Events, however slight, which involve the soul are drama; for once the
soul takes a hand in them their effects are permanent and reproductive.
Not alone the relationship between individuals are determined this way or
that, but the relationships of these individuals towards the universe are
changed upon a scale of geometrical progression. The results are of the
eternal order. Since that which persists--the soul--is radically
affected, they are of ultimate importance.
Had the strange tie between Tom and Lettice been due to physical causes
only, to mental affinity, or to mere sympathetic admiration of each
other's outward strength and beauty, a rupture between them could have
been of a passing character merely. A pang, a bitterness that lasted for
a day or for a year--and the gap would be filled again by some one else.
They had idealised; they would get over it; they were not indispensable to
one another; there were other fish in the sea, and so forth.
But with Tom, at any rate, there was something transcendental in their
intimate union. Loss, where she was concerned, involved a permanent and
irremediable bereavement--no substitute was conceivable. With him, this
relationship seemed foreordained, almost prenatal--it had come to him at
the very dawn of life; it had lasted through years of lonely waiting; no
other woman had ever threatened its fixed security, and the sudden meeting
in Switzerland had seemed to him reunion rather than discovery. Moreover,
he had transferred his own sense of security to her; had always credited
her with similar feelings; and the suspicion now that he had deceived
himself in this made life tremble to the foundations. It was a terrible
thought that robbed him of every atom of self-confidence. It affected his
attitude to the entire universe.
The intensity of this drama, however, being interior, caused little
outward disturbance that casual onlookers need have noticed. He waved his
hat as he walked towards the corner where she lay, greeting her with a
smile and careless word, as though no shadow stood between them.
A barrier, nevertheless, was there he knew. He _felt_ it almost sensibly.
Also--it had grown higher. And at once he was aware that the Lettice who
returned his smile with a colourless 'Good morning, Tom, I'm so glad you
could come,' was not the Lettice who had known a moment's reaction a
little while before. He told by her very attitude that now there was
lassitude, even weariness in her. Her eyes betrayed none of the
excitement and delight that another could wake in her. His own presence
certainly no longer brought the thrill, the interest that once it did.
She was both bored and lonely.
And, while an exquisite pain ran through him, he made a prodigious effort
to draw upon the strength he had felt in Karnak a short half-hour ago.
He struggled bravely to forget himself. 'So Tony's gone!' he said
lightly, 'run off and left us without so much as a word of warning or
good-bye. A rascally proceeding, I call it! Rather sudden, too, wasn't
it?'
He sat down beside her and began to smoke. She need not answer unless she
wanted to. She did answer, however, and at once. She did not look at
him; her eyes were on the golden distance. It had to be said; she said
it. 'He's only gone for two or three days. His friends suddenly changed
their minds, and he couldn't get out of it. He said he didn't want to
go--a bit.'
How did she know it, Tom wondered, glancing up over his cigarette?
And how had she read his mind so easily?
'He just popped in to tell me,' she added, 'and to say good-bye. He asked
me to tell you.' She spoke without a tremor, as if Tom had no right to
disapprove.
'Pretty early, wasn't it?' It was not the first time either. 'He comes
at such unusual hours'--he remembered Mrs. Haughstone's words.
'I was only just up. But there was time to give him coffee before the
train.'
She offered no further comment; Tom made none; he sat smoking there beside
her, outwardly calm and peaceful as though no feeling of any kind was in
him. He felt numb perhaps. In his mind he saw the picture of the
breakfast-table beneath the trees. The plan had been arranged, of course,
beforehand.
'Miss de Lorne's coming to lunch,' she mentioned presently. 'She's to
bring her pictures--the Deir-el-Bahri ones. You must help me criticise
them.'
