Chapter Sixteen.
The Second Best.
Piers lost no time in going to town to interview Dr Greatman, but the result was not encouraging. He came back to Vanna with a worn face, and the restless discontent of older days eclipsing the happiness of his eyes.
“If it were only my own risk, I would take it a thousand times over,” he declared; “but when he tells me that it would be worse for you, that I should be increasing your danger, there is nothing to be said. I would kill myself rather than do that. I have racked my brain, I paced the floor the whole of last night, but no inspiration will come. There seems no way out.”
“There is no way,” said Vanna quietly. They were sitting in the morning-room in the Cottage, that little room which seemed so empty without the familiar figure on the sofa by the window. In deference to Miggles’s wishes, Vanna was wearing a simple white dress; but although the melancholy aspect of mourning robes was removed, her face also looked bleached and wan. The waiting hours had been terribly long to the woman whose fate hung on the verdict. “There is no way! You made me hope in spite of myself, for it seemed impossible that any one could refuse you what you wished; but nothing is changed since I saw him last. There was no reason why he should alter his opinion. I can see now that he spoke to me so plainly just to try to avoid this crisis; but it has come, and it is my fault. I ran away from another man who was beginning to love me, but when it came to my own turn my courage gave way. I knew that the day would come when I should have to suffer for every hour of joy, but I was prepared to pay the price. I am prepared still. I have had my day. I know what happiness is—the greatest happiness which a human soul can know; and nothing can take that away. I never dared to think that you would love me, but you do; and it’s such perfect bliss to know that, and to feel your arms round me, and to be able to say all I feel, instead of bottling it up in my heart as I have had to do all these months, that for my own sake I can’t regret. Only for yours, dearest; only for yours!”
“What do you think it means to me? Before I met you I was lonely and dissatisfied—you know what I was like! People talk of joie de vivre. I never knew it—never until this last year, since I have known you. When we have been together I’ve wanted nothing. I’ve been more than happy: I’ve been content. When we have been apart I have lived for the time when I should see you again. If you love me, how can you regret having given me the great joy of my life?”
“If it could last! If it could last! But when it is only to bring a worse pain upon you, how can I help regretting? Oh, it is hard. To think what this moment means to other couples, and that we should be shut out. I feel like you—my own risk is nothing; it is the dread of its consequences for you that weighs, and he said—he said, that the worst time, the time of the worst danger lay ahead. Piers, how can you love me with that knowledge in your mind? I thought when I told you, I honestly thought that it would stop every possibility of your caring.”
“Nothing could have stopped me. I told you then, as I tell you now, that you are the sweetest, the sanest woman I have ever met, and you are mine. I will never give you up; never to my dying day.”
“Piers, Piers, we have no choice.”
He drew her towards him, a hand on each arm; drew her roughly, passionately, his dark face twitching with emotion.
“No! It is true. We have no choice. You have said it, and it is the truth. We belong to each other, and nothing that any one can say or do can alter that. For better or worse we belong; till death us do part. There is no choice. You can’t get away—Vanna, does it strike you that we are doing a wrong, a wicked thing? We are killing our golden hour almost as soon as it is born. Those other lovers that you speak of, do they trouble their heads about marriage the first moment they are alone with their love? I don’t believe they do. I don’t believe it is even mentioned. It is enough joy, enough wonder, to realise the present. Can’t we follow their example? Can’t we be content just to be together—like this? Isn’t the present rich enough to content us? It is more, a hundred times more than I ever dared to expect. You could not be so cruel, Vanna, as to take it from me.”
“If it could last! If it could last!” moaned Vanna once more. “Oh, Piers, it is heaven just to sit here, with my head on your shoulder, and your arms around me; but I must go away, far away to the other end of the world. We can’t even be ‘engaged’ like other people, and have the right to meet and be alone. How could we be engaged when we can never marry?”
“How could we not? If we cannot have the best thing, we must take the next. Do all engaged lovers marry and live happily ever after? You know they don’t. They can’t see what is waiting one day ahead. There are a hundred risks. At the last moment death may divide them. The only thing that is secure is the present; they grasp that, and are happy. That’s the philosophy of life, darling; that must be our philosophy. You are mine. I am not going to give up my rights. We must be able to meet, to see each other when we wish. If to do that and satisfy conventions, we must call ourselves ‘engaged,’ engaged we will be. I shall tell my mother to-night, you must tell the Gorings. We are engaged, and we adore one another, and are gloriously happy. Do you remember Jean when she was engaged? Weren’t they gloriously happy?”
