In the constant companionship his character unfolded itself, and she learnt how charming was his disposition, how sweet and unselfish his temper. Admiring him each day more ardently, she enjoyed his little airs of masculine superiority, for he would not consent to be treated as an invalid, and somewhat resented her motherly care. On the contrary, he was full of solicitude for her comfort, and took upon himself all necessary arrangements, the ordering of details and so forth, of which she would most willingly have relieved him. He had ingenuous ideas about a husband’s authority, to which Bella, not without a sly amusement, delighted to submit. She knew herself stronger not only in health, but in character, yet it diverted her to fall in with his fancy that she was the weaker vessel. When she feared that Herbert would tire himself, simulated fatigue, and then his anxiety, his self-reproach were quite touching. He never forgot how great was his debt to Bella, and sometimes his gratitude brought to her eyes, so that she sought to persuade him nothing at all was due. Ignorant of the world, his behaviour formed chiefly on books, Herbert used his wife with the gallant courtesy of some Shakespearian lover, writing sonnets which to her mind rang with the very nobility of marital passion; and under the breath of his romantic devotion the dull years fell away from her heart, so that she felt younger and fairer and more gay. Her sobriety was coloured by a not unpleasing flippancy, and she leavened his strenuous enthusiasm with kindly banter. But as though the sun called out his own youth, dissipating the dark Northern humours, sometimes he was boyish as a lad of sixteen, and then, talking nonsense to one another, they shouted with laughter at their own facetiousness. The world, they say, is a mirror whereon, if you look smiling, joyous smiles are reflected; and thus it seemed to them as if the whole earth approved their felicity. The flowers bloomed to fit their happiness, and the loveliness of Nature was only a frame to their great content.
“D’you know, we began a conversation two months ago,” he said once, “and we’ve never come to an end yet. I find you more interesting every day.”
“I am a very good listener, I know,” she answered, laughing. “Nothing gives one a surer reputation for being a conversationalist.”
“It’s no good paying spiteful things to me when you look like that,” he cried, for her eyes rested on him with the most caressing tenderness.
“I think you’re growing very vain.”
“How can I help it when you’re my wedded wife? And you’re so absolutely beautiful.”
“What!” she exclaimed. “If you talk such rubbish to me, I’ll double your dose of cod-liver-oil.”
“But it’s true,” he said eagerly, so that Bella, though she knew her comeliness existed only in his imagination, flushed with delight. “I love your eyes, and when I look into them I feel I have no will of my own. The other day in Florence you called my attention to someone who was good-looking, and she wasn’t a patch on you!”
“Good heavens, I believe the boy’s serious!” she cried, but her eyes filled with tears and her voice broke into a sob.
“What is the matter?” he asked, astonished.
“It’s so good to be loved,” she answered. “No one has ever said such things to me before, and I’m so ridiculously happy.”
But as though the gods envied their brief joy, when they arrived at Rome, Herbert, exhausted by the journey, fell desperately ill. The weather was cold, rainy, dismal; and each day when he awoke, and the shutters were thrown back, Herbert looked eagerly at the sky, but seeing that it remained gray and cloudy, with a groan of despair turned his face to the wall. Bella, too, watched with aching heart for the sunshine, thinking it might bring him at least some measure of health, for she had given up all hope of permanent recovery. The doctor explained the condition of the lungs. Since Frank’s examination the left side, which before was whole, had become affected, and the disease seemed to progress with a most frightful rapidity.
But at length the weather changed, and the warm wind of February, that month of languor, blew softly over the old stones of Rome; the sky once again was blue with a colour more intense by reason of the fleecy clouds that swayed across its dome, whitely, with the grace of dancers. The Piazza di Spagna, upon which looked Herbert’s window, was brilliant with many flowers; the models in their dress of the Campagna, lounged about Bernini’s easy steps; and the savour of the country and the spring was wafted into the sick man’s room.
He grew better quickly; his spirits, of late very despondent, now became extravagantly cheerful, and hating Rome, the scene of his illness, he was convinced that it only needed change of place to complete his recovery. He insisted so vehemently that Bella should take him down to Naples that the doctor agreed it would be better to go, and therefore, as soon as he could be moved, they went further South.
They arrived in Naples no longer a pair of light-hearted children, but a middle-aged woman, haggard with anxiety, and a dying youth. Herbert’s condition betrayed itself in an entire loss of his old buoyancy, so that the new scenes among which he found himself aroused no new emotions. The churches of Naples, white and gold like a ballroom of the eighteenth century, fit places of worship to a generation whose faith was a flippant superstition, chilled his heart; the statues in the museum were but lifeless stones; and the view itself, the glorious crown of Italian scenery, left him indifferent, Herbert, whose enthusiasm had once been so facile, now, profoundly bored, remained listless at all he saw, and discovered in Naples only its squalor and its vicious brutality. But on the other hand a restless spirit seized him, so that he could not remain quietly where he was, and he desired passionately to travel still further afield. With an eager longing for the country which above all others—above Italy, even—had fired his imagination, he wished before he died to see Greece. Bella, fearing the exertion, sought to dissuade him, but for once found him resolute.
