"So you couldn't wait!"
Mrs. Branscome turned full on the speaker as she answered
deliberately: "You have evidently not been long in London, Mr. Hilton,
or you would not ask that question."
"I arrived yesterday evening."
"Quite so. Then will you forgive me one tiny word of advice? You will
learn the truth of it soon by yourself; but I want to convince you at
once of the uselessness--to use no harder word--of trying to revive a
flirtation--let me see! yes, quite two years old. You might as well
galvanise a mummy and expect it to walk about. Besides," she added
inconsistently, "I had to marry and--and--you never came."
"Then you sent the locket!"
The word sent a shiver through Mrs. Branscome with a remembrance of
the desecration of a gift which she had cherished as a holy thing. She
clung to flippancy as her defence.
"Oh, no! I never sent it. I lost it somewhere, I think. Must you go?"
she continued, as Hilton moved silently to the door. "I expect my
husband in just now. Won't you wait and meet him?"
"How dare you?" Hilton burst out. "Is there nothing of your true self
left?"
* * * * *
David Hilton's education was as yet in its infancy. This was not only
his first visit to England, but, indeed, to any spot further afield
than Interlaken. All of his six-and-twenty years that he could
recollect had been passed in a _châlet_ on the Scheidegg above
Grindelwald, his only companion an elderly recluse who had
deliberately cut himself off from communion with his fellows. The
trouble which had driven Mr. Strange, an author at one time of some
mark, into this seclusion, was now as completely forgotten as his
name. Even David knew nothing of its cause. That Strange was his uncle
and had adopted him when left an orphan at the age of six, was the
sum of his information. For although the pair had lived together for
twenty years, there had been little intercourse of thought between
them, and none of sentiment. Strange had, indeed, throughout shut his
nephew, not merely from his heart, but also from his confidence, at
first out of sheer neglect, and afterwards, as the lad grew towards
manhood, from deliberate intent. For, by continually brooding over his
embittered life, he had at last impregnated his weak nature with the
savage cynicism which embraced even his one comrade; and the child he
had originally chosen as a solace for his loneliness, became in the
end the victim of a heartless experiment. Strange's plan was based
upon a method of training. In the first place, he thoroughly isolated
David from any actual experience of persons beyond the simple
shepherd folk who attended to their needs and a few Alpine guides who
accompanied him on mountain expeditions. He kept incessant guard over
his own past life, letting no incidents or deductions escape, and fed
the youth's mind solely upon the ideal polities of the ancients,
his object being to launch him suddenly upon the world with little
knowledge of it beyond what had filtered through his books, and
possessed of an intuitive hostility to existing modes. What kind of a
career would ensue? Strange anticipated the solution of the problem
with an approach to excitement. Two events, however, prevented the
complete realisation of his scheme. One was a lingering illness which
struck him down when David was twenty-four and about to enter on his
ordeal. The second, occurring simultaneously, was the advent of Mrs.
Branscome--then Kate Alden--to Grindelwald.
They met by chance on the snow slopes of the Wetterhorn early one
August morning. Miss Alden was trying to disentangle some meaning
from the _pâtois_ of her guides, and gratefully accepted Hilton's
assistance. Half-an-hour after she had continued the ascent, David
noticed a small gold locket glistening in her steps. It recalled him
to himself, and he picked it up and went home with a strange trouble
clutching at his heart. The next morning he carried the locket down
into the valley, found its owner and--forgot to restore it. It became
an excuse for further descents. Meanwhile, the theories were wooed
with a certain coldness. In front of them stood perpetually the one
real thing which had surged up through the quiet of his life, and,
lover-like, he justified its presence to himself, by seeing in Kate
Alden's frank face the incarnation of the ideal patterns of his books.
