Suddenly Clytie rose to her feet and left the studio. As she moved a
strange weight seemed to lie upon her limbs. It was a physical effort to
drag herself up the stairs to her bedroom. Her heart seemed to be burned
through, a fiery sword to have been thrust through her temples. It was
the supreme moment of the horror and abasement of her married life. One
intense thought possessed her; to fly from the house, to escape from
the area of Thornton's influence, to bury herself somewhere far away.
Mechanically she changed her things, choosing one of the simple morning
dresses she had retained since the days before her marriage, and bathed
her feverish face and hands. The cold water refreshed her, restored
adjustment to her quivering nerves, and she was able to think, form a
coherent plan.
She would go forthwith to her old rooms in the King's Road, which she
knew to be vacant. There she would live again as Clytie Davenant,
and shut out of her memory the nightmare of the past months. The plan
conceived, she hurried to put it into execution. She would have liked to
open the street door there and then, to cross its threshold for the last
time. But the practical side of life asserts itself in the midst of the
intensest emotions. She would have to pack her boxes, select what
things she would take with her. The aid, too, of the servants would be
necessary. After a swift look at the glass she composed her features,
summoned her maid, gave her orders in a calm, equable voice, as if she
were going on an ordinary visit in the country.
While the servants packed the articles she designated, she went down to
the studio in order to collect a few of the portable objects that were
dear to her: Rupert Kent's etching, the Jacquemart that Kent had given
her, a book or two, a favourite box of oil-tubes. All the rest she would
leave behind, together with everything that Thornton had ever given her.
The maid, an excellently trained servant, packed quickly, but to Clytie
she seemed unutterably slow. It was an effort of control to refrain
from urging the girl on, from snatching the articles from her hands
and stowing them away anyhow, haphazard. Every moment that she lingered
seemed an eternity of degradation. In after days she wondered that she
had never reflected how far Thornton's possible presence in the house
might have affected the ease of her escape. As it happened, he had flung
out of doors as soon as he had left her stricken upon the floor; but
she, in the fixity of her idea, never concerned herself as to his
whereabouts.
At last, when the boxes were packed and locked, the maid, dangling the
keys in her hand, asked Clytie when she should order the brougham.
“I shall go in a four-wheeled cab with the luggage,” said Clytie.
“Go and order one round at once.”
The maid retired wonderingly, and Clytie was left alone. She put on her
bonnet and sat down on the edge of the bed to draw on her gloves. Then
for the first time her eye fell consciously upon her wedding-ring,
and thereupon came over her the sense of all that her present action
implied: the final renunciation of the marriage-tie, the assertion of
her own individuality, the beginning of another life. And yet, in spite
of her repudiation, the tie remained, indissoluble except by death, and
this little circlet of gold was the symbol. With a twinge of pain she
wrenched it off, for it was tightly fitting, and went and threw it in a
jewel box containing the jewellery that Thornton had given her. At any
rate, she could spare herself the hourly misery of this visible bond. It
was a poor kind of relief to leave it there with the other tokens of her
wifehood.
Then, as she waited, her crushed pride rose a few degrees. Whatever
subsequent steps Thornton might take, her departure should at least
not have the indignity of flight. A scribbled line would save her
self-respect. When the servants came into the room to take down the
boxes to the cab she had written the note.
“I am leaving your house. I go back to my old rooms in the King's Road,
where I shall resume the life I led before I knew you.”
Then only did it occur to her to inquire of the footman whether Mr.
Hammerdyke was in. The man, who was accustomed to the separation between
the lives of his master and mistress, replied, without manifesting any
surprise at the question, that Mr. Hammerdyke had gone out just before
lunch.
“Put this note in his room for him,” said Clytie. “I shall be away some
time.”
In a few moments she had started. With a little convulsive moan, wrung
involuntarily from her lips by her agony of body and soul, she leaned
her head against the rusty cushions of the ramshackle vehicle and closed
her eyes. The day was still glorious, London bathed in sunlight, the
streets filled with life and motion. For all the world but her the
promise of the morning was kept. As the cab slackened its pace on
crossing the Fulham Road she opened her eyes for a moment, and looked
vacantly, as if in a dream, out of the window. Then she relapsed into
her darkness.
“And I was so happy this morning,” she murmured to herself. “I could
have lived the better life--with Kent's help!”
