Читать книгу: «The Dop Doctor», страница 51

LXXII

The West End pavements were shining wet. Belated cabs spun homewards with sleepy revellers. Neat motor-broughams slid between the kerbs and rounded corners at unrebuked excess-speeds, winking their blazing head-lights at drowsy policemen muffled in oilskin capes. On all these accustomed things the blue-white arc-lights shone.

The most belated of all the hansom cabs in London stopped at the door of the house in Harley Street as the narrow strip of sky between the grim, drab-faced houses began to be dappled with the leaden grey of dawn. A faint moon reeled northwards, hunted by sable shapes of screaming terror, pale Venus clinging to her tattered robe. The house was all black and silent, a dead face with blinded windows. Did Saxham wake behind them? Or did he sleep, not to wake again?

Lynette tried her latchkey. The unchained door swung backwards. She passed into the house silently, a tall, slender shape. A light was shining under the consulting-room door. Her heart leaped to greet it. She kissed her hand to it, and turned, moving noiselessly, and put up the chain of the hall-door. She felt for the switch of the electric light, and snapped it on.

She was jarred and aching and weary with her journey; but it was a very fair woman whom she saw reflected in the hall-mirror as she unpinned her hat and tossed it upon the hall-table, and passed on to the consulting-room door – a woman whose face was strange to herself, with that new fire, and decision, and strength of purpose in it; a woman with glowing roses of colour in her cheeks, and eager, shining eyes.

All through the long hours of the journey she had pictured him, her husband, bending over his work, sleeping in his chair, or in his bed. Yet behind these pictures was another image that started through their lines and colours dreadfully, persistently, and the image was that of a dead man. She thrust it from her for the hundredth time, as the door-handle yielded to her touch. She went into the room. Saxham was not there.

The lamp shed its circle of light upon the consulting-room writing-table. The armchair stood aside, as though hastily pushed back… Signs of his recent presence were visible. The fireplace was heaped high with the ashes of burned papers; the acrid smell of their burning hung still on the close air.

She glanced back at the table. All its drawers stood open. Ledgers and case-books stood on it, neatly arrayed. A thick packet, heavily sealed, was addressed in Saxham's small, firm handwriting to Major Bingham Wrynche, Plas Bendigaid, Herion, South Wales. There were other letters in an orderly pile.

She glanced at the uppermost. It bore her own name. She took it and kissed it, and put it in her breast. There was an enclosure, heavy, and of oval shape. She wondered what it might be? As she did so, she looked at the letter hers had covered, and read what was written on the cover in the small, firm hand:

"'To the Coroner.' … Merciful God!.."

The cry broke from her without her knowledge. The room rang with it as she turned and ran. With the nightmare-feeling of running up dream-stairs, of feeling nothing tangible under her footsteps, with the dreadful certainty that of all those crowding pictures of him seen through the long hours in the racing Express, only the one that she had not dared to look at was the real, true picture of Saxham now.

Higher, higher, in a series of swift rushes, she mounted like the dream-woman in her dream. From solid cubes of darkness to grey landing-glimmers. To the third-story bedroom that had never been done up. In the company of Little Miss Muffet, the Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds, and Georgy Porgy, would he be lying, cold and ghastly, with a wound across his throat?

But the room was unoccupied; the bed had not been slept in. Pale dawn peeping in at the corners of the scanty blinds assured her of that. Where might she find him? Where seek him?

Fool! said a voice within her; there is but one answer to such a question! Where has he gone night after night? Coward, you knew, and yet avoided!.. What threshold has he crossed when the world was sleeping round him? By whose vacant pillow has his broken heart sought vain relief in tears?

She passed downstairs, gliding noiselessly over the thick carpets, and went into the room it had been his pleasure to furnish and decorate as his wife's boudoir. Its seashell pinkness was merged in darkness, faintly striped by the grey dawn-glimmer, but the door of the bedroom that opened from it was ajar. Light edged the heavy fold of the portière curtain and made a pool upon the carpet. She held her breath as she stole to the door, and, trembling, looked in. He was there, kneeling by the bed. His heavily-shouldered black figure made a blotch upon the dainty white and azure draperies; his arms were outflung upon the silken counterpane.

A rush of thanks sprang from her full heart to Heaven as she heard the heavy sighing breaths that proved him living yet.

She would have gone to him and touched him then, but the sound of his voice took courage from her, and drew her strength away. He spoke, lifting his face to the ivory Crucifix that hung upon the wall above the bed-head. It was a voice of groanings rather than the quiet voice with which she was familiar. She comprehended that a soul in mortal anguish was speaking aloud to God.

