Hardy left the house five minutes after Audrey and Wyndham. In the
doorway of the dining-room he stepped on a small muslin
pocket-handkerchief. It was stained here and there with specks of blood.
He picked it up, kissed it, and put it in his pocket.
For a long time after that he had no clear sense of anything, except, at
times, of the misery that made the only difference between being drunk
and sober.
Yes; Hardy was carrying out the threat he had made to Audrey, with a
passionate deliberation. He was "giving his whole mind to it," as he had
said. He had been used to speak of the sins of his past life with that
exaggeration which was part of his character; they had been slight,
considering the extent of his temptation. Then he was, as it were, an
amateur in evil. Now he had an object in view--he was sinning for the
wages of sin.
After all, there was a boyish simplicity about Hardy; otherwise the idea
of living for a year alone on the Rockies, to make himself "fit to love
Audrey," would hardly have occurred to him. As it was, that guileless
scheme proved fatal in its results. The loneliness, the privation, the
excitement and fatigue of his sportsman's life--for with all his
boasting he was a true sportsman--had roused some old hereditary impulse
in his blood, and he found himself worsted by the craving for drink
before he was aware of its existence in him. But the thought of Audrey
was always present with him; and it kept him up. He fought himself hand
to hand, and won the fight ten times for once that he was beaten. He was
literally saved by hope. Happily for him, when he had finished the
stores he brought out with him, it was almost as difficult to satisfy
his craving as it was to annihilate it. When he came home the tendency
was sleeping in him still; and though, as long as he had hope, it might
have slept for ever, when hope was gone it was there, ready to take
possession of him. His love for Audrey was the strongest passion in his
nature. It filled the horizon of his life. He looked before and after,
and could see nothing else but it. It was of the kind that deepens
through its own monotony. Now that Audrey had cast him off, there was no
reason for the struggle, because there was nothing more to struggle for,
and nothing to live for unless it were to kill life in the act of
living. That indeed was something.
After the first month or so of it, he had no further interest in his
present course. He chose it now as the form of suicide least likely to
be recognised as such.
Perhaps--who knows?--if he had had any friends who would have given him
a helping hand, it might never have come to this. But, in the first
place, Hardy had no home that could be called a home. His mother was
fond of him in her way; but she was now a hysterical invalid, abject
under the influence of her second husband, and year by year his
step-father's jealousy (the jealousy of a childless man) had driven the
mother and son further apart. Of the Havilands, whom he would naturally
have turned to, he had seen nothing for the last few months. Ted
disliked meeting him, and he on his part was equally anxious to avoid
Ted. That was how Katherine remained ignorant of the truth until she was
enlightened by Mrs. Rogers.
"It yn't _my_ business," said that excellent woman, as she began to dust
the studio one morning, in the leisurely manner that Katherine dreaded,
it being the invariable forerunner of conversation, "and I don't know
who's business it is, but somebody ought to look after that Mr. 'Ardy.
'Is friends ought to be written to, m'm."
Katherine felt a pang of remorse.
"Why? Is Mr. Hardy ill?"
"I didn't say he was ill. But if I was to tell _you_, miss----"
Here Mrs. Rogers pursed her lips, not so much to impress Katherine with
her incorruptible discretion, as to excite interest in the disclosures
she meant to make.
"Between you and me, m'm, if somebody don't stop 'im, 'ell drink
'imself to death down there some o' these days."
"What do you mean? It's quite impossible--I've known Mr. Hardy all my
life."
"I've known 'im three months; and if I wasn't that soft-'earted, I
wouldn't keep 'im a day longer, not a day I wouldn't. 'E won't sleep in
'is bed like a Christian--lies on top all of a heap like. Last week,
when I was a-cleanin' out his bottom cupboard, the brandy bottles was
standin' up like a row o' ninepins. This mornin' they was lyin' down
flat as your fyce--empty, m'm, every one of 'em. It did give me a turn.
And 'e'll order 'is dinner for eight o'clock, and not come 'ome till two
in the mornin'--if 'e comes 'ome at all. 'E's out now Lord knows where."
"I don't want to hear any more. You're very likely mistaken."
