Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (continued 4)

“What do you think it means to me? Before I met you I was lonely and dissatisfied—you know what I was like! People talk of joie de vivre. I never knew it—never until this last year, since I have known you. When we have been together I’ve wanted nothing. I’ve been more than happy: I’ve been content. When we have been apart I have lived for the time when I should see you again. If you love me, how can you regret having given me the great joy of my life?”

“If it could last! If it could last! But when it is only to bring a worse pain upon you, how can I help regretting? Oh, it is hard. To think what this moment means to other couples, and that we should be shut out. I feel like you—my own risk is nothing; it is the dread of its consequences for you that weighs, and he said—he said, that the worst time, the time of the worst danger lay ahead. Piers, how can you love me with that knowledge in your mind? I thought when I told you, I honestly thought that it would stop every possibility of your caring.”

“Nothing could have stopped me. I told you then, as I tell you now, that you are the sweetest, the sanest woman I have ever met, and you are mine. I will never give you up; never to my dying day.”

“Piers, Piers, we have no choice.”

He drew her towards him, a hand on each arm; drew her roughly, passionately, his dark face twitching with emotion.

“No! It is true. We have no choice. You have said it, and it is the truth. We belong to each other, and nothing that any one can say or do can alter that. For better or worse we belong; till death us do part. There is no choice. You can’t get away—Vanna, does it strike you that we are doing a wrong, a wicked thing? We are killing our golden hour almost as soon as it is born. Those other lovers that you speak of, do they trouble their heads about marriage the first moment they are alone with their love? I don’t believe they do. I don’t believe it is even mentioned. It is enough joy, enough wonder, to realise the present. Can’t we follow their example? Can’t we be content just to be together—like this? Isn’t the present rich enough to content us? It is more, a hundred times more than I ever dared to expect. You could not be so cruel, Vanna, as to take it from me.”

“If it could last! If it could last!” moaned Vanna once more. “Oh, Piers, it is heaven just to sit here, with my head on your shoulder, and your arms around me; but I must go away, far away to the other end of the world. We can’t even be ‘engaged’ like other people, and have the right to meet and be alone. How could we be engaged when we can never marry?”

“How could we not? If we cannot have the best thing, we must take the next. Do all engaged lovers marry and live happily ever after? You know they don’t. They can’t see what is waiting one day ahead. There are a hundred risks. At the last moment death may divide them. The only thing that is secure is the present; they grasp that, and are happy. That’s the philosophy of life, darling; that must be our philosophy. You are mine. I am not going to give up my rights. We must be able to meet, to see each other when we wish. If to do that and satisfy conventions, we must call ourselves ‘engaged,’ engaged we will be. I shall tell my mother to-night, you must tell the Gorings. We are engaged, and we adore one another, and are gloriously happy. Do you remember Jean when she was engaged? Weren’t they gloriously happy?”

“For three months!” Cruel memory flashed back echoes of impatient words and sighs which had escaped the lovers’ lips even during that short period: “These eternal good-byes, these eternal interruptions! When shall we be alone?”—“For three months! If it had been three years—thirteen—thirty! I can’t imagine Robert waiting for long indefinite years. Oh, Piers, you would grow tired—impatient—”

He pressed her to him with a groan of anguish.

“Of course I shall be tired; of course I shall be impatient. Don’t torture me, darling—and yourself. It’s a second best, and it must be hard; but it is all that’s left, and for a time at least it will be bliss. One never knows what may happen. We are not particularly strong people, you and I; we may not have long to live. Vanna, knowing the uncertainty of life, dare you, dare you refuse me my joy? You say this has come upon us by your fault; then surely you feel your responsibility also. You owe me something, and you must pay. Vanna, is it so hard?”

“Hard! Do you think I want to refuse? Do you think it would not be bliss to me to give way too? For myself it would be all gain—your love, your companionship, your help; but for you it would be a barrier, shutting out better things—a wife, children, a home. You need them, Piers; you are not made for solitude. As you grow older you will need them more. How dare I shut them out?”

He did not answer. Vanna felt his cheek twitch against her own, heard the sharp indrawing of the breath. Her words had gone home; she felt a wild surge of anger against herself—against the morbid conscientiousness which had sought to wreck her own joy. The gods had thrust a gift into her hands, and because it was not pure gold she had thrust it aside, leaving herself to starve. The slackening of Piers’s arms brought with it a stab of anguish. Had she convinced him against his will? Was he about to take her at her word?

But instead of turning away he drew her to her feet, holding her by both hands so that they stood face to face.

“Vanna, you remember what I said to you about Miggles? The lesson of her death? You believe—I believe that this world is not all; that it is only a beginning—the portal of life. Can’t we lift our love above the ordinary human conception? Can’t we be content to wait—to suffer if it must be, in the hope of all that is to come? I don’t pretend that it will be easy; but we have no choice. The love has come; we can’t alter it; we don’t want to alter it. We belong to each other for life and eternity; we must help each other to live on the heights. We must not allow ourselves to regret and to pine for what we cannot have; we must be thankful, and look forward. You are so good, so strong; you must help me! We must go on with our lives; but if this love is worth anything, it will be a strength to us—not a bar. It would be folly to part. Should we think of each other any the less because we were at opposite ends of the world? Vanna! surely you of all women should be the last to deny the possibility of a spiritual love.”

But Vanna did not answer. Her head fell forward until her face was hidden from sight; her hands burned within his. She was a woman, and for the moment there was no place in her heart for Piers’s lofty self-abnegation. A spiritual love—self-sacrifice and suffering in the hope of future bliss! And she was to be strong and brave, and help him when he failed; she, who was filled with a passion of longing for the dear, human, everyday joys; to whom for the moment they towered above the far-off, spiritual gain. The woman’s birthright of intuition revealed the future with flashlight clarity. Her heart was torn with a presage of the pangs which would rend it afresh, as she beheld happy wives, rich in home, husband, and children, while she wandered outcast, unsatisfied, athirst. The man, with shorter vision, could content himself in the present, and in the fulness of love’s revelations delude himself that joy would remain; but to the woman, for whom the love of him was an aching longing of body and soul, the sharpest pang of all came from the certainty of his mistake. She looked forward and beheld him restless and rebellious, chafing against his chains—the old, irritable discontent on lips and eyes. He would suffer; of a certainty he would suffer. So surely as he was made in man’s image, the day would dawn when his joy would be changed into despair. A wild longing seized Vanna to give her lover happiness while she might; to give him such a summer of joy and content that when the winter came he should look back and feel the price well paid.

Her fingers tightened on his arm, her eyes sought his in feverish entreaty.

“Piers! if I do give in—I have no strength to oppose you—if I give in, swear to me that if the time comes when you regret—when you feel bound, because there is some one”—she gulped painfully—“some one else whom you could take for a wife—swear that you will be honest with me; that you will not let me spoil your life! Swear that you will tell me the truth.”

He smiled into her troubled face, taking possession of her hands in a close, comforting grasp.

“What would you think if I asked the same promise of you? Can’t you give me credit for as much consistency as yourself? Is it possible that I could grow tired of you?”

But at that moment Vanna had no ears for the sweet protestations of love. Her grasp grew but the tighter, her gaze the more distressed.

“Swear to me! Swear!”

Piers gave a short, half-impatient laugh.

“I swear it. Now are you content?”

Chapter Seventeen.

A False Position.

Vanna begged a month’s grace before the announcement of her engagement was made public, and before half that time had passed, had said good-bye to the seaside cottage in which she had known such peaceful, happy days, and, in response to an urgent invitation, had gone to pay a long visit to Jean.

“You said the time would come when I should need you,” wrote Jean, in a long pencilled scrawl, “and it has arrived! I need you badly, dear; I crave for you. At this moment I feel I must either have a kind, understanding woman near me, or die! I am so ill, Vanna, and so weak, and so frightened! It has been such a long, long time, and I never knew before what it was like to be ill. One does not grow used to it—it grows harder and harder, and the days are so eternally long. I don’t apologise for asking you to exchange one invalid for another; another person might think it hard, but not you, you dear angel—it will be an inducement to you. And you’ll stay until it is over, won’t you, and keep house, and look after Robert, when I’m upstairs? Oh, the joy, and the ease, and the comfort it would be to see you walk in at this moment, and to know that you’d come to stay! I want you more than I’ve ever wanted you before; and if you say no, I’ll collapse at once, and it will be your fault, and you’ll repent for ever after. Wire your reply.”

Vanna smiled happily as she read the characteristic words. Yes, her time had come. She had waited to a good purpose. Jean needed her, and she needed Jean; she was longing eagerly for long, heart-to-heart talks with her only woman friend. Except those few short days at Seacliff, the two friends had not met since the day of the wedding, and there would be so much to hear, so much to say. What would Jean have to say to her great news? She recalled Jean’s face of dismay as, kneeling on the ground, she had listened to Dr Greatman’s verdict; heard again the tremble in her voice as she asked, “Is there no escape?” Surely Jean would not blame her, because when happiness had been placed into her hand she had not had strength to thrust it away? Surely out of the riches of her own wealth she would rejoice that some crumbs had fallen to her friend? What would Robert say? He was a man: he would judge from a man’s standpoint, with his head rather than with his heart. Vanna shrank nervously from Robert’s disapproval. He was one of the simple, upright men who are apt to be hard judges. To them there are but two courses in life—a right and a wrong. They have neither sympathy nor understanding for those who pitifully essay to find byways by which to escape the rigours of the path. Yet when love had seized Robert in its grip he had made short work of obstacles—had laughed to scorn Vanna’s prudent advice. When she had condemned him, and refused her help, he had replied that it was not needed. He required no help from outside. Well! Vanna lifted her chin with proud resolve; she herself could be equally independent. It would make the future more difficult if Robert and Jean adopted a disapproving attitude, but for the moment she need not trouble herself about such a contingency. She would allow Jean time for the discussion of her own affairs before seizing a quiet opportunity for telling her own great news.

