What a Man Wills Part 11

"Eve! this is an old friend. I met her walking by the river, and asked her to come and see you. Her name is Lilith Wastneys. You remember it, don't you? I have spoken to you about her."

"Yes, I remember," Eve said. She took her hand from her husband's, and held it out towards Lilith with a graceful gesture of greeting. Her eyes dwelt on the small, composed face with an expression of incredulous surprise. "You wished for Power! That seemed strange to me when I heard it, and now that I have seen you it seems stranger still. You look so small and gentle. I wonder what made you wish for Power!"

Lilith's smile was as inscrutable as her eyes. She answered simply by making another statement:

"And Rupert wished for love."

"He has got it!" said Eve deeply. She gave one glance at her husband--a wonderful, liquid glance, then turned back to her guest. "Won't you sit down? I sit in the veranda to be out of the sun. I am so tired of the sun. In the East it is cruel, blazing down day after day, mocking at the shadows. But the shadows are there--it cannot chase them away."

She leaned back on her cus.h.i.+ons. "Here all is so cool and calm, and the rain falls. That feels like nature weeping with us. I like to watch the rain. Have _you_ a pretty garden to sit in?"

"I am staying at the Inn. I don't want a garden. I can have that at home. When I want to rest I walk over the stepping-stones into the middle of the river. There is a big rock there which forms a kind of natural arm-chair. I can sit on it, looking down the stream, and no one can see me from the bank, for the rock rises up like a wall nearly all the way round. To sit there is like a peep into another life; a mermaid's life, all grey rock, and splas.h.i.+ng foam, and soft, ceaseless roar. When you listen to that roar from the bank it sounds harsh and monotonous. You are on another element, you see, so it is alien to you, and has no meaning, but on the rock you are part of the river itself.

It tells you its secrets. You can understand!"

As she finished speaking, Lilith's heavy lids lifted, and her eyes flashed with a sudden light. There was a moment's silence; then Eve bent forward on her seat, while a wave of colour flamed into her pale cheeks.

"_Will you take me with you_?" she cried breathlessly. "Will you take me _now_? There is something I am always trying to hear--a secret which I am always trying to find out, and no one can help me. Perhaps the river will tell me my secret... Take me with you, and let me try!"

Eve was fascinated with the rocky seat, and spent hours of each day ensconced thereon. The river was so low that it was easy to step from one rock to another, and Rupert would see her comfortably settled, and then leave her to take the brisk walk over the hills which was his usual exercise. Eve preferred to be alone for part of the day, and he had no fear of leaving her. There had never been any suicidal tendency in her derangement; rather did she cling to life, and shrink from the thought of death. And the river soothed her, she said; the murmuring voice seemed to whisper of happiness and peace, but as yet it was only a murmur. In vain she strained her ears; the message eluded her, and floated vaguely into s.p.a.ce. "Louder!" she would cry. "Louder!" But the river floated sleepily on its course, and refused to be aroused.

A week pa.s.sed by, and Rupert grew restless and uneasy. Eve was still obsessed with love of her river seat, but the strain of listening for the message which never came added to her depression, and it irked him to feel that she was deliberately courting a disappointment which he was powerless to relieve.

"It can do no good," he told Lilith impatiently, "and it may do great harm. I have been so careful to screen her from every kind of excitement or strain, so that the brain should have time to rest."

"Or stagnate?" suggested Lilith coldly. "She has had--how many years is it--ten or twelve?--of this wrapping in cotton wool, and she has progressed--how far should you call it--one inch, or two? How much longer shall you be content with inches? If she were in my charge--"

Rupert stopped and faced her in the narrow path. There was a hint of roughness in his manner. When a man is strung to the finest point of tension it is not always easy to preserve the conventions. "It is easy to boast when one has had no experience! _What_ would you do if she were in your charge?"

"Neglect her, ignore her, leave her to fend for herself! You and that drudge of a nurse imagine that you are helping by waiting on her hand and foot. What if instead you are sapping her vitality, and stealing her chance of life? What do you leave for her to do, except to breathe?

If you could breathe for her, you would relieve her of that also! You make her into a doll, and expect the doll to live! She is asleep, and you feed her with drugs. Better a thousand times to waken her out of her sleep, even if it be to suffer. It was a shock which deadened the brain; it may be that only a shock can rouse it to life again!"

"Ah!" cried Rupert bitterly. "I have heard that theory before. It's a devilish theory! My poor Eve! She has been tortured enough; she shall be tortured no more. It was the horror of what she saw and heard which caused the mischief in the beginning. The one thing I am thankful for in this loss of memory is that that honour has faded."

Lilith looked at him with her steady eyes.

"Have you ever been delirious?" she asked him. "Not for an odd hour here and there, but for days together, stretching out into weeks? I _have_; and I know. Nothing real can approach the horror of the unknown. There is no beginning to it, and no end. It's a great cloud darkening the sky; it presses lower, lower, strangling the breath.