The visits to Grindelwald grew more frequent and more prolonged. The
climax, however, came unexpectedly to both. David had commissioned a
jeweller at Berne to fashion a fac-simile of the locket for his own
wearing, and, meaning to restore the original, handed Kate Alden the
copy the evening before she left. An explanation of the mistake led to
mutual avowals and a betrothal. Hilton returned to nurse his adoptive
father, and was to seek England as soon as he could obtain his
release. Meanwhile, Kate pledged herself to wait for him. She kept the
new locket, empty except for a sprig of edelweiss he had placed in
it, and agreed that if she needed her lover's presence, she should
despatch it as an imperative summons.
During the next two years Strange's life ebbed sullenly away. The
approach of death brought no closer intimacy between uncle and nephew,
since indeed the former held it almost as a grievance against
David that he should die before he could witness the issue of his
experiment. Consequently the younger man kept his secret to himself,
and embraced it the more closely for his secrecy, fostering it through
the dreary night watches, until the image of Kate Alden became a
Star-in-the-East to him, beckoning towards London. When the end came,
David found himself the possessor of a moderate fortune; and with the
humiliating knowledge that this legacy awoke his first feeling of
gratitude towards his uncle, he locked the door of the _châlet_, and
so landed at Charing Cross one wet November evening. Meanwhile the
locket had never come.
* * * * *
After Hilton had left, Mrs. Branscome's forced indifference gave way.
As she crouched beside the fire, numbed by pain beyond the power of
thought, she could conjure up but one memory--the morning of their
first meeting. She recollected that the sun had just risen over the
shoulder of the Shreckhorn, and how it had seemed to her young fancy
that David had come to her straight from the heart of it. The sound of
her husband's step in the hall brought her with a shock to facts. "He
must go back," she muttered, "he must go back."
David, however, harboured no such design. One phrase of hers had
struck root in his thoughts. "I had to marry," she had said, and
certain failings in her voice warned him that this, whatever it
meant, was in her eyes the truth. It had given the lie direct to the
flippancy which she had assumed, and David determined to remain until
he had fathomed its innermost meaning. A fear, indeed, lest the one
single faith he felt as real should crumble to ashes made his resolve
almost an instinct of self-preservation. The idea of accepting the
situation never occurred to him, his training having effectually
prevented any growth of respect for the _status quo_ as such. Nor did
he realise at this time that his determination might perhaps prove
unfair to Mrs. Branscome. A certain habit of abstraction, nurtured in
him by the spirit of inquiry which he had imbibed from his books, had
become so intuitive as to penetrate even into his passion. From the
first he had been accustomed to watch his increasing intimacy with
Kate Alden from the standpoint of a third person, analysing her
actions and feelings no less than his own. And now this tendency gave
the crowning impetus to a resolve which sprang originally from his
necessity to find sure foothold somewhere amid the wreckage of his
hopes.
From this period might be dated the real commencement of Hilton's
education. He returned to the Branscomes' house, sedulously schooled
his looks and his words, save when betrayed into an occasional
denunciation of the marriage laws, and succeeded at last in overcoming
a distaste which Mr. Branscome unaccountably evinced for him. To a
certain extent, also, he was taken up by social entertainers. There
was an element of romance in the life he had led which appealed
favourably to the seekers after novelty--"a second St. Simeon
Skylights" he had been rashly termed by one good lady, whose wealth
outweighed her learning. At first his gathering crowd of acquaintances
only served to fence him more closely within himself; but as he began
to realise that this was only the unit of another crowd, a crowd of
designs and intentions working darkly, even he, sustained by the
strength of a single aim, felt himself whirling at times. Thus he
slowly grew to some knowledge of the difficulties and complications
which must beset any young girl like Kate Alden, whose nearest
relation and chaperon had been a feather-headed cousin not so
many years her elder. At last, in a dim way, he began to see the
possibility of replacing his bitterness with pity. For Mrs. Branscome
did not love her husband; he plainly perceived that, if only from the
formal precision with which she performed her duties. She appeared to
him, indeed, to be paying off an obligation rather than working out
the intention of her life.
