Chapter Thirty Five
The Power of the Past
While all the bitterness of past wrongs was thus, for Amethyst, softening into a tender haze of memory, it became apparent to Una that a new future was offered to herself.
The pleasant, wholesome intercourse that had begun for her at Restharrow, had made the days cheerful at Bordighera, and, together with health much improved by the southern climate, had brought her for the first time something of the natural gaiety of her eighteen years. She very soon knew quite well, that her presence made the pleasure for Wilfred Jackson, that he sought her at every possible moment, and offered her the natural and innocent courtship of a warm-hearted youth, which ought to have been the opening of all the joys and rights of her young womanhood.
But behind her lay, not the “duties enough and little cares” of unawakened childhood, not the playful preferences of attractive girlhood, but the searing, burning memory of premature passion.
She let the pleasant thing go on, she hesitated and doubted, for she liked Wilfred Jackson very much, and she liked – she always would like – intercourse that was touched with possibilities of emotion. And she would have been so glad to forget all her miserable past, to go on into a happy future.
She knew that she was watched by Tory and Kattern, and she did not put them off the scent; she knew that Amethyst was only blind because her thoughts were absorbed by Lucian’s condition; she knew how welcome her engagement would be to every one belonging to her. But day by day her heart grew heavier within her, and she dreaded more and more the moment of decision.
It came one day, among the olive trees, over a bed of violets, with the blue sea behind them, and the white peaks before, a sweet sense of spring-time in the air, and everything befitting the spring of fresh young hope.
He was alone with her, and his tongue was loosed, and all his honest love and his eager longings were laid at her feet, and the prospect of a good and happy life was offered to her, all the blessings the value of which she had learned to know full well.
And her heart turned from it utterly, she shrank from his hand and his kiss. She had had her day – a day almost before the dawn – and she thought that she could never give herself to any man again.
She refused him, with a rain of tears and a passion of self-reproach, knowing that she had allowed him to expect another answer. Her words were so wild, and her manner so strange, that Wilfred, as he stood, pale and bitterly disappointed, felt as if he had wooed a mermaid, some incomprehensible, uncanny creature of a different race from his own. But he was stunned.
“Una,” he said, “I think you gave me a right to expect another answer. You have given me a bitter blow. I shall go away where I cannot see your face – your cruel face. But I don’t give you up. I shall try again!”
Una fled away from him, and rushed home, where she threw herself into Amethyst’s arms, and sobbed out all her self-reproach and her self-despair.
“Oh, my dear, I should have looked after you better!” said Amethyst regretfully. “But are you sure? Can’t you ask him to give you a little time?”
“Oh, Amethyst, I like him, I hoped it would come to me, till yesterday, when we were picking flowers, he kissed my hand, and then – then all last night I dreamt of other kisses, oh, I felt them – I can feel them now. I’ve none left!”
“Dear Una, the past is not meant to spoil our future – there is forgiveness and peace – ”
“For you – for you – You look back on a paradise, and I on – ”
“Oh, Una – but it’s all over, you have all your life left!”
“I have – I have!” cried Una, lifting her face from Amethyst’s shoulder, “I would not have that past again, not the maddest moment of it! I will live – I will be good for something in spite of it. Oh – I should like to give my life to telling girls that one can be different. I think I’d die to keep another child from my fate! But it has been – and alas and alas, it will be!”
This was the wrong that Tony had done her.
She had saved her soul alive, but the first spring of her heart was gone for ever, and if a second came, it might not be till the chances of life were over for her.
She threw herself on her knees when Amethyst left her.
“Oh, God!” she whispered, “let me not look back – let me look forward up, up to Thee!”
There was a great outcry, when Wilfred stirred up his sisters to go back with him on the next day to Nice. The girls were angry, and declared that Una was a heartless flirt and had led him on; but Wilfred would not hear a reproach cast at her, and went up to the Leighs’ villa to bid Lucian farewell, and to tell his story.
It was a bad day with Lucian, indeed each day began to show failing strength, and the shadow lay so heavily on all around him, that it was no wonder that Wilfred Jackson’s affairs had never been guessed at. Lucian could not talk to him, but lay and listened while Sylvester put in occasional questions, and shortened the interview as much as possible. Then it came over Wilfred, that he was bidding his friend farewell for the last time, and he felt how much he had let himself be diverted from his state by a new interest. He muttered something, he hardly knew what, as he squeezed Lucian’s hand, but it ended in “never forgetting the Rockies.”
