CHAPTER XLVII
"I HAVE NO WORD OR LOOK TO REMEMBER"
It was a dull and dreary day, as Betty had foreseen it would
be. Heavy rain clouds hung and threatened, and the atmosphere
was damp and chill. It was one of those days of the
English autumn which speak only of the end of things,
bereaving one of the power to remember next year's spring and
summer, which, after all, must surely come. Sky is grey,
trees are grey, dead leaves lie damp beneath the feet, sunlight
and birds seem forgotten things. All that has been sad and
to be regretted or feared hangs heavy in the air and sways all
thought. In the passing of these hours there is no hope
anywhere. Betty appeared at breakfast in short dress and close
hat. She wore thick little boots, as if for walking.
"I am going to make visits in the village," she said. "I
want a basket of good things to take with me. Stourton's
children need feeding after their measles. They looked very
thin when I saw them playing in the road yesterday."
"Yes, dear," Rosalie answered. "Mrs. Noakes shall
prepare the basket. Good chicken broth, and jelly, and
nourishing things. Jennings," to the butler, "you know the kind
of basket Miss Vanderpoel wants. Speak to Mrs. Noakes, please."
"Yes, my lady," Jennings knew the kind of basket and so
did Mrs. Noakes. Below stairs a strong sympathy with Miss
Vanderpoel's movements had developed. No one resented the
preparation of baskets. Somehow they were always managed,
even if asked for at untimely hours.
Betty was sitting silent, looking out into the greyness of the
autumn-smitten park.
"Are--are you listening for anything, Betty?" Lady
Anstruthers asked rather falteringly. "You have a sort of
listening look in your eyes."
Betty came back to the room, as it were.
"Have I," she said. "Yes, I think I was listening for--
something."
And Rosalie did not ask her what she listened for. She was
afraid she knew.
It was not only the Stourtons Betty visited this morning.
She passed from one cottage to another--to see old women,
and old men, as well as young ones, who for one reason or
another needed help and encouragement. By one bedside
she read aloud; by another she sat and told cheerful stories;
she listened to talk in little kitchens, and in one house
welcomed a newborn thing. As she walked steadily over grey
road and down grey lanes damp mist rose and hung about
her. And she did not walk alone. Fear walked with her,
and anguish, a grey ghost by her side. Once she found herself
standing quite still on a side path, covering her face with
her hands. She filled every moment of the morning, and
walked until she was tired. Before she went home she called
at the post office, and Mr. Tewson greeted her with a solemn
face. He did not wait to be questioned.
"There's been no news to-day, miss, so far," he said. "And
that seems as if they might be so given up to hard work at a
dreadful time that there's been no chance for anything to get
out. When people's hanging over a man's bed at the end, it's
as if everything stopped but that--that's stopping for all time."
After luncheon the rain began to fall softly, slowly, and with
a suggestion of endlessness. It was a sort of mist itself, and
became a damp shadow among the bare branches of trees which
soon began to drip.
"You have been walking about all morning, and you are
tired, dear," Lady Anstruthers said to her. "Won't you go
to your room and rest, Betty?"
Yes, she would go to her room, she said. Some new books
had arrived from London this morning, and she would look
over them. She talked a little about her visits before she went,
and when, as she talked, Ughtred came over to her and stood
close to her side holding her hand and stroking it, she smiled
at him sweetly--the smile he adored. He stroked the hand
and softly patted it, watching her wistfully. Suddenly he
lifted it to his lips, and kissed it again and again with a sort
of passion.
"I love you so much, Aunt Betty," he cried. "We both
love you so much. Something makes me love you to-day more
than ever I did before. It almost makes me cry. I love you so."
She stooped swiftly and drew him into her arms and kissed
him close and hard. He held his head back a little and looked
into the blue under her lashes.
"I love your eyes," he said. "Anyone would love your
eyes, Aunt Betty. But what is the matter with them? You
are not crying at all, but--oh! what is the matter?"
"No, I am not crying at all," she said, and smiled--almost
laughed.
But after she had kissed him again she took her books and
went upstairs.
She did not lie down, and she did not read when she was
alone in her room. She drew a long chair before the window
and watched the slow falling of the rain. There is nothing like
it--that slow weeping of the rain on an English autumn day.
Soft and light though it was, the park began to look sodden.
The bare trees held out their branches like imploring arms,
the brown garden beds were neat and bare. The same rain
was drip-dripping at Mount Dunstan--upon the desolate
great house--upon the village--upon the mounds and ancient
stone tombs in the churchyard, sinking into the earth--sinking
deep, sucked in by the clay beneath--the cold damp clay.
