Wanderfoot (The Dream Ship) 8 – Stockley · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
Wanderfoot (The Dream Ship) 8Part I · Wounds in the Rain
18
Literature · Romance
Wanderfoot (The Dream Ship) 8
Part I · Wounds in the Rain
StockleyEnglish
"What will you do, love?
When I am going
With white sail flowing,
The seas beyond?
What will you do, love?
When waves divide us
And friends may chide us,
For being fond?"
SAMUEL LOVER.
Recuperation set in at last with Westenra, and he began to return to health almost as swiftly as he had departed from it, and with health came a full tide of love and gratitude to the woman who had so devotedly nursed him back to life. But in the wraith at his bedside he hardly recognised Val. She had strangely changed, yet poignantly recalled to him that grey lady of long ago, whom in the past months of pain and fevered rush he had almost forgotten. Shadows seem to hang about her as in his dream. Almost it seemed as if she, instead of he, were returning from the Valley of the Shadow. He was struck to the heart by her worn and weary look. But when he put out hands of gratitude and compassion to her, she seemed like the dream woman to elude them without moving. A long, long distance came between them. The old sad ache of lost lands was in her eyes and lingered about her lips. Consciousness came upon him suddenly that he loved this woman deeply, that she was the very heart of his heart ... then why should he have that sense of fear that she was escaping from him?
She smiled at him with exile in her eyes when he took her hand, and kissing it, thanked her for all her goodness to him.
"Bless you, dearest and best ... I am ashamed of myself for getting sick like this ... to have had you half-killing yourself nursing me ... what should I have done without you? What would I ever do without you ... Brannie's mother?"
Was it his fancy that her hand seemed to grow a little rigid in his? That a shadow passed over her face? He had called her the sweetest thing he could think of, one that meant so much to him, the symbol of their love, the treasure saved from the rocks that had broken and wrecked them--the treasure with which they would build a new ship in which to sail the stormy seas. He could not know that ever since the days of delirium she had been yearning for some little word of personal love, some little name that was all for her as lover, not mother only. Once more the sense of distance between them came to him. She seemed suddenly to be a long way off. In effect, he had loosed her hand and she had moved away to the window. He did not see the heavy tears that scorched her eyes, but he noticed the droop of her shoulders and reproached himself.
"I 'm killing her," he thought sombrely, "and she is sick of it! Sick of nursing me, and of her life here! How can one blame her! I only wonder it did n't come sooner. How could I ever have hoped to keep a woman like her ... to make a slave of ... in a doctor's commonplace home!"
He closed his eyes again and the swift despondency of the invalid welled up in him. When she came back to his sofa the old moody shadow was on his face, the look of strain back about his brows. Timidly, and with her face turned from the light, so that he might not see the trace of her tears, she said:
"Is there anything you would like, Joe?"
"No, thank you, dear ... I have you!" He spoke gently, and put out his hand to her without opening his eyes. A moment later his sombre thought escaped from him almost involuntarily.
"I have you--though God knows for how long!" Then he waited for the touch of her lips on his, the rush of tender reproach for his unfaith. He did not indeed know how passionately hungry he was for those words--until they did not come! Nor how his lips ached for the touch of hers--until that long, still moment of waiting! Nothing happened; nothing came. No kiss, no word of protest. He could scarcely believe it at first. If he had not still been holding her hand, he might have supposed that she had risen and gone away. For he had not opened his eyes, but lay waiting as sometimes one waits with eyes closed for the coming of a beautiful thing. The knowledge flashed upon him suddenly that it was a long while since Val had kissed him. So long, that he could scarcely remember when. Was it before his illness? No: looking back down the vista of burning days of fever and discomfort, he could remember that before unconsciousness came upon him her fresh mouth was often laid like a rose upon his dry one and at the memory he longed again for its fragrance as a thirsty man in the desert longs for a cup of cold water. He was aware that when at last she did bend over him he would bind his arms round her, and holding her fast to his heart devour and consume her, and never let her go from him again. But in the same moment he was seized with the torment all true lovers know, the agonising knowledge that however much the lips may devour and the arms bind, and the heart strain to hold there is a limit to the reach of human love, a door to which the key will never be found, a barrier beyond which the aloof and lonely soul of the beloved sits stern and contemplative, for ever lonely in its secret place. This is the torment of all earthly love. No true lovers but have sought in each other's eyes the key of that implacable door, striven to drag the secret from each other's lips, known the darkness and desolation of that outer place! Lying there, waiting for his wife's kiss, Garrett Westenra suffered this torment for the first time.
