The Last Call: A Romance (Vol. 3 of 3)

CHAPTER XV

The pain in Lavirotte's chest did not last long, but when it had passed away he felt weak and dispirited. A while ago he had thought how good it was to be here, remote from the bustle and noise of the town below. Now he felt oppressed by the thought that he was feeble, had suffered from some acute and paralysing pain, and was practically out of the reach of human aid. This tower seemed indeed fated to take a prominent if not a final part in his career. He had, more than a year ago, narrowly escaped death in the vault beneath. Was he now threatened with death in this loft above? for he felt spent and broken, and as though the effort of getting down once more would be more than he ever would accomplish. It was plain to him something serious was the matter with him. Three or four times before this he had felt the same pain, followed by the same prostration of body and depression of mind. He had never consulted anyone about it. If it was serious, let it kill him. If it was not serious, why should he care? Why should he care about anything now? Dora was dead and his life was in ashes. True, he had not been as faithful to Dora as he might have been, but then who was perfect? And he had meant to marry Dora; and he would have married Dora only that Dora had died. He was too weary to take off his clothes. It was better for him to lie thus than to run the risk of again experiencing that terrible pain. The lassitude now was tolerable, and gradually the despondency was lifting. He would sleep, and upon waking should be refreshed. When it was day, no doubt he would wake, or a little after day. There was no great hurry. They were not going to bury Dora until noon; and he had come a long way, was overwrought, ill, and might indulge himself in a long, peaceful rest. It was the beginning of autumn, and he did not need, while sleeping, much, if any more covering. There was a rug on a chair hard by. He would just take off his boots, draw that rug over him, and go to sleep. Lavirotte rose carefully from the couch, took off his boots, stretched out his arm, and seized the rug, shook the dust out of it, and drawing it up under his chin, sank back again upon the couch and was soon asleep. For a while he slept so soundly, so softly, one might have supposed he was dead. He did not move a muscle, and his breathing was so quiet it could not be heard by anyone standing near. The hours went by, and still he slept calmly, dreamlessly. Towards dawn he turned slightly on his left side, and then, as though by magic, the vacant spaces of unconscious sleep became filled with images, at first confused and incoherent, with no more rational dependence upon one another than the inarticulate sounds produced by a deaf mute and organised arbitrary speech. First he was conscious of great peril, which threatened him, he knew not from where. It was an old enemy, someone he had once wronged, someone who had promised him forgiveness, and now withdrew that promise. Was it a man or a nation, or some great law of nature, or some element of the supernatural that he had once outraged and that now threatened him, that now assailed him with fears, choked full of horror? Choked-choked-choked full of horrors. No, not choked full of horrors. Full of choking horrors. Full of deprivation of breath. Full of rigidity of lung. Full of the smell of stifling brass and unutterable pains of sulphureous obstruction. This was better. This was an open prairie, and he, weary-limbed and sodden with fatigue, having accomplished innumerable miles of travel, had innumerable miles of travel still to accomplish through the rank, tall, tangled grass that pressed against his steps, up to his knees, and held back his feet as a shallow rapid might hold back the feet of one standing in it. Overhead the sky was blue and pitiless; without a cloud, without the faintest promise of rain, which would refresh and cheer him. The grass at his feet was too bright for wholesomeness and hurt his eyes, as the sun above his head was too bright for wholesomeness and hurt his head, his neck, his back, seemed to parch and dry up the very essence of his spirits. It would be better if he could lie down; for, although the grass was too green with light, it was softer than this toil forward, and it would soothe the fiery heat of his muscles to stretch in delicious ease, even under that fierce sun. But he was powerless to do his will. He was powerless even to bend his back; he was powerless to bend to one side or the other. In no way could he alter the strain on the muscles of his legs. They burned him as though they were of red-hot steel; and yet onward and onward he must go, supported and projected by them. It was not now leagues that threatened him ahead, but infinity. For eternity he was destined to plod on over this fiercely hot, breathless plain, with the current of those tangled grasses always against his feet, on his head the furious heat of the sun, and in the muscles of his legs the fire of hell. Hell! Ah, yes! Now he knew all. This was his punishment for what he had done. But what had he done? There was the bitterness of this great punishment. He did not know. But it was something so terrible that the angels above durst not breathe it lest they might pollute Heaven, nor the demons in hell utter even its name, lest the Plutonian fires might be raised to rages such as the damned had never known. What was this after all? A change in the aspect of affairs which a while ago had seemed immutable, eternal. No longer was the plain a solitude, yet still no human figure but his own was in view. Yet he heard a sound behind him, and, turning, saw, a tall, lean, hungry-looking dog behind him. Any companionship seemed better than the solitude of the green plain, the empty sky, and the pitiless sun. The dog was coming after him faster than he was walking. The dog would overtake him in time. No doubt the brute felt the loneliness as he did, and yearned for companionship of any kind. What was this? All at once the resistance to the progress of his feet seemed to have broken down. All at once the fiery agony had left his muscles. All at once the hurtful brightness of the green had deserted the grass. All at once the mad fervour had been withdrawn from the rays of the sun, and in its place had come a jocund, sprightly warmth, which surrounded the body like a soothing vapour, and drew upwards from the grasses healing balms. The solitude of the prairie was broken by the presence of the dog. The impediment in his progress had been laid. The fever had departed from his body, and he felt refreshed, invigorated. Now he cared not how far he had to journey forward. He had the companionship of the dog, the vigour of youth, a soft and level way, and the freshness of an early summer morning around him. Out of a life of hideous and useless labour he had been lifted into a life of vernal joyousness. He did not care now whether the toil of his march should finish with the day. In so far as he was, he was absolutely happy, and when the dog overtook him, and he could speak to and fondle it, he should desire no more. He looked over his shoulder. The dog was still a long way in the rear, but seemed to be overhauling him foot by foot. He called to the brute. It did not bark or look up. It seemed to take no notice of his voice, but kept on slowly, now diverging a little to one side, now to the other, but mainly keeping in a right line with him. What was there about this dog which seemed, now that it was closer, disconcerting? The brute came forward, hanging its head low, and as he swayed out of the right line of approach he snapped as though flies were attacking him, although no flies were on the plain. Then there was something wrong about his eyes and mouth. Although Lavirotte called him he did not look up, and the jaws of his mouth were not closed, and the teeth of his mouth were visible, and in the angles of the jaws there was foam. The brute was now within fifty yards of him, and just at the moment when Lavirotte's uneasiness at the unusual appearance of the dog had gained its height, something strange happened to the ground upon which Lavirotte was walking. It grew soft, spongy, lutulent. His feet, which a few moments before had been full of springy vigour, were now clogged with the heavy mud into which, as he went onward, he at every step sank more and more, until at last he found he could make no further progress and was held immovably fixed. Moment by moment he sank deeper. The mud now reached his knees, his hips, his waist, his ribs. Only his head and shoulders rose above this devouring quicksand. Then, as he believed all was lost, and when the mud had reached his arm-pits, the dog overtook him, and moving slowly, stood in front of him. With a wild shriek Lavirotte thrust forth his arms and seized the huge ears of the bloodhound, crying: "He is mad! The dog is mad! I know it. We have always known this kind of thing, we Lavirottes." The dog snapped at both his arms. With superhuman efforts, Lavirotte avoided the fangs. All at once, with a wild growl and incredible strength, the bloodhound thrust his head forward and drove his long yellow fangs into Lavirotte's chin. The eyes of the man and the eyes of the beast were now fixed on one another, and the eyes of the man saw that the eyes of the beast were those of Eugene O'Donnell. With a scream Lavirotte started to his feet-awake. This was the morning of Dora's funeral.

