The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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She sank down at that, and clasped his feet and burst into a paroxysm of
tears, which were as a fervent _Amen_ to the Tenor's prayer.

"Come!" he said, raising her. "Come, before it is too late. You must do
something with your hair."

But she could not plait it, her hands trembled so, and he was obliged to
help her. He got her a hat to roll it up under.

"The light is uncertain," he said, "and it is raining now. Even if we do
meet anyone, I don't think they would notice--especially if I can find an
umbrella for you."

He hunted one up from somewhere, and then he hurried her away, ferried her
across the river, and left her at the lodge gate safely, his last words
being:--"You will do some good in the world--you will be a good woman yet,
I know--I know you will."

END OF BOOK IV

BOOK V.

MRS. KILROY OF ILVERTHORPE.

Face to face in my chamber, my silent chamber, I saw her:
God and she and I only, there I sat down to draw her Soul through
The clefts of confession--"Speak, I am holding thee fast,
As the angel of recollection shall do it at last!"
"My cup is blood-red
With my sin," she said,
"And I pour it out to the bitter lees.
As if the angel of judgment stood over me strong at last
Or as thou wert as these,"

--_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_.

Howbeit all is not lost
The warm noon ends in frost
And worldly tongues of promise,
Like sheep-bells die from us
On the desert hills cloud-crossed:
Yet through the silence shall
Pierce the death-angel's call,
And "Come up hither," recover all.
Heart, wilt thou go?
I go!
Broken hearts triumph so.

--_Ibid_.

CHAPTER I.

Half an hour after the Tenor parted from Angelica, she was sleeping
soundly, not because she was dedolent but because she was exhausted; and
when that is the case sleep is the blessed privilege of youth and
strength, let what will have preceded it. She lay there in her luxurious
bed, with one hand under her head, her thick dark hair--just as the Tenor
had braided it--in contrast to the broad white pillow; her smooth face, on
which no emotion of any kind had written a line as yet, placid as a little
child's; to all appearance an ideal of innocence and beauty. And while she
slept the rain stopped, the misty morning broke, the clouds had cleared
away, and the sun shone forth, welcomed by a buzz of insects and chirrup
of birds; the uprising of countless summer scents, and the opening of
rainbow flowers. It was one of those radiant days, harmonizing best with
tranquil or joyous moods, when, if we are disconsolate, nature seems to
mock our misery, and callous earth rejoices forgetful of storms, making us
wonder with a deeper discontent why we, too, cannot forget.

Angelica slept a heavy dreamless sleep, and when she did awake late in the
morning, it was not gradually, with that pleasant dreamy languor which
precedes mental activity in happy times, but with a sudden start that
aroused her to full consciousness in a moment, and the recollection of all
that had occurred the night before. Black circles round her eyes bore
witness to the danger, fatigue, and emotion of her late experiences; she
had a sharp pain in her head, too, and she was unaccustomed to physical
pain; but she felt it less than the dull ache she had at her heart, and a
general sense of things gone wrong that oppressed her, but which she
strove with stubborn determination to stifle.

Her maid was busy in the dressing room, the door of which was open, and
she called her.

"Elizabeth!"

"Yes, ma'am," and the maid appeared, smiling.

She was a good-looking woman of thirty or thereabouts. She had come to
Angelica when the latter got out of her nurse's hands, and remained with
her ever since, Angelica being one of those mistresses who win the hearts
of their servants by recognizing the human nature in them, and
appreciating the kindness there is in devotion rather than accepting it as
a necessary part of the obligation to earn wages.

"Bring me a cup of coffee, Elizabeth."

"Yes, ma'am," the maid rejoined, "It shall be ready for you as soon as you
have had your bath."

"But I want it now," said Angelica, springing out of bed energetically,
and holding first one slim foot and then the other out to be shod.

There was a twinkle in the maid's eye as she answered: "Please, ma'am, you
made me promise never to give it to you, however much you might wish it,
until you had had your bath. You said you'd be sure to ask for it, and I
was to refuse, because hot coffee was bad for you just before a cold bath,
and you really enjoyed it more afterward, only you hadn't the strength of
mind to wait."

"Quite so," said Angelica. "You're a treasure, Elizabeth, really. But did
I say you were to begin to-day?"

