by George Moore
The conversation then came to a sudden pause. Alice felt it would be out of place for her to speak her sympathies for the Nationalistic cause, and she knew it would be unfair to lead the doctor to express his. So at the end of a long silence, during which each divined the other’s thoughts, she said:
“I suppose you see a great deal of the poor and the miseries they endure?”
“I have had good opportunities of studying them. Before I came here I spent ten years in the poorest district in Donegal. I am sure there wasn’t a gentleman’s house within fifteen miles of me.”
“And did you not often feel very lonely?”
“Yes, I did, but one gets so used to solitude that to return to the world, after having lived long in the atmosphere of one’s own thoughts, can only be achieved by violent and most painful victories over oneself. I cannot tell you how distracting and wearying I found society when I first came to live at Cort. The repugnance that grows on those who live alone to hearing their fellow-creatures express their ideas is very strange. It must be felt to be understood; and it is curious I have never seen the sentiment, I may call it a situation, dealt with in fiction.”
“Do you ever read fiction?”
“Yes, and enjoy it. I cannot tell you bow, in my little home amid the northern bogs, I used to look forward when I had finished writing, to spending an hour before going to bed with a volume of Thackeray or George Eliot.”
“What were you writing?”
“A book.”
“A book!” exclaimed Alice, looking suddenly pleased and astonished.
“Yes, but not a work of fiction — I am afraid I am too prosaic an individual for that — a medical work.”
“And have you finished your book?”
“Yes, it is finished, and I am glad to say it is in the hands of a London publisher. We have not yet agreed about the price, but I hope and believe that, directly and indirectly, it will lead to putting me into a small London practice.”
“And then you will leave us?”
“I am afraid so. There are many friends I shall miss — that I shall be very sorry to leave, but...”
“Oh, of course it would not do to miss such a chance.” When the doctor left, Alice proceeded to carry out his instructions concerning the patient, and, these being done, she sat down by the bedside and continued her thoughts of him with a sense of pleasure. She remembered that she had always liked him. Yes, it was a liking that dated as far back as the spinsters’ ball at Ballinasloe. He was the only man there in whom she had taken the slightest interest. They were sitting together on the stairs when that poor fellow was thrown down and had his leg broken. She remembered how she had enjoyed meeting him at tennis-parties, and how often she had walked away with him from the players through the shrubberies; and above all she could not forget — it was a long sweet souvenir — the beautiful afternoon she had spent with him, sitting on the rock, the day of the picnic at Kinvarra Castle all seemed very strange to her, she was a little perplexed, and was only conscious of her happiness as one lying in the sun is of the pleasant blowing of the south wind. With the coming of her breath her bosom heaved, and as her dreams floated delicately before her, she thought of the doctor’s eyes. They were grey, and her memory seemed filled with their bright quick glances. The rest of his face was a little vague to her. She had forgotten, or rather she had never thoroughly understood, that he was a short, thick-set, middle-aged man, that he wore mutton-chop whiskers and that his lips were overhung by a long dark moustache. His manners were those of an unpolished and somewhat commonplace man. But while she thought of his grey eyes her heart was thrilled with gladness, and as she dreamed of his lonely life of labour and his ultimate hopes of success, all her old sorrows and fears seemed to have evaporated, to have departed like chilly mists. Then suddenly and with the unexpectedness of an apparition the question presented itself, did she like him better than Harding? Alice shrank from the unpleasantness of the thought, nor did she force herself to answer it; but perhaps to escape from it, and there was a touch of cowardice in the acts, she busied herself with attending to her sister’s wants.
And while Alice was thus happy, Olive lay suffering in all the dire humility of the flesh. Hourly her breathing grew shorter and more hurried,-her cough more frequent, and the expectoration that accompanied it darker and thicker in colour. The beautiful eyes were now turgid and dull, the lids hung heavily over a line of filmy blue, and a thick scaly layer of bloody tenacious mucus persistently accumulated and covered the tiny and once almost jewel-like teeth. For three or four days these symptoms knew no abatement; and it was over this prostrated body, weakened and humiliated by illness, that, Alice and Dr. Reed read love in each other’s eyes, and it was about this poor flesh that their hands were joined as they lifted Olive out of the recumbent position she had slipped into, and built up the bowed-in pillows. And as it had once been all Olive in Brookfield, it was now all Alice; the veil seemed suddenly to have slipped from all eyes, and the exceeding worth of this plain girl was at last recognised. Nowhere could her place be supplied. Mrs. Barton’s presence at the bedside did not soothe the sufferer; she grew restless and demanded her sister. Dr. Reed took heed of the devotion and care that was ministered with such loving hands in the sickroom and when not attending the patient he and this straight-souled girl, so wide in her sympathies, so deep in her love of natural things, would often withdraw to the window-recess, and for long half-hours stand talking there, looking at each other from time to time with quick, with meditative, with interested eyes. Each conversation began thus: —
“And do you think my sister is better to-day?”
