I.
A life of wandering for two years and more, of voyages from America to
Australia, from Australia back to Europe; painfully restless, finding no
new aims in life, no new reason for their own existence, no new thing in
the countries they traversed or in the various atmospheres they
breathed. A life at first without the struggle for existence, dragged
out by each under the weight of his own woe; with many regrets, but no
anxiety as to the material burden of existence. But presently there was
the growing dread of that material burden, the unpleasant consciousness
that there was no more money coming out from home, month after month;
disagreeable transactions with bankers in distant places, constant
letter-writing to and fro; in short, the almost total evaporation of a
fortune of which too much had long since been dissipated in golden
vapour. Then they saw the necessity of looking about them for means of
subsistence, and they had taken work in factories, assurance offices,
brokers' ware-houses and what not, simply to keep their heads above
water in this life which they found so aimless and wretched.
They had known hours of bitter anguish, and many long days of poverty,
with no escape, and the remembrance of White-Rose Cottage. Still, they
had felt no longing for White-Rose Cottage again. Gradually yielding to
indifference and sullen patience, their fears for the future and
struggles to live were the outcome of natural, inherited instinct,
rather than of spontaneous impulse and personal desire.
And even in this gloomy indifference Van Maeren had one comforting
reflection, one delicate pleasure, exquisite and peculiar, as a solace
to his self-contempt; the consolation of knowing that now that Westhove
had known some buffeting of Fortune, now that they had to work for
their bread, he had never felt impelled to leave his friend to his fate
or desert him as soon as the game was up. The impulse to abandon Frank
had never risen in his soul, and he was glad of it; glad that, when it
occurred to him afterwards as a possibility, it was merely as a notion,
with which he had no concern, and which was no part of himself. No; he
had stuck by Frank; partly perhaps as a result of his cat-like nature
and because he clung to his place at Frank's side; but not for that
alone. There was something ideal in it, some little sentiment. He liked
the notion of remaining faithful to a man who had not a cent left in the
world. They had worked together, sharing the toil and the pay with
brotherly equality.
Two long years. And now they were back in Europe; avoiding England and
returning to their native land, Holland--Amsterdam and the Hague. A
strange longing had grown up in them both to see once more the places
they had quitted so long before, bored by their familiarity, to see the
wider world; to drag home their broken lives, as though they hoped
there to find a cure, a miraculous balm, to console them for existence.
They had scraped together some little savings, and might take a few
months of summer holiday by thriftily spending their handful of cash. So
they had taken lodgings in a villa at Scheveningen--a little house to
the left of the Orange Hotel, looking out over the sea; and the sea had
become a changeful background for their lazy summer fancies, for they
did not care to wander away amid the bustle of the Kurhaus and the
sands. Frank would sit for hours on the balcony, in a cane chair, his
legs on the railing, the blue smoke of his cigar curling up in front of
his nose; and then he felt soothed, free from all acute pain, resigned
to his own uselessness; though with a memory now and again of the past,
and of a sorrow which was no longer too keen. And then, stiff with
sitting still, he would play a game of quoits or hockey, or fence a
little with Bertie, whom he had taught to use the foils. He looked full
of health, was stouter than of yore, with a fine high colour under his
clear, tanned skin, a mild gravity in his bright grey eyes, and
sometimes a rather bitter curl under his sheeny yellow moustache.
But Bertie suffered more; and as he looked out over the semicircle of
ocean and saw the waters break with their endless rollers of blue and
green and grey and violet and pearly iridescence--the vaulted sky above,
full of endless cloud-scenery, sweeping or creeping masses of opaque
grey or white, silvery pinions, dappled feathers, drifts of down-like
sky-foam--he fancied that his Fate was coming up over the sea. It was
coming closer--irresistibly closer. And he watched its approach; he felt
it so intensely that sometimes his whole being seemed to be on the alert
while he sat motionless in his cane chair, with his eyes fixed on the
barren waste of waters.
II.
Thus it happened that, sitting here one day he saw on the shore below,
between the tufts of yellow broom growing on the sand-hills, two figures
coming towards him, a man and a woman, like finely drawn silhouettes in
Indian ink against the silver sea. A pang suddenly shot through his
frame, from his heart to his throat--to his temples. But the salt reek
came up to him and roused his senses with a freshness that mounted to
his brain, so that, in spite of the shock, it remained quite clear, as
if filled with a rarer atmosphere. He saw everything distinctly, down to
the subtlest detail of hue and line: the silver-grey curve of the
horizon, like an enormous glittering, liquid eye, with mother-of-pearl
tints, broken by the tumbling crests of the waves, and hardly darker
than the spread of sky strewn with a variously grey fleece of rent and
ravelled clouds; to the right, one stucco façade of the Kurhaus, looking
with stupid dignity at the sea out of its staring window-eyes; further
away, by the water's edge, the fishing boats, like large walnut-shells,
with filmy veils of black netting hanging from the masts, each boat with
its little flag playfully waving and curling in the breeze; and on the
terrace and the strand, among a confused crowd of yellow painted chairs,
a throng of summer visitors like a great stain of pale water-colour, in
gay but delicate tints. He could see quite clearly--here a rent in the
red sail of a boat, there a ribbon fluttering from a basket-chair, and
again a seagull on the shore swooping to snatch something out of the
surf. He noted all these little details, minute and motley trifles,
bright specks in the expanse of sky and ocean, and very visible in the
subdued light of a sunless day. And those two silhouettes--a man and a
woman--grew larger, came nearer, along the sands till they were just
opposite to him.
