She stayed there for a long time, in the hypnotized contemplation,
not of Mrs. Cope’s present, but of her own past. Gannett, early that
morning, had gone off on a long walk--he had fallen into the habit of
taking these mountain-tramps with various fellow-lodgers; but even had
he been within reach she could not have gone to him just then. She had
to deal with herself first. She was surprised to find how, in the last
months, she had lost the habit of introspection. Since their coming to
the Hotel Bellosguardo she and Gannett had tacitly avoided themselves
and each other.
She was aroused by the whistle of the three o’clock steamboat as it
neared the landing just beyond the hotel gates. Three o’clock! Then
Gannett would soon be back--he had told her to expect him before four.
She rose hurriedly, her face averted from the inquisitorial facade of
the hotel. She could not see him just yet; she could not go indoors. She
slipped through one of the overgrown garden-alleys and climbed a steep
path to the hills.
It was dark when she opened their sitting-room door. Gannett was sitting
on the window-ledge smoking a cigarette. Cigarettes were now his chief
resource: he had not written a line during the two months they had spent
at the Hotel Bellosguardo. In that respect, it had turned out not to be
the right _milieu_ after all.
He started up at Lydia’s entrance.
“Where have you been? I was getting anxious.”
She sat down in a chair near the door.
“Up the mountain,” she said wearily.
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
Gannett threw away his cigarette: the sound of her voice made him want
to see her face.
“Shall we have a little light?” he suggested.
She made no answer and he lifted the globe from the lamp and put a match
to the wick. Then he looked at her.
“Anything wrong? You look done up.”
She sat glancing vaguely about the little sitting-room, dimly lit by
the pallid-globed lamp, which left in twilight the outlines of the
furniture, of his writing-table heaped with books and papers, of the
tea-roses and jasmine drooping on the mantel-piece. How like home it had
all grown--how like home!
“Lydia, what is wrong?” he repeated.
She moved away from him, feeling for her hatpins and turning to lay her
hat and sunshade on the table.
Suddenly she said: “That woman has been talking to me.”
Gannett stared.
“That woman? What woman?”
“Mrs. Linton--Mrs. Cope.”
He gave a start of annoyance, still, as she perceived, not grasping the
full import of her words.
“The deuce! She told you--?”
“She told me everything.”
Gannett looked at her anxiously.
“What impudence! I’m so sorry that you should have been exposed to this,
dear.”
“Exposed!” Lydia laughed.
Gannett’s brow clouded and they looked away from each other.
“Do you know _why_ she told me? She had the best of reasons. The first
time she laid eyes on me she saw that we were both in the same box.”
“Lydia!”
“So it was natural, of course, that she should turn to me in a
difficulty.”
“What difficulty?”
“It seems she has reason to think that Lord Trevenna’s people are trying
to get him away from her before she gets her divorce--”
“Well?”
“And she fancied he had been consulting with you last night as to--as to
the best way of escaping from her.”
Gannett stood up with an angry forehead.
“Well--what concern of yours was all this dirty business? Why should she
go to you?”
“Don’t you see? It’s so simple. I was to wheedle his secret out of you.”
“To oblige that woman?”
“Yes; or, if I was unwilling to oblige her, then to protect myself.”
“To protect yourself? Against whom?”
“Against her telling every one in the hotel that she and I are in the
same box.”
“She threatened that?”
“She left me the choice of telling it myself or of doing it for me.”
“The beast!”
There was a long silence. Lydia had seated herself on the sofa, beyond
the radius of the lamp, and he leaned against the window. His next
question surprised her.
“When did this happen? At what time, I mean?” She looked at him vaguely.
“I don’t know--after luncheon, I think. Yes, I remember; it must have
been at about three o’clock.”
He stepped into the middle of the room and as he approached the light
she saw that his brow had cleared.
“Why do you ask?” she said.
“Because when I came in, at about half-past three, the mail was just
being distributed, and Mrs. Cope was waiting as usual to pounce on
her letters; you know she was always watching for the postman. She
was standing so close to me that I couldn’t help seeing a big
official-looking envelope that was handed to her. She tore it open, gave
one look at the inside, and rushed off upstairs like a whirlwind, with
the director shouting after her that she had left all her other letters
behind. I don’t believe she ever thought of you again after that paper
was put into her hand.”
