Chapter Twenty Eight.
Farewell!
The old Mater was not unconscious. The mysterious physical lightning had smitten the left side of the body, left a drawn, disfigured face, and a helpless arm and leg, but the spirit within was untouched. By the time that her son arrived, the old Mater had realised what had happened to her, and was seething with bitterness and rebellion. It was a terrible sight to see the blaze of the living eye in the dead face; a piteous thing to listen to the mumbled words which proceeded from the twisted lips.
The tears came into the Squire’s eyes as he stood by his mother’s bed, he knelt on the floor beside her, and stroked her brow with his big sunburnt hand; with extraordinary sharpness he divined the meaning of her muffled speech. Throughout that evening, and for hours at a time throughout the days which followed, he sat by her bedside, ministering to her wants with clumsy eagerness. Cassandra was for the time being too intensely absorbed with the tragedy of her own life to feel any active interest in what was passing before her eyes, but subconsciously the various pictures photographed themselves on her mind. Bernard smiling, indifferent to snubs, persuading his mother to eat, to swallow her medicine; Bernard, suppressing yawns, sitting up to the small hours to be “at hand”; Bernard holding the cold hand between his own warm palms, and by force of his strong electric current soothing the patient to sleep. He was not trying to be patient; he was patient, out of pure loving kindness and compassion. Slowly, gradually, the knowledge penetrated into Cassandra’s brain, and she asked herself sadly wherein she had failed, that this quality of tenderness was so lacking towards herself! For some months after their marriage Bernard had been the most ardent of lovers, then passion waned, and with no appreciable second stage, neglect had taken its place. She had been bitterly surprised, bitterly wounded, but what had she done to recapture her husband’s love, and turn it into a more enduring form? Had she once realised, as Grizel Beverley had realised in the midst of her bridal joy, that love is a tender plant, which can only preserve its fragrance when tended with unremitting care? Cassandra looked back and saw herself retiring into a chilly reserve, meeting neglect with neglect, indifference with indifference, disdaining to invite a love which was not voluntarily bestowed. It had seemed, at the time, the only way of preserving her dignity, but as she watched her husband by his mother’s bedside, there came a sudden realisation that if she had thought less of pride, and more of love, the barrenness of their joint lives might have been averted. If she had used her woman’s wiles,—smiled, cajoled, even in those early days, wept a few,—just a few, pretty, becoming tears, to enforce her need, the barrier would never have grown so high: Cassandra had been accustomed to put all the blame on her husband’s shoulders, and to congratulate herself on being immaculately free from blame; never till this moment had she realised that to a man of the Squire’s temperament, her attitude of chill detachment, and smiling indifference, was of all things the most exasperating. If she had blazed in anger, even to the extent of facing an occasional battle royal, the corroding bitterness would have found a vent, and reconciliation opened the way to fresh tenderness.
“It’s my fault as much as his!” Cassandra acknowledged, and the admission softened her heart.
The old Mater did not die. The critical days dragged slowly past, and she grimly held her own. In all human probability she would live on for months, for years, until the lightning fell for the third time. To Cassandra such a recovery seemed a piteous thing, but the Squire’s rejoicings were whole-hearted, and the old Mater herself wore an air of triumph. Apparently life was dear to her still, and the prospect of lying in bed, with one half of her body already dead, held more attractions than the celestial choirs on which she pinned her faith. There was a grim irony in hearing the twisted lips murmur fragments of her favourite hymn—“Oh, Lamb of God, I come!” and Cassandra’s sense of humour could not resist the reflection that the old lady was exceedingly loath to go!
Grizel wrote that she had given Dane the necessary explanation, and after four days’ incessant consideration, Cassandra wrote and despatched the following letter:
“I was coming to you, as I promised; I had counted every moment of every day as it passed, longing for the time to arrive; in another minute I should have been on my way, and then,—what was it?—fate, chance, providence, God?—Something intervened, and it became impossible for me to meet you, then, or later. I don’t know how long we shall be here. My husband’s mother is recovering, but she cannot bear him out of her sight. He is an angel of goodness to her, and in some wonderful way seems to be able to lend her some of his own strength. We may be here for months; it will certainly be many weeks; so I can’t come, Dane, I can’t have the one joy I longed for... the one more hour together, before we said good-bye!
“It may be for the best. I may look back in years to come, and be thankful, but I’m not thankful now. It seems hard, and cruel, and unjust, that I could not have that little hour, and it made it harder, being so near. Oh, Dane, that journey! Can you for a moment imagine how desperately, achingly miserable I was, steaming farther and farther away with every moment; thinking of you sitting waiting! I wonder what you thought.—I wonder what you feared? But you must have been sure of one thing, at least,—that my heart was with you!
“Dane! I want you to burn this letter after you have read it. I must tell you all that is in my heart, but it is best for both of us that it should not be preserved. I was going to say, that you should forget it, but I know that will not be possible.
