Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  “I know it’s very wrong,” — she would declare, with a charmingly repentant look at her husband from under her soft, up-curling eyelashes— “But I don’t really care a bit about anybody’s soul, because I can’t understand what it is. If it were a hand, or a foot, or a nose, I should, of course, want to take care of it and not lose it, but a ‘soul’! — now, you know, Dick, you don’t know very well yourself what it is! It’s so vague — so — so — uncatchable!” She laughed, and was not at all checked in her merriment by Richard’s serious glance at her. “It’s so nice,” — she went on— “to look at the picture of Psyche, and see her holding the little butterfly in her hand, — she did catch it! — she must have caught it — but even in the picture or statue, or whatever it is, the poor ‘soul’ is half dead and she’s warming it up to life again—”

  “I think you mis-read the allegory,” said Everton, gently— “Psyche herself stands for the Soul, and the butterfly is — I believe — I may be wrong, — an emblem of the Life which the Soul makes immortal.”

  “Oh, but fancy Life itself being no more than a butterfly!” Azalea exclaimed— “That cant be right, Dick! Anyhow, whatever it is, I can’t feel very great interest in the souls of people — I’m not much taken with their bodies, you know! — their bodies are too awful, sometimes, — and their souls — well! — oh! I’d rather not think about them!”

  No theological argument could possibly arise out of these easy, inconsequent statements, — and Everton had learned by experience not to expect from his young wife what was not in her nature to give. Sometimes he wished that she would interest herself more sympathetically in the troubles and needs of the very poorest and most ailing among his parishioners, — but he found that her fastidious sense of cleanliness and order was frequently affected almost to physical nausea by the dirt and slovenliness of such unhappy human creatures as, driven by sheer incapacity to the wall, had fallen into the desperate condition of not caring for themselves or for anybody else, so that it seemed a kind of cruelty to insist on sending such a dainty fairy-like little woman into the midst of hopeless squalor which she had neither the skill nor the energy to relieve. So he spared her all the unpleasantness he could, — the unpleasantness of malodorous sick-rooms and tortured deathbeds, — and only commissioned her now and then to take a few flowers to a sick child, or go and talk to a moderately clean old woman, reserving for himself all the revolting items in the daily round of his parish duties. In his tender way he felt he had asked her to do quite an exceptional thing in visiting the bruised and battered Jennie Kiernan, — and that she had so readily and gently acceded to his wish was something of a grateful surprise to him. For he knew the truth of what she had often asserted, — namely, that she was not fitted to be a clergyman’s wife, — she was too pretty. Old ‘Mortar’ Pike had once, in an unguarded moment, said she reminded him of a “Christmas pantomime gel — one o’ them daffadown dillies as comes up through a ‘ole in the stage all dressed in sparkles, a-bowin’ an’ a-smilin’ as though the world was a box o’ sweeties.” Everton, on hearing this description of his wife, had emphatically demurred to it — yet in his heart he knew there was a substratum of truth in the fanciful comparison. He could not, by way of denial, say that Azalea’s looks belied her, and that her childlike and frivolous external appearance covered a profundity of unuttered wisdom. For he was perfectly aware that the pretty little creature was what her charming face and figure expressed her to be — just a pretty little creature, and no more. But he loved her prettiness with all the passion of a man in whom passion was often strongly repressed, and he found an exquisite pleasure in watching the rosy color flush her cheeks, or the sunshine play upon her gold hair, — she was all the beauty of woman for him in one dainty bundle of tender and fragrant charms, — his very own to caress and to adore, — and when the graver work of the day was done and he felt himself free to unbind his soul from its spiritual armor, it was with a speechless sense of gratitude to God that he drew Azalea into his arms and pressed her soft little head ‘sunning over with curls against his heart. Then it was that he was conscious of the joys of manhood, and frankly confessed himself too weak to be a comrade of angels.