It was characteristic of him that when at last he understood that she meant to make no response either by word or deed to the cry of his heart so thinly veiled beneath the sadness of his words, he did not question or upbraid her. He only lay very still, turning over and over in his mind the cruel fact that she was weary of him and of their life together. Between his half-closed lids he observed her, silent and white, looking down at the hand which, tightly held by his, lay on her knee. He realised then how fierce his grip had been, and relaxing it gently drew away his hand. What good to grip the casket so close when the jewel it had held for him was gone!
"What do you think we had better do, Val?" he said at last, speaking out of his pain, and meaning "with the rest of life." He did not expect so quick and definite a response as she made.
"I think that as soon as you feel well enough to travel you should go out West, and stay until you are quite strong again."
"You and the children too?"
"Oh! no, no!" she cried hastily--too hastily with so keen a listener intent on her. She saw her mistake and tried to cover it with calm reasoning words. "What change would it be for you with us everlastingly at your heels? Bran rampaging, Haidee worrying--and I--oh, of course, it would not do at all. You must see that." Her arguments might have sounded silly but for their urgency to convince, and her pleading eyes. He stared straight before him, but missed no single shade of her face or voice.
"We will stay at home and mind things," she continued, "and be quite all right, until----"
"Until?"
"Until you come back...."
"And then?"
She knew she ought not to let him draw her on, that it would be better to wait until he returned, but she was an honest creature by nature, and though circumstances were plunging her deep in duplicity, she had not yet learned to conceal and wait. Besides, she wanted to get the pain over, the thing settled and done with, past recanting. If he were cold and angry so much the better for her. It would be easier to bear than if he tried to detain her with kind words.
"Then," she stammered, "Garrett, I think, we--the children and I--ought to go away for awhile ... to England, or France perhaps--some place where living is more reasonable than here, and I can get strong again, and be of some use to you...."
No word from him. He did not even raise his eyes. So she stumbled on hopelessly, embittered by his silence and misunderstanding, longing to have him see how much she cared, how it broke her heart to make such a suggestion, yet fearing that he would combat it.
"You know, Garrett, that I am no good in this place ... never have been. Later perhaps when I am strong again I may be of some use ... when Bran is older.... You must see for yourself ... I cannot manage the house at present--(I have always mismanaged it)--with Bran wanting so much attention. It would be best to get one of your good nurses to take charge ... anybody could do it better than I...."
So she had it all planned out! She had arranged for "the rest of life" without consulting him! All the time he lay sick she had been plotting to escape. Small wonder he felt the return of her old elusiveness, had become aware of distance between them.
Separation! That was to be the end of the voyage in the dream ship--of his life with the dream woman. Had it all been a dream perhaps? ... a dream full of dark places, with thorns for the flesh and pits for the feet ... but always--that was good to remember in this dark hour--always stars overhead. The stars had never before failed though they were dying out now. So she was a quitter after all! A deserter! Unfaithful to the post she had chosen. Somehow he could never have believed it except from her lips. It was hard to believe, looking at that face softly hollowed by weariness and worry, the faithful deep eyes, the tender lips, the hands grown diaphanous in his service. Nothing had been too hard or base in his household for those hands to strive with, he knew that. And how she had nursed him! That he owed his life to her was certain. And now, so soon, so soon, she nullified all, her tenderness and devotion, the precious unhappiness, the sacred sacrifices--the wonderful bonds that trouble shared can make, everything was broken and rendered void by this act of desertion!
