of--worth knowing. Anecdotes of them all--those little personal
insights into private domestic relations of which surely there must
somewhere be an illicit still, hidden in the mountains where gossip
echoes--he had at the tips of his fingers.
"Surely you've heard that last thing that Mrs. ---- said at the first
night of ----;" and thereafter follows some quaint conceit--smuggled,
God knows how, from the illicit still in the mountains, stamped with
a fictitious year to give it flavour--which the well-known actress
in question would have offered her soul to have said on the occasion
alluded to in the story, but which she had never even thought of.
It may be concluded, then, from these apparently needless
digressions that Devenish was good company. He did his best to amuse
Sally--he succeeded. When they were halfway through the dinner and
he had casually refilled her glass with champagne, she was prepared
to see humour in everything he said.
There is a mood of recklessness--wild determined recklessness--that
strikes, like a light in the heavens, across the face of despair.
In such a mood was Sally then. Her mind, empty of the vice which so
often accompanies it, was echoing with the cry--What does it matter?
What does it matter? When he filled her glass a second time, she half
raised a hand from her lap to stop him. But what did it matter? It
would put her in good spirits, and in good spirits she felt the strong
desire to be. Between this and the harmful result of the wine, so
far a call was stretched in her mind that she never let it enter her
consideration. Let him fill her glass a second time! She was to return
to rooms empty but of the bitterest of associations. The whole long
night had to be passed through with that haunting speculation--which
now so frequently beset her--the wondering of what Traill was doing,
the questioning in what woman's arms he was finding the joy of desire
which he had found in hers.
What did it signify then, this evening in which she let go the
strained reserve which at any other time she would have retained?
What did it signify, so long as the deepest beating of her heart was
unmoved by the quickened pulses and the eyes alight with a reckless
laughter?
It mattered nothing to her who knew its meaning; but to Devenish,
seeing the colour lifting to her cheeks, watching the sparkling in
those eyes which had met his but an hour or more ago, when
disappointed hope had thrown them into deep shadows, there was a
tentative significance. It appealed to the lowest nature of his
senses to see her, whom he had long desired, unbending in her
reticence. Her laughter was a whip about his body; her lips,
parted--losing that expression of restraint--were becoming an
obsession to his eyes. But he guarded all his actions with a steady
hand.
When her glass was empty for the second time, he stretched out his
hand to refill it again.
"Oh--I'd better not have any more," she said lightly. "Whatever would
you do with me if I took too much?" And she laughed. Laughed, he
imagined, at the possibilities that rose to her mind, and it was on
the edge of his lips to say the things he would do.
"Another glass can't hurt you," he said, laughing with her.
"Here--I'll fill mine--there"--he held up the bottle for her to
see--"Now you have the remainder. You don't want me to drink it all,
do you? I should like to know what you'd do--I suppose you'd give
me in charge of the head waiter? I guess you'd shirk your
responsibilities more than I would." And as he talked, he emptied
the bottle into her glass beneath the fringe of the conversation.
"Ever hear that story," he began again, and caught her attention once
more with an idle tale that had worn its way through half the clubs
in Town. His yarns were all fresh to her, and, moreover, he spun them
amazingly well. There was none of that disconcerting fear of their
staleness to thwart him--no need for the tentative preface--"You'll
say if you've heard this before." One suggested another--they rolled
off his tongue. And while she sipped her champagne, he kept her
amused; never allowed her the moments of inaction in which to relent.
He amused himself. The old, worn-out story has all the humour still
keen in it for you--if _you_ tell it. It was no effort, no strain
to Devenish. He laughed as heartily as she did over the stale old
jests. Their novelty to her made them new to him. She leant her elbows
on the table and watched his face as he told them.
"Now," he said, when they had finished their coffee, "how about the
songs? I've done my share of the entertainment. As soon as I've got
the bill, we'll go back, and you can supply the more serious items
of the programme."
"Really--I'm afraid I couldn't. I believe you think I sing well--I
don't. I did think of going on the stage once--into musical
comedy--but not because I was musical."
"Well--of course not. It isn't a refuge for the art. But I have my
belief in your being able to sing. You're not going to shake that."
"Very well--I suppose I'll try." Her hands lifted to her face. "My
cheeks are burning. Do they look very red?"
"No--not particularly--the room's warm, I think."
She permitted herself to be satisfied with that explanation. Had a
mirror been near at hand, she would have realized in its reflection
that the warmth of the room was not the only cause for the flushed
scarlet of her cheeks, or the light that glittered in the expanded
pupils of her eyes.
When Devenish had paid the bill, they departed. A hansom conveyed
them back to Sally's rooms in Regent Street. Once seated in it, she
leaned back in the corner, and her eyes closed.
"I do feel so awfully sleepy," she said, ingenuously.
He glanced at her swiftly. Was that simplicity, or a veiled request
for him to close his arms about her? How could she be simple? The
mistress of a man for three years--what simplicity could be left in
her now? Undoubtedly she must know--of course she knew by now--the
thoughts that were travelling wildly through his mind.
"Poor child," he said considerately--"I suppose you are."
Her eyes opened to that. She sat a little straighter in the corner.
There was a tone in his voice more subtle than friendship. Her ears
had heard it, but her senses were too drowsy then to dwell for long
upon its consideration.
He would have said more--in another moment, he would have slipped
his arm around her waist, had it not been for her sudden movement
of reserve. That warned him. Unconsciously a woman gives out of
herself the impression of whether she be easy of winning or not. With
Sally, notwithstanding all the circumstances that ranged against her
in his mind, Devenish realized that an inconsidered step would be
fatal to his desires. That did not thwart him. He admired her the
more for it; wanted her the more.
When they reached her rooms and, taking off her hat, she seated
herself at the piano, creating in the susceptibility of his mind a
greater sense of the intimacy of their relations, he stood at the
other side of the room watching her, content to let his anticipations
slowly drift upon the quiet stream of events to the ultimate cataract
of their realization.
This is the true nature of the sensualist. Woman or man, whatever
sex, you may know them by their feline delight in the procrastination
of the moment. It is an evolution of the intellect. The raw, unbridled
forces of nature have no dealings with such as these. They are people
of pleasure. They have taken the gifts that Nature has offered and,
with the subtle cunning of their minds, have torn the inviolable
parchment of her laws to shreds before her face. With no inheritance
of the intellect, Devenish possessed all the other qualities.
Sensualist as he was, with that strain of refinement induced by the
easy circumstances of life, the paid women disgusted him. Of mere
animalism, he had none. Here in this widest essential, his nature
marked its contrast with Traill. To admit the beast in every man would
have been beyond him; simply because the admission of a
generalization such as that, would most directly have implied
himself. In Traill's concession of it, such an admission may easily
be read. And this is the type of man, such as Devenish, most dangerous
to society.
If the threadbare hypocrisy of this country of England could but
bring itself to don the acknowledgment that the hired woman has her
place in the scheme of things, such men as Devenish would find the
virtuous woman more closely guarded from their strategies than she
is.
When her first song was finished, Sally turned in her chair, laughing
frankly to his eyes.
"You needn't suffer on account of your passion for music by having
to criticize," she said. "I know it was awful."
He crossed the room to her side. "As you like," he said, bringing
his eyes full to hers. "You can call it anything you please--but I
want some more." He picked up the pieces of music that lay on the
top of the piano. "Do you sing that song out of the Persian
Garden--Beside the Shalimar? I forget the words of it?"
Her fingers ran through the pile of music. "'Pale Hands I Loved.'
Is that it?" She lifted her face and looked up at him.
"Yes--yes--sing that!"
"I'm afraid I haven't got the music--can't play without the music."
He drew a deep breath. "That's a pity," he said.
"Well--listen--I'll sing this."
She placed the music before her on the rest, and with one hand on
the back of her chair, the other resting on the piano, he bent over
her, eyes wandering from the gold of her hair to the parting of her
lips as she sang. It was just such a song as he had asked for; filled
with the abandoned sentimentalism of decadent passion--
"Lord of my life, than whom none other shareth
The deep, red, silent wine that fills my soul--
Take thou and drain, till not one drop remaineth
To wet thy lips--then turn thou down the bowl.
"Lord of my heart--this boon I crave--this only,
That all my worth may be possessed by thee;
Make thou my life a chalice, drained, that lonely
Stands on the altar of Eternity."
She looked up at him as her fingers wandered to the final chord. His
lips were set in a thin line, and he was breathing quickly.
"Why did you sing that?" he asked.
She blindly shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know--why shouldn't I?
The music's a good deal nicer than the words, I think. Don't you find
the words are rather silly? They are of most songs, I think."
"And you call that silly," he said. "I suppose it's a woman's
song--but, my God! do you know I could sing that to you?"
His arm was round her then, dragging her towards him in a lithe grip,
the fierce strength of which she too well understood. She struggled,
breathing heavily, for her freedom; but he caught her face in his
hand, dragged it to his lips and covered her with kisses.
Then she broke free, rising to her feet, overturning the chair behind
her, pushing back the disordered hair from her forehead.
"How dare you!" she breathed.
Countless women have said it, in countless moments similar to this.
And with it, often, seeing all the circumstances that have led up
to it in their different light, comes the knowledge--as it came also
to Sally--the understanding of how the man has dared. Recklessness
had led her. In her heart, she blamed herself. She might have known
men now; known them from her knowledge at least of one man.
Undoubtedly she was to blame, taking everything into account--the
defencelessness of her position, the fact that he had known of her
relationship with Traill and its termination; yet her eyes flamed
with contempt as they met his.
"Your hat is over on that chair." she said presently in a strident
voice. "Will you go?"
He crossed the room quietly--no want of composure--and picked it up.
"Would you rather I didn't come and see you again?" he asked, brushing
the hat casually with his sleeve.
"I never want to see you again!" she exclaimed.
He smiled amiably. "Don't you think you're rather foolish?"
"Foolish!"
"Yes--the unmarried man who keeps a woman is bound to leave her some
time or other--that's not half as likely to be the case with--"
"What do you mean?" She was white to the lips.
He looked puzzled. "I'm afraid I can't understand you," he said.
She tried to answer him, but the words mingled in a stammering of
confusion before she could utter them.
"You don't think there's a chance of Traill coming back to you, do
you?" he went on. "I shouldn't be here, I assure you, if there were."
Sally's knees trembled with weakness. An overwhelming nausea shook
her till she shuddered.
"Did he tell you to come here?" she whispered.
"Heavens, no! I don't suppose he'd do that. He wouldn't do a thing
like that. But I'm pretty sure he's in love with that Miss
Standish-Roe--the beautiful Coralie. He knows it. He won't admit it;
but I'm certain he is, and I rather think I'd better open his eyes
a little."
That last remark did not fall within her understanding. She took no
notice of it.
"And so you came here of your own accord?"
