DEAR DEAD WOMEN

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue II, 12 July 1902, Page 70

DEAR DEAD WOMEN

by

Lady Arabella Romilly

PART 11.

CHAPTER 11. I was dreaming in my chair by the fire, ami suddenly I looked up, and my eyes fell on a picture of Veronica on my chimney-piece —a little sketch 1 had made of her myself, one day. I met her the same year 1 had met Cynthia. She did not glide into my soul; we did not fall into an entangling friendship, but what a sweet Veronica she was! She was much younger than Cynthia. She was full of gladness and merriment and poetry. After sitting gazing at the moon all through a summer night, listening to distant nightingales in the hush of the starlight and in the dimmest hour before tin dawn, Veronica came like the first sunshine, the wildest bird's song, the quick rustle of the leaves touch by the first breeze of morning! She was a woman made to lx* everyone's spoilt darling, and when she was not being spoilt, she resented it prettily, and with a childlike petulance all her own. I own now. that during the week tl.at I was in the same house with her I almost forgot Cynthia. She was a slight, willowy woman, looking even younger than her age. She had ways of her own. in speaking. looking, dressing. Twenty years ago tea-gowns were hardly invented, but Veronica always came down to tea in long. soft, flowing gowns, white or softly tinted. She dressed to suit her own type. No words can quite' describe her kind of charm. Bewitching, sedui■si.nte. seem to suit her best. As years passed on. her charm increased. for sometimes I saw a look of sadness complete the beauty’ of her enchanting eyes. IVe were friends from the first. She loved to laugh, and her light wit brought life and love and laughter in ils train. Veronica Eastlake and T met often during these eight years, but though always fascinated bv her when with bn. I remaned faithful to Cynthia. Hut towards the end of the eight years Veroivea had become very dear to me. and Cynthia had grown anxious and unhappy. Veronica grew more bewitching since I had come to know Her better. and became more and more a presence in my life. Cynthia grew sadder as life went on. and the burden grew too heavy, and my soul was alternately tender and impatient, and one day 'she said to me almost passionately. “ Lancelot. I am certain you are beginning to tire of me” How well men know that awful sentence; it strikes terror into the bravest heart. A man can face an advancing army 'better than those pathetic words—“ You are getting tired of me.” And all men know how they prolist to the contrary, feeling that the truth is lying hidden somewhere under the words. A man can be almost brutal to a woman whom he is madly in love with. for love is aften a madness and a curse: but to a woman whom he lives only tenderly he can never

bring himself to tell the absolute ti uth. I went to see Veronica one late November afternoon. When I came into her sitting-room she was lying back on her large sofa. As she rose to receive me with a little word of welcome she seemed I ke a dream-lady coming to me in her long white gown—Undine, a white fairy queen, a being that might glide out of your sight with a little tender laugh, leaving you spellbound. Whether yon loved her or not, she knew bow to become a haunting influence in a man's life. Veronica was always herself- 1 had not then found out whether she were the greatest actress or the most natural woman in the world. But whether she acted her part or was glad to see me. I did not know then—but she came to me with a smile in her eves and on the sweetest of lips. I almost fancied her hand trembled a little in mine. “And so we meet at last. Sir Lancelot.” she said. “How you have forgotten me. Tell me about yourself." Veronica aften talked about herself to those she eared for. perhaps, sometimes, as a means of understanding them. She once told me she judged

at once of the nature of a man or woman by the way they answered her when she told them she was ill. But to those whom she knew to be sympathetic to her she gave the deepest, most intense sympathy. She was a woman who could never fail a friend—she would not have known how“There has not been much to tell," I answered. “I have not been to see you lately—no--but then I have seen no one. I have been busy with a book.” “Have you put me into the book?’’ she aske.’l prettily. “If I were to try and put you into a book. .Mrs Eastlake, I should not know how to begin or where to end.” “Is that a compliment?” she asked, laughing a low. little laugh. “I thought I could have trusted myself to you,” and then her mood changed. "Perhaps.” she said gently, “sorrow has come to both of us since we parted. Sorrow should draw two friends together — more closely. I know,” she said impressively, leaning her head on her hand as she lay among the cushions, and turning her eyes to me, ”1 know sorrow has touched you —deeply- It is not for me to speak —till you speak. If it is not right to speak. I can be still, and let silence speak for me.”

