Camilla came home very late that night.
She had dined firstly with Sir Samuel and another couple at one of the
big restaurants. After that she had gone to the play, and lastly she
had gone back to supper at the house of a certain woman who affected a
great regard for her, and there she had played cards with her usual
disastrous luck.
She had driven home alone, tired, depressed, and yet conscious of an
enormous relief.
For Broxbourne had spoken that night of going out of town immediately.
This he had said when they had been alone, and the conversation had so
tended that had he been prepared to bring forward the subject she so
dreaded to hear, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for
him to have done so.
Indeed, Camilla had held her breath for a moment, preparing herself to
meet the black moment that had haunted her in anticipation ever since
she had met him so unexpectedly that evening in the railway carriage.
But Sir Samuel had said nothing. Evidently he was still unaware that he
had it in his power to make her suffer.
"And if he does go," Camilla said to herself wearily, as she alighted
at her own door and passed into the silent house, "that means that I
can breathe again. Oh, I wish he would go! I am not afraid of him as I
was in the old days, but I loathe him just as much. He is more hateful
than ever. He was always coarse and hateful, but now he is worse.
Nothing can be beautiful in life when such a man is close to one." She
smiled faintly. "If Agnes Brenton could hear me," she said to herself,
"I suppose she would think that I was a little madder than usual, since
I fought her the other day when she was trying to say this very same
thing about Sammy. But, then, I should be sorry to be obliged to let
Agnes understand why I seem to encourage this man. How Ned hated him!
To-night when we were at supper all that Ned used to say about Sammy
came back to me with a rush.... And to think that I have made it
possible for such a brute to have the whip hand over me! Oh, sometimes
I think it is a good thing to die even as Ned died! There can at least
be no chance of being a miserable fool when one is in one's little
grave."
Some letters were lying for her on the table. She gathered them
together without looking at them, turned out the light, and mounted the
stairs quietly.
It seemed an incongruous thing for this woman, so exquisitely arrayed,
to be doing little menial duties. But Camilla was very thoughtful in
lots of things. She never permitted any one of the maids to sit up for
her.
Late as it was, a bright fire was still burning in the grate, and her
room was warm and cosy.
She sat down in the big easy-chair in front of the fire.
Her thoughts still hovered about Broxbourne. When she was tired, and
there was no excitement, she was ripe for remorse, for
self-recrimination. And now it seemed to her overstrained nerves that
she was tainted with the very coarseness, the vulgarity of the man she
hated so much.
"If he will only go away," she said feverishly, "I shall feel free to
breathe again: free of one horrible burden at all events! and he spoke
very definitely of going to-night. Now I am sure," she said the next
moment, "he can know nothing. If he had, he _must_ have let me realize
this in some way or other. We have been so much together. I have wanted
to be with him as much as I could, just on purpose to watch him! And if
he does not know now, why should he ever know? If I could only set the
matter right unknown to him!" She gave a long sigh, and shut her eyes
for a moment. "What a lot of things there are to set right! What a
fearful lot!"...
She sat with her eyes closed for a little while, and then she roused
herself and began to draw off her long gloves slowly. As she did so a
little scrap of paper fell from the palm of one. She picked it up. It
had scribbled on it the amount she had lost that night at bridge.
This swept her thoughts sharply into the old, the well-worn channel.
"Forty-seven pounds!" she said to herself. "Oh, Lord, what a fool I am!
Why can't I play like other people do? I shall have to settle this
to-morrow. Ena will be round here with the milk to get her money. How I
hate losing to women."
She got up with a jerk, and her letters were scattered on the ground.
As she stooped and picked them up she glanced at the writing on each.
One was from Agnes Brenton, the others looked like bills, with the
exception of one that was addressed in a handwriting she knew and
feared only too well.
It was a letter from Colonel Lancing, her husband's father.
Camilla bit her lip sharply and trembled. She flung off her beautiful
theatre wrap, and stood deliberating with the letter unopened in her
hand. Then with a sort of grim shadow on her face she took the plunge,
and tore open the envelope.
The very look of the letter, with its straight, hard characters had an
accusing tone about it. It started without any courteous beginning.
It was a horrible letter for Camilla Lancing to read. Clearly, coldly,
uncompromisingly the writer put before her his knowledge of all those
many facts that she had worked so hard to keep concealed from him.
Her life of debt and difficulty, her extravagances, her gambling, her
friends, and her follies were denounced in hard, deliberate terms.
She was judged without mercy, without a chance of defence; and her
sentence was written in the same hard, merciless way.
Colonel Lancing announced that the allowance he had made her since his
son's death was taken from her; her independence was to cease at once.
"My son's children have been left too long in the miserable atmosphere
of the life you affect; they are no longer infants, and I claim them.
