IN after-time Herold's memory of that disastrous night and the
succeeding days was that of a peculiarly lucid nightmare in which he
seemed to have acted without volition or consciousness of motive.
He ate, dressed, drove through the streets on unhappy missions, gave
orders, directions, consoled, like an automaton, and sometimes slept
exhaustedly. So it seemed to him, looking back. He spared John the first
night of misery. The man with his bandaged head slept like a log, and
Herold did not wake him. All that could be done he himself had done. It
was better for John to gather strength in sleep to face the tragedy on
the morrow. And when the morrow came, and Herold broke the news to him,
the big man gave way under the shock, and became gentle, and obeyed
Herold like a child. Thereafter, for many days, he sat for the hour
together with his old aunt, curiously dependent on her; and she, through
her deep affection for him, grew singularly silent and practical.
In her unimaginative placidity lay her strength. She mourned for Unity
as for her own flesh and blood; but the catastrophe did not shake her
even mind, and when John laid his head in her lap and sobbed, all that
was beautiful in the woman flowed through the comforting tips of her
helpless fingers.
From Herold he learned the unsuspected reason of Unity's crime and
sacrifice; and from Unity, too, for a poor little pencil scrawl found
in her pocket and addressed to him told him of her love and of her
intention to clear the way for his happiness. And when the inquest was
over and Unity's body was brought to Kilburn and laid in its coffin in
her little room, he watched by it in dumb stupor of anguish.
Herold roused him now and then. Action--nominal action at least--had
to be taken by him as surviving protagonist of the tragedy. The morning
after the deed the newspapers shrieked the news, giving names in full,
raking up memories of the hideous case. They dug, not deep, for motive,
and found long-smouldering vengeance. Unity was blackened. John
responded to Herold's lash. This must not be. Unity must not go to her
grave in public dishonour; truth must be told. So at the inquest, John
wild, uncouth, with great strips of sticking-plaster on his head, told
truth, and gave a romantic story to a hungry press. It was hateful to
lay bare the inmost sacredness and the inmost suffering of his soul to
the world's cold and curious gaze, but it had to be done. Unity's name
was cleared. When he sat down by Herold's side, the latter grasped his
hand, and it was clammy and cold, and he shook throughout his great
frame.
Then Herold, driven to mechanical action, as it seemed to him afterward,
by a compelling force, dragged John to an inquiry into the evil woman's
life. It was Mrs. Oscraft, the full-blown, blowzy bookmaker's wife, the
woman's intimate associate for many years, who gave the necessary clue.
Horrified by the discovery of the identity of her friend and by the
revelation of further iniquities, she lost her head when the men sternly
questioned her. She had used her intimacy with Mrs. Risca to cover from
her own husband an intrigue of many years' standing. In return, Mrs.
Risca had confessed to an intrigue of her own, and demanded, and readily
obtained, Mrs. Oscraft's protection. The women worked together. They
were inseparable in their outgoings and incomings, but abroad each went
her separate way. That was why, ignorant of the truth, Mrs. Oscraft had
lied loyally when John Risca had burst into her flat long ago. She had
thought she was merely shielding her fellow-sinner from the wrath of a
jealous husband. Thus for years, with her cunning, Mrs. Risca had thrown
dust in the eyes both of her friend and of the feared and hated wardress
whom John had set over her. Under the double cloak she had used her
hours of liberty to carry out the set, relentless purpose of her life.
To spy on him with exquisite craft had been her secret passion, to
strike when the time came the very meaning of her criminal existence.
“And for the last two or three years she gave no trouble and was as
gentle as a lamb, so how could I suspect?” Mrs. Bence lamented.
“It 's all over,” said John, stupidly; “it's all over. Nothing matters
now.”
To Herold, in after-time, the memories of these days were as those of
the doings of another man in his outer semblance. His essential self
had been the crazy being who had marched through the mellow Kensington
streets with fantastic dreams of murder in his head. At the sight of
Unity and the woman lying ghastly on the floor something seemed to snap
in his brain, and all the cloudy essence that was he vanished, and a
perfect mechanism took its place. When John with wearisome reiteration
said: “God bless you, Wallie! God knows what I should have done without
you,” it was hard to realize that he had done anything deserving thanks.
He was inclined to regard himself--when he had a fugitive moment to
regard himself--with abhorrence. He had talked; Unity had acted. And
deep down in his soul, only once afterwards in his life to be confessed,
dwelt an awful remorse for his responsibility in the matter of Unity's
death. But in simple fact no man in times of great convulsion knows
himself. He looks back on the man who acted and wonders. The man,
surviving the wreck of earthquake, if he be weak, lies prone and calls
on God and man to help him; if he be strong, he devotes the intensity of
his faculties to the work of rescue, of clearing up debris, of temporary
reconstruction, and has no time for self-analysis. It is in reality the
essential man in his vigour and courage and nobility and disdain who
acts, and the bruised and shattered about him who profit by his help
look rightly upon him as a god.