“For three months!” Cruel memory flashed back echoes of impatient words and sighs which had escaped the lovers’ lips even during that short period: “These eternal good-byes, these eternal interruptions! When shall we be alone?”—“For three months! If it had been three years—thirteen—thirty! I can’t imagine Robert waiting for long indefinite years. Oh, Piers, you would grow tired—impatient—”
He pressed her to him with a groan of anguish.
“Of course I shall be tired; of course I shall be impatient. Don’t torture me, darling—and yourself. It’s a second best, and it must be hard; but it is all that’s left, and for a time at least it will be bliss. One never knows what may happen. We are not particularly strong people, you and I; we may not have long to live. Vanna, knowing the uncertainty of life, dare you, dare you refuse me my joy? You say this has come upon us by your fault; then surely you feel your responsibility also. You owe me something, and you must pay. Vanna, is it so hard?”
“Hard! Do you think I want to refuse? Do you think it would not be bliss to me to give way too? For myself it would be all gain—your love, your companionship, your help; but for you it would be a barrier, shutting out better things—a wife, children, a home. You need them, Piers; you are not made for solitude. As you grow older you will need them more. How dare I shut them out?”
He did not answer. Vanna felt his cheek twitch against her own, heard the sharp indrawing of the breath. Her words had gone home; she felt a wild surge of anger against herself—against the morbid conscientiousness which had sought to wreck her own joy. The gods had thrust a gift into her hands, and because it was not pure gold she had thrust it aside, leaving herself to starve. The slackening of Piers’s arms brought with it a stab of anguish. Had she convinced him against his will? Was he about to take her at her word?
But instead of turning away he drew her to her feet, holding her by both hands so that they stood face to face.
“Vanna, you remember what I said to you about Miggles? The lesson of her death? You believe—I believe that this world is not all; that it is only a beginning—the portal of life. Can’t we lift our love above the ordinary human conception? Can’t we be content to wait—to suffer if it must be, in the hope of all that is to come? I don’t pretend that it will be easy; but we have no choice. The love has come; we can’t alter it; we don’t want to alter it. We belong to each other for life and eternity; we must help each other to live on the heights. We must not allow ourselves to regret and to pine for what we cannot have; we must be thankful, and look forward. You are so good, so strong; you must help me! We must go on with our lives; but if this love is worth anything, it will be a strength to us—not a bar. It would be folly to part. Should we think of each other any the less because we were at opposite ends of the world? Vanna! surely you of all women should be the last to deny the possibility of a spiritual love.”
But Vanna did not answer. Her head fell forward until her face was hidden from sight; her hands burned within his. She was a woman, and for the moment there was no place in her heart for Piers’s lofty self-abnegation. A spiritual love—self-sacrifice and suffering in the hope of future bliss! And she was to be strong and brave, and help him when he failed; she, who was filled with a passion of longing for the dear, human, everyday joys; to whom for the moment they towered above the far-off, spiritual gain. The woman’s birthright of intuition revealed the future with flashlight clarity. Her heart was torn with a presage of the pangs which would rend it afresh, as she beheld happy wives, rich in home, husband, and children, while she wandered outcast, unsatisfied, athirst. The man, with shorter vision, could content himself in the present, and in the fulness of love’s revelations delude himself that joy would remain; but to the woman, for whom the love of him was an aching longing of body and soul, the sharpest pang of all came from the certainty of his mistake. She looked forward and beheld him restless and rebellious, chafing against his chains—the old, irritable discontent on lips and eyes. He would suffer; of a certainty he would suffer. So surely as he was made in man’s image, the day would dawn when his joy would be changed into despair. A wild longing seized Vanna to give her lover happiness while she might; to give him such a summer of joy and content that when the winter came he should look back and feel the price well paid.
Her fingers tightened on his arm, her eyes sought his in feverish entreaty.
“Piers! if I do give in—I have no strength to oppose you—if I give in, swear to me that if the time comes when you regret—when you feel bound, because there is some one”—she gulped painfully—“some one else whom you could take for a wife—swear that you will be honest with me; that you will not let me spoil your life! Swear that you will tell me the truth.”
He smiled into her troubled face, taking possession of her hands in a close, comforting grasp.
“What would you think if I asked the same promise of you? Can’t you give me credit for as much consistency as yourself? Is it possible that I could grow tired of you?”
But at that moment Vanna had no ears for the sweet protestations of love. Her grasp grew but the tighter, her gaze the more distressed.
“Swear to me! Swear!”
Piers gave a short, half-impatient laugh.
“I swear it. Now are you content?”