seemed necessary.
'You can't do anything, my dear,' she said. 'Only I was obliged to talk
to someone, after all the night. It's about Frank.'
'Mr. Ispenlove!' I ejaculated, acting as well as I could, but not
very well.
'Yes. He has left me.'
'But why? What is the matter?'
Even to recall my share in this interview with Mary Ispenlove humiliates
me. But perhaps I have learned the value of humiliation. Still, could I
have behaved differently?
'You won't understand unless I begin a long time ago,' said Mary
Ispenlove. 'Carlotta, my married life has been awful--awful--a tragedy.
It has been a tragedy both for him and for me. But no one has suspected
it; we have hidden it.'
I nodded. I, however, had suspected it.
'It's just twenty years--yes, twenty--since I fell in love,' she
proceeded, gazing at me with her soft, moist eyes.
'With--Frank,' I assumed. I lay back in bed.
'No,' she said. 'With another man. That was in Brixton, when I was a
girl living with my father; my mother was dead. He was a barrister--I
mean the man I was in love with. He had only just been called to the Bar.
I think everybody knew that I had fallen in love with him. Certainly he
did; he could not help seeing it. I could not conceal it. Of course I can
understand now that it flattered him. Naturally it did. Any man is
flattered when a woman falls in love with him. And my father was rich,
and so on, and so on. We saw each other a lot. I hoped, and I kept on
hoping. Some people even said it was a match, and that I was throwing
myself away. Fancy--throwing myself away--me!--who have never been good
for anything! My father did not care much for the man; said he was
selfish and grasping. Possibly he was; but I was in love with him all the
same. Then I met Frank, and Frank fell in love with me. You know how
obstinate Frank is when he has once set his mind on a thing. Frank
determined to have me; and my father was on his side. I would not listen.
I didn't give him so much as a chance to propose to me. And this state of
things lasted for quite a long time. It wasn't my fault; it wasn't
anybody's fault.'
'Just so,' I agreed, raising my head on one elbow, and listening
intently. It was the first sincere word I had spoken, and I was glad
to utter it.
'The man I had fallen in love with came nearer. He was decidedly tempted.
I began to feel sure of him. All I wanted was to marry him, whether he
loved me a great deal or only a little tiny bit. I was in that state.
Then he drew away. He scarcely ever came to the house, and I seemed never
to be able to meet him. And then one day my father showed me something
in the _Morning Post_. It was a paragraph saying that the man I was in
love with was going to marry a woman of title, a widow and the daughter
of a peer. I soon found out she was nearly twice his age. He had done it
to get on. He was getting on very well by himself, but I suppose that
wasn't fast enough for him. Carlotta, it nearly killed me. And I felt so
sorry for him. You can't guess how sorry I felt for him. I felt that he
didn't know what he had missed. Oh, how happy I should have made him! I
should have lived for him. I should have done everything for him. I
should have ... You don't mind me telling you all this?'
I made an imploring gesture.
'What a shame!' I burst out.
'Ah, my dear!' she said, 'he didn't love me. One can't blame him.'
'And then?' I questioned, with an eagerness that I tried to overcome.
'Frank was so persevering. And--and--I _did_ admire his character. A
woman couldn't help admiring his character, could she? And, besides, I
honestly thought I had got over the other affair, and that I was in love
with him. I refused him once, and then I married him. He was as mad for
me as I had been for the other one. Yes, I married him, and we both
imagined we were going to be happy.'
'And why haven't you been?' I asked.
'This is my shame,' she said. 'I could not forget the other one. We soon
found that out.'
'Did you _talk_ about it, you--and Frank?' I put in, amazed.
'Oh _no_!' she said. 'It was never mentioned--never once during fifteen
years. But he knew; and I knew that he knew. The other one was always
between us--always, always, always! The other one was always in my heart.
We did our best, both of us; but it was useless. The passion of my life
was--it was invincible. I _tried_ to love Frank. I could only like him.
Fancy his position! And we were helpless. Because, you know, Frank and I
are not the sort of people that go and make a scandal--at least, that was
what I thought,' she sighed. 'I know different now. Well, he died the day
before yesterday.'
'Who?'
'Crettell. He had just been made a judge. He was the youngest judge on
the bench--only forty-six.'
'Was _that_ the man?' I exclaimed; for Crettell's character was well
known in London.
'That was the man. Frank came in yesterday afternoon, and after he had
glanced at the paper, he said: "By the way, Crettell's dead." I did not
grasp it at first. He repeated: "Crettell--he's dead." I burst into
tears. I couldn't help it. And, besides, I forgot. Frank asked me very
roughly what I was crying for. You know, Frank has much changed these
last few months. He is not as nice as he used to be. Excuse me talking
like this, my dear. Something must be worrying him. Well, I said as well
as I could while I was crying that the news was a shock to me. I tried to
stop crying, but I couldn't. I sobbed. Frank threw down the paper and
stamped on it, and he swore. He said: "I know you've always been in love
with the brute, but you needn't make such a damn fuss about it." Oh, my
dear, how can I tell you these things? That angered me. This was the
first time in our married life that Crettell had been even referred to,
and it seemed to me that Frank put all the hatred of fifteen years into
that single sentence. Why was I angry? I didn't know. We had a scene.
Frank lost his temper, for the first time that I remember, and then he
recovered it. He said quietly he couldn't stand living with me any more;
and that he had long since wanted to leave me. He said he would never see
me again. And then one of the servants came in, and--'
'What?'
'Nothing. I sent her out. And--and--Fran didn't come home last night.'
There was a silence. I could find nothing to say, and Mary had hidden her
face. I utterly forgot myself and my own state in this extraordinary
hazard of matrimony. I could only think of Mary's grief--a grief which,
nevertheless, I did not too well comprehend.
'Then you love him now?' I ventured at length.
She made no reply.
'You love him--is that so?' I pursued. 'Tell me honestly.'
I spoke as gently as it was in me to speak.
'Honestly!' she cried, looking up. 'Honestly! No! If I loved him, could I
have been so upset about Crettell? But we have been together so long. We
are husband and wife, Carlotta. We are so used to each other. And
generally he is so good. We've got on very well, considering. And now
he's left me. Think of the scandal! It will be terrible! terrible! A
separation at my age! Carlotta, it's unthinkable! He's mad--that's the
only explanation. Haven't I tried to be a good wife to him? He's never
found fault with me--never! And I'm sure, as regards him, I've had
nothing to complain of.'
'He will come back,' I said. 'He'll think things over and see reason.'
And it was just as though I heard some other person saying these words.
'But he didn't come _home_ last night,' Mary insisted. 'What the servants
are thinking I shouldn't like to guess.'
'What does it matter what the servants think?' I said brusquely.
'But it _does_ matter. He didn't come _home_. He must have slept at a
hotel. Fancy, sleeping at a hotel, and his home waiting for him! Oh,
Carlotta, you're too young to understand what I feel! You're very clever,
and you're very sympathetic; but you can't see things as I see them. Wait
till you've been married fifteen years. The scandal! The shame! And me
only too anxious to be a good wife, and to keep our home as it should be,
and to help him as much as I can with my stupid brains in his business!'