"No, ma'am; not to-day in particular. But the last time I brought it to
you early you scolded me after you had taken it, and said if ever I let
myself be persuaded again, you'd dismiss me on the spot. And you warned me
that you'd be artful and get it out of me somehow if I didn't take care."

"So I did," said Angelica.

She had been brought up with a pretty smart shock the night before, and
was suffering from the physical effects of the same that morning; the
mental were still in abeyance. She felt a strange lassitude for one thing,
and was strongly inclined to indulge it by being indolent. She breakfasted
in her own room, but could not eat, neither could she read. She turned her
letters over; then tried a book; then going back to her letters again, she
picked one out which she had overlooked before. It was from her husband,
and as she read it she changed countenance somewhat, but it would be
impossible to say what the change betokened, whether pleasure or the
reverse.

"Elizabeth," she said, speaking evenly as usual, "your master is coming
back to-day. He will be here for lunch."

The sickening sense of loss and pain which had assailed her when she awoke
that morning did not diminish as the day wore on, nor did her thoughts
grow less importunate; but she steadily refused to entertain any of them,
or to let her mental discomfort interfere with her occupations. After
reading her husband's letter she finished dressing, had a long interview
with her housekeeper, went round the premises as was her daily habit, to
see that all was in order, and then retired to her morning room, and set
to work methodically to write orders, see to accounts, and answer letters.
It was a busy day with her, and she had only just finished when Mr. Kilroy
arrived. She went to meet him pleasantly, held up her cheek to be kissed,
and said she was glad he was in time for lunch. There was no sign of the
joy or effusion with which young wives usually receive their husbands
after an absence, but the greeting was eminently friendly. Angelica had
always had a strong liking for Mr. Kilroy, and, as she told him, marriage
had not affected this in any way. She had made a friend of him while she
was still in the schoolroom, and confided to him many things which she
would not have mentioned to anyone else, not even excepting Diavolo; and
she continued to do so still. She was sure of his sympathy, sure of his
devotion, and she respected him as sincerely as she trusted him. In fact,
had there been any outlet for her superfluous mental energy, any
satisfactory purpose to which the motive power of it might have been
applied, she would have made Mr. Kilroy an excellent wife. She was not in
love with him, but she probably liked him all the better on that account,
for she must have been disappointed in him sooner or later had she ever
discovered in him those marvellous fascinations which passion projects
from itself on to the personality of the most commonplace person. As it
was, however, she had always left him out of her day-dreams altogether.
She quite believed that pleasure is the end of life, but then her ideal of
pleasure was nice in the extreme. Nothing so vulgar and violent as passion
entered into it, and nothing so transient, so enervating, corroding, and
damaging both to the intellectual powers and the capacity for permanent
enjoyment; and nothing so repulsive either in its details, its
self-centred egotistical exaltation, and the self-abasement which arrives
with that final sense of satiety which she perceived to be inevitable.
That part of her nature had never been roused into active life, partly
because it was not naturally strong, but also because the more refined and
delicately sensuous appreciation of beauty in life, which is so much a
characteristic of capable women nowadays, dominated such animalism as she
was equal to, and made all coarser pleasures repugnant. It had been
suggested to her that she might, with her position and wealth, form a
salon and lay herself out to attract, but she said: "No, thank you. One
sees in the history of French salons the effect of irresponsible power on
the women who formed them, I am bad enough naturally, without applying for
a licence to become worse, by making myself so agreeable that everybody
will excuse me if I do. And as to being a great beauty and nothing else,
one might as well be a great cow; the comfort would be the same and the
anxiety less, the amount of attention received not depending on a clear
complexion or an increase of figure, and therefore necessitating no limit
in the enjoyment of such good things as come with the varying seasons, the
winter wurzel and summer state of being in clover."