She shook herself shudderingly. Why should the thought come
to her--the cold damp clay? She would not listen to it, she
would think of New York, of its roaring streets and crash of
sound, of the rush of fierce life there--of her father and
mother. She tried to force herself to call up pictures of
Broadway, swarming with crowds of black things, which, seen
from the windows of its monstrous buildings, seemed like
swarms of ants, burst out of ant-hills, out of a thousand ant-
hills. She tried to remember shop windows, the things in
them, the throngs going by, and the throngs passing in and out
of great, swinging glass doors. She dragged up before her a
vision of Rosalie, driving with her mother and herself, looking
about her at the new buildings and changed streets, flushed and
made radiant by the accelerated pace and excitement of her
beloved New York. But, oh, the slow, penetrating rainfall,
and--the cold damp clay!
She rose, making an involuntary sound which was half a
moan. The long mirror set between two windows showed
her momentarily an awful young figure, throwing up its arms.
Was that Betty Vanderpoel--that?
"What does one do," she said, "when the world comes
to an end? What does one do?"
All her days she had done things--there had always been
something to do. Now there was nothing. She went suddenly
to her bell and rang for her maid. The woman answered
the summons at once.
"Send word to the stable that I want Childe Harold. I
do not want Mason. I shall ride alone."
"Yes, miss," Ambleston answered, without any exterior
sign of emotion. She was too well-trained a person to express
any shade of her internal amazement. After she had transmitted
the order to the proper manager she returned and
changed her mistress's costume.
She had contemplated her task, and was standing behind
Miss Vanderpoel's chair, putting the last touch to her veil,
when she became conscious of a slight stiffening of the neck
which held so well the handsome head, then the head slowly
turned towards the window giving upon the front park. Miss
Vanderpoel was listening to something, listening so intently
that Ambleston felt that, for a few moments, she did not seem
to breathe. The maid's hands fell from the veil, and she began
to listen also. She had been at the service the day before.
Miss Vanderpoel rose from her chair slowly--very slowly, and took
a step forward. Then she stood still and listened again.
"Open that window, if you please," she commanded--"as
if a stone image was speaking"--Ambleston said later. The
window was thrown open, and for a few seconds they both
stood still again. When Miss Vanderpoel spoke, it was as
if she had forgotten where she was, or as if she were in a dream.
"It is the ringers," she said. "They are tolling the passing
bell."
The serving woman was soft of heart, and had her feminine
emotions. There had been much talk of this thing in the
servant's hall. She turned upon Betty, and forgot all rules and
training.
"Oh, miss!" she cried. "He's gone--he's gone! That
good man--out of this hard world. Oh, miss, excuse me--
do!" And as she burst into wild tears, she ran out of the room.
. . . . .
Rosalie had been sitting in the morning room. She also
had striven to occupy herself with work. She had written
to her mother, she had read, she had embroidered, and then read
again. What was Betty doing--what was she thinking now?
She laid her book down in her lap, and covering her face
with her hands, breathed a desperate little prayer. That life
should be pain and emptiness to herself, seemed somehow natural
since she had married Nigel--but pain and emptiness for
Betty--No! No! No! Not for Betty! Piteous sorrow
poured upon her like a flood. She did not know how the time
passed. She sat, huddled together in her chair, with hidden
face. She could not bear to look at the rain and ghost mist
out of doors. Oh, if her mother were only here, and she might
speak to her! And as her loving tears broke forth afresh, she
heard the door open.
"If you please, my lady--I beg your pardon, my lady," as
she started and uncovered her face.
"What is it, Jennings?"
The figure at the door was that of the serious, elderly
butler, and he wore a respectfully grave air.
"As your ladyship is sitting in this room, we thought it
likely you would not hear, the windows being closed, and we
felt sure, my lady, that you would wish to know----"
Lady Anstruthers' hands shook as they clung to the arms
of her chair.
"To know----" she faltered. "Hear what?"
"The passing bell is tolling, my lady. It has just begun.
It is for Lord Mount Dunstan. There's not a dry eye downstairs,
your ladyship, not one."
He opened the windows, and she stood up. Jennings quietly
left the room. The slow, heavy knell struck ponderously on
the damp air, and she stood and shivered.
A moment or two later she turned, because it seemed as if
she must.
Betty, in her riding habit, was standing motionless against
the door, her wonderful eyes still as death, gazing at her,
gazing in an awful, simple silence.
Oh, what was the use of being afraid to speak at such a
time as this? In one moment Rosy was kneeling at her feet,
clinging about her knees, kissing her hands, the very cloth of
her habit, and sobbing aloud.
"Oh, my darling--my love--my own Betty! I don't
know--and I won't ask--but speak to me--speak just a word
--my dearest dear!"
Betty raised her up and drew her within the room, closing
the door behind them.
"Kind little Rosy," she said. "I came to speak--because
we two love each other. You need not ask, I will tell you.
That bell is tolling for the man who taught me--to KNOW.