“It’s all very well for you,” he cried. “You have plenty time before you. But I have only now. Let me go to Athens, and then I shan’t feel that I have left unseen the whole of the beautiful world.”
“But think of the risk.”
“Let us enjoy the day. What does it matter if I die here, in Greece, or elsewhere? Let me see Athens, Bella. You don’t know what it means to me. Don’t you remember that photograph of the Acropolis I had in my room at Tercanbury? Every morning on waking I looked at it, and at night before blowing out my candle it was the last thing I saw. I know every stone of it already. I want to breathe the Attic air that the Greeks breathed; I want to look on Salamis and Marathon. Sometimes I longed for those places so enormously that it was physical pain. Don’t prevent me from carrying out my last wish. After that you can do what you like with me.”
There was such yearning in his voice and such despair that Bella, much as she dreaded the journey, could not resist. The doctor at Naples warned her that at any time the catastrophe might occur, and she could no longer conceal from herself the frightful ravage of the disease. Herbert, according to the course of his illness, was at times profoundly depressed, and at others, when the day was fine or he had slept well, convinced that soon he would entirely recover. He thought then that if he could only get rid of the cough which racked his chest, he might grow perfectly well; and it was Bella’s greatest torture to listen to his confident plans for the future. He wished to spend the summer at Vallombrosa among the green trees, and buying a guide-book to Spain, made out a tour for the following winter. With smiling countenance, with humorous banter, Bella was forced to discuss schemes which she knew Death would utterly frustrate.
“Two years in the South ought to put me quite right again,” he said once; “and then we’ll take a little house in Kent where we can see the meadows and the yellow corn, and we’ll work together at all sorts of interesting things. I want to write really good poetry, not for myself any more, but for you. I want you never to think that you threw yourself away on me. Wouldn’t it be glorious to have fame! Oh, Bella, I hope some day you’ll be proud of me.”
“I shall have to keep a very sharp eye on you,” she answered, with a laugh that to herself sounded like a sob of pain: “poets are notoriously fickle, and you’re sure to philander with pretty milkmaids.”
“Oh, Bella, Bella,” he cried, with sudden feeling, “I wish I were more worthy of you. Beside you I feel so utterly paltry and insignificant.”
“I dare say,” she replied ironically. “But that didn’t prevent you from writing a sonnet in Pisa about the ankles of a peasant woman.”
He laughed and blushed.
“You didn’t really mind, did you? Besides, it was you who called my attention to the way she walked. If you like, I’ll destroy it.”
Boylike, he took her mocking seriously, and was indeed half afraid he had annoyed her. She laughed again, more sincerely, but still her laughter rang softly with the tears that filled it.
“My precious child,” she cried, “when will you grow up!”
“You wait till I’m well, and then you shall put on these airs at your peril, madam.”
Next morning, the spell of health continuing, he proposed that they should start at once for Brindisi, where they could wait one day, and then take the boat directly to Greece. Bella, who counted on making delay after delay till it was too late, was filled with consternation; but Herbert gave her no opportunity to thwart his will, for he said nothing to her till he had looked out the train, called for the bill, and given the hotel-keeper notice of his intention. Once started, his excitement was almost painful to see: his blue eyes shone and his cheeks were flushed; a new energy seemed to fill him, and he not only looked much better, but felt it.
“I tell you I shall get quite well as soon as I set my foot on the soil of Greece,” he cried. “The immortal gods will work a miracle, and I will build a temple in their honour.”
He looked with beating heart at the country through which they sped, fresh and sunny in the spring, with vast green tracts spread widely on either side, on which browsed herds of cattle, shaggy-haired and timid. Now and again they saw a herdsman, a rifle slung across his back, wild and handsome and debonair; and finally—the trembling of the sea.
“At last!” the boy cried. “At last!”
Next morning he was feverish and ill, and on the day after, notwithstanding his entreaties, Bella absolutely refused to start. He stared at her sullenly, with bitter disappointment.
“Very well,” he said at length. “But next time you most promise to go whatever happens, even if I’m dying: you must have me carried on the boat.”
“I promise faithfully,” answered Bella.
