The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
suppose, and I rather hope always will be. It is frankly personal and
individualistic, I know. Possibly it is contemptibly narrow-minded.
Still I doubt if she will readily find another one which makes for
greater happiness or fulness of life. You don't agree, dearest, I
know--nevertheless pour out my tea for me, will you? I want to dispose
of this necessary evil of breakfast with all possible despatch. Richard
has sent for me. He has slept and is awake."
And as Miss St. Quentin served her dear friend, she pondered this
speech curiously, saying to herself:--"Yes, I did right, though I never
liked Ludovic Quayle better than now, and never liked any other man as
well as I like Ludovic Quayle. But that's not enough. I'm getting hold
of the appearance of the thing, but I haven't got hold of the thing
itself. And so the woman in me must continue to be kept in the back
attic. She shall be denied all further development. She shall have
nothing unless she can have the whole of it, and repeat Cousin
Katherine's creed from her heart."
Richard did not speak when Lady Calmady crossed the room and sat down
at the bedside. He barely raised his eyelids. But he felt out for her
hand across the surface of the sheet. And she took the proffered hand
in both hers and fell to stroking the palm of it with her finger-tips.
And this silent greeting, and confiding contact of hand with hand, was
to her exquisitely healing. It gave an assurance of nearness and
acknowledged ownership, more satisfying and convincing than many
eloquent phrases of welcome. And so she, too, remained silent, only
indeed permitting herself, for a little while, to look at him, lest so
doing she should make further demand upon his poor quantity of
strength. A folding screen in stamped leather, of which age had
tempered the ruby and gold to a sober harmony of tone, had been placed
round the head of the bed, throwing this last into clear, quiet shadow.
The bed linen was fresh and smooth. Richard had made a little toilet.
His silk shirt, open at the throat, was also fresh and smooth. He was
clean shaven, his hair cropped into that closely-fitting, bright-brown
cap of curls. Katherine perceived that his beauty had begun to return
to him, though his face was distressingly worn and emaciated, and the
long, purplish line of that unexplained scar still disfigured his
cheek. His hands were little more than skin and bone. Indeed, he was
fragile, she feared, as any person could be who yet had life in him,
and she wondered, rather fearfully, if it was yet possible to build up
that life again into any joy of energy and of activity. But she put
such fears from her as unworthy. For were they not together, he and
she, actually and consciously reunited? That was sufficient. The rest
could wait.
And to-day, as though lending encouragement to gracious hopes, the
usually gloomy and cavernous room had taken to itself a quite generous
plenishing of air and light. The heavy curtains were drawn aside. The
casements of one of the square, squat windows were thrown widely open.
The slatted shutters without were partially opened likewise. A shaft of
strong sunshine slanted in and lay, like a bright highway, across the
rich colours of the Persian carpet. The air was hot but nimble, and of
a vivacious and stimulating quality. It fluttered some loose papers on
the writing-table near the open window. It fluttered the delicate laces
and fine muslin frills of Lady Calmady's morning-gown. There was a
sprightly mirthfulness in the touch of it, not unpleasing to her. For
it seemed to speak of the ever-obtaining youth, the incalculable power
of recuperation, the immense reconstructive energy resident in nature
and the physical domain. And there was comfort in that thought. She
turned her eyes from the bed and its somewhat sorrowful burden--the
handsome head, the broad, though angular, shoulders, the face, immobile
and mask-like, with closed eyelids and unsmiling lips, reposing upon
the whiteness of the pillows--and fixed them upon that radiant space of
outer world visible between the dark-framing of the half-open shutters.
Beyond the dazzling, black-and-white chequer of the terrace and
balustrade, they rested on the cool green of the formal garden, the
glistering dome and slender columns of the pavilion set in the angle of
the terminal wall.--And this last reminded her quaintly of that other
pavilion, embroidered, with industry of innumerable stitches, upon the
curtains of the state bed at home--that pavilion, set for rest and
refreshment in the midst of the tangled ways of the Forest of This
Life, where the Hart may breathe in security, fearless of Care, the
pursuing Leopard, which follows all too close behind.--Owing to her
position and the sharp drop of the hillside, Naples itself, the great
painted city, its fine buildings and crowded shipping, was unseen. But,
far away, the lofty promontory of Sorrento sketched itself in palest
lilac upon the azure of the sea and sky.
And, as Katherine reasoned, if this fair prospect, after so many ages
of tumultuous history and the shock of calamitous events, after battle,
famine, terror of earthquake and fire, devastation by foul disease,
could still recover and present such an effect of triumphant
youthfulness, such, at once august and mirthful, charm, might not her
beloved one, lying here broken in health and in spirit, likewise regain
the glory of his manhood and the delight of it, notwithstanding present
weakness and mournful eclipse?--Yes, it would come right--come
right--Katherine told herself, thereby making one of those magnificent
acts of faith which go so far to produce just that which they prophesy.