The actual solution of his perplexities came by an accident. Amongst
the visitors who fell under Hilton's observation at the Branscomes'
was a certain Mr. Marston, a complacent widower of some
five-and-thirty years, and Branscome's fellow servant at the
Admiralty. Hilton's attention was attracted to this man by the air
of embarrassment with which Mrs. Branscome received his approaches.
Resolute to neglect no clue, however slight, David sought Marston's
companionship, and, as a reward, discovered one afternoon in a Crown
Derby teacup on the mantel-shelf of the latter's room his own present
of two years back. The exclamation which this discovery extorted
aroused Marston.
"What's up?"
"Where did you get this?"
"Why? Have you seen it before?"
The question pointed out to David the need of wariness.
"No!" he answered. "Its shape rather struck me, that's all. The emblem
of a conquest, I suppose?"
The invitation stumbled awkwardly from unaccustomed lips, but
Marston noticed no more than the words. He was chewing the cud of a
disappointment and answered with a short laugh:
"No! Rather of a rebuff. The lady tore her hand away in a hurry--the
link on the bracelet was thin, I suppose. Anyway, that was left in my
hand."
"You were proposing to her?"
"Well, hardly. I was married at the time."
There was a silence for some moments, during which Hilton slowly
gathered into his mind a consciousness of the humiliation which Kate
must have endured, and read in that the explanation of her words "I
had to marry." Marston took up the tale, babbling resentfully of
a nursery prudishness, but his remarks fell on deaf ears until he
mentioned a withered flower, which he had found inside the locket.
Then David's self control partially gave way. In imagination he saw
Marston carelessly tossing the sprig aside and the touch of his
fingers seemed to sully the love of which it was the token. The locket
burned into his hand. Without a word he dropped it on to the floor,
and ground it to pieces with his heel. A new light broke in upon
Marston.
"So this accounts for all your railing against the marriage laws," he
laughed. "By Jove, you have kept things quiet. I wouldn't have given
you credit for it."
His eyes travelled from the carpet to David's face, and he stopped
abruptly.
"You had better hold your tongue," David said quietly. "Pick up the
pieces."
"Do you think I would touch them now?"
Marston rose from his lounge; David stepped in front of the door.
There was a litheness in his movements which denoted obedient muscles.
Marston perceived this now with considerable discomfort, and thought
it best to comply: he knelt down and picked up the fragments of the
locket.
"Now throw them into the grate!"
That done, David took his leave. Once outside the house, however, his
emotion fairly mastered him. The episode of which he had just heard
was so mean and petty in itself, and yet so far-reaching in its
consequences that it set his senses aflame in an increased revolt
against the order of the world. Marriage was practically a necessity
to a girl as unprotected as Kate Alden; he now acquiesced in that. But
that it should have been forced upon her by the vanity of a trivial
person like Marston, engaged in the pursuit of his desires, sent a
fever of repulsion through his veins. He turned back to the door
deluded by the notion that it was his duty to render the occurrence
impossible of repetition. He was checked, however, by the thought of
Mrs. Branscome. The shame he felt hinted the full force of degradation
of which she must have been conscious, and begot in him a strange
feeling of loyalty. Up till now the true meaning of chivalry had
been unknown to him. In consequence of his bringing up he had been
incapable of regarding faith in persons as a working motive in one's
life. Even the first dawn of his passion had failed to teach him that;
all the confidence and trust which he gained thereby being a mere
reflection, from what he saw in Kate Alden, of truth to him. It was
necessary that he should feel her trouble first and his poignant sense
of that now revealed to him, not merely the wantonness of the perils
women are compelled to run, but their consequent sufferings and their
endurance in suppressing them.
A feverish impulse towards self-sacrifice sprang up within him. He
would bury the incident of that afternoon as a dead thing--nay, more,
for Mrs. Branscome's sake he would leave England and return to his
retreat among the mountains. If she had suffered, why should he claim
an exemption? The idea had just sufficient strength to impel him to
catch the night-mail from Charing Cross. That it was already weakening
was evidenced by a half-feeling of regret that he had not missed the
train.
