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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter LIII. 'Thou in the Grave Shalt Rest.'

Chapter LIII. 'Thou in the Grave Shalt Rest.'

Towards the close of a long stifling day in January came the end of the trouble of Yoanderruk. Mrs. Paget's mood had been one of quiet melancholy all day, and as she was generally safest and least exacting in that mood, she had been left to herself more than was usual. Janet had been busy with household matters; Philiberta out riding all day in pursuance of station duties. Now the latter was resting a while in her own room, and Janet was busy in her silent fashion, making things orderly in Mrs. Paget's chamber. The master of Yoanderruk was away at Tarragut.

Mrs. Paget lay quietly in her bed, clasping and unclasping her slender fingers with the old, familiar, pretty, ominous trick; smiling the old, beautiful, dangerous smile.

'She is getting restless again; she is going to give us a bad night of it, that's clear,' thought Janet, watching her furtively. An hour before, Mrs. Paget had been wailing for some one to kill her.

'There's room between these two ribs for a knife,' she had cried, baring her breast and pointing to the place. 'Here, page 343where you can feel the beat-beat of my heart, there is just room for a knife.'

Now she said quietly, 'Janet, there's a soul in the room.'

'I hope there's twa,' answered Janet.

'But I don't mean yours or mine, Janet. I mean a soul without a body.'

'Aye, ye've always got some uncanny notion in your head.'

Presently, 'I am dying, Janet,' said Mrs. Paget.

'Aweel!' replied the old woman indifferently. This cry of 'dying' was too familiar to her to excite alarm.

'You don't believe me. But it is true, Janet. In two hours, perhaps in one—I don't know how long this kind of death takes —I shall be dead.'

'Aweel!' repeated Janet, pursuing her desultory occupations and paying no more heed to her mistress.

'The wattle-blossom is all gone now, I suppose,' said Mrs. Paget musingly.

'Aye; gone this twa month.'

'There might be some violets in the garden, Janet?' wistfully.

'There might be.'

'Go and try to find me a few, will you? Will you, my dear old Janet? Just a few.'

The old woman went at once, and returned presently with five tiny purple fragrant flowers set in one of their own heart-shaped leaves.

'These are all I could find,' she said. 'The hot weather has taken them away. But here's a pretty wee rose for you beside.'

'No, not the rose, Janet Don't you know that the scent of any other flower always kills the scent of violets? Take the rose away, Janet.'

She pressed the violets to her lips. 'Oh, but they are very sweet,' she said. 'It is curious how I was longing for something sweet-scented. Do people always long like that when they are dying, Janet?

Janet made no answer. Mrs. Paget clasped her hands over her eyes again, and peered out with a subtle smile.

'I am thirsty, Janet.'

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Janet filled a wineglass from a decanter of weak brandy and water and brought it to her.

'No, not that,' shudderingly. 'The smell of it kills the violets; and I want to die sober, Janet, quite sober. That is a singular whim, is it not?'

Her voice was so weak, her face so white, that Janet bent over her with a sudden feeling of dread.

'What have you been doing to yourself?' she said sharply. 'What have you been doing to yourself, Miss Florence?'

'Suppose you pull down the sheets and see,' said her mistress, landing faintly.

In a second Janet had swept the light covering from her, revealing the beautiful fragile figure stretched at full length, and the lower half of the bed all saturated with blood. The old woman set up a harsh discordant shriek.

'Hush!' said Mrs. Paget. 'Don't call anyone in until I tell you how I did it. See, there is the place.'

Across the soles of both her white feet was a deep gash, cutting to the bone.

'Here is what I did it with,' continued Mrs. Paget, her voice growing weaker with every second of time; 'you know when you threw it out of the window, the night that Tempest prevented me from using it on my throat? Well, it has taken me all this time to find it again.' It was the razor, blunt and rusty from long exposure. 'Many and many a time when Edgar was sleeping in here I have crept out and groped amongst the bushes for it. I could not search when you or Tempest were watching, you always slept too lightly. But last night I dreamt where it was, and to-day you gave me a good chance. I went out in the daylight, but nobody saw me, and there I found it, just at the root of the passion tree. You are binding up my feet! Oh, how foolish!'

Janet had already bound up both the wounds with bandages torn from a sheet. Then she opened the door and called in loud agonized tones for Tempest. Philiberta came running, and heard and understood all in very few words.

'Janet,' said the dying woman feebly, 'give me those violets page 345again, and a drink of water—pure cold water. Nothing but cold water for me ever after this. The other thirst is gone, thank God. In the grave there is rest, and no more thirst. There has been a soul in the room all day, Janet, waiting for mine. Open the windows very wide, so that they may both get out easily. I have been caged too long, dear God! too long. Is that my little cripple? Poor little Teddy! Poor Edgar! Ah welt, no more thirst. Janet, mind you open the windows. That soul——' She became suddenly rigid with the symptoms of tetanus. But the struggle was brief, because rhe weakened, bloodless frame had no strength for struggling.

When Philiberta returned from the hasty despatch of one messenger to Tarragut for Edgar Paget, and another to Eominda for the doctor, she found Janet opening the windows of the room very wide.

'There's for your soul to win out, my poor birdie,' the old woman was saying.

