THE RETURN
"_With all my will, but much against my heart,
We two now part.
My very Dear,
Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear.
It needs no art,
With faint, averted feet, and many a tear,
In our opposed paths to persevere.
Go thou to East, I West, we will not say
There's any hope, it is so far away._"--Coventry Patmore.
The rain which had so interfered with Rosenberg's plans, and spoiled
the close of the motoring day, seemed to mark also the end of summer.
The weather ever since had been grey and autumnal. In Derbyshire the
change was more marked than in Sussex. A wild wind moaned in the black
pines of Omberleigh, and brown leaves drifted upon the blast as Gaunt
rode forth to Sessions that Wednesday morning.
His mood was one not only of depression, but of anxiety. He hardly
realised how much he had built upon Virginia's cheering accounts of her
own restored health, until he received his mother-in-law's feline
epistle, telling him of a severe chill and consequent fever. The
wording was careful, even clever, but she had conveyed with full force
the impression that she meant to convey, which was that the fever and
delirium were more the result of distress of mind than of the actual
chill--that the prospect of returning to her loveless marriage and
gloomy home were working untold harm to the patient, and hindering
recovery.
Since the receipt of this most disquieting letter, no word from
Worthing had reached him. Morning after morning the empty postbag
mocked him. To-day he was making up his mind that if he held to his
resolution, and remained silent--if he adhered to his foolhardy
determination to prove his wife to the uttermost--he would lose her
altogether.
He still told himself that she would do her duty at all costs. He was,
however, beginning to perceive that the strength of influence now being
brought to bear might succeed in persuading her that to return to him
was _not_ her duty. After all--in view of what he had made her
bear--could he say that he thought it was her duty?
Mrs. Mynors spoke as though the illness were serious. He knew she was a
liar; he knew she wished to hurt him. Yet, after all, it might be true.
He had dwelt such a blow at Virgie's tenderest feelings as might well
shock a sensitive girl into real illness. Neither had he done anything,
since they parted, to allay her fears. He had not so much as suggested
the change of heart which awaited her. As the date of her return drew
near--as she contemplated the renewal of her martyrdom--her flesh might
well shrink from the demand made upon it by the dauntless spirit.
Violently though he struggled against indulging hope, it had all the
same risen insurgent when he got Virginia's letter fixing Saturday as
the date of her return. He had lain sleepless most of Friday night,
planning what he could do, or say, when they met at the railway
station; living over again his drive at her side, through the summer
dusk, on the night of her departure when she had been, in her
absorption, hardly conscious of his presence. He wondered whether he
could break through the tongue-tied gloom which held him like an evil
spell, and let her see something--not too much at first--of what he
felt.
His mortification when he received his mother-in-law's wounding letter
had been proportionately great. The intensity of his feeling surprised
and half frightened him.
Since that dark moment--silence.
He rode into town in a mood which alternated between something which
was a colourable imitation of despair and a haunting notion that
perhaps some letter or telegram might be awaiting him when he returned
home in the evening. There was much business to transact that day. It
was half-past four before he was free; and as he walked along the High
Street, making for the inn where his horse was put up, he came face to
face with Ferris.
"Ha, Gaunt, how goes it?" cried Percy, wringing his hand with effusion,
proud that the passers-by should see him on such terms with Gaunt of
Omberleigh. "Not looking very fit--what? Why don't you run down to
Worthing for the week-end and give your wife a surprise? Do you good.
Well, I can give you the latest news of her. Been down there myself,
staying over Sunday with Rosenberg at the Beausejour."
"You have?" Gaunt's tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He could not
own that he himself had no news of Virginia.
"Yes, not a bad little hole, Worthing. Plenty of sun and sea air and so
on. Think it might suit Joey and the kids for a month or two, later on.
Pity Mrs. Gaunt knocked up, wasn't it, though?"
"Yes, I was very much vexed to hear it," Gaunt was able by this to
reply with his natural brevity.
"Enough to make her, though, wasn't it? Pretty bad generalship on
Rosenberg's part. You take my tip and run down, Gaunt. They tell me
she's deuced seedy." There was meaning in the tone.