They will come to my home, and be reared in the way they should be
reared, and if you conform to my commands you may live with them. But
let us understand one another clearly. Here there will be permitted no
reckless folly, no sinful waste; none of those things that have brought
you to where you are. You will be given a place with my daughters,
because you are the children's mother, and for no other reason; your
life will be ordered entirely by me, and in accordance with what I hold
to be proper and fit for a woman in your position. Refuse this, and I
wash my hands of you; you may sink to what depth you like. But the
children shall not sink. I have been patient too long, hoped too long.
I now see that there is no good in you, and I mean to stand between
these children and the harm you would do them."
Camilla stood like one transfixed.
The letter fluttered from her hand and lay on the floor.
The strong light of the electric light that was placed above her long
mirror fell mercilessly upon her.
Her radiant charm seemed blotted out in this moment. She was like a
woman blanched with some acute physical suffering.
This blow had fallen so suddenly, so unexpectedly. She had always known
that she was an object of dislike, even of hatred, to her husband's
people, that her claim upon them was recognized grudgingly; but she had
quickly taught herself to think about them as little as possible. Her
dependence only angered her when it had seemed to demand something of
her. Even now it was not the hurt to herself that sent the blood
running like ice in her veins; it was this stern revelation of
authority, this demand for her children and the knowledge that, placed
as she was, defiance to that authority was out of the question.
She put out her hand and steadied herself by the toilette-table; but
she trembled and swayed as she stood, and once her eyes turned to the
door in a hunted way, as though she could fashion out of the shadows on
the landing the figure of the stern old man, who denounced her in words
she dared not repeat to herself, who claimed from her the dearest
possession life held for her.
The silent emptiness of the room came upon her all at once as the clock
on the mantelpiece chimed three. Four hours of solitude stretched
before her. Four hours before she could expect Dennis to knock at her
door! Four hours of heart degradation and anguish, and deadly sickening
fear! She put up one cold hand and pushed her hair back from her brow.
It seemed to her as if already she were alone; already she had been
robbed of those little lives that made everything sweet, even the
darkest hour.
"I am frightened," she said to herself, "I am frightened!
frightened!... What shall I do?"
She began to pace the room, averting her eyes from the letter that lay
on the floor. Once she said with her pale lips--
"Violet has done this!"
Another time she almost cried aloud as if with a sudden pain. Then all
at once she stood still. Her expression changed. Her face flamed with
colour, and she commenced with cold, feeble fingers to get out of her
beautiful gown.
A feverish intention born of that sudden thought began to run like
wildfire in her veins. She tore at the hooks, she had no thought for
the delicacy of the lace, or the fragility of the material. She almost
spurned the gown with her foot as it slipped from her, and she
veritably threw aside the jewelry she had worn.
On her way to the door she only paused to fold herself in her warm
dressing-gown and to shed her high-heeled satin shoes. Then softly, and
with that same curious fever urging her on, she mounted the stairs
cautiously till she stood outside the room where her children slept.
Caroline was a light sleeper. She started up in bed nervously as she
heard the door open and some one move softly into the room.
"Who is it?" she asked. "Who is there? Is it you, Dennis? Has anything
happened?"
Camilla came to the foot of the bed. She could not speak; she was
breathing hardly, with difficulty. At first the girl could not
distinguish her clearly, the light was so dim; but almost immediately
she recognized that it was not Dennis who had come, and, slipping in
haste from the bed, she went at once to the bowed figure that sat
rocking itself to and fro, breathing in that painful fashion, as if
struggling with some great suffering.
"You are ill; what can I do for you? Tell me. Oh, please tell me!"
Caroline said, her nerves all ajar.
Camilla caught at her two hands.
"I ... I have had a shock," she said, when she could speak, "and I am
frightened ... very frightened. I cannot stay alone. I want to be near
the children. I _must_ have the children with me.... I have come to
take them downstairs."
To her suffering, distorted, mental vision in this moment Caroline
looked like some spirit, tall and straight in her long, white
nightgown, with her dark hair falling in two heavy plaits from her
small, smooth head.
The girl was more than a little frightened herself, but she calmed
herself with an effort.
It was, of course, impossible for her even to guess at what had
happened; nor did she wish to, she only wanted to help, to comfort, if
possible, for she realized that she had to minister to one who was
passing through no ordinary ordeal.
Putting her finger on her lip as a gesture of silence, she drew Camilla
to her feet.
"I will go down with you," she whispered, and they passed together out
of the room, but Camilla's mind dwelt on the children.
"Don't separate me from them," she said; her voice was so changed, so
dull, so hoarse. "Don't stand between me and the children," she said
almost passionately.
"If you will go downstairs," said Caroline, quietly and gently, "I will
bring the children down. I don't think they will wake. Make the bed
ready and turn the lights low. I think we will put them into the
blankets, they will not feel the cold that way."
At first she had been on the point of suggesting that Camilla should
stay in the nursery and take her bed, but she quickly felt that it
would be a wise thing to occupy the other woman a little, for even to
her untutored eye there were unmistakable signs of acute and dangerous
mental tension about Camilla at this moment.
