Part 63

He saw devils, and roared and brandished his big cane at them. Only in imagination, because his voice had sunk to a crackling whisper, and his hand was powerless. A little child--the year-old son of the ex-coachman’s daughter--sat on the bed, holding one of the shrunken fingers--undismayed by the fierce glare of the bloodshot eyes.... Monseigneur had been kind to Toto, Auguste’s wife whispered.... Dunoisse, seeing the end approach, signed to her to take the boy away.

* * * * *

A change of mood came upon the old man presently.

“Let me rise up!” he said to the coachman’s wife, a trifle wildly. “I tell you that I am in the presence of the great!...”

He added, with the rattle in his throat:

“Guilty, M. the President, upon all these counts and charges. But I never showed my back to an enemy, or gave the cold shoulder to a friend in trouble.... I am a soldier of Napoleon, I! And when I see him--even if he be chained down in Purgatory with imps swarming over him, I will draw my sword and cry: ‘_Be off, you singed rapscallions!--I come, my Emperor!_’ For I fear God,--but He knows me better than to suppose I shall turn tail before a rabble of fiends....” He made an ineffectual grasp at the cane--rose in imaginary stirrups, and thundered, in that crackling whisper: “Form column of squadrons! Behind the enemy is our rallying-point! Charge!”

Then he fell back into the hollowed bed limply as an empty saddle-bag, and Dunoisse, with an indescribable pang at the heart, knew that his father, who had loved him after all, was dead, and that he had died without a word of love or gratitude from the son for whom he had gone down beggared to the grave.

The poor remnant of a once handsome fortune was left to that son without conditions. The funeral over, Dunoisse sold what remained of the lease of the house--the furniture, plate, and pictures having mysteriously vanished--and left Paris for the East. Wherever the red star of battle burned, thenceforwards the son of Marie-Bathilde was to be found aiding the torn and mutilated victims of that grim Moloch we adorn with gold and scarlet; bow down before; give honorable titles to; hang with Orders and Crosses, as though in mockery of the Son of Peace, who died for Love upon the bitter tree.

When the Austrians crossed the Ticino and the French troops entered Piedmont, he quitted the hospitals of Lucknow and hurried to Italy. At Solferino he met with a kindred spirit, and erelong became enrolled a member of a band of high-souled men and women of many nations, who presently were gathered together under the banner bearing the symbol of the Crimson Cross. The funds that were needed to establish the Society upon a sound working basis were supplied from an unexpected source: for when Luitpold, Regent of Widinitz, quitted this life, having been predeceased by his wife, his son, and both his daughters, it was found, by some strange freak of will, that he had bequeathed his vast private estates to the son of Marie-Bathilde. Thus, the dowry of three hundred thousand silver thalers having been repaid to the Prioress of the Carmelite Convent at Widinitz, Dunoisse spent the huge sum that remained in the realization of his dream; and when Love and Pity, Charity and Mercy, were leagued all the world over, in a vast, comprehensive Society--when Kings and Emperors praised and thanked the man whose genius for organization and consummate mastery of detail had perfected this vast machine for the alleviation of suffering--whose riches had been poured out unstintingly to further the cause--it seemed to him that he might now seek out the woman of his worship. And he wrote to Ada Merling asking, “May I come to you?” and she answered: “Come!”

It was after the fall of the French Empire. MacMahon had succeeded Thiers as President. Upon the journey Dunoisse, whose exertions had been unceasing during the Franco-Prussian War, scarcely ate or slept. He answered at random those who spoke to him. When he reached the door of the house in Park Lane he trembled, so that he had to lean for support against the railings. He had changed and aged much in the last fifteen years.

He was admitted to the beautiful, quiet drawing-room. An elderly servant knocked at a door communicating with this, and went away. The door opened, and the wraith of Ada Merling stood upon the threshold. So white, so wan, so frail, that but for the indomitable fire burning in the blue-gray eyes, and the resolute, energetic setting of the lips, he who loved her, would hardly have known her.... He cried out, stricken to the soul with anguish.... She said to him, with no sign of emotion beyond a tremble in her voice:

“You too are changed--you too have suffered! That you should suffer no longer I have decided to tell you all. There can be no question of any closer tie between us--but while I live you have my faithful friendship. And it may be that I shall live for years--though I shall never leave my room again!”