"I cannot live!" groaned Saxham. "I am weary, body and spirit. What I have borne I have borne in the hope of laying my burden down. Everything is ready! I have cleared the way; my loins are girded for departure. All I asked was to lie down in the earth and wake again no more. All I asked – and what happens? My dead faith quickens again in me. I must bow my neck once more to the yoke of the Inconceivable! I must perforce believe in Thee again! I hear the voice of the pale thorn-crowned Victim, saying, 'I am Thy God who lived and suffered and died for thee! Live on, then, and suffer also, and pass to the Life Eternal when thine hour comes!' O God! – my God! have I not earned deliverance? Have I not borne anguish enough?"

His fierce, upbraiding voice died out in inarticulate mutterings. His head fell forwards upon his arms. Presently he lifted it, and cried out, as if replying to some unseen speaker:

"If a self-sought death entails eternal torment, am I not in hell here upon earth? How else, when to live is to hold her in bondage, knowing that she longs and pines to be free? And yet, to go out into the dark and leave her! never again to see her! never more to feel the light of her eyes flow into me! Never to hear her voice – to be of my own deed separate from her throughout Eternity – that were of all the Judgments that are Thine to scourge with the most terrible that Thou couldst lay upon my soul!"

A sob tore him. He moaned out brokenly:

"Give me a sign, if Thou art indeed merciful! Show me that there is relenting in Thee! Grant me the hope, at least, that my great renunciation may open a gate by which, after cycles of expiatory suffering, I may at last pass through to where she dwells in Thy Brightness. Give me to see her face with a smile on it – to touch her hand – after all – after all! The lips I have never kissed, may they not be mine, O God – mine one day in Heaven? If Thou art Love, there should be love there."

She glided over the deep carpet, stretched out a timid hand, and touched his shoulder. He lifted his great square head, and slowly looked round. The black hair, mingled with white, clung damp to the broad forehead. His eyes were bloodshot, strained, and haggard, and wild. Sorrow was charted deep upon the haggard features. Amazement struck them into folly as he started up, stammering out her name, and clutching for support at the brass rail that was at the foot of the bed.

"Lynette! You… It is you?.." He shook, staring at her with dilated eyes.

"Owen, you are ill. You speak and look so strangely. It is me – really me!" she said, trying to speak calmly through the tumult of her heart.

"I am not ill. How is it that you are here?"

He lifted a hand to his strained and smarting eyes and moved it to and fro before them. He was staring at her still, but with pupils that were less dilated, and the veins upon his broad forehead were no longer purple now.

"Have I talked nonsense? I had dozed, and you startled me coming upon me… Why have you?.." He strove to speak and look as usual. "Has anything happened, that you have come back?"

She pressed her hands together, wrestling for collected thought and clear, explicit utterance, though the room rocked about her, and the floor seemed to rise and fall beneath her feet.

"Something happened. I have come back from Wales to tell you that I … I cannot live upon your friendship any longer! I – I must have more, or I shall die!"

He knew all. She had met the man whose look and breath and touch had revealed to her her own misery. Chained to her harsh yoke-fellow; denied Love's bread and wine of life! He looked at her, and answered coldly:

"You shall not die. You shall be free! If you had waited until to-morrow – "

"It is already day," she told him, and, as though to confirm her, a neighbouring steeple-clock clanged twice. He moved uneasily as his eyes fell on the disordered coverlet, half dragged from the bed and trailing on the floor. They shunned hers as he said, a dark flush rising through his haggard pallor:

"I beg your pardon for the intrusion here. But you were away… I could not sleep, and the house was lonely… Is your maid with you? Surely you are not alone?"

She bent her head with a faint smile.

"Quite alone. I did not wish for a companion."

"It was not wise – " he began, and took a step door-wards. "I will call one of the servants," he added, and was going, when he remembered, and stopped, saying hoarsely:

"I forgot. They are gone. I have sent them all away!"

She looked at him in silence. He continued:

"I have paid and dismissed them. You will think it curious – you will know the reason later – I have written to you to explain."

"I found upon your table a letter addressed to me," she said. He started, knitting his black brows.

"You have not read it?" he asked, breathing quickly.

"Not yet." She touched her bosom, where the letter lay. "I have it here."

"Please do not open it! Give me back the letter!" He stretched out his hand to take it, and breathed more freely when she drew it out and gave it to him. And a sweet wild pang shot through him; the paper was so warm and fragrant from the nest where it had lain so short a time. But he mastered the emotion and tore open the envelope. He took from it the enclosure, wrapped in folds of tissue-paper, and put it in her hand, saying, as he thrust the letter in his coat-pocket:

"There is something that by right is yours."

"Mine?.." She unrolled the tissue-paper, and the brilliants that were set about the miniature sent spurts of white and green and rosy fire between the slender, ivory-hued fingers that turned it about. She gave a little gasping cry of recognition:

"It is – me! How could you have managed – ?" Then, as the sweet grey eyes of fair dead Lucy smiled up into her own: "I do not know how I am sure of it," she said, with a catching in her breath, "but this must be my mother!"