"She makes light of it to me," said Gaunt, choosing his line quickly.
"Tell me what you know of it."
"Oh, well, of course, you heard that she got wet through, driving in an
open cart in the pouring rain late at night, trying to reach Petworth
in time for the last train, or something. Of course, Rosenberg's car is
a beauty; you couldn't expect it to break down like that ... still, to
send off his chauffeur to meet me at Chichester, leaving himself and
Mrs. Gaunt stranded in a place where there was no accommodation, no
telegraph--gad, if you had seen the hovel where they spent the night,
Gaunt, I think you'd have given him a bit of the rough side of your
tongue."
"The same idea has occurred to me," said Gaunt drily, "but I understood
that the whole thing could not be avoided; it was quite an accident.
Still, to drive her in the wet, without even an umbrella--no wonder my
wife fell ill!" There was a certain relief in his heart, among all the
turmoil of jealousy and vexation. The circumstances were, in
themselves, quite enough to account for illness, without his own
shortcomings being in any way responsible.
"You see, she had nothing for the night," explained Ferris, "so I
suppose she couldn't take off her wet things. I had a line from
Rosenberg this morning about the directors' meeting, and he mentioned
that the doctor won't let her leave her room."
"So I understood. I think I had better take your advice and run down.
Thank you, Ferris. I am glad to have seen you. My mother-in-law has the
art of making the most of things, and I was not sure just how unwell my
wife is."
After the exchange of a few commonplaces, they parted. Ferris watched
Gaunt limp into the inn yard, and turned away with an involuntary,
"Poor devil!" He stood irresolute upon the pavement for a minute or
two, then strolled into the post office, and wrote a telegram to
Rosenberg:
_Gaunt coming down. Be on your guard._
He was eager to stand well with both parties, and this was his idea of
accomplishing such object.
* * * * *
Never had the avenue which led to his own housedoor seemed to Gaunt so
wild, so desolate, as when he rode up it this evening. The sun was
already setting, gleaming fierce and threatening red through the purple
ragged clouds which all day long had veiled it.
He knew that everything was over, but he also knew that to be any
longer passive was beyond him. He was going to London at once, by that
same late train from Derby which had taken her from him. To sleep in a
bed this night would be insupportable. If he were in the train he would
feel that he was not wasting hours of enforced inaction. He would be in
London in time to take an early train to Worthing, and he would arrive
there during the morning, and ascertain his exact fate.
Now he knew how firmly he had built upon the idea of Virginia's faith.
In the depths of his twisted, shrunken, yet living heart, he had been
certain that she would keep her word. He still believed that she would
have kept it, had not revelation come to her. She and Rosenberg having
discovered the feeling which existed between them, how could she come
back to her nominal husband with a lie upon her lips?
As soon as she was well enough, she meant to write and explain. He was
sure of that. He kept insisting upon it, in his mind. He would save her
that effort. He would go to her and make things as easy as he could. He
would explain that he knew himself to have forfeited all claim.
His horse's hoofs were beating to the refrain: "All over! All over!"
What a fool he had made himself over the redecorating of that room!
That room which from henceforth no human foot would enter. Only the
previous night he had sat there for a couple of hours, playing upon the
new piano he had bought for her, and conjuring up the picture of her,
outlined against the delicate ivory walls, each tint of her faint
sea-shell colouring properly emphasised by the appropriate background.
He would always see her like that in future. His desolate house would
be haunted for all the desolate time to come.
He rode round by the stable yard, gave his horse to the groom, and such
was the disorder of his mind that he flinched from being seen, even by
Hemming. He forgot that he had hoped the mid-day post might bring him
news. He went out of the yard, round by the garden, and in through the
window of his own den.
Seating himself by his writing table, he found a railway guide, but he
did not even open it. His mind was too thoroughly preoccupied with its
own bitterness. He rested his elbows on the desk, propping his chin
upon them, in a sort of exhaustion of defeat.