"Yes--why not? I had an apparently erroneous idea that you liked me.
When you let me come back here after dinner, I was sure of it. I saw
no reason why we shouldn't get along together just as well as you
and Traill did."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, and she hid her face in her hand.
"Oh yes--I see my mistake by this time," he said easily. All passion
was cooled in him now. "I'm sorry. There was no intention of insulting
you in my mind." He moved to the door. "I--I thought you understood
it."
Sally dropped into a chair, her face still covered; shame--the
deepest sense of it--beating through all her pulses.
"Well--I must only hope you'll excuse my--my ignorance of women,
though I must admit you're a bit different to the rest. Well--I
suppose I'd better say good night, then."
She heard him take the step forward. She could see in her mind the
hand held out, but she did not look up. He turned again to the door.
She heard it open. She heard it close. She heard his footsteps slowly
descending the stairs. And still she sat there with her face
close-buried in her hands.
CHAPTER IV
You are never to know how deep the iron has entered your soul until
Fate begins to draw it out.
When Traill had left her, Sally's mind had been numbed with misery.
The despair of such loneliness as hers is often a narcotic, that drugs
all power of thought. In the beating of her pulses, when she had first
heard Devenish's footsteps mounting the stairs, she was forced to
the realization that hope was not yet dead in the heart of her. That
undoubtedly was why, despite all Janet's efforts, she had refused
to leave her rooms. The hope that Traill would one day return, that
one evening she would hear his steps on the stairs, his knock on the
door, had needed only such a coincidence as the unexpected visit of
Devenish to stir it into vivid animation. Just so had the Rev. Samuel
Bishop hoped, in the fulfilment of his duties as chaplain, that one
day the rectorship of Cailsham would return to his possession; just
so had he been imbued with faith, the same as hers, when he had
shuddered at his narrow avoidance of sacrilege in the vestry of the
little church at Steynton. To him, at that moment, it would have been
as impossible to pour back the consecrated into the unconsecrated
wine, as it had been for Sally to lose assurance that Traill would
one day return to her.
But now it was different. The iron, in the sure grasp of the fingers
of Fate, was being torn out of her. She could feel it wrenching its
way from the very depths. Traill would never come back. It was not
so much because she had heard he was in love, that she realized it;
that--even then--her faith, in its ashes, repudiated. But when
Devenish had said--alluding to the faintest chance of his return--"I
shouldn't be here, I assure you, if there were," she had been made
conscious of Traill's tacit permission--unspoken no doubt--to
Devenish which had prompted his visit to her rooms.
But last and most poignant of all in the bitterness of this lesson
that she had learnt, was her understanding of the place she held in
the eyes of such men as Devenish. With those who knew of her life,
no friendship was possible. One relationship, one only could
exist--a relationship, at the thought of which her whole nature
shuddered in violent disgust.
Janet was right. Janet had seen things from their proper point of
view. As a trade she should have looked at it. As the leaving of one
master to labour in the service of another she should have weighed
its issue. Yet, even now, the cruelty of that outlook revolted her.
Had she viewed it thus, those three years of absolute happiness could
never have been and she could not even forego the memory of them.
But the knowledge that had come to her, brought decision with it.
She could stay no longer where she was. The thought of meeting just
those few people whom she knew, who knew her, in the streets, drove
the blood burning to her forehead. She must go away--away from
London--away from every chance incident that might fling back in her
face the tragedy of her existence. Away from all its associations
she would be able to hide it; not from herself, not from the biting
criticism of her own thoughts. But from others; she could hide it
from them.
That night she wrote to Janet asking her to come and see her; and
the next day they sat opposite to each other at a table in a quiet
restaurant up West.
"I'm going to take your advice," Sally began.
"You're going away?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"At once; in a day or two, as soon as I hear from mother. I wrote
to her this morning."
"What did you say?"
"I said that I'd saved up some money and, as I hadn't been very well,
I wanted to come down and stay with her for a change. I suggested
that I might be of some use in the school."
"Yes, that's all right. But for goodness' sake don't let her see that
you've got a lot of money. The wives of clergymen, as far as I've
ever seen, are weaned on the milk of suspicion. They'll never believe
anybody's properly married but themselves; I suppose that's because
they're in the trade. I know Mr. Cheeseman thinks nobody's furniture
genuine, except his own. That's always a little business failing.
But you ought to be careful."
"But I haven't any too much money," said Sally quietly.
Janet gazed up at her in unsympathetic surprise. "That's rather
unlike you," she said abruptly. "I think he was very generous. A
hundred and fifty a year, free of rent for three years, is more, I
imagine, than most men would drag out of their pockets. You could
make what living you liked beside that, if you chose to. I know I
should jolly-well think myself a Croesus with that capital."
Her tone of voice was hard with criticism.
"But do you think I take all he's offered me?" asked Sally.
"Do you mean to say you don't?"
"No, I take the very least I can. A pound a week is all I want for
my food; what else should I want? I wouldn't touch another penny of
it but that till the three years are over. I have all the clothes
I could possibly want. You thought I was mean, didn't you, Janet?"
Janet looked up at the ceiling, then impulsively held out her hand.
"God help me!" she exclaimed, "if I find my own sex an enigma; but
what on earth made you decide?"
"Mr. Devenish."
"Who?"
"Mr. Devenish, the man I told you I was dining with that night, six
weeks ago."
"Why him, in the name of Heaven?"
"He came to see me last night."
"Well?"
"He took me out to dinner."
"Very good thing too. You want a little of that sort of entertaining.
Did he advise you to go?"
"No--"
"Then what?"
She could see the colour mounting and falling in Sally's cheeks and
her suspicions sped to a conclusion.
"He made love to me," said Sally. Her hand went to her eyes. She
covered them.
"Oh, I see. You want to get away from him? You don't like him? Think
he's going to be a nuisance?"
"No, it's not that." She still hid her face. "I don't think he'd ever
come and see me again, now."
"Then what?"
"It was what he said."
"What did he say?"
"He wanted-- Oh!"
Janet leant forward on the table. "To take Traill's place--eh?"
"Yes."
Janet leant back in her chair and looked scrutinizingly at Sally's
head, bent into her hands, and from what she knew by this time of
Sally's nature, there came the understanding of what such a proposal
must have meant.
"And what else did you expect?" she asked gently. "Most men are the
same. News that there is a woman to be found situated such as you
are spreads through the ranks of them like--like--like a prairie fire.
It goes whispering from one lip to another. You can never tell where
it starts. You can never tell where it ends. As soon as a man knows
that money can buy a woman he wants, he'll scrape the bottom of the
Bank of England to get it. I told you before, it's a business! Why
in the name of Heaven can't you give up all your romanticism? If you
don't want to go on with it, to be absolutely brutal, if you don't
want to make it pay, why can't you take all the money that Traill's
given you and go away from here altogether? Well--you are
going--thank the Lord for that much sense! But go, and take all you
can get with you. Save it up if you won't spend it; and that's better
still. But, for God's sake, take it, it's yours! Surely you've earned
it. I should think you had."
Sally dropped her hands and looked up. "I don't know why you and I
have ever got on together, Janet," she said brokenly. "I could never
conceive two people more absolutely opposite. I sometimes hate the
things you say, but I nearly always love you for saying them. I loathe
the things you've said now. If I thought like that, I can't see what
there would be to stop me from sinking as low--as low as a woman can.
Do you really mean to say that you'd do like that if you cared for
a man, as I do for Jack? Would you grasp every penny he'd left you?"
"I don't know. I should either do that, or not take a farthing of
it. Make my own living, earn my own way, be independent at any cost."
"Do you mean I ought to do that?"
"I don't mean you ought, because I know you couldn't. You could no
more go and earn your own living now--now that you've learnt the ease
and luxury of living in a man's arms--than you could fly. You aren't
the type, Sally; you never were."
Sally's lips pressed together. "You think I love the ease and
luxury?" she said bitterly. "You think as poorly of me as that?"
"I don't think poorly at all. You were never meant to work. Your curse
is the curse of Eve, not Adam. You ought to have a child. You wouldn't
be wasting your soul out on a man then. You'd take every farthing
that Traill's left you, as it's only right you should. You don't see
any right in it now; but you would then. Every single thing in the
world is worth its salt, and a child 'ud be the salt of life to you.
When do you think you'll hear from your mother?"
"To-morrow, perhaps."
"Well, then, directly you hear you can go--go! Don't stop in London
another second. It's a pitiable purgatory for you now. Go and look
after the little kiddies in the school. You'll know quick enough what
I mean about the curse of Eve, when you find one of them tugging at
your skirts for sympathy."
END OF BOOK III
BOOK IV
THE EMPTY HORIZON
CHAPTER I
Cailsham--one of those small antiquated towns which, in its day, has
had its name writ in history--sits at the feet of the hills, like
an old man, weary of toil, and gazes out with sleepy eyes over the
garden of Kent. In the spring, the country is patched with white
around--white, with the blossoms in the fruit plantations. Broad
acres of cherry orchards spread their snow-white sheets out in the
sun--a giant's washing-day. The little lanes wind tortuous ways
between the fields of apple bloom, and off in the forest of the tree
stems, lying lazily in the high-grown grass, dappled yellow with
sunlight, you will find in every orchard a boy, idly beating a
monotonous tattoo to scare away the birds. A collection of tin pots
in various stages of dilapidation, each one emitting a different
hollow note, are spread around him, and there he lies the day through
till nightfall, eating the meals that are brought him, humming a tune
between them to pass away the time; but ceaselessly beating a
discordant dominant upon his sounding drums of tin. This is Cailsham
in the spring. Cailsham at any time is more the country that surrounds
it. All its colours, all its life, all its interests, it takes from
those great, wide gardens of fruit as they break from leaf into
blossom, blossom to fruit, from fruit to the black, naked branches
of winter, when Cailsham itself sinks into the silence of a
well-earned, lethargic repose. Then they talk of the fruit seasons
that are past, and the fruit seasons that are to come. The lights
burn out early in the windows, and by ten o'clock the little town
is asleep.
This is Cailsham. The narrow High Street and the miniature Exchange,
the square of the market-place and the stone fountain that stands
with such an effort of nobility in the centre, bearing upon one of
its rough slabs the name of the munificent donor, and the occasion
on which the townspeople were presented with its cherished
possession--these are nothing. They are only accessories. The real
Cailsham is to be found in the apple, the plum, and the cherry
orchards. From these, either as owners or as labourers, all the
inhabitants draw their source of life, with the exception of those
few shopkeepers whose premises extend in a disorderly fashion down
the High Street; the Rector, who has his interest in the fruit season
as well as the rest; and lastly, Mrs. Bishop, headmistress of that
little school in Wyatt Street, where the sons of gentlemen are fitted
for such exigencies of life as are to be met with between the ages
of four and eight.