"I wish I was, miss. But you'll not deceive me, I'm that upset with it
all. And my fear is, miss, 'e'll drive away my old lydy on the first
floor, with 'is goings on."
Katherine left the room, too deeply grieved to bear Mrs. Rogers's
professional loquacity.
That night she was able to realise the truth of what she had been told.
She had gone out to dine with some new acquaintance; Ted had called for
her to take her home, and they were walking back along the Embankment,
when they came suddenly upon Hardy. He was standing under a gas-lamp,
talking to somebody, or rather listening to somebody talking. He turned
his back on them as they passed, but there was no mistaking his figure
in the glare of the false daylight. As for his companion, Katherine was
aware of something in satin skirts which the gaslight ran over like
water--something that smelt of musk and had hair the colour of brass.
She walked on without a word, sick at heart. This was the first time she
had been brought face to face with the hideous side of life. Like many
good women, she thoroughly realised the existence of evil in the
abstract; but evil incarnate in a person--it was hard to associate that
with any one she knew as she had known Vincent. Her artistic nature was
morbidly sensitive to impressions taken in through the eye, and nothing
could have so forced home the truth as that little scene, suddenly
flashed on her out of the London night. But now that she had seen, it
was not the horror that she felt, but the pity of it. She remembered
Vincent's face when she had shown him Audrey's picture. Her thoughts
went further back. She remembered him a boy, playing with her in a
lordly manner, as befitted his sex; or a young man, coming and going in
her father's home with frank, brotherly ways. She remembered how she had
grudged the time she gave him, and the relief she felt when he left off
coming. But she could not remember anywhere the least sign of what he
had become.
Something ought to be done--she could not clearly say what. Writing to
his people, as Mrs. Rogers had suggested, was out of the question. She
knew too well the state of things in his home. To be sure, there was his
uncle, Sir Theophilus Parker, whom he had expectations from; but for
that very reason the old gentleman was the last person whom it would be
advisable to inform of Vincent's conduct. Relations failing, there
remained his friends; and she only knew two of these--herself and Ted.
All that was most fine and sensitive in her nature cried out against the
burden she knew she would have to lay on it. But her humanity was so
deeply moved by the tragedy she had twice been an unwilling spectator
of, that she never so much as dreamed of asking, "Am _I_ my brother's
keeper?" Doubtless she could have found plenty of excellent people to
tell her she was not. Her only difficulty was with Ted. Nothing could be
done till he had got over his nervous dread of meeting Vincent.
Katherine had no precise idea of what had passed between her brother and
Audrey, and how far Vincent had been connected with it; but she had
gathered from Ted's silence all that she wanted to know. Whatever Audrey
had said or done, there was an end of her as far as he was concerned. It
was from the boy's silence, too, that she realised the extent of his
suffering. Before the inevitable thing had happened, he had done nothing
but talk of Audrey, sometimes with melancholy, more often in the jocular
strain adopted by self-conscious persons to carry off some ridiculous
fatality. Anger following suspense had driven him to think of suicide;
but now that it was all over with him, he had no idea of killing
himself. Katherine had never been much afraid of that, and as yet none
of the other things she had dreaded had happened; but it was evident
that the boy's nature had been deeply affected, and that the shock was a
moral one. It was not Audrey's unfaithfulness that had hurt him so much
as her untruthfulness. Ted thought so little of himself in some ways
that he could have understood the one, and therefore forgiven it. The
other was the unpardonable sin; it injured what he loved better than
himself--his idea of Audrey. Katherine did not know this, but she saw
that the present time was the moral turning-point in his life, and that
his pain was the sort that shapes character for good or for evil. But,
after all, she knew very little of the elements that went to make up
Ted's character. His imagination, as she had pointed out to Audrey on a
memorable occasion, had been developed long before his heart, and out of
all proportion to it. It had so happened that all at once the passionate
part of his nature had been roused and shaken before it was half-formed.
She asked herself what line would be taken now by those forces of
feeling set free so violently and so abruptly checked?