It was only after John had visited the house of death, where, according
to law, the bodies both of slayer and slain had to lie, and had seen the
pinched, common face, swathed in decent linen, of the girl who for his
sake had charged her soul with murder and taken her own life, and after
he had driven away, stunned with grief and carrying with him, at his
feet in the taxi-cab, the useless kit-bag packed by the poor child
with Heaven knows what idea of its getting to its destination, and had
staggered to the comfort of the foolish old lady's outstretched arms
and received her benediction, futilely spoken, divinely unspoken--it
was only then that, raising haggard eyes, all the more haggard under the
brow-reaching bandage he still wore, he asked the question:
“What about Stella? She is bound to learn.”
“I wrote to her last night,” said Herold. “I prepared her for the shock
as best I could.”
A gleam of rational thought flitted across John Risca's mind.
“You remembered her at such a time, with all you had to do? You 're a
wonderful man, Wallie. No one else would have done it.”
“Are you in a fit state of mind,” said Herold, “to understand what
has happened? I tried to tell you this morning,”--as he had done
fitfully,--“but it was no use. You grasped nothing.”
“Go on now,” said John. “I 'm listening.”
So Herold, amid the fripperies of Miss Lindon's drawing-room, told the
story of his summons to the Channel House some time ago--Good God!--He
caught himself up sharply--it was only yesterday! and of his talk with
Stellamaris in the garden, and of her encounter with the evil woman, and
of the poison that had crept to the roots of Stella's being.
John shivered, and clenched impotent fists. Stella left alone on the
cliff-edge with that murderous hag! Stella's ears polluted by that
infamous tale! If only he had known it! Why did she hide it from him?
It was well the murderess was dead, but, merciful Heaven, at what a
price!
“Listen,” said Herold, gravely, checking his outburst; and he told of
his meetings with Unity,--it was essential that John should know,--of
her almost mystical worship of Stellamaris, of their discovery of the
revolver--
“Poor child!” cried John, “I bought it soon after I went to Kilburn. I
took it out the other day and played with a temptation I knew I should
n't succumb to. I should never have had the pluck.”
Herold continued, telling him all he knew--all save that of which he
stood self-accused, and which for the present was a matter between him
and his Maker. And Miss Lindon, fondling on her lap a wheezy pug, the
successor to the Dandy of former days who had been gathered to his
fathers long ago, listened in placid bewilderment to the strange story
of love and crime.
“I 'm sure I don't understand how people think of such things, let alone
do them,” she sighed.
“You must accept the fact, dear Miss Lindon,” said Herold, gently.
“God's will be done,” she murmured, which in the circumstances was
as relevant a thing as the poor lady could have uttered. But John sat
hunched up in a bamboo chair that creaked under his weight, and scarcely
spoke a word. He felt very unimportant by the side of Unity--Unity with
whose strong, passionate soul he had dwelt in blind ignorance. And Unity
was dead, lying stark and white in the alien house.
After a long silence he roused himself.
“You wrote to Stella, you said?”
“Yes,” replied Herold.
“What will happen to her?”
“I don't know.”
John groaned. “If only I had protected her as I ought to have done! If
only I had protected both of them!”
He relapsed again into silence, burying his face in his hands. Presently
Miss Lindon put the pug tenderly on the ground, rose, and stood by his
chair.
“My poor boy,” she said, “do you love her so much?”
“She's dead,” said John.
Herold shook him by the shoulder. “Nonsense, man. Pull yourself
together.”
John raised a drawn face.
“What did you ask? I was thinking about Unity.”
That day, the day after the tragedy, Stellamaris faced life, in its
nakedness, stripped, so it appeared to her, of every rag of mystery.
She had breakfasted as usual in her room, bathed and dressed, and looked
wistfully over her disowning sea. Then, as she was preparing to
go downstairs, Morris had brought in Herold's letter, scribbled so
nervously and shakenly that at first she was at a loss to decipher it.
Gradually it became terribly clear: Unity was dead; the woman was dead;
Unity had killed the woman and then killed herself.
“Details of everything but the truth will be given in the morning
papers,” Herold wrote; “but you must know the truth from the first--as
I know it. Unity has given her life to save those she loved--you and
John--from the woman. She has laid down her life for you. Never forget
that as long as you live.”
