THE MASTERY
"I drew my window curtains, and instead
Of the used yesterday, there laughing stood
A new-born morning from the Infinite
Before my very face!"—Alexander Smith.
Gaunt's mind never retained any very clear image of the rest of that day. His brain was still partially clouded by the powerful poison which had entered his system. As Dr. Dymock explained to Virginia, there was not only CO_2, but actually the deadly CO itself present in the foul shaft down which he had imperilled his life. CO, as she was further instructed, gets into the blood, and milk and liquid nourishment should be given for some hours, until normal conditions gradually reappear.
The wonderful strength of the patient's heart had enabled him to rally from the toxic fumes, but the action of that powerful organ was, nevertheless, distinctly depressed; and he was content to pass the evening in his bed, lying in a state of not unpleasant semi-consciousness, and trying to adjust his ideas of what had happened.
The doctor came round late that night to see how he was. He had left his other patient fairly comfortable, though the injury to the ribs was serious. The Ferrises were being very kind and hospitable. They were only too anxious to do all they could, since they blamed themselves for the accident—Percy because he had not sufficiently considered the danger of the place; Joey because she had, as she herself expressed it, "got larking." Now no trouble was too great for her to take. A nurse was already installed, and there was no doubt that Gerald would have every possible care and attention.
Dr. Dymock was well satisfied with Gaunt's condition. He said that a long night's rest would restore him to his usual state, except for the fact that he must go carefully for a few days. He advised him not to get up until about eleven the following day—an order deeply resented by the master of Omberleigh, who could not remember to have breakfasted in bed in his life, except when his leg was broken. It was, however, consoling to be told that he would suffer no permanent effects at all from his awful adventure. If one has to live, one would rather live whole than maimed.
He felt much himself when he descended the stairs next day, and went, as Virginia had begged that he would, to her own sitting-room. She was not there when he made his appearance. He had a few minutes in which to realise how her presence and her touch permeated the place and made it hers. She came running along the terrace very soon, her hands full of spiky dahlias, orange, scarlet, yellow and copper coloured. Entering through the window, she gave him a cheery greeting, pulling off her gardening gloves and apron and laying down her flowers on a table.
He sat watching her with a curious intentness, feeling as if the handling of the situation were with her, waiting for some cue as to the attitude he was expected to adopt.
It was not for two or three minutes that he realised that she was in precisely his own case. Her nervousness was very palpable. She coloured finely when for a moment she met his eyes, and went eagerly to ring the bell for the soup and wine which she had ordered for him. It came, almost before he had had time to object. When it was set before him, he did succeed, however, in voicing a protest. How could he be expected to eat like this, at odd hours? "I've had breakfast," he urged.
"But you must get up your strength," she told him, with serious solicitude. "Dr. Dymock told me to be sure that you did; and you have had nothing solid since yesterday. Do try and eat it."
As he still hesitated, she sat down beside him, and took the cup of soup in her hands, proffering it. "There was once a man," she said gravely, "and his wife couldn't eat any breakfast. So he stood over her with threats until she did."
He winced, and bit his lip. "Don't joke about it"—hurriedly.
"Why not?" she asked, deliberately provocative. "It is a joke now, since it has ceased to hurt me."
"But it will never cease to humiliate me," he muttered.
"Well, perhaps that is good for you," was the mischievous suggestion; and to cover his confusion he was fain to take the cup of soup and drink it, she watching with a glance of covert triumph. She would not let him off until he had eaten and drunk all that was on the tray, which she then carried to a distant table.
He watched her as she returned, work-bag in hand, seating herself upon a high stool, or bunch of cushions which stood near the hearth. She drew out her bit of embroidery, using it obviously as a refuge for eyes and hands. He leaned forward, and sat, chin cupped in palm, watching her.
"Must one be a little unwell in order to secure your sympathy and attention, Virginia?"
"Sick people need taking care of"—with a laugh and a blush—"and I like taking care of people. I always did."
He made no immediate reply, for he was meditating a plunge. She clung to her work as to a raft in a tumbling sea.