It must be remembered that he came of a race of women who had, so to speak, habitually lived heroic lives. The men of his family, never able to offer ease to their women folk, expected heroism and self-sacrifice of them, and no Westenra woman had ever failed the expectation--until now! Yes, that was a thought that hurt. That ate like acid in an open wound. Val was not one of them! His wife, the woman on whom he had staked his honour and belief, was not of the stuff of which Westenra wives were made! Until that hour, spite of failure, trouble, and disappointment, he could have sworn away his soul on her loyalty--what did the mere failure of plans, or lack of money matter, when they had each other, were content to tread the same road together, the same ideals in their hearts, their eyes fixed on the same stars! And by God he could have sworn ... but what was the use! She had proved his judgment wrong, that was all. She was just the ordinary woman, sick of her job, anxious to get away from it. "Lots of women like her in America," he reflected sardonically. No one who knew the circumstance could blame her. He least of all would blame her. Only--his soul was sick within him! But, as always, he hid his wound from her. Not a sign of what he felt when at last he spoke, quietly, reflectively, almost it sounded to her, approvingly.
"No doubt it would be a very wise arrangement."
She had been twisting her hands in nervous agitation, her beautiful, strange eyes full of the ardour that had always been like wine to him, though he had never told her so. Now a rush of words came from her lips, she was almost incoherent in her gratitude.
"Oh, Joe! ... if you think so ... if you won't mind ... it will not be for long ... only six months or so--a year perhaps."
He stared at her in bitter astonishment. (Only a year perhaps! Why not ten years--twenty years--the rest of life?)
"I will take such care of your Brannie for you.... I 'll never let him forget you for a moment ... and I 'll come back so different ... ready to tackle any problem ... you 'll see what a clever housewife I will be."
(He did n't want a clever housewife. He had believed he did, but now he knew that all he wanted was Val. He had arrived at desiring nothing better than her fantastic housekeeping and gipsy camping-out methods. She had spoilt him for comfort and set rule.)
"We must get some one to take charge of the place ... Miss Holland is a splendid woman.... I know she will make a success of it ... and before I go I will find you a good housekeeper who will look after you well."
(Before she went! Oh! damn it, why should she look at him like that, as though it were for his happiness she was arranging instead of her own? As though planning loyalty instead of desertion--treachery! How could she smile--gladly, gratefully, when she was taking herself out of his life, robbing him of the light of his son's golden head!)
"And if you will let me have Haidee? ..." she spoke more diffidently now. "I fear she will be a care to you. I would do my best for her----"
"No!" he interrupted sharply, "if you take Bran I must console myself with Haidee. I should think you could spare me her, at least!"
She turned white as death. Haidee to take Bran's place with him! Their son--her love-baby--to be exiled from his father's heart as well as from his home! Of what use then all her plotting, her secret grief and suffering endured, that father and son might be spared.
"Oh, Joe! Oh, Joe!" was all she could say.
He stared at her incredulously. He had no idea she was so fond of Haidee. It seemed indeed as if she could be fond of any one but himself! He was thankful that Haidee herself made an end to the miserable discussion by bounding in at the moment and embracing him boisterously.
"And can I bring Bran in?" she cried, as soon as she had finished hugging him. "He 's just on the stairs. Nurse has brought him home from his walk ... he looks such a duck in his new pink pelisse."
"Yes, bring him in," said Westenra, heavily, but a moment later, when his son was sprawling on the bed thrusting fat fists into his father's eyes, exploring his father's nose and ears, moodiness departed from that father, and he began to laugh like a boy.
"Just feel that leg, Haidee ... muscle--sheer muscle. I tell you this fellow is a hot number. He 's going to make the athletes sit up and take notice; are n't you, old man? Hi! that's my nose!"
"He smells like a nice ripe peach! Oh, would n't I love to eat him!" shrieked Haidee, and hugged him until Val had to call out a warning not to crack his ribs. She stood watching them, unshed tears scorching her eyes. They were so dear, so very dear, that man and child; and Haidee too was dear for loving them so well. It was pain even to look at them. Their dearness burnt like flame. She felt that if she stayed in the room a moment longer she must fling herself down by them, cry out the truth to Westenra, tell him she could never leave him, nor rob him of his son. But that way madness lay. Sorrow and shame, worse things than separation for a time, must come of that. No, she must bear it alone. Her hand was to the plough and she must not turn weakly back. Even now there was that to do that was part of the plot, and she must leave the dear ones to go and do it.
"I think they can spare me for a little while," she thought, not without a certain tender irony, for the crowd on the bed were so very wrapped up in their own performances. Unnoticed, she slipped from the room, and went to Westenra's office to typewrite a letter.
