to say, Mr Shaston, that I have changed my mind. I am prepared to resign my position in the public service, and I have no doubt it will save you a good deal of trouble. If I adopt this course, however, it is subject to one stipulation. I wish to leave at once.”
“When do you desire to leave, Mr Musgrave?” said the other, unbending somewhat, for he was overjoyed. He could get his wife’s relation into the berth now, and would be rid of a subordinate whom he thoroughly hated and at times feared.
“To-morrow at midday, if it can be managed. I shall be prepared to submit everything to your inspection, and formally hand over the keys.”
Shaston readily assented, hardly able to conceal his misgivings lest Roden might think better of it in the interim. He began, however, a pompous commendation of the very proper wisdom displayed in deciding upon such a course, which at once put an end to a very unpleasant state of affairs, and so forth, but found himself ruthlessly but very politely “shut up.” He had got his way, however.
The next day, accordingly, having formally handed in his resignation “on the ground of very urgent private affairs,” and delivered over all that had to be delivered over, Roden prepared for his start. He placed his effects in the hands of an auctioneer, except such few as he cared to remove, and these could follow him at leisure. His intention was to leave the country which had brought him nothing better than an irremovable curse, the curse of a mind roused to feeling again after many years of cold, philosophical quiescence.
In his desolation, his hardly acknowledged longing for one friendly word, the lonely and shunned man thought of Peter Van Stolz. Would he too have turned against him—he with his open, generous nature? Alas, and alas! When love failed, what was friendship? The voice whose quivering whisper had entranced his ear, had irradiated his heart, had been lifted against him in cold condemnation. The head which had lain upon his breast was averted in repulsion. The lips which had kissed his were hardened in scorn. Where then was there room for friendship? Nothing lasts!
Leaving his private quarters, he rode over to the Barkly Hotel, to settle up his score at that sumptuous caravanserai. A group of men were on the stoep, smoking their after-dinner pipe in noisy discussion. His arrival was the signal for a sodden silence. Of this he took no notice—standing in the doorway, with his back to the street, while Jones went inside to receipt the bill.
“And how are ye, Mr Musgrave? It’s a long time since I’ve seen ye, anyway, and me only just back.”
Roden turned quickly. The jolly voice with its touch of brogue, the rusty black coat and stove-pipe hat, the kind face and thick white hair, could belong to no other than Father O’Driscoll. And—he was advancing with outstretched hand. Roden stared, first at that very substantial member, then at its owner. But he did not respond, beyond a stiff bow.
“Ah, an’ is it like ye, to wish to cut an old friend?” said the old man, his hand still held forth, and a look in his eyes that there was no mistaking. For it said, as plain as words, “I know all—all. But understand, I am not called upon to judge you, however some here may reckon themselves to be, God forgive them!”
Roden’s hand closed upon that of the old priest in a warm grasp.
“An old friend, did you say, Father? I am proud of the word as coming from you; of the thing as existing between us.”
“Ah, and what’ll I do now without all our talks about the ould counthry and the fishing? Sure they’ve brought back the chimes of Shandon bells, and the days when I was a bit of a gorsoon a whippin’ the trout out of the Shournagh, wid a long shtick and a crooked pin, faster than the garrison officers could get at ’em with their grand new rods. See now, I’ve only just got back, and the moment I heard ye were leavin’ us I hurried off to find ye. Now come and have a bit of dinner with me before ye leave, and a parting tumbler of punch.”
This in the face of all Doppersdorp, for the benefit of those who had condemned and shunned him. No one was more capable than Roden of keenly appreciating the manner in which his old friend had come forward to stand by him, combining as it did a rare delicacy with the maximum of effectiveness. But this last invitation he could not but decline. To delay his departure even for an hour could serve no good purpose, and he shrank from laying bare so much as a corner of his heart, even to the sweet-natured old Irishman.
The latter, quick to read thoughts, saw through his motive, and did not press him.
“Well, if you’ve got to go I won’t be detaining you. Good-bye, Mr Musgrave,” shaking his hand heartily. “We don’t profess the same creed; but it’ll do ye no harm to know that wherever you go, and wherever you are, there’s an old man’s blessing following you. Good-bye now!”
Such was the end. And as the great spur of the mountain, glowing green and gold in the afternoon sunlight, shut out the last of Doppersdorp behind him for ever, Roden Musgrave was conscious of a feeling of starting forth once more into the world, destitute and alone. Since the day which witnessed his entry into that sordid little township, he had gained that which he had never thought to win again—a restored faith in that marvellous mystery, which, while it lasts, avails to make a very paradise of the heart in which it takes up its most inexplicable abode. Was it a gain? Well, he had lost it now. Never, never could it be restored. Had he done wrong in refusing to speak that word which should exculpate himself? No. Whatever others might think, however circumstances might point most conclusively to the truth, Mona ought to have stood firm. Not for a moment could he admit that he ought to have conceded. Rightly or wrongly that one falling away was enough. Even had he yielded, that would have stood between them for ever.
Now he began to feel strangely aged as he went forth once more into that most dreary of exiles to the man who is no longer young, and whose means are too scanty even for his barest needs—to face the world afresh, that is. In the braced-up strength, and freshness of mind, and elasticity of spirits, of youth, such a prospect is not one to shrink from; on the contrary, it is one which is welcomed with many a buoyant laugh. But later, when strength is waning, and all things pall, and hopes and illusions are laid to rest for ever, buried in a grave of corroding corruption and bitter ashes;—ah! then it is a dark and craggy desert prospect indeed. And as these thoughts started up spectre-like in Roden’s mind, he began to think of death.
Not of the suicide’s death. Oh no. Putting it on the lowest grounds, such an act would be a feebleness, an imbecility, such as found no part within his nature; for it would be a concession to the unutterably contemptible tenet that there existed such a reality as love. Not in him was it to afford such a triumph as that to his enemies, let alone to her who, when tried, had been found so pitiably wanting. No, it was death in its natural order that now filled his mind. Would all things be at rest then? or would it be indeed, as the jarring tongues of striving sects and hair-splitting ’ologies all agreed—the one point on which they did agree—that that death, not so very formidable in itself, was only to open the gate of woe, endless, unutterable, to those who had eaten their full share of the bread of affliction in life—namely, the vast bulk of human kind?
He passed his hand over his eyes. Had it all been a dream? No, no! and yet in a way it had; but a dream from which he had now thoroughly awakened. Nevertheless, as he paced his horse steadily on, mile after mile over the glowing, sunlit landscape, the torment which seethed the soul of this outwardly cool and imperturbable wayfarer might have moved the pity of angels and men. For strive and reason as he would, the love which burnt within his heart flamed more strongly than it had ever done—yet now he had renounced it—and its object he would never again behold in life.