but underneath the wonderfulness there was a heartache. you can hardly expect it to have been otherwise; and, for my part, i would not have had it otherwise. she wouldn’t have been one quarter the adorable old lady she was, if there hadn’t been that heartache.
if, from some lofty and ascetic perch, she could have calmly contemplated her approaching departure from delancey castle with never a tremor, with never a soul-stabbing, then, very assuredly, she would have been one of a genus of human beings that i would find it in vain to attempt to comprehend. it is through the very humanity of the saints that one feels their lovableness. they felt intensely; they had their loves and their hates, their likes and their dislikes, their joys and their sorrows; they were living, sensitive, human creatures, not masses of granite, nor insensible [pg 163]lumps of putty. and it wasn’t one atom because they didn’t care for happiness and pleasure, and possibly even for luxury, that they became saints, but just because they did care, and caring gave all these things as a free and generous gift to god.
of course you know this every bit as well as i do, but i like to remind myself of it every now and then. and sometimes god may have given them back their own actual gifts to him, even while they were still on earth,—gifts refined, transmuted by some wonderful purifying process in his hands. but most often it would seem that he gave them another gift in exchange,—that wonderful gift, sorrow, of which only a saint can see the true beauty. yet always he gave them back in full and overflowing measure one gift that must of necessity have been offered with the other gifts,—the gift of love towards him.
i don’t mean to infer from this that lady mary was a saint. that would be a matter on which i naturally should not venture to express an opinion. one leaves such decisions to god and the holy fathers. but she was very assuredly a wonderful woman, as father maloney had remarked.
[pg 164]
if her heart was old in years, it was young in immortal youth. she revelled in the sunshine, she revelled in happiness; i am not sure that she didn’t bask in it. i fancy there would be little real gratitude if we accepted these gifts timorously, fearing lest their removal should follow quickly. to my thinking, the truest gratitude, the fullest trust, is to accept them with whole-hearted enjoyment, to say a real “thank you” for the loan, when the time comes that god asks us to give it back again. naturally our manners would be as disagreeable as those of a badly brought-up child if we clung to the gift lent us till it had to be taken from us by force. the first hint is sufficient for a nicely brought-up child. but never be grudging or timorous of enjoyment during such time as the happiness is lent.
truly i believe this was lady mary’s attitude. now, of course, there was a big sense of loss, a pretty heavy heartache, and even the tiniest question, why? at the first, i don’t think that she had realized that the happiness had been merely a loan. she had looked upon it as hers by right. there’s the danger with prolonged loans. you begin to forget that they aren’t actually yours. [pg 165]but, if she had forgotten, it was only for a moment; and now, in spite of the heartache, her “thank you” was genuinely spoken.
lady mary was sitting by a window facing towards the sea. it shone pearly iridescent, in the evening light. the sky beyond reflected the glory of the sunset; grey near the water, it merged upwards into soft rose-colour, and thence to blue-green. the earth was bathed in soft, glowing light.
only the faintest whisper of air came through the open window,—a faint, cool sigh of relief after the heat of the day. below, in the garden, were golden splotches of colour—beds of great african marigolds, a vivid contrast to the cool green of the close-dipped grass. through the silence came the musical dripping of a fountain.
overhead a door opened. she heard a child’s voice, and then a little burst of laughter. again there was silence. and slowly the rose-colour faded in the sky, till only a pale lavender-grey haze covered land and water.
the gold of the marigolds became softly blurred; the green of the grass lost its colour.
a little haunting melody came suddenly into her [pg 166]mind,—one she had often played in childhood. it was a melody by heller. there is a footnote at the bottom of the page on which it is written, which designates it “twilight,” or “le crépuscule.” the latter word came into her mind at the moment. it held greater significance to her than the english word. it represented more clearly the onward stealing of the grey shadows, the soft sweet evening sadness, the slow passing of the day’s glory.
and then, once more, overhead a door opened. there was a pattering of footsteps along the corridor, a child’s voice, clear, demanding:
“granny, prayers!”
lady mary got up from her chair. if there was something of the evening shadows in her eyes, i fancy there was also the aftermath of the sunset’s glory.
“tomorrow i must tell antony,” she said.
