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Audrey Craven

<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> Vincent had been ill for six weeks before Katherine sent off her telegram. For a month of that time he had been struggling with death. Then, when the mild weather set in, he had taken a sudden turn for the better, and it seemed to himself and the Havilands that he had won the victory. Only the doctor and Mrs. Rogers looked grave,—the doctor because of his science, which taught him to be cautious in raising people's hopes; Mrs. Rogers, because of a deep theological pessimism. She unburdened herself to Katherine. "I knew 'ow it 'ud be when 'e gave up them 'abits of 'is, miss. 'E's been as good as gold for the last year. 'E 'yn't given me no trouble nor anybody; a goin' about so soft, and bilin' of 'is corffee in 'is little Hetna. I said to myself then, 'e's going to be took. It was the same with my pore 'usban', miss." "Don't talk nonsense, Mrs. Rogers. Mr. Hardy hasn't the least intention of dying; he's getting better as fast as ever he can." "Oh, miss! don't you sy so! It gives me a turn to 'ear anybody talk so presumptuous. Don't you do it, m'm. If 'e is a little better, it's enuff to make the Almighty tyke 'im, jest to 'ear you, miss."[Pg 287] Katherine forgave Mrs. Rogers, for the affectionate woman had helped to nurse Vincent with a zeal out of all proportion to her knowledge. Katherine had engaged a night-nurse during the crisis of his illness; after that, she and Ted nursed him themselves by turns—one sitting up all night, while the other slept on a bed made up in the sitting-room, to be within call. Katherine learned to know Ted better in those six weeks than in all his life before. The boy seemed to be possessed by a passion of remorse. He was as quiet as Katherine in Vincent's room, and could do anything that had to be done there with the gentleness and devotion of a woman. She would willingly have kept on the trained nurse, in order to give Vincent every advantage in the fight for recovery; but it was impossible. For all three of them had come to the end of their resources at the same time. The Havilands were in debt at last. Vincent had sunk nearly all his capital in his British Columbian farm, where the agent, in whose integrity he had guilelessly trusted, worked the land for his own benefit, and cheated him out of the returns. His mother had left everything to her second husband. Worse than all was the reprehensible conduct of Sir Theophilus Parker. The old gentleman had died well within the term his nephew had given him, but had made no mention of him in his will, and "Lavernac and three thousand a-year" went to a kinsman of irreproachable[Pg 288] morals, but a Radical, and many degrees more distant than Vincent from the blood of a Tory squire. So, after the struggle with death, came the struggle with poverty. Work was impossible for hands busy with service in the sick-room, and young brains worn out with watching and anxiety. The most expensive luxuries were poor Vincent's necessities; for everything depended now on keeping up his strength. One morning, after a long night's watching, instead of turning into the next room to sleep, Katherine put on her hat and cloak and went up to the deserted studio. She left the house with the "Witch of Atlas" under her cloak, and carried her to every picture-dealer in Piccadilly and New Bond Street. It was all in vain. Everywhere the Witch was pronounced to be beautiful, but unsalable. She was bowed out of every shop-door with polite regret, expressed in one formula: "The demand for this kind of work is really so small that we could only offer you a nominal sum, madam." Finally, Katherine turned into a small shop in Westminster, only to receive the same answer. But this time she was desperate. "What do you call a nominal sum?" The dealer looked the picture up and down; he noted, too, the shabby cloak and worn face of the artist. "Frame included, five guineas. Not a shilling more, miss." "I'll take that," she said, almost greedily. And[Pg 289] the Witch was handed over the counter in exchange for the tenth part of her value. But five guineas were a mere drop in the ocean of their necessities. Two days later Katherine set out again, no longer alert and eager, but with a white face, a firm mouth, and a bearing so emphatically resolute that it suggested a previous agony of indecision. She took a 'bus from Lupus Street to the City. Getting out at Leadenhall Street, she walked on till she came to a building where an arrow painted on the doorway guided her to the offices of Messrs. Pigott & Co., on the third floor. On and on she went, up the broad stone stairs, with a sick heart and trembling knees, the steepest, weariest climb she had ever made