CHAPTER VIII.
THE LOVE THAT FOLLOWS THE DEAD.
On his return to Rupert Buildings, William Thornton walked on air. Anincome, an assured income of a hundred pounds a quarter, was indeed animprovement upon those casual loans which he had begged of his patronfrom time to time, with somewhat more of boldness since Kilrush hadshown so marked a liking for his daughter's society. He was elated byhis patron's generosity; yet across his pleasant meditations in theshort distance between St. James's Square and St. Martin's Lane, therewas time for his thoughts to take a wider range, and for something of acloud to fall across his sunshine.
He was puzzled, he was even troubled, by his lordship's generosity.What were the relations between that liberal patron and Antonia? Tilla fortnight ago his daughter's happy frankness had assured him thatall was well: that she was the kind of girl who may be trusted to takecare of herself without paternal interference. But there had been amarked change in her manner after Kilrush's last visit. She had beenlanguid and silent. She looked unhappy, and had been absent-minded whenshe talked of their literary projects--an essay for Cave--a story forthe _Monthly Review_, or the possibility of Garrick's favour for anafter-piece from the Italian of Goldoni.
Antonia waited upon him when he came in, helped him to change hislaced coat for an old one that he wore in the house, brought him hisslippers, and proceeded to prepare his tea; but there was no welcomingsmile.
"My dearest girl, there is something amiss," Thornton said, after hehad watched her for some time, while they sat opposite to each otherwith the tea-tray between them. "My Tonia is no longer the happy girlI have known so long. What ails my love? I have been with your friendKilrush. He leaves England to-morrow. Is it the loss of his companydistresses you?"
"No, no! It is best that he should come here no more."
"Why, dearest?"
"Because we could never more be friends. I was very happy in hisfriendship. I knew not how happy till we parted."
"Why should such a friendship end? Why did you part?"
She burst into tears.
"I cannot--cannot--cannot tell you."
"Nay, love, you should have no secrets from your father--an indulgentfather, if sometimes a neglectful one. When have I ever scared you by aharsh word?"
"No, no; but it is very hard to tell you that the man I esteemedwas unworthy of my friendship--that he came here with the vilestdesign--that he waited till he had won my regard--and then--andthen--swore that he loved me passionately, devotedly--and offered tomake me--his mistress."
Thornton heard her with a countenance that indicated more of thoughtthan of horror.
"It would have been no disgrace to him to make you his wife," he said,"but the Delafields have ever pretended to a pride in excess of theirrank. He did ill to offer you his affection upon those terms; yet I'llswear his vows of love were sincere. I have but just left him, and Inever saw more distress of mind than I saw in his face to-day. When Itold him that you had been drooping, he implored me to call in his ownphysician, at his charge."
"Oh, pray, sir, do not tell me how he looked or what he said!" criedTonia, with a passionate impatience, drying her tears as she spoke,which broke out afresh before she had done. "I doubt he thinks moneycan heal every wound. He offered to lavish his fortune upon me, andmarvelled that I could prefer this shabby parlour to a handsome houseand dishonour."
"He did very ill," said Thornton, in a soothing voice, as if he wereconsoling a child in some childish trouble; "yet, my dearest Tonia, didyou but know the world as well as I do, you would know that he made youwhat the world calls a handsome offer. To settle a fortune upon you--ofcourse he would mean a _settlement:_ anything else were unworthy of athought--would be to give you the strongest pledge of his fidelity.Men who do not mean to be constant will not so engage their fortune.And if--if the foolish Delafield pride--that Irish pride, which countsa long line of ancestors as a sacred inheritance--stands in the wayof marriage--I'll be hanged if I think you ought to have rejected himwithout the compliment of considering his offer and of consulting me."
"Father!"
She sprang up to her feet, and stood before him in all the dignity ofher tall figure; and her face, with the tears streaming over it, waswhite with anger and contempt.
"My love, life is made up of compromises. Sure, I have tried to keepyour mind clear of foolish prejudices; and, as a student of history,you must have seen the influences that govern the world. Beauty isone, and the most powerful, of those influences. Aspasia--AgnesSorel--Madame de Pompadour. Need I multiply instances? But Beauty mewedup in a two-pair lodging is worthless to the possessor; while, with afine establishment, a devoted protector, my dearest girl might commandthe highest company in the town."
"Father!" she cried again, with a voice that had a sharp ring of agony,"would you have had me say yes?"
"I would have had you consider your answer very seriously before yousaid no."
"You could have suffered your daughter to stoop to such humiliation;you would have had her listen to the proposal of a man who is free tomarry any one he pleases--but will not marry _her;_ who tells her inone breath that he loves her--and in the next that he will not make herhis wife--oh, father, I did not think----"
"That I was a man of the world? My poor child, some of the greatestmatches in England have begun with unfettered love; and be sure that,were your affection to consent to such a sacrifice, Kilrush would endby giving you his name."
"Pray, pray, sir, say no more--you are breaking my heart--I want torespect you still, if I can."