She sat for some moments quite still, paralyzed by the new horror that
had sprung from this false, flower-decked earth to shake her by the
throat. The world was terrifyingly relentless. She read the awful words
again. Bit by bit feeling returned. Her flesh was constricted in a cold
and finely wrought net. She grew faint, put her hand to her brow and
found it damp. She stumbled to her bed by the great west window and
threw herself down. Constable, lying on the hearth-rug, staggered to his
feet and thrust his old head on her bosom and regarded her with mournful
and inquiring eyes. She caressed him mechanically. Suddenly she sprang
up as a swift memory smote her. Once she lay there by the window, and
the dog was there by the bed, and there by the door stood the ungainly
figure of a girl of her own age. Was it possible that that ungainly
child whom she had seen and talked to then, whom a few weeks ago she had
kissed, could have committed this deed of blood? She rose again to her
feet, pushed the old dog aside blindly, and hid her eyes from the light
of day. The girl was human, utterly human at those two meetings. Of what
unknown, devastating forces, were human beings, then, composed?
She took up the letter again. “Unity has given her life to save those
she loved--you and John--from the woman. She has laid down her life for
you. Never forget that as long as you live.”
Walter Herold said that. It must be true. Through all of yesterday's
welter of misery, after he had left her, she had clung despairingly
to him. There was no God, but there was Walter Herold. Her pride had
dismissed him with profession of disbelief, but in her heart she had
believed him. Not that she had pardoned John Risca, not that she had
recovered her faith in him, not that she had believed in Unity. Her
virginal soul, tainted by the woman, had shrunk from thoughts of the
pair; but despite her fierce determination to believe in neither God
nor man, she had been compelled to believe in Herold. She had stood up
against him and fought with him and had bitten and rent him, and he had
conquered, and she had felt maddenedly angered, triumphantly glad. The
whole world could be as false as hell, but in it there was one clear
spirit speaking truth.
She went to the southern window, rested her elbows on the sill, and
pressed the finger-tips of both hands against her forehead. The soft
south-west wind, bringing the salt from the dancing sea, played about
her hair. Unity had laid down her life to save those she loved. So had
Christ done--given his life for humanity. But Christ had not killed a
human being, no matter how murderous, and had not taken his own life.
No, no; she must not mix up things irreconcilable. She faced the room
again. What did people do when they killed? What were the common,
practical steps that they took to gain their ends? Her mind suddenly
grew vague. Herold had spoken of newspapers. She must see them; she
must know everything. Life was deadly conflict, and knowledge the only
weapon. For a few seconds she stood in the middle of the room, her
young bosom heaving, her dark eyes wide with the diamond glints in their
depths. Life was a deadly conflict. She would fight, she would conquer.
Others miserably weaker than herself survived. Pride and race and
splendid purity of soul sheathed her in cold armour. A jingle, separated
from context, came into her mind, and in many ways it was a child's
mind:
Then spake Sir Thomas Howard,
“ 'Fore God, I am no coward.”
“'Fore God, I am no coward,” she repeated, and with her delicate head
erect she went out and down the stairs and entered the dining-room.
There she found Sir Oliver and Lady Blount sitting at a neglected
breakfast. The old faces strove pitifully to smile. Stella kissed them
in turn, and with her hand lingering on the old man's arm, she gave him
Herold's letter.
“Is it in the newspapers?” she asked.
“What, what, my dear?” said Sir Oliver, adjusting his glasses on his
nose with fumbling fingers.
She looked from one to the other. Then her eyes fell on the morning
papers lying on the table. They were folded so that a great head-line
stared hideously.
“Oh, darling, don't read it--for Heaven's sake do n't read it,” cried
Lady Blount, clutching the nearer newspaper.
But Stella took up the other. “I must, dearest,” she said very gently.
“Walter has written to me; but he could not tell me everything.”
She moved to the window that overlooked the pleasant garden, and with
steady eyes read the vulgar and soul-withering report, while the two old
people, head to head, puzzled out Herold's scrawl.
When she had finished, she laid the paper quietly at the foot of
the table and came and stood between them, revolted by the callous
publication of names, almost physically sickened by the realistic
picture of the scene, her head whirling. She caught hold of the back of
Sir Oliver's chair.
“The newspaper lies,” she said, “but it does n't know any better. Walter
tells us why she did it.”
Sir Oliver, elbow on table, held the letter in his shaking grasp. It
dropped, and his head sank on his hand.
“It's too horrible!” he said in a weak voice. “I don't understand
anything at all about it. I don't understand what Walter means. And all
that old beastly story revived. It's damnable!”
He looked quite broken, his querulous self-assertion gone. Lady Blount,
too, gave way, and stretched out an imploring and pathetic arm, which,
as Stella moved a step or two toward her, fell around the slim, standing
figure. She laid her cheek against Stella and cried miserably.