She added, as Dunoisse sank down in a chair, and covered his face with his hands:

“Do not grieve. Try to be glad that the path I am to tread has been pointed out so clearly....”

“Oh! my beloved!” said Dunoisse brokenly. “If you have never loved me I am glad of it for your sake!... But, remembering that evening in the Cemetery at Scutari--can you tell me truly that it is so?”

“I will answer you in a letter,” she said, “when I have gathered strength sufficiently. How soon you will receive the letter, I cannot say!” She added, when they had sat together for a little space in silence: “Now bid me good-by and leave me. Never seek me!--do not follow me! If you can, find earthly happiness elsewhere. For we are set apart while we both live, by the Will of God. Nevertheless, in His good time, and in the place He has appointed, I believe that you and I shall meet again!”

And so he had left her, and never since seen her. Yearly a letter from her had reached him, but it had never been _the_ letter. Now you know why Dunoisse would not consent to die. He was waiting for the letter that told him of her love.

He had already waited fifty-six years. Well! he would go on waiting.... The letter was sure to come.

CVI

She died in August, and the letter would never come now....

September paved the chestnut-woods with golden leaves, the ripened blackberries vanished before the onslaughts of children and the attack of birds. The snow-peaks turned into pyramids of ice, blizzards swept screaming down the gorges, there were frost-frogs in the valleys and icicles upon the edges of the rocks over which the waterfalls hung in blocks of frozen foam. The Promenade of Zeiden grew empty--people had migrated to Davos or Grindelwald. The familiar figure of the old white-haired man in the Bath-chair had not been seen for many a day. For he lay in his large bedroom at the Home, dying at ninety-three years of age, of a complaint the existence of which is, by the physicians, denied....

He was tended with the kindest care. Nor, when the land and submarine telegraphs tapped out the news East, West, North, and South, and the Wireless sent it to the ears of the helmeted operators in the Marconi Installation Room on the upper decks of the great passenger steamers, hurrying with their human cargo to distant countries, did expressions of sympathy fail.

People were very sorry. Extremely sorry. Though hardly anybody had ever in their lives before heard the name of the dying man. Of the Society of the Crimson Cross, they knew quite certainly. An excellent institution. Had done heaps of good. But they had rather imagined it to have been founded by the Prince Consort in 1859, if they were English; and if they happened to be Germans, they boldly said that the-never-to-be-sufficiently-esteemed and-now-with-his-mourned-ancestors-and-beloved-wife-reposing Imperial Chancellor, Prince Bismarck, had laid the egg of the idea that another less eminent had hatched.... Italians draped with fine art their own innate convictions that Garibaldi or the Pope was responsible. French people shrugged, superior, for even an Austro-Helvetian, born and bred in Paris, becomes by the most subtle of transitions, a Frenchman of France.

Several Crowned Heads and Scientific Associations cabled sympathetic messages, the Council of the Society of the Crimson Cross pressed for the latest bulletin, the State Council of Widinitz despatched a delegate; the Mayor of Zeiden, with two of his town councillors, made a visit of ceremony to the dying man’s bedside.... Two Little Sisters of the Poor were with him--mild-eyed religious who had taken it in turns for years with others of their Community, to visit him daily. Lights were burning between vases of flowers before a Crucifix set upon a little white-draped table. They were ending the recitation of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary as the officials were ushered in.

The man they sought lay, snow-white and barely conscious, a fitful breathing stirring the white hairs of his upper lip. A bleak pinched look was on the brave old face, the great black eyes were closed and sunken. But sometimes their lids would flutter and lift, and they would wander until they fell upon an object that might have been a woman’s bust upon a pedestal draped in a heavy veil of crape that hid its lineaments. And then--the look in them was not good to see.

