When the World Shook

  Chapter IV. Death and Departure

  Now I must tell of my own terrible sorrow, which turned my life tobitterness and my hopes to ashes.

  Never were a man and a woman happier together than I and Natalie.Mentally, physically, spiritually we were perfectly mated, and we lovedeach other dearly. Truly we were as one. Yet there was something abouther which filled me with vague fears, especially after she found thatshe was to become a mother. I would talk to her of the child, but shewould sigh and shake her head, her eyes filling with tears, and say thatwe must not count on the continuance of such happiness as ours, for itwas too great.

  I tried to laugh away her doubts, though whenever I did so I seemed tohear Bastin's slow voice remarking casually that she might die, as hemight have commented on the quality of the claret. At last, however, Igrew terrified and asked her bluntly what she meant.

  "I don't quite know, dearest," she replied, "especially as I amwonderfully well. But--but--"

  "But what?" I asked.

  "But I think that our companionship is going to be broken for a littlewhile."

  "For a little while!" I exclaimed.

  "Yes, Humphrey. I think that I shall be taken away from you--you knowwhat I mean," and she nodded towards the churchyard.

  "Oh, my God!" I groaned.

  "I want to say this," she added quickly, "that if such a thing shouldhappen, as it happens every day, I implore you, dearest Humphrey, not tobe too much distressed, since I am sure that you will find me again.No, I can't explain how or when or where, because I do not know. I haveprayed for light, but it has not come to me. All I know is that I am nottalking of reunion in Mr. Bastin's kind of conventional heaven, which hespeaks about as though to reach it one stumbled through darkness fora minute into a fine new house next door, where excellent servants hadmade everything ready for your arrival and all the lights were turnedup. It is something quite different from that and very much more real."

  Then she bent down ostensibly to pat the head of a little black cockerspaniel called Tommy which had been given to her as a puppy, a highlyintelligent and affectionate animal that we both adored and that lovedher as only a dog can love. Really, I knew, it was to hide her tears,and fled from the room lest she should see mine.

  As I went I heard the dog whimpering in a peculiar way, as though somesympathetic knowledge had been communicated to its wonderful animalintelligence.

  That night I spoke to Bickley about the matter, repeating exactly whathad passed. As I expected, he smiled in his grave, rather sarcastic way,and made light of it.

  "My dear Humphrey," he said, "don't torment yourself about such fancies.They are of everyday occurrence among women in your wife's condition.Sometimes they take one form, sometimes another. When she has got herbaby you will hear no more of them."

  I tried to be comforted but in vain.

  The days and weeks went by like a long nightmare and in due course theevent happened. Bickley was not attending the case; it was not inhis line, he said, and he preferred that where a friend's wife wasconcerned, somebody else should be called in. So it was put in charge ofa very good local man with a large experience in such domestic matters.

  How am I to tell of it? Everything went wrong; as for the details, letthem be. Ultimately Bickley did operate, and if surpassing skill couldhave saved her, it would have been done. But the other man had misjudgedthe conditions; it was too late, nothing could help either mother orchild, a little girl who died shortly after she was born but not beforeshe had been christened, also by the name of Natalie.

  I was called in to say farewell to my wife and found her radiant,triumphant even in her weakness.

  "I know now," she whispered in a faint voice. "I understood as thechloroform passed away, but I cannot tell you. Everything is quite well,my darling. Go where you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the wonderfulplace in which you will find me, not knowing that you have found me.Good-bye for a little while; only for a little while, my own, my own!"

  Then she died. And for a time I too seemed to die, but could not. Iburied her and the child here at Fulcombe; or rather I buried theirashes since I could not endure that her beloved body should seecorruption.

  Afterwards, when all was over, I spoke of these last words of Natalie'swith both Bickley and Bastin, for somehow I seemed to wish to learntheir separate views.

  The latter I may explain, had been present at the end in his spiritualcapacity, but I do not think that he in the least understood the natureof the drama which was passing before his eyes. His prayers and thechristening absorbed all his attention, and he never was a man who couldthink of more than one thing at a time.

  When I told him exactly what had happened and repeated the words thatNatalie spoke, he was much interested in his own nebulous way, and saidthat it was delightful to meet with an example of a good Christian, suchas my wife had been, who actually saw something of Heaven before she hadgone there. His own faith was, he thanked God, fairly robust, but stillan undoubted occurrence of the sort acted as a refreshment, "like rainon a pasture when it is rather dry, you know," he added, breaking intosimile.

  I remarked that she had not seemed to speak in the sense he indicated,but appeared to allude to something quite near at hand and more or lessimmediate.

