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Christina

<h3> CHAPTER XX. </h3> <h4> "SHE HAS A SWEET, STRONG SOUL." </h4> "There was never another man in my world but Max. There never could have been another. Some women are made that way. They can only give their best once." "But—I would take—the second best. I would be thankful even for the crumbs from the rich man's table. Only let me have the right to take care of you, to give you——" "To give me everything, and to receive nothing in return? No, Rupert, I could not let you do that, even if——" "Even if?" he repeated after her, his eyes fastened hungrily on her face, his voice deep and appealing. "Can't you understand that I don't want to worry you for anything in return. I only want to be near you, to do all that man can do for you." "And I am grateful, more grateful than I can ever express in words. Sometimes I am sorry you ever chanced to meet me, on that oasis in the desert. I think I have been a hindrance in your life, not the help I should like to have been. No—wait—don't contradict me for a minute," and Margaret held up her hand with a smile, as the man on the low chair beside her couch, bent forward in eager disclaimer. "Because of me, you have never married, when you ought to have had a wife, and a home, and children of your own." "Do you think I could look at another woman, after I had once seen you?" he exclaimed vehemently, and she answered gently— "Some day, I hope you will have a woman in your life, a woman who will bring you all the happiness you have missed, who——" "I want no woman but you," he cried, a note of sullen passion in his voice. "Margaret—you say—he—was the only man in your world. Can't I make you understand that you are—what you have been ever since I first saw you—the only woman in mine?" She put out her hand to him, the transparent hand, whose only ornament was its heavy wedding ring, and he stooped down and kissed it, with a curiously reverent gesture that made her eyes misty. "You have been such a good friend," she said; "but believe me, there cannot ever be anything but friendship between us two and—there is such a little time now left for anything." "What do you mean?" he asked, with a sudden catch in his breath, his eyes fixed on her thin face, which seemed all at once to have become so ethereal in its whiteness; "why do you speak as if——" "As if—an end were coming? Because—the end is very near." His eyes did not leave her face, but a look of pain leapt into them, a look of such intolerable pain, that Margaret exclaimed quickly— "I cannot bear to hurt you, but it is better to tell you just the plain truth, even if it hurts you. The end is going to be very soon. Dr. Fergusson thinks it can't be far off now, and I am glad, Rupert. I don't think I can tell you how glad." He made some inarticulate sound, dropping his head into his hands, and her soft voice went on, with soothing monotony— "There was a great deal of hardship and trouble in my early married life, and I never managed to get over it all. I have been ill almost ever since you knew me, and—in the last few months—I have come to the end of my tether. When Max—went away,"—her voice broke—"all that was left of my life and vitality seemed to go, too. I have tried to live, and I wanted to live, but the disease has got the better of me, and—I am glad the end is in sight." "Did you send for me because"—he lifted his head and looked at her. "I sent for you because I wanted to make everything clear to you, and because I did not want to go right away for ever, without seeing my friend again. And—I wanted to help you—about your own future, if I could." "My own future," Rupert laughed drearily. "Do you think my own future, and anything about me, matters two straws, when you—when you"—his voice trailed away into silence. He sat very still, his face turned towards the window, through which the trees in the wood beyond the house, were already showing a veil of delicate green. "My friendship will have been a very poor thing if it spoils your life," Margaret said gently, her gaze following his to the April trees, and the dappled April sky. "A poor thing?" He turned back to her, a great light in his eyes. "Do you think I regret loving you? Do you think I regret for a single second, having known and loved you? When I first met you, I had the sort of contemptuous tolerance for women, which I had found in other men. It was you who taught me what a good woman can be to a man. Even now, I am not fit to touch the hem of your gown, but since I knew you, I have at least lived straight. I can look you in the face, and say that my hands and heart are clean." "I am glad," she said simply, her deep eyes shining. "You don't know how glad I am, if I have helped you ever so little. And, some day—I am speaking very plainly because I am a dying woman, and dying people can speak the direct truth—some day I want you to give a woman your heart; I want you to take her hands in your hands; I want you to find the happiness, which, for my sake, you have missed in all these years." "Impossible," he said passionately. "You are asking too much. How could I ever think of another woman, when I have been your friend?" "Some day," she answered, her wonderful smile flashing over her face; "and—I am developing into a matchmaker, Rupert," she added lightly. "I have even chosen the woman. You did not credit me with gifts as a matchmaker, did you?" "Don't talk of such things in such a way," he exclaimed almost roughly. "How can you laugh and talk lightly, when——" "When I ought to be thinking