A Life For a Love: A Novel

"All our plans were laid. I waited for news. Valentine, you make me strangely nervous. What is the matter with you, child? Are you going to faint?"

"No – no – no! Go on – go on! Don't speak to me – don't address me again by my name. Just go on, or I – Oh. God, I am a desperate woman! Go on, I must hear the end."

As Valentine grew excited her father became cool and quiet: he waited until she had done speaking, then dropping his head he continued his narrative in a dreary monotone.

"I waited for news – it was long in coming. At last it arrived on the day my grandson was born. Wyndham had outwitted me. He could not bear the load of a living death. Shame on him. He could take his bliss, but not his punishment. He leaped overboard the Esperance– he committed suicide."

"What? No, never. Don't dare to say such words."

"I must say them, although they are cruel. He committed suicide, and then he came to haunt me; he knew that his blood would rest on my soul; he knew how best to torture me for what I had done to him."

"One question. Was the insurance money paid?"

"Was it? Yes. I believe so. That part seemed all of minor importance afterwards. But I believe it was paid. I think Helps saw to it."

"You believe that my husband committed suicide, and yet you allowed the insurance offices to pay."

"What of that? No one else knew my thoughts."

"As you say, what of that? Is your story finished?"

"Nearly. I lost your love, and for the last three years I have been haunted by Wyndham. I see his shadow everywhere. Once I met him in the street. A few nights ago he came into the library and confronted me; he spoke to me and tried to touch me; he pretended he was not dead."

"What night was that?"

Valentine's voice had changed; there was a new ring in it. Her father roused himself from his lethargic attitude to look into her face. "What night did my husband come to you?"

"I forget – no, I remember. It was Tuesday night."

"Did he carry a violin? Speak – did he?"

"He carried something. It may have been a violin. Do they use such instruments in the other world? He was a spirit, you know, child. How queer, how very queer you look!"

"I feel queer."

"He wanted me to touch him, child, but I wouldn't. I was too knowing for that. If you touch a spirit you must go with him. No, no, I knew a thing worth two of that. He went on telling me he was alive. But I knew better, he couldn't take me in. Valentine, everything seems so far away. Valentine, I am faint, faint. Ah, there he is again by the door. Look! No, he must not touch me – he must not!"

Valentine glanced round. There was no one present. Then she rang the bell. It was answered by the old housekeeper.

"Mrs. Marsh, my father is ill. Will you give him some restorative at once? And send for the doctor, if necessary. I must go, but I'll come back if possible to-night."

She left the room without glancing at the sick man, who followed her to the door with his dim eyes. She went downstairs, put on her cloak and left the house.

She had to walk a little distance before she met a hansom, and one or two people stared at the tall, slim figure, which was still young and girlish, but which bore on its proud face such a hard expression, such a burning defiant light in the eyes. Valentine soon reached home. Everything was in a whirl in her brain. Esther Helps was standing on the steps. She flew to Esther, clasped her hands in a grasp of iron, and said in a husky choked voice: —

"Esther, my husband is alive!"

"He is, dear madam, he is, and I have come to take you to him!"

"Oh, Esther, thank God!"

"Come indoors, madam, you have not a moment to lose. We will keep that cab, if you please. I have only just come back. I was going to seek you. Stay one moment. Mrs. Wyndham. You are in black; will you put on your white dress – the one you wore on Tuesday night."

"Oh, what does it matter? Let me go to him."

"Little things sometimes matter a great deal; he saw you last in your white dress."

"He was really there on Tuesday night?"

"He was there. Come, I will fly for the dress and put it on you."

She did so. Valentine put her cloak over it, and the two drove away in the hansom. Valentine had no ears for the direction given to the cabman.

"I am in heaven," she said once, under her breath. "He lives. Now I can forgive my father!"

"Madam, your husband is very ill."

Valentine turned her great shining eyes towards Esther.

"All the better. I can nurse him," she said, with a smile, and then she pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and did not speak another word.

The cab drew up at one of the entrances to St. Thomas' Hospital.

CHAPTER LI

"What place is this?" asked the wife.

She was unacquainted with hospitals and sickness.

"This is a place where they cure the sick, and succour the dying, dear Mrs. Wyndham," gently remarked Esther Helps.