So they were not to be alone even, was Tom's instant thought. Aloud he
said merely, 'I hope they're good.' She flicked the flies away with her
horse-hair whisk, and sighed. He caught the sigh. The day felt empty,
uninspired, the boredom of cruel disillusion in it somewhere. But it was
the sigh that made him realise it. Avoiding the subject of Tony's abrupt
departure, he asked what she would like to do that afternoon. He made
various proposals; she listened without interest. 'D'you know, Tom, I
don't feel inclined to do anything much, but just lie and rest.'
There was no energy in her, no zest for life; expeditions had lost their
interest; she was listless, tired. He felt impatience in him, sharp
disappointment too; but there was an alert receptiveness in his mind that
noted trifles done or left undone. She made no reference, for instance,
to the fact that they might be frequently alone together now. A faint
hope that had been in him vanished quickly. . . . He wondered when she
was going to speak of her letter, of his conduct the night before that was
'beautiful and precious,' of the 'comfort' she had needed, or even of the
dreams that she had mentioned. But, though he waited, giving various
openings, nothing was forthcoming. That side of her, once intimately
precious and familiar, seemed buried, hidden away, perhaps forgotten.
This was not Lettice--it was some one else.
'You had dreams that frightened you?' he enquired at length. 'You said
you'd tell them to me.' He moved nearer so that he could watch her face.
She looked puzzled for a second. 'Did I?' she replied. She thought a
moment. 'Oh yes, of course I did. But they weren't much really.
I'd forgotten. It was about water or something. Ah, I remember now--we
were drowning, and you saved us.' She gave a little unmeaning laugh as
she said it.
'Who were drowning?'
'All of us--me and you, I think it was--and Tony----'
'Oh, of course.'
She looked up. 'Tom, why do you say "of course" like that?'
'It was your old idea of the river and the floating faces, I meant,' he
answered. 'I had the feeling.'
'You said it so sharply.'
'Did I!' He shrugged his shoulders slightly. 'I didn't mean to.'
He noticed the beauty of her ear, the delicate line of the nostrils, the
long eyelashes. The graceful neck, with the firm, slim line of the breast
below, were exquisite. The fairy curve of her ankle was just visible.
He could have knelt and covered it with kisses. Her coolness, the touch
of contempt in her voice made him wild. . . . But he understood his role;
and--he remembered Karnak.
A little pause followed. Lettice made one of her curious gestures, half
impatience, half weariness. She stretched; the other ankle appeared.
Tom, as he saw it, felt something in him burst into flame. He came
perilously near to saying impetuously a hundred things he had determined
that he must not say. He felt the indifference in her, the coolness,
almost the cruelty. Her negative attitude towards him goaded, tantalised.
He was full of burning love, from head to foot, while she lay there within
two feet of him, calm, listless, unresponsive, passionless. The bitter
pain of promises unfulfilled assailed him acutely, poignantly. Yet in
ordinary life the situation was so commonplace. The 'strong man' would
face her with it, have it out plainly; he would be masterful, forcing a
climax of one kind or another, behaving as men do in novels or on the
stage.
Yet Tom remained tongue-tied and restrained; he seemed unable to take the
lead; an inner voice cried sternly No to all such natural promptings.
It would be a gross mistake. He must let things take their course.
He must not force a premature disclosure. With a tremendous effort, he
controlled himself and smothered the rising fires that struggled towards
speech and action. He would not even ask a single question. Somehow, in
any case, it was impossible.
The subject dropped; Lettice made no further reference to the letter.
'When you feel like going anywhere, or doing anything, you'll let me
know,' he suggested presently. 'We've been too energetic lately.
It's best for you to rest. You're tired.' The words hurt and stung him
as though he were telling lies. He felt untrue to himself. The blood
boiled in his veins.
She answered him with a touch of impatience again, almost of exasperation.
He noticed the emphasis she used so needlessly.
'Tom, I'm _not_ tired--not in the way _you_ mean. It's just that I feel
like being quiet for a bit. _Really_ it's not so remarkable! Can't you
understand?'
'Perfectly,' he rejoined calmly, lighting another cigarette. 'We'll have
a programme ready for later--when Tony gets back.' The blood rushed from
his heart as he said it.
