Delphi collected works o.., p.217
Delphi Collected Works of Grant Allen, page 217
The whole point of view was a novel one to Linnell.
‘If I thought that,’ he answered in a low tone, ‘I should feel happier in my mind than I’ve felt for years. I’ve always had my doubts about my father’s fortune. But let’s change the subject. I’m sick and tired of it.’
CHAPTER XIX.
A LITTLE CLOUD.
At Petherton the autumn and winter passed slowly away, and Psyche’s heart gradually accustomed itself to its great sorrow. She was brave, and she stifled her grief bravely. Haviland Dumaresq, watching her closely, with his keen gray eyes and his eager glance, flattered his own soul (poor purblind philosopher!) that Psyche had forgotten all about that obtrusive painter fellow. Oh, wilful foolishness of parents who think such things! Your children’s hearts veil their wounds from your eyes with sedulous care, and you say with a smile: ‘All’s well! I can see no scars anywhere.’
But Psyche herself — ah, how different there! She had never forgotten him; she could never forget him. It wasn’t merely that she had dismissed to his death the one man she had ever loved. It wasn’t merely that he had left her abruptly, and gone where communications with him were practically impossible. It wasn’t merely that his life was in danger, and that he might never perhaps return to see her. Worse than all those, though all those indeed were bad enough, was the horrible, hateful, haunting consciousness that she had been forced to show herself in a false light to Linnell, and that if Linnell died on that forlorn hope, he would die believing her unutterably mercenary, and cruel, and selfish. To show one’s self in false colours to those one loves is inexpressibly painful. Her soul loathed the picture Linnell must have formed of her. It was torture to her to think he must go on so long mistaking so utterly her character and her feelings.
For Psyche had learned, three days later, on what dangerous errand her lover had started. She read the announcement casually in the Athenæum: ‘Mr. C. A. Linnell, the rising young painter, whose Oriental subjects have attracted so much attention in the Grosvenor this year, has accepted the difficult and somewhat thankless task of special artist to the Porte-Crayon with Gordon at Khartoum. He set out for his perilous post on Saturday last, in company with Mr. T. A. Considine, the well-known correspondent of the Morning Telephone.’ How bald and matter-of-fact the paragraph sounded, as it stood there among a dozen other indifferent scraps of gossip in the literary notes of the Athenæum! and yet what a tragedy it meant for Psyche, who had driven him forth, perhaps to his death, and felt herself very little short of a murderess!
If only he could have known! If only he could have known! Her promise! Her promise! That fatal promise!
Restraining her tears with a deadly effort, she rushed upstairs into her own room and locked herself in with all the impetuous sorrow of budding girlhood. Then she flung herself on her bed and gave free vent to her grief. She cried, and cried, and cried again, in a luxury of agony — till the hour of tea came, and she had to go down again.
But even so, she was Dumaresq’s daughter. She rose, and bathed her face carefully. Her self-control was wonderful. It was with eyes scarcely red and with a cold proud air that she handed the paper across to her father with his cup of tea ten minutes later, and said in a voice hardly trembling with emotion: ‘Mr. Linnell has accepted a post in Africa now, you see, papa.’
Haviland Dumaresq eyed her keenly, and thought to himself with a smile of inward satisfaction: ‘A mere light scratch! The first shallow love of childhood! Profound emotions preclude speech. Women, before their affections are fixed, are necessarily plastic. Unable to choose freely for themselves, like men, they can shift their emotions from object to object, or hold them in suspense, an affinity unsaturated, till the one man comes on whom to focus their regard permanently. She could never have felt the parting very much, after all, or she couldn’t talk as carelessly now as that about him.’
But in spite of philosophy, all through the autumn and winter months Psyche grieved silently, silently. Her sorrow was all turned in upon herself. She had no one to share it, no one to sympathize with her. Geraldine Maitland had gone with her parents for the season to Algiers: with Ida Mansel, that correct and cultivated Girtonian product, she had little in common; so she was left to brood over her great grief in solitude. Now, a sorrow turned inward is the most dangerous and insidious in its effects of any. The suspense and the isolation were wearing Psyche out. Only that unquenchable Dumaresquian spirit of hers enabled her to put so good a face upon it. But a Dumaresq suffers, and suffers in silence. Her father never knew how Psyche was suffering. With a brave heart she came down to breakfast each day as though she had not lain awake and cried all night: with a brave heart she took up the paper each morning to read afresh of new delays in the relief of Khartoum.