A certain force of will gave him an imaginary strength, so that in a couple of days he was on his feet again; but the elation, which during a fortnight had upborne him, now was quite gone, and he was so silent that Bella feared he had not forgiven the delay on which she insisted. They were obliged to spend a week in Brindisi, that dull, sordid, populous town, and together wandered much about its tortuous and narrow streets. It pleased Herbert chiefly to go down to the port, for he loved the crowded ships, loading and unloading, and dreamt of their long voyages over the wild waste of the sea; and he loved the lounging sailormen, the red-sashed, swarthy porters, the urchins who played merrily on the quay. But the life which thrilled through them, one and all, caused him sometimes an angry despair; they seemed to possess such infinite power to enjoy things, and with all his heart he envied the poorest stoker because his muscles were like iron and his breathing free. The week passed, and on the afternoon before their boat sailed Herbert went out alone; but Bella, knowing his habits, was presently able to find him: he sat on a little hill, olive-clad, and overlooked the sea. He did not notice her approach, for his gaze, intent as though he sought to see the longed-for shores of Greece, was fixed upon the blue Ægean distance, and on his wan and wasted face was a pain indescribable.
“I’m glad you’ve come, Bella: I wanted you.”
She sat beside him, and taking her hand, his eyes wandered again to the far horizon. A fishing-boat, with a white, strange-shaped sail, sped like a fair sea-bird over the water’s shining floor. The sky was a hard, hot blue like the lapis-lazuli, and not a cloud broke its serene monotony.
“Bella,” he said at last, “I don’t want to go to Greece. I haven’t the courage.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, enormously surprised. All his thoughts had tended to this one object, and it seemed a sign of ill omen that when at length it lay within reach he should draw back.
“You thought I was angry because we didn’t start last week. I tried to be, but in my heart I was glad of the respite. I was afraid. I’ve been trying to screw up my courage, but I can’t.”
He did not look at her, but gazed straight out to sea.
“I daren’t run the risk, Bella. I’m afraid to put my fancies to the test of reality. I want to keep my illusions. Italy has shown me that nothing is so lovely and enchanting as the image of it in my mind. Each time that something hasn’t quite come up to my expectations I’ve said myself that Greece would repay me for everything. But now I know that Greece will have just the same disappointments, and I can’t bear them. Let me die with the picture still in my heart of the long-beloved country as I have fancied it. What is it to me when fauns no longer scamper through the fields, and dryads aren’t in the running brooks? It’s not Greece I go to see, but the land of my ideal.”
“But, my dearest, there’s no need to go. You know I’d much rather not,” cried Bella.
He looked at her at length, and his glance was long and searching. It seemed that he wished to speak, yet for some reason hesitated strangely. Then he made an effort.
“I want to go home, Bella,” he whispered. “I feel I can’t breathe here; the blue sky overwhelms me, and I long for the gray clouds of England. I didn’t know I loved my country till I left it. . . . D’you think I’m an awful prig?”
“No, dear,” she answered, with choking voice.
“The clamour of the South tires my ears, and the colours are overbright, the air is too thin and too brilliant, the eternal sunshine blinds me. Oh, give me my own country again. I can’t die down here; I want to be buried among my own people. I’ve never said a word to you, Bella, but lately I’ve lain awake at night thinking of the fat Kentish soil. I want to take it up in my hands, the cool, rich mould, and feel its coldness and its strength. When I look up at that blue fire, I think of my beautiful Kentish sky, so gray, so soft, so low; and I yearn for those rounded clouds, all pregnant with rain.”
His excitement was unbearable as the thoughts crowded upon him, and he pressed his hands to his eyes so that nothing should disturb.
“My mouth is parched for the spring showers. D’you know, we’ve not seen a drop of rain for a month. Now at Leanham and at Ferne the elm-trees and the oaks are all in leaf, and I love their fresh young green. There’s nothing here like the green of the Kentish fields. Oh, I can feel the salt breeze of the North Sea blowing against my cheek, and in my nostrils are all the spring smells of the country. I must see the hedgerows once more, and I want to listen to the birds singing. I long for the cathedral with its old gray stones, and the dark, shady streets of Tercanbury. I want to hear English spoken around me; I want to see English faces. Bella, Bella, for God’s sake take me home, or I shall die!”
There was such agony in his passionate appeal that Bella was more than ever alarmed. She thought he had some mysterious premonition of the end, and it was only with difficulty that she brought herself to utter words of consolation and of reassurance. They settled to start at once. Herbert, in his anxiety, wished to travel directly to London; but his wife, determined to take no risk that could possibly be avoided, insisted on going by very easy stages. Through the winter she had written every week to the Dean, telling him of their doings and the places they saw, but he had never once replied, and for news of him she had been forced to rely on friends in Tercanbury. Now she wrote to him immediately.
“MY DEAREST FATHER,
“My husband is dying, and I am bringing him home at his own wish, I do not know how long he can continue to live, but at the most I’m afraid it can only be a question of very few months. I beg you most earnestly to put aside your anger. Let us come to you. I have nowhere to take Herbert, and I cannot bear that he should die in a stranger’s house. I beseech you to write to me at Paris.
