Part 11

And thereupon he stopped abruptly, for his elder brother had come upon them unperceived--Dudley, thin and tall, clothed in sad-coloured, brown-grey coat and vest, the locks of his long, pale hair stirred by the summer wind, in his hand a bundle of papers--Dudley, whose high, narrow head, refined features, and deep-set, fanatical eyes reminded Laurence strangely of his uncle, Montagu Rivers, lying upstairs in the carven, ebony bed, with the crystal _memento mori_ and the silver bell of the elegantly poised Mercury handle on the table beside him.--But how was that? How could it be? He confused two generations. Dudley Rivers's coffin he had seen, in the vault of the little, Norman church, only this morning. The dust lay thick on it. For more than half a century it had reposed there undisturbed; whereas his uncle, Montagu Rivers, died but last night!

Yet even while he thus reasoned, the scene suffered change. All around him was the roar of cannon; and beneath him the screaming of two ships, grinding into one another, side to side, upon the lift and fall of the Atlantic, where the sea grows short towards Gibraltar and the Straits. They screamed, those ships, as fighting stallions scream--a fierce and terrible sound. And all their decks were slippery with blood, through which half-naked men ran red-footed, or falling, wallowed, while the yell of battle went up hoarse from many hundred throats. The white sails, torn and streaming, were dyed wild, lurid colours by the flash of musketry and up-rolling volumes of smoke from the heavy guns. It was as hell let loose. Yet discipline prevailed, as did a desperate and persistent purpose, through all the tumult and slaughter. Laurence himself felt cool, light-hearted even, as he shouted orders and rallied his men in no mild language. His courage was high and his life strong in him. He laughed, notwithstanding the murderous noise, the sickening and brutal sights. But, to his fury, just in the turn of the engagement, when victory seemed assured at last, he felt a shattering blow at the top of his chest, and the blood welled up from his pierced lungs, and all the world about him grew black. He staggered back against the splintered bulwarks, putting his left hand upon the thin packet of letters buttoned inside his uniform against his heart, and called aloud--"Agnes, Agnes."

And out of the blackness a sweet voice, speaking as from some far distance, answered, crying--"Laurence, Laurence"--in accents of tremulous but very exquisite joy. Then within his palm he felt once more that just perceptible pulsation, as of the fluttering wings of a captive butterfly; while, in the ghostly twilight still glimmering in through the great bay-window, he beheld the slender form and rose-red, silken dress of his sweet fairy-lady, there, close at his side.

XVIII

For some moments the young man dared not move. The anguish of his shattered ribs, the choking up-rush of blood from his lungs, was so present to him, that he turned deadly faint. By degrees he realised that all these sensations were illusory; or rather memory of that which had, long ago, befallen him. Then he asked himself--was the cry which had just now answered his cry illusory, a matter of memory, likewise? This he must ascertain. He began speaking slowly and softly; and the conviction of his identity with that other Laurence Rivers, his namesake, was so complete, that in speaking as he did he had no sense of practising any deceit upon his hearer.

"Agnes," he said, "do you remember the summer morning when, like a lazy fellow, I fell asleep under the lime-trees, and how you came to me just as I woke up, and how we spoke to one another, and how my brother Dudley interrupted our conversation."

A pause followed, during which he listened with almost feverish anxiety, looking up into the sweet, dimly-seen face. Was it possible that she had already gained in physical attributes and powers to the point of audible speech? He almost prayed it might be so; and yet what tremendous issues such development opened up!

At last the low, far-away voice began to answer him. The words came lispingly, at first, with a pathetic effort and hesitancy. It was as the utterance of a baby child but just learning to articulate.

"How could I fail to remember that morning, since the joy of it proved the prelude to the sorrow of your departure?"

Laurence could barely control his excitement; but he just managed to remain very still and to continue speaking slowly and softly.

"Was that so?" he said. "I had forgotten."

"Surely it was so," she answered. "For Dudley brought you the orders, which had just been delivered by a despatch-rider, requiring your immediate return to your ship."

"Yes, yes--of course. I begin to recollect," he rejoined. "Lord Nelson had news of the whereabouts of the French fleet, and we put to sea at a few hours' notice. Recollect, dear me, I should rather think I did! It was an awful rush to get one's kit together, and get through, and there was no end of a bother about post-horses."

Laurence rose to his feet. It was impossible to him to sit still any longer. This strange awakening of memory, and the miracle of his sweet, phantom companion's recovered speech, moved him too deeply. He went across to the escritoire.

"Come here, Agnes," he said. "I want to look at you. I must see you clearly. And I--I want you to look at me. Come."