"Pshaw, child, after all we have read together! 'Tis a shock to hearsuch heroics! What is the true philosophy of life but to snatch all thecomfort and happiness the hour offers? What is true morality but to doall the good we can to ourselves, and no harm to our neighbours? Willyour fellow-creatures be any the better for your unkindness to Kilrush?With his fortune to deal with, you could do an infinitude of good."
"Oh, cease, I implore you!" she exclaimed distractedly. "If his tearscould not conquer me, do you think your philosophy can shake myresolve?"
She left him, and took refuge in her garret, and sat staring blanklyinto space, heart-sick and disgusted with life. Her father! 'Twas thefirst time she had ever been ashamed of him. Her father to be theadvocate of dishonour--to urge her to accept degradation! Her father,whom she had loved till this hour with a child's implicit belief in thewisdom and beneficence of a parent--was he no better than the wretchesshe had heard Patty talk about, the complacent husbands who flourishedupon a wife's infidelity, the brothers who fawned upon a sister'sprotector? Was all the world made of the same base stuff; and didwoman's virtue and man's honour live but in the dreams of genius?
She had accepted her father's dictum that religion and superstitionwere convertible terms. Her young mind had been steeped in theVoltairean philosophy before she was strong enough to form her ownopinions or choose her own creed. She had read over and over again ofthe evil that religion had done in the world, and never of the good.Instead of the whole armour of righteousness, she had been shown theracks and thumb-screws of the Spanish Inquisition; and had been taughtto associate the altar with the _auto da fe_. All she knew of pietywas priestcraft; and though her heart melted with compassion for themartyrs of a mistaken belief, her mind scorned their credulity. Butfrom her first hour of awakening reason she had never wavered in herideas of right and wrong, honour and dishonour. As a child of twelve,newly entrusted with the expenditure of small sums, all her littledealings with Mrs. Potter had shown a scrupulous honesty, a delicacyand consideration, which the good woman had seldom met with in adultlodgers. The books that had made her an infidel had held before herhigh ideals of honour. And those other books--the books she mostloved--her Shakespeare, her Spenser--had taught her all that is noblestin man and woman.
She thought of Shakespeare's Isabella, who, not to save the life ofa beloved brother, would stoop to sin. She recalled her instinctivecontempt for Claudio, who, to buy that worthless life, wou
ld have soldhis sister to shame.
"My father is like Claudio," she thought; and then with a suddencompunction, "No, no, he is not selfish--he is only mistaken. It was ofme he thought--and that if Kilrush loved me, and I loved him, I mightbe happy."
Her tears flowed afresh. Never till Kilrush threw off the mask hadshe known what it was to look along the dull vista of life and see nostar, to feel the days a burden, the future a blank. She missed him.Oh, how she missed him! Day after day in the parlour below she hadsat looking at his empty chair, listening unawares for a footstep shewas never likely to hear again. She recalled his conversation, hisopinions, his criticism of her favourite books, their arguments, theiralmost quarrels about abstract things. His face haunted her: thoseexquisitely refined features upon which the only effect of age wasan increased delicacy of line and colouring; the depth of thought inthe dark grey eyes; the grave smile with its so swift transition fromsatire to a tender melancholy. Was there ever such a man? His elegance,his dignity, his manner of entering a room or leaving it, the grace ofevery gesture, so careless yet so unerring--every trait of character,every charm of person, which she was unconscious of having noticed intheir almost daily association, seemed now to have been burnt into herbrain and to be written there for ever.
In the fortnight that had passed since they had parted, she had triedin vain to occupy herself with the work which had hitherto interestedher so much as to make industry only another name for amusement. Heradaptation of Goldoni's _Villeggiatura_ lay on her table, the pagessoiled by exposure, sentence after sentence obliterated. The facilepen had lost its readiness. She found herself translating the livelyItalian with a dull precision; she, who of old had so deftly turnedevery phrase into idiomatic English--who had lent so much of herself toher author.
Often in these sorrowful days she had pushed aside her manuscript toscribble her recollections of Kilrush's conversation upon a stray sheetof foolscap. Often again, in those saddest moments of all, she hadrecalled his words of impassioned love--his tears; and her own tearshad fallen thick and fast upon the disfigured page.
Well, it was ended, that friendship which had been so sweet; and shehad discovered the bitter truth that friendship between man and woman,when the woman is young and beautiful, is impossible.
* * * * *
The days, weeks, months went by; and the name of Kilrush was no morespoken by Thornton or his daughter. It was as if no such being hadever had any part in their lives, any influence over their fate. YetThornton was studiously obedient to his patron's wishes all the time.
