The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand

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Then she relapsed into her regretful discontented mood. If only--if only
that wretched accident had never occurred, how different would her
feelings have been at this moment, was one of her reflections as she sat
alone on the terrace outside the great deserted reception rooms. She would
have been waiting now till the house was quiet, and then she would have
dashed up to her room to dress, with that exquisite sense of freedom which
made the whole delight of the thing, and in half an hour she might have
been the _Boy_ with Israfil.

"You cannot go on like this, you know," Angelica repeated to herself. "You
must do something."

But what? Involuntarily her mind returned to the Tenor. If she could win
his respect she felt she could start afresh with a clear conscience and a
steadfast determination to--what was it Dr. Galbraith had suggested? "Live
openly. Live for others."

But how to win the Tenor back to tolerate her? If she would make him her
friend she knew that she must be entirely true--in thought, word, and deed;
to every duty, to every principle of right; and how could she be that if
there were any truth in the theory of hereditary predisposition, coming as
she did of a race foredoomed apparently to the opposite course? It was
folly to contend with fate when fate took the form of a long line of
ancestors who had made a family commandment for themselves, which was: "Be
decent to all seeming! but sin all the same to your heart's content," and
had kept it courageously--at least the men had--but then the women had
been worthy--in which thought she suddenly perceived that there was food
for reflection; for was not this contradictious fact a proof that it was a
good deal a matter of choice after all? And here the Tenor's parting words
recurred to her, and with them came the recollection of the impression
made at the moment by the deep yet diffident tone of earnest conviction in
which he had uttered that last assurance: "You will do some good in the
world--you will be a good woman yet, I know--I know you will."

Should she? was the question she now asked herself. Were the words
prophetic? she wondered. And from that moment her thoughts took a new
departure, and she was able, as it were, to stand aloof and look back at
herself as she had been, and forward to herself as she might yet become.
In this quiet hour of retrospect she was quite ready to confess her sins.
She was sincerely sorry she had deceived the Tenor. But why was she sorry?
Why, simply because he had found her out; simply because there was an end
of a charming adventure--though less on that account than on others; for
of course she knew that the end was near, that they must have parted soon
in any case. It was the manner of the parting that caused her such regret.
She had lost his affection, lost his confidence--lost the pleasure of his
acquaintance, she supposed, which was more than she could bear. If he met
her in the street he would probably look the other way. Would he? Oh! The
very notion stung her. She sprang to her feet and threw up her hands; and
then, as if goaded by a lash, but without any distinct idea, she ran down
the steps headlong into the garden, and so on through the park till she
came to the river. When she got there, she stopped at the landing place,
not knowing why she had come, and as she stood there, trying to collect
her thoughts, the absence of some familiar object forced itself upon her
attention--her boat! It must have been lost the night of the accident. She
did not know whether it had sunk or not, but there was no name on it, so
that, even if it had been found, it could not have been restored to her
unless she had claimed it. And while she thought this, she was conscious
of another pang of regret. She knew that had the boat been there, her next
impulse would have been to go to the Tenor just as she was, bareheaded,
and in her thin evening dress. With what object, though? To beg for the
honour of his acquaintance, she supposed! But, alas! she could not sneer
in earnest, or laugh in earnest, at any absurdity she chose to think there
was in the idea. For she acknowledged--in her heart of hearts she
knew--that the acquaintance of such a man _was_ an honour, especially
to her, as she humbly insisted, although she had not broken any of the
commandments, and never would, and never could.

Slowly she returned to the house. A servant met her on the terrace, and
asked her if she should require anything more that night. Then she
discovered the lateness of the hour, ordered the household to bed, and
retired to her own room. There she extinguished the lights, threw the
windows wider open, and sat looking out into the dim mysterious night.