It was to Mr. Kilroy that these remarks were made one day when she wanted
a target to talk at, for her appreciation of her husband did not amount to
any adequate comprehension of the extent to which he understood her. The
truth was, however, that he understood her better than anybody else did,
the complete latitude he gave to her to do as she liked being evidence of
the fact, if only she could have interpreted it; but she had failed to do
so, his quiet undemonstrative manner having sufficed to deceive her
superficial observation of him as effectually as the treacherous
smoothness of her own placid face when in repose, upon the unruffled
surface of which there was neither mark nor sign to indicate the current
of changeful moods, ambitious projects, and poetical fancies, which
coursed impetuously within, might excusably have imposed upon him. He was
twenty years older than Angelica and looked it, but more by reason of his
grave demeanour than from any actual mark of age, for his life had been
well ordered and as free from care as it had been from corruption. Mr.
Kilroy was not a talkative man, and what he did say was neither original
nor brilliant, yet he was generally trusted, and his advice oftener asked
and followed than that of people whose reputations were at least as good,
and whose abilities were infinitely better; the explanation of which was
probably to be found in the good feeling which he brought to the
consideration of all subjects. Some people whose brains would be at fault
if they were asked to judge, are enabled by qualities of heart to feel
their way to the most praiseworthy conclusions. Mr. Kilroy was one of
those people, well-born and of ample means, whom society recognizes as its
own, but without enthusiasm, the sterling qualities which make them such
an addition to its ranks being less appreciated than the wealth and
position which they contribute to its resources; still, in his case it was
customary for women to describe him as "a thoroughly nice man," while "an
exceedingly good fellow" was the corresponding masculine, verdict.

He was in parliament now, and was consequently obliged to be in London
continually, but latterly Angelica had refused to accompany him. She loved
their place near Morningquest, and she had begun to appreciate the ancient
city with its kindly, benighted, unchristian ways, its picturesqueness,
and all that was odd and old-world about it. There, too, she was somebody,
but in crowded London she lost all sense of her own identity; though, to
do her justice, she disliked it less for that than for itself, for its hot
rooms, society gossip, vapid men and spiteful women. Mr. Kilroy could
rarely persuade her to accompany him, and never induce her to stay. Having
her with him was just the one thing that he was a little persistent about,
and her wilfulness in this respect had been a real trouble to him. He had
come now to see if she continued obdurate, and he came meekly and with
conciliation in his whole attitude. She thought, however, that she knew
how to get rid of him, how to make him return alone in a week of his own
accord, so far as he himself knew anything about it, and that, too,
without thinking her horrid; and she laid her plans accordingly. This was
something to do; and so irksome did she find the purposeless existence
which the misfortune of having been born a woman compelled her to lead,
that even such an object was a relief, and her spirits rose.
Something--anything for an occupation; that was the state to which she was
reduced. She began at once, and began by talking. All through lunch she
discoursed admirably, and at first Mr. Kilroy listened fascinated, but by
and by his attention became strained. He found himself forced to listen;
it was an effort, and yet he could not help himself. He tried to check
Angelica by assuming an absent look, but she recalled him with a sharp
exclamation. He even took a letter out of his pocket and read the
superscription, but put it away again shamefacedly, upon her gently
apologizing for monopolizing so much of his attention.

"You see it is so long since I saw you," she said. "You must forgive me if
I have too much to say."

When lunch was over the carriage came round, and Angelica, all radiant
smiles, took it for granted that Mr. Kilroy would go with her for a drive.
Now, if there were one thing which he disliked more than another it was a
stupid drive there and back without an object, but Angelica seemed so
uncommonly glad to see him he did not like to refuse. He had many things
to attend to, but he felt that it would be bad policy not to humour her
mood, especially as it was such an extremely encouraging one, so he went
to please her with perfect good grace, although he could not help thinking
regretfully of the precious time he was losing, of the accumulation of
things there were to be seen to about his own place, and of some important
letters he ought to have written that afternoon. Angelica beguiled him
successfully on the way out, however, so that he did not notice the
distance, but on the way back her manner changed. So far she had been all
brightness and animation; now she became lugubrious, and took a morbid
view of things. She talked of all the men of middle age who had died
lately, and of what they had died of, showing that most of them were taken
off suddenly when in perfect health apparently, and usually without any
premonitory symptoms of disease. It was all the result of some change of
habits, she said, which was always dangerous in the case of men of middle
age; and Mr. Kilroy began to feel uneasy in spite of himself, for he had
been obliged to alter his own habits considerably when he married, and he
was apt to be a little nervous about his health. Consequently he was much
depressed when they returned, and finding that he had missed the post did
not tend to raise his spirits. Angelica came down to dinner dressed in
pale green, with something yellow on her head. Mr. Kilroy admired her
immensely; she was the only subject upon which he ever became poetical,
and somehow the combination of colours she wore on this occasion, with her
lithe young figure and milk-white skin, made him think of an arum lily,
and he told her so, and was very pleased with the pretty compliment when
he had paid it, and with the dinner, and everything. The fatal age was
forgotten, and he allowed himself to be cheered by hopes of success in his
present mission. He had not yet mentioned it, but when they were left
alone at dessert he began.

