Cassandra returned home to fight her battle hour after hour with weary
reiteration. In her mind was one predominating determination,--to be
loyal to the son she had borne, and to bring no shame upon his name, but
against the cold rock of that decision dashed the waves of a passionate
desire. She was starving for love, and the gates of her woman's kingdom
stood open entreating her entrance. All that she had longed for, all
that she had dreamt, was waiting for her; the lifting of a hand would
bring it to pass. Duty faced passion in grim stolidity; passion lashed
itself in fury, only to fall abashed before that impenetrable front.
Cassandra had sufficient strength to hold fast to her determination;
sufficient weakness to regret its power, and to long, wildly, weakly,
overwhelmingly for courage to throw everything to the winds, and snatch
her hour of joy.
Grizel had prophesied that the joy would be but of an hour, that
continued happiness was impossible under wrong conditions, and in her
heart Cassandra acknowledged the truth. Both Dane and herself had lived
their lives in an atmosphere of convention and morality; they were not
the stuff to defy the world, and live undaunted by snubs and chills.
The first wild rapture would be succeeded by mutual loneliness, mutual
remorse. On each would press a burden of responsibility for that other
dear wrecked life. Cassandra acknowledged the inevitability of regret,
in imagination lived through it, saw the cloud on Dane's face, felt the
cramp at her own heart, but even so... even so... they would have had
their hour! If the ship were sunk, there would be treasure saved from
the wreck. Better to sail forth for the high seas, facing dauntlessly
tempest and fire, than to spend the whole of life in a backwater,
anchored to a stone!
So the battle waged, hour after hour in weary repetition. Cassandra
fought vainly to sink the woman in the mother, and resurrect the old
thrills of devotion. She thought of the baby who had lain in her arms,
the little cooing, kicking cherub who had been the light of her eyes;
she thought of the first toddling steps, of the first coherent word, of
the first, the very first time that the little arms stretched out, of
the little dimpled baby splashing in a bath. One by one she recalled
the landmarks sweet to a mother's heart, but before them all, veiling
them like a cloud, stood the image of a stolid, freckled-face boy in an
Eton suit, a boy who signed his letters "Raynor," considered affection
bad form, and preferred to spend the "hols" visiting other fellows'
homes. It was not for the adorable baby of old, but for the Eton-suited
boy of to-day that she was to sacrifice her love!
Would he care? Would he really care? Guiltily she allowed her mind to
wander down the forbidden path. He would hear nothing. Bernard would
keep everything from him until--the divorce. The case would be
undefended, no savoury morsels would appear in the newspaper to whet the
appetites of the unclean, the vast majority of readers would not notice
its presence. Eventually, of course, something would have to be said.
Cassandra winced as she imagined Bernard's bluff words to his son: "Look
here, boy, never speak of your mother again. She's not coming back.
Some day you'll understand; until then do as you're told, and keep your
mouth shut. She's dead. D'you understand that? Dead and buried so far
as concerns us. Never speak of her again."
Bernard would not abuse a mother to her son, his sense of fair play was
too strong; he would simply shut her out from his life, and leave the
boy to form his own judgment later on. But with the sharpness of
dawning adolescence Bernard junior would sense something wrong,
something shameful, flush unhappily beneath the servants' gaze, and
return to school miserably dreading that the fellows had heard!
No! Cassandra could not do it. She could not shame her child. She
could not step down from the pedestal on which the most prosaic of sons
instinctively places a mother. Every fresh struggle ended in the same
most piteous, most womanly cry: "I can't. I can't. But oh, Dane, Dane,
I _want to_!"
During these three days Cassandra stayed entirely within the grounds and
denied herself to visitors, but she had a constant terror that Teresa
would call and force an interview. The girl must suspect some such
meeting as had taken place in the summer-house; must realise that her
own fate hung in the balance. What more natural than that she should
want to plead her own cause? Cassandra stiffened in anticipation.
Nothing, she knew, would induce such a reckless disregard of duty as to
hear it advocated from Teresa's lips. For Heaven's sake, for her _own_
sake, let the girl keep away!