in a life of climbing. When she reached the third floor she almost turned back at the sight of the closed door marked "Private." Then the thought of Vincent lying in his wretched room, a sudden blinding vision of his white face laid back on the pillows, overcame the last rebellion of her pride. She knocked; a well-regulated voice answered, "Who is there?" She brushed her eyelashes with her hand and walked in. "It's me, uncle." Mr. Pigott almost started from his seat. "You, Katherine? Bless me! Dear me, dear me!" He put on his spectacles, and examined her as if she had been some curious animal. And he, too, noticed not only her frayed skirt and the worn edges[Pg 290] of the fur about her cloak, but the sharp lines of her face and the black shadows under her eyes. "Sit down, my dear." She obeyed, putting her elbow on the office table and resting her head in her hand. She looked defiantly, almost fiercely, before her, and spoke in a cold, hard voice— "I've come to ask you if you'll lend us some money. We're in debt——" "In debt? Tt-t-t-tt—that's bad." "I know it is. But we've had illness in the house, and expenses that we had to meet." "Bless me! Is the boy ill?" "No; it's not Ted——" But as she tried to explain who it was she broke down utterly, and burst into tears. Then uncle James took off his spectacles and wiped them. He waited till she could speak coherently; and when he had heard, he took his cheque-book out of his drawer, asking no questions and making no comments—for which Katherine respected him. "How much will clear you, Katherine, and see you to the end of this business?" "Twenty pounds would clear us; but——" Uncle James looked very grave, and he wrote with a slow and terrible deliberation. But he smiled lavishly as he handed her a cheque for a hundred guineas. He had made it guineas. "Remember, there's plenty more where that came from."[Pg 291] "I—I don't know how to thank you, uncle; we'll repay it gradually, with the interest." "Interest, indeed; you'll do nothing of the kind. And we won't say anything about repayment either, this time. Only keep out of debt—keep out of debt, and don't make a fool of yourself, Katherine." Katherine hesitated, and her voice trembled. "I—I'm not——" "No, I don't say you are. I ask no questions; and, Katherine!" he looked up, but she was still standing beside him. "Yes." "Always come to me at once when you want money; and go to your aunt Kate when you want advice. She'll help you better than I can, my dear." "Thank you—thank you very much indeed. You are too good to me." She stooped down and kissed him on the forehead, pressing his hand in hers, and was gone before he could see her tears. Perhaps they would have gratified him. But he was amply rewarded by her kiss and the compliment paid him by his own conscience, which told him that he had not forced his niece's confidence, as he might have done, nor yet chuckled, as he might have done, over her fallen pride. It was a remarkable fulfilment of prophecy, too. When she got back to Devon Street, Vincent was asleep, with Mrs. Rogers watching over him, and Ted was waiting for her to come to lunch. He looked terribly depressed.[Pg 292] She showed him her cheque in silence. "You never asked him, that stern old Puritan father?" "Don't, Ted. Yes, I did. I thought it would kill me; but it didn't. Oh, Ted, we have done him an injustice. He was kindness itself. I had to tell him about Vincent, too, and he never said a word—only gave me the cheque, and said we weren't to pay it back." "H'm, that wasn't half bad of him, poor old thing." That admission meant a great deal from Ted. "There's a letter there for you,—from Knowles, I think." "What's he writing about?" She tore open the envelope. To her intense surprise she found a cheque for fifty guineas in it, and this note:— <blockquote>"Dear Miss Haviland,—Forgive my saying so, but when you want to sell your pictures, why don't you consult your friends instead of going to a thieving dealer? I found the Witch in the hands of such an one, and rescued her, for I won't say how little. As I could not possibly keep my ill-gotten gains on any other terms, please accept the enclosed, which with what you probably received will make up something like her real value. I need not tell you how delighted I am to possess so exquisite a specimen of your best work." </blockquote>[Pg 293] "Ted, what am I to do? Send it back again?" "No, you little fool! Keep it, and never do that again—for any one." For any one? What was there that she would not do for Vincent? But Ted, having said that, looked more depressed than ever. He went to the fireplace, and leaned against the chimneypiece, shading his face with his hand. "What is it, Ted?" He made no answer. A terrible fear clutched at her heart, and he saw it in