The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece Part 12

Again he paused.

"Is it an irremediable sorrow that makes life impossible, or is it life itself, in general, that you can't go on with?"

"Both--both," said Allida.

Again a long, long silence grew; every moment, Haldicott felt, a drop in the deep cup of oblivion that, unconsciously, she was drinking, that would make the past more and more unreal, until from oblivion she woke into the sane world of struggle and life.

"Yet you are so young," he said at last, "with everything before you--real joys as well as--forgive me!--realer sorrows; they would balance better if you would live a little longer. You know, if you waited for just one year, let us say, you would look back with wonder at this, with thankfulness that you hadn't."

"Perhaps," she said. "Only I don't want to live that year."

"And when were--when are you going to do it?"

"This evening. I had meant to do it long before this. Mamma is away.

There could be no better time. Besides, it must be this evening. I've written."

"To her? To tell her?"

"No," Allida answered; "not to her." And she added, "I don't love her."

"Your mother?"

"This is my dying confession, so I will say the truth. No, I don't love her. She has made me so unhappy--made life so ugly."

"Then you wrote to some one whom you do love?"

"Yes," said Allida, after another pause. Her hat had loosened as she leaned her head back, and her disordered hair was about her face; she still kept her eyes closed with her expression of weary abandonment to the peace of confession.

He looked at her keenly, with most intent interest, most intent pity, and yet with a flicker of amus.e.m.e.nt in the look. She could do it. He believed her. Yet it would be as absurd as it would be tragic if she did. It wasn't a face made for tragedy; it had strayed into it by mistake.

"This some one you love," he said gently, "will it not hurt them terribly? Have you thought of that?"

He saw the tears come. They rolled slowly down her cheeks. She faintly whispered:

"He doesn't love me."

Haldicott could feel no amus.e.m.e.nt now, the pity was too great. He put his other hand on the hand he held.

"Used he to love you?" he asked.

"No," said Allida; "he never loved me."

For a moment Haldicott struggled with a half-nervous wish to laugh; relief was in the wish.

"And he knows that you love him?" he controlled his voice to ask.

"He will--when he gets my letter."

"Poor devil!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Haldicott.

"Oh, you don't understand!" cried Allida. She opened her eyes and sat upright, drawing her hand from his. "How could you understand? You think it's a sort of vengeance I'm taking--for his not loving me. I can't drag myself through explanations, indeed I can't. Of course I see that my tragedy to you must be almost farce. I must go. Why should I have told you anything? I am desecrating it all, making it all grotesque, by being still alive."

"No, no; you mustn't go yet," said Haldicott, seizing her hand firmly, yet with not too obvious a restraint. "You mustn't go, not at peace with me. You have all the evening still before you,--it's not six yet,--and it doesn't take long to kill one's self with poison. Trust me. You must trust me. Don't think about its being grotesque; most things are in certain aspects. I think that we are both behaving very naturally, considering the circ.u.mstances. The circ.u.mstances, I grant you, are a little grotesque--not the circ.u.mstance of your being still alive, but of your wis.h.i.+ng to die. But, indeed, I shall understand, you poor child, poor sweet child, if you will explain."

Again the mirage sense of compulsion, of peace in yielding to it, of letting this ghost-like consciousness shut out the long past and the short future, crept over her. She sank back again beside him.

"But how can I explain? Where shall I begin?"

"Listen to me now, dear Allida--we can use Christian names, I think, in a case of last dying confession like this. I am not going to prevent you, or put any constraint upon you; but I want you to explain as clearly and fully as you can, so that, in trying to make me see, you may see yourself, clearly and fully, what you are doing, where you are.

Probably you are in a condition of absolutely irrational despair. Let us look at it together. I may be able to show you something else. Begin with him. Who is he?"

Allida had leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She dropped her face into her hands as she answered:

"Oliver Ainslie."

"Yes; I know him."

"Yes; you know him."

"He is--a charming fellow," said Haldicott.

"I met him over a year ago," said Allida. "I am very miserable at home.

I have grown up alone. My mother and I have never been at all sympathetic. I hardly saw her when I was growing up. She only wanted to marry me off as soon as possible, and--she hasn't found it easy to marry me off. I haven't money--or looks in particular--oh, but I can't go into all that! You know mamma. I have hated my life with her."

"Yes, yes. I understand."

"Not that there is any harm in mamma," Allida amended, with a weary exact.i.tude; "everybody understands that, too. Only she is so utterly silly, so utterly selfish. This all sounds horrible."

"I understand."

"I met him. I had never seen any one so dear, so sympathetic. I seemed to breathe with happiness when he was there. It was like morning sunlight after a hot, glaring ballroom, being with him. He never cared one bit for me; but--the first time I saw him he smiled at me, and he was kind and dear to me,--as he would be to any one,--and from that first moment I loved him--oh, loved him!"

She paused, a sacred sweetness in the pause.

Haldicott, sitting beside her in the fog, felt the presence of something radiant and snowy.

"And I sometimes thought and hoped--that he would care for me. I wrote to him all the time, letters I never sent; but I wrote as if he were to see them--some day. It's almost strange to me to think that such love didn't bring him to me by its very force and yearning. One hears, you know, of thoughts making themselves felt--becoming realities. I wonder where all those thoughts of mine went!"

He saw them all--those white, innocent thoughts--flying out like birds, like a flock of white birds, and disappearing in the darkness. How could a soul not have felt them fluttering about it, crying vainly for admittance? He almost shared Allida's wonder.

"And to-day, I sent all the letters with the last one telling of my death. For--I saw it this morning--he is engaged. So I couldn't go on. I could never love any one else; I shouldn't want to. My heart broke when I read the paper; really it broke. And I explained it all to him, so that it could not hurt him, that I was dying because life had become worthless to me--and yet that there was joy in dying because I could, in dying, tell him. There had been beauty and joy in loving him; he must not be too sorry; and he must care for my love. It was a gift--a gift that I could give him only in going away for ever myself."

She was silent. The evening was late by now, and the fog about them shut them into a little s.p.a.ce, a little island just large enough for their bench, a bit of path, a dim border of railing opposite, and a branch of tree overhead. The m.u.f.fled sound of cautious traffic was far away. They were wonderfully alone.

Haldicott took one of the hands on which she leaned, and raised it to his lips.

"Sweet, foolish child!" he said.