“Your affectionate daughter,
“BELLA.”
Her first two letters the Dean had enough resolution not to open, but he could not grow used to his solitude, and each day missed more acutely his daughter’s constant care. The house was very empty without her, and sometimes in the morning, forgetting what had happened, he expected when he went down to breakfast to find her as ever, alert and trim, at the head of his table. The third letter he could not resist, and afterwards, though his pride forbade him to answer, looked forward intensely to the weekly communication. Once, when by some chance it was two days delayed, he was so anxious that he went to a friend in the chapter whose wife, he knew, corresponded with Bella, and asked whether anything had been heard.
On opening this final note, the Dean was surprised to find it so short, for Bella, to comfort and interest him, was used to write a sort of diary of the week. He read it two or three times. He gathered first that Bella was on her way home, and if he liked might once more sit at his solitary table, go about the house gently as of old, and in the evening play to him the simple melodies he loved so well; but then he became aware of the restrained despair in those few hurried lines, and reading deeper than the words, understood for the first time her overwhelming love for that poor sick boy. From his daughter’s letters the Dean had come to know Herbert somewhat intimately, for with subtle tenderness Bella related little traits which she knew would touch him, and for long he had struggled with an uneasy feeling of his own injustice. He remembered now the lad’s youth and simplicity, that he was poor and ill, and his heart went out to him strangely. Contrition seized him. A portrait of his wife, dead for five-and-thirty years, hung in the Dean’s study, showing her in the first year of marriage with the simpering air, the brown ringlets, of a middle Victorian young lady; and though a work of no merit, to the sorrowing husband it seemed a real masterpiece. He had often gathered solace and advice from those brown eyes, and now, pride and love contending in his breast, looked at it earnestly. The face seemed to wear an expression of reproach, and in mute self-abasement the Dean bent his head. The hungry had come to him, and he had given no meat; the stranger he had cast out, and the sick turned from his door.
“I have sinned against heaven and in Thy sight,” he muttered painfully, “and am no more worthy to be called Thy son.”
His eyes caught a photograph of Bella, which, for a while banished from the room, now again occupied its accustomed place, and as though to take her in his arms, he stretched his hands towards it. He smiled happily, for his mind was made up. Notwithstanding the words uttered in his wrath, he would go to Paris and bring home his daughter with her dying husband; and if in the last months of the boy’s life he could make up for past harshness, perhaps it would be taken as some atonement for his cruel pride.
Announcing his intention to no one, the Dean set out at once. He had no means to communicate with Bella, but knew the hotel to which she would go, and determined there to await her arrival. Finding at what hour she must reach it, he lingered in the hall, but twice was grievously disappointed. On the third day, however, when he began to feel the tension unbearable, a cab drove up, and trembling with excitement, he saw Bella step out. Desirous that she should not see him immediately, the Dean withdrew a little to one side. He noted the care with which she helped Herbert to get out of the cab: she took his arm to lead him in. He was apparently very weak, wrapped up to his eyes though the evening was warm, and while she asked for rooms he sat down in sheer exhaustion.
The Dean was very remorseful when he saw the change in him, for when last they met Herbert Field was full of spirits and gay; and these months of anxiety had left their mark on Bella also, whose hair was beginning to turn quite gray. Her expression was tired and wan. When they were gone upstairs, the Dean asked for the number of their room, but to give them time to get off their things, forced himself to wait half an hour by the clock. Then, going up, he knocked at the door. Bella, thinking it was a maid, called out in French.
“Bella,” he said in a low voice, and he remembered how once she had begged to be admitted to his study and he had refused.
With a cry she flung open the door, and in a moment they were clasped in one another’s arms; he pressed her to his heart, but in his emotion found no word to say. She drew him in eagerly.
“Herbert, here’s my father.”
The youth was lying on the bed in the next room, and Bella led the Dean in. Herbert was too tired to rise.
“I’ve come to take you both home,” said the old man, tears of joy in his voice.
“Oh, father, I’m so glad. You’re not angry with me any longer. It’ll make me so happy if you forgive me.”
“It’s not you that need forgiveness, but I, Bella. I want to ask your husband to pardon my unkindness. I’ve been harsh and proud and cruel.”
He went to Herbert and took his hand.
“Will you forgive me, my dear? Will you allow me to be your father as well as Bella’s?”
“I shall be very grateful.”
“And will you come back to Tercanbury with me? I should like you to know that so long as I live my home will be yours. And I will try and make you forget that I was ever——”
The Dean broke off with a gesture of appeal, unable to finish.
“I know you’re very good,” smiled Herbert, “and you see I have brought Bella back to you.”
The Dean hesitated a moment shyly, then bent down and very tenderly kissed the pale, suffering lad.