He knew them at once by their general appearance--the man by a peculiar
gesture of raising his hat and wiping his forehead, the lady by the way
she carried her parasol, the stick resting on her shoulder while she
held the point of one of the ribs. And, recognising them he had a
singular light-headed sensation, as though he would presently be
floating dizzily out of his chair, and swept away over the sea.... He
fell back, feeling strangely weary, and dazzling sparks danced before
his fixed gaze like glittering notes of interrogation. What was to be
done? Could he devise some ingenious excuse and try to tempt Frank to
leave the place, to fly? Oh! how small the world was! Was it for this
that they had wandered over the globe, never knowing any rest--to meet,
at their very first halting-place, the two beings he most dreaded? Was
this accident or Fatality? Yes, Fatality! But then--was he really
afraid?
And in his dejection he felt quite sure that he was afraid of nothing;
that he was profoundly indifferent, full of an intolerable weariness of
self-torture. He was too tired to feel alarm; he would wait and see what
would happen. It must come. There was no escape. It was Fatality. It
was rest to sit there, motionless, inert, will-less, with the wide
silver-grey waters before him, waiting for what might happen. To
struggle no more for his own ends, to fear no more, but to wait
patiently and for ever. It must come, like the tide from the ocean; it
must cover him, as the surf covers the sands--and then go down again,
and perhaps drag him with it, drowned and dead. A wave of that flood
would wash over him and stop his breath--and more waves would
follow--endlessly. A senseless tide--a fruitless eternity.
"I wish I did not feel it so acutely," he painfully thought. "It is too
silly to feel it so. Perhaps nothing will come of it, and I shall live
to be a hundred, in peace and contentment. Still, this is undeniable,
this is a fact: they are there! They are here! But--if It were really
coming I should not feel it. Nothing happens but the unexpected. It is
mere nervous weakness, over-tension. Nothing can really matter to me;
nothing matters. The air is lovely and pleasantly soft; there floats a
cloud. And I will just sit still, without fear, quite at my ease. There
they are again!--The seamews fly low.--I will wait, wait.... Those boys
are playing in that boat; what folly! They will have it over!"
He looked with involuntary interest at their antics, and then again at
the gentleman and lady. They were now full in sight, just below him; and
they went past, knowing nothing, without a gesture, like two puppets.
"Ah! but _I_ know," thought he. "They are here, and It has come in their
train perhaps. But it may go away with them too, and be no more than a
threat. So I shall wait; I do not care. If it must come it must."
They had gone out of sight. The boys and their boat were gone too. The
shore in front of him was lonely--a long stretch of desert. Suddenly he
was seized with a violent shivering,--an ague. He stood up, his face
quite colourless, his knees quaking. Terror had suddenly been too much
for him, and large beads of sweat bedewed his forehead.
"God above!" thought he, "life is terrible. I have made it terrible. I
am afraid. What can I do? Run away? No, no; I must wait. Can any harm
come to me? No, none! None, none.... There they were, both of them, she
and her father. I am really afraid. Oh! if it must come, great God! only
let it come quickly!"
Then he fancied his eyes had deceived him; that it had not been those
two. Impossible! And yet he knew that they were there. Terror throbbed
in his breast with vehement heart-beating, and he now only marvelled
that he could have looked at the boat with the boys at all, while Sir
Archibald and Eva were walking down on the shore: Would it not be
upset?--That was what he had been thinking of the boat.
III.
A whole fortnight of broiling summer days slipped by; and he waited,
always too weary to make the smallest effort to induce Frank to quit the
place. It might perhaps have cost him no more than a single word. But he
never spoke the word--waiting, and gradually falling under a spell of
waiting, as though he were looking for the mysterious outcome of an
interesting _dénouement._ Had they already met anywhere? Would they
meet? And if they should, would anything come of it? One thing
inevitably follows another, thought he, nothing can ever be done to
check their course.
Westhove was in the habit of remaining a great deal indoors, leading a
quiet life between his gloomy thoughts and his favourite gymnastics, not
troubling himself about the summer crowd outside on the terrace and the
shore. Thus the fortnight passed without his becoming aware of the
vicinity of the woman whom Van Maeren dreaded. Not a suspicion of
premonition thrilled through Frank's mild melancholy; he had gone on
breathing the fresh sea air without perceiving any fragrance in the
atmosphere that could suggest her presence. He did not discern the
prints of her little shoes on the level strand below the villa, nor the
tilt of her parasol passing under his eyes, as he sat calmly smoking
with his feet on the railings. And they must often have gazed at the
selfsame packet steaming into the narrow harbour, like a coloured
silhouette cut out of a print, with its little sails and flag of smoke,
but their eyes were unconscious how nearly they must be crossing each
other, out there over the sea.