"They cure the sick here, do they? But I will cure my husband myself. I know the way." She smiled. "Take me to him, Esther. How slow you are. Beloved Esther – I don't thank you – I have no words to say thank you – but my heart is so happy I think it will burst."

The porter came forward, then a nurse. Several ceremonies had to be gone through, several remarks made, several questions asked. Valentine heard and saw nothing. Esther helped Valentine to take off her cloak; and she stood in her simple long plain white dress, with her bright hair like a glory round her happy face.

The nurse who finally conducted them to the ward where Wyndham lay looked at her in a sort of bewilderment. Esther and the nurse went first, and Valentine slowly followed between the long rows of beds; some of the men said afterwards that an angel had gone through the ward on the night that the strolling minstrel, poor fellow, died. The sister who had charge of the ward turned and whispered a word to Esther, then she pushed aside a screen which surrounded one of the beds.

"Your husband is very ill," she said, looking with a world of pity into Valentine's bright eyes. "You ought to be prepared; he is very ill."

"Thank you, I am quite prepared. I have come to cure him."

Then she went inside the screen, and Esther and the nurse remained without.

Wyndham was lying with his eyes closed; his sunken cheeks, his deathly pallor, his quick and hurried breath might have prepared the young wife for the worst. They did not. She stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped in ecstasy, her eyes shining, a wonderful smile bringing back the beauty to her lips. Then she came forward and lay gently down by the side of the dying man. She slipped her hand under his head and laid her cheek to his.

"At last, Gerald," she said, "at last you have come back! You didn't die. You are changed, greatly changed; but you didn't die, Gerald."

He opened his eyes and looked her full in the face.

"Valentine!"

"Hush, you are too weak to talk. Stay quiet, I am with you. I will nurse you back to strength. Oh, my darling, you didn't die."

"Your darling, Valentine? Did you call me your darling?"

"I said it. I say it. You are all the world to me; without you the world is empty. Oh, how I love you – how I have loved you for years."

"Then it was good I didn't die," said Wyndham, he raised his eyes, looked up and smiled. His smile was one of ecstasy.

"Of course it was good that you didn't die, and now you are going to get well. Lie still. Do you like my hand under your head?"

"Like it?"

"Yes; you need not tell me. Let me talk to you; don't answer me. Gerald, my father told me. He told me what he had done; he told me what you had done. He wants me to forgive him, but I'm not going to forgive him. I'll never forgive him, Gerald. I have ceased to love him, and I'll never forgive him; all my love is for you."

"Not all, wife – not quite all. Give him back a little, and – forgive."

"How weak you are, Gerald, and your voice sounds miles away."

"Forgive him, Valentine."

"Yes, if you wish it. Lie still, darling."

"Valentine – that money."

"I know about it – that blood-money. The price of your precious life. It shall be paid back at once."

"Then God will forgive me. I thank Him, unspeakably."

"Gerald, you are very weak. I can scarcely hear your words. Does it tire you dreadfully to talk? See, I will hold your hand; when you are too tired to speak your fingers can press mine. Gerald, you were outside our house on Tuesday night. Yes, I feel the pressure of your hand; you were there. Gerald, you were very unhappy that night."

"But not now, darling," replied Wyndham. He had found his voice; his words came out with sudden strength and joy. "I made a mistake that night, wife. I won't tell it to you. I made a mistake."

"And you are really quite, quite happy now."

"Happy! Sorrow is put behind me – the former things are done away."

"You will be happier still when you come home to baby and me."

"You'll come to me, Val; you and the boy."

"What do you say? I can't hear you."

"You'll come to me."

"I am with you."

"You'll come —up– to me."

Then she began to understand.

Half-an-hour later the nurse and Esther drew the screen aside and came in. Valentine's face was nearly as white as Wyndham's. She did not see the two as they came in. Her eyes were fixed on her husband's, her hand still held his.

"He wants a stimulant," said the nurse.

She poured something out of a bottle and put it between the dying man's lips. He opened his eyes when she did this, and looked at Valentine.

"Are you still there? Hold my hand."

"Do you think I would let it go? I have been wanting this hand to clasp mine for so long, oh, for so long."

