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The Crown of Life, a novel by George Gissing |
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Chapter 36 |
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_ CHAPTER XXXVI She sat by her open window, which looked over the dale to the long high ridge of moors, softly drawn against a moonlit sky. Far below sounded the rushing Ure, and at moments there came upon the fitful breeze a deeper music, that of the falls at Aysgarth, miles away. It was an hour since she had bidden good-night to Helen, and two hours or more since all else in the Castle and in the cottages had been still and dark. She loved this profound quiet, this solitude guarded by the eternal powers of nature. She loved the memories and imaginings borne upon the stillness of these grey old towers. The fortress of warrior-lords, the prison of a queen, the Royalist refuge--fallen now into such placid dreaminess of age. Into the dark chamber above, desolate, legend-haunted, perchance in some moment of the night there fell through the narrow window-niche a pale moonbeam, touching the floor, the walls of stone; such light in gloom as may have touched the face of Mary herself, wakeful with her recollections and her fears. Musing it in her fancy, Irene thought of love and death. Had it come to her at length, that love which was so strange and distant when, in ignorance, she believed it her companion? Verses in her mind, verses that would never be forgotten, however lightly she held them, sang and rang to a new melody. They were not poetry--said he who wrote them. Yet they were truth, sweetly and nobly uttered. The false, the trivial, does not so cling to memory year after year. They had helped her to know him, these rhyming lines, or so she fancied. They shaped in her mind, slowly, insensibly, an image of the man, throughout the lapse of time when she neither saw him nor heard of him. Whether a true image how should she assure herself? She only knew that no feature of it seemed alien when compared with the impression of those two last days. Yet the picture was an ideal; the very man she could honour, love; he and no other. Did she perilously deceive herself in thinking that this ideal and the man who spoke with her, were one? It had grown without her knowledge, apart from her will, this conception of Piers Otway. The first half-consciousness of such a thought came to her when she heard from Olga of those letters, obtained by him for a price, and given to the kinsfolk of the dead woman. An interested generosity? She had repelled the suggestion as unworthy, ignoble. Whether the giver was ever thanked, she did not know. Dr. Derwent kept cold silence on the subject, after once mentioning it to her in formal words. Thanks, undoubtedly, were due to him. To-night it pained her keenly to think that perhaps her father had said nothing. She began to study Russian, and in secret; her impulse dark, or so obscurely hinted that it caused her no more than a moment's reverie. Looking back, she saw but one explanation of the energy, the zeal which had carried her through these labours. It shone clear on the day when a letter from Helen Borisoff told her that an article in a Russian review, just published, bore the name of Piers Otway. Thence onward, she was frank with herself. She recognised the meaning of the intellectual process which had tended to harmonise her life with that she imagined for her ideal man. There came a prompting of emotion, and she wrote the letter which Piers received. All things were made new to her; above all, her own self. She was acting in a way which was no result of balanced purpose, yet, as she perfectly understood, involved her in the gravest responsibilities. She had no longer the excuse which palliated her conduct eight years ago; that heedlessness was innocent indeed compared with the blame she would now incur, if she excited a vain hope merely to prove her feelings, to read another chapter of life. Solemnly in this charmed stillness of midnight, she searched her heart. It did not fail under question. A morning sleep held her so much later than usual that, before she had left her chamber, letters were brought to the door by the child who waited upon her. On one envelope she saw the Doctor's handwriting; on the other that of her cousin, Mrs. Florio. Surprised to hear from Olga, with whom she had had very little communication for a year or two, she opened that letter first. "Dear Irene," it began, "something has lately come to my knowledge which I think I am only doing a duty in acquainting you with. It is very unpleasant, but not the first unpleasant piece of news that you and I have shared together. You remember all about Piers Otway and those letters of my poor mother's, which he said he bought for us from his horrid brother? Well, I find that he did _not_ buy them--at all events that he never paid for them. Daniel Otway is now