They lunched on board the Jersey Lily, and the luncheon was gay enough, but Jermyn and Mrs. Gresham were the chief talkers, and it was Jermyn’s laughter that gave an air of joyousness to the meal. Gerard was dreamy and silent; Edith was anxiously watchful of his moods. He was to be her husband soon, and these moods of his would make the colouring of her life. Could she be happy if the mental atmosphere were always dull and dreary? The sapphire blue of the bay, the afternoon light on the Carrara Mountains grew dim and cold in the gloom of her lover’s temper; he who long ago, in the days of his poverty, had been so joyous a spirit.
She thought of James Champion, and of those monotonous visits to the house at Finchley, the weary hours she had spent trying to make conversation for a sick man, weighed down by the sense of his own infirmities, unable to take pleasure in anything. “Would Gerard ever be like that?” she asked herself with an aching dread; “would he, too, die as Champion had died, ‘first a’top.’” She looked at his sunken cheek and hollow eye; she noted his absent manner; and she felt no assurance of exemption from that dreadful doom.
Happily, however, the dark mood did not last long, and Gerard was full of animation during the return journey, full of talk about the intended cruise of the Jersey Lily. He had talked it all over with the sailing master. They had looked at charts, they had discussed the ports they were to touch — the islands which were worth stopping at — so many days for Cyprus, and so many for Corfu.
They were to spend part of the autumn in Palestine, and to winter in Egypt, and then come slowly back to Naples in the early spring, and from Naples follow the coast in a leisurely way to Nice, and then good-bye, Jersey Lily, and as fast as the Rapide can carry us homeward, to London and Hillersdon House, and all the glories of a London season. The prospect sounded delightful, discussed in one of Gerard’s brightest moods, as they travelled from Pisa to Florence; but the outlook was not quite so joyous half-an-hour later when a laugh at one of Jermyn’s cynical flashes brought on a violent lit of coughing, one of those exhausting, suffocating paroxysms which had moved the fair Bavarian to such deep pity.
CHAPTER XXIX. “AND ALL SHALL PASSE, AND THUS TAKE I MY LEAVE.”
Mr. Maddickson, Mrs. Champion’s solicitor and trustee, arrived early in the following week — three days sooner than he had declared possible, urged to this haste by importunate telegrams. He was bidden to a dinner at which Mr. Hillersdon and his friend Jermyn were the only guests, in order that everything might be discussed that needed discussion, and that the lady’s confidential adviser might make the acquaintance of her future husband.
It was a delicious evening, balmier than many an English July. The Easter moon had waned, and the slender crescent of the new moon shone silvery pale in a rose-flushed heaven, a heaven where in that lovely after-glow the first stars glimmered faint and wan. Mrs. Champion was in the garden with Gerard and Jermyn when the lawyer arrived, spruce and prim in his impeccable evening dress, a man who deemed it a duty he owed to his profession to employ only the most admirable of tailors. The two young men were lounging on garden-chairs in the circle by the fountain, beyond which the great pink peonies made a background of bloom and verdure. Mr. Maddickson’s short-sighted eyes took the big pink blossoms for gigantic roses, such as a man might expect to find in Italy. He looked from one of the young men to the other, and at once made up his mind that the lady’s fiancé was the fair youth leaning against the fountain, his head thrown back a little and the rosy light upon his face as ho looked up at Mrs. Gresham, whoso speech had just moved him to joyous laughter. Quite the sort of young man to catch a widow’s fancy, thought Mr. Maddickson, who supposed it was in the nature of widows to be frivolous.
He felt a cold shiver — happily only perceptible to himself — when Mrs. Champion introduced the pale, hollow-eyed young man, with slightly bent shoulders and an unmistakable air of decay, as Mr. Hillersdon. He lost his usual aplomb, and was awkwardly silent for some minutes after that introduction.
There was a brief discussion between the lovers and the lawyer late in the evening, while Rosa and Mr. Jermyn were in the loggia, he smoking, she declaring she adored the odour of tobacco.