After these two scorching weeks there came a dull, grey, sunless day,
with heavy rain stored in the driving black clouds, like swollen
water-skins.
Frank had gone for a walk on the shore, by the edge of the wailing,
fretting sea; the basket-chairs had been carried higher up, and were
closely packed and almost unoccupied. There was scarcely any one out. A
dismal sighing wind swept the waters; it was an autumn day full of the
desolation of departed summer joys. And as he walked on, his ears filled
with the moaning breeze, he saw her coming towards him with waving
skirts and fluttering ribbons, and--Great Heaven! it was she!
It was as though a mass of rock had been suddenly cast at his breast
with a giant's throw, and he lay crushed and breathless beneath. A surge
of mingled joy and anguish struggled through his pulses, thrilled his
nerves, mounted to his brain. He involuntarily stood still, and almost
unconsciously exclaimed, in a tone inaudible, indeed, at any distance,
and drowned in the wind:
"Eva! My God! Eva!"
But the distance was lessening; now she was close to him, and apparently
quite calm; because she had already seen him that very morning, though
he had not seen her; because she had gone through the first emotion;
because she had walked that way, in the wind, close by the villa into
which she had seen him vanish, in the hope of meeting him again. The
question flashed through his mind whether he should greet her with a
bow, as a stranger--doing it with affected indifference, as though
unmoved by this accidental meeting and forgetful of the past. And in
spite of his tremulous excitement he could still be amazed at seeing her
come straight towards him, without any hesitation, as if to her goal. In
an instant she stood before him, with her pale, earnest face, and dark
eyes beaming with vitality; he saw her whole form and figure, absorbed
them into himself, as though his soul would devour the vision.
"Frank," she said, softly.
He made no reply, shivering with emotion, and scarcely able to see
through the mist of tears which dimmed his eyes. She smiled sadly.
"Will you not hear me?" she said, in her low, silvery voice.
He bowed, awkwardly muttering something, awkwardly putting out his hand.
She gently grasped it, and went on, still in that subdued tone like an
echo:
"Do not be vexed with me for addressing you. There is something I should
like to say to you. I am glad to have met you here in Scheveningen by
mere chance--or perhaps not by mere chance. There was some
misunderstanding, Frank, between you and me, and unpleasant words were
spoken on both sides. We are parted, and yet I should like to ask your
forgiveness for what I then said."
Tears choked her; she could scarcely control herself; but she concealed
her emotion and stood calmly before him; brave as women can be brave,
and with that sad smile full of hopeless submission, without
affectation, candid and simple.
"Do not take it amiss; only let me ask you whether you can forgive me
for having once offended you, and will henceforth think of me more
tenderly."
"Eva, Eva!" he stammered. "You ask me to forgive? It was I--it was I
who--"
"Nay," she gently interrupted, "you have forgotten. It was I--do you
forgive me?" And she held out her hand. Frank wrung it, with a sob that
choked in his throat.
"Thank you. I am glad," she went on. "I was in the wrong; why should I
not confess it? I own it frankly.--Will you not come and see papa? We
are living in a _hôtel garni_. Have you anything to do? If not, come now
with me. Papa will be very pleased to see you."
"Certainly, of course," he muttered, walking on by her side.
"But I am not taking you from any one else? Perhaps some one is waiting
for you. Perhaps now--by this time--you are married."
She forced herself to look at him with her faint smile--a languid, pale
courtesy which parted her lips but sadly; and her voice was mildly
blank, devoid of any special interest. He started at her words; they
conveyed a suggestion which had never occurred to him; a strange idea
transferred from her to him; but it took no root, and perished
instantly.
"Married! Oh, Eva--- no, never!" he exclaimed.
"Well, such a thing might have been," said she, coolly.
They were silent for a while; but in a few moments, Eva, touched by the
tone of his last words, could no longer contain herself, and began to
cry gently, like a frightened child, sobbing spasmodically as they
walked on, the tears soaking her white gauze veil.
In front of their hotel she stopped, and, controlling herself for a
moment, said:
"Frank, be honest with me: do you not think it odious of me to have
spoken to you? I could not make up my mind what I ought to do; but I so
much wanted to confess myself wrong, and ask you to forgive me. Do you
despise me for doing such a thing which, perhaps, some other girl would
never have done?"
"Despise you! I despise you?" cried he, with a gulp. But he could say no
more, for some visitors were coming towards them--though but few were
out on this windy and threatening day. They went a little further,
hanging their heads like criminals under the eyes of the strangers. Then
they turned into the hotel.
IV.
Sir Archibald received Frank somewhat coolly, though civilly. Then he
left them together, and Eva at once began:
"Sit down, Frank. I have something to tell you."
He obeyed in some surprise; her tone was business-like, her emotion was
suppressed, and she seemed to be prepared to make some clear and logical
statement.
"Frank," said she, "you once wrote a letter to Papa, did you not?"
"Yes," he nodded sadly.
"You did?" she exclaimed eagerly.
"Yes," he repeated. "Two to you and one to Sir Archibald."
"What! two to me as well?" she cried in dismay.
"Yes," he nodded once more.
"And you had no answers," she went on more calmly. "Did you ever wonder
why?"