only of 'graves and epitaphs'?" she quoted whimsically. "No, don't look so hurt and sorry. Let me still be whimsical, even if I am going to die. Leave me my sense of humour to the end. And—let me match-make for you. It pleases me to picture you—happy—with—a wife I have chosen for you." "Don't," he said, actual anger in his voice, but once again her hand touched his hand, and the touch quieted him. "You must not be hurt or angry with me," she said. "I asked you to come to see me, because I wanted to thank you for your loyal friendship and a sort of instinct made me long to tell you—of someone—who some day I think will comfort you." "Comfort me?" he exclaimed bitterly. "Yes, comfort you," eyes and voice were very steady. "Rupert, you know—of course you know—all about my little niece, my dear little niece Christina? You know by what a strange coincidence I discovered who she was, and you know how Arthur found all the proofs of identity, and showed beyond the possibility of doubt, that she is the daughter of my own sister Helen? You know all that?" "Yes, I know all that. I have often seen Miss Moore; she is a very charming girl, and I liked her for insisting on staying with Baba for the present, so that Cicely should not be left stranded. It seemed to show grit, and a fine character." "She has grit, and a fine character. She has more; she has a most lovable character; and, Rupert, she would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife." "A man who cared for her," Rupert repeated with emphasis; "not a man whose whole heart was given to another woman." "Some day—when the other woman—has gone—right away—remember what I said. That is all. It is not a thing to be discussed, even between two friends. Only—remember that my little Christina is worthy to be loved. She has a sweet and a strong soul." More than once on that April afternoon, Rupert tried to take Margaret's conversation back to his own deep love for her; but, just as her brother Arthur had found, four months earlier, so he found now, that some dominating force in her personality kept him at bay—mastered him, in spite of himself. It was she who finally gave him a gentle word of dismissal, so gentle, that he could not be hurt, even though the parting from her seemed to him to tear his heart in two. "I may come again?" he said, his speech sounding terse and abrupt, because of his very excess of feeling; and she smiled into his face, a strange smile, which he could not understand. "Yes," she answered; "you may—come again; and, Rupert, forgive me if by being your friend I have only hurt you. I have done nothing for you, excepting give you pain. I think——"—she paused, and her eyes turned to the soft sky behind the delicate April leaves—"I think I have done so little, so terribly little with my life." "But you have been so much," he answered, his hand holding hers closely, in a long warm clasp; "and it is what you are that matters, and that influences your fellow beings—what you are, so much more than what you do. And what you are lives for ever," he added, in a burst of inspiration very rare in the man, who so seldom gave expression to his thoughts. "There is no end to a good influence; it never dies; it could not ever die. What you are has helped everyone who knows—and loves you." "But this is not good-bye," he said a moment later, before he left the room. "You say I may come again; this is only au revoir." "Au revoir, then," she answered, that inexplicable smile breaking over her face again. "But," she whispered under her breath, as the door closed behind him, "it will be au revoir in a land where there will not be any more heart-breaks or good-byes—the land—that is not—very far off—but—near—so very near." She had known the truth when she told Rupert he might come again, knowing that her days were actually numbered, that the end of which she had told him, was very close at hand. And so it was, that when Rupert Mernside next journeyed down to the lonely house in the valley, where the touch of spring lay on woodland and copse, where primroses lifted starry eyes under the hazels, and wind flowers swung in the April breeze, he came to follow Margaret to the quiet churchyard on the hill-side. Christina had chosen the place where her grave should be—Christina, who had been with her at the end, who had seen the amazing radiance of her face, when the end came. All night she had lain in a state of profound unconsciousness, from which they had not thought she would ever rally. But as morning broke, as the sunlight shone in through the uncurtained window, Margaret's eyes opened, and that amazing radiance flashed into them, the smile on her face making the girl who watched her, draw a swift breath of wonder. It was evident that the dying woman knew nothing of what passed in the room about her; her eyes looked, not at surrounding objects, but at something beyond, and away from them all—something that was coming towards her, or towards which she was going. "Max," she said, her voice grown suddenly strong. "Ah! Max—I knew—you would wait for me. I—knew—you would be there," and with that wonderful radiance in her eyes, that wonderful smile upon her face, she had passed out into the Rest, that lies about our restless world. "I think she would like to lie just here," Christina said, when, walking round the churchyard with Sir Arthur and Dr. Fergusson, they came to a halt under a low wall, from which the ground sloped abruptly away, in a series of terraces. In that sunny corner, violets nestled against the grey stones, their fragrance drifting out