Eleanor

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Eleanor

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'Ought he not to see Miss Foster too?' he said anxiously to Eleanor
Burgoyne.

Eleanor looked at him in astonishment.

A smothered exclamation broke from him. He rushed away, back to the library
which he had seen Lucy enter.

The cool clear light was mounting. It penetrated the wooden shutters of
the library and mingled with the dying light of the lamp which had served
him to read with through the night, beside which, in spite of his utmost
efforts, he had fallen asleep at the approach of dawn. There, in the
dream-like illumination, he saw Lucy lying within his deep arm-chair. Her
face was turned away from him and hidden against the cushion; her black
hair streamed over the white folds of her wrapper: one arm was beneath her,
the other hung helplessly over her knee.

He went up to her and called her name in an agony.

She moved slightly, made an effort to rouse herself and raised her hand.
But the hand fell again, and the word half-formed upon her lips died away.
Nothing could be more piteous, more disarmed. Yet even her disarray and
helplessness were lovely; she was noble in her defeat; her very abandonment
breathed youth and purity; the man's wildly surging thoughts sank abashed.

But words escaped him--words giving irrevocable shape to feeling. For he
saw that she could not hear.

'Lucy!--Lucy--dear, beautiful Lucy!'

He hung over her in an ardent silence, his eyes breathing a respect that
was the very soul of passion, his hand not daring to touch even a fold of
her dress. Meanwhile the door leading to the little passage-room opened
noiselessly. Eleanor Burgoyne entered. Manisty was not aware of it. He bent
above Lucy in a tender absorption speaking to her as he might have spoken
to a child, calling to her, comforting and rousing her. His deep voice had
an enchanter's sweetness; and gradually it wooed her back to life. She did
not know what he was saying to her, but she responded. Her lids fluttered;
she moved in her chair, a deep sigh lifted her breast.

At that moment the door in Eleanor's hand escaped her and swung to. Manisty
started back and looked round him.

'Eleanor!--is that you?'

In the barred and ghostly light Eleanor came slowly forward. She looked
first at Lucy--then at Manisty. Their eyes met.

Manisty was the first to move uneasily.

'Look at her, Eleanor!--poor child!--Alice must have attacked her in her
room. She escaped by a marvel. When I wrestled with Alice, I found this in
her hand. One second more, and she would have used it on Miss Foster.'

He took from his pocket a small surgical knife, and looked, shuddering, at
its sharpness and its curved point.

Eleanor too shuddered. She laid her hand on Lucy's shoulder, while Manisty
withdrew into the shadows of the room.

Lucy raised herself by a great effort. Her first half-conscious impulse was
to throw herself into the arms of the woman standing by her. Then as she
perceived Eleanor clearly, as her reason came back, and her gaze steadied,
the impulse died.

'Will you help me?' she said, simply--holding out her hand and tottering to
her feet.

A sudden gleam of natural feeling lit up the frozen whiteness of Eleanor's
face. She threw her arm round Lucy's waist, guiding her. And so, closely
entwined, the two passed from Manisty's sight.

CHAPTER XII

The sun had already deserted the eastern side of the villa when, on the
morning following these events, Lucy woke from a fitful sleep to find
Benson standing beside her. Benson had slept in her room since the dawn;
and, thanks to exhaustion and the natural powers of youth, Lucy came back
to consciousness, weak but refreshed, almost free from fever and in full
possession of herself. Nevertheless, as she raised herself in bed to drink
the tea that Benson offered her--as she caught a glimpse through the open
window of the convent-crowned summit and wooded breast of Monte Cavo,
flooded with a broad white sunlight--she had that strange sense of change,
of a yesterday irrevocably parted from to-day, that marks the entry into
another room of life. The young soul at such times trembles before a
power unknown, yet tyrannously felt. All in a moment without our knowledge
or co-operation something has happened. Life will never be again as it
was last week. 'How?--or why?' the soul cries. 'I knew nothing--willed
nothing.' And then dimly, through the dark of its own tumult, the veiled
Destiny appears.

Benson was not at all anxious that Lucy should throw off the invalid.

'And indeed, Miss, if I may say so, you'll be least in the way where you
are. They're expecting the doctor from Rome directly.'

The maid looked at her curiously. All that the household knew was that
Miss Alice Manisty had escaped from her room in the night, after pinioning
Dalgetty's arms and throwing a chloroformed handkerchief over her face.
Miss Foster, it seemed, had been aroused and alarmed, and Mr. Manisty
coming to the rescue had overpowered his sister by the help of the stout
_cameriera_, Andreina. This was all that was certainly known.