Good Mrs. Potter, who was getting elderly, had for some years pastgroaned under the burden of the house in Rupert Buildings, with thedouble, or sometimes treble set of lodgers, who were needful to makethe business remunerative. Servant girls were troublesome, even whenpaid as much as six pounds per annum, with a pound extra for tea andsugar; lodgers were not always punctual with the weekly rent, andsometimes left in her debt. Thornton paid her a low rent for his secondfloor and garret; but he stayed from year's end to year's end; and shevalued him above the finer people who came and went in her bettermostrooms. So when he told her that he was going to remove to a ruralneighbourhood, she opened her heart to him, and declared, firstly,that she was sick of London, and London husseys--otherwise domesticservants; secondly, that she could not live without Antonia; thirdly,that she had long had it in her mind to remove her goods and chattelsto a countrified suburb, such as Highgate or Edmonton, and that couldshe be secure of one permanent lodger she would do so without loss oftime.
"Choose a genteel house to the south-west of London, somewhere betweenWandsworth and Barnes, and my daughter and I will share it with you,"said Thornton; and Mrs. Potter, who had no particular leaning to northor east, agreed.
After this came a pleasant period of house-hunting, in which Antoniawas by-and-by induced to take a languid interest, going in a hackneycoach with Mrs. Potter and her daughter Sophy, who had served anapprenticeship to a dressmaker, and was very doubtful how to dispose ofher talent now she was out of her time. After several suburban drives,through suburbs that were all garden and meadow, they discovered an oldhalf-timbered cottage at Putney, whose casement windows looked acrossthe Thames to the church and episcopal palace and gardens of Fulham. ToAntonia, who had hardly known what it was to leave London since thosedistant childish years in Windsor Forest, the white walled cottage andgarden seemed a heaven upon earth. Surely it must be a blissful thingto live beside that broad reach of Thames, to see willows dippingand reeds waving in the mild autumn wind, and the red sailed bargesdrifting slowly down stream, and to hear the rooks in the great elmsyonder in the bishop's gardens, their clamorous chatter softened bythe intervening river. She went back to London enchanted with RosemaryBank, as the roomy old cottage called itself, and told her father thatshe thought she could be happy there.
"Then Potter shall take the cottage to-morrow," cried Thornton, in arapture of eagerness; "for I'll be hanged if you have looked anythingbut miserable for the last six weeks. Just as our luck had turned too,my--my circumstances improved--and--and Garrick promising to put ourlittle Italian play on the stage, and to give me a benefit if it runstwenty nights."
Tonia sighed, remembering the melancholy thoughts interwoven with everyline of that lively two-act burletta which she had squeezed out ofGoldoni's five-act comedy. Everybody was pleased with the neat littleafter-piece, most of all Patty Lester, who was to play the soubrette,in a short chintz petticoat, and high red heels to her shoes.
The theatre seemed a source of boundless wealth, for on Mrs.Potter--who dropped in sometimes at tea-time for a gossip; or, comingon a business errand, was invited to sit down and talk--complainingthat she did not know what to do with her dressmaking daughter,Thornton offered to engage Mrs. Sophy as Antonia's "woman."
"She will have to accept a modest honorarium," he said, with his grandair, "but she will be getting her hand in to go out as waiting-woman toa lady of quality; and my Tonia will treat her more as a friend than aservant."
Mrs. Potter snapped at the offer, though she did not know the meaningof the word "honorarium." She guessed that it meant either wages or apresent, and to find that idle slut of hers an occupation, and yet haveher under the maternal eye, was an unspeakable advantage.
Antonia protested that she wanted no waiting-maid, though she lovedSophy.
"Indeed, sir, you are not rich enough to make a fine lady of me," shesaid.
"Nature has made you a lady, my love; and you are too sensible everto become fine. When we are living in the country--and I have to cometo London, occasionally, to look after my business--you will need acompanion whose time will be always at your service."
And so, with no more discussion, Sophia Potter was engaged, at a salaryof ten pounds per annum, paid quarterly.
At Rosemary Bank the changing seasons passed in a calm monotony;and it seemed to Antonia, during the second year of her life in thecottage by the Thames, as if she had never lived anywhere else. TheLondon lodging, the Strand and Fleet Street, Miss Lester's rooms in thePiazza, receded in the distance of half-forgotten things; for the yearsof youth are long, and the passing of a year makes a great gap in time.
The link between Tonia and London seemed as completely broken as if shewere living in Yorkshire or in Cornwall. There was a London coach thatstarted from the King's Head at the bottom of Putney High Street everymorning, for the Golden Cross, hard by Rupert Buildings; and this coachcarried Mr. Thornton and his fortunes three or four times a week, andbrought him home after dark. He had so much business that required hispresence in the metropolis, and first and foremost the necessity ofgetting the latest news, which was always on tap at the Portico, wherehalf a score of gutter wits and politicians settled the affairs of thenation, reviled Newcastle and the Pelhams, praised Pitt, canvassed theprospects of war in America or on the continent, and enlarged on thevices of the _beau monde_, every afternoon and evening.