'I can understand perfectly,' I asserted. 'I can understand perfectly.'
And I could. The futility of arguing with Mary, of attempting to free her
ever so little from the coils of convention which had always bound her,
was only too plainly apparent. She was--and naturally, sincerely,
instinctively--the very incarnation and mouthpiece of the
conventionality of society, as she cowered there in her grief and her
quiet resentment. But this did not impair the authenticity of her grief
and her resentment. Her grief appealed to me powerfully, and her
resentment, almost angelic in its quality, seemed sufficiently justified.
I knew that my own position was in practice untenable, that logic must
always be inferior to emotion. I am intensely proud of my ability to see,
then, that no sentiment can be false which is sincere, and that Mary
Ispenlove's attitude towards marriage was exactly as natural, exactly as
free from artificiality, as my own. Can you go outside Nature? Is not the
polity of Londoners in London as much a part of Nature as the polity of
bees in a hive?
'Not a word for fifteen years, and then an explosion like that!' she
murmured, incessantly recurring to the core of her grievance. 'I did
wrong to marry him, I know. But I _did_ marry him--I _did_ marry him! We
are husband and wife. And he goes off and sleeps at a hotel! Carlotta, I
wish I had never been born! What will people say? I shall never be able
to look anyone in the face again.'
'He will come back,' I said again.
'Do you think so?'
This time she caught at the straw.
'Yes,' I said. 'And you will settle down gradually; and everything will
be forgotten.'
I said that because it was the one thing I could say. I repeat that I had
ceased to think of myself. I had become a spectator.
'It can never be the same between us again,' Mary breathed sadly.
At that moment Emmeline Palmer plunged, rather than came, into my
bedroom.
'Oh, Miss Peel--' she began, and then stopped, seeing Mrs. Ispenlove by
the fireplace, though she knew that Mrs. Ispenlove was with me.
'Anything wrong?' I asked, affecting a complete calm.
It was evident that the good creature had lost her head, as she sometimes
did, when I gave her too much to copy, or when the unusual occurred in no
matter what form. The excellent Emmeline was one of my mistakes.
'Mr. Ispenlove is here,' she whispered.
None of us spoke for a few seconds. Mary Ispenlove stared at me, but
whether in terror or astonishment, I could not guess. This was one of the
most dramatic moments of my life.
'Tell Mr. Ispenlove that I can see nobody,' I said, glancing at the wall.
She turned to go.
'And, Emmeline,' I stopped her. 'Do not tell him anything else.'
Surely the fact that Frank had called to see me before nine o'clock in
the morning, surely my uneasy demeanour, must at length arouse suspicion
even in the simple, trusting mind of his wife!
'How does he know that I am here?' Mary asked, lowering her voice, when
Emmeline had shut the door; 'I said nothing to the servants.'
I was saved. Her own swift explanation of his coming was, of course, the
most natural in the world. I seized on it.
'Never mind how,' I answered. 'Perhaps he was watching outside your
house, and followed you. The important thing is that he has come. It
proves,' I went on, inventing rapidly, 'that he has changed his mind and
recognises his mistake. Had you not better go back home as quickly as
you can? It would have been rather awkward for you to see him here,
wouldn't it?'
'Yes, yes,' she said, her eyes softening and gleaming with joy. 'I will
go. Oh, Carlotta! how can I thank you? You are my best friend.'
'I have done nothing,' I protested. But I had.
'You are a dear!' she exclaimed, coming impulsively to the bed.
I sat up. She kissed me fervently. I rang the bell.
'Has Mr. Ispenlove gone?' I asked Emmeline.
'Yes,' said Emmeline.
In another minute his wife, too, had departed, timorously optimistic,
already denying in her heart that it could never be the same between them
again. She assuredly would not find Frank at home. But that was nothing.
I had escaped! I had escaped!
'Will you mind getting dressed at once?' I said to Emmeline. 'I should
like you to go out with a letter and a manuscript as soon as possible.'
I got a notebook and began to write to Frank. I told him all that had
happened, in full detail, writing hurriedly, in gusts, and abandoning
that regard for literary form which the professional author is apt to
preserve even in his least formal correspondence.
'After this,' I said, 'we must give up what we decided last night. I have
no good reason to offer you. The situation itself has not been changed by
what I have learnt from your wife. I have not even discovered that she
loves you, though in spite of what she says, which I have faithfully told
you, I fancy she does--at any rate, I think she is beginning to. My ideas
about the rights of love are not changed. My feelings towards you are not
changed. Nothing is changed. But she and I have been through that
interview, and so, after all, everything is changed; we must give it all
up. You will say I am illogical. I am--perhaps. It was a mere chance
that your wife came to me. I don't know why she did. If she had not come,
I should have given myself to you. Supposing she had written--I should
still have given myself to you. But I have been in her presence. I have
been with her. And then the thought that you struck her, for my sake! She
said nothing about that. That was the one thing she concealed. I could
have cried when she passed it over. After all, I don't know whether it is
sympathy for your wife that makes me change, or my self-respect--say my
self-pride; I'm a proud woman. I lied to her through all that interview.
'Oh, if I had only had the courage to begin by telling her outright and
bluntly that you and I had settled that I should take her place! That
would have stopped her. But I hadn't. And, besides, how could I foresee
what she would say to me and how she would affect me? No; I lied to her
at every point. My whole attitude was a lie. Supposing you and I had
gone off together before I had seen her, and then I had met her
afterwards, I could have looked her in the face--sorrowfully, with a
heart bleeding--but I could have looked her in the face. But after this
interview--no; it would be impossible for me to face her with you at
my side! Don't I put things crudely, horribly! I know everything that
you will say. You could not bring a single argument that I have not
thought of.
'However, arguments are nothing. It is how I feel. Fate is against us.
Possibly I have ruined your life and mine without having done anything to
improve hers; and possibly I have saved us all three from terrible
misery. Possibly fate is with us. No one can say. I don't know what will
happen in the immediate future; I won't think about it. If you do as I
wish, if you have any desire to show me that I have any influence over
you, you will go back to live with your wife. Where did you sleep last
night? Or did you walk the streets? You must not answer this letter at
present. Write to me later. Do not try to see me. I won't see you. We
_mustn't_ meet. I am going away at once. I don't think I could stand
another scene with your wife, and she would be sure to come again to me.
'Try to resume your old existence. You can do it if you try. Remember
that your wife is no more to blame than you are, or than I am. Remember
that you loved her once. And remember that I act as I am acting because
there is no other way for me. _C'est plus fort que moi,_ I am going to
Torquay. I let you know this--I hate concealment; and anyway you would
find out. But I shall trust you not to follow me. I shall trust you. You
are saying that this is a very different woman from last night. It is. I
haven't yet realized what my feelings are. I expect I shall realize them
in a few days. I send with this a manuscript. It is nothing. I send it
merely to put Emmeline off the scent, so that she shall think that it is
purely business. Now I shall _trust_ you.--C. P.'
I commenced the letter without even a 'Dear Frank,' and I ended it
without an affectionate word.
