Notwithstanding Part 8

And Mrs. Stoddart, who never kissed anyone if she could help it, kissed her on the forehead.

CHAPTER VIII

"Thou hast led me astray, my youth, till there is nowhere I can turn my steps."--KOLTSOV.

It was the middle of April. The ginger tree had at last unsheathed the immense buds which it had been guarding among its long swordlike leaves, and had hung out its great pink and white blossoms at all their length.

The coffee trees had mingled with their red berries the dearest little white wax flowers. The paradise tree which Annette had been watching day by day had come out in the night. And this morning, among its innumerable hanging golden b.a.l.l.s, were cascades of five-leaved white stars with violet centres.

Annette was well again, if so dull and tame a word can be used to describe the radiance which health had shed upon her, and upon the unfolding, petal by petal, of her beauty. The long rest, the slow recovery, the immense peace which had enfolded her life for the first time, the grim, tender "mothering" of Mrs. Stoddart, had all together fostered and sustained her. Her life, cut back to its very root by a sharp frost, had put out a superb new shoot. Her coltishness and a certain heavy, nave immaturity had fallen from her. Her beauty had shaken them off and stood clear of them, and Mrs. Stoddart recognized, not without anxiety, that the beauty which was now revealed was great.

But in the process of her unduly delayed and then unduly forced development it was plain that she had lost one thing which would have made her mother's heart ache if she had been alive. Annette had lost her youth. She was barely twenty-two, but she had the dignity and the bearing of a woman of thirty. Mrs. Stoddart watched her standing, a gracious slender figure in her white gown under the paradise tree, with a wild baby-canary in the hollow of her hands, coaxing it to fly back to its parents, calling shrilly to it from a neighbouring thicket of lemon-coloured honeysuckle. She realized the pitfalls that lie in wait for persons as simple and as inapprehensive as Annette, especially when they are beautiful as well, and she sighed.

Presently the baby-canary fluttered into the honeysuckle, and Annette walked down the steep garden path to meet Victor the butler, who could be seen in the distance coming slowly on the donkey up the white high road from Santa Cruz, with the letters.

Mrs. Stoddart sighed again. She had safeguarded Annette's past, but how about her future? She had pondered long over it, which Annette did not seem to do at all. Teneriffe was becoming too hot. The two ladies from Hampstead had already gone, much mollified towards Annette, and even anxious to meet her again, and attributing her more alert movements and now quite unrolling eyes to the fact that they had made it clear they would not stand any nonsense, or take "airs" from anyone. Mrs. Stoddart was anxious to get home to London to her son, her one son Mark. But what would happen to Annette when they left Teneriffe? She would gladly have kept her as her companion till she married,--for, of course, she would marry some day,--but there was Mark to be considered. She could not introduce Annette into her household without a vehement protest from Mark to start with, who would probably end by falling in love with her.

It was hopeless to expect that Annette would take an interest in any man for some time to come. Would she be glad or sorry if Annette eventually married Mark? She came to the conclusion that in spite of all the drawbacks of Annette's parentage and the Le Geyt episode, she would rather have her as her daughter-in-law than anyone. But there was Mark to be reckoned with, a very uncertain quant.i.ty. She did not know how he would regard that miserable episode, and she decided that she would not take the responsibility of throwing him and Annette together.

Then what was to be done? Mrs. Stoddart had got through her own troubles with such a.s.siduous determination earlier in life that she was now quite at liberty to attend to those of others, and she gave a close attention to Annette's.

She need not have troubled her mind, for Annette was coming towards her up the steep path between the high hedges of flowering geraniums with a sheaf of letters in her hand, and her future neatly mapped out in one of them.

She sat down at Mrs. Stoddart's feet in the dappled shade under the scarlet-flowering pomegranate tree, and they both opened their letters.

Annette had time to read her two several times while Mrs. Stoddart selected one after another from her bundle. Presently she gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Mark is on his way here. He will be here directly. Let me see, the _Furstin_ is due to-morrow or next day. He sends this by the English mail to warn me. He has not been well, overworked, and he is coming out for the sake of the sea-journey and to take me home."