"I was very sick yesterday," he remarked at length.
"For a long time they said you were—dead," she almost whispered.
"I wish they had been right. It would have been better. Virginia! Why did you call me back?"
She turned pale. Her work fell upon her knee. "Then I was right!" she muttered. "I suspected, I knew it really! You had some idea of throwing yourself down that place and pretending it was an accident!"
He sat still, without denying it.
"You wanted to die!" she repeated, accusing him. "You wanted to kill yourself! But why? Osbert, you have got to tell me why."
"You know why well enough. To undo the harm I have done you. To set you free."
"Then," she pursued swiftly, "I suppose I am right in my other suspicion, too? You don't want me here! You married me, not because you loved me or wanted me, but to be revenged upon mother through me.... And now that you find you are too soft-hearted—or that you have ceased to think that I deserve punishment—you want to get rid of me! But surely there are other ways to do that! You needn't kill yourself! If you don't want me, I can go?... Why did you make such a point of my coming back if—if——"
He made a sound of speechless scorn; but he had turned pale. Clearly this view of the question took him aback. "Of course you know that you are talking nonsense," he said at last.
She was now too much roused to feel nervous. "You call it nonsense," said she, "but if those are your feelings——"
"My feelings!" he broke in. "You know it's not a question of that at all, but of your happiness. But if my feelings must be dragged in—if you will have it so—why, use your own sense for a moment! Look at yourself and then look at me! How can any future together be possible? Think of how I have treated you, and how you have requited me! You see the hopelessness of it all.... Child, you made your first mistake yesterday. You should have let me die quietly. It didn't hurt a bit, and I was not loath. I was slipping away so easily, it seemed far less trouble to go on than to come back. Nothing but your voice could have compelled me. And, if you had let me go, what a future for you! A few weeks bother, perhaps—and perhaps even a little regret. Then freedom. You would have been set at liberty, as you once told me you longed to be! And clean, Virginia, as you also wished! You would have been rich, you might have sent for Pansy, for Tony, for mother! Nothing of mine would have remained but the name you bear, and that you would have changed so soon! And you would have thought kindly of me in the end, because the last thing I did was to bring your lover back to you."
She drew herself up and gazed upon him with scarlet face and eyes brimming with indignant tears. "My lover! What have I done that you should speak so to me? You know very well that I have no lover," she said.
He could see that she was deeply wounded. "I don't understand you a bit," she cried, pushing all her work to the ground, and leaning her forehead on her hands. "When I came back, you seemed so glad—really glad. I hoped ... we might be friends. But what could I do? You didn't like me even to take your hand. If you would really rather have died, of course I am sorry I interfered. I didn't stop to think. It seemed too important, there was only time to act.... I just felt that I—I couldn't let you die like that!" her voice sank away till the concluding words were half inaudible.
"But why not?" he urged, "why could you not? That is the whole point, don't you see?"
She raised her tearful eyes and looked at him as though he were a riddle she could not read. Then, without speaking, she rose, went to her little work-table, opened it and took out a package. She laid it upon his knee, returning to her own seat. "That was why," she said.
His colour rose. "You found that?"
"Dr. Dymock tore open your shirt to make sure whether there was any perceptible movement of the heart. He pulled this out of the—the inner pocket in your shirt, and flung it on the grass. I snatched it up, so that nobody should pry into your private affairs; and then, of course, I could not help seeing that they are—my letters."
She added, as he held the package doubtfully, and said no word: "You see I cannot make things fit together in my mind. If you wanted to be rid of me, why should you keep my letters—there?"
"Well, since you have discovered my folly, I had better make a clean breast of it. After all, you have a right to know. It must sound pretty ridiculous, but I suppose that even monsters fall in love. Caliban himself had the taste to desire Miranda, which is horrible and revolting. However, that is what has happened to me.... During all the days of your absence, my heart was in the post-bag. Every letter you wrote is here, hoarded like a miser's gold." He slipped the elastic band which held them, and smiled wryly as he showed the worn corners of the paper. "I studied these, and you in them," he went on hurriedly. "I learned each day more of your honesty, your scrupulous accuracy, your economy in spending money which was, as you thought, not your own!... Virginia, in my youth your mother wrote me pages of love-letters! The whole of them were not worth one line of this unconscious self-revelation of yours.... You marvellous creature! How you managed to spend so little is what puzzles me. And Tony, too! Yes, old Grover let that out. Were you paying for Tony? And if so, from what fund did his expenses come?"
