THE WOMAN AND THE MAN.
Quite unaware that Destiny, that tireless spinner, was weaving sinister
red threads of hate and love into the web of his life, Lambert continued
to live quietly in his woodland retreat. In a somewhat misanthropic
frame of mind he had retired to this hermitage, after the failure of his
love affair, since, lacking the society of Agnes, there was nothing left
for him to desire. From a garden of roses, the world became a sandy
desert, and denied the sole gift of fortune, which would have made him
completely happy, the disconsolate lover foreswore society for solitude.
As some seek religion, so Lambert hoped by seeking Nature's breast to
assuage the pains of his sore heart. But although the great Mother could
do so much, she could not do all, and the young man still felt restless
and weary. Hard work helped him more than a little, but he had his dark
hours during those intervals when hand and brain were too weary to
create pictures.
In one way he blamed Agnes, because she had married for money; in
another way he did not blame her, because that same money had been
necessary to support the falling fortunes of the noble family to which
Lambert belonged. An ordinary person would not have understood this, and
would have seen in the mercenary marriage simply a greedy grasping after
the loaves and fishes. But Lambert, coming at the end of a long line of
lordly ancestors, considered that both he and his cousin owed something
to those of the past who had built up the family. Thus his pride told
him that Agnes had acted rightly in taking Pine as her husband, while
his love cried aloud that the sacrifice was too hard upon their
individual selves. He was a Lambert, but he was also a human being, and
the two emotions of love and pride strove mightily against one another.
Although quite three years had elapsed since the victim had been offered
at the altar--and a willing victim to the family fetish--the struggle
was still going on. And because of its stress and strain, Lambert
withdrew from society, so that he might see as little as possible of the
woman he loved. They had met, they had talked, they had looked, in a
conventionally light-hearted way, but both were relieved when
circumstances parted them. The strain was too great.
Pine arranged the circumstances, for hearing here, there, and
everywhere, that his wife had been practically engaged to her cousin
before he became her husband, he looked with jealous eyes upon their
chance meetings. Neither to Agnes nor Lambert did he say a single word,
since he had no reason to utter it, so scrupulously correct was their
behavior, but his eyes were sufficiently eloquent to reveal his
jealousy. He took his wife for an American tour, and when he brought her
back to London, Lambert, knowing only too truly the reason for that
tour, had gone away in his turn to shoot big game in Africa. An attack
of malaria contracted in the Congo marshes had driven him back to
England, and it was then that he had begged Garvington to give him The
Abbot's Wood Cottage. For six months he had been shut up here,
occasionally going to London, or for a week's walking tour, and during
that time he had done his best to banish the image of Agnes from his
heart. Doubtless she was attempting the same conquest, for she never
even wrote to him. And now these two sorely-tried people were within
speaking distance of one another, and strange results might be looked
for unless honor held them sufficiently true. Seeing that the cottage
was near the family seat, and that Agnes sooner or later would arrive to
stay with her brother and sister-in-law, Lambert might have expected
that such a situation would come about in the natural course of things.
Perhaps he did, and perhaps--as some busybodies said--he took the
cottage for that purpose; but so far, he had refrained from seeking the
society of Pine's wife. He would not even dine at The Manor, nor would
he join the shooting-party, although Garvington, with a singular
blindness, urged him to do so. While daylight lasted, the artist painted
desperately hard, and after dark wandered round the lanes and roads and
across the fields, haunting almost unconsciously the Manor Park, if only
to see in moonlight and twilight the casket which held the rich jewel he
had lost. This was foolish, and Lambert acknowledged that it was
foolish, but at the same time he added inwardly that he was a man and
not an angel, a sinner and not a saint, so that there were limits, etc.,
etc., etc., using impossible arguments to quieten a lively conscience
that did not approve of this dangerous philandering.
The visit of Miss Greeby awoke him positively to a sense of danger, for
if she talked--and talk she did--other people would talk also. Lambert
asked himself if it would be better to visit The Manor and behave like
a man who has got over his passion, or to leave the cottage and betake
himself to London. While turning over this problem in his mind, he
painted feverishly, and for three days after Miss Greeby had come to
stir up muddy water, he remained as much as possible in his studio.
