_ BOOK II CHAPTER XXV. THE MOONLIGHT SONATA
"The depth and dream of my desire,
The bitter paths wherein I stray,
Thou knowest, who hast made the Fire,
Thou knowest, who hast made the Clay."
--KIPLING.
When the bedroom door opened, Desmond lifted his head, in a distracted attempt to see more of his wife than the shade would permit, and held out his hand.
"Come, Ladybird. I want you."
She came at his bidding, and put her hand in his. But, unwittingly, she stood no nearer than the action demanded; and in her bewildered misery she forgot that he would expect her to stoop and kiss him. It was a fatal omission--how fatal she did not realise till later.
He drew her closer with quiet decision; and she submitted, as she would have submitted to anything he might have chosen to do just then.
"Am I so very dreadful that you can't bear to come near me?" he asked, with a brave attempt at lightness.
"Oh, Theo, don't say that," she pleaded. It came too painfully near the truth. "Only--I can't seem able to believe that--it is really you."
"Well, I give you my word it
is really me--the very same Theo who won the Punjab Cup, and danced with you at Lahore three months ago." Then he bit his lip sharply; for the thought smote him that he might never sit a pony or dance with her again.
The sob that had been clutching at her throat escaped, in spite of herself. "Lahore!" she murmured. "It was all so beautiful at Lahore!"
"Don't cry about it, darling. It will be just as beautiful again, in time. Sit down on the floor--here, close to me. I can't get a sight of you any other way."
She sat down, but in such a position that he had only a scant view of her tear-disfigured face. He pushed the damp ringlets back from her forehead. In his eyes it was her misfortune, rather than her fault, that she should be so inexorably chained to her own trouble.
Her spirit and her love revived under the magic of his touch. She caught his hand and pressed it against her burning cheek. It was cool and steady and sustaining--the hand of a brave man.
"Poor child," he said gently. "I'm an uncomfortable sort of husband for you. But little accidents of this kind will happen to soldiers. Don't say you wish you hadn't married this one!" And he smiled.
"No--no. But, Theo, did you get all these wounds and things trying to save the Boy?"
"Yes; more or less."
"And it wasn't a scrap of use?"
"No. One had the satisfaction of killing the men who did for him. That was all!"
"And you might just as well have come back strong and splendid, like you went away?"
"No use thinking of what might have been, darling. We've got to set our teeth and face what
is."
"Oh, Theo--you are very brave."
"Needs must, Ladybird. If a man fails in that, he had better not have been born. And you are going to be brave too,--my wife."
"Yes,--I hope so. But--it's much more horrible than I ever imagined; and if it's going on for weeks and weeks----"
The prospect so unnerved her that she leaned her head against him, sobbing bitterly.
"Oh, I can't--I can't----!"
The low cry came straight from her heart; and Desmond understood its broken protest to the full. The effort to uphold her was to be useless after all. He compressed his lips and gently released her hand.
"If it's as bad as that, my dear, and you really feel it will be too much for you," he said in a changed tone, "I might arrange for Honor to take you away in a day or two, till I am well enough to follow on. They all know here that you are not strong. One need not degrade you by telling--the whole truth."
"But, Theo, I couldn't leave you like that--just now, could I?"
His smile had a hint of scorn.
"Goodness knows! There is nothing to prevent you----"
"Yes--there is!" she spoke hurriedly, with downcast eyes. "Honor would never take me. She thinks it's dreadful that I should go. I never saw her so angry before. She--she said--terrible things----"
"Good God! What do--you--mean?"
Desmond spoke slowly. Anger and amazement sounded in his deep voice; and his wife saw what she had done.
"Theo!--Theo!" she cried, clasping her hands, and wringing them in distraction at her own foolishness, "I never meant to say that. I--I----"
"No--but you meant to do it," he said, breathing hard and speaking with an effort. "You actually thought of--going--before I came? You would have simply--bolted, and left me to come back to an empty house, if Honor had not prevented you? Great heavens! I can well believe she said terrible things."
His wife knelt upright now and caught at his hand. But he withdrew it hastily.
"Theo--will you listen to me and not be so angry? You are very unkind!"
"Am I? Don't you think it is the other way about? I confess I'm in no humour to listen to you just now. I've had about as much as I can stand to-night; and Mackay told me I must not upset myself about things." He laughed harshly--a sound that chilled her blood. "But no mere man could anticipate
this!"
"Well, I never
meant to say it, and I think you're horrid, you don't understand----"
"No; thank God, I don't understand--cowardice and desertion. Get up now and leave me alone, please. It's the greatest kindness you can do me; and yourself also, I imagine."
"Oh, don't say that. It's not true; and I'm not going to dream of leaving you. Won't you let me explain?"
"To-morrow, Evelyn, to-morrow," he answered wearily. "I shall be able to give you a fairer hearing by then; and I pray God I may have misjudged you. Now--go."
She bent down and kissed his hand; then rose and slipped silently back into her own room.
* * * * *
Theo Desmond lay motionless, like a man stunned. This third blow, dealt him in quick succession, left him broken in heart and spirit, as he had never been broken in all his days.
It is written that a man must be defeated in order to succeed; and in that moment Desmond bit the dust of the heart's most poignant tragedy and defeat--the shattering of faith in one who is very near to us. Nor was it the shattering of faith alone. The shock of his wife's unwitting revelation, coming when he stood supremely in need of her loyalty and tenderness, struck a mortal blow at his love for her; though in his present state he was not capable of recognising the truth. He only knew that, for the first time in his life, he felt unutterably alone--alone in a dimness which might deepen to permanent darkness; and that the wholesome vigorous realities of life seemed to have slipped for ever out of reach. He only knew that his wife would have turned her back upon him in his hour of extremity--openly disgracing herself and him--but for the intervention of Honor Meredith.