'I should like you to take these down to Mr. Ispenlove's office,' I said
to Emmeline. 'Ask for him and give them to him yourself. There's no
answer. He's pretty sure to be in. But if he isn't, bring them back. I'm
going to Torquay by that eleven-thirty express--isn't it?'
'Eleven-thirty-five,' Emmeline corrected me coldly.
When she returned, she said she had seen Mr. Ispenlove and given him the
letter and the parcel.
IV
I had acquaintances in Torquay, but I soon discovered that the place was
impossible for me. Torquay is the chosen home of the proprieties, the
respectabilities, and all the conventions. Nothing could dislodge them
from its beautiful hills; the very sea, as it beats primly, or with a
violence that never forgets to be discreet, on the indented shore,
acknowledges their sway. Aphrodite never visits there; the human race is
not continued there. People who have always lived within the conventions
go there to die within the conventions. The young do not flourish there;
they escape from the soft enervation. Since everybody is rich, there are
no poor. There are only the rich, and the servitors, who get rich. These
two classes never mix--even in the most modest villas they live on
opposite sides of the house. The life of the town is a vast conspiracy on
the part of the servitors to guard against any danger of the rich taking
all their riches to heaven. You can, if you are keen enough, detect
portions of this conspiracy in every shop. On the hills each abode stands
in its own undulating grounds, is approached by a winding drive of at
least ten yards, is wrapped about by the silence of elms, is flanked by
greenhouses, and exudes an immaculate propriety from all its windows. In
the morning the rich descend, the servitors ascend; the bosky and
perfectly-kept streets on the hills are trodden with apologetic celerity
by the emissaries of the servitors. The one interminable thoroughfare of
the town is graciously invaded by the rich, who, if they have not walked
down for the sake of exercise, step cautiously from their carriages,
enunciate a string of orders ending with the name of a house, and
cautiously regain their carriages. Each house has a name, and the pride
of the true servitor is his ability to deduce instantly from the name of
the house the name of its owner and the name of its street. In the
afternoon a vast and complicated game of visiting cards is played. One
does not begin to be serious till the evening; one eats then, solemnly
and fully, to the faint accompaniment of appropriate conversation. And
there is no relief, no surcease from utmost conventionality. It goes on
night and day; it hushes one to sleep, and wakes one up. On all but the
strongest minds it casts a narcotizing spell, so that thought is
arrested, and originality, vivacity, individuality become a crime--a
shame that must be hidden. Into this strange organism I took my wounded
heart, imagining that an atmosphere of coma might help to heal it. But
no! Within a week my state had become such that I could have cried out in
mid Union Street at noon: 'Look at me with your dead eyes, you dead who
have omitted to get buried, I am among you, and I am an adulteress in
spirit! And my body has sinned the sin! And I am alive as only grief can
be alive. I suffer the torture of vultures, but I would not exchange my
lot with yours!'
And one morning, after a fortnight, I thought of Monte Carlo. And the
vision of that place, which I had never seen, too voluptuously lovely to
be really beautiful, where there are no commandments, where
unconventionality and conventionality fight it out on even terms, where
the adulteress swarms, and the sin is for ever sinned, and wounded hearts
go about gaily, where it is impossible to distinguish between virtue and
vice, and where Toleration in fine clothes is the supreme social
goddess--the vision of Monte Carlo, as a place of refuge from the
exacerbating and moribund and yet eternal demureness of Torquay, appealed
to me so persuasively that I was on my way to the Riviera in two hours.
In that crisis of my life my moods were excessively capricious. Let me
say that I had not reached Exeter before I began to think kindly of
Torquay. What was Torquay but an almost sublime example of what the
human soul can accomplish in its unending quest of an ideal?
I left England on a calm, slate-coloured sea--sea that more than any
other sort of sea produces the reflective melancholy which makes
wonderful the faces of fishermen. How that brief voyage symbolized for me
the mysterious movement of humanity! We converged from the four quarters
of the universe, passed together an hour, helpless, in somewhat inimical
curiosity concerning each other, and then, mutually forgotten, took wing,
and spread out into the unknown. I think that as I stood near the hot
funnel, breasting the wind, and vacantly staring at the smooth expanse
that continually slipped from under us, I understood myself better than I
had done before. My soul was at peace--the peace of ruin after a
conflagration, but peace. Sometimes a little flame would dart out--flame
of regret, revolt, desire--and I would ruthlessly extinguish it. I felt
that I had nothing to live for, that no energy remained to me, no
interest, no hope. I saw the forty years of probable existence in front
of me flat and sterile as the sea itself. I was coldly glad that I had
finished my novel, well knowing that it would be my last. And the immense
disaster had been caused by a chance! Why had I been born with a vein of
overweening honesty in me? Why should I have sacrificed everything to the
pride of my conscience, seeing that consciences were the product of
education merely? Useless to try to answer the unanswerable! What is, is.
And circumstances are always at the mercy of character. I might have been
wrong, I might have been right; no ethical argument could have bent my
instinct. I did not sympathize with myself--I was too proud and
stern--but I sympathized with Frank. I wished ardently that he might be
consoled--that his agony might not be too terrible. I wondered where he
was, what he was doing. I had received no letter from him, but then I had
instructed that letters should not be forwarded to me. My compassion went
out after him, followed him into the dark, found him (as I hoped), and
surrounded him like an alleviating influence. I thought pityingly of the
ravage that had been occasioned by our love. His home was wrecked. Our
lives were equally wrecked. Our friends were grieved; they would think
sadly of my closed flat. Even the serio-comic figure of Emmeline touched
me; I had paid her three months' wages and dismissed her. Where would she
go with her mauve _peignoir_? She was over thirty, and would not easily
fall into another such situation. Imagine Emmeline struck down by a
splinter from our passionate explosion! Only Yvonne was content at the
prospect of revisiting France.
'_Ah! Qu'on est bien ici, madame_!' she said, when we had fixed ourselves
in the long and glittering _train de grand luxe_ that awaited us at
Calais. Once I had enjoyed luxury, but now the futility of all this
luxurious cushioned arrogance, which at its best only corresponded with a
railway director's dreams of paradise, seemed to me pathetic. Could it
detain youth, which is for ever flying? Could it keep out sorrow? Could
it breed hope? As the passengers, so correct in their travelling
costumes, passed to and fro in the corridors with the subdued murmurs
always adopted by English people when they wish to prove that they are
not excited, I thought: 'Does it matter how you and I go southwards? The
pride of the eye, and of the palate, and of the limbs, what can it help
us that this should be sated? We cannot leave our souls behind.' The
history of many of these men and women was written on their faces. I
wondered if my history was written on mine, gazing into the mirrors which
were everywhere, but seeing nothing save that which I had always seen.
Then I smiled, and Yvonne smiled respectfully in response. Was I not part
of the immense pretence that riches bring joy and that life is good? On
every table in the restaurant-cars were bunches of fresh flowers that had
been torn from the South, and would return there dead, having ministered
to the illusion that riches bring joy and that life is good. I hated
that. I could almost have wished that I was travelling southwards in a
slow, slow train, third class, where sorrow at any rate does not wear a
mask. Great grief is democratic, levelling--not downwards but upwards. It
strips away the inessential, and makes brothers. It is impatient with all
the unavailing inventions which obscure the brotherhood of mankind.
