 | XIX. The thief in the night |  |
19. XIX.
Beaudesfords had scarcely entered the so long
unused room, which now, according to his previous
order, he found prepared for him, — and
which once he had fitted up in a splendor of boyish
caprice, saying that, if the St. Veronica could
no longer hang in a cathedral niche, she should
at least look down on private and lay magnificence,
— when there was a tap upon the door, it
was pushed open, and Catherine had entered.
Her first glance showed her Beaudesfords bending
over a portfolio that lay on a little stand of
writing-materials near the head of the bed, while
he hid his wallet — doubtless with her note in it,
she believed — between the portfolio leaves. She
hardly noticed the corpse-like whiteness of his
face, nor the peculiar rigidity of his movements,
as if the nerves of volition were strained to their
last pitch of endurance, so in the instant did she
long for some word wicked enough, some cabalism,
her the thing that wallet held, to destroy it, to
annihilate it, — that note! That writing which
was not to save her happiness, but to ruin Beaudesfords'!
That writing which, at this moment,
appeared to her to be a lie, and the record of a
lie, from beginning to end! It may be that the
actual longing was strong enough virtually; for
all at once, as if relieved of a nightmare's pressure,
she asked what odds it made to her how
long Gaston stayed in the place? Was she not
the wife of Beaudesfords, honored and honoring,
seeking his happiness? Could she not entertain
his friends, one or another, indifferently? Did
not his very right to her duty, his right as a husband,
give him the dignity and manhood she
loved? What nobility he had displayed, what
loftiness, — glad now to die and give the thing he
valued most to the one who would have spoiled
him of it, — magnanimity of which the other man,
little better than a beggar on his bounty, no better
than a traitor to his faith, was destitute and
naked! And as she saw Beaudesfords' nature
take its peerless proportions, Gaston's shrank to
a recreant shape, and disappeared in nothingness.
It seemed to her as if some lightning-stroke had
as if she had been born again another woman
with another heart! If she could only get back
that note unread, that lie unuttered, — if now she
could but be Beaudesfords' own, henceforth and
for ever!
“Catherine!” exclaimed her husband, coming
towards her. “Here! when I forbade it?”
“Oh, Beaudesfords, if you will only let me
stay!” she cried, clasping her hands.
“When I forbade it?”
“I cannot have you ill and keep away myself,”
she said hotly. “I must be with you! I am
your wife! I claim my right!”
“You are my wife,” he said. “And it is fit
you should remind me of it.”
“Do not speak to me so, Beaudesfords! If you
are ill, I must — I must take care of you! Oh,
Beaudesfords, if you love me!”
“And you dare — you dare to say it!”
Catherine never could rehearse that scene
exactly to her own memory, as mere remembrance.
Trying to recall it, she no longer remembered,
she lived it! She was in it, it wrapped
her like the whirlwind, she breathed it over
again. Again she heard his voice in her ears, —
she was caught in his arms, pressed close, close to
his convulsive heart; her face, her hands, her
cheeks, her forehead, her mouth, covered with
great passionate kisses. “Good-by, good-by, my
darling!” she could hear him murmur, all bitterness
melted away. “God knows, God knows I
love you!” and the door was locked between
them.
She crouched there beside the door, listening
to his hurried walk, that never ceased till Mrs.
Stanhope brought Dr. Ruthven to the place.
The one was allowed entrance, the other excluded
by a sign and without a word, — for Beaudesfords
had his own idea, in sending for the Doctor,
intending perhaps that to-night's illness should
answer for to-morrow's discovery; and Catherine
heard no more, except as the Doctor told her.
Beaudesfords was ill, Dr. Ruthven said; a
slight attack; nothing serious, though; no typhus
whatever. His nerves had been wrought upon
by something or other till he was half beside himself.