Nor did Lucy shew herself communicative. As the maid threw back all the
shutters and looped the curtains, the girl watched the summer light conquer
the room with a shiver of reminiscence.

'And Mrs. Burgoyne?' she asked eagerly.

The maid hesitated.

'She's up long ago, Miss. But she looks that ill, it's a pity to see her.
She and Mr. Manisty had their coffee together an hour ago--and she's been
helping him with the arrangements. I am sure it'll be a blessing when the
poor lady's put away. It would soon kill all the rest of you.'

'Will she go to-day, Benson?' said Lucy, in a low voice.

The maid replied that she believed that was Mr. Manisty's decision, that
he had been ordering a carriage, and that it was supposed two nurses were
coming with the doctor. Then she enquired whether she might carry good news
of Lucy to Miss Manisty and the master.

Lucy hurriedly begged they might be told that she was quite well, and
nobody was to take the smallest trouble about her any more. Benson threw a
sceptical look at the girl's blanched cheek, shook her head a little, and
departed.

A few minutes afterwards there was a light tap at the door and Eleanor
Burgoyne entered.

'You have slept?--you are better,' she said, standing at Lucy's bedside.

'I am only ashamed you should give me a thought,' the girl protested. 'I
should be up now but for Benson. She said I should be out of the way.'

'Yes,' said Eleanor quietly. 'That is so.' She hesitated a moment, and then
resumed--'If you should hear anything disagreeable don't be alarmed. There
will be a doctor and nurses. But she is quite quiet this morning--quite
broken--poor soul! My cousins are going into Rome with her. The home where
she will be placed is on Monte Mario. Edward wishes to assure himself that
it is all suitable and well managed. And Aunt Pattie will go with him.'

Through the girl's mind flashed the thought--'Then _we_ shall be
alone together all day,'--and her heart sank. She dared not look into
Mrs. Burgoyne's tired eyes. The memory of words spoken to her in the
darkness--of that expression she had surprised on Mrs. Burgoyne's face as
she woke from her swoon in the library, suddenly renewed the nightmare in
which she had been living. Once more she felt herself walking among snares
and shadows, with a trembling pulse.

Yet the feeling which rose to sight was nothing more than a stronger form
of that remorseful tenderness which had been slowly invading her during
many days. She took Eleanor's hand in hers and kissed it shyly.

'Then _I_ shall look after _you_,' she said trying to smile. 'I'll have my
way this time!'

'Wasn't that a carriage?' said Eleanor hurriedly. She listened a moment.
Yes--a carriage had drawn up. She hastened away.

Lucy, left alone, could hear the passage of feet through the glass passage,
and the sound of strange voices, representing apparently two men, and
neither of them Mr. Manisty.

She took a book from her table and tried not to listen. But she could not
distract her mind from the whole scene which she imagined must be going
on,--the consultation of the doctors, the attitude of the brother.

How had Mr. Manisty dealt with his sister the night before? What weapon
was in Alice Manisty's hand? Lucy remembered no more after that moment at
the door, when Manisty had rushed to her relief, bidding her go to Mrs.
Burgoyne. He himself had not been hurt, or Mrs. Burgoyne would have told
her. Ah!--he had surely been kind, though strong. Her eyes filled. She
thought of the new light in which he had appeared to her during these
terrible days with his sister; the curb put on his irritable, exacting
temper; his care of Alice, his chivalry towards herself. In another man
such conduct would have been a matter of course. In Manisty it touched and
captured, because it could not have been reckoned on. She had done him
injustice, and--unknowing--he had revenged himself.

The first carriage apparently drove away; and after an interval another
replaced it. Nearly an hour passed:--then sudden sounds of trampling feet
and opening doors broke the silence which had settled over the villa.
Voices and steps approached, entered the glass passage. Lucy sprang up.
Benson had flung the window looking on the balcony and the passage open,
but had fastened across it the outside sun-shutters. Lucy, securely hidden
herself, could see freely through the wooden strips of the shutter.

Ah!--sad procession! Manisty came first through the passage, the sides
of which were open to the balcony. His sister was on his arm, veiled and
in black. She moved feebly, sometimes hesitating and pausing, and Lucy
distinguished the wild eyes, glancing from side to side. But Manisty bent
his fine head to her; his left hand secured hers upon his arm; he spoke
to her gently and cheerfully. Behind walked Aunt Pattie, very small and
nervously pale, followed by a nurse. Then two men--Lucy recognised one as
the Marinata doctor--and another nurse; then Alfredo, with luggage.