The tall town house, with its narrow staircase, and high, box-like rooms, felt close and stuffy after the wind-swept cottage, but it glowed with the colour dear to the heart of its mistress, and was refreshingly different from the ordinary houses of that most inartistic age. Jean had copied her interior from pictures rather than from upholsterers’ catalogues, and her principal furniture had been made from her own designs. Robert had placed no limit on her expenditure; he could not afford a large house, but she was to have “everything she wanted” for the small one which she had graciously consented to occupy. Such were his instructions, and Jean had proceeded to carry them into effect with a literal interpretation of the words. Being one of the happy people who always know exactly what they want, no time was wasted in discussion, the only difficulty being to procure fabrics as beautiful and artistically tinted as those which were pictured in her fertile brain. When the last treasure had been discovered, and fitted into its niche, the completed whole was a triumph of good taste, beautiful and restful; a home of which any man might be proud. Robert was proud of it because it was Jean’s doing, and spectators waxed enthusiastic in Jean’s praise. For himself, he would have been as well satisfied with a walnut suite and moreen curtains, perhaps more so, for he felt uneasily that he should never be able to smoke comfortably in such fine surroundings, nor to cross a floor without pausing to rub his boots. Neither of the two had a glimmering of an idea of what it cost to furnish a house; but when the bills came in Robert had a disagreeable shock. The sum which he had laid aside was ludicrously inadequate, and he was obliged to have recourse to “selling a share or two,” and so reduce his already slender capital. But Jean was content. Jean was proud of her house; all other considerations were second to that.

Vanna met her friend in the drawing-room, which, being situated at the back of the house, with a depressing outlook, had the ordinary window replaced by one of rich stained glass. Gas jets had been arranged outside the window, which, being lit at dusk, served to show the glowing colours of the design through the evening hours. On this summer afternoon the mellowed light, and absence of prospect, combined to give the room the aspect of a shrine, and Jean moving slowly forward was certainly beautiful enough for a high-priestess. She wore a wonderful flowing robe of a dull blue, softly falling silk, the long open sleeves hanging almost to the ground, and showing her slim arms encased in some thin metallic substance, in which gold shot into silver, and silver back to gold. The folds at the neck were caught together with a metal clasp and chains, and slippers of the same colour peeped out beneath the sweeping skirts. The first glance at her face, however, brought with it a thrill of fear, for suffering and weariness were written there with an eloquence beyond the power of words. The eyes were haggard and encircled with violet shadows, the cheeks had lost their curves, the lips drooped, yet, as ever, Jean’s beauty rose triumphant over all drawbacks. Vanna asked herself if she were not more beautiful than ever, for the childlike pathos of expression added the needed touch of softness to her features.

“Oh, Vanna, you blessing! You have come at last.”

“I’ve come, darling. Come to stay! As long as you want me.”

Jean kissed her again and again, the tears gathering in the lovely eyes, but she dashed them away, and in another minute was laughing and chattering in her old gay voice.

“Bring tea, bring tea! And I’m engaged, remember! Not a soul is to disturb me this afternoon. Vanna, you look sweet. If you go on improving at this rate, you’ll soon beat me hollow. Sit here, opposite, where I can see you. Oh, you look so fresh, and happy, and well! You are like a breath of sea air. I’ve been stifling for months in this stuffy room, with not even a tree to look at, to remind me that it’s spring.” She threw an impatient glance at the stained-glass window which had made such a deep hole in Robert’s purse. “Robert goes out at nine, and gets home at seven. Oh, my dear, such days! I’ve had such a dose of my own society that I’m sickened. If there’s a person on earth I detest at this moment, it’s Jean Gloucester.”

Vanna smiled whimsically.

“It doesn’t look like it. You seem to me to take a very fair amount of interest in her still. You look as charming as ever, you wonderful person. What a marvellous gown! Where in the name of mystery did you evolve it? and how many coffers of gold did you squander in the purchase?”

Jean had the grace to blush.

“Oh, well! one must be respectable. It is rather a marvel. It was designed for me by an artist woman who has gone in for gowns; but no earthly inducement will ever make me tell what it cost. It’s so soothing to have something becoming that it’s been as good as medicine. Looked at in that way, it’s cheap! And I have been so good about money all the year. Rob balanced our books last week, and we were only a hundred out. Very good, I call it, when you remember that I had no experience. The first time we had asparagus for dinner I couldn’t eat a bit. I just sat staring at every stick. You have always to pay for experience. Besides, as I said to Rob, you are only newly married once, and it would be a sin to rub off the bloom worrying about pennies. It’s silly to spoil the present for the sake of what may happen in a dozen years. We may be dead, or if we are not, we shall probably be better off. Rob’s position will be improved, the boys’ education will be finished, and father can allow me more. Men are so fussy about capital... Vanna, do you realise that it is a whole year since I’ve seen you? You have told me very little about yourself in your letters. There’s so much I want to hear. Not about Miggles to-day—we’ll leave that. I don’t want to cry. Tell me about yourself!”

“Oh, not yet! One thing at a time. I’ve not half finished with you,” said Vanna with a thrill of nervousness, which she tried her best to conceal. “There are a hundred things that I am longing to hear. But first about Robert. How is he? Well—flourishing—giving satisfaction—as nice as ever?”

“Nice!” Jean tossed her head in disdain. “What a paltry word. He is the best man out of Heaven, my dear. That is the only description for him. I’ve lived with him for eighteen months, and have not discovered one single, solitary fault. That’s simple truth, not exaggeration. I honestly believe he is perfect.”

“And with you for a wife! You are a darling, Jean; but method was never your strong point, and by your own account your housekeeping hasn’t always been a success. Does he continue to smile through all the upsets, and forgettings, and domestic crises, such as you described to us at Seacliff? I can’t believe it of a mere man!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say that he preserves a dead-level calm. I should hate him if he did. He is rather irritable in small ways. You can excite him to frenzy—comparatively speaking—by moving the matches from his dressing-room, or mislaying his sponge or nail scissors; but then it is the servants who get blamed—never me; and in big things he is great! If he became paralysed to-morrow, or lost every penny he possessed, or if!”—Jean’s face sobered—“died, he might suffer tortures, but he would not speak one word of rebellion, and he would keep his interest in other people, and be truly, unfeignedly, ungrudgingly glad that they were so much more fortunate than himself. Oh, he is a marvel! I adore him. I would give worlds to be like him. I am bursting with pride at being the woman he has chosen out of all the world; but he spoils me so, that it’s becoming second nature to want all my own way, so I keep falling farther and farther behind.”

“Robert wouldn’t admit that! No doubt he thinks himself the laggard, and you just such another paragon as you have described.”

Jean pursed her lips in a whimsical grimace.

“No! The droll part of it is, he does not. He doesn’t understand me one bit; I’m a continual enigma to him. Half the time he is puzzled out of his wits, and the other half he is—shocked. Such eyes! You should see them staring at me, growing bigger and bigger, when I let myself go, and grumble or rage. He disapproves, but he makes excuses, because I am I, and he loves me, and wouldn’t change me for the greatest paragon alive.” She was silent, smiling mischievously to herself for several minutes, then burst out suddenly:

“Can you imagine it, Vanna? I sometimes wish he were not quite so good! It’s aggravating for a sinner like me to be shown up continually against such a contrast. And sometimes it lands one in such fixes... I could tell you such stories of this year!” She snuggled back against her cushions. “Ah, it is good to have you here. I have so longed for a girl to talk to... The first six months we went about a great deal, paying visits to his friends. The first time I asked him to describe the people, as I knew them only by name. ‘Oh, Meg!’ he said, ‘Meg is the simplest of creatures: kindly, and easy-going as you find ’em. You’ll feel at home in five minutes. No fuss, no ceremony. The sort of house where you feel absolutely at home.’ Well, what would you expect from that description? I saw a vision of a suburban villa, and a stout, frumpy woman with a fat smile, and packed a modest little semi-evening frock to let her down gently. My dear! it was a mansion, and she was the very smartest creature I have ever beheld. The first glimpse of her in afternoon clothes took away my breath; but there was worse to come. She had asked a dozen people to dinner to meet us, and while we were dressing—it was a summer evening, and quite light—I saw carriages bowling up to the door, and visions in satin dresses trailing up the steps. There was nothing for it; I put on my wretched little frock, eating my heart out the while at the thought of all my trousseau grandeurs lying useless at home, and descended—the bride, the guest of honour—the worst dressed woman in the room! Can you imagine my suffering?”

Vanna smiled. She could; and also the manner in which Jean would upbraid her husband after the fray.

“And Robert? What had he to say? How did he look when he first saw you alone?”

“Radiant, my dear. Beaming! Absolutely, utterly content. Blankly astonished and dismayed to find that I was not the same. Utterly unconscious that my dress had been any different from the rest. Blindly convinced that there had not been one in the room to touch it!”