Her face brightened instantly, as he had expected--dreaded; there was no
attempt at concealment anywhere; she showed interest as frankly as a
child. 'It was stupid of him to go, just when we were enjoying everything
so,' she said again. 'I wonder how long he'll stay----'
'I'll write and tell him to hurry up,' suggested Tom. He twirled his
fly-whisk energetically.
'Tell him we can't get on without our _dragoman_,' she added eagerly with
her first attempt at gaiety; and then went on to mention other things he
was to say, till her pleasure in talking about Tony was so obvious that
Tom yielded to temptation suddenly. It was more than he could bear.
'I strongly suspect a pretty girl in the party somewhere,' he observed
carelessly.
'There is,' came the puzzling reply, 'but he doesn't care for her a bit.
He told me all about her. It's curious, isn't it, how he fascinates them
all? There's something very remarkable about Tony--I can't quite make it
out.'
Tom leaned forward, bringing his face in front of her own, and closer to
it. He looked hard into her eyes a moment. In the depths of her steady
gaze he saw shadows, far away, behind the open expression. There was
trouble in her, but it was deep, deep down and out of sight. The eyes of
some one else, it seemed, looked through her into his. An older world
came whispering across the sunlight and the sand.
'Lettice,' he said quietly, 'there's something new come into your life
these last few weeks--isn't there?' His voice grated--like machinery
started with violent effort against resistance. 'Some new, big force, I
mean? You seem so changed, so different.' He had not meant to speak like
this. It was forced out. He expressed himself badly too. He raged
inwardly.
She smiled, but only with her lips. The shadows from behind her eyes drew
nearer to the surface. But the eyes themselves held steady. That other
look peered out of them. He was aware of power, of something strangely
bewitching, yet at the same time fierce, inflexible in her . . . and a
kind of helplessness came over him, as though he was suddenly out of his
depth, without sure footing. The Wave roared in his ears and blood.
'Egypt probably--old Egypt,' she said gently, making a slow gesture with
one hand towards the river and the sky. 'It must be that.' The gesture,
it seemed to him, had royalty in it somewhere. There was stateliness and
dignity--an air of authority about her. It was magnificent. He felt
worship in him. The slave that lies in worship stirred. He could yield
his life, suffer torture for days to give her a moment's happiness.
'I meant something personal, rather,' he prevaricated.
'You meant Tony. I know it. Didn't you, Tom?'
His breath caught inwardly. In spite of himself, and in spite of his
decision, she drew his secret out. Enchantment touched him deliciously,
an actual torture in it.
'Yes,' he said honestly, 'perhaps I did.' He said it shamefacedly rather,
to his keen vexation. 'For it _has_ to do with Tony somehow.'
He got up abruptly, tossed his cigarette over the wall into the river,
then sat down again. 'There's something about it--strange and big.
I can't make it out a bit.' He faltered, stammered over the words.
'It's a long way off--then all at once it's close.' He had the feeling
that he had put a match to something. 'I've done it now,' he said to
himself like a boy, as though he expected that something dramatic must
happen instantly.
But nothing happened. The river flowed on silently, the heat blazed down,
the leaves hung motionless as before, and far away the lime-stone hills
lay sweltering in the glare. But those hills had glided nearer. He was
aware of them,--the Valley of the Kings,--the desolate Theban Hills with
their myriad secrets and their deathless tombs.
Lettice gave her low, significant little laugh. 'It's odd you should say
that, Tom--very odd. Because I've felt it too. It's awfully remote and
quite near at the same time----'
'And Tony's brought it,' he interrupted eagerly, half passionately.
'It's got to do with him, I mean.'
It seemed to him that the barrier between them had lowered a little.
The Lettice he knew first peered over it at him.
'No,' she corrected, 'I don't feel that he's brought it. He's _in_ it
somehow, I admit, but he has not brought it exactly.' She hesitated a
moment. 'I think the truth is he can't help himself--any more than we--
you or I--can.'