While speaking he struck a match, and lighted, first the tall wax candles standing upon the escritoire, and then those in the candelabra upon the chimney-piece. Beheld in their mellow light, the room assumed a more than ever familiar and friendly aspect. Laurence felt that he was at home--at home, consciously, and with a security and content upon him such as he had never experienced before. It was singularly pleasant to feel thus. Moving back he stood in front of the slender, rose-clad figure. His manner was serious, though very gentle, and his voice somewhat broken by the emotion under which he laboured.

"See, I have opened your little treasure-chest for you," he said. "And I have read your dear letters--that constituted no breach of faith, or act of presumption, considering how often I have read them already. I have put everything carefully back in its place, save our two miniatures, which lie here side by side. I tell you honestly, I am perplexed. I can't fit in the bits of the puzzle, or piece out the story as yet; but that, to my mind, doesn't matter very much. For we are here together, once again, you and I."

He shifted the position of the candles so that their full light should fall upon her.

"Now let me look at you," he said.

And as he looked his eyes grew somewhat moist, for he perceived that which he had blindly desired, blindly sought all his days, that which had been as an ache at his heart even in his gayest hours, because he needed it and had it not--though he had had no knowledge of what indeed it was he needed--now stood visibly before him. Sweet phantom, old-time love, exquisite companion--having found her, how could he ever again let her go? Listening to her pretty, halting speech the flattering belief had once more grown strong in him that he had the power--had he also the will--to restore her to complete and living womanhood. The ambition of so doing possessed him with redoubled force; and the love of her, rooted so deeply in that mysterious former life and former personality of his, possessed him too. Considerations of right and wrong, of duty, even of honour, he brushed aside. The peace and content of the present, the daring effort, the triumph and delight of the future should that effort succeed, rendered him callous to all things beside. Then a touch of self-distrust took him. Did he please, as he was pleased? He wondered.

"Agnes," he asked her almost wistfully, "tell me, have I changed very much?"

Her eyes, which had grown somewhat shy beneath his searching scrutiny, regained their serenity. She replied more readily, and in more assured accents, while a gentle playfulness was perceptible in her bearing.

"You appear older," she said; "but I will not reproach you with that, since I think you have matured in character rather than greatly increased in years. I could fancy you taller, were not such a supposition absurd. The fashion of your clothes is much altered--you affect very sober colours now."

But suddenly her expression changed. A wide-eyed, haunting sadness came back into her lovely face, and she spread abroad her hands in mingled apology and appeal.

"Ah! indeed," she cried, "I fear a long, long period has elapsed during my illness and alienation of mind. You have had time and to spare in which to grow older, to acquire new habits of thought, perchance--but that idea I cannot tolerate--to form fresh ties. I bitterly deplore my weakness, but they assured me of your death. Their purpose was not cruel, I am sure; but when I refused to believe their statements, your brother Dudley and Mrs. Lambart sent for our rector, Mr. Burkinshaw, to talk with me and preach resignation. He preached to deaf ears, poor man! How could I be resigned to see all the joy of my life cut down as grass under the sweep of a scythe? I did not believe them, yet their reiterated assertions so worked on me that they killed hope in me, and, in so doing, killed reason likewise. Yet in my heart of hearts, Laurence, I have always known that you would come again."

She clasped her hands high on her bosom and smiled upon him.

"And you have come, oh! my love," she said; "you have come!"

"Yes, in good truth," he answered, while a sense of fear took him--"I have come."

For he was filled with pity and with wonder concerning the end of this adventure; while her innocent passion softened his whole nature to a great tenderness, as the sun softens the frozen earth in spring. Then he held out his hand to her in invitation, and led her across to the brocade-covered sofa, set corner-wise between the piano and the fireplace, and for a while they both remained silent, sitting there side by side. And as the minutes slid away, the young man's fears departed, and content returned to him. It was so natural to sit with her thus! Yet his content had an underlying pathos in it, since their situation--his and hers--though immediately happy was so very strange.

At last he asked her:--"Did you know me from the first?"

And she replied with an air of gracious diffidence infinitely engaging:--"I can hardly tell you. For so long confusion has reigned in my poor mind that all had become to me vague and undetermined. I was so very tired that even that which I most craved, I, in a measure, shrank from. I seemed to wander everlastingly in blank and desolate places. I seemed to move in an interspace between the confines of two worlds, to neither of which could I gain admittance. I could not go forward, neither could I go back. Everything baffled me; everything was so difficult to understand."