They both laughed, a tender indulgence shining in their eyes. It was the look with which women condone the indiscretion of a child; but Jean was still anxious to expound her own side of the situation.

“Yes! It’s charming; but you’ve no idea how trying it can be at times. Other women lament because their husbands complain of their meals. I wish to goodness Robert would complain. It would make things easier with the maids. Good plain cooks need so much keeping up to the mark, and I never get a chance of grumbling. When the things are unusually bad, and I am mentally rehearsing what I shall say in the kitchen next morning—‘you really must make the soup stronger. The gravy was quite white... Why did the pudding fall to pieces?’—you know the kind of thing—Robert will lean back with a sigh, and say, ‘I have had a good dinner. You’ve eclipsed yourself to-night. I am getting quite spoiled.’ I glare at him, but it’s no use. He says, ‘What is the matter, dear?’ and I see a smug smile on Brewster’s face, and know she will go straight into the kitchen and repeat the whole tale. How can I grumble after that? The wind is taken completely out of my sails. Sometimes I think that for practical, everyday life a saint is even more trouble than a sinner. Then the friends he brings here! You never knew such a motley throng. It may be any one from a duke (figuratively a duke. He has met all sorts of bigwigs, ‘east of Suez’) to a vagrant with broken boots, and not an ‘h’ in his composition. And it’s always the same description: ‘do you mind if I bring a man home to dinner to-night? I met him at —’ some outlandish place—‘and he was awfully decent to me. He is passing through town, and I should like to have him here. Such a good fellow!’ Then, of course, if I have rice pudding, it’s the duke; or if I order in an ice, it’s the vagrant. Once or twice I’ve tried cross-questioning, but it’s no use. If I ask, ‘is he a gentleman, Robert?’ he looks at me with his biggest eyes, and asks, ‘would I ask any one to meet you, who was not?’ But, bless him! his ideas and mine on that point do not agree. So here, my dear, you behold the novel spectacle of a woman who has only one complaint to make of her husband, that he is too good! But he loves me, Vanna, more than ever. We haven’t grown a bit stodgy, only just lately I’ve been so ill and depressed. It will be better now you are here... Now tell me about yourself. You’ve had a sad time, but you don’t look sad. You look happy and well. Vanna! you are blushing. What is it? Tell me. There is something—I know there is. Tell me at once!”

“Yes, there is something.” Vanna braced herself against the chair, a thrill of nervous foreboding coursing through her veins. She drew off her left glove, which she had purposely left on during tea, and held out the hand, on the third finger of which sparkled a large square diamond. “There is that!”

“Vanna! A ring? On your engagement finger! Who gave you that?”

“Piers Rendall!”

The colour rushed in a crimson flood over Jean’s face; her lips parted in breathless, incredulous surprise.

“Piers! Vanna! You mean it? Piers? Piers and you? You are engaged? When? Where? For how long?”

“At Seacliff. A fortnight ago. But we have loved each other from the first.”

“And you never told me; you never said a word.”

“No. I have not seen you; but even if I had I could not have spoken. Remember how you felt! Could you have discussed Robert with me while you were waiting? I asked Piers not to announce the engagement until I had told you. No one has been told so far, except his mother.”

“Mrs Rendall? She knows? It is settled then? Really absolutely settled?”

“Certainly. I told you so. A fortnight ago.”

A little chill of offence sounded in Vanna’s voice. Jean’s congratulations were a trifle too long delayed; her surprise too blank to be flattering. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me, Jean?”

“But—but—You told me—you said—the doctor said—”

“That I should never marry. Just so! That fact remains. Piers knows; I did not deceive him; he knew months ago. He came up to interview Dr Greatman himself. We know that we can never marry, but we love each other, and mean to take what happiness remains. No one ever forbade me to be engaged.”

“How can you be engaged? What for? Engaged not to be married? It’s absurd. What could you say? How could you explain? What would people think?”

Vanna laughed—a short, hard laugh. Still Jean had not congratulated her, nor said one loving word.

“If it is a false position, it is just those ‘people’ of whom you speak who force us into it. The conventions of society don’t allow a man and a woman to enjoy each other’s society undisturbed. To be engaged is the only way in which they can gain the liberty. Therefore that is the way we must take. There is nothing else to be done.”

“And—when you don’t marry? You are both well off, and not too young. People will expect you to marry at once, and when you don’t—”

“That is our own affair. They will be told at the beginning that it will be a long engagement, and however much they may wonder among themselves, they will hardly have the impertinence to question us on the subject. I imagine they will be polite, and kind, and congratulate us. I don’t think there will be many who will hear the news without speaking one kind word.”

The inference was undisguised—was intended to be undisguised. Jean flushed again, and knitted her delicate brows.

“I don’t mean to be unkind, but it sounds so wild, so impracticable, so utterly unlike you, Vanna. Where will you live? How can you meet? You are only twenty-five. People are so ready to talk. What do you propose to do?”

“To go on with our lives. I have money, thank goodness. I must have a little house—it won’t be rich and luxurious like yours—just a little corner where I can put my things, and feel at home. I must make a sacrifice to convention and have a sheep dog, too, I suppose—some lonely woman like myself, who will be thankful for a home. She can look after the servants, and the cleaning, and understand from the first that she leaves me alone. Then I shall find some work. I have an idea working out in my head which I hope will bring interest and occupation. And Piers shall come to see me. We shall have a place where we can meet in peace and comfort.”

“Vanna, you won’t have peace—it’s impossible. Oh, I know it’s hard that your life should be spoiled, terribly, terribly hard; but remember what the doctor said—that you had no right to spoil the man’s life also. When you repeated that to me that afternoon you said there was no fighting against it. If you hold Piers to you now, you will steal his chance of wife and home and children.”

“Ah, there they are again—those children!” Vanna’s lip curled in bitter passion. “Those visionary children who are for ever cropping up to block the way. No legal form can make a wife and home. I am more to Piers than any other woman, despite all my limitations; his home is where I am. Why should I be sacrificed, a live woman, with all my powers strong within me, for the sake of problematic infants who may never arrive? And if they did, is it all joy to be a father? Are you sure that the joy equals the pain? Your father was broken-hearted that day when you left him with a smile. You did not trouble about him; why should I give up everything for the sake of possible children?”

There was silence for several moments; then Jean spoke:

“Vanna, you talk as if I did not want you to be happy. Ask Robert! He’ll tell you how often I have spoken about you; how I’ve cried in the midst of my own happiness to think you could never have the same. But this! Oh, it’s a mistake, dear; it’s a mistake; it will land you in worse trouble. Piers will never be content; you won’t be content yourself; it won’t be happiness, but a long, long fret.”

“Other people—married people, happy married people—look back and call the years of their engagement the happiest time of their lives. I’ve heard them. You’ve heard them yourself.”

“Yes. But why? They lived in the future, building castles, the castles in which they were to live. If you could have heard them talking when they were alone, you would have found that it was almost always about the future—When shall we be married? Where shall we go for our honeymoon? Where shall we live? They imagined it all sunshine, all joy; and when the reality came, and its shadows, and ups and downs, they looked back, and realised how happy and unburdened they had been. But, Vanna dear, if you take away the future—if there is no looking forward—a dread, instead of a hope—”

Vanna shivered, but she held herself erect, and took no heed of the hand held out towards her. She looked round the beautiful, luxurious room, at the glowing stained-glass window, which shut out the grey aspect of the outer world, and as she did so, bitterness arose. Once more the knife-edged question cleft her heart. Why should the ugliness of life be turned into colour and beauty for one traveller, while the other might not even take to herself a crumb of life’s feast without reproach and misgiving? A moment before she had craved for Jean’s sympathy; now she felt cold, and hard, and resentful, unwilling to accept such sympathy if it were offered. Jean was too happy to understand. She was one of fortune’s favourites, for whom life had always been smooth and easy. How could she realise the hunger of one who had stood continually outside the feast? Of what use were sweet words if understanding were lacking? Her voice when she spoke again sounded chill and aloof:

“You need not enlarge. Piers and I realise too well that our lot is different from other happy lovers, but we have both known what it is to feel lonely and sad, and we believe that we shall find consolation in each other’s love. We mean to try, at least. Our minds are firmly made up on that point, whatever our friends may think. If you wish to cast me off, Jean—I shall be sorry—but, I tell you frankly, it will make no difference.”

“Vanna, don’t! Don’t be so bitter; don’t speak to me in that voice; I can’t bear it,” cried Jean with gasping breath. The sound of her voice brought Vanna’s eyes upon her in startled inquiry, and at the sight of her face resentment vanished, in a spasm of love and fear. So white she looked, so spent, so pitifully frail and broken. Jean was ill: this was no moment to trouble her with exhausting mental problems. Vanna felt a swift pang of penitence at the thought that she who had arrived in the character of nurse and consoler had already contrived to bring about a crisis of weakness.

In a trice her arms were supporting the lovely head, her lips pressed to the white cheek, her lips cooing out tenderest reassurements.

“There, darling, there! I was a brute, a mean, bitter, grudging brute. Forgive me, and we’ll never quarrel again. I know it, Jean! All you have said, and morel I did make a stand; I refused to listen, but I love him so; I’m so hungry for happiness—I couldn’t stand out! Whatever comes, whatever happens in the future, we shall have some time together. Think how you would feel in my place, and you’ll understand. You and Robert mean so much to us both, you must wish us well.”