With the name of Lady Bray to conjure popularity, she had set up her
establishment immediately after her husband's death. Then the old
lady herself had fallen asleep--in her case a literal description
of her disease. One night they had put her quietly to bed as usual,
and in the morning she was still asleep--a slumber which really must
be rest.
Fortunately for Mrs. Bishop the school was planted then. Twenty
pupils sat round the cheap kitchen tables in the schoolroom--all sons
of gentlemen--whose mothers paid occasional visits to the house and
peeped into the schoolroom, after they had partaken of tea with Mrs.
Bishop in the drawing-room. Whenever this incident occurred, the
little boys rose electrically from their forms in courteous
deference to the visitor; and the boy, whose mother it was, would
blush with pride and look away, or he would frankly smile up to his
mother's eyes. Then Mrs. Bishop would inevitably eulogize his
progress as she sped the parting guest, making inquiries from her
daughters afterwards to ascertain how near she had gone to the truth.
One boarder only she accepted into the establishment. It had not been
her intention to have any. But one day a lady had written from
Winchester to say that through a friend of a friend of Lady Bray's,
she had heard of Mrs. Bishop's preparatory school for the sons of
gentlemen. She was compelled, she concluded in her letter, to go for
some little time to live in London and, though she knew that Mrs.
Bishop only accepted day pupils at her house, she would consider it
a great favour if, for a term or so, she would consent to the admission
of her son as a boarder. If such an arrangement were possible, she
would be glad to know the terms which Mrs. Bishop would deem most
reasonable.
For the rest of that day there had been unprecedented excitement at
No. 17, Wyatt Street. Until late that evening Elsie and Dora Bishop,
in consultation with their mother, went into all the financial
details of the undertaking. Little Maurice Priestly could sleep in
the small room at the top of the house, used then as a box room. The
smallness of the window in the sloping ceiling could easily be
disguised by lace curtains at six three-farthings a yard.
"Put that down," Mrs. Bishop had said; and the item of capital outlay
had gone down on a half-sheet of note-paper.
To Cailsham they had brought with them an old armchair convertible,
at considerable risk to the fingers, into a shake-down bed.
"We needn't buy a bed, then," said Mrs. Bishop.
"No; but it'll need some sort of coverlet to make it look decent.
I've seen them at Robinson's in the High Street for two and
eleven-three."
"Put that down," said Mrs. Bishop.
By ten o'clock the list of expenses had been compiled. By eleven
o'clock it was decided what would be the cost of board and lodging
for an adult--a little being added on to that for visionary
extras--soap, light, towels, and suchlike, less visionary than
others, but extras nevertheless.
When Mallins, the constable on night duty, passed down Wyatt Street
at quarter-past eleven and saw a light in No. 17, he stopped in
amazement and gazed through a chink in the old Venetian blind.
"It's 'ard on that Mrs. Bishop," he said to his wife the next morning,
"the way she 'as to work."
That same morning a letter had been despatched to Mrs. Priestly, and
by return of post came the reply--
"I suppose what you ask is quite reasonable. I am bringing Maurice
to you the day after to-morrow."
"Suppose!" said Elsie.
"We couldn't do it for less," said Mrs. Bishop.
"And the box room'll look really quite comfortable," Dora joined in.
"I've just put the bed up. I never thought it was such a nice little
room."
Two days afterwards Mrs. Priestly and little Maurice had made their
appearance. The slowest of the three flies in the town of Cailsham
drove them up to the door and, for the moment, all work in the
schoolroom had been suspended. The twenty sons of gentlemen, left
to themselves, behaved as the sons of gentlemen--of any men, in
fact-will do. There was an uproar in the schoolroom which Dora,
before she had obtained a proper view of Mrs. Priestly from behind
the door of the pantry at the end of the long hall, was compelled
to go and reduce to silence. Having been deprived of the
gratification of her curiosity, her effort had been with unqualified
success. Between the ages of four and eight a boy can be quelled by
a look. That look, the twenty sons of gentlemen received.
Mrs. Priestly was a tall woman, graceful and, for one who lived in
one of the smaller of the provincial towns, elegantly dressed. Her
face and its expression were sad. The quietness of her manner and
the gentle reserve of her voice added to that sadness. The patient
gaze of her deep grey eyes suggested suffering. Undoubtedly she had
suffered. To the sympathetic observer, this would have been obvious;
but to the calculating mind of Mrs. Bishop it presented itself in
the form of a social aloofness which she was morbidly quick to see
in any one.
Mrs. Priestly was dark. Little Maurice was fair--the Saxon stamped
on his head, coloured in his blue eyes. He was six years old, abundant
in extreme animal spirits, which his mother beheld with a love and
pride in her eyes that was almost pathetic to see in one so possessed
by the apathy of unhappiness, and which Mrs. Bishop observed with
the silent resolve that Master Maurice was on no account to be allowed
into her drawing-room.
When it had come to the moment of leaving her son to the glowing
promises of Mrs. Bishop's tenderness and affection, Mrs. Priestly
broke down, winding her arms tight about his little neck and pressing
him fiercely to her bosom. Mrs. Bishop stood by with an indulgent
smile.
Then Mrs. Priestly had looked up with tears heavy in her eyes.
"I'll come and see you, Mrs. Bishop," she had said with
control--"I'll come and see you when I've said good-bye, before I
go."
Mrs. Bishop had wisely taken the suggestion and departed to the end
of the hall where her daughters were standing expectantly.
"Of course the child is spoilt," she said, in an undertone.
"Why?" they asked in chorus.
"Well, she's saying good-bye to him--crying over him. I call it very
nonsensical. I came away. That sort of thing annoys me."
And in the drawing-room, mother and son were saying a long farewell
that was to last them for a few weeks. It would be some time before
she could come down from London, Mrs. Priestly had said. The tears
were falling fast down their cheeks.
"You won't love any one else but mummy, will you, Maurie?"
"Shan't love her," he had said, with a thrusting of his head towards
the door which Mrs. Bishop had just closed.
"And you'll say prayers every night and every morning?"
"Yes, mummy."
"And you'll say, 'God help mummy'"
"Will I pray for father?"
She took a deep breath as she looked above his head. He was too young
to feel the weight of the pause. It meant nothing to him. He thought
she had not heard.
"Will I pray for father?" he repeated.
"Yes," she said slowly; "pray for father, pray for him first, and
then mummy, just before you go to sleep. God bless you, my little
darling--" and in the fierce blinding passion which a mother alone
can understand, she caught him again in her arms and crushed his
yielding little body to her heart.
Such was the arrival of Master Maurice Priestly at No. 17, Wyatt
Street.
When she arrived, some three weeks after this event, Sally found a
little fair-haired boy with sad blue eyes whom at night, in the room
next to hers, she sometimes heard crying. She had mentioned this to
her mother.
"Oh, take no notice of it, Sally," she said. "It's probably a noise
he makes in his sleep."
Sally had become a welcome addition to the household. She had offered
to pay liberally for her board while she stayed there and, during
that visit, however long it should prove to be, they had been able
to dispense with the services of Miss Hatch, the music-mistress, who
came regularly every morning from ten till twelve and was a
considerable drain on the net profits of the establishment. Sally,
unconscious of the change, filled her place. From a quarter-past ten,
until half-past, her pupil was Maurice, and on the day she had spoken
to her mother about his crying, she also questioned him.
"I wasn't crying," he said proudly. "I couldn't cry."
He found it easy to say that in the bright light of the morning. But
it was a different matter at night. That very night again he wept.
She could hear his sobs stifled in the pillow. She was going to bed.
When the sound reached her ears, she stopped, listening. It _was_
crying! She opened her door gently. Certainly it was the sound of
crying! Then, half-undressed, not thinking to cover her shoulders,
she crept across the passage to his door, opened it and peered inside.
"Maurie," she whispered.
The crying stopped.
"Maurie," she repeated, "you are crying."
He admitted it--sadly; they had found him out. Now they would think
he was a baby. That was the inevitable accusation in the mind of these
people who were grown up--in the mind of every one, except his mother.
"But I'm not a baby!" he exclaimed.
Sally knelt down by the side of his bed. "Who said you were a baby?"
she whispered.
"You were just going to."
"No, I wasn't. I don't think you are a baby. I cry sometimes."
"Do you?" There was a thin note of amazement in his voice. "What do
you cry for?"
"Oh, lots of things. What do you?"
"For mummy--it's so cold in bed without mummy."
"Do you sleep with mummy, then?" she asked, and she slid a warm arm
around his sturdy little neck.
"Yes--always. Mummy's so warm and she lies so tight. Your arm's
warm--I like your arm." He felt it with his fingers. "What's that?"
he asked suddenly.
"What's what?" said Sally.
"Something wet fell on the back of my hand. Why, it's you--it's you.
You're crying. Aren't you? You're crying. Oh, I wonder if you're a
baby. I don't see why you should be, if you don't think I am. Why
are you crying?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, but you must know! I always know why I'm crying. I cry at nights
when it's all dark, and you can't hear anything. I cry then because
I want mummy. Mummy cries sometimes though, and she doesn't know
why."
"Do you ask her, then?"
"Yes; and she says she doesn't know. So I suppose ladies don't know
sometimes, but boys always do. But you won't say I cried, will you?
Promise!"
"I promise," she said firmly.
"Because the others 'ud think I was a baby if they knew, and I'm not
really a baby--not in the morning, am I?"
"No; not a bit."
"You wouldn't think I was a baby when you give me my music lesson,
would you?"
"No; I always think you're very brave."
He twisted about in the bed. "Put your other arm round my neck, will
you?--like mummy does. She always puts both arms--it's much warmer."
She clasped him with both arms.
"Ah; that's better," he said. "I hope mummy wouldn't mind, because
she said I wasn't to love any one else but her. But, of course, I
don't really love you, you know. I like you because you're warm."
"You don't love me, then?"
"No; how could I? I could only love mummy, really. Oh, there it is
again! You're still crying, you know."
"Yes; I know I am."
"I suppose you wouldn't come into bed and cry--it's much warmer."
A sob broke in Sally's throat.
Here now it had come--so soon as this--the fulfilment of Janet's
prophecy. The curse of Eve was no mystery to her now. She knew. She
knew what life lacked.
"No; you must go to sleep now, Maurie," she said thickly. "You must
go to sleep now. You mustn't cry any more."
"Very well, then," he said resignedly. "You must promise you won't
too."
"I promise I won't. Good night."
And so, to keep her promise, lest he should hear as she had heard,
she lay on her bed and buried her face in the pillow. But she cried.
CHAPTER II
That night began their friendship. In that night was sown the seed
of the new idea in her mind, which neither the wild passion of her
love for Traill, nor all the stern preaching of Janet's philosophy
had caused to take root before. A child--she knew that now--a child
would save her. A child would make this life of hers worth while.