  On this day, however, his ordinarily kind and buoyant humor was not so spontaneous as usual, — and whether it was the cold mutton at luncheon or some other equally depressing influence in the atmosphere, it is certain that both he and the light-hearted Azalea herself were silent and more or less preoccupied. Azalea was thinking of the Kiernans and of Jacynth Miller — Everton was absorbed in somewhat gloomy speculations as to the fate of the Churches in England. The cold mutton came and went, replaced by rice pudding and stewed apples, — altogether plain and wholesome fare, but of a nature scarcely tending to exhilarate the spirits. Azalea shivered a little.

  “It’s quite chilly!” — she declared— “Really I don’t wonder that people abuse the English climate.”

  “I daresay every man abuses his own climate, if we only knew it,” — answered Everton, smiling— “One of the unfortunate results of the way our press is conducted is that we always know exactly how we feel about rain, fog or snow — but we don’t hear what the Italian or the Frenchman thinks of his particular drawbacks. For you may depend upon it there’s no climate quite perfect.”

  “Think of sunny Italy!” she sighed, with a little sentimental uplifting of her eyebrows.

  “Sunny Italy! I never felt the cold more cruelly intense than in Florence,” — he answered— “and when the east wind ran through me like a knife, while the sun blazed down on me like a furnace, I felt that I had been distinctly cheated by all the poets and romancists that ever made Italy a peg to hang their ragged enthusiasms upon! I believe Italy had a lovely climate once, before her foolish people took to cutting down the forests and clearing the wooded summits which broke the force of the wind — but now! — my dear Azalea, believe me, you are ever so much warmer in England than you would be in the misnamed ‘City of Flowers.’”

  Azalea played a dumb tune with her fingers on the tablecloth.

  “I should like to travel a little,” — she said, suddenly— “I wonder if I could find some rich woman to take me with her as a companion for a couple of months?”

  A coldness fell on his heart. He was curiously astonished and vaguely hurt that she should entertain even the idea of wishing to go away from him. But he gave no sign of his inward pain.

  “What of Baby Laurence?” he asked quietly.

  “Oh, Nurse could manage him splendidly,” — she replied merrily— “He’s too young to miss me, — and she knows more about him than I do.”

  He was silent, controlling the desire which impelled him to press his own personal claim on her thought. At that moment the servant entered, bringing a note marked ‘Immediate.’ He opened it and read:

  “Come at once to Hadley’s cottage. Bob is dying. He can’t last out an hour. — H. BRAND.”

  With an exclamation of pity, he handed the message to his wife and rose at once from the lunch table.

  “Poor Bob!” he said— “Perhaps it is as well for him that the end is near. He has suffered cruelly.”

  Azalea made no reply. Her cheeks had suddenly paled, and her lips trembled. Whenever her husband was called to attend a deathbed, she grew frightened and full of nervous terrors. She hated the very suggestion of death and recoiled from it with all the shrinking hesitation of a timid child who fears to enter a dark room without a candle. Just at this moment she felt she ought to say something compassionate and sympathetic, but no words would come. She could only follow Richard meekly out of the dining-room into the study, and watch him with large scared blue eyes as he made the necessary preparations for his mournful task, taking up his Testament and Prayers for the Dying. With these in his hand he came and kissed her.

  “Good-by, darling!” he murmured, fondly— “Now don’t look so wretched! You know I must go and try to give comfort to this poor departing soul—”

  She hid her
face against his arm.

  “Yes — I know!” — she answered, with a kind of half sob— “But — but I always feel the same about all these kind of things — it’s so awful! And — and — sometimes consumptive people like Bob Hadley die very hard — and struggle so much! — it’s so terrible for you to have to watch him—”

  He stroked her soft hair caressingly.

  “No, dear, it’s not so terrible as you think,” — he said gently— “God is very good, — He will not let the dying suffer more than they are able—”

  “Why does He let them suffer at all?” she demanded almost angrily, raising her head and flashing a defiant glance at him through her tear-wet lashes— “It’s all so absurd and cruel! None of the poor people in this world ever asked to be born — and they’re all so ignorant they don’t know what to do for the best, and I think it’s hard to make them suffer for what they can’t help!”