There were no difficulties, Mr. Maddickson told his client and her betrothed, and the settlements might be of the simplest form. He proposed as a matter of course that the lady’s fortune should be settled on herself and her children, giving her full disposing power if there should be no children.
“You are so rich, Mr. Hillersdon,” said the lawyer, “that these details can hardly interest you.”
“They don’t. I wanted Mrs. Champion to marry me out of hand ten days ago, without any legal fussification or delay. I thought the Married Women’s Property Act would protect her estate, even in the event of my squandering my fortune, which I am hardly likely to do.”
“It is always best to have these matters quietly discussed,” said Mr. Maddickson. “A hasty marriage is rarely a wise marriage.” He gave a little sigh as he uttered this tolerably safe opinion, and rose to take leave; but before departing he paused to address Mrs. Champion in a lower tone.
“I should much like to have a little talk with you to-morrow,” he said. “Shall I find you at home if I call?”
“Not in the afternoon. We are to drive to the Certosa.”
“In the morning, then? I can be here at any hour you like.”
“Come at twelve, and stay to lunch. We lunch at half-past twelve.” And then, going with him towards the door of the salon, she said in a lower tone, “I conclude there is really nothing now to hinder my marriage?”
“Nothing, except your own inclination. I think you are marrying too soon; but we will talk of that to-morrow.”
When he was gone she had an uncomfortable feeling that ho would have something disagreeable to say to her when he came in the morning. People who ask for interviews in that elaborately urgent manner are seldom the bearers of pleasant tidings. She had a sleepless night, agitated by vague dread.
Mr. Maddickson was punctual to a minute, for the timepiece in the salon chimed the hour as the footman announced him, looking as fresh and trim in his checked travelling suit as he had looked in evening dress; clean-shaved, the image of respectability not unconscious of the latest fashion.
“I have spent the morning at the Academy,” he said blandly, “and have become a convert to the Early Italian school. I don’t wonder at Hunt, and Millais, and those young fellows, now I have seen those two walls — one splendid with the exquisite finish and lustrous colour of Giotto, Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico and their disciples, and the other covered with a collection of gloomy daubs, in the high classical manner, by the worst painters of the school that came after Raffaelle.”
“You have something serious to say to me?” said Edith, not caring a jot for Mr. Maddickson’s opinions on art.
“Something very serious.”
“Then pray come at once to the point, or my cousin will have returned from her walk before you have finished.”
“My dear Mrs. Champion, I have not had the pleasure of much social intercourse with you, but I have been interested in you professionally ever since your marriage, and my position as your trustee should give me some of the privileges of friendship.”
“Consider that you have every privilege that friendship can give,” she exclaimed impatiently; “but pray don’t beat about the bush.”
“Are you seriously attached to Mr. Hillersdon?”
“Of course I am, or I should not be thinking of marrying him within a year of my husband’s death. We were boy and girl sweethearts, and I would have married him without a penny if it hadn’t been for my people. They insisted upon my marrying Mr. Champion, and he was very good to me, and I was very happy with him; but the old love was never forgotten, and now that I am free what can be more natural than that I should many my first love?”
“What indeed, but for one unhappy fact.”
“What is that, pray?”
“You have engaged yours
elf to a dying man. Surely, my dear friend, you must see that this poor young man has the stamp of death upon him.”
“I know that he is out of health. He spent the winter in England, which he ought not to have done. We are going on a long cruise; we shall be in a climate that will cure him. He has been neglectful of his health, and has had no one to take care of him. It will be all different when we are married.”
“My dear Mrs. Champion, don’t deceive yourself,” the lawyer said earnestly. “You don’t pretend to have the power of working miracles, I suppose; and the raising of Lazarus was hardly a greater miracle than this young man’s restoration to health would be. I tell you — for it is my duty to tell you — that he is dying. I have seen such cases before — cases of atrophy, heart and lungs both attacked, a gradual extinction of life. Doctor him as you may, nurse him as you may, this young man must die. Marry him if you like — I shall deeply regret it if you do — and be sure you will be again a widow before the year is out.”