Kent! She started, as a wave of blood rushed to her cheeks. She was
going to Kent now, to live under the same roof with him once more, to
see him daily, to take him more intimately than ever into her life.
Until now she had not realised this coherently. Vague thoughts of him
had passed through her mind, but she had been too dazed, too sickened,
too much possessed by the overpowering longing for freedom, escape
from the house of bondage, to connect him definitely with her immediate
future. And in the unconscious sequence of ideas a little self-reproach
came into her mind, bringing with it a sense of soothing. Why had she
not thought of Kent at first, of the true, loyal friend and lover, on
whom she could rely for strength and comfort? How could she have been so
much wrapped up in herself and her wrongs as never to have given him
a place in her plans? And then the tide of feeling ebbed back again,
leaving her heart quite cold and sad. How could she meet him? How could
she tell him? The eternal woman in her shrank from the confession. If he
had been to her but a friend, it had been easy. But she loved him.
Had not her heart sung within her that very morning, only a few hours
before, at the grace and tenderness of her at last awakened love?
And she fought, womanlike, against she scarce knew what, striving
to disentwine herself like Laocoon from the coils that love and
circumstance had wound, in subtle intricacy of convolution, about her
heart. But for all her shrinking she longed for Kent. If only he could
understand it all without her telling! If only he could come that
evening and sit by her side and hold her hand in strong, mute sympathy!
Well, she would conquer her woman's diffidence, and tell him bravely.
She felt she owed him a little reparation. The inherent delight in
putting itself in the wrong is perhaps one of the most elusive traits of
a woman's nature.
The cab stopped before the familiar side door. Mrs. Gurkins, standing
beneath the awning of the shop between the stalls of cabbage and
fruit, gave a gasp of bewilderment as she saw Clytie alight from the
luggage-laden vehicle. She ran round through the connecting passage and
opened the front door.
“You are not coming to stay here, miss?” she asked.
It was only in moments of calm reflection that she could bring herself
to address Clytie more decorously as “ma'am.”
“Yes, I am,” replied Clytie in her decisive way. “Can I have my old
rooms?”
“Of course, miss--but----”
“Well, have my boxes taken up and get things straight for me, Mrs.
Gurkins. You know what an erratic creature I am, don't you? I think I am
going to stay a very long time. I'll go and see Miss Marchpane while you
do all that is necessary. You'll forgive me for putting you to all this
trouble?”
“La, miss--ma'am, I'm that glad to have you back! But Miss Marchpane
left early to-day--about an hour ago. You can go up to the sitting-room.
I was cleaning it out only yesterday.”
Clytie went upstairs to the familiar room, and took off her bonnet
and gloves. In a few moments the boxes were brought up. When she had
unpacked these and arranged their contents, and eaten as much as she
could of the meal that Mrs. Gurkins prepared for her, the glorious
afternoon had melted into night. She sat by the open window and looked
out upon the hurrying street below. It was a Saturday evening. The whole
population of the district was astir buying their Sunday provisions
or their Sunday headaches. Bands of the youth of both sexes clattered
noisily past, singing hoarsely or darting from pavement to roadway in
loud, dissonant gaiety. Along the kerb stretched the line of costers'
barrows with flaming naphtha torches, and the faces of the sellers
and buyers stood out clear in the glare. A babel of sounds arose: the
confused murmur of private conversations pitched in the discordant key
of the unrefined, the raucous cries of the costers offering their wares,
the shrill “Buy! buy!” of the butcher a few yards away and the rapid
click of his steel, the doleful nasal dirge of a tramp woman holding a
vague bundle looking like a baby in her arms, the continuous scraping of
feet, the roar of the 'buses and carts in the roadway.
Clytie had often before sat on Saturday evenings at her window, lost
in the wonder of speculation upon the individualities of the units that
composed this hurrying, bawling, laughing, cursing crowd. And now she
felt the old fascination creep over her. The noise and movement acted as
a counter-stimulus to the fierce whirl of emotions through which she had
passed during the day. She lost for the time the sense of loneliness,
soul-sickness, and bodily prostration in this external world of tumult.