The nurse again put some stimulant between Gerald's lips.

"You must not tire his strength, madam," she said. "Even emotion, even joyful emotion is more than he can bear just now."

"Is it, nurse? Then I will sit quiet, and not speak. I don't mind how long I stay, nor how quiet I keep, if only I can save him. Nurse, I know he is very ill, but, but – "

Her lips quivered, and her eyes, dry and bright and hungry, were fixed on the nurse. Wyndham, too, was looking at the nurse with a question written on his face. She bent down low, and caught his faint whisper.

"Your husband bids you hope," she said then, turning to Valentine. "He bids you take courage; he bids you to have the best hope of all – the hope eternal. Madam, when you clasp hands up there you need not part."

"Did you tell her to say that to me, Gerald?" asked the wife. "Oh, no, you couldn't have told her to say those words. Oh, no, you love me too well to go away."

"God loves you, Valentine," suddenly said Gerald. "God loves you, and He loves me, and His eternal love will surround us. I up there, you here. In that love we shall be one."

Only the nurse knew with what difficulty Wyndham uttered these words, but Valentine saw the light in his eyes. She bowed her head on his thin hand, her lips kissed it – she did not speak.

To the surprise of the sister who had charge of the ward. Wyndham lingered on for hours – during the greater part of the night. Valentine and Esther never left him. Esther sat a little in the shadow where her pale face could scarcely be seen. If she felt personal grief she kept it under. The chief actors in the tragedy, the cruelly-wronged husband and wife, absorbed all her thoughts. No, she had no time, no room, to think of herself.

Wyndham was going – Brother Jerome would no longer be known in the streets of East London; the poor, the sorrowful, would grieve at not seeing his face again. The touch of his hand could no longer comfort – the light in his eyes could no longer bless. The Mission would have to do without Brother Jerome – this missioner was about to render up his account to the Judge of all.

The little attic in Acacia Villas would also be empty; the tired man would not need the few comforts that Esther had collected round him – the tiresome cough, the weary restless step would cease to disturb Cherry's rest, and Esther's chief object in life would be withdrawn.

He who for so long was supposed to be dead would be dead in earnest. Valentine would be a real widow, little Gerald truly an orphan.

All these thoughts thronged through Esther's mind as she sat in the shadow behind the screen and listened to the chimes outside as they proclaimed the passing time, and the passing away also of a life.

Every moment lives of men go away – souls enter the unknown country. Some go with regret, some with rejoicing. In some cases there are many left behind to sorrow – in other cases no one mourns.

Wyndham had sinned, he had yielded to temptation; he had been weak – a victim it is true – still a victim who with his eyes open had done a great wrong. Yet Esther felt that for some at least it was a good thing that Wyndham was born.

"I, for one, thank God that I knew him," she murmured. "He has caused me suffering, but he has raised me. I thank God that I was permitted to know such a man. The world would, I suppose, speak of him as a sinner, but to my way of thinking, if ever there was a saint he is one."

So the night passed on, and Valentine remained motionless by the dying man's bed. What her thoughts were, none might read.

At last, towards the break of day, the time when so many souls go away, Wyndham stirred faintly and opened his eyes. Valentine moved forward with an eager gesture. He looked at her, but there was no comprehension in his glance.

"What is the matter?" said Valentine to the nurse. "I scarcely know him – his face has altered."

"It looks young, madam. Dying faces often do so. Hark, he is saying something."

"Lilias," said Wyndham. "Lilly – mother calls us – we are to sing our evening hymn.

'Bright in the happy land!'

Lilias, do you hear mother; she is calling? Kneel down – our evening prayers – by mother – we always say our prayers by mother's knee. Kneel, Lilias, see, my hands are folded – 'Our Father' – "

There was a long pause after the last words, a pause followed by one more breath of infinite content, and then the nurse closed the dead man's eyes.

CHAPTER LII

TWO YEARS AFTER

Augusta Wyndham was pacing up and down the broad gravel walk which ran down the centre of the rectory garden in a state of great excitement. She was walking quickly, her hands clasped loosely before her, her tall and rather angular figure drawn up to its full height, her bright black eyes alert and watchful in their expression.