And, having none, she set her heart, as you set a lure with cunning
hands, to win the love of little Maurice Priestly.
At the age of six, a boy-child is constituted of impressions--soft
wax to the working of any fingers that touch his heart. In their
ramblings together, through the orchards where the ripening apples
turned up their bonny faces, peering through the leaves to find the
sun; up the side of the hills, exploring the hidden dangers of the
hollow chalk-pits--climbing always to see what the world looked like
on the other side--they came to know each other; Sally to know all
his little faults, sometimes of pride, sometimes of lovable
boastfulness; he to know that her heart was aching--aching for
something--something that he could not comprehend. But fancy wove
the story for him. He must have a story with which to realize that
her heart really was aching.
"If there's no story," he said, "I shan't really believe you're sad."
So they sat on the side of the hills, looking out over the head of
the tired old man--the little town of Cailsham--and seeing with their
eyes what the tired old man saw all day long--the abundant garden
of England. There Maurice told her the story of her misery, in which
fairies and goblins and giants and witches moved in quick and sudden
passage across the vistas of his vivid imagination.
"And that's why you're sad," he said at its conclusion. "If only the
prince had not done what the witch told him, you'd have been perfectly
happy, wouldn't you?"
Sally put her arm round his neck, lifted the soft, smooth little face
to hers, and kissed it.
"Yes, that's why," she said gently; "but you must never tell any one."
"Mayn't I tell mummy?" he pleaded.
She took her arm from his neck and looked straight before her. The
moment of jealousy sped through her--shame rode fierce behind.
"Yes," she replied, "you can tell mummy."
The weeks of the summer flew by. No sympathy was lost between her
mother and herself. Her sisters frankly were jealous of her. She had
better clothes than they, knew more of the world, was more
interesting to strangers in her conversation. The people of Cailsham,
treating her first as one of the Bishops--the one who had lived in
London, earning her living--came to find that she was a different
type of person to the rest of her family. The women admitted her to
look smart; the men--at the weekly teas which some member of the
tennis club always provided--sought out her company. And then, to
compensate for all the unpleasantness in her home, there was
Maurie--Maurie whom every night since that first occasion of their
friendship she said good night to. With arms round each other's necks,
they said their prayers together--Sally who had offered no
supplication on her knees since the night when Traill had left her.
"I scarcely thought it possible to be so happy," she wrote to Janet.
"I absolutely look forward to the waking in the mornings now, because
then I go in and wake him up, kiss his dear, brave little face as
it lies on the pillow fast asleep; and then he kneels on the bed,
puts his arms round my neck, and we say our prayers together. That
means nothing to you, I expect; but don't laugh at it. Oh, Janet,
I wish he were mine."
She was woman enough, too, to find some consolation in the attention
which the people of Cailsham paid to her. She was gratified by the
interest which the men in the little town, and principal amongst them,
Wilfrid Grierson, showed in her whenever they met. He was the eldest
son of the largest fruit farmer in the town--a man, therefore, in
much request, conspicuous at every party to which it was thought
considerate to ask Mrs. Bishop and her daughters. To Sally's mind,
nauseated still whenever she thought of it by the light in which
Devenish had seen her, the possibility of a man falling in love with
her was remote from her consideration. She was brought abruptly to
its realization by a remark which Dora, her younger sister, dropped
for her benefit.
"If Mr. Grierson wasn't so eminently sensible," she said one evening
after a tea which Mrs. Bishop had given at the tennis club, "one would
feel inclined to think that he'd lost his head over you, Sally."
A flame of colour spread across Sally's cheeks. "Let's be thankful
that he's eminently sensible, then," she replied.
"What--do you mean to say you wouldn't marry him?"
"He hasn't asked me--surely that's sufficient. He never will. My
position in life is not the position that he's ever likely to choose
a wife from."
"Your position, Sally," said Mrs. Bishop, looking up from the writing
of a letter at the other end of the room, "so long as you are with
us, is the same as ours."
"Yes, I'm quite aware of that, mother. So I say it's quite unlikely
that he will ever ask me to marry him."
Then she left the room, and they discussed the advisability of
keeping her with them. The fact that she saved the expense of Miss
Hatch's services as music-mistress weighed ponderously in the
balance, swung down the scales. They tacitly passed the matter over.
Upstairs Sally was saying good night to Maurie. "I only want you,
my darling," she whispered in the darkness. "I don't want anybody
else now--say you know I don't want anybody else."
"But you can't," he replied simply; "I'm mummy's."
Sally stood up from the bed. "Yes--you're mummy's," she repeated
under her breath, and she repeated it again. She went into her bedroom,
beginning slowly to undress, still repeating it.
From that day onwards, whenever possible, she avoided Mr. Grierson
as you skirt a district where fever rages. He was too good a man,
too honourable, for her to throw her life in his way. All the outlook
of men upon a woman such as herself, which Devenish that evening had
shown her, rose warningly to thwart her from taking the opportunity
which circumstances seemed generously to be offering. The love of
Traill was in no wise lessened in her heart; but now, lifting beside
it, had come this love of a child, and with the knowledge that Maurie
could never be hers, the insensate desire to bear children of her
own rose exultantly within her. If she were to marry, this would be
her portion. If she were to marry for that reason, above all, would
she separate herself for ever from the hope--the still flickering
hope--that Traill might one day return?
Whilst one impulse, then, pressed her forward to the seeking of the
better acquaintance with Wilfrid Grierson, the fear that she was
unfit to be the wife of any so honourable as he withheld her.
But fate, circumstance--give it any name that pleases--was in its
obstinate mood. That better acquaintance, it was determined, should
be made.
One afternoon, while Maurie was at his lessons, and her own work for
the day was over, she was walking through those apple orchards which
spread up to the side of that little lane which leads down off the
London Road. Supremely unconscious of whose property it was in which
she was wandering, she suddenly became aware of a figure descending
from one of the apple trees. The first thought that some one was
stealing the fruit was driven from her when she recognized Mr.
Grierson.
Before he had seen her, she had turned and hurried back in the
direction in which she had come. A break in the hedge had given her
entrance from the lane. She made as quickly as possible for that.
But the sound of footsteps running over the soft ground, the hissing
of the grass stems as they lashed against leather leggings, then the
sound of her name, showed her that it was too late. She turned.
"I saw you getting down from the tree," she said evasively, "but I
thought it was a man stealing fruit."
"So you made a bolt for it?"
"Yes; was it very cowardly?"
"Not at all. If it had been a thief, and he'd thought you were
suspicious, he might have turned nasty. But are you sure you didn't
recognize me, and come to the conclusion that I was even less
desirable than the man stealing the apples?"
She laughed nervously, knowing what was before her.
"No; why should I?"
"Because you've been avoiding me for the last ten days, ever since
that tea-party your mother gave at the tennis club."
She looked to the ground; she looked to the forest of leaves above
her head, where the rosy apples peered at her, beaming with their
bright, healthy cheeks.
"You don't say anything to that," he said, striking his leggings with
the little switch in his hand.
"I didn't know I had been," she replied, glancing up to the open
candour of his eyes.
"But you have. I was going to write to you."
"You were?"
"Yes; I'm not much of a hand at it, but I was going to make a shot.
I was going to ask you if you--if you were preferring--oh--you
understand what I mean--if you didn't like my thrusting my attentions
on you--well--as I--as I had been doing. I was going to write that
to-night."
She looked up with wide eyes--the eyes that Traill had first
loved--but she said nothing.
"Well?" he asked, pressing her to the answer. "What would have been
your reply?"
"I really don't know," she said honestly.
"You don't care for me?" he exclaimed. "I'm not the sort of chap
who--"
"Oh, it's not that!"
"Then, what?"
She met his eyes steadily. "It's--am I the sort of woman?"
He came close to her side, took her hand reverently as though its
preciousness made him fear the harm his heavy grip might do. And there,
under the network of apple branches interwoven with the patches of
a deep, blue sky, with now and then the sound of an apple tumbling
heavily to the ground, or a flight of starlings whirring overhead,
and in the distance the hollow monotonous beating on the tin drums
of the boy who scared the birds, he told her roughly, unevenly, in
words cut out of the solid vein of his emotion, what kind of a woman
he thought she was.
"No," she kept on whispering; "no, no."
But he paid no attention. He scarcely heard the word in the gentleness
of her voice. When he had finished, she took away her hand.
"That means nothing to you, then?" he said bitterly.
She gazed away through the lines of apple trees that hid the greater
distance from view.
"It means more than you think," she replied. "But I can't let you
say it--I can't let you continue to think it, until--until"--she took
a deep breath--"until I tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"I'll write to you."
"But you can tell me. Why can't you tell me?" His lips were white.
The little switch snapped in his fingers. Neither of them noticed
it. Neither heard the sound. "Why can't you tell me?" he repeated.
"I can't, that is all. After what you've said--after what you've been
so generous to tell me that you thought of me, I--couldn't. I'll write
it."
He threw the pieces of the switch away into the grass.
"You're going to be married?" he muttered. "You're in love, you're
engaged to some one else?"
"No, no, it's not that. Please don't ask me. I'm not engaged to be
married."
"You're married already?" He leant forward, bending over her, the
words clicking on his tongue.
"No--no--not even that."
"Then, what is it?"
She looked up to his eyes and let him read them. Then he stood
upright--slowly stood erect. His cheeks were patched with white,
there was a sweat on his forehead. He wiped it off with his hand.
"My God!" he whispered. "You, you? Great God, no!"
He turned, strode a few steps away from her, and stood looking down
into the grass. She could hear him muttering. For a little time she
waited, head bent, expectant of the sudden bursting of his revolt
against the truth. But it never came. His silence was more pregnant
with rebuke than speech could ever have been. She bore with it until
she thought she had given him full opportunity to rail against her
had he wished, then she walked slowly away, the unconquerable
sickness in her heart. She walked slowly; but she did not look back.
Would he follow her? Would he? Would he? She reached the gap in the
hedge. Then she turned her head. He was still standing where she had
left him, gazing down into the forest of grass stems.
CHAPTER III
This ended her life at Cailsham. How could she remain, how face the
reproach, no matter what effort she knew he would make to conceal
it, which at any moment she might find herself compelled to meet in
the eyes of Wilfrid Grierson? Cailsham was too small a place, the
little set in which her mother moved too narrow and confined to ever
hope of avoiding it. This must end her life at Cailsham.
With the readiness of this realization, then, why had she told? Cry
the woman a fool! She was a fool. Most good women are. But just as
the matter is vital in the mind of a man, so is it in the woman the
crucial test of honour. A thousand reasons--her happiness--the
happiness of content,--the sheltering of her name, the sheltering
of her position, all the cared-for security of her life to
follow--these can be placed in the scale, weighty arguments against
that little drachm of abstract honour, to plead for her silence. A
thousand times she could have been justified in saying nothing; but
had she done so she would have been a different woman. Fine things
must be done sometimes; mean things will be done always. There are
men and women to do them both.