I descended from the train restlessly--there were ten minutes to elapse
before the departure--and walked along the platform, glimpsing the faces
in the long procession of windows, and then the flowers and napery in the
two restaurant-cars: wistful all alike, I thought--flowers and faces! How
fanciful, girlishly fanciful, I was! Opposite the door of the first car
stood a gigantic negro in the sober blue and crimson livery of the
International Sleeping Car Company. He wore white gloves, like all the
servants on the train: it was to foster the illusion; it was part of what
we paid for.
'When is luncheon served?' I asked him idly.
He looked massively down at me as I shivered slightly in my furs. He
contemplated me for an instant. He seemed to add me up, antipathetically,
as a product of Western civilization.
'Soon as the train starts, madam,' he replied suavely, in good American,
and resumed nonchalantly his stare into the distance of the platform.
'Thank you!' I said.
I was glad that I had encountered him on that platform and not in the
African bush. I speculated upon the chain of injustice and oppression
that had warped his destiny from what it ought to have been to what it
was. 'And he, too, is human, and knows love and grief and illusion, like
me,' I mused. A few yards further on the engine-driver and stoker were
busy with coal and grease. 'Five minutes hence, and our lives, and our
correctness, and our luxury, will be in their grimy hands,' I said to
myself. Strange world, the world of the _train de grand luxe_! But a
world of brothers! I regained my carriage, exactly, after all, as the
inhabitants of Torquay regained theirs.
Then the wondrous self-contained microcosm, shimmering with gilt and
varnish and crystal, glorious in plush and silk, heavy with souls and all
that correct souls could possibly need in twenty hours, gathered itself
up and rolled forward, swiftly, and more swiftly, into the wide, gray
landscapes of France. The vibrating and nerve-destroying monotony of a
long journey had commenced. We were summoned by white gloves to luncheon;
and we lunched in a gliding palace where the heavenly dreams of a railway
director had received their most luscious expression--and had then been
modestly hidden by advertisements of hotels and brandy. The Southern
flowers shook in their slender glasses, and white gloves balanced dishes
as if on board ship, and the electric fans revolved ceaselessly. As I was
finishing my meal, a middle-aged woman whom I knew came down the car
towards me. She had evidently not recognised me.
'How do you do, Miss Kate?' I accosted her.
It was the younger of Vicary's two maiden sisters. I guessed that the
other could not be far away.
She hesitated, stopped, and looked down at me, rather as the negro had
done.
'Oh! how do you do, Miss Peel?' she said distantly, with a nervous
simper; and she passed on.
This was my first communication, since my disappearance, with the world
of my London friends and acquaintances. I perceived, of course, from
Miss Kate's attitude that something must have occurred, or something must
have been assumed, to my prejudice. Perhaps Frank had also vanished for a
time, and the rumour ran that we were away together. I smiled frigidly.
What matter? In case Miss Vicary should soon be following her sister, I
left without delay and went back to my coupé; it would have been a pity
to derange these dames. Me away with Frank! What folly to suppose it! Yet
it might have been. I was in heart what these dames probably took me for.
I read a little in the _Imitation of Christ_ which Aunt Constance had
meant to give me, that book which will survive sciences and even
Christianity itself. 'Think not that thou hast made any progress,' I
read, 'unless thou feel thyself inferior to all ... Behold how far off
thou art yet from true charity and humility: which knows not how to be
angry or indignant, with any except one's self.'
Night fell. The long, illuminated train roared and flashed on its
invisible way under a dome of stars. It shrieked by mysterious stations,
dragging furiously its freight of luxury and light and human masks
through placid and humble villages and towns, of which it ignored
everything save their coloured signals of safety. Ages of oscillation
seemed to pass. In traversing the corridors one saw interior after
interior full of the signs of wearied humanity: magazines thrown aside,
rugs in disorder, hair dishevelled, eyes heavy, cheeks flushed, limbs in
the abandoned attitudes of fatigue--here and there a compartment with
blinds discreetly drawn, suggesting the jealous seclusion of love, and
here and there a group of animated tatlers or card-players whose nerves
nothing could affect, and who were incapable of lassitude; on every train
and every steamer a few such are to be found.
More ages passed, and yet the journey had but just begun. At length we
thundered and resounded through canyons of tall houses, their façades
occasionally bathed in the cold, blue radiance of arc-lights; and under
streets and over canals. Paris! the city of the joy of life! We were to
see the muddied skirts of that brilliant and sinister woman. We panted to
a standstill in the vast echoing cavern of the Gare du Nord, stared
haughtily and drowsily at its bustling confusion, and then drew back, to
carry our luxury and our correctness through the lowest industrial
quarters. Belleville, Menilmontant, and other names of like associations
we read on the miserable, forlorn stations of the Ceinture, past which we
trailed slowly our disgust.
We made a semicircle through the secret shames that beautiful Paris
would fain hide, and, emerging, found ourselves in the deserted and stony
magnificence of the Gare de Lyon, the gate of the South. Here, where we
were not out of keeping, where our splendour was of a piece with the
splendour of the proudest terminus in France, we rested long, fretted by
the inexplicable leisureliness on the part of a _train de grand luxe_,
while gilded officials paced to and fro beneath us on the platforms,
guarding in their bureaucratic breasts the secret of the exact instant at
which the great express would leave. I slept, and dreamed that the Misses
Vicary had brought several pairs of white gloves in order to have me
dismissed from the society of the train. A hand touched me. It was
Yvonne's. I awoke to a renewal of the maddening vibration. We had quitted
Paris long since. It was after seven o'clock. '_On dit que le diner est
servi, madame_ said Yvonne. I told her to go, and I collected my wits to
follow her. As I was emerging into the corridor, Miss Kate went by. I
smiled faintly, perhaps timidly. She cut me completely. Then I went out
into the corridor. A man was standing at the other end twirling his
moustaches. He turned round.
It was Frank.
He came towards me, uncertainly swaying with the movement of the
swaying train.
'Good God!' he muttered, and stopped within a yard of me.
I clung convulsively to the framework of the doorway. Our lives paused.
'Why have you followed me, Frank?' I asked gloomily, in a whisper.
I had meant to be severe, offended. I had not meant to put his name at
the end of my question, much less to utter it tenderly, like an
endearment. But I had little control over myself. I was almost breathless
with a fatal surprise, shaken with terrible emotion.
'I've not followed you,' he said. 'I joined the train at Paris. I'd no
idea you were on the train till I saw you in the corner asleep, through
the window of the compartment. I've been waiting here till you came out.'
'Have you seen the Vicarys?'
'Yes,' he answered.
'Ah! You've been away from London all this time?'
'I couldn't stay. I couldn't. I've been in Belgium and Holland. Then I
went to Paris. And now--you see me.'
'I'm going to Mentone,' I said. 'I had thought of Monte Carlo first, but
I changed my mind. Where are you going to?'
'Mentone,' he said.
We talked in hard, strained tones, avoiding each other's eyes. A string
of people passed along the car on their way to dinner. I withdrew into my
compartment, and Frank flattened himself against a window.