her eyes. "He's all right now; he's sleeping. But——" "But what? Tell me, Ted." "Well, Crashawe was here this morning, and he says he isn't really better." "But he is better. He said so himself when he examined him yesterday." "Yes, so he is, in a way. That is, you see, his lungs are all right. It's his heart that's bad now. Crashawe says it must always have been more or less weak. And now——" He stopped short. "Ted——" she implored. "It may stop beating any minute." She said nothing; she only took off her hat and cloak and put on her artist's overall,—it was her nurse's apron now. She must go to Vincent. But a thought struck her before she reached the door. "Does he know?" "No; but I think he has some idea. He told Crashawe this morning not to interfere with the[Pg 294] course of nature." Ted smiled a dreary smile at the recollection. Katherine dismissed Mrs. Rogers and took up her post at Vincent's bedside. He was still sleeping, with his face turned towards hers as she sat. And as she looked at him she had hope. She was still young, and it was inconceivable to her that anything she loved so much should die. It was not, she pleaded, as if she had been happy, as if her love had any chance of a return, or had asked for anything better than to spend itself like this continually. And as she sat on watching, it seemed to her that it was better as it was. Better that love should live by immortal things, by things intangible, invisible, by pity, by faith, by hope, breaking little by little every link with earth. She tried to make herself believe this pleasant theory, as she had tried many a day and many a night before, her heart having nothing else to warm it but the fire of its own sacrifice. It was better as it was. And yet, she said again, in this last six weeks he had been hers in a way in which he could be no other woman's, not even Audrey's. He was hers by her days of service, her nights of watching, by all that had gone before, by her part in his new life. After all, that could never be undone. She was almost happy. Ted took her place for an hour in the evening, but that was all the rest she gave herself. She meant to sit up with Vincent again to-night.[Pg 295] "Do you know, Kathy, your eyes are very pretty." It had struck midnight, and Vincent had been awake and looking at her for the last two minutes. She smiled and blushed, and that made her whole face look pretty too. And as he looked into her eyes the blindness fell from his own, and he saw as a dying man sometimes does see. "Come here, Sis." He stretched out his arm on the counterpane, and as she knelt beside him he put back her hair from her forehead. "I wonder if I was wrong when I thought you couldn't love anybody?" Then she knew that he was dying. "Yes, very wrong indeed. For—I loved you then, Vincent." Her face was transfigured as she spoke. He had to be spared all sudden emotions, but she knew that her confession would do him no harm. And indeed he took it quite calmly, without the least change of pulse. "I'm not ungrateful——" "There's nothing to be grateful for. I couldn't help it." "I would have loved you more, Kathy, if it hadn't been for Audrey." He spoke without emotion, in the tone of a man stating a simple matter of fact. Then he remarked in the same matter-of-fact voice that, as it happened, he was dying, so it made no difference. Perhaps he wanted her to know that a grave was ready[Pg 296] for the secret she had just told him. There was no need to remind her of that,—she was sure of it before she spoke. Her kneeling attitude, and hands outstretched on the counterpane, suggested an order of ideas that had never been very far from him during his illness. For Vincent had been wide awake and thinking difficult thoughts many a time when he lay with his eyes closed, and Katherine had thought he was asleep. "I want you to read to me," he said at last. "What would you like?" "Well—the New Testament, I think, if it's all the same to you." She rose from her knees and looked helplessly round the room. There was a Bible somewhere upstairs, but— "You'll find one in the drawer there, where my handkerchiefs are." She looked, rummaging gently among his poor things. She came on a small muslin pocket-handkerchief, stained with blood, also a loop of black ribbon of the kind that little girls tie their hair with. Some fine reddish hairs were still tangled in the knot. At last she found a small pocket Testament mixed up with some of his neckties. It was old and worn. Katherine wondered at that, though she could hardly have said why. Then she saw written on the fly-leaf, in a sprawling girl's hand, "Vincent, with Audrey's best love," and a date that[Pg 297] went back to their childhood. It was the only present that Audrey had ever made him, and one that had cost