“Why?”
“Because she was too busy. I was sitting in the window, watching for
you, when the five o’clock boat left, and who should go on board, bag
and baggage, valet and maid, dressing-bags and poodle, but Mrs. Cope
and Trevenna. Just an hour and a half to pack up in! And you should
have seen her when they started. She was radiant--shaking hands with
everybody--waving her handkerchief from the deck--distributing bows and
smiles like an empress. If ever a woman got what she wanted just in the
nick of time that woman did. She’ll be Lady Trevenna within a week, I’ll
wager.”
“You think she has her divorce?”
“I’m sure of it. And she must have got it just after her talk with you.”
Lydia was silent.
At length she said, with a kind of reluctance, “She was horribly
angry when she left me. It wouldn’t have taken long to tell Lady Susan
Condit.”
“Lady Susan Condit has not been told.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when I went downstairs half an hour ago I met Lady Susan on the
way--”
He stopped, half smiling.
“Well?”
“And she stopped to ask if I thought you would act as patroness to a
charity concert she is getting up.”
In spite of themselves they both broke into a laugh. Lydia’s ended in
sobs and she sank down with her face hidden. Gannett bent over her,
seeking her hands.
“That vile woman--I ought to have warned you to keep away from her;
I can’t forgive myself! But he spoke to me in confidence; and I never
dreamed--well, it’s all over now.”
Lydia lifted her head.
“Not for me. It’s only just beginning.”
“What do you mean?”
She put him gently aside and moved in her turn to the window. Then she
went on, with her face turned toward the shimmering blackness of the
lake, “You see of course that it might happen again at any moment.”
“What?”
“This--this risk of being found out. And we could hardly count again on
such a lucky combination of chances, could we?”
He sat down with a groan.
Still keeping her face toward the darkness, she said, “I want you to go
and tell Lady Susan--and the others.”
Gannett, who had moved towards her, paused a few feet off.
“Why do you wish me to do this?” he said at length, with less surprise
in his voice than she had been prepared for.
“Because I’ve behaved basely, abominably, since we came here: letting
these people believe we were married--lying with every breath I drew--”
“Yes, I’ve felt that too,” Gannett exclaimed with sudden energy.
The words shook her like a tempest: all her thoughts seemed to fall
about her in ruins.
“You--you’ve felt so?”
“Of course I have.” He spoke with low-voiced vehemence. “Do you suppose
I like playing the sneak any better than you do? It’s damnable.”
He had dropped on the arm of a chair, and they stared at each other like
blind people who suddenly see.
“But you have liked it here,” she faltered.
“Oh, I’ve liked it--I’ve liked it.” He moved impatiently. “Haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she burst out; “that’s the worst of it--that’s what I can’t bear.
I fancied it was for your sake that I insisted on staying--because you
thought you could write here; and perhaps just at first that really was
the reason. But afterwards I wanted to stay myself--I loved it.” She
broke into a laugh. “Oh, do you see the full derision of it? These
people--the very prototypes of the bores you took me away from, with the
same fenced--in view of life, the same keep-off-the-grass morality, the
same little cautious virtues and the same little frightened vices--well,
I’ve clung to them, I’ve delighted in them, I’ve done my best to please
them. I’ve toadied Lady Susan, I’ve gossiped with Miss Pinsent, I’ve
pretended to be shocked with Mrs. Ainger. Respectability! It was the
one thing in life that I was sure I didn’t care about, and it’s grown
so precious to me that I’ve stolen it because I couldn’t get it in any
other way.”
She moved across the room and returned to his side with another laugh.
“I who used to fancy myself unconventional! I must have been born with
a card-case in my hand. You should have seen me with that poor woman in
the garden. She came to me for help, poor creature, because she fancied
that, having ‘sinned,’ as they call it, I might feel some pity for
others who had been tempted in the same way. Not I! She didn’t know me.