Jean cried, and clung to Vanna’s hands with feverish protests of love and fealty; but she allowed herself to be soothed and petted and waited upon with a docility as new as it was touching. When Vanna skilfully led the conversation to brighter topics, she slowly regained her composure, and some of her old brightness, but her face still showed signs of her distress, and Vanna inwardly quailed at the thought of Robert’s wrath when he returned and discovered the manner in which she had inaugurated her arrival.

For every one’s sake she considered it wise to avoid a second argument that night, and returned to her own room to unpack before Robert arrived, leaving Jean to break the news to him as she pleased. The sound of his cheery whistle came up to her from the hall; she heard the doors open and shut, and flushed and paled as she followed in imagination the conversation in the room below. A quarter of an hour passed, then came footsteps, and a tap at the door.

“Vanna! It’s I! May I speak to you for a moment?”

The voice was cordial, with its old cheery note. At the sound of it Vanna dropped the bundle of clothes which she was holding, and hurried to fling open the door. Robert was standing before her, pale and, if possible, thinner than ever, but with a great tenderness shining in his eyes. Without preamble he took both her hands in his, and said:

“Jean has told me. She is your oldest friend. We want you to feel that this is your home until you have one of your own. Ask Piers whenever you like. He will always be welcome. There’s the little den; it is at your service. We’ll do everything we can for you, Vanna.”

But he did not congratulate her, and the lack smote on Vanna’s heart.

“Thank you, Robert,” she said wistfully. “That’s like you. I am very grateful, but, but can’t you say you are glad? Piers and I love each other very much, and we have been very lonely. Robert, you, of all people, ought to be able to understand the possibility of a spiritual love!”

But Robert only flushed, and looked distressed.

“We are not spiritual beings yet, Vanna. That’s the trouble. I understand the temptation. I don’t presume to judge. Piers is a better man than I. He may be able to rise where I should sink.”

“What would you do if you were in our place? If Jean were like me, and you loved her, but could not marry?”

Robert’s eyes craved pardon, but his lips did not hesitate:

“I should take a passage in the first boat, and put the width of the world between us.”

Chapter Eighteen.

The Reaper.

Robert and Jean made no further remonstrance, but the consciousness of their disapproval was a weight from which Vanna could only escape in the company of Piers himself. Alone with him in the shelter of the den she tasted content, all the more perfect from the contrast with darker hours. Encircled by Piers’s arms, with Piers’s eyes looking into hers, the world itself had no power to touch her, and she found herself translated into that woman’s kingdom where everything that she did was right and beautiful.

“Jean does not approve of me, Piers. She thinks I am acting unfairly by you.”

“My Heart, why worry about Jean? She is a child—the most charming and lovable of children, but still a child. You have more brains in your little finger than she has in her whole head. She is incapable of understanding your sentiments.”

“Robert doesn’t approve!”

“Robert doesn’t count. He is an echo of Jean. He judges you from her standpoint.”

“If you get tired of me, Piers, you have promised to speak!”

“I’ve sworn it. I’ll swear it again, ten thousand times over. Does one grow tired of the sun?”

Then Vanna would abandon argument and talk delicious nonsense, and tell herself a hundred times over that, come what might, she was the happiest, the most blessed of women, to have gained the heaven of Piers Rendall’s love.

The days drifted past, quiet and peaceful except for the growing fear about Jean. The doctor shook his head, pronounced her condition “not normal,” and Robert, though invariably cheerful in his wife’s presence, grew haggard with suspense. And then suddenly, some weeks before it was expected, came the end—a ghastly day, a day of hasty comings and goings, of urgent summons for further help, of anguish of body for Jean, and for those who loved her, the mental anguish of sitting still hour after hour waiting with trembling for the verdict of life or death.

It was four o’clock in the morning, the soft grey dawn of a summer’s day, when at last the waiting ended. The doctor opened the door of the den, and faced Robert’s hungry eyes.

“It is all over, Mr Gloucester. Your wife is coming round. She is young, and has a good constitution. I think she will pull through. She is very low—that is only to be expected; but we have nature on our side, and must hope for the best. Unfortunately, circumstances are not so favourable for her recovery as one could wish. I regret to say that in spite of all our care we could not save the child. A fine boy! I deeply regret; but you will be thankful that your wife is spared.”

The tears flooded Robert’s eyes, but they were tears of joy, not grief. At that moment he had no room in his mind for the little son whom he had never seen. After the blackness of those hours when he had seen a vision of life without Jean, he could do nothing but rejoice and thank God.

But Vanna’s heart contracted with a spasm of sympathy. Poor Jean! Poor Jean! What a bitter awakening would be hers!

And Jean lay on her bed, bruised, aching, incredibly fatigued. She asked no questions, displayed no interest; with eyelids closed over sunken eyes, pale lips apart, she lay like a broken flower, indifferent to everything in heaven or earth. At intervals of a few hours the doctor came and felt her pulse; at times some one put the tube of a feeding-cup to her mouth, and she swallowed, shuddering with distaste; at intervals it was dark, at intervals it was light. Once an urgent voice spoke in her ear telling of Robert’s presence, and she opened her eyes and tried to smile. All her life long Jean remembered that smile. An effort was required of her; she realised as much, and with all the force of her feeble will endeavoured to twist her lips into the looked-for greeting. They were stiff as iron, heavy as lead; she struggled wearily—was it for hours she struggled?—and at last mechanically felt them part. She smiled, and Robert cried! It seemed a poor reward, and she shut her eyes in weary despair. At times she slept, to awake with a gasp and a cry. Always she was falling—falling from the high gallery of a cathedral, from the top of a pile of scaffolding, from the topmost crag of a precipice. Then some one wiped her brow, and spoke soothing words, and she cried, weakly, without cause.

Four days of nightmare, then at last rest—a real sleep, without dreams or fear; peace in the troubled frame, appetite instead of nausea. The fire burned brightly on the hearth, the curtains were drawn, nurse was drinking tea comfortably beside the fire. The old homely, everyday life, how good and natural it looked after the black, nightmare dreams.

“Nurse!” whispered Jean weakly, “where is my baby?”

The white-capped nurse leapt to her feet; it must be uncomfortable, thought Jean, to feel those stiff, white bows for ever pinned beneath one’s chin. She came to the bedside, and looked down at her patient with an expression of mingled anxiety and relief.

“Ah, you look better! You have had a deep. You will be ready for some food—”

“My baby—I want my baby! Why is it not in the room?”

“You have been too ill. We had to keep you quiet. You are getting on nicely now, but you must still be careful. Be good now, and drink this milk, and try to sleep again.”

“Is it a girl or a boy?”

“A boy.”

“Oh!” Jean’s voice thrilled with joy. “I knew it. I knew it. I said it could not be a girl. A boy—a son! Oh, bring him to me, nurse; bring him! I can’t wait a moment longer.”

“You have waited four days; you can wait a few more minutes. Drink your milk, and I will call your husband. Poor man, he has been so wretched! You would like to see him first.”

Nurse was masterful, and Jean was weak. She swallowed the milk, and impatiently waited for Robert’s arrival, hugging the thought of the burden in his arms. Surely he would bring him to her—the hard-won treasure, the tiny, precious son for whose sake she had gone down to the gates of death!

The door opened, and Robert entered. His face was drawn and aged, his hazel eyes haggard with suffering; but for once Jean had no thought for him—her eyes saw only his empty arms.

“Where is he?”

Robert went down on his knees by the bedside.

“Jean, darling, speak to me! I have been hungering all these days... Thank God you are better. Oh, Jean, nothing matters in all the world if I have you.”

Jean smiled, and her fingers feebly returned his caress.

“Poor lad! poor lad! You have suffered, too, but he will comfort us. Bring him to me! put him here, between us on the bed. Let us look at him together.”

“Jean, sweetheart! We have been happy together; sufficient for each other all these months. Am I not more to thee than ten sons?”

Then in a flash fear dawned on Jean’s heart; her great eyes widened, her lips fell apart.

“My baby! Don’t torture me. Where is my baby?”

“With God,” said Robert softly.

The nurse had cleared away the tea things. After a due interval she had returned to the room, and been relieved to find the patient lying quietly on her pillow. Mr Gloucester sitting by her side looked more agitated and distressed than she did. His face wore the pitiful, baffled expression of a child whose overtures have been rejected. It was with an air of absolute timidity that he bent forward to kiss his wife’s cheek when bidden to depart by the autocrat of the situation.

“I must go, darling. I’ll come back soon.”

Jean’s head moved slightly on the pillow, but the movement was away from him, not nearer. She spoke no word.

Nurse Emma moved about the room, performing necessary duties in the deft, noiseless manner of her kind. From time to time she cast a curious glance at the still face on the pillow. “Poor thing! Too weak, no doubt, to take it in! Yet she had seemed excited at the thought of the boy. A pity, after such a hard time, but there would be plenty more.”

She shook out some dainty, lace-frilled garments before the fire, and approached the bed, judiciously cheerful.

“Now, it is six o’clock! You are so much better this afternoon—what do you say? Could you fancy a nice cup of tea?”

Jean opened her eyes, and looked at her. It was not a look, it was a glare; the grey eyes were dry, tearless, blazing. At the sight Nurse Emma was positively shaken with surprise.

“Oh, my dear, don’t look at me like that! It was not my fault. We did our best for you—more than our best. I never saw Dr Erroll so anxious. You owe your life to him. It’s sad, of course; a great disappointment, but you are so young, and you have your good husband. You mustn’t fret.”

“I am not fretting.”