Antonia accepted her father's absen
ce as inevitable. Her own life wasspent in a peaceful monotony. She had her books and her literary workfor interest and occupation. She acquired some elementary knowledgeof horticulture from an old man who came once a week to work in thegarden; and, her love of flowers aiding her, she improved upon hisinstructions and became an expert in the delightful art. She and Sophymade the two-acre garden their pride. It was an old garden, and therewas much of beauty ready to their hands; rustic arches overhung withroses and honeysuckle; espaliers of russet apples and jargonelle pearsscreening patches of useful vegetables; plots of old-established turf;long borders crowded with hardy perennials--a garden that had cost careand labour in days that were gone.
And then there was the river-bank between Putney and Kew, where Toniafound beauty and delight at all seasons; even in the long winter, whenthe snapping of thin ice rang through the still air as the bargesmoved slowly by, and the snow was piled in high ridges along the edgeof the stream. Summer or winter, spring or autumn, Tonia loved thatsolitary shore, where the horses creeping along the towing-path werealmost the only creatures that ever intruded on her privacy. She andSophy were indefatigable pedestrians. They had indeed nothing else todo with themselves, Sophy told her mother, and must needs walk "to passthe time." Passing the time was the great problem in Sophia Potter'sexistence. To that end she waded through "Pamela" and "Clarissa,"sitting in the garden, on sleepy summer afternoons. To that end shetoiled at a piece of tambour work; and to that end she trudged, yawningdismally now and then, by Tonia's side from Putney to Barnes, fromBarnes to Kew, while her young mistress's thoughts roamed in dreamland,following airy shadows, or sometimes perhaps following a distanttraveller in cities and by lakes and mountains she knew not.
Often and often, in her peripatetic reveries, Antonia's fanciesfollowed the image of Kilrush, whose continental wanderings werechronicled from time to time in _Lloyd's_ or the _St. James's_. Hewas at Rome in the winter after their farewell; he was in Corsica inthe following spring; he spent the summer at Aix in Savoy; moved toMontpelier in the late autumn; wintered at Florence. Tonia's thoughtsfollowed him with a strange sadness, wherever he went. Youth cannotfeed on regrets for ever, and the heartache of those first vacant dayshad been healed; but the thought that she might never see his faceagain hung like a cloud of sadness over the quiet of her life.
And now it was summer again, and the banks were all in flower, and theblue harebells trembled above the mossy hillocks on Barnes Common, andthe long evenings were glorious with red and gold sunsets, and it wasnearly two years since she had rushed from her lover's presence witha despairing farewell. Two years! Only two years! It seemed half alifetime. Nothing was less likely than that they would ever meet again.Nothing, nothing, nothing! Yet there were daydreams, foolish dreams, inwhich she pictured his return--dreams that took their vividest colourson a lovely sunlit morning when the world seemed full of joy. He wouldappear before her suddenly at some turn of the river-bank. He wouldtake her hand and seat himself by her side on such or such a fallentree or rough rustic bench where she was wont to sit in her solitude."I have come back," he would say, "come back to be your true friend,never more to wound you with words of love, but to be your friendalways." The tears sprang to her eyes sometimes as imagination depictedthat meeting. Surely he would come back! Could they, who had been suchfriends, be parted for ever?
But the quiet days went by, and her dream was not realized. No signor token came to her from him who had been her friend, till one Julyevening, when she was startled by her father's unexpected return in acoach and four, which drove to the little garden gate with a rush and aclatter, as if those steaming horses had been winged dragons and weregoing to carry off the cottage and its inmates in a cloud of smokeand fire. Tonia ran to the gate in a sudden panic. What could havehappened? Was her father being carried home to her hurt in some streetaccident--or dead? It was so unlike his accustomed arrival, on thestroke of eleven, walking quietly home from the last coach, which leftthe Golden Cross at a quarter-past nine, was due at the King's Head athalf-past ten, and rarely kept its time.
Her father alighted from the carriage, sound of limb, but with anagitated countenance; and then she noticed for the first time that thepostillions wore the Kilrush livery, and that his lordship's coat ofarms was on the door.
"My love--my Tonia," cried Thornton, breathlessly, "you are to comewith me, this instant--alas! there is not a moment to spare. Bring herhat and cloak," he called out to Sophy, who had followed at her lady'sheels, and stood open-mouthed, devouring the wonder-vision of coach andpostillions. "Run, girl, run!"
Tonia stared at her father in amazement.
"What has happened?" she asked. "Where am I to go?"
"Kilrush has sent me for you, Tonia. That good man--Kilrush--myfriend--my benefactor--he who has made our lives so happy. I shall losethe best friend I ever had. Your cloak"--snatching a light cloth mantlefrom the breathless Sophy and wrapping it round Tonia. "Your hat. Come,get into the coach. I can tell you the rest as we drive to town."
He helped her into the carriage and took his seat beside her. She waslooking at him in a grave wonder. In his flurry and agitation he hadlet her into a secret which had been carefully guarded hitherto.
"Is it to Lord Kilrush we owe our quiet lives here? Has his lordshipgiven you money?" she asked gravely.
"Oh, he has helped--he has helped me, when our means ran low--as anyrich friend would help a poor one. There is nothing strange in that,child," her father explained, with a deprecating air.