Angelica loved the night. No matter what her mood might be she felt its
charm, and something also of the pride-subduing, hallowed influence which
is peculiarly its own; and now, as she leant, looking out, all the beauty
of it, and its heavenly purity, began to steal into her heart and to
soften it. Slowly, as the tide goes out when the sea is tempestuous, the
waves returning again and again with angry burst and flow to cover the
same spot, as if loath to leave it, but receding inevitably till in the
further distance their harsh impetuous roar sinks to a babble when heard
from the place where they lately raged, which itself seems the safer for
the contrast between the now of quiet and firmness and the then of
shifting sand and watery fury; so it was with Angelica's turmoil of mind,
the foaming discontent, the battling projects--by slow degrees, they all
subsided; and after the storm of uncertainty there came something like the
calm of a settled purpose. To be good, to ascend to the higher life--if
that meant to feel like this always she would be good--if in her lay such
power. She could not be wholly without religion, because she found in
herself a reverence for what was religion in others. And what after all is
religion? An attitude of the mind which develops in us the power to love,
reverence, and practise all that constitutes moral probity. But how to
attain to this? By trying and trusting. Faith, that was it, faith in the
power of goodness. Upon the recognition of this simple truth, her spirit
wings unfurled, and slowly, as her senses ceased to be importunate, she
became possessed by some idea of deathless love and longing which fired
her soul with its heroism, and filled her heart with its pathos, until
both mind and hands together unconsciously assumed the attitude of prayer.

She did not go to bed at all that night, but just sat there by the open
window, patiently waiting for the dawn. Nor did she feel the time long.
Her whole being thrilled to this new sensation and was subdued by it, so
that she remained motionless and rapturously absorbed. It might only last
till daybreak; but while it did last, it was certainly intense.

It lasted longer than that, however. It even survived the day and the
luncheon party to which she had in a rash moment invited her friends. She
had determined to go to the Tenor that very afternoon in the way her
husband had suggested.

At first she thought she would drive, but it was a long way round by the
road, much longer than by the river, and so she decided to walk, although
the weather was inclined to be tempestuous. She crossed by the ferry,
thinking she would, if possible, meet the Tenor as he came away from the
afternoon service. In that hope, however, she was disappointed, for when
she got to the cathedral she found the service over, the congregation
dispersed, and the doors locked. There was nothing for it then but to go
to his own house. With a fast beating heart she crossed the road, and
paused at the little gate. She felt now that she had made a mistake. She
should have taken her husband's advice and come in state; she would not
have felt half so frightened and awkward if she could have sat in her
carriage, and sent the footman to inquire if the Tenor would do her the
favour to allow her to speak to him for a moment. And what would he say to
her now? And what should she say? Suppose he refused to see her at all,
should she ever survive it? Could she take him by storm as the Boy would
have done, and demand his friendship and kind consideration as a right?
Oh! for some of the unblushing assurance which had distinguished the Boy!
It must have been part of the costume. But surely her confidence would
return at the right moment, and then she would be able to face him boldly.
Having to knock at the door and ask for him was like the first plunge into
cold water. Just to think of it took her breath away. But the window was
doubtless unfastened as usual; should she go in by that? No. It was
absurd, though, how she hesitated, especially after all that had happened;
but be deterred by this most novel and uncomfortable shyness she would
not! She had come so far, and it should not be for nothing. She would not
go back until--

But now, at last, with a smile at her qualms and nervous tremors, she
knocked resolutely. There was a little interval before the knock was
answered, and she filled it with hope. She knew just how radiant she would
feel as she came away successful. She experienced something of the relief
and pleasure which should follow upon this pain, and then the door was
opened by the Tenor's elderly housekeeper. The woman had that worn and
worried look upon her face which is common among women of her class.

"Is your master at home?" Angelica asked, not recollecting for the moment
by what name he was known.

The woman looked at her curiously, as if to determine her social status
before she committed herself. The question seemed to surprise her.

"He's gone," she answered dolefully. "Didn't you know?"

"Gone," Angelica echoed blankly. "Where?"

"Gone home," the woman answered.

"Gone home!" Angelica exclaimed, unable to conceal her dismay. "He has no
home but this. Where is his home?"

The woman gave her another curious look, took a moment to choose her
words, then blurted out: "He's dead, miss--didn't you know--and buried
yesterday."

CHAPTER IV.