Chaldea visited him, as usual, to be painted, and brought Kara with his
green coat and beloved violin and hairy looks. The girl chatted, Kara
played, and Lambert painted, and all three pretended to be very happy
and careless. This was merely on the surface, however, for the artist
was desperately wretched, because the other half of himself was married
to another man, while Chaldea, getting neither love-look nor caress,
felt savagely discontented. As for Kara, he had long since loved
Chaldea, who treated him like a dog, and he could not help seeing that
she adored the Gentile artist--a knowledge which almost broke his heart.
But it was some satisfaction for him to note that Lambert would have
nothing to do with the siren, and that she could not charm him to her
feet, sang she ever so tenderly. It was an unhappy trio at the best.
The gypsies usually came in the morning, since the light was then better
for artistic purposes, but they always departed at one o'clock, so that
Lambert had the afternoon to himself. Chaldea would fain have lingered
in order to charm the man she loved into subjection; but he never gave
her the least encouragement, so she was obliged to stay away. All the
same, she often haunted the woods near the cottage, and when Lambert
came out for a stroll, which he usually did when it became too dark to
paint, he was bound to run across her. Since he had not the slightest
desire to make love to her, and did not fathom the depth of her passion,
he never suspected that she purposely contrived the meetings which he
looked upon as accidental.
Since Chaldea hung round the house, like a moth round a candle, she saw
every one who came and went from the woodland cottage. On the afternoon
of the third day since Pine's arrival at the camp in the character of
Ishmael Hearne, the gypsy saw Lady Agnes coming through the wood.
Chaldea knew her at once, having often seen her when she had come to
visit Mother Cockleshell a few months previously. With characteristic
cunning, the girl dived into the undergrowth, and there remained
concealed for the purpose of spying on the Gentile lady whom she
regarded as a rival. Immediately, Chaldea guessed that Lady Agnes was
on her way to the cottage, and, as Lambert was alone as usual for the
afternoon, the two would probably have a private conversation. The girl
swiftly determined to listen, so that she might learn exactly how
matters stood between them. It might be that she would discover
something which Pine--Chaldea now thought of him as Pine--might like to
know. So having arranged this in her own unscrupulous mind, the girl
behind a juniper bush jealously watched the unsuspecting lady. What she
saw did not please her overmuch, as Lady Agnes was rather too beautiful
for her unknown rival's peace of mind.
Sir Hubert's wife was not really the exquisitely lovely creature Chaldea
took her to be, but her fair skin and brown hair were such a contrast to
the gypsy's swarthy face and raven locks, that she really looked like an
angel of light compared with the dark child of Nature. Agnes was tall
and slender, and moved with a great air of dignity and calm
self-possession, and this to the uncontrolled Chaldea was also a matter
of offence. She inwardly tried to belittle her rival by thinking what a
milk-and-water useless person she was, but the steady and resolute look
in the lady's brown eyes gave the lie to this mental assertion. Lady
Agnes had an air of breeding and command, which, with all her beauty,
Chaldea lacked, and as she passed along like a cold, stately goddess,
the gypsy rolled on the grass in an ecstasy of rage. She could never be
what her rival was, and what her rival was, as she suspected, formed
Lambert's ideal of womanhood. When she again peered through the bush,
Lady Agnes had disappeared. But there was no need for Chaldea to ask her
jealous heart where she had gone. With the stealth and cunning of a Red
Indian, the gypsy took up the trail, and saw the woman she followed
enter the cottage. For a single moment she had it in her mind to run to
the camp and bring Pine, but reflecting that in a moment of rage the man
might kill Lambert, Chaldea checked her first impulse, and bent all her
energies towards getting sufficiently near to listen to a conversation
which was not meant for her ears.
Meanwhile, Agnes had been admitted by Mrs. Tribb, a dried-up little
woman with the rosy face of a winter apple, and a continual smile of
satisfaction with herself and with her limited world. This consisted of
the cottage, in the wood, and of the near villages, where she repaired
on occasions to buy food. Sometimes, indeed, she went to The Manor, for,
born and bred on the Garvington estates, Mrs. Tribb knew all the
servants at the big house. She had married a gamekeeper, who had died,
and unwilling to leave the country she knew best, had gladly accepted
the offer of Lord Garvington to look after the woodland cottage. In this
way Lambert became possessed of an exceedingly clean housekeeper, and a
wonderfully good cook. In fact so excellent a cook was Mrs. Tribb, that
Garvington had frequently suggested she should come to The Manor. But,
so far, Lambert had managed to keep the little woman to himself. Mrs.