When he wandered that day all unwitting into Hertford House, his two
angels had wandered with him--the good and the evil. The good had taken
his hand, had whispered persuasively that his sad days were over--had
shown him something so fair and sweet that----Ah, but the black spirit
at his elbow had pushed forward. "After all these years in my service,
do you think I am going to stand aside and see you join the opposition?"
He heard the dressing-bell ring, and realised that, if he meant to
catch that train, he must call Hemming and have his things put together
at once. Yet still he could not move. The bonds of his misery seemed to
hold him tied to his chair, tied to this ghastly echoing house full of
phantoms. He had had no food since about noon, and his emptiness had
passed beyond the stage of hunger. It made him dazed. As he sat there,
it was as though life surged within him for the last time, urging him
to go to Worthing and face his doom like a man; and as though the old
house rejoiced over his stupor, murmuring that his place was there,
among the ruins of his own brutal folly and fruitless hate.
With an effort he stood up, found matches, lit the gas. He must and
would look at that railway guide. Yet, when the light shone upon his
untidy table, he forgot all about Bradshaw. There, lying where he had
laid them before going out, were certain cases of jewellery which had
that morning come back from London. He had had everything cleaned, and
some things re-set, in the phantom hope of a time when he might be
allowed to give her presents.
He fixed his eyes upon the leather cases, as if they had been so many
coffins. For the moment he gave up the attempt to consider his
expedition. It seemed so important that he should realise just how
futile his attempts to undo the past must inevitably prove.
A light step came along the passage. He almost groaned, for it might
have been hers; and he dreaded lest all his life he should be pursued
by those haunting footfalls. Then a touch upon the handle of the door
startled him in a second from apathy. The handle was turning, the door
was about to open. What should he see? In his present exalted abnormal
frame of mind, he might see anything, might even cause his thought of
her to take shape, so that she stood in bodily presence before him.
It seemed to him only what he had foreseen when the slowly opening oak
revealed her standing there.
He knew that it was her wraith, because she was so white--so
unnaturally white. She wore white, too. Her eyes were dilated, with a
dread which she could not conceal. It is possible that he might have
heard the beating of her heart, had his own not pulsed so loudly.
He rose slowly to his feet--slowly, to match her entrance. He neither
moved nor spoke, as she shut the door carefully behind her. As she did
so the thought stirred in his mind that he had never heard of a ghost
who closed a door. But his mind was a long way off. The part of him now
active was something utterly different.
Then she moved forward towards him as he stood in the circle of light.
She came on bravely until she was within a few paces of him, and then
paused, and gave a little sound between a laugh and a gasp.
"Well," said she, and valiantly held out her hand, "I have come back,
you see!"
He was so startled at her voice that he gave a low cry. Moving
suddenly--always with him a mark of strong agitation--he first grasped
her hand in both his own, then retaining it with one, passed the other
hesitatingly up her arm, till it rested upon her warm shoulder. "My
God," he said, "you are real! Speak, Virginia--are you real?"
She set her teeth in the effort not to flinch, but she shook so that
her trembling was perceptible to him.
"Real? Yes, of course. Did you think I was a ghost?" she asked,
shrinking a little backward, so that his hand fell from her shoulder.
"I did! How could you come here? You were ill! Ferris said----"
"But I am better, and I told you in my letter that I should come the
first minute that I was able."
"What letter?"
She shuddered a little. Then it was true! Her letter had been kept
back! "I telegraphed to-day," she stammered, more and more nervous.
"You were out, but the motor met me at the station. When I arrived I
told them not to tell you I was here. I--I thought I would tell you
myself. Oh, are you angry with me?"
"Angry?" he said with breaking voice. He turned his head aside, for he
could not control the working of his face.
"Why are you so surprised to see me?" she ventured, after a pause. "You
knew I should come back."
"How could I know it?" he asked, almost inaudibly.
"I was on my honour," she answered, equally low. Then, gathering force
as he still stood with averted face, "I gave you my word to submit to
anything, if you let me go to Pansy. She doesn't need me any more, so I
am here." She waited a moment, but still he did not speak. "I am well
and strong now," she persisted bravely. "I can do anything that you
wish. What are you going to do with me?"
