‘Go back to Nicholas.’
Chapter Fourteen
THIS conversation was shattering both to Alethea and to Countess Friedenbach, and yet, when it was over, Alethea, at any rate, felt almost calm. In spite of her having declared that no one could help her, it was a relief to have put upon Tante Helena some of the responsibility for judging what should be done. And in the next few days, they came to talk over Alethea’s troubles almost as if they related to a stranger. The Countess did not hurry Alethea into any immediate action: her present aim was gradually to accustom her to the idea that there was no doubt that she was some day going back to Brokeyates.
Tante Helena succeeded in making Alethea sorry for her husband. Till now, she had never realized his feelings at all. She had thought of him only as an unreasonable tyrant. Now she began to wonder about his life in Australia, and to see what it must have been. He had grown up under that woman’s roof. That venomous little creature was his mother. As a boy, he had probably been laughed at because he was the son of a dwarf. No wonder he had leapt at the chance of escape, and had desired above all things to cut himself off from his life in Australia. She remembered that before they were married, she had been drawn to him by what had seemed to her an appeal for pity which sometimes looked from his eyes. He was, after all, the wounded animal caught hopelessly in a trap, but could it be that she herself had joined in the heartless sport of stoning him there? Her love for him revived, born again from that pity which had always been a part of it. She knew now that Tante Helena was right. Nicholas must need her desperately, but how could she go back to him? If she took Hans back to Brokeyates, it would merely mean the reopening of the old wound; and yet, she could not leave the little boy behind. She was torn between these two opposing calls.
There was no doubt that to return to Nicholas was the more difficult of the two alternatives. Here, at Friedenbach, life must always be simplified. Conflict was shut away by the still horizon of the mountains. At Brokeyates she must find herself in the turmoil of her husband’s stormy misery. Alethea told herself that the more difficult of the two courses must be the heroic one, the right one, the one to follow.
But what about Hans?
Tante Helena of course found the answer to this.
‘Leave him with me for a time,’ she said. ‘The mountain air suits him. He thrives wonderfully here. Who knows, that if he stays here for a bit, he may not grow into a normal man? Many people have to make the sacrifice of parting for a while with a delicate child; and if you trust him with me, you can always run over here, every two or three weeks, to see how he is going on.’
It was a hard decision to make, but Alethea made it. She resolved to go back to England, leaving Hans at Friedenbach for the time.
Countess Friedenbach watched, in an agony of sympathy, the steps by which Alethea fought her way to her resolve. Her very face was changed by it. It grew older and sadder, and yet it had a new beauty. It was like the face of the Madonna in a Pieta—the face of a woman whose heart has known the piercing of a sword.
Then Alethea wrote a letter to Nicholas. More than three months had passed since she sent him that last note from Paris, and in that time, they had heard nothing of each other. Now, she could not think how to write. It seemed to her that the wording of her letter was very important. A great deal hung upon it. It was not a letter to be written in a hurry. She felt she was justified in taking a good deal of time over it, and until it had been written and sent, there could be no thought of her departure. She made many rough drafts, and those first attempts were very long letters. Alethea went into every aspect of the situation, and as she wrote and re-wrote, she found that she was building up Nicholas’s case for him. She saw more and more clearly how much he must need her.
And after spending some days over these letters, she at last wrote only a few lines on a scrap of paper.
‘Darling Nicholas,’ she wrote.
‘I have been here in the mountains with Tante Helena Friedenbach, and I am much better for the change. The mountain air is being so good for Hans that I shall leave him here for a while, and come home without him. I want to be with you. Do not write. I shall arrive almost as soon as this letter. Alethea.’
Into the envelope, she put three or four little mountain flowers.
The letter was ready, but several more days passed before Alethea could bring herself to post it. When once it had gone, it would be too late to turn back. She had made up her mind that she must follow it immediately, for by now she had begun to fear that Nicholas might even forbid her to return. Perhaps he would refuse to forgive her for running away.