“Not? What then? You look—”

“Furious! I’m furious. I have been cheated. It’s not fair.”

“Oh, my dear! Don’t talk like that. These things happen, you know. You’re not the first. We all have our troubles, and you are pulling round so nicely. There was a time when we feared for you, too. You must be thankful that your life was spared for your poor husband’s sake. It’s been most trying for him, with your weakness, and the funeral, and all. Come now, have a little cry. It will do you good. Then you shall have some tea.”

Jean glared at her again—glared with an intensity that was almost hatred.

“You are a foolish woman,” she said coldly. “You have no right to be a nurse. Go away!”

Nurse Emma bit her lip and went back to her seat by the fire. Really! But it was her duty to ignore the outbursts of irritable patients, and preserve an unruffled calm, and she honestly strove to live up to her creed. Half an hour later she renewed her offer of tea. When her second and third attempt alike failed to produce any response, she determined once more to summon the husband to second her efforts.

Outside the bedroom door was a small square landing, the sort of landing, unworthy the name of hall, which one finds in most small, middle-class houses. The gas was not yet lighted, and it had a dreary, depressing air. Before the window, gazing blankly into the street, stood Robert Gloucester, every line of his body eloquent of fatigue and depression. Nurse Emma looked at him sympathetically; but her first thought was for her patient.

“I think you had better go to Mrs Gloucester, sir. I can’t get her to eat. The food is ready on the table. Perhaps she will take it for you.”

Robert passed her without a word, shutting the door behind him. Jean stared at him across the room.

“Darling! Nurse is distressed that you won’t eat. She has sent me to persuade you.”

“She is a stupid woman—stupid and heartless. She has no right to be a nurse.”

“Don’t say that, dear. She has nursed you well—been most devoted. For three nights she has not had off her clothes.”

Jean’s upper lip curled in scorn. A strong, self-contained woman, who had lost three nights’ rest in performance of her paid duty. Three nights! For how many weary months had she herself missed her sleep, dreading the night, dreading the day, travelling wearily nearer and nearer a martyrdom of pain, and now—nothing! Hungry arms, hungry heart, incredible disappointment! She pushed aside the offered cup with impatient hand.

“I don’t want it. It would choke me.”

“But you are so weak; you will be worse again. For my sake, sweetheart!”

“No! I am better. You can see for yourself. I feel really stronger.” And strange as it appeared, Jean spoke the truth. In some mysterious fashion the flood of anger coursing through her body seemed to have brought with it fresh life and energy. The tone of her voice was clearer, a tinge of colour showed on her cheeks. She looked her husband in the face with cold, challenging eyes.

“You took away my baby—my baby, and hid him for ever, without letting me have one sight of his face! Was that just? Was that fair? Does a woman wait all those months to be cheated at the end? It was a cruel thing to do.”

“But you were ill. Your own life was in danger. It would have killed you to be roused to hear that news. If you think it over, dear, you will understand.”

“It’s easy to talk. You saw him. You can remember. I can’t.”

Robert’s face twitched. Yes! he remembered. All his life he would remember the small, dank face of his first-born—that pitiful image, so cruelly unlike the cherub of Jean’s dreams. He had another memory also—the memory of a grey, rainy morning when he stood by his son’s grave in the dreary city cemetery, while his wife lay unconscious at home, grudging each moment in his longing to be back beside her—dreading to return to hear a worse report. Jean had been spared more than she knew—more than she would ever guess, for no word of his would enlighten her. It was not Robert Gloucester’s custom to speak of his own woes.

He sat by the bed holding Jean’s slack hand, gazing at her with wistful, puzzled eyes. He loved her as surely no man had loved a woman before, but he could not comfort her. That was the tragic, the inexplicable fact. In the first great sorrow of life she thrust him aside. It was terribly hard for her, poor darling; a crushing blow, but there was still so much for which to be thankful. Her own life was spared; they were given back to each other’s love. Could she not realise, and be consoled?

Poor Robert! As well expect the dead child to rise from its grave as Jean to develop patience in the crash of her first great grief. If she had fallen from one deep faint to another, if she had hysterically cried and sobbed, he could have understood and sympathised; but this bitter cry of rebellion was beyond his comprehension. At the moment when he most longed to draw near, the great barrier of temperament shut him out from his wife’s heart.

The darkness deepened in the room; the face of Jean on the pillow became dim and blurred, her hand lay slack and unresponsive in his grasp. Robert sat silent, his whole being expended in a prayer for strength and wisdom—for the power to say the right word to meet his wife’s needs.

“Beloved,” he whispered softly. “Be patient! Be content with me a little longer. There will be others...”

But what woman fresh from her fiery trial can take comfort in that thought? With a cry of pain Jean wrenched away her hand.

“Oh, you don’t, you don’t understand! I want Vanna—I want a woman. Send Vanna to me.”

So once again he had said the wrong thing.

Vanna crept in through the doorway, and knelt down by Jean’s side. The gas was lighted now, turned up just high enough to make visible the various objects in the room, without dazzling the patient’s eyes. Those eyes were raised with strained appeal to the other girl’s face, as if mutely asking help.

Here was another woman, a woman who loved her, a woman who would never have a child of her own. Would she understand? What words of comfort would she offer in her turn?

But Vanna said no words. She laid her face down on Jean’s hand, and the hot tears poured from her eyes. The trembling of her form shook the bed, and Jean trembled in response. A spasm of weakness threatened her, but she would not succumb. She pressed her lips together, and stared fixedly with burning eyes. Was this the “little cry” which was to act as the prelude to the “nice cup of tea”? What comfort had Vanna to offer?

“Well!” she said in that cold, faint voice which sounded so poor an echo of her usual full, musical tones. “Well! what have you to say? I sent for you, you know. My baby is dead. He is dead. I have no baby. It has been all useless, for nothing! Nothing is left—”

“Jean! Jean! My poor little Jean!”

“Is that all you have to say? You ought to tell me to be brave, to be brave and not fret. I am not the first person!... Can you believe it, Vanna; can you? That little chest of drawers is full of his things. I’ve stitched at them for months, and dreamt of him with every stitch. I’ve turned them over a hundred times, waiting, looking forward to to-day. There’s his cot in the corner, and his little bath. It’s all ready—but he is not here. My baby is dead. They took him away, and hid him where I can never see. Think of it, Vanna! all those months, and never even to see his face. To have had a little son, and never to have touched him, given him one kiss—”

“Poor little mother! Poor little hungry mother. Oh, my poor Jean.”

Jean shut her eyes, and pressed her head against the pillow.

“Vanna, Vanna! How shall I bear it? I was so happy, so content; I wanted nothing but Robert, and then this came. I had never been ill before—it was dreadful to be ill, but I looked forward: you know how I looked forward. I thought and thought; it seemed at last as if one thought of nothing else. It grew so real, so near; it filled one’s heart, and then—nothing! nothing but pain and loss. You don’t understand; you can’t guess the horror of it—the baffled, incredible horror. You’ll never know it, Vanna. Thank God for that! When you grieve because you can never marry, remember this day, and what you have escaped. My little son, that I shall never see! What can you say to me, Vanna? What can you say to comfort me?”

“Nothing!” said Vanna. “Nothing!” She raised her tear-stained face, and laid it beside Jean’s on the pillow, and at that touch, at the sound of the broken voice, the hard composure broke down. Jean trembled, gasped, and clinging tightly to the outstretched arms, sobbed out her heart in a paroxysm of grief.

An hour later Robert was again summoned to the sick-room; but this time it was by Jean’s request, and when he entered she stretched out her hand towards him, and pitifully endeavoured to smile.

“Poor darling! I’m sorry I was unkind. I will try, I will try to be good! I am calmer now.”

“Vanna helped you?”

Jean nodded. Robert sat gazing at her, his eyes wistful, like his voice. It was not jealousy which he felt, nor anger, nor impatience—but simplest, saddest humiliation. He had failed and Vanna had succeeded. With all his soul he longed to find the secret of her power.

“How did she help you, dear? What did she say?”

“Nothing! She cried. The tears rolled down her face.”

Robert sat silent, holding his wife’s hand, and striving, hopelessly, pitifully, to understand.

Chapter Nineteen.

Life Work.

After the first few weeks were over Jean recovered her strength more quickly than had been expected, and by the end of the second month was able to take her usual place in the household.

One of the first things which she had done after being pronounced convalescent was to fold away with her own hands all the tiny garments which had been prepared with such joy, and to cover the dainty new furnishings of the nursery with careful wrappings. This done, the key was turned in the lock, and henceforward there was a ghost-chamber in the house—a chamber haunted by the ghost of a dead hope.

Jean spoke but little of her loss—the wound went too deep for words; and as time went on some of the old interest in life began to revive, aided by the joys of recovered health, and of Robert’s devotion, if possible more ardent than before. Nevertheless no one could look upon her without realising the change wrought by the last few months. She had been a merry, thoughtless girl, to whom grief and pain were but abstract words conveying no definite impression: now the great revelation had come, anguish of body, anguish of soul, and she emerged from the shadows, sobered and thoughtful.

