Chapter XV--The End of the Meeting

by Bram Stoker

　　Stephen went on in her calm, cold voice:'Did he tell you that I had asked him to marry me?' Despite herself,as she spoke the words a red tide dyed her face. It was not a flush;it was not a blush; it was a sort of flood which swept through her,leaving her in a few seconds whiter than before. Harold saw andunderstood. He could not speak; he lowered his head silently. Hereyes glittered more coldly. The madness that every human being mayhave once was upon her. Such a madness is destructive, and here wassomething more vulnerable than herself.'Did he tell you how I pressed him?' There was no red tide thistime, nor ever again whilst the interview lasted. To bow inaffirmation was insufficient; with an effort he answered:'I understood so.' She answered with an icy sarcasm:'You understood so! Oh, I don't doubt he embellished the record withsome of his own pleasantries. But you understood it; and that issufficient.' After a pause she went on:'Did he tell you that he had refused me?''Yes!' Harold knew now that he was under the torture, and that therewas no refusing. She went on, with a light laugh, which wrung hisheart even more than her pain had done . . . Stephen to laugh likethat!'And I have no doubt that he embellished that too, with some of hisfine masculine witticisms. I understood myself that he was offendedat my asking him. I understood it quite well; he told me so!' Thenwith feminine intuition she went on:'I dare say that before he was done he said something kindly of thepoor little thing that loved him; that loved him so much, and thatshe had to break down all the bounds of modesty and decorum that hadmade the women of her house honoured for a thousand years! And youlistened to him whilst he spoke! Oh-h-h!' she quivered with herwhite-hot anger, as the fierce heat in the heart of a furnacequivers. But her voice was cold again as she went on:'But who could help loving him? Girls always did. It was such abeastly nuisance! You "understood" all that, I dare say; thoughperhaps he did not put it in such plain words!' Then the scorn,which up to now had been imprisoned, turned on him; and he felt asthough some hose of deathly chill was being played upon him.'And yet you, knowing that only yesterday, he had refused me--refusedmy pressing request that he should marry me, come to me hot-foot inthe early morning and ask me to be your wife. I thought such thingsdid not take place; that men were more honourable, or moreconsiderate, or more merciful! Or at least I used to think so; tillyesterday. No! till to-day. Yesterday's doings were my own doings,and I had to bear the penalty of them myself. I had come here tofight out by myself the battle of my shame . . . 'Here Harold interrupted her. He could not bear to hear Stephen usesuch a word in connection with herself.'No! You must not say "shame." There is no shame to you, Stephen.There can be none, and no one must say it in my presence!' In hersecret heart of hearts she admired him for his words; she felt themat the moment sink into her memory, and knew that she would neverforget the mastery of his face and bearing. But the blindness ofrage was upon her, and it is of the essence of this white-hot angerthat it preys not on what is basest in us, but on what is best. ThatHarold felt deeply was her opportunity to wound him more deeply thanbefore.'Even here in the solitude which I had chosen as the battleground ofmy shame you had need to come unasked, unthought of, when even alesser mind than yours, for you are no fool, would have thought toleave me alone. My shame was my own, I tell you; and I was learningto take my punishment. My punishment! Poor creatures that we are,we think our punishment will be what we would like best: to sufferin silence, and not to have spread abroad our shame!' How she harpedon that word, though she knew that every time she uttered it, it cutto the heart of the man who loved her. 'And yet you come right ontop of my torture to torture me still more and illimitably. Youcome, you who alone had the power to intrude yourself on my grief andsorrow; power given you by my father's kindness. You come to mewithout warning, considerately telling me that you knew I would behere because I had always come here when I had been in trouble. No--I do you an injustice. "In trouble" was not what you said, but thatI had come when I had been in short frocks. Short frocks! And youcame to tell me that you loved me. You thought, I suppose, that as Ihad refused one man, I would jump at the next that came along. Iwanted a man. God! God! what have I done that such an affront shouldcome upon me? And come, too, from a hand that should have protectedme if only in gratitude for my father's kindness!' She was eyeinghim keenly, with eyes that in her unflinching anger took ineverything with the accuracy of sun-painting. She wanted to wound;and she succeeded.But Harold had nerves and muscles of steel; and when the call came tothem they answered. Though the pain of death was upon him he did notflinch. He stood before her like a rock, in all his great manhood;but a rock on whose summit the waves had cast the wealth of theirfoam, for his face was as white as snow. She saw and understood; butin the madness upon her she went on trying new places and new ways towound:'You thought, I suppose, that this poor, neglected, despised,rejected woman, who wanted so much to marry that she couldn't waitfor a man to ask her, would hand herself over to the first chancecomer who threw his handkerchief to her; would hand over herself--andher fortune!''Oh, Stephen! How can you say such things, think such things?' Theprotest broke from him with a groan. His pain seemed to inflame herstill further; to gratify her hate, and to stimulate her mad passion:'Why did I ever see you at all? Why did my father treat you as ason; that when you had grown and got strong on his kindness you couldthus insult his daughter in the darkest hour of her pain and hershame!' She almost choked with passion. There was now nothing inthe whole world that she could trust. In the pause he spoke:'Stephen, I never meant you