Tribb adored him, since she had known him from babyhood, and declined to
leave him under any circumstances. She thought Lambert the best man in
the world, and challenged the universe to find another so handsome and
clever, and so considerate.
"Dear me, my lady, is it yourself?" said Mrs. Tribb, throwing up her dry
little hands and dropping a dignified curtsey. "Well, I do call it good
of you to come and see Master Noel. He don't go out enough, and don't
take enough interest in his stomach, if your ladyship will pardon my
mentioning that part of him. But you don't know, my lady, what it is to
be a cook, and to see the dishes get cold, while he as should eat them
goes on painting, not but what Master Noel don't paint like an angel, as
I've said dozens of times."
While Mrs. Tribb ran on in this manner her lively black eyes twinkled
anxiously. She knew that her master and Lady Agnes had been, as she said
herself, "next door to engaged," and knew also that Lambert was fretting
over the match which had been brought about for the glorification of the
family. The housekeeper, therefore, wondered why Lady Agnes had come,
and asked herself whether it would not be wise to say that Master
Noel--from old associations, she always called Lambert by this juvenile
title--was not at home. But she banished the thought as unworthy, the
moment it entered her active brain, and with another curtsey in response
to the visitor's greeting, she conducted her to the studio. "Them two
angels will never do no wrong, anyhow," was Mrs. Tribb's reflection, as
she closed the door and left the pair together. "But I do hope as that
black-faced husband won't ever learn. He's as jealous as Cain, and I
don't want Master Noel to be no Abel!"
If Mrs. Tribb, instead of going to the kitchen, which she did, had gone
out of the front door, she would have found Chaldea lying full length
amongst the flowers under the large window of the studio. This was
slightly open, and the girl could hear every word that was spoken, while
so swiftly and cleverly had she gained her point of vantage, that those
within never for one moment suspected her presence. If they had, they
would assuredly have kept better guard over their tongues, for the
conversation was of the most private nature, and did not tend to soothe
the eavesdropper's jealousy.
Lambert was so absorbed in his painting--he was working at the
Esmeralda-Quasimodo picture--that he scarcely heard the studio door
open, and it was only when Mrs. Tribb's shrill voice announced the name
of his visitor, that he woke to the surprising fact that the woman he
loved was within a few feet of him. The blood rushed to his face, and
then retired to leave him deadly pale, but Agnes was more composed, and
did not let her heart's tides mount to high-water mark. On seeing her
self-possession, the man became ashamed that he had lost his own, and
strove to conceal his momentary lapse into a natural emotion, by pushing
forward an arm-chair.
"This is a surprise, Agnes," he said in a voice which he strove vainly
to render steady. "Won't you sit down?"
"Thank you," and she took her seat like a queen on her throne, looking
fair and gracious as any white lily. What with her white dress, white
gloves and shoes, and straw hat tied under her chin with a broad white
ribbon in old Georgian fashion, she looked wonderfully cool, and pure,
and--as Lambert inwardly observed--holy. Her face was as faintly tinted
with color as is a tea-rose, and her calm, brown eyes, under her smooth
brown hair, added to the suggestive stillness of her looks. She seemed
in her placidity to be far removed from any earthly emotion, and
resembled a picture of the Madonna, serene, peaceful, and somewhat sad.
Yet who could tell what anguished feelings were masked by her womanly
pride?
"I hope you do not find the weather too warm for walking," said Lambert,
reining in his emotions with an iron hand, and speaking conventionally.
"Not at all. I enjoyed the walk. I am staying at The Manor."
"So I understand."
"And you are staying here?"
"There can be no doubt on that point."
"Do you think you are acting wisely?" she asked with great calmness.
"I might put the same question to you, Agnes, seeing that you have come
to live within three miles of my hermitage."
"It is because you are living in what you call your hermitage that I
have come," rejoined Agnes, with a slight color deepening her cheeks.
"Is it fair to me that you should shut yourself up and play the part of
the disappointed lover?"