Tears were streaming down Mrs. Champion’s cheeks. This matter-of-fact, hard-headed lawyer had only put into plain words the dim forebodings, the indistinct terrors which had been weighing her down since Gerard came to Florence. The change she had seen in him on his first coming had frozen her heart; and not once in all the hours they had spent together had he seemed the same man she had loved a year ago. Between them there was a shadow, indescribable, indefinable, which she now knew for the shadow of death.
Mr. Maddickson made no ill-advised attempt at consolation. He knew that in such a case there must be tears, and he let her cry, waiting deferentially for anything she might have to say.
“I had such a sad time with Mr. Champion,” she said presently. “It was so painful to see his mind gradually going. You know what a long, long illness it was, nearly a year. I was a great deal with him. I wanted him to feel that he was never abandoned. It was my duty — but it was a sad trial. It left me an old woman.” This was a mere façon de parler, since Mrs. Champion’s sufferings during her husband’s illness had not written a line upon her brow or silvered a single hair.
“It was a dreadful time,” she sighed, after a pause. “I don’t think I could go through it again.”
“It would be very hard if you were called upon to do so,” said Mr. Maddickson; and Mrs. Champion felt that it would be hard.
She wanted the joys of life; not to be steeped to the lips in the apprehensions and agonies of fast-approaching death.
“Does he really seem to you so very ill?” she asked presently.
“Nobody can doubt it who looks in his face. He has some medical attendant in Florence, I suppose?”
“No. I wanted him to see Dr. Wilson, but he refused. He says that he knows all about himself, that ho has nothing to learn from any doctor.”
“And is he hopeful about himself?”
“Yes, fairly hopeful, I think.”
“Poor fellow. I am sorry for him; but I should be sorrier for you if you were foolish enough to marry him.”
Mrs. Gresham came in from her morning walk, loquacious and gushing as usual. She had been up the hill, and had taken another look at that noble David, and at the view of Florence from the terrace.
“Florence is in one of her too delicious moods,” she said, “all sunlight and colour. My heart aches at the thought of going away, but the place will live in my memory for the rest of my life. I shall often be thinking of San Miniato on that hill of gardens, and the afternoon light stealing in through the transparent marble in the apse, when I am sitting in our own dear old grey church.”
Gerard and his friend appeared before Rosa had left off talking, and there was an immediate adjournment to luncheon, at which meal conversation was chiefly sustained by Mr. Maddickson and Mr. Jermyn, with a running accompaniment by Rosa, who broke in at every point of the argument upon Italian art to express opinions which were as irrelevant as they were enthusiastic.
Edith Champion was silent and thoughtful all through luncheon, and more than usually observant of her lover, who looked tired and depressed, scarcely ate anything, and drank only a single glass of claret. Seeing this, she proposed a postponement of the drive to the Carthusian monastery. The afternoon was warm to sultriness, the road would be dusty, and the going up and down steps would tire Gerard. He was altogether indifferent, would go or not go as she pleased; whereupon she settled that Mr. Jermyn and Mr. Maddickson should drive with Mrs. Gresham, who was greedy of sight-seeing, and always anxious to repeat expeditions, while Gerard and his fiancee could spend their afternoon in the garden.
That afternoon in the garden hung somewhat heavily on the engaged lovers. They had spent a good many afternoons and evenings together since Gerard’s arrival in Florence, afternoons and evenings that had been virtually tête-à-tête, inasmuch as Rosa was very discreet, and preferred her piano to the society of the lovers. Thus they had talked of the past and of the future — their plans, their houses, their views of society, till there was no fresh ground left to travel over. Edith could talk only of actualities. The dim labyrinth of metaphysical speculations, the dreamland of poets were worlds that were closed against her essentially earthly intellect. Gerard had never so felt the something wanting in her mind as he felt it now that he had known the companionship of Hester’s more spiritual nature. With Hester he had never been at a loss for subjects of conversation, even in the monotony of their isolated lives.
