Chapter 8: The Accusation

It was a very brief note, simply informing him that Hilary Vickars was ill, and wished to see him.

An hour later he was in the train. Fortunately he had written his report of the Leatham business before he left the village, and this he left upon his father’s desk. As he went up to London he read and re-read Elizabeth’s brief note, in a conflict of torture and delight. There was but one phrase in it which impressed the personality of the writer. “I am alone with father, and very anxious,” she wrote. He felt the throb of her heart in those words, and he realised that she leaned on him for strength. His own heart swelled with tenderness at the thought. There is a kind of pain which is so exquisite that it becomes joy; he realised such a pain now, an immense yearning to take the lonely girl to his bosom, and kiss her wet eyelids, and defend her from the imminent sword of sorrow.

He stood at the door of the little house in Lonsdale Road. The street lay silent in the August heat, the little patch of grass was brown and parched, there was an aspect of forlornness over everything. A sudden terror smote him: what if it were Elizabeth herself who was ill? His hand trembled as he rang the bell. The door opened softly, and there stood Elizabeth, pale and quiet as a spectre.

“Elizabeth!”

Her hand lay in his, her beautiful eyes, swimming in tears, met his; he drew her to him in one long kiss. It was the first time he had kissed her, and how often had he imagined the ecstasy of that kiss! It had come at last, but not with the kind of ecstasy he had imagined, yet with the diviner ecstasy of sorrow. The rose of her heart was yielded to him, but it was wet with tears.

“Elizabeth!”

She withdrew herself from his embrace, saying simply, “I wanted you so much.”

And in that brief phrase all was said, and each knew that henceforth an irrevocable vow bound their hearts together.

She took his hand, and together they went into the room where they had so often talked. The desk was littered with papers, half-corrected proofs, unanswered letters, the mute, pathetic witness of an arrested hand.

“How long ago is it?” he whispered

“Four days.”

“What is it?”

“Typhoid, the doctor thinks.”

“Can I see him?”

“It was he who told me to write you. He wants to see you.”

“And you?”

“Yes, I wanted you too.”

There was a tender reproach in the words, which he was quick to recognise.

“I should not have asked the question. Forgive me.”

“No, you need not have asked it.”

They went upstairs together. Vickars lay very straight and quiet in the bed, his face pallid, his eyes closed. He roused instantly at their entrance, and at once began to speak in a weak, eager voice.

“So you see I’m caught at last,” he said with difficult cheerfulness. “I’ve never had an illness—ailments, but not illness—and I don’t quite know what to make of it. It’s an experience that makes one humble.”

“Don’t talk, father. It exhausts you,” said Elizabeth.

“On the contrary, it keeps me cheerful,” he said, with the old whimsical smile. “Habit, I suppose. And besides, I have certain things to say to Arthur.”

Elizabeth took the hint and left the room. Arthur sat beside the bed in awkward silence.

Presently Vickars said abruptly, “You love her?”

“Yes, with all my heart.”

“I thought so.”

He was silent for some moments. Then he said, “A month ago I suppose I should almost have hated you for that confession. She is all I have; I have always wanted to keep her wholly to myself ... I have dreaded this hour ... But I see now it is the course of nature. I may have to leave her soon—I don’t know. But I’m glad now you love her. Yes, I think I’m glad, and I wished to tell you so.”

“I hope you’ll soon be better.”

“Ah! do you? But then, you see, I might not feel the same toward you. But there—that’s irony. You know that. Honestly, I’m glad you love her.”

His eyes closed, and Arthur, sitting silently beside the bed, could not but mark the change in Vickars since last he saw him. The bones of the face showed white through the stretched, transparent skin, the eyes were sunken, and new lines had been etched upon the forehead. It came to him, in a rush of pity and of admiration, that he loved this man. And there came to him also some dim perception of the depth of that sacrifice which Vickars endured in resigning his sole jealous claim upon Elizabeth. It is seldom that young love attains to this vision. It is all hot eagerness, imperious and intense with the overmastering impulse of sex, and blind to the tendrils of old affection which it tears apart to reach its goal. But to Arthur there was granted a truer vision, a nobler temper, because love in him had always had a sacred meaning, and had never been the more clamorous cry of sex.