'Come in here a minute,' I said, when they were gone.
He entered the compartment and sat down opposite to me and lifted his
hand, perhaps unconsciously, to pull the door to.
'No,' I said; 'don't shut it. Leave it like that.'
He was dressed in a gray tourist suit. Never before had I seen him in any
but the formal attire of London. I thought he looked singularly graceful
and distinguished, even romantic, in that loose, soft clothing. But no
matter what he wore, Frank satisfied the eye. We were both extremely
nervous and excited and timid, fearing speech.
'Carlotta,' he said at last--I had perceived that he was struggling to a
resolution--'this is the best thing that could have happened. Whatever we
do, everybody will believe that we are running off together.'
'I think they have been believing that ever since we left London,' I
said; and I told him about Miss Kate's treatment of me at lunch. 'But how
can that affect us?' I demanded.
'Mary will believe it--does believe, I'm sure. Long before this, people
will have enlightened her. And now the Vicarys have seen us, it's all
over. Our hand is forced, isn't it?'
'Frank,' I said, 'didn't you think my letter was right?'
'I obeyed it,' he replied heavily. 'I haven't even written to you. I
meant to when I got to Mentone.'
'But didn't you think I was right?'
'I don't know. Yes--I suppose it was.' His lower lip fell. 'Of course I
don't want you to do anything that you--'
'Dinner, please,' said my negro, putting his head between us.
We both informed the man that we should not dine, and I asked him to tell
Yvonne not to wait for me.
'There's your maid, too,' said Frank. 'How are we going to get out of it?
The thing's settled for us.'
'My dear, dear boy!' I exclaimed. 'Are we to outrage our consciences
simply because people think we have outraged them?'
'It isn't my conscience--it's yours,' he said.
'Well, then--mine.'
I drew down my veil; I could scarcely keep dry eyes.
'Why are you so hard, Carlotta?' he cried. 'I can't understand you. I
never could. But you'll kill me--that's what you'll do.'
Impulsively I leaned forward; and he seized my hand. Our antagonism
melted in tears. Oh the cruel joy of that moment! Who will dare to say
that the spirit cannot burn with pleasure while drowning in grief? Or
that tragedy may not be the highest bliss? That instant of renunciation
was our true marriage. I realize it now--a union that nothing can soil
nor impair.
'I love you; you are fast and fast in my heart,' I murmured. 'But you
must go back to Mary. There is nothing else.'
And I withdrew my hand.
He shook his head.
'You've no right, my dearest, to tell me to go back to Mary. I cannot.'
'Forgive me,' I said. 'I have only the right to ask you to leave me.'
'Then there is no hope?'
His lips trembled. Ah! those lips!
I made a sign that there was no hope. And we sat in silence, overcome.
A servant came to arrange the compartment for sleeping, and we were
obliged to assume nonchalance and go into the corridor. All the
windows of the corridor were covered with frost traceries. The train
with its enclosed heat and its gleaming lamps was plunging through an
ice-gripped night. I thought of the engine-driver, perched on his
shaking, snorting, monstrous machine, facing the weather, with our
lives and our loves in his hand.
'We'll leave each other now, Frank,' I said, 'before the people begin to
come back from dinner. Go and eat something.'
'But you?'
'I shall be all right. Yvonne will get me some fruit. I shall stay in our
compartment till we arrive.'
'Yes. And when we do arrive--what then? What are your wishes? You see,
I can't leave the train before we get to Mentone because of my
registered luggage.'
He spoke appealingly.
The dear thing, with his transparent pretexts!
'You can ignore us at the station, and then leave Mentone again
during the day.'
'As you wish,' he said.
'Good-night!' I whispered. 'Good-bye!' And I turned to my compartment.
'Carlotta!' he cried despairingly.
But I shut the door and drew the blinds.
Yvonne was discretion itself when she returned. She had surely seen
Frank. No doubt she anticipated piquant developments at Mentone.
All night I lay on my narrow bed, with Yvonne faintly snoring above me,
and the harsh, metallic rattle of the swinging train beneath. I could
catch the faint ticking of my watch under the thin pillow. The lamp burnt
delicately within its green shade. I lay almost moveless, almost dead,
shifting only at long intervals from side to side. Sometimes my brain
would arouse itself, and I would live again through each scene of my
relationship with Frank and Mary. I often thought of the engine-driver,
outside, watching over us and unflinchingly dragging us on. I hoped that
his existence had compensations.
V
Early on the second morning after that interview in the train I sat on
my balcony in the Hôtel d'Écosse, full in the tremendous sun that had
ascended over the Mediterranean. The shore road wound along beneath me
by the blue water that never receded nor advanced, lopping always the
same stones. A vivid yellow electric tram, like a toy, crept forward on
my left from the direction of Vintimille and Italy, as it were swimming
noiselessly on the smooth surface of the road among the palms of an
intense green, against the bright blue background of the sea; and
another tram advanced, a spot of orange, to meet it out of the
variegated tangle of tinted houses composing the Old Town. High upon the
summit of the Old Town rose the slim, rose-coloured cupola of the church
in a sapphire sky. The regular smiting sound of a cracked bell,
viciously rung, came from it. The eastern prospect was shut in by the
last olive-clad spurs of the Alps, that tread violently and gigantically
into the sea. The pathways of the hotel garden were being gently swept
by a child of the sun, who could not have sacrificed his graceful
dignity to haste; and many peaceful morning activities proceeded on the
road, on the shore, and on the jetty. A procession of tawny
fishing-boats passed from the harbour one after another straight into
the eye of the sun, and were lost there. Smoke climbed up softly into
the soft air from the houses and hotels on the level of the road. The
trams met and parted, silently widening the distance between them which
previously they had narrowed. And the sun rose and rose, bathing the
blue sea and the rich verdure and the glaring white architecture in the
very fluid of essential life. The whole azure coast basked in it like an
immense cat, commencing the day with a voluptuous savouring of the fact
that it was alive. The sun is the treacherous and tyrannical god of the
South, and when he withdraws himself, arbitrary and cruel, the land and
the people shiver and prepare to die.
It was such a morning as renders sharp and unmistakable the division
between body and soul--if the soul suffers. The body exults; the body
cries out that nothing on earth matters except climate. Nothing can damp
the glorious ecstasy of the body baptized in that air, caressed by that
incomparable sun. It laughs, and it laughs at the sorrow of the soul. It
imperiously bids the soul to choose the path of pleasure; it shouts aloud
that sacrifice is vain and honour an empty word, full of inconveniences,
and that to exist amply and vehemently, to listen to the blood as it
beats strongly through the veins, is the end of the eternal purpose. Ah!
how easy it is to martyrize one's self by some fatal decision made
grandly in the exultation of a supreme moment! And how difficult to
endure the martyrdom without regret! I regretted my renunciation. My body
rebelled against it, and even my soul rebelled. I scorned myself for a
fool, for a sentimental weakling--yes, and for a moral coward. Every
argument that presented itself damaged the justice of my decision. After
all, we loved, and in my secret dreams had I not always put love first,
as the most sacred? The reality was that I had been afraid of what Mary
would think. True, my attitude had lied to her, but I could not have
avoided that. Decency would have forbidden me to use any other attitude;
and more than decency--kindness. Ought the course of lives to be changed
at the bidding of mere hazard? It was a mere chance that Mary had called
on me. I bled for her grief, but nothing that I could do would assuage
it. I felt sure that, in the impossible case of me being able to state my
position to her and argue in its defence, I could force her to see that
in giving myself to Frank I was not being false to my own ideals. What
else could count? What other consideration should guide the soul on its
mysterious instinctive way? Frank and I had a right to possess each
other. We had a right to be happy if we could. And the one thing that had
robbed us of that right was my lack of courage, caused partly by my
feminine mentality (do we not realize sometimes how ignobly feminine we
are?), and partly by the painful spectacle of Mary's grief.... And her
grief, her most intimate grief, sprang not from thwarted love, but from
a base and narrow conventionality.
