“money,” captain lebrun was saying emphatically, as the agnes and mary drifted slowly past gravesend pier on the rising tide. “hang money! now, i should think that you make as much of it in a month as i do in a year. you're a young man, and as far as i know ye, ye're a successful one. life spreads out before you like a clean chart. i'm an old 'un—my time is nearly up. i've lived what landsmen call a hard life, and now i'm slowly goin' home. ay, mr. vellacott, goin' home! and you think that with all your manifold advantages you're a happier man than me. not a bit of it! and why? 'cause you belong to a generation that looks so far ahead that it's afraid of bein' happy, just for fear there's sorrow a comin'. money, and lookin' ahead, that's what spoils yer lives nowadays.”
the skipper emphasised these weighty observations by expectorating decisively into the water, and walked away, leaving christian vellacott with a vaguely amused smile upon his face. it is just possible that silas lebrun, master and owner of the agnes and mary, was nearer the mark than he thought.
an hour later, vellacott was walking along the deserted embankment above westminster, on the chelsea side of the river. it was nine o'clock, for which fact big ben solemnly gave his word, far up in the fog. the morning was very dark, and the street lamps were still alight, while every window sent forth a gleam suggestive of early autumnal fires.
turning up his own street he increased his pace, realising suddenly that he had not been within his own doors for more than four months. much might have happened in that time—to change his life, perhaps. as he approached the house he saw a strange servant, an elderly woman, on her knees at the steps, and somehow the sight conveyed to his mind the thought that there was something waiting for him within that peaceful little house. he almost ran those last few yards, and sprang up the steps past the astonished woman without a word of explanation.
the gas in the narrow entrance-hall was lighted, and as he threw aside his cap he perceived a warm gleam of firelight through the half-open door of the dining-room. he crossed the carpeted hall, and pushed open that door.
near the little breakfast-table, just under the gas, stood hilda carew. in his room, standing among his multifarious possessions, in the act of pouring from his coffee-pot. she was dressed in black—he noticed that. instead of being arranged high upon her head, her marvellous hair hung in one massive plait down her back. she looked like a tall and beautiful school-girl. he had not seen her hair like that since the old days when he had been as one of the carews.
as he pushed open the door, she looked up; and for a moment they stood thus. she set down the coffee-pot, carefully and symmetrically, in the centre of the china stand provided for its reception—and the colour slowly left her face.
“you have come back at last!” she said quite monotonously. it sounded like a remark made for the purpose of filling up an awkward silence.
then he entered the room, and mechanically closed the door behind him. she noticed the action, but did not move. he passed round the table, behind aunt judy's chair, and they shook hands conventionally.
“yes,” he said almost breathlessly; “i am back; you do not seem elated by the fact.”
suddenly she smiled—the smile that suggested, in some subtle way, a kitten.
“of course—i am glad ... to see you.”
in a peculiar dreamy way she began to add milk to the coffee. it seemed as if this were mere play-acting, and not real life at all.
“how is it that you are here?” he asked, with a broken, disjointed laugh. “you cannot imagine how strange an effect it was ... for me ... to come in and see you ... here—of all people.”
she looked at him gravely, and moved a step towards him.
“aunt judy is dead!” she explained; “and aunt hester is very ill. mother is upstairs with them—her—now. i have just come from the room, where i have been since midnight.”
she stopped, raised her hand to her hair as if recollecting something, and stood looking sideways out of the window.
“there is something about you this morning,” he said, with a concentrated deliberation, “that brings back the old prague days. i suppose it is that i have not seen your hair as you have it to-day—since then.”
she turned quite away from his hungry gaze, looking out of the window.
after a pause she broke the silence—with infinite tact—not speaking too hurriedly.
“it has been a terrible week,” she said. “mother heard from mr. bodery that they were very ill; so we came. i never dreamt that it was so bad when you spoke of them. five years it has been going on?”
“yes; five years. thank you for coming, but i am sorry you should have seen it.”
“why?”
“every one should keep guard over his own skeleton.”
she was looking at him now.
“you look very ill,” she said curtly. “where have you been?”
“i was kidnapped,” he said, with a short laugh, “and then i got typhoid. the monks nursed me.”
“you were in a monastery?”
“yes; in brittany.”
she was idly arranging the cups and saucers with her left hand, which she seemed desirous of bringing under his notice; but he could look at nothing but her face.
“then,” she said, “it would have been impossible to find you?”
“quite,” he replied, and after a pause he added, in a singularly easy manner, “tell me what happened after i disappeared.”
she did not seem to like the task.
“well—we searched—oh! christian, it was horrid!”
“i wondered,” he said, in a deep, soft voice, “whether you would find it so.”
“yes, of course, we all did.”
this did not appear to satisfy him.
“but you,” he persisted, “you, yourself—what did you think?”
“i do not know,” she answered, with painful hesitation. “i don't think i thought at all.”
“then what did you do, hilda?”
“i—oh, we searched. we telegraphed for mr. bodery, who came down at once. then fred rode over, and placed himself at mr. bodery's disposal. first he went to paris, then to brest. he did everything that could be done, but of course it was of no avail. by mr. bodery's advice everything was kept secret. there was nothing in the newspapers.”
she stopped suddenly, and there was a silence in the room. he was looking at her curiously, still ignoring that little left hand. only one word of her speech seemed to have attached itself to his understanding.
“fred?” he said. “fred farrar?”
“yes—my husband!”
he turned away—walked towards the door, and then returned to the hearthrug, where he stood quite still.
“i suppose it was a quiet wedding,” he said in a hard voice, “on my account; eh?”
“yes,” she whispered. he waited, but she added nothing.
then suddenly he laughed.
“i have made a most extraordinary mistake!” he said, and again laughed.
“oh, don't” she exclaimed.