Everybody remembers that long-drawn period of horrible suspense, when a handful of brave Englishmen held out by themselves against tremendous odds in the doomed city. Everybody remembers the breathless interest of that painful drama, and the slow lingering despair of hoping against hope for the gallant souls locked up in Khartoum.
But to Psyche the suspense was more terrible than to anyone; the despair was most poignant — the hopelessness most appalling.
She had sent Linnell to his death, she felt sure. He would die without ever knowing how profoundly she loved him.
Yet even so, she bore up like a Dumaresq. Her father should never know how she felt. At all hazards she would keep that terrible secret from him.
So night after night, as she lay awake and cried, she learnt to cry silently, imperceptibly almost. It was not merely a sort of crying that made no noise: it was a sort of crying that let the tears trickle slowly out, one after another, without even so much as reddening the eyes and eyelids. She practised crying in this quiet way, deliberately practised it, like a Dumaresq that she was: and to such a pitch of perfection did she bring it at last, that even the tears themselves ceased to flow. She cried, as it were, all mentally and internally.
But her eyes ached horribly none the less for that. Bright and clear and beautiful as usual, they ached worse every day with that unnatural effort.
One evening in January, as the days were lengthening again, and Psyche was looking forward to the time when Geraldine, dear Geraldine, might return from Algeria to comfort her soul, Haviland Dumaresq came home from the village with a London newspaper, and handed it to Psyche to read aloud to him. That was an ordeal she had often to endure now. The papers were full of Gordon and Khartoum — fears for the besieged, hopes for the relievers — and Psyche, all tremulous, was compelled to read aloud in a firm, clear tone those conflicting rumours, and pretend it meant nothing more to her soul than the meetings of Public Companies or the Sporting Intelligence. For with all his philosophy the philosopher had never mastered the simple fact that he was slowly killing his own child by unintentional cruelty. He was sure she had forgotten that little episode altogether now. Khartoum was no more to her than Jerusalem or Jericho.
‘“We have all along counselled the Government,”’ Psyche read aloud, ‘“to adopt a more vigorous and aggressive attitude towards the tribes that still block or harass the passage of our forces up the bank of the river. Unless something is done within three months to relieve the garrison which now holds out — —”’
‘Well?’ Haviland Dumaresq murmured, looking up inquiringly as Psyche broke off in sudden bewilderment. ‘What next, my child? Go on, won’t you?’
‘I — I don’t know what next,’ Psyche cried, faltering and laying the paper helplessly on her knees. ‘I don’t quite see. I think — there’s a sort of blur somehow across the printing.’
Haviland Dumaresq took the paper incredulously from her hands. He glanced with his cold unflinching eyes at the leader she had been reading so quietly and calmly. Nothing could be clearer or more distinct than its type. A sudden thought flashed across his brain for a moment. Could Linnell by any possibility be mentioned in the article? Psyche had almost forgotten that foolish little love-episode by this time, of course; but the sudden sight of the painter’s name staring her unexpectedly in the face from a public print might no doubt arouse for a second the latent cloud. Emotion dies and revives so strangely. He glanced down the column. No, nothing of the sort could he see anywhere. In a neighbouring column perhaps, then — among the telegraphic items! The painter might have escaped, or might have been killed, or rescued. He scanned the telegrams with an eager glance. Nothing there that cast any light upon the subject. ‘You must be bilious, my child,’ he said, with a searching look, handing her back the paper. ‘Accumulation of effete matter uneliminated in the blood often gives rise to yellow patches floating before the eyes. Best relieved by exercise and fresh air. Go on, now, Psyche, and read a little further, if it doesn’t hurt you.’
What a blank page the human heart often shows to those who think they stand nearest and dearest of all to it! Exercise and fresh air, indeed, for a broken spirit! How little Haviland Dumaresq, in his philosophic isolation, knew what inward grief was eating away his Psyche’s soul and undermining his Psyche’s eyesight!
