Chapter Seven.
The Girl who Asked for Happiness.
Fate is a sorry trickster, and a study of life leads one to the conclusion that the less that is asked of her the less does she bestow.
Meriel, on her part, had made few demands—riches and power had for her no allure; her highest ambition was to attain that quiet domestic happiness enjoyed by thousands of her sister women. She wanted to be loved and to love in return; to transform some trivial villa into a home, and reign therein over her little kingdom; and on her twenty-eighth birthday fate had so wrought the tangled skein that she found herself in the position of unpaid attendant to an old school friend, while her heart was racked by a hopeless passion for the same friend’s husband.
The way of it was this. Meriel and Flora had been school friends, between whom existed the affection which often develops between a strong and a weak character when they are thrown into intimate companionship. Flora was pretty and gay, qualities which in a young girl blind the eyes of beholders to many drawbacks. Meriel was quite resigned to be blinded herself, but some two or three years after the two girls had left school she heard with amazement that Flora was engaged to be married to Geoffrey Sterne, one of the most prominent litterateurs of the day.
Geoffrey Sterne and—Flora! How was it that the cleverest of men so often chose weak, clinging women as companions for life? It seemed to Meriel inconceivable that this giant among men should have given his love to an animated doll; but Flora wrote gushing accounts of her fiancé’s devotion, and declared that she was as happy as the day was long. It seemed to Meriel that she must indeed be the happiest of women!
Circumstances prevented Mend’s presence at the wedding, and for the next five years she did not see her friend. A child was born and died; rumour reported that Sterne was working incessantly at a work which was to be the magnum opus of his life; it was said also that his wife was in delicate health, and had abandoned the dissipations of town. Then at the end of the five years came an invitation in Flora’s handwriting. Meriel was not to be vexed with her for being silent for so long; she had always intended to write, simply dreadful how many things were left undone! Really and truly, she had never forgotten the dear old days. Would Meriel come down and pay her a nice long visit? Geoffrey liked to have friends staying in the house; he thought Flora was too much alone; but some visitors were such a nuisance—always poking about. Meriel was not like that—she was always a dear old thing. Would Thursday suit? The 3:13. The car should be waiting at the station. Flora sent heaps of love...
Meriel accepted the invitation without hesitation; she was without near relations, living on narrow means, and her life was so bare that she was thankful of the mere change of scene. She liked the sound of “the car”; most of all she longed to meet Geoffrey Sterne, and see him in the intimacy of his home.
Flora was waiting at the station when her friend arrived; and at the sight of her face came Meriel’s first disillusionment. This was not the companion of old; this was a strange woman with whom she had no acquaintance. The once delicate face had lost its contour, the features were blurred and coarsened: out of the blue eyes peered a furtive soul. Meriel felt a presage of trouble at the sight of that ravaged face.
A week’s stay at the house revealed two eloquent facts. Flora was afraid of her husband, but she loved him still, and craved for his approval. Out of his presence she was nervous, and irritable, possessed by a demon of restlessness which made it impossible for her to attend to the same thing for two minutes together; but let Sterne enter the room, and all the poor forces of her nature were rallied to appear calm and at ease.
Meriel saw through these efforts with a woman’s intuition; later on with a woman’s sympathy, for she knew that Geoffrey Sterne no longer loved his wife. He was kindly, chivalrous, attentive; with the utmost of his powers he fulfilled his duty, but there was no spark of that divine flame which would have turned duty into joy. To have gained the love of such a man, and then—to have lost it! Meriel found herself reversing her former decision. She had believed Flora Sterne to be the happiest of women. She now knew her to be the most unfortunate.
There was trouble in the air—a trouble nebulous and vague, yet real enough to chill the blood. The cloud of coming disaster settled down more and more heavily over the household. There came a night when the storm broke.
Sterne had been away all day, and in his absence his wife’s restlessness took an acute turn. She wandered about the house rejecting irritably all offers of help, and finally shut herself up in her own rooms, leaving Meriel a prey to anxiety. What was the reason of Flora’s strange behaviour? Was it a pure matter of nerves, or was there in truth some hidden sorrow preying upon her mind, and driving her hither and thither in search of oblivion? What sorrow could Flora have? Grief over the death of her child had long since faded into a placid conclusion that all was for the best. It had been a dear little thing, but children were a tie... She was glad there had been no other... For the rest, life had brought her the most luxurious of homes, the most attentive of husbands, and if that attention was not induced by the highest motive, Meriel doubted if the dulled mind grasped the lack. What sorrow, then, could Flora have?