The lonely man, after leaving Angelica that night, had returned to the
Close, walking "like one that hath aweary dream." When he entered his
little house, and the sitting room where the lamp was still burning, its
yellow light in sickly contrast to the pale twilight of the summer dawn
which was beginning to brighten by that time, the discomfort consequent on
disorder struck a chill to his heart.

The roses still lay scattered about the floor, but they had been trampled
under foot and their beauty had suffered, their freshness was marred, and
their perfume, rising acrid from bruised petals, greeted him unwholesomely
after the fresh morning air, and rendered the atmosphere faint and
oppressive. The stand with the flower pots, much disarranged, stood as he
had left it when he pulled it roughly aside to get at the grate, and the
fire had burnt out, leaving blackened embers to add to the general air of
dreariness and desertion. Angelica's violin lay under the grand piano
where he had heedlessly flung it when he loosed it from her rigid grasp;
and there were pipes and glasses and bottles about, chairs upset and
displaced; books and papers, music and magazines, piled up in heaps
untidily to be out of the way--all the usual signs, to sum up, which
suggest that a room has been used over night for some unaccustomed
purpose, convivial or the reverse, a condition known only to the early
house-and-parlour maid as a rule, and therefore acting with peculiarly
dismal effect upon the chance observer; but more dismal now to the weary
Tenor than any room he had ever seen under similar circumstances by reason
of the associations that clung about it.

He opened the window wide, extinguished the lamp, and began mechanically
to put things away and arrange the chairs. The habit of doing much for
himself prompted all this; anything that was not a matter of habit he
never thought of doing. His things were drying on him, and he had
forgotten that they had ever been wet. He had forgotten too that the night
was past and over. He was heart sick and weary, yet did not feel that
there was any need of rest. The extraordinary lucidity of mind of which he
had been conscious while his much loved "Boy" was in danger had left him
now, and only a blurred recollection as of many incidents crowding thickly
upon each other without order or sequence recurred to him. He suffered
from a sense of loss, from an overpowering grief--the kind of grief which
is all the worse to bear because it has not come in the course of nature
but by the fault of man, a something that might have been helped as when a
friend is killed by accident, or lost to us otherwise than by death the
consequence of disease. But one persistent thought beset him, the same
thing over and over again, exhausting him by dint of forced reiteration.
The girl he had been idolizing--well, there was no such person, and there
never had been; that was all--yet what an _all_! In the first moment
of the terrible calamity that had befallen him, it seemed now that there
could have been nothing like the misery of this home returning--the
barren, black despair of it. It was the hopeless difference between pain
and paralysis; then he had suffered, but at least he could feel; now he
felt nothing except that all feeling was over.

When he had finished the simple arrangement of his room, he still paced
restlessly up and down, shaking back his yellow hair, and brushing his
hand up over it as if the gesture eased the trouble of his mind.

"If even the Boy had been left me!" he thought, and it was the one
distinct regret he formulated.

After a while his housekeeper arrived, a pleasant elderly woman who had
attended him ever since he came to Morningquest.

It was not in his nature to let any personal matter, whether it were pain
or pleasure, affect the temper of his intercourse with those about him,
and the force of habit helped him now again to rouse himself and greet the
woman in his usual kindly, courteous way, so that, being unobservant, she
noticed no change in him except that he was up earlier than usual; but
then he was always an early riser. She therefore set about her work
unsuspiciously, and presently drove him out of the sitting room with her
dust-pan and brush, and he went upstairs. There, happening to catch a
glimpse of his own haggard face and discreditable flannels in the mirror,
he began to change mechanically, and dressed himself with all his habitual
neatness and precision. Then a little choir boy came to be helped with his
music. It was the one who sang the soprano solos in the cathedral, a boy
with a lovely voice and much general as well as musical ability, both of
which the Tenor laboured to help him to develop. He came every morning for
lessons, and the Tenor gave him these, and such a breakfast also as a
small boy loves; but the little fellow, to do him justice, cared more for
the Tenor than the breakfast.