  “Dear little woman!” he said soothingly— “You mustn’t talk so wildly! Of course I know it’s all your kind heart — you are such a tender, affectionate little mortal that you can’t bear to think of any one in pain. But everything is for the best, Azalea! — even suffering. As a true Christian, you must believe that.”

  “It’s horrid for you to have to go and see Bob Hadley die!” she replied, inconsequently.

  He had nothing to say to this. Stooping, he kissed her again and left her.

  “It is horrid!” she repeated emphatically to the empty room, — and, running to the window, she watched him walking quickly through the garden on his way to the village— “I don’t care what anybody says! It’s horrid to be a clergyman — for nobody ever believes he thinks or lives according to his preaching. He’s looked upon as a humbug all round, no matter how true and sincere he is. If I had been a man I would never have gone into the Church — never! I’d have been a soldier or a sailor!” — here she clenched her little fist and looked exceedingly pugnacious— “It’s much more natural to fight people than to go about trying to love them, when they are most of them as distinctly unlovable as they can be! Look at Shadbrook! There’s not a creature in it worth seeing twice! And I’m sure — quite sure — that when Dick knows what has been going on between Dan Kiernan and Jacynth Miller, and how all the village has kept him in the dark about it, he’ll be disgusted — simply disgusted with the whole parish! And no wonder!”

  This little soliloquy over, she felt relieved, — and presently reflecting on the nature of her husband’s immediate errand, she came to the conclusion that certainly it was a good thing Bob Hadley should die and cease to be a trouble and expense to his mother.

  “For consumption is infectious, and it might spread through the village if he were not taken away as soon as possible,” — she thought— “And I shall not know much about it all — for Dick never tells me anything that is really unpleasant, because he knows I don’t like it.”

  This was quite true. Whatever scenes of wretchedness Everton was confronted with in the exercise of his duties, he never allowed his wife to hear anything that might put her to unnecessary pain, or cause her possible distress of mind. In his extreme delicacy or thought for her he forgot, or rather he had never realized, that she was not of a temperament to feel pain where it did not personally concern her, and that she was the very last of creatures in the world to suffer from mental anxiety on behalf of any one outside her own small domestice circle. She had all the pretty egotism of a kitten which thinks that every ball of worsted in the world is made specially for it to play with, — and it was just this kittenish charm that saved her from being called openly selfish.

  Everton meanwhile made the best of his walking speed to arrive as quickly as he could on the scene to which he had been so hastily summoned. ‘Hadley Cottage,’ as it was commonly called, was situated at the extreme end of ‘old’ Shadbrook, and stood somewhat removed from the high-road with its back set against the green slope of a wooded hill. Two of its small latticed windows were open, and through these there came a dreadful sound of incessant groaning, broken by sharp fierce cries of, —

  “Jacynth! Jacynth! Hold her! Keep her fast where she is! Don’t let her go!”

  The Vicar heard, — and his face grew very grave. He knocked at the door, which was opened for him at once by a gray-haired woman whose eyes were red and swollen with crying, and who at the mere sight of him broke into fresh tears.

  “Oh, Mr. Everton, my boy!” she sobbed— “My poor, poor boy! He’s going fast! — oh, he’s going away from me! And he doesn’t know me — his own mother! — he won’t look at me — he only calls for Jacynth, Jacynth all the time! And she came to see him last night and stayed with him an hour, — and he’s been like mad ever since — just like mad! And early this morning he broke a blood-vessel with coughing — and we sent for the doctor and he’s been, and he’s coming back again directly — but it’s all no use — no use! Oh, what shall I do! — what shall I do!”

