The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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At one point as they approached, a lady appeared suddenly, and stood with
her hands clasped to her breast, looking and listening. She was a tall and
graceful woman, wrapped in a long cloak and bareheaded, as if she had
stepped out from somewhere just for the moment. She evidently recognized
the singer; and the Boy would have recognized the beautiful face, strong
in its calm, sad serenity, and compassionate, had he looked that way; but
he did not look that way, and they swept on, the music growing fainter and
fainter in the distance, till at last the boat was out of sight. Yet even
then a few high notes continued to float back; but these in turn quivered
into silence, and all was still--only for a moment, though, for the clocks
had struck unheeded, and now the chime rang out through the sultry air,
voice-like, clear, and resonant:

[Illustration: (musical notation); lyrics: He, watch-ing o-ver Is--ra--el,
slumbers not, nor sleeps.]

The lady listened, looking up as if the message were for her, but sighed.

"It will come right, I know," she said as she turned away. "But, Lord, how
long?"

CHAPTER XV.

Air perfumed with flowers; music, motion, warmth, and stillness; moonlit
meadows, shadowy woods, the river, and the boat; it had been a time of
delight too late begun and too soon ended. But exaltation cannot last
beyond a certain time at that height, and then comes the inevitable
reaction. It came upon the Tenor and the Boy quite suddenly, and for no
apparent reason. It was the Boy who felt it first, and left off playing,
then the song ceased, and the Tenor rowed on diligently. They were near
the landing place by this time, but the Tenor did not know it. He had not
noticed the landmarks as they passed, and thought they had still some
distance to go.

"Here, Boy," he said, breaking a long silence. "Take the oars and row. I
am tired. And it is your turn now."

"Oh!" the Boy exclaimed derisively. "Just as if I would row and blister my
lovely white hands when you are here to row me!"

"I cannot tolerate such laziness," the Tenor protested. "It is sparing the
rod and spoiling the child. Here, take the oars or I'll throw you
overboard," and he made a gesture toward him.

The Boy jumped up laughing, and flourishing his violin as if he would hit
the Tenor on the head with it. "Don't touch me," he cried, "or I'll--"

"Take care, for God's sake!" the Tenor exclaimed.

But too late. His excitable companion, in the middle of cutting a
fantastic caper, reeled, lost his balance, plunged head foremost into the
water, and sank like a stone.

Without a moment's delay the Tenor dived in after him, the cockleshell of
a boat, half capsizing as he went over, took in water enough to sink her
to the gunwale, and the whole thing happened so quickly that a spectator
on the bank who had seen the boat and its occupants one moment might have
looked in vain the next for any trace of either.

The Tenor came to the surface alone. His dive in the uncertain light had
been unsuccessful, and now he had the strength of mind to wait--in what
agony of suspense Heaven only knows!--till the Boy should rise. It could
only have been a few seconds, but it was long enough for the Tenor to lay
another man's death at his own door, to realize the loss to himself the
Boy would be, and his position when he would have to take the dreadful
news to the family, only one member of which in all probability knew of
their intimacy. She knew--But, good Heaven! would she not blame him? Oh,
he had been to blame, to blame!--It was only a few seconds, yet it was
time enough for the unfortunate Tenor to live over again the awful moment
when he had seen his best friend drop dead, only there was a double pang,
for time and space were confounded, and it was as if both father and
brother--as they had been to him--had gone down at once, and both by his
hand.

In that brief interval of suffering his face had become rigid and set, a
stony mask with no visible sign of emotion upon it; and yet the man's
strength and power of endurance were evident in this, that he had the
courage to wait.

And presently the Boy rose to the surface within easy reach.

With an exclamation of relief the Tenor grasped him, and struck out for
the shore--afraid at first that the Boy, who apparently could not swim,
would cling about him in his fright and hamper his movements; and then
afraid because the Boy did not cling about him, but suffered himself to be
dragged through the water, inert, like a log, helpless, lifeless--no, not
lifeless, the Tenor argued with himself. He could not be lifeless, you
know. He had not been in the water long enough for that. The Tenor noticed
that he had not let go of his violin, and thought: "The ruling passion
strong in--no, not in death. How could a dead hand hold on like that? Boy,
dear Boy!" But the Boy made no response. The Tenor had struck out for the
nearest bank which, as luck would have it, brought him to the landing
place at the watergate. His perception seemed singularly quickened; every
sense was actively alive to what was passing; nothing escaped him; and he
rendered an account to himself of all that occurred, feeling it strange
the while that he should be able to do so at such a time. He noticed some
detail of the stonework in the arch as he swam toward it; he noticed the
poplars, some three or four of different heights, which stood up all stiff
and vimineous as seen from below, beside it; he remembered the Boy once
saying they looked like hairy caterpillars standing on their heads, and
smiled even now at the quaint conceit. When he reached the steps and
clutched the handrail, it was with a sensation of joy that nearly
paralyzed him. It was curious, though, what odd and trivial phrases rose
to his lips, what irrelevant thoughts passed through his mind.

