After all, things were not so complicated as they seemed. For Kitty
was nearly at the end of her troubles; her trivial little life, with
its commonplace tale of careless wrong and short-lived irony of
suffering, telling with the more effect on a nature at once so light
and so wanting in buoyancy, was soon to be hurried away and
forgotten, amid the chaos of things broken and ruined.
"I don't want to die," she said, day after day, to the sternly
cheerful nurse who had her in charge at the quiet, sunny hospital in
the suburbs, where Rainham had gained admission for her as
in-patient. "But I don't know that I want to live, either."
And so it had been from the beginning, poor soul, poor wavering
fatalist! with a nature too innately weak to make an inception
either of good or evil, the predestined prey of circumstance.
As she lay in the long, white room dedicated to those stricken, like
herself, with the disease that feeds on youth, her strength ebbing
away quite painlessly, she often entered upon the pathless little
track of introspection, a pathetic, illogical summing up of the
conduct of her life, which always led so quickly to the same broad
end of reassurance, followed by unreasoned condemnation--the
conventional judgement on her very inability to discover where she
had so gravely sinned, how and when she had earned the extreme
penalty of reprobation and of death. She was too wicked, she
concluded hopelessly, vaguely struggling with the memories of the
teaching of her Sunday-school, too wicked to find out wherein her
exceeding wickedness lay.
One comfort she took to her sad heart, that Rainham had not
condemned her; that he had only pitied her, while he reserved his
damnation for the iron-bound, Sabbatarian world which had ruined and
spurned another helpless victim. Rainham she believed implicitly,
obeyed unquestioningly, with a sense of gratitude which had been
largely mingled with self-reproach, until he had told her that, so
far as he was concerned, she had nothing to reproach herself with.
It never occurred to her for a moment now to question or to resent
the part he had made her play on that tragical afternoon in Grove
Road. Why should she? The imputation of a lie, what was that to her?
Had he not taken it all, all her misery upon himself? Had he not
fed, and clothed, and lodged her like the most penitent of
prodigals, although she had no claim upon him until he chose to give
it to her? Her benefactor could do no wrong, that was her creed; and
it made things wonderfully smooth, the future on a sudden strangely
simple. She had lied to him at the bidding of the other, and he had
not resented it when he came to know the truth: she had brought
shame on him, and he had not reproached her. A man like this was
outside her experience; she regarded him with a kind of grateful
amazement--a wondering veneration, which sometimes held her dumb in
his presence.
If she had felt unhappy at first about the future of her child--and
there had been moments when this thought had been more bitter than
all the rest of her life together--this care was taken from her when
Rainham promised to adopt the little girl, or, better still, to
induce Mrs. Bullen to open her motherly heart to her. "They'll be
only too glad to get her," he had said decisively, interrupting her
awkward little speech of thanks. "That will be all right. Mrs.
Bullen hasn't known what to do with herself since her son went to
sea; she wants a child to care for. You needn't worry yourself about
that."
It was after this that Kitty had owned to the nurse that she had no
desire to live; and though the shifting of this burden enabled her
to carry her life for a time less wearily, the end was not far; and
the news of her death came to Rainham just after the first snowfall,
in the middle of a dreary, cruel December.
The winter wore on, and still Rainham was to be seen almost nightly
in his now familiar corner by the fireside at Brodonowski's, in the
seat next that which had become Oswyn's by right of almost
immemorial occupation. His negotiations with the company who were to
buy him out of his ancestral dock were still incomplete, and now he
felt a strange reluctance to hurry matters, to hasten the day on
which he should be forced to leave the little room looking out upon
the unprofitable river which he loved.
The two men would sit together, sometimes talking, but far more
often not, until a very late hour; and when the doors were closed
upon them they often wandered aimlessly in the empty streets,
dismissing their cares in contemplation of great moonlit buildings,
or the strong, silent river, sliding under the solemn bridges;
united from day to day more closely by the rare sympathy which asks
no questions and finds its chief expression in silence. One thing
they both hated--to be alone; but loneliness for them was not what
most mortals understand by the name. There was company for them in
inanimate things--in books, in pictures, and even in objects less
expressive; they were men who did not fear their thoughts, who
looked to the past for their greatest pleasures. And now for Rainham
the whole of life was a thing so essentially weary and flavourless
that the _ennui_ of little things seemed hardly worth consideration.
He was dumbly content to let destiny lead him whither it would,
without apprehension, without expectation. Oswyn had asked him, one
evening, just before they parted on the doorstep of the club, with a
certain abruptness which the other had long since learnt to
understand, why he was in London instead of being at Bordighera.
Rainham sighed, echoing the question as if the idea suggested was
entirely novel.
"Why, because---- Well, for one thing, because you are in London and
the Dollonds are at Bordighera. You don't know Mrs. Dollond?" he
added, seeing that the other looked at him with a certain air of
wistful distrust, a momentarily visible desire to see behind so
obvious a veil.