Mrs. Stoddart's shrewd eyes shone. A faint colour came to her thin cheeks.

"Then I shall see him," said Annette. "When he did not come out for Christmas I was afraid I should miss him altogether."

"Does that mean you are thinking of leaving me, Annette?"

"Yes," said Annette, and she took her friend's hand and kissed it. "I have been considering it some time. I am thinking of staying here and setting up as a dressmaker."

"As a dressmaker!" almost gasped Mrs. Stoddart.

"Yes. Why not? My aunt is a very good dressmaker in Paris, and she would help me--at least, she would if it was worth her while. And there is no one here to do anything, and all that exquisite work the peasant women make is wasted on coa.r.s.e or inferior material. I should get them to do it for me on soft fine nainsook, and make a speciality of summer morning gowns and children's frocks. Every one who comes here would buy a gown of Teneriffe-work from me, and I can fit people quite well. I have a natural turn for it. Look how I can fit myself. You said yesterday that this white gown I have on was perfect."

Mrs. Stoddart could only gaze at her in amazement.

"My dear Annette," she said at last, "you cannot seriously think I would allow you to leave me to become a dressmaker! What have I done that you should treat me like that?"

"You have done everything," said Annette,--"more than anyone in the world since I was born,--and I have accepted everything--haven't I?--as it was given--freely. But I felt the time was coming when I must find a little hole of my own to creep into, and I thought this dressmaking might do. I would rather not try to live by my voice. It would throw me into the kind of society I knew _before_. I would rather make a fresh start on different lines. At least, I thought all these things as I came up the path ten minutes ago. But these two letters have shown me that I have a place of my own in the world after all."

She put two black-edged letters into Mrs. Stoddart's hand.

"Aunt Catherine is dead," she said. "You know she has been failing. That was why they went to live in the country."

Mrs. Stoddart took up the letters and gave them her whole attention.

Each of the bereaved aunts had written.

"MY DEAR ANNETTE (wrote Aunt Maria, the eldest),--I grieve to tell you that our beloved sister, your Aunt Catherine, died suddenly yesterday, from heart failure. We had hoped that the move to the country undertaken entirely on her account would have been beneficial to her, entailing as it did a great sacrifice on my part who need the inspiration of a congenial literary _milieu_ so much.

She had always fancied that she was not well in London, in which belief her doctor encouraged her--very unwisely, as the event has proved. The move, with all the inevitable paraphernalia of such an event, did her harm, as I had feared it would. She insisted on organizing the whole affair, and though she carried it through fairly successfully, except that several of my MSS have been mislaid, the strain had a bad effect on her heart. The doctor said that she ought to have gone away to the seaside while the move was done in her absence. This she declared was quite impossible, and though I wrote to her daily from Felixstowe begging her not to over-fatigue herself, and to superintend the work of others rather than to work herself, there is no doubt that in my absence she did more than she ought to have done. The heart attacks have been more frequent and more severe ever since, culminating in a fatal one on Sat.u.r.day last. The funeral is to-morrow. Your Aunt Harriet is entirely prostrated by grief, and I may say that unless I summoned all my fort.i.tude I should be in the same condition myself, for of course my beloved sister Catherine and I were united by a very special and uncommon affection, rare even between affectionate sisters.

"I do not hear any more of your becoming a professional singer, and I hope I never shall. I gather that you have not found living with your father quite as congenial as you antic.i.p.ated. Should you be in need of a home when your tour with Mrs. Stoddart is over, we shall be quite willing that you should return to us; for though the manner of your departure left something to be desired, I have since realized that there was not sufficient scope for yourself and Aunt Catherine in the same house. And now that we are bereaved of her, you would have plenty to occupy you in endeavouring, if such is your wish, to fill her place.--Your affectionate aunt, MARIA NEVILL."

Mrs. Stoddart took up the second letter.

"MY DEAR ANNETTE,--How can I _tell_ you--how can I _begin_ to tell you--of _the shattering blow_ that has fallen upon us? Life can _never_ be the same again. _Death_ has entered our dwelling.

