Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Harvest/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
My wasting lamp some fading glimmer left,
My dull deaf ears a little use to hear. . . ."
My little dead angel is lying alone on the wide white bed, with roses in his folded hands, and tapers burning on either side. You would never know that he had been ill at all to look round the room; it is all so neat, so simple, so fresh. No ugly medicine bottles or any of the paraphernalia of sickness is there; everything looks peaceful, untroubled, usual. Through the open windows the moon sends a flood of light that washes the floor, the bed, the waxen features of my darling, who lies there so still and quiet—he who used to run about so indefatigably, whose feet were never tired, whose voice was never still save when he slept and he is not asleep now . . . yet that eyeless, voiceless, pulseless shape is my little lad. I am not by his side now; no tears would come to me as I looked down on the little dead face that had smiled on me so lovingly four hours ago, on the lips that had syllabled "Good-bye, Lallie!" with the last hovering breath, on the hands that only slackened their hold on mine when death detached them . . . When I brushed out his beautiful golden curls, and felt them cling round my fingers like living sentient things, they woke no memory in me of those other times when I had brushed them, finding such trouble in keeping the restless head still . . . I was as unfeeling as silent, as placid as he. The nurse has gone away with the rest; she would have watched with me beside him all night, but she shall not—no one shall do anything for him but me. I am sitting in the school-room alone, and the sound of the church clock striking ten comes with sudden loudness through the silence.
Ten! and at five o'clock Wattie was living; I had him in my arms, I was able to kiss him, to call upon him by every foolish name my heart prompted, and he was able to answer me, to put out his weak hand to me, to smile at me . . . only five hours ago' He cannot be dead: I must have dreamt it . . . If I open yonder shut door I shall find him there. Ay! but did I ever leave him for a minute while the breath was in his poor tortured little body? Oh, Wattie! . . . Wattie, five hours ago you were here, in my arms; but now, where are you?
All my life long I have had so keen a pity for dead folk, that it has seemed to me that in some former state I must have loved some one very passionately, who died; but this experience is so new, so strange, so awful, that I cannot grasp it. I pitied then; but did I ever see a human being speaking, smiling one minute, the next a blank, a mockery, a shell, from whence is withdrawn the beautiful loving spirit that I knew?
"Oh, God! oh, God!" I cry, as I rock myself to and fro, "make me understand, make me see it; remove this terrible interval that lies between my living Wattie and this dead one."
If only he could come back to me for one brief moment, if only he could tell me about it! . . . I cannot get hold of you, Wattie, my angel you are not dead, so I have no memory of you; you are not living, so I cannot speak to you. . . . . To-morrow, perhaps, you will seem farther away; I shall learn to remember.
I go to the window, and look out at the night. May he not be somewhere near me, though I do not know it? Can he have gone so far already? Were you afraid, Wattie, I wonder, when you went forth alone? Did you hold out your hand to me in the awful strangeness of your passing? Is any one taking care of you up there, as I took care of you here below?
"Wattie! Wattie!" I whisper, and my voice sounds hoarse and sinister in the silence, "can you not speak to me?" But no answer comes to me; not a leaf stirs, not a sound is abroad.
Hark! what is that? Hasty footsteps are crushing the gravel, coming nearer and nearer. Who can it be that comes here so late? And farther away I seem to hear lighter steps, that follow after the first. Have the father and mother returned, too late? And my dull heart gives an exultant leap that Silvia should come too late that Wattie died in my arms, not hers. . . . The steps pass on, retreat, come forward again, and in another minute a man steps into the flood of moonlight that fills the room—Paul Vasher. How wild he looks, how strange! After all, did he love the poor little dead son yonder, only his pride forbade his showing it?
"I thought you would have come sooner," I say slowly; "I have been expecting you for days."
"And I am here," he says, as slowly as I.
His face is pale and set, his dark eyes are flaming under his drawn brows.
"Love," he says quietly, and in his quietness there is a deadly strength that chills me, “I cannot live without you. I have come back to tell you so. . . . Will you end this life of hell and misery, and come away with me?"
But I do not answer; I only fall back before him, and stand with dilated eyes and parted lips, staring at him.
"Are you afraid, sweetheart? Do you believe that the words uttered by a mumbling old priest make things sacred that are not sacred in themselves? Do you believe that you would be any the more my wife if a form of words had been spoken over us? Are the man and woman, forsooth, who are made for each other, and would cleave to each other through time and death and eternity, to be considered less married in God's eyes than the wretches who are bound together by the fetters of expediency, fraud, and the love of gold?"
But I only hold up my hands and wave him back. I am dumb —dumb as my innocent darling lying yonder, dumb as the stones that lie at my feet.
