Little sister
Page 20
With tears in her eyes, Alix drew quietly away and out of the room. No one — not even their daughter — should be with them just now.
She went downstairs again, to find Barry waiting in the hall. And, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, she went to him and he took her in his arms. Alix didn't say anything. She just leant against him, savouring the indescribably sweet relief of loving and being loved again.
"Poor little Alix. I wish I could do something for you." He kissed her hair lightly.
"You do — by just being there. It's so much worse for Moerling."
"Yes, of course. What did he say to you about it?"
"Nothing. He didn't even know I was there."
"Poor fellow. I suppose he's absolutely stunned."
No, he hadn't given the impression of being stunned, of course. But it wasn't possible to explain what she had seen. Perhaps she had half imagined it anyway.
They went back into the sitting-room together, and then it seemed that Mrs. Dodd was determined that Alix should go to bed and try to sleep.
"But I couldn't sleep," Alix pleaded. "I couldn't possibly."
"Perhaps not, but at least you must go to bed and get some rest. You will be called if — if there is any necessity. But for you to stay up all night when you can do no good at all is only to make yourself ill for nothing."
There was common sense in that, of course. And when Barry added the weight of his persuasion, she yielded.
A room had been engaged for him at the inn in the village, since there were not enough guest rooms in the house to accommodate him as well as Alix and the doctor.
"I'll come up again very early in the morning," he told Alix when he said good night. "Or rather, a bit later in the morning than it is now," for even as he spoke, the clock struck two.
"Yes, yes, please come back to me," Alix said rather pathetically, and he promised once more that he would, with a kiss that was overwhelmingly comforting.
When Barry had gone, Mrs. Dodd took her upstairs again — past the room where Varoni was — to a small room at the end of the corridor.
"Ifs quite tiny," she apologized, "but you will find the bed is comfortable."
"It's wonderfully good of you to let me stay at all," Alix said.
"Nonsense," her hostess declared firmly. "Now see if you can't get some rest." Then she went away, leaving Alix to the company of her thoughts.
She would not be able to sleep, of course, but she had better go to bed as she had promised, and slowly she began to undress.
The rain had ceased now, and a watery moon was forcing its way through the hurrying clouds, throwing a few pale beams of light on to the foot of Alix's J>ed. She lay there watching the moonlight as she so often had in her
room at home, and gradually her thoughts became calmer.
It was impossible to think coherently of anything but the nearness of tragedy. Yet behind even that was the limitless comfort of Barry's love. She couldn't get things in their right perspective at the moment, of course, but one thing at least threw a light along the pathway of her future. Barry loved her and knew now that she loved him. Somehow, when she came out from the cloud of this tragedy, there would be that sunshine waiting.
She closed her eyes for a moment, so that she might bring his face more vividly before her. It was pleasant to close one's eyes. They had really been aching most of the night with unshed tears. She would open them again in a minute to look at the moonlight.
But her lashes remained still on her cheeks. Alix was asleep.
When she woke again, it was with the start of fear that nearly always comes to one in an entirely strange room. She sat up in the dim morning light, wondering for a moment where she was — and then remembering, with a tremendous rush of mingled sorrow and joy, all the events of the last evening.
Barry had come back to her, and that was all right. But her mother — her mother! Why had no one called her? Something must have happened during those hours that she had slept. It was already quite light — and yet there was no sound of anyone moving.
Alix got out of bed, shivering in the cold morning air, and dragged her coat on over her nightdress. She would go and see for herself what had happened.
She opened the door. The passage stretched, grey and silent, in front of her. Alix was suddenly very much afraid. But she must find out. She couldn't face this uncertainty any longer. Her bare feet made no sound on the carpet as she stole along to her mother's room.
Then for minutes she stood motionless outside the door. The same heavy quiet that pressed on her heart like an actual weight! She knew suddenly that she could not go in. She was too much afraid.
There was a window seat in an embrasure a little further down the passage, and, creeping in there, she drew up her
knees and tucked her cold feet in her nightdress. It was silly to stay there getting chilled, but she could not go back to bed. She could only crouch there, half dozing, waiting for she scarcely knew what.
The light grew a little stronger. Her head drooped a little farther forward. She had almost lost consciousness again, when suddenly Moerling's voice, speaking very quietly, roused her.
"AUx, child, what are you doing here?"
Alix looked up with sleep-clouded eyes.
"I was — waiting," she said forlornly.
"Waiting?" He put his hand lightly on her hair. And then he spoke, quietly and calmly. "You can go to your mother now. She wants to see you."
