The Gateless Barrier Part 12

At that moment, perhaps fortunately, the dogcart emerged from the shelter of the great chestnut-trees, and swung round the carriage sweep to the front door. Laurence crossed the lawns and the angle of the Italian garden quickly.--What a pity that cypress had fallen! It broke the line, destroying the symmetry of the garden; and it was almost the tallest and finest grown of the lot.

In the hall Mr. Wormald discoursed affably with the men-servants, while the latter divested him of more than one overcoat. He was a small, withered man, his back bowed and his hands sadly crippled by rheumatic gout, by much handling of pens, and leaning over lengthy legal doc.u.ments; yet his movements were noticeably alert. His clean-shaven, busy, little face was enlightened by nimble, red-brown, squirrel-like eyes.

"Thank ye, Renshaw," he said. "Gently--ah, yes, you remember! These damp, spring days get into my joints, I promise you. Ah! there you are, Watkins. Yes, sad affair this, and sudden. Great shock to you all, no doubt. Quite so--but I observe that so frequently is the case. A lingering illness, the termination of which grows to seem more and more remote, and then the end with unlooked-for rapidity. Yes, very sad."

Disengaging himself from the sleeves of his second coat, he perceived Laurence's arrival, and his squirrel-like eyes scampered, so to speak, over the young man from head to foot. Like the agent, he appeared to receive an agreeable impression, for he gave a subdued squeak evidently indicative of satisfaction.

"Ah! Mr. Rivers," he exclaimed, "you will not remember me. It is many years since we met. You were a little shaver in an Eton-jacket and round collar. And your poor uncle pa.s.sed away quite suddenly at last?--Not a matter for regret, I venture to think. Few men would have been more fretted by a consciousness of failing powers. Remarkable intellect"--Mr.

Wormald keckled softly, as he pa.s.sed with the young man into the library--"quite beyond me, out of my humble range altogether, you know, Mr. Rivers. I admired his conversation; yet I cannot venture to pretend I attached any intelligible meaning to one-half of what your uncle said.

But our business relations were very simple. He disliked business too much to wish to prolong the discussion of it. You will find all legal arrangements very direct. The death duties will be heavy; but, otherwise there are no deductions, I believe, save one or two small legacies to the servants.--Dinner, yes, Mr. Rivers, the earlier the better for me. I should be glad to put in a long evening with Armstrong; then we will have everything ready for you in the morning. I have an appointment with a client at five to-morrow afternoon, so I will ask you to let me go up by the two o'clock. I shall not need to encroach on your time to-night."

Therefore it happened, that, comparatively early Laurence found himself free to go down the red-carpeted corridor, pull back the heavy, leather-lined curtain, and enter the room of strange and delectable meetings once again. What fortune, good or bad, awaited him, he could not even surmise. He had learned one thing at least, that, in this connection, nothing was certain save the unforeseen. Nevertheless, he was sensible of slight surprise on finding the room shrouded in vague gloom. By some oversight the electric light had not been turned on. But the March evenings were long, and he had come to the trysting-place before the accustomed hour. The day was not wholly dead yet, and twilight lingered in the neighbourhood of the bay-window. After his first movement of surprise, Laurence found a restful charm in the soft obscurity surrounding him. Once again the room had resumed its effect of friendliness; and if his fairy-lady was not there as yet, no more were malign and opposing powers. The place was kindly and peaceful. It, like the weather, had settled back into a mild and engaging mood.

The young man felt his way across to the window, and sat down in one of the gilt-framed, brocade-covered armchairs on the right of the bay.

There he waited, looking out now at the garden, growing mysterious and shadowy in the deepening dusk; now at the tall, satin-wood escritoire, the highly polished surfaces of which, reflecting the expiring light, glistened so that the shape of it remained visible after surrounding objects had faded from sight.

How long he waited Laurence did not know, nor did he greatly care. He had been very actively employed for the better part of the last six-and-thirty hours, and both as to mind and body he was in an unusually quiescent state. His energies were in pleasant suspension. The dimly seen room swam before his eyes. He made no effort of resistance. A mist clouded his vision, clouded all his faculties, and he slept.

