Marigold

That afternoon the great High Priest had taken worse, and, as the evening set in, all knew certainly that he had little time to live. Nurses and physicians had been called to the dying bedside, and conspicuously amongst the number was St Armand. Not conspicuous for his attentions to the dying man, but simply for his presence there. He was the only one who dared to defy appearances, and occasionally to yawn. Moreover, he insisted on smoking his cigars—the High Priest was too far gone to object, he said. Thus on till nearly midnight—a gusty, showery night, with an eerie wind that rose and fell in sobbing intervals.

“Sister,” said he, as the shutters were being closed and the lights turned on, “how do you expect his holiness to die easily, lying under a cross beam and with the windows shut?”

“I do not understand you, sir.”

“How, in the name of the Serpent’s three tails, is he to get away under those conditions?”

The nurse, who was a sensible woman, thought that he was jesting, and she paid no attention.

After a while it was noticed that the dying man was becoming excited and very restless. His hands worked incessantly, and his sinking eyes gleamed with fire; but he could not speak, and the doctors thought his tongue was partially paralysed, for he made many efforts to frame words, but could not. Two or three times he tried to get out of bed, but was forcibly restrained.

“If you don’t open the windows he’s safe to be like that,” said St Armand, and he went over himself and unlocked the shutters, flinging open the window and looking out into the blackness of the night.

Everything without was absolutely silent, but for the rustling trees, swishing and bending in the wind, and the pattering rain-drops. For the skies above the gardens at Marble House were moonlit and serene—these storm-tossed and full of desolation.

And suddenly, in one of the long, intense pauses between gust and gust, was heard the soft rumbling of wheels, the rhythmic trampling of horses; and they came nearer and nearer into the courtyard underneath. And every one who heard them—besides St Armand there were five persons in the room—stood still and looked at one another, for there had been the sound of many hoofs, not few. The High Priest likewise, panting hard, sat up amongst his pillows, listening intently. Then, with a new excitement, he tried to speak, opening his mouth grotesquely, no sound issuing from the blue lips. It was so painful to see him, that those around, accustomed as most were to death-scenes, never forgot it.

But St Armand, curiously callous, after glancing once round at him, went abruptly from the room.

In the antechamber all was silent, till suddenly the panelled oaken door burst softly open, and Mr Barringcourt walked into the room.

“You’re late.”

“I’ve no morbid taste for watching people die. How is he?”

“Oh! very lively. Fidget! fidget! incessantly. Now, how about last night? All this is rather sudden.”

“Oh! last night passed quite all right. That is why he’s dying so soon, as you know.”

St Armand had drawn himself up to that height when he matched the Master.

“I don’t think it was so all right. So far as I have been able to make out, he underwent no temptation.”

“Under the circumstances it would have been too strong for him. I kept him sleeping.”

In the feeble light, each head thrown back, they looked at one another, and the gleaming lightning from each pair of eyes filled the room with a strange uncertainty.

“You kept him sleeping?”

“I did.”

“And what of Marigold?”

“She underwent the temptation instead.”

“That’s no test for him.”

“He is not qualifying for Heaven, you know—nor yet for Hell.”

“I’m not so sure of that latter. He ought to be. So Marigold underwent the temptation? Well, I did for her what you should have done. I showed her the way to go about it.”

“Yes. I think you rather went beyond the bounds of good taste.”

“Oh no. I blundered slightly, owing to your keeping so distinctly neutral since your return. I wonder, Barringcourt, if you’ve shown any distinctive skill over this game, or if a kindly Providence has done the work for you. You seem to me to have been particularly blind all through.”

The Master laughed lightly.

“You’ve just hit it. I’ve been as blind as a bat, with the one redeeming feature that I was there at the climax. I wondered you had left the coast so clear.”

“Yes. I presumed too far upon a lover’s quarrel.”

“And you’ve discovered your mistake.”

