Eleanor, Mrs. Humphry Ward [best books to read now .txt] 📗

surroundings as that of the sleep-walker. And she and Manisty, on their side, as they stood looking at him, lost the impression of the bodily man in the overwhelming impression of a wounded spirit, struggling with mortal hurt.

'Come and sit down,' she said to him gently, and she led him to a chair. Then she went into the next room, poured out and brought him a cup of coffee. He took it with an unsteady hand and put it down beside him untouched. Then he looked at Manisty and began in detail the story of all that had happened to him since the letter in which he had communicated to his English friend the certainty of his condemnation.

Nothing could have been more touching than his absorption in his own case; his entire unconsciousness of anything in Manisty's mind that could conflict with it. Eleanor turning from his tragic simplicity to Manisty's ill-concealed worry and impatience, pitied both. That poor Father Benecke should have brought his grief to Manisty, on this afternoon of all afternoons!

It had been impossible to refuse to see him. He had come a pilgrimage from Rome and could not be turned away. But she knew well that Manisty's ear was listening all the time for every sound in the direction of his sister's room; his anxieties indeed betrayed themselves in every restless movement as he sat with averted head--listening.

Presently he got up, and with a hurried 'Excuse me an instant'--he left the room.

Father Benecke ceased to speak, his lips trembling. To find himself alone with Mrs. Burgoyne embarrassed him. He sat, folding his soutane upon his knee, answering in monosyllables to the questions that she put him. But her sympathy perhaps did more to help him unpack his heart than he knew; for when Manisty returned, he began to talk rapidly and well, a natural eloquence returning to him. He was a South German, but he spoke a fine literary English, of which the very stumbles and occasional naivetes had a peculiar charm; like the faults which reveal a pure spirit even more plainly than its virtues.

He reached his climax, in a flash of emotion--

'My submission, you see--the bare fact of it--left my cause intact. It was the soldier falling by the wall. But my letter must necessarily be misunderstood--my letter betrays the cause. And for that I have no right. You understand? I thought of the Pope--the old man. They told me he was distressed--that the Holy Father had suffered--had lost sleep--through me! So I wrote out of my heart--like a son. And the paper this morning!--See--I have brought it you--the _Osservatore Romano_. It is insolent--brutal--but not to me! No, it is all honey to me! But to the truth--to our ideas.--No!--I cannot suffer it. I take it back!--I bear the consequences.'

And with trembling fingers, he took a draft letter from his pocket, and handed it, with the newspaper, to Manisty.

Manisty read the letter, and returned it, frowning.

'Yes--you have been abominably treated--no doubt of that. But have you counted the cost? You know my point of view! It's one episode, for me, in a world-wide struggle. Intellectually I am all with you--strategically, all with them. They can't give way! The smallest breach lets in the flood. And then, chaos!'

'But the flood is truth!' said the old man, gazing at Manisty. There was a spot of red on each wasted cheek.

Manisty shrugged his shoulders, then dropped his eyes upon the ground, and sat pondering awhile in a moody silence. Eleanor looked at him in some astonishment. It was as though for the first time his habitual paradox hurt him in the wielding--or rather as though he shrank from using what was a conception of the intellect upon the flesh and blood before him. She had never yet seen him visited by a like compunction.

It was curious indeed to see that Father Benecke himself was not affected by Manisty's attitude. From the beginning he had always instinctively appealed from the pamphleteer to the man. Manisty had been frank, brutal even. But notwithstanding, the sensitive yet strong intelligence of the priest had gone straight for some core of thought in the Englishman that it seemed only he divined. And it was clear that his own utter selflessness--his poetic and passionate detachment from all the objects of sense and ambition--made him a marvel to Manisty's more turbid and ambiguous nature. There had been a mystical attraction between them from the first; so that Manisty, even when he was most pugnacious, had yet a filial air and way towards the old man.

Eleanor too had often felt the spell. Yet to-day there were both in herself and Manisty hidden forces of fever and unrest which made the pure idealism, the intellectual tragedy of the priest almost unbearable. Neither--for different and hidden reasons--could respond; and it was an infinite relief to both when the old man at last rose to take his leave.

They accompanied him through the library to the glass passage.

'Keep me informed,' said Manisty, wringing him by the hand; 'and tell me if there is anything I can do.'

Eleanor said some parting words of sympathy. The priest bowed to her with a grave courtesy in reply.

'It will be as God wills,' he said gently; and then went his way in a sad abstraction.

Eleanor was left a moment alone. She put her hands over her heart, and pressed them there. 'He suffers from such high things!'--she said to herself in a sudden passion of misery--'and I?'

* * * * *

Manisty came hurrying back from the staircase, and crossed the library to the passage-room beyond. When he saw Dalgetty there, still peacefully sewing, his look of anxiety cleared again.

'All right?' he said to her.