"Kilrush!" she repeated, deeply wounded. "It was his kindness changedour lives! I thought we were earning all our comforts--you and I. Whyare you taking me to him, sir? I don't understand."
"I am taking you to his death-bed, Tonia. His doctors give him only afew hours of life, and he wants to see you before he dies, to bid youfarewell."
The tears were rolling down Thornton's cheeks, but Antonia's eyes weretearless. She sat with her face turned to the village street, staringat the little rustic shops, the quaint gables and projecting beams, thedormer casements gilded by the sunset, Fairfax House, with its stoutred walls, and massive stone mullions, and a garden full of roses andpinks, that perfumed the warm air as they drove by. She looked at allthose familiar things in a stupor of wonder and regret.
"You often talk wildly," she said presently, in a toneless voice. "Ishe really so ill? Is there no hope?"
The horses had swung round a corner, and they were driving by a lanethat led to Wandsworth, where it joined the London road. At the rate atwhich they were going they would be at Westminster Bridge in less thanhalf an hour.
"Alas, child, I have it from his doctor. 'Tis a hopeless case--hasbeen hopeless for the last six months. He has been in a consumptionsince the beginning of the winter, has been sent from place to place,fighting with his malady. He came to London two days ago, from Geneva,as fast as he could travel--a journey that has hastened his end, thephysician told me. Came to put his affairs in order, and to see you,"Thornton concluded, after a pause.
"To see me! Ah, what am I that he should care?" cried Tonia.
To know that he was dying was to know that she had never ceased to lovehim. But she did not analyze her feelings. All that she knew of herselfwas a dull despair--the sense of a loss that engulfed everything shehad ever valued in this world.
"What am I that he should care?" she repeated forlornly.
"You are all in all to him. He implored me to bring you--with tears,Antonia--he, my benefactor, the one friend who never turned a deaf earto my necessities," said Thornton, too unhappy to control his speech.
"Shall we be there soon?" Tonia asked by-and-by, in a voice broken bysobs.
"In a quarter of an hour at the latest. God grant it may not be toolate."
No other word was spoken till the coach stopped at the solemn olddoorway in St. James's Square, a door through which Mrs. ArabellaChurchill had passed in her day of pride, when the house was hers, andthat handsome young soldier, her brother Jack, was a frequent visit
orthere.
Night had not fallen yet, and there were lingering splashes of redsunset upon the westward-facing windows of the Square; but on this sideall was shadow, and the feeble oil-lamps made dots of yellow light onthe cold greyness, and enhanced the melancholy of a summer twilight.
The door was opened as Thornton and Antonia alighted. Her father ledher past the hall porter, across the spacious marble-paved vestibulethat looked like a vault in the dimness of a solitary lamp which afootman was lighting as they entered. Huge imperials, portmanteaux andpacking-cases filled one side of the hall; the bulk of his lordship'spersonal luggage, which no one had found time to carry upstairs,and the cases containing the pictures, porcelain, curios, which hehad collected in his wanderings from city to city, and in which hisinterest had ceased so soon as the thing was bought. He had come hometoo ill for any one to give heed to these treasures. There would betime to unpack them after the funeral--that inevitable ceremony whichthe household had begun to discuss already. Would the dying man desireto be laid with his ancestors in the family vault under LimerickCathedral, within sound of the Shannon?
Antonia followed her father up the dusky staircase, their footfallnoiseless on the soft depth of an Indian carpet, followed him into adark little ante-room, where two men in sombre attire sat at a tabletalking together by the light of two wax candles in tall Corinthiancandlesticks. One of these was his lordship's family lawyer, the otherhis apothecary.
"Are we too late?" asked Thornton, breathlessly, with rapid glancesfrom the attorney to the doctor--glances which included a folded paperlying on the table beside a silver standish.
"No, no; his lordship may last out the night," answered the doctor."Pray be seated, madam. If my patient is asleep, we will wait hisawakening. He does not sleep long. If he is awake you shall see him. Hedesired that you should be taken to him without delay."
He opened the door of the inner room almost noiselessly and looked in.A voice asked, "Is she here?"
It was the voice Tonia knew of old, but weaker. Her heart beatpassionately. She did not wait for the doctor, but brushed past himon the threshold, and was scarce conscious of crossing the width ofa larger room than she had ever seen. She had no eyes for the gloomymagnificence of the room, the high windows draped with dark red velvet,the panelled walls, the lofty bed, with its carved columns and ostrichplumes; she knew nothing, saw nothing, till she was on her knees by thebed, and the dying man was holding her hands in his.
"Go into the next room, both of you," he said, whereupon his valet andan elderly woman in a linen gown and apron, a piece of respectableincompetence, the best sick-nurse that his wealth and station couldcommand, silently retired.
"Will you stop with me to the end, Tonia?"
"Yes, yes! But you are not going to die. I will not believe them. Youmust not die!"
"Would you be sorry? Would it make any difference?"
