Yet she had learned to be thankful for even this much respite from the piercing agony of the first few weeks which she had spent at Beirnfels. Whatever the coming years might bring her of relief from pain, or even of some modicum of joy, those weeks when she had suffered the torments of the damned would remain stamped indelibly upon her memory.
During the last days at Charnwood she had been keyed up to a high pitch of endurance by the very magnitude of the renunciation she had made. It seems as though, when the soul strains upwards to the accomplishment of some deed that is almost beyond the power of weak human nature to achieve, there is vouchsafed, for the time being, a merciful oblivion to the immensity of pain involved. A transport of spiritual fervour lifts the martyr beyond any ordinary recognition of the physical fire that burns and chars his flesh, and some such ecstasy of sacrifice had supported Jean through the act of abnegation by which she had surrendered her love, and with it her life’s happiness, at the foot of the stern altar of Duty.
Afterwards had followed the preparations and bustle of departure, the necessary arrangements to be made and telegraphed to Beirnfels, and finally the long journey across Europe and the hundred and one small details that required settlement before she and Claire were fully installed at Beirnfels and the wheels of the household machinery running smoothly.
But when all this was accomplished, when the need to arrange and plan and make decisions had gone by and her mind was free to concern itself again with her own affairs, then Jean realised the full price of her renunciation.
And she paid it. In days that were an endless procession of anguished hours; in sleepless nights that were a mental and physical torment of unbearable longing such as she had never dreamed of; in tears and in dumb, helpless silences, she paid it. And at last, out of those racked and tortured weeks she emerged into a numbed, listless capacity to pick up once more the torn and mutilated threads of life.
Looking backward, she marvelled at the wonderful patience with which Claire had borne with her, at the selfless way in which she had devoted all her energies to ministering to one who was suffering from heart-sickness—that most wearying of all complaints to the sufferer’s friends because so difficult of comprehension by those not similarly afflicted.
Nick’s “pale golden narcissus!” To Jean, who had clung to her, helped inexpressibly by her tranquil, steadfast, unswerving faith and loving-kindness, it seemed as though the staunch and sturdy oak were a more appropriate metaphor in which to express the soul of Claire.
She heard her now, coming with light steps across the court. She rarely left Jean brooding long alone these days, exercising all her tact and ingenuity to devise some means by which she might distract her thoughts when she could see they had slipped back into the past.
Jean turned to greet her with a faint smile.
“Well, my good angel? Come to rout me out? I suppose”—teasingly—“you want me to ride down to the village and bring back two lemons urgently demanded by the cook?”