Those last days at Friedenbach were cruelly beautiful. Every day, Tante Helena drove Alethea and Hans into the mountains, and there they stayed for many hours, taking their luncheon with them, and building up a fire on which they boiled their coffee and hot milk. Hans scrambled about picking up sticks which he threw onto the fire. Alethea had taught him that it was dangerous to go too near, so he threw them from a very long way off, and they always fell far short of the flames. He gave loud boisterous laughs when Alethea picked them up and put them on for him, and then he sat down, and watched the fire very earnestly.
‘Oh, Oh, pretty,’ he said, as he looked at it.
Alethea silently watched him as he sat there, and then she shut her eyes and tried to hold the picture photographed on their lids. She wanted to carry it with her to England. Countess Friedenbach turned away. She felt like an eavesdropper.
One evening, after Alethea had put Hans to bed, she got up suddenly and left the house, alone. She walked to the village and posted her letter to Nicholas. She did not return to the drawing-room where Tante Helena was playing Bach: she went instead to her bedroom and spent the evening packing her clothes. There were very few of them, but it took her so long that the Friedenbachs saw no more of her that night. While she packed, Hans slept beside her, sometimes laughing over a happy dream.
The next day was the last.
They drove to the mountains directly after breakfast. Tante Helena had chosen a new and very delicious place for their picnic. It was a little green hollow among wooded hills. Large blue forget-me-nots grew on the banks of a small stream which was so shallow that the water played with the pebbles as if it had not made up its mind whether it would flow over them, or slip round them. It rang like tiny bells shrilly pitched. The edge of the wood was crimson with mountain strawberries, which had grown large and juicy in the shade. Tante Helena and Alethea began to pick a basketful for luncheon, while Hans lay on his stomach by the stream, and played with the pebbles. He loved to feel the cool water come up against his fingers, and to make it throw up little fountains which splashed his face.
Suddenly Countess Friedenbach touched Alethea on the shoulder.
‘Look!’ she whispered.
A wild doe had brought her fawn to drink at the stream, and the two graceful creatures were standing on the opposite bank, looking at Hans with gentle friendly eyes.
‘Will they hurt him?’ Alethea whispered, all anxiety.
‘No. They are the gentlest of animals. If he even moves, they will canter away.’
They were evidently not at all afraid of Hans, who lay still, his chin resting upon his hands, watching as they drank. Then the doe, planting her feet with great delicacy and elegance, stepped daintily across the stream, while her fawn trotted at her heels, slipping about among the pebbles. They both came and stood beside Hans, who stretched out his tiny hand, and patted the baby animal. The mother put down her head and licked his hair as he did this. Suddenly a distant noise startled the nervous creatures, and the doe and her fawn went springing away, spinning from rock to rock, while Hans stood up and spread his hands out wide as he called to them to come back. The scene passed in a very few moments, and when it had passed, it seemed incredible.
‘I have never seen a doe with a fawn approach a human being,’ said Tante Helena. ‘There is no doubt that Hans must be a fairy.’
Hans ran towards them, calling
to Alethea to come with him in pursuit of his friends, and off they went, hand in hand. They crept cautiously through the trees, with exaggerated tip-toeing on the part of Hans, who peered under the leaves of even the smallest plants, as if he thought the deer might have hidden themselves there. He infected Alethea with his excitement, his sense of mystery, and his confidence that the doe and her fawn were waiting for them in every dappled shadow which fell across the path.
It was a magic morning, and although they came upon no trace of the deer, yet they found many other things to delight Hans. Birds hopped about them, and squirrels raced up the tree-trunks, to peep mischievously at them from just out of sight. They found a place where the stream had become a little pool, and this was quite full of minnows. Hans spent a long time trying to catch one in his hands. Last of all, they came upon a stray pig, whose clumsy shape and awkward movements were extremely amusing to Hans. He threw himself back, against the trunk of a tree, in an absurd attitude of mockery, and he laughed loudly as he pointed at the pig, who seemed offended, and trotted away.