That no passion was in the heart of her may have been an aid to her
honesty. With passion to lift the scale on to the agate, there would
have been a deed worthy of eulogy then! But even as it was, she
sacrificed much; she sacrificed her all. For now she knew that she
must go; and there could he no more joy in life for her in the love
of little Maurice. To face that, she clutched her hands that
afternoon as she walked back into Cailsham. How it was to be
accomplished, how endured, was more than she could realize, more than
the listless energy of her mind could grasp.
"I am leaving Cailsham almost immediately," she wrote that evening
to Grierson. "You will understand my reasons. I am sorry to have
caused you the pain that I did. As you realized, I tried to avoid
it. I am not presuming at all in my mind that you will ever wish to
see me again; but if your generosity should make you think that you
owe me any explanation of your silence this afternoon, please believe
me that I already understand it, expected it and sympathize from my
heart with the position in which I placed you. All that you said to
me before you knew, which, of course, I know you cannot think now,
I shall treasure in my mind as the opinions of a generous man which
were once believed of me. What I have told, or what I have left untold,
I know you will hold in your confidence. Good-bye."
Grierson read that letter the next morning in his bedroom. He sat
down on the bed, and read it through again; then he railed at women,
railed at life, railed at himself that such things should mean so
much.
A scene no less dramatic than this was being enacted over the
breakfast table at No. 17, Wyatt Street. There, it was the custom
for Dora to read such pieces of information from the newspaper as
were considered essential to those who, ruling the lives of the sons
of gentlemen and being pioneers of education in Cailsham, must be
kept up with the times. On this morning, she had given extracts from
the foreign intelligence, had read in full the account of the latest
London sensation. Then she stopped with an exclamation.
"Mother!"
"What?"
"Mrs. Priestly!"
"Mrs. Priestly?"
"Yes."
"What about her?"
"She's--she's in the divorce court!"
Mrs. Bishop slowly laid down her egg-spoon. "Pass me the paper," she
said.
"Yes; just one minute. The case came on--"
"Dora--the paper!"
The printed sheets were handed to her across the table, and Sally's
eyes--pained, terrified--watched her face as she read. When she had
finished, she laid down the paper, took off her spectacles and laid
them glass downwards on the table. The long steel wires to pass over
the ears stood upright, formidably bristling.
"I always had my suspicions about that woman," she said, with thin
lips. "Oh, it's monstrous, it's abominable! That boy can't stop here
another minute."
"Oh, but, mother--why?" Sally exclaimed importunately. "What's he
done--he's done nothing."
"If you had a little more understanding about the laws of propriety,
you wouldn't ask a ridiculous question like that. The boy must go
at once. I've often thought since you came down here that the effect
of London upon you was to make you extremely lax in your judgment
of other people's morals. I've noticed it once or twice in different
things you've said. But you'll kindly leave this matter entirely to
me. That boy--I feel ashamed to think he's ever been under this
roof--is illegitimate!"
"Mother!" exclaimed the two girls.
"So I gather from this report," she said coldly.
Sally said nothing.
"And to think that I've allowed the wretched little creature to live
in my house and mix with my boys--a contaminating influence."
"It's horrible!" said the two girls.
"Oh, how unjust you all are!" exclaimed Sally, rising from the table
with burning cheeks. "How can a boy of that age be a contaminating
influence? How can he affect the innocence of all those other little
wretches whom you simper over just because their mothers have it in
their power to lift you in the society of this wretched little place?"
Mrs. Bishop had risen from her chair with white lips and distended
nostrils. The two girls were staring at Sally with wide eyes and open
mouths. For a moment there was a silence that thundered in all their
ears.
"Sally," said her mother, biting her words before she foamed them
from her, "if you weren't a daughter of mine, I'd--I'd say you were
a wanton woman. You know in your heart, as your father always taught
you--as you could read in the Bible now--if you ever do read your
Bible--that the sins of the fathers, yes, and the mothers too, will
fall on the children until the third and fourth generation; and do
you think that child of sin isn't contaminated by the vice of his
mother's wickedness?"
Elsie came to her mother's side with the proper affection of a
daughter and laid her hand gently on her shoulder.
"Don't worry yourself, mother," she said. "He can't stay, of course
he can't stay. Sally doesn't know what she's talking about."
"Certainly, he can't stay," reiterated Mrs. Bishop. "If I have to
put him in the train myself to-day, and pack him off to London."
"But who'll meet him?" asked Dora.
"Oh, of course, I suppose I shall telegraph to her. I've got her
address."
"But that's a terrible waste of money," Elsie objected. "If you wrote
now and sent him by a later train, wouldn't she get it in time?"
"It can be charged to her bill," said Mrs. Bishop.
"And are you going to send Maurie alone, all the way up to London?"
Sally exclaimed, forced at last to break her silence.
"Of course," said Mrs. Bishop, with surprise. "You don't think I'm
going to afford him the luxury of a travelling companion, do you?"
"You may not; but I shall."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"I shall go with him myself."
"If you do--if you associate yourself with those disreputable people
at all--you shall never enter this house again."
Her voice thrilled with the terror of her threat.
"I can look forward to the prospect of that with no great reluctance,"
said Sally quietly.
"Oh!" Mrs. Bishop exclaimed. "Oh!" Then her daughters wisely led her
from the room.
"I've left my egg unfinished," she said brokenly as she departed.
They fondly believed that Sally could not face the ominous threat
of her mother until they beheld her trunks ready packed in the hall.
Then Elsie came to her.
"Sally," she said, with the voice of one who carries out implacable
orders, "do you realize that mother meant what she said?"
"Realize it? I suppose so. I haven't thought about it."
"You don't mean that. You must have thought about it. Do you realize
that you'll never see her again?"
"Yes, quite. But not particularly because she says so. I'd never come
back again if she were to beg me to. It means a lot to you perhaps,
it means nothing to me."
Elsie looked at her in horrified alarm, as at one sinking into the
nethermost hell.
"I could never have believed you'd say anything like that," she
murmured under her breath. "Can't you see that you're breaking the
fifth commandment?"
"Can't mother see," retorted Sally, with vehemence, "that she's
breaking all the unwritten commandments of charity--love your
enemies--do good to them that hate you? I'd break the fifth
commandment fifty times rather than come back and live with all of
you again. You're narrow, you're cruel, you're hard, and you save
yourselves from your own consciences by calling it Christianity."
When this was all repeated, as inwardly she hoped it would be, they
could not believe her to be the same Sally. Mrs. Bishop came out into
the hall where she and Maurie were waiting for the vehicle which was
to convey them to the station.
"You're not going to say good-bye, Sally?" she asked, drawing her
aside into the dining-room.
"I saw no necessity. Wouldn't it be a farce?"
"You can talk like that when you're never going to see me again?"
"I don't see why stating a fact should be unsuitable to the occasion.
It would be a farce. You hate me--I'm not fond of you. Yet you would
be willing to kiss me--make a sentimental good-bye of it, because
you want to do what you know is wrong--cruel, unkind--in the most
Christian-like way."
Here indeed was the spirit of Janet speaking from Sally's lips. The
contrast, in fact, which induced Janet to preach her philosophy to
Sally, was now apparent to Sally herself, between her and her mother.
She saw through all the little petty sentimentalities, all the false
self-deceits with which the worldly mind of many a clergyman's wife
shields itself from rebuke.
"How dare you say such things to me, Sally?" she whispered. "Do you
absolutely forget that I'm your mother; that in pain and agony I
brought you into the world, and nursed and fed you to life?"
"No, I don't forget that," said Sally, quietly. "But why do you think
so much of yourself? Why can't you think a little of that poor woman
up in London, trying to shield Maurie from all the horror of this
divorce case which now so easily may come to his ears? Why can't you
let her leave him here in peace? She suffered just the same agony
as you; but she's suffering it still--and you--you're as hard as you
can be."
Mrs. Bishop paled with anger. Accusations, epithets, abuse, were the
only words that bubbled to her lips.
"You're just as much a fool as your father!" she said chokingly. "He
reduced us to this because he was a fool!"
"You know where it's written," Sally remarked, "'He that calleth his
brother a fool.'" In a text-quoting atmosphere, she felt that a
remark of this kind would carry more weight.
"Yes; but are you my brother? That's identically the same sort of
remark that your father would have made."
"I see," said Sally, "you read your Bible literally. All good
Christians do--sometimes. And you could call father a fool! If you
had half the Christianity in you that he had in him, I shouldn't be
shocking Elsie by breaking the fifth commandment."
The rumbling of the old vehicle outside mercifully put an end to that
interview and, once in the train, Sally took Maurie in her arms,
pressing his head silently to her breast.
"We're going to see mummie," she kept on telling him. "Mummie'll be
at the station to meet us;" and she had to listen to the exclamations
of delight that fell mercilessly from his lips.
From a photograph that Maurie had had upon the mantelpiece in his
little room, she recognized the tall, stately lady as the train
slowed down into the station. Maurie had been leaning out of the
carriage and was frantically waving a handkerchief as she walked
after them.
"That's mummie--that's mummie!" he said repeatedly, looking back
into the carriage at her.
Each time she nodded her head and said to herself, "Now it's all
over--now it's all over;" and standing behind him, holding him gently
back until the train stopped, she waited stoically for the last
moment.
Directly it came to a standstill, Maurie jumped out of the train,
and when, a moment later, she descended from their carriage, she
could see the little fair head half hidden in the mother's arms.
Nervously, reticently, she approached them. Then Mrs. Priestly
looked up and the sad grey eyes rested on Sally. She held out her
hand in hesitating embarrassment.
"You are Miss Bishop?" she said.
Sally inclined her head.
"Maurie talked about you in every letter he wrote me."
"I--I think we were friends," said Sally.
Mrs. Priestly called a fourwheeler, told Maurie to get inside. Then
she turned to Sally.
"I received a telegram this morning," she said, "saying that Maurie
was coming up to London by this train. But I've had no explanation."
"Didn't you guess the reason?" said Sally, softly.
"Yes; I guessed it, but--" She did not know how much to say, how much
to leave unsaid.
"Well, that is it," Sally replied, evasively. "My mother read about
your case in the paper this morning."
"And she packed him off, like this, the same day?"
"Yes; my mother is a Christian. She sees things in that light."
"Did she send you with Maurie, then?"
"No; she forbade me to go. She was going to send him alone."
"Then why--?"
"Because I suppose I'm not a Christian."
"You came with him all the same?"