"There's only one thing I can do with you," came the answer. "I can't
let you go."
She stood immovably, her eyes fixed upon him. The dread lest he was not
perfectly sane once more assailed her. Her mother had spoken of him as
a monomaniac. Perhaps she feared him more at that moment than ever
previously.
When he turned abruptly, with his characteristic jerk, she started and
shrank only too visibly.
"Explain," he said. "Sit down in this chair--you look as white as a
sheet--and explain. You tell me you are well and strong. Your mother in
a letter which I got last Saturday morning told me you were seriously
ill. Ferris, whom I met to-day in town, said that the doctor would not
let you get up. There is some discrepancy here."
Her eyes filled with tears. "I know," she said. "May I tell you about
it?"
"Certainly."
He had seated her in the old wooden writing-chair from which he had
risen. He fetched another for himself, and placed it near. The lamp
fell upon her burnished hair and upon his strained face as he raised it
to her. It struck her that he was very different from her memory of
him. His eyes had surely grown larger, his face thinner. His close-cut
hair changed his appearance. He wore other, nicer clothes than those in
which she was accustomed to see him; but chiefly he looked younger,
less assured. There was something almost wistful in his expression.
She gave a swift, appraising glance, and lowered her eyes to the table.
In her nervousness she would have liked to take up a paper knife and
play with it. Some deep instinct told her to be simple and perfectly
straightforward. She let her hands lie in her lap.
"Mamma," she began, "did not want me to come back. I--I suppose she
told you of the vexatious motor accident, which obliged Mr. Rosenberg
and me to stop the night in a horrid little wayside inn?"
"She said something of it--yes."
"Of course I was most anxious not to have to be away all night, because
I was to leave Worthing next day to come back here, and so, when the
car did not return, I was urgent in begging that we might try to reach
home some other way. So we drove in a little open cart, through pouring
rain, to try and catch a train--the last train--and just missed it. I
got very wet, and I could not dry my things properly, the place was so
dirty and comfortless; and I got a little feverish chill. It was not
much, but it made me delirious for some hours. I think the fever was
partly because I was vexed and anxious. You see, I had written to you
to say I was coming, and it was annoying to be stopped like that.
Anyway, when I was sensible again mamma said I--I had been saying
things ... you understand ... things about you ... when I didn't know
what I was talking about."
"I see." His tone was dry.
"I had been very careful," she urged humbly, "not to say anything about
what had passed between us. I hope you will forgive me for letting
things out, unintentionally?"
"Let me hear all that happened before we talk about that."
She looked frightened, but after a short pause continued indomitably.
"Mamma seemed horrified. She begged me not to come back to you. In
order to delay my coming, she told the doctor to keep me in bed, though
I was practically well. I did not know what to do. I pretended to give
in. Then she went to town--this morning--for a day's shopping or
something, and Grover and I ran away without telling anybody. I hope
you think I did right. You see, I knew I ought to come; I would not
have deceived mamma, but my first duty is to you, and Grover told me
that she had done something she really had no right to do. She had
intercepted a letter from me to you. Ah, I know, it was partly my
fault. I don't know what I may have said when I was wandering. She
thought she was acting for the best, no doubt. But I felt unsafe
somehow."
"I suppose you mean," said Gaunt slowly, "that your mother thought you
had better not come back to me at all?"
"I think so--yes. She said the law would give me relief----"
"She was very probably right. And yet--you came? ... It did not strike
you that that was a foolish thing to do? You did not reflect that
possession is nine points of the law?"
He was looking fully at her, voice and eyes alike charged with meaning
which could not be mistaken. She did not flinch. Her brown eyes told
him that she had reflected, that in returning she was fully conscious
of the finality of her action.
"I had not to consider that," was her instant reply. "I had to do what
I knew to be right. I had to keep my word."
She spoke most evidently without any desire to create an effect. The
listening man restrained himself with difficulty, but held on for a
moment, to elucidate one more point.
"You came back, perhaps, in order to lay the case before me? To see if
I would set you free?"
"Certainly not," was the steady answer. "You and I made an agreement.
