The Unclassed Part 59

"Can't I go out by the back?" Paul asked, all but voiceless with terror. "I daren't hide in the rooms; they will search them all. How did they know that I was here? O G.o.d, I am lost!"

They could hear the knocking below repeated. Paul hurried down the stairs, followed by his wife, whom Theresa in vain tried to hold back He knew the way to the door which led into the garden, and opening this, sprang into the darkness. Scarcely had he taken a step, when strong arms seized him.

"Hold on!" said a voice. "You must come back with me into the house."

At the same moment there was a shriek close at hand, and, as they turned to the open door, Paul and his captor saw Emily prostrate on the threshold, and Miss Bygrave stooping over her.

"Better open the front door, ma'am," said the police officer, "and ask my friend there to come through. We've got all we want."

This was done, and when Emily had been carried into the house, Paul was led thither also by his captor. As they stood in the hall, the second officer drew from his pocket a warrant, and read it out with official gravity.

"You'll go quietly with us, I suppose?" he then said.

Paul nodded, and all three departed by the front door.

It was midnight and before Mrs. Enderby showed any signs of returning consciousness. Miss Bygrave and Maud sat by her bed together, and at length one of them noticed that she had opened her eyes and was looking about her, though without moving her head.

"Mother," Maud asked, bending over her, "are you better? Do you know me?"

Emily nodded. There was no touch of natural colour in her face, and its muscles seemed paralysed. And she lay thus for hours, conscious apparently, but paying no attention to those in the room. Early in the morning a medical man was summoned, but his a.s.sistance made no change.

The fog was still heavy, and only towards noon was it possible to dispense with lamp-light; then there gleamed for an hour or two a weird mockery of day, and again it was nightfall. With the darkness came rain.

Waymark had come to the house about ten o'clock. But this was to be no wedding-day. Maud begged him through her aunt not to see her, and he returned as he came. Miss Bygrave had told him all that had happened.

Mrs. Enderby seemed to sleep for some hours, but just after nightfall the previous condition returned; she lay with her eyes open, and just nodded when spoken to. From eight o'clock to midnight Maud tried to rest in her own room, but sleep was far from her, and when she returned to the sick-chamber to relieve her aunt, she was almost as worn and ghastly in countenance as the one they tended. She took her place by the fire, and sat listening to the sad rain, which fell heavily upon the soaked garden-ground below. It had a lulling effect. Weariness overcame her, and before she could suspect the inclination, she had fallen asleep.

Suddenly she was awake again, wide awake, it seemed to her, without any interval of half-consciousness, and staring horror-struck at the scene before her. The shaded lamp stood on the chest of drawers at one side of the room, and by its light she saw her mother in front of the looking-gla.s.s, her raised hand holding something that glistened. She could not move a limb; her tongue was powerless to utter a sound. There was a wild laugh, a quick motion of the raised hand--then it seemed to Maud as if the room were filled with a crimson light, followed by the eternal darkness.

A fortnight later Miss Bygrave was sitting in the early morning by the bed where Maud lay ill. For some days it had been feared that the girl's reason would fail, and though this worst possibility seemed at length averted, her condition was still full of danger. She had recognised her aunt the preceding evening, but a relapse had followed.

Now she unexpectedly turned to the watcher, and spoke feebly, but with perfect self-control.

"Aunt, is madness hereditary?"

Miss Bygrave, who had thought her asleep, bent over her and tried to turn her mind to other thoughts. But the sick girl would speak only of this subject.

"I am quite myself," she said, "and I feel better. Yes, I remember reading somewhere that it was hereditary."

She was quiet for a little.

"Aunt," she then said, "I shall never be married. It would be wrong to him. I am afraid of myself."

She did not recur to the subject till she had risen, two or three weeks after, and was strong enough to move about the room. Waymark had called every day during her illness. As soon as he heard that she was up, he desired to see her, but Maud begged him, through her aunt, to wait yet a day or two. In the night which followed she wrote to him, and the letter was this:

"If I had seen you when you called yesterday, I should have had to face a task beyond my strength. Yet it would be wrong to keep from you any longer what I have to say. I must write it, and hope your knowledge of me will help you to understand what I can only imperfectly express.

"I ask you to let me break my promise to you. I have not ceased to love you; to me you are still all that is best and dearest in the world. You would have made my life very happy. But happiness is now what I dare not wish for. I am too weak to make that use of it which, I do not doubt, is permitted us; it would enslave my soul. With a nature such as mine, there is only one path of safety: I must renounce all. You know me to be no hypocrite, and to you, in this moment, I need not fear to speak my whole thought, The sacrifice has cost me much To break my faith to you, and to put aside for ever all the world's joys--the strength for this has only come after hours of bitterest striving. Try to be glad that I have won; it is all behind me, and I stand upon the threshold of peace.