The afternoon wore slowly away, until the hour approached when Sterne would return, when a feeling of responsibility drove Meriel to follow Flora to her boudoir. She did not wish Geoffrey to return to find his wife suffering and alone.
The room was darkened, so that it was impossible to see distinctly, but the sound of a low moan reached her ears, and prone on the sofa lay Flora, her face sunk deep in the piled-up cushions.
Meriel spoke, but there was no reply; she knelt down and pressed the cushion from the hidden face, but the eyes remained closed, the jaw fixed and fallen. Poor Flora! Her sufferings had been real enough, since in the end they had culminated in this heavy swoon. Meriel threw open windows, found water and smelling salts, and unloosed the clothing round the neck. In the midst of her efforts Sterne entered, and with quick glance took in the situation. He brought a flask of brandy from his room, and from time to time inserted a few drops within the parted lips. But Flora did not revive. She moaned and stirred, but her eyes remained closed. She showed no consciousness of their presence. In hot haste a doctor was summoned; he came, and stood gazing grimly down at the still figure.
“We did everything we could think of before sending for you,” Sterne explained. “Fanned her, sponged her head, gave her brandy—”
The doctor looked at him—a terrible look.
“Brandy!” he repeated deeply. “Man, have you no eyes? What have you been about to allow her to come to this pass? She is not faint. She is drunk!”
Flora’s remorse was a pitiful thing. For years she had been playing with fire, but the knowledge of the depths to which she had fallen filled her with shame and fear. For days together she refused to see her husband, but from the first moment of consciousness she clung with a childish desperation to the friend of her youth.
“Don’t leave me! Don’t go away! I can’t face it alone. Oh, Meriel, stay and help me to bear it. I’m afraid to be left alone with Geoffrey. He will say nothing—he’ll go on being kind, but it will be in his mind.—I shall see it in his eyes... I’ve disgraced him, and I’m afraid—I’m afraid of the future! ... Oh, Meriel, stay and help me!”
That night, walking in the darkening garden, Meriel told Sterne of his wife’s desire, and added a few simple words.
“If you wish it, too, I will stay,” she said. “I have no home ties, and can extend my visit as long as it suits you. But I must have your approval. If you would prefer a regular attendant—”
His face twitched with emotion.
“I should—abhor it!” he said tensely. “If you could stay, it would be a godsend, but it seems too great a sacrifice... We have no right to ask it. Why should you give up so much?”
“I have so little to give up,” Meriel said. She looked into Sterne’s face with a pathetic attempt at a smile. “I am a superfluous woman. Nobody needs me, and all my life I have longed to be needed. If I can be of use here, I’d rather stay than go anywhere on earth.”
“God bless you!” he said, and gripped her hand.
That was the signing of the agreement which resulted in four years of ceaseless service. At the beginning Meriel had contemplated a stay of a few months; but with every week that passed she seemed more firmly riveted in her post. After each breakdown, Flora’s dread of being alone with her husband increased in violence, while he shrank more sensitively from the services of a hireling. They needed her, and she stayed on and on, at first provisionally; later, as a matter of course.
From the beginning Sterne had little hope of his wife’s reformation, for he realised that her weakness was of several years’ growth, and that the inherent instability of her character unfitted her for the prolonged struggle which lay ahead. As a matter of fact, after the first passion of remorse had worn itself out, the whole of Flora’s energies were expended in the attempt to deceive her companions, and to discover secret methods of indulging her craving. The history of those four years was one of recurrent disappointment. The last remnant of beauty died out of Flora’s face; Sterne’s dark hair was streaked with grey, Mend’s features were fined to a delicate sharpness; her eyes had the pathetic wistfulness of a dumb animal. From the first moment of meeting her heart had gone out to Geoffrey Sterne; before she had been three months under his roof she loved him with an absorbing passion, and for four long years she had stood by, watching his torture, holding her love in check. Surely no man and woman were ever thrown together in more intimate relationship. Night after night they wrestled together against the demon which destroyed their peace; week after week, month after month, they planned and consulted, toiled and failed, hoped and sorrowed,—together, always together; virtually alone, yet always with that pitiful presence holding them apart.