When he awoke it was high noon. He lay on the stone bench beneath the lime-trees, the innumerable leaves of which rustled and danced in the warm, summer wind. He awoke laughing from a wholly delicious dream--a young man's dream of very lovely love, which after long denial and delay had found perfect fulfilment. He felt very light and content. Life was sweet, this smiling, summer world infinitely hopeful and sympathetic.

Then he stretched himself, smoothed the revers of his flowered, silk waistcoat, and straightened his lawn cravat, which had been somewhat displaced during the pleasant relaxation of slumber. He rubbed a trifle of dust, too, from the knee of his plumb-coloured breeches with his handkerchief. Then he stood up still laughing, yet with a growing hunger in his heart, since he began to realise that those delights were his, as yet, only within the gates of sleep and of dreams. He stretched again, a sigh mingling with his laughter; and then discovered that through the s.h.i.+fting, dappled sunlight and shadow Agnes Rivers approached him with her pretty, flitting, bird-like grace. To-day she wore a pale, lemon-yellow, India-muslin dress, spotted with cinnamon-coloured sprigs, and a white and cinnamon coloured waist ribbon embroidered in blown roses and tiny buds. A black, velvet work-bag, with long yellow and black strings to it, hung upon her arm; while her charming head and neck showed up in high relief against the open blue-grey sunshade she carried tilted over her right shoulder. Laurence went forward to meet her, all aglow from his recent sleep and from the fond imaginations of that delicious dream. Half playfully, half in sharp desire of mastery, he took away her sunshade and work-bag, and threw them down upon the turf. Then grasping both her hands in his, he kissed and kissed them, holding them high and bending his head so that his eyes were on a level with hers. And there must have been something in his eyes fearful, though enchanting, to her perfect maidenliness, for she flushed and tried to withdraw her hands, moving back a step from him with an air of questioning and innocent dignity.

"Laurence, Laurence," she said chidingly, "what does this mean? What has taken you?"

"Only happiness," he answered, "of which, having seen the dear vision, I very badly need the still dearer reality."

"Ah!" she said, "and yet you will go away--how soon we do not know--to this most unhappy war, and leave me desolate."

"Yes, and it is best so, sweetheart," he replied; serious, though still smiling--she was so pure, so trustful, and so very fair. Her gentle beauty racked him--"Best so," he repeated--"best pa.s.s the time honourably, fighting for king and country, until your twenty-first birthday is past, and Dudley can no longer forbid our marriage, and I can claim you, make and keep you mine forever and a day--"

And thereupon he stopped abruptly, for his elder brother had come upon them unperceived--Dudley, thin and tall, clothed in sad-coloured, brown-grey coat and vest, the locks of his long, pale hair stirred by the summer wind, in his hand a bundle of papers--Dudley, whose high, narrow head, refined features, and deep-set, fanatical eyes reminded Laurence strangely of his uncle, Montagu Rivers, lying upstairs in the carven, ebony bed, with the crystal _memento mori_ and the silver bell of the elegantly poised Mercury handle on the table beside him.--But how was that? How could it be? He confused two generations. Dudley Rivers's coffin he had seen, in the vault of the little, Norman church, only this morning. The dust lay thick on it. For more than half a century it had reposed there undisturbed; whereas his uncle, Montagu Rivers, died but last night!

Yet even while he thus reasoned, the scene suffered change. All around him was the roar of cannon; and beneath him the screaming of two s.h.i.+ps, grinding into one another, side to side, upon the lift and fall of the Atlantic, where the sea grows short towards Gibraltar and the Straits.