Her mere name called up a vivid vision of her beauty, a remembrance of the infinite compassion in her voice when she had knelt beside him, soothing and strengthening him by some miracle of womanly intuition, urging him to make allowance for his wife's distress.
A sudden glow thrilled through him from head to foot. He stirred slightly; and tried, without success, to turn in his chair. It was as if the compelling spirit of her had dragged him back from the brink of nothingness to renewed life, to the assurance that in his utmost loneliness he was not--nor ever would be--alone. And, in that moment of awakening, the voice of sympathy came to him--tender, uplifting, clear as speech.
Honor Meredith had begun to play.
By way of prelude she chose a piece of pure organ music--the exquisitely simple Largo of the Second Sonata. From that she passed on to the Pastoral itself, opening it, as of custom, with the fine Andante movement--the presage of coming storm.
None among all that wondrous thirty-two is so saturate with open-air cheerfulness and vigour as this Sonata, aptly christened the Pastoral. Here we are made accomplices of Nature's moods, and set in the midst of her voices. Here, in swift succession, are storm and sunshine; falling rain-drops; the plash and ripple of mountain streams; bird notes of rare verisimilitude, from the anxious twitterings before the thunder-shower, to the chorus of thanksgiving after it has swept vigorously past. And Theo Desmond, lying in semi-darkness, with pain for his sole comrade, knew that the hand of healing had been again outstretched to him,--not all in vain.
The Sonata ended in a brisk ripple of sound; and for a while Honor sat motionless, her shapely hands resting on the keyboard as if awaiting further inspiration.
Desmond moved again uneasily. He wondered what her unfailing intuition of his need would lead her to play next; and even as he wondered, expectancy was lulled into a great rest by the measured tranquillity of Beethoven's most stately and divine Adagio--the Moonlight Sonata.
There are some people who get deeper into a piano than others, who breathe a living soul into the trembling wires. The magic of Honor's music lay in this capacity; and she exerted it now to the limit of her power.
The Moonlight Sonata is cumulative from start to finish, passing from the exalted calm of the Adagio, through the graciousness of the Allegretto, to that inspired and inspiring torrent of harmony the Presto Agitato. Its incomparable effect of the rush and murmur of many waters, through which the still small voice of melody rings clear as a song dropped straight from heaven, leaves little room in a listener's soul for the jangling discords of earth. Into that movement the great deaf musician seems to have flung the essence of his impatient spirit;--that rare mingling of ruggedness and simplicity, of purity and passionate power, which went to make up the remarkable character of the man, and which sets Beethoven's music apart from the music of his compeers. Wagner, Chopin, Grieg,--these range the whole gamut of emotion for its own sake. But in the hands of the master it becomes what it should be--the great uplifting lever of the world.
The listener in the darkened room drew a long breath, and clenched his teeth so forcibly that a spasm of pain passed, like a fused wire, through the wound in his cheek. But the keener stress of mind and heart dulled his senses to the pin-prick of the flesh. For in the brief space of time since the music began, Theo Desmond--the soldier of proven courage and self-forgetfulness--had fought the most momentous battle of his life;--a battle in which was no flourish of trumpets, no clash of arms, no medal or honour for the winning.
But the price of conquest had still to be paid. There were still practical issues to be faced, and he faced them with the straightforward simplicity that was his. He saw as in a lightning-flash, the hidden meaning of this girl's power to stimulate and satisfy him; saw the unnameable danger ahead; and in the same breath decided that Honor must go. There must be no risk of disloyalty to Evelyn, were it only in thought.
He could not as yet see how he was to retract his request for her presence. His stunned brain refused to cope with such harassing details. The thing must be said; and no doubt he would find strength to say it aright. For him that was enough; and he deliberately turned his back on the subject.
The Presto was drawing to a close now in a cascade of single notes, as stirring to the ear as the downrush of a waterfall to the eye; and during the silence that followed upon the last crashing chords, the bitter thought came to him that Honor's departure would mean not only the loss of her comradeship, but of the music, which had again become one of the first necessities of his life.
With a sensation altogether strange to him, since it had in it an element of fear, he heard her shut the piano and come towards the door of his room. Closing his eyes, he lay very still, in the hope that she might believe him to be asleep. Ordinary speech with her seemed an impossibility just then.
He felt her come in, and pause beside his chair. His stillness clearly deceived her, for she said nothing; neither did she move away, as he had devoutly hoped she would do.
Remembering that his eyes were hidden, he opened them; and was rewarded by the sight of her cream-coloured skirt, and her hands hanging loosely clasped upon it. An intolerable longing came upon him to push off the shade; to satisfy himself with one glimpse of her face before banishing it out of his life. But strength was given him to resist, and to realise his own cowardice in deceiving her thus.
Then, because he was incapable of doing anything by halves, he made a slight movement and put out his hand.
"Thank you," he said simply. "You have heartened me more than I can say."
"I am so glad," she answered in a low tone, allowing her hand to rest for a mere instant in his. "Now I want you to shut all trouble out of your mind, and go to sleep for a long time. Will you?"
At that the corners of his mouth went down.
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid. But it's sound advice; and I'll do my best to act upon it."
"In that case--you are bound to succeed."
And, without waiting for his possible answer, she slipped quietly out of the room. _