Lady Susan would have been kinder, because Lady Susan wouldn’t have been
afraid. I hated the woman--my one thought was not to be seen with
her--I could have killed her for guessing my secret. The one thing that
mattered to me at that moment was my standing with Lady Susan!”
Gannett did not speak.
“And you--you’ve felt it too!” she broke out accusingly. “You’ve enjoyed
being with these people as much as I have; you’ve let the chaplain talk
to you by the hour about ‘The Reign of Law’ and Professor Drummond.
When they asked you to hand the plate in church I was watching you--_you
wanted to accept.”_
She stepped close, laying her hand on his arm.
“Do you know, I begin to see what marriage is for. It’s to keep people
away from each other. Sometimes I think that two people who love each
other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between
them--children, duties, visits, bores, relations--the things
that protect married people from each other. We’ve been too close
together--that has been our sin. We’ve seen the nakedness of each
other’s souls.”
She sank again on the sofa, hiding her face in her hands.
Gannett stood above her perplexedly: he felt as though she were being
swept away by some implacable current while he stood helpless on its
bank.
At length he said, “Lydia, don’t think me a brute--but don’t you see
yourself that it won’t do?”
“Yes, I see it won’t do,” she said without raising her head.
His face cleared.
“Then we’ll go to-morrow.”
“Go--where?”
“To Paris; to be married.”
For a long time she made no answer; then she asked slowly, “Would they
have us here if we were married?”
“Have us here?”
“I mean Lady Susan--and the others.”
“Have us here? Of course they would.”
“Not if they knew--at least, not unless they could pretend not to know.”
He made an impatient gesture.
“We shouldn’t come back here, of course; and other people needn’t
know--no one need know.”
She sighed. “Then it’s only another form of deception and a meaner one.
Don’t you see that?”
“I see that we’re not accountable to any Lady Susans on earth!”
“Then why are you ashamed of what we are doing here?”
“Because I’m sick of pretending that you’re my wife when you’re
not--when you won’t be.”
She looked at him sadly.
“If I were your wife you’d have to go on pretending. You’d have to
pretend that I’d never been--anything else. And our friends would have
to pretend that they believed what you pretended.”
Gannett pulled off the sofa-tassel and flung it away.
“You’re impossible,” he groaned.
“It’s not I--it’s our being together that’s impossible. I only want you
to see that marriage won’t help it.”
“What will help it then?”
She raised her head.
“My leaving you.”
“Your leaving me?” He sat motionless, staring at the tassel which lay at
the other end of the room. At length some impulse of retaliation for the
pain she was inflicting made him say deliberately:
“And where would you go if you left me?”
“Oh!” she cried.
He was at her side in an instant.
“Lydia--Lydia--you know I didn’t mean it; I couldn’t mean it! But you’ve
driven me out of my senses; I don’t know what I’m saying. Can’t you get
out of this labyrinth of self-torture? It’s destroying us both.”
“That’s why I must leave you.”
“How easily you say it!” He drew her hands down and made her face him.
“You’re very scrupulous about yourself--and others. But have you thought
of me? You have no right to leave me unless you’ve ceased to care--”
“It’s because I care--”
“Then I have a right to be heard. If you love me you can’t leave me.”
Her eyes defied him.
“Why not?”
He dropped her hands and rose from her side.
“Can you?” he said sadly.
The hour was late and the lamp flickered and sank. She stood up with a
shiver and turned toward the door of her room.
V
At daylight a sound in Lydia’s room woke Gannett from a troubled sleep.
He sat up and listened. She was moving about softly, as though fearful
of disturbing him. He heard her push back one of the creaking shutters;
then there was a moment’s silence, which seemed to indicate that she was
waiting to see if the noise had roused him.
Presently she began to move again. She had spent a sleepless night,
probably, and was dressing to go down to the garden for a breath of air.
Gannett rose also; but some undefinable instinct made his movements
as cautious as hers. He stole to his window and looked out through the
slats of the shutter.
It had rained in the night and the dawn was gray and lifeless. The
cloud-muffled hills across the lake were reflected in its surface as in
a tarnished mirror. In the garden, the birds were beginning to shake the
drops from the motionless laurustinus-boughs.