You have kept your half--you have done all you promised; but I"--the
colour rushed over her face--"I have not done any of my share."
Not at all theatrically, but as naturally as an old Italian peasant
will kiss the Madonna's feet, he slipped from his chair to his knees.
So quietly that it did not startle Virginia at all, he took up one of
the hands that lay in her lap and raised it to his lips. The action, so
unlike him, the silence in which he performed it, amazed her so that
she neither moved nor spoke. He replaced her hand, laying it tenderly
down, and seemed as though he would speak, from his lowly position at
her feet. Then, with his own brusque suddenness, he rose, and stood
beside her, almost over her.
"God has used me better than I deserved," he muttered gruffly. "He has
let me prove--prove to the hilt--that there is such a thing as a
perfectly noble woman. Virginia, there shall be a way out for you. If
you think my word of any value, I give it solemnly. I will make things
right somehow. I may not be able to do it at once; I must think the
matter over carefully. In the meantime, I want you to understand my
position." He paused a moment, and then spoke more fluently, as if the
thing he expressed had long been in his mind and so came easily from
his lips. "When I first met you I had been, to all intents and
purposes, a madman for twenty years. I had not been twenty-four hours
your husband before I came to myself. It was as though--only I can't
express it--as though your innocence were a looking-glass, in which I
saw the kind of thing I am. Ever since, I have been your humble
servant. I--I tried to let you see this, but of course it was hopeless.
You were ill, and they told me to keep out of your way. Then, when you
left me ... your heart was full of your little sister, occupied with
your own grief. I couldn't force on you the consideration of mine."
He paused, and she knew it was to summon command of his voice.
"And the idea came to me that I would wait--that I would find out, for
a certainty, that you really were as fine as I had grown to think you.
I wanted to prove that you were heroic enough to come back to--to the
sort of thing which, as you believed, awaited you here. So I wouldn't
write to you as I longed to ... I just kept silence ... and you came.
You are here ... I am such a fool at saying what I mean, but I must
make you understand that, for so long as it may be necessary for you to
remain, you are sacred. I--I will ask you to let me eat with you, and
be with you sometimes, because of--er--the household. But once for all,
I want you to feel quite sure that you have nothing to fear from me."
Thus, for the second time in her knowledge of him, the man broke
through his taciturnity. She could not know that this outburst was far
more characteristic of the real Osbert Gaunt than the sullen, frozen
surface hitherto presented.
She had no words in which to answer it. The world had turned upside
down, she could not reason, could not think out what this might
ultimately mean for her. She could not grasp the fact of her husband's
complete change of front. Seated in the old chair, worn shiny with many
years of usage, she laid her hands upon its arms and lifted her eyes to
his, first in wonder, then in a gladness which shone out in a smile
that transfigured her pale face. He was quite near--almost stooping
over her, and he held his breath with the intensity of the thrill that
ran through him.
"O-o-oh!" she cooed tremulously. "Oh, Osbert!"
The sound of his name so moved him that he almost lost control. It
sounded like a caress, it was as if she had kissed him. He told himself
that he would count up the times she said it, from now until his final
exit--treasure them in his mind and call them kisses.
At this moment the gong for dinner boomed in the hall. It brought both
of them back with a start to the present moment. Virgie put her hands
to her eyes as if she had been dreaming. The man was first of all
uncomfortably conscious of riding breeches and gaiters.
"Good heavens, dinner, and I haven't dressed! I can't sit down with you
like this!"
"Oh, yes, please do," she said, rising from her seat with a new gaiety,
as though a weight had rolled away.
"Please don't keep me waiting while you dress, I am so hungry, and I
want to show you my fine new appetite! Besides, Grover is sure to drive
me upstairs at an unearthly hour, she has been clucking after me all
day like an old mother hen, because, you see, I actually got out of bed
to travel! So don't waste any more time, but just come in as you are."
"I'll wash my hands--shan't be five minutes," he stammered out, the
sudden, everyday intimacy breaking upon him like a fiery, hitherto
untasted source of bliss. "Wait for me, won't you?"