Sterne was as chivalrous to his friend as to his wife. Never by look or deed did he pass the borders of friendship. With one part of her nature Meriel was thankful for the fact. It would have marred her admiration of the man’s character if he had made love to the woman who was ministering to his wife. With another part of her nature she longed fiercely, hungrily, to feel the touch of his lips, the grasp of his arms. There were times when she was shaken with envy of the poor creature who still claimed his tenderness and his care, but she never deluded herself that Sterne returned her love. It seemed to her that her own near association with the tragedy of his life must in itself prevent such a possibility. In years to come, when poor Flora had found her rest, Sterne might meet some sweet woman who lived in the sunshine, and find happiness with her. “He will forget, and be comforted. He will love her the more for all he has suffered.” Meriel felt an anguish of envy for that other woman who would enjoy the happiness denied to herself, a bitter rebellion against her own fate.
“I have given my youth, my strength, my soul—and what have I gained in return? Emptiness and suffering!” she cried fiercely. Then added, with a sombre triumph, “But she can never help him as I have helped! He can never need her as he has needed me!”
The end of the four years found the three embarked for India to try the effect of “suggestion” under a famous professor of the East. It was a forlorn chance, as it was doubtful if Flora retained enough brain power to respond to the treatment; but something was hoped from the change of scene and the healthful effects of the voyage.
Meriel welcomed the change with relief. Flora’s increasing disability had of late thrown her husband and friend into what was practically a prolonged tête-à-tête, and the strain of constant self-repression had grown beyond endurance. In the turmoil of travelling such close intimacy would be impossible, and her own tired nerves would be refreshed.
For the first fortnight all went well. The Bay was smooth, the Mediterranean blue and smiling; even Flora herself was roused to a feeble admiration. She was so quiet and amenable that Meriel was able to leave her for hours together in the charge of her maid, while she herself lay on a deck chair, luxuriating in the peace and beauty of the scene. Sometimes Sterne would sit by her side, and they would talk together,—brief, disconnected fragments of talk, interrupted by intervals of silence. They spoke of happier days; of their youth, their dreams and ambitions, the glowing optimism of early hopes.
Sterne had started his career with the finest ambition which a writer can know: a passing popularity would not satisfy him, money was regarded merely as a means to live; his aim was to write words which should endure after he himself was laid to rest, and to that aim he had held fast, despite all the trials and discouragements of his life. To him, as to every writer, came the realisation that his power to help and uplift was measured by his own suffering. His readers were enriched by his poverty. There were times when the knowledge soothed, times again when the natural man rose in revolt, and demanded bread for his own soul.
“You tell me that I have succeeded,” he said bitterly to Meriel; “but I have never tasted the savour of success. I have no child to inherit my name, and my wife does not care—even in the early days she cared nothing for my work. Never in her life has she read an article of mine from beginning to end. When I told her of a fresh commission she asked always—‘How much will it be?’ After the first year I never mentioned my work. The poorest clerk hurrying home to tell his wife of a ten-pound rise, feeling sure of her sympathy and understanding, is richer than I. He has his reward!”
Meriel found courage to ask a question which had long hovered on her lips.
“You were so very different. At school Flora never pretended to be intellectual. Why did you ever—”
“Marry her?” his face softened, he drew a retrospective sigh. “I loved her, Meriel! That was the reason. She was young, and sweet, and trustful, and when a pretty girl steals into a man’s heart he does not stop to inquire into her brain powers. I have reproached myself because the glamour so soon faded, but I am thankful to remember that it was an honest marriage; I loved her truly, and she loved me. My poor Flora! I believe she does still. It’s very pitiful.”
Meriel turned her head so that he should not see her face. The tenderness of his tone was painful to her, the thought of those early days of married love tortured her heart. The world seemed to her a cruel place, where men and women were tried beyond their strength.
“At least you have had something!” she told him wistfully. “Your golden time passed quickly, but you had the experience. You are a man, and to men work comes first. You can lose yourself in it, forget your disappointments, and escape to a new world. And you have made a great reputation. Men praise you, admire you, are helped by you. Doesn’t that help?”
“I wonder,” he said vaguely. “I wonder!”
They sat in silence gazing at the waste of waters sparkling in the noonday sun. When after some moments he spoke again, it was apparently to introduce a new topic.