"Is my Chatelaine tired of seclusion, and willing to return with me to the
great wicked city?" he ventured with an affectation of playfulness, which
rather betrayed than concealed his very real anxiety. "A wife's place is
by her husband."

"Your Chatelaine is not tired of seclusion," she answered in a cheerful
matter of fact tone; "and it is a wife's duty to look after her husband's
house and keep it well for him, especially in his absence. But how much
will you give me to go? My private purse is empty."

Mr. Kilroy laughed. "It always is, so far as I can make out," he said.
"But a mercenary arum lily! what an anomaly! I will give you a hundred
pounds to buy dolls, if you will go back with me next week."

Angelica appeared to reflect. "I will take fifty, thank you, and stay
where I am," she answered with decision.

Mr. Kilroy's countenance fell. "If you will not come back with me, you
shall not have any," he said, with equal firmness.

"Then I shall be obliged to make it," she rejoined, with a schoolgirl grin
of delight.

This threat to make money with her violin had kept her purse full ever
since her marriage--not that it was ever really empty, for she had had a
handsome settlement. Mr. Kilroy, however, was not the kind of man to
inspect his wife's bank-book; and besides, whether she had money or not,
if it amused her to obtain more, he never could be quite sure that she
would not carry out that dreadful threat and try to make it. He knew she
would be only too glad of an excuse, knew, too, that if ever she tried she
would be certain to succeed, what with her talent, presence, family
_prestige_, and the interest which the ill-used young wife of an
elderly curmudgeon (that was the character she meant to assume, she said)
was sure to excite.

She did not care for money. It was the pleasure of the chase that
delighted her, the fun of extorting it. If Mr. Kilroy had given her all
she asked for without any trouble, she would have soon left off asking;
but he felt it his duty to refuse, by way of discipline. Seeing that she
was so young, he did not think it right to indulge her extravagance, and
he did his best to curb the inclination gently before it became a
confirmed habit.

After dinner he went to the library to write those important letters, and
Angelica retired to the drawing room. The night was close, doors and
windows stood wide open, and she got a violin and began to tune it. She
was too good a musician not to be able to make the instrument an
instrument of torture if she chose, and now she did choose. She made it
screak; she made it wail; she set her own teeth on edge with the horrid
discords she drew from it. It crowed like a cock twenty-five times
running, with an interval of half a minute between each crow. It brayed
like two asses on a common, one answering the other from a considerable
distance. And then it became ten cats quarreling _crescendo_, with a
pause after every violent outburst, broken at well-judged intervals by an
occasional howl.

Mr. Kilroy endured the nuisance up to that point heroically; but at last
he felt compelled to send a servant to tell Angelica that he was writing.

"Oh," she observed, perversely choosing to misinterpret the purport of
this tactful message, "then I need not wait for him any longer, I suppose.
Bring me my coffee, please."

The man withdrew, and she proceeded with the torture. Mr. Kilroy
good-naturedly shut his doors and windows, hoping to exclude the sound,
when he found the hint had been lost upon her. In vain! The library was
near the drawing room, and every note was audible.

Angelica was stumbling over an air now, a dismal minor thing which would
have been quite bad enough had she played it properly, but as it was,
being apparently too difficult for her, she made it distracting, working
her way up painfully to one particular part where she always broke down,
then going back and beginning all over again twenty times at least, till
Mr. Kilroy got the thing on the brain and found himself forced to wait for
the catastrophe each time she approached the place where she stumbled.

Presently he appeared at the drawing-room door with a pen in his hand, and
a deprecating air. He suspected no malice, and only came to remonstrate
mildly.