“That confounded beggar girl! She tricked me, she tricked you, she tricked him, and she tricked herself. Would I have wasted two minutes over her, if I had known from the first who she was? ‘Remarkably pretty girl,’ thought I at first; ‘too pretty to have been made for nothing.’ Then I saw Alphonso casting sheep’s-eyes that way. ‘Just the tool I want,’ thought I. ‘The one I’ve been looking for all over.’ And so she led us on all through, skill-less and innocent. All the same, she’s a fascinating little thing, Barringcourt. Just when you think she’s going to do something very, very bad, she does something exceptionally good—and when you anticipate something most saintly, then you’ll have to be careful. What are those papers?”

“For him to sign.”

“You’ve settled to close to-night, then?”

“Yes. I’m taking back all we ever gave him. There won’t be much left for you then.”

“No. I’m not keen on a husk. All the same, I think Vestasian should have given him another chance.”

“What! In all the record of these pages there is not one ‘Thank you’—not one sincere and humble prayer of thanks.”

“I mean you should have given him a chance of going to Hell.”

“You’ll never miss him. The crowd is amply big enough. I must go in. Good-night.”

“Good-night. Remember me to Marigold when next you see her. Till we meet again!”

And so he went—and that little game was over. Plucritus checkmate—yet most even-tempered through it all.

And the Master went into the death-chamber, and the doctors, recognising him, made way, for, though he was but Dr Quack, he never advertised, and they had gained so much from his advice to them when struggling, unknown doctors, that they had called him “the Physician,” not knowing who he was.

The Master took the feverish pulse in his cool hand, his eyes looked into the restless dying ones, and a calmness settled on the room—only the shallow gasps were heard in quick succession.

And at last, to the surprise of all those who had watched beside him, the High Priest panted “Pen and ink,” and almost instantly the shallow breath had flown, and life departed.

And afterwards they thought all kinds of things, and wondered what he wished to write—wondering in vain.

That done, the Master left the High Priest’s Palace, and took the direct path to where he had fixed to meet Marigold.

Meanwhile, at midnight, as he had directed her, she had passed through the door in the shadowy stables—remembering how she had first crept through there—the terror and emotion.

And turning to the left, she walked on through the silent country, thinking on all the strange events of the past, so curiously linked with those of the present.

And she thought of Alice too—Alice, who would not be comforted—even with a comfortable pension, paid each month. And then most naturally her thoughts flew to the Master, and all the long waiting and the tender love, and the misunderstandings that, if possible, had endeared them to each other.

And, as the road grew steeper, her attention was directed to the scenes around.

Below, the blue abysses, hidden in mists, with jutting pinnacles of rock rising from out of them. Mountains and wooded plains on every side—massed peak behind peak into the far distance. Yet, covering the path where she was walking, a velvet carpet of mountain flowers blowing in the moonlit breezes. And above, the mystic rowan berries, scarlet and drooping—a contrast to the white airy bells beneath. And, thrilled with the intense beauty of the scene, Marigold sat down and waited.

And then, in the far distance, she heard a merry whistling, rich and clear, that came vibrating on the moonbeams—a simple shepherd song they sang in the mountain valleys, in that Land of Song where she had lived—a child.

And Marigold rose to her feet, smiling and joyous; and, as the sound came nearer, she began to sing—the old sweet notes, yet now far sweeter, that Patches used to love. And her rich notes, mingled with that flute-like accompaniment, caused all the air to tremble, and, from the shading bowers and trees around, a thousand merry throats poured forth a song—the magic notes of the perfect nightingale—passion and tenderness and love all blended with gaiety and Heaven’s sadness too, not that of duller spheres. Then, on an instant, the merry whistle ceased, Marigold’s song, and the birds’ ecstatic trills. For he had climbed the last steep point and stood beside her.

Intense stillness; the air still vibrating, though the song had gone in a thousand echoes up to Heaven.

Without a word, with eyes for no one else but him, she felt the strong arms round her, drawing her to his breast.

And thus they soared away, high over peaks and precipices, above the moon—the song of birds in the distance, like the lark in the deep blue sky; and beauty and light all round them, the rosy shafts of sunrise dyeing the silver rays of the moon.

THE END


PRINTED BY M’LAREN AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.