God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

old Missis Tapple at the post-office did it for she told me, bless ‘er heart!—as ‘ow Miss Vancourt ‘ad given it t’ye for fun, as a sort o’ reward like for sendin’ off some telegrams for ‘er! Hor- hor! There’s naught like a village for findin’ out everybody’s little secrets, an’ our village beats every other one I ever heard tell on at that kind o’ work, it do reely now! I say, Passon, when they was spreadin’ all the stories round about you an’ Miss Vancourt, I could a’ told a tale about the ‘oley bit, couldn’t I?”

“You could indeed!” laughed John, good-naturedly—“and yet—I suppose you didn’t!”

“Not I!” said Bainton, stoutly—“I do talk a bit, but I ain’t Missis Spruce, nor I ain’t turned into a telephone tube yet. Mebbe I will when I’m a bit older. ‘Ave ye heard, Passon, as ‘ow Oliver Leach is dead?”

“Yes,—Dr. Forsyth told me last night.”

“Now d’ye think a man like ‘im is gone to Heaven!” demanded Bainton- -“Honest an’ true, d’ye think the Lord Almighty wants ‘im?”

John was rather non-plussed. His garrulous gardener watched his face with attentive interest.

“Don’t ye answer unless ye like, Passon!” he observed, sagaciously— “I don’t want to make ye say things which ain’t orthodox! You keep a still tongue, an’ I shall understand!”

John took the hint. He ‘kept a still tongue’—and turned back from the garden into the house. Bainton chuckled softly.

“Passon can’t lie!” he said to himself—“He couldn’t do it to save his life! That’s just the best of ‘im! Now if he’d begun tellin’ me that he was sure that blackhearted rascal ‘ad gone to keep company with the angels I’d a nigh despised im!—I would reely now!”

That same morning, when John walked up to the Manor again, he entered it as a privileged person, invested with new authority. Cicely ran to meet him, and frankly put up her face to be kissed.

“A thousand and one congratulations!” she said—“I knew this would come!—I was sure of it! But the credit of the first guess is due to the Mooncalf,—Julian, you know!—he’s a poet, and he made up a whole romance about you and Maryllia the first day he ever saw you with her!”

“Did he?”—and Walden smiled—“Well, he was right! I am very happy, Cicely!”

“So am I!” And the ‘Goblin’ clasped her hands affectionately across his arm—“You are just the very man I should have chosen for Maryllia!—the only man, in fact—I’ve never met anybody else worthy of her! But oh, if she were only strong and well! Do you know that Dr. Forsyth is bringing another specialist to see her this afternoon?”

“Yes, I know!”

“And there’s other news for you this morning”—pursued Cicely, a broad smile lighting up her face and eyes—“Very amusing news! Lord Roxmouth is married!”

“Married!” exclaimed Walden, incredulously—“Not possible!”

“Come and see the wedding cards!”—and Cicely, laughing outright, caught his hand, and pulled him along into the morning room, where Maryllia, with her couch turned so that she could see the first glimpse of her lover as he entered the doorway, was eagerly awaiting his approach—“Maryllia, here’s John! Prove to him at once please that Mrs. Fred’s millions are lost to you forever!”

Maryllia laughed, and blushed sweetly too, as John bent over her and kissed her with a very expressive look of tenderness, not to say proprietorship.

“It’s true, John!” she said—“Lord Roxmouth has married Aunt Emily!”

John’s blue eyes lighted with sudden laughter.

“Well done!” he exclaimed, gaily—“Anything for the millions, evidently! What a comfort to think he has secured them at last! And so you have become the niece instead of the wife of the future duke, my Maryllia! When and where were they married?”

“Last week at the Embassy in Paris. Cicely wrote to Aunt Emily at New Year, telling her that though I was much better, the doctors had said I should be a cripple for life. Well, we never had any answer at all to that letter,—not a word of regret, or affection or sympathy. Then,—this morning—behold!—the Roxmouth wedding cards!”

She took a silver-bordered envelope lying on a little table close beside her, and drawing out from it the cards in question, held them up to his view. Walden glanced at them with a touch of contempt.

“Shall I wire our united heartiest congratulations?” he queried, smiling—“And add that we are engaged to be married?”

“Do!” said Maryllia, clasping his hand in her own and kissing it— “Go and send the wire off through dear old Mrs. Tapple! And then all the village will know how happy I am!”

“How happy WE are,”—corrected John—“I think they know that already, Maryllia! But it shall be well impressed upon them!”

Later on, when he was in the village, making his usual round of visits among the sick and poor, and receiving the affectionate good wishes of many who had heard the news of his betrothal, he saw Dr. Forsyth driving up to the Manor in his gig with another man beside him, who, as he rightly guessed, was no other than the celebrated Italian specialist, Santori. Forsyth had promised to come and tell him the result of the consultation as soon as he knew it himself, and Walden waited for him hour after hour with increasing impatience. At last he appeared,—pale, and evidently under the influence of some strongly suppressed excitement.