Thus I declaimed to myself in my heart, under the influence of the
seductive temptations of that intoxicating atmosphere.
'Come down,' said a voice firmly and quietly underneath me in the
orange-trees of the garden.
I started violently. It was Frank's voice. He was standing in the garden,
his legs apart, and a broad, flat straw hat, which I did not admire, on
his head. His pale face was puckered round about the eyes as he looked up
at me, like the face of a person trying to look directly at the sun.
'Why,' I exclaimed foolishly, glancing down over the edge of the balcony,
and shutting my white parasol with a nervous, hurried movement,
'have--have you come here?'
He had disobeyed my wish. He had not left Mentone at once.
'Come down,' he repeated persuasively, and yet commandingly.
I could feel my heart beating against the marble parapet of the balcony.
I seemed to be caught, to be trapped. I could not argue with him in that
position. I could not leave him shouting in the garden. So I nodded to
pacify him, and disappeared quickly from the balcony, almost scurrying
away. And in the comparative twilight of my room I stopped and gave a
glance in the mirror, and patted my hair, and fearfully examined the
woman that I saw in the glass, as if to discern what sort of woman she
truly was, and what was the root of her character. I hesitated and
snatched up my gloves. I wanted to collect my thoughts, and I could not.
It was impossible to think clearly. I moved in the room, dazed. I stood
by the tumbled bed, fingering the mosquito curtains. They might have been
a veil behind which was obscured the magic word of enlightenment I
needed. I opened the door, shut it suddenly, and held the knob tight,
defying an imagined enemy outside. 'Oh!' I muttered at last, angry with
myself, 'what is the use of all this? You know you must go down to him.
He's waiting for you. Show a little common-sense and go without so much
fuss.' And so I descended the stairs swiftly and guiltily, relieved that
no one happened to see me. In any case, I decided, nothing could induce
me to yield to him after my letter and after what had passed in the
train. The affair was beyond argument. I felt that I could not yield, and
that though it meant the ruin of happiness by obstinacy, I could not
yield. I shrank from yielding in that moment as men shrink from public
repentance.
He had not moved from his post in the garden. We shook hands. A band
of Italian musicians wandered into the garden and began to sing Verdi
to a vigorous thrumming of guitars. They sang as only Italians can
sing--as naturally as they breathed, and with a rich and overflowing
innocent joy in the art which Nature had taught them. They sang loudly,
swingingly, glancing full of naive hope up at the windows of the vast,
unresponsive hotel.
'So you are still in Mentone,' I ventured.
'Yes,' he said. 'Come for a walk.'
'But--'
'Come for a walk.'
'Very well,' I consented. 'As I am?'
'As you are. I saw you all in white on the balcony, and I was determined
to fetch you out.'
'But could you see who it was from the road?'
'Of course I could. I knew in an instant.'
We descended, he a couple of paces in front of me, the narrow zigzag path
leading down between two other hotels to the shore road.
'What will happen now?' I asked myself wildly. My head swam.
It seemed that nothing would happen. We turned eastwards, walking slowly,
and I began to resume my self-control. Only the simple and the humble
were abroad at that early hour: purveyors of food, in cheerfully rattling
carts, or hauling barrows with the help of grave and formidable dogs;
washers and cleaners at the doors of highly-decorated villas, amiably
performing their tasks while the mighty slept; fishermen and fat
fisher-girls, industriously repairing endless brown nets on the other
side of the parapet of the road; a postman and a little policeman; a
porcelain mender, who practised his trade under the shadow of the wall; a
few loafers; some stable-boys exercising horses; and children with
adorable dirty faces, shouting in their high treble as they played at
hopscotch. I felt very closely akin to these meek ones as we walked
along. They were so human, so wistful. They had the wonderful simplicity
of animals, uncomplicated by the disease of self-consciousness; they were
the vital stuff without the embroidery. They preserved the customs of
their ancestors, rising with the sun, frankly and splendidly enjoying the
sun, looking up to it as the most important thing in the world. They
never attempted to understand what was beyond them; they troubled not
with progress, ideals, righteousness, the claims of society. They
accepted humbly and uninquiringly what they found. They lived the life of
their instincts, sometimes violent, often kindly, and always natural.
Why should I have felt so near to them?
A calm and gentle pleasure filled me, far from intense, but yet
satisfying. I determined to enjoy the moment, or, perhaps, without
determination, I gave myself up, gradually, to the moment. I forgot care
and sorrow. I was well; I was with Frank; I was in the midst of
enchanting natural beauty; the day was fair and fresh and virgin. I knew
not where I was going. Shorewards a snowy mountain ridge rose above the
long, wide slopes of olives, dotted with white dwellings. A single sail
stood up seawards on the immense sheet of blue. The white sail appeared
and disappeared in the green palm-trees as we passed eastwards. Presently
we left the sea, and we lost the hills, and came into a street of poor
little shops for simple folk, that naïvely exposed their cheap and tawdry
goods to no matter what mightiness should saunter that way. And then we
came to the end of the tram-line, and it was like the end of the world.
And we saw in the distance abodes of famous persons, fabulously rich,
defying the sea and the hills, and condescending from afar off to the
humble. We crossed the railway, and a woman ran out from a cabin with a
spoon in one hand and a soiled flag in the other, and waved the flag at
a towering black engine that breathed stertorously in a cutting. Already
we were climbing, and the road grew steeper, and then we came to
custom-houses--unsightly, squalid, irregular, and mean--in front of which
officials laughed and lounged and smoked.
We talked scarcely at all.
'You were up early this morning,' he said.
'Yes; I could not sleep.'
'It was the same with me.'