It was very pretty to hear the little boy imitate the cooing of the wood-pigeons, and this he did so perfectly that they flew about round him, looking for the source of the soft flute-like notes.
These pictures of Hans on that last day fell upon Alethea’s heart with the sad beauty of leaves falling from the trees. They lay where they fell, to be stirred in the coming weeks by the circling breezes of an unresting memory. She could not take her eyes from him, and his every movement seemed to her more winning than ever before. Tante Helena left them alone, and they wandered about all the rest of the morning, Hans altogether unconscious of the agony which Alethea held in her breast. A dog would have known, but not a child.
They joined Countess Friedenbach for luncheon, and feasted on strawberries and cream, and then Hans lay down on the grass and went to sleep. Alethea moved his head onto her lap, and she sat looking down at him. Tante Helena moved away. She could not be a spectator of Alethea’s suffering. It was too intimate.
The train left at nine o’clock, and when Alethea had undressed Hans, she sat down as usual by his bed to watch him till he went to sleep. Generally, he was full of little tricks to keep her there, and was bent on staying awake as long as possible, to play with his mother. To-night, when she was over-ready to be indulgent, he was tired after the long day in the mountain air, and he seemed to be asleep in a few moments. She kissed him, and went downstairs. She felt suddenly very tired.
The Count went with her to the station, as Alethea had asked Tante Helena not to leave the house for fear that Hans might wake up. After all, it was better to be with someone like the Count. He was a kind man, entirely without imagination. He had no comprehension of the conflict which was tearing Alethea’s soul. He took it for granted that she was leaving Friedenbach because she wanted to go back to England, and he was unaware of her battle between rights and wrongs, duties and desires, love and love. For the Count, the world was a simple place, in which things were either bad or good, desirable or unpleasant. He came to the station to make sure that Alethea had a comfortable carriage, and to arrange, as far as possible, that she should have no trouble at the Custom House. He was so occupied over these concerns, that he forced Alethea to consider them too. Nothing could equal his kindness, and she was thankful that he never thought of being kind where she was really bruised. It was one of those occasions when the most welcome companion is an entirely dense one.
Chapter Fifteen
THE JULY twilight was heavy with the sleepy scent of hay, when Alethea stepped out of the train onto the platform of the little station she had left so hurriedly nearly four months earlier. She was tired and cramped after her two days’ journey and all initiative seemed to have been crushed out of her by heat, dust, and fatigue. When she thought of Nicholas, he seemed an antagonistic stranger awaiting her in a mood which she had no means of forecasting. They had not met since she had left him with his mother when he had told her to fetch Hans, and now that afternoon seemed to have passed in a completely other life. She could not guess what her husband had thought of her going away, nor how he would receive her on her return. She looked up and down the platform. Would he be there? He was not. Only the old porter, whom she had known all her life. She saw the rather dapper station master, a newer inhabitant, put down his waterpot in his garden, and hurry into his coat, as he swung across the line in the wake of the train.
Till that moment, Alethea had not thought how much her unexplained disappearance must have made the village gossips talk, and now she recoiled from the idea. She felt very shy and so she looked very haughty, as she asked whether the motor had been sent to meet her. She could not see it, and this gave her an increased sense of chill. Nicholas was either away from home, or he had ignored the telegram she had sent, telling him of the hour of her arrival. She was relieved when she was told that the motor was waiting for her, but when she came out of the station, she hardly recognized the rather dilapidated old car which stood in the road. It was one which had long been degraded to the position of carrying the laundry baskets, and the garden produce. It was driven by an under-gardener.
Her reception crushed her. It seemed to suggest that she was no longer the mistress of the house she had deserted.
Old Tom, the porter, put her case on the seat at her side, saying as he did so:
‘Pleased to see you home my lady, I’m sure.’