CHAPTER XVI

When Lavirotte got to Charterhouse Square there was little time to lose. Already the hearse and two mourning coaches were there. To himself he seemed not more than half awake. He went about the place like a man in a dream. He saw certain things occur, and he knew they were incidental to a funeral, but he made no connection between them and Dora, between them and his own heart. He was a shadow attending the obsequies of a wraith. He was now connected with nothing material, and nothing connected with matter was now going forth. There was in his mind a formula which he adopted from others-namely, Dora Harrington was about to be buried, but this had no relation to his past, his present, or his future. The events of all that day were to him, afterwards, no more than a half-forgotten dream. He was conscious of having felt weary, tired, worn out. He was conscious of being in a kind of vicarious way, on his own behalf, present at a gloomy ceremonial. He was conscious that sadness was the leading characteristic of that ceremonial, and he was conscious of little else. When all was over he remembered getting back to the tower, clambering up with difficulty, mounting into the loft which had been his sleeping room, taking off his clothes (the first time for days), and lying down in an unmade bed. He remembered the sense of peace and quiet which had come over him in that bed, and the gradual approach of sleep, until at last all was blank. And then he remembered nothing until he saw the early light of the next day. He lay a long time looking at the light as it slowly descended on the wall. His mind became a sluggish whirlpool of memory. He could now see clearly all the events which had marked recent years. It may be said his life had not begun until he had met Dora Harrington in London; and from that point downward, to the hurry and whirl and abysm of to-day, he saw everything clearly, sharply. "I meant to be faithful to her," he thought. "I swore it, and I meant it, my dear, dead Dora. What first made me miss a letter to you? Let me see. Ah, yes! I remember. I was to have written from Glengowra on Saturday, and on Friday Eugene O'Donnell asked me to go for a long walk with him next day. We went inland, towards the mountains, and in the mountains we lost ourselves and did not get home until midnight, when it was too late to keep my promise to you, my darling. "That was the first letter I ever missed. Ah, how many have I missed since? "Then what happened? She who is now O'Donnell's wife came between me and Dora. Her beauty carried me away. I was infatuated, fascinated, mad, and I forgot my dear girl for an empty dream; an idle, empty dream that no sane man would have heeded for a moment. Then came Eugene; and she who could not love me could love him, and I felt that I had lost both. This made me worse. I lost all command of reason, and tried to kill him. "Then came that time at Glengowra when we were both lying hurt, and the old man, her grandfather, came and induced me to take an interest in that phantom treasure; and all at once it occurred to me that if this treasure were found, I could be of the greatest service to the O'Donnells, whom I had so deeply injured. "I came to London, to this very place, with the sole object of getting money to relieve the O'Donnells. All was now right with Dora. We were on as affectionate terms as ever we had been. But as time went on, and the days between the O'Donnells and ruin became fewer, I gradually became more deeply absorbed in the work here, I gradually visited Dora less frequently. I almost deserted her, for a second time, and although no estrangement ever arose between her and me, I felt guilty towards her. But I was carried away headlong by my passionate desire to rescue the O'Donnells. "Often as I worked, I knew I was overstraining my constitution; and when the supreme moment arrived, the urgent letter from Eugene, and the absolute necessity for immediate success or failure, I broke down in my lodgings and returned here, only to find that I had been wasting my time and risking my life in a wild-goose chase. "Then came the climax, and the narrow escape from sudden death. "All this seems strangely mixed up with the O'Donnells-all my misfortune! Then I go away; I go south with the O'Donnells. I go south to study for the career which would enable me to marry Dora, and I go south with the O'Donnells. It appears I was fated never to be free from their presence, from their influence, once I met them, and that the presence and the influence were to have disastrous effects on my life. "I am awhile in Milan when I meet Luigia, who is light-haired, and red-cheeked, and blue-eyed, and tall and slender and lithe, like the other, who is now his wife. And first, out of a mere surprise, and a desire to know how far this likeness went, I took an interest in the child; an interest, a perfectly innocent interest, I swear to heaven. "I found her like the other in many ways-in gait, in carriage, in the bright liveliness of her expression, in the clear simplicity of her nature, in the straightforward unsuspiciousness of her regard. "At first I had merely stopped and spoken to the girl, and bought the flowers she had to sell. Then I began a little chat now and then, until at last we met alone. But still there was nothing but