her nothing. "What part shall I read?" She was afraid that Vincent would lay the burden of choice on her. But he did not—he had very decided ideas of his own. "The eighth of Romans, if you don't mind." An eagle's feather floated out from between the pages at the eighth of Romans. It had been picked up on the snows of the Rocky Mountains. If she had wondered at first, she soon saw why Vincent had chosen that chapter of all others. "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Vincent was dying. She read on, and as she read she saw behind the edges of the veil that divides the seen from the unseen. "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Her heart beat faster and her breast heaved, but the words lifted her above pathos and tears,[Pg 298] and prepared her for the consolation of the close. "Do you believe all that?" he asked suddenly, when she had finished. She had not expected that. "I didn't, but I do now." "Why?" His eyes were fixed on hers, scrutinising, pathetic. "Because I must." That reason seemed to be hardly enough for Vincent. He was still hesitating and uncertain, as if he were looking for something that she could not give him. Then he lay back again with his eyes closed. It was Katherine's turn to think. But Vincent's peace of mind was of more importance to her than the truth or falsehood of a creed. She had realised that there were things that even her love could not do for him. With a sudden flash of recollection she thought of the young priest she had once met at Audrey's house. If any one could help Vincent now, it might be Mr. Flaxman Reed. She was probably mistaken (nobody is very wise between twelve and one in the morning), but at least she could try. "Vincent," she whispered, "would you like to see a clergyman?" She smiled, for after all it might be the very last thing that he wanted. He smiled too, a little consciously. His mood had changed for the time being—he had come back again to earth. "No; thank you, Sis. But I should like——"[Pg 299] "What? Tell me." "To see—Audrey." The three words gave her a shock, but they told her nothing new. "You shall. I'll send for her first thing in the morning." He turned round with his face away from her, and settled himself again to sleep. And Katherine watched. He would be Audrey's to-morrow. He was hers at least for that one night. No—never, never again. To-morrow had come, and the image of Audrey was between them. It always had been there. Was it better so? The next day Audrey had to be found. Ted went to Chelsea Gardens early in the morning, supposing her to be there. The house was shut up, and the caretaker had mislaid her address. He went back to Devon Street. Katherine and Ted were in despair; Vincent alone was equal to the emergency. His mind was on the alert—it had grasped all the necessary details. He gave them Dean Craven's address, and told Ted to wire to Oxford for Audrey's. That was how Audrey never got the telegram till one o'clock. That morning the doctor pronounced Vincent decidedly better. The change, he said, was something miraculous. He took Katherine out of the room to tell her so. "Keep him quiet, and he may pull through yet.[Pg 300] I don't say he will, but he may. Only—he mustn't have any excitement." "He's had a great deal this morning. If it lasts all day, and if—he has any more of it to-night, will it hurt him? It's pleasant excitement, you know." The doctor looked keenly at her. To judge by her white face she was not sharing in the pleasant excitement. "Well, I can't say. Pleasure does less harm than pain, sometimes. Don't let him have any suspense, though. Suspense will kill him." But suspense was what he had to bear. Katherine knew that he was living on in the hope of Audrey's coming. Well, she would be with him by nine at the latest, as she had said. At half-past eight Vincent began to listen for every bell. At nine he asked to have the door set ajar, that he might hear the wheels of her cab in the street. But though many cabs went by, none stopped. "She's missed her train. We didn't give her much time. Look out the next, Kathy." Katherine looked it out. "She'll be here by eleven if she catches the three-o'clock. It gets to Paddington at ten." Vincent closed his eyes and waited patiently till ten. Then he became excited again, the nervous tension increasing with every quarter of an hour. By eleven the street was still, and Vincent strained[Pg 301] his ears for every sound. But no sounds were to be heard. It was half-past eleven. A look of fear had come over his face. Katherine could bear it no longer. She went into the next room, where Ted was standing at the window. She laid her hands on his shoulder, clinging to him. "Oh Ted, Ted," she whispered, fiercely. "She'll kill him. He'll die if she doesn't