  "I don't know that there is anything nearer at hand than the Hereafter,"he answered. "I expect she meant that you will probably soon die andjoin her in Paradise, if you are worthy to do so. But of course it isnot wise to put too much reliance upon words spoken by people at thelast, because often they don't quite know what they are saying. Indeedsometimes I think this was so in the case of my own wife, who reallyseemed to me to talk a good deal of rubbish. Good-bye, I promised to seeWidow Jenkins this afternoon about having her varicose veins cut out,and I mustn't stop here wasting time in pleasant conversation. Shethinks just as much of her varicose veins as we do of the loss of ourwives."

  I wonder what Bastin's ideas of unpleasant conversation may be, thoughtI to myself, as I watched him depart already wool-gathering on someother subject, probably the heresy of one of those "early fathers" whooccupied most of his thoughts.

  Bickley listened to my tale in sympathetic silence, as a doctor does toa patient. When he was obliged to speak, he said that it was interestingas an example of a tendency of certain minds towards romantic visionwhich sometimes asserts itself, even in the throes of death.

  "You know," he added, "that I put faith in none of these things. Iwish that I could, but reason and science both show me that they lackfoundation. The world on the whole is a sad place, where we arrivethrough the passions of others implanted in them by Nature, which,although it cares nothing for individual death, is tender towards theimpulse of races of every sort to preserve their collective life.Indeed the impulse is Nature, or at least its chief manifestation.Consequently, whether we be gnats or elephants, or anything between andbeyond, even stars for aught I know, we must make the best of things asthey are, taking the good and the evil as they come and getting all wecan out of life until it leaves us, after which we need not trouble.You had a good time for a little while and were happy in it; now youare having a bad time and are wretched. Perhaps in the future, when yourmental balance has re-asserted itself, you will have other good times inthe afternoon of your days, and then follow twilight and the dark. Thatis all there is to hope for, and we may as well look the thing in theface. Only I confess, my dear fellow, that your experience convinces methat marriage should be avoided at whatever inconvenience. Indeed Ihave long wondered that anyone can take the responsibility of bringinga child into the world. But probably nobody does in cold blood, exceptmisguided idiots like Bastin," he added. "He would have twenty, had nothis luck intervened."

  "Then you believe in nothing, Friend," I said.

  "Nothing, I am sorry to say, except what I see and my five sensesappreciate."

  "You reject all possibility of miracle, for instance?"

  "That depends on what you mean by miracle. Science shows us all kindsof wo
nders which our great grandfathers would have called miracles, butthese are nothing but laws that we are beginning to understand. Give mean instance."

  "Well," I replied at hazard, "if you were assured by someone that a mancould live for a thousand years?"

  "I should tell him that he was a fool or a liar, that is all. It isimpossible."

  "Or that the same identity, spirit, animating principle--call it whatyou will--can flit from body to body, say in successive ages? Or thatthe dead can communicate with the living?"

  "Convince me of any of these things, Arbuthnot, and mind you I desireto be convinced, and I will take back every word I have said and walkthrough Fulcombe in a white sheet proclaiming myself the fool. Now, Imust get off to the Cottage Hospital to cut out Widow Jenkins's varicoseveins. They are tangible and real at any rate; about the largest I eversaw, indeed. Give up dreams, old boy, and take to something useful. Youmight go back to your fiction writing; you seem to have leanings thatway, and you know you need not publish the stories, except privately forthe edification of your friends."

  With this Parthian shaft Bickley took his departure to make a job ofWidow Jenkins's legs.

  I took his advice. During the next few months I did write somethingwhich occupied my thoughts for a while, more or less. It lies in my safeto this minute, for somehow I have never been able to make up my mind toburn what cost me so much physical and mental toil.

  When it was finished my melancholy returned to me with added force.Everything in the house took a tongue and cried to me of past days.Its walls echoed a voice that I could never hear again; in the verylooking-glasses I saw the reflection of a lost presence. Although I hadmoved myself for the purposes of sleep to a little room at the furtherend of the building, footsteps seemed to creep about my bed at nightand I heard the rustle of a remembered dress without the door. The placegrew hateful to me. I felt that I must get away from it or I should gomad.

  One afternoon Bastin arrived carrying a book and in a state of highindignation. This work, written, as he said, by some ribald traveller,grossly traduced the character of missionaries to the South Sea Islands,especially of those of the Society to which he subscribed, and he threwit on the table in his righteous wrath. Bickley picked it up and openedit at a photograph of a very pretty South Sea Island girl clad in a fewflowers and nothing else, which he held towards Bastin, saying:

  "Is it to this child of Nature that you object? I call her distinctlyattractive, though perhaps she does wear her hibiscus blooms with adifference to our women--a little lower down."

  "The devil is always attractive," replied Bastin gloomily. "Child ofNature indeed! I call her Child of Sin. That photograph is enough tomake my poor Sarah turn in her grave."

  "Why?" asked Bickley; "seeing that wide seas roll between you and thisdusky Venus. Also I thought that according to your Hebrew legend sincame in with bark garments."

