It was the longest day in June. The room was stifling, filled with greenish light which fell in stripes through the slats of the closed shutters. On the tiled floor water had been sprinkled. Walls were stripped bare. A sheet, dipped in disinfectants, was pinned across the open door. On the other side sat the nun who had come to act as nurse. She sympathized with the jealousy that kept them always at the bedside and only intruded when she was sent for, or to give the medicines. This desperate clinging of flesh to flesh while the soul was outgrowing the body—how often she had watched it! She could not speak their language—didn’t understand anything but the quivering tenderness of what was said. She was a little in awe of these two young Englishmen who seemed so angry with God, and who sat day and night guarding the dying girl lest, in an unheeded moment, God should snatch her from them. Reckless of contagion, they bent above the pillow where the flushed face tossed between the plaits of daffodil hair.

The fight was unequal; it couldn’t last much longer. It had been going on for a week. Had they known in time that it was typhoid——. By the time they knew it was too late for her to be removed. The fishing-village had none of the necessities of nursing; the doctor had to come from Spezia.

Someone had to go for him at this moment; she had had a relapse. Harry looked at Peter. “I’ll go.” He spoke quietly, knowing that she might not be there when he returned.

Peter touched Kay’s hand, attempting the cheerfulness which they had feigned from the first, hoping that it might deceive even Death.

“Kitten Kay.”

She opened her eyes. She had gone back years as her strength had failed. She spoke as she looked, like a slight child-girl far distant from womanhood.

“Belovedest?”

They had been crowding the gentleness of a full life into the words exchanged in those few days.

He started to speak; choked and had to start afresh.

“Harry’s off to Spezia to fetch the doctor—the man who’s going to make you well.”

“Well!”

It was uttered deliberately, with a wise disbelieving smile.

“Harry! Harry!”

Her face grew troubled as she tried to recollect a name that was familiar.

Harry’s eyes filled with tears. He went on his knees beside her, pressing her hand to his lips.

“Kay, don’t you know me—your mouth-organ boy?”

The puzzled look melted. A low laugh came to her parched lips. “My dear, dear mouth-organ boy!”

At the door he gazed back longingly. Peter caught him by the arm. It was the struggle not to be selfish—it had been going on through seven days.

“You stay. Let me go.”

Harry shook his head. “She was yours before she was mine.”

He slipped out. His footsteps faded down the stairs.

In the house there was no sound—only her weary sighing. Everything was hushed and shuttered. Outside waves dragged against the sand and broke in long sparkling ripples. A pulley creaked as a fisherman hoisted sail. Across the bay came the panting of the steamer from Lerici. It drew in against the pier; boys’ laughter sounded and splashing as they dived for money. Again the panting, wandering off into the distance. It rounded the headland.

441

Silence——. So much of life in the world and none to spare for her! And this had come at a time when her father was ill, so that neither he nor her mother could come to her.

She threw back the sheet which was spread above her slender body. Her hand groped out. “Peter, Peterkins, you hav’n’t left me?”

“I’ll never leave you, and when you’re better——.”

Again the incredulous smile! He’ could get no further. Her voice, quite near to him, reached him remotely. “If I should die—-.”

He spoke quickly. “You’re not going to.”

“But dearest, if I should——. You won’t be bitter—won’t break your heart about me? If you did, I should know. I shouldn’t be happy. Promise that you’ll still trust God and be happy.”

Against his belief he promised.

He thought her sleeping. Her lips moved. “God! No man hath seen——. Beloved, we hav’n’t, have we?”

He was shaken with sobbing. He had to wait. “Dear little heart, you’ve been God to me and—and to everybody.”

“Hold my hand, Peter.” He was holding it. “I’m so tired. It’s night. Light the lamp. I want to see you.”

He unlatched the shutters. Across the dazzling blue of the gulf the sun stared luridly, swinging low above the sea-line.

Her brain began to wander. She spoke unforgettable things—unforgettable in their tenderness. It seemed that behind the confusion of her words her spirit was preparing him. It was as though she turned the pages of memory haphazard, chancing on phrases which summed up her short eighteen years of existence.

“Peter in a Christmas cab!” There was what he had called the laughter of birds in the way she said it. “Oh, it must be something splendid.”

She came to a winter when she had nearly died—when Peter had been sent for hurriedly from Sandport. “Peter! Peter! Peter!” She wailed his name childishly. Then, as though she snuggled warmly against one she trusted, “He’s never going to leave me. I shall get well now.”

For some minutes she was silent. Of a sudden she sat up, crying, “I don’t want to be a dead’un. I don’t want to be a dead’un.”

It all came back—his boyish attempt to explain heaven to her, and her terror because there was no means of escape by trains or trams. As then, so now, he failed to console her. She sank on the pillow exhausted by her panic.

During those brief minutes while the sun fell lower, she re-enacted all the joys and bewilderments which had been their childhood. Now they were playing in the garden at Topbury. Now riding out to the Happy Cottage on the tandem trike. Once it was a flowered meadow; she was trying to whistle. His startled question of long ago went unspoken. Only her tearful protest gave the clue to her wandering, “I never heard it, Peter—truly—never. I made it up out of my own head.”

For one thing which she said he had no picture, “Not on my lips. They’re for the man I marry.”

He buried his face. It was intolerable. “My God, I can’t bear it.” Love and marriage—she spoke of them; she would never know them.

Lying there so stilly, while death crept through her body, she seemed uncannily sensitive to all that happened in his mind. She knew that something she had said had hurt him.

Her delirium went from her. “Softy me, Peter, like you used to; I shan’t be afraid then.”

He leant his face against her hair, his cheek touching hers. She lifted her hand and stroked him comfortingly.

Was she wandering? He couldn’t tell. Her eyes were wide, gazing into a great distance. “In heaven they are all—all serious.” Feeling him touch her, she was filled with a wistful regret. “Beautiful warm flesh and blood.”

She tried to turn her head. He raised himself over her.

449

It seemed that her sight had returned. He forced himself to smile lest she should take fright at his crying.

“In heaven they are all—all——.”

He listened for her breath.

With unexpected strength, she fastened her arms about his neck and drew herself up.

“Listen. Listen.”

She was staring through the open window to where a red spark smoldered on the edge of the sea-line——. A sighing of wind across water! From far away, whistling—a little air, happy and haunting, trilled over and over! It was like a shepherd calling.

Her lips broke into a smile. “Beloved, I hear——.”

She drooped against his breast. The whistling grew fainter. The red spark was quenched. The longest day was ended.