Chapter Twenty Five.
The Indian Mail.
Two years had passed since Piers Rendall had left England, and still there came no word of his return. Vanna heard from him regularly every mail, letters as long, as intimate, as tender as during the first month after his sailing, yet gradually there dawned in them a difference which made itself surely, increasingly felt. What was it? In the depths of her own heart, where alone the change was admitted, Vanna pondered the question, but could find no reply. The first zest of interest and occupation in a new world had died an inevitable death; that was natural enough and could raise no surprise. The effects of a hot climate were beginning to make themselves felt, he had been overworked, overstrained—natural again; but in this case the remedy lay in his own hands. Why did he not use it? Vanna had never allowed herself to ask one questioning word on the subject of Piers’s return; but she could not avoid knowing that the junior partner whose place he had taken was entirely recovered, and most anxious to return to his post. Old Mrs Rendall, too, was growing sadly impatient, and, on the rare occasions when they met, treated Vanna with frigid disapproval. It was this girl’s doing that her son was homeless and exiled—deprived of the joys of manhood. There was some mystery about this long, dragging engagement—a mystery which had been purposely concealed, a mystery which in some inexplicable fashion referred to Vanna herself. What could it be? The consciousness of this underlying curiosity had been one of Vanna’s greatest trials in her social intercourse during the last few years, and its presence heightened the ever-growing longing for Piers’s return. The evening of mail-day often found her depressed rather than cheered, though the three closely written sheets had arrived as usual; for weary and disconsolate as was Piers’s mood, there was still no reference to a return; but during the week hope would again lift up its head and whisper encouragement concerning “next time.” So elastic a thing is the human heart, that a bracing wind, a gleam of sunshine through the fog, will send the spirits racing upwards, and open out possibilities where the road has appeared hopelessly barred.
It was in such a mood that Vanna greeted her weekly letter one grey morning in February. The night before she had spent a particularly happy evening with Jean and Robert, who had appeared in better spirits than since the beginning of their trouble. Little Vanna had developed a fresh set of baby charms, and had allowed herself to be nursed with bland complacence, and on returning to her own house Robert had spoken a few memorable words when saying good-bye: “Every day of my life I thank God for you, Vanna! Such a friend is a big gift. You have been a good angel to us this last year.” The memory of those words had been a good sleeping-draught; the warmth of them remained to cheer her as she dressed in the morning, and when her eye fell on the well-known envelope on the breakfast table, a little leap of the heart prophesied good news. To-day it seemed fitting that her waiting should come to an end.
It was a thin envelope. One sheet of paper replaced the usual three. So much the better. Four words would be sufficient to say all that she wanted to know. Vanna seated herself at the table, and bent eagerly over the sheet.
“My Dearest and Best—
“I have your last letter beside me, and have been reading it over and over, wondering how to answer all that is written between the lines. I can read it, Vanna; I have read it for a long time, but have not had courage to reply. You are too sweet and unselfish to allow yourself to write what is really in your thoughts, but I know you so well—you are no calm, equable, cold-blooded saint; you must have known many moments of bitterness, of anger, of resentment. I know it; I understand; I bless you for your patience. Why have I not come home to you? That is the question you are asking me across the world; the question I can almost hear spoken in my ear. You know by my letters that I am miserable and alone; you must have heard by this time that Brentford is anxious to get back. He wrote to me last mail. It is for me as senior partner to make my choice, and I have made it. I wrote to-day to say that I preferred to stay on—”
The paper trembled in Vanna’s hand; her lips lost their curves and straightened into a thin red line. She shut her eyes for a moment before she could see clearly to continue her reading:
“There! it is out. It is terrible to write it. I feel as if with the writing I have cut myself off from the best and happiest years of my life. For that is what it means, Vanna—the end! I have suffered tortures this last year, fighting it out, arguing it over and over again in my heart. I could not have borne it if it had not been for your letters, and yet in a fashion they have added to my suffering. If ever a man loved a woman, with his soul and strength, I have loved you. I have waited eight years, and it would have seemed as a day if there had been hope at the end. I would wait twenty years to gain you in the end. But, Vanna, when hope is dead!... I am very sad, very lonely; I miss you every hour, but I dare not come home to endure a worse pain. The years are passing; my youth is over; I cannot face a solitary age. Vanna, dearest, I promised you to be honest. I swore it. I must keep my word. If the best is denied me, I must be content with what I can have. There is a girl here—”
Vanna’s arm dropped on to the table, the fluttering sheet fell from her fingers, the dull, heavy thuds with which her heart had been beating for the last few minutes seemed suddenly to cease. She lifted her hand to her head, and brushed back her hair.
“A girl!” For one moment the room seemed to swim; consciousness appeared about to desert her, the next she was tinglingly alert, devouring the remaining words with hot, smarting eyes.