Her eyes of magic seemed to tear the word from me. Her white arms seemet, as they lay there quietly, inviting me to tell her of my sorrow. She had put herself apart. She onlyfelt my sorrow, then. “Sorrow,” I said, “yes, indeed, What is a man to do with his life?" “Ah, what, indeed! And what can a woman do with hers?” “A ou," I said incredulously. “Can you have sorrow too!” "We v, i'll talk about that —some ‘lay—perhaps not at all.” And in that dim lamplight I could almost fancy her eyes were full of tears. Ihen she got up. and began moving about the room, showing to me her new photographs, her mts of silver, her old engravings, new to the room since I had seen it. There were many flowers, mostly white or purple —for those colours were her passion. She passed her hands over the white chrysanthemums, great drooping eather-dihe flowers, in a large silver bowl. There were gardenias in tiny bohemian glasses by her. and vio- ■ ets and heliotrope everywhere ‘ Is it good for you to live among all these sweet flowers'?” 1 asked, for as she moved beside me. she seemed to be too pale. (Softly came Cyn.nia’s whisper to my soul, Do not confide in Veronica 1 am sacred—l am here.”) Softly ca n>e the caressing voice of Aeronica: Aes. tell me Ao one comes here in need of sympathy without laying their sorrows in my hands to console them.” As she spoke she laid her little, soft hand out to me—yet not to me—onlyon the cushions by her, as if me to speak. a Ii I ste " ed t* 3 the living and not to the dead; it was a great struggle, veronica aid not speak—she waited tor me to speak. “Airs Eastlake, I have lost the friend who was all the world to me Her life made my life. I have lost the one woman who cared for me and whom 1 cared for. Aly life is an utter blank.” A change came over her face. 1 do not think a woman lives—or a man either—who quite listens unmoved to the knowledge that another is “all the world.” I know I should have felt a pang if Veronica had told me she had lost her only friend on earth. Vefloniea could not always command her manner and words. She had self-control, but not to any rigid extent. She had so much expression in her lace that she could not make an impassive mask of It. When she spoke at last, her manner was subdued. e»en tender. "Was she so much to you—l did not know?” “She was the one thought of my life. ’ I answered. I knew she did not entirely believe me; how could she? But I spoke more decidedly than I felt, out Of loyalty to Cynthia. Veronica remained very still, looking quietly at me. I did not look at her as calmly as she looked at me. I had a pitiful inclination to wound the gentle Veronica. I could not let her imagine that she had entered into my thoughts at all. “Strange,” Veronica answered, her slight fingers playing with the chrysanthemums beside her* “I did not km.w such faith and loyalty existed

in these days. lam glad to know one woman found it in her life —I could find it in my heart to envy her for her power of inspiring one to faith and chivalrous devotion. Ah, I feel for you. 1 do feel for you.“ And then so kind were her eyes that 1 could have knelt at her feet, and prayed for her hands to be lifted up over me in prayer—as one kneels at the shrine of the Madonna of Consolation. “I cannot quite pity you, if you and one woman have once found your ideal in each other. I do not quite pity those who have found on earth one moment of supreme happiness. Don’t you think it is better than a long life all grey, like a mist?” "But you,” I answered, “what have you to complain of? I have lost everything—you have lost nothing. “Nothing,” she said quickly, losing her dreamy sadness in a moment—“nothing! Sir Lancelot, it is best that you should always think of me as you see me —do not imagine more. You know when brightness and

merriment is wanted I can be bright and merry, and you know that I would never jar upon a mood of sadness—and that mood suits me best —but for the rest —I am your friend to help you by sympathy, silent or spoken, in your great trouble- Hu this 1 will tell you, I can enter into your sorrow—and could 1 feel if 1, t'bo, had not suffered? It is only when two souls have gone into the depths of suffering that they can hold out their hands to each other out of the shadows —out of the deep. "But,” she said, more sadly still, "we all g<> down alone, and, it is only sometimes, in the worst moment, we find a soul there too —in the deep.” “You have held out your hand to me,” 1 said, reverently. She turned to me with that smile which came lik? sudden sunlight into a house of mourning and death, and melted away half the tragedy of life with a warm human glow. "You would like to help me in my sorrow. I should love to help you.” And then Veronica and I looked into each other’s eye*, and each knew, though neither spoke the knowledge, that a new era had begun in our friendship, and that sympathy whieh is both human and divine woke in our hearts. I ceased to look on Veronica only as all the world might. She was fast becoming to me the dearest woman in the world though I did not quite realise It then. When