Saxham bent his head in answer to her look. His eyes bade her question no further. She faltered:

"May I not know how it came into your hands?"

"Through the death," Saxham answered, "of an evil man. You know his name. He probably robbed your father of that miniature with other things; but I can only surmise this. I cannot positively say."

"You speak of my father." Her face was quivering, her eyes entreated. "Tell me what you know of him, and of" – she kissed the miniature, and held it to her cheek – "of my mother?"

"Your father," said Saxham, "was an officer and a gentleman. The surname that you exchanged for mine, poor child! was really his. His Christian name is engraved there" – he pointed to the inner rim of the band of brilliants – "with that of the lady who was your mother. She was beautiful; she was tender and devoted; she loved your father well enough to give up every social aim and every worldly advantage for his sake. She died loving him. He died – I should not wonder if he died of sorrow for her loss. For hearts can break, though the Faculty deny it!"

He swung about to leave the room. She was murmuring over her new-found treasure.

"'Lucy to Richard' … 'Richard' …" she repeated. A wave of roseate colour broke over her with the memory of the hand that had touched and the voice that had spoken to her in her Heaven-sent vision of the previous morning, when the Beloved had come back from Paradise to lay a charge upon her child.

"My father knew the Mother?" It was not a question, it was a statement of the fact. Saxham wondered at the assured tone, as he told her:

"It is true. They had been friends – in the world they both gave up afterwards – the man for the love that is of earth, the woman for the love of Heaven."

"She never told me then, but she must have known who I was from the beginning," Lynette ventured. "She gave me the surname of Mildare because it belonged to me! Do not you think so too?"

Saxham made no answer. He swung about to leave the room. She slipped the miniature into her bosom, where his letter had lain, and asked:

"Where are you going?"

He answered, with his eyes avoiding hers:

"You have been travelling all night; you must be tired and hungry. Go to bed and try to rest, while I forage for you downstairs. You shall not suffer for lack of attendance. I am quite a good cook, as you shall find presently. When you have eaten you must sleep, and then we will talk of your returning home to your friends."

"Are not you my chief friend?" she asked. "Is not this my home?"

He avoided her look, replying awkwardly:

"Hardly, when there are no servants to wait upon you!"

"May I not know why you sent them away?"

He said, his haggard profile turned to her, a muscle of his pale cheek twitching:

"I am going away myself: that is the reason why. All debts are paid. I have completed all the arrangements, entailing the minimum of annoyance upon you."

"May I not come with you upon your voyage?"

His eyes were still averted as his grey lips answered:

"No! I am going where you cannot come!"

"Owen, tell me where you are going?"

Her tone of entreaty knocked at the door of his barred heart. He winced palpably. "Excuse me," he said, and took another step towards the door. She stopped him with:

"You are not excused from answering my question!"

"I am going, first to get you some breakfast," said Saxham curtly, "and then to find a woman to attend upon you here."

"I need no breakfast, thanks! I want no attendant!"

"You must have someone," said Saxham brusquely.

"I must have your answer," she said in a tone quite new to him. "What is your secret purpose? What are you hiding from me in that closed hand?"

He moved his left hand slightly, undoing the fingers and giving a glimpse of the empty palm.

"Not that hand. The other!" She pointed to the clenched right. How tall she had grown, and how womanly! "Love has done this!" was his aching thought. She seemed a princess of faëry, fresh from a bath of magic waters. Her very gait was changed, her every gesture seemed new. Purpose and decision and quiet self-control breathed from her; her voice had tones in it unheard of him before. Her eyes were radiant as he had never yet seen them, golden stars, centred and rimmed with night, shining in a pale glory that was her face…

"All that for the other man! Well, let him have it!" thought Saxham, and involuntarily glanced at his clenched right hand.

"Please open it and show me what you have there!" she begged him.

Her tones were full of pleading music. His face hardened grimly to withstand. His muscular fingers closed in a vice-like grip over what he held. But she moved to him with a whisper of soft trailing garments, and took the shut hand in both her own. She bent her exquisite head and kissed it, and Saxham's fingers of iron were no more than wax. Something clicked in his throat as they opened, that was like the turning of a rusty lock. And the little blue phial, with the yellow poison-label, gave up his deadly intention to her eyes. She cried out and snatched it, and flung it away from her. It fell soundlessly on the soft carpet, and rolled under a chair.

"Owen! You would have … done that!.."

Divine reproach was to her face. He snarled:

"It would have been done by now if you had not come back!"

"I thank our Lord I came!.. It is His doing! Once He had sent me knowledge, I could not stay away. For, Owen … I have made a discovery…"

"Yes." He laughed harshly. "As I knew you would one day! Never was I fool enough to doubt what would come!"

She put both her hands to her lips and kissed them, and held them out to him. He cried:

"What is this? What interlude of folly are you playing? It was your freedom you came to demand. You have not told me who the man you love is. I do not ask – I will not even know! He is your choice; that is enough!"