He must be humored: that had been always
necessary with a Beaudesfords. It had been one
of his crotchets, ever since he was a boy, to isolate
himself if he were ill. The wild creatures of the
was to Nature. He would ring if he wanted any
thing: at present, he demanded to be left absolutely
alone. If he should become any worse,
they would need to reason with him. Meanwhile,
a composing powder. Then Dr. Ruthven recommended,
with a somewhat ominous voice, that
servants should be stationed in Frye's room, to
hear if Beaudesfords expressed a wish, or to assist
Frye, if need were; and he promised to be in
again by daybreak, — for the Doctor had reached
that age when men think it a merit in them to
rise before the sun. And, after that, the good man
went home, persuaded that, as he could detect
nothing alarming ailing his patient, Beaudesfords
was only preparing, by the aid of his slight indisposition,
a fright for Gaston and my lady that
would do them both good to the end of their
lives, and heartily willing to co-operate with him
to the extent of his deceptive abilities, which, as
he had already proved, were not small.
It was a June night of heavy dews. As the
starlight entered and made her a companion of
strange shadows, Catherine walked silently up
and down the hall, hearkening every now and
then for some word or signal from within the
and longer, while silver clocks chimed them to
one another all down the suites of rooms, and up
the distant stairways. The light burned till
broad day in the western wing. Mrs. Stanhope
and Rose came gently down, to see how all was
going, when midnight had just passed. Catherine
sent them back, and still walked along the tufted
mattings, with her weary thoughts and the starcast
shadows for companions. Not a sound, not
a murmur, not a breath, came from the sick
man's room. Beaudesfords slept, she said to
herself: he would waken in the morning, — after
such refreshing slumber, waken well. If only
she could get that note of hers before he should
have read it, he would waken well and happy.
He had not read it yet, she said. She felt confident
of that: his honor did not sit so lightly on
Beaudesfords as to let him open a paper belonging
to another. There had not come a rustle to indicate
as much, since she had waited there; and
what time had he had before? Forgetting what
he had said in the drawing-room about an accident's
becoming a certainty, or else not having
comprehended then the meaning of his words, —
forgetting, too, that a goaded and crazed curiosity
in the agitation of the hour, that that note
had not been addressed to another or to any one.
Her solicitude began to take the shape of a mania
concerning the thing. If she could but get it
back in her possession, what a bright and cheerful
day lay before her! What a life! What usefulness,
and what delight, to wander hand in hand
with her husband down its slope! How she
would go to Beaudesfords herself, without a
blush, and tell him this secret of hers, — this
thing that she had learned since purple twilight
had shut down over all the rosy world! She
walked the long hall more proudly, with an
assured step. She answered the mute challenge
of those phantom-like portraits on the wall, with
their dim eyes following her in the starlight, —
she also was an honest, happy Beaudesfords! Not
once did she think of Gaston: she only wept that
she had delayed her happiness so long.
Then Catherine questioned with herself if it
were not practicable for her to obtain that note,
after all. If he slept, and she stole it from the
portfolio, and he never knew for years and years
the danger they had escaped! The idea was no
sooner hers than she commenced making it a
— where Olympe slumbered loudly, half slipped
from the great chair, — and preparing a similar
piece of paper to put in its place when she should
have laid hands upon the original.
Down again: all was still. Softly opening the
long hall casement and creeping across the veranda,
over the steps, and out upon the dewy
garden-paths. She remembered that Beaudesfords
had set his own casement ajar: she saw it
now as it swung half-open, guarded by its two
mute sentinels of towering trees. She was sure
then that he slept. Nothing disturbed the hush
of night that hung over the garden. The Triton
blew his horn, and its water-drops flashed faint
and far into the little lake; the leaves rustled
gently and viewlessly among themselves; now
and then a dew-drop fell and pattered from one
to another; now and then a puff of wind shook
them all to fragrance, and passed. The great
heavy-headed roses slept beside the way; the
honeysuckle's perfect breath enriched the wind
that crept across the alleys. Overhead the large
soft summer stars seemed to wheel in a languid
dream. You could fancy that from their vast
heights they already saw the morning dawn, —
night. Catherine swept through the dew-sweet
alleys, her gown gathered about her, pushed further
open the casement that she sought, stepped
in. The light burned dimly there, would expire
ere long. She could just see Beaudesfords
by the faint ray, as she stood there a moment,
while the same ray fell on her face and form
framed by the night behind; could see him lying
back upon his pillow, with his eyes closed, and
breathing the heavy breath of one who forgets
fatigue. Noiseless, with haste, she stole to the
little stand near his bed, tore open the portfolio,
found the wallet — except for some bank-bills —
empty. She stifled the cry that rose to her lips,
— ah, he knew all, then! She turned, and would
have gone; but something, that irresistible finger
of fate, it seemed to her, when by and by its remembrance
gave her a sort of solace, compelled
her for one moment yet to stay, to bend above
Beaudesfords, careless whether he woke or not,
to press her lips gently, lingeringly, long, upon his
forehead, and then, without a look behind her,
she stole away as she had come, through the still
and sleeping garden, while the cry of a watchdog
was answered by that of some more distant
echoes in silence.