'She hasn't moved, sir. Miss Manisty's just been to ask, but I told her it's the best sleep Miss Alice has had this many a day. After all, that stuff do seem to have done her good.'

'Well, Eleanor--shall we go and look after Miss Foster?'--he said, returning to her.

They entered the garden with cheered countenances. The secret terror of immediate and violent outbreak which had possessed Manisty since the morning subsided; and he drew in the _ponente_ with delight.

Suddenly, however, as they turned into the avenue adorned by the battered bust of Domitian, Manisty's hand went up to his eyes. He stopped; he gave a cry.

'Good God!'--he said--'She is there!'

And halfway down the shadowy space, Eleanor saw two figures, one white, the other dark, close together.

She caught Manisty by the arm.

'Don't hurry!--don't excite her!'

As they came nearer, they saw that Lucy was still in the same low chair where Manisty had left her. Her head was thrown back against the cushions, and her face shone deathly white from the rich sun-warmed darkness shed by the over-arching trees. And kneeling beside her, holding both her helpless wrists, bending over her in a kind of passionate, triumphant possession, was Alice Manisty.

At the sound of the steps on the gravel she looked round; and at the sight of her brother, she slowly let fall the hands she held--she slowly rose to her feet. Her tall emaciated form held itself defiantly erect; her eyes flashed hatred.

'Alice!'--said Manisty, approaching her--'I have something important to say to you. I have reconsidered our conversation of this morning, and I came to tell you so. Come back with me to the library--and let us go into matters again.'

He spoke with gentleness, controlling her with a kind look. She shivered and hesitated; her eyes wavered. Then she began to say a number of rapid, incoherent things, in an under-voice. Manisty drew her hand within his arm.

'Come,' he said, and turned to the house.

She pulled herself angrily away.

'You are deceiving me,' she said. 'I won't go with you.'

But Manisty captured her again.

'Yes--we must have our talk,' he said, with firm cheerfulness; 'there will be no time to-night.'

She broke into some passionate reproach, speaking in a thick low voice almost inaudible.

He answered it, and she replied. It was a quick dialogue, soothing on his side, wild on hers. Lucy, who had dragged herself from her attitude of mortal languor, sat with both hands grasping her chair, staring at the brother and sister. Eleanor had eyes for none but Manisty. Never had she seen him so adequate, so finely master of himself.

He conquered. Alice dropped her head sullenly, and let herself be led away. Then Eleanor turned to Lucy, and the girl, with a great sob, leant against her dress, and burst into uncontrollable tears.

'Has she been long here?' said Eleanor, caressing the black hair.

'Very nearly an hour, I think. It seemed interminable. She has been telling me of her enemies--her unhappiness--how all her letters are opened--how everybody hates her--especially Mr. Manisty. She was followed at Venice by people who wished to kill her. One night, she says, she got into her gondola, in a dark canal, and found there a man with a dagger who attacked her. She only just escaped. There were many other things,--so--so--horrible!'--said Lucy, covering her eyes. But the next moment she raised them. 'Surely,' she said imploringly, 'surely she is insane?'

Eleanor looked down upon her, mutely nodding.

'There is a doctor coming to-morrow,' she said, almost in a whisper.

Lucy shuddered.

'But we have to get through the night,' said Eleanor.

'Oh! at night'--said Lucy--'if one found her there--beside one--one would die of it! I tried to shake her off just now, several times; but it was impossible.'

She tried to control herself, to complain no more, but she trembled from head to foot. It was evident that she was under some overmastering impression, some overthrow of her own will-power which had unnerved and disorganised her. Eleanor comforted her as best she could.

'Dalgetty and Edward will take care of her to-night,'--she said. 'And to-morrow, she will be sent to some special care. How she escaped from her room this afternoon I cannot imagine. We were all three on the watch.'

Lucy said nothing. She clung to Eleanor's hand, while long shuddering breaths, gradually subsiding, passed through her; like the slow departure of some invading force.


CHAPTER XI

After Manisty had carried off his sister, Eleanor and Lucy sat together in the garden, talking sometimes, but more often silent, till the sun began to drop towards Ostia and the Mediterranean.

'You must come in,' said Eleanor, laying her hand on the girl's. 'The chill is beginning.'

Lucy rose, conscious again of the slight giddiness of fever, and they walked towards the house. Half way, Lucy said with sudden, shy energy--

'I do _wish_ I were quite myself! It is I who ought to be helping you through this--and I am just nothing but a worry!'

Eleanor smiled.

'You distract our thoughts,' she said. 'Nothing could have made this visit of Alice's other than a trial.'

She spoke kindly, but with that subtle lack of response to Lucy's sympathy which had seemed to spring first into existence on the day of Nemi. Lucy had never felt at ease with her since then, and her heart, in truth, was a little sore. She only knew that something intangible and dividing had arisen between them; and that she felt herself once