His tone had changed insensibly from tense emotion to frank interest. He raised his head, interrogating her with a look which was almost a smile. She responded eagerly.
"Oh, I managed that quite easily, out of my own allowance. It cost so little! I only paid ten shillings a week for his small top-floor bedroom. Then I paid in ten shillings a week to the board money, and that was all, except his railway journey. You see, I could not send him back to Wayhurst, he would have been so miserable, all alone in the house, poor darling. It would have been hard for him, would it not? When we were all at the sea, and he had not seen the sea for so long! It did him so much good, he enjoyed it all so hugely." ... She forgot her own affairs and his in the glow of her sisterly affection. He smiled upon her a little sadly.
"But you must be penniless yourself?" he said. "Surely your private account is overdrawn?"
"Oh, no, Osbert! You forget how much you gave me and how little I am used to make do with! I have not wanted anything, and I have quite a big balance——"
"You have a positive genius for sacrifice," he said, laying aside the packet of letters, and studying her. "You would give up everything for Pansy, for Tony, for mother. And now—it being, from your point of view, your duty—you are ready to make the final act of self-abnegation, to sacrifice yourself for Osbert, too?"
His voice had changed. It seemed as if he strove to keep to his old ironic note; but some other force throbbed in his undertone, and it affected Virginia strangely.
"Of course I am. I promised," she assured him instantly, raising her sweet, puzzled eyes to his tense face.
He gave a laugh which startled her, tossed the package of letters upon the table, rose, and went to the window.
"And are you so ignorant of the meaning of things that you think, after the confession I have just made, that this will satisfy me?" he flung over his shoulder.
She rose too. "I—I don't think I understand," she faltered.
"I'm only a man, just a human man. I want love," he blurted out, his face still averted.
"But isn't that love?" she wondered, as though thinking out a problem aloud for herself. "You are ready to sacrifice everything for me—even your life—because you love me. I am ready to sacrifice—I mean, to do and be what you would have me do and be. Isn't that love?"
"No, it isn't," he bluntly answered.
She grew pale, and twisted her hands tightly together. "Then—then what is it?" she breathed.
Taking no notice of her, he came back to the hearth and rang the bell. Having done so, he remained with one hand on the mantel and one foot on the fender, gazing at the fire, ignoring, as it seemed, her very presence.
"Hemming," said he, when his summons was answered, "will you please bring back the statue and the pedestal which I told you to take away the night Mrs. Gaunt returned?"
The man departed, reappearing in a minute, with one of the other servants, and bringing in first a shaft of black marble, and then a dazzling white figure. They set up both pedestal and statue, in the open space in the centre of the bay window recess.
Virginia had seated herself when she heard the mysterious order given. Gaunt remained silent until the servants had left the room.
Then he moved slowly away from the fire.
"Come and look at it," he said.
Virginia rose, much puzzled, and went to him. They stood side by side contemplating the delicate thing. For a while she was at a loss. Then her eye fell upon the inscription which ran around the base of the figure:
Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître!
Then the colour rushed to her face, for she remembered.
"Oh! Where did you get it?"
"I had it made. I thought it would complete the room."
She stood in the sunlight, which poured through the window, and made a glory of her hair. Many thoughts flowed about her, many memories. Yet as he watched her narrowly, hungrily, he could see that these memories were not bitter.
"How little I knew about it! How little I understood—then," she murmured presently.
"Little blind girl, you understand no better now," said Gaunt.
She lifted to him a solemn gaze. "Osbert, are you sure?"