"Now, if only they are not interrupted," she said, "if only I can keep people from going near the rose-walk, he'll do it – I know he'll do it – I saw it in his eyes when he came up and asked me where Lilias was. He hasn't been here for six months, and I had given up all hope; but hope has revived to-day – hope springs eternal in the human breast. Tra la, la – la, la. Now, Gerry, boy, what do you want?"

A sturdy little fellow in a sailor suit stood for a moment in the porch of the old rectory, then ran with a gleeful shout down the gravel walk towards Augusta. She held out her arms to detain him.

"Well caught, Gerry," she said.

"It isn't well caught," he replied with an angry flush. "I don't want to stay with you, Auntie Gussie; I want to go to my – my own auntie. Let me pass, please."

"You saucy boy, auntie's busy; you shall stay with me."

"I won't. I'll beat you – I won't stay."

"If I whisper something to you, Gerry – something about Auntie Lil. Now be quiet, mannikin, and let me say my say. You love Auntie Lil, don't you?"

"You know that; you do talk nonsense sometimes. I love father in heaven, and mother, and Auntie Lil."

"And me, you little wretch."

"Sometimes. Let me go to Auntie Lil now."

"I want to whisper something to you, Gerry. Auntie Lil is talking to someone she loves much better than you or me or anyone else in the world, and it would be very unkind to interrupt her."

Gerry was sitting on Augusta's shoulder. From this elevated position he could catch a glimpse of a certain grey dress, and a quick flash of chestnut hair, as the sun shone on it – that dress and that hair belonged to Auntie Lil. It was no matter at all to Gerry that someone else walked by her side, that someone was bending his dark head somewhat close to hers, and that as she listened her steps faltered and grew slow.

Gerry's whole soul was wounded by Augusta's words. His Aunt Lilias did not love anyone better than him. It was his bounden duty, his first duty in life, to have such an erroneous statement put right at once.

He put forth all his strength, struggled down from Augusta's shoulders, and before she was aware of it was speeding like an arrow from a bow to his target, Lilias.

"There, now, I give it up," said Augusta. "Awful child, what mischief may he not make? Don't I hear his shrill voice even here! Oh, I give it up now; I shall go into the house. The full heat of the sun in July does not suit me, and if in addition to all other troubles Lilias is to have a broken heart, I may as well keep in sufficient health to nurse her."

Meanwhile Gerry was having a very comfortable time on Carr's shoulder; his dark eyes were looking at his Aunt Lilias, and his little fat, hot hand was clasped in hers.

"Well," he said suddenly, "which is it?"

"Which is what, Gerry? I don't understand."

"I think you are stoopid, Auntie Lil. Is it him or me?"

Then he laid his other fat hand on Carr's forehead.

"Is it him or me?" said Gerry, "that you love the most of all the peoples in the world?"

"It's me, Gerry, it's me," suddenly said Adrian Carr; "but you come next, dear little man. Kiss him, Lilias, and tell him that he comes next."

"Gerald's dear little boy," said Lilias. She took him in her arms and pressed her head against his chubby neck.

"Dear, dear little boy," she said. "I think you'll always come second."

She looked so solemn when she spoke, and so beautiful was the light in her eyes when she raised her face to look at Gerry, that even he, most despotic of little mortals, could not but feel satisfied.

He ran away presently to announce to all and everyone within reach that Mr. Carr had kissed Auntie Lil like anything, and the newly-betrothed pair were left alone.

"At last, Lilias," said Carr.

She looked shyly into his face.

"I thought I should never win you," he continued. "I have loved you for years, and I never had courage to tell you so until to-day."

"And I have loved you for years," replied Lilias Wyndham.

"But not best, Lilly. Oh, I have read you like a book. I never came before Gerald in your heart."

"No," she said letting go his hand, and moving a step or two away, so that she should face him. "I love you well, beyond all living men, but Gerald stands alone. His place can never be filled."

The tears sprang into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

"And I love you better for loving him so, my darling," answered her lover. He put his arms round her, and she laid her head on his breast.

For a long time they paced up and down the Rose-walk. They had much to say, much to feel, much to be silent over. The air was balmy overhead, and the rose-leaves were tossed by the light summer breeze against Lilias' grey dress.

Presently she began to talk of the past. Carr asked tenderly for Valentine.

