The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece Part 4

CHAPTER IV

He knew that evening that Kitty was horribly frightened from the fact that she was horribly careful. She did not once press for a.s.surances or demonstrations of love. She foresaw all his needs, even his need of silence. Delicately a.s.siduous, she pulled his chair near the lamp for him, lit his cigar, cut the pages of his review, even brought a footstool for his feet, saying, when he protested, "You are tired, darling; you must let me wait on you."

"And won't you read, or sew,--or do something, dear?" he asked, as she drew her low chair near his.

"I only want to sit here quietly, and look at your dear face," she said.

And she sat there, quietly, not moving, not speaking, only mutely, gently, fiercely watching him. Holland felt his hand tremble as he turned the pages.

A full hour pa.s.sed so. Accurately, punctually, he turned the pages; he had not understood one page; and he had not once looked up.

It was almost a sense of nightmare that grew upon him, as if he were going to sit there for ever, hearing the clock tick, hearing Kitty breathe, knowing that he was watched. Fear, pity, and repulsion filled his soul.

He longed at last to hear her voice. He did not dare to hear his own; something in it would have broken and revealed him to her; but if she would but speak the nightmare might pa.s.s. And, with the longing, furtively, involuntarily, he glanced round at her.

Her eyes were on him, fixed, s.h.i.+ning. How horrible;--how ridiculous.

Their gaze smote upon his heart and shattered something,--the nightmare, or the repulsion. An hysterical sob and laugh rose in his throat. He dropped the review, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and the tears ran down his face.

She was there, of course, poor creature, there, close, holding him, moaning, weeping with him. He could do nothing but yield to her arms, feel his head pillowed on her breast, and mingle his tears with hers; but horribly, ridiculously, he knew that laughter as well as weeping shook him.

And he heard her saying "Oh, my darling--my darling--is it because you must leave me?"--and heard himself answering "Yes, because I must leave you."

"You love me--so much--so much----"

"So much," he echoed.

And, her voice rising to a cry, he knew how dead, as if sounded from the cavern, his echo had been: "You are not dying! Not now!" And it was again only the echo he could give her: "Not now," it came. Why not now?

Why could it not be, mercifully now? When in heaven's name was he going to die?

A strong suspicion rose in him and seemed to pulse into life with the strong beat of his heart. How strong a beat it was; how faint and far any whispers of the old ill. What if he were not going to die? What if he were to go on loving Kitty for a lifetime?

And at that the mere hysterics conquered the tears; he burst out laughing. There, on Kitty's breast, he laughed and laughed, helpless, cruel and ridiculous.

Terrified, she tried to still him. When he lifted his face he saw that hers was ashen, set to meet the tragedy of imminent parting. Did she think it the death rattle?

He flung his head back from her kisses, flung himself back from her arms. Still laughing the convulsive laugh he got up and pushed away the chair.

"I'm tired--I'm so tired, Kitty," he said.

She sat, her hands fallen in her lap, staring at him.

"You are tired, too," he went on; "it's been a tiring day, hasn't it?--we have been through a lot, haven't we, poor Kitty? Poor Kitty:--do go to bed now. Will you go to bed, and leave me here to rest a little?"

"Nicholas, are you mad--what has happened to you?" she murmured, spellbound, not daring to move.

"Why, I'm ill, you know; I'm very ill. I'm not mad--I'm only so abominably tired. You mustn't ask questions; I can't stand it,--I can't stand it----" And, leaning his arms on the back of the chair, resting his face on them, with tears of sheer fatigue, tears untouched by laughter--"I'm so tired. I want to be alone," he sobbed.

The abominable moments that followed were more full of shame for him than any he had even known:--of shame, and of relief. He had torn his way, with his words, out of the nest; he had fallen to the ground. He was ashamed and horrified, yet--oh, the joy, the deep joy of being on the ground, out in the cold, fresh world, out of the nest.

At last he heard her speak, slowly, softly, with difficulty, as though she were afraid of angering him. "Shall I go away, Nicholas?"

His face was still hidden. "Yes, do go to bed," he answered.

"I can do nothing for you?"

"Nothing, dear."

"You are not dying?"

"No; I'm not feeling in the least ill."

"You would--send for me--if you were dying?"

"Dear Kitty,--of course."

"And----" she had risen, not daring to draw near, he knew that the trembling voice came through tears:--"And, you love me? you love me a little?"

"Dear Kitty--of course I love you."

It was over. She was gone. She had not asked for his good-night kiss. It was like a sword between them.

He drew a long breath, lifting his head.

Alone. There was ecstasy in the thought.

He walked out into the garden and looked up at the stars as he walked.

There had been no stars in the nest.

He didn't think of death. There had been too much thinking of death; that was one of the things he was tired of. Still less did he want to think of Kitty or of himself.

He looked at the stars and thought of them, but not in any manner emotional or poetical; he thought of astronomical facts, dry, sound, delightful facts: he looked at the darkened trees and dim flowers and thought of botany: the earth he trod on was full of scientific interest; the Pierrots, the fairies and the angels--yes, the angels too--were vanished. He hungered for impersonal interests and information.

Kitty would, indeed, have thought him mad; after the calming walk he came in, lit a cigar and sat for hours studying.

Before Kitty was up next morning he was on his way back to London to see the great specialist.

It was a long visit he paid, an astonis.h.i.+ng visit, though the astonishment, really, was not his; life had seemed deeply to have promised something when he had ceased to think of death--when he had ceased to want death, even. That strong beating of his heart had been a mute forestalling. The astonishment was the good, great doctor's, and it was reiterated with an emphasis that showed something of wounded professional pride beneath it. It was, indeed, humiliating to have made such a complete mistake, to have seen only one significance in symptoms that, to far-sightedness clairvoyant enough, should have hinted, at all events, at another, and, as a result, to have doomed to speedy death a man now obviously as far from dying as oneself: "I can't forgive myself for robbing you of a month of life," the doctor said. "A month with death at the end of it can't be called a month of life."

"Very much of life," said Holland. "So much so that I hardly know yet whether I am glad or sorry that you were mistaken."

He indeed hardly did know. All the way down in the train he was thinking intently of the new complicated life that had been given back to him, and of what he should do with it. At moments the thought seemed to overwhelm him, to draw him into gulfs deeper than death's had been.

All through that month life had meant the moment only. The vistas and horizons seemed now to open and flash and make him dizzy. How could he take up again the burden of far ends and tangled purposes? The dust of coming conflicts seemed to rise to his nostrils. Life was perilous and appalling in its fluctuating immensity.

But, with all the disillusion and irony of his new experience, with all the unwholesome languor that had unstrung his will, some deeper wisdom, also, had been given him. He could turn from the nightmare vision that saw time as eternity.

The walk in the night had brought a message. He could not say it, nor see it clearly, but the sense of its presence was like the coolness and freshness of wings fanning away fevers and nightmare. Somewhere there it hovered, the significance of the message, somewhere in those allied yet contrasted thoughts of eternity and time.