Well, at any rate Audrey's conduct had not had the effect of driving
brother and sister apart. It had drawn them closer together if
anything. Ted seemed to find relief in Katherine's society from the
torment of his own thoughts, and he had shown no desire to look for
distraction abroad; indeed the difficulty was to make him go out of
doors at all for necessary exercise. He would have fits of work, when
nothing would induce him to stir from the easel. Another time, he would
spend whole mornings lying on the floor, with his arms clasped above his
head, or sitting with a book in his hands, a book which he never seemed
to read. He hardly ever spoke; he was always thinking. And worse than
all, he had lost his appetite and his sense of humour.
Mrs. Rogers had her own theory on the subject, which she imparted to
Katherine.
"Miss, it's them baths as has done it. Anythin' in reason and I'll not
sy no, but cold water to that igstent, m'm, it's against nature. It's my
belief Mr. 'Aviland would 'ave slept and 'ad 'is dinner in 'is bath, if
I 'adn't put my foot down. 'E's chilled 'is blood, depend upon it, m'm."
And indeed that seemed very likely.
Katherine said nothing about Hardy at the time; but the next night, when
she and Ted were sitting over the fire, she began.
"Ted, that was Vincent we saw on the Embankment last night."
"Yes, I saw him.
"Do you know, I believe he's killing himself with drinking."
"I know he is."
"Do you think we could do anything to help him before it's too late?"
He shook his head.
"Oh, Ted, we might! He never used to be like this. He's got no one to
speak to; we've left him by himself all this time in those horrid rooms.
The wall-paper alone is enough to send anybody to the bad. We might have
thought of him."
"I've done nothing else but think of him for the last two months. We
can't do anything. He's bound to go on like that; I don't see how he can
help it. As for drinking, nothing can stop _that_; I've seen fellows
like him before; and Vincent never did anything by halves."
"It's terrible. But we ought to try--it's the least we can do."
"The least _I_ can do is to keep out of his way. He hates the sight of
me."
"Why?"
"Don't you know? Didn't it ever strike you that Audrey was engaged to
Vincent all the time?"
"No. I thought he liked her, but--what makes you think that?"
"I can't tell you. But any sort of affectionate advances would come
rather badly from me. How's Vincent to know that I never knew?"
"You may be sure he knows. He knows Audrey."
Ted sighed, but he said nothing; there was nothing to be said.
"Would you very much mind asking him to supper to-morrow night?"
"No. He won't come. But you'd better write to him yourself, or else
he'll think you don't want him."
She wrote a note, and Ted took it downstairs, to be ready for Vincent at
such time as he should come in. The boy turned into his own room without
going up again to say good-night.
He had left Katherine thinking. She had been struck with his words; they
had thrown a new light on his character. His tone was bitter when he
told her he had been thinking of nothing but Vincent; but it was not the
bitterness of selfish resentment. A shuddering hope went through her.
Either there always had been things in Ted's nature which she had never
suspected, or he had just begun his education by suffering--by having
felt. The latter was the more probable explanation; she knew him to be
capable of such absorption in pleasant sensations, that, if all had gone
well with him, he might from sheer light-heartedness have remained
indifferent to other people's woes. And all along he had been such an
irresponsible person, but now he was actually growing a conscience, and
a peculiarly delicate one too. Without any fault of his own, he had
behaved dishonourably to Vincent; and apart from the blow to his own
honour, it was evident that what stung him now was remorse for his
infinitesimal share in the causes that had led to Vincent's ruin.
In all that he had said there was no trace of any lingering love for
Audrey. Was it possible that the tragic spectacle of Vincent's fate had
moved him too with pity and terror, for the purging of his passion?
* * * * *
Hardy did not find Katherine's note till late next morning. He read it
twice over with an incredulous air, and put it into the fire. He wrote a
short but grateful refusal, saying truly that he was very seedy, and not
pleasant company for any one at present.
Not long after, he was alone, as usual, in his dingy ground-floor
sitting-room. It was about five o'clock; but he had not lit his lamp
yet, and he had let his fire go out, though it was cold and rainy. A
gas-lamp from the street shone through the dripping window-panes,
bringing a dreary twilight into the room, making it one with the
melancholy of the rain-swept streets.
He sat by the table, with his head in his hands, a prey to the appalling
depression which was his mood when sober.