"Wants — to see me?" Alix repeated the words stupidly, almost as much dazed by the unfamiliar exnrf^ion "your mother" as by the strange confidence in his tone. "Do you mean she — isn't going to — die?"
"No, she isn't going to die. She will be — all right — now," Moerling said slowly, and the quiet triumph with which he said the words robbed Alix of any reply.
She could only stare up at him, seeing nothing but his terrible pallor, and the triumphant glitter in his eyes.
Then, all at once, she knew what he had been doing, all the dark, quiet hours of the night — what was behind that strange scene she herself had witnessed. With an effort almost beyond human capacity he had literally made love conquer death, and passed on some of his own tremendous vitality to Varoni as she lay there dying.
As she herself had said he would — he had found her, and he had brought her back with him.
"I don't understand," Alix whispered. "I don't understand how it could be possible."
"No, Alix. I hardly understand myself," Moerling murmured. And then in utter exhaustion, he dropped down on the seat beside her.
She stared at him in bewilderment, wondering what was so different about him even in this half-light. Then, as he wearily put his face in his hands, she realized — with a little cry which she immediately stifled with her hand.
Moerling's famous black hair was heavily streaked with grey.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALIX put out her hand at last, and touched Moerling almost timidly.
"Will you come with me? I'm going to see Nina now."
"Yes, I'll come with you." He looked up at once, and even smiled. But Alix felt too awed to smile in return, before the revelation of such a triumph of love.
She put her hand into his and, holding his fingers very tightly, she went with him along the passage, and into her mother's room.
The blinds had been drawn back now, and on this side of the house the first pale April sunlight was coming in through the windows.
Varoni was lying there, almost as she had been before, only her eyes were open, and in her pale cheeks the faintest suggestion of colour showed beneath the skin.
She didn't turn her head as they came in, but when Alix came within her range of vision, she smiled very slowly — a shadow of her famous smile.
Alix knelt down by the bed and looked lovingly at her. Then, as she remembered so vividly how she had thought that smile was gone for ever, she hid her face in the pillow, close beside her mother's pale cheek.
"Is that
— you — Alix dear?" Varoni said slowly in a faint voice that seemed to come from very far away.
"Yes, Mother." Alix raised her head and softly kissed Varoni. "Darling, darling Mother, it's Alix."
"You mustn't cry."
"No, no. And you mustn't talk."
Varoni smiled faintly again, and said in the same feeble whisper:
"I shall be — all right — now." And then, after a much longer pause: "But I shall never sing again."
"Hush, darling." Alix touched her hair very softly and imploringly. "You'll be quite all right. You'll sing again for many, many years."
But Varoni said: "No," though almost tranquilly.
There was silence for quite a long while. Then she said in a troubled whisper:
"Dieter."
Tm here, Herzchen" He came forward and put his hand over hers.
She looked at the strong beautiful fingers on her own with infinite satisfaction.
"They will — never — be able — to say of me: 'Her voice is going — she's getting old, poor thing*."
Alix kissed her again, in a silent plea that she would not use her strength in talking, but the quiet whisper of Varoni's voice went on:
'They'll say—" and suddenly her smile grew stronger, with all its former radiance — "they'll say: 'At the height of her glory — she chose to retire — into private life. We shall not hear a voice like hers — again'.'*
Then her eyes closed, but the smile lingered, lighting her face with an expression of childlike content.
Alix stared at her mother, in something between laughter and tears. And then suddenly she understood. Varoni was right, of course. She had somehow snatched victory from the terrible battle with time. She would never know the bitterness of slow defeat. The decision had been made for her. She retired from the field with her flag still flying.
With tears in her eyes, Alix glanced up — to exchange with Moerling a smile of complete understanding.
Dear, absurd, almost childlike Varoni, with all her faults, was theirs and only theirs, by virtue of their love and their complete understanding of her.
"You had better go now, my child. She will probably sleep."
Alix bent over and softly kissed her mother's cheek, receiving the faintest breath of a kiss in return. Then she got to her feet and went slowly towards the door. Moerling came with her, and as they came out into the passage he put his arm round her.
"Is that true — what she says about her voice?" Alix whispered involuntarily.
"Probably." Moerling spoke quite calmly. "She was too badly hurt ever to breathe as a singer should again."
"Oh." Alix pressed against him in sudden affectionate sympathy. "It must be awful for you, because you loved her voice so much."
"Yes," he said slowly, "I loved her beautiful voice. But
I love her very much more." And then a thoughtful smile lit up his tired face. 'That was the difference, Alix, between us and all the rest. They only loved her voice. But we, my dear, loved her."
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