The black pearl
the huge bed, where, almost unconscious, I fall into the heavy sleep of
complete exhaustion.
I am awakened next morning by the maid entering with a letter and
writing materials.
“Our fate is in your hands,” writes Allan. “I shall accept your
decision, whatever it is, without a murmur, without even trying
to influence you again by my presence. It is the only reparation
I can offer you for my conduct last night. I realise this morning
the indignity of my action. I ask your pardon, Jeanne. Decide, you
are quite free. Shall I start at once, get the divorce, and come
back for you? Perhaps, though, you would rather join me in some spot
chosen by yourself, where our union may be consecrated by all the
legal formalities you deem necessary, or, dear one, shall not our love
prove the great conqueror? Let us go together. Is it not the easiest
solution? You could leave this afternoon for Adelaide, where I am less
known than here. Rooms will be ready for you at the South Australian
Hotel. In three days I shall be at Glenelg with the yacht whence we can
depart without exciting any comment. Barker will attend to all your
wants. She is discreet and intelligent, and will follow you on board
the ‘Sita.’ I shall leave here myself this evening, a few hours after
your departure; that is, if you will go, my darling. I shall see you
off at the station--oh, nothing but a glimpse, my Jeanne, just to make
sure that you won’t turn back at the last minute. If you won’t consent
to follow my wishes, at the least remain here. In this house, which is
yours, until the moment I am a free man, you will be quite safe. You
cannot return to the woman who sold you. I shudder at the thought of
another daring to do what....
“Just one word, Jeanne, to learn your decision.”
The silent maid hands me the tray of writing materials. With trembling
fingers, I scrawl these words:
“I cannot fight against you and myself any longer. I will start for
Adelaide as you wish.”
The struggle is over. By four o’clock Barker has finished packing, and
a cab takes us to the station. Allan is there, his eyes glowing with
joy. He conducts me to the sleeper he has had reserved.
“My whole life will not be long enough to thank you, cherie.” His voice
is low and vibrating with the intoxication of a great triumph. “Three
days, three days only, and we shall be united, beyond the power of
anyone to separate us. By the way,” he adds, “here is a young man who
wants to say au revoir.”
Billy steps forward with a huge bunch of roses, which he offers me with
an uncertain look in his cunning eyes.
“Billy is coming with me. He has brought your trunks. They are all
here, Billy, I suppose?”
Dropping his voice, he resumes, “He threatened to open the door when
his mother fastened the chain. I could only obtain his neutrality by
promising to let him go with his ‘Princess.’”
Billy has evidently been telling him about our fairy tales.
“Anyhow, I thought you would like to have the little fellow with you.
He is quite devoted.”
Poor Billy! It was his devotion, then, which made him betray me. Well!
since the die is cast, there is no good in saddening the heart of the
unconscious little mortal. So I accept Billy’s flowers, his face grows
serene, and the train starts as Allan from the footboard murmurs his
last adieu, “je t’aime.”
XXI
Annie
Besant
“One soul that went out alone into the darkness and on the other side
found Light, that struggled through storm and on the other side found
Peace.”
ANNIE BESANT.
On our arrival at Adelaide--how different from that of barely two years
ago, when I was so merry, so full of youth and glowing hopes--we are
driven to the hotel. Our rooms are ready and luncheon is set in the
little sitting-room adjoining. Allan has anticipated everything. Will
his watchful love, his tender forethought attend me always like this?
I place myself under his guidance, even as I surrender my will to his.
I am borne along by the current of his desire, as a leaf is swept by
the tempest.
I had grown so weary of my solitude, of the utter forlornness of my
outlook. It is sweet to feel this protecting love, enveloping and
watching over me even from afar.
He will be here soon, my handsome lover, in two days, three at the
most. Then, forgetting everything, the world and its empty conventions,
its superficial duties, we shall set forth for the land of my dreams,
Ceylon, with its palms and pearls; India, with its palaces and strange
temples.
After a few hours’ rest, the rays of the setting sun gleaming on the
sea whereon is Allan’s yacht, lure me to the balcony. The heavens are
ablaze as with fire. Clouds of reddish violet are massed against the
background of gold, and the red disc of the sun is sinking rapidly
into the waves. While I am seeking intently for a glimpse of the
green ray of the legend, the presage of happiness--love is making me
superstitious--a familiar voice, the clear sonorous tones of Dick Power
falls upon my ear.
“Daisy, the baby is awake, come quickly and take her.”
My first impulse is to rush through the half-opened French window
whence Dick’s voice issues.