For the last three months he had had a curious double consciousness: of
himself as an actor in a phantom world, lost in some night of dreams,
where the same thoughts--always, the same thoughts--thoughts that were
sins--came to him in sickening recurrence; the horror of it being that
the act followed instantaneously on the thought: of himself as a
spectator, separate from that other self, yet bound to it; looking on
at all it did, ashamed and loathing, yet powerless to interfere. And, as
happens in nightmares, his very dread suggested the thing he dreaded,
and changed his dream to something more hideous than before--horror upon
horror, still foreseen, and still foredoomed in the senseless sequence
of the dream. Now these two states of mind were divided by a little
clear space. The passive self was free for a while and could think. It
could think--that was all.
He was waked from his thoughts by a knock and a voice at the door. He
answered gruffly, and as he looked up he saw Katherine standing in the
open doorway, letting in a stream of light from the lamp she carried in
her hand.
He stared at her stupidly, blinking at the light, and hid his face in
his hands again.
"I beg your pardon, Vincent. I knocked, and I thought you said 'Come
in.' I came to see how you were; I was afraid you were worse."
"I am worse. What's more, I shall never be better."
She put her lamp on the chimneypiece and stood beside him.
"Don't say that; of course you'll be better. Can we do anything for
you?"
"No; nothing--thanks."
She moved back a little, and shaded the lamp with her hands. She was
afraid to disturb him, but she did not like to leave him in his misery.
How ill and wretched he looked in that abominable room! The lamplight
showed her all its repulsive details. She had done her best for it; but
in the last two months it had sunk back into something worse than its
former ugliness, degraded in its owner's degradation. There was no trace
now of the clever alterations and contrivances which she had devised for
his comfort. The muslin curtains she had lent him were dark with smoke;
the rug had slipped from the horsehair sofa; there were stains on the
shabby tablecloth and carpet; and on the sideboard there was a sordid
litter of bottles and glasses, pipes, tobacco-ash, and Hardy's hats. The
floor was strewn with the crumpled papers and shoes that he had flung
away from him in his fits of irritation. In the midst of it all she
noticed that Mrs. Rogers had brought back all her terrible household
goods, the pink vases, the paper screens, and the antimacassars--"To
cheer him up, I suppose, poor fellow!"
Hardy looked round as if he had read her thoughts.
"You'd better leave me. This isn't a nice place for you."
"It isn't a very nice place for anybody. You've let your fire go out.
Come upstairs and get warm; we haven't seen you for ages."
He shook his head sadly.
"I can't, Sis, I'm much too seedy."
"Nonsense! You will be, if you sit down here catching cold." She took
up her lamp, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Come; don't keep me waiting, or I shall catch cold too."
His will was in abeyance, and to her intense relief he got up and
followed her.
She was shocked at the change in his appearance when she saw him in the
full lamplight of the studio. He was pitifully thin; his fingers, as he
held out his hands to the blaze, were pale, even with the red glow of
the fire through them. His eyes had lost their dog-like pathos, and had
the hard look of the human animal. She got ready some strong coffee, and
made him drink it. That, with the warmth and the unaccustomed kindness,
revived him. Then she sat down in a low chair opposite him, with some
sewing in her lap, so that he might talk to her or not, as he pleased.
At first he evidently preferred to think; and when he did speak, it was
as if he were thinking aloud.
"I was cut by two men I know to-day. I wonder how many women there are
in London who would do what you've done for me to-night?"
"What have I done? I walked into your room without an invitation--I
don't suppose many women in London would have done that. But is there
any woman in London who has known you as long as I have?"
He winced perceptibly, and she remembered that there was one.
"Ah, if you really knew me, Kathy, you'd cut me dead!"
"My dear Vincent, don't talk rubbish. I do know--a good deal--and I'm
very sorry; that's all. I should be sorrier if I thought it was going to
last for ever; but I don't."
"You are too good to me; but--if you only knew!"
He sat silent, watching as she sewed. Something in his attitude reminded
her of that other evening, three months ago, when he had lain back in
that chair boasting gloriously, full of hope and the pride of life. He
appealed to her more now in his illness and degradation than he had ever
done in his splendid sanity. For he had seemed so strong; there was no
outward sign of weakness then about that long-limbed athlete.