"Mustn't holloa till we're out of the wood," he warned himself, as he drew
the Boy from the water with difficulty, and, getting him over his shoulder
so that he could hold him with one hand and steady himself on the steep
steps with the other began to stagger up. "I wonder what the Boy would say
if he could see me now!" was his involuntary thought as he did so.

The Boy was heavier than his slender figure would have led one to suppose,
or else the Tenor was not so strong as he thought himself; at all events
he swayed under his burden as he carried him through the silent Close, now
putting out his hand flat against a wall to steady himself, and now
staggering up to the gnarled trunk of one of the old lime trees, and
pausing to take breath while he mentally calculated the distance between
that and the next support at which he could stop to rest, noticing in the
brief interval the blackness of the shadows; noticing also a little shiver
of leaves above him caused by a gust of air, the first forerunner of a
breeze that was rapidly rising; noticed this last fact particularly,
partly because the wind chilled him in his thin wet flannels, and partly
because it marked the change and contrast between the warm and happy time
just over, the anxious present moment, and the dread of what might be yet
to come. The next support was the corner of the wall which surrounded the
dean's garden; creeping on by that till it ended, he made an unsteady dash
across the road for the wall of the cathedral, and then from that across
again, zigzag, to his own little gate, where, gathering his strength for
the last effort, he took the Boy, whom he apostrophised as a perfect Old
Man of the Sea, in both arms, as a mother does her child, and a moment
afterward laid him on the floor of the long low room where they had spent
so many happy hours together, and from whence he had gone out a short time
before all life and strength and youth and beauty: "Gone to his death!"
The Tenor felt the phrase in his mind, but stifled it with a "Thank God!"
as he laid him down.

He had been fatigued by the long row when the accident happened, and was
now almost exhausted by excitement, terror for the Boy, and this last
effort; but still his mind went on with abnormal clearness noting every
trifle, and continuing to force him, as it were, to render an account of
each to himself. He noticed the perfume of roses, the roses the Boy had
showered in upon him--so short a time before--and he found himself
measuring the shortness of the interval again as if it would have been
easier to bear the catastrophe had it not jostled a happier state of
things so closely. He found himself wondering what the Boy would say if he
knew he had brought him in by the front door instead of by the window; he
was sure he would have insisted on the mode of entrance he so much
preferred had he been conscious, and felt as if he had taken a disloyal
advantage of the Boy's helpless condition.

But while these trivial thoughts flashed through his brain he lost no
time, not even in lighting a lamp, though the room was dark. What there
was to be done must be done promptly, and with the same extraordinary
lucidity of mind he remembered every simple remedy there was at his
disposal. He ran upstairs, three steps at a time, for the blankets off his
own bed. He had made up the kitchen fire, as was his wont, that evening,
for the Boy to cook if it pleased him, and fortunately it was burning
brightly still. He warmed the blankets there, and then returning, stripped
the light flannel clothing from the Boy, loosened his fingers from the
violin which he still clutched convulsively, rolled him up in them, and
then, with an effort, lifted him on to the sofa, where he had sat and
jested only a little while ago--and again the involuntary reckoning of
time, to consider the contrast between the then and now, smote the Tenor
to the heart with a cruel pang.