"But now you have left those blank and desolate places? Now you understand?" Laurence asked, keenly interested in, yet a little dreading her answer.

"I think so. Still joy has been too long a stranger, for me wholly to trust it even yet. And I fear there are still lapses and deficiencies in my intelligence. I could fancy--but doubtless these are but silly fancies, born of illness--that I am not as I used to be, and that I feel the miss of much I once had and now have not."

She looked up at him, her eyes troubled once more to their very depths.

"In what am I lacking, Laurence?" she inquired piteously. "I feel that I am lacking, and I tremble lest I should disappoint you. Indeed, I will strive to remedy my fault, whatever it may be, if you will but be patient with me and tell me plainly of it, and give me opportunity to effect a cure."

But he answered her soothingly, stung by the humility and innocence of her attitude.

"You are wanting in nothing that time will not set right. But we must make haste slowly, sweetheart. So put all these sick fancies out of your head. We will worry neither about past or future; but, like true economists, will enjoy the present. Now let us talk of the time before I left you to rejoin my ship. Of that other melancholy time, after I left you and before I came back, and of the changes it has brought along with it, we will talk some other day--I trust there are many days for us ahead."

And so they remained speaking of the incidents of that mysterious former life, of which Laurence's recollection became momentarily more circumstantial and coherent--speaking of little things, merry and tender, such as lovers love--until, more than once, gusts of gentle laughter swept through the yellow drawing-room, which, for such a length of years, had been empty of all sound of human mirth. And not until the rose-red fingers of the dawn--in colour matching his fairy-lady's rose-red gown--first touched the eastern sky above the dome of the lime grove and the broken outline of the woods, did Laurence and Agnes Rivers cease to talk. Then she got up from her place in pretty haste.

"Ah!" she said, smiling, "I must go. Good Mrs. Lambart will reprove my indiscretion in having remained here so late."

But Laurence was bound to ask her one question, which had been in his mind during the whole course of their interview, yet had not so far dared put to her.

"Tell me," he said, "I waited for you--why did you not meet me here last night?"

"Ah!" she replied, "do not let us closely inquire into that. Something terrible was abroad in the house. I think it was the Shadow of Death. It stood between us--or I dreamed it did so.--But we fought against it. We conquered it--at least I dreamed that we did. And it is gone.--But now, dear love, indeed I too must go. Good-night, or rather good-morrow. Carry happy thoughts away with you, even as I do, to sweeten rest."

And, without more ado, she flitted across the room, as though her little feet in their diamond-powdered slippers could not go soberly, but must dance for very joy, and, passing behind the tall escritoire, Laurence once again was aware that she had disappeared and left no trace.

XIX

The disposition of Montagu Rivers's property proved--as Mr. Wormald had already advised Laurence it would prove--of a simple and straightforward description. All the servants connected with the house and stables would receive a couple of years' wages. Lowndes, the valet, would in addition draw a substantial pension. Outside these provisions, Laurence inherited wholly and solely. A single clause in the brief will revealed somewhat of the eccentric character of its maker. Mr. Rivers directed that within forty-eight hours of his reported death a London surgeon of acknowledged eminence should use means to ascertain, beyond all possibility of doubt, that death had veritably and indeed taken place. He further directed that Armstrong, the agent, and a local practitioner who had attended him at intervals during his illness, should be present at this rather ghastly demonstration. It was added that the corpse should receive Christian burial not less than twenty-four hours after the autopsy had been carried out. The clause concluded with the following words:--

"I desire these measures to be taken--childish and superstitious though they may appear--as a precaution against that happening, in my own case, which would appear to have happened in the case of a former inhabitant of Stoke Rivers."

The eminent surgeon in question, hastily summoned from amid a press of work, could spare but one evening for his visit. He proved to be a courtly and agreeable person, an amateur of the fine arts, with a turn for copper-plate engravings, a weakness for Italian ivories, and an enthusiasm for antique and renaissance gems. His work in the death-chamber accomplished, he readily turned his attention to more pleasing investigations; and during the hour after dinner, before the coming of the carriage to take him to catch the up-express at Stoke Rivers Road, he examined the contents of certain glass cases in the library, and looked at the engravings hanging in the lower corridor.

"I little imagined, when I left town this afternoon," he said, addressing Laurence with a peculiarly charming smile, "that such delectable entertainment was in store for me. I am proud of my profession--no man more so; but I am not sorry to put it aside for a time and forget injury and disease, and even successful dealing with them, in favour of art. This collection of your uncle's, though not large, is remarkable. It reflects great credit upon his judgment and taste. It contains absolutely no rubbish, hardly, indeed, a single object which it would be just to qualify as second-rate.--Ah! here is another admirable thing, though less in my line than those delightful gems."

