Part 34 (1/2)
”Shall you be satisfied if he continues to live quite without occupation?”
”I don't for a moment think he purposes that.”
”And yet it will certainly be the ease as long as he remains here--or wherever else we happen to be living.”
Mrs. Lessingham allowed her to ponder this for a few minutes. Then she resumed the train of thought.
”Have you had leisure yet to ask yourself, my dear, what use you will make of the great influence you have acquired over Mr. Elgar's mind?”
”That is not quite the form my thoughts would naturally take, aunt,”
Cecily replied, with gentleness.
”Yet may it not be the form they should? You are accustomed to think for yourself to a greater extent than girls whose education has been more ordinary; you cannot take it ill if I remind you now of certain remarks I have made on Mr. Elgar lately, and remind you also that I am not alone in my view of him. Don't fear that I shall say anything unkind; but if you feel equal to a woman's responsibilities, you must surely exercise a woman's good sense. Let us say nothing more than that Mr. Elgar has fallen into habits of excessive indolence; doesn't it seem to you that you might help him out of hem?”
”I think he may not need help as you understand it, now.”
”My dear, he needs it perhaps five hundred times more than he did before. If you decline to believe me, I shall be only too much justified by your experience hereafter.”
”What would you have me do?”
”What must very soon occur to your own excellent wits, Cecily--for I won't give up all my pride in you. Mr. Elgar should, of course, go back to England, and do something that becomes him; he must decide what. Let him have a few days with us in Capri; then go, and so far recommend himself in our eyes. No one can make him see that this is what his dignity--if nothing else--demands, except yourself. Think of it, dear.”
Cecily did think of it, long and anxiously. Thanks to Elgar, her meditations had a dark background such as her own fancy would never have supplied.
He knew not how sadly the image of him had been blurred in Cecily's mind, the man who lay that night in his room overlooking the port.
Whether such ignorance were for his aid or his disadvantage, who shall venture to say?
To a certain point, we may follow with philosophic curiosity, step by step, the progress of mental anguish, but when that point is pa.s.sed, a.n.a.lysis loses its interest; the vocabulary of pain has exhausted itself, the phenomena already noted do but repeat themselves with more rapidity, with more intensity--detail is lost in the mere sense of throes. Perchance the mind is capable of suffering worse than the fiercest pangs of hopeless love combined with jealousy; one would not pretend to put a limit to the possibilities of human woe; but for Mallard, at all events this night did the black flood of misery reach high-water mark.
What joy in the world that does not represent a counter-balance of sorrow? What blessedness poured upon one head but some other must therefore lie down under malediction? We know that with the uttermost of happiness there is wont to come a sudden blending of troublous humour. May it not be that the soul has conceived a subtle sympathy with that hapless one but for whose sacrifice its own elation were impossible?
CHAPTER XIII
ECHO AND PRELUDE
At Villa Sannazaro, the posture of affairs was already understood. When Eleanor Spence, casually calling at the _pension_, found that Cecily was unable to receive visitors, she at the same time learnt from Mrs.
Lessingham to what this seclusion was due. The ladies had a singular little conversation, for Eleanor was inwardly so amused at this speedy practical comment on Mrs. Lessingham's utterances of the other day, that with difficulty she kept her countenance; while Mrs. Lessingham herself, impelled to make the admission without delay, that she might exhibit a philosophic acceptance of fact, had much ado to hide her chagrin beneath the show of half-cynical frankness that became a woman of the world. Eleanor--pa.s.sably roguish within the limits of becoming mirth--acted the scene to her husband, who laughed shamelessly. Then came explanations between Eleanor and Miriam.
The following day pa.s.sed without news, but on the morning after, Miriam had a letter from Cecily; not a long letter, nor very effusive, but telling all that was to be told. And it ended with a promise that Cecily would come to the villa that afternoon. This was communicated to Eleanor.
”Where's Mallard, I wonder?” said Spence, when his wife came to talk to him. ”Not, I suspect, at the old quarters, It would be like him to go off somewhere without a word. Confound that fellow Elgar!”
”I'm half disposed to think that it serves Mr. Mallard right,” was Eleanor's remark.
”Well, for heartlessness commend me to a comfortable woman.”
”And for folly commend me to a strong-minded man.”