The Upas Tree by Florence Louisa Barclay (thriller novels to read .txt) 📕

had something to tell you, and that I enclosed a note, written some weeks before, telling you this thing?"

"Yes, dear," said Ronnie. "But you forgot to enclose the note. It was not there. I tore the envelope right open; I hunted high and low. Then we concluded you had after all considered it unimportant."

"It was all-important, Ronnie; and it _was_ there."

"It was--_where_?" asked Ronnie.

"Under Aubrey's foot.... Oh, hush, darling, hush! We must not say hard things of a man who has confessed, and who is bitterly repentant. I can't tell you the whole story now; you shall hear every detail later; but he saw it fall from the letter, as you opened it. He was tempted, first, to cover it with his foot; then, to put it in his pocket; and, after he had read it, he wrote to me implying that you had told him the news it contained; so, when you arrived home, how could I possibly imagine that you did not know it?"

"Did not know _what?_" asked Ronnie.

She drew a folded paper from her pocket.

"My darling, this will tell you best. It is the note intended to reach you at Leipzig; it is the note which, until this afternoon, I had all along believed you to have received."

She put her note into his hand.

"I hope you will be able to read it by this light, Ronnie. I was very weak when I wrote it. I could only use pencil."

Ronnie unfolded it gravely.

She knelt, with bowed head, beside him. She dared not watch his face.

She heard his breath come short and fast. He moved his knees, and let go his 'cello.

The Infant of Prague slipped unnoticed to the floor.

When he read of the birth of his little son, with a hard choking sob, Ronnie turned and gathered her to him, holding her close, yet eagerly reading the letter over her head; reading it, to its very last word.

Then, dropping the letter, he clasped her to him, with a strength and a depth of tenderness such as she had never before known in Ronnie. And his first words were not what Helen had expected.

"Helen," he said, with another desperate tearless sob, "oh, to think that you had to go through _that_--alone!"

"My darling boy," she answered, "don't worry about that! It is all over, now; and it is so true--oh, _so_ true, Ronnie--that the anguish is no more remembered in the greatness of the joy."

"But I can't forget," said Ronnie--"I shall never forget--that my wife bore the suffering, the danger, the weakness, and I was not there to share it. I did not even know what she was going through."

"Ronnie dear--think of your little son."

"I can think of nothing of mine just yet," he answered, "excepting of my wife."

She gave in to his mood, and waited; letting him hold her close in perfect silence.

It was strangely sweet to Helen, because it was so completely unexpected. She had been prepared for a moment of intense surprise, followed by a rapture of pride and delight; then a wild rush to the nursery to see his first-born. She was quite willing, now her part was over, that her part should be forgotten. It was as unexpected as it was comfortingly precious, that Ronnie should be thus stricken by the thought of her pain, and of her need of him to help her bear it.

At last he said: "Helen, I see it all now. It was the Upas tree indeed: utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish!"

"My darling, no!" she cried. "Oh, don't be so unjust to yourself! When I used those terrible words, I thought you had had my letter, had come home knowing it all, yet absorbed completely in other things. Misled by Aubrey, I cruelly misjudged you, Ronnie. It was not selfish to go; it was not selfish to be away. You did not know, or you would not have gone. I was glad you should not know, glad you should be away, so that I could bear it alone, without hindering your work; letting you find the joy when you reached home, without having had any of the hardness or the worry. I wished it to be so, my darling boy--and I was glad."

Then Ronnie gently put his wife out of his arms, and took her sweet face between his hands, looking long into her eyes, before he made reply. And Helen, steadfastly returning his gaze, saw a look growing in her husband's face, such as she had never yet seen there, and knew, even before he began to speak, what he was going to say; and her protective love, longing as ever to shield him from pain, cried out: "Oh, must I let him realise that?"

But, at last, through the guidance of wiser Hands than hers, the matter had passed beyond Helen's control.