"Why?" he echoed in surprise. "Because you were offended--because I had
been so rough--"
"No," said she very positively. "Simply and solely because we never
received your letters."
"What?" cried Westhove.
"They never reached us. Our servant William seems to have had some
interest in keeping them back."
"Some interest?" repeated Frank, dully, bewildered. "Why?"
"That I do not know," replied Eva. "All I know is this: our maid
Kate--you remember her--came crying one day to tell me that she could
not stay any longer, for she was afraid of William, who had declared
that he would murder her. I inquired what had happened; and then she
told me that she had once been just about to bring up a letter to
Papa--in your handwriting. She knew your writing. William had come
behind her when she was close to the door, and had snatched it from her,
saying that he would carry it in; but instead of doing so he had put
the letter into his pocket. She had asked him what he meant by it; then
they had a violent quarrel, and ever since she had been afraid of the
man. She had wanted to tell me a long time ago, but dared not for fear
of William. We questioned William, who was rough and sulky, and
considered himself offended by our doubts of his honesty. Papa had his
room searched to see if he had stolen any more letters or other things.
Nothing, however, was to be found, neither stolen articles nor letters.
Not even the letter to Papa, which seems to have been the last of the
three you wrote."
"It was," said Frank.
"Of course Papa dismissed the man. And--oh, what was it I wanted to tell
you?--I cannot remember.--So you wrote actually three times?"
"Indeed I did; three times."
"And what did you say?" she asked, with a sob in her throat.
"I asked you to forgive me, and whether--whether all could not be the
same again. I confessed that I had been wrong--"
"But you were not."
"Perhaps not. I cannot tell now. I felt it so then. I waited and waited
for a word from you or your father. And none came."
"No, none!" she sighed. "And then?"
"What could I have done?"
"Why did you not come yourself? Oh! why did you never come near us?" she
wailed reproachfully.
He was silent for a minute, collecting his thoughts; he could not
remember it all.
"Tell me, Frank?" she said softly. "Why did you not come, yourself?"
"I cannot remember exactly," he said, dully.
"Then you did think of it?"
"Yes, certainly," said he.
"Then how was it that you never came?"
Frank suddenly broke down; he gulped down his tears with difficulty, a
gulp of anguish.
"Because I was heart-broken, because I was so wretched, so unspeakably
wretched. I had always taken rather cynical views of women, and love,
and so forth; and then when I met you it was all so new, so fresh to me,
I felt myself a boy again; I was in love with you, not only for your
beauty but for everything you said and did; for being what you are,
always so calm and sweet. Good God! I adored you, Eva.--Then there was
that change: that doubt, that dreadful time. I cannot remember it all
now; and I felt so forlorn and broken-hearted. I could have died then,
Eva, Eva!"
"You were so miserable? And you did not come to me?"
"No."
"But, good heavens, why not?"
"I wanted to go to you!"
"And why did you not do it, then?" Again he sat lost in thought; his
brain seemed clouded.
"Ah yes! I think I remember all about it now," he said slowly. "I wanted
to go--and then Bertie said--"
"What did Bertie say?"
"That he thought me a fool for my pains; a coward, and a cur, and a
fool."
"But why?"
"Because you had disbelieved my word."
"And then?"
"I thought perhaps he was right and I did not go."
She flung herself on a sofa in utter woe, weeping passionately.
"Then it was what Bertie, said?" she cried reproachfully.
"Yes; nothing else," he said, mournfully. "God in heaven! that alone."
They were both silent. Then Eva sat upright again, shivering; her face
was white and bloodless, her eyes fixed with a dull, vacant glare, like
weathered glass.
"Oh Frank!" she cried--"Frank, I am so frightened! It is coming!"
"What, what?" he asked in alarm.
"I feel it coming upon me!" she moaned, panting. "It is like the sound
of distant thunder, droning in my ears and in my brain. Great heavens!
It is close to me! Frank, oh Frank! It is above me, over me. The thunder
is over my head!" She shrieked and fought the air with her arms as if to
beat something off, and her slender frame was convulsed as from a series
of mysterious electric shocks. Her breath came rattling in her throat.
Then she tottered, and he thought she would have fallen. He clasped her
in his arms.
"Eva, Eva!" he cried.
She allowed him to drag her to the sofa without making any resistance,
happy in his embrace in spite of her hallucination; and there she
remained sitting by him, with his arm round her, cowering against his
breast.
"Eva! come, Eva, what is it that ails you?"
"It has passed over," she murmured, almost inaudibly. "Yes, it is gone
now--it is gone. It has come over me so often lately; it comes roaring
on, slowly and stealthily, and then it breaks over my head, shaking me
to the core; and then it goes away, dies away--away.... I am in such
terror of it; it is like a monster which comes bellowing at me, and it
frightens me so! What can it be?"
"I cannot tell; over-wrought nerves, perhaps," he said, consolingly.
"Oh! hold me close," she said, caressingly; "hold me tightly to you.