broken-down in health, and depends on help from the other brother, Alexander, who has gone in for some sort of music-hall business! Not only did Piers _cheat_ him out of the money promised for the letters (I fear there's no other word for it), but he has utterly refused to give the man a farthing--though in good circumstances, I hear. This is all very disagreeable, and I don't like to talk about it, but as I hear Piers Otway has been seeing you, it's better you should know." She added "very kind regards," and signed herself "yours affectionately." Then came a postscript. "Mrs. A. Otway is actually on the music-hall stage herself, in short skirts!" The paper shook in Irene's hand. She turned sick with fear and misery. Mechanically the other letter was torn open. Dr. Derwent wrote about Eustace's engagement. It did not exactly surprise him; he had observed significant things. Nor did it exactly displease him, for since talking with Eustace and with Marian Jacks (the widow), he suspected that the match was remarkable for its fitness. Mrs. Jacks had a large fortune--well, one could resign oneself to that. "After all, Mam'zelle Wren, there's nothing to be uneasy about. Arnold Jacks is sure to marry very soon (a dowager duchess, I should say), and on that score there'll be no awkwardness. When the Wren makes a nest for herself, I shall convert this house into a big laboratory, and be at home only to bacteria." But the Doctor, too, had a postscriptum. "Olga has been writing to me, sheer scandal, something about the letters you wot of having been obtained in a dishonest way. I won't say I believe it, or that I disbelieve it. I mention the thing only to suggest that perhaps I was right in not making any acknowledgment of that obligation. I felt that silence was the wise as well as the dignified thing--though someone disagreed with me." When Irene entered the sitting-room, her friend had long since breakfasted. "What's the matter?" Helen asked, seeing so pale and troubled a countenance. "Nothing much; I overtired myself yesterday. I must keep quiet for a little." Mrs. Borisoff herself was in no talkative frame of mind. She, too, an observer might have imagined, had some care or worry. The two very soon parted; Irene going back to her room, Helen out into the sunshine. A malicious letter this of Olga's; the kind of letter which Irene had not thought her capable of penning. Could there be any substantial reason for such hostile feeling? Oh, how one's mind opened itself to dark suspicion, when once an evil whisper had been admitted! She would not believe that story of duplicity, of baseness. Her very soul rejected it, declared it impossible, the basest calumny. Yet how it hurt! How it humiliated! Chiefly, perhaps, because of the evil art with which Olga had reminded her of Piers Otway's disreputable kinsmen. Could the two elder brothers be so worthless, and the younger an honest, brave man, a man without reproach--her ideal? Irene clutched at the recollection which till now she had preferred to banish from her mind. Piers was not born of the same mother, might he not inherit his father's finer qualities, and, together with them, something noble from the woman whom his father loved? Could she but know that history The woman was a law-breaker; repeatability gave her hard names; but Irene used her own judgment in such matters, and asked only for knowledge of facts. She had as good as forgotten the irregularity of Piers Otway's birth. Whom, indeed, did it or could it concern? Her father, least of all men, would dwell upon it as a subject of reproach. But her father was very capable of pointing to Daniel and Alexander, with a shake of the head. He had a prejudice against Piers--this letter reminded her of it only too well. It might be feared that he was rather glad than otherwise of the "sheer scandal" Olga had conveyed to him. Confident in his love of her, which would tell ill on the side of his reasonableness, his justice, she had not, during these crucial days, thought much about her father. She saw his face now, if she spoke to him of Piers. Dr. Derwent, like all men of brains, had a good deal of the aristocratic temper; he scorned the vulgarity of the vulgar; he turned in angry impatience from such sorry creatures as those two men; and often lashed with his contempt the ignoble amusements of the crowd. Olga doubtless had told him of the singer in short skirts---- She shed a few tears. The very meanness of the injury done her at this crisis of emotion heightened its cruelty. Piers might come to the Castle this morning. Now and then she glanced from her window, if perchance she should see him approaching; but all she saw was a group of holiday-makers, the happily infrequent tourists who cared to turn from the beaten track up the dale to visit the Castle. She did not know whether Helen was at home, or had rambled away. If Piers came, and his call was announced to her, could