  "You should search the Scriptures, Bickley," I broke in, "and cultivateaccuracy. It was fig-leaves that symbolised its arrival. The garments,which I think were of skin, developed later."

  "Perhaps," went on Bickley, who had turned the page, "she" (he referredto the late Mrs. Bastin) "would have preferred her thus," and he held upanother illustration of the same woman.

  In this the native belle appeared after conversion, clad in broken-downstays--I suppose they were stays--out of which she seemed to bulge andflow in every direction, a dirty white dress several sizes too small,a kind of Salvation Army bonnet without a crown and a prayer-book whichshe held pressed to her middle; the general effect being hideous, and insome curious way, improper.

  "Certainly," said Bastin, "though I admit her clothes do not seem tofit and she has not buttoned them up as she ought. But it is not of thepictures so much as of the letterpress with its false and scandalousaccusations, that I complain."

  "Why do you complain?" asked Bickley. "Probably it is quite true, thoughthat we could never ascertain without visiting the lady's home."

  "If I could afford it," exclaimed Bastin with rising anger, "I shouldlike to go there and expose this vile traducer of my cloth."

  "So should I," answered Bickley, "and expose these introducers ofconsumption, measles and other European diseases, to say nothing of gin,among an innocent and Arcadian people."

  "How can you call them innocent, Bickley, when they murder and eatmissionaries?"

  "I dare say we should all eat a missionary, Bastin, if we were hungryenough," was the answer, after which something occurred to change theconversation.

  But I kept the book and read it as a neutral observer, and came to theconclusion that these South Sea Islands, a land where it was alwaysafternoon, must be a charming place, in which perhaps the stars ofthe Tropics and the scent of the flowers might enable one to forget alittle, or at least take the edge off memory. Why should I not visitthem and escape another long and dreary English winter? No, I could notdo so alone. If Bastin and Bickley were there, their eternal argumentsmight amuse me. Well, why should they not come also? When one has moneythings can always be arranged.

  The idea, which had its root in this absurd conversation, took a curioushold on me. I thought of it all the evening, being alone, and that nightit re-arose in my dreams. I dreamed that my lost Natalie appeared to meand showed me a picture. It was of a long, low land, a curving shoreof which the ends were out of the picture, whereon grew tall palms, andwhere great combers broke upon gleaming sand.

  Then the picture seemed to become a reality and I saw Natalie herself,strangely changeful in her aspect, strangely varying in face and figure,strangely bright, standing in the mouth of a pass whereof the littlebordering cliffs were covered with bushes and low trees, whose greenwas almost hid in lovely flowers. There in my dream she stood, smilingmysteriously, and stretched out her arms towards me.

  As I awoke I seemed to hear her voice, repeating her dying words: "Gowhere you seem called to go, far away. Oh! the wonderful place in whichyou will find me, not knowing that you have found me."

  With some variations this dream visited me twice that night. In themorning I woke up quite determined that I would go to the South SeaIslands, even if I must do so alone. On that same evening Bastin andBickley dined with me. I said nothing to them about my dream, for Bastinnever dreamed and Bickley would have set it down to indigestion. Butwhen the cloth had been cleared away and we were drinking our glassof port--both Bastin and Bickley only took one, the former because heconsidered port a sinful indulgence of the flesh, the latter because hefeared it would give him gout--I remarked casually that they both lookedvery run down and as though they wanted a rest. They agreed, at leasteach of them said he had noticed it in the other. Indeed Bastin addedthat the damp and the cold in the church, in which he held dailyservices to no congregation except the old woman who cleaned it, hadgiven him rheumatism, which prevented him from sleeping.

  "Do call things by their proper names," interrupted Bickley. "I toldyou yesterday that what you are suffering from is neuritis in your rightarm, which will become chronic if you neglect it much longer. I have thesame thing myself, so I ought to know, and unless I can stop operatingfor a while I believe my fingers will become useless. Also something isaffecting my sight, overstrain, I suppose, so that I am obliged to wearstronger and stronger glasses. I think I shall have to leave Ogden" (hispartner) "in charge for a while, and get away into the sun. There isnone here before June."

  "I would if I could pay a locum tenens and were quite sure it isn'twrong," said Bastin.

  "I am glad you both think like that," I remarked, "as I have asuggestion to make to you. I want to go to the South Seas about which wewere talking yesterday, to get the thorough change that Bickley has beenadvising for me, and I should be very grateful if you would both come asmy guests. You, Bickley, make so much money out of cutting people about,that you can arrange your own affairs during your absence. But as foryou, Bastin, I will see to the wherewithal for the locum tenens, andeverything else."

  "You are very kind," said Bastin, "and ce
rtainly I should like to exposethat misguided author, who probably published his offensive work withoutthinking that what he wrote might affect the subscriptions to themissionary societies, also to show Bickley that he is not always right,as he seems to think. But I could never dream of accepting without thefull approval of the Bishop."