"Boy, dear Boy!" he called to him. He was kneeling beside him, but could
only see a dim outline of his face in the obscurity of the room, and
perhaps it was the darkness that made him look so rigid. "Boy, dear Boy!"
he cried again, but the Boy made no sign. "O God, spare him!" the stricken
man implored. And then he clasped the lad in his arms and pressed his
cheek to his in a burst of grief and tenderness not to be controlled. He
held him so for a few seconds, and it seemed as if in that close embrace,
his whole being had expressed itself in love and prayer, as if he had
wrestled with death itself and conquered, for all at once he felt the
Boy's limbs quiver through their clumsy wrappings, and then he heard him
sigh. Oh, the relief of it! The sudden reaction made him feel sick and
faint. But the precious life was not yet safe. "There's many a slip"--so
his mind began in spite of an effort to control it. Restoratives--heat,
stimulants, friction. He pulled the stand of ferns and flowering plants
half round from the fireplace roughly, so that the pots fell up against
each other, or rolled on the floor; then he fetched the burning coals from
the kitchen, and heaped them on till the grate was full. The kettle had
been boiling on the hob, so he brought it in now hissing, with brandy to
make a drink. But he must have more light. Where are the matches? Nowhere,
of course. They never are when they're wanted. However, it didn't matter,
a piece of paper would do as well, and he twisted a piece up and stooped
among the scattered roses to light it at the fire, and then he lit the
lamp and turned to look at the Boy. All this had been done in a moment, as
it seemed, and his face was still bright with hope, and prepared to smile
encouragement. But--"God in heaven!" he cried; under his breath, as a man
does who is too shocked to speak out.

Had some strange metamorphosis been brought about by that sudden
immersion?

He pulled himself together with an effort, and walked to the other end of
the room, where he stood with his back to the sofa, and his hands upraised
to his head, trying to steady himself. Then he returned.

No, he had not been mistaken, he was not mad, he was not dreaming. It was
the Boy who had plunged into the water headforemost, but this---

"God in heaven!" he ejaculated again, under his breath, and then stood
gazing like one transfixed.

For this, with the handsome, strong young face upturned, the smooth white
throat, the dark brown braids pinned close to the head, all wet and
shining; this was not the Boy, but the Tenor's own lady, his ideal of
purity, his goddess of truth, his angel of pity, as, in his foolishly fond
way idealizing, he had been accustomed to consider her. It was Angelica
herself! Yet so complete had been the deception to his simple,
unsuspicious mind, so impossible to believe was the revelation, and so
used was he to associate some idea of the Boy with everything that
occurred, that now, with his first conscious mental effort, he began to
blame him as if her being there were due to some unpardonable piece of his
mischief.

"The little wretch," he began, "how dare he"--he stopped there, realizing
the absurdity of it, realizing that there was no Boy; and no lady for the
matter of that, at least none such as he had imagined. It had all been a
cruel fraud from beginning to end.

It was a terrible blow, but the high-minded, self-contained dignity of the
man was never more apparent than in the way he bore it. His face was
unnaturally pale and set, but there was no other sign of what he suffered,
and, the first shock over, he at once resumed his anxious efforts to
restore--the girl--whose consciousness had scarcely yet returned, although
she breathed and had moved. It was curious how the new knowledge already
affected his attitude toward her. In preparing the hot drink he put half
the quantity of brandy he would have used five minutes before for the Boy,
and when he had to raise her head to make her swallow it, he did so
reluctantly. It was only a change of idea really, the Boy was a girl, that
was all; but what a difference it made, and would have made even if there
had been no question of love and marriage in the matter! At any other time
the Tenor himself might have marvelled at the place apart we assign in our
estimation to one of two people of like powers, passions, impulses, and
purposes, simply because one of them is a woman.

The stimulant revived the girl, and presently she opened her eyes and met
his as he bent over her.

"You are better now, I hope," he said coldly, moving away from her.

"I am better," she answered, and again their eyes met. But there was yet
another moment of dazed semi-consciousness before she was able to attach
any meaning to the change she saw in his face; and then it flashed upon
her. What she had hoped, feared, expected, and prevented every time they
met had come to pass. He knew at last, and she could see at once what he
thought of her. She would never again meet the tolerant loving glance he
had had for the Boy, nor note the tender reverence of his face when her
own name was mentioned. His idol was shattered, the dream and hope of his
life was over, and from all that remained of them, herself as she really
was, he shrank as from the dishonoured fragment of some once loved and
holy thing--a thing which is doubly painful to contemplate in its ruin
because of the importunate memories that cling about it.

Realizing something of this, she uttered a smothered ejaculation, and
covered her face with a gesture of intolerable shame. There was always
that saving grace of womanliness about Angelica, that when there was no
excuse for her conduct, she had the honesty to be ashamed of herself; in
consequence of which she was one of those who never erred in the same way
twice.