They screamed, those s.h.i.+ps, as fighting stallions scream--a fierce and terrible sound. And all their decks were slippery with blood, through which half-naked men ran red-footed, or falling, wallowed, while the yell of battle went up hoa.r.s.e from many hundred throats. The white sails, torn and streaming, were dyed wild, lurid colours by the flash of musketry and up-rolling volumes of smoke from the heavy guns. It was as h.e.l.l let loose. Yet discipline prevailed, as did a desperate and persistent purpose, through all the tumult and slaughter. Laurence himself felt cool, light-hearted even, as he shouted orders and rallied his men in no mild language. His courage was high and his life strong in him. He laughed, notwithstanding the murderous noise, the sickening and brutal sights. But, to his fury, just in the turn of the engagement, when victory seemed a.s.sured at last, he felt a shattering blow at the top of his chest, and the blood welled up from his pierced lungs, and all the world about him grew black. He staggered back against the splintered bulwarks, putting his left hand upon the thin packet of letters b.u.t.toned inside his uniform against his heart, and called aloud--"Agnes, Agnes."

And out of the blackness a sweet voice, speaking as from some far distance, answered, crying--"Laurence, Laurence"--in accents of tremulous but very exquisite joy. Then within his palm he felt once more that just perceptible pulsation, as of the fluttering wings of a captive b.u.t.terfly; while, in the ghostly twilight still glimmering in through the great bay-window, he beheld the slender form and rose-red, silken dress of his sweet fairy-lady, there, close at his side.

XVIII

For some moments the young man dared not move. The anguish of his shattered ribs, the choking up-rush of blood from his lungs, was so present to him, that he turned deadly faint. By degrees he realised that all these sensations were illusory; or rather memory of that which had, long ago, befallen him. Then he asked himself--was the cry which had just now answered his cry illusory, a matter of memory, likewise? This he must ascertain. He began speaking slowly and softly; and the conviction of his ident.i.ty with that other Laurence Rivers, his namesake, was so complete, that in speaking as he did he had no sense of practising any deceit upon his hearer.

"Agnes," he said, "do you remember the summer morning when, like a lazy fellow, I fell asleep under the lime-trees, and how you came to me just as I woke up, and how we spoke to one another, and how my brother Dudley interrupted our conversation."

A pause followed, during which he listened with almost feverish anxiety, looking up into the sweet, dimly-seen face. Was it possible that she had already gained in physical attributes and powers to the point of audible speech? He almost prayed it might be so; and yet what tremendous issues such development opened up!

At last the low, far-away voice began to answer him. The words came lispingly, at first, with a pathetic effort and hesitancy. It was as the utterance of a baby child but just learning to articulate.

"How could I fail to remember that morning, since the joy of it proved the prelude to the sorrow of your departure?"

Laurence could barely control his excitement; but he just managed to remain very still and to continue speaking slowly and softly.

"Was that so?" he said. "I had forgotten."

"Surely it was so," she answered. "For Dudley brought you the orders, which had just been delivered by a despatch-rider, requiring your immediate return to your s.h.i.+p."

"Yes, yes--of course. I begin to recollect," he rejoined. "Lord Nelson had news of the whereabouts of the French fleet, and we put to sea at a few hours' notice. Recollect, dear me, I should rather think I did! It was an awful rush to get one's kit together, and get through, and there was no end of a bother about post-horses."

Laurence rose to his feet. It was impossible to him to sit still any longer. This strange awakening of memory, and the miracle of his sweet, phantom companion's recovered speech, moved him too deeply. He went across to the escritoire.

"Come here, Agnes," he said. "I want to look at you. I must see you clearly. And I--I want you to look at me. Come."

While speaking he struck a match, and lighted, first the tall wax candles standing upon the escritoire, and then those in the candelabra upon the chimney-piece. Beheld in their mellow light, the room a.s.sumed a more than ever familiar and friendly aspect. Laurence felt that he was at home--at home, consciously, and with a security and content upon him such as he had never experienced before. It was singularly pleasant to feel thus. Moving back he stood in front of the slender, rose-clad figure. His manner was serious, though very gentle, and his voice somewhat broken by the emotion under which he laboured.