The trembling girl, all calmness without, took the paper back from his hands without a single word, and went on reading for some minutes longer. Then the letters on the page disappeared once more, as if by magic, and a vague nothingness swam a second time in the air before her.
‘I can’t read, papa,’ she cried, laying the swimming paper down in despair. ‘The words all seem to fade into a blank before my eyes. I can see nothing. It’s a sort of wandering haze. I don’t think I can be very well this morning.’
‘A yellow patch floating before your face?’ Haviland Dumaresq asked with suggestive quickness. ‘A sort of central glow or spot of fire, fading off at the sides into normal vision?’
‘Oh no,’ Psyche said; ‘nothing at all of the sort. I’ve had that too: I know what you mean; but not lately: this is something ever so much deeper and more serious than that. It’s a sort of cloud that rises up, I think, in my eye itself; and whenever it rises, I see nothing at all for a few minutes: the whole world seems to become a kind of mist or haze floating vaguely in dim outline in front of me.’
Dumaresq rose from his chair with great deliberation and moved to the window. ‘Come here, my child,’ he said with that gentle tenderness in his tone which he always displayed in talking to Psyche — for, oh, how he loved her! ‘Eyes are far too precious to be neglected with impunity. The more complex an organ, the greater the difficulty in re-establishing equilibrium once upset. Let me look and see if there’s anything the matter with them.’
Psyche walked forward with uncertain steps, half feeling her way between the chairs and tables, in a manner that brought the old philosopher’s heart into his mouth like a child’s. Could anything be wrong, then, with his darling’s sight? He held her upturned face gently between his palms, and gazed down with profound searching into those deep-blue eyes. A cataract forming? No, nothing like that. ‘The conjunctiva and cornea are perfectly normal,’ he murmured with a sigh of distinct relief, for the bare suggestion of anything wrong with his Psyche’s eyes had stirred him deeply. ‘The lenses, too, seem absolutely right. If there’s mischief anywhere, it must be deep down in the region of the retina itself. We’ll test it carefully. But there’s no hereditary predisposition to weakness of vision. Functional, functional; it must be functional. Your dear mother’s eyes were as sharp as needles; and as for me, I can read the smallest print to this day, as you know, Psyche, at least as well as any man of twenty.’
He took down a book from the shelf at random and opened the title-page at three or four paces. ‘Read as much as you can of that, my child,’ he said, holding it up to her.
Psyche read it without a moment’s delay: ‘“Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat, by John Tyndall.”’
Her father’s face lighted up with pleasure. ‘Good!’ he said, relieved, as his heart gave a bound. ‘Try again, Psyche,’ and he took down another. ‘What’s this?’ he went on, walking a step or two across the room, and holding the title-page open once more before Psyche’s eyes.
‘“The Fertilization of Flowers, by Professor Hermann Müller,”’ Psyche read out slowly; ‘then there’s something I can’t quite see; and after that I can make out plainly the two words “Charles Darwin.”’
‘“With a preface by Charles Darwin,”’ her father said cheerfully. ‘Come, come, Psyche, that’s not so bad. There can’t be much wrong with the retina, anyhow, if you can read like this at eight feet distance.’
Psyche sighed and held her peace. She knew the world had faded away suddenly before her eyes more than once of late, and she could hardly treat this discomposing consciousness as lightly as her father did. But if he was satisfied, all was well. For herself, she could bear it as she had borne what was so much harder and deadlier to bear than mere blindness.
Dumaresq gazed at her for a minute in silence. Then he said once more, ‘Has this happened often?’
Psyche hesitated. She couldn’t bear to grieve him. ‘Once or twice, papa,’ she said after a brief pause. ‘But it’s nothing much; it’ll go off soon — when the summer comes back to us.’
Dumaresq looked down at her with a satisfied air. ‘No, it’s nothing much,’ he repeated. ‘I know the human eye by this time pretty well. I made an exhaustive study of eyes, you know, when I was working up my second volume. If I saw the slightest cause for alarm in the case, I’d take you up at once to consult Critchett. But I don’t see any. The cornea’s normal; the retina’s normal; and the power of vision is in no way defective. These occasional failures must be purely nervous. In girls of your age one must expect a certain amount of nervous abnormality. An incident of our civilization: we expel Nature, as Horace says, with a fork, but Nature will always get the better of us somehow.’