“I am afraid she will not begin to show signs of any real improvement until the ninth day. The malady must take its course.”
“Still I do not think she suffers so much as she did yesterday; I am sure her ankle is not so painful: the bran-poultices have relieved her of much pain.”
“I know nothing better for a sprain than a bran-poultice.” Then they would speak of indifferent things — of their friends, of the state of the country, of the Land Bill, of Mr. Barton’s pictures. But, yielding to their emotion, they soon spoke of what was uppermost in their minds — of the MSS. on the table, of the London publisher. And the doctor, who had latterly developed a taste for fiction, seemed to be always either borrowing or returning a volume of Charlotte Bronte: and in talking of the rights and wrongs of Rochester’s love for Jane, and Maggie Tulliver’s for Stephen, the lovers revealed to each other their present state of soul. One day Olive, who was getting better, turned herself painfully in bed and watched the group by the window — watched Alice’s tall, thin, pre-Raphaelite figure, so characteristic of her spiritual and intense self, and the doctor’s bluff shoulders and square weather-beaten face, so characteristic of his nature, that would have been common-place were it not for its determination. Both were seen in profile against the window. Their lips moved as Holbein’s lips seem to move. Dr. Reed’s fat Holbein hand was laid on the table; and the sick girl faded amid the white sheets like a white rose in the snow, while her sick blue eyes stared fadingly, in all the dim unreality of a drawing by Westall.
When the doctor went, when the sisters were alone Olive said:
“Alice, do you like Dr. Reed? Would you many him?”
CHAPTER VI.
HENCEFORTH DR. REED was constantly at Brookfield. He was there more frequently than the state of the patient demanded; and Alice felt that the attentions he was paying her would soon be noticed by the visitors. Cecilia she especially dreaded. More than once she had observed that the wistful brown eyes were fixed upon when she sat apart talking with him; and she knew how even a remote suspicion that he liked her would thrill the strange girl’s heart with pain. But Cecilia said nothing; the days passed, and, feeling more at ease, Alice was beginning to allow her liking for the doctor to grow into, to become part of the nature of her mind.
One afternoon the girls were sitting alone in the bedroom. Cecilia had just co
me in; Alice had asked her to wait until a paragraph was finished. In the silence the pen scratched along sharply, and Alice’s thoughts pursued the flying words to a close, when she was startled by an abrupt exclamation. Turning she saw the crooked girl, her hand clasped feverishly, staring wildly upwards.
“Oh! how beautiful the Prayer Book is! I pity you, Alice; how I pity you!”
“Goodness me, Cecilia, what is the matter?”
“Alas! you would not understand! But oh! if you knew the pain I suffer, the pain that is mine when I think of the sin that is yours, and the awful end that must overtake you! But you I you know nothing of the short starting sleeps, the dream-haunted vigils, the vicious demon-shapen terrors, intense, terrible, and profound, and the silences filled with the cries of the damned; and in this figuration of the judgment and the doom I see... but no, no, no, it is not true; it cannot be!