They are here, my dear Gwylata friends, and with them the little one of
whose birth they wrote me some months ago, and whom they wished to name
after me. But a second thought piercing my heart like an arrow, makes
me recoil. How can I explain my presence at this hotel, where my rooms
have been taken by Allan. How can I tell them that I am awaiting my
lover, and that the luxury around me is the price of my shame. A wave
of hot blood mounts to my forehead as the thought presents itself to
me. This, then, is the future a forbidden love will entail! Constrained
to hide from all those I have known and loved, to blush before the
daughter of my uncle’s employé! And will not some echo of my guilt
reach Hector, saddening his last years of suffering, bringing remorse
for having left me to the perils of life. I close the window gently,
drawing the thick curtains, but the sight of the formal sitting-room,
and the numerous boxes Barker has had sent from the shops in order that
I may select an outfit for a long voyage, the aspect of this prim,
enigmatical woman, who, under a veneer of respect conceals perhaps
contempt, and who probably laughs and jests about me with the hotel
servants, all revolt me.
I am stifling. I cannot breathe here. A short walk in the fresh air for
a few minutes, lost in a crowd of strangers, will help me to regain
composure, tranquillity.
Declining Barker’s companionship, I leave the hotel and mingle with the
throng streaming from the railway station opposite, and find myself
in the main artery, King William-street, I remember. I force myself
to note details--the straight, wide thoroughfare, suggestive, as in
many new towns, of a great future, looks cheerful and animated under
the electric lights. The flower and fruit shops and the brilliantly
illuminated hotel bars are open to the happy-looking folk hurrying
along, citizens of a free and rich country. It is the boulevard of
this city of the Antipodes, a treeless boulevard true, but with wide
pavements covered with verandahs as a shield from the ardent sun. Its
temples adorn the street corners--monumental banks erected for the cult
of the Golden Calf. Higher up two twin towers are detached against the
dark sapphire sky. Twice I ascend and descend the street, striving to
get away from my thoughts; to forget myself if only for a moment, in
the interest of watching the night life of the Australian city, new
to me, for I know only the tranquil evening stillness of the Bush. In
Melbourne I never found courage to go out alone after daylight.
A blare of instruments from one of the cross streets! It is the
Salvation Army, calling to repentant sinners. Well! I don’t want to
repent. Besides, the appeal is too noisy. It may touch less exacting
natures. What can it offer me?
Opposite the Post Office, the Town Hall displays its illuminated
facade. A big poster bears a well-known name--Annie Besant.
It is the name of the celebrated woman whose eloquence Mrs. Clarke, my
dear Kate, used to extol.
Large capitals announce the title of the evening’s lecture--
Re-incarnation.
Who knows! Perhaps it may solve the mystery of my dreams, and those
haunting resemblances. I enter. The room is already full; only under
the balcony are there some empty seats. Two young girls make room for
me. I gaze round. The audience is in some respects an extraordinary
one. More than 2000 people, belonging to all classes of society, are
packed closely together without distinction of rank. The clock strikes
eight. A young man with ascetic features and the brow of a thinker
introduces the lecturer in a few words. Everything about her is white,
the snowy hair, the long statuesque folds of her dress, even her flesh
has the purity and transparency of alabaster. Her voice is pure, clear
and resonant, filling the great hall. In simple, lucid language, she
gives a brief outline of the principles of that ancient science of
which she is the modern exponent, the basic unity of religions, the
brotherhood of Man, the Law of Justice controlling the universe,
human perfectibility built up from the germ which, descending from
its Divine source, re-ascends to God, fully developed and perfected.
Then confining herself to the theme of the evening, she explains the
doctrine of re-incarnation, its antiquity, its philosophy, the belief
in it by all the ancient nations of the earth and by modern countries
of the Orient, by many of the great minds in past ages, and by poets
and thinkers of later centuries. Above all, she depicts it as the only
reasonable solution of the great enigmas of evil and seeming injustice.
In concise phrases she continues:--
“Every man is a living spirit; he is part of the life of the supreme,
he is the offspring of Deity. As sparks come forth from a fire, so
comes he forth from the Divine Spirit. He comes to earth to learn. All
are equally ignorant when plunged into human life. Ignorance is the
only original sin, and it is not criminal but inevitable. As the powers
of the Deity within him are unfolded he grows into the stature of the
Perfect Man. Passing out of the first human life, ignorant, helpless,
having committed what we should call crimes, but which were no crimes,
to that new soul without knowledge to distinguish between good and
evil, but were only experiences--the man passes into the intermediate
world. There he learns that these things are not the best to do because
they bring trouble on the other side. He takes his cravings and his
passions with him; he is tormented by them until they are worn out,
starved out, and then he passes on to a higher world, where everything
in him of good is nourished and increased; then back to earth he comes
again with the gained experience, the added knowledge to learn further
lessons, every life adding some necessary experience, every re-birth
bringing with it larger and wider powers, learning righteousness by
the suffering that treads on the heels of evil, learning compassion
by the sorrow which is endured under the yoke of oppression, learning
all lessons by experience and transmuting them into character until
perfection is reached, until the Perfect Man shines out in all the
splendour of man become divine.
“Then compulsory re-incarnation is over; unless the man returns as
Saviour he passes on, all earth’s lessons learnt, into wider life and
more splendid opportunities.”
How can I give an idea of the impression these vivid words leave upon
me?
If I could only give back to them the sound of that voice vibrating