He never spoke to me of love. I have not one word or look to
remember. And now---- Oh, listen--listen! I have been
listening since the morning of yesterday." It was an awful
thing--her white face, with all the flame of life swept out
of it.
"Don't listen--darling--darling!" Rosy cried out in
anguish. "Shut your ears--shut your ears!" And she tried to
throw her arms around the high black head, and stifle all sound
with her embrace.
"I don't want to shut them," was the answer. "All the
unkindness and misery are over for him, I ought to thank God--
but I don't. I shall hear--O Rosy, listen!--I shall hear
that to the end of my days."
Rosy held her tight, and rocked and sobbed.
"My Betty," she kept saying. "My Betty," and she could
say no more. What more was there to say? At last Betty
withdrew herself from her arms, and then Rosalie noticed for
the first time that she wore the habit.
"Dearest," she whispered, "what are you going to do?"
"I was going to ride, and I am going to do it still. I
must do something. I shall ride a long, long way--and ride
hard. You won't try to keep me, Rosy. You will understand."
"Yes," biting her lip, and looking at her with large, awed
eyes, as she patted her arm with a hand that trembled. "I
would not hold you back, Betty, from anything in the world
you chose to do."
And with another long, clinging clasp of her, she let her go.
Mason was standing by Childe Harold when she went
down the broad steps. He also wore a look of repressed emotion,
and stood with bared head bent, his eyes fixed on the
gravel of the drive, listening to the heavy strokes of the bell
in the church tower, rather as if he were taking part in some
solemn ceremony.
He mounted her silently, and after he had given her the
bridle, looked up, and spoke in a somewhat husky voice:
"The order was that you did not want me, miss? Was that
correct?"
"Yes, I wish to ride alone."
"Yes, miss. Thank you, miss."
Childe Harold was in good spirits. He held up his head,
and blew the breath through his delicate, dilated, red nostrils
as he set out with his favourite sidling, dancing steps. Mason
watched him down the avenue, saw the lodge keeper come out
to open the gate, and curtsy as her ladyship's sister passed
through it. After that he went slowly back to the stables,
and sat in the harness-room a long time, staring at the floor, as
the bell struck ponderously on his ear.
The woman who had opened the gate for her Betty saw
had red eyes. She knew why.
"A year ago they all thought of him as an outcast. They
would have believed any evil they had heard connected with
his name. Now, in every cottage, there is weeping--weeping.
And he lies deaf and dumb," was her thought.
She did not wish to pass through the village, and turned
down a side road, which would lead her to where she could
cross the marshes, and come upon lonely places. The more
lonely, the better. Every few moments she caught her breath
with a hard short gasp. The slow rain fell upon her, big
round, crystal drops hung on the hedgerows, and dripped upon
the grass banks below them; the trees, wreathed with mist, were
like waiting ghosts as she passed them by; Childe Harold's
hoof upon the road, made a hollow, lonely sound.
A thought began to fill her brain, and make insistent pressure
upon it. She tried no more to thrust thought away. Those
who lay deaf and dumb, those for whom people wept--where
were they when the weeping seemed to sound through all the
world? How far had they gone? Was it far? Could they
hear and could they see? If one plead with them aloud, could
they draw near to listen? Did they begin a long, long journey
as soon as they had slipped away? The "wonder of the
world," she had said, watching life swelling and bursting the
seeds in Kedgers' hothouses! But this was a greater wonder
still, because of its awesomeness. This man had been, and who
dare say he was not--even now? The strength of his great
body, the look in his red-brown eyes, the sound of his deep
voice, the struggle, the meaning of him, where were they?
She heard herself followed by the hollow echo of Childe
Harold's hoofs, as she rode past copse and hedge, and wet
spreading fields. She was this hour as he had been a month ago.
If, with some strange suddenness, this which was Betty
Vanderpoel, slipped from its body----She put her hand up to her
forehead. It was unthinkable that there would be no more.
Where was he now--where was he now?
This was the thought that filled her brain cells to the
exclusion of all others. Over the road, down through by-lanes,
out on the marshes. Where was he--where was he--WHERE?
Childe Harold's hoofs began to beat it out as a refrain. She
heard nothing else. She did not know where she was going
and did not ask herself. She went down any road or lane
which looked empty of life, she took strange turnings, without
caring; she did not know how far she was afield.
Where was he now--this hour--this moment--where was
he now? Did he know the rain, the greyness, the desolation
of the world?
Once she stopped her horse on the loneliness of the marsh
land, and looked up at the low clouds about her, at the creeping
mist, the dank grass. It seemed a place in which a newly-
released soul might wander because it did not yet know its way.
"If you should be near, and come to me, you will understand,"
her clear voice said gravely between the caught breaths,
"what I gave you was nothing to you--but you took it with
you. Perhaps you know without my telling you. I want
you to know. When a man is dead, everything melts away.
I loved you. I wish you had loved me."