upon the April breeze, and on the wall itself, a robin sat and sang, of spring-time, of resurrection, of life. "She would like this place," the girl repeated softly. "It is so still and sunny, and the great view is so beautiful—like herself, so beautiful and restful," she added under her breath, so that only Fergusson heard the words. Sir Arthur, a more quiet and subdued Sir Arthur, looked across the sloping churchyard to the great sweep of country, whose horizon was bounded by far blue hills, and perhaps some faint perception of Christina's meaning filtered into his narrow soul, although he only said:— "I wonder why she wished to be buried here. I should have thought she would have liked to be near her husband." "I don't think she felt she was ever far away from him," Christina answered, carried out of herself for the moment, and forgetting her usual awe of her grim uncle. "She knew that wherever their bodies might be, she and he would be together. She knew they could not ever be really apart—he and she." Sir Arthur looked at her without replying. His silence was a strange testimony to Margaret's power, for he was kept silent by the unaccustomed feeling (a feeling experienced for the first time in his self-sufficient existence)—that in his sister, and in the new niece who looked at him with such certainty in her eyes, he had come face to face with forces of which he was ignorant. Perhaps he could not, or would not, have put this feeling into words, nevertheless, it was there, far down in his heart, a new factor to be reckoned with, if ever he chose to reckon with it. The day of Margaret's funeral was one of those perfect spring days, which come to us sometimes as a foretaste of summer. Beyond the little churchyard, the wide expanse of moorland lay flooded with sunshine, spikes of young bracken showing vividly green amongst the brown of the heather, clumps of gorse shining golden in the sunlight, a soft mist of green upon the hazel copses at the moorland's foot. Larks sprang singing to the April sky, and upon the stone wall close against the open grave, a robin sat once more, and sang his song, of resurrection, of life, of love. The group that gathered in that sunny corner, fragrant with the sweetness of violets, was a very small one. Sir Arthur and Christina, Rupert Mernside, Lady Cicely, Dr. Fergusson, and Elizabeth—these were the six mourners who followed Margaret to her last resting-place, and as Christina's eyes wandered round the little group, she felt that she knew upon which of the six the beautiful woman's death had fallen as the most heavy blow. Her heart contracted when her fleeting glance rested for a second on Rupert's stricken face; and she glanced away again quickly, feeling that to look into his face, meant also to look into his stricken soul, and that she had no right to read so much of the inmost being of another human creature. Cicely had insisted upon coming to Graystone for the funeral. "Although I never knew your sister," she said to Sir Arthur, "I want to do this one small thing, to show how much I reverenced her. Christina has told me of her, and I know how beautiful she was, body and soul." Thus it came about that Cicely sat next to Denis Fergusson in the tiny village church, where the first part of the funeral service was said, stood next to Fergusson beside the grave by the sunny wall, and, when all was over, moved away down the steep churchyard path, by Fergusson's side. He looked down at her tiny form with a delicious sense of having a right at least, in this moment, to protect and watch over her, and, as they went out of the lych-gate, she turned to him with a grateful look in her eyes. "Thank you for taking care of me," she said, with that pretty impulsiveness that constituted one of her greatest charms. "I am glad I came to-day—even though—it has made me remember——" she hesitated, and Fergusson saw that her eyes swam with tears. They were walking slowly along the upland road, in the wake of the rest of the party, and Fergusson slackened his pace a little, to give her time to recover her composure, whilst he said gently:— "I understand. I quite understand." "I think you are a very understanding person," she answered, the falter in her voice making his heart contract with an almost unbearable longing to comfort her. "I—have not heard—that service we have just heard, since it was said—over—John—my husband. It has made me remember—that day—and all it meant to me." Fergusson looked away from her sweet face, aquiver with emotion, out across the wide moorland, where the larks sang in the sunshine, to the far line of blue hills, then he said slowly— "The words hold wonderful comfort. The triumphant sense of a sure and certain hope, always seems to me to be the keynote of the whole." "Those were the words that stayed in my mind, penetrating through everything else," she said softly, "and though—John had gone away into what seemed unbreakable silence, I knew—that—he had not really gone. I had the sure and certain hope—oh! and more than hope—that he was—very safe, and very near me all the time." The na�ve expression, the simplicity of the words, spoken from the depths of a simple and sincere heart, flooded Fergusson's heart again with a sense of reverent love, that almost amounted to adoration; but no opportunity to answer her was given him, for Sir Arthur turned back to join Cicely, and a few minutes' further walk brought them to the inn at Graystone, where they were to lunch, before their drive to the railway station. Rupert parted from the rest at the door of the