There were three services in the cathedral that day, and the Tenor went to
each, but he did not sing. He seemed to have taken cold and was hoarse,
with a slight cough, and a peculiar little stab in his chest and catching
of the breath, which, however, did not trouble him much to begin with. But
as the day advanced every bone in his body ached with a dull wearying
pain, and he was glad to go to bed early. Once there, the sense of fatigue
was overpowering, yet he could not sleep until long past midnight, when he
dropped off quite suddenly; or rather, as it seemed to him, when all at
once he plunged headlong into the river to rescue the Boy, and began to go
down, down, down, to a never-ending depth, the weight of the water above
him becoming greater and greater till the pressure was unbearable, and a
horrid sense of suffocation, increasing every instant, impelled him to
struggle to the surface, but vainly, He could not rise--and down, down, he
continued to descend, reaching no bottom, yet dropping at last, before he
could help himself, on a sharp stake, pointed like a dagger, that ran
right through his chest. The pain aroused him with a great start, but the
impression had been so vivid, that it was some time before he could shake
off the sensation of descending with icy water about him; and even when he
was wide awake, and although he was bathed in perspiration, the feeling of
cold remained, and so did the pain.

It was during that night that the weather changed.

The next day it was blowing a gale. Heavy showers began to fall at
intervals, chilling the atmosphere, and finally settled into a steady
downpour, such as frequently occurs in the middle of summer, making
everything indoors humid and unwholesome, and causing colds and sore
throats and other unseasonable complaints.

The Tenor taught his little choir boy as usual in the morning, went to the
three services, getting more or less wet each time, and then came home and
tried to do some work, but was not equal to it--his head ached; then tried
to smoke, but the pipe nauseated him; and finally resigned himself to
idleness, and just sat still in his lonely room, lonely of heart himself,
yet with his hands patiently folded, dreamily watching the rain as it beat
upon the old cathedral opposite, and streamed from eave and gargoyle, and
splashed from the narrow spouting under the roof, making spreading
pathways of dark moisture for itself on the gray stone walls wherever it
overflowed. It was all "His Will" to the Tenor, and for his sake there was
nothing he would not have borne heroically.

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

His cough was much worse that day, the pain in his chest was more acute,
and his temperature rose higher and higher, yet he did not complain. He
knew he was suffering from something serious now, but he derived from his
perfect faith in the beneficence of the Power that orders all things an
almost superhuman fortitude.

But as he sat there with his hands folded, his mind, busy with many
things, returned inevitably to the old weary theme, just as, at the same
time, Angelica's own was doing, but from the opposite point of view.
Always, after a startling event, those who have been present as
spectators, or taken some part in it, repeat their experiences, and make
some remark upon them, again and again in exactly the same words, their
minds working upon the subject like heat upon water that boils, forming it
into bubbles which it bursts and re-forms incessantly. He began each time
with that remark of Angelica's about the change which mere dress effects,
and went on to wonder at the transformation of a strong young woman into a
slender delicate-looking boy by it; and then went on to accept her
conclusion that it was natural he should have been deceived seeing that,
in the first place, he had not the slightest suspicion, and in the second
he had never seen the "Boy" except in his own dimly lighted room, or out
of doors at night--besides, it was not the first time that a boy had been
successfully personated by a girl, a man by a woman; but here he found
himself obliged to rehearse the instances which Angelica had quoted. Then
he would reconsider the fact that the part had been well played; not only
attitudes and gestures, but ideas and sentiments, and the proper
expression of them had been done to perfection--which led up again to
another assertion of hers, She had been a boy for the time being, there
was no doubt about that. And yet if he had had the slightest suspicion!
There had been the shyness at first, which had worn off as it became
apparent that the disguise was complete; the horror of being touched or
startled, of anything, as he now perceived, which might have caused a
momentary forgetfulness, and so have led to self-betrayal; the
boyishnesses which, alternating with older moods, might have suggested
something, but had only charmed him; the womanishnesses of which, alas!
there had been too few as seen by the light of this new revelation; the
physical differences--but they had been cleverly concealed, as she said,
by the cut of her clothing, and pads; the "funny head," however, about
which they had both jested so often--oh, dear! how sick he was of the
whole subject! If only it would let him alone! But what pretty ways he had
had--the "Boy"! What a dear, dear lad he had been with all his faults!
Alas! alas! if only the Boy had been left him!