a kind of Bohemian friendship between us. I never said any words of love to her beyond the endearing words of her country, which have no meaning of love. Still, in some way, the memory of that old infatuation I had for her who is now his wife came back upon me, and dulled the thought of Dora; until at last, I do not know how, owing to some queer twist or turn of the brain, I seemed to think Dora would not miss my letters, and that it was only a kind of puerile foolishness to write. And so my letters dropped. And so my girl, my Dora, my darling, died. "Here again is the inextricable thread, held by the O'Donnells, bound up in my fate. There must be something in it. All this cannot be for nothing. I think it would be wisest for me to sever this connection with the O'Donnells for ever. So far it has brought no good to either side. "For a long time I have been thinking of giving up all idea of singing in public, and turning to medicine. Medicine is a fascinating study, and I'm sure I have a speciality that way. It runs in my blood; I was born with it. My celebrated ancestor, Louis Anne Lavirotte, born at Nolay, in the diocese of Autun, founded what I may call our house, in so far as it has been distinguished by familiarity with great cerebral questions. It is true that none of his immediate relatives has proved as great as he, but still several have devoted themselves to medicine, and several have made a mark in mental pathology. His 'Observations on Symptoms of Hydrophobia, following the Mania,' may not be the greatest work of the kind, but it deserves a prominent place on the shelves of anyone investigating this mysterious form of disease, which has baffled man from the earliest records down to now. "I think I am myself peculiarly qualified to take up inquiry into particular forms of mental callousness or intensity, for I have what I believe to be a peculiar faculty of thrusting forth a portion of my mind into certain and limited psychological regions, into which I can find no one able to follow me. "I have often thought that in these moments of uncontrollable, mental crassness, I am suffering from merely an undue prolongation of a portion of my mind into unfamiliar regions, where it is surrounded by isolated and combined images, invisible to others, and to me at normal times, and then and there illumined by lights and affected by considerations which have no place in my own normal state, or in the regard of others. "The question of the difference between mind and mind, between the sane and the insane, the man with a fad and the man with a delusion, the man with a hallucination and the idiot, admits of such subtleties of thought and delicacies of definition, that I know of nothing more fascinating to the psychologist. "The study of the sane mind is in itself an unexplored continent, of which only the coast line is known. But when we reach the region of insanity, we are on the confines of an unexplored universe, from which, as yet, no light has reached us but nebulous blurs of doubt. "Ay, upon the whole, I think it would be better to abandon all thought of the glitter and glory of the stage, which is but the glitter and glory compassable within four walls built by human hands. Whereas, the glories of research in mental pathology are as infinite as the flight of thought itself, as incompassable as the fields of reason. "I'll do it. I am yet young enough, and now there is no hurry; no hurry, for she is dead. I have my life now before me. It is, after all, a paltry thing for a man to devote all the years of his manhood to posturing on a stage, and uttering notes which, once uttered, will be lost for ever. The voice of the poet is immortal. The voice of the singer dies with the breath that leaves him. The fame of one is momently recreated; the fame of the other momently dies for eternity. What man of ambition would pause to choose between the two? I will not. I will not abandon the substance for the shadow, the actual for the dream. My resolve is taken, and I will abide by it, come what may." Lavirotte rose and went out. He had no fixed purpose as to what he should do with himself that day. He had no address in London. He had said nothing to O'Donnell about leaving. When he found himself in the busy streets he felt lonely, desolate, derelict. There was not now even the dead to visit and despair over. No one in the world now had any interest in him. He was as much alone as any man ever on desert island. No point of contact connected him with the world around him, with the world abroad. He had told his landlady at Milan that he was coming to London. That was all. No one else knew from him whither he had fled. She would not think of him. And yet it would be a ray in the dark vault of his solitude if one soul should think of him, and address him by name, followed by the most commonplace of words. It would be like touching the hand of a friend if his Milanese landlady had written him a letter. He turned his steps towards the Post Office. He entered the place for strangers' letters. He advanced towards the counter. Then, with a sardonic smile, he remembered that his Milanese landlady was illiterate. Never mind. She might have got someone to write for her. He asked if there were any letters for him. He was handed one. Ah, she had. No, this was from O'Donnell.

