Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905

She was growing irritable under her dread. Like Elisha, she longed to silence them with the answer:

“I know it; hold ye your peace.”

The middle of June had passed, the fourth week of the voyage had begun, and now any day, any hour, might bring news. Deena’s anxiety had made such inroads into her health that her father took alarm and called in her old friend Dr. Hassan, and he, wise man, gave her a sedative and ordered her to bed, though the afternoon was still young.

It was the first long sleep she had had for weeks, and the refreshment came at the time of her direst need, for at daybreak the summons roused her. She waked with a beating heart; wheels stopped in the street, her gate clicked, there were footsteps coming up her path – bold, hurried steps; they reached the veranda – the bell pealed.

She sprang from her bed, huddling her dressing gown round her as she ran, and, slipping back the heavy, old-fashioned bolts of the front door, she stood face to face with Stephen.

If she were pale, he was paler; his blood seemed turned to ice that summer morning.

“The yacht is at Wolfshead,” he said. “How soon can you be ready? We must go by rail – I have a special waiting for you.”

A glow from the first blush of day caught her as she stood in the frame of the doorway. She was like a mediæval saint, with her hair wound in a crown about her head, her blue gown falling in stately fold, and her bare feet showing under the hem of her nightgown. In spite of her seeming calm, her eyes blazed with excitement.

To French she seemed something holy and apart – as if those bare feet rested on a crescent, and the shadows of the old hall were floating clouds. He had schooled himself during his hurried journey, in order to meet her without emotion, but she was her own protection; to have touched her would have seemed sacrilege. Her lips tried to frame the question that consumed her with its terrors.

“Simeon – ” she began, but her voice failed.

Stephen’s haggard eyes softened.

“He is dying,” he said. “But there is time – perhaps to-day – perhaps to-morrow. His force of will has kept him alive to see you – he has cared more than you knew.”

She gave a little sob, and turned toward the staircase. Halfway up she stopped.

“I forgot to ask you to come in,” she said, “or whether you want anything I can get you? But it doesn’t matter, does it? All that matters is to do Simeon’s bidding. I shall be very quick.”

In an incredibly short time she was back, fully dressed, and carrying a bag, into which she had thrust what was indispensable to her comfort for another day. She waked the servant, left a message for her father, and then she and Stephen went out into the street, so gay with early sunlight and twittering birds, so bare of human traffic. At first a strange shyness kept her dumb; she longed to ask a thousand things, but the questions that rose to her lips seemed susceptible of misunderstanding, and Stephen’s aloofness frightened her. Did he think, she wondered, that she could forget her duty to Simeon at such a moment, that he surrounded himself with this impenetrable reserve? And all the time he was regarding her with a passionate reverence that shamed him into silence.

At the railway station their train was waiting – the locomotive hissing its impatience; they got into the car, for there was but one, and in a moment were flying seaward. A man – the steward of the yacht – was busy at the far end of the car with a cooking apparatus, and the aroma of coffee came intoxicatingly to her nostrils. She remembered she had eaten nothing since her early dinner the day before, and she was exhausted with excitement, and then she despised herself for thinking of her physical needs when Simeon lay dying. It was fortunate that French had taken a saner view of the situation, for the coffee was just what was needed to restore her equipoise.

She began to understand the delicacy of her companion’s conduct, and the simplicity of the whole situation when stripped of morbidness. The only thing that behooved her was to soothe her husband’s last hours on earth – to give out the tenderness of a pitying heart. As her common sense asserted itself she began plying Stephen with the questions that had seemed so impossible half an hour before – would Simeon know her – could he bear conversation – was he changed in appearance – had he suffered beyond relief? She demanded the whole story of his rescue and of the voyage home. She was gentle, womanly, infinitely sweet. By the time they reached their destination all constraint was gone; they were two comrades absorbed in a common interest, for Simeon occupied their every thought.

There was a narrow pier at Wolfshead, sheltered by a point of rocky shore that made a landing for small boats in good weather, and there the steam launch was waiting with its two trim sailors and its gaudy flag. The yacht was anchored about a mile from shore – her graceful outlines clearly defined against the ocean’s blue. If the purity of her white paint had suffered in the long voyage it was not apparent – red and white awnings were stretched over the deck. All looked hospitably gay. Once more Deena shrank into herself, the brilliant scene mocked the tragedy within.

All too quickly they crossed the intervening water; they were on the deck – in the saloon. She was trembling so she could hardly stand, and Stephen put her into a comfortable chair and left her, while he made her coming known. She hardly glanced at the luxurious fittings of the charming room; her eyes were fixed on the door, dreading, yet impatient, for the message.

A small, sensitive-looking man came toward her and introduced himself.

“I am Dr. Miles,” he said, “Mr. Ponsonby’s physician, and, if you will allow me, I will take you to him now. There is no question of saving his strength, Mrs. Ponsonby. We have been nursing what is left to him for days, in order that he could lavish it in this interview with you. Don’t try to curb him; let him have his say.”

She followed him to a deck cabin almost under the bridge, and stood for a moment at the threshold, to make sure of her composure. There was a narrow brass bed, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and close to the bed a wicker chair, with silk cushions, was drawn up, as if in expectation of a guest. The head of the bed was toward her, so that she couldn’t see Simeon’s face, but he heard the rustle of skirts, and called her name, and she made a step forward and sank on her knees beside him.

“Oh, Simeon,” she gasped, “how you have suffered! I am so sorry!”