"Yes; I love him." She looked up into Mrs. Priestly's eyes. "Perhaps
that sounds an offence to you? But he doesn't love me. You needn't
be afraid that I've stolen his love from you. We always used to say
our prayers together, and he always used to pray for you. One night
I asked him to pray for me, and he said, 'Would that mean that I loved
you?' And I--well--I wanted him to love me--you must blame me for
that if you wish--I said 'Yes,' because I thought he was going to
do it. And then--he said"--Sally stared hard at a stoker shovelling
coals into the furnace of one of the engines--"he said he
mustn't--because he only loved you. I only told you that because--"
"You thought I'd be jealous?"
"Yes; I should have been."
"And now you've come up to London," said Mrs. Priestly, straining
back the tears in her throat. "What are you going to do? Are you going
back to Cailsham?"
"No--I'm not going back."
"Then will you come with us? The rooms I've taken are not very
comfortable--but--"
"No, I won't come with you--thank you for asking me. I have rooms
in London myself. I shall go to them. Good-bye."
"But, Miss Bishop, you can't leave us like this. I must thank you
properly for all your kindness. You can't leave us like this!"
"It's the best way," said Sally; "I'd sooner this way. Good-bye."
They shook hands silently. Mrs. Priestly got into the cab. Sally
wondered would she tell Maurie that he would not see her again. Then,
as the lumbering old vehicle drove off, a little fair head shot
suddenly out of the window and a large white handkerchief flapped
like a beating flag against his happy little face.
CHAPTER IV
When she had left her trunks at the rooms in Regent Street, Sally
drove straight to Janet's studio, situated in the environments of
Shepherd's Bush.
In the apron of the art-student, her hands unwashed, her hair
dishevelled and untidy, she opened the door to Sally's summons.
"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "Why aren't you at Cailsham?"
"I came up this afternoon."
Sally entered the room, crossed to the drawing-board, where the
design for a figure of lace was slowly materializing in white paint
upon brown paper under Janet's hand. With an apparent concentration
of interest she gazed into that. Then Janet closed the door.
"When are you going back?" she asked, climbing slowly to her stool.
"I'm not going back."
Janet grunted, dipped her brush into the porcelain palette and
painted in a line that meant nothing. Then she laid down the brush
and looked up.
"I've been expecting this." she said. "Why aren't you going back?"
"Mother doesn't want me--I don't want to go."
"Does your mother know?"
"She knows nothing."
Janet stared. "Then what?" she asked abruptly.
Sally dropped into a chair. "Mrs. Priestly--Maurie's mother--is
being divorced. They found it out to-day in the papers. Maurie's not
her husband's child. They packed him off at once; weren't even going
to send any one with him. I said I'd go. Mother said if I did, she'd
never have me in the house again. That didn't make any difference
to me. I was going in any case."
"Why?"
"A Mr. Grierson down there, asked me to marry him. I couldn't consent
without telling him."
"You told him?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"Not very much. Just that at first he couldn't believe it. Then, when
he saw I was telling the truth, he said nothing."
"Why did you tell him?"
"Because--it was only right--it was only fair."
Janet gazed at her, eyes softened with a gentle admiration.
"Do you remember what you told me about your father?" she said.
"Yes, why?"
"I expect you must he very like him. Only, instead of being a slave
to a Church, you're a slave to your heart. You're just as much the
type of woman whom the world wants and treats damned badly--I don't
care if I do swear--as he was the type of man whom an institution
like the Church of England requires--and treats damned badly too.
I guess you're exactly like your father."
"That's what mother said; but she didn't put it in that way. She said
I was a fool--like father was."
"Hum!" said Janet, and picked up her brush again. For a time she
worked in silence, eyes strained to the fine lines, breath held in
to steady her hand, then liberated with a sudden grunting sound.
"Would you have married the man?" she asked presently.
"Yes."
Janet painted in a few more lines. "Do you mean to say you didn't
realize that he wouldn't be able to stand what you told him?"
"I expected it."
"Then why--?"
"Simply it wasn't fair. You couldn't make it fair, however much you
tried. You'd have done the same yourself. I think I could have been
happy with him if he knew. I'd have worshipped his children. But I
should have been miserable if he didn't know."
"So you've learnt at last what I told you?" said Janet. "Did Traill
never wish you to have a child?"
"No; I don't think so. He never said anything about it."
"And you?"
"No; I don't think I did. I was too happy."
Janet bent down over the drawing-board. "You would now?" she said
without looking up. In the delicate operation of painting in the
petals of a rose, she did not realize that her question had not been
answered. A minute slipped by and with breath strained in the holding
of it, she repeated her question. "You would now?"
When the rose had bloomed under her brush, still receiving no reply,
she sat upright and looked round. Sally's body was bent forward, her
elbows were on her knees, her face in her hands.
Janet clambered down from her stool. "Crying?" she asked.
Sally gazed up at her with tearless eyes. "No; I can't cry now. I
try to. I can't."
"God! What a difference it 'ud make to you!" said Janet.
"What would?"
"If you had a kiddy. What was this little Maurie like? He sounded
sweet in your letters. Why don't you see as much of him as you can?
I'm sure he's fond of you. Isn't he?"
"Yes--in his way--in his dear little way. But you don't want fondness
from children."
"What do you want, then?"
"Love. If you want anything at all. There were some of the little
boys down at Cailsham who were loathsome: horrid little wretches,
who'd put out their tongues at you."
"Sons of gentlemen," said Janet.
"One of them spat at me once when I was giving him a music lesson.
You couldn't want anything from them. But I could almost have
believed that Maurie was mine."
"Then why don't you go and see him? Take care of him for Mrs. Priestly
till the case is over. He's bound to be in the way. When will it be
over?"
"The case?"
"Yes."
"I don't know."
"Is she likely to win?"
"I'm afraid not, and I don't believe she minds as long as she's got
Maurie."
"What counsel has she?"
"Oh, I don't know. I didn't read the paper."
"Well, why don't you go and take care of him till it's over?"
"I don't believe she'd like me to."
"Why on earth not? Here, let me get at that stove. We're going to
have some tea. But why on earth not?"
"I know she was jealous. Maurie used to write her lots of letters
about me. She was afraid he was getting to love me. I could see that
this afternoon. I could see it so plainly that I told her. I admitted
that I'd tried to get him to love me and failed."
"You did try?"
"Yes; I suppose it was about the meanest thing I've ever done."
Janet laid down the kettle silently on the stove, then came and sat
on the arm of Sally's chair. One hand she laid on her shoulder, with
the other she raised her face.
"I haven't appreciated you sufficiently, Sally," she said in a
toneless voice. "You're not the sort that gets appreciation. But,
my God! I think you're wonderful. Do I keep saying 'God' too much,
d'you think?"
CHAPTER V
That night Sally sat in her old rooms once more and wrote a letter
to Traill. The return to them had for one moment surged back in a
rushing flood of memories; but it did not overwhelm her. She threw
herself into no quagmire of despair. Her eyes were tearless. All her
actions were such as those of a person dazed with sleep. One hope
she had in her heart which animated her, just as the hope of ultimate
rest will give sluggish life to the person whose eyes are heavy with
fatigue.
Towards the realization of that hope, she seated herself at her desk
and wrote to Traill.
"DEAR JACK,
"Will you come and see me to-morrow afternoon at about half-past
four? I will give you some tea. I want to speak to you. Please do
not think that I am going to begin to pester you with unwelcome
attentions. My silence over these two or three months should convince
you that I would not worry you like that for anything.
"Hoping that I shall see you,
"Yours sincerely,
"SALLY BISHOP."
When she had posted it, she went to bed and slept fitfully till
morning. There was no letter waiting her from Traill, but an envelope
addressed with a scrawled, uneven writing lay in the box. She tore
it eagerly open, her heart beating exultantly.
"DEAR SALLY," it read,
"Mummy has gone out I am to write to you I am to say good bi
proply I am very fond of you but I doant luv you Mummy ses you
have been very kind I wode luv you very much if you was my mummy
but mummy ses she is she is I am afrade this is not spellt rite
but I have got a very bad pen.
"Yours affagintly,
"MAURIE."
If the tears could have come then; but she laid the letter down on
the table, and her eyes were aching and dry. The quaintness of the
spelling, the almost complete absence of punctuation. That queer
little repetition, of words--"she is she is"--none of these things
moved her, even to smile. Maurie had said good-bye properly. That,
and that he was only just fond of her, was all that reached her
understanding. Had the letter been from a lover, dashing all her
hopes into fragments, she could not have read it more seriously. But
one prospect was left her. She never took her eyes from that. The
fact that Traill had not written did not convey to her mind any fear
that he would not come. She knew that he would not needlessly lead
her to expect him and disappoint her at the last.
At four o'clock she had the table laid for tea. The dainty china that
she had bought with him when abroad was brought out. The kettle was
beginning to sing on the gas stove in the grate. When everything was
ready, she tried to sit quietly in a chair, but her eyes kept
wandering to the little Sevres clock. Again and again she rose to
her feet, looking out of her window into the street below.
At last footsteps echoed up the stairs. She caught her breath, and
a sound broke in her throat. They came nearer, and she trembled; her
hand shook; her whole body was chilled with searching cold. She had
not seen him for three months--more. Now she began to think that she
could not bear it. Then the knock fell on the door. A cry was on her
lips. She forced it back, turned, holding as naturally as possible
to the mantelpiece, and said--
"Come in."
He entered. He closed the door after him. Then she looked around.
The situation was as strained, as tautened, as is the gut of a
snapping fiddle-string. Every sound seemed to vibrate in itself. For
an instant he stood still, coming forward at last, hand outstretched
to relieve the tension.
"Well, how are you, Sally?" he asked.
The random speech, jerked out--any words to break the silence. Even
he felt it beating on his brain.
She shook hands with him. For the brief moment he touched her cold
fingers in the grip of his; then she withdrew them.
"Let me take your hat," she said.
He gave it her. Watched her as she crossed the room to lay it on the
chintz-covered settee, turned then to the fireplace, biting a nail
between his teeth.
"Do you know the kettle's boiling?" he forced himself to say.
"Yes; I'm just going to make tea. You'll have some tea?"
"Oh, rather. You promised that."
He looked up with his old jerk of the head, courting the smile to
her lips. She had no smile to give, and a shrug half tossed his
shoulders.
"Are you comfortable here?" he asked, as she poured out the boiling
water.
"Oh yes. Very."
"God!" he said casually within himself, feeling the weight of the
strain. Then he struggled for it once more.
"I'm dining with Devenish this evening," he said lightly. "You
remember Devenish, don't you?"
"Oh yes--I remember him. He came up to see me here a few weeks ago."
"Did he? He's a gay dog," he said lightly. "Do you like him?"
"I haven't thought about it."
"Oh, then you don't. And haven't you seen him since?"
"No; I've been away."
"Away?"
"Yes; down at Cailsham--staying with my mother."