“don't what?”
“laugh.”
he came nearer to her—quite near, until his sleeve almost touched her bowed head.
“i thought—at st. mary western—that you loved me.”
she seemed to shrink away from him.
“what made me think so, hilda?”
she raised her head, and her eyes flashed one momentary appeal for mercy—like the eyes of a whipped dog.
“tell me,” he said sternly.
“it was,” she whispered, “because i thought so myself.”
“and when i was gone you found out that you had made a mistake?”
“yes; he was so kind, so brave, christian—because he knew of my mistake.”
christian vellacott turned away, and looked thoughtfully out of the window.
“well,” he said, after a pause, “so long as you do not suffer by it—”
“oh—h,” she gasped, as if he were whipping her. she did not quite know what he meant. she does not know now.
at last he spoke again, slowly, deliberately, and without emotion.
“some day,” he said, “when you are older, when you have more experience of the world, you will probably fall into the habit of thanking god, in your prayers, that i am what i am. it is not because i am good ... perhaps it is because i am ambitious—my father, you may remember, was considered heartless; it may be that. but if i were different—if i were passionate instead of being what the world calls cold and calculating—you would be ... your life would be—” he stopped, and turning away he sat down wearily in aunt judy's armchair. “you will know some day!” he said.
it is probable that she does know now. she knows, in all likelihood, that her husband would have been powerless to save her from christian vellacott—from herself—from that love wherein there are no roses but only thorns.
and in the room above them aunt hester was dying. so wags the world. there is no attention paid to the laws of dramatic effect upon the stage of life. the scenes are produced without sequence, without apparent rhyme or reason; and chance, the scene-shifter, is very careless, for comedies are enacted amid scenic effects calculated to show off to perfection the deepest tragedy, while tragedies are spoilt by their surroundings.
the doctor and mrs. carew stood at the bedside, and listened to the old woman's broken murmurings. into her mind there had perhaps strayed a gleam of that light which is not on the earth, for she was not abusing her great-nephew.
“ah, christian,” she was murmuring, “i wish you would come. i want to thank you for your kindness, more especially to aunt judy. she is old, and we must make allowances. i know she is aggravating. it happened long ago, when your father was a little boy—but it altered her whole life. i think women are like that. there is something that only comes to them once. i am feeling far from well, nephew vellacott. i think i should like to see a doctor. what does aunt judy think? is she asleep?”
she turned her head to where she expected to find her sister, and in the act of turning her eyes closed. she slumbered peacefully. the two sisters had slept together for seventy years—seventy long, monotonous years, in which there had been no incident, no great joy, no deep sorrow—years lost. except for the natural growth and slow decay of their frames, they had remained stationary, while around them children had grown into men and women and had passed away.
presently aunt hester opened her eyes, and they rested on the vacant pillow at her side. after a pause she slowly turned her head, and fixed her gaze upon the doctor's face. he thought that the power of speech had left her, but suddenly she spoke, quite clearly.
“where is my sister judith?” she asked.
there are times when the truth must be spoken, though it kill.
“your sister died yesterday,” replied the doctor.
aunt hester lay quite still, staring at the ceiling. her shrivelled fingers were picking at the counter-pane. then a gleam of intelligence passed across her face.
“and now,” she said, “i shall have a bed to myself. i have waited long enough.”
aunt hester was very human, although the shadow of an angel's wing lay across her bed.
it was many years later that christian vellacott found himself in the presence of the angel of death again. a telegram from havre was one day handed to him in the room at the back of the tall house in the strand, and the result was that he crossed from southampton to havre that same night.
as the sun rose over the sea the next morning, its earliest rays glanced gaily through the open port-hole of a cabin in a large ocean steamer, still panting from her struggle through tepid eastern seas.
in this little cabin lay the jesuit missionary, rené drucquer, watching the moving reflections of the water, which played ceaselessly on the painted ceiling overhead. he had been sent home from india by a kind-hearted army surgeon; a doomed man, stricken by a climatic disease in which there was neither hope nor hurry. when the steamer arrived in the seine it was found expedient to let the young missionary die where he lay. the local agent of the society of jesus was a kind-hearted man, and therefore a faithless servant. he acceded to rené drucquer's prayer to telegraph for christian vellacott.
and now vellacott was actually coming down the cabin stairs. he entered the cabin and stood by the sick man's bed.
“ah, you have come,” said the frenchman, with that peculiar tone of pathetic humour which can only be rendered in the language that he spoke.
“but how old! do i look as old as that, i wonder? and hard—yes, hard as steel.”
“oh no,” replied vellacott. “it may be that the hardness that was once there shows now upon my face—that is all.”
the frenchman looked lovingly at him, with eyes like the eyes of a woman.
“and now you are a great man, they tell me.”
vellacott shrugged his shoulders.
“in my way,” he admitted. “and you?”
“i—i have taught.”
“ah! and has it been a success?”
“in teaching i have learnt.”
vellacott merely nodded his head.
“do you know why i sent for you?” continued the missionary.
“no.”
“i sent for you in order to tell you that i burnt that letter at audierne.”
“i came to that conclusion, for it never arrived.”
“i want you to forgive me.”
vellacott laughed.
“i never thought of it again,” he replied heartily.
the priest was looking keenly at him.
“i did not say 'thou,' but 'you,'” he persisted gently.
vellacott's glance wavered; he raised his head, and looked out of the open port-hole across the glassy waters of the river.
“what do you mean?” he inquired.
“i thought,” said rené drucquer, “there might be some one else—some woman—who was waiting for news.”
after a little pause the journalist replied.
“my dear abbé,” he said, “there is no woman in the whole world who wants news of me. and the result is, as you kindly say, i am a great man now—in my way.”
but he knew that he might have been a greater.