inn. Perhaps Christina was the only member of the party, who realised that he had come to the end of his tether, that an imperative necessity for solitude was upon him, that his power of endurance was nearly at an end. She was standing behind Sir Arthur, when Rupert bade them all good-bye; it was with her that he shook hands last of all, and as she looked up into his face, her eyes held some strange comfort for him. He did not put it into words; he could not have explained even to himself, had he tried to do so, why it was that the glance of those sweet eyes sent a little restful feeling into his troubled heart; but as he went away, some of the tension of misery seemed to relax, the numbness of his pain grew less; in some dim way his hurt had been salved. "Your cousin seems to have been a most devoted friend to my poor sister," Sir Arthur said, after lunch, when he and the two ladies and Fergusson were seated in the small sitting-room of the inn awaiting their carriage. "I cannot conceive why, in the world she could not have married a man like that, instead of the poor miserable fellow who made her life and his own, a burden to them both." "She loved her husband very much," Christina put in gently. "Oh! she loved him—she loved him far too much," Sir Arthur answered testily. "I cannot understand, I never shall be able to understand, how a woman can throw away all her heart and life, on a man who is totally unworthy of her." Back into Christina's mind flashed the remembrance of words Margaret had spoken long before: "You don't know what it is to care so much for a man, that no matter what he is or does, he is your world, your whole world," but it was Cicely, not she who answered sagely— "I don't believe a man can ever really understand the way a woman loves. A woman's love is made up of so many ingredients, she herself can hardly analyse it, and no man could ever begin to get near its true analysis." Sir Arthur looked at her with the kindly smile of one who listens to the prattling of a child, then resumed his own train of thought and words, as if she had not spoken at all. "My brother-in-law was a perpetual source of anxiety to me," he said; "not that I knew him. I only saw him once, and I was not favourably impressed on that occasion; but I can honestly say that until I heard he was in his grave, I had no really quiet moments." "I know nothing of the story," Cicely said; "I have only heard you speak of your brother-in-law, as if the subject was a painful one. I do not even know his name." "He was a Russian by birth—no, don't go, there need be no secret about the matter, certainly not from you, who were so good to my poor sister," Sir Arthur said, as Fergusson showed signs of leaving the room. "Max Petrovitch was his real name, and my sister originally met him at the house of friends in town. He was then closely connected with the Young Russia movement—or rather, to call things by their true names, he was a red-hot Nihilist. Margaret—went with him to Siberia, you know." Cicely uttered an exclamation, but Sir Arthur went on without pause. "Yes, she went to Siberia with him. I don't know on what precise count he was exiled, but he was always on the side of revolutionary methods, as against those of law and order, and although I believe—I do firmly believe—that he never had a hand in any scheme of assassination, still, he was tarred with the pitch-black brush of anarchy. There is no doubt that the time in Siberia sowed the seeds of Margaret's ill-health; it sapped her strength and vitality; it was—the beginning of the end. Her maid Elizabeth has told me the truth about it all." He was silent for a few seconds before resuming. "Then Max—escaped, and for a long time, I understand, Margaret knew nothing of his whereabouts; but she herself, by his wish, left Siberia, and went to Paris, and there—after what vicissitudes God only knows—he joined her, for a time. But—here the inherent weakness of the man appeared. God forbid that I should be unfair to the dead—but, he was a coward; and because he was afraid, because he was afraid of being recaptured, and sent back to Siberia, he gave up the party to which he belonged—he sold himself to the Secret Police. And from the moment that was known, he must have led a life of horror. His footsteps were dogged; he was tracked down from place to place; he was a doomed man, and he knew it. Certainly he was guarded to an extent by the Secret Police, but, those who wanted his life cared very little for that. I believe he wandered over Europe, seeking a place of safety in vain, and at last—ill, worn-out, and despairing—he came to England, to die in that lonely house in the valley, where Margaret has also died. Her illness sent her back to her own land; she could not travel about with him, but when they got him there, they sent for her, and she was with him to the last." "Poor soul! oh, poor soul!" Cicely said softly. "And she loved him through it all?" "She loved him with a most amazing love," Fergusson put in, speaking for the first time. "I was there during his last illness, and at his death; and, as I said before, I say it again: 'God grant to every man when death comes, to have such a woman, and such a woman's love, with him at the last!'" He spoke gravely, and as his words ended, he looked at Cicely, and their eyes met in a long involuntary glance, which, as Christina caught it, seemed to her full of some strange meaning, that set her own heart athrob. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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