“What do you feel about colour, Meriel? Does it speak to you? Look at those great waves today! ... The blue of them, the deepest, truest blue that it is possible to conceive, and the shafts of green, cutting across the blue, and the purple shadows, and above all, the foamy torrent of white! Things that one has done oneself are so poor, so unsatisfying; but the big things last. The sea comforts me, Meriel; the bigness of it, the beauty of it. Why should we fret, and be troubled? It will pass! Everything passes. We have only to be faithful; to stick to our posts, and look ahead!”
But Meriel was a woman, with a woman’s heart that refused to find comfort in philosophy. She looked at the changeful sea, but the very beauty of it brought a heavier weight, for she was one of the tender souls who are dependent on companionship for her joys. If Sterne had loved her, and had been free to love, she would have entered into his joy in Nature with ready understanding, but she was suffering from an intolerable loneliness of spirit, to which the glory of the scene around added the last touch of bitterness.
“It doesn’t comfort me,” she said. “I need something nearer; more personal; something of my own. You have suffered, but you have also enjoyed. It is easier to be resigned when you have possessed, even if the possessions have had to go. If you haven’t had all that you asked of life, at least you have had a great deal. Some of us have nothing!”
He looked at her as she gazed wistfully into space, a woman aged before her time, with a sweet sad face, worn with the burden of his own sorrows.
“What did you ask?” he inquired softly.
“I asked for Happiness,” Meriel said, and turned her eyes on him with a pitiful smile.
There was a long silence before he answered, but when he spoke his voice was tremulous with feeling.
“Ah, Meriel!” he cried; “and we have given you Duty! ... It’s a cold thing to fill a woman’s heart... I’ve reproached myself a thousand times.—I should not have allowed you to sacrifice yourself.—It must not go on!”
A spasm of fear ran through her veins.
“It’s the nearest approach to happiness I’ve ever known.”
“Nevertheless,” he said firmly, “it shall not go on. We have no right to murder your joy. Help me through the next few months, and then, whatever happens, we start afresh!”
“But if I want to stay?”
He shook his head with a finality from which she knew there was no appeal. What Geoffrey Sterne said he meant, to the last letter of the word, and there was no turning him from a decision. Meriel felt the terror of one who, playing among flowers, sees a sudden vision of a serpent’s head. A moment before their lives had seemed indefinitely linked, now, in a few months, must come separation, as complete as though they were at opposite ends of the world, for Sterne now lived entirely in his country home, and shunned the society of his fellows. She searched his face for some sign of grief, even of regret, but the stern features were set in a mask-like composure. The terrible suspicion stabbed her that he might be glad; that he was wearied of the burden of gratitude!
For the next few days Meriel and Sterne mutually avoided being left alone, which was the more easily accomplished, as Flora was showing signs of renewed restlessness and irritability. The novelty of the voyage had worn off, the heat of the Canal had tried her endurance, and dreaded symptoms called for renewed vigilance on the part of her attendants. Now they were out on the Indian Ocean; but for once the change brought little relief and the nerves of the travellers were tried still further by a slight accident to the engines, which involved a slackening of speed. They were within three days’ sail of Colombo when the glass fell sharply after a period of intense heat—a danger signal, which to the understanding was rendered more alarming by the sound of hammerings from below, denoting fresh mischief in the machinery. A cyclonic storm was upon them, and the boat altered her course to avoid its centre—a perilous business in face of the long chain of reefs stretching southward from the Laccadives. At nightfall there came up a grey swell accompanied by almost unbearable heat, the wind rapidly increased, and in an hour the gale burst upon them in all its fury. That night was a nightmare of horror, for although the boat was headed for the open sea, the crippled engines were unable to support the strain, and she was therefore driven back into the danger zone. The waters were lashed into a churning fury, the wind yelled with a deafening menace. Flora cowered in bed in a panic of terror, but to Meriel the tumult of the elements brought relief rather than dread. They voiced the tumult of her own mind; the shriek of the wind was as the shriek of her own tortured heart.
The dawn was breaking when the crash came, a thunderous crash of rock and steel as the great vessel struck the reef, shook herself free, and struck again, her stern grinding deep into the rock. In that moment every soul on board looked death in the face, and it seemed, indeed, as though death were inevitable. The heroic efforts of the crew succeeded in launching the boats, but several of the number were swamped before the eyes of the beholders, and for the rest the chance of survival on such a sea seemed small indeed. Even so, there was a fight for a place, for to remain on the ship meant a certainty of death, and the wildest chance is precious in such a plight, but among the men and women who fought and struggled was no member of Geoffrey Sterne’s party.