“Walden,”—he said, without preface or hesitation—“are you prepared to face a great crisis?”

Walden’s heart almost stood still. Had anything happened to Maryllia in the short space of time which had elapsed since he saw her last?

“What do you mean?!” he faltered—“I could not bear to lose her— now---”

“You must lose her in a year at the utmost, if you do not run the risk of losing her to save her now,”—said Forsyth, bluntly— “Santori has seen her—and—keep cool, John!—he says there is just one chance of restoring her to her former health and activity again, but it is a chance fraught with imminent danger to her life. He will not risk it without her full consent,—and (knowing you are her betrothed husband)—yours. It is a very serious and difficult operation,—she may live through it, and she may not.”

“I will not have it!” said Walden, quickly, almost fiercely, “She shall not be touched---”

“Wait!” continued Forsyth, regarding him steadily—“In her present condition, she will die in a year. She must. There is no help for it. If Santori operates—and he is quite willing to undertake it— she may live,—and not only may she live, but she may be absolutely strong and well again,—able to walk and ride, and enjoy her life to the full. It rests with her and with you to decide,—yes or no!”

Walden was silent.

“I may as well tell you,”—went on Forsyth—“that she—Miss Vancourt herself,—is ready to risk it. Santori has gone back to London to- night,—but if we agree to place her under his hands he will come and perform the operation next week.”

“Next week!” murmured Walden, faintly—“Must it be so soon?”

“The sooner the better,”—said Forsyth, quietly, yet firmly, “Come, John, face this thing out! I am thinking of the chance of her happiness as well as yours. Is it worth while to sacrifice the whole of a young life’s possible activity for the sake of one year’s certainty of helplessness with death at the end? Wrestle the facts out with yourself;—go and see her to-night. And after you have talked it over together, let me know.”

He went out then, and left Walden alone to face this new dark cloud of anxiety and suspense that seemed to loom over a sky which he imagined had just cleared. But when he saw Maryllia that evening, her face reflected nothing but sunshine, and her eyes were radiant with hope.

“I must take this chance, John!” she said—“Do not withhold your consent! Think what it means to us both if this great surgeon is able to set me on my feet again!—and he is so kind and gentle!—he says he has every hope of success! What happiness it will be for me if I can be all in all to you, John!—a real true wife, instead of a poor helpless invalid dependent on your daily care!—oh John, let me show you how much I love you by facing this ordeal, and trying to save my life for your sake!”

He drew her into his arms, and folded her close to his heart.

“My child—my darling! If you wish it, it shall be done!” he murmured brokenly—“And may God in His great mercy be good to us both! But if you die, my Maryllia, I shall die too—so we shall still be together!”

So it was settled; and Dr. Forsyth, vacillating uneasily between hope and fear, communicated the decision at once to the famous Italian surgeon, who, without any delay or hesitation responded by promptly fixing a day in the ensuing week for his performance of the critical task which was either to kill or cure a woman who to one man was the dearest of all earth’s creatures. And with such dreadful rapidity did the hours fly towards that day that Walden experienced in himself all the trembling horrors of a condemned criminal who knows that his execution is fixed for a certain moment to which Time itself seems racing like a relentless bloodhound, sure of its quarry. Writing to Bishop Brent he told him all, and thus concluded his letter:—

“If I lose her now—now, after the joy of knowing that she loves me- -I shall kneel before you broken-hearted and implore your forgiveness for ever having called you selfish in the extremity of your grief and despair for the loss of love. For I am myself utterly selfish to the heart’s core, and though I say every night in my prayers ‘Thy Will be done,’ I know that if she is taken from me I shall rebel against that Will! For I am only human,—and make no pretence to be more than a man who loves greatly.”

During this interval of suspense Cicely and Julian were thrown much together. Every moment that Walden could spare from his parish work, he passed by the side of his beloved, knowing that his presence made her happy, and fearing that these days might be his last with her on earth. Maryllia herself however seemed to have no such forebodings. She was wonderfully bright and cheerful, and though her body was so helpless her face was radiant with such perfect happiness that it looked as fair as that of any pictured angel. Cicely, recognising the nature of the ordeal through which these two lovers were passing, left them as much by themselves as possible, and laid upon Julian the burden of her own particular terrors which she was at no pains to conceal. And unfortunately Julian did not, under the immediate circumstances, prove a very cheery comforter.

“I hate the knife!” he said, gloomily—“Everyone is cut up or slashed about in these days—there’s too much of it altogether. If ever a fruit pip goes the way it should not go into my interior mechanism, I hope it may be left there to sprout up into a tree if it likes—I don’t mind, so long as I’m not sliced up for appendicitis or pipcitis or whatever it is.”

“I wonder what our great-grandparents used to do when they were ill?” queried Cicely, with a melancholy stare in her big, pitiful dark eyes.

“They let blood,”—replied Julian—“They used to go to the barber’s and get a vein cut at the same time as their hair. Of course it was all wrong. We all know