“M. Dunoisse is barely conscious,” said the elder of the two Sisters. “The doctors hold that the end is close at hand. That he is quite prepared is happily certain,--Monsieur has ever been a devout Catholic. His confessor is to bring him the Viaticum at noon.” The pale face of the speaker flushed as a carriage was heard to stop before the hall-entrance. “It is here!” she said, and hurried to the double doors and flung them wide apart.

CVII

There were muffled footsteps upon the druggetted landing. The Sisters were already kneeling, two black-robed, white-wimpled, motionless images of Prayer. The Mayor of Zeiden, a devout Catholic, hastily crossed himself and knelt down. The delegate from the State Council of Widinitz followed his example--the municipal councillors backing, in exquisite discomfort and embarrassment, against the white-papered wall.

The manager of the Home and his chief assistant entered. Each carried a lighted candle in a tall silver candlestick. Their faces were common, ordinary faces, dignified by an expression of absorbed careful attention rather than devoutness. The tall, bulky, bald, aged man who followed them was not the priest who usually confessed the patient, but an ecclesiastic in the violet cassock that is distinctive of a Cardinal of the Church of Rome. His nervous, energetic-looking hands were folded against his breast; a great amethyst upon the forefinger of the right gleamed purple and rose between the wavering yellow flame of the tapers and the keen dazzle of the autumn sunshine that bathed the lovely landscape seen beyond the lofty windows. His face--pale, heavily-jowled and with the jutting underlip of an orator and a statesman--was absorbed, and rapt, and set. And, keeping his hands always folded over Something hidden in his bosom, he moved forwards slowly, continuously, as St. Christopher might have waded the drift of the icy black river, bearing the world’s Redeemer. The kneeling Catholics received the episcopal benediction, the cold blue rapier-points of the Cardinal’s keen eyes flashing, as he raised the fingers that bestowed it, at the two standing figures by the wall. A single finger waved, and there was a change. The silver candlesticks, with their burning tapers, now added to the illumination upon the temporary altar, the room was emptied of all human presence save the stately, imposing figure of the ecclesiastic and scarcely-breathing form upon the bed.

* * * * *

You saw the tall, bulky figure bend over the prone form. The sunk, sealed eyelids twitched and lifted. Recognition flashed in the great black eyes. The Cardinal said low and distinctly:

“My son, the priest who was to administer the Last Sacraments has been seized with sudden illness. Knowing me to be staying at Mölkenzell--where I have been taking the whey-cure--he telegraphed, entreating me to supply his place.” He added: “And I hesitated not to come--for it may be that Our Lord requires of you this act of final obedience. Will you consent to receive His Body from the hands of one who has been your enemy, but who has already humbly entreated your forgiveness--who renews his penitence at this final hour?”

With a great effort the dying man faltered:

“Yes!”

Then tears dimmed the eyes that had lost their brilliance, the hollow cheeks palpitated--the chin quivered--Old Hector wept.... And the visitor soothed him, bending over the pillow, and the Confession was completed; the thready, breathless whispers of the penitent replying to the resonant undertones of the priest.

He received Absolution then, and the Final Blessing. The noiseless nuns stole back at the sound of the strong, resonant voice rolling out the glorious Latin sentences--the Mayor and the delegate returned.... You are to see the dying body asperged with the holy water, the dying mouth fed with the Blessed Sacrament for the nourishment and support of the soul upon its awful journey over the great Unknown Desert, that I who write, and you who read must travel before very long.

Extreme Unction followed the Communion of the Dying. And as the sacred rite went on, an awful sternness settled over the grave old aquiline face. All the long life of Hector Dunoisse lay unrolled as a map before his mental vision. He hung poised on albatross-wings above his past. He knew as he lay speechless, sightless, scarcely sentient under the deft ministering hands, listening as the deep, melodious voice of Holy Church spoke for the penitent in accents of contrition, judged, rebuked, condemned, pardoned for God,--he knew how great a burden were his trespasses, how small a pack his justifications. He appraised, he valued, he weighed.... And, weighing, he was made aware how Self, in the opposing scale of the just balance, weighed down the seeming stately pile of noble sacrifices made and good deeds done for Heaven. Ah! little wonder that the grand old face grew sterner and sterner as the Sacrament reached its close, and he who ministered by the deathbed, passed to the Recommendation of the Departing Soul.