Alethea smiled faintly in recognition of this welcome, which jarred upon her. She thought that the man had no business to seem aware that she had been away.
Evans, the under-gardener, touched his hat, and said nothing. Alethea thought that at least he knew how to behave.
They drove through the Park, which she thought looked untidy and ragged. The drive wanted weeding, and the grass edges had not been clipped. As they approached the house the appearance of desertion was even more marked. Shutters were shut in most of the rooms, giving the house a blank repellent aspect.
When the motor pulled up at the door, no butler came to open it, and Alethea felt obliged to ask Evans, as she got out of the motor, whether Sir Nicholas was at home or not.
‘I think so, my lady,’ was his non-committal reply, as he drove away with the luggage to the back door. Alethea walked up the steps alone, and went into the house, feeling completely unwelcome. Was this her home-coming?
Hardly had she shut the door behind her, when a figure emerged from the shadows. Before she saw who it was, she found that she was in her husband’s arms.
They could neither of them speak, but Nicholas held her so closely, and kissed her so fiercely, that no words were needed to assure her that he wanted her back. She could do nothing but cling to him, crying weakly, and she had resolved to be so strong and sensible when she got home!
Holding her by both hands, Nicholas led her into the dining-room.
‘You must be longing for food,’ he said. These were the first words which had passed between them.
‘I don’t know that I’m very hungry, but some soup would be most refreshing.’
‘I hope you’ll find it all right,’ said Nicholas doubtfully, as he opened the tureen and stirred the soup with the ladle. Alethea looked round the room, and appreciated her husband’s tact in having no servants to wait upon them.
The soup was on the sideboard, and a joint of cold mutton and a dish of strawberries stood on the table. It was obviously a traveller’s meal, left on the table, with no one to serve it. None of the usual glass and silver could be seen; only the necessary plates, and beside each place was a tumbler. They were not expected to drink wine.
Alethea stood by Nicholas and rested her hand on his shoulder, as he helped her to some rather greasy soup.
‘The kitchen maid,’ she thought. ‘I suppose Mrs. Hammett is out.’
They were both very shy, and could think of nothing to say. The meal was a great resource, and they offered each other bread, and salad, and water. Once, when Nicholas passed behind her on his
way to the sideboard, he kissed the back of her neck. She smiled, and rested her head against him.
‘I expect you really would have liked a wash,’ he said.
‘I prefer a meal,’ she answered. ‘But do I look very dirty and travel-stained?’
‘Not in my eyes,’ was his reply.
When they had finished supper, they went out onto the terrace. She stood, her hand on his arm, and they gazed at the garden together. It was by now almost dark, and the scent of the honeysuckle laid hold of them, drawing them back into the memory of other summer nights in the same place.
They both shrank from disturbing the peace of the evening, and by a tacit agreement, they avoided words or explanations. But they held close to each other.
‘I didn’t come to the station,’ he said at last. ‘I thought that the spectacle of our meeting would be too interesting a scene for the station people.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘That they missed their show?’
‘That it reached the point of being one.’
He kissed the tips of her fingers.
‘I must go and see Portia,’ she said.
‘She wanted to stay up, but I sent her to bed, and she was asleep long before you arrived.’
They went into the house, and Alethea turned towards the nursery staircase.
‘Not that way,’ said Nicholas. ‘ I have moved her to our part of the house.’
She was touched by this evidence of his loneliness.
After the weeks Alethea had spent alone with Hans, Portia struck her as an abnormally large child, when she saw her lying asleep. She realized with a blush that her daughter had practically ceased to exist for her since she had been in Bavaria. She had almost forgotten her. Now she felt proud of her beauty, and she was aware of that sense of pathos which sometimes invests a sleeping child. She was shaken by a rush of tenderness, as she kissed the little face.
Portia turned over and smiled. Her eyelids quivered.
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