We recovered the sea; but now it was far below us, and the footprints of
the wind were marked on it, and it was not one blue, but a thousand
blues, and it faded imperceptibly into the sky. The sail, making Mentone,
was much nearer, and had developed into a two-masted ship. It seemed to
be pushed, rather than blown, along by the wind. It seemed to have
rigidity in all its parts, and to be sliding unwillingly over a vast
slate. The road lay through craggy rocks, shelving away unseen on one
hand, and rising steeply against the burning sky on the other. We mounted
steadily and slowly. I did not look much at Frank, but my eye was
conscious of his figure, striding leisurely along. Now and then, when I
turned to glance behind, I saw our shadows there diagonally on the road,
and again I did not care for his hat. I had not seen him in a straw hat
till that morning. We arrived at a second set of French custom-houses,
deserted, and then we saw that the gigantic side of the mountain was
cleft by a fissure from base to summit. And across the gorge had been
thrown a tiny stone bridge to carry the road. At this point, by the
bridge, the face of the rock had been carved smooth, and a great black
triangle painted on it. And on the road was a common milestone, with
'France' on one side and 'Italia' on the other. And a very old man was
harmlessly spreading a stock of picture postcards on the parapet of the
bridge. My heart went out to that poor old man, whose white curls glinted
in the sunlight. It seemed to me so pathetic that he should be just
there, at that natural spot which the passions and the blood of men long
dead had made artificial, tediously selling postcards in order to keep
his worn and creaking body out of the grave.
'Do give him something,' I entreated Frank.
And while Frank went to him I leaned over the other parapet and
listened for the delicate murmur of the stream far below. The split
flank of the hill was covered with a large red blossom, and at the
base, on the edge of the sea, were dolls' houses, each raising a
slanted pencil of pale smoke.
Then we were in Italy, and still climbing. We saw a row of narrow,
slattern cottages, their backs over the sea, and in front of them marched
to and fro a magnificent soldier laced in gold, with chinking spurs and a
rifle. Suddenly there ran out of a cottage two little girls, aged about
four years and eight years, dirty, unkempt, delicious, shrill, their
movements full of the ravishing grace of infancy. They attacked the laced
soldier, chattering furiously, grumbling at him, intimidating him with
the charming gestures of spoilt and pouting children. And he bent down
stiffly in his superb uniform, and managed his long, heavy gun, and
talked to them in a deep, vibrating voice. He reasoned with them till we
could hear him no more. It was so touching, so exquisitely human!
We reached the top of the hill, having passed the Italian customs,
equally vile with the French. The terraced grounds of an immense deserted
castle came down to the roadside; and over the wall, escaped from the
garden, there bloomed extravagantly a tangle of luscious yellow roses,
just out of our reach. The road was still and deserted. We could see
nothing but the road and the sea and the hills, all steeped, bewitched,
and glorious under the sun. The ship had nearly slid to Mentone. The
curving coastline of Italy wavered away into the shimmering horizon. And
there were those huge roses, insolently blooming in the middle of winter,
the symbol of the terrific forces of nature which slept quiescent under
the universal calm. Perched as it were in a niche of the hills, we were
part of that tremendous and ennobling scene. Long since the awkward
self-consciousness caused by our plight had left us. We did not use
speech, but we knew that we thought alike, and were suffering the same
transcendent emotion. Was it joy or sadness? Rather than either, it was
an admixture of both, originating in a poignant sense of the grandeur of
life and of the earth.
'Oh, Frank,' I murmured, my spirit bursting, 'how beautiful it is!'
Our eyes met. He took me and kissed me impetuously, as though my
utterance had broken a spell which enchained him. And as I kissed him I
wept, blissfully. Nature had triumphed.
VI
We departed from Mentone that same day after lunch. I could not remove to
his hotel; he could not remove to mine, for this was Mentone. We went to
Monte Carlo by road, our luggage following. We chose Monte Carlo partly
because it was the nearest place, and partly because it has some of the
qualities--incurious, tolerant, unprovincial--of a capital city. If we
encountered friends there, so much the better, in the end. The great
adventure, the solemn and perilous enterprise had begun. I sent Yvonne
for a holiday to her home in Laroche. Why? Ah, why? Perhaps for the
simple reason that I had not the full courage of my convictions. We
seldom have--_nous autres_. I felt that, if she had remained, Yvonne
would have been too near me in the enterprise. I could not at first have
been my natural self with her. I told the astonished and dissatisfied
Yvonne that I would write to her as soon as I wanted her. Yet in other
ways I had courage, and I found a delicious pleasure in my courage. When
I was finally leaving the hotel I had Frank by my side. I behaved to him
as to a husband. I publicly called him 'dear.' I asked his advice in
trifles. He paid my bill. He even provided the money necessary for
Yvonne. My joy in the possession of this male creature, whose part it now
was to do for me a thousand things that hitherto I had been forced to do
for myself, was almost naive. I could not hide it. I was at last a man's
woman. I had a protector. Yes; I must not shrink from the equivocal
significance of that word--I had a protector.
Frank was able to get three rooms at the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo. I
had only to approve them. We met in our sitting-room at half-past three,
ready to go out for a walk. It would be inexact to say that we were not
nervous. But we were happy. He had not abandoned his straw hat.
'Don't wear that any more,' I said to him, smiling.
'But why? It's quite new.'
'It doesn't suit you,' I said.
'Oh, that doesn't matter,' he laughed, and he put it on.
'But I don't like to see you in it,' I persisted.
'Well, you'll stand it this afternoon, my angel, and I'll get another
to-morrow.'
'Haven't you got another one here?' I asked, with discontent.
'No,' and he laughed again.
'But, dear--' I pouted.
He seemed suddenly to realize that as a fact I did not like the hat.
'Come here,' he said, charmingly grave; and he led me by the hand into
his bedroom, which was littered with clothes, small parcels, boots, and
brushes. One chair was overturned.
'Heavens!' I muttered, pretending to be shocked at the disorder.
He drew, me to a leather box of medium size.
'You can open it,' he said.
I opened it. The thing was rather a good contrivance, for a man. It
held a silk hat, an opera hat, a bowler hat, some caps, and a soft
Panama straw.
'And you said you had no others!' I grumbled at him.
'Well, which is it to be?' he demanded.
'This, of course,' I said, taking the bowler. I reached up, removed the
straw hat from his head, and put the bowler in its place. 'There!' I
exclaimed, satisfied, giving the bowler a pat--there!'
He laughed, immensely content, enraptured, foolishly blissful. We were
indeed happy. Before opening the door leading to the corridor we stopped
and kissed.
On the seaward terrace of the vast, pale, floriated Casino, so
impressive in its glittering vulgarity, like the bride-cake of a
stockbroker's wedding, we strolled about among a multifarious crowd,
immersed in ourselves. We shared a contempt for the architecture, the
glaring flower-beds, and the false distinction of the crowd, and an
enthusiasm for the sunshine and the hills and the sea, and whatever else
had escaped the hands of the Casino administration. We talked lightly
and freely. Care seemed to be leaving us; we had no preoccupations save
those which were connected with our passion. Then I saw, standing in an
attitude of attention, the famous body-servant of Lord Francis Alcar,
and I knew that Lord Francis could not be far away. We spoke to the
valet; he pointed out his master, seated at the front of the terrace,
and told us, in a discreet, pained, respectful voice, that our venerable
friend had been mysteriously unwell at Monte Carlo, and was now taking
the air for the first time in ten days. I determined that we should go
boldly and speak to him.
'Lord Francis,' I said gently, after we had stood some seconds by his
chair, unremarked.
He was staring fixedly at the distance of the sea. He looked amazingly
older than when I had last talked with him. His figure was shrunken, and
his face rose thin and white out of a heavy fur overcoat and a large blue
muffler. In his eyes there was such a sadness, such an infinite regret,
such a profound weariness as can only be seen in the eyes of the senile.