The regret swelled during his journey to the coast. The scene he had
just come through became, from much pondering on it, almost unreal,
and, with the blurring of the impression it had caused, there rose a
doubt as to the accuracy of his vision of Mrs. Branscome's distress,
which he had conjured out of it. His chivalry, in a word, had grown
too quickly to take firm root. It was an exotic planted in soil not
yet fully prepared. David began to think himself a fool, and at last,
as the train neared Dover, a question which had been vaguely throbbing
in his brain suddenly took shape. Why had she not sent for him? True,
the locket was lost, but she might have written. The formulation of
the question shattered almost all the work of the last few hours. He
cursed his recent thoughts as a child's fairy dreams. Why should he
leave England after all? If he was to sacrifice himself it should be
for some one who cared sufficiently for him to justify the act.
There might, of course, have been some hidden obstacle in the way,
which Mrs. Branscome could not surmount. The revelation of Marston's
unimagined story warned him of the possibility of that. But the
chances were against it. Anyway, he quibbled to himself, he had a
clear right to pursue the matter until he unearthed the truth. Acting
upon this decision, David returned to town, though not without a
lurking sense of shame.
A few evenings after, he sought out Mrs. Branscome at a dance. The
blood rushed to her face when she caught his figure, and as quickly
ebbed away.
"So you have not gone, after all?" There was something pitiful in her
tone of reproach.
"No. What made you think I had?"
"Mr. Marston told me!"
"Did he tell you why?"
"I guessed that, and I thanked you in my heart."
David was disconcerted; the woman he saw corresponded so ill with what
he was schooling himself to believe her. He sought to conceal his
confusion, as she had once done, and played a part. Like her, he
overplayed it.
"Well! I came to see London life, you know. It makes a pretty comedy."
"Comedies end in tears at times."
"Even then common politeness makes us sit them out. Can you spare me a
dance?"
Mrs. Branscome pleaded fatigue, and barely suppressed a sigh of relief
as she noted her husband's approach. David followed her glance, and
bent over her, speaking hurriedly:--
"You said you knew why I went away; I want to tell you why I came
back."
"No! no!" she exclaimed. "It could be of no use--of no help to either
of us."
"I came back," he went on, ignoring her interruption, "merely to ask
you one question. Will you hear it and answer it? I can wait," he
added, as she kept silence.
"Then, to-morrow, as soon as possible," Mrs. Branscome replied, beaten
by his persistency. "Come at seven; we dine at eight, so I can give
you half-an-hour. But you are ungenerous."
That night began what may be termed the crisis of Hilton's education.
This was the second time he had caught Mrs. Branscome unawares. On the
first occasion--that of his unexpected arrival in England--he did not
possess the experience to measure accurately looks and movements,
or to comprehend them as the connotation of words. It is doubtful,
besides, whether, had he owned the skill, he would have had the power
to exercise it, so engrossed was he in his own distress. By the
process, however, of continually repressing the visible signs of his
own emotions, he had now learnt to appreciate them in others. And
in Mrs. Branscome's sudden change of colour, in little convulsive
movements of her hands, and in a certain droop of eyelids veiling eyes
which met the gaze frankly as a rule, he read this evening sure proofs
of the constancy of her heart. This fresh knowledge affected him in
two ways. On the one hand it gave breath to the selfish passion which
now dominated his ideas. At the same time, however it assured him
that when he asked his question: "Why did you not send for me?" an
unassailable answer would be forthcoming; and, moreover, by convincing
him of this, it destroyed the sole excuse he had pleaded to himself
for claiming the right to ask it. In self-defence Hilton had recourse
to his old outcry against the marriage laws and, finding this barren,
came in the end to frankly devising schemes for their circumvention.
