The Divine Fire Part 86

"Do you mind telling me what made you want to keep me? You didn't know me in the least, you know."

"I wanted to keep you _because_ you didn't want to stay. I knew then that I could trust you. But I confess that most people might not have seen it in that way."

"Well, I can't let you take these sonnets on trust. For this time, your principle doesn't apply, you see. You can't say you're accepting this dedication because I don't want to give it to you." Though he laughed he rose and backed towards the door, suddenly anxious to be gone.

"Isn't it enough that I want to accept it?"

He shook his head, still backing, and at the door he paused to speak.

"You've accepted nothing--as yet."

"Of course," she said to herself, "it would have been wiser to have read them first. But I can trust him."

But as she was about to read them a knock, a familiar knock at the door interrupted her. "Kitty!"

She laid the ma.n.u.script hastily aside, well out of Kitty's roving sight. She had noticed how his hands had trembled as he brought it; she did not notice that her own shook a little in thus putting it away from her.

Kitty Palliser, up in town for a week, had come less on her own account than as an impetuous amba.s.sador from the now frantic Edith.

She too was prepared to move heaven and earth, if only she could s.n.a.t.c.h her Lucy from Tavistock Place. But her anxiety was not wholly on Lucia's account, as presently appeared.

"How can you stand it for a minute?" said she.

"I'm standing it very well indeed."

"But what on earth do you find to do all day long, when," said Kitty severely, "you're _not_ talking to young Rickman?"

"All day long I go out, or lie down and read, or talk to Sophie."

"And in the evenings?"

"In the evenings sometimes I make an old man happy by playing."

"And I expect you're making a young man unhappy by playing, too--a very dangerous game."

"Kitty, that young man is perfectly happy. He's going to be married."

"All the worse. Then you'll make a young woman unhappy as well. This little game would be dangerous enough with a man of your own set. It isn't fair to play it with him, Lucy, when you know the rules and he doesn't."

"I a.s.sure you, Kitty, he knows them as well as you or I do; better."

"I doubt it." Kitty's eyes roamed round the room (they had not lost their alert and hungry look) and they took in the situation at a glance. That move in the game would never have been made if he had known the rules. How could she let him make it?

"Really, Lucy, for a nice woman you do the queerest things."

"And, really, Kitty, for a clever woman, you say the stupidest. You're getting like Edith."

"I am not like Edith. I only say stupid things. She thinks them.

What's more, in thinking them she only thinks of herself and her precious family. I'm thinking of you, dear, and"--Kitty's voice grew soft--"and of him. You ought to think of him a little too."

"I _do_ think of him. I've been thinking of him all the time."

"I know you have. But don't let him suffer because of the insanely beautiful way you have of thinking."

There was a pause, in which it was evident to Kitty that Lucia was thinking deeply, and beautifully too.

"Have I made him suffer? I'm afraid I did once. He was valuable, and I damaged him."

"Yes; and ever since you've been trying to put him together again; in your own way, not his. That's fatal."

Lucia shook her head and followed her own train of thought. "Kitty, to be perfectly honest, I think--I'm not sure, but I think--from something he said to-day that you were right about him once. I mean about his beginning to care too much. I'm afraid it was so, at Harmouth, towards the end. But it isn't so any more. He tried to tell me just now. He did it beautifully; as if he knew that that would make me happier. At least I think that's what he meant. He didn't say much, but I'm sure he was thinking about his marriage."

"Heaven help his wife then--if he got as far as that. I suppose you take a beautiful view of her, too? Drop it, for goodness' sake, drop it."

"Not I. It would mean dropping him. It's all right, Kitty. You don't know the ways of poets."

"Perhaps not. But I know the ways of men."

Though Kitty had not accomplished her mission she so far prevailed that she carried her Lucy off to dinner.

It was somewhere towards midnight, when all the house was quiet, that Lucia first looked into Keith Rickman's sonnets. She had been led to expect something in the nature of a personal revelation, and the first sonnet struck the key-note, gave her the clue.

I asked the minist'ring priests who never tire In love's high service, who behold their bliss Through golden gloom of Love's dread mysteries, What heaven there be for earth's foregone desire?