“Alice, listen to me; listen and let me tell you how terrible it is to know that you, my darling friend, would, were you to die this moment, be damned to all eternity. Oh! it is fearsome, it is cruel; and my heart is eaten away with grief. And the helplessness and hopelessness are so hard to bear. It is vain to reason with you... one can but pray for you, and I have prayed until my soul was sick with famine for the holy face of God. And ah! how often in my loneliness do I cry aloud the beautiful litany of Jesus and that of his Virgin Mother — Tower of Ivory, House of Gold, Ark of the Covenant... and I sing until in happy prayer I forget the wretchedness, the abominations of our lives, and remember only the days when we all sang together those pure, those sinless chants in that white, girl-like convent-church. And those dear, those black-robed nuns.... I can see them.... the serge habits trail in straight sculptured folds upon the pavement, they bow their peaceful faces before the Altar... Alice, I am right, you are wrong! There is no true happiness in this life unless indeed we recognise it as a means of attaining God. The way to Him is a long and bitter one, but He has given us prayer; pure sparkling fountains at which we may drink, and gain strength and courage to pursue our journey to the illimitable prospect of peace which awaits us beyond the sun. All other hopes and desires are vain as even I have found. They pass and perish like things of sand, and mad and bruised with grief we turn to God for confidence, for relief. And then, if we ask fervidly, all shall be given to us, and in our hearts shall awake a rapture of joy such as those who put their faith in mortal sense shall never know; and then the mild felicities of forgiveness shall cool our faces like the flowing of a breath, and our sin shall dissolve like a little cloud and be forgiven, as mine has dissolved and is now forgotten. But you! you know not of my sin, of my sin! Yes, Alice, I have sinned, and deeply, for I desired more than God had willed to give me, and I have suffered accordingly. Yes, Alice, I had desired more than God had willed to give me, for I desired you. I desired to possess you wholly and entirely. I was jealous of the flowers you wore in your bosom, of everything your eyes rested upon. I remember once, you were talking at the time to one of those officers from Gort, your hair got entangled in the carving of the chair; but before I could get up he had loosened it. I could have spat in his face; I could have killed him; I hated him for days and nights — I was very wicked. I offended God. But I have done penance for my sin, I have conquered my passion. Yes, I have left for ever the life of desire and have entered into that of prayer; and a mild and exquisite world is the world of prayer! There, there are no frozen moms nor fiery noons, but long pensive evenings, and all who live there are thrilled with happiness, and all who dream there dream of mansuctude and calm. And there we walk as in a garden of straight walks, seeing the happy end from afar; heedless we pass by the dark coverts of doubt and the red flowerage of too keen rejoicings. There sadness may not endure, nor is there delight nor grief nor terrifying morrows; and in the wan enchantment of our evenings we pass onwards in calm and holy procession; and our ranks are never broken save when one, with quiet emotion, steps aside to gather the tall roses of Resignation; with pale lips she kisses them, with pale hands weaves them into a wreath that she shall bear bloomful to the thither side of death. Yes, the flowers of Resignation are sweet to gather, and our reward shall be seventy times greater than our pain, when we, the pure, the undegraded by earthly vice and passion, on bended knees, with radiant robes flowing as water about us, shall oiler the tear-starred chaplets of resignation to Him — Him who will one day come, with His Father and white attendance of Seraphim, to punish the wicked and to welcome the chosen to those high realms of Heaven where every song is a breathing perfume and every look a note of undying love. My soul is thrilled, is pierced with the long delight of contemplation; my heart is bruised, and the wine of ecstasy bubbles to my lips; the fumes of strange, keen, and unconquerable joy rise to my brain, and in uncontrollable and ever ascending vision — vision keen and impalpable, my life reeks to thee — to thee and to God. Yes, in the mysticity of God’s love, and thine, my delight shall wax and wane; in the arms of God I faint — my soul sickens, I falter, I yield myself.
.. No, Alice, no; Alice, thou who art mine, mine in eternity, I am speaking wildly, madly; you do not understand me — no, you do not understand, for you have not prayed as I have prayed; you have not spent the whole night on your knees gazing on the pale tranquillity of the skies — the home of God — and there, soaring with white and vigorous wings, I shall go when the hour comes for my spirit to tear this impeding veil of flesh, past the holy stars of Heaven, and enter an eternity of happy prayer and unapparent love. But you have not prayed, and can know nothing of the joys of prayer! They are bright and durable, while the satisfaction on the attainment of which your mind is so irrevocably set is but an ash-grey blossom that grows pale as it blooms — a degrading moment that dulls the sense and implants its festering sting.”
“Cecilia! Cecilia!”
“I mean, Alice, that you must pray for faith to believe; oh, think, think of your soul; think of what you risk by your persistent denial of God, of Him who died to save your soul! Think, oh think, of that imperishable gift born to live through an eternity of happiness or of torment! Think, oh think, of what agony would be mine, if by God’s most infinite grace I should be permitted to pass through the heavenly gate and from my place among the blessed should look down and see you! No, no; God in His great mercy would spare me that. But if I should hear, or feel, or somehow get to know that the long tale of Eternity’s delights would to lute and lyre be ceaselessly sung without ever syllabling the sweet name of Alice!... Think, oh think!... Have you no pity?”
“Darling Cecilia, what would you wish me to do? Surely God will not punish me for not doing what He has not given me strength to do?”