"Vincent," she said presently, "what's become of the Pioneer-book? You
promised to read me some of it--don't you remember?"
"Yes. I shall never do anything with it now."
"Oh, Vincent, what a pity! But if it's not to be printed, do you mind my
seeing the manuscript?"
"No; I'll let you have it some day, Sis, and you shall do what you like
with it." He sank into silence again.
"Where's Ted?" he asked suddenly.
"He'll be in soon; he wants to see you."
"Does he? How do you know that?" There was a look of suspicion in
Hardy's eyes as they glanced up. It was a symptom of his miserable
condition that he was apt to imagine slights.
"I've only his word for it, of course."
"Kathy----" he hesitated.
"Well?"
"There's something I wanted to tell him; but the fact is, I don't think
I've the pluck to do it."
"Never mind, then. Tell me if you can; though I think I know, and it's
all right."
"No, it isn't all right. I suppose you know he was pretty well off his
head about--that cousin of mine? I rather think he owed me one for being
before him, as he thought. At any rate, he cut me ever since--before I
took to the flowing bowl, too. You might tell him, if you think it would
be any satisfaction to him to know it, that she cared rather less for me
than she did for him; in fact, I believe there was some unhappy devil
that she preferred to either of us. At least a third man came into it
somewhere. There may be a fourth now, for anything I know."
There was a brutality about his calmness which surprised Katherine; she
could not realise the effect of the means he used for blunting his
sensibilities.
"You're quite mistaken. Ted hasn't any feeling of the sort. He simply
kept out of your way because he was afraid you'd think he had behaved
dishonourably; and of course he couldn't explain because of--Audrey. But
it wasn't his fault. He knew nothing."
"I never thought he did know. Do you suppose I blamed _him_, poor
beggar?"
All the same, Hardy slunk away soon after Ted came in. When Mrs. Rogers
came up with supper, she informed them that it was fine now--if you
could but trust it. And "Mr. 'Ardy 'ad gorn orf like a mad thing.
Temptin' Providence, I call it, without an umbrella."
Ted remarked, as they sat down to supper, that he thought "Providence
would have sufficient strength of mind to resist temptation; but he was
not so sure about Hardy."
And indeed Katherine had to own that her first experiment with Vincent
was a failure. But she struggled on, experience having taught her that
it is easier to do good original work of your own than to patch up what
other people have spoiled. One week, drawn by some yearning for human
sympathy, Hardy would come nearly every evening to the studio; then they
would see no more of him for ten days or so. At times she felt that the
strain of it was greater than she could bear. She had learnt to manage
Vincent in his various moods, varying from humorous irascibility to
hysterical penitence; but when he was out of her sight her influence was
powerless. Now indeed she asked herself--
"Why am I wasting my precious time and making myself miserable in this
way? I've no sense of religion, and I don't love Vincent--he's simply a
nuisance. It must be sheer obstinacy."
It was with a feeling little short of despair that she sat down to the
pages of the Pioneer-book. She had determined at any cost to read the
manuscript through; but she soon became fascinated in spite of herself.
"Be tender to it, Sis, it's a part of myself," he had said when he
handed it over to her. She thought she had detected a gleam of interest
in his face, and felt that she was on the right tack. But Vincent's book
was more than a part of himself, it was a fair transcript of the whole.
His weakness and his strength were in it. She saw his vanity, his
exaggeration; but also his sincerity, his manliness, his simple delight
in simple things. Scenery on a large scale stirred a strain of rude
poetry in him this was akin to the first rhythmic utterances of man. To
be sure, the thing had its faults; for poor Vincent had been anxious
that his book should be recognised as the work of a scholar and a
gentleman. At times a spirit of unbridled quotation would seize him, and
you came upon familiar gems from the classics imbedded in the text. At
times, after some coarse but graphic touch, his style became suddenly
refined, almost to sickliness. When he was not pointing his moral with a
hatchet, he was adorning his tale with verbiage gathered from the worst
authors. But if Hardy the literary artist made her laugh till she cried
again, Hardy the unconscious child of Nature won her heart. If only she
could make him finish what he had begun!