When she did not keep the appointment at Shrapp's Hotel with Valdana, he had, as she foresaw, called at No. 700 in search of Alice Brook. On hearing that she had left, he asked for an interview with Mrs. Westenra. Fortunately, Val had not been with Garrett, but in her room resting with a bad headache, when the new maid, a Wicklow girl of good type, who had developed a great devotion for her mistress, brought in the card. By an effort Val had managed to control herself and look with calmness upon the inscribed name.
"Mr. John Seymour! Who is he? What does he want, Mary?"
"I don't know, ma'am, he did not say, but sure it's a sick man he is by the colour av him."
"Go down and find out. If he is a patient, tell him the doctor is very ill and will not be able to see patients for a month or two at least. If he is in a hurry he had better go to Dr. Dillon, who is seeing all Dr. Westenra's patients at present."
This gave her time, and would she thought allay Valdana's suspicion, if he had one, of any connection between herself and Alice Brook. But she was sick with apprehension and lay white on her pillow when the maid reappeared; the answer was as expected: the gentleman's business was not with the doctor, but with the mistress of the house.
"Sure, it's the character of the last housemaid he wants, ma'am. He 's afther engaging her," Mary announced and Val's heart gave a great jump of fright. The next moment she realised that this was most likely a ruse, a mere excuse for finding out what he wanted to know of her whereabouts.
"The character of Alice Brook?" she said mechanically.
"Yes, ma'am. And I took the liberty of telling him, ma'am, that you could not be plagued with such affairs now, and you destroyed nursing the doctor and all, and he 'd better be afther writing for what he wants."
Val could have embraced the kindly creature, but she gave no sign, only said quietly:
"You did quite right, Mary. But to save time you may tell this gentleman, Mr.--," she looked at the card--"Mr. Seymour, that as far as character goes Alice Brook was quite a good girl--honest, sober, an early riser, diligent (she could not forbear a wry smile to think that in the last three points at least the formula applied equally to herself); her chief defect was that she was quite ignorant as to the duties of a housemaid, and I had no time to train her. I cannot think of anything further that it is necessary for him to know, but if there should be he can write."
As the maid was leaving the room, she added thoughtfully:
"Don't let him linger asking questions, Mary. It seems a curious thing for a gentleman to be occupying himself with a housemaid's references. He may not be what he professes at all, but some scamp----"
She knew that upon that hint Mary would polish him off without ceremony, and she felt no compunction in giving it. Could any one indeed be a worse scamp? What was he there for but to spy out and blackmail, and cause ruin and dismay to her and her loved ones? She trembled with rage and terror when she thought of him being in the same house with Garrett and Bran. But for an accident she might have been seen by him, or his card brought up to her at Westenra's bedside! There was no reason for him to have come to the house at all. True, she had not kept the appointment, but she had kept faith with him in the matter of money, had sold a greater part of her jewels, and sent him the proceeds by registered post. At the same time she had written him a letter telling him firmly that there was nothing to be gained by their meeting. She reminded him that all question of their being anything to each other was over many years past, and that certainly the circumstances of his reappearance did not incline her to renew any kind of intimacy with him. In consideration of his health she promised she would do her best for him, and spare him any money she could.
"But it is no use hounding me," she wrote, full of the cold fury of a mother robbing her loved ones to give to a wolf, for the money gained on her jewels would have paid many a bill hanging over the household at the moment. "You must not forget that I too need to live. And you are not to torment me. If ever I make money again I will let you have all I can, but I do not hold out any great hope. In the meantime take this, and leave America with it. If I have anything to send you I will do so through your mother. But leave me alone--surely you have caused me enough sorrow! All I ask is to be left alone."
Thus she had written in her agony and desperation, and sent with the letter the sum of one hundred and ten pounds. Yet a week later he was on the doorstep intent on tracking her down! Well, she had cut the ground from under his feet by her message through Mary. With the information he had asked for concerning Alice Brook he had no further pretext for calling at the house, or even writing. Not that she relied on that. Horace Valdana had failed in all honourable things, but never in lies, pretexts, and inventions. She could hardly suppose he would do so now. As the event proved, she was right. For two weeks there was silence. Almost she had begun to hope when there came a letter, polite but formal, asking if Mrs. Westenra would have the kindness to oblige the writer with the home address of her late housemaid, Alice Brook.