Lambert, who had been touching up his picture here and there, laid down
his palette and brushes with ostentatious care, and faced her doggedly.
"I don't understand what you mean," he declared.
"Oh, I think you do; and in the hope that I may induce you, in justice
to me, to change your conduct, I have come over."
"I don't think you should have come," he observed in a low voice, and
threw himself on the couch with averted eyes.
Lady Agnes colored again. "You are talking nonsense," she said with some
sharpness. "There is no harm in my coming to see my cousin."
"We were more than cousins once."
"Exactly, and unfortunately people know that. But you needn't make
matters worse by so pointedly keeping away from me."
Lambert looked up quickly. "Do you wish me to see you often?" he asked,
and there was a new note in his voice which irritated her.
"Personally I don't, but--"
"But what?" He rose and stood up, very tall and very straight, looking
down on her with a hungry look in his blue eyes.
"People are talking," murmured the lady, and stared at the floor,
because she could not face that same look.
"Let them talk. What does it matter?"
"Nothing to you, perhaps, but to me a great deal. I have a husband."
"As I know to my cost," he interpolated.
"Then don't let me know it to _my_ cost," she said pointedly. "Sit down
and let us talk common sense."
Lambert did not obey at once. "I am only a human being, Agnes--"
"Quite so, and a man at that. Act like a man, then, and don't place the
burden on a woman's shoulders."
"What burden?"
"Oh, Noel, can't you understand?"
"I daresay I can if you will explain. I wish you hadn't come here
to-day. I have enough to bear without that."
"And have I nothing to bear?" she demanded, a flash of passion ruffling
her enforced calm. "Do you think that anything but the direst need
brought me here?"
"I don't know what brought you here. I am waiting for an explanation."
"What is the use of explaining what you already know?"
"I know nothing," he repeated doggedly. "Explain."
"Well," said Lady Agnes with some bitterness, "it seems to me that an
explanation is really necessary, as apparently I am talking to a child
instead of a man. Sit down and listen."
This time Lambert obeyed, and laughed as he did so. "Your taunts don't
hurt me in the least," he observed. "I love you too much."
"And I love in return. No! Don't rise again. I did not come here to
revive the embers of our dead passion."
"Embers!" cried Lambert with bitter scorn. "Embers, indeed! And a dead
passion; how well you put it. So far as I am concerned, Agnes, the
passion is not dead and never will be."
"I am aware of that, and so I have come to appeal to that passion. Love
means sacrifice. I want you to understand that."
"I do, by experience. Did I not surrender you for the sake of the family
name? Understand! I should think I did understand."
"I--think--not," said Lady Agnes slowly and gently. "It is necessary to
revive your recollections. We loved one another since we were boy and
girl, and we intended, as you know, to marry. There was no regular
engagement between us, but it was an understood family arrangement. My
father always approved of it; my brother did not."
"No. Because he saw in you an article of sale out of which he hoped to
make money," sneered Lambert, nursing his ankle.
Lady Agnes winced. "Don't make it too hard for me," she said
plaintively. "My life is uncomfortable enough as it is. Remember that
when my father died we were nearly ruined. Only by the greatest
cleverness did Garvington manage to keep interest on the mortgages paid
up, hoping that he would marry a rich wife--an American for choice--and
so could put things straight. But he married Jane, as you know--"
"Because he is a glutton, and she knows all about cooking."
"Well, gluttony may be as powerful a vice as drinking and gambling, and
all the rest of it. It is with Garvington, although I daresay that
seeing the position he was in, people would laugh to think he should
marry a poor woman, when he needed a rich wife. But at that time Hubert
wanted to marry me, and Garvington got his cook-wife, while I was
sacrificed."
"Seeing that I loved you and you loved me, I wonder--"
"Yes, I know you wondered, but you finally accepted my explanation that
I did it to save the family name."
"I did, and, much as I hated your sacrifice, it was necessary."
"More necessary than you think," said Lady Agnes, sinking her voice to
a whisper and glancing round, "In a moment of madness Garvington altered
a check which Hubert gave him, and was in danger of arrest. Hubert
declared that he would give up the check if I married him. I did so, to
save my brother and the family name."
"Oh, Agnes!" Lambert jumped up. "I never knew this."
