The Yellow Poppy

by D. K. Broster

But here, in the long, pillared room, there were no signs of anything like that ineffaceable witness upon the steps. Only, an island of light in its vastness, a pale island in the winter’s day, the tall candlesticks from the chapel, with tapers burning in them, and, on the ground between, straight and still, the sovereign presence there—Gaston. Had there been rivers of blood, disfigurement, horrors, they would not have stopped her for a moment; and, come as she was to the end of the world where the great sea washes in, she saw nothing but beauty and an unimagined splendour.

For a second, indeed, those four spires tipped with flame seemed a strange distance off, and, measured even by steps, the way was long down the great, silent room of gilt and marble, under the gaze of the painted Olympus of the ceiling, which had looked on many scenes, but never on the counterpart of this. Yet, with no remembrance of having traversed it, she was there beside him.

He lay his full length, his head hardly raised on the rolled-up military cloak which pillowed it, and he had for a pall the strip of ancient tapestry from the sallette. The worn fabric covered his body from throat to feet, but over its faded imagery his hands were folded lightly on his breast, the fingertips just crossing each other. His head was turned a very little towards the door by which she had entered, as if expecting her; a faint gleam of gold at his side showed an inch or two of the fringe of his scarf—her scarf—escaping from beneath the shrouding tapestry. He did not now look more than five-and-forty, and, except that he was mortally pale, he might have been asleep.

Valentine had no consciousness of death in presence of this incarnation of dignity and repose. He had never seemed more alive, or closer to her. Slowly she knelt down by him; slowly, and without a tremor, she kissed him on the mouth. For her there were no more fever-fits of suspense, nor ever would be again.

Then she contemplated him, lying there like a victor. This was his return to the house he had so lightly quitted—a triumphal return, she could feel it no otherwise. He had in death the same air of dominating his surroundings that had been his in life, but with a serenity added which it was hard to believe a violent end had given him. And whence had he that air of absorption in some grave happiness of his own? She knew. She had known this long while—was it an hour? . . . It was written too, perhaps, in this letter. For here, alone with Gaston in this narrow house of light, was the place to read his last message. When she broke the seal of the letter a tiny packet slipped out on to the hands which had put it there. Valentine let it lie; what need for haste?

“There is not time,” she read, “there is not time to ask you to come to me, Valentine, beloved, and perhaps it is best. Indeed I did not intentionally deceive you yesterday when I said that I should be allowed to see you again. The plan has not failed; but it will never be put to the test now, and perhaps that is best too.

“I think you know, my dearest, that I look upon the perfidy with which my life is taken from me as an opportunity which I would not forego—though I tried not to put it to you too directly yesterday when the issue was still in doubt. That life itself is little enough to give, God knows, but at least it is more than I should have been able to give had I been killed in Brittany, where all we tried to do by the sword has proved so vain. For to fall like this means immortal shame to the conqueror, and you will see, Valentine, that the blot of the violated safe-conduct and its sequel will not easily or soon be washed from Bonaparte’s reputation, whatever lustre the future may add to it; and so I like to think that my death will do more for the cause than my life could ever have done. And if my sword is broken, it is not taken from me. It is not I who have regrets on the score of treachery. I have my chance thereby—and you would surely be the last to stay me. For once, Valentine, you gave me leave to die!

“The regret I have . . . O my darling, is there need to name it? Yet you said, that last night at La Vergne, that we should never know any happiness over the sea greater than that which we have had, so briefly but so wonderfully, this autumn. It is true, dearest, true a thousand times. We shall not now grow old together, that is all.

“I do not presume to dictate to you what you should do until we meet again. You will know best. The Abbé is aware of my dispositions for your future. They are safely in London; he will tell you of them when he returns. I wish I could have seen him again; I have written him a few lines—poor acknowledgment of what he has been to me. I commend Roland to him, but most of all to you, you being what you are. For him, too, Pierre knows my wishes. And I ask de Brencourt’s pardon once more for what I said to him at La Vergne when he tried to warn me. He has taken the best revenge.

“But, Valentine, I do not ask your pardon again for all the past, for that would be to doubt you—a thing impossible. To my last breath this morning I shall have you in my heart—and feel you in my arms, perhaps, as on the shore that day in Finistère, when it was you who wished to die because we were so happy. You see, therefore, beloved, how small a thing it is, if one can do it cheerfully—as I do.