"She had been in my service for ten days or so" (ran the letter), "but went out one day and never returned. I am much troubled, and should like to communicate with her friends. I feel sure that you will give me such assistance as you can in the matter. If you do not know her home address, perhaps you can tell me from what agency you originally engaged her? I may in that way be able to trace her.
"Jane Seymour!" She could imagine with what a cynical smile he produced that tag of history from the rag-bag of his memory, and made it serve his purpose as a nom-de-plume. For though the name of good King Hal's third queen might or might not have been borne by one of America's fair daughters, the writing was the writing of Horace Valdana! It was one more attempt to get on to the trail of his victim.
The address at the top of the letter was Number 439 West 19th Street--the same number in fact as Shrapp's Hotel; but of course Mrs. Westenra would not know this. She was to suppose it the number of the private house occupied by Mrs. Jane Seymour! No doubt Mr. John Seymour would be on the lookout for Mrs. Jane's correspondence!
This was the letter to which she now typed the following answer on her husband's typewriter:
"MADAME,--I beg to state that I can give you no information concerning the whereabouts of my late housemaid, Alice Brook. When I have once supplied a discharged servant with a formal reference, I feel that my responsibility to her is at an end. I must, therefore, request you to relieve me of all further inquiries upon a subject in which I have neither the time nor inclination to interest myself."
This missive, designedly as rude and arrogant as she knew how to make it, she signed with a hieroglyphic signature in which might be discovered after careful study some resemblance to "Anne Westenra" (her second name was Anne), but that was quite unlike any signature ever put on paper by Valentine Valdana.
In the end she almost spoiled all by one of those absent-minded mistakes that sometimes betray the best laid plots and plans. She addressed the envelope in her natural handwriting. She had stamped and closed it and risen to ring for Mary to take it to the letter-box at the end of the street (for since her rencontre with Valdana she had not dared go out), when, with her hand on the electric button, some bell in her brain rang a warning that something was wrong. She stared at the letter in her hand for a full minute before she recognised her betise, then the shock sent her back to her seat half fainting, pale as a witch.
"What an escape! What an escape!" she muttered with dry lips. "I must be going mad! My brain is giving way! Oh, if I had posted it!"
Valdana would have been quick to recognise her writing and see through the whole thing--that she was Mrs. Westenra. All would have been lost!
"But I would have torn down the letter-box--set fire to it--blown it up--rather than he should have got the letter," she muttered fiercely. In that moment she knew herself one of those who in the cause of love are capable of crime; that there was not anything she would not do to save her son from being branded illegitimate and Westenra from shame. But she was shaken to the depths by her narrow escape, and the thought that any moment her overtried brain might betray her. It was clear that she must depart as soon as possible from New York. Her presence there was a danger. The moment she reached England she could communicate with Valdana's mother, and once he found she had gone from America, he too would make for Europe.
From that day forward a gulf yawned between Westenra and his wife--a gulf into whose depths every sweet memory they had ever shared seemed to have disappeared. The only things that could have bridged it over were confidence and love, but he no longer believed in her love, and she could not give him her confidence. Desperate and dismayed, she saw the chasm widening day by day between them, but though her spirit held out arms to him imploring his love and belief in her loyalty, and in her eyes she could not quench the light of tenderness, she stayed firm to her purpose.
And Westenra felt the spirit arms entwining him, and saw the beacon in her eyes, and cursed her for a false trifler, a juggler with the arts and tricks of women. For when he approached her, lured by the beacon, she retreated, subtly intervening between them that sense of distance. And she was cold as death to his touch. Her hand, if he took it, lay like a stone in his, her lips eluded him. They were to all intents and purposes strangers to each other. She had never kissed him since he came back to the world of consciousness! What could he suppose but that her love for him was worn out.
All her kisses were for Bran it seemed. She would at times almost violently snatch the child from his arms, and kiss it feverishly, hungrily, just where he had kissed it, as if to drag the flavour of his lips--or as Westenra bitterly thought, remove all trace of them--from the little face.