When the sound of her last footfall had ceased
upon the path, Beaudesfords slowly dragged himself
up to the dull light and held there, to read
its script once more, the paper in his hand, — a
letter written and addressed to her, enclosing in
its leaves that fatal note which she had come to
seek and come too late. He felt still that soft
and lingering kiss upon his forehead, — a kiss of
pity, forsooth! and he desired no pity. Yet, in
spite of that, he held his hand a little while above
it, as if the common air might wipe its seal away.
“Catherine,” Beaudesfords had written, “I
can refuse you nothing. And is there any thing
of which I would rob Gaston? See, — I have
discovered at last the secret between you. I
should have known it earlier. If I stole my
knowledge — I am about to pay the old penalty
of theft. It was my fault that I ever came between
you. I am going now to leave you. My
darling, — I have found life sweet, — how sweet!
— O God, how sweet! Yet I can bear to surrender
it, because after this there is another, —
and there, there, there, you will be mine!
Though your beautiful flesh be his, your soul
shall be mine! I am assured of it, I can wait
for it, I shall have bought it with my blood!”
He lay a little while, when he had finished
reading it, with the letter underneath his face, as
if in itself it were something dear to him. Then
he half rose, seeing the candle flicker and fearing
lest the light should die first and leave him to
make failure in the dark, — a moment too late,
for, as he thought of it, the flame fell. He sank
back, and as one hour and another went by he
lay there in the dusk till twilight began to sift
across it, — a twilight, he felt, that was to usher
in no common day for him, but was rather the
aurora of that divine dawning whose day was to
have no end. The world had already begun to
recede from him, the agony of renunciation had
passed into an obscure aching, at last that in turn
was stilled: he had abandoned all; and now his
great freeholds, his manhood and strength and
beauty, his wife, his friend, his troops of friends,
could not with all their intertwisted fibres hold
his spirit down. It was not indifference that possessed
him, it was eagerness, — eagerness to be
up and away. Now in the misty mood of this
soft half-light, before the sunlight should make
must make haste to be gone: he took up the tiny
knife that lay sharp and glittering beside him,
stretched out his bared arm with its hand clenched
till the veins stood forth large and livid, and then
the knife had done its work and had fallen on the
coverlet, and a purple stream was gushing silently
down and away with his life. He had grasped
the folded letter in his other hand, and he lay
now with his eyes upon the sweet rejoicing eyes
of the St. Veronica, shining softly and dimly as
a ghost in the gloom, before him and above him
on the wall. “It is my expiation,” said Beaudesfords
to himself. “I do no wrong now — it cannot
be. I did wrong then, two years ago and
over: I forgot every one but myself, — now I forget
myself. They, too, will forget me, — they
will smile and be happy, — the summer weather
will make them glad again, the winter snows
shall not chill them. Me, only, shall they chill,
cold long before. God bless them — oh, God
bless them! Ah, ah, how softly you desert me,
treacherous life! Drop by drop, — and one drop
leaves me here, — and between that and the next
I go — for the light fails — the day dies — I see
nothing but that face, sweet face, stamped in
— whom I love” —
The morning wind had long since begun to
breathe far off in the listening night: now it
quivered up the river-course and ruffled all the
forest and the field, crept along the garden-aisles
and under all the bosky shields of lightening
green, trembled through the boughs of the great
guardian firs as though through mighty harp-strings,
blew in the open casement and lightly
lifted all the yellow locks upon that ivory forehead.
Then it swept out again into the garden,
waiting in the gray of dawn with its fragrance
and freshness and sparkle; for every thing there
told of motion and life and joy, and here all
things waited for Death.
| XIX. The thief in the night | |