"It would break my heart. I did not know that I loved you till you hadgone away. I did not know how dearly till to-night."
"And if I was to mend and be my own man again, and was to ask you thesame question again, would you give me the same answer?"
"Yes," she answered slowly; "but you would not be so cruel."
"No, Tonia, no, I am wiser now; for I have come to understand thatthere is one woman in the world who would not forfeit her honour forlove or happiness. Ah, my dearest, here, here, on the brink of death,I know there is nothing on this earth that a man should set above thewoman he loves--no paltry thought of rank or station, no cowardly dreadthat she may prove unfaithful, no fear of the world's derision. If Icould have my life again I should know how to use it. But 'tis past,and the only love I can ask for now is the love that follows the dead."
He paused, exhausted by the effort of speech. He spoke very slowly,and his voice was low and hoarse, but she could hear every word. Shehad risen from her knees, to be nearer him, and was sitting on theside of the bed, holding him in her arms. In her heart of hearts shehad realized that death was near, though her soul rebelled against theinevitable. She was conscious of the coming darkness, conscious thatshe was holding him on the edge of an open grave.
"Do not talk so much, you are tiring yourself," she said gently, wipinghis forehead with a cambric handkerchief that had lain among theheaped-up pillows. The odour of orange flower that it exhaled was inher mind years afterwards, associated with that bed of death.
He lay resting, with his eyelids half closed, his head leaning againsther shoulder, her arm supporting him.
"I never thought to taste such ineffable bliss," he murmured. "You havemade death euthanasia."
He lapsed into a half-sleeping state, which lasted for some minutes,while she sat as still as marble. Then he opened his eyes suddenly, andlooked at her in an agitated way.
"Tonia, will you marry me?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, if you bid me, by-and-by, when you are well," she answered,humouring a dying man's fancy.
"Now, now! I have only a few hours to live. I sent for you to make youmy wife. I want your love to follow me in death. I want you to bear myname--the name I refused you, the name that cost me half a lifetime ofhappiness. Tonia, swear that you will be true--that you will belong tome when I am dead, as you might have belonged to me in life."
She thought his mind was wandering. He had lifted himself from herarms, and was sitting up in bed, magnetized into new life by theintensity of his purpose.
"Ring that bell, dearest. Yes"--as she took up the handbell on histable--"all has been arranged. Death will be civil to the last BaronKilrush, and will give me time for what I have to do."
His valet appeared at the door.
"Is his lordship's chaplain there?" Kilrush asked.
"Yes, my lord. The bishop has come with his chaplain."
"The bishop! My old friend is monstrous obliging. Show them in."
The valet ushered in a stately personage in full canonicals,accompanied by a young man in surplice and hood. The bishop came to thebedside, saluted Antonia courteously, and bent his portly form overKilrush with an affectionate air.
"My dear friend, on so solemn an occasion I could not delegate my dutyto another."
"You are very good. We are ready for you. My lawyer is in the nextroom--he has the license; and this"--pointing to a thin gold hoopworn with an antique intaglio ring on his little finger--"this was mymother's wedding ring--it will serve."
The bishop took the Prayer-book which his chaplain had opened at theMarriage Service, but paused with the book in his hand, looking atAntonia with a grave curiosity. Kilrush followed the look, and answeredit as if it had been a question.
"You understand, bishop, that this marriage is not an atonement," hesaid. "Miss Antonia Thornton is a lady of spotless reputation, who willdo honour to the name I leave her."
"That is well, Kilrush. But I hope this marriage is not designed toinjure any one belonging to you."
"No, I injure no one, for no one has any claim to be my heir."
The valet brought the candles from the further end of the room to atable near the bishop, and rearranged the pillows at his master's back.Antonia had risen from her seat on the edge of the bed, and stoodwatching Kilrush with the candlelight full upon her face.
The bishop looked at her with a shrewd scrutiny. He wanted to know whatmanner of woman she was, and what could be his old friend's motive forthis death-bed folly. They had been at Eton and Oxford together; andthough their paths had lain asunder since those early years, the bishopknew what kind of life Kilrush had led, and was disinclined to credithim with chivalrous or romantic impulses. He looked to the woman forthe answer to the enigma. An artful adventuress, no doubt, who hadworked upon the weaker will of a dying man. He scrutinized her with thekeen glance of a man accustomed to read the secrets of the heart in thecountenance, and his penetration was baffled by the tragic beauty ofher face, as she gazed at Kilrush, with eyes which seemed incapable ofseeing anything but him. He thought that no adventuress could conjureup that look of despairing love
, that unconsciousness of externalthings, that supreme indifference to a ceremony which was to give herwealth and station for the rest of her life, indifference even to thatepiscopal dignity of purple and lawn which had rarely failed in itsinfluence upon woman.
"Make your ceremony as brief as you can, bishop," said Kilrush. "I havesomething to say to my wife when 'tis over. Louis, call Mr. Thorntonand Mr. Pegloss."