When I am alone, after it is past, I am left in such deadly fear; but
now--now I have you--you once more. You will not cast me from you
again; you will protect me, your poor little Eva, will you not? Ah! yes,
I have you back now. I knew, I felt, I should have you back some day;
and I have made papa come to Scheveningen every summer. I had an idea
that you must be somewhere in Holland--at the Hague or at Scheveningen;
and that if we were ever to meet again it would be here. And now it has
happened, and I have you once more. Hold me tightly now--in both
arms--both arms. Then I shall not be frightened."
She clung more closely to his breast, her head on his shoulder; and
then, in a voice like a child's:
"Look," she said, holding out her wrist.
"What?" asked he.
"That little scar. You did that."
"I did?"
"Yes; you clutched me by the wrists."
He felt utterly miserable, in spite of having found her again, and he
covered the line of the scar with little kisses.
She laughed quietly.
"It is a bracelet!" she said lightly.
V.
Presently, however, he started up.
"Eva," he began, suddenly recollecting himself, "How--why--?"
"What is it?" she said, laughing, but a little exhausted after her
strange fear of the fancied thunder.
"Those letters. Why did William?--what could they matter to William? Not
mere curiosity to see what was in them?"
"He would not have snatched that last one so roughly from Kate, if that
had been all. No, no--"
"Then you think he had some interest?"
"I do."
"But what? Why should he care whether I wrote to you or no?"
"Perhaps he was acting for--"
"Well?"
"For some one else."
"But for whom? What concern could my letters be of anybody's. What
advantage could it be to any one to hinder your getting them?"
She sat up and looked at him for some time without speaking, dreading
the question she must ask.
"Can you really think of no one?" she said.
"No."
"Did no one know that you had written?"
"No one but Bertie."
"Ah! Only Bertie," said she, with emphasis.
"But Bertie--no! Surely?" he asked her, indignant at so preposterous a
suspicion.
"Perhaps," she whispered, almost inaudibly. "Perhaps Bertie."
"Eva! Impossible. Why? How?"
She sank back into her former attitude, her head on his breast,
trembling still from the impression of the thunder she had heard. And
she went on:
"I know nothing; I only think. I have thought it over day after day for
two years; and I have begun to find a great deal that seems mysterious
in what had never before been puzzling, but, indeed, sympathetic to
me--in Bertie. You know we often used to talk together, and sometimes
alone. You were a little jealous sometimes, but you had not the smallest
reason for it, for there never was any thing to make you so; we were
like a brother and sister. We often talked of you.--Well, afterwards I
remembered those talks, and it struck me that Bertie--"
"Yes? That Bertie--"
"That he did not speak of you as a true friend should. I am not sure.
While he was talking it never occurred to me, for Bertie had a tone, and
a way of saying things. I always fancied then that he meant well by us
both, and that he really cared for us, but that he was afraid of
something happening--some evil, some catastrophe, if we were married, He
seemed to think that we ought not to marry. When afterwards I thought
over what he had said that was always the impression. He really seemed
to think that we--that we ought never to be married."
She closed her eyes, worn out by this effort to solve the enigmas of the
past, and she took his hand and stroked it as she held it in her own. He
too tried to look into that labyrinth of the past, but he could discern
nothing. His memory carried him back to their last days in London; and
he did recall something: he recollected Van Maeren's stern tone when he,
Westhove, had said he should call at the Rhodes'; he remembered Bertie's
urgent haste to get out of London and wander about the world. Could
Bertie--? Had Bertie any interest?--But he could not discern it, in the
simplicity of his unpractical, heedlessly liberal friendship, which had
never taken any account of expenses, always sharing what he had with his
companion because he had plenty, and the other had nothing; he could not
see it, since he had never thought of such a possibility in his strange
indifference to everything that approached money matters--an
indifference so complete as to constitute a mental deficiency, as
another man is indifferent to all that concerns politics, or art, or
what not--matters which he held so cheap, and understood so little and
could only shake his head over it, as over an _Abracadabra_. He looked,
but saw not.
"You see, I fancied afterwards that Bertie had been opposed to our
marrying," Eva repeated dreamily; and then, bewildered by the mystery
which life had woven about her, she went on: "Tell me, Frank, what was
there in him? What was he, who was he? Why would you never tell me
anything about him? For I discovered that too, later, during those two
years when I thought out so many things."
He looked at her in dismay. Bitter self-reproach came upon him for never
having told her that Bertie was poor, penniless, and dependent on his
friend's bounty. Why was it he had never told her? Was it out of a sense
of shame at being himself so careless, so foolishly weak about a concern
in which others were so cautious and prudent? So foolishly
weak--careless to imbecility. And still he looked at her in dismay.
Then a suspicion of the truth flashed across his mind like the zigzag
glimmer of distant lightning, and he shrank from its lurid gleam.
"Eva," he said, "I will go to Bertie--"
"To Bertie?" she shrieked. "Is he here?"
"Yes."
"He! here! Oh, I had never thought of that. I fancied he was away, far
away--dead perhaps. I did not care what had become of him. Great God!
Here! Frank, I implore you, Frank, leave him; do not go near him."
"But, Eva, I must ask him."
"No, Frank--oh Frank, for God's sake do not go. I am afraid--afraid. Do
not go."