An immense pity for Lydia filled Gannett’s soul. Her seeming
intellectual independence had blinded him for a time to the feminine
cast of her mind. He had never thought of her as a woman who wept and
clung: there was a lucidity in her intuitions that made them appear to
be the result of reasoning. Now he saw the cruelty he had committed
in detaching her from the normal conditions of life; he felt, too, the
insight with which she had hit upon the real cause of their suffering.
Their life was “impossible,” as she had said--and its worst penalty was
that it had made any other life impossible for them. Even had his
love lessened, he was bound to her now by a hundred ties of pity and
self-reproach; and she, poor child! must turn back to him as Latude
returned to his cell....
A new sound startled him: it was the stealthy closing of Lydia’s door.
He crept to his own and heard her footsteps passing down the corridor.
Then he went back to the window and looked out.
A minute or two later he saw her go down the steps of the porch and
enter the garden. From his post of observation her face was invisible,
but something about her appearance struck him. She wore a long
travelling cloak and under its folds he detected the outline of a bag or
bundle. He drew a deep breath and stood watching her.
She walked quickly down the laurustinus alley toward the gate; there
she paused a moment, glancing about the little shady square. The stone
benches under the trees were empty, and she seemed to gather resolution
from the solitude about her, for she crossed the square to the
steam-boat landing, and he saw her pause before the ticket-office at
the head of the wharf. Now she was buying her ticket. Gannett turned his
head a moment to look at the clock: the boat was due in five minutes. He
had time to jump into his clothes and overtake her--
He made no attempt to move; an obscure reluctance restrained him. If any
thought emerged from the tumult of his sensations, it was that he must
let her go if she wished it. He had spoken last night of his rights:
what were they? At the last issue, he and she were two separate beings,
not made one by the miracle of common forbearances, duties, abnegations,
but bound together in a _noyade_ of passion that left them resisting yet
clinging as they went down.
After buying her ticket, Lydia had stood for a moment looking out across
the lake; then he saw her seat herself on one of the benches near the
landing. He and she, at that moment, were both listening for the same
sound: the whistle of the boat as it rounded the nearest promontory.
Gannett turned again to glance at the clock: the boat was due now.
Where would she go? What would her life be when she had left him? She
had no near relations and few friends. There was money enough ... but
she asked so much of life, in ways so complex and immaterial. He thought
of her as walking bare-footed through a stony waste. No one would
understand her--no one would pity her--and he, who did both, was
powerless to come to her aid....
He saw that she had risen from the bench and walked toward the edge of
the lake. She stood looking in the direction from which the steamboat
was to come; then she turned to the ticket-office, doubtless to ask the
cause of the delay. After that she went back to the bench and sat down
with bent head. What was she thinking of?
The whistle sounded; she started up, and Gannett involuntarily made a
movement toward the door. But he turned back and continued to watch her.
She stood motionless, her eyes on the trail of smoke that preceded
the appearance of the boat. Then the little craft rounded the point, a
dead-white object on the leaden water: a minute later it was puffing and
backing at the wharf.
The few passengers who were waiting--two or three peasants and a snuffy
priest--were clustered near the ticket-office. Lydia stood apart under
the trees.
The boat lay alongside now; the gang-plank was run out and the peasants
went on board with their baskets of vegetables, followed by the priest.
Still Lydia did not move. A bell began to ring querulously; there was a
shriek of steam, and some one must have called to her that she would
be late, for she started forward, as though in answer to a summons. She
moved waveringly, and at the edge of the wharf she paused. Gannett saw
a sailor beckon to her; the bell rang again and she stepped upon the
gang-plank.
Half-way down the short incline to the deck she stopped again; then she
turned and ran back to the land. The gang-plank was drawn in, the bell
ceased to ring, and the boat backed out into the lake. Lydia, with slow
steps, was walking toward the garden....
As she approached the hotel she looked up furtively and Gannett drew
back into the room. He sat down beside a table; a Bradshaw lay at his
elbow, and mechanically, without knowing what he did, he began looking
out the trains to Paris....