CHAPTER XVII

"My Dear Lavirotte,

"I cannot tell you how deeply grieved we both were to hear the occasion of your flight from Milan. Your landlady, Maria, told me the sad news. I was, indeed, greatly shocked and grieved to hear it. We can easily understand how it was, in the first terrible moment of your affliction, you should not care to come near even us. But I cannot help wishing that by some accident or another it had so chanced I left Milan by the train that took you away, though I might not be allowed to intrude upon you in the journey. "My dear Lavirotte, I know as well as anyone that under occasions of this kind words of consolation are generally outrages. My whole object in writing this letter is simply to say how sorry I am that I am not with you, and how sorry we both are for the cause which took you away. "I am sure the best thing you can do, under the circumstances, is to come back here as quickly as ever you can. Do not lose a moment. I am altogether thinking of you, and not of the desire either of us has to see you. To show you I am in earnest in this, if you tell me you will come, I will promise never to go near you until you give me leave. It is the commonest of commonplaces, but it is one of the truest, that hard work is the best way of occupying time, when time is bitter or heavy. My dear Lavirotte, come back and plunge headlong into work. We will not trouble you. When you wish to see us you know where to find us. I will not now say any more, except what you well know already, that our hearts are, and always will be, with you.

"Yours as ever,"Eugene O'Donnell."