The two men had reached the end of the corridor, and the doctor paused in front of the tapestry curtain.

"This is a very fine example," he continued, "though I could not, off hand, be sure of the date. How broad and yet how harmonious in colouring! Just a trifle broad in subject, too, perhaps; but our forefathers were blessed or cursed--I am often at a loss to decide which--with a more robust taste in sentiment than ourselves. A witty modern writer has spoken of 'the saving grace of coarseness.' There have been times when I have been tempted to endorse his phrase."

As he spoke, he laid hold of the edge of the curtain.

"Dear me, how singularly weighty!" He looked at his host quickly, inquiringly, and with heightened interest. "Singularly weighty," he repeated. "This house enjoys a reputation for a certain originality, I understand. Would it be indiscreet to inquire to what this splendid _portiere_ either gives, or denies, access?"

Just for a moment Laurence hesitated, staring his guest very full in the face. So far this new acquaintance had interested him greatly. His conversation had been refreshingly varied; moreover, Laurence, in listening to it, had become increasingly and pleasingly impressed with the value and distinction of his lately acquired possessions. He recognised a steadiness and sanity in the great surgeon's outlook; an appreciation of things rare and beautiful, combined with a wisdom born of wide practical experience; a large compassion, too, for the foibles, and sufferings, and sins of poor human nature, unembittered by any flavour of contempt. And so it happened that, during that moment of hesitation, Laurence was sorely disposed to lay bare to this man--whom he would in all probability never meet again--the abnormal situation in which he, at the present time, found himself. If any one could grasp that situation, and deal with it at once justly and sympathetically, he thought this man could do so; since he appeared to have passed the limits of denial and scepticism, and reached that composure and poise of mind wherein revolt ceases and the capacity of acceptance and belief becomes almost unlimited. But--perhaps unfortunately--Laurence put the inclination towards free speech from him as a temptation. Was he not bound by his promise to the dead? He was bound still more, perhaps, by personal pride. It appeared to him free speech would be a yielding, a weakness; so he answered suavely, yet with a sufficient loftiness to leave no room for further question--

"Behind the curtain is that which, indirectly, has procured me the great pleasure of receiving you here to-day."

As he spoke he turned, and led the way in the direction of the hall again.

"I'm uncommonly glad," he added, "that you have such a high opinion of my uncle's little collection. Perhaps it may induce you to come down here again sometime, from Saturday to Monday, and overhaul the contents of these cases at your leisure. I am afraid I'm a bit of a barbarian, and don't reckon with them as reverently as I ought. I am a good deal better up in the points of polo ponies than in those of Popes' rings, I know."

"That is no matter for regret," the doctor replied, in his most courtly manner. "My esteem for the barbarian increases rather than diminishes as I grow older. And I never forget that these delicacies of art are, after all, the refuge of those who have outlived or injured their digestion of, and appetite for, simpler and more wholesome diet. Such dyspeptics are to be commiserated rather than commended. As long as the romance of sport and travel holds you, as long as you still 'love the bright eyes of danger,' you can very well afford to leave the consolations offered by gems, and ivories, and such like sweepings from the ruins of departed civilisations, to the physically and emotionally decrepit."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Ah, youth," he said, "immortal youth, and the rather savage joys of it!--I congratulate you far more profoundly upon the possession of these, and upon the magnificent health which I cannot but perceive to be yours, than upon your extremely interesting house and both its seen"--he paused, looking rather hard at Laurence and smiling--"and unseen treasures.--A cigar? Yes, thanks, I think I will permit myself that indulgence on my way down to the station.--But to return to my contention. Remember we only take to sweet-sop when our teeth are no longer sound enough for ship's biscuit. Eat ship's biscuit and relish it just as long as a merciful Providence permits you to do so, my dear young gentleman. The days of sweet-sop, of the armchair, of what we are pleased to call 'the judicial attitude of mind,' but which is really nothing save the natural consequence of a sluggish and defective circulation, will come all too soon in any case. Adieu to you--"

A flash of carriage lamps at the open hall door, the two men-servants--restored to their habitual correctness of bearing--armed with rugs, greatcoat, and narrow leather bag of slightly sinister aspect--the snort of a horse in the night air, fresh from the comfortable warmth of the stable--and, after further farewells, Laurence went back into the hot, bright, silent house.

"No one need sit up, Renshaw," he said to the waiting butler. "I shall watch in Mr. Rivers's room alone to-night."