The Old Countess (Sedgwick)/Chapter 29
HOUR after hour, all the hot hours of early after noon, all the hours of storm, Richard Graham lay sleeping. It was a deep, but not a dreamless sleep, and the dream was sweet. First he was a little boy, sleeping beside his Scotch Nannie. His head was on her shoulder and her arms enfolded his small body. He had been ill, perhaps; or unhappy; for a lassitude, like that after fever or weeping, was on him; and no thought was in his mind; only the deep, calm assurance of rest. Then it was in Jill's arms that he slept; it was always the same dream, and he was always sleeping, yet aware. But the arms that held him were now Jill's and the sense of security, of danger escaped, was deeper than before. And then he lay in the arms of Marthe Ludérac. He knew that the change had come, yet it gave him no surprise. Perhaps from the beginning he had known that this was to be the final bliss, if bliss it could be called when it was so quiet. He lay beside Marthe Ludérac and her arms enfolded him, and his her; and they were one. All fever, all desire, was satisfied; he knew no want. The barriers that life had placed between them had vanished; it was in the grave, or in a field of paradise, that they lay; contented; united; yet uncommunicating. 'This, then, was what I needed,' was the dim thought drifting through his mind. Time was abolished; want was abolished. Everything was still; and everything was full of light. Together they sank into unconsciousness.
When he opened his eyes and saw Jill standing before him, he looked at her quietly for a long moment while the dream slid in upon itself, backward, and Jill, and his Nannie, were as real as Marthe had been. There was no shock or loss. It was all one. Then, in a sudden surprise, he sprang to his feet. Behind Jill was Amélie, with a steaming broc in her hand.
'Good God, Jill—what has happened!' he said, but the dream was about him and he smiled at her.
'The car broke down. I walked back in the rain. That's all.' Jill, too, smiled at him. 'Put the water in the dressing-room, Amélie.'
Graham turned his eyes on the window. 'But it's thunder I hear. It's a great storm. Have you been out in this storm? Have I slept all day?'
'Nearly all day,' said Jill. She walked towards the dressing-room, Amélie following her.
'But—Jill—you're drowned!' he cried.
'Ah—it is a wonder indeed that Madame is not drowned—in this flood!' Amélie set down the broc for a moment to enlighten him. 'Never has there been such a flood in Buissac. Already the poor people are driving their cattle into the town and the corpse of a cow passed along the river a little while ago.' Amélie was tragic and exhilarated.
Jill had fallen on a chair in the dressing-room, and, after looking at her for a moment, Graham knelt down before her and began to take off her sodden shoes. 'Get a glass of hot cognac and water—will you, Amélie,' he said, over his shoulder, and Amélie, crying out that it was precisely what Madame Michon had advised, sped away on the behest.
Graham, deftly, quietly, poured out the water and chafed Jill's icy feet as he put them into the basin. He often bathed Jill's feet for her, and never failed to remark on their beauty. But to-day he said nothing. And she suffered his ministrations in silence.
Amélie brought the cognac and she drank it obediently, and then, when the feet were dried.
'Now,' she said, 'I'm going to sluice down with hot water and go to bed.'
Dick had risen and was looking at her. 'The best thing you can do. A long sleep is what you need. Like mine.' Still he looked at her. 'Such dreams, Jill;—such strange long dreams I've had.'
She saw from his eyes that his dream was still about him and seeing it she felt again the sense of an unearthly radiance that had come to her on the mountain road. She and Dick were suddenly near together; almost as near as she and Marthe had been. They were friends in a deep, final sense that made of the nearness of marriage a clumsy, inadequate device. They were smiling at each other and tender, foolish thoughts came to her mind. 'Not too strange I hope,' she said. 'What would your horrid Freud make of them?'
'He's welcome to make what he likes.—Are you going to sleep in here?' There was the little bed in the dressing-room that Graham had slept in during her illness.
'Yes. In here. So that you shan't disturb me.'
'You'll have some dinner first?'
'Yes. A little dinner, on a tray.—Amélie knows.'
'I see.—And then you'll sleep?'
'Yes. Don't come in to see. I'll be sound very soon.'
'And to-morrow?'
'To-morrow we can talk, Dick,' said Jill.
She smiled at him and she saw, as he stood in the door, gazing at her gravely, that he measured the immense distances that had come between them. They were near as never before in their lives; yet all life now divided them. He would not kiss her good-night. No. She saw that he would not. The radiance was there, about them both, and it still sustained her; but when he had softly closed the door, Jill, for one black moment, gasped on a rising surge of tears; bit them down, fought and mastered them. No; no; no;—she would not think. The next thing to do was to sleep. And she undressed rapidly.