”—The daughter of our Colonel. I have seen a good deal of her these last months. She is not pretty, but she is sweet and kind, and has an echo of your charm. If I tried, I think I could love that girl. Vanna, I am going to try!... Do you despise me? Do you think me a faithless hound? Can you understand in the faintest degree that it is just because you have shown me what love can mean that I cannot live my life alone? Will you care to write to me still? I don’t know; I can’t tell. I dare not think how you may feel. I, who longed above all else in life to shield and guard you, to have to deal you this blow!... Forgive me, Vanna—my dearest, dearest love...”
Vanna laid the letter on the table once more, and raised a grey face, from which the lingering youth had been stricken at a blow. Her eyes stared through her window. The dull vista of chimney-tops stretched away into an illimitable distance. Dun banks of smoke hung pall-like over the city. The rain was falling.
How does one live through the first days of an intolerable grief? Looking forward, looking back, it appears impossible that reason itself could remain, yet in reality the automaton with the broken heart eats and sleeps, clothes itself, speaks in an ordinary voice, performs its necessary work.
Throughout the hours of that tortured morning Vanna told herself repeatedly that she would go mad, she would certainly go mad. It was impossible that any human creature could endure such anguish. She, in whose blood ran the fatal taint, must surely succumb sooner than others. She would go mad, and Piers would be justified. All the world would pity him. All the world would hail his escape.
But she did not go mad. She was not even ill. During the whole time of that awful soul-sickness there was not one hour when she was physically incapacitated. This extraordinary immunity of the flesh, over which each mourner marvels afresh, seemed at the time a fresh grievance. To be too ill to think, too ill to care, would have been heaven as compared with this hell of bitter, rambling thoughts. Her hero had fallen; his protestations had been empty words; there was no faith, or truth in this world, or the next; no mercy, no justice! She shut her doors and would admit no one. Jean and Robert would grieve for, and with her. Jean would cry. Robert’s face would cloud over with that pained, shrinking expression which it wore when any one dear to him was in grief, but they would not be surprised! In conclave one with another they would absolve Piers’s conduct, and say it was “natural.” Vanna laughed—a harsh, bitter laugh at the thought. So easy, so easy, when one had all the world could give, to be calm and judicial for others less fortunate! She hated Jean. She hated Robert. She hated the whole world. She hated God Himself.
Days and nights of darkness, weeks of black anger and despair, then slowly, quietly, like the coming of the dawn, the clouds began to melt, and the struggling light to make itself felt. First shame, and a shuddering horror of evil thoughts; secondly, bitterness thrust aside, instead of welcomed; finally the search-light turned upon herself, instead of on others. At that moment healing began, though it would be long indeed before any comfort from the process could be sensibly felt. To a just and generous nature it is impossible to cherish a heart-grudge where the head has pronounced absolution; and when Vanna’s first flame of anger had burnt itself out she had little blame in her heart for Piers Rendall. If he had fallen short of the ideal, was not she herself open to the same reproach? She who had always insisted upon the possibility of a spiritual love, was it consistent that she should wish to keep him sad and dissatisfied, or grudge him happiness because it was given by other hands than her own? He had given her eight years of his life; he had been honest with her. Could she not bear to stand aside, and say “God speed”?
But the light was still flickering and uncertain; the black clouds hung overhead ready to engulf her in fresh storms; a chance word or sound would open up the wound with a piercing anguish of pain. Why dwell upon the picture of a soul in torment? Vanna struggled on as thousands have done before her; but it was not until five weeks had passed that her return letter was dispatched to Piers in India.
“You are right, and you are brave. Thank you for being brave. Thank you for sparing me from the doom of spoiling your life. Don’t pity me too much. You have given me more than you know, far more; something greater even than love—understanding! Now I can feel; now I can sympathise; now I can help. This is your doing, your gift to me, so be comforted! All my life long I shall be thankful for these eight years.
“No! I will not write; not yet! In time to come we may meet and be friends, but this is Her day, it belongs to her—to that young girl who will be your wife. I’m not perfect, dear; you know my faults. I should be jealous—that’s only natural, I think. It would hurt me to hear her praises, and perhaps (I’m very feminine!) I might in revenge put out all my wiles—and I know how to charm you, Piers!—to keep you a little longer to myself. I’m honest, you see; as you say, we have always been honest with each other—for all our sakes, we’ll leave letters alone. When it is settled—it will be settled, I feel that—you can write and let me know, and tell me her name, and send me her photograph. I’m so poor and mean a thing that I am glad she is not pretty; glad that for the last time you called me your ‘dearest love.’
“I am quite well, and Jean is good to me, and so—good-bye...!”