Across the Stream

Blessington made no answer for a moment.

"I make no complaints," she said, "and I daresay Master Archie is very busy."

"Why, what do you mean?" asked the girl.

Blessington's wrinkled old face began to work, and she looked piteously at Jessie.

"It's a week since Master Archie set foot in my room," she said. "Why does he never come to see me now, Miss Jessie? And when I meet him about the house, he's never got a word to give me. Me, who has looked after him and loved him since he was born."

At this moment Archie's step was heard outside, and he came in.

"Oh, Blessington, I wish you wouldn't go meddling with my things," he said roughly. "William tells me you took some flannels of mine away to mend or put a button on. Where are they?"

Blessington got up without a word and went to her cupboard.

"Here they are, my lord," she said. "I have mended them."

"Well, please don't carry my clothes away again. Come on, Jessie. I'll be ready in a moment."

Blessington's hands came together with a trembling movement as Archie twitched the flannel coat away from her. But he did not even look at her, and went out of her room, banging the door.

Blessington sat down again, and began to cry quietly. "There now, you see, Miss Jessie," she said. "And that's my own Master Archie."

For a minute or so Jessie sat with her, trying vainly to comfort her, and shocked beyond expression at Archie's brutal callousness to his old nurse. And then the door opened again, and Archie looked in. Once again all his anger and impatience had died out of his face, his real soul looked from his eyes as from a prison-house, and his voice shook as he spoke.

"Go away, please, Jessie, and leave me with Blessington for a minute," he said.

And then he came across the room to her, and knelt down by her, and took her withered old hand in his, and stroked it and kissed it. So much Jessie saw before she closed the door behind her.

"Blessington, my old darling," said Archie, "I can't think why I have been so beastly to you. It wasn't me, that's all I can tell you. I always love you. Can you forgive me?"

Blessington's loyal devotion rose triumphant.

"Eh, I know how busy you've been, Master Archie," she said, "and I know what a thoughtless body I am with your things. But I'd like you to be angry with me fifty times, if you'll only come back to me at the end. There pray-a-don't kiss my hand, dear. It isn't right for you to do that."

"Where's your darling face then?" said Archie. "If you don't give me a kiss this minute, I shall know you've been flirting with father's keeper again."

Blessington gave a little squeal of laughter.

"Eh, and him dead this twenty years," she said. "And you know, my dear, that whatever you did, and asked me to give you a kiss afterwards, give it you I would, because nothing you could do would stop my loving you."

Blessington's love, Helena's love… which was real? Two things so utterly different could not both be love. And for him, too, which love was real, his love for Blessington, all ashed over save for the little spark that somehow lived below the cold cinders, or his love for Helena that blazed and scintillated? Suddenly the thought of that glowed within him, and it seemed dreadful to kiss this withered cheek. And yet the dim old eyes had never wavered in their loyalty and love for his worthless, corrupted self.

"And shall we have a talk this evening again before dinner?" he asked.

"Eh, that would be nice if you're not too busy," said she.

"All right, then. But I must run along now: Jessie's waiting."

"That'll never do to keep her waiting," said Blessington. "And if you're going on the lake, Master Archie, pray be careful and don't fall in."

* * * * *

Lady Tintagel with Jessie and Archie were going up to town on Monday to attend Helena's wedding the day after, and all through the hours of that week-end there was piling up ever higher and more menacingly the storm that so soon was to burst upon Europe in tempest of shot and shell. Before they left on Monday afternoon war was already declared between Russia and Germany, between Germany and France, the territory of Belgium was violated by the barbarian hordes who issued from the Central Empires, and Belgium had appealed to England to uphold the treaty which Germany had torn up to light the fires or war. But, as in so many English homes in these days, the inevitable still seemed the incredible, and, though from time to time they discussed the situation, life went on its normal course. Indeed, there was nothing else to be done: whether England was going to war or not, dinner-time came round as usual…

Of them all, it was on Lord Tintagel that the suspense and anxiety beat most strongly, and that because the panic on the Stock Exchanges of Europe threatened him with losses that might bring him within reach of ruin. But Lady Tintagel still clung to a baseless hope, less substantial than a mirage in the desert, that diplomacy would still avert disaster, Archie went about the customary diversions of life with more than usual enjoyment and absorption, while for Jessie there loomed in the immediate foreground a dread and a horror, which, though it concerned not warring millions, but just one individual, engrossed her entire soul.