The valet opened the door, and admitted Thornton and the lawyer. Theapothecary followed them, took up his position by his patient's pillow,and gave him a restorative draught.
The bishop began to read in his great deep voice--a voice which musthave ensured a bishopric, but diminished from the thunder of hiscathedral tones to a grave baritone, musical as the soughing of distantwaves. The windows were open, and through the sultry air there camethe cry of the watchman calling the hour, far off and at measuredintervals--
"Past ten o'clock, and a cloudy night."
Tonia stood by the bed, holding her lover's hand.
"Who giveth this woman, etc."
Thornton was ready, trembling with excitement, dazed by the wonder ofit all, and scarcely able to speak; and Tonia's voice was choked withtears when she made the bride's replies, slowly, stumblingly, promptedby the chaplain. The ceremony had no significance for her, except asa dying man's whim. Her only thought was of him. She could see hisface more distinctly now, in the nearer light of the candles, and theawful change smote her heart with a pain she had never felt before. Itwas death, the dreadful, the inevitable, the end of all things. Whatmeaning could marriage have in such an hour as this?
The chaplain read a final prayer. The ring had been put on. Themarriage was complete.
The bishop knelt by the table, and began to read the prayers forthe sick, Tonia standing by the bed, with Kilrush's hand in hers,heedless of the solemn voice. The bishop looked up at her in a shockedastonishment.
"It would be more becoming, madam, to kneel," he said in a loud whisper.
She sank on her knees beside the bed, and listened to the prayer thatseemed to mock her with its supplications for health and healing, whileDeath, a palpable presence, hovered over the bed. To Antonia thatineffectual prayer seemed the last sentence--the sentence of doom.
"You are vastly civil, bishop," said Kilrush, opening his eyelids afterone of his transient slumbers. "And now let Mr. Pegloss bring me thepaper I have to sign."
The attorney came to the bedside on the instant, carrying ablotting-book which he arranged deftly, with a closely written sheet offoolscap spread upon it, in front of Kilrush, who had been raised againinto a sitting position by the doctor and valet.
"This is my will, bishop," said Kilrush, as he wrote his name. "You andyour chaplain can witness it. 'Twill give an odour of sanctity to mylast act."
"Your lordship may command my services," said the bishop, taking thepen from his friend's hand.
It was something of a shock to have this service asked of him. A fewhours ago there had been nothing he expected less than a legacy fromhis old schoolfellow; but after having been asked to send his chaplainto solemnize a death-bed marriage, after being as it were appealedto on the score of early friendship, and after having so cordiallyresponded, it seemed to his episcopal mind that among the accumulatedtreasures of art which poor Kilrush was about to surrender, some smallmemento, were it but a diamond snuff-box, or an enamelled watch--shouldhave come to him.
He wrote his stately signature with a flourish; the chaplain following.
Kilrush sank back among his pillows, supported by the arms he loved.
"Bishop, you are a connoisseur," he said, in his faint voice, lookingup shrewdly at his schoolfellow's ample countenance, rosy with the richhues of the Cote d'or. "That Raffaelle over the chimney-piece--'tisa replica of the Sposalizia at Milan. Some critics pronounce it thefiner picture. Let it be a souvenir of your obliging goodness to-night.Louis, you will see the Raffaelle conveyed to his lordship's houseimmediately. Mr. Pegloss will assist you to take the picture down. Andnow good-night to you all."
"My dear Kilrush, you overpower me," murmured the bishop; and then hebent over the invalid, and whispered a solemn inquiry.
"No, no; I am not in a fit state of mind," Kilrush answered fretfully."And my wife is not a believer."
"Not a believer!"
His lordship's eyebrows were elevated in unspeakable horror. Heglanced with something of aversion at the lovely face hanging over thedying man with looks of all absorbing love. Not a believer! He wouldscarcely have been more horrified had she been a disciple of Wesley orWhitefield.
"My dear friend," he murmured, "'tis my bounden duty to urge----"
"Come to me to-morrow morning, bishop."
"Let it be so, then. At eight o'clock to-morrow morning."
"_A rivederci_," said Kilrush, with a mocking smile, waving anattenuated hand, as the churchman and his satellite withdrew.
Thornton and the lawyer followed, but only to the ante-room. Theapothecary and valet remained. The physician had paid his last visitbefore Antonia arrived. There had been a consultation of three greatmen in the afternoon, and it had been decided that nothing more couldbe done for the patient than to make him as comfortable as his maladywould permit, and for that the apothecary's art was sufficient.
"You can wait in the next room, Davis, within call," said Kilrush, asthe grave elderly man, in a queer little chestnut wig, bent over him,looking anxiously in his face, and feeling his pulse.
The throb of life beat stronger than Davis had anticipated. A wonderfulconstitution that could so hold out against the ravages of disease!The breathing was laboured, but there was vigour enough left to lastout the long night hours--to last for days and nights yet, the medicothought, as he left the room.
The valet was moving the candles from the table by the bed, when hismaster stopped him.
"Leave them there: I want to see my wife's face," he said.