“I am going to stay at my post, Dane, and try to make more of it than I’ve done till now. I told you that in making my decision I had no consideration for Bernard, but that was a mistake. I must consider him, for he is the principal person in life. He does not love me, but since coming here, I have begun to see that that is partly my own fault. I was very young when we married, and I took it for granted that he would remain for ever an adoring lover. When he grew cool and careless—it was humiliatingly soon!—my miserable pride made me treat him as indifferently as he treated me, and so we have grown apart. I thought he was incapable of tenderness, but watching him with his mother, I wonder if it is simply that I have shown no need. Oh! I’ve made a failure of it all—with the boy too, it seems, though I did love him; I did pour out my love... What is wrong with me, that the people who should love me don’t, and when someone comes along who does, we must be parted?
“Did you think I should come to you that night? Now that it is past and over, I can tell you that I very nearly did! An impulse came over me about nine o’clock, so overwhelmingly strong, that it was all I could do not to rush out, as I was, and make my way to you, bareheaded, across the park. The effort to resist left me cold and faint.—I wondered if you were thinking of me, willing me to come! And once again, though never quite so violently, the impulse returned, but each time I resisted, and the end finds me here, tied in a sick room, doing my duty, and bidding you goodbye.
“It’s hopeless, Dane; it’s hopeless! There is too much between. You must banish me from your life, and make the most of what is left. Isn’t it strange how in one of our first real talks we discussed makeshifts, and I asked you if you could manage to be happy, if you were denied the best. You answered so certainly; seemed to think it so poor-spirited to waste life in regrets. My poor Dane, now you will have to turn your words into deeds!
“By the time we return home, you will probably have left Chumley. I can feel that it would be better so. The agony of knowing that you were near, not seeing you, or seeing you only in public, would be more than I could bear, and—there is your engagement! I can’t write of that, or of her—but surely for a time at least, you would be better apart! And we must school ourselves, Dane—we must get accustomed.
“Oh, beloved, just once, before it is good-bye, I thank you for loving me,—I thank you for all you have given, I thank you for all you have received. It was only for a little time, but you did open the gates of Eden! we did walk in Paradise; we did taste and know the perfection of content! It was all beautiful, all clean, all white, and because it can’t live on and keep its beauty, we’ll bury it, Dane, deep in our hearts, and live on as bravely as we may!
“Cassandra.”
Dane’s reply came by return of post:
“Beloved! Mrs Beverley sent for me and gave me your message. I have been to see her every day since you left. I don’t know how I should have existed without her. Every day has seemed a year. I made sure you would write; I knew you must write, but it was a long waiting.
“Yes! I willed you to come to me that night. I nearly succeeded, it appears. God forgive me, I wish it had been quite! Every hour of those long days I hoped against hope for a summons from you, and then at last Wednesday came, and I made sure of meeting.—I nearly went mad, sitting in that summer-house, realising that you were not coming, imagining all kinds of wild, impossible things. It was balm to know that at least you had wanted to come.
“God bless you, my beautiful, for your sweet, words! My love for you has been the glory of my life. From the first moment that we met, you have been my Queen, and I your servant, waiting to obey. I will obey you now. Since it will be easier for you if I am at a distance, I will arrange to leave Chumley at once. Things fit in easily. I dropped Paley a hint that I was unsettled, and he sends me the kindest invitation to join him in Italy. I shall go there, I think, for the next few months, and your wonderful Grizel is already planning for the future. There are a number of wealthy relations, so to speak, at her feet, having come into their wealth through her disinterestedness in marrying Beverley, and amongst them such a thing as a small land agency should be easily obtained.
“We’ll see! I can’t think about the future at present, or anything but just—thee! There is much in your letter that I can’t answer; daren’t trust myself to answer. How could a man grow cold? But it is not for me to make things more difficult. When I realise how little I have to offer and how much you stand to lose, my lips are sealed. There could be no happiness for me, if I ruined your life.
“Mrs Beverley has done me good. I was a madman when I went to her, but she has calmed me into my right mind. She understands. I retract all I have ever said in disparagement of ‘Grizel.’ But I was jealous of her happiness, seeing You sad.
“One word I must add... My engagement will formally continue. I have explained everything. She knows that at any time a word from you would bring me to your side; but she still wishes me to take no public step, until a year has passed. If I were to remain in Chumley the thing would be impossible, but at a distance,—as it makes things easier for her, I can hardly refuse. She is very generous to me, Cassandra; very sweet. I wish I could love her as she deserves. For her sake, and yours, I am torn with regret; for my own, even now in the first smart of the wound, I have none. When I philosophised so lightly, I spoke without experience. I had never known the best. Now I do know, and the knowledge is worth its price. Our own door is barred, Cassandra, but we have a key in our hands which opens many doors!
“Dane.”