Then a pause. Then off again. He had been enchanted, like Reymond of
Lusignan in olden times, by a creature that was half a monster. The Boy
had been a reality to him, but the lady had never been more than a lovely
dream, and the monster--well, the monster had not yet appeared, for that
dark haired girl in the unwomanly clothes, with pride on her lips and pain
in her eyes, was no monster after all, but an erring mortal like himself,
a poor weak creature to be pitied and prayed for. And the Tenor bowed his
sunny head and prayed for her earnestly through all the long hours of
solitary suffering which closed that day.

Then came another sleepless night, and another gloomy morning which
brought his little chorister boy, whom he tried to teach as usual; but
even the child saw what the effort cost him, and looked at him with great
tender eyes solemnly, and was very docile.

Before the early service one of his fellow lay clerks came in to see how
he was. They had all noticed the feverish cold from which he had appeared
to be suffering the whole week, and this one, not finding him better,
begged him to stay in that day and take care of himself for the sake of
his voice. The Tenor brushed his hand back over his hair. He had forgotten
that he ever had a voice. But at all events he must go to the morning
service; after that he would stay at home. He longed for the Blessed
Sacrament, which was always a "Holy Communion" to him; but he did not say
so.

That afternoon he fell asleep in his easy-chair facing the window which
looked out upon the cathedral--or into a troubled doze rather, from which
he awoke all at once with a start, and, seeing the window shut, rose
hurriedly to go and open it for the "Boy." He had done so before at night
often when he chanced to forget it. But when he got to it now he had to
clutch the frame to support himself, and he looked out stupidly for some
seconds, wondering in a dazed way why the sun was shining when it should
be dark. Then suddenly full consciousness returned, and he remembered. He
should never open the window again for the Boy, never again.

He returned to his chair after that, and sat down to think.

When he began to understand it thoroughly--the meaning of the last
incident--he was startled out of the apathy that oppressed him.

It became evident now that he was not merely suffering, but fast becoming
disabled by illness, and it was time he let someone know, otherwise there
might be confusion and annoyance about--his work--finding a substitute;
and there would be a risk about--about--what was he trying to think of?
Oh, her name. He might mention it and be overheard by curious people if he
lost his head--Angelica--Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe--he wished; he could
forget; but he would provide against the danger of repeating them aloud.
He would telegraph to his own man--the fellow had written to him the other
day, being in want of a place: a capital servant and discreet--glad he
had thought of him. And then there were other matters--the sensible
setting of his house in order which every man threatened with illness
would be wise to see to. There were several letters he must write, one to
the dean, amongst others, to ask him to come and see him. Writing was a
great effort, but he managed with much difficulty to accomplish all that
he had set himself to do, and then his mind was at rest.

Presently his old housekeeper came in with some tea. She was anxious about
him.

"I've brought you this, sir," she said. "You've not tasted a solid morsel
since Tuesday morning, and this is Thursday afternoon. Try and take
something, sir, it will do you good. You must be getting quite faint, and
indeed you look it."

"Now, I call that good of you," the Tenor answered hoarsely, as he took
the cup from her hand. "I shall be glad to have some tea, I've been quite
longing for something hot to drink."

The woman was examining his face with critical kindness. She noticed the
constant attempt to cough, and the painful catching of the breath which
rendered the effort abortive.

"I am afraid you are not at all well, sir," she said, expecting him to
deny it, but he did not.

"I am not at all well, to tell you the truth," he confessed. "I have just
written to the dean to tell him, and--" a fit of coughing rendered the end
of the sentence unintelligible. "I want you to post these letters," he was
able to say at last distinctly; "send this telegram off at once to my
servant, and leave this note at the deanery. That will do as you go home.
The man should be here to-morrow, and anything else there may be can be
attended to when he arrives."