"No, thank God!" said Oswyn devoutly, shrugging his bent shoulders,
and turning away with a relapse into his unwonted impassiveness.
"But you have apparently heard of her," continued Rainham, with an
effort toward humour. "And I am afraid people have been slandering
her. She is a very excellent person, the soul of good-nature, and as
amusing as--as an American comic paper! But in my present state of
health I'm afraid she would be a little too much for me. I can stand
her in homeopathic doses, but the Riviera isn't nearly big enough
for the two of us as permanencies. No, I think I shall wait until
next winter now."
Oswyn shot a quick glance at him, and then looked away as suddenly,
and after a brief silence they parted.
Rainham was already beginning to consider himself secure from the
inconvenient allusions to Lightmark and their altered relations,
which he had at first nervously anticipated. Oswyn rarely mentioned
the other painter's name, and accepted, without surprise or the
faintest appearance of a desire for explanation, the self-evident
fact of the breach between the two quondam allies; regarding it as
in the natural course of events, and as an additional link in the
chain of their intimacy. Indeed, Lightmark had long ceased to be a
component element of the atmosphere of Brodonowski's: he no longer
brought the sunshine of his expansive, elaborate presence into the
limits of the dingy little place; nor did its clever, shabby
constituents, with their bright-eyed contempt for the popular
slaves of a fatuous public, care to swell the successful throng who
worshipped the rising genius in his new temple in Grove Road. The
fact that in those days Rainham avoided Lightmark's name, once so
often quoted; his demeanour, when the more ignorant or less tactical
of their mutual acquaintances pressed him with inquiries as to the
well-being and work of his former friend, had not failed to suggest
to the intimate circle that there had been a rupture, a change,
something far more significant than the general severance which had
gradually been effected between them, the unreclaimed children of
the desert, and Richard Lightmark, the brilliant society painter;
something as to which it seemed that explanation would not be
forthcoming, as to which questions were undesirable. The perception
of this did not demand much subtlety, and, in accordance with the
instincts of their craft, Rainham's reticence was respected.
"It was curious, when you come to think of it," Copal said
reflectively one evening after his return from a late autumnal
ramble in Finistère, and while the situation was still new to him,
"very curious. Rainham and Lightmark were inseparable; so were
Rainham and Oswyn. And all the time Lightmark and Oswyn were about
as friendly as the toad and the harrow. Sounds like Euclid, doesn't
it? Things equal to the same thing, and quite unequal to one
another."
"Yes," assented McAllister, thoughtfully stroking his reddish beard.
"And there was a time--not so very long ago, either--when Lightmark
and Oswyn were on pretty good terms too!"
"Ah, well; most people quarrel with old Oswyn sooner or later. But
it certainly does look a little as if--as if Lightmark had done
something and the other two had found it out--Oswyn first. However,
it's no business of ours. I suppose he's safe to be elected next
week,--though he isn't a Scotchman, eh, Sandy old man?"
"Quite," said the other laconically.
And then their conversation was modulated into a less personal key
as they resumed their discussion of the colony of American
_pleinairistes_ with whom Rathbone had foregathered at Pontaven, and
of the "paintability" of fields of _sarrasin_ and poplars.
Rainham found it rather difficult to satisfy his inner self as to
his real, fundamental motive for wintering in England. Sir Egbert's
orders? They had not, after all, amounted to much more than an
expression of opinion, and it was somewhat late for him to begin to
obey his doctors. The transfer of his business? That could have been
carried out just as well in his absence by his solicitors.
For some time after Kitty's death--and her illness had certainly at
first detained him--he was able to assure himself that he was
waiting until little Margot (so he called the child) should have
secured a firm foothold in the affections of his foreman's family;
the fact that the Bullens were so soon to leave him seemed to render
this all more necessary. But now, in the face of Bullen's somewhat
deferential devotion and his wife's vociferous raptures, there
hardly seemed to be room for doubt on this score. For the present,
at least, the child ran no risk greater than that of being too much
petted.
And at last he was obliged to own that his inability to follow his
established precedent was due to some moral deficiency, a species of
cowardice which he could only vaguely analyse, but which was closely
connected with his reluctance to isolate himself among the
loquacious herd of those who sought for health or pleasure. If Oswyn
would have accompanied him to the Riviera he would have gone; but
Oswyn was not to be induced to forsake his beloved city, and so he
stayed, telling himself that each week was to be the last.
On a bright day, when spring seemed to be within measurable distance
in spite of the cold, he made an expedition with Margot to
Kensington Gardens; and they passed, on their way through the Park,
the seat on which he had rested after his interview with Lady
Garnett on that far-away October evening--the memory struck him now
as of another life. It was frosty to-day, and the seat raised itself
forlornly from quite a mound of snow. And when they left the Gardens
he hailed a cab, and, before they had reached the Circus on their
homeward journey, bade the man turn and drive northward, up Orchard
Street and into Grove Road.