The man obeyed, and followed the apothecary.
Husband and wife were alone.
"On your knees, Tonia--so, with your face towards the light," Kilrushsaid eagerly. "So, so, love. I want to see your eyes. You are my wife,Tonia, my wife for ever--in life and after life. This perishing claywill be hidden from your sight to-morrow--_this_ Kilrush will ceaseto be--but--" striking his breast passionately, "there is somethinghere that will live--the mind of the man who loved you--and who diesdespairing--the martyr of his insensate pride."
He grasped her hands in both his own, looking into her eyes with a wildintensity that touched the boundary line of madness; but she did notshrink from him. That wasted countenance, leaden with the dull shadowof death, was for her the dearest thing on earth, the only thing shewas conscious of in this last hour.
"Tonia, do you understand?" he gasped, struggling to recover breath."I have married you to make you mine beyond the grave. It would be theagony of hell to die and leave you to another. You are mine by thisbond. I have given you all a dying lover can give--my name, my fortune.Swear that you will be true to me, that you will never give yourself toanother man. That you will be my wife--mine only--till the grave unitesus, and that you will lie by my side when life is done, the vault bythe Shannon your only wedding bed. Promise me never to bless anotherwith your love."
"Never, never, never, upon my honour," she said, with a depth ofearnestness that satisfied him.
"On your honour--yes, for your honour means something. If the spiritsof the dead are free, I shall be near you. If you break your promise,I shall haunt you--an angry ghost, pitiless, cruel. As you hope forpeace, do not cheat me."
In the unnatural strength of impassioned feeling he had exhausted thatreserve of energy which the apothecary had noted, and in the rush ofhis passionate speech he was seized with a more violent fit of coughingthan any that had attacked him since Antonia's coming. She was agonizedat the sight of his suffering, and hung over him with despairing love,while the attenuated frame was convulsed with the struggle for breath.The fight ended suddenly. He flung hi
s arms round her neck, and hishead fell upon her bosom, in an appalling silence. A blood-vessel hadburst in that last paroxysm, and in the red stream that poured from hislips, covering Tonia's gown with crimson splashes, his life ebbed away.
A piercing shriek startled the watchers in the ante-room. Doctor,nurse, valet, rushed to the bed-chamber, to find Antonia swooning onher knees beside the bed, the dead man's arms still clasped about herneck.
"Very sudden!" said the apothecary, as Thornton appeared at the door."I thought his lordship would have held out longer."
* * * * *
When Antonia recovered her senses she found herself lying on a sofa ina room she had never seen before, with the respectable-incompetent ina linen apron holding a bottle of smelling-salts to her nostrils, andan odour of burnt feathers poisoning the atmosphere. Her father wassitting by her side, holding her hand, and patting it soothingly. Someone had taken off her gown, and her shoulders were wrapped in an oldshawl, lent by the incompetent. The lofty room was a well of shadow,made visible by a single candle.
She lay in apathetic silence for some minutes, not knowing where shewas, or what had happened, wondering whether it was evening or morning,summer or winter. It was only when her father talked to her that shebegan to remember.
"My sweet child, I implore you to compose yourself," he said. "My dearfriend acted nobly. Alas, was there ever so fine, so generous a nature?My Tonia is one of the richest women in London, and with a name thatmay rank with the highest. My Tonia! How splendidly she will become herexalted station."
Antonia heard him unheeding.
"Let me go back to him," she said, rising to her feet.
"Not yet, madam," murmured the nurse. "To-morrow morning. Not to-night,dear lady. Let me help your ladyship to undress. The next room has beenprepared fur your ladyship."
"Why can't I go to him?" asked Antonia, turning to her father. "Ipromised to stay with him till the end."
"Alas, love, thou wast with him till the last. His arms clasped theein death. I doubt thou wilt never forget those moments, my poor wench.God! how he loved you! And he has made you a great lady."
She turned from him in disgust.
"You harp upon that," she said. "I loved him--I loved him. I lovedhim--and he is dead!"
The nurse had crept away to assist in the last sad duties. Father anddaughter were alone, Antonia sitting speechless, staring into vacancy,Thornton babbling feebly every now and then, irrepressible in hisexultation at so strange, so miraculous a turn of fortune's wheel.
"Kilrush's death would have beggared us, but for this," he thought.
A clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven. Only eleven o'clock! 'Twasbut two hours since Antonia had entered the house, and her life beforeshe crossed that threshold seemed to her far away in the dim distanceof years that were gone.
He had loved her, and had repented his cruelty. There was comfort inthat thought even in the despair of an eternal parting. Was it to beeternal? He had spoken of an after-life, a consciousness that was tofollow and watch her. She, the Voltairean, who had been taught to smileat man's belief in immortality, the fairy-tale of faith, the myth ofall ages and all nations--she, the unbeliever, hung upon those words ofhis for comfort.
"If his spirit can be with me, sure he will know how fondly I lovehim," she said; and the first tears she shed since his death flowed atthe thought.
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