"See, I have opened your little treasure-chest for you," he said. "And I have read your dear letters--that const.i.tuted no breach of faith, or act of presumption, considering how often I have read them already. I have put everything carefully back in its place, save our two miniatures, which lie here side by side. I tell you honestly, I am perplexed. I can't fit in the bits of the puzzle, or piece out the story as yet; but that, to my mind, doesn't matter very much. For we are here together, once again, you and I."

He s.h.i.+fted the position of the candles so that their full light should fall upon her.

"Now let me look at you," he said.

And as he looked his eyes grew somewhat moist, for he perceived that which he had blindly desired, blindly sought all his days, that which had been as an ache at his heart even in his gayest hours, because he needed it and had it not--though he had had no knowledge of what indeed it was he needed--now stood visibly before him. Sweet phantom, old-time love, exquisite companion--having found her, how could he ever again let her go? Listening to her pretty, halting speech the flattering belief had once more grown strong in him that he had the power--had he also the will--to restore her to complete and living womanhood. The ambition of so doing possessed him with redoubled force; and the love of her, rooted so deeply in that mysterious former life and former personality of his, possessed him too. Considerations of right and wrong, of duty, even of honour, he brushed aside. The peace and content of the present, the daring effort, the triumph and delight of the future should that effort succeed, rendered him callous to all things beside. Then a touch of self-distrust took him. Did he please, as he was pleased? He wondered.

"Agnes," he asked her almost wistfully, "tell me, have I changed very much?"

Her eyes, which had grown somewhat shy beneath his searching scrutiny, regained their serenity. She replied more readily, and in more a.s.sured accents, while a gentle playfulness was perceptible in her bearing.

"You appear older," she said; "but I will not reproach you with that, since I think you have matured in character rather than greatly increased in years. I could fancy you taller, were not such a supposition absurd. The fas.h.i.+on of your clothes is much altered--you affect very sober colours now."

But suddenly her expression changed. A wide-eyed, haunting sadness came back into her lovely face, and she spread abroad her hands in mingled apology and appeal.

"Ah! indeed," she cried, "I fear a long, long period has elapsed during my illness and alienation of mind. You have had time and to spare in which to grow older, to acquire new habits of thought, perchance--but that idea I cannot tolerate--to form fresh ties. I bitterly deplore my weakness, but they a.s.sured me of your death. Their purpose was not cruel, I am sure; but when I refused to believe their statements, your brother Dudley and Mrs. Lambart sent for our rector, Mr. Burkinshaw, to talk with me and preach resignation. He preached to deaf ears, poor man!

How could I be resigned to see all the joy of my life cut down as gra.s.s under the sweep of a scythe? I did not believe them, yet their reiterated a.s.sertions so worked on me that they killed hope in me, and, in so doing, killed reason likewise. Yet in my heart of hearts, Laurence, I have always known that you would come again."

She clasped her hands high on her bosom and smiled upon him.

"And you have come, oh! my love," she said; "you have come!"

"Yes, in good truth," he answered, while a sense of fear took him--"I have come."

For he was filled with pity and with wonder concerning the end of this adventure; while her innocent pa.s.sion softened his whole nature to a great tenderness, as the sun softens the frozen earth in spring. Then he held out his hand to her in invitation, and led her across to the brocade-covered sofa, set corner-wise between the piano and the fireplace, and for a while they both remained silent, sitting there side by side. And as the minutes slid away, the young man's fears departed, and content returned to him. It was so natural to sit with her thus! Yet his content had an underlying pathos in it, since their situation--his and hers--though immediately happy was so very strange.

At last he asked her:--"Did you know me from the first?"

And she replied with an air of gracious diffidence infinitely engaging:--"I can hardly tell you. For so long confusion has reigned in my poor mind that all had become to me vague and undetermined. I was so very tired that even that which I most craved, I, in a measure, shrank from. I seemed to wander everlastingly in blank and desolate places. I seemed to move in an inters.p.a.ce between the confines of two worlds, to neither of which could I gain admittance. I could not go forward, neither could I go back. Everything baffled me; everything was so difficult to understand."

"But now you have left those blank and desolate places? Now you understand?" Laurence asked, keenly interested in, yet a little dreading her answer.