He soothed her gently with a soft, sad smile which just lifted his
yellow moustache; with grave fondness in his honest eyes; he soothed and
petted her very gently, to reassure her.
"Do not be afraid, my darling. I will be quite calm. But still I must
ask, don't you see? Wait for me here; I will return in the evening."
"Can you really be calm? Oh, you had better not go--"
"I promise you I will be quite calm; quite cool." And he embraced her
fondly, closely, with passionate fervour.
"Then you are mine once more?" he asked.
She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed his lips, his eyes, his
face.
"Yes," she said, "I am yours. Do what you will with me."
"Till we meet again," then said he; and he quitted the house.
Eva, left alone, looked about her with a shudder, as if seeking the evil
she dreaded. She was afraid--afraid for herself and for Frank, but
chiefly for Frank. In an instant her fears had risen to intolerable
horror. She heard her father's step in the passage: she recognised his
shuffling tread. It was impossible to her to meet him just then; she
snatched up a cloak and wrapped it about her, pulling the hood over her
head, as she rushed out of doors.
It was raining heavily.
VI.
Frank found Van Maeren at home. And Bertie saw at once that It had come.
He read it in Frank's drawn face, heard it in the thick utterance of his
voice. And at the same time he felt that the lax springs of his
determination were trying to brace themselves in despair, in
self-defence, and--that they failed.
"Bertie," said Westhove. "I want to speak to you, to ask you something."
Bertie made no reply. His legs quaked. He was sitting in a large
cane-chair, and he did not move.
"I have just met Eva," Frank went on, "and I went with her to see her
father. Sir Archibald tells me that they have been here some weeks--"
Still Bertie spoke not; he gazed up at Frank with his deep, black eyes,
and their brilliancy was overcast by distress and fear. Frank stood in
front of him, and he now passed his hand over his brow in some
confusion. He had at first purposed to tell his story, and then, quite
calmly, to ask a question; but something, he knew not what, in Bertie's
cat-like indolence, roused his anger, made him furious with him for the
first time in all the years he had known him. He was angry that Bertie
could stay there, half lying down languidly at ease, his graceful hand
hanging over the arm of the lounge; and he did not detect that his
attitude at this moment was assumed merely to conceal an all too
overwhelming agitation. And Frank's intention of telling a logical tale
and asking a plain question suddenly collapsed in rage, giving way to a
mad desire to know at once--at once--
"Listen to me, Bertie. You remember the three letters that I wrote
before we left London. Eva tells me that they were kept back by their
servant William. Do you know anything about it?"
Bertie was silent, but his eyes were fixed on Frank with dull, anxious
entreaty.
"No one knew of the existence of those letters but you. Have you any
suspicion why it should be to William's interest to suppress them,
then?"
"No. How should I?" said Bertie, scarcely above his breath.
"Come, come--speak out!" cried Westhove, quivering in every muscle. "You
must know something about it, that is quite clear. You must. Speak out."
All thought of self-defence melted away under the vehemence of Frank's
tone. Bertie hardly had any curiosity even to know what had occurred to
betray William's complicity; and he felt that it would be easiest now to
give himself up completely, without reserve, since that which he had
been dreading for weeks had come upon him, inevitably and fatally; since
whatever was to happen would happen inevitably and fatally; and in his
weakness he was conscious of the horrible pathos, the hopeless pity of
his being what he was--of things being as they were.
"Well, then," he muttered, dejectedly, "I do know."
"What do you know?"
"It was I who--"
"Who did what?"
"Who bribed William not to deliver the letters."
Westhove looked at him in dumb astonishment; darkness clouded his sight;
everything was in a whirl; he did not hear, did not understand,
forgetting that the truth had already flashed across his brain.
"You! You!" he gasped. "My God! but why?"
Van Maeren got up; he burst into tears.
"Because--because--I don't know. I cannot tell you. It is too vile."
Westhove had seized him by the shoulders: he shook him, and said in a
hoarse roar:
"You damned villain, you will not tell me why? You will not tell me? Or
must I shake it out of your body? Why? Tell me this instant!"
"Because, because," sobbed Van Maeren, wringing his white hands.
"Tell me--out with it."
"Because I wanted to stay with you, and because if you married I should
have had to go. I was so fond of you, and--and--"
"Speak out. You were so fond of me--and then--"
"And you were so kind to me. You gave me everything. I foresaw that I
should have to work for my living again, and I was so well off where I
was. Frank, Frank, listen to me; hear what I have to tell you before you
say anything, before you are angry. Let me explain; do not condemn me
till you know. Oh, yes, it was base of me to do what I did, but let me
say a word; and do not be angry, Frank, till you know everything. Frank,
try to see me as I am. I am as God made me, and I cannot help it; I
would have been different if I could--and I only did what I could not
help doing. Indeed, I could not help it; I was driven to it by a power
outside me. I was so weak, so tired; I could rest with you; and though
you may not believe me, I loved you, I worshipped you. And you wanted to
turn me out, and make me work. Then it was--then I did it. Hear me,
Frank, let me tell you all. I must tell you all. I made Eva believe
that you did not really love her; I made her doubt you, so that
everything was broken off between you. And the letters, I stopped
them.... It was all my doing Frank, all, all; and I hated myself while I
did it, because I was not different from what I am. But I could not help
it. I was made so.... And you do not understand me. I am such a strange
mixture that you cannot understand. But try to understand me and you
will, Frank; and then you will forgive me--perhaps you will even forgive
me. Oh, believe me, I beseech you, I am not wholly selfish. I love you
with all my soul, so truly as one man hardly ever loves another, because
you were so good to me. I can prove it to you; did I not stick by you
when you had lost all your money in America? If I had been selfish,
should I not have left you then? But I stayed with you, I worked with
you, and we shared everything, and were happy. Oh, why did not things
remain as they were? Now you have met her, and now--"
"Have you done with words!" roared Frank. "So you did this, you wrecked
all that life held for me! God in heaven! is it possible?--No, you are
right; I do not understand you!" he ended with a venomous laugh, his
face crimson and his eyes starting with rage. Bertie had dropped
crouching in a heap on the ground, and sobbed aloud.