The Tenor turned to the fire, and then noticing her wet things scattered
about he gathered them up: "I will take them and dry them," he said, and
gladly made his escape. What he thought in the interval was: "I must marry
her now, I suppose,"--and he could not help smiling ironically at this new
way of putting it, nor wondering a little at the possibility of such a
sudden change of feeling as that which had all at once transformed the
dearest wish of his life into a distasteful, if not altogether repugnant,
duty.

When the things were dry he took them to her.

"I will leave you to put them on." he said, "Will you kindly call me when
you are ready?" And then he closed the window that looked out on the road,
drew down the blind, and once more left her.

No reproach could have chilled and frightened her as this stiff and
formal, yet cool acceptance of the position did. She feared it meant that
all was over between them in a way she had never thought possible. But
still she hoped to coax him round. She dreaded the next hour, the day of
reckoning, as it were, but did not try to escape it. On the contrary, she
hastened her dressing in order to get it over as quickly as possible.

"Israfil!" she called to him boldly, as soon as she was ready.

The Tenor returned.

She was standing in the middle of the room when he entered, and she looked
at him confidently, and just as the "Boy" would have done after a piece of
mischief which he had determined to brazen out. The Boy had two moods, the
defiant and the repentant; it seemed that the girl--but here the Tenor
checked his thoughts. It was very hard, though, to drop either of the two
individualities which had hitherto been so distinct and different, and to
realize that one of them at least had never existed.

She certainly brought more courage to the interview than he did, for he,
the wronged one, found as he faced her now that he had not a word to say
for himself. For the moment, she was master of the situation, and she
began at once as if the whole thing were a matter of course.

Catching an involuntary glance of the Tenor's, she put both hands up to
her head as the Boy would have done--so the Tenor, still confused between
the two, expressed it to himself; and the old familiar gesture sent
another pang through his heart. The water had washed the flaxen wig away,
but the thick braids of her hair were still pinned up tightly, accounting
for the shape of the _remarkable head_ about which the Boy had so
often, and, as was now evident, so recklessly, jested.

Her hair was very wet, and she began deliberately to take it down and
unplait it.

"I could not always make it--my head, you know--the same shape," she said,
answering his thought; "but you never noticed the difference, although you
often looked. I used to wonder how you could look so intelligently and see
so little"--and she glanced down at herself, so unmistakably a woman now
that he knew. She had been like a conundrum, the answer to which you would
never have guessed for yourself, but you see it at once when you hear it,
and then it seems so simple. She was rather inclined to speak to the Tenor
in a half pitying, patronizing way, as to a weak creature easily taken in;
but he had recovered himself by this time, and something in his look and
manner awed her, determined as she was, and she could not keep it up.

He moved farther from her, and then spoke in a voice made harsh by the
effort it cost him to control it.

"Why have you done this thing?" he said sternly.

Her heart began to beat violently. The colour left her lips, and she sank
into a chair, covered once more with shame and confusion. But, boy or
girl, the charm of her peculiar personality was still the same, and it had
its effect upon him even at that moment, indignant as he was, as she sat
there, her long hair falling behind her, looking up at him with timid eyes
and with tremulous mouth.

It was pitiful to see her so, and it softened him.

"What was your object?" he asked, relenting.

"Excitement--restlessness--if I had any," she faltered. "But I had no
object. I am inventing one now because you ask me; it is an afterthought.
I--I took the first step"--with a dry sob--"and then I--I just drifted on--
on, you know--from one thing to another."

"But tell me all about it," he persisted, taking a seat as he spoke. "Tell
me exactly how it began."

There was no help for it now. He was sitting in judgment upon her, and she
felt that she must make an effort to satisfy him.

"It began--oh, let me see! how am I to tell you?" and she twisted her
hands, frowning in perplexity. "I don't want to embellish the story so as
to make it picturesque and myself more interesting," and she looked at the
Tenor with slightly elevated eyebrows, as if pained already by her own
inaccuracy. There was something irresistibly comic in this candid avowal
of the force of habit, and all the more so because she was too much in
earnest for once to see the humour of it herself. The Tenor saw it,
however, but he made no sign.

"Well, begin," he said. "I ought to know your method sufficiently well by
this time to enable me to sift the wheat from the chaff."