"He is my choice!" Her bosom heaved to the measure of her quickened breathing. The splendid colour rose over the edge of the lace scarf that was loosely knotted about her sweet throat, and surged to the pure temples, and climbed to the line of the rich red-brown hair.

"You will soon be free to tell the world so. Marry him," said Saxham, "and forget the dreary months dragged out beside the sot! For I who promised you I would never fail you; I who told you so confidently that I was cured of the accursed liquor-crave; I – well, I reckoned without my host – "

His laugh jarred her heartstrings. She cried out hotly:

"You did not deceive me wilfully! You believed what you said!"

"I believed … and the first snare set for me tripped up my heels," said Saxham. "I paid the penalty of being cocksure. And I had not the common decency to die then and release you. True, there were reasons – they are swept away now!.. I sent you to Wales that I might be free of the sight of you, that I might end the sordid comedy and have done. You have come too soon! There's no more to be said than that!"

"There is this to be said."

She came towards him, her tender eyes wooing his. Her lips were parted, her breath came in sighs.

"What you have told me is sorrowful, but not hopeless. You were cured once – you will be cured again! And I will help you – comfort you – suffer with you and pray for you. You shall never be alone, my husband, any more!"

He was melting. His hard blue eyes had the softening gleam of tears. He stretched out his hands and took hers, holding them close. He stooped, and let his burning lips rest on the cool, fragrant flesh, and said tenderly:

"Dear saint, sweet would-be martyr, you shall not sacrifice your long life's happiness to me. Rather than live on sane and sober, to see you famishing beside me for the want of Love, I would die a thousand deaths, Lynette! Try to believe it. You shall be free! You must be free, my child!"

She winced as though he had stabbed her, and cried out:

"Why do you harp continually upon your death? I will not listen to you! If I do not desire to be 'free,' as you term it, what barrier is there between us now?"

He said, amazed:

"What barrier? Do you ask what barrier? Your love – for that other man!"

"There is no other man!" She looked him full in the eyes now, with a lovely colour dyeing her sweet cheeks, and an exquisite quivering wistfulness about her mouth. She moved so near that her fragrant breath fanned warm upon his eyelids. "There is no man but you – there will never be any other man!.. Dearest" – her hands were on his shoulders; her bosom rose and fell close to his broad breast – "I have been very slow at learning. But – Owen! – I love you as your wife should love!"

"You cannot!" He stepped back sharply, and her hands fell from him. "You shall not! I am not worthy. I thought so once… I know better now. Do not deceive yourself. Love cannot be compelled at will, and I have ceased to wish – to desire yours! All I want now is rest and silence and forgetfulness – where alone they may be found!" He drew a breath of weariness.

"If you have ceased to wish for love from me, that is my punishment," she said, very pale. "For without yours I cannot live! God hears me speak the truth!"

"Lynette!.."

He swayed like a tree cut through and falling. She caught his hands, and drew them to her heart.

"I have been blind and deaf and senseless. I am changed, I am altered – I am awake at last! I know how great and precious is the love you have given me… Do not tell me it is mine no longer! Owen, if you do that, it is I who shall die!"

A sob tore its way through him. His great frame quivered. His mask-like immobility broke up … was gone. Her own tears falling, she stretched her arms to him; yet while his eyes devoured her, his arms hungered for her, he delayed, knitting his brows. She caught a word or two, whispered brokenly. He asked himself: "Can this be Love?"

"It is Love! Owen, I kissed you one night when I found you sleeping! When will you kiss me back again?"

He cried out wildly upon God, and fell down upon his knees before her. He reached out groping, desperate arms, and snatched her close. His deep, shuddering breaths vibrated through her; her own knees were trembling, her bosom in storm. She swayed like a young palm. Nearer – nearer! he felt her hands about his neck, her tears upon his face…

"Dear love, dearest husband, I have a message for you! Owen, shall I tell you what it is?"

"Tell me, my heart's beloved," said Saxham in a whisper.

Their looks united in azure fire and golden. Their breath mingled, their lips were very near. She felt his strength about her; he drank in her sweetness. The kiss, the supreme boon, was as yet withheld.

She whispered…

"I awakened in the light of the early morning – the morning of the day I came to you. She sat beside me – the Mother, Owen! her dear hand on my heart, her dear eyes waiting for mine. She stooped and kissed me … it was real … I felt it! She said: 'Love your husband as I loved Richard! Be to a child of his what I have been to you!'"

His arms wrapped round her, gathered her, enfolded her. His scalding tears wetted her white bosom as she drew the square black head to rest there, and drooped her cheek upon the broad brow. Her rich hair, loosed from its coils, fell in a heavy silken rope upon his shoulder … their lips met in the nuptial, sacramental kiss…