Flora’s panic of terror had been so violent that it had been necessary to drug her with a strong sleeping draught, and the faithful maid refused to leave her side. Sterne had, indeed, made an attempt to persuade Meriel to try for a place, but she had flamed into bitter anger, and he had not persisted. He saw her seated with the other waiting ones in the stern of the vessel, already tilted high above the bow, and turned in silence to make his way to his wife.
That moment for Meriel was the bitterest of all. The act of death itself had for her no terror; it was the parting from Geoffrey Sterne which wrung her heart. So inextricably had her life become woven with his that she had no wish to live in a world from which he was absent, and if she lived on, separation was bound to come. Only one unutterable regret filled her soul—she was going out into eternity a maimed, stunted thing, from whom had been withheld the meaning of life, the deepest part of whose nature had been persistently starved.
“If for even one minute I could have said, ‘I am happy!’ I could have died content. But I have never known happiness, and now death is coming, and I am waiting for it alone.”
In that last word lay the sting. She was alone; the solitary unit among the crowd who had no one to comfort her, and to comfort in return; to whose hand no one clung as to the one sure support. She was alone!
At that moment she saw him coming, edging his way along the sloping deck, with the sure foot, the calm, deliberate movements, which were so emblematic of his strength. Cautiously, slowly, as he came, there was never a moment of wavering in his course. His mind had registered her position among the crowd of waiting figures; quietly, steadily, he was making his way to her side.
Meriel looked around. Surrounded as she was, she was yet in a solitude as vast as space. To right and left the mummied figures crouched in hypnotised calm, oblivious of everything but themselves and their own peril. She was alone on the great deck,—alone, but for that other figure, climbing step by step to her side.
The early light shone on him as he came, lighting up his figure with an unearthly distinctness. She saw the grey streaks in the dark hair, the furrows which sorrow had carved upon his brow, yet despite them all there was about the whole figure an air of youth, an alertness and confidence of bearing, which she had never before beheld. He bore himself like a freed man, from whose limbs the fetters have fallen.
Another moment and he was beside her, crouched on the deck with his face close to her own. The freed look was in his eyes.
“She is still sleeping,” he said; “she will not wake. It is better so. I can do no more for her. And so—at last!—I can come to you.”
“Yes,” assented Meriel breathlessly. There was more to come, she read it in his face, in the thrilling tone of his voice. She waited, her being strung with an agony of longing.
“There are only a few minutes left, and we have waited so long! We must not waste them now that they are here... Come to me, Meriel!”
He held out his arms and she swayed into them; his lips were on hers; they clung together with the stored-up passion of years. For a minute the communion of touch brought a fullness of joy, then the craving arose to hear the wonder put into words.
“You love me? It is true? Oh, Geoffrey—how long?”
“Since the moment we met. How could I help it? It was inevitable. We belong!” He held her face between his hands, bending so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “You have been my star and my sun; sunshine of noon; light in the darkness. You have been comfort and rest; deliverance from despair. You have been my love, and my queen, and my inspiration; the one beautiful strong thing that stood fast among the ruins. Everything that a woman could be to a man you have been to me for four long years!”
“Thank God!” she sobbed. “Oh, thank God! It is worth it all to hear you say that. But, oh, Geoffrey, there were times—so many times! when I would have given my life a hundred times over to have lain like this, to have felt your arms. It was hard to struggle on, fighting one’s heart, and now at last when we have come together, to be obliged to part! Oh, Geoffrey, to say good-bye so soon!”
“No,” he said deeply. “Not that. We’ll say no good-bye. We have stuck to our posts, but where we are going there can be no tie but the one which binds your heart to mine. We belong! Nothing can part us. Shut your eyes, beloved! rest against me. It’s the night that is coming,—a short night, and a nightmare dream, and then, for you and me”—his voice swelled to a note of triumphant expectation—“the morning!”
“Oh, I’m so happy!” cried Meriel, trembling. “Oh, I’m so happy!”
The deck shivered and reeled. From every side rose a shrilling of voices. The great ship reared herself on end, and plunged headlong into the deep.
So the barrier fell!