"Angelica, my dear," he began, "I am sorry to disturb you, but I really
cannot write--I have been overworked lately--or I am tired with the
journey down--or something. My head is a little confused, in fact, and a
trifle distracts me. Would you mind--"

Angelica put down her violin with an injured air.

"Oh, I don't mind, of course," she protested in a tone which contradicted
the assertion flatly. "But it is very hard." She took out her
handkerchief. "You are so seldom at home; and when you _are_ here you
do nothing but write stupid letters, and never come near me. And this time
you are horrid and cross about everything. It is such a disappointment
when I have been looking forward to your return." Her voice broke. "I wish
I had never asked you to marry me. You ought not to have done so--it was
not right of you, if you only meant to neglect me and make me miserable.
You won't do anything for me now--not even give yourself the trouble to
write out a cheque for fifty pounds, though it would not take you a
minute." Two great tears overflowed as she spoke, and she raised her
handkerchief with ostentatious slowness to dry them.

Mr. Kilroy was much distressed. "My _dear_ child!" he exclaimed,
sitting down beside her. "There, there, Angelica, now don't, please"--for
Angelica was shivering and crying in earnest, a natural consequence of her
immersion on the previous night, and the state of mind which had ensued.
"I am obliged to write these letters. I am indeed. I ought to have done
them this afternoon, but I went out with you, you know. You really are
unjust to me. I have often told you that I do not think it is right for
you to be so much alone, but you will not listen to me. Come and sit with
me now in the library. I would much rather have you with me, I would have
asked you before, but I was afraid it might bore you. Come now, do!"

"No, I should only fidget and disturb you," she answered, but in a
mollified tone.

"Well, then," he replied, "I will go and finish as fast as I can, and come
back to you here. And don't fret, my dear child. You know there is nothing
in reason I would not do for you." In proof of which he sent the butler a
little later, by way of breaking the length of his absence agreeably, with
what looked like a letter on a silver salver. Angelica opened it, and
found a cheque for a hundred pounds. When she was alone again, she beamed
round upon the silent company of chairs and tables, much pleased. Then her
conscience smote her. "He is really very good," she said to herself--"far
too good for me. I don't think I ever could have married anybody else."
But there was something dubious, that resembled a question, in this last
phrase.

The next day was hopelessly miserable out of doors--raining, gusty, cold.
Mr. Kilroy was not sorry. He had a good deal of business connected with
his property to attend to, and did not want to go out. And Angelica was
not sorry. She had some little plans of her own to carry out, which a wet
day rather favoured than otherwise.

Having finished her accustomed morning's work, and being obliged to stay
in, it was natural that she should try to amuse herself, also natural that
she should try something in the way of exercise. So she collected some
dozen curs she kept about the place, demonstrative mongrels for the most
part, but all intelligent; and brought them into the hall, where she made
them run races for biscuits, the _modus operandi_ being to place a
biscuit on the top step of a broad flight of stairs there was at one end
of the hall, then to collect the dogs at the other, make them stand, in a
row--a difficult task to begin with, but easy enough when they understood,
which was very soon, although not without much shrieking of orders from
Angelica, and responsive barking on their part--and then start them with a
whip. The first to arrive at the top of the stairs took the biscuit as a
matter of course, and the others fought him for it. It was indescribably
funny to see the whole pack tear up all eagerness, and then come down
again, helter-skelter, tumbling over each other in the excitement of the
scrimmage, some of them losing their tempers, but all of them enjoying the
game; returning of their own accord to the starting point, waiting with
yelps of excitement and eyes brightly intent, ears pricked, jaws open,
tongues hanging, tails wagging, sides panting, till another biscuit was
placed, then off once more--sometimes after a false start or two, caused
by the impetuosity of a little yapping terrier, which _would_ rush
before the signal was given, and had to be brought back with the whip, the
other dogs looking disgusted meanwhile, like honourable gentlemen at a cad
who won't play fair. Angelica, shouting and laughing, made as much noise
in her way as the dogs did in theirs, and the din was deafening; an
exasperating kind of din too, not incessant, but intermittent, now
swelling to a climax, now lulling, until there seemed some hope that it
would cease altogether, then bursting out again, whip cracking, dogs
howling and barking, feet scampering, Angelica shrieking worse than ever.