The fountain, with its border of aram lilies, the pink peonies, the blood-red cups of tulips that filled a border on a lower terrace, the perfume of lilac and hawthorn, were all a weariness to him, as he sat upon the marble bench, and watched the water leaping towards the sunlight, only to fall and break in rainbow-coloured spray — symbolic of the mind of man, always aspiring, never attaining. He was in one of those listless moods when every nerve seems relaxed, every sense dulled. Moods in which a man cares for nothing, hopes for nothing, and, save for the dread of death, would willingly have done with life. Was it so vast a boon, after all, he asked himself, this life to which he clung so passionately? No boon, perhaps, but it was all. There was the rub. After this nothing. He might sicken of the loveliness around him, of the glory of colour and the endless variety of light, of the distant view of the mountains, where the snow yet lingered. These might pall, but who would willingly exchange these for darkness and dust, and the world’s forgetfulness?
In the discussion on the previous evening it had been settled that the wedding was to take place on the coming Saturday. Mr. Maddickson had tried his utmost, by various suggestions, to defer the date, but Gerard had been inflexible, and had carried his point. In three days these two who sat listless and silent in the afternoon sunlight, she sheltered by a large white parasol, he baring his head to the warmth, were to be man and wife. There was nothing more for them to talk about. Their future was decided.
Gerard did not wait for the return of the party from the Certosa, or for afternoon tea. He pleaded letters that must be written for the evening post, and left before five o’clock, promising to dine at the villa as usual. Edith walked with him to the gate, and kissed him affectionately at parting, detaining him a little at the last, as if she were loth to let him leave her. And then, when his carriage wheels were out of hearing she went slowly back to the house, with streaming eyes, went straight to her room, and flung herself upon a sofa, and sobbed as if her heart would break. She was so sorry for him. She mourned him as one already dead. She mourned for her old love, which had died with the man she had loved, the lighthearted lover of five years ago. It was hard to acknowledge, it was bitter to bear, but she knew that Mr. Maddickson was right, and that to marry Gerard Hillersdon was only to take upon herself the burden of an inevitable sorrow.
“If I believed that I could make his last days happy, I would gladly many him,” she told herself. “I would think nothing of myself or of my own sorrow afterwards, my second widowhood; but I have seen enough of him now to know that I can’t make him happy. He is no happier with me than he i
s anywhere else. He is only bored and wearied. I am nothing to him, and his wish to many me can only be the desire to keep his promise. I believe it will be a relief to his mind if I release him from that promise. It was wrong of me to exact such a vow; very, very wrong.”
She remembered that day in Hertford Street, when she had urged him to be true to her, when she had said to him of his promise—” It is an oath!” Ah, how passionately she had loved him in those days, how impossible happiness had seemed to her without him! She had thought that if he were to marry any other woman she would die. There would be no help for her, nothing left. Wealth, and all that it can buy, independence, beauty, youth, would be worthless without him. And now she was meditating with what words, with what gentle circumlocution she should free herself from a tie that had become terrible to her, the bond between the living and the dead. Mr. Maddickson’s warning had suggested no new idea; the mournful conviction had been growing in her mind ever since Gerard came to Florence. She knew that he was doomed, and that the day of doom could not be far off.
Gerard wrote his letters — to his mother, telling her of the intended wedding, to his banker, to his lawyer — and then threw himself down to rest upon a sofa. He slept more than an hour, and was only awakened by some one coming into the room. It was Jermyn, who approached him with an open letter in his hand.
“Have you come straight from the Certosa, or did you stop to tea at the villa?” Gerard asked, and then seeing the altered light, “Is it time to dress for dinner?”
“I don’t think you will care about dining in Florence to-night.
I have some bad news for you,” replied Jermyn gravely, looking down at the letter.
“Bad news — you have bad news — for me? From Helmsleigh — no, from Lowcombe?”
“Yes, it is from Lowcombe. It comes by a side wind, in a letter from Matt Muller.”
“Give me the letter,” cried Gerard, ghastly pale, snatching it from Jermyn’s hand.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 930