harm. Oh, don't speak such wild words.They will come back to you with sorrow afterwards! I only meant todo you good. I wanted . . . ' Her anger broke out afresh:'There; you speak it yourself! You only wanted to do me good. I wasso bad that any kind of a husband . . . Oh, get out of my sight! Iwish to God I had never seen you! I hope to God I may never see youagain! Go! Go! Go!'This was the end! To Harold's honest mind such words would have beenimpossible had not thoughts of truth lain behind them. That Stephen--his Stephen, whose image in his mind shut out every other woman inthe world, past, present, and future--should say such things to anyone, that she should think such things, was to him a deadly blow.But that she should say them to him! . . . Utterance, even theutterance which speaks in the inmost soul, failed him. He had insome way that he knew not hurt--wounded--killed Stephen; for thefiner part was gone from the Stephen that he had known and worshippedso long. She wished him gone; she wished she had never seen him; shehoped to God never to see him again. Life for him was over and done!There could be no more happiness in the world; no more wish to work,to live! . . .He bowed gravely; and without a word turned and walked away.Stephen saw him go, his tall form moving amongst the tree trunks tillfinally it was lost in their massing. She was so filled with thetumult of her passion that she looked, unmoved. Even the sense ofhis going did not change her mood. She raged to and fro amongst thetrees, her movements getting quicker and quicker as her excitementbegan to change from mental to physical; till the fury began toexhaust itself. All at once she stopped, as though arrested by aphysical barrier; and with a moan sank down in a helpless heap on thecool moss.Harold went from the grove as one seems to move in a dream. Littlethings and big were mixed up in his mind. He took note, as he wenttowards the town by the byroads, of everything around him in hisusual way, for he had always been one of those who noticeunconsciously, or rather unintentionally. Long afterwards he couldshut his eyes and recall every step of the way from the spot where hehad turned from Stephen to the railway station outside Norcester.And on many and many such a time when he opened them again theeyelids were wet. He wanted to get away quickly, silently,unobserved. With the instinct of habitual thought his mind turnedLondon-ward. He met but few persons, and those only cottiers. Hesaluted them in his usual cheery way, but did not stop to speak withany. He was about to take a single ticket to London when it struckhim that this might look odd, so he asked for a return. Then, hismind being once more directed towards concealment of purpose, he senta telegram to his housekeeper telling her that he was called away toLondon on business. It was only when he was far on his journey thathe gave thought to ways and means, and took stock of his possessions.Before he took out his purse and pocket-book he made up his mind thathe would be content with what it was, no matter how little. He hadleft Normanstand and all belonging to it for ever, and was off tohide himself in whatever part of the world would afford him the bestopportunity. Life was over! There was nothing to look forward to;nothing to look back at! The present was a living pain whoselightest element was despair. As, however, he got further andfurther away, his practical mind began to work; he thought overmatters so as to arrange in his mind how best he could dispose of hisaffairs, so to cause as little comment as might be, and to save thepossibility of worry or distress of any kind to Stephen.Even then, in his agony of mind, his heart was with her; it was notthe least among his troubles that he would have to be away from herwhen perhaps she would need him most. And yet whenever he would cometo this point in his endless chain of thought, he would have to stopfor a while, overcome with such pain that his power of thinking wasparalysed. He would never, could never, be of service to her again.He had gone out of her life, as she had gone out of his life; thoughshe never had, nor never could out of his thoughts. It was all over!All the years of sweetness, of hope, and trust, and satisfied andjustified faith in each other, had been wiped out by that lastterrible, cruel meeting. Oh! how could she have said such things tohim! How could she have thought them! And there she was now in allthe agony of her unrestrained passion. Well he knew, from his longexperience of her nature, how she must have suffered to be in such astate of mind, to have so forgotten all the restraint of her teachingand her life! Poor, poor Stephen! Fatherless now as well asmotherless; and friendless as well as fatherless! No one to calm herin the height of her wild abnormal passion! No one to comfort herwhen the fit had passed! No one to sympathise with her for all thatshe had suffered! No one to help her to build new and better hopesout of the wreck of her mad ideas! He would cheerfully have givenhis life for her. Only last night he was prepared to kill, which wasworse than to die, for her sake. And now to be far away, unable tohelp, unable even to know how she fared. And behind her eternallythe shadow of that worthless man who had spurned her love and floutedher to a chance comer in his drunken delirium. It was too bitter tobear. How could God lightly lay such a burden on his shoulders whohad all his life tried to walk in sobriety and chastity and in allworthy and manly ways! It was unfair! It was unfair! If he coulddo anything for her? Anything! Anything! . . . And so the unendingwhirl of thoughts went on!The smoke of London was dim on the horizon when he began to get backto practical matters. When the train drew up at Euston he steppedfrom it as one to whom death would be a joyous relief!He went to a quiet hotel, and from there transacted by letter suchbusiness matters as were necessary to save pain and trouble toothers. As for himself, he made up his mind that he would go toAlaska, which he took to be one of the best places in the as yetuncivilised world for a man to lose his