He moved his hand feebly and patted her shoulder, and she, in a passion of pity, carried it to her lips. For the first time she ventured to look at him. Was this Simeon! She would have passed him in a hospital ward as an utter stranger, so completely was he changed. He had discarded his spectacles, and his eyes were dull and faded; pain had robbed them of that expression of concentrated wisdom she knew so well. He wore a short, curling beard and mustache, and his clothing, supplied from Stephen’s wardrobe, was luxurious; it was silk, of a faint color between blue and gray, and the handkerchief, protruding from the pocket, was delicately fine. Extreme neatness was characteristic of Simeon, but he disliked anything florid in dress or appearance, anything opposed to the austere simplicity that marked his manner of living. She wondered whether such things mattered to him now.

He noticed her start of surprise as her eyes met his, and fancied she was shocked by the ravages of illness, for he said, with a touch of his old irritation:

“Didn’t they tell you I was dying? Are you afraid to be left alone with me? You used to be a courageous person, Deena.”

The querulousness with which he began the sentence melted into a rallying smile.

“Oh, no,” she said, “I am not afraid. I am too sorry to be frightened.”

“There is a bell, in case you want to summon the doctor,” he continued, “but I should rather talk to you alone. I have been very homesick for you, and for the old house – sometimes the longing has been most acute – and then the anxiety of leaving you poorly provided for has been part of my distress. If I could have lived a few years more this would have been obviated, and possibly, even now, my book will add something to your income.” He made a visible effort to speak clearly. “Now, in regard to your future support; I have a life insurance of ten thousand dollars, and securities to about the same amount – and then, of course, the house. This is all I have been able to save, though I have cut our living down to bare necessities. You have been of great assistance to me, Deena – without you life would have had little flavor, but sometimes I fear that in the desire to provide for your future I was not considerate enough of your present. I ought to have been more mindful that young people need pleasure. You will have to forgive that and many other mistakes.” He looked at her almost wistfully.

Deena’s tears came, dripping plentifully over her clasped hands.

“It is I who should ask forgiveness,” she said, humbly, remembering how often she had scorned his economies. “The money is more than I shall need – don’t think of it again, Simeon. Isn’t there anything you want to tell me about your work – your book?”

His face lit up eagerly – the topic was congenial.

“My papers are safe,” he said. “All the initial work of classification and description that I did on the Tintoretto is in French’s keeping, and he and Sinclair – the man who has my place – are going to edit the book. We have had a great deal of talk about it on the way up, whenever I had a fairly quiet day. It is idle to try to put into words what I owe French.”

“And he feels nothing but self-reproach for having urged you to go,” said Deena, faintly. “Not that anyone could have foreseen the miserable outcome.”

“It isn’t miserable!” Simeon answered, almost fiercely. “In many respects it is all that I hoped. I have made a name for myself – there will not be a scientific library in the world without my book, when once it is issued. People have died for lesser achievements than that.” And then he added, more gently: “Not that it could be considered as an achievement without French’s aid.”

His mind could not detach itself from its debt of gratitude, for he suddenly broke out in passionate eulogy.

“He has sacrificed everything to me – his ambitions – his time – his comfort – his money, though that is the last thing he would begrudge, but you have no idea what it costs to run one of those large yachts! It must have made an inroad even in his large fortune. He has been a friend indeed!”

Deena turned away her face; it was hard for her to praise Stephen, although her heart echoed her husband’s words.

“He has high ideals in friendship as in everything else,” she answered, “but you must remember, Simeon, that the thought of your sufferings agonized us at home. Who could have abandoned you to such a fate? It makes me sick to think of it!”

A sort of shiver passed over him, while he said, simply:

“It was all in the day’s work. French ran the same risks, only with better luck.” Presently he added:

“I feel tired, Deena – and a little oppressed. Perhaps you had better ring the bell – but stay. Will you kiss me before you ring?”

She kissed him with a pity that wrung her heart, and he sighed contentedly and shut his eyes. He only spoke once more, just as the doctor came to his bedside.

“I should have been glad to see the old house before I die, but it is just as well as it is.”

He was dying all the afternoon, peacefully and gently, and at sunset the end came.

CHAPTER XI

Master Richard Shelton sat at the foot of his sister’s table dispensing its hospitalities chiefly to himself. Through some law unknown to science, all dishes seemed to gravitate toward the main center of Dicky’s trencher, thereby leaving the rest of the table comparatively bare.

For eighteen months Master Shelton had given Mrs. Ponsonby the advantage of his company; not so much through volition – albeit, he was well enough pleased with his quarters – as through submission to paternal authority.

Conventional ideas are apt to wilt under the blight of poverty, and to revive under the fuller harvesting of this world’s goods, and Mr. Shelton, Sr., who had, in the days of his leanness, let Polly run wild with all the college boys of Harmouth, became suddenly particular, as his bank account fattened, in regard to the niceties of conduct in his daughters. His scruples even embraced Deena; he said she was too young a widow to live alone, and a blank sight too handsome, and that either she must return to the protection of his roof or else receive her brother under her own. With the docility of the intelligent, she accepted his fiat, but chose the evil represented by a unit rather than by the sum total of family companionship.

So she and Dicky had lived together since the day when Simeon had been laid to rest beside his mother in the churchyard, and Deena had taken up life with such courage as she could muster in the old house. She had started out with a long illness, as the result of overtaxed nerves, and the nurse who had been engaged for Simeon found ample employment with Simeon’s widow; but a good constitution and a quiet mind are excellent helps toward recovery, and by September she found herself in admirable health.