“What women have to suffer! The thought of it haunts me. I can’t get away from it,” she said to Vanna one afternoon as they sat together in the autumn gloaming, enjoying that quiet tête-à-tête which was the most intimate moment of the day. “I walk along the streets staring at the women I meet, and marvel! There they are—thousands of them, British matrons, plain, ordinary, commonplace creatures with dolmans, and bonnets far back on their heads, each with a family of—what? four, six, eight, sometimes ten children! For years and years of their lives they have been chronic invalids, goaded on by the precepts that it is ‘only natural,’ and that they have no right to shirk their work on that account. The courage of them, and the patience, and the humility! They never seem to consider that they deserve any praise. If they read in the newspaper of a soldier who saved a life in the rush and excitement of battle, and was wounded in the act, they rave of him by the hour together; but if you offered them the Victoria Cross, they would think you were mad! Yet every life given to the world means nearly a year of suffering for some poor mother!”

Vanna was silent. It was inevitable that in her position she should see the other side of the question, and feel that a year would be a light price to pay for the joy of holding Piers’s son in her arms; but Jean had lost that great recompense which wipes away the remembrance of the anguish. Her heart was still hungry and sore. Having no words of comfort to offer, Vanna deftly turned the conversation to a safer channel.

“Apropos of suffering, Jean, I have been waiting to talk to you about my own plans. I’ve been here over four months, dear, and it’s time I moved on. I told you I had a plan in my head which was slowly working itself out. Well! at last, I think I can see daylight. I have my life to live, and I can’t be content just to fritter it away. I must find something that is worth doing, and which will justify my existence. I’ve thought of many things, but it always comes back to nursing as the likeliest and most suitable. For the last four years that’s been my work, and I know I did it well. Every doctor I have met told me I was a born nurse. One Sunday when you were ill I went to Dr Greatman, and had a long talk. He had asked me to go. I told him what I wanted—technical training to add to what I had learnt by experience, and then when I was properly equipped to give my services to poor gentlewomen who could not afford to pay to be properly cared for.”

“A nurse! A hospital nurse! You!” Jean’s tone was eloquent with dismay. The day of lady nurses was but in its dawn, and public opinion had yet to be reconciled to the thought. “Vanna, you could not stand the everlasting strain. And you spoke of a home, a house of your own! If you were at the hospital—”

“Let me finish my story, dear. Don’t interrupt half through. Dr Greatman was most kind and understanding. I think in a kind of way he feels that he owes me some compensation, as it was he who laid the bar on my life. I took him letters from the doctors who know me, giving my character as professional nurse. They were rather nice, Jean. I was proud of them, and Dr Greatman said he wished he could speak as highly of many of his certificated nurses. He advises me to take a two years’ course of training at a hospital. I should have to ‘live in,’ and give up all my time; but as soon as the two years are over I will look out for a house and a sheep dog, and gather together my treasures to make a real little home of my own. You shall help me to arrange it, Jean! It shall be in town, as near to you as rents will allow, in a quiet street, with at least two spare rooms facing south. Then I shall be ready for work as it comes along. Sometimes I shall go to a patient’s house, and nurse her there; sometimes—if her own house is unsuitable, or if she is a poor governess, or a worker who hasn’t got a home—I’ll take her in, and look after her in my own rooms. At other times I’ll have convalescents who want kitchen food and kindness. Sometimes I’ll have guests—poor, dull drones who are suffering from all work and no play, and dose them with kindness and amusement. Then I shall fed of some use, and that my house is doing good to other people besides myself.”

“They’ll sponge upon you, and tire you out, and take everything they can get, and then go away, and slander you behind your back.”

“Tant pis! Let’s hope they’ll do it sufficiently far away to let me continue in my blissful delusion that I’ve done some good.”

“You’ll get sick of it. It’s no use pretending; you were as fond of gaiety and amusement as I was myself. You’ll get sick of everlasting invalids.”

“Then I’ll take a spell off, and do nothing, and be as selfish as I please. I’m not bound. If a roving fit seizes me I can shut up house and go off on my travels. I don’t intend to spend all my life in a rut. I’m a poor gentlewoman myself, and need my own medicine. Don’t imagine that I’m tying myself down to continual drudgery, for I’m not; but I must, I must have an object in life!”

“And for two whole years you propose to shut yourself up in a hospital?”

“I do; with the exception of an afternoon a week, a day a fortnight, and three weeks’ annual holiday.”

“May I ask what Piers has to say?”

Vanna’s smile was both whimsical and pathetic.

“You may; but I shan’t answer. Several volumes of very strong language, poor dear man; but he knows—at the bottom of his heart he knows that I am right!”

Not even to Jean could Vanna confess that her plans for the future had a nearer and more personal object than mere philanthropy. The conservation of love! This was the great problem with which she struggled in secret. Her clear, far-sighted brain realised the truth, despised by most lovers, that love is a plant which needs careful and assiduous tending if it is to live and retain its bloom. Kindred interests, kindred hopes, kindred efforts and aims—these are the foods by which it is nourished in happy home-life; but if these be wanting—if instead of the hill tops there stretches ahead a long flat plain, what then can nourish the plant and guard it from decay? Piers had sworn that his troth should not bind him if his heart grew tired; but, having received that promise, Vanna never again allowed herself to allude to the subject. Her woman’s instinct taught her that no good could come of continually putting such a possibility into words. She must write, act, speak, as if the eternity of the love between them was beyond doubt—fixed as the hills. What precautions seemed advisable to keep it so she must take upon herself, and with as slight an appearance of intention as might be. Piers might rage and fume at the prospect of her years in hospital, but she knew that the scarcity of their meetings would be a gain rather than a loss. Once a week they would meet for a few hours; once a fortnight there would come a long happy day, which would make an epoch to be anticipated and remembered with tenderest thought. Better so than to run the risk of satiety, and the hastening of that day when the dread question might arise: “What next?”

This conviction, deeply rooted in Vanna’s mind, made her strong to resist all arguments and reproaches, and the end of the year found her established as a nurse at one of the largest and most advanced of the great London hospitals.

Chapter Twenty.

After Five Years.

Five years later Vanna Strangeways and Piers Rendall were taking tea with Robert and Jean Gloucester in their London home. Those years of busy living had left their trace on all four friends; but, as is usually the case, these changes were most marked on the faces of the women.

A man of forty is almost invariably handsomer than the same man at the age of twenty-five; but though a woman may gain in expression, the delicate bloom of youth is a charm which can never be replaced.

Jean Gloucester would always be beautiful, but already in her thirtieth year she wore a worn and fragile air. The two children who now occupied the nursery upstairs had made heavy demands on her strength. Jean was one of the women who, though naturally robust, seem totally unfitted for the strain of child-bearing. Her figure was slight almost to emaciation, and her cheeks had lost their bloom, but she was still a picture fascinating to the eye as she leant back against the cushions of the sofa—bright rose-coloured cushions, newly covered to show off the beauty of a wonderful grey gown made in the long flowing folds which she affected, and which were in striking contrast to the inartistic dresses of the period.

In whatever direction Jean economised it was never in dress or household decorations. She was one of the women in whom the beauty instinct takes precedence above other tastes. If it had been her lot to live in a garret on ten shillings a week she would have deprived herself of food until she had saved enough money to paper the walls with a harmonious colour, and to buy a strip of curtaining to match. To purchase a prosaic garment for five pounds, when an artistic one could be procured for ten, was to her practically an impossibility. She stifled any pangs of conscience by arguing that the outlay was economical in the end. Good things wore longer, one did not grow wearied of them as of cheaper designs; and, to do her justice, these theories were invariably supported by her husband. His wife’s beauty was a continual joy to Robert Gloucester, and he took a boyish delight in the moments when, walking by her side, he encountered chance City friends, and watched the first casual glance brighten into surprised admiration. It appeared to him but another instance of Jean’s surprising cleverness that she always “hit upon such stunning clothes,” and he pitied from his heart the poor fellows who possessed dull, dowdy wives. Jean looked like a queen beside them; but a queen is an expensive luxury in the home of a struggling business man. The process of “selling out a share or two” had been resorted to several times in the course of the last few years, and Robert had begun to lie awake at nights, pondering uneasily about the future. The lines in his forehead had deepened into furrows, but his eyes were clear and bright as ever; he moved in the same quick, alert fashion, and his laugh rang full and joyous as a boy’s.

Piers Rendall’s dark hair had turned grey—a curious dark shade of grey which gave an effect of poudré. The change gave an added distinction to his appearance, and showed the dark eyes and eyebrows in striking contrast. He was thin, however, and the nervous twitching of the features was more frequent than of old.

As for Vanna, what attractions she possessed had never been of the golden-haired, pink-cheeked category, and there was consequently little change visible at a casual glance. She was prettily dressed in a soft blue gown, and the stag-like setting of the head, the arched black brows, and the delicate oval of the face were untouched. Love and work had filled her life, and her expression was both sweet and strong; but there were new lines written on her face—lines whose secret no one knew but herself.

All these years Vanna had been fighting a battle—a battle against self and fate. When at the end of her hospital course she had settled down in her own house, Piers had been hotly indignant at discovering that the same embargo as of old was to be laid against his visits. One night a week! The thing was preposterous. He had given way to her wishes, had been patient and self-sacrificing, more patient than ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have been under the circumstances. He had waited, marking off the months as they passed, counting on the future to reward him for his abstinence, and now was she going to put him off again, to forbid him the house, to treat him like a common acquaintance? He stormed and argued, Vanna stood firm. They parted for the first time in coldness and anger, but the next day Piers took back his words, and begged for forgiveness.