But the days slipped past, and Teresa did not appear, and a new terror
dawned in Cassandra's heart. Suppose instead of coming to herself, the
girl went to Bernard and warned him of the threatened danger to his
house! Every time that her husband entered the room afresh, Cassandra
glanced at his face with an eager scrutiny, and every time Bernard
smiled with unruffled cheerfulness and said, "Feeling better, old girl?
Had your tonic?"
Grizel had laid down strict injunctions as to the treatment of her
patient on her return to the Court, and had perjured herself by giving
the Squire a highly pessimistic opinion of his wife's health, the result
of which had been a certain amount of bluff kindliness and unfailing
enquiries as to the consumption of tonics. Cassandra detested the idea
of Bernard's hearing the truth from Teresa's lips, but there were
occasions when she burned to tell him herself, occasions when it would
have been the greatest relief in the world to say, "I am not ill. I am
not suffering from shock. I am in love. I want to elope with your
friend Dane Peignton. I am breaking my heart because it's my duty to
stay."
Imagination pictured his face as he stood and listened. The steely
eyes, the glint of teeth, the ruddy colour surging up over the thick
throat, the large clean-shaven face, up to the roots of the short sandy
hair. "You can look me in the face," he would say, "and _dare_ to say
such a thing? Have you no shame?"
"Why should I have shame?" she could hear herself answer. "I have done
no wrong. I am breaking my heart to do what is right. I am not
ashamed, but I am dreadfully, dreadfully unhappy!" But Bernard would
have no compassion. He would make no distinctions. She would
henceforth be contemptible in his eyes. To the end of their life
together he would regard her with suspicion; enquiring into her every
action, reading guilt into the simplest friendship. The horror of that
suspicion sealed Cassandra's lips.
The days passed by, Wednesday arrived, and Teresa had not moved.
Cassandra vouchsafed a grudging admiration. There was--as Grizel had
said--something fine about the girl's restraint. What was she thinking,
what was she doing all these days, when of a certainty Dane must be
standing aloof, waiting for the message which never came? How could she
bear it, caged in that tiny house, with the terrible mother probing for
explanations? Cassandra recalled how Mary had declared that it was
impossible even to cry without attracting curious rappings at the door.
She heaved a sigh of thankfulness for the blessing of space.
Wednesday morning passed by, lunch hour came bringing with it Bernard,
and the inevitable enquiry _re_ tonics, two o'clock arrived, three
o'clock. In another half-hour she would leave the house, take her way
to the summer-house, meet Dane once more, look deep into his eyes, feel
the clasp of his arms. All life seemed concentrated into those next few
hours, the expectation had been in her heart since the moment when she
had parted from him four days before; the near prospect of meeting had
mitigated every pang. Now that that meeting was at hand every other
feeling was merged in joy. The moment was hers, she seized it greedily,
with no consciousness of guilt. She was going to do right, she was
going to say goodbye,--surely even Teresa would not grudge her her short
hour!
Cassandra put on a shady hat, and stood before the long mirror regarding
her own reflection as a woman will who is about to meet her lover. The
white dress fell in soft lines accentuating her long slimness, the hat
was white also, a simple affair of straw, with a twisted scarf of
_crepe_, the gold-flecked hair, the soft carmine of the cheeks, the
blue, pathetic eyes gained an added beauty from the lack of colour.
Cassandra knew that she was beautiful at that moment, she also knew that
that beauty would plant a sharper thorn in Dane's heart, but being a
woman she rejoiced nevertheless. If she could have made herself more
lovely, she would have done it unto ten times ten. She turned from the
mirror, opened the door of her room, and crept quietly downstairs. It
was her desire that no one should see her or know that she had left the
house. Once the great hall was reached she would slip into the library,
and thence through the open window to a side path giving access to a
shrubbery, thereby avoiding observation from upstair windows or from the
gardeners at work on the terrace beds. Then let what might happen, she
would be undisturbed for the afternoon.
She had reached the lowest step, the library was but a few yards away,
when fate shot her bolt. The door of Bernard's office opened, and he
came towards her, telegram in hand. Many telegrams arrived at the
Court. Cassandra was too much a woman of the world to share the fear
with which many of her sisters regard the orange-coloured sheets, but
she needed no words to tell her that this message was no mere business
communication. At the mere sight her heart died within her. There was
just one thing on earth which she lived for at that moment, and the
telegram had come to block her way. She stood still and cold waiting
Bernard's explanation.
