Death the Knight and the Lady/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
THE RUBY WINE
Oh, the dismal dawn that woke me, it came through the window that I had left wide open. I sat up in bed. I was still dressed. My spurs had torn the coverlet, the trumpet and its blood-red silken cord lay upon the floor. The wind blew in, shaking the curtains mournfully. I saw it all at a glance. I remembered everything—the trumpeter had returned. Oh, it was awful, that moment of cringing terror. It seemed as if fate had been crawling at me slowly during the last three days. It seemed as if last night she had made a fearful bound, and now, like a tiger, was crouching for the final spring.
I had done it with my own lips, I had blown the death-trumpet for Geraldine. And now that voice came back that I heard at first, saying, "Remember, Geraldine is a boy." Ah, yes, I remembered it now, now that I had heralded to Geraldine the fate to which all the eldest boys of the Wilder family were doomed.
I threw myself face down on the pillows, weeping as if my heart would break; but of what use were tears? I had elected to play the part of a man, tears were out of place. I stopped weeping and dried my eyes. What was to be done? how could I save this child?
"Only one way," said a voice in my head, "leave her—you alone can kill her, so leave her."
I would,—I would leave her. I determined on that and rose from the bed; but, oh God help me, I determined to go first to her to say good-bye. Was it wrong? ask it of yourself. How—how could I leave this child, whose life was dearer to me than my own, how could I leave her without saying good-bye? Do you know what it means to leave a person you love, to leave for ever without saying good-bye? Could a mother leave her infant never to see it again without first kissing its tiny hands, its lips, its eyes? I could have torn my heart out with my own hands, but I could not have left Geraldine without saying good-bye.
I came to the great pier-glass and I saw myself—the cavalier. I leaned my head against it and against his, and I gazed out of the window at the dull grey sky; still another day of the damp, dark, sorrowful weather. The clock on the mantel pointed to the hour—quarter to six.
"I shall kiss her once and say good-bye and leave her for ever," I murmured to myself, but the words seemed to have little meaning. "I shall go to her now," I said, standing upright and addressing my own reflection in the glass, "for the sooner it is over the better."
I left the room. The passage was dark, but I felt my way with my hand. Down the stairs I came, across the hall, down the little corridor. I lifted the curtain and knocked. "Come in," said a voice.
She was not asleep, then. I opened the door. Geraldine was sitting by the open window, dressed; she had not been to bed. The bed lay white—Oh, God, if these tears would only choke me and not fill my throat with this dull, heavy pain—white and uncrumpled. She stretched out her arms to me feebly and as if against her will. And now I had kissed her three times, and was kneeling by her side, I—who had determined to kiss her once and leave her—and her head was upon my shoulder, and she was telling me how she could not go to bed for thinking of me, and how she loved me, loved me as no one had ever been loved before. Oh the innocence and divine sweetness of this love, of this voice, and the terror and anguish of the thought, "You are doomed to kill her, doomed, doomed."
How could I leave her? She had actually put her arm round my neck. I laid my head behind hers, so that I might not see the dawn, and might forget the world. My lips kept murmuring, "It is fate." As if in answer to the muttering of my lips there came a sound, the turret clock was striking six, six melancholy strokes; they brought back to my mind the words of the little black book.
"Geraldine," I cried, holding my face on her knees, "it was this hour, long, long ago, when I killed you; tell me to go, tell me to leave you, it will happen again, for Death is here, oh! listen to the wind." I ceased, and the wind sobbed and sighed in the garden, but no word came from Geraldine, only a tear that fell and burned my hand. "Geraldine," I whispered, "I have betrayed you, turn me away for your own sake."
Then I felt two soft hands seize my hair on either side of my head, and lift my face. I heard a voice whisper, "You are mine, and I will hold you so."
"Ah! then," I cried, "let the past be gone for ever; now, now with this kiss—and this—and this—let us defy Death." But even as our lips clung together, the wind moaned drearily in the trees. I heard Death, I felt him, he was in the garden, his gray misty face was at the window. We clung to each other like people drowning; we seemed to know that the eternal parting was so near; speechless, with lips paralysed, but still pressed together, we seemed listening for help, but no help came, nor sound—only the sound of the wind mourning in the trees.
Then drearily a little bird began to sing somewhere in the garden. Its song pierced my wretched heart and drove me to madness, to passion. I stood up, and, as my arms were round her, I lifted her in my arms. For one moment I held that delightful burthen, so warm and supple and perfumed, then growing dizzy, I laid her on the bed and leaned beside her. She started and drew back from something she saw in my gaze. Her lips grew pale.
"Geraldine," I muttered, "what is the matter, Geraldine?"
The pale lips moved, and a terror shot through me. She was going to faint; no, she was not going to faint, she seemed recovered now, but how weak she seemed.
"Wait," I whispered to her, "wait till I come back."
I left the room and hurried across the hall to the dining-room. Here, on the sideboard was a lock-up case containing brandy and liqueurs, but it was locked, of course; here was a decanter labelled "Roussillon." That would do.
I took a wine-glass and the decanter, and returned.
Geraldine, when she saw the decanter, shook her head, just as children shake their heads at the medicine bottle. But I was firm, and poured out a glass of the ruby wine. I put my hand behind her head and told her she must drink, drink it right off. She did as she was bid, and made a face; she said it was, bitter, and I said "Nonsense." Then her eyes became sleepy, and she lay with them fixed on mine; then her eyelids began to droop with sleep. Oh, how jealous I felt of sleep. And now I could not see her eyes at all. She was breathing deeply, and her lips now and then gave a little twitch. I sat holding her hand and stroking it. I sat for twenty minutes watching her. How light her breathing had suddenly become, and now suddenly she caught her breath and smiled as if she beheld some one in her dreams. I heard the galloping of a horse from the avenue, but I did not heed.
I waited for the next breath, but it never came. The smile had parted her lips, but she did not breathe; the eyelids lifted a tiny bit, but the eyes did not seem to see.
I said "Geraldine." No answer.
What was that furious ringing of bells, and that thundering as at a door? I heard it, but never heeded.
"Geraldine, Geraldine," I whispered. "Geraldine, wake, I am waiting for you." No answer, but the sound of the wind wailing in the trees.
She never moved, the smile on her face never changed. I sobbed. I turned round. Wilder was entering the room, he had just arrived. When he saw me dressed as I was he threw up his hands. He did not look at the form on the bed; he looked at the decanter, he smelt the glass, and he gave a little senile, dreary kind of laugh. He pointed to it and made a motion as if drinking. I knew what he meant,—it was one of his opium decanters mislabled Roussillon.
Then he sat down by the form on the bed, with his hands on his knees and his head bowed, and I heard him murmuring the words "My child."
The turret clock struck seven; with the last stroke I heard the shrill neigh of a horse, and the sound of a hoof striking sharply on granite.
It was as if to say: the play is ended, the curtain has fallen, never, never to rise again.