They passed rapidly out of her sight. But the front door was immediately
below the balcony, and her ear could more or less follow the departure. And
there was Mrs. Burgoyne, leaning over the balcony. Mr. Manisty spoke to her
from below. Lucy fancied she caught her own name, and drew back indignant
with herself for listening.

Then a sound of wheels--the opening of the iron gate--the driving up of
another carriage--some shouting between Alfredo and Andreina--and it was
all over. The villa was at peace again.

Lucy drew herself to her full height, in a fierce rigidity of
self-contempt. What was she still listening for--still hungering for? What
seemed to have gone suddenly out of heaven and earth, with the cessation of
one voice?

She fell on her knees beside her bed. It was natural to her to pray, to
throw herself on a sustaining and strengthening power. Such prayer in such
a nature is not the specific asking of a definite boon. It is rather a
wordless aspiration towards a Will not our own--a passionate longing, in
the old phrase, to be 'right with God,' whatever happens, and through all
the storms of personal impulse.

* * * * *

An hour later Lucy entered the salon just as Alfredo, coming up behind her,
announced that the midday breakfast was ready. Mrs. Burgoyne was sitting
near the western window with her sketching things about her. Some western
clouds had come up from the sea to veil the scorching heat with which the
day had opened. Eleanor had thrown the sun-shutters hack, and was finishing
and correcting one of the Nemi sketches she had made during the winter.

She rose at sight of Lucy.

'Such a relief to throw oneself into a bit of drawing!' She looked down at
her work. 'What hobby do you fly to?'

'I mend the house-linen, and I tie down the jam,' said Lucy, laughing. 'You
have heard me play--so you know I don't do that well! And I can't draw a
hay-stack.'

'You play very well,' said Eleanor embarrassed, as they moved towards the
dining-room.

'Just well enough to send Uncle Ben to sleep when he's tired! I learnt it
for that. Will you play to me afterwards?'

'With pleasure,' said Eleanor, a little formally.

How long the luncheon seemed! Eleanor, a white shadow in her black
transparent dress, toyed with her food, eat nothing, and complained of the
waits between the courses.

Lucy reminded her that there were fifty steps between the kitchen and their
apartment. Eleanor did not seem to hear her; she had apparently forgotten
her own remark, and was staring absently before her. When she spoke next
it was about London, and the June season. She had promised to take a young
cousin, just 'come out,' to some balls. Her talk about her plans was
careless and languid, but it showed the woman naturally at home in the
fashionable world, with connections in half the great families, and access
to all doors. The effect of it was to make Lucy shrink into herself. Mrs.
Burgoyne had spoken formerly of their meeting in London. She said nothing
of it to-day, and Lucy felt that she could never venture to remind her.

From Eleanor's disjointed talk, also, there flowed another subtle
impression. Lucy realised what kinship means to the English wealthy and
well-born class--what a freemasonry it establishes, what opportunities it
confers. The Manistys and Eleanor Burgoyne were part of a great clan with
innumerable memories and traditions. They said nothing of them; they merely
took them for granted with all that they implied, the social position, the
'consideration,' the effect on others.

The American girl is not easily overawed. The smallest touch of English
assumption in her new acquaintances would have been enough, six weeks
before, to make Lucy Foster open her dark eyes in astonishment or contempt.
That is not the way in which women of her type understand life.

But to-day the frank forces of the girl's nature felt themselves harassed
and crippled. She sat with downcast eyes, constrainedly listening and
sometimes replying. No--it was very true. Mr. Manisty was not of her world.
He had relations, friendships, affairs, infinitely remote from hers--none
of which could mean anything to her. Whereas his cousin's links with
him were the natural inevitable links of blood and class. He might be
unsatisfactory or uncivil; but she had innumerable ways of recovering him,
not to be understood even, by those outside.

When the two women returned to the salon, a kind of moral distance had
established itself between them. Lucy was silent; Eleanor restless.

Alfredo brought the coffee. Mrs. Burgoyne looked at her watch as he
retired.

'Half past one,' she said in a reflective voice. 'By now they have made all
arrangements.'

'They will be back by tea-time?'

'Hardly,--but before dinner. Poor Aunt Pattie! She will be half dead.'

'Was she disturbed last night?' asked Lucy in a low voice.

'Just at the end. Mercifully she heard nothing till Alice was safe in her
room.'

Then Eleanor's eyes dwelt broodingly on Lucy. She had never yet questioned
the girl as to her experiences. Now she said with a certain abruptness--

'I suppose she forced your door?'

'I suppose so.--But I was asleep.'