"It was not necessary to tell you. I made the excuse of saving the
family name and property generally. You thought it was merely the
bankruptcy court, but I knew that it meant the criminal court. However,
I married Hubert, and he put the check in the fire in my presence and in
Garvington's. He has also fulfilled his share of the bargain which he
made when he bought me, and has paid off a great many of the mortgages.
However, Garvington became too outrageous in his demands, and lately
Hubert has refused to help him any more. I don't blame him; he has paid
enough for me."
"You are worth it," said Lambert emphatically.
"Well, you may think so, and perhaps he does also. But does it not
strike you, Noel, what a poor figure I and Garvington, and the whole
family, yourself included, cut in the eyes of the world? We were poor,
and I was sold to get money to save the land."
"Yes, but this changing of the check also--"
"The world doesn't know of that," said Agnes hurriedly. "Hubert has been
very loyal to me. I must be loyal to him."
"You are. Who dares to say that you are not?"
"No one--as yet," she replied pointedly.
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded, flushing through his fair skin.
"I mean that if you met me in the ordinary way, and behaved to me as an
ordinary man, people would not talk. But you shun my society, and even
when I am at The Manor, you do not come near because of my presence."
"It is so hard to be near you and yet, owing to your marriage, so far
from you," muttered the man savagely.
"If it is hard for you, think how hard it must be for me," said the
woman vehemently, her passion coming to the surface. "People talk of the
way in which you avoid me, and hint that we love one another still."
"It is true! Agnes, you know it is true!"
"Need the whole world know that it is true?" cried Agnes, rising, with
a gust of anger passing over her face. "If you would only come to The
Manor, and meet me in London, and accept Hubert's invitations to dinner,
people would think that our attachment was only a boy and girl
engagement, that we had outgrown. They would even give me credit for
loving Hubert--"
"But you don't?" cried Lambert with a jealous pang.
"Yes, I do. He is my chosen husband, and has carried out his part of the
bargain by freeing many of Garvington's estates. Surely the man ought to
have something for his money. I don't love him as a wife should love her
husband, not with heart-whole devotion, that is. But I give him loyalty,
and I respect him, and I try to make him happy in every way. I do my
part, Noel, as you do yours. Since I have been compelled to sacrifice
love for money, at least let us be true to the sacrifice."
"You didn't sacrifice yourself wholly for money."
"No, I did not. It was because of Garvington's crime. But no one knows
of that, and no one ever shall know. In fact, so happy am I and
Hubert--"
"Happy?" said Lambert wincing.
"Yes," she declared firmly. "He thinks so, and whatever unhappiness I
may feel, I conceal from him. But you must come to The Manor, and meet
me here, there, and everywhere, so that people shall not say, as they
are doing, that you are dying of love, and that, because I am a greedy
fortune-hunter, I ruined your life."
"They do not dare. I have not heard any--"
"What can you hear in this jungle?" interrupted Lady Agnes with scorn.
"You stop your ears with cotton wool, but I am in the world, hearing
everything. And the more unpleasant the thing is, the more readily do
I hear it. You can end this trouble by coming out of your lovesick
retirement, and by showing that you no longer care for me."
"That would be acting a lie."
"And do I not act a lie?" she cried fiercely. "Is not my whole marriage
a lie? I despise myself for my weakness in yielding, and yet, God help
me, what else could I do when Garvington's fair fame was in question?
Think of the disgrace, had he been prosecuted by Hubert. And Hubert
knows that you and I loved; that I could not give him the love he
desired. He was content to accept me on those terms. I don't say he was
right; but am I right, are you right, is Garvington right? Is any one of
us right? Not one, not one. The whole thing is horrible, but I make the
best of it, since I did what I did do, openly and for a serious purpose
of which the world knows nothing. Do your part, Noel, and come to The
Manor, if only to show that you no longer care for me. You
understand"--she clasped her hands in agony. "You surely understand."
"Yes," said Lambert in a low voice, and suddenly looked years older. "I
understand at last, Agnes. You shall no longer bear the burden alone. I
shall be a loyal friend to you, my dear," and he took her hand.
"Will you be a loyal friend to my husband?" she asked, withdrawing it.
"Yes," said Lambert, and he bit his lip. "God helping me, I will."