There was a caressing tenderness in her voice as she said it, but whether
for himself or for another he could not tell. In his heart rose a frantic
impulse just then to ask--to blurt it out: 'Do you love Tony? Has he
taken you from me? Tell me the truth and I can bear it. Only, for
heaven's sake, don't hide it!' But, instead of saying this absurd,
theatrical thing, he looked at her through the drifting cigarette smoke a
moment without speaking, trying to read the expression in her face.
'Last night, for instance,' he exclaimed abruptly; 'in the music room, I
mean. Did you feel _that_?--the intensity--a kind of ominous feeling?'
Her expression was enigmatical; there were signs of struggle in it, he
thought. It was as if two persons fought within her which should answer.
Apparently the dear Lettice of his first acquaintance won--for the moment.
'You noticed it too!' she exclaimed with astonishment. 'I thought I was
the only one.'
'We all--all three of us--felt it,' he said in a lower tone.
'Tony certainly did----'
Lettice raised herself suddenly on her elbow and looked down at him with
earnestness. Something of the old eagerness was in her. The barrier
between them lowered perceptibly again, and Tom felt a momentary return of
the confidence he had lost. His heart beat quickly. He made a
half-impetuous gesture towards her--'What is it? What does it all mean,
Lettice?' he exclaimed. 'D'you feel what _I_ feel in it--danger
somewhere--danger for _us_?' There was a yearning, almost a cry for mercy
in his voice.
She drew back again. 'You amaze me, Tom,' she said, as she lay among her
cushions. 'I had no idea you were so observant.' She paused, putting her
hand across her eyes a moment. 'N-no--I don't feel danger exactly,' she
went on in a lower tone, speaking half to herself and half to him;
'I feel--' She broke off with a little sigh; her hand still covered her
eyes. 'I feel,' she went on slowly, with pauses between the words,
'a deep, deep something--from very far away--that comes over me at times--
only at times, yes. It's remote, enormously remote--but it has to be.
I've never given you all that I ought to give. We have to go through with
it----'
'You and I?' he whispered. He was listening intently. The beats of his
heart were most audible.
She sighed. 'All three of us--somehow,' she replied equally low, and
speaking again more to herself than to him. 'Ah! Now my dream comes back
a little. It was _the_ river--my river with the floating faces. And the
thing I feel comes--from its source, far, far away--its tiny source among
the hills----' She sighed again, more deeply than before. Her breast
heaved slightly. 'We must go through it--yes. It's necessary for us--
necessary for you--and me----'
'Lettice, my precious, my wonderful!' Tom whispered as though the breath
choked and strangled him. 'But we stay together through it? We stay
together _afterwards_? You love me still?' He leaned across and took her
other hand. It lay unresistingly in his. It was very cold--without a
sign of response.
Her faint reply half staggered him: 'We are always, always together, you
and I. Even if you married, I should still be yours. He will go out----'
Fear clashed with hope in his heart as he heard these words he could not
understand. He groped and plunged after their meaning. He was bewildered
by the reference to marriage--his marriage! Was she, then, already aware
that she might lose him? . . . But there was confession in them too, the
confession that she _had_ been away from him. That he felt clearly.
Now that the dividing influence was removed, she was coming back perhaps!
If Tony stayed away she would come back entirely; only then the thing that
had to happen would be prevented--which was not to be thought of for a
moment. . . . 'Poor Lettice. . . .' He felt pity, love, protection that
he burned to give; he felt a savage pain and anger as well. In the depths
of him love and murder sat side by side.