“You may be right, I don’t know. Women are so confoundedly calm and reasoning; but it’s hard, Vanna! If you knew how I long for you—what a lost, aimless wretch I feel hanging about, knowing that you are alone—a few streets off! It was easier when you were shut up in hospital and I couldn’t get to you; but now! Sometimes it drives me half mad. You can’t blame me for flaring out. It’s because I love you, darling—love you so wildly. You wouldn’t have me love you less?”

“No! a thousand times no.” Yet no persuasion could move Vanna from her point. On that one evening a week she was all that the most ardent lover could desire; with every power she possessed she strove to secure the perfection of that hour. Piers’s favourite dishes appeared at dinner; his favourite flowers decked the rooms; she rested during the day, so as to be at her best and brightest in the evening, dressed herself in his favourite colours, lavished love upon him in generous, unstinted flow. Every evening he left her aglow with love, chafing at the thought of the time which must elapse before their next meeting, breathing out threats of rebellion. Now and again he did indeed break through the rule, making an excuse of an opportunity to take Vanna to some special entertainment; but these occasions had the excitement of stolen pleasures, and were not allowed to become common.

Sometimes when Piers was visited by one of his black fits of depression; when she realised that these fits grew more frequent with each year as it passed, Vanna knew a terrible sinking of the heart. But she strove valiantly to disguise it even from herself, for she realised that for her wisdom lay in living in the present and resolutely shutting her eyes to the future. Piers also she strove to inoculate with this doctrine, forcing him to see outside reasons for his depression.

“Our love is more perfect, we mean more to each other than nine out of ten married couples. If we have not their joys, we are spared their griefs. Dearest, is any human being really content? Is he meant to be content? The animals are peaceful and satisfied to browse, and eat, and lie down and sleep; they are in their rightful environment, but we as spiritual beings are wandering adrift. The divine spark within is eternally urging us on, further, higher—casting aside the baubles. It is not a fault; it’s a birthright. We can be patient, but never, never content.”

“Robert—”

“No! He has Jean, and she has his heart, but he wants her to be stronger; he wants to be richer for her sake. He craves for the perfection which he can never know.”

But it was hard to be always strong, to be compelled to reason and argue, and fight down self, instead of claiming her woman’s privilege of being cared for and protected. There were hours when Vanna would have given all she possessed to break down and cry her heart out in Piers’s arms; but it was an indulgence she dared not claim. A fuller knowledge of her lover’s character had shown that his powers of endurance were less than her own. He would have been all tenderness and compassion, but she would have paid for that hour by weeks of heavy depression. So Vanna fought on, and was silent.

In one respect her circumstances were happier than her lover’s; for while Piers’s interest in business was of the perfunctory order of the already rich man, her own work was a continual delight. From time to time she visited a patient, but by far the greater number came to her to be housed and tended. They were a pathetic crowd; middle-aged and elderly women of gentle birth, worn out with the struggle of life, shrinking with terror from bodily illness, not because of the suffering involved, but from the fear of loss of employment and subsequent want which it involved. To be nursed, housed, and fed free of charge was a godsend indeed, and Jean’s prophecy of ingratitude was rarely fulfilled. Sometimes, indeed, Vanna felt that ingratitude would have been easier to bear than the trembling blessings called down on her head by those poor souls for whom perforce she could do so little. She grew to dread the last few days of a visit, to shrink afore-hand from the pitiful glances which the departing guest would cast around the pretty, cosy rooms, as if storing up memories to brighten barren days. Her charity had the sting of all such work, the inability to do more; but in it she found interest and occupation, and a continual object-lesson. These poor waifs and strays, who were thankful for a few weeks’ haven, would think themselves rich beyond measure if they owned one half the blessings she herself possessed. Ought she not to be grateful too?

On this autumn afternoon Jean had an exciting piece of news to tell to her visitors.

“Guess who is engaged! Some one you know—know very well: an intimate friend.”

“Fine or superfine?”

“Both, of course; but you know her best. A very old friend. Near here—”

“Don’t tell, Jean; don’t be in such a hurry. Let them guess,” cried Robert, laughing; but already Vanna was gasping in incredulous tones:

“Not Edith Morton!”

“Yes! Yes!” Jean clapped her hands with her old childlike abandon. “Isn’t it lovely? Aren’t you pleased? She came round last night to tell me. To Mr Mortimer. She has seen a lot of him at their literary society. He is a clever man; every one speaks highly of him, and he is rich. It’s all as charming as possible, and most suitable.”

Mr Mortimer! Vanna knitted her brows, recalling a grave, middle-aged figure, and striving to imagine him in the new rôle of Edith Morton’s lover. Edith had sailed for Canada shortly after Jean’s marriage to pay a visit to a married sister, and had returned at the end of two years, apparently heart-whole; but Vanna knew that her life had been empty of interest, and feared lest the attraction of a home of her own and a definite place in the world might have induced her to give her promise without love.

“Mr Mortimer! He is a fine man; I like him—but for Edith? He seems so old, so settled down. I never dreamt of his getting engaged.”

“Nonsense! He is forty-five and she is thirty-two. Very suitable. A woman ages more quickly than a man. He will look years younger with a wife to smarten him up; and they are as much in love as if they were twenty; beaming, both of them—the picture of happiness. The wedding is to be almost at once. He says they have waited long enough, and can’t afford to waste another day. I shouldn’t wonder if they rushed it through in six weeks, and took a furnished house till they had time to look round. Much the best plan.”

“Much!” agreed Vanna quietly. Jean’s impetuous speech often planted a dart of which she was the first to repent; but as she would ruefully confess to Robert, it was so difficult to think of Vanna and Piers as an engaged couple. They were so much more like a settled-down, married couple, living on quietly from day to day, taking life as it came, making no plans. It was only when she saw the shadow fall on the faces of the two listeners that she realised her mistake. She sprang to her feet and pulled loudly at the bell.

“We’ll have the children! Lorna would never forgive me if I let you go. Babs looks too sweet in her new frock...”

“Just for a moment. I must be taking Vanna home. It’s damp, and I can’t let her risk cold.”

Piers spoke hastily, and rose to his feet as if in preparation for saying adieu. Jean’s children were dainty little creatures, to whom he and Vanna were truly attached; but each shrank from seeing them in the presence of the other. The family group of the lovely mother, with her golden-haired babies, the proud, happy father, was so perfect, so complete, that less happy mortals looking on might well be excused a stab of envy. Vanna and Piers each knew the pang of the childless, which was doubled in intensity in the knowledge of the other’s suffering.

The two little girls entered the room side by side. Their sex had been a grievous disappointment to Jean, who had the overpowering desire for a son which possesses many women; but the little maids were pretty and charming enough to satisfy any parent. Lorna, dark, glowing, with her mother’s wonderful eyes; the baby Joyce, a delicious fat ball crowned with a mop of yellow curls.

They were delightfully free from shyness, and greeted the two visitors with sweet, moist kisses, and “bears’ hugs” from tiny white arms. Vanna took Joyce on her knee and tried bravely to talk baby-talk, and keep her eyes averted from Piers’s lowering face; but at the end of ten minutes she gave up the struggle, made her farewells and followed him into the street.

It was a dark, misty evening—one of those evenings when the cold penetrates to the marrow, and the great city is at its worst and dreariest. Piers turned up the collar of his coat, so that Vanna could see little of his face; but his walk, his bearing, the forward droop of his head were painfully eloquent. During the whole of the ten minutes’ walk he did not speak a word, but Vanna knew that when they were alone in her own quiet room the floodgates would open, and trembled at the thought of yet another scene. When the door was opened she went straight to her bedroom, lingering purposely over her toilette, in the hope that Piers would have time to calm down, and remember his resolution made so ardently after each fresh outburst. Of what avail to rail against fate, when the effort could only revert on one’s own head in weariness and remorse? Was it not he who had first preached the beauty of a spiritual love? This was the view on which she must lay fullest stress to-night, this the pure and lofty ideal to which she must raise his thoughts. And then Vanna—a woman through and through—stood another five minutes before the glass, carefully bestowing those little touches to her toilette which would add to her physical charm, and evoke Piers’s admiration to the uttermost.

He was pacing the room from end to end. The sound of his footsteps reached her ears before the door opened, and the moment she appeared he came towards her with outstretched arms.

“Vanna! this must end. It is unsupportable. We cannot endure it any longer. Why can every one be happy except us? Edith Morton married in six weeks! Good God, and we have waited five years; may wait for ever. To hear Jean prattling of its being so wise, so sensible, and you agreeing in a calm, even voice—it drove me wild! There are some things a man cannot stand. I have come to the end of my tether.”

Vanna stood like a statue, eyes cast down, hands clenched by her sides. No! this was not one of the scenes to which she was accustomed; this was something more. There was a note in Piers’s voice which she had not heard before—a note of determination, of finality. Within her soul she heard the knell of the end.

“Vanna, you must feel for yourself that things are impossible. We must marry. We must risk all. This farce cannot go on. We have done our best, and we have failed. Nothing that could happen could be worse than to go on through the years wasting our lives. We must take our risks, and face them together. We must marry!”

To the last day of her life Vanna never ceased to marvel at her own courage and calmness at this moment of supreme temptation. A hundred times over she had tremblingly acknowledged to herself that if Piers made a violent attack upon her determination she could not answer for the result. The temptation to consent, to gain happiness at whatever cost, would be so immense that continued resistance would be next to impossible; but at this moment there was no feeling of temptation. The steady, persistent effort of years finds its reward in these crises of life—in a strength of character, a stiffening of the mental muscles, which changes tumult into calm. Vanna ceased to tremble; she stood motionless before her lover, oblivious of his outstretched arms, her whole being projected into the thought of the future.