"Look here, I say,--here's bad news! The old Mater. Taken worse this
morning. Another stroke. The second this time, so it may mean the end.
Jevons has been looking up the trains."
Cassandra did not speak. The old Mater was a venerable and disagreeable
old lady whose bronchitic tendencies had made it necessary to abandon
the dower house and make her abode in a more southern county. The
necessity had been to the daughter-in-law a matter of continual
thanksgiving, but to the Squire a real regret. His intensely
conventional nature recognised the duty of honouring a parent, and he
had a genuine and rather touching affection for the cross old woman, who
rarely opened her mouth except to grumble and lament. To Cassandra the
mother-in-law had been an unmitigated trial, and she could not affect to
feel regret at the prospect of an end to a weary invalidism. The
knife-like pang which rent her heart had no connection with the house of
Raynor.
"You--you are going down at once?"
"What do you think! Of course we're going. I was just coming up to
tell you to get ready."
The pang of presentiment had been well founded. Cassandra felt the
hopelessness of a trapped animal, but desperation nerved her to a feeble
protest.
"Me? Bernard! _ought_ I to come? She'll be unconscious. I couldn't
_do_ anything. I should only be another person in the house--giving
more trouble."
The blue eyes had their most steely glance as he turned upon her.
"More shame to you if you did! You can nurse her, can't you? Take your
turn with the maid? She has a prejudice against hired nurses. Good
heavens, have you no feeling? My mother ill--dying--and you talk of
staying at home! What's the matter if she is unconscious? Your duty is
to go and look after her, and I'll see that you do it." He pulled out
his watch and looked at it hastily. "You have twenty-five minutes
before the car comes round. Get Rogers to put a few things in a bag--
just what you want for to-night. She can bring along the boxes
to-morrow. Goodness knows how long we may have to stay..."
He wheeled round and went back to his room, and Cassandra dragged
wearily upstairs. Twenty-five minutes--in twenty-five minutes' time
Dane would be awaiting her in the summer-house, and she herself would be
leaving the house, leaving the neighbourhood, travelling down to the
wilds of Devon, there to remain for goodness knew how long, out of
sight, out of touch,--a prisoner, when of all times in her life she most
longed to be free.
Wild impulses flocked into her mind, an impulse to turn back, make her
escape into the shrubbery, and fly to keep her tryst. If Dane were
waiting, would it be possible to reach him, to explain, feel for one
moment the grip of his arms, and get back in time to change her dress,
and be ready for the car? No, it was impossible. Moreover, what if
Dane had not yet arrived? When she had gone so far, would she have
courage to drag herself from the spot, where at any moment she might
behold him approaching? She knew she had not, and for one wild moment
wondered if she could dare still further; deliberately disappear,
deliberately _stay_ away until Bernard was forced to depart alone, but
even while one by one the questions raced through her brain she
continued to drag wearily up the great staircase. Here was an
illustration of the greater struggle on a lesser plane. Her heart was
vagrant, panting to escape, but the chains of duty held. Bernard was
her husband; he was in trouble; he demanded her help; at whatever cost
to herself that help must be given.
Cassandra gave instructions to her maid, and retired to her boudoir to
send a telephone message to the one person in Chumley who would come to
her aid. Grizel was at home, and her voice came over the wire clear and
distinct.
"Yes, it's me. I'm alone. What is it?"
Cassandra's words came haltingly. Her proud spirit had difficulty in
framing that message.
"This is Wednesday... Wednesday afternoon. You remember what was to
happen on Wednesday afternoon?... Bernard has just had a wire to say
that his mother has had a stroke. He is going to her at once--we are
both going. He says I am to nurse her... We leave in--er--in a quarter
of an hour... Grizel! I... I was just starting for the summer-house,
when he met me with this news. There is no time for--anything... Will
_you_ explain?"
Grizel's voice came back in instant reassurement.
"Cassandra, I will! Leave it to me... Cassandra, darling, _how_ long
are you to be away?"
"I don't know. How should I? Goodness knows!" cried Cassandra
bitterly.
Like a faint, sweet echo came back the words in Grizel's deepest tones:
"Goodness knows!"