"Oh, very nice, I should think. I'm glad you're moving about a bit.
I was rather afraid, you know, that you'd hang about in town all
through the summer, and that 'ud be bound to knock you up."
She handed him his cup of tea. "Why were you afraid?" she asked.
"Why? Do you think I'd be glad if you were knocked up?"
He looked up at her, with raised eyebrows, not understanding.
"I don't suppose you'd be sorry, would you?"
She said it gently--no strain of bitterness. The emotion which had
swept her at first was passed now. All her mind concentrated to the
one end.
"Of course I should," he replied. "Of course I should be sorry. Do
you paint me in your mind the little boy dropped in and out of a love
affair?"
"Oh no."
"Then why say that? Of course I should be sorry. Because you and I
couldn't fit things properly together--"
"Is that how it seems to you now?" she interrupted.
"Well, could we? Is it any good going over it all again? Did you ever
imagine me to be the type of man who would consent to being followed,
as you followed me that night? I can't suppose you did; otherwise,
would you have tried to hide it from me? But I don't lose any friendly
regard for you because of that."
"You don't object to being here, then?" she asked eagerly.
"No; certainly not! Why should I?"
"Would you come again if nothing of that were ever mentioned any more
between us--would you come again?"
"Yes, willingly. Now that I see that your intention is to be perfectly
reasonable, I would--willingly. Why not? I don't see why we should
be enemies."
"No," said Sally quickly; "neither do I--neither do I."
He drank through his tea. One mouthful--they were such tiny cups;
but that is the way a man takes his entertainment.
"Have a good time down at Cailsham?" he asked presently.
He felt more at his ease. She was taking it well--so much better than
he expected.
"Oh, not very good. I have told you, haven't I, that I don't get on
very well with my people."
"Of course; yes. Isn't that rather a pity?"
Possibly conscience was plying its spurs. There was some suggestion
underlying the quietness of her manner which he found to bring a sense
of uneasiness. He would have preferred that she had got on well at
Cailsham. He would rather that she had taken a fancy to Devenish.
But she was reasonable--extremely reasonable. He had nothing to
grumble at. Yet he could not get away from the sense of something
that made each word they said drag slowly, unnaturally into utterance.
He tried to shake it from him.
"Well, what is it you've got to speak to me about?" he asked in a
fresh tone of voice, as if with a jerk they were starting again over
lighter ground.
"Won't you wait till you've finished your tea?" she asked.
"I have finished."
"No more?"
"No, thanks. Do you mind my smoking?"
She lit a match for him in answer--held it out, waiting while he
extracted the cigarette from his case.
"Now tell me," he said, when she had thrown the match away.
She gazed for a moment in the grate, at the kettle breathing
contentedly on the gas stove.
"I'm lonely," she said, turning to his eyes.
He met her gaze as well as he could. He knew she was lonely.
Conscience--conscience that no strength of will could override--had
often pricked him on that point. But what was a conscience? He would
not have believed himself guilty of the weakness at any other time.
He gave no rein to it.
"But you'll get over that," he said. "You'll get over that."
"I don't think so."
"But why not? Perhaps you give way to it. Find yourself plenty to
do. Keep yourself moving. You won't be lonely then."
"I know. But do what?"
"Well," the question faced him. He had to answer it. "Well, you're
fond of reading, aren't you?"
"Reading!"
"And you've got these rooms to keep straight. A good many women if
they thought they'd got to tidy up two rooms every day would grumble
at the amount of labour, because it took up so much of their time."
"Yes; but they'd do it."
"Probably they'd have to."
"And then they wouldn't be lonely."
"Quite so. Isn't that what I say?"
"Yes; but don't you forget one thing?"
"What's that?"
"They'd be doing it for some one else. They wouldn't be doing it for
themselves. And don't you think they get the impetus to do it from
that?"
She leant forward--no sign of triumph in her face--and watched his
eyes. She knew he could not reply to that. He knew it too. He pulled
strenuously at his cigarette, then flung it into the empty fireplace.
"Then what is your point?" he asked firmly. He beat around no bushes.
That was not the nature of him. This was a difficulty. He faced it.
This was the scene she had deftly been leading up to. Let her have
it out and he would tell her straight, once and for all. "What is
your point?" he repeated. "You want me to come back--go through the
same business all over again?"
"No!"
Now he was puzzled. His eyes frowned straight into hers.
"Then what? Come along, Sally, out with it."
She turned her head away. He heard the sound in her throat as she
began to form the words. But she could not say it. Then her hands
covered her face, for a moment stayed there; at last she took them
away and met the beating gaze of his eyes.
"If I had a child," she said quickly.
His forehead creased, line upon line. He took a deep breath and leant
back in his chair.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"If I had a child," she repeated, "I shouldn't be lonely then. I
should have some one to do all these things for then. I should have
something to live for."
Traill stood abruptly to his feet. "You're--you're crazy!" he
exclaimed.
She stood beside him. Her hand stretched out nervously, touching his
coat.
"No, no, I'm not. I mean it. Can't you see what it would mean to me,
here alone, night after night, night after night, no one, absolutely
no one but myself."
He studied her in amazement. "If it were any other woman than you,"
he said suddenly, "I should think this was a put-up job to compromise
me--a cunning, put-up job. But you! It's amazing! I don't understand
it. Why, you'd brand yourself to the whole world. It'd be a mill stone
round your neck, not a child."
"Don't you think I'm branded plainly enough already? What do you
think a man like Devenish thinks of me?"
"Oh, Devenish be damned! There are other men than Devenish in the
world. Men who know nothing; men who'd be ready to marry you."
"Yes, I found one--one who thought me everything--everything till
I told him."
"You told him?"
"Yes."
"In the name of God, what for? You must be crazy. What the deuce did
you want to tell him for?"
"It was the only fair thing to do," she said quietly.
"Fair? Rot! That's chucking your chances away. That's playing the
fool! What's he got to do with your life before you met him?" This
was flinging the blame at him.
"Would you rather that the woman you were going to marry kept silent,
risked your not finding out afterwards? Would you think she'd treated
you fairly if she said nothing, and you were to discover it when it
was too late?"
He had no answer. He tried to make one. His lips parted; then, in
silence, he turned away.
"It might have made your mind easier," she said quietly, without tone
of blame, "but it wouldn't have been fair."
He twisted back. "There's no need for my mind to be made easier,"
he said hardly. "I've treated you fairly from the beginning to the
end. I warned you in the first instance; I told you to have no truck
with me. I sent you away. You came back. I didn't ask you to come
back."
Janet's words flashed across Sally's memory; the words she had said
when they were talking over the bangle: "I don't care what you say
about that letter, the letter's nothing! It's the gift that's the
thing. That's the song of sex if you like, and whether you return
it, or whether you don't, you'll answer it, as he means you to."
It was on the edge of her mind to repeat them then to him, but she
refrained. It was better then, at that moment, to let him think that
he had no cause to blame himself.
"No, my mind's perfectly easy," he added. "Thank God, I don't pose
for a paragon; I've got the beast in me all right, but I've treated
you square--absolutely square."
Her fingers clutched. To win her desires she must let him think so.
And perhaps he had treated her square; she supposed he had.
"Then help me not to be lonely now," she begged. She could see the
wave of repulsion beat across his face, but even that did not deter
her. "Oh, I don't mean that you should come back and live with me,"
she went on. "It isn't for that. You can't--you surely can't hate
me as much as all that." It was not in her knowledge to realize that
he must love her, greater than he had ever loved, if she were to win.
To the woman needing the child it is the child alone; to the man,
the child is only the child when it is his.
"I don't hate you," he said. He picked up his hat from the settee,
and her heart dropped to a leaden weight. "You seem to harp on that.
But what you ask, you surely must realize is frankly impossible. I
don't wish to be responsible for a child."
"You needn't be responsible," she said eagerly. "You need never see
it. You've been generous enough to me in what you've given me. I
shan't ask for a penny more--I shan't use the child to extract money
from you. You'll never hear from me again. After all, you have loved
me," she said piteously. "You did love me once."
He turned angrily away. "My God!" he exclaimed. "You talk as if you
were out of your mind! If I did have a child, I should want to see
it. I shouldn't want to be ashamed of it; I shouldn't want to disown
it, as you'd have me do."
"Well, then, you might see it as often as you wished."
He strode to the door. She must have it now. He had meant to say
nothing, wishing to save her feelings; but she must have it now.
"Then I'm engaged to be married," he said firmly. "Do you see now
that it's impossible?"
She dropped into a chair, staring strangely at his face.
"You--married?" she whispered.
"Yes; and I've no desire to have things cropping up in my life
afterwards, just in the way that this Mrs. Priestly in the divorce
courts--"
Sally struggled to her feet.
"Mrs. Priestly?"
"Yes; what about her? Do you know her?"
"What do you know about her?" she asked.
"I'm counsel for her husband."
"You're cross-examining her?"
Straight through her mind leapt that scene in the divorce court when
she had witnessed his attack upon the miserable woman whom the law
had placed out for his feet to trample on.
"Yes," he replied. "What _do_ you know about her?"
She sank back into her chair saying nothing.
"You won't say?"
She shook her head.
"Well, it's of not much interest to me. I shouldn't have you
subpoenaed, if you did know anything. You know the case, at any rate.
Well, I don't want that sort of affair in my life; so you never need
mention this matter again. I'll come and see you sometimes, if you
want me to; but only on condition that we have none of this. When
I'm married, of course, then it'll have to stop."
Sally raised her head. Her eyes were burning--her lips were drawn
to a thin colourless line.
"You--who never were going to marry!" she shouted. "You who didn't
believe in it--who wouldn't fetter yourself with it! Oh, go! Go!"
CHAPTER VI
That same evening there might have been seen two men seated opposite
to each other at a small table in the corner of the grill-room of
a well-known restaurant. Throughout the beginning of the meal, they
laughed and talked amiably to each other. No one took particular
notice of them. The waiter, attendant upon their table, leant against
a marble pillar some little distance away and surreptitiously
cleaned his nails with the corner of a menu-card. A band played on
a raised platform in some other part of the room. From where they
sat, they could see the conductor leading his orchestra with the
swaying of his violin. He tossed his hair into artistic disorder with
the violent intensity of feeling as he played, and his fingers,
strained out till the tendons between them were stretched like the
strings upon which they moved, felt for the harmonics--shrill notes
that pierced through the sounds of all the other instruments.