It was as if on a darkened night a sudden flash of light had been vouchsafed, by which the landscape was revealed, with the pitfalls yawning at her feet. A tranquil, trustful soul like Robert Gloucester might have taken on himself the burden of her life, and have come unscathed through the ordeal—calm himself, calm in his influence, a true doctor in the home; but Piers, by reason of those very qualities which endeared him to her woman’s heart, was the last man on earth to support the strain. His fear, his anxiety, though expressed in tenderest devotion, must inevitably act and react on both. At this moment the great question appealed to her woman’s heart less in its abstract than in the personal form, as affecting the happiness of the beloved. Whatever he might feel at this moment of stress and passion, it could not be for Piers Rendall’s ultimate happiness to marry a woman over whom hung the deep cloud of inherited madness. His aim accomplished, joy would be speedily eclipsed in dread. In imagination she could see his haggard looks, feel the dark eyes brooding over her with fearful care. So far he had been free. If the chains fretted too sorely he had only to drop them, and go forth. How would he bear it if there were no escape? How could she bear it for his sake?

Vanna lifted her head and looked deep into her lover’s eyes. Her voice was clear and steady:

“No, Piers! I will never marry you. Never, to the end of time. But I will not bind you. You are quite free—”

“Free!” He turned from her with a loud, harsh laugh. “Good God, how you quibble with words! I have loved you, I have given you my life—how can I be free? What have I left if you cast me off? What have you left? How can you insult me with such words? How can you be so cold, so cruel? Women have no hearts. They don’t know what it is to love—” The wild words flowed on in breathless torrent. Then suddenly came the collapse: he turned towards her, met the glance of her piteous eyes, and melted into remorse. “My poor Vanna, I am hurting you. Forgive me, darling! I am a brute, a selfish brute; I am half mad myself... Oh, this world! what a hell it can be! What have we done to be cursed and set aside? It is cruel—unjust. If we can never marry, why did we ever meet?”

Vanna shivered. “Why did we ever meet?” Was it Piers who had spoken those words?—Piers, who had declared that to love her was a higher joy than to be the husband of any other woman! Once again the knell-like bell tolled in her ears. It was almost a relief when, after a few more incoherent words, Piers suddenly turned to depart.

“I won’t stay. I am hurting you. I’ll go now, and come back when I am calm. You’ll be better alone—”

For the first time in five years he left her without a kiss or a caress, and Vanna sat, stunned and motionless, gazing on the ruins of her life. No one came near to interrupt her solitude. It was a rule that she should be uninterrupted when Piers was present, and his departure had apparently passed unnoticed by the household. A dense, overhanging shadow possessed her spirit, out of which one thought alone was clear. Piers was unhappy. She, who would have sheltered him from every ill, had brought upon him the keenest suffering of his life.

Two hours later, when Piers himself opened the door, he found Vanna in practically the same attitude in which he had left her, crouched in the corner of the sofa. The fire had died out in the grate, and the air of the little room struck bleak and chill. The face turned towards him had the delicacy of an etching, the dark brows arched above the deep-set eyes, the finely moulded cheeks white and wan. Unlike most women, Vanna’s attraction was distinct from colour; she looked her best, not her worst, in minutes of mental strain. Piers closed the door, approached her hastily, and, taking her hands in his, drew her to his side. He spoke but two words, but they were prompted by the force which is the greatest diviner of the needs of the human heart, and the whole wealth of the language could not have added to their eloquence.

“My Joy!” he said, in that deep, full voice which Vanna had heard but once or twice before, in the great moments of their love.

They wept, and clung together, and Vanna’s hungry heart found comfort once more. After all, would she have been more content if Piers had not rebelled?

Chapter Twenty One.

Parted.

The next year passed slowly and heavily. In the spring Jean had an illness which made it necessary for her to spend several months on the sofa—a decree which she accepted with extraordinary resignation. Nothing could have demonstrated so powerfully the change which the last seven years had wrought in her physical condition as this willingness to be shut off from social life.

“I’ve been so tired,” she confided in Vanna, letting her head fall back on the pillow, and closing her eyes with a long-drawn sigh, “so tired, that it’s been a struggle to get through each day. It’s bliss to be lazy, and to feel that one is justified. When I wake up in the morning and remember that I needn’t get up for breakfast, I could whoop with joy. The doctor expected me to rebel. Goodness! I wonder how many thousand tired women would hail such a prescription—to lie in bed until eleven; dress quietly, and go down to the sofa; read amusing books; have a friend to tea; sleep again, to be fresh for the husband’s return; to bed at nine; and you must not be worried! My dear, it’s Heaven begun below! I don’t say I should like it as a permanency, but as a change from general servants’ work (which is plain English for a middle-class wife and mother) it is highly refreshing. We’ll have to get an extra maid, of course. I’ve worked like a slave to keep the house as it must be kept if I’m to have any peace in life. We have such heaps of silver and in town it needs constant cleaning, and the mending is everlasting, and the making for the children, and the shopping, and helping in the nursery to set nurse free to do some washing. The laundry bills are ruinous; but you must have children in white! It’s a nuisance having to spend more. It always happens like that with us. Just as we say, ‘the next quarter must be lighter; we shall need nothing new,’ bang comes another big drain, and sends us back farther than ever. Money is a trial! You don’t half realise how much you are saved by having a comfortable income, Vanna. That’s a big blessing, and you ought to be thankful for it.”

Vanna considered. No! she was not actively thankful. When at any special moment the subject was brought before her, she could indeed realise the benefit of a sufficiency of money, which enabled her to choose and carry on the work which was most congenial; but as a rule the accustomed good was calmly taken for granted, and brought no feeling of joy. She made a mental note, and passed on to the consideration of Jean’s problem.

“Couldn’t you contrive to reduce work while you are laid up, dear? Lock up all the silver that is not absolutely needed, and let the children wear coloured overalls. I’d make them for you, of a pretty, becoming blue, which would save half their washing. You might shut up the drawing-room, too. You can’t entertain, and you are comfier here in the den. It would be so nice if you could avoid extra help. Another servant in the house would be a trial.”

But Jean only smiled with indulgent patronage.

“Oh, my dear, I can’t upset everything. And I shall need some one to wait upon me, and run up and down. It would be very poor economy to save a few pounds, and be worried to death. You have no idea how difficult it is to get any rest when you are the mother of a family. One day—I’ve often intended to tell you about this, and make you laugh!—you know how you have told me how lonely and sad you feel when you are ill, and lie all day alone in your room, never seeing a soul except when your meals are brought up. Well, at the beginning of this attack I awoke one morning with a crashing headache. I struggled up, hoping it would go off after breakfast, but it grew worse. Robert brought me in here and tucked me up on the sofa, and ordered a ‘quiet day.’ He said it was such a comfort to think that I could be quiet, and need do nothing but lie still and rest. He could not have borne to go away and leave me ill if he had not been sure of that. Dear, blind bat! He had not been gone five minutes when cook arrived for ‘orders.’ There was nothing in the house except the bit of mutton, and she thought that was going bad. Would I like to look at it? She stood there gazing before her in that calm, detached way they have—it is so maddening!—never making one single suggestion, while I wrestled with it all—children’s dinner, kitchen dinner, dining-room dinner, kitchen supper, to-morrow’s breakfast... I was so worn out that I forgot all about my own lunch. So did she! After she went it took about ten minutes before the horrible throbbing in my head calmed down to what it had been before, and by that time nurse appeared to say that Joyce had some spots on her chest, and did I think it was wise for her to go out? Would I be able to keep her for an hour while she promenaded with Lorna? Lorna got so fratchety if she was in all day. I investigated the spots. I sent for the doctor, and said they were all to stay in, and nurse was cross, and slammed the doors all day long. I lay down again, and sniffed smelling-salts, till cook came back to say the fishman was very sorry, but he had no smelts, and what would I have instead? After that I slept for a good quarter of an hour, till a parcel arrived with tenpence to pay. I had only a sovereign in my purse, and no one had change. There was nothing for it but to get the keys and go upstairs to my bureau. After that the piano-tuner arrived. He comes once a quarter, and picks his visits with demoniacal cunning for the very worst times in the whole three months. Mason hadn’t the sense to send him away, and I didn’t know he was there until the awful arpeggios began. Then I worked myself into a fever trying to decide whether I should send him away, whether he would charge twice over if I did, whether it would be bad for the piano, whether he would be long, whether I could bear it if I covered my head. At last the strum, strum, on one note began, and I rang and told Mason to send him away at once, and she was cross. Half an hour later some one sent a note with, ‘bearer waits reply’ on the envelope, and I had to sit up and write. The doctor came at twelve, and said Joyce was perfectly well, but I looked feverish; couldn’t I lie down and rest? I could not look at lunch, which was just as well, as there was none for me, and Joyce fell off her high-chair just over my head, and I thought she was killed. She screamed for an age, and I forgot my own head, thinking of hers; but afterwards! I cried to myself with sheer pain and misery, and I thought of your ‘long, solitary day’ with such envy. The afternoon was the same story, and when Robert came home he was so disappointed to find me worse! I didn’t tell him my experiences; he doesn’t see the humour of them when they affect me, but I said miserably to myself, ‘some day I’ll tell Vanna, and we’ll laugh.’ Dear me, what a comfort it is to have a woman friend!”