It was as if she saw him whom she loved with all the strength of her deep and loyal heart in danger of drowning, not in material waters that could but kill the body and set free the soul, but in some awful flooding evil which threatened to submerge and swallow the very source and spiritual life of him. And, all the time, he swam and splashed about in those waters, below which lay hell itself, with the same joyful gaiety as he used to churn his way out to sea at Silorno. As by some hideous irony, the love of deep waters far from shore that all his life had possessed him, so that his physical self was at the zenith of its capacity for enjoyment when the profound gulfs were below him, and the land far off, so now evil, essential and primeval evil, had beckoned his soul out over unplumbed depths that seemed to him bright with celestial sunshine. Not yet was he doomed to sink there, though she guessed, as in a nightmare, in what deadly peril he stood, for now and again some inkling of that which menaced him reached his true self, and he turned back with shuddering and contrition from some evil prompting. All the time this betrayed itself to Jessie in things that might so reasonably have been called mere trifles. An impatient, impetuous boy, as Archie undoubtedly was, might so naturally have lost his temper with a decrepit old dog which strayed on to the path of his flying car, and made him say that it would be the kindest thing to run over it. That same boy might so naturally have felt an unedifying curiosity in two drunken women fighting together, or have reasonably been annoyed when, in a hurry to change his clothes, he found that his old nurse had taken them away. Indeed, it was the strength of his own reaction against such impulses that showed how alien he knew them to be to his real self. But her own feeling about them was the final test, for she knew it was based on the infallible intuition of her love for him. It was impossible that that should be mistaken, and it told her that it was not Archie at all who had committed these acts, which might be trifling in themselves, but, like wisps of cloud in the sky, showed which way the great winds were blowing. And on the top of these was something which Jessie could not conceive of as being a trifle, namely, Archie's complete reconciliation with her sister. She could not believe that it was a noble impulse which prompted that, and extinguished his bitter resentment against her as easily as a candle is blown out. He was right to be bitter against her, and the love, with which he seemed inspired again, was not love at all. But he believed that this desire was love, and according to his account it was the spirit of Martin which had taught him that and opened his blinded eyes. It was Martin, then, who possessed him. And that, to Jessie, was the most incredible of all. It was not, and it could not be, Martin.

She sat by her open window that Sunday night, wishing that she could think that some madness had fallen upon her, which caused her to conceive such inconceivable things. Archie's laugh still sounded in her ears, gay and boyish, as she had heard it but two minutes before she came up to bed. And she shuddered at the cause of it. Once again, she and Archie had strolled out after dinner, and, on passing the windows of his father's study, their steps noiseless on the grass, Archie had laid his hand on her arm with a gesture to command silence, and had tiptoed with her across the gravel to his father's windows. Lord Tintagel was inside, and, even as they looked, he took a bottle out of which he had been pouring something, and locked it up in a cupboard.

Archie turned a face beaming with merriment on her.

"Come in," he whispered, "to say good-night. Leave it all to me. It will be huge fun."

He waited a moment, and began talking loudly to her on some indifferent subject for a few seconds. The he said:

"Come and say good-night to my father, Jessie," and they entered together.

Lord Tintagel was seated in his chair by this time: there was just one empty glass on the tray, with a syphon, and no sign of a second one. Archie began walking up and down the room, his eyes looking swiftly and stealthily in every direction.

"Jessie and I have just come in to say good-night," he said. "We're all going up to town to-morrow. Won't you really come, father?"

"I've already said I won't," said Lord Tintagel sharply.

Archie suddenly saw what he had been looking for.

"Hullo, here's a funny thing," he said. "Here's a glass on the floor."

He picked it up, smelled it, and burst into a peal of laughter.

"Father, it's too bad of you!" he said. "There have I been keeping our bargain, while you – "

He broke off, laughing again.

"No, I'll confess," he said, "because I'm so pleased at having found you out. I've been having some quiet drinks up in my bedroom while you've been doing the same down here. What did you do with your bottles? I put mine in the lake. I say, that is funny, isn't it? But it's rather unsociable. Let's follow Germany's example, and call our treaty waste paper."

And Archie had laughed over that miserable sordid exposure, just as light-heartedly as he had laughed over the jolly innocent humours at Silorno, and, sick at heart, Jessie had left the two together with the bottle which there was no need to conceal any more.

She sat long at her window in a miserable state of horror and fear and agitation, now trying to persuade herself that she was taking these things too heavily – Helena had always told her she took things heavily – now letting her fears issue in terrible cohort and looking them in the face. It was her powerlessness to help that most tortured her, her fate of having to stand and watch while Archie pushed out ever farther, with delight and joy, on to the perilous seas. But now there was to her a reality about it all which she had never wholly felt before. Often she had told herself that she was imagining perils, but to-night, in the darkness and the quiet, she felt herself face to face with the grim, deadly facts. Spiritual and ghostly enemies were about, and next moment she had slid on to her knees. No words came: she tried just to open her heart to that light that surely shone through the evil that swarmed about her. Something, ever so faint, glimmered there, and presently she rose again with her soul fixed on that little spark shining within her. In any case, she must make every effort to help, instead of succumbing to her sense of powerlessness.

At that moment she heard light, swift footsteps on the stairs, and instantly her mind was made up, and she came out into the broad passage just as Archie was opposite her door. His face was eager and alert; there was no trace of intoxication there.

"Hullo, Jessie," he said, smiling. "Not gone to bed yet?"

She had to be wise: mere helpless prayer would avail nothing if she did not exert herself and make use of her wits and her love.

"No: I didn't feel sleepy," she said. "You don't look sleepy either. Are you going to bed?"