There is no hope in it, no appeal. Your wife saw her parents killed before her eyes. I tell you the memory of the truth would be peaceful, compared with this struggle in the darkness. She would realise that it was over, that they were at rest; that it would pain them if she went mourning all her life. I tell you, Rupert, the only chance of Eve's recovery is to shock her into remembrance!"

"And if it were, if it were?"--he turned upon her fiercely as though battling against an inner conviction. "A shock strong enough to revolutionise the brain lies in the hands of Providence, to give or to retain. What man dare meddle with such a cure? I love my wife; she is my world. Am I to risk her life for a possible relief? To deliberately court danger that she--she--" He threw out his arms with a gesture of intolerable impatience. "Oh, it is unthinkable! You don't know what you are talking about. It is easy for you to talk. You have no heart.

You cannot feel--"

He strode away up the road leading to the hills, and Lilith stood and watched him go, and picked a leaf of sorrel from the bank by her side and rubbed it daintily between her small teeth, enjoying the sharp, pungent taste. Rupert's anger had no power to ruffle her calm.

By and by she also started on her morning promenade, pa.s.sing by the gate of Dempster's house, and catching a glimpse of Eve upon the veranda.

There had been thunder-storms in the neighbourhood during the last few days, and though the actual storms had not yet reached their little retreat, the atmosphere was heavy and breathless. That morning Eve had complained of a headache, and had seemed content to remain in the garden. As she pa.s.sed by, Lilith saw the nurse come out of the gate, basket in hand, and turn in the direction of the ca.n.a.l bank. Evidently she was bound for the barge-omnibus, which should convey her to the nearest towns.h.i.+p. Lilith repaired to her own room in the Inn, and set about the task of answering a pile of letters.

Two hours pa.s.sed quickly. Then gradually into her preoccupation stole the sense of something unusual and disturbing. She raised her head, and sat quietly considering its cause. The little room seemed filled with a rus.h.i.+ng noise; it was not a new noise, but rather an exaggeration of the one to which she had been accustomed for weeks past--the swirling of the river.

Lilith rose, and crossed the room to the latticed window. The Inn stood on the bisecting road between ca.n.a.l and river, within but a few yards'

distance of each; but this morning a strange transformation had pa.s.sed over the accustomed scene. The waters of the river were no longer crystal clear, but of a thick muddy brown; their course was no longer smiling and leisurely, but rapid and threatening. Upon the surface floated broken branches and boughs of trees.

Lilith turned instantly and descended the stairs. A sense of happenings was upon her; there was no time to waste.

At the door of the Inn stood the landlord, his broad face lit by a smile of satisfaction. Life was sleepy in this quiet vale; he welcomed a pa.s.sing excitement.

"The river is in flood, miss!" he cried genially. "Yes, indeed, we shall have a big flood! There were bad thunder-storms this last week up in the hills in Merioneth, where the river rises, and all the streams will be swollen, and pouring down into the lake. It was the same in the spring five years ago, when my Willie was born. Yes, indeed, the roar of it woke us in the middle of the night. Look at the colour of it now, miss, and the speed! Soon there will not be a rock to be seen. Yes, indeed, it will be a fine sight, the river, when it will be in flood!"

He was beaming with innocent enjoyment. His face fell like that of a thwarted child when the visitor turned, without as much as a word, and walked down the path; he stared after her blankly, then shrugged his shoulders, and ambled heavily back inside the Inn.

Lilith walked with rapid footsteps; her lips were set, but her eyes roamed. They turned upward towards the house among the trees where she had left Eve seated on the veranda. a.s.suredly Eve was there still; she had a headache, and had announced her decision to remain at home. This morning, for once, the river seat had lost its allure. Of a certainty Eve was still on her veranda. Nevertheless Lilith's footsteps grew quicker; straight as a die she made for the point on the bank opposite to the chain of stepping-stones.

No trace of an occupant was to be seen on the central islet, but a stronger sense than that of sight was at work in Lilith's brain. All the arguments in the world were powerless to deceive her. Eve was on the rock! She knew it. It was the truth.

On the edge of the road stood the stump of an old tree, the nearest fork of which stood four or five feet from the ground. Lilith grasped it with both hands, and with an agile movement drew her knees up to the level. The rest was easy; she took another grasp of the trunk, drew up her feet and stood, supporting herself on either side, gazing over the stream.

Yes! the inner cert.i.tude had been correct. Against the dull grey of the rock lay the folds of a white dress, the gleam of scarlet from a folded parasol, a dark head lay tilted backward towards the sky. Eve was there, asleep, or wrapped in one of her trance-like reveries in which she was unconscious of pa.s.sing events. She would see nothing, hear nothing, until the mood pa.s.sed and she became conscious of a desire for movement. For half an hour to come, perhaps for an hour, she would remain oblivious, and, meanwhile, with every moment the stream was rising and gaining more deadly swiftness.