God could not have created so complex and beautiful a creature, and
permitted it so to suffer, save to the fulfilment of some clear purpose
which would very surely be made manifest at last. God Almighty should
be justified of His strange handiwork; and she of her love before the
whole of the story was told.--And, stirred by these thoughts, and by
the fervour of her own pious confidence, Katherine's finger-tips
traveled more rapidly over the palm of that outstretched and passive
hand. Then, on a sudden, she became aware that Richard was looking
fixedly at her. She turned her head proudly, the exaltation of a living
faith very present in her smile.
"You are the same," he said slowly. His voice was low, toneless, and
singularly devoid of emotion.--"Deliciously the same. You are just as
lovely. You still have your pretty colour. You are hardly a day
older----"
He paused, still regarding her fixedly.
"I'm glad you have got on one of those white, frilly things you used to
wear. I always liked them."
Katherine could not speak just then. This sudden and complete intimacy
unnerved her. It was so long since any one had spoken to her thus. It
was very dear to her, yet the toneless voice gave a strange unreality
to the tender words.
"It's a matter for congratulation that you are the same," Richard went
on, "since everything else, it appears, is destined to continue the
same. One should have one thing it is agreeable to contemplate in that
connection, considering the vast number of things altogether the
reverse of agreeable which one fondly hoped one was rid of forever, and
which intrude themselves."
He shifted himself feebly on the pillows, and the flicker of a smile
crossed his face.
"Poor, dear mother," he said, "you see again, without delay, the old
bad habit of grumbling!"
"Grumble on, grumble on, my best beloved," Katherine murmured, while
her finger-tips traveled softly over his palm.
"Verily and indeed, you are the same!" Richard rejoined. Once more he
lay looking full at her, until she became almost abashed by that
unswerving scrutiny. It came over her that the plane of their relation
had changed. Richard was, as never heretofore, her equal, a man grown.
Suddenly he spoke.
"Can you forgive me?"
And so far had Katherine's thought journeyed from the past, so absorbed
was it in the present, that she answered, surprised:--
"My dearest, forgive what?"
"Injustice, ingratitude, desertion," Richard said, "neglect, systematic
cruelty. There is plenty to swell the list. All I boasted I would do I
have done--and more."--His voice, until now so even and emotionless,
faltered a little. "I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and
am no more worthy to be called thy son."
Katherine's hand closed down on his firmly.
"All that, as far as I am concerned, is as though it was not and never
had been," she answered.--"So much for judgment on earth,
dearest.--While in heaven, thank God, we know there is more joy over
the one sinner who repents than over the ninety-and-nine just persons
who need no repentance."
"And you really believe that?" Richard said, speaking half indulgently,
half ironically, as if to a child.
"Assuredly, I believe it."
"But supposing the sinner is not repentant, but merely cowed?"--Richard
straightened his head on the pillows and closed his eyes. "You gave me
leave to grumble--well, then, I am so horribly disappointed. Here have
life and death been sitting on either side of me for the past month,
and throwing with dice for me. I saw them as plainly as I can see you.
The queer thing was they were exactly alike, yet I knew them apart from
the first. Day and night I heard the rattle of the dice--it became
hideously monotonous--and felt the mouth of the dice-box on my chest
when they threw. I backed death heavily. It seemed to me there were
ways of loading the dice. I loaded them. But it wasn't to be, mother.
Life always threw the highest numbers--and life had the last throw."
"I praise God for that," Katherine said, very softly.
"I don't, unfortunately," he answered. "I hoped for a neat little
execution--a little pain, perhaps, a little shedding of blood, without
which there is no remission of sins--but I suppose that would have been
letting me off too easy."
He drew away his hand and covered his eyes.
"When I had seen you I seemed to have made my final peace. I understood
why I had been kept waiting till then. Having seen you, I flattered
myself I might decently get free at last. But I am branded afresh,
that's all, and sent back to the galleys."
Lady Calmady's eyes sought the radiant prospect--the green of the
garden, the slender columns of the airy pavilion, the lilac land set in
the azure of sea and sky. No words of hers could give comfort as yet,
so she would remain silent. Her trust was in the amiable ministry of
time, which may bring solace to the tormented, human soul, even as it
reclothes the mountainside swept by the lava stream, or cleanses and
renders gladly habitable the plague devastated city.
But there was a movement upon the bed. Richard had turned on his side.
He had recovered his self-control, and once more looked fixedly at her.
"Mother," he said calmly, "is your love great enough to take me back,
and give yourself to me again, though I am not fit so much as to kiss
the hem of your garment?"
"There is neither giving nor taking, my beloved," she answered, smiling
upon him. "In the truth of things, you have never left me, neither have
I ever let you go."
"Ah! but consider these last four years and their record!" he rejoined.
"I am not the same man that I was. There's no getting away from fact,
from deeds actually done, or words actually said, for that matter. I
have kept my singularly repulsive infirmity of body, and to it I have
added a mind festering with foul memories. I have been a brute to you,
a traitor to a friend who trusted me. I have been a sensualist, an
adulterer. And I am hopelessly broken in pride and self-respect. The
conceit, the pluck even, has been licked right out of me."--Richard