Chapter Fifteen.
Vanna’s Kingdom.
Miggles was buried at Seacliff by her own written request. A letter addressed to Mr Goring was discovered after her death, in which her wishes were expressed with the simple candour and consideration for others which had ever characterised her utterances.
“I wish to be buried here at Seacliff. It will be less trouble than taking me to town, and I have always loved the little place. I don’t wish money wasted on an elaborate coffin, but I should love all the flowers which people find it in their hearts to send. I don’t wish any one to wear mourning, or to give up their pleasures or amusements because of my death. I always loved to see you dear ones happy and gay, and if I can still see you from the other world, it would grieve me to see you sad. I want you to go on with your lives in the usual way, and not think it necessary to mourn for me. But I should like to be remembered. I hope you will still let me share your lives. Talk of me sometimes when you are together—not sadly, but quite cheerfully and happily. Say sometimes, ‘Miggles would like that!’ ‘Miggles would say that!’ ‘how Miggles would laugh!’ just as if I were in another room. I may be even nearer, and it seems to me now that even heaven itself could not make me happy if I saw you sad...”
Mr and Mrs Goring, the two schoolboys, Piers Rendall, his mother, and Vanna were the chief mourners. Jean was expecting a baby, and had been somewhat alarmingly delicate during the last months, so that it was impossible for her to travel to Seacliff, and Robert refused to leave her even for a day. The little burial-ground lay inland, nearer the Manor House than the cottage on the cliff, and after the service was over the mourners returned to lunch with Mrs Rendall.
Piers and Vanna followed slowly after the others until a side gate was reached leading into the grounds, when Piers produced a key from his pocket, and, entering, led the way, not towards the house, but down hill in the direction of the glen, but Vanna stood still in the path, looking at him with surprised, reproachful eyes.
“To-day?”
“To-day! Why not? She is happy; it was her great wish for us that we should be happy, too. Come!”
He took her hand in his, and she made no attempt to withdraw it. Worn out as she was with the strain and grief of the last few days, the firm clasp seemed to bring with it strength and comfort. Hand-in-hand they descended the sloping path and stood beneath the shelter of the trees. As on the day of their first visit together, the delicate beauty of early summer surrounded them on every side. The foliage still retained the fresh green of springtime, the grass was dotted over with patches of fragrant violets and anemones, the water of the stream babbled musically over the mossy stones. As Piers gazed around there was on his face an expression which Vanna had never seen before—an expression of exaltation, of almost incredulous content.
“Vanna,” he cried breathlessly, “it is true! All my life I have feared and doubted. Even as a child, when my mother taught me at her knee, the doubts arose in my mind, and the questions. You have wondered why I never went to church. It would have been a mockery when I could not believe. I have read, and listened, and discussed; and out of it all came only more doubt, more confusion. It is my nature to mistrust—was my nature, till I met you.” His hand tightened on hers with almost painful pressure. “You have taught me the reality of goodness and truth, and now, through you, this has come—this revelation. It is true! There is another life. This world is not all. I have doubted all other evidence, but I cannot doubt what I have seen. They were there, Vanna, close around us, the spirits—the ‘angels’ of Miggles’s sweet old faith! We were too blind to see, but they were there, and she saw them. That light in her eyes! Can you ever forget? That was not death—it was life—the coming of life! Oh, my darling, my darling, what this means to me! A new heaven—a new earth. The falling of the scales!”
He lifted his quivering face to the sky as though asking forgiveness of the God whom he had denied; but the woman by his side had no thought at that moment for anything in heaven or earth but himself. Amazement of joy following so hard upon grief seemed to sap the last remnant of strength. She trembled violently, and gripped at Piers’s arm. He turned in alarm, but the face looking up to his was quivering with joy, not pain.
“Vanna! What is it?”
“You called me—you called me—” She broke off, trembling, shaking, blushing to the roots of her hair. “What did you call me?”