'Were you terribly frightened when you found her there?'

As she spoke Eleanor said to herself that in all probability Lucy knew
nothing of Manisty's discovery of the weapon in Alice's hand. While she was
helping the girl to bed, Lucy, in her dazed and shivering submission, was
true to her natural soberness and reserve. Instead of exaggerating, she had
minimised what had happened. Miss Alice Manisty had come to her room,--had
behaved strangely,--and Lucy, running to summon assistance, had roused Mr.
Manisty in the library. No doubt she might have managed better, both then
and in the afternoon. And so, with a resolute repression of all excited
talk, she had turned her blanched face from the light, and set herself to
go to sleep, as the only means of inducing Mrs. Burgoyne also to leave her
and rest.

Eleanor's present question, however, set the girl's self-control
fluttering, so sharply did it recall the horror of the night. She curbed
herself visibly before replying.

'Yes,--I was frightened. But I don't think she could have hurt me. I should
have been stronger when it came to the point.'

'Thank God Edward was there!' cried Eleanor.

'Where did he come to you?'

'At the dining-room door. I could not have held it much longer. Then he
told me to go to you. And I tried to. But I only just managed to get to
that chair in the library.'

'Mr. Manisty found you quite unconscious.'

A sudden red dyed Lucy's cheek.

'Mr. Manisty!--was he there? I hoped he knew nothing about it. I only saw
you.'

Eleanor's thought drew certain inferences. But they gave her little
comfort. She turned away abruptly, complaining of the heat, and went to the
piano.

Lucy sat listening, with a book on her knee. Everything seemed to have
grown strangely unreal in this hot silence of the villa--the high room
with its painted walls--the marvellous prospect outside, just visible in
sections through the half-closed shutters--herself and her companion. Mrs.
Burgoyne played snatches of Brahms and Chopin; but her fingers stumbled
more than usual. Her attention seemed to wander.

Inevitably the girl's memory went back to the wild things which Alice
Manisty had said to her. In vain she rebuked herself. The fancies of a
mad-woman were best forgotten,--so common-sense told her. But over the
unrest of her own heart, over the electrical tension and dumb hostility
that had somehow arisen between her and Eleanor Burgoyne, common-sense
had small power. She could only say to herself with growing steadiness of
purpose that it would be best for her not to go to Vallombrosa, but to make
arrangements as soon as possible to join the Porters' friends at Florence,
and go on with them to Switzerland.

To distract herself, she presently drew towards her the open portfolio of
Eleanor's sketches, which was lying on the table. Most of them she had seen
before, and Mrs. Burgoyne had often bade her turn them over as she pleased.

She looked at them, now listlessly, now with sudden stirs of feeling. Here
was the niched wall of the Nemi temple; the arched recesses overgrown with
ilex and fig and bramble; in front the strawberry pickers stooping to
their work. Here, an impressionist study of the lake at evening, with the
wooded height of Genzano breaking the sunset; here a sketch from memory of
Aristodemo teasing the girls. Below this drawing, lay another drawing of
figures. Lucy drew it out, and looked at it in bewilderment.

At the foot of it was written--'The Slayer and the Slain.' Her thoughts
rushed back to her first evening at the villa--to the legend of the priest.
The sketch indeed contained two figures--one erect and triumphant, the
other crouching on the ground. The prostrate figure was wrapped in a cloak
which was drawn over the head and face. The young victor, sword in hand,
stood above his conquered enemy.

Or--Was it a man?

Lucy looked closer, her cold hand shaking on the paper. The vague classical
dress told nothing. But the face--whose was it?--and the long black hair?
She raised her eyes towards an old mirror on the wall in front, then
dropped them to the drawing again, in a sudden horror of recognition. And
the piteous figure on the ground, with the delicate woman's hand?--Lucy
caught her breath. It was as though the blow at her heart, which Manisty
had averted the night before, had fallen.

Then she became aware that Eleanor had turned round upon her seat at the
piano, and was watching her.

'I was looking at this strange drawing,' she said. Her face had turned a
sudden crimson. She pushed the drawing from her and tried to smile.

Eleanor rose and came towards her.

'I thought you would see it,' she said. 'I wished you to see it.'

Her voice was hoarse and shaking. She stood opposite to Lucy, supporting
herself by a marble table that stood near.

Lucy's colour disappeared, she became as pale as Eleanor.

'Is this meant for me?'

She pointed to the figure of the victorious priest. Eleanor nodded.

'I drew it the night after our Nemi walk,' she said with a fluttering
breath. 'A vision came to me so--of you--and me.'

