CHAPTER XLVII--“THEIR VIRGINS HAD NO MARRIAGE-SONGS; AND THEY THAT COULD SWIM----”

In the first stabbing sense of loss he hoped that he had caught the

contagion and might die. Life without her was unthinkable. Then, through

very excess of grief, his feelings became blunted. It seemed impossible

that he would ever again fear or expect.

He moved as in a shadow-world. Time had no significance. Days slipped

by uncounted. He was trying to understand life, searching behind the

external show for its secret meaning and purpose. Up till now, with

the gay generosity of a child, he had shared himself with those whom

he loved and by whom he was loved, concentrating and intensifying his

affections. Now, dimly at first, he began to view existence from the

angle of responsibility, as a river ever broadening and growing more

adventurous, pouring down from forgotten highlands to the conjectured

sea. It was not his journey that counted; it was the direction and

journey of the total river. If he suffered and had been glad, there

were multitudes who were glad and had suffered. What was the meaning of

it--this alternating sorrow and gladness? For the first time he asked

himself how other people thought, felt, endured--people like Jehane and

Riska, like the golden woman and Glory.

A month ago, had anyone told him that his sister would be taken from

him, he would have defied God by turning infidel. But now----. He

realized reluctantly how his very passion for her might have crippled

her, shutting out the natural and fine things that belong to every man

and woman. In giving her too much, he might have deprived her of what

was most splendid, giving her ultimate curtailment. How near he had come

to doing this he had learnt from Harry.

Her words were continually recurring in his memory, dragging him back

from despondency. “You won't be bitter--won't break your heart about

me? If you did, I should know. I shouldn't be happy.” The shame that

he might be paining her was always with him. He had the sure knowledge

that, though he could not see her, she still lingered in the house.

Sitting with closed eyes, especially at twilight, he believed he could

hear her moving--moving gladly. The sound was always behind him, even

when he turned his head. He placed flowers about her room, pretending

she was alive; he liked to picture her surprise when she found them. A

white wraith of laughing mist, he imagined he saw her stoop above them.

In his mind he heard her voice, “Oh, Peterkins, how good you still are

to me!” The wind touched his cheek; it was her mouth.

While her body remained in the house his grief was inconsolable. Yet

peace came to him even before the mortal part, long and lily-white, was

borne through the sun-swept village to the garden on the hill gazing out

to sea, cypress-shadowed and quiet.

Through the first long night he sat beside her, fixing her features,

everything that had been her, indelibly in his mind. The swathed feet,

immobile as marble beneath the tall candles, brought back her saying,

“The joy goes into my feet when I'm glad.”

Wearied by watching, he slept. Again she was dying. He could hear her

voice, trying so hard to be patient. Someone entered, bringing a new

body, exactly like the old one but well. She rose and slipped into it,

just as if she were trying on a new dress. She caught him by the hand,

laughing excitedly. In their gladness, as they left the room, neither

of them remembered to look back to the bed; they had no pity for the

abandoned fleshly garment.

----And was death no more than that to the dead--clothes cast aside,

outworn by the spirit? What a little to make a fuss about!

Through the open window dawn was breaking. In a chair Harry slept, his

chin fallen forward. Peter rose to his feet and tiptoed over to the

still face lying on the pillow, framed in the golden hair. He stood

gazing down. The morning wind walked the sea, like the feet of Jesus

bringing peace to sinful men. Far back he remembered another early

morning when Kay's eyes had been closed and he had heard those same feet

walking--snow had lain on the ground. Another girl, strangely like her,

with the same bowed mouth and penciled brows, had been stretched beside

her. While Kay's eyes were shuttered, the other eyes had opened.

As the days went by, the desire grew strong within him to see Glory--he

wanted to trace Kay's likeness in the living features. And yet he

postponed.

It was September. Harry had left for London, called back by work.

Letters from Topbury implored his own return. He was afraid to abandon

scenes familiar; in losing them he might lose the sense of Kay's spirit

presence.

Then to him, as to Harry, came the imperative cry of the need of the

world.

A telegram sent from Paris and forwarded on from Topbury reached him. Of

all persons it was from the golden woman. It bade him urgently to join

her. He took no notice. Another, saying that it was not she who wanted

him but someone whom he could help. A third, still more insistent. The

first he had suspected; this last was too pleading for insincerity. He

packed up and left.

In Paris she met him; even then she refused to tell him why she had

sent for him. She was a different golden woman, grave and quiet. The day

after his arrival, she took him out to a gray Normandy village. On the

train journey she had little to say; only once did she explain herself.

A flight of swallows was passing over a meadow going south, moving

steadily as a cloud. She met his eyes.

“Yes, I'm different. The stork knoweth her appointed times, and the

turtle and the crane and the swallow, but----You remember the passage. I

didn't know mine. I waited too long. Foolish! Foolish!---- The winter

came. My appointed time went by me.” And a little later, “Don't let that

happen to you, Peter.”

They walked down a white road and came to a cottage. She knocked. A

voice, which he ought to have recognized, told her to enter. Sitting in

a low chair, her foot rocking a cradle, was Riska. She rose, overcome

with surprise, lowering her face, awaiting his judgment. As he pressed

her to him, the baby began to cry. She stooped, picked him up and held

him out to Peter.

“Isn't he sweet?”

The first words she had spoken--spoken without shame or apology, almost

with pride! It seemed impossible that a sin which had made a thing

so beautiful could need excusing. He met her eyes, reading in them

sacrifice. Where was the old Riska, impatient of restraint, eager to

catch men, with the petulant, fluttering mouth? The passion which

should have destroyed had purified, just as his grief which might have

embittered had made him more anxious to help.