Poor old man! With all his wisdom and all his power of generalization, he never realized the simple truth that it was he who was trying to crush Psyche’s nature, and that one way or other Psyche’s nature would in the end prove irresistible.
CHAPTER XX.
AT BAY.
Away over in Africa, the outlook was still gloomier. The 25th of January had come at Khartoum. That long, long siege drew slowly to its close. The end was not far off now. On the 13th, the fort of Omdurman, beyond the river, had fallen bodily into the enemy’s hands. Starvation and disease were working their way ruthlessly among the remaining defenders. The Mahdi’s troops were pressing like jackals about the fated city. It was whispered among the faithful in the town that Faragh Pasha, who kept the Messalamieh Gate, had been holding communications with the besieger’s emissaries. The air was thick, as in all beleaguered cities, with vague flying rumours of suspected treachery. Everywhere doubt, panic, uncertainty: everywhere the manifold form of indefinite suspicion. And behind it all, the solemn reality of a certain fate staring them in the face. Unless relief came in six days more, the garrison must surrender out of pure hunger.
But still there was hope, for Wolseley was advancing. The army of rescue was well on its way. Stewart had reached the Abu Klea wells. The Mahdi’s forces had been defeated at Gubat. Brave English hearts were eager to release them. By strange unknown sources, by the tales of deserters, by the curious buzzing gossip of the bazaars, news of what was happening in the outer world leaked in, bit by bit, from time to time through the wall of besiegers to the famished garrison. It was known that if the defenders could hold out for one week longer, reinforcements would arrive in river steamers before the quays of Khartoum. So they hoped and hoped, and despaired, and waited.
On that eventful Sunday, the 25th of January, while the notables of the town, pressed hard by hunger, were on their way to the palace to urge Gordon once more to surrender at discretion, three Europeans sat talking together in eager colloquy by the Bourré Gate on the south front of the city. One of them was a soldier in semi-English uniform; the other two belied their nationality by their complete acceptance of the Arab costume.
‘Had any breakfast this morning, Linnell?’ Sir Austen asked with good-humoured stoicism, the frank cheery stoicism which the English aristocrat makes it almost a point of honour to display in difficult circumstances. ‘By George, what one would give for a British beefsteak now! Tender, juicy, with potato chips! The first thing I shall do when I get back to England will be to order a steak, grilled over the fire, and a dish of potatoes. Taste good, won’t it, with a pint of Bass, after so many months of nothing better than roast donkey!’
‘When ye get back, is it?’ Considine murmured half to himself, with irrepressible Celtic spirit. ‘If ye get back, you mean surely, Sir Austen; for as things go at present, I’m glad for me own part I didn’t waste me precious money on taking a return ticket. Me poor old mother’ll be the richer for that same when she comes into me property after the Mahdi’s eaten us up. Linnell and I had a prime breakfast, though — for Khartoum. A ration of gum and some pounded palm-fibre, and half a rat each, as well as a piece of Indian-meal bread.’
‘You’re in luck!’ Sir Austen echoed, smacking his lips at the rat. ‘I haven’t tasted a morsel to eat this morning yet. There’s breakfast waiting for me up at the palace, but the fire was so heavy on the gate till just now that I’ve had no time to turn and rest till this minute.’
‘And what do you think of things generally now?’ Linnell asked quietly. ‘Shall we be able to hold out till Stewart’s party arrives, or shall we have to surrender under the very nose of the expeditionary force at the last moment?’
Sir Austen shook his head gravely. ‘Neither one nor the other,’ he answered, like a soldier as he was, with the solemn note of supreme conviction. ‘Don’t suppose for a minute we’re going to escape. The Mahdi’s playing with us like a cat with a mouse. It increases his prestige to keep us dawdling. He knows Stewart’s force has reached Metamneh. He knows we can’t hold out till the relief arrives. Mark my words: he’ll assault us to-morrow as sure as fate; and in our present feeble and hungry condition, we can’t pretend to resist his numbers.’