'Oh, Lettice, tell me everything. Do share with me--share it and we'll
meet it together.' He drew her cold hand towards him, putting it inside
his coat. 'Don't hide it from me. You're my whole world. _My_ love can
never change. . . . Only don't hide anything!' The words poured out of
him with passionate entreaty. The barrier had melted, vanished. He had
found her again, the Lettice of his childhood, of his dream, the true and
faithful woman he had known first. His inexpressible love rose like a
wave upon him. Regardless of where they were he bent over to take her in
his arms--when she suddenly withdrew her hand from his. She removed the
other from her eyes. He saw her face. And he realised in an instant that
his words had been all wrong. He had said precisely again what he ought
not to have said. The moment in her had passed.
The sudden change had a freezing effect upon him.
'Tom, I don't understand quite,' she said coldly, her eyes fixed on his
almost with resentment in them. 'I'm not _hiding_ anything from you.
Why do you say such things? I'm true--true to myself.'
The barrier was up again in an instant, of granite this time, with jagged
edges of cut glass upon it, so that he could not approach it even.
It was not Lettice that spoke then:
'I don't know what's come over you out here,' she went on, each word she
uttered increasing the distance between them; 'you misunderstand
everything I say and criticise all I do. You suspect my tenderest
instincts. Even a friendship that brings me happiness you object to and--
and exaggerate.'
He listened till she ceased; it was as if he had received a blow in the
face; he felt disconcerted, keenly aware of his own stupidity, helpless.
Something froze in him. He had seen her for a second, then lost her
utterly.
'No, no, Lettice,' he stammered, 'you read all that into me--really, you
do. I only want your happiness.'
Her eyes softened a little. She sighed wearily and turned her face away.
'We were only talking of this curious, big feeling that's come----' he
went on.
'You were speaking of Tony--that's what you really meant, Tom,' she
interrupted. 'You know it perfectly well. It only makes it harder--for
_me_?'
He felt suddenly she was masquerading, playing with him again, playing
with his very heart and soul. The devil tempted him. All the things he
had decided he would not say rose to the tip of his tongue. The worst of
them--those that hurt him most--he managed to force down. But even the
one he did suffer to escape gave him atrocious pain:
'Well, Lettice, to tell the truth, I do think Tony has a bad--a curious
influence on you. I do feel he has come between us rather. And I do
think that if you would only share with me----'
The sudden way she turned upon him, rising from her chair and standing
over him, was so startling that he got up too. They faced each other, he
in the blazing sunshine, she in the shade. She looked so different that
he was utterly taken aback. She wore that singular Eastern appearance he
now knew so well. Expression, attitude, gesture, all betrayed it.
That inflexible, cruel thing shone in her eyes.
'Tom, dear,' she said, but with a touch of frigid exasperation that for a
moment paralysed thought and utterance in him, 'whatever happens, you must
realise this--that I am myself and that I can never allow my freedom to be
taken from me. If you're determined to misjudge, the fault is yours, and
if our love, our friendship, cannot understand _that_, there's something
wrong with it.'
The word 'friendship' was like a sword thrust. It went right through him.
'I trust you,' he faltered, 'I trust you wholly. I know you're true.'
But the words, it seemed, gave expression to an intense desire, a fading
hope. He did not say it with conviction. She gazed at him for a moment
through half-closed eyelids.
'_Do_ you, Tom?' she whispered.
'Lettice . . .!'
'Then believe at least--' her voice wavered suddenly, there came a little
break in it--'that I am true to you, Tom, as I am to myself. Believe in
that . . . and--Oh! for the love of heaven--help me!'
Before he could respond, before he could act upon the hope and passion her
last unexpected words set loose in him--she turned away to go into the
house. Voices were audible behind them, and Miss de Lorne was coming up
the sandy drive with Mrs. Haughstone. Tom watched her go. She moved with
a certain gliding, swaying walk as she passed along the verandah and
disappeared behind the curtains of dried grass. It almost seemed--though
this must certainly have been a trick of light and shadow--that she was
swathed from head to foot in a clinging garment not of modern kind, and
that he caught the gleam of gold upon the flesh of dusky arms that were
bare above the elbow. Two persons were visible in her very physical
appearance, as two persons had just been audible in her words. Thence
came the conflict and the contradictions.