What did it all mean, this hurry and strain? Looked at as a whole,
it seemed to indicate that life was intense, earnest, throbbing with
infinite variety of passions, an end in itself, to be carried on,
because it was life, to all eternity. It seemed real, practical,
objective, obeying inscrutable, immutable laws. The planets circle round
the sun; our solar system circles round another focal sphere. It is
great, it is glorious, serving some great and glorious end; yet what
that end is no man knoweth. And so with the collective life that surged
beneath Clytie's window, yielding blindly to the unchanging laws that
direct the cosmos. If this movement was meaningless and vain, then did
the stars wander futilely in their courses. Sin and shame and misery,
love and laughter and happiness, what did they matter in the progress of
collective life? They are internal forces affecting its resistless march
as little as the incessant motion of men affects the rotation of the
earth.
But the individuals, when detached from the conglomerate mass of
humanity--what was this life to them? How far was it a gracious thing
to yonder bawling cheap-jack, with his red, sodden face? And the factory
girl, with her feathered hat and deep fringe overshadowing pinched,
soulless features, looking hungrily at his Brummagem wares; the fat,
unintelligent workman's wife gossiping loudly of sickness, death, and
funerals; the besotted navvy stumbling along in the grip of a soberer
friend--how far were they intellectually, spiritually, cognisant of
life? Again as of old these questions presented themselves to Clytie.
During these latter months she had been too closely confronted with the
problems of her own personality to interest herself in that of others.
But now a newly awakened self-knowledge had given her a key to mysteries
to the elucidation of which she had once devoted all her artistic
powers. She had arrived at the truth of the relativity of individual
life. There was no such thing as absolute fulness of existence.
Everyone--coster, factory girl, statesman, poet--was striving, each
in his way, after a completer life, but the ideal of completeness
was limited by each individual's capacity for action, sensation, and
thought. Hence yonder factory girl's life might be relatively as full
as her own, the hunger for the unknown that would complete it as loudly
clamourous. Clytie was glad for the moment, almost happy. New artistic
stirrings seemed to be at work within her soul. Heretofore she had
sought a solution for the problems of life through her art. Might not
this newer knowledge and more extensive sympathy enable her to present
finely perceived truths, thus making her art less self-centred, more
universal?
This train of thought was working through her mind as she sat by the
window, resting her cheek on her arm.
Gradually, however, the thoughts confused themselves into a medley of
dim associations, which in their turn became lost in drowsiness. Worn
out by the physical strain of the day, she fell asleep in the midst of
the uproar that arose from the hurrying street.
Suddenly she became conscious of a presence beside her in the room, and,
starting up, beheld Kent looking down upon her.
“You'll get cold or a stiff neck or something sleeping by the open
window like that,” he said in his kindly way. “And yet I did not like to
wake you.”
“I do feel a little cramped,” said Clytie, rising. “But the night is
hot. Bring another chair and sit down. I shall not go to sleep again.”
Kent did as she bade him, and they sat on either side of the window,
Clytie with face half averted looking into the street, Kent leaning
forward, gazing at her with troubled eyes. For some moments neither
spoke. At last Kent broke the silence.
“Clytie!”
“Yes?”
“Was I wrong to come in? Do you want to be alone? Tell me frankly and I
will go.”
“No; stay,” replied Clytie slowly, without turning her head. “I wanted
you to come. I don't know why. How did you find out I was here?”
“Mrs. Gurkins caught me in the passage. She said you were staying some
time. I knocked at your door, but you did not answer, so I looked in,
saw you asleep there. I could not resist the temptation of coming nearer
so as to see your face. You look so done up, you must go to bed early
and have a good night's rest.”
“Ah, Kent! How like you!” said Clytie, looking quickly round at him.
Womanlike, she was pleased that he had not expressed wonderment at her
presence in the house, and beset her with abrupt questions, but tried
instead with delicate sympathy to put her at her ease.
“Can you guess why I am here, Kent?” she asked in a low voice.
“I dare not try,” he replied.
“I have finally parted from my husband.”
“Good God! Clytie, what do you mean?” he cried, with a leap at his
heart, followed by a feeling of great pity for the woman he loved, an
aching sense of the irony of things. “It has been a misunderstanding. It
will all be cleared up in time,” he continued unsteadily.
Clytie shook her head.
“No; thank God, this is the end. See my hand: that which was there I
drew off to-day for the first time. It shall never be there again.”
“Clytie, my dear friend Clytie!” said Kent, very much moved. “What can I
say to you? My heart aches for all that you must have suffered. You told
me yesterday your life was not what I thought it to be, for I fancied
you happy, with all around you to make the world bright and glorious. I
do not know what to think now. Is there no hope for your happiness?”