“All right,” said Lucian, “and don’t forget either that – I said – that I hoped, when you’re dying, you may thank God for your love, as I do – though we’ve neither of us been lucky.”
Wilfred was utterly overcome, and could only hurry away with another hand-squeeze. Lucian felt that the first of the final partings had come for him, and his breath came a little quickly.
“You’ll stay with me, Syl, won’t you?” he whispered.
“Why yes, of course, dear boy, that’s all settled, long ago. Now let me read you to sleep. Then, if Amethyst comes by and by, you will be able to see her.”
Amethyst was the bright spot in the sorrowful household. She was loving to Mrs Leigh, listening to her sorrow, and trying to give her all the care which after so long a strain she was beginning to need, and cheering the poor young girls as they grew too sorrowful to care for their usual amusements, while in her ways with Lucian she showed the most absolutely simple and unaffected tenderness, thinking of nothing but how to give him pleasure. That the pleasure was sometimes not easily known from pain, Lucian hid from all eyes but Sylvester’s keen ones, and, as he grew weaker, the inevitable longings mercifully sank away, or were bravely offered up with all the other sufferings of his failing life, and he took the joy as simply as it was given.
Lady Haredale, as usual, had adapted herself to circumstances. She took the greatest interest in “dear Lucian,” never grudged Amethyst’s intercourse with him, and, as she took occasion to tell Sylvester, “felt that the past was entirely blotted out.”
“She may,” Lucian had said bluntly, when this speech was reported to him, “but, as far as she is concerned, I don’t, and I never shall.”
Sylvester entirely concurred in this sentiment. If he detested any one on earth it was “my lady.” If she had ever found out that Una had refused Wilfred Jackson, she might have found it hard to forgive her, for money grew scarcer and scarcer, and while she smiled, and talked, and found little satisfactions in the amusements of hotel life, she did not know in the least what was to become of them all.
What Lord Haredale did, with their scanty means, it was easy to guess, and, though his wife could trust to some happy-go-lucky solution, his sister’s face grew more anxious every day.
Her greatest comfort was Carrie Carisbrooke, who transferred the incipient affection she had felt for Charles to all his family. She told Miss Haredale, that she hoped they would continue to live together either at Silverfold or at Cleverley, and she fully intended to put it in her chaperon’s power to give Tory the education she so much desired.
It was an undeserved return for the worldliness which had done her so great a disservice in trying to prop up a falling family with her fortune; but nevertheless, it made home and happiness for a very lonely girl, and so was its own reward.
Carrie’s twenty-first birthday was imminent, and on the day of the Jacksons’ departure, she received a letter from her uncle, saying that he meant to spend it with her, and to give up his stewardship of her fortune.
Una heard with a start of horror, “That Amethyst should meet that man again!”
“You need have no fear,” said Amethyst. “If he comes, and people guess he ever had anything to do with me, it is no more than I deserve. He nearly ruined my life for me, but it was my own fault Lucian will never know, and – ”
She did not finish her sentence, but she knew that, some day, she would tell Sylvester how his trust in her had helped to save her from a second shipwreck. She would tell him, and he would understand.
Chapter Thirty Six
Out of the Deep
“No, Annabel – no, Amethyst, I shall not go. I am quite sure Charles has not deserved any attention from me. Read the telegram – ‘Come at once, Charles dying; his own fault. Bring money.’ My lord is the most unpractical person I ever knew! He knows I have no money. What could I do for Charles over at Monte Carlo? Some horrid scandal, no doubt.”
“It would be a far greater scandal to neglect him when he is dying, Lady Haredale. At least, I will go and help my poor brother.”
“You, my dear Anna! Oh, that would be the very thing. You are always goodness itself, and full of kind thoughts. Do go; but as for the money – ”
“There needn’t be any trouble about that, Lady Haredale,” said Carrie, who was in the room, “for I have plenty of money – quite handy, and Miss Haredale can take it with her to Monte Carlo.”
“Why, my dear Carrie, you are quite a little guardian angel. Now it is all nicely settled, and I dare say you’ll find my lord has got nervous about some mere trifle.”
