Flames Part 17

Gaining no reply to his call, Julian grew alarmed. He sprang up from the table and turned on the electric light. Valentine was leaning back nervelessly in his chair. His face was quite pale and cold. His lips were slightly parted. His eyes were wide open and stared before him without expression. His head hung far back over the edge of his chair. He looked exactly like a man who had just died, and died in a convulsion. For though the lips were parted, the teeth set tightly together grinned through them, and the hands were intensely contracted into fists. Julian seized Valentine in his arms, lifted the drooping body from the chair and laid it out at length on the divan. He put a pillow under the head, which fell on it grotesquely and lay sideways, still smiling horribly at nothing. Then he poured out a gla.s.s of brandy and strove to force some of it between Valentine's teeth, dashed water in the glaring eyes, beat the air with a fan which he tore from the mantelpiece. All was in vain.

There came no sign of returning life. Then Julian caught Valentine's hands in his and sought to unclench the rigid, cold fingers. He laid his hand on the heart of his friend. No pulsation beat beneath his anxious touch. Then a great horror overtook him. Suddenly he felt a conviction that Valentine had died beside him in the dark, had died sitting up in his chair by the table. The cry he had heard, so thin, so strange and piercing, the attenuated flame that he had seen, were the voice and the vision of the flying soul which he had loved, seeking its final freedom, _en route_ to the distant spheres believers dream of and sceptics deny.

"Valentine! Valentine!" he cried again, with the desperate insistence of the hopeless. But the cold, staring creature upon the green divan did not reply. With a brusque and fearful movement Julian shut the eyelids. Would they ever open again? He knelt upon the floor, leaning pa.s.sionately over his friend, or that which had been his friend. He bent his head down on the silent breast, listening. Surely if Valentine were alive he would show it by some sign, the least stir, breath, s.h.i.+ver, pulse. There was none. Julian might have been clasping stone or iron. If he could only know for certain whether Valentine were really dead. Yet he dared not leave him alone and go to seek aid. Suddenly a thought struck him. In the hall of the flat was a handle which, when turned in a certain direction, communicated with one of those wooden and gla.s.s hutches in which sleepy boy-messengers harbour at night. Julian sprang to this handle, set the communicator in motion, then ran back into the tentroom. His intention was to write a note to Dr. Levillier. The writing-table was so placed that, sitting at it, his back would be turned to that silent figure on the divan. A s.h.i.+ver ran over him at the bare thought of such a blind posture. No, he must face that terror, once so dear. He caught up a pen and a sheet of note paper, and, swerving round, was about to write, holding the paper on his knee, when the electric bell rang. The boy had been very quick in his run from the hutch. Julian laid down the paper and went to let the boy in. His knees shook as he descended the dark, echoing stairs and opened the door. There stood the messenger, a rosy-faced urchin of about twelve, with rather sleepy brown eyes.

"Come up," Julian said, and he hurried back to the flat, the little boy violently emulating his giant stride up the stairs and arriving flushed and panting at the door. Julian, who was entirely abstracted in his agitation, made for the tentroom without another word to the boy, seized pen and paper and began to write, urgently requesting Dr. Levillier to come at once to see Valentine. Abruptly a childish voice intruded itself upon him.

"Lor', sir," it said. "Is the gentleman ill?"

Julian glanced up and found that the little boy had innocently followed him into the tentroom, and was now standing near him, gazing with a round-eyed concern upon the stretched figure on the divan.

"Yes," Julian replied; "ill, very ill. I want you to go for a doctor."

The boy approached the divan, moved apparently by the impelling curiosity of tender years. Julian stopped writing and watched him. He leaned down and looked at the face, at the inertia of hands and limbs. As he raised himself up from a calm and close inspection he saw Julian staring at him.

He shook his round bullet head, on which the thick hair grew in an unparted stubble.

"No, I don't think he's ill, sir," he remarked, with treble conviction.

"Then why does he lie like that?"

"I expect it's because he's dead, sir," the child replied, with grave serenity.

This unbiased testimony in favour of his fears came to Julian's mind like a storm.

"How do you know?" he exclaimed, with a harsh voice.

"Lor', sir," the boy said, not without a certain pride, "I knows a corpse when I sees it. My father died come a fortnight ago. See that?"

And he indicated, with stumpy finger, the black band upon his left arm.

"Well, father looked just like the gentleman."

Julian was petrified by this urchin's intimacy with death. It struck him as utterly vicious and terrible. A horror of the rosy-faced little creature, with good-conduct medals gleaming on its breast, came over him.

"Hus.h.!.+" he said.

"All right, sir; but you take my word for it, the gentleman's dead."

Julian finished the note, thrust it into an envelope, and addressed it to the doctor.

"Run and get a cab and take that at once to Harley Street," he said.

The boy smiled.

"I like cab-riding," he said.

"And," Julian caught his arm, "that gentleman is not dead. He's alive, I tell you; only in a faint, and alive."

The boy looked into Julian's face with the pitying grin of superior knowledge of the world.

"Ah, sir, you didn't see father," he said.

Then he turned and bounded eagerly down the stairs, in a hurry for the cab-ride.