When Lavirotte finished reading this letter he fell into a long reverie. With head depressed and slow steps, he passed down Cheapside, Newgate Street, and over the Viaduct. A couple of hours ago it seemed to him his mind was made up beyond the possibility of change. And now he was not thinking of change. He was not thinking at all, but allowing to drift slowly across his imagination a long panorama of that future which he had resolved to abandon. He saw once more the life at Milan, the life he had been leading, the life Eugene would continue to lead for a while longer. He saw the moment when Eugene would finally take leave of that city and come northward, perfected in his art. He saw Eugene's arrival in London, with such good words for heralds as made him sought after in his profession. He saw obsequious managers with Eugene, flattering him, coaxing him, pressing him to accept splendid engagements. He saw the admiring faces at the private trial of Eugene's voice. He saw the smiles of delight, the hands that applauded. He saw the flush of triumph upon Eugene's face, Eugene's bows of acknowledgment. And behind all, he saw Nellie. He saw her radiant, transfigured, divine, sitting apart, isolated from all by the exquisite delicacy of her beauty, the exquisite delicacy of her love, the exquisite delicacy of her spirit. He saw the glance that shot from Eugene's faithful eyes to hers. He saw that in that room, that hall, the only thought between these two people was the thought of their love, the high and holy love of perfect faith, in which there is no more room for desire in the heart, in which the two spirits are not one in essence, but one in form, wherein neither exists apart, and each is complementary to the other. He saw these two married lovers had no need for words. They were with each other. That was enough. Each of them knew what this meant, how much it meant, down to the utmost limit of their joint happiness. Ah, what happiness was this! What joy, what unutterable rapture! To love thus wholly and without guile and without thought, without even consciousness of loving. What could be more! What could be more than this rich completion of spirit! What were all the gross, material ambitions of the world compared to such love as this! This was not the love of line and colour, the love of form and voice, the love of youth and sprightliness, the love of device or trick. Time would be powerless against this. The line and colour, the form and voice had been to this but the prelude to the imperial theme. These two spirits were now commingling to the perfect tones of the most glorious anthem, chanted by the angels for the accord of man on earth. He saw the crowded theatre, the blaze of light, the circles of wealth, and youth, and beauty, and fashion, of title and distinction, hushed for the great moment. He heard the orchestra pick up a thread of silver melody. He listened as the orchestra seemed, in carelessness, to lose that hint of melody. He heard that hint again, from a single string, and then to a note of sonorous undertone, he saw the great tenor step forth. He heard that voice begin farther away than the most delicate breathing of the instruments below, like a murmur coming from mid-air, under the stars. The sound descended, broadening and mellowing as it came, until it touched the earth in notes of resonant manhood, and then burst forth, complaining loud. Complaining of love denied, of true love lost for ever. He heard the song go on to the melodious climax of its final woe, and then he heard a mighty crash like the sound of an avalanche shot from a giddy, frozen cliff down a precipitous way to the valley below. He looked, he saw men on their feet cheering and clapping their hands, and women waving their handkerchiefs. Women flung their bouquets, their bracelets, their rings upon the stage-these women drunk on a human voice. He heard the "bravos," the "encores," cried by thousands of throats, by those people who were at once the slaves and tyrants of Eugene. Then, again, he heard the orchestra pick up that silver thread of melody- He threw up his head. Where was this? Had he got so far? and how had he wandered here? Ah! Lincoln's Inn Fields! The College of Surgeons! Surgery, pain, disease, death! What a contrast to that great vision he had just seen! Good God, what a contrast! He turned hastily out of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He could not endure the dingy, decayed look of that rusty old square. He had once been told that the area of this square corresponded with the area of the base of the great Pyramid. Surgeons and embalmers, the Great Pyramid and mummies, Lincoln's Inn Fields and ghouls! These were ghastly subjects. He had never noticed before how stark and bleak and cold, how skeleton-like the houses in Lincoln's Inn Fields were. It was a horrible place at this time of year, when the leaves were dropping, when the leaves already down had begun to rot. The youth and manhood of the year were gone. It was in the sere, the yellow leaf. No wholesomeness or joy could now be hoped for until the spring was rife once more. The earth had ceased to aspire to heaven, and all the glorious and beautiful efflorescence of earth towards the sun was falling back once more to the dun clay from which, by the aid of silver rains and violet and ruby dews, the sun of spring had stolen such verdant marvels. The dun clay, the dun earth, surgeons and mummies, pyramids and ghouls; ah, there was no cheerfulness, no wholesomeness in any of them! Think of an English river with willows and swans, and the light of summer, and the blue sky, and the delicate, slender, upward-pointing reflections in the water, and the music of the bees, and the inextricably-mingled odour of innumerable flowers, and the songs of birds, surprising the mellow shades of inner woods. And then the beauty of woman, and the strength and glory of youth in man, and the triumph and glory of song in man, and then the voice of song that made the birds seem but the lifting of one leaf amid the tuneful murmurs of a mighty wood, and the voice of woman answering to love in the accents of the song- Surgeons and mummies, pyramids and ghouls. God made none of these for man. But all the others had the touch of his great handicraft, the imperial fashion of his august design, the tones of sound and colour, half hidden from the heedless, but revealed in their exquisite perfection to the poetic sense. Surgeons and mummies, pyramids and ghouls. Bah! Overhead, what a gloomy sky! The sun was now shining on all the squares and streets of Milan!