Dearest Cathie--your Aunt Catherine--has been taken from us. She was _quite_ well yesterday--at least well for _her_--at quarter-past seven when she was rubbing my feet, and by _seven-thirty_ she was in a precarious condition. Maria _insisted_ on sending for a doctor, which of course I greatly regretted, realizing as I do full well _that the ability to save life is not with them_, and that _all drugs have only the power in them which we by wrong thought have given to them_. However, Maria had her way as _always_, but our dear sister succ.u.mbed before he arrived, so I do not _in any way_ attribute her death to _him_. We were both with her, each holding one of her dear hands, and the end was quite peaceful. I could have wished for _one last word of love_, but I do not rebel. Maria feels it _terribly_, though she always has _great_ self-control. But of course the loss cannot be to _her_, immersed in her writing, what it is to _me_, my darling Cathie's constant companion and adviser. We were _all in all_ to each other. What I shall do without her I cannot even _imagine_. Maria will naturally expect--she always _has_ expected--to find all household matters arranged _without any partic.i.p.ation on her part_. And I am, alas!

so feeble that for many years past I have had to confine my aid to that of consolation and encouragement. My sofa has indeed, I am thankful to think, been a _centre_ from which sympathy and love have flowed freely forth. This is as it should be. We invalids _live in the lives of others_. Their _joys_ are _our_ joys. _Their_ sorrows are _our_ sorrows. How I have rejoiced over your delightful experiences at Teneriffe--the islands of the blest! When it has snowed here, how often I have said to myself, 'Annette is in the suns.h.i.+ne.' And now, dear Annette, I am wondering whether, _when you leave Teneriffe_, you could make your home with us again for a time. You would find one very loving heart here to welcome you, _ever_ ready with counsel and support for a young girl's troubles and perplexities. _I_ never blamed you for leaving us. I know _too_ well that spirit of adventure, though my lot bids _me_ sternly silence its voice. And, darling child, does it not seem _pointed out for you_ to relinquish this strange idea of being a professional singer for a life to which the call of duty is so _plain_? I know from experience what a great blessing attends _those who give up their own will to live for others_. The surrender of the will! _That_ is where _true_ peace and happiness lie, if the young _could only believe it_.

I will say no more.--With fondest love, your affectionate AUNT HARRIET."

"H'm!" said Mrs. Stoddart, "and so the only one of the trio whom you could tolerate is the one who has died. They have killed her between them. That is sufficiently obvious. And what do you think, Annette, of this extremely cold-blooded suggestion that you should live for others?"

"I think it is worth a trial," said Annette, looking gravely at her. "It will have the charm of novelty, at any rate. And I haven't made such a great success of living for myself so far."

Mrs. Stoddart did not answer.

Even she, accustomed as she was to them by now, always felt a tremor when those soft veiled violet eyes were fixed upon her. "Sweetest eyes were ever seen," she often said to herself.

Annette went on: "I see that I have been like the man in the parable.

When I was bidden to the feast of life I wanted the highest seat, I took it as my right. I was to have everything--love, honour, happiness, rank, wealth. But I was turned out, as he was. And I was so angry that I flung out of the house in a rage. If d.i.c.k had not stopped me at the door I should have gone away altogether. The man in the parable behaved better than that. He took with shame the lowest seat. I must do like him--try and find the place intended for me, where I _shan't_ be cast out."

"Well, this is the lowest seat with a vengeance."

"Yes, that is why I think it may be just what I can manage."

"You are sure you are not doing this from a false idea of making an act of penance?"

"No, directly I read the letters I thought I should like it. I wish now I had never left them. And I believe now that I have been away I could make a success of it."

"I have no doubt you could, but----"

"I should like to make a success of _something_, after being such a failure. And--and----"

"And what, my child?"

"I had begun to think there was no corner in the world for me, as if the Giver of the Feast had forgotten me altogether. And this looks as if He hadn't. I have often thought lately that I should like--if I could--to creep into some little place where I should not be thrust out, where there wouldn't be any more angels with flaming swords to drive me away."