"Oh, but try to understand," he entreated, "Try to see a fellow-creature
as he is, in all his comfortless nakedness, with no conventional
wrappings. My God! I swear to you that I wish I was different. But how
can I help being what I am? I was born without any option of my own; I
was endowed with a brain and I must think; and I think otherwise than I
gladly would think, and I have been tossed through life like a
ball--like a ball. What could I do, thus tossed, but try to keep my head
up?--Strength of will, strength of mind? I do not know whether you have
any; but I have never, never, never felt such a thing. When I do a thing
it is because I must, because I can do no otherwise; for though I may
have the wish to act differently the strength and energy are not there!
Believe me, I despise myself; believe that, Frank; and try to understand
and to forgive."
"Words, words! You are raving," growled Frank. "I do not know what all
your talk means. I can understand nothing at this moment; and, even if I
could, at this moment I would not. All I understand is that you have
ruined me, that you have destroyed my whole life's joy, and that you are
a low scoundrel, who bribed a servant to stop my letters, out of gross,
vile, unfathomable selfishness,--Bribed him? Tell me, rascal, wretch,
coward--bribed him!--With what, in Heaven's name? Tell me with what you
bribed him."
"With, with--" but Van Maeren hesitated in abject fear, for Westhove had
collared him by the waistcoat as he grovelled on the floor, and shook
him again and again.
"By thunder, you villain, you bribed him with my money--with my own
money! Tell me--speak, or I'll kick it out of you!"
"Yes."
"With my money?"
"Yes, yes, yes." Frank flung him down with a yell of contempt, of
loathing of such a thing as he.
But Van Maeren was experiencing a reaction from his self-abasement. The
world was so stupid, men were stupid, Frank was stupid. He did not
understand that a man should be such as he, Bertie, was; he could not
understand; he bellowed out in his brutal rage, like some wild beast
without brains or sense. He, himself, had brains; happier was he who had
none; he envied Frank his lack of them!
He sprang up with one leap.
"Yes, if you will have it, Yes, yes, yes," he hissed it hard. "If you
don't understand, if you are too idiotic to take it in--Yes, I say. Yes,
yes, yes. I bribed him with your money, that you were so kind as to give
me the very last day when we were leaving London. You gave me a hundred
pounds, to pay William--do you remember? To pay William!--You do not
understand?--Well--You don't understand! You are a stupid brute without
brains. Ay, and I envy you for having none. There was a time when I had
none; and do you know how I came by them? Why, through you. There was a
time when I toiled and worked, and never thought and never cared. I ate
all I earned and when I earned nothing I went hungry. And I was happy!
It was you--you who fed me on dainties, and gave me wine to drink; and
it was you who clothed me, so that I had not to work, but had nothing to
do but to think, think, in my contemptible idleness all day long. And
now I only wish I could crack my skull open and throw my brains in your
face for having made me what I am, so finikin and full of ideas! You
don't understand? Then perhaps you will not understand that at this
moment I feel no gratitude for all you have done for me--that I hate you
for it all, that I despise you, and that you have made my life
infinitely more wretched than I have made yours! Do you understand that
much, at any rate, eh? That I despise you and hate you, hate you?"
He had entrenched himself behind a table, sputtering out this volley of
words in a paroxysm of nervous excitement; he felt as though every fibre
of his frame was ready to crack like an over-strained cord. He had got
behind the table, because Westhove was standing before him, at the other
side now, his eyes staringly white and bloodshot in his purple face;
his nostrils dilated, his shoulders up, his fists clenched, ready, as it
seemed, to spring upon him. Westhove was waiting, as it appeared, till
Van Maeren had spit out in his face all the foul words he could find.
"Yes, I hate you!" Bertie repeated, "I hate you!" He could find nothing
else to say.
Then Frank let himself go. With a bellow like a wild beast, a sound that
had nothing human in it, he sprang over the table, which tilted on its
side, and came down with all the weight of his impetus on Bertie, who
fell under him like a reed, He seized his foe by the throat, dragged him
over the legs of the table, into the middle of the room, dropped him
with a crack on the floor, and fell upon him, with his bony, square knee
on Bertie's chest, and his left hand holding his neck like a vice. And a
hard, dry feeling, like a thirst for sheer brutality, rose to Westhove's
throat; with a dreadful smile on his lips he swallowed two or three
times, fiendishly glad that he had him in his power, in the clutch of
his left hand, under his knee. And he doubled his right fist and raised
it like a hammer, with a tigerish roar.