  Everton pressed her hand gently, but said nothing. He was accustomed to scenes of despair among the poor; and he knew by sad experience that though, when in health, they have the habit of talking about death when it comes to others, as though it were the most congenial of themes for conversation, they are invariably taken aback and shaken from their ground altogether when the real Terror visits their own homes. Quietly he entered the cottage and stepped into the little room where the dying man lay — a room that had grown sadly familiar to him during the past six months, for in the round of his ministrations to the sick he had never missed a daily visit to Bob Hadley, partly on account of the hopeless nature of the sufferer’s disease, and partly because the poor fellow had shown so much patience and courage in combating with the inevitable. He was only twenty-two years old — and through much pain and mental anguish, had displayed a martyr’s quiet heroism and resignation — never complaining of the fate that was relentlessly cutting the thread of his life ere he had time to weave it into a useful pattern, and always expressing such a cheery faith in God and a future immortal existence, that Everton had grown to look upon him as a kind of lesson to himself and others, — a model example of the strength which is spiritually bestowed on those who in the crucial moment of adversity fix their faith unswervingly on the saving power of the Divine. Therefore he was painfully startled when, instead of the humble and docile youth who had listened for many weeks so gratefully to his kindly teaching, and who had repeated prayers after him with all the devout simplicity of a child, he saw before him a gaunt specter with a face of desperate agony — a strange distorted creature, sitting half upright on a bed that had become a mere tangled heap of clothes in the tossing to and fro of the feverish body upon it, — a wild non-human thing with blazing eyes and raving mouth which shrieked incessantly, “Jacynth! Jacynth! Hold her! See where she goes! Will no one stop her? Running, running, running — look — look! — running straight into Hell! Jacynth! Jacynth! All the devils at her! — tearing her lovely body — her lovely body that God made! God! Ha-ha! I like that! God! There’s no God! There never was! It’s all a lie!”

  Pale to the lips, Everton moved close up to the bed and tried to get an arm round the writhing, twisting form.

  “Bob!” he said, in a low, kind voice— “Bob! Don’t you know me?”

  The wild eyes rolled round in their sockets — presently they fixed him with a glassy stare.

  “It’s the parson!” and, with a supreme effort, Bob Hadley flung out his gaunt arms and hands as though to keep Everton off— “You’ve come to see the last of me, have you? Well! I’m glad! I’m glad you’ve come!”

  Exhausted, he sank back upon his pillows, breathing hard and fast. His mother stood at the foot of the bed watching him in speechless terror.

  “I’m glad,” — he repeated, thickly— “I’m glad you’ve come! I — I want to speak to you — alone! Mother!” Thankful to be recognized, the poor woman hastened to his side. With extreme difficulty he lifted his head and kissed her.

  “That’s the last good
-by!” — he said— “Take it! I’m sorry not to have been a more useful son to you. Now go! I want to be left alone — alone — with him!”

  He indicated the Vicar by an imperative sign. With a wild outbreak of pitiful sobs and tears, his mother turned and tottered out of the room, and Everton, deeply moved, and feeling that the final moments of this poor fighting life had come, knelt down by the bedside. Scarcely had he done so when a burning hand caught him by the shoulder.

  “Get up from that!” said the dying man, in a weak, fierce whisper— “Don’t pray! It’s no use!”

  There was something so intensely horrible in the manner of his utterance that Everton could find no words wherewith to answer him, and could only gaze at him in stupefied amazement.

  “It’s no use, I tell you!” Hadley went on— “With my last breath I want to make you remember that! It’s no use! I want — I want to ask you why you have told me so many lies? Get up from your knees! Stand like a man and answer me!”

  Slowly, and as if impelled by some stronger force than his own Everton stood up. A vague impalpable Shadow seemed rising before him — a dumb, recording witness of his words.

  “I have told you no lies, Hadley,” — he said, in a voice of steady tenderness and sweetness— “I have never tricked you! I have taught you to the best of my poor ability the truth of Christ’s saving message to mankind, and I have striven to express to you the blessing of His love and pity for us all. Your mind is clouded by physical pain, my poor boy, or you would never say there is no use in prayer. Let me try to prove to you how very close God is to us both at this moment — so close that He can make death itself seem easy—”