Do you know it, that tremendous valediction following the brief Litany, that calls upon One Who vanquished Death and trod down the powers of Hell under His Feet, to deliver and save? To pardon sin, remit the pains of present and future punishment, open the gates of Paradise--welcome the wanderer home?...

“Go forth, O Christian soul! from this world. In the Name of God the Father Almighty, Who created thee; in the Name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who suffered for thee; in the Name of the Holy Ghost, Who was poured out upon thee; in the Name of the Angels and Archangels; in the Names of the Cherubim and Seraphim; in the Names of the Patriarchs and Prophets; in the Names of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors; in the Names of the Holy Monks and Hermits; in the Names of the Holy Virgins and all the Saints of God, may thy place be this day in peace!... Per Christum Dominum! Amen.”

It was quiet, very quiet, the passing of this soul. The grand old face grew sterner, sterner. The jaw dropped--the great dim black eyes turned slightly upwards under the thin, withered lids. The sweat of death rolled shining down the dark-veined hollows of the temples: bathed the icy body.... He was gone.... The Cardinal said the final prayers, sprinkled the body with holy water, placed a small crucifix upon the pulseless breast, stooped above the pillow, and kissed the cold forehead, ere he withdrew, followed by the two visitors, leaving the Little Sisters of the Poor to complete their pious task.

CVIII

He was very weary, the great Churchman who had traveled from Mölkenzell--but when he reached his private rooms at the hotel he could not rest. Something urged him with a soundless voice, plucked at him with invisible hands, constrained him to return to the death-chamber.... He dined, and snatched brief sleep beset with dreams upon a preposterous, green-plush sofa. Then he obeyed the entreaty, or the mandate, and took his _biretta_, and threw a heavy cloak about him, for it was night and cold; and stepped out upon the Promenade.

It was a dazzling night of stars; great blazing jewels spilt with a lavish hand upon the purple lap of the Night. From south-west to north-east the Milky Way made an arch across the sky-dome. Bootes made the outline of a kite, its fiery tail Arcturus. Vega in Lyra made a wondrous show. Cardinal de Moulny looked up at them, and murmured a prayer for the soul he had helped to depart. The Home was but a few minutes’ walk from the Promenade; he reached it in a few moments. The hall-door stood open; some silent-footed men in black came out as His Eminence mounted the steps.

The vestibule was fragrant with laurel-leaves, with leaves of fern and scattered petals of pure white blossoms, dropped in the hasty unpacking of memorial wreaths and crosses from the florists’ boxes that had already begun to arrive. Men and women and children of many nations and ranks and classes had also brought flowers. Many of these people were standing on the pavement near the door, and a crowd had gathered in the street, and were pointing out, with sorrowful faces, the half-open, blinded windows on the floor above the _entresol_.

“He is lying there,” a peasant woman said to her little daughter, as the Cardinal passed. And the keen, austere blue eyes of the Churchman turned upon the speaker, and he said to her in a kindly tone of rebuke:

“‘_Was_’ lying there, my daughter. He is now with God. He died a blessed death. May yours and mine be as holy!”

He traversed the vestibule and passed upstairs. The diligent hands of the Little Sisters had already completed the last arrangements. Into the middle of the lofty room, with its consecrated burning candles and massed votive wreaths and crosses, the narrow, white-draped bed had been drawn. At the foot of it stood the altar, with its Crucifix, and its vases of flowers, and burning tapers. The pure frosty night breeze, scented with larch and pine needles, flowed in through the open windows; in the bay of the one that looked south-east stood the black-draped bust, with a great Cross of violets and bay-leaves leaning against its pedestal, and a crown of white lilies on its crape-veiled head.