"There, there, there," he growled; and each time a sledge-hammer blow
fell on Bertie. "There, there, there"--on his nose, his eyes, his mouth,
his forehead--and the blows resounded dully on his skull, as if on
metal. A red mist clouded Westhove's sight; everything was red-purple,
scarlet, vermilion. A blood-stained medley circled round him like
whirling wheels, and through that strange crimson halo a distorted face
grinned up at him under the pounding of his fist. The corners of the
room swam in red, as if they were full of tangible red terror, whirling,
whirling round him--a purple dizziness, a scarlet madness, a nightmare
bathed in blood;... and his blows fell fast and
steadily--"there--there--there"--and his left hand closed tighter on the
throat below that face--
The door flew open, and she, Eva, rushed up to him through the red mist,
parting it, dispelling it by the swift actuality of her appearance.
"Frank, Frank!" she screamed. "Stop, I entreat you! Stop! You are
murdering him!"
He let his arm drop, and looked at her as in a dream. She tried to drag
him back, to get him away from the battered body, to which he clung in
his fury like a vampire.
"Leave him, Frank, I beseech you; let him stand up. Do not kill him. I
was outside, and I was frightened. I did not understand, because you
were speaking Dutch. Great heavens! What have you done to him? Look,
look! What a state he is in!"
Frank had risen to his feet, dazed by that red frenzy; he had to lean on
the table.
"I have given him what he deserved--I have thrashed him, and I will do
it again!"
He was on the point of falling on the foe once more, with that devilish
grin on his face and that brutal thirst still choking him.
"Frank, no. Frank!" cried Eva, clinging to him with both hands. "For
God's sake be satisfied! Look at him! oh, look at him!"
"Well, then, let him get up," Frank snarled. "He may get up. Get up,
wretch, at once; get up!"
He gave him a kick--and a second--and a third--to make him rise. But Van
Maeren did not move.
"Great God! only look at him," said Eva, kneeling down by the body.
"Look--don't you see?" She turned to Frank, and he, as if awaking from
his dream of blood, did see now, and saw with horror. There it lay: the
legs and arms convulsed and writhing, the body breathlessly still in the
loose, light-hued summer suit; and the face a mask of blue and green and
violet, stained with purplish black, which oozed from ears and nose and
mouth, trickling down, clammy and dark, drop by drop, on to the carpet.
One eye was a shapeless mass, half pulp and jelly; the other stared out
of the oval socket like a large, dull, melancholy opal. The throat
looked as though it had a very broad purple band round it. And as they
stood gazing down at the features it seemed that they were swelling,
swelling to a sickening, unrecognisable deformity.
Out of doors the storm of rain had not ceased. There they stood, staring
at the horror that lay bleeding and motionless on the ground before
them; a leaden silence within, and without the falling torrent, an
endless, endless plash.
Eva, kneeling by Bertie's side, and shuddering with terror, had felt
his heart, had listened with her ear against the breathless trunk--close
to the dreadful thing, to make sure--and she had got up again quaking,
had very softly stepped back from it, her eyes still directed on it, and
now stood clinging against Frank, as if she would become one with him in
her agony of fear.
"Frank," she gasped. "God have mercy! Frank! He is dead! Let us go--let
us go; let us fly!"
"Is he dead?" asked Westhove, dully.. His mind was beginning to wake--a
faint dawn like murky daybreak. He released himself from her grasp;
knelt down, listened, felt, thought vaguely of fetching a doctor, of
remedies; and then he added huskily, certain, indeed, of what he said,
but quite uncertain of what he should do.
"Yes, he is dead--he is dead. What can I--?"
Eva still hung on to him, imploring him to fly, to escape. But his mind
was gradually getting clearer, daylight shining in on his bewilderment;
he freed himself from her embrace, and tried to go; his hand was
already on the door-handle.
"Frank, Frank!" she shrieked, for she saw that he meant to abandon her.
"Hush!" he whispered, with a finger on his lips. "Stay here; stay and
watch him. I will come back."
And he went. She would have followed him, have clung to him in an agony
of terror, but he had already shut the door behind him, and her
trembling knees could scarcely carry her. She sat down by the body,
shivering miserably. There it was--the swollen, bruised, and purple
face, sad, and sickening in the diffused afternoon light which came in
obliquely through the curtain of rain. Every breath stuck in her throat;
she was dying for air, and longed to open the window, being closer to
that than to the door.
But she dared not; for outside, through the dim square panes, she saw
the tragical sky covered with driving slate-coloured piles of cloud, and
the rain falling in a perfect deluge, and the sea dark and ominous as an
imminent threat, the raging foam gleaming through a shroud of pouring
water.
"Molde, Molde!" she exclaimed, icy-cold with terrible remembrance. "It
is the sky of Molde, the fjord of Molde! That was where I first felt it.
Oh, God! Help, help!"
And she fell senseless on the floor.