He put out his hands and gently turned her so that she stood facing him. "Do you suppose that, loving you as I do, I could bear to take you in my arms when I knew that you were fighting your natural inclination in order not to flinch from my touch?" he demanded.
She sighed, as if she felt that he was trying her too hard, but she made no attempt to shake off his light hold. Through her thin sleeves she felt the warmth of his hands. She felt, too, the slight vibration which, now that she understood, indicated to her the curb that he was using. Suddenly she gave a little gasping laugh, flashing a glance up at him.
"Osbert, if you know all about it, tell me—how does one fall in love?"
"How?" he stammered, for a moment at a loss.
"Why did you show me this?" she whispered, moving the least bit nearer to him, as she indicated the statue. "You mean me to see that love is—is a thing that masters you?"
He signified assent without speech.
"Well, well, master me, then! Make me understand!"
He loosed her arms, to stretch out his own. With them thus, almost encircling her, but not touching her, he paused, searching her downbent face. "But the risk," he cried, "you might hate me!... And even this—even what I have endured since you came back to me, would be better than have you loathe me."
"You can but try," she managed to stammer, with broken voice; and the words were stifled upon her lips by the pressure of his own, as he snatched her to his heart.
This once only was his thought. This once, if never again! This once, even though she were merely passive, for such invitation could not be foregone. Nay, he must have yielded, even in face of her resistance ... but she did not resist. She lay at first passive in his hold, while he covered her face, her hair with kisses.... Then, when once more he touched her mouth, he could feel her response. She answered his lips with the free gift of her own. She gave him kiss for kiss ... and time slid out of sight for a while.
*****
His first coherent words were something like these:
"But it can't be. How could it be? How could any woman forgive what I made you endure? Even if I were an attractive man, instead of a lame bear."
They were sitting side by side upon the Chesterfield, and as he spoke, Virginia raised her head from his shoulder and contemplated him.
"It is curious," she replied, in tones of candid wonder, "but you know I always thought somehow that this might be. Only things were so strange afterwards, I never could be sure."
"That sounds a bit cryptic," he commented, amused. "Can you explain?"
She smiled with something like mischief. "Are you still certain that you know all about it and I nothing?"
"All about what, in the name of all the elves?"
"About falling in love."
"I know nothing at all about it, except as a man who has tumbled down a precipice knows that he is down."
"Well, I rather think that I am better informed. Shall I try to tell you about it? Quite a long story. I must be careful not to 'prattle.' Ah, Osbert, don't look so! You must let me tease."
"Every time you stab me in the back like that you will have to pay for it in kisses."
"If that's so, I must be careful. But let me begin at the beginning. That fatal day at Hertford House, when you followed us about, your face made a queer impression upon me. I don't mean that I liked it—I didn't, so you need not begin to plume yourself. It was simply that I could not forget it. You had done something to me, though we barely spoke. All the rest of the day, and even when I was at the theatre that evening, the memory of your face, and specially of your eyes, kept swimming into my fancy. When I went to bed I dreamed of you. The shocking part is now to come. Perhaps you won't believe it. I dreamed exactly what has just happened. I thought we were standing just beside this statue, only, of course, in my dream we were in the Gallery; and at the time I wondered how it was that I could see a garden outside, through the window, you said: 'I am quite a stranger, but may I kiss you?' I answered, 'Remember that if you do, it can never be undone.' Then you—you did."
"I did?"
"Yes; and, in the dream, I liked it!"
"Virgie!"
"It's true. When I awoke, of course, I just thought it was absurd and silly, as dreams are. But I could not forget it. The dream haunted me, as your face had haunted me. When mother came home from meeting you in town, and told me that you were the man in the Gallery, and that you wanted to marry me, I was such a conceited pussy-cat that after the first surprise I thought it really probable that you had fallen in love at first sight."
"Is it possible?"
"Oh, don't make any mistake. I would not have dreamed of saying 'Yes' if I had not been so beaten down and driven into a corner. But I do think the dream turned the scale. I said to mother that, if, when you came, you turned out to be a person whom I felt I could never like, I should refuse. Then you came. I kept thinking of the ridiculous dream all the time; and when you mentioned the statue—do you remember?—I actually thought that you must have dreamed the same thing. I felt as if you were talking a language that you and I understood: as if you knew that you could convey a secret meaning to me—a message—without words. Oh, it is so difficult to explain, but I felt that——"
"Yes? For pity's sake go on!"