And they kept silence. But the gentle choir Who sing Love's praises answered me, "There is No voice to speak of these deep sanct.i.ties, For Love hath sealed his servants' lips with fire."

Yet in his faithfulness put thou thy faith, Though he hath bound thee in the house of pain, And given thy body to the scourging years, And brought thee for thy thirst the drink of tears, That sorrowing thou shouldst serve him unto death; For when Love reigneth, all his saints shall reign.

She kindled and flamed, her whole being one inspired and burning sympathy. She knew what it was all about. She was on the track of a Poet's Progress in quest of the beloved Perfection, Beauty and Truth in one. Of those nine and twenty sonnets she looked for a score that should make immortal the moments of triumph and of vision, the moments of rapture and fulfilment of the heart's desire. Her glance fell now on two lines that clearly pointed to the goal of those who travel on the divine way--

--Elysian calm and pa.s.sion with no stain Of mortal tears, no touch of mortal pain--

She hoped he had reached it. And more than that she hoped. She was ignorant of what his life had been before he knew her; but the _Song of Confession_ had made her realize that besides this way where the poet went invincibly there was another where the man desired to go, where, as they were so ready to tell her, he had not always gone. But that was before she knew him. She hoped (taking her beautiful view) that in this gift of his he had meant to give to her who understood him some hint or sign that he had come near it also, the way of Righteousness. She looked to find many sonnets dealing with these secret matters of the soul. Therefore she approached them fearlessly, since she knew what they were all about. And since, in that curious humility of the man that went so oddly with the poet's pride, he had so exaggerated his obligation, taking, as he said, the will for the deed and making of her desire to serve him a service actually done; since his imagination had played round her for a moment as it played round all things, transforming, magnifying, glorifying, she might perhaps find one sonnet of dedication to her who had understood him.

But when she had read them all, she saw, and could not help seeing, that the whole nine and twenty were one continuous dedication--and to her. If she had found what she looked for, she found also that a revelation had been made to her of things even more sacred, more personal; a revelation that was in its way unique. He had hidden nothing, kept back nothing, not one moment of that three-weeks'

pa.s.sion (for so she dated it). It was all laid before her as it had been; all its immortal splendour, and all its mortal suffering and its shame. Not a line (if she could have stayed to think of that), not a word that could offend her taste or hurt her pride. The thing was perfect. She understood why it had been shown to her. She understood that he wanted to tell her that he had loved her. She understood that he never would have told her if it had not been all over. It was because it was all over that he had brought her this, to show her how great a thing she had done for him, she who thought she had done nothing. As she locked the sonnets away in a safe place for the night, in her heart there was a great pride and a still greater thankfulness and joy. Joy because it was all over, pride because it had once been, and thankfulness because it had been given her to know.

And in his room behind the wall that separated them the poet walked up and down, tortured by suspense; and said to himself over and over again, "I wonder how she'll take it."

CHAPTER LX

That was on a Thursday. It had been arranged earlier in the week that Flossie and he were to dine with Lucia on Friday evening. On Sat.u.r.day and Sunday the Beaver would be let loose, and would claim him for her own. He could not hope to see Lucia alone before Monday evening; his suspense, then, would have to endure for the better part of four days.

He had nothing to hope for from Friday evening. Lucia's manner was too perfect to afford any clue as to how she had taken it. If she were offended she would hardly let him see it before Flossie and Miss Roots. If she accepted, there again the occasion forbade her to give any sign to one of her guests that should exclude the other two.

Still, it was just possible that he might gather something from her silence.

But as it happened, he had not even that to go upon. Never had Lucia been less silent than on Friday night. Not that she talked more than usual, but that all her looks, all her gestures spoke. They spoke of her pleasure in the happiness of her friend; of tenderness to the little woman whom he loved (so little and he so great); of love that embraced them both, the great and the little, a large, understanding love that was light and warmth in one. For Lucia believed firmly that she understood. She had always desired him to be happy, to be reconciled to the beautiful and glorious world; she had tried to bring about that reconciliation; and she conceived herself to have failed.