For a moment he stared bewildered; then remembrance came—the echo of his own words throbbed in his ear, bringing with them a second revelation, the revelation of his own heart. He seized her in a grasp violent in its intensity, and drew her towards him, gazing deep into her eyes.
“Vanna, my beloved! This too! My love, and yours! A new earth indeed. The words said themselves, darling; they have lived so long in my heart that they slipped from my lips before I had realised my wealth. I who thought I could never love, to have walked into it, step after step, deliberately, blindly, until I found myself so deep down, so engulfed, that I could not be free if I would. Vanna, I have only lived since I knew you. It was you I needed all those empty years: you have given me life, joy, hope; you must give me the last thing, too—your love! After this vision I can’t live without it. You are mine, Vanna; I can’t give you up.” He drew her head to his shoulder and pressed passionate kisses on her lips, her hair, her white, closed lids, and she clung to him, forgetting everything in the bliss of certainty, the intoxicating nearness, the touch of his lips on her own.
“Vanna! Was it this you felt—a foretaste of this joy—when you walked into your kingdom and read its message? It’s in your Happy Land, my dearest, you have found your love. May it be an omen of the future! Speak to me!... Tell me in words. I have never heard a woman’s lips speak to me of love.”
Vanna looked up at him, a wealth of devotion in the depths of her eloquent eyes, but her lips trembled over the words:
“What can I say? The words won’t come. I was lonely, too, and you are everything—everything. From the very first day you filled my mind. I thought it was friendship. When I found out, I struggled, but it was no use, so I gave in, and let myself love you more and more. It was my best happiness—the only happiness I could look for. I never ventured to hope that you could love me.”
He laughed, a low, tender laugh, and framing her face between his hands, lifted it towards his own.
“Was I blind and deaf? Could I see you, and talk to you, and listen to your praises from far and near, and keep my head? Do you know in the least what you are like? I’ll carry a little mirror in my pocket and let you see yourself some time when you are animated and happy. I’ll make you admire yourself.”
“Have you fallen in love with me for my looks?”
“Partly. Certainly. I love your looks, and I won’t have them depreciated. And with your goodness, and sweetness, and strength, and your unreasonableness, and temper, and weaknesses—and which I love the most I really can’t say. There’s not a bit of you I don’t love, or would have altered if I could.”
Vanna shivered. Already the golden moment had passed, and a shadow fell across her joy. This climax of bliss—what could it be but a presage of the end? She drew herself away from Piers’s encircling arms.
“Ah, what have I done? Piers, what have I done? I have forgotten—we have both forgotten. I told you my secret that day on the cliff when you heard me cry. Do you know why I cried? Because Jean had spoken of a girl in town, with whom she thought you were in love. It tortured me; I was nearly wild with jealousy and despair. And then you came, and I blurted it all out. No! it was not noble. I was thinking of myself. I wanted to get the weight off my mind, that I might enjoy you with an easy mind. I felt that if you knew the worst, and cared to be with me after that, the responsibility was yours, not mine; and I tried—I tried to make you care! I deluded myself, but I know now that I did try. I thought I could not help it, but it was selfish—cowardly. I should have thought of your good. Piers, I can never be your wife; you can never marry me. I have only brought fresh trouble. Can you ever forgive me?”
He smiled at her, and, disregarding the outstretched hands, drew her back into his arms.
“Forgive you, my best of blessings! For the moment I can think of nothing but love. My mind isn’t big enough to grasp anything beyond that tremendous fact. The present is ours, darling; be content in that. We are here together in our Happy Land—you and I. Nothing can rob us of this hour. If it ended here, this minute, I should still bless God for His goodness. To know you love me, to hold you here in my arms—it’s worth living for, Vanna. But it’s not going to end. Trust to me. I will go up to town. I will interview the doctor. I will find a way. You are mine, and all the world shall not keep you from me.”
Vanna smiled in his face with happy, love-lit eyes. He was a god in her eyes, and the gods are omnipotent. If Piers willed a thing it did not seem possible that he could fail. Reason fled discomfited. She loved, and was blind.