“O my darling, my precious one, if we could only spare you all this!
Walter should n't have written. O my darling, what are we to do! What
are we to do!”
And then Stellamaris saw once more that Great High Excellency and Most
Exquisite Auntship, for all their love of her, were of the weak ones
of the world, and she looked down with a new and life-giving feeling of
pity upon the bowed gray heads.
[Illustration: 0350]
Once,--was it yesterday or weeks or months or years ago? She could not
tell,--but once, to her later pain and remorse, she had commanded,
and they had obeyed; now she knew that she had to comfort, protect,
determine. And in a bewildering flash came the revelation that knowledge
was a weapon not only to fight her own way through the evil of the
world, but to defend the defenceless.
“I wish Walter was here,” she whispered, her hand against the withered,
wet cheek.
“Why Walter, dear?”
“He is strong and true,” said Stellamaris.
“Why not John, darling?”
Yes, why not John? Stella drew a sharp breath. Sir Oliver saved her an
answer.
“John has enough to look to, poor chap. He has got everything about his
ears. Stella's right. We want Walter. He's young. He's a good fellow, is
Walter. I must be getting old, my dear,--” He raised his face, and, with
a sudden forlorn hope of dignity, twirled his white moustache,--“A
year ago I should n't have wanted Walter or anybody. It 's only you, my
child, that your aunt and I are thinking of. We've tried to do our duty
by you, have n't we, Julia? And God knows we love you. You 're the only
thing in the world left to us. It is n't our fault that you are
drawn into this ghastliness. It is n't, God knows it is n't. Only, my
dear,”--there was a catch in his voice,--“you 're not able to bear it.
For us old folks who have knocked about the world--well, we 're used
to--to this sort of thing. I 've had to send men to the gallows in my
time--once twenty men to be shot. The paltry fellows at the Colonial
Office did n't see things as I did, but that's another matter. We 're
used to these things, dear; we 're hardened--”
“If I have got to live in the world, dear Excellency,” said Stella,
feeling that there were some sort of flood-gates between the tumultuous
flow of her being and the still waters of pity in which for the moment
her consciousness acted, “it seems that I must get used to it, like
every one else.”
“But what shall we do, darling?” cried Lady Blount, clinging
pathetically to the child of sea foam, from whom all knowledge of the
perilous world had been hidden.
“Anything but worry Walter to come down here.”
“I thought you wanted him?”
“I do,” said Stella, with her hand on her bosom; “but that is only
selfishness. He is needed more in London. I think we ought to go up and
see if we can help in any way.”
“Go up to London!” echoed Sir Oliver.
“Yes, if you 'll take me, Uncle dear.”
The old man looked at his wife, who looked helplessly at him. Through
the open window came the late, mellow notes of a thrush and the sunshine
that flooded the summer garden.
“I am going to send Walter a telegram,” said Stella, moving gently away.
She left the room with the newly awakened consciousness that she was
absolute mistress of her destiny. Love, devotion, service, anything
she might require from the two old people, were hers for the
claiming--anything in the world but guidance and help. She stood alone
before the dragons of a world, no longer the vague Threatening Land,
but a world of fierce passions and bloody deeds. Herold's words flamed
before her: “Unity had given her life for those she loved.” Had she,
Stellamaris, a spirit so much weaker than Unity's?
She advanced an eager step or two along the garden walk, clenching her
delicate fists, and the fiery dragons retreated backward. She could
give, too, as well as Unity, her life if need be. If that was not
required, at least whatever could be demanded of her for those she
loved. Again she read the letter. Underlying it was tenderest anxiety
lest she should be stricken down by the ghastly knowledge. With
the personal motive, the intense and omnipotent motive of her sex,
unconsciously dominating her, she murmured half articulately:
“He thinks I'm a weak child. I 'll show him that I am a woman. He shall
see that I'm not afraid of life.”
So when Walter Herold went home late that night,--the theatre being out
of the question, he had stayed at Kilburn until John had been persuaded
to go to bed,--he found a telegram from Stellamaris.
“Coming to London to see if I can be of any help. My dear love to John
in his terrible trouble. Tell me when I had better come.”
The next day, when they met before the inquest, he showed the telegram
to John, who, after glancing at it, thrust it back into his hand with a
deprecating gesture.
“No; let her stay there. What is she to do in this wilderness of
horror?”
“I have already written,” said Herold.
“To keep away?”
“To come.”
“You know best,” said John, hopelessly. “At any rate the news has n't
killed her. I feared it would. I had long letters from Oliver and Julia
this morning.”
“What do they say?”
John put his hand to his head. “I forget,” said he.