"As if one day I might come to like you very much."
"As much as this?" he whispered.
"Oh, I never thought—I never imagined, this."
There was a little silence.
"And then," he sighed at last, "into the midst of your timid, hopeful sweetness, fell the bomb-shell of my brutality."
She laughed as in scorn at herself. "It was unexpected," she owned. "I was so sure that you wanted to make love to me and didn't know how to begin. And I was so afraid of you, and growing more and more so every minute. Oh, Osbert, I did suffer."
"Not as I did, for there was no remorse in your agony of mind."
"But there was. I thought I had done so wrong to marry you."
"And I—the moment I read your letter to Pansy, and hers to you, I knew what I had done. I wanted to tell you, but how could I? All one night I wandered about in the rain——"
"It was the very night, I believe, that I had my second dream. In that, you came and spoke to me quite kindly and tenderly. You said: 'All that is happening now is the dream. Those kisses that I once gave you are the reality.' I awoke, feeling so happy and all excited inside—do you know the feeling? It was dreadful to find it just a dream. Ah, I was miserable, what with the torment of Pansy being so ill ... and if I had but known it, you were longing to comfort me!"
"Oh," he muttered, "but I did feel abject! I could have crawled to your foot and begged you to set it on my head."
"I am glad you did not. I like you much better as you are now—fresh from a deed of heroism which will make the whole county buzz with your name for weeks to come."
"Oh, great Scott!" in sudden consternation, "I never thought of that!"
"Shall you grudge me my celebrated husband?"
He laughed audibly, a thing so rare that the very sound thrilled her. "You are too adorable! It can't be true! I shall awake." ...
"Did you ever dream about me?" she whispered when again he released her.
"Night after night. I was always just on the point of making you understand, but it never came off."
"Well, I dreamed of you one more time. That makes three. It was at Worthing, just before I came back to you, and I thought I was searching for you everywhere, all about this house. I told you part of it the other day—about my dreaming of the alterations in this room. But I didn't tell you how it went on. I wandered out into the garden, and presently you came to me, out of a thick mist, and your eyes were shut. You looked just as you did yesterday——"
"When I came back to you out of the mists of death!"
She gave a long sigh. "How wonderful!... Of course, I did not understand the dream, or put any meaning to it. But you were speaking as you came with your eyes shut, and you said, 'She will never come back. Are you coming? No!' ... When I awoke I knew that I must go to you at once. I knew that I had lingered too long, and that there must be no more delay. But, oh, I was afraid!—I was so desperately afraid!"
He told her of the dreadful day of her return, when he had ridden to sessions in the miserable conviction that he had lost her altogether; and how Ferris had told him of her adventures with young Rosenberg.
"I got home that night absolutely convinced that it was all over," he said.
"Ah!" She turned suddenly and clung to him of her own accord. "And yesterday I thought that all was over, too. It happened so fast; yet it seemed to take years and years. I can't tell you how many thoughts I had, while you turned round from tying up my shoe.... You knew, didn't you, that the shoe was just an excuse to coax you away from the brink of the chasm?"
"I wondered."
"Yes, I could see that you wondered, and just as I was casting about in my mind to think what I could say, I heard Joey scream!... Then all in a moment, I knew what would happen. I saw your face set ... and you looked at me, just for one second, a look that seemed to set me on fire. I could have shrieked out in my desperation, but I knew I must not say a word to stop you. I knew you would go down, and that every moment was precious.... Osbert, there, in that awful cave, in those few seconds, I grew up. I saw what might be, and I saw that I was going to lose it. I felt as if all my life I had foreseen that this was going to happen to me, and that I never would be able to tell you——"
"To tell me what?"
"Oh, just this! What I am telling you!"
Thereafter, soft laughter, and more kisses.