Lilith crooked one arm round the bough of the tree and raised bent hands to her mouth. The stepping-stones were still well above water. She would send her piercing "coo-ee" across the stream and continue to send it, until the unusual character of the sound attracted Eve's attention, then she would go to meet her, and help her to the bank. There would be no danger, only a spice of excitement; a thrilling realisation of what might have been. No more.

Lilith pursed her lips to give the signal, but the signal did not come.

Poised in the very att.i.tude of preparation, a sudden change of expression showed in her still eyes, or rather an arrestment of expression; the features remained fixed and immovable, while the brain worked.

For one long minute she stood motionless, then, slowly, her hands fell to her sides; she bent downwards until once more her knees rested on the fork of the tree, from hence she let herself gently to the ground. No one had seen her. The Innkeeper was busy; the road stretched ahead bare and empty. No one would interfere.

Lilith walked to the nearest bridge, crossed it and seated herself on a sloping bank. The ground was raised above the level of the ca.n.a.l, and by raising her head she could see the chain of stepping-stones leading to the rocky islet. She folded her hands in her lap and watched. The sun shone out from behind a leaden bank of clouds, and beat on her face.

What was the expression of Lilith's face? There was strength on it, an immense, all-conquering strength; there was the mark of strain, in deepened line and close-set lip; but there was something else--something dominating, overriding. It shone in the eyes; the pose of the head showed it, the beating pulse in the throat. It was joy--primitive, triumphant joy!

The stepping-stones grew small and smaller; above the dark swirl of the river their grey surfaces caught the sun and gleamed into silver. Once and anon branches of a tree borne down by the flood were caught by one of these islets and for a moment held bound, then the swirl and the rush overcame, and they were swept relentlessly onward. Lilith's lips tightened as she watched them pa.s.s.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed; twenty minutes; the silver gleams made but tiny s.p.a.ces above the flood. Lilith rose to her feet and stood poised for flight.

Another five minutes and the waters lapped over the surface of the smallest stone. Like an arrow from the bow, Lilith flew across the bridge, down the path to the little Inn.

"Help! Help! The ropes! ... A lady is on one of the rocks. The lady from Plas Glynn. The ropes! Quick! Quick!"

The ropes hung coiled in the entrance of the Inn. It was not the river which was the danger, but the shaded, sleeping ca.n.a.l. Many a pedestrian had taken a false step off that fern-bordered bank, and had had a sore struggle for his life. The Innkeeper's own son had had this struggle.

The ropes were ready, noosed at the end--long, stout ropes, for use, not play. The Innkeeper seized them from their pegs and followed Lilith down the path. Afterwards he recalled that it was she who issued orders, and he who obeyed. He lashed the end of the ropes round the stump of the old tree. One noose was put round his own waist, the other he carried in his hand. The young lady stood by to let out their length, but before he could start, a cry sounded from behind, a terrible cry from the depths of a tortured heart, and Rupert Dempster fell upon him, and wrenched the ropes from his hand.

They lifted their voices, the two men and the girl, and sent forth a ringing cry of alarm; once, twice, they sent it forth, while Rupert felt his way to the first wave-lashed stone, and at the third cry Eve's white figure appeared in the aperture between the rocks.

The sight on which she looked was enough to turn the strongest head--the waste of waters where there had been a bubbling stream, the swirling current covering the way of retreat; yet to the onlookers there appeared no sign of distress in Eve's att.i.tude. The lurid sun still shown down, shaftlike through the clouds, and showed her white figure in vivid distinctness. She was bending forward, gazing, not at the sh.o.r.e, but upward across the flood. Her ear was bent low, as though listening to its voice...

Rupert turned back from the first stone, threw off his shoes, and started afresh. Once and again his foot slipped, and he swayed perilously to right and left, but always he recovered himself, and pressed on steadfastly towards the rock where stood his wife, motionless, bending forward towards the stream.

He was by her side, standing on the same foothold, before she was conscious of his presence; then he spoke her name, and she turned her eyes upon him. Oh, G.o.d in heaven, they were _sane_ eyes! Clear, straight-glancing eyes. _Sane_ eyes, full of thankfulness and peace!

"I remember!" she cried loudly. "I remember! The river has told me.

Oh, Rupert I am free--"

"Come!" he said simply, and took her hand. There was no time to waste, for the flood was rus.h.i.+ng on its way, and the perilous pa.s.sage had still to be made; but there was no fear in either heart. Nothing on earth or sea could mar the rapture of that moment. After long waiting and heart-sickness the cloud had lifted, and the shadows had taken wing. He read the change in her eyes, the very touch of her hand within his told the same tale. It was no longer weak and helpless; her fingers clasped his with a strong, resolute grasp, giving help as well as receiving.