"My wife," said Ronnie slowly, "when I called it 'the Upas tree indeed,' I did not mean the _one_ act of going off in ignorance and leaving you alone during the whole of that time, when any man who cared at all would wish to be at hand, to bear, and share, and guard. I do not brand that as selfish; because you purposely withheld from me the truth, and bid me go. But _why_ did you withhold it? Why, after the first shock, did you feel glad to face the prospect of bearing it alone; glad I should be away? Ah, here we find the very roots of the Upas tree! Was it not because, during the whole of our married life, I have been cheerfully, complacently selfish? I have calmly accepted as the rule of the home, that I should hear of no worries which you could keep from me, tread upon no thorns which you could clear out of my path, bear no burdens which your loving hands could lift and carry out of sight. Your interests, your pleasures, your friends, your pursuits, all have been swept on one side, if they seemed in the smallest degree likely to interfere with my work, my desires, my career. You have lived for me--absolutely. I have lived for myself. True, we have loved each other tenderly; we have been immensely happy. But, all the while, the shadow of the Upas tree was there. My very love was selfish! It was sheer joy to love you, because you are so sweetly, so altogether, lovable. But when did I--because of my love for you--do one single thing at any cost to self? I was utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish! You knew this. You knew I hated pain, or worry, or anything which put my comfortable life out of gear. So you gladly let me go, leaving you to bear it all alone. You knew that, had you told me, I should have given up my book and stayed with you; because my self-love would have been more wounded by going than by staying. But you also knew that during all those months you would have had to listen while I bemoaned the circumstances, and bewailed my plot. You knew the bloom would be taken off the coming joy, so you preferred to let me go. Oh, Helen, is not this true?"

She bent her head and kissed his hand. She was weeping silently. She could not say it was not true.

"It was the Upas tree indeed," said Ronnie.

"Darling," she whispered, "it was my fault too--"

"Hush," he said. "There are faults too noble to be accounted faults. But--if you think you were at all to blame--you must atone, by truly and faithfully helping in my fight to root up the Upas tree."

"Ronnie," she said, "a pair of baby hands will help us both. We must learn to live life at its highest, for the sake of our little son."

Then, knowing he had endured as much heart-searching as a man could bear and be the better for it, she said, smiling:

"Ronnie, his funny little hands are so absurdly like yours."

"Like _mine_?" repeated Ronnie, as one awaking slowly from a sad dream, to a blissful reality. "Why are they like mine?"

"Because he is a tiny miniature of you, you dear, silly old boy! You do not seem to understand that you are actually a father, Ronnie, with a little son of your own!"

She looked up into his worn face, and saw the young glad joy of life creep slowly back into it.

"And his mouth, darling--his little mouth is just like yours; only, as I told you in the letter, when I kiss it--it does not kiss back, Ronnie."

"What?" cried Ronnie. "What?" Then he understood; and, this time, it was no mirage. Ronnie's desert wanderings were over.

* * * * *


"But don't you want to see your son?" Helen asked, presently.

Ronnie leapt up.

"See him? Why, of course I do! Oh, come on!... Helen! What does one say to a very young baby?"

Helen followed him upstairs, laughing.

"That entirely depends upon circumstances. One usually says: 'Did it?' 'Is it then?' or 'Was it?' But I almost think present conditions require a more definite statement of fact. I fancy one would say: 'How do you do, baby? _I_ am your papa!' ... This way, Ronnie, in my own old nurseries. Oh, darling, I am afraid I am going to cry! But you must not mind. They will only be tears of unutterable joy. Think what it will be to me, to see my baby in his father's arms!"


CHAPTER XX


GOOD-NIGHT TO THE INFANT OF PRAGUE

The last hour of Christmas Eve ticked slowly to its close.

On all around grew that sense of the herald angels, bending over a waiting world, poised upon outstretched wings. The hush had fallen which carries the mind away to the purple hills of Bethlehem, the watching shepherds, the quiet folds, the sudden glory in the sky.

The old Grange was closing its eyes at last, and settling itself to slumber.

One by one the brightly lighted windows darkened; the few remaining lights moved upwards.

The Hollymead Waits had duly arrived, and played their annual Christmas hymns. They had won gold from Ronnie, by ministering to his new-found proud delight in his infant son. The village blacksmith, who played the cornet and also acted spokesman for the band, had closed the selections of angelic music, by exclaiming hoarsely, under cover of the night: "A merry Christmas and a 'appy New Year, to Mrs. West, to Mr. West, and to _Master_ West!"

Ronnie dashed out jubilant. The Waits departed well-content.

Helen said: "You dear old silly!"

"Master West," wakened by the cornet, also had something to say; but he confided his remarks to his nurse, and was soon hushed back to slumber.

* * * * *


In the studio, the fire burned low.

The reflections in the long mirror, were indefinite and dim.

The Infant of Prague lay forgotten on the floor.

* *