The air was heavy with the perfume of flowers; a sound of bird voices came in upon a vagabond breeze that swept fragrantly over the bed, caressing softly the long dark tresses that framed the fair dead, smiling face—the face that smiled as subtly, as weirdly, as beautifully yet as an hour ago, only now a new beauty—of eternal peace—was settling fast upon it. Janet stooped over and closed the half-open eyes, smoothed away the curls, clasped the small perfect hands over the still heart, then flung herself down with a passionate, harsh-sounding cry. 'I've wished ye dead many a time, my birdie, for your own sake and for everybody's sake, and now, oh me! You are dead, you are dead, and how am I to bear it?'

Edgar Paget had been spending a pleasant afternoon. In a cool chamber, with the windows darkened to keep out the trying light and heat, with wine and fruit and books, and Miss Fitzroy.

Madge, convalescent, but feeble still, lay, propped up with pillows, in a broad invalid chair; Paget sat beside her. The page 346two had been left to themselves for an hour and a half at least, and one, at any rate, was anything but displeased thereat.

Miss Fitzroy had been reading one of Blackmore's novels which Paget had lent her.

'And how do you like "Cradock Nowell"?' inquired Paget.

'Oh, beyond telling. It is the first I have read of Blackmore's; Kingsley and Thackeray have been my favourites heretofore. Blackmore is a novelty to me—a delicious novelty.'

'He is quite a favourite of mine,' said Paget. 'This book especially I like, and do not easily tire of. It is not so much the plots of Blackmore's stories that fascinate one as the quaint characters and the odd incidents he introduces. One always feels sorry to get to the end of a book of his, because it is like saying good-bye to friends.'

'In this book,' said Miss Fitzroy, 'I think the animal characters are among the most striking and interesting.'

'So think I. John Roseden's pony, Corœbus; Rufus Hutton's mare, Polly; and Clayton Nowell's dog, little black Wena, are as vividly painted by Blackmore's pen as any animal ever was by Landseer's brush, I fancy.'

'Oh, that bit about Wena at Clayton's grave, when she had brought him his smoking-jacket and slippers, and it had taken her "a long time to carry the jacket for fear it would be wet for him, and she lay there, wondering how long, till he would get up and pat her," that bit makes me cry,' said Miss Fitzroy, tears filling her eyes as she spoke.

Paget was conscious of a change—a charmful change—in this woman since he had last met her in Melbourne. A certain mutinous expression of face, a certain defiant wilfulness of speech, were gone. She did not seem happier now exactly, but she seemed more gentle and earnest, and the new aspect suited her. Paget realized a novelty of charm and beauty in her, and wondered vaguely how and what it was. It never occurred to him that some keen heart-experience might have made the difference.

'I wonder how it is,' said Madge, 'that good literature like this is always expensive. Of course, it does not matter to page 347people who have plenty of money; but it seems a pity that really good elevating reading is kept out of reach of poor people, who would be improved and educated by it, while commonplace and often utterly trashy literature is cheap enough to be attainable even to the poorest.'

'I was reading the other day,' said Paget, 'that books didn't pay the writers unless the first edition was an expensive one.'

'I don't believe it, then,' said Miss Fitzroy. 'It stands to reason that a thousand copies at two-and-sixpence, yellow-backed books, you know, would pay better than a hundred at seven-and-sixpence like this. And the average sale would be in about that proportion, I think.'

From books they got to talking of friendship. Madge Fitzroy's ideal of true friendship was that existing between a man and a woman, whose sympathy with each other was of a kind that might never develop into love.

'As if such a sympathy ever existed.' said Edgar Paget.

'How can you speak so doubtfully? Is not our friendship exactly of that kind?' she asked, looking him full and frankly in the face.

Paget averted his head and seemed unwilling to trust himself to a reply.

'Between two women.' Miss Fitzroy went on presently, 'it is next to impossible for true friendship to exist—except when one of the two is weaker of character than the other. Then the strong one has her own way, and the weak one does nothing but admire, and nothing occurs to cause a jar or clash. Between two women of equal age, equal good looks, equal talent, and equal strength of mind, there is always a sense of being on guard; if they are not actually jealous of each other, they know it may come to that any day. And they are always afraid lest they should reveal their weak points to each other. In a friendship between a man and woman there is none of that. A man has no hesitation in showing his weaknesses to a woman he likes and trusts, and she is actually drawn nearer to him— likes him better and admires him more—for that confidence he has in her.'

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'Do you think that perfect kind of friendship can exist between two men?'

'Well—hardly. Men are a little severe in their judgment of each other, don't you think? Suppose two men who have conceived a liking for each other; both upright and intelligent men, with many ideas in common, but one some degrees more conscientious than the other (you will never find two people possessing conscientiousness in an equal degree); well, the one will be hard on the defects of the other, and the other will feel humiliated by his friend's judgment. No; men are almost as bad as women to each other.'

Her earnestness had brought a bright pink colour to her cheeks, her hair fell all about her fair face and shoulders in a golden shower. The beauty of her thrilled Edgar Paget with a sense of passionate, hopeless longing. He leaned Over her as if to get the book upon which her hand was lying.

'Madge!' he said. And just then came the sound of rapid hoofs outside, and a voice asking loudly for Mr. Paget.

It was the messenger from Yoanderruk calling him home to his dead wife.