I rose to go she held out a gardenia to me. “ I will not take it,” I said, “ you are not a gardenia. You may seem s<> to others, but not to me. I will l.ave your violets or nothing." She gave me her violets without a word. “ They are the flowers of faithfulness and! tenderness, but they are also the flowers of renunciation and repentance, growing in the spiritworld about the feet of those who have entered into the kingdom of Heaven through great tribulation.” Then I left her with no more words. PART 111THE PRIEST. CHAPTER I. I often went to see Veronica, and her charm grew on me gradually, as incense steals into the senses. I reproached fnyself bitterly* for my folly in loving a married woman again, and this time with a less whol-

ly spiritual love. Quite unconsciously to herself—so she has told me in after years—l became the one friend in the world to her. and yet there was always a barrier between us, and that barrier was honour. I often wondered how it was with all her soft-confiding ways, her childlike recklessness, that the divine purity of her inmost soul seemed to keep her safe. I think sometimes her earthly side asserted itself, and she found if hard to remain within the strong white bar of light which kept her from being like many’ women of her type. I knew she had two natures in her. I had a letter from her. early in September. She had come to London to be near her sister, who was ill. She gave up much of her time to her sister, and it was difficult to find her at home. She had left her husband in Scotland. T had a week’s business in London. I left my guests to the care of my cousin and my sister, and came to town. Veronica had a way tn her letters of saying very tender things, liable to misconstruction. Little sentences which took one by surprise—half frightened and half charmed one. It is difficult for a man to nnswe. such letters when his feeling* fire more than those of kindly tenderness.

“ If by any chauce you should be in London, come and see me, dear friend. Good-bye. I send you some white heather. Are you being a little less sad—a little more reconciled to your life?” In another part of her letter—“ 1 miss our" long talks over books. Dear b< oks: I think so much depends on the way we take them. Book talk may lead to much, or be so safe.” ’1 his was one of Veronica’s dangerous little sentences, and what man could ever tell whether she expressed a reflection or a sentiment? Life had become something like wariness just now. for Cynthia’s form, with reproachful eyes, haunted me by day and night- I could almost hear her saying, “ Lancelot, you have broken your promise. Another woman has taken my place.” Yesterday morning I had laid a wreath of passion flowers on her grave. I had left mv home a day earlier

so as to take the wreath from my own conservatory. I had reached her deserted house in the afternoon. I had walked about the silent room —I found in her little sitting-room some photographs of myself. I cartied them away with me. I found her Prayer-book lying on the table; I opened it and found these words written under her name: “ Love must not be selfish. It ought to be self-less enough to rejoice. in giving up the beloved one t< another if it were for his happiness. But one must be quite sure it is for his happiness. It is all perplexity. and darkness, but 1 know, within my sold, my love for him would not rejoice in giving him up. Ah. God! do women on earth ever attain to such heights as this? Ah. God! do women in Heaven?” My eyes were filled with tears as

1 read these words—but Veronica held my heart. I turned and looked once more at the familiar room where Cynthia and I had spent so many hours togetherHer picture stood on an easel—it used to be in the drawing-room, but a kindly hand had placed it here, consecrating the room to her memI stood and looked long at the drooping lily head, the refined thin features, the sad blue eyes— widely opened, with the innocent look of a < hild. Her dark hair was slightly raised from her forehead. She was dressed in white, and the background was a daffodil sunset. The sweet, old-fashioned room—-all So still in the house, where Cynthia l ad suffered and died. I laid the wreath of passion flowers on the grave —where Cynthia St. John and her little sons lay. I knelt down by the cross, and . leant mv tired head against it. “ Forgive me. dear lost friend ” t

said. “ The promise was too hard. Do you not understand?” Then I kissed the grave reverently, and left the mother and the sons alone.

(To be Continued.)