Lucy started. Then she put her arms on the table and dropped her face into
her arms. Her voice became a low and thrilling murmur that just reached
Eleanor's ears.

'I wish--oh! how I wish--that I had never come here!'

Eleanor wavered a moment, then she said with gentleness, even with
sweetness:

'You have nothing to blame yourself for. Nor has anyone. That picture
accuses no one. It draws the future--which no one can stop or change--but
you.'

'In the first place,' said Lucy, still hiding her eyes and the bitter tears
that dimmed them--'what does it mean? Why am I the slayer?--and--and--you
the slain? What have I done? How have I deserved such a thing?'

Her voice failed her. Eleanor drew a little nearer.

'It is not you--but fate. You have taken from me--or you are about to take
from me--the last thing left to me on this earth! I have had one chance of
happiness, and only one, in all my life, till now. My boy is dead--he has
been dead eight years. And at last I had found another chance--and after
seven weeks, you--you--are dashing it from me!'

Lucy drew back from the table, like one that shrinks from an enemy.

'Mrs. Burgoyne!'

'You don't know it!' said Eleanor calmly. 'Oh! I understand that. You are
too good--too loyal. That's why I am talking like this. One could only dare
it with some one whose heart one knew. Oh! I have had such gusts of feeling
towards you--such mean, poor feeling. And then, as I sat playing there, I
said to myself, "I'll tell her! She will find that drawing, and--I'll tell
her! She has a great, true nature--she'll understand. Why shouldn't one try
to save oneself? It's the natural law. There's only the one life."'

She covered her eyes with her hand an instant, choking down the sob which
interrupted her. Then she moved a little nearer to Lucy.

'You see,' she said, appealing,--'you were very sweet and tender to me one
day. It's very easy to pretend to mourn with other people--because one
thinks one ought--or because it makes one liked. I am always pretending in
that way--I can't help it. But you--no: you don't say what you don't feel,
and you've the gift to feel. It's so rare--and you'll suffer from it.
You'll find other people doing what I'm doing now--throwing themselves
upon you--taking advantage--trusting to you. You pitied mo because I had
lost my boy. But you didn't know--you couldn't guess how bare my life has
been always--but for him. And then--this winter--' her voice changed and
broke--'the sun rose again for me. I have been hungry and starving for
years, and it seemed as though I--even I!--might still feast and be
satisfied.

'It would not have taken much to satisfy me. I am not young, like you--I
don't ask much. Just to be his friend, his secretary, his companion--in
time--perhaps--his wife--when he began to feel the need of home, and
peace--and to realise that no one else was so dear or so familiar to him
as I. I understood him--he me--our minds touched. There was no need for
"falling in love." One had only to go on from day to day--entering into
each other's lives--I ministering to him and he growing accustomed to
the atmosphere I could surround him with, and the sympathy I could give
him--till the habit had grown so deep into heart and flesh that it could
not be wrenched away. His hand would have dropped into mine, almost without
his willing or knowing it.... And I should have made him happy. I could
have lessened his faults--stimulated his powers. That was my dream all
these later months--and every week it seemed to grow more reasonable, more
possible. Then you came--'

She dropped into a chair beside Lucy, resting her delicate hands on the
back of it. In the mingled abandonment and energy of her attitude, there
was the power that belongs to all elemental human emotion, made frankly
visible and active. All her plaintive clinging charm had disappeared. It
was the fierceness of the dove--the egotism of the weak. Every line and
nerve of the fragile form betrayed the exasperation of suffering and a
tension of the will, unnatural and irresistible. Lucy bowed to the storm.
She lay with her eyes hidden, conscious only of this accusing voice close
to her,--and of the song of two nightingales without, rivalling each other
among the chestnut trees above the lower road. Eleanor resumed after a
momentary pause--a momentary closing of the tired eyes, as though in search
of calm and recollection.

'You came. He took no notice of you. He was rude and careless--he
complained that our work would be interrupted. It teased him that you
should be here--and that you represented something so different from his
thoughts and theories. That is like him. He has no real tolerance. He wants
to fight, to overbear, to crush, directly he feels opposition. Among women
especially, he is accustomed to be the centre--to be the master always.
And you resisted--silently. That provoked and attracted him. Then came the
difficulties with the book--and Mr. Neal's visit. He has the strangest
superstitions. It was ill-luck, and I was mixed up with it. He began to
cool to me--to avoid me. You were here; you didn't remind him of failure.
He found relief in talking to you. His ill-humour would all have passed
away like a child's sulkiness, but that--Ah! well!--'

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