In the midst of the rattling of plates, the coming and going, the
buzz of conversation, these two men chatted good-naturedly over
their meal. At its conclusion, they ordered coffee, cigars and
liqueurs, and leant back comfortably in their chairs. Hundreds of
others there, were doing precisely the same as they--thousands of
others in all the restaurants in London. There was nothing remarkable
about their faces, their dress or their manner until one of them
suddenly leant forward across the table, and his expression, from
genial amusement, leapt in sudden changes from the amazement of
surprise to the fierceness of contempt and anger. Some exclamation
in the force of the moment probably left his lips, for a woman at
a table near by turned in her chair and gazed at them with unconcealed
curiosity. She kept strained in that position as he brought down his
fist on the table. She could see his fingers gripping the cloth. Then
the other man put out his hand with a gesture of restraint.
From that they talked on excitedly--one or them driving his questions
to the tardy replies of the other. Here and there in their speech
the name of God ripped out, and the waiter, placing the card back
on one of the empty tables, stood more alert, listening.
Their cigars burnt low, their coffee was drained; yet still they
continued, voices pitched now on a lower key, but none the less
intense, none the less spurred with vital interest. The man
apparently most concerned had ceased from the urging of his questions.
His elbows were resting on the table, his face was in his hands. Now
and again he nodded in understanding, now and again he ejaculated
some remark, pressing his companion to the full measure of what he
had to say. Obviously it was a story--the relation of some incident,
reluctantly dragged from the one by the persistent, unyielding
demands of the other.
The woman at the near table put up her hand to her ear, shutting off
the conversation of those with her, striving to catch a word here
and there in the endeavour to piece it together. It was about some
woman. She--was continually being alluded to. She--had done this--at
a later date she had done that. Gathering as little as she did, the
woman who listened was still strangely fascinated to curiosity.
Then at last a whole sentence reached her ears in a sudden hush of
sound.
The man took his elbows from the table, as if the climax of the story
had been reached.
"I know!" he said excitedly; "I know--the type of woman who never
breaks a commandment because she daren't, yet never earns a beatitude
because she can't; but, my God, if this isn't true--"
Then the other began his reply--
"My dear fellow--should I come and--"
She heard no more. A renewed deafening clatter of plates from the
grill drowned the remainder of his sentence.
"There's a little tragedy behind us," said the woman, leaning forward,
speaking under her breath to one of her companions. They all turned
and gazed in the direction of the table. Then the two men stood up.
One of them picked up the bill.
"Pay at the desk, please, sir," said the waiter obsequiously.
He half followed them down the room. They had forgotten to tip him.
It was quite obvious that they forgot. Yet his face was a study in
the mingling of disappointment and contempt. He stood there looking
after them; then he chucked up his head in disgust, and catching the
eye of some distant waiter, he made a sign of a nought with his fingers,
and looked up at the ceiling.
As they passed the woman's table, she heard one of them say--
"There's not a straight woman in the whole of that damned set--not
one!" Then they passed out of hearing.
"I think it's a marvellous thing," said the woman when they had gone,
"to think of the thousands of exciting tragedies, romances, crimes
perhaps, that are being acted out to their ends all round one, and
except for a stray little bit of conversation like that, one would
never realize it. I remember hearing a woman in a crowd say something
to a man in the most awful voice, full of horror, that I've ever heard.
I just caught her saying, 'If he finds it out to-night, either I'll
kill myself or he'll do it for me,' and then they got out of the crowd,
called a hansom and drove away. Positively, I didn't sleep that night,
wondering if he had found it out, wondering if he had killed her,
wondering if hundreds of other people had found out hundreds of other
horrible things. But it all went in the morning. Cissy had a terrible
toothache, and I had to take her to the dentist's."
CHAPTER VII
It was nine o'clock in the evening of the same day on which Traill
had been to see Sally. The lights were burning in her room as Janet
approached the street door. Opening it, she walked along the passage
and began the ascent of stairs. Halfway up the first flight she
stopped. The voices of two men, talking rather excitedly, came up
to her from the street as if they were nearing the house. Another
moment and she heard one bidding the other good night in the passage.
Evidently he was coming in. She walked on up the flight of stairs.
His footsteps sounded behind her. She took but little more notice
of the fact until, when she stopped before Sally's door, he stopped
behind her. Then she turned round. Her eyes opened a little wider.
She began to say one thing; then she changed her mind and said
another.
"Aren't you Mr. Traill?" she asked.
He looked at her more closely in the dim light from the landing
window.
"Yes; how did you know?"
"I'm Miss Hallard."
"Oh, oh yes! You're Sally's friend."
"'Bout the only one she has." said Janet. There was no flinching in
her eyes from his.
"You mean that for me?"
"Yes."
"Would it surprise you to hear me say I deserve it?"
"Yes, considerably. Isn't it a pity you didn't realize that a bit
sooner?"
"Well, we must all have disagreeable times in our lives," he said
rigidly. "Sally's had hers, but I guess it's over now. I fancy I've
just come from school and learnt my lesson."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you expect me to answer that to you?"
Here, in the first moment, they came to their antagonism, as Janet
had always realized they would.
"No, I don't expect it in the least" she replied.
"Well, if you're going in--?"
"Yes, I'm going in." She opened the door and entered the sitting-room.
All the lights were burning. Sally's hat lay untidily on the table.
"One moment," said Traill.
Janet turned round.
"I should be glad if you'd allow me to see Sally alone as soon as
possible. I want to talk to her. I've got a lot to say."
"I'll go now," she replied.
"No, oh no, see her first. She's probably been expecting you. Didn't
she send for you this afternoon, some time after five o'clock--eh?"
"No, I haven't seen her since yesterday. I'll just knock at her door.
Sally!" She called the name gently and knocked. Traill walked to the
mantelpiece. There was no answer.
"She must be in," he said, "there's her hat."
Janet knocked again. There was no reply. She turned round.
"I wonder can she have gone to bed and be asleep? She looked terribly
tired when I saw her yesterday."
She knocked again and tried the door; then bent down and examined
the keyhole. The key was inside, and a light was burning in the room.
Janet stood up suddenly. Her lips were shaking; her cheeks were
white.
"Mr. Traill," she said in a hollow voice, but raising it as though
he were some distance away. "This door's locked from the inside, and
there's a light in the room."
He took it quite casually. "Better let me try it," he said. "It can't
be locked from the inside unless she's there."
Janet stood aside, trembling, as he tried the handle. Then he, too,
bent down and examined the keyhole.
"Good God! You're right!" he said thickly.
Janet's eyes roamed feverishly from his face to the door. When he
stood back and called out Sally's name, her senses sharpened to a
quivering point to catch the slightest sound of a reply. She must
be inside--she must be inside! Then why didn't she answer? Why? She
recalled Sally's face as she had last seen it, white, drawn, the eyes
hollow, the lips but faintly tinged with pink. Now it was in that
room, the face that she had lifted and kissed before she had said
how wonderful she was. But what was it looking like now? What was
it looking like now, alone in that awful silence?
Traill strode back into the room.
"What are you going to do?" asked Janet. "Something's got to be done!
What are you going to do?"
"Break down the door," was his answer.
He searched in the fireplace. He searched round the room.
"Take that chair! Take that chair!" cried Janet.
He picked it up by its heavy arms, stood back and then charged the
door. There was a shuddering noise, a splintering sound of wood
giving. Then it was all quiet again.
He got ready to do it again.
"Wait!" said Janet. In a quivering voice she called Sally's name
again.
There was no reply.
"Do it now!" she said, almost incoherently. "Do it now! I believe
one of the panels is giving."
He charged it once more, and then again.
"The panel's giving," said Janet.
He flung down the chair from his shoulders. The panel had splintered
from its joining at the bottom. He could just push it forward a little,
making a slight aperture.
"Get the poker!" he said firmly.
She ran obediently and brought it to him. He prized it into the gap,
levered it forward until there was room for his fingers to squeeze
through; then he thrust them in and used the strength of his arm,
an additional lever, to push an opening down towards the key inside.
"Mind your arm," said Janet; "you're tearing the skin."
He made no reply--forced his hand still further through the gap until
the splinters of wood were cutting into the flesh and the blood was
dripping down in red blotches on the white paint of the door. She
glanced at his face. It was grey. The pupils of his eyes were large
with fear. His breath was hunting through his nostrils as he strained
to reach the key.
"Now I've got it," he whispered. "Prize that open with the poker as
far as you can or I'll never get my hand back."
She leant all her fragile weight against it, aided with the strength
of maddening fear. Her ears were strained for the sound in the lock.
When she heard the bolt click, she gasped and pressed forward again
with redoubled vigour as he slowly drew out his lacerated hand from
the crevice.
Then they both stood upright. Together they both drew a deep breath
as Traill turned the handle and opened the door. A physical sickness
made them weak. Janet half tumbled, half ran into the room. The length
of Traill's strides brought him even with her.
Sally was there. Sally was in the room. She lay crumpled on the bed,
her legs drawn up, twisted, bent; one arm thrown out covering her
face, her other hand gripping a corner of the bed-clothes, stretching
out from her in tautened creases. She looked as though some giant
hand had knotted her fragile body with fingers of iron.
With a cry, Janet bent over the bed. At her feet, Traill picked up
a little bottle, hurriedly read the label, and blindly put it in his
pocket.
"Uncover her face," he whispered; "take her arm away from her
face--she's choking herself."
"Choking herself!" Janet gently bent the arm back. Every feature was
twisted in the same grip, the lips caught in the same iron fingers
and dragged in her suffering, baring the teeth--the whole expression
of her face was as though she had died, emitting one last scream of
unbearable agony. "Look! Choking herself? She's dead!"
With a muffled sound, Traill forced himself to her side. He put his
arm round her. He lifted her up. The body dragged against him, the
head swung from the loose neck.
"Sally's had her bad time," said Janet, hoarsely, "and, my God, it's
over now!"
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
Messrs. CHAPMAN & HALL'S
2/- net Library of Popular Novels.
_Works by E. TEMPLE THURSTON._
THE APPLE OF EDEN.
TRAFFIC.
THE EVOLUTION OF KATHERINE.
MIRAGE.
SALLY BISHOP.
THE CITY OF BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE.
THE GREATEST WISH IN THE WORLD.
_Works by ARNOLD BENNETT,_
Author of "The Old Wives' Tale," etc.
HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND.
THE GLIMPSE: An Adventure of the Soul.
_By W.H. MALLOCK,_
Author of "The Individualist," etc.
A HUMAN DOCUMENT.
_Works by MAJOR W.P. DRURY._
THE PERADVENTURES OF PRIVATE PAGETT.
BEARERS OF THE BURDEN.
MEN AT ARMS.
THE SHADOW ON THE QUARTER DECK.
THE TADPOLE OF AN ARCHANGEL AND OTHER STORIES.
THE PASSING OF THE FLAG-SHIP.
_Works by RIDGWELL CULLUM,_
Author of "The Watchers of the Plains," etc.
THE NIGHT RIDERS.
THE HOUND FROM THE NORTH.
THE SHERIFF OF DYKE HOLE.
London: CHAPMAN & HALL, Limited.