"Sweetheart! Wife" he cries, coming a step nearer, and the old fire has come back to his eye, the old masterful vigour to his voice, "I must have you. . . . I can't live without you. Ever since that Christmas morning I have been wrestling and fighting with myself as no other devil-tempted, God-forsaken man ever fought, in vain. . . I knew that the other day, when I touched your hand at parting, for the first time for three years and more. . . When I got to Scotland, a chance remark told me that you were here alone; I set out. . . . You will come with me to-night, Nell, to-night. All is prepared, everything is in readiness; no one knows I am in Silverbridge. . . . By the morning we shall be far away. . . together at last. Oh, heavens!" he cries, with a strong wild leap of exultation in his voice, "at last. . . . I had been very doubtful about you, my beautiful darling. . . . I did not think your love would stand the test. . . . but when you said that you had been expecting me, that you thought I should have been here sooner. . . . I knew then, Nell, that your love was as perfect as mine."
A dark shadow crosses the moonlight, a white hand alights like a snow-flake on Paul's arm. He turns, and at his elbow stands Silvia, smiling. She steps through the window, and there we stand in the moonlight, that shows our faces clear as at noonday—my lover, his wife, and I. It is Paul who speaks first.
"So it is you, madam?" he says slowly. "And, pray, are you following your old and successful avocation of a spy?"
"Yes,” she says, quietly, "if following one's own husband be spying, for I have been following you. I always knew you would come back to this girl, sooner or later, and ask her to go off with you; and I always knew that, for all her proud disdainful airs, she would go—when you asked her. Don't suppose that I want to hinder you from going; on the contrary, if you do not, I will take good care that the country rings with the story of how I found my husband and Miss Helen Adair alone, at eleven at night, when all her people were away. . . arranging an elopement between them. I wonder whether it would be you or I who would be blamed then for not having got on together? I don't want to stop you; I only came after you to shame her. Ha, ha! Have I not my revenge on you at last, Helen Adair?"
Paul does not speak, only his hands clench and unclench themselves rapidly, and his breast rises in short, quick pants.
"You taunted me once with the possession of a good name, that no living man or woman could lay finger on," she says, in her mocking, flute-like tones; "do you think it is so white and soilless now?"
"Now," I say, lifting my hand and beckoning to her, "you will come with me."
Like a woman who moves without her own volition, Silvia leaves her place and follows me. Again I lift my hand and beckon to Paul, who also comes slowly, like a man in a dream. . . . I open the door, traverse the short passage, and enter the bedroom, the husband and wife following. I walk to the bed and look round at them they are standing by the door—and lift my hand once more, and they come and stand one on either side of the bed . . . and they look down on the dead face of their little fatherless, motherless son, Wattie.
"He died at six of the clock this evening," I say, monotonously; then something seems to snap in my brain, and I fall down like a log, with my arms round my little dead lad.
*****
In God's Acre, a man stands holding my hand in his for the last time, and asks me, as though I were his judge, to forgive him the terrible sin and treachery into which his mad, sinful love and agony drove him; and I forgive him, yes, from the very bottom of my heart, and bid him God-speed, for I know that, just as surely as that Wattie is laid away out of my sight under the brown mould at our feet, so I shall never look on his father's face again in this life . . . and so we say good-bye, reverently, tenderly, knowing it is our last farewell, and then—he goes.
And on the night of the last day but one of August, in the yet early morning, he comes to me in my sleep, with the clear light of the immortals on his brow, and I awake, knowing full well that he is dead. Fourteen days afterwards a letter is brought to me, and the superscription of the envelope is written by a Frenchman. I take it away to my chamber, and sit down with it in my hand: I am in no hurry to read it, for I know; then I break the seal.
"Mademoiselle," the letter begins, "I have a sacred duty to perform to you; I pray you to forgive me that it is so painful an one. . . . Before Sedan I fought side by side with M. Vasher, and it was towards evening that he fell, badly wounded. By good fortune I got him away to a place of safety, and a good Sister came and tended him, but he was past human aid. He gave me your address, and bade me tell you how he died. . . . Mademoiselle, he was the bravest man, the truest gentleman, that ever took sword in hand. . . . He was very restless all night, but he never complained; and—forgive me, I had fallen asleep for a moment—towards the very early morning, I was awakened by his voice ringing out, loud and clear as a trumpet, 'Comin' thro' the rye—God's rye, Nell!' then he fell back dead. We buried him, mademoiselle, at sunset, and laid on his heart a miniature he had always worn, as he bade us. An hour afterwards a lady came; she was very beautiful, and seemed wild with grief. . . . Mademoiselle, she said she was his wife. With humble assurances of my sympathy, I am
they will not return to me, I pant, I weary, I burn for the moment when death, "like a friend's voice from a distant field," shall call to me, and, taking my hand in his, lead me to the plains and fields that girdle round the shining city . . . where shall I not see my darlings stepping to meet me through the unfading, incorruptible splendour of "God's rye?"
THE END.