One of the Little Sisters of the Poor knelt on a _prie-Dieu_ near the bed-foot. There would be a public Lying-in-State upon the morrow, when members of Religious Sodalities would take part in the solemn function; when a guard of honor, drawn from the Army of the Swiss Republic, would be posted to watch the illustrious dead. Meanwhile, the Little Sister, with her fellow-nun to relieve her at intervals, would thus keep watch through the night-hours. His Eminence must know it would be not only a duty but a pleasure to render these sacred duties to the remains of one so good as Monsieur.

Then, as de Moulny turned towards the bed to sprinkle it and its occupant from the little stoup of holy water that stood upon a small stand close by, an oblong patch of whiteness showing relief against its purple cover drew his attention. The meek, good eyes of the Sister had followed the Cardinal’s. They now encountered them.

“It was I who placed it there,” the Sister explained, with a little innocent confusion. “It arrived by the afternoon post. It is a letter from England--M. Dunoisse received one in that handwriting regularly once a year at Noël ... its arrival was Monsieur’s great festival!” She added, as the Cardinal took the letter in his hand: “The good God permitted Monsieur to suffer a terrible bereavement in the death of the dear friend who thus remembered him!” She glanced at the crape-veiled bust in the window-bay, and added: “In August he received the news. At the close of September comes this letter--a message from the dead to the dead.”

The Cardinal’s expression of composed stem gravity did not change as the Sister made her explanation.

“Leave me, my child,” he said to the nun, “and rest until I again summon you. I desire to remain alone awhile by this bed of holy death.”

The Sister withdrew, leaving the Cardinal standing with the letter in his hand by the old white head that rested upon the flower-strewn pillow. A snow-pure veil of unutterable peace had been drawn by the hand of gentle Death over the splendid, powerful brow, the sealed eyes, and the high, clear-cut, aquiline features. The face was wonderfully noble, marvelously grand.

A great prelate, a subtle theologian, a profound scholar, no priest was more deeply read than Cardinal de Moulny in the pages of the Book of Life and Death. Long years of experience among the living, stores of knowledge accumulated beside innumerable deathbeds, had taught him that the deeper you read between the pages of that Book, the less you know that you know.

An idea struck him as he looked from the dead face to the envelope, obviously yellowed, addressed in a delicate old-fashioned handwriting--handwriting faded as though by the passage of many years--to an address in Paris that had belonged to Dunoisse many years previously--now re-addressed in blacker ink in a modern upright hand. And as he looked, yielding to a sudden impulse, he tore open the envelope and mastered the contents. He read by the light of the death-tapers that flickered on the altar at the bed-foot, set on either side of the Crucifix, carved in dark walnut with the Emblems of the Passion, that had hung above the head of the bed. The letter bore the date of thirty-nine years back. It ran thus:

“_It has been made clear to me that what it is my determination to reveal to you in this letter cannot be known by you while the hand that penned it is yet warm and living. So, once written, it shall lie in the shabby desk most people laugh at until my summons comes from that High Power Whose call we must all obey. There was a time, though you have never suspected it, when for the sake of the sweetness of the earthly love you had not then offered me, I would have taken my hand from the plow._

“_Nor when the gift was made, was I without my hour of doubt and hesitation, for, had I linked my life with yours, I must have broken a vow. Well!--I was spared the choice by the verdict of the London physicians--the relentless progress of the disease that bound me prisoner to this room within whose four walls I have now for so many years lived and labored.... Dear friend!--dearest of all earthly friends!--there is no marriage in that world where blessed spirits dwell, but there is Oneness. It is the gift of God to souls that have purely loved upon earth. Oh my beloved! whom I loved from the first--whom I shall love to the last--and this world is not the last, thanks be to God for it!--I do most humbly trust in Him that we who have been so long divided here on earth shall meet and be one in Heaven._”

CIX

Cardinal de Moulny was not ordinarily prone to yield to emotion--not commonly open to the appeals of sentiment--yet the tears rolled down his heavy cheeks as he read. It seemed to him so exquisitely piteous that the reward of his dead friend’s unswerving devotion and lifelong fidelity should have come too late to yield him joy.