come. And—she isn't coming." Ted had never known his sister do that before. It was horrible, like seeing a man cry. He put his arms round her (he had almost to hold her up), and comforted her as best he could. But she put him from her gently, and went back to her post. "She'll come to-morrow, Vincent," she said. "No. If she were coming, she would have wired." But that was just what Audrey had forgotten to do. By the time she had reached Barnstaple, she was too much taken up with her own tragic importance to think of any small detail of the kind. Vincent had turned over on his side. He had no more hope, and nothing mattered now. He had done his best, but was not going to carry on a trivial dispute with death. But though his spirit had given up the struggle, his body still fought on with its own blind will, a long, weary fight that seemed as if it would never[Pg 302] end. Towards morning he became to all appearance unconscious. At seven o'clock the front-door bell rang; there was a stir in the hall and the sound of Mrs. Rogers' voice whispering. Then the door opened and closed softly. Audrey was standing there, a strange figure in the dim white room, wrapped in her bearskins, and glowing with life and the fresh morning air. At first she could distinguish nothing in the shaded light. Then she made out Ted, sitting with his back to her at the foot of the bed, and Katherine standing at the head of it. But when she saw the motionless figure raised by pillows, and vaguely defined under the disordered bedclothes, a terror seized her, and she hid her face in her hands. "Come here, Audrey," said Katherine, gently. And she came—gliding, trembling, as she had come to him that afternoon at Chelsea, a year and a half ago. But she kept her eyes fixed on Katherine. She was afraid to look there. "Take his hand. Speak to him." Audrey looked round, but Ted had left the room. Her small white hand slid out of her muff, warm with the warm fur, and rested on Vincent's hand; but no words came. She was sick with fear. The touch was enough. Warm and caressing, the little fingers curled into the hollow of his hand and Vincent woke from his stupor. He opened his eyes, but their look was vague and wondering; he[Pg 303] was not conscious yet. Katherine moved aside and drew up the blind, and the faint daylight fell on Audrey's face, as her eyes still followed Katherine. For one instant his brain seemed to fill suddenly with light. It streamed from his brain into the room, and he saw her standing in the midst of it. "Audrey!" The loud hoarse voice startled Katherine, and made Audrey shake with fright. His hand closed tightly on hers, and he sank back into unconsciousness. For two hours the two women kept watch together by his bed: Katherine at the head, holding Vincent in her strong arms; Audrey sitting at the foot with her back turned to him, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth. At nine o'clock she shivered and looked round, as Vincent's head sank forward on his breast. Katherine, standing at the back of the bed, first saw what had happened by the change on Audrey's face. The corners of her mouth had suddenly straightened, and she started up, white and rigid. "He's dead! Take me away, Katherine—take me away!" But this time Katherine neither saw nor heard her. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> "No; he was bound to die. What else could you expect after the life he led, poor fellow?" It was all over. Audrey had dragged herself out of the room, she scarcely knew how—dragged her[Pg 304]self up to Katherine's room and thrown herself on the bed in a passion of weeping; and Katherine, kneeling for the second time by Vincent's side, could hear the verdict of science through the half-open door. Dr. Crashawe was talking to Ted. Neither Audrey nor Katherine knew how they got through the next three days. Audrey was afraid to sleep alone, and Katherine had her with her night and day. Audrey would have gone back to Chelsea but for her fear, and for a feeling that to leave Devon Street would be a miserable abandonment of a great situation. All those three days Katherine was tender to her for Vincent's sake. Happily for her, Audrey disliked going into his room; she was afraid of the long figure under the straight white sheet. Katherine could keep her watch with him again alone; she had no rival there. Once indeed they stood by his bed together, when Katherine drew back the sheet from his face, and Audrey laid above his heart a wreath of eucharis lilies, the symbol of purity. They stood beside him, the woman who loved him and the woman he had loved; and they envied him, one the peace, the other the glory of death.[Pg 305] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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