"If you will go and make everything ready and come up again, you might
carry Baby down," she whispered.
It made her heart ache sharply to see the pitiful eagerness with which
Camilla did her bidding.
When the mother came back again she had divested herself of her silk
underskirt, so that there should be as little noise as possible.
"Give me Betty," she whispered; then she pushed Caroline gently on one
side. "I can lift her myself," she said, "I have done it before."
She almost staggered under the burden of the sleeping child as she took
it out of the bed; but the colour came back to her face, and her eyes
lost that wild look as she held Betty to her heart.
Caroline tucked a cot blanket securely about the little feet, and went
down closely behind.
"Now I will bring Baby," she whispered.
Both journeys were accomplished satisfactorily; neither child woke,
though Baby for a moment opened her sleepy eyes as though she would
have questioned what was passing with her.
When they were both laid in Camilla's luxurious bed (and by the sound
of their breathing the two listeners had assured themselves that the
rest was unbroken) the mother went up to Caroline and kissed her, and
then she put her arms round the girl and clung to her.
"Don't think me mad," she said hoarsely; "to-morrow I will tell you
all."
"You are so cold," said Caroline, unevenly; "won't you have something?
Let me get you a little brandy?"
"It is you who ought to be cold," said Camilla; "how selfish I am,
dragging you out of your bed like this."
They spoke in hushed tones.
"I am not a bit cold," Caroline said.
Indeed, she had found time to slip on something about her shoulders,
though her feet were bare.
She insisted upon putting Mrs. Lancing in the chair in front of the
fire, and then she went down to the dining-room and brought back a
little brandy.
Camilla thanked her with a wan smile, and urged the girl a second time
to go back to her bed. But Caroline would not leave her at once.
She was a little alarmed at Mrs. Lancing's look, and she knelt down,
chafing first the cold, slender hands, and then the small, cold feet.
"It is a long time since I carried Betty," Camilla said after a little
while. "Dear heart, she has grown so much she is no longer a baby,
alas! alas!"
The stimulant had already commenced to put a little sign of warmth and
life into her; the misery in her expression was breaking a little.
"She was my first baby, you know," she said, "and her father thought
her the most wonderful thing in the world. He used to walk up and down
with her for hours at a time, and the old nurse I had was _so_ angry
with him!... She said it was such a bad habit. But I loved to see him
with that little creature in his arms; he was so gentle with it.... And
then to think that he could forget her, turn away and leave her!... It
does not seem so bad that he should have forgotten me," she said. She
spoke dreamily.
There was a long pause. Caroline still chafed the small feet.
"You wonder, perhaps, why I asked for Betty," Camilla said in a low
voice. "I love them both just the same, but Betty belonged to the
beginning. Her father never saw Baby; poor little Baby! I wonder would
he have stayed if he had seen her?"
"You are warm now," said Caroline, brightly; "do let me help you into
bed. You will feel so much better there, and the children will keep you
warm. Won't they be surprised when they wake up and find themselves in
your bed?"
The smile that came into Mrs. Lancing's eyes was very pleasant to the
girl kneeling beside her to see.
Her heart began to beat a little less nervously. The fear and the
uneasiness began to slip from her. When she would have got up Camilla
held her back a moment.
"You have been so good to me," she said in a broken way, "and you give
me such a sense of strength, of comfort. How angry nurse would have
been if I had disturbed her as I have disturbed you! Dennis is right. I
have never had any one about me like you before."
Caroline smiled. There was a great sweetness in her face.
To the woman looking at her she had still that spiritual touch about
her, and yet she was human, human in the most exquisite meaning of the
word.
"Do let me help you to undress.... I am sure you ought to be in bed,"
she urged.
She got her way, and a little later, after she had tended Camilla as if
she had been a tired child, she stood and looked at the mother nestling
down in the bed between those two small slumbering forms, and the sight
brought tears to her eyes.
"I am going to stay a little while in case you want me," she whispered.
Camilla heard her as in a dream.
The hot agony had passed from her heart and a sense of exhaustion fell
upon her; she lay with a hand touching each of her children, and
Caroline moved about the room softly, putting it tidy.
She picked up the lace gown from the floor; she laid it and the
magnificent wrap on the couch.
The fire lit up the room with a warm, ruddy glow. Caroline put some
more coals on noiselessly. By the firelight she saw the scattered
jewels and gathered them together; then she put the letters in a pile,
with Colonel Lancing's at the bottom.
When all was done she paused and listened quite a long time.
Mrs. Lancing never moved; she had fallen asleep.
"Poor creature!" said Caroline to herself.
She stole softly away, but the room upstairs had such a desolate look,
she could not stay in it; so, as sleep was impossible now, she dressed
quickly, and went back to Mrs. Lancing's room still in the same soft
way.
"I may be of some use," she said.
She sat in the chair by the fire and she watched the bed. It gave her a
sense of extraordinary gladness to see those three so closely together;
in this moment she seemed to share in their union; she ceased to be a
stranger.