From that afternoon Wyndham kept away from Chelsea Gardens; in fact, he
had left town. To do him justice, he honestly thought he was doing "the
cleverest thing" for Audrey in leaving her--to think. It would have been
the cleverest thing if he could have kept away altogether; but as long
as she had the certainty of his return, it was about the stupidest. If
he had stayed, they would have resumed their ordinary relations; all
might have blown over like a mood, and whatever he knew about her,
Audrey herself would never have known it. As it was, he had emphasised
the situation by going. And what was more, he had thrown Audrey back on
her uninteresting self--the very worst company she could have had at
present. She had been used to seeing him almost daily through a whole
winter; he had made her dependent on his society for all her interests
and pleasures; and when she was suddenly deprived of it, instead of
being able to think, she spent her time in miserable longing. She could
not think and feel at the same time. Feeling such as hers was
incompatible with any form of thinking; it was feeling in a vacuum--the
most dangerous kind of all. The emptiness of her life, now that Wyndham
was gone, made her say to herself that she could bear anything--anything
but that. It made her realise what the years, the long unspeakable
years, would be like when she had given him up. She looked behind and
around her, and there were the grey levels of ordinary existence; she
looked below her, and there was the deep; she was going into the
darkness of it, swiftly, helplessly, blown on by the wind of vanity. She
saw no darkness for the light before her--a nebulous light; but it
dazzled her like the sun shining through a fog.
Once, at the fiercest point of her temptation, she felt an impulse to
confession--that mysterious instinct which lies somewhere at the heart
of all humanity; she had wild thoughts of going to Katherine and telling
her all, asking her what she ought to do. Katherine was large-minded,
she would not blame her--much; perhaps she would tell her she ought not
to give Wyndham up, that she ought to think of him, to be ready to
sacrifice the world for his sake. Yes, Katherine was so "clever," she
would be a good judge; and Audrey would abide by her judgment.
Unhappily, when it came to the point, she was afraid of her
judgment--she had always been a little afraid of Katherine. Once she
even thought of going to Mr. Flaxman Reed, that "holy anachronism," as
she had once heard Wyndham call him. But his judgment was a foregone
conclusion; Mr. Flaxman Reed was not large-minded.
Once, too, a gleam of reason came to her. She loved dearly the
admiration and good opinion of her world; and she reflected that the
step she contemplated meant no congratulations, no wedding-dress, no
presents, and no callers. Wedding indeed! As she had read of a similar
case in "London Legends," it would be a "social funeral, with no flowers
by request." But these considerations had no weight after an evening
spent with cousin Bella. And though she played on her piano till the
lace butterflies on Miss Craven's cap fluttered again (why would cousin
Bella wear caps in defiance of the fashion?), it was no good. If she had
had a fine voice, she would have sung at the top of it; failing that
medium of expression, she longed to put her fingers in her own ears and
scream into cousin Bella's. And as they yawned in each other's faces,
and she realised that something like this might be the programme for an
indefinite time, she remembered how Langley had called her a
metaphysician and a moral philosopher. It was on statements like these,
apparently borne out by the fact of his friendship, that she based the
flattering fiction of her own intellectuality. Without that fiction
Audrey could not have supported life in the rare atmosphere she had
accustomed herself to breathe. The conclusion of it all was that, come
what might come, she could not give Langley up.
One afternoon she crossed the river for a walk in Battersea Park. It was
a warm spring, and down the long avenue the trees were tipped with the
flame of bursting buds, like so many green lights turned low. The beds
and borders were gay with crocuses and hyacinths, and the open spaces
were beginning to look green again. Audrey cared little for these
things, but to-day she was somehow aware of them; she felt in her the
new life of the spring, as she had felt it a year ago. She walked
rapidly from sheer excitement, till she had tired herself out; then she
sat down on one of the benches, overlooking the waste ground where the
children played. Except for a bright fringe under the iron railings, it
was still untouched by spring, and the sallow grass had long been
trodden into the dust. Some ragged little cricketers were shouting not
far off, and near her, by the railings, was a family group--a young
father and mother, with their children, from two years old and upwards,
crawling around them. They were enjoying a picnic tea in the sunshine,
with the voluptuous carelessness of outward show that marks the children
of the people. Audrey looked at it all with a faint disgust, but she was
too tired to move on to a more cheerful spot. She turned her back on the
picnic party, and began to think about Wyndham. He had been away ten
days; he said he was going for a fortnight; in another week at the
longest she would see him. She was roused by a tug at her petticoats.
The two-year-old, attracted like some wild animal by her stillness, had
scrambled through the railings, and was trying to pull its fat little
body up by one hand on to the bench beside her. Its other hand grasped
firmly a sheaf of fresh grass. It was clean and pretty, and something in
its baby face sent a pang to Audrey's heart. She loosened its chubby
fingers, hoping it would toddle away; but it gave a wilful chuckle, and
stood still, staring at her, reproaching, accusing, in the unconscious
cruelty of its innocence. And yet surely the Divine Charity had chosen
the tenderest and most delicate means of stirring into life her unborn
conscience. Moved by who knows what better impulse, she stooped suddenly
down and touched its face with the tips of her gloved fingers. Startled
at the strange caress, like some animal stroked too lightly, the little
thing made its face swell, and asserted its humanity by a howl. Then it
fled from her with a passionate waddle, scattering blades of grass
behind it as it went.