On the way to England she told him of Hardcastle. “I got so tired

of trying and trying to get married. All the men found out

something--father, or my shallowness, or something. I don't blame them.

And all the time, ever since I was a little girl, mother talked about

the raft and what happened if a girl didn't escape from it. I grew

desperate and frightened. It was anything to catch a man. And then

Roy----. He said he'd marry me in Paris; afterwards he put off and put

off. When he'd deserted me, I didn't like to write. After the baby

came----. I don't know, it may be all wrong, but I wasn't a bit ashamed

of myself. I didn't write then because I couldn't bear to think of

people despising him. If the golden woman hadn't met me---- Oh, well, I

should have gone on somehow, earning money for baby with my

hands.----But, dear Peter, I'm so glad you found me. I never understood

you till now.”

At Topbury that first night, after a hurried reference to Kay, they

didn't trust themselves to talk about her. They tortured themselves the

more by their reticence. Everything spoke so loudly of her absence. Nan

sat with Riska's child in her arms--the child which should have been

unwelcome. It seemed to fill a gap in her life; they all knew what

was passing behind her eyes. The evening grew late. She and Riska went

slowly up to bed.

Peter turned to his father. For hours he had sat grimly watching

the landscape by Cuyp, where the comfortable burgher walked forever

unperturbed by the banks of the gray canal.

“Father.”

“Yes.”

“We're not doing right.”

“Right!” He shrugged his shoulders. His gesture accused God defiantly.

“No, father--not doing right. One of the last things she said was that

she'd know and be unhappy if we broke our hearts about her. She does

know, and--and I think we've been making her sad.”

For a long time his father sat brooding. He stretched out his hand,

“Your imagination, Peter--you've never outgrown it. But--but we don't

want to make her sad.”

The house was hushed. It was some hours since they had climbed the

stairs. He crept out of his room into the one that had been hers. It was

the same as when, years ago, they two had shared it. He gazed across the

lamp-lit gulf to where Hampstead lay shrouded beneath the night. And

he remembered: the moon letting down her silver ladder and bidding him

ascend; the windows in streets he had never traversed, which had seemed

to watch him like the eyes of cats; the mysterious whistling from the

powder-cupboard, “Coming! Coming! Coming!”

He tried, as of old, to eliminate barriers by the magic of imagination.

It was true, surely, and he hadn't grown up. Soon he would hear the

angel whistle. On the straight unruffled bed he would see the gentle

little body, with the tumbled honey-colored hair.

He forgot his promise not to break his heart about her. Throwing himself

down, he knelt beside the pillow, with his empty arms spread out.

A sound! Someone was holding him--someone who, coming on the same

errand, had discovered him. “Peterkins! Peterkins, don't cry.”

His arms went about her neck. “Little mother, it's long since you called

me that. I'm so tired--tired of pretending to be brave and trying to be

a man.”

They sent for Jehane next day and the next; at last they had to go

and fetch her. Her heart was hard because of the disgrace of what had

happened. She spoke with bitterness of her children. Glory's joining her

stepfather at The Winged Thrush she construed as an act of treachery. “A

daughter of mine,” she said, “serving in a public-house!” She had given

up all hope that Eustace would ever ask her to come to Canada. His

infrequent letters had given her to understand tacitly that she was

not wanted. Only Moggs was left--a subdued child, a little like Glory.

Against disappointment from that quarter Jehane forearmed herself by

taking disappointment for granted. Her sense of injustice centered in

the paradox that Ocky was happy, despite his mismanagement, while she,

after all her painstaking rectitude, was sad.

Throughout the journey to Topbury she insisted vigorously that she would

never take Riska back. As she entered the hall of his house, Barrington

heard the last repetition of her assertion. “We don't want you to,” he

said; “she and her child are going to live with us.” Then Jehane saw

Riska, and recognized the change; promptly she turned her accusals

against herself. She had been unwise. She had spoilt her life both

as wife and mother. Her calamities were her own doing. She needed

Riska--wanted her. “You'll come with your mother, won't you?”

Riska shook her head gently--so gently that for a minute she looked like

Glory. “Mother dear, I can't. I would if it were only myself; I've baby

to consider. You'd do for him just what you've done----. You couldn't

help it. I'm going to stay here with Aunt Nan and learn--learn to be

like her--like Kay.”

Jehane covered her face with her hands. “I'm a bitter woman--yes, and

jealous. But that my own child should tell me--and should be able to say

it truly!”

She looked up. “If I were to try to be different, if I could prove to

you that I was different----.”

Riska put her arms about her mother's neck, “That's all in the future.

But, oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry. I know you've done your best.”

“My best!” Her voice was full of self-despisings. “Oh, well----!”

She had lost her last illusion--her faith in her own righteousness.

Barrington, watching the disillusioned woman, tried to trace in her

features the eager face, tell-tale of dreamings, that had beckoned

to him from a window on a summer's afternoon in Oxford. He found no

resemblance.

He turned to Riska, who had played life's game so recklessly, plunging

off the raft of maidenhood, swimming and drifting on chance-found débris

to the land of maternity, about which her mother was always talking.

In searching Riska's face he found Jehane's dreamings come

true--self-fulfilment and mastery. Sacrifice, by the road of sin,

had accomplished them. He recollected how he had said of her, “Ripe

fruit--ready to fall to the ground.” He smiled wisely, remembering his

own unwisdom.