she go forth and see him? Not to do so, would be unjust, both to herself and to him. The relations between them demanded, of all things, honesty and courage. No little courage, it was true; for she must speak to him plainly of things from which she shrank even in communing with herself. Yet she had done as hard a thing as this. Harder, perhaps, that interview with Arnold Jacks which set her free. Honesty and courage--clearness of sight and strength of purpose where all but every girl would have drifted dumbly the common way--had saved her life from the worst disaster: saved, too, the man whom her weakness would have wronged. Had she not learnt the lesson which life sets before all, but which only a few can grasp and profit by? Towards midday she left her room, and went in search of Helen; not finding her within doors, she stepped out on to the sward, and strolled in the neighbourhood of the Castle. A child whom she knew approached her. "Have you seen Mrs. Borisoff?" she asked. "She's down at the beck, with the gentleman," answered the little girl, pointing with a smile to the deep, leaf-hidden glen half a mile away. Irene lingered for a few minutes and went in again. At luncheon-time Helen had not returned. The meal was delayed for her, more than a quarter of an hour. When at length she entered, Irene saw she had been hastening; but Helen's features seemed to betray some other cause of discomposure than mere unpunctuality. Having glanced at her once or twice, Irene kept an averted face. Neither spoke as they sat down to table; only when they had begun the meal did Helen ask whether her friend felt better. The reply was a brief affirmative. For the rest of the time they talked a little, absently, about trivialities; then they parted; without any arrangement for the afternoon. Irene's mind was in that state of perilous commotion which invests with dire significance any event not at once intelligible. Alone in her chamber, she sat brooding with tragic countenance. How could Helen's behaviour be explained? If she had met Piers Otway and spent part of the morning with him, why did she keep silence about it? Why was she so late in coming home, and what had heightened her colour, given that peculiar shiftiness to her eyes? She rose, went to Helen's door, and knocked. "May I come in?" "Of course--I have a letter to write by post-time." "I won't keep you long," said Irene, standing before her friend's chair, and regarding her with grave earnestness. "Did Mr. Otway call this morning?" "He was coming; I met him outside, and told him you weren't very well. And"--she hesitated, but went on with a harder voice and a careless smile--"we had a walk up the glen. It's very lovely, the higher part. You must go. Ask him to take you." "I don't understand you," said Irene coldly. "Why should I ask Mr. Otway to take me?" "I beg your pardon. You are become so critical of words and phrases. To take _us_, I'll say." "That wouldn't be a very agreeable walk, Helen, whilst you are in this strange mood. What does it all mean? I never foresaw the possibility of misunderstandings such as this between us. Is it I who am to blame, or you? Have I offended you?" "No, dear," was the dreamy response. "Then why do you seem to wish to quarrel with me?" Helen had the look of one who strugglingly overcomes a paroxysm of anger. She stood up. "Would you leave me alone for a little, Irene? I'm not quite able to talk. I think we've both of us been doing too much--overtaxing ourselves. It has got on my nerves." "Yes I will go," was the answer, spoken very quietly. "And to-morrow morning I will return to London." She moved away. "Irene!" "Yes----?" "I have something to tell you before you go." Helen spoke with a set face, forcing herself to meet her friend's eyes. "Mr. Otway wants an opportunity of talking with you, alone. He hoped for it this morning. As he couldn't see you, he talked about you to me--you being the only subject he could talk about. I promised to be out of the way if he came this afternoon." "Thank you--but why didn't you tell me this before?" "Because, as I said, things have got rather on my nerves." She took a step forward. "Will you overlook it--forget about it? Of course I should have told you before he came." "It's strange that there should be anything to overlook or forget between _us_," said Irene, with wide pathetic eyes. "There isn't really! It's not you and I that have got muddled--only things, circumstances. If you had been a little more chummy with me. There's a time for silence, but also a time for talking." "Dear, there are things one _can't_ talk about, because one doesn't know what to say, even to oneself." "I know! I know it!" replied Helen, with emphasis. And she came still nearer, with hand held out. "All nerves, Irene! Neuralgia of--of the common sense, my dear!" They parted with a laugh and a quick clasp of hands. _ |
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