Such inward personal conflicts were, of necessity, strange to a man
dry-nursed on abstractions, and, after a night of tension, they tossed
him up on the shores of the morning broken in mind and irresolute for
good or ill.
* * * * *
Mrs. Branscome received him impassively at the appointed time. David
saw that he was expected to speak to the point, and a growing scorn
for his own insistence urged him to the same course. He plunged
abruptly into his subject and his manner showed him in the rough, more
particularly to himself.
"What I came back to ask you is just this. You know--you must
know--that I would have come, whatever the consequence. Why did you
not send for me after, after--?"
"Why did I not send for you?" Mrs. Branscome took him up, repeating
his words mechanically, as though their meaning had not reached her.
"You don't mean that you never received my letter. Oh, don't say that!
It can't have miscarried, I registered it."
"Then you did write?"
This confirmation of her fear drove a breach through her composure.
"Of course, of course, I wrote," she cried. "You doubt that? What can
you think of me? Yes, I wrote, and when no answer came, I fancied
you had forgotten me--that you had never really cared, and so I--I
married."
Her voice dried in her throat. The thought of this ruin of two lives,
made inevitable by a mistake in which neither shared, brought a sense
of futility which paralysed her.
The same idea was working in Hilton's mind, but to a different end. It
fixed the true nature of this woman for the first time clearly within
his recognition, and the new light blinded him. Before, his imagined
grievance had always coloured the picture; now, he began to realise
not only that she was no more responsible for the catastrophe than
himself, but that he must have stood in the same light to her as she
had done to him. The events of the past few months passed before his
mind as on a clear mirror. He compared the gentle distinction of her
bearing with his own flaunting resentment.
"I am sorry," he said, "I have wronged you in thought and word and
action. The fact is, I never saw you plainly before; myself stood in
the way."
Mrs. Branscome barely heeded his words. The feelings her watchfulness
had hitherto restrained having once broken their barriers swept her
away on a full flow. She recalled the very terms of her letter. She
had written it in the room in which they were standing. Mr. Branscome
had called just as she addressed the envelope--she had questioned him
about its registration to Switzerland, and, yes, he had promised to
look after it and had taken it away. "Yes!" she repeated to herself
aloud, directing her eyes instinctively towards her husband's study
door. "He promised to post it."
The sound of the words and a sudden movement from Hilton woke her to
alarm. David had turned to the window, and she felt that he had heard
and understood. The silence pressed on her like a dead weight. For
Hilton, this was the crucial moment of his ordeal. He had understood
only too clearly, and this second proof of the harm a petty sin could
radiate struck through him the same fiery repulsion which had stung
him to revolt when he quitted Marston's rooms. He flung up the window
and faced the sunset. Strips of black cloud barred it across, and he
noticed, with a minute attention of which he was hardly conscious,
that their lower edges took a colour like the afterglow on a Swiss
rock mountain. The perception sent a riot of associations through his
brain which strengthened his wavering purpose. Must he lose her after
all, he thought; now that he had risen to a true estimation of her
worth? His fancy throned Kate queen of his mountain home, and he
turned towards her, but a light of fear in her eyes stopped the words
on his lips.
"I trust you," she said, simply.
The storm of his passions quieted down. That one sentence just
expressed to him the debt he owed to her. In return--well, he could do
no less than leave her her illusion.
"Good-bye," he said. "All the good that comes to us, somehow, seems to
spring from women like yourself, while we give you nothing but trouble
in return. Even this last misery, which my selfishness has brought to
you, lifts me to breathe a cleaner air."
"He must have forgotten to post it," Mrs. Branscome pleaded.
"Yes; we must believe that. Good-bye!"
For a moment he stayed to watch her white figure, outlined against the
dusk of the room, and then gently closed the door on her. The next
morning David left England, not, however, for Grindelwald. He dreaded
the morbid selfishness which grows from isolation, and sought a
finishing school in the companionship of practical men.