Angelica considered a little, and then she answered, hesitating as if she
were choosing each word: "I see where the mistake has been all along.
There was no latitude allowed for my individuality. I was a girl, and
therefore I was not supposed to have any bent, I found a big groove ready
waiting for me when I grew up, and in that I was expected to live whether
it suited me or not. It did not suit me. It was deep and narrow, and gave
me no room to move. You see, I loved to make music. Art! That was it.
There is in my own mind an imperative monitor which urges me on always
into competition with other minds. I wanted to _do_ as well as to
_be_, and I knew I wanted to do; but when the time came for me to
begin, my friends armed themselves with the whole social system as it
obtains In our state of life, and came out to oppose me. They used to
lecture me and give me good advice, as if they were able to judge, and it
made me rage. I had none of the domestic virtues, and yet they would
insist upon domesticating me; and the funny part of it was that, side by
side with my natural aspirations was an innate tendency to conform to
their ideas while carrying out my own. I believe I could have satisfied
them--my friends--if only they had not thwarted me. But that was the
mistake. I had the ability to be something more than a young lady,
fiddling away her time on useless trifles, but I was not allowed to apply
it systematically, and ability is like steam--a great power when properly
applied, a great danger otherwise. Let it escape recklessly and the
chances are someone will be scalded; bottle it up and there will be an
explosion. In my case both happened. The steam was allowed to escape at
first instead of being applied to help me on in a definite career, and a
good deal of scalding ensued; and then, to remedy that mistake, the
dangerous experiment of bottling it up was tried, and only too
successfully. I helped a little in the bottling myself, I suppose, and
then came the explosion. This is the explosion,"--glancing round the
disordered room, and then looking down at her masculine attire. "I see it
all now," she proceeded in a spiritless way, looking fixedly into the
fire, as if she were trying to describe something she saw there. "I had
the feeling, never actually formulated in words, but quite easy to
interpret now, that if I broke down conventional obstacles--broke the
hampering laws of society, I should have a chance--"

"It is a common mistake," the Tenor observed, filling up the pause.

"But I did not know how," she pursued, "or where to begin, or what
particular law to break--until one evening. I was sitting alone at an open
window in the dark, and I was tired of doing nothing and very sorry for
myself, and I wanted an object in life more than ever, and then a great
longing seized me. I thought it an aspiration. I wanted to go out there
and then. I wanted to be free to go and come as I would. I felt a galling
sense of restraint all at once, and I determined to break the law that
imposed it; and that alone was a satisfaction--the finding of one law that
I could break. I didn't suppose I could learn much--there wasn't much left
to learn,"--this was said bitterly, as if she attached the blame of it to
somebody else--"but I should be amused, and that was something; and I
should see the world as men see it, which would be from a new point of
view for me, and that would be interesting. It is curious, isn't it?" she
reflected, "that what men call 'life' they always go out at night to see;
and what they mean by 'life' is generally something disgraceful?" It was
to the fire that she made this observation, and then she resumed: "It is
astonishing how importunate some ideas become--one now and then of all the
numbers that occur to you; how it takes possession of you, and how it
insists upon being carried into effect. This one gave me no peace. I knew
from the first I should do it, although I didn't want to, and I didn't
intend to, if you can understand such a thing. But my dress was an
obstacle. As a woman, I could not expect to be treated by men with as much
respect as they show to each other. I know the value of men's cant about
protecting the 'weaker' sex! Because I was a woman I knew I should be
insulted, or at all events hindered, however inoffensive my conduct; and
so I prepared this disguise. And I began to be amused at once. It amused
me to devise it. I saw a tailor's advertisement, with instructions how to
measure yourself; and I measured myself and sent to London for the
clothes--these thin ones are padded to make me look square like a boy. And
then, with some difficulty, I got a wig of the right colour. It fitted
exactly--covered all my own hair, you know, and was so beautifully made
that it was impossible for any unsuspicious person to detect it without
touching it; and the light shade of it, too, accounted for the fairness of
my skin, which would have looked suspiciously clear and delicate with
darker hair. The great difficulty was my hands and feet; but the different
shape of a boy's shoes made my feet pass; and I crumpled my hands up and
kept them out of sight as much as possible. But they are not of a
degenerated smallness," she added, looking at them critically; "it is more
their shape. However, when I dressed myself and put on that long ulster, I
saw the disguise would pass and felt pretty safe. But isn't it surprising
the difference dress makes? I should hardly have thought it possible to
convert a substantial young woman into such a slender, delicate-looking
boy as I make. But it just shows how important dress is."