Loneliness and desolation descended like a cloud over Julian when he had gone, for the frank belief of the boy, who cared nothing, struck like an arrow of truth to his heart, who cared everything. Was Valentine indeed dead? He would not believe it, for such a belief would bring the world in ruins about his feet. Such a belief would people his soul with phantoms of despair and of wickedness. Could he not cry out against G.o.d in blasphemy, if G.o.d took his friend from him? The tears rushed into his eyes, as he sat waiting there in the night. As before a drowning man, scenes of the last five years flashed before him, painted in vital colours,--scenes of his life with Valentine,--then scenes of all that might have been had he never met Valentine, never known his strange mastering influence. Could that influence have been given only to be withdrawn? Of all the inexplicable things of life the most inexplicable are the abrupt intrusions and disappearances of those lovely manifestations which give healing to tired hearts, to the wounded soldiers of the campaign of the world. Why are they not permitted to stay? Bitterly Julian asked that question. Of all the men whom he knew, only Valentine did anything for him. Must Valentine, of all men, be the one who might not stay with him? The rest he could spare. He could not spare Valentine. He could not. The impotence of his patience tortured him physically, like a disease. He sprang up from his chair. He must do something at once to know the truth. What could he do? He had no knowledge of medicine. He could not tabulate physical indications, and he would not trust to his infernal instinct. For it was that which cried to him again and again, "Valentine is dead." What--what could he do?

A thought darted into his mind. Dogs are miraculously instinctive. Rip might know what he did not certainly know, might divine the truth. He ran into Valentine's bedroom.

"Rip," he cried; "Rip!"

The little dog sprang from its lonely sleep and accompanied Julian energetically to the tentroom. Observing Valentine's att.i.tude, it sprang upon the couch beside him, licked his white face eagerly, then, gaining no response, showed hesitation, alarm. It began to investigate the body eagerly with its sharp nose, snuffing at head, shoulders, legs, feet.

Still it seemed in doubt, and paused at length with one fore foot planted on Valentine's breast, the other raised in air.

"Even Rip is at fault," Julian said to himself. But as the words ran through his mind, the little dog grew suddenly calmer. It dropped the hesitating paw, again licked the face, then nestled quietly into the s.p.a.ce between Valentine's left breast and arm, rested its chin on the latter, and with blinking eyes prepared evidently for repose. A wild hope came again to Julian.

"Valentine is not dead," he said to himself. "He is in some strange hypnotic trance. Presently he will recover from it. He will be well.

Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d! I will watch!"

And so he kept an attentive and hopeful vigil, his eyes always upon Valentine's face, his hand always touching Valentine's. Already life seemed blossoming anew with an inexplicable radiance. Valentine would speak once more, would come back from this underworld of the senses.

And Julian's hand closed on his cold hand with a warm, impulsive strength, as if it might be possible to draw him back physically to consciousness and to speech. But there was no answer. And again Julian was a.s.sailed with doubts. Yet the dog slept on happily, a hostage to peace.

Julian never knew how long that vigil lasted. It might have been five minutes, or a lifetime. The vehemence of his mental debate slew his power of observation of normal things. He forgot what he was waiting for. He forgot to expect Dr. Levillier. Two visions alternated in glaring contrast before the eyes of his brain--life with Valentine, and life without him. It is so we watch the trance, or death,--we know not which,--of those whom we love, with a greedy, beautiful selfishness.

They are themselves only in relation to us. They live, they die, in that wonderful relation. To live is to be with us; to die, to go away from us.

There are women who love so much that they angrily expostulate with the dying, as if indeed the dying deliberately elected to depart out of their arms. Do we not all feel at moments the "You could stay with me, if only you had the will!" that is the last bitter cry of despairing affection?

Julian, sitting there, while Valentine lay silent and the dog slept by his breast, saw ever and ever those two lives, flas.h.i.+ng and fading like lamps across a dark sea, life with, life without, him. The immensity of the contrast, the millions of airy miles between those two life-worlds, appalled him, for it revealed to him what mighty issues of joy and grief hung upon the almost visionary thin thread of one little life. It is ghastly to be so idiotically dependent. Yet who, at some time, is not?

And those who are independent lose, by their power, their possible Paradise. But such a time of uncertainty as that which Julian must now endure is a great penalty to pay for even the greatest joy, when the joy is past. He had his trance of the mind. He was hypnotized by his ignorance whether Valentine were alive or dead. And so he sat motionless, making the tour of an eternity of suffering, of wonder, of doubt, and hope, and yet, through it all, in some strange, indefinite way, numb, phlegmatic, and actually stupid.

At last the bell rang. Dr. Levillier had arrived. He was struck at once by Julian's heaviness of manner.

"What is it? What is the matter?" he asked.

"I don't know. You tell me."

"He is fainting--unconscious?"

"Unconscious, yes."

They were in the little hall now. Doctor Levillier narrowly scrutinized Julian. For a moment he thought Julian had been drinking, and he took him by the arm.

"No; it is fear," he murmured, releasing him, and walking into the tentroom.

Julian followed with a loud footstep, treading firmly. Each step said to Death, "You are not here. You are not here."

He stood at a little distance near the door, while Levillier approached Valentine and bent over him. Rip woke up and curled his top lip in a terrier smile of welcome. The doctor stroked his head, then lifted Valentine's hand and held the wrist. He dropped it, and threw a glance on Julian. There was a scream of interrogation in Julian's fixed eyes.

Doctor Levillier avoided it by dropping his own, and again turning his attention to the figure on the divan. He undid Valentine's s.h.i.+rt, bared the breast, and laid his hand on the heart, keeping it there for a long time.

"Fetch me a hand-gla.s.s," he said to Julian.

Mechanically, Julian went into the bedroom, and groped in the dark upon the dressing-table.