“Alice, you must not speak like that; you are blaspheming your Creator. Tell me, can nothing be done to help you, to save you? Ah, if you knew the lofty hopes that were once mine, of the high ideal life I once dreamed to live with you; a pure ecstatic life untouched by any degrading passion, unassailed by any base desires! But alas! all my hopes are withered, all my love is in the dust, for no more than the rest can you hold aloof: like the rest you demand the joys and satisfactions of the flesh; but, unlike May and Violet, you shall not live and be satisfied with them. They shall become loathsome in your eyes, they shall sicken in your sight and mind, and when the first fever of curiosity and desire has passed, you shall drink the draught in horror; you shall long to dash down the brutal cup, your lips and mouth shall burn as with poison, and your heart shall wither within you, and your yearning soul shall call to be delivered of its uncleanness. You shall wring your hands and weep in secret, but in vain; for you will be then as a slave chained to daily and nightly degradation, and none shall be able to break your fetters but death. Now you see man’s love in the fair moonlight of your imagination, but draw nearer, and its animal exhalations shall poison your nostrils, and all its foul abominations shall be revealed to you. No more than the others do you know the torture you are preparing for yourself, no more than the others do you realise the misery and the sha
me of the life you are choosing. My heart bleeds for you. I am sick of grief.”
“Cecilia, darling Cecilia, you must not sob like that. Tell me why you are grieving, tell me what I can do; you know I love you.”
“No, between you and me there is an abyss that cannot be bridged over. No, no; leave me; I do not want your sympathy. Your heart is no longer mine; it is full of base passion and vile desire; your love for that man hangs about you like an odour; to me it is a visible presence and it revolts me.”
“Cecilia dear, you are excited, you do not know what you are saying... Were it anyone else!”
“If it were anyone else! I am no more to you than anyone else!”
“Indeed you are, Cecilia: I love you better than anyone in the world!”
“Ah! Better than anyone except him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why seek to deceive me? I know the truth, but I have prayed for grace and am prepared to bear my pain. And my pain! Oh, God! Thou, who knowest all things, Thou canst judge of its sharpness and its bitterness. Thou in thine infinite mercy hast estimated the burden and deemed it befitting to be laid upon me; and for Thy sweet sake, O Lord, I will, as bravely as may be, bear my cross to the end until I lay it one day at Thy feet, and at Thy white feet beg mercy of Thee. For Thou in Thine infinite wisdom hast taken heed of its weight and my power. Alas! not that of man nor woman, but that of a poor little cripple — a girl cripple — weak and deformed in body, but endowed with a soul capable of feeling every passing pain, and a heart in which every wandering grief may make its nest. My lot has been set about with grief and sufferings that none will ever know of; sharp keen agony, and mad sorrows that have made life to me a black, a sullen martyrdom.
“Here, none may take account of other than physical pain, but I know that the mind is capable of keener torturing than the mere flesh is ever conscious of. Ah, those terrible moments when life is revealed to me in all its natural ignominy and horror! Purblind we walk, only dimly aware of the abominations about us, and thus we are enabled to bear the agony that we call life. But there are moments, terrible moments in the middle watches of the night, when we wake to the truth, and seeing things in their fearsome, in their leprous deformity, cry aloud in our pain, cry aloud for oblivion. And then in the tumult of our despair we turn our faces to the wall and moan, and like children weep ourselves to sleep. Such a martyrdom is and shall be mine until Jesus the Redeemer comes and welcomes me into that place where there are neither tears nor laughter, and where the weary are at rest. And may that time come soon, I most humbly pray; for of peace and love there is none here for me. I have known but solitude and suffering; I have spoken and not been heard; I have loved and it has availed me nothing. Others are contented with externals, but I see the truth — the awful, the hideous, the monstrous truth. In a solitude as deep as the airless silence of the moon I live — I and the Truth. Long, too long, have we counted out together the abominable record of human life; and, as in sullen joy we traced the footmarks of man through the eternal slime, we have alternately given way to bitter exultation and blind despair; and now we are tired of both. Yes, it would seem that my heart has grown dumb. I do not long for life’s joys, its pains I despise; but to live with a thousand beings, all apparently made to your own image and likeness, and to know that not one either feels or understands as you feel and understand, is unnecessary suffering; and it is lawful to confess you are not of the world’s company, and to fly from it. No, Alice, no; you, no more than the rest, have understood me. I have loved you... well; but that is over now, and I must go hence and learn to bear the burden that Christ has given me to bear.”