He was a proud man, and his pride sustained him in this dark and incomprehensible crisis of their life together. With extraordinary self-control, born of his pity for her, he refrained from reproach or any violent sign of his inward rage and pain; but often a sort of primitive savagery in him ached to smite the eyes that mocked him with their false tenderness, and there were moments when he longed to take her by the throat and kill her, while he kissed the lips she withheld from him.
Life was in fact an active wearing misery to them both.
He was once more sound in health. His plan was to go softly under the stars for awhile and perform no serious operations, but he felt quite equal to taking up the ordinary threads of his practice again. His main worry was Val. Her resolution to go to Europe meant not only the bouleversement of home and hospital, but of their whole future life. He was far from wishing to keep a woman who did not care for him tied to his side. But he retained a kind of ungrounded hope that after she rested awhile from the heavy strain his illness had entailed, she would gradually return to her old, ardent generous self and give up the fantastic plan for leaving America. He saw very well that she must go somewhere. Her physique was in rags. She had grown so fragile that her bones almost pierced her skin, and her face was the face of a ghost. His heart was wrung with pity for her. None more anxious than he that she should go away and rest, and to use his last cent for the purpose if need be. What hurt was that she should want to go so far and for so long; that she should have planned it all so eagerly while he lay sick, and hold fast to it so resolutely now that he was well. Once so pliant to all his wishes she was firm as a rock in this, and he had no will to oppose her. His heart was always tender for the sick, and it was plain to the dullest eye that she was a sick woman. He schooled himself to believe at last that her strange coldness was a result of this sickness. He had half-killed her with overwork and worry, small wonder that she hated him! It was not treachery, not the quitting spirit, but the whim of a sick and weary child. The generous thing was to bear with her unreproaching, and at whatever cost to himself, humour her wish. It was in this spirit that he told her to pack up, and he would, when she gave the word, take steamer tickets for her and the children. He arranged for Mary, the Wicklow maid, to accompany her too. He would have offered to go himself, though he knew the hospital needed him, but that he could feel her projecting a very stone wall of opposition to such a purpose. He had almost to insist on her taking Haidee at the last, for she seemed now to hang back from the idea, looking at him with strange eyes when he said that Haidee would be better in her care than any one else's. How could he know that his delirium had betrayed to her old doubts of his, which in sane moments he would himself have been ashamed of harbouring, and which had long since been banished from his mind by her bright gallantry. He had come to believe, indeed, that Haidee was better with Val than with any one. Further, he did not in the least want Haidee with him. She would not for one moment comfort him for the loss of Bran and his wife. He had only said the thing in that first bitterness of heart. Rather he looked upon Haidee's going as a safeguard to his own happiness, for if Val's illness grew worse, the child would be able to give him the news at once. Mary was going only for the voyage, and on arriving at Southampton would go straight on to Ireland where her mother needed her.
When he found at last that Val's reason for lingering in New York was that she was not satisfied with the people she was leaving behind to take charge of the house and his comfort, he summarily, even savagely, turned on her and told her he was well able to take care of himself. Indeed, he considered this anxiety for his welfare somewhat forced and unnecessary. Well she knew what he needed for his welfare--that it was neither a good cook, nor a housekeeper, nor a matron for his hospital--and, knowing it, she still went from him, betook herself out of his life, put the ocean between them!
And so at the last, on one grey day late in the year, it was almost in bitterness they parted, haggard and broken, hiding their hearts from each other.
As the White Star liner steamed down the river he stood on the dock and waved farewell to the little group that now made up his dear portion of life; Haidee, all long tags of hair, yelling boisterously; Mary holding up Bran pink and shining; Val, wraith-like in her long grey silk cloak, seeming among her veils to be floating rather than leaning from the side of the ship, her hands put out at the last in an involuntary gesture as of entreaty--for what? Forbearance, forgiveness, understanding?
"God knows what is in her strange heart!" thought Westenra.
A gleam of light struck on something bright she wore--he recognised the beads of her weird necklace. The comfort necklace! He had never seen her wear it since the day she had swung it in her hand as they walked the deck of the Bavaric.
Poor Val! was she too in need of comfort then?
Was she thinking of the dream ship on which she had sailed so confidently into this very port not two years gone?