identity. As a security atthe start he changed his name; and as John Robinson, which was not aname to attract public attention, he shipped as a passenger on theScoriac from London to New York.The Scoriac was one of the great cargo boats which take a certainnumber of passengers. The few necessaries which he took with himwere chosen with an eye to utility in that frozen land which hesought. For the rest, he knew nothing, nor did he care how orwhither he went. His vague purpose was to cross the AmericanContinent to San Francisco, and there to take passage for the highlatitudes north of the Yukon River.When Stephen began to regain consciousness her first sensation wasone of numbness. She was cold in the back, and her feet did not seemto exist; but her head was hot and pulsating as though her brain werea living thing. Then her half-open eyes began to take in hersurroundings. For another long spell she began to wonder why allaround her was green. Then came the inevitable process of reason.Trees! It is a wood! How did I come here? why am I lying on theground?All at once wakened memory opened on her its flood-gates, andoverwhelmed her with pain. With her hands pressed to her throbbingtemples and her burning face close to the ground, she began to recallwhat she could of the immediate past. It all seemed like a terribledream. By degrees her intelligence came back to its normal strength,and all at once, as does one suddenly wakened from sleep to theknowledge of danger, she sat up.Somehow the sense of time elapsed made Stephen look at her watch. Itwas half-past twelve. As she had come into the grove immediatelyafter breakfast, and as Harold had almost immediately joined her, andas the interview between them had been but short, she must have lainon the ground for more than three hours. She rose at once, tremblingin every limb. A new fear began to assail her; that she had beenmissed at home, and that some one might have come to look for her.Up to now she had not been able to feel the full measure of painregarding what had passed, but which would, she knew, come to her inthe end. It was too vague as yet; she could not realise that it hadreally been. But the fear of discovery was immediate, and must beguarded against without delay. As well as she could, she tidiedherself and began to walk slowly back to the house, hoping to gainher own room unnoticed. That her general intelligence was awake wasshown by the fact that before she left the grove she remembered thatshe had forgotten her sunshade. She went back and searched till shehad found it.Gaining her room without meeting any one, she at once change herdress, fearing that some soil or wrinkle might betray her.Resolutely she put back from her mind all consideration of the past;there would be time for that later on. Her nerves were already muchquieter than they had been. That long faint, or lapse intoinsensibility, had for the time taken the place of sleep. Therewould be a price to be paid for it later; but for the present it hadserved its purpose. Now and again she was disturbed by one thought;she could not quite remember what had occurred after Harold had left,and just before she became unconscious. She dared not dwell upon it,however. It would doubtless all come back to her when she hadleisure to think the whole matter over as a connected narrative.When the gong sounded for lunch she went down, with a calm exterior,to face the dreaded ordeal of another meal.Luncheon passed off without a hitch. She and her aunt talked asusual over all the small affairs of the house and the neighbourhood,and the calm restraint was in itself soothing. Even then she couldnot help feeling how much convention is to a woman's life. Had itnot been for these recurring trials of set hours and duties she couldnever have passed the last day and night without discovery of hercondition of mind. That one terrible, hysterical outburst wasperhaps the safety valve. Had it been spread over the time occupiedin conventional duties its force even then might have betrayed her;but without the necessity of nerving herself to conventional needs,she would have infallibly betrayed herself by her negative condition.After lunch she went to her own boudoir where, when she had shut theinner door, no one was allowed to disturb her without some specialneed in the house or on the arrival of visitors. This 'sporting oak'was the sign of 'not at home' which she had learned in her glimpse ofcollege life. Here in the solitude of safety, she began to go overthe past, resolutely and systematically.She had already been so often over the memory of the previoushumiliating and unhappy day that she need not revert to it atpresent. Since then had she not quarrelled with Harold, whom she hadall her life so trusted that her quarrel with him seemed to shake thevery foundations of her existence? As yet she had not rememberedperfectly all that had gone on under the shadow of the beech grove.She dared not face it all at once, even as yet. Time must elapsebefore she should dare to cry; to think of her loss of Harold was torisk breaking down altogether. Already she felt weak. The strain ofthe last forty-eight hours was too much for her physical strength.She began to feel, as she lay back in her cushioned chair, that aswoon is no worthy substitute for sleep. Indeed it had seemed tomake the need for sleep even more imperative.It was all too humiliating! She wanted to think over what had been;to recall it as far as possible so as to fix it in her mind, whilstit was still fresh. Later on, some action might have to be based onher recollection. And yet . . . How could she think when she was sotired . . . tired . . .Nature came to the poor girl's relief at last, and she fell into aheavy sleep . . .It was like coming out of the grave to be dragged back to waking lifeout of such a sleep, and so soon after it had begun. But the voiceseemed to reach to her inner consciousness in some compelling way.For a second she could not understand; but as she rose from thecushions the maid's message repeated, brought her wide awake andalert in an instant:'Mr. Everard, young Mr. Everard, to see you, miss!'