The Haredale party were all assembled in Lady Haredale’s bedroom, which formed a sort of family gathering-place. Tory had rushed in with a telegram in her hand, and this was the end of a hot discussion.
“Then – the train, oh, when is it?” said Miss Haredale, “and – oh yes, telegraph to my brother to meet me – for I should not know – ”
“I shall go with you,” said Amethyst, “there is nothing else to be thought of. There will be a great deal more than you could manage alone, Aunt Anna.”
“Oh, but, Amethyst, you are the last person to be seen in such a place – on such an occasion.”
“When my brother is dying,” said Amethyst, “I don’t think it can be wrong to go anywhere. If I don’t like it, I’ll come back again. There’s a train in an hour, we can catch that.”
Una ran after her as she went to get ready.
“Oh, Amethyst,” she said, “I am afraid it will be very dreadful.”
“So am I,” said Amethyst. “But what would become of Carrie’s money if auntie were there alone? And I have never been kind to poor Charles, nor had any mercy for him. I must go, Una. Only try to keep it all from Lucian; he will hurt himself with worrying about me.”
“If Sylvester Riddell could go with you!”
“Oh no. Then Lucian would hear about it. Besides – oh no, Una, no one ought to come.”
“Give my love to Charles,” said Una, kissing her. “Oh dear, what is to become of us all?”
“I don’t know,” said Amethyst; “I’ve got to catch the train first.”
The train was caught, and off they set, with poor Carrie’s little roll of gold pieces carefully secreted in Amethyst’s dress. She was sick with fear of what she might find. To see evil which has been only heard of is a frightful thing, and she squeezed Lucian’s ring through her glove, as if it gave her a sense of guardianship.
No Lord Haredale appeared at the station, which seemed ominous and depressing. They took a carriage, and with some difficulty found the Bella Italia, the hotel from which his telegram had been dated, the driver declining to believe that the ladies could want to go there.
It was a second-rate little place, with noisy voices coming from the open windows of the coffee-room, and from the restaurant in the garden outside.
The two ladies got out of their carriage and walked in, and Amethyst in careful broken Italian asked for Lord Haredale, and for the English gentleman who was there very ill.
The host came forward, and answered her with smiles, shrugs and gestures, and a flood of incomprehensible words.
Amethyst stood perplexed. Some men started up from the tables and began to explain, evidently with the best intentions, but with such vehemence of tone and gesture that Miss Haredale clutched her niece’s arm, with a terrified conviction that they were all making excuses to stare at Amethyst, who began to make her inquiries in French – when, behind her, a voice that might have been the echo of her own said “Aunt Annabel!”
She turned, and by one of the little tables stood a tall woman, with a slight swaying figure like Una’s, a dress incongruously splendid in that squalid place, and a face – the face of one of themselves – not so much older as to have lost all its kindred beauty, but with pale cheeks and painted eyes, and a look at once familiar, as only the nearest of kin can be, and strange, as of one belonging to another kind of world.
“Blanche!” exclaimed Miss Haredale, “Blanche! can it be you?”
“Oh yes, Aunt Annabel. It is. I am staying here for a little variety, and I saw papa, and Charles – both of them – in the rooms. And I thought I’d better come and look after my brother, when I heard he was ill.”
She laughed a little, as she uttered these words in something of Tory’s tone when she did the good little girl, an effect heightened by the use of the old-fashioned appellation by which, long, long ago, Lord Haredale’s elder children had been wont to call him; but her eyes were on her sister. “Is that Amethyst?” she said. “Ah, you don’t remember me.”
“Yes, Blanche, I do,” said Amethyst; but she had turned deadly pale, for Blanche had been little more than an abstraction to her mind.
“But where is your father?” said Miss Haredale. “And Charles, is he any better?”
“Oh no – nor can be. He’s got D.T. and all sorts of other horrors. Just drank himself to death, poor fellow. I can pay the nurse and the doctor: but I can’t bear the sight of him. What was the good of your coming?”
“Is the nurse trained, my dear? Indeed, I ought to go up,” said Miss Haredale.
“Well, I can show you. Perhaps he is asleep. Trained – oh dear no; she’s a horrid old woman.”
Lady Clyste led the way up-stairs, and, as they followed her, outcries, sounds that made Amethyst’s heart die within her, led them on their way.