Even so do we chase away from us the ministers of grace.
She leaned back, overcome by a sort of moral exhaustion. Her self-love
was hurt, as it would have been if a dog had shrunk from her advances;
for Audrey was not accustomed to have her favours rejected. She was
further irritated by the ostentatious affection of the child's mother as
she helped it through the railings with shrill cries of "There then,
blessums! Did she then, the naughty lydy!" And when baby echoed "Naughty
lydy!" it was as if the two-year-old had judged her.
She sat a little while longer, and then went away. As she rose she
looked sadly back at the family group. The man was lying on his back and
letting the children walk about on the top of him. Baby had found peace
in sucking an orange and stamping on her father's waist. The woman was
strewing paper bags and orange-peel around her in a fine disorder, while
she thriftily packed the remains of their meal in a basket. Audrey
shuddered; their arrangements were all so ugly and unpleasant. And
yet--they were married, they were respectable, they were happy, these
terrible people; while she--she was miserable. She had no sense of
justice; and she rebelled against the policy of Nature, who leaves her
coarser children free, and levies her taxes on the aristocracy of
feeling.
The sordid domesticity of the scene had glorified by contrast her own
dramatic mood. Poor Audrey! She hated vulgarity, and yet she was trying
to lay hold on "the great things of life" through the vulgarest of all
life's tragedies.
* * * * *
Langley would be in town again in a week. He would ask if she had made
up her mind; and she knew now too well the answer she would give him.
But Langley was not in town again in a week, nor yet in a fortnight. And
when, at the end of six weeks, he did come back, he came back
married--to Miss Alison Fraser.
Nobody ever knew how that came about. Miss Gladys Armstrong, who may be
considered an authority, maintained that as Wyndham had the pride which
is supposed to be the peculiar property of the Evil One, he could never
have proposed to the same woman twice. Consequently Miss Fraser must
have proposed to him. Perhaps she had; there are ways of doing these
things, and whatever Alison Fraser did she did gracefully. As for her
private conscience, in refusing him with conscious magnanimity she had
done no good to anybody, not even herself; in marrying him finally she
had saved the situation, without knowing that there was a situation to
be saved.
The news threw Audrey into what she imagined to be the beginning of a
brain fever, but which proved to be a state of nervous collapse,
lasting, with some intermissions, for a fortnight. At the end of that
time--whether it was that she was so fickle a creature that even Fate
could make no abiding impression on her, or that she was no longer
burdened with the decision of a momentous question--to all appearances
she recovered. So much so that, when some one sent her an invitation to
the private view at the New Gallery, she put on her best clothes (not
without a pang) and went.
Alas! the place was full of associations, melancholy with the sheeted
ghosts of the past. This time last year she had been to the private view
with Ted. They had amused themselves with laughing at the pictures, and
wondering how long it would be before one of his would be hanging
there. And as she listlessly turned the pages of her catalogue, the
first names that caught her attention were, "Haviland, Katherine, 232";
"Haviland, Edward, 296." She turned back the pages hastily to No. 232
and read, "The Witch of Atlas." That picture she knew. No. 296 gave her
"Sappho: A Study of a Head."
Of a head? Whose head?
She found the picture (not exactly in the place of honour, but agreeably
well hung and with a small crowd before it), and recognised Katherine's
striking profile raised in the attitude of a suppliant who implores, the
cloud of her dark hair flaming into bronze against a sunset sky. Ted was
rather too fond of that trick; but the study was not a mere vulgar
success--he had achieved expression in it. It was marked "Sold." There
were some lines of verse on the square panel at the base of the frame.
Ted could not have afforded such a setting for his picture, but the
frame was contributed by Mr. Percival Knowles, the purchaser of the
canvas. The same gentleman was also the author of the verse, specially
written for the portrait. Knowles, by-the-bye, was an occasional
poet--that is to say, he could burst into poetry occasionally; and
Audrey read:--
"Oh Aphrodite, queen of dread desire!
By all the dreams that throng Love's golden ways,
By all the honied vows thy votary pays,
By sacrificial wine, and holy fire!
Thou who hast made my heart thy living lyre,
Hast thou no gift for me, nor any grace?
Why hast thou turned the light of Love's sweet face
From me, the sweetest singer of Love's choir?"
"For songs that charm the long ambrosial years
The gods bring many gifts, and mine shall be--
Immortal life in mortal agony--
Vain longing, fanned by winged hopes and fears
To inextinguishable flame--and tears
Bitter as death, salt as the Lesbian Sea."
Her breast rose and fell with the lines; by this time she was educated
up to their feeling.
"Who was Sappho, and what did she do?--I know, but I've forgotten,"
asked a voice in the crowd.
"Oh, the woman who threw herself at the other fellow's head, you know,
who naturally didn't appreciate the compliment."
Audrey was not intelligent enough to refrain from the inward comment,
"How singularly inappropriate! I should have said Katherine was about
the last person in the world to----" She turned round