It was dusk now, and there were bright touches of light in the
windows of the low, white house, which he glanced at almost
surreptitiously as they passed, and two carriages waited before the
outer door.
"My dear child," he remarked suddenly to the little girl, who was
growing almost frightened by his frowning silence, "you should
always, always remember that when a man has made a fool of himself,
the best thing he can do is to clear out, and not return to his
folly like the proverbial dog!"
Margot looked solemnly puzzled for a moment, and then laughed,
deciding boldly that this was a new and elaborate game--a joke,
perhaps--which she was too little to understand, but which
politeness and good-fellowship alike required her at least to
appear to appreciate. They were great friends already, these two.
Children always recognised an ally in the man who made so few
friends among his peers, and for children--especially for pretty
children of a prettiness which accorded with his own private
views--Rainham had an undeniable weakness.
On slack days--and they were always slack now--loungers about the
precincts of the dock often caught a glimpse of the child's fair
hair above the low level of the dark bow-window which leaned
outwards from Rainham's room; and the foreman had even gone so far
as to suggest that his master was bringing her up to the business.
"Pays us for looking after her," he confided to his wife, "and looks
after her himself!"
Mrs. Bullen laughed and then sighed, being a soft-hearted woman,
and inclined to grieve over their impending desertion of their
unbusinesslike master.
"Mr. Philip couldn't do more for her if he was her own father," she
acknowledged appreciatively.
Whereat Bullen had smiled with the superior air of one who knew--of
one who had been down to the sea in ships, and was versed in the
mysteries of the great world, of fathers and of children.
"Right you are, old woman," he chuckled, "no more he could. Blessed
if he could! And there's no mistake about that. And when you and me
go North in the spring, why, it strikes me that we shall have to
leave missie behind. Yes, that we shall: though I'd take her, glad
enough, without the money."
If at first his association with Margot reminded Rainham of another
little girl whom he had loved, and whose place she could never even
approximately fill, the memory was not a bitter one, and he was soon
able to listen to her childish questioning without more than a
gentle pang. In time, he even found a dreary transient pleasure in
closing his eyes on the dank dun reality of Blackpool, while the
child discoursed to her doll in the nook of the bow-window, and his
fancy wandered in another sunnier, larger room, with open windows,
and the hum of a softer language rising in frequent snatches from
the steep street outside; with a faint perfume of wood fires in the
balmy, shimmering air, a merry clatter and jingle of hoofs, and
bells, and harness; and another daintier child voice ringing quaint,
colloquial Italian in his ears. The awakening was certainly cruel,
sometimes with almost the shock of a sudden savage blow, but the
dream lasted and recurred: he had always been a dreamer, and every
day found him more forgetful of the present, more familiar with the
past.
Upon his return, rather late, to the dock, he recognised, with a
thrill of pleasure tinged with something of self-reproach, among the
little pile of business letters which Mrs. Bullen brought to him
with his tea-tray, the delicate angular handwriting of Lady Garnett,
and he made haste to possess himself of the secret of the narrow
envelope, of a by-gone fashion, secured with a careful seal.
"MY DEAR" (so she wrote): "This is very absurd; yes, at the risk of
offending you, I must tell you that it is not clever of you to take
things so very much _au serieux_. I know more than you think, Philip.
Mrs. Sylvester, who means well, doubtless--but, _mon Dieu_, what a
woman!--Mrs. Sylvester has been here; she has spoken to me, and I am
afraid I have scandalized her. 'You don't suppose he has married
her,' I said, I confess not altogether disingenuously, and how
mystified she looked! You will say that Mrs. Sylvester ought to mind
her own affairs, and you will even find me a trifle impertinent,
perhaps. But I claim my privilege. Am I not your godmother? Still, I
am rather intrigued, I own. I don't want to ask what you have done,
or why; whatever it is, I approve of it. What I find fault with is
what you are doing, the part you are playing. You must not give me
the chagrin of seeing Mrs. Sylvester and the admirable Charles
triumphant at your expense, Philip. You must show yourself: you must
come and see me; you must come to dinner forthwith, or I shall have
to make you a visit at your dock. I must talk to you, mon cher! I am
troubled about you, and so is Mary. Come to us, and Mary shall play
to you and exorcise your demons. Besides, I am bored--horribly
bored. Yes, even Mary bores me sometimes, and I her, doubtless; and
we want you. We will own that we are selfish, after all, but you
must come!"
Then there was a postscript: "Mary suggests that possibly you are
not so incomprehensible as I think; perhaps you are at Bordighera?
But you ought to let us know."
Rainham sat with the letter before him until Margot came to bid him
good-night. And then he decided to take advantage of the suggestion
of the postscript: surely, if he did not answer the dear old lady's
letter, she would conclude that he was indeed upon his travels.