  "You might get that of your nurse also, if she happens to be stillalive," mocked Bickley. "As for his Lordship, I don't think he willraise any objection when he sees the certificate I will give you aboutthe state of your health. He is a great believer in me ever since Itook that carbuncle out of his neck which he got because he will not eatenough. As for me, I mean to come if only to show you how continuallyand persistently you are wrong. But, Arbuthnot, how do you mean to go?"

  "I don't know. In a mail steamer, I suppose."

  "If you can run to it, a yacht would be much better."

  "That's a good idea, for one could get out of the beaten tracks andsee the places that are never, or seldom, visited. I will make someinquiries. And now, to celebrate the occasion, let us all have anotherglass of port and drink a toast."

  They hesitated and were lost, Bastin murmuring something about doingwithout his stout next day as a penance. Then they both asked what wasthe toast, each of them, after thought, suggesting that it should be theutter confusion of the other.

  I shook my head, whereon as a result of further cogitation, Bastinsubmitted that the Unknown would be suitable. Bickley said that hethought this a foolish idea as everything worth knowing was alreadyknown, and what was the good of drinking to the rest? A toast to theTruth would be better.

  A notion came to me.

  "Let us combine them," I said, "and drink to the Unknown Truth."

  So we did, though Bastin grumbled that the performance made him feellike Pilate.

  "We are all Pilates in our way," I replied with a sigh.

  "That is what I think every time I diagnose a case," exclaimed Bickley.

  As for me I laughed and for some unknown reason felt happier than Ihad done for months. Oh! if only the writer of that tourist tale of theSouth Sea Islands could have guessed what fruit his light-thrown seedwould yield to us and to the world!

  I made my inquiries through a London agency which hired out yachts orsold them to the idle rich. As I expected, there were plenty to be had,at a price, but wealthy as I was, the figure asked of the buyer of anysuitable craft, staggered me. In the end, however, I chartered onefor six months certain and at so much per month for as long as I likedafterwards. The owners paid insurance and everything else on conditionthat they appointed the captain and first mate, also the engineer, forthis yacht, which was named Star of the South, could steam at about tenknots as well as sail.

  I know nothing about yachts, and therefore shall not attempt to describeher, further than to say that she was of five hundred and fifty tonsburden, very well constructed, and smart to look at, as well she mightbe, seeing that a deceased millionaire from whose executors I hired herhad spent a fortune in building and equipping her in the best possiblestyle. In all, her crew consisted of thirty-two hands. A peculiarity ofthe vessel was that owing to some fancy of the late owner, the passengeraccommodation, which was splendid, lay forward of the bridge, this withthe ship's store-rooms, refrigerating chamber, etc., being almost in thebows. It was owing to these arrangements, which were unusual, that theexecutors found it impossible to sell, and were therefore glad to acceptsuch an offer as mine in order to save expenses. Perhaps they hoped thatshe might go to the bottom, being heavily insured. If so, the Fates didnot disappoint them.

  The captain, named Astley, was a jovial person who held every kind ofcertificate. He seemed so extraordinarily able at his business thatpersonally I suspected him of having made mistakes in the course of hiscareer, not unconnected with the worship of Bacchus. In this I believeI was right; otherwise a man of such attainments would have beencommanding something bigger than a private yacht. The first mate,Jacobsen, was a melancholy Dane, a spiritualist who played theconcertina, and seemed to be able to do without sleep. The crew were amixed lot, good men for the most part and quite unobjectionable, morethan half of them being Scandinavian. I think that is all I need sayabout the Star of the South.

  The arrangement was that the Star of the South should proceed throughthe Straits of Gibraltar to Marseilles, where we would join her, andthence travel via the Suez Canal, to Australia and on to the South Seas,returning home as our fancy or convenience might dictate.

  All the first part of the plan we carried out to the letter. Of theremainder I say nothing at present.

  The Star of the South was amply provided with every kind of store. Amongthem were medicines and surgical instruments, selected by Bickley, anda case of Bibles and other religious works in sundry languages of theSouth Seas, selected by Bastin, whose bishop, when he understood thepious objects of his journey, had rather encouraged than hinderedhis departure on sick leave, and a large number of novels, books ofreference, etc., laid in by myself. She duly sailed from the Thames andreached Marseilles after a safe and easy passage, where all three of usboarded her.

  I forgot to add that she had another passenger, the little spaniel,Tommy. I had intended to leave him behind, but while I was packing up hefollowed me about with such evident understanding of my purpose that myheart was touched. When I entered the motor to drive to the station heescaped from the hands of the servant, whimpering, and took refuge on myknee. After this I felt that Destiny intended him to be our companion.Moreover, was he not linked with my dead past, and, had I but known it,with my living future also?