She determined to illustrate the book: that might inflame Vincent's
ambition, and would certainly require his co-operation. So now, every
evening, in the spare time after supper, she set to work on the
drawings, aided by some photographs and rough sketches made by Hardy.
After a little stratagem she got him to come up and help her with
suggestions, or to sit for her while she sketched him in all the
attitudes of the sportsman.
He was enthusiastic over the first few drawings. Perhaps his simple
remarks, "H'm, that's clever!" or, "By Jove, that's not half bad!" gave
her a purer pleasure than she could have derived from the most
discriminating criticism. When his interest showed signs of flagging,
she hit on a new means of rousing it. She began to find out that so long
as she drew correctly, he looked on with a melancholy indifference, but
that when she made any mistake he was always delighted to put her right.
So she went on making mistakes, and then Vincent got impatient.
"Look here, Sis, that's all wrong. You don't carry a rifle with the
muzzle pointing towards your left ear. Here, give the thing to me!"
Katherine gravely handed him another sketch--
"How's that?"
"That's worse. Why, you little duffer, you don't suppose I'm going to
send a bullet into that bear taking aim at _that_ angle? I should blow
my boots off. I thought you could draw?"
She smiled in secret. "So I can, if you'll show me which way up the
things go."
Then they put their heads together over it, and between them they turned
out some work worthy of the Pioneer-book. Ted joined in too, and began a
black-and-white series of his own, parodying the acts of the
distinguished sportsman: Vincent attacked by a skunk; Vincent swarming
up a pine tree with a bear hanging on to his trousers' legs; Vincent
shooting the rapids in his canoe--canoe uppermost; and so on. Ted was so
much entertained with his own performances that he was actually heard to
laugh. And when the boy laughed, the man laughed too. As for Katherine,
she could have cried, knowing that a returning sense of humour is often
the surest sign of hope in these cases.
Laughter, flattery, and feminine wiles may not be the methods most
commended by moralists and divines for the conversion of poor sinners;
but Katherine seldom consulted authorities--she had the courage of her
convictions.
One fine morning in February she appeared in her hat and jacket at the
door of the ground-floor sitting-room.
"Vincent, will you come with me to the Zoo? I'm going to do some
grizzlies and wapiti--from the life--for the Pioneer-book, and I want
you to help me."
He agreed, and they started almost gaily, with Mrs. Rogers peering up at
them from the front area-window, putting that and that together with the
ingenuity of her kind. It was the first of many walks they had
together. Ted generally went with them, but now and again he was left
behind. At these times Katherine was touched by Vincent's pride in being
allowed to take her about alone. He was grateful for it; he knew it was
her way of showing that she trusted him.
At last the series of illustrations came to an end. The two artists had
raced each other: Katherine, having had the start, came in first at the
finish with a magnificent design for the cover. She brought the drawings
to Vincent, together with his manuscript, and showed them to him
triumphantly. He remarked--
"Well, they ought to print the thing, if only as a footnote to your
drawings, Sis."
"Will you sit down and finish it, if I undertake to find a publisher?"
He promised, and he kept his word. In the mornings now he might be found
working slowly and painfully at his last chapter, she helping him.
So the winter wore on into spring; and Katherine, burdened with arrears
of work, said to herself, "I perceive that this is going to be an
expensive undertaking." But she looked back gladly on the time lost. At
last, after many failures, they had succeeded in wakening Vincent to a
sense of distant kinship with the life of boys and maidens. Down at the
bottom of his nature there had always been an intense craving for
affection, and his heart went out to Ted and Katherine. Not that he
considered himself fit for their blameless society. Together with the
vices he had acquired there had sprung up humility, that strange virtue,
which has its deepest roots in the soil of shame. But all his old
yearning after goodness revived in their presence. When he was with them
he felt that the cloud of foul experience was lifted for a moment from
his mind; they gave him sweet thoughts instead of bitter for a day
perhaps, or a night.
And what of the days and the nights when he was not with them? Then, as
a rule, he fell, nine times, it may be, out of every ten--who knows? And
who knows whether Perfect Justice, measuring our forces with the force
of our temptations, may not count as victory what the world calls
defeat?