“Oh, he’s quite off his head,” said Blanche, as she opened the bedroom door.
There, on the narrow bed, lay Charles; and Amethyst saw what months of neglect and evil living, and frightful ills and sufferings, had made of a man already marred and ruined beyond repair.
Miss Haredale recoiled with a sob, and Amethyst gathered up her courage and came forward.
“Charles,” she said.
The sick man started up and swore at her for a ghost. Then his eyes cleared a little, and he stuttered out —
“Amethyst! Oh, damn it all. Go away; you mustn’t stop here, here with me. And there’s Blanche; you mustn’t stay with Blanche. Take her away, Aunt Anna. Take her away this moment.”
Blanche gave a sort of laugh, and then began to sob hysterically.
“Hush, Charles,” said Amethyst, “I came to see you. You won’t hurt me, – and Blanche – is very kind. Lie still. – Una sent you her love.”
Her lips and hands trembled a little, but her eyes were full of yearning pity. Never, in her loveliest moments, had she looked as she did now.
She stood by Charles, and laid her hand on his, then glanced from him to his other sister, of whom he had spoken thus.
She looked at this sister, who had loved foolishly, and married unlovingly, and then yielded to the passion that offered a change from the dullness of the world’s prosperity, and she thought of herself, and of what so easily might have been her fate; and no longer scorn and hatred, but a deep and awful pity filled her soul for those who had not been saved as she had, and who had been unable to save themselves.
She did not in the least know what to do, however much she might pity, and had turned to the white-capped peasant who was acting as nurse, when there was a rush up-stairs, and the host who had received them dashed into the room and shouted out something in Italian. Blanche, who understood, screamed aloud, and crying out —
“He says my father has had a fit and is brought in – dead,” rushed down the stairs, while Miss Haredale, half distracted, followed her, and host and nurse flew to join the fray.
Charles had grasped Amethyst’s hand, she thought that he might die at that moment, and dared not leave him. Of what passed in that dreadful hour, when she was left alone with the dying man, she never afterwards spoke. The sun was setting in a fiery glow, and streamed in at the window on to the bed, revealing with the dreadful clearness of a light from heaven, its squalor and wretchedness, and the misery and degradation of him who lay on it.
There was shouting and calling below, and terrible crazy utterances from Charles, mixed now and then with a kindly word, “Una – good girl – poor little Carrie,” then frightful visions and fear, oaths and cursing, and over all the approach of the King of Terror in his most awful form.
Amethyst was utterly ignorant and helpless, she could have done little, had she had trained skill. But she stood by and touched him and spoke to him, and uttered prayers that were at first mere outbursts of fear, mere cries for help in her extremity. But gradually they grew conscious and clear, and she prayed for her brother’s soul with all her might, and her terror passed away, as he sank into quieter mutterings. She prayed aloud with the instinct of a child, but as the yearning impulse grew stronger, it found fewer words. She said, “Our Father – Our Father,” over and over again, as if she could and need say nothing more, and at last came a weak hoarse echo to her voice.
“Our Father – ” muttered Charles, with the last look of his dying eyes fixed on his young sister’s beautiful face, on which the last rays of the sunlight fell.
“An angel – down in hell! Our Father – ” he said, and then his head fell back, the great change came, and Amethyst saw him die.
“Oh, my dear, I had to leave you; but your father’s breathing still. Come down; and here’s the doctor, let him see Charles;” and Miss Haredale, pale and shaking, but with composure gained from the very extremity, came into the room, followed by an Italian doctor, who gave one glance at the bed.
“The young lady must not stay here,” he said, “there is no more to be done. Nor you either, Signora; Milord will perhaps have need of you.”
Miss Haredale gave a little gasp of horror; but she was hardly able to realise anything fresh. She took Amethyst down-stairs to the coffee-room, which had been cleared of all its occupants; while Lord Haredale, who had fallen down in the street, not far from the inn, had been laid on a bed, roughly made up on one of the tables. Two Englishmen, who had some slight acquaintance with him, were there, and had sent for the doctor, and done what they could to help the helpless ladies, and now, one of them, hearing what had happened up-stairs, went to see the doctor and make the first needful arrangements.