"You know how from a child I have suffered. What to others was pure and lawful joy became to me a temptation. But G.o.d was not unjust; if He so framed me, He gave me at the same time the power to understand and to choose. All those warnings which I have, in my blindness, spoken of so lightly to you, I now recall with humbler and truer mind. If the shadow of sin darkened my path, it was that I might look well to my steps, and, alas, I have failed so, have gone so grievously astray! G.o.d, in His righteous anger, has terribly visited me. The most fearful form of death has risen before me; I have been cast into abysses of horror, and only saved from frenzy by the mercy which brought all this upon me for my good. A few months ago I had also a warning. I did not disregard it, but I could not overcome the love which bound me to you. But for that love, how much easier it would have been to me to overcome the world and myself.

"You will forgive me, for you will understand me. Do not write in reply; spare me, I entreat you, a renewal of that dark hour I have pa.s.sed through. With my aunt I am going to leave London. We shall remain together, and she will strengthen me in the new life. May G.o.d bless you here and hereafter. MAUD ENDERBY."

After an interval of a day Waymark wrote as follows to Miss Bygrave:--

"Doubtless you know that Maud has written desiring me to release her. I cannot but remember that she is scarcely yet recovered from a severe illness, and her letter must not be final. She entreats me not to write to her or see her. Accordingly I address myself to you, and beg that you will not allow Maud to take any irrevocable step till she is perfectly well, and has had time to reflect. I shall still deem her promise to me binding. If after the lapse of six months from now she still desires to be released, I must know it, either from herself or from you. Write to me at the old address."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

ORDERS OF RELEASE

Waymark and Casti spent their Christmas Eve together. They spoke freely of each other's affairs, saving that there was no mention of Ida.

Waymark had of course said nothing of that parting between Ida and himself. Of the hope which supported him he could not speak to his friend.

A month had told upon Julian as months do when the end draws so near.

In spite of his suffering he still discharged his duties at the hospital, but it was plain that he would not be able to do so much longer. And what would happen then?

"Casti," Waymark exclaimed suddenly, when a hint of this thought had brought both of them to a pause, "come away with me."

Julian looked up in bewilderment.

"Where to?"

"Anywhere. To some place where the sun s.h.i.+nes."

"What an impossible idea! How am I to get my living? And how is she to live?"

"Look here," Waymark said, smiling, "my will is a little stronger than yours, and in the present case I mean to exercise it. I have said, and there's an end of it. You say she'll be away from home to-morrow. Good.

We go together, pack up your books and things in half an hour or so, bring them here,--and then off! _Sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas!_"

And it was done, though not till Waymark had overcome the other's opposition by the most determined effort. Julian understood perfectly well the full significance of the scheme, for all Waymark's kind endeavour to put a hopeful and commonplace aspect on his proposal. He resisted as long as his strength would allow, then put himself in his friend's hands.

It was some time before Julian could set his mind at rest with regard to the desertion of his wife. Though no one capable of judging the situation could have cast upon him a shadow of blame, the first experience of peace mingled itself in his mind with self-reproach.

Waymark showed him how utterly baseless any such feeling was. Harriet had proved herself unworthy of a moment's consideration, and it was certain that, as long as she received her weekly remittance--paid through an agent in London,--she would trouble herself very little about the rest; or, at all events, any feeling that might possess her would be wholly undeserving of respect. Gradually Julian accustomed himself to this thought.

They were in the Isle of Wight; comfortably housed, with the sea before their eyes, and the boon of suns.h.i.+ne which Casti had so longed for.

Waymark gave himself wholly to the invalid. He had no impulse to resume literary work; anything was welcome which enabled him to fill up the day and reach the morrow. Whilst Julian lay on the couch, which was drawn up to the fireside, Waymark read aloud anything that could lead them to forget themselves. At other times, Julian either read to himself or wrote verse, which, however, he did not show to his friend.

Before springtime came he found it difficult even to maintain a sitting att.i.tude for long. His cough still racked him terribly. Waymark often lay awake in the night, listening to that fearful sound in the next room. At such times he tried to fancy himself in the dying man's position, and then the sweat of horror came upon his brow. Deeply he sympathised with the misery he could do so little to allay. Yet he was doing what he might to make the end a quiet one, and the consciousness of this brought him many a calm moment.

However it might be in those fearful vigils, Julian's days did not seem unhappy. He was resigning himself to the inevitable, in the strength of that quiet which sometimes ensues upon despair. Now and then he could even be, to all appearances, light-hearted.

With the early May he had a revival of inspiration. Strangely losing sight of his desperate condition, he spoke once more of beginning the great poem planned long ago. It was living within his mind and heart, he said. Waymark listened to him whilst he unfolded book after book of glorious vision; listened, and wondered.

There was a splendid sunset one evening at this time, and the two watched it together from the room in which they always sat. Seas of molten gold, strands and promontories of jasper and amethyst, illimitable mountain-ranges, cities of unimagined splendour, all were there in that extent of evening sky. They watched it till the vision wasted before the breath of night.