"Valentine is so noble," replied her sister-in-law. "You don't know what she has been to me since that day when she and I looked together at Gerald's dead face. Oh, that day, that dreadful day!"

"It is past, Lilias. Think of the future, the bright future, and he is in that brightness now."

"I know."

She wiped the tears again from her eyes. Then she continued in a changed voice: —

"I will try and forget that day, which, as you say, is behind Gerald and me. At the time I could scarcely think of myself. I was so overcome with the wonderful brave way in which Valentine acted. You know her father died a month afterwards, and she was so sweet to him. She nursed him day and night, and did all that woman could do to comfort and forgive him. His brain was dreadfully clouded, however, and he died at last in a state of unconsciousness. Then Valentine came out in a new light. She went to the insurance offices and told the whole story of the fraud that had been practised on them, and of her husband's part in it. She told the story in such a way that hard business men, as most of these men were, wept. Then she sold her father's great shipping business, which had all been left absolutely to her, and paid back every penny of the money.

"Since then, as you know, she and Gerry live here. She is really the idol of my old father's life; he and she are scarcely ever parted. Yes, she is a noble woman. When I look at her I say to myself, Gerald, at least, did not love unworthily."

"Then she is poor now?"

"As the world speaks of poverty she is poor. Do you think Valentine minds that? Oh, how little her father understood her when he thought that riches were essential to her happiness. No one has simpler tastes than Valentine. Do you know that she housekeeps now at the rectory, and we are really much better off than we used to be. Alack and alas! Adrian, you ought to know in time, I am such a bad housekeeper."

Lilias laughed quite merrily as she spoke, and Carr's dark face glowed.

"It is a bargain," he said, "that I take you with your faults and don't reproach you with them. And what has become of that fine creature, Esther Helps?" he asked presently.

"She works in East London, and comes here for her holidays. Sometimes I think Valentine loves Esther Helps better than anyone in the world after Gerry."

"That is scarcely to be wondered at, is it?"

Just then their conversation was interrupted by some gleeful shouts, and the four little girls, no longer so very small, came flying round the corner in hot pursuit of Gerry.

"Here they is!" exclaimed the small tyrant, gazing round at his devoted subjects, and pointing with a lofty and condescending air to Adrian and Lilias. "Here they is!" he said, "and I 'spose they'll do it again if we ask them."

"Do what again?" asked Lilias innocently.

"Why, kiss one another," replied Gerry. "I saw you do it, so don't tell stories. Joan and Betty they wouldn't believe me. Please do it again, please do. Mr. Carr, please kiss Auntie Lil again."

"Oh, fie, Gerry," replied Lilias. She tried to turn away, but Carr went up to her gravely, and he kissed her brow.

"There's nothing in it," he continued, looking round at the astonished little girls. "We are going to be husband and wife in a week or two, and husbands and wives always kiss one another."

"Then I was right," said Betty. "Joan and Rosie wouldn't believe me, but I was right after all. I am glad of that."

"I believed you, Betty. I always believed you," said Violet.

"Well, perhaps you did. The others didn't. I'm glad I was right."

"How were you right, Betty?" asked Carr.

"Oh, don't ask her, Adrian. Let us come into the house," interrupted Lilias.

"Yes, we'll come into the house, of course. But I should like to know how Betty was right."

"Why you wanted to kiss her years ago. I knew it, and I said it. Didn't you, now?"

"Speak the trufe," suddenly commanded Gerry.

"Yes, I did," replied Carr.

When Adrian Carr left the rectory that evening he had to walk down the dusty road which led straight past the church and the little village school-house to the railway station. This road was full of associations to him, and he walked slowly, thinking of past scenes, thanking God for his present blessings.

"It was here, by the turnstile, I first saw Lilias," he said to himself. "She and Marjory were standing together, and she came forward and looked at me, and asked me in that sweet voice of hers if I were not Mr. Carr. She reminded me of her brother, whom I just barely knew. It was a fleeting likeness, seen more at first than afterwards.

"Here, by this little old school-house the villagers stood and rejoiced the last day Gerald came home. Poor Wyndham – most blessed and most miserable of men. Well, he is at rest now, and even here I see the cross which throws a shadow over his grave!"