He was utterly changed.
'Lord Francis,' I repeated, 'don't you know me?'
He started slightly and looked at me, and a faint gleam appeared in his
eyes. Then he nodded, and took a thin, fragile alabaster hand out of
the pocket of his overcoat. I shook it. It was like shaking hands with
a dead, starved child. He carefully moved the skin and bone back into
his pocket.
'Are you pretty well?' I said.
He nodded. Then the faint gleam faded out of his eyes; his head fell a
little, and he resumed his tragic contemplation of the sea. The fact of
my presence had dropped like a pebble into the strange depths of that
aged mind, and the waters of the ferocious egotism of senility had closed
over it, and it was forgotten. His rapt and yet meaningless gaze
frightened me. It was as if there was more desolation and disillusion in
that gaze than I had previously imagined the whole earth to contain.
Useless for Frank to rouse him for the second time. Useless to explain
ourselves. What was love to him, or the trivial conventions of a world
which he was already quitting?
We walked away. From the edge of the terrace I could see a number of
boats pulling to and fro in the water.
'It's the pigeon-shooting,' Frank explained. 'Come to the railings and
you'll be able to see.'
I had already heard the sharp popping of rifles. I went to the railings,
and saw a number of boxes arranged in a semicircle on a green, which was,
as it were, suspended between the height of the terrace and the sea.
Suddenly one of the boxes collapsed with a rattle, and a bird flew out of
the ruin of it. There were two reports of a gun; the bird, its curving
flight cut short, fell fluttering to the grass; a dog trotted out from
the direction of the gun unseen beneath us, and disappeared again with
the mass of ruffled feathers in its mouth. Then two men showed
themselves, ran to the collapsed box, restored it, and put in it a fresh
victim, and disappeared after the dog. I was horrified, but I could not
remove my eyes from the green. Another box fell flat, and another bird
flew out; a gun sounded; the bird soared far away, wavered, and sank on
to the surface of the sea, and the boats converged towards it in furious
haste. So the game proceeded. I saw a dozen deaths on the green; a few
birds fell into the sea, and one escaped, settling ultimately on the roof
of the Casino.
'So that is pigeon-shooting,' I said coldly, turning to Frank. 'I suppose
it goes on all day?'
He nodded.
'It's just as cruel as plenty of other sports, and no more,' he said, as
if apologizing for the entire male sex.
'I presume so,' I answered. 'But do you know, dear, if the idea once gets
into my head that that is going on all day, I shan't be able to stop
here. Let us have tea somewhere.'
Not until dinner did I recover from the obsession of that continual
slaughter and destruction of beautiful life. It seemed to me that the
Casino and its gorgeous gardens were veritably established on the
mysterious arched hollow, within the high cliff, from which death shot
out all day and every day. But I did recover perfectly. Only now do I
completely perceive how violent, how capricious and contradictory were
my emotions in those unique and unforgettable hours.
We dined late, because I had deprived myself of Yvonne. Already I was
almost in a mind to send for her. The restaurant of the hotel was full,
but we recognised no one as we walked through the room to our table.
'There is one advantage in travelling about with you,' said Frank.
'What is it?' I asked.
'No matter where one is, one can always be sure of being with the most
beautiful woman in the place.'
I was content. I repaid him by being more than ever a man's woman. I
knew that I was made for that. I understood why great sopranos have of
their own accord given up even the stage on marriage. The career of
literature seemed to me tedious and sordid in comparison with that of
being a man's woman. In my rich black dress and my rings and bracelets I
felt like an Eastern Empress; I felt that I could adequately reward
homage with smiles, and love with fervid love. And I felt like a
cat--idle, indolently graceful, voluptuously seeking warmth and
caresses. I enveloped Frank with soft glances, I dazed him with glances.
He ordered a wine which he said was fit for gods, and the waiter brought
it reverently and filled our glasses, with a ritual of precautions.
Later during the dinner Frank asked me if I would prefer champagne. I
said, 'No, of course not.' But he said, 'I think you would,' and ordered
some. 'Admit,' he said, 'that you prefer champagne.' 'Well, of course,'
I replied. But I drank very little champagne, lest I should be too
happy. Frank's wonderful face grew delicately flushed. The room
resounded with discreet chatter, and the tinkle of glass and silver and
porcelain. The upper part of it remained in shadow, but every table was
a centre of rosy light, illuminating faces and jewels and napery. And in
my sweet illusion I thought that every face had found the secret of joy,
and that even the old had preserved it. Pleasure reigned. Pleasure was
the sole goddess. And how satisfying then was the worship of her! Life
had no inconveniences, no dark spots, no pitfalls. The gratification of
the senses, the appeasing of appetites that instantly renewed
themselves--this was the business of the soul. And as the wine sank
lower in the bottles, and we cooled our tongues with ices, and the room
began to empty, expectation gleamed and glittered in our eyes. At last,
except a group of men smoking and talking in a corner, we were the only
diners left.
'Shall we go?' Frank said, putting a veil of cigarette smoke between us.
I trembled. I was once more the young and timid girl. I could not
speak. I nodded.
In the hall was Vicary, talking to the head-porter. He saw us and
started.
'What! Vicary!' I murmured, suddenly cooled.
'I want to speak to you,' said Vicary. 'Where can we go?'
'This way,' Frank replied.
We went to our sitting-room, silent and apprehensive.
'Sit down,' said Vicary, shutting the door and standing against it.
He was wearing a tourist suit, with a gray overcoat, and his grizzled
hair was tumbling over his hard, white face.
'What's the matter?' Frank asked. 'Anything wrong?'
'Look here, you two,' said Vicary, 'I don't want to discuss your
position, and I'm the last person in this world to cast the first stone;
but it falls to me to do it. I was coming down to Nice to stay with my
sisters, and I've come a little further. My sisters wired me they had
seen you. I've been to Mentone, and driven here from there. I hoped I
should get here earlier than the newspapers, and I have done, it seems.'
'Earlier than the newspapers?' Frank repeated, standing up.
'Try to keep calm,' Vicary continued. 'Your wife's body was found in the
Thames at seven o'clock last night. The doctors say it had been in the
water for forty-eight hours. Your servants thought she had gone to you.
But doubtless some thoughtful person had told her that you two were
wandering about Europe together.'
'_My wife_' cried Frank.
And the strange and terrible emphasis he put on the word 'wife' proved to
me in the fraction of a second that in his heart I was not his wife. A
fearful tragedy had swept away the structure of argument in favour of the
rights of love which he had built over the original conventionality of
his mind. Poor fellow!
He fell back into his chair and covered his eyes.
'I thank God my mother didn't live to see this!' he cried.
And then he rushed to his bedroom and banged the door.
'My poor girl!' said Vicary, approaching me. 'What can I--I'm awfully--'
I waved him away.
'What's that?' he exclaimed, in a different voice, listening.
I ran to the bedroom, and saw Frank lifting a revolver.
'You've brought me to this, Carlotta!' he shouted.
I sprang towards him, but it was too late.