“Oh, no, Kent, not that way. Let me tell you at once what I can. Don't
judge me severely. I did what lay in my nature to do. I bore things that
nearly drove me mad, although perhaps many other women would not have
looked on them as burdens. But my marriage was a mistake--for both of
us. And then--oh, how can I tell you? Something happened to-day, the
climax, rendering further life there impossible. Oh, I can't speak or
even think of it!”
Her voice ended in a moan and a shivering catch of her breath, and she
covered her face with her hands. Kent leaped to his feet quivering with
a sudden intuition.
“Clytie, you have been wronged far more than by mere misunderstanding.
Did he dare----”
“Yes--yes. Don't think of it. It's all over.”
“But I must think of it. It is like a red-hot iron in my heart. I
can't bear it. All last night I lay awake thinking of your unhappiness,
tortured by regrets, hating the man who made your life a weariness to
you. I never thought of this. The coward! The brute! Oh, my God!”
And as he strode up and down the room, with set lips and clenched hands,
Clytie looked at him half-wonderingly. She had never seen her calm,
strong Kent so moved by passion. She went up to him, with natural
impulse, and put her hand on his shoulder and looked into his face.
“You need never speak or think of this again, Kent. It is all over,
buried. For nearly a year we have lived almost as separated as we shall
do henceforward. I have come to be Clytie Davenant once again, to lead
the old life of work and happiness with you and Winifred. I can blot
out the past eighteen months like an evil dream in which I have suffered
much and learned much. We can work together as we used to do, Kent, and
you will find me, I hope, a better, gentler woman, dear. Now forget all
about it, as I shall do. Remember what you said yesterday--that no life
was so wrecked as to be incapable of reconstruction. You cannot tell
what comfort you gave me. And I cannot tell you what happiness I passed
through this morning--before--ah, well----Oh, Kent, my true, loyal
Kent! I am a very weak woman, and I want your goodness and help and
tenderness. You can do nothing to help or avenge what has passed. You
can do all for me in the future if you will.”
“What I can do is small enough, God knows!” replied Kent.
“Do you know what you can do for me?”
“Tell me.”
“Let me forget myself and my selfish wants in trying to bring some
help and gladness into your life. I wronged you deeply once--I wronged
myself; let me make reparation.”
Kent turned aside and passed his hand across his forehead.
“You must not think of me,” he said in a low voice. “I am rough and
strong, with no particular burdens to bear. Some day or the other, when
you are happy, I will come to you with my little griefs for the sake of
having them charmed away by your sympathy; but until then let me think
of you--help you if I can. If I can't, Heaven knows it will not be for
want of longing to do so.”
“Kent,” said Clytie very softly, unconsciously moving nearer to him, “I
am happy now. Can't you see that I am?”
Kent's heart beat like a sledge hammer; a wave of passionate love swept
through his veins, thrilling him to the finger tips. He was conscious
that if he turned his face the hair on her forehead would brush his
cheek. Never before had a woman spoken to him in that strange tone. The
world stood still for a moment. Then in a blinding daze of light, in
which all things in heaven and earth were drowned, he turned, caught her
to him, and kissed her.
Slowly Clytie freed herself, held out a restraining hand, and, with
steps strangely faltering, moved across the room to the couch, where
she sat down and hid her face in the cushions. Kent paused for a moment,
steadying his senses still reeling from the shock of the first kiss of
love he had ever given to woman. Then he went and stood by her side.
“Forgive me, Clytie. It was base of me. But it was something beyond
my will that acted. You forget that I love you. I have wronged you, my
queen, my life! If you can ever trust me again, I will devote myself
to making you forget that I have dared to love you. I ask your pardon,
Clytie.”
He stayed for a moment looking at her bowed figure. Then, as she gave no
sign that she was moved by his appeal, he left her, and with a strange
mingling of death and gladness in his heart walked lingeringly to the
door. But just as his hand was on the knob Clytie rose impulsively from
the couch, and with hair ruffled and her cheeks glowing came up to him,
and it was she who opened the door.
“You are pardoned, dear, for I love you.”
A moment later she was alone. And she resumed her position by the open
window, and looked out upon the busy scene. But she heeded it not. Her
sight was directed to the mysteries of an invisible world.