Lord Haredale was quite unconscious; there was no chance, the doctor said, of a rally, but it might not be over for some hours. Lady Clyste sat crouched up by a stove at the end of the room, crying in a violent unrestrained fashion. Miss Haredale sat down by her brother’s side, shedding a few tears, but faithfully watching him; while Amethyst, stupefied and silent, stood at the sick man’s feet. Presently the other Englishman came back and spoke to her.
“Miss Haredale?” he said, bowing. “My name is Williams. I had the honour of his lordship’s acquaintance. You are perhaps hardly aware how quickly arrangements have to be made in this country. And the expense is great. Your brother’s funeral, would it be here? Have you friends to consult?”
“Oh, no,” exclaimed Miss Haredale, interposing. “Impossible! anything but that. We all lie at Haredale.”
Amethyst looked at Mr Williams, who was not a very prepossessing person; but he was much better than no one, and she decided to trust him.
“I have some money,” she said, “but I don’t know. We must telegraph to my mother at Bordighera, and, yes – to another friend. But – is there no one here – an English chaplain or clergyman?”
Mr Williams never appeared to have heard of such an official, but he promised to inquire, and to despatch the telegrams to Lady Haredale, and to Sylvester Riddell, who could surely come for an hour or two and help them in such extremity, then all would be well. Then he departed, promising to do all he could to delay matters till something definite occurred, with a glance at Lord Haredale’s heavily-breathing figure.
“Amethyst, Amethyst, do come here,” sobbed Blanche, calling to her. “Is Charles dead? Oh, how awful, how dreadful! – oh, I wish I hadn’t come!”
“I think you were quite right to come,” said Amethyst, as Blanche came towards her, catching hold of her, and clinging to her with a touch that strangely reminded her of Una’s agitated clasp. “Oh, come and sit here, let us talk of something else. Really, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be with me. Won’t they get us something to eat? These Italians are all so frightened when any one’s ill.”
Amethyst spoke to the old peasant woman, and asked her to fetch them soup or coffee. One trouble had succeeded another so rapidly that she seemed to have no feelings left.
The coffee was brought, and Lady Clyste revived a little as she drank it.
“So you had a great success in London? But why didn’t you marry that rich baronet? How pretty you are. Was there anybody else? I think you’d better have married him. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been such a jealous tyrant as Sir Edward. That was why I came away. There really wasn’t anything wrong; he had his amusements, and so had I.”
Amethyst could not answer, and suddenly Blanche changed her tone.
“But didn’t I hear that Oliver Carisbrooke was there? Oh, Amethyst, never you have anything to do with him. He was the ruin of me. There, he made me over head and ears in love with him, little, young thing that I was – and then he left me to bear all the blame. I declare, Amethyst, he planned it all, how I was to run away with him, and when he found out my mother’s money could be kept away from me, he threw me over. Oh, and he’s tried since. He’d make you believe anything. Being in love amuses him. He does that instead of gambling, or drinking, or being wicked like other men. He gets up an emotion! I hope you don’t like him.”
“No, I hate him,” said Amethyst under her breath.
“I want to hear all about you. Do you get on with my lady? I liked her – she was great fun. But when I was in trouble – ah, how she threw me over! And how she tried to cut me out! I could tell you – ”
Amethyst started up, and went over to her father’s side. In that presence, with that other awful death-bed fresh in her mind, this idle trifling seemed the most dreadful of all the horrors which she had had to face.
She knelt down by her aunt’s side, and laid her face against her shoulder, the child-love of long ago coming to her help; while Miss Haredale pressed her close, and watched in silence.
The hours passed, and there was no arrival from Bordighera, and no message.
Amethyst’s heart sank within her. Why did not her mother come? – And surely nothing but the worst trouble at Casa Remi could have kept Sylvester from coming to her help in such extremity.
In the dawn of the morning, without rally or suffering, Lord Haredale died, and, as Amethyst turned to face the chilly light at the opened door, there, with pale face and anxious eyes, stood Sylvester Riddell. She flew to him with outstretched hands.
“Oh, you are here?” she cried, “I have been longing – ”
Sylvester clasped her hands close.
“Oh, my dearest,” he cried. “It was almost all over last night. They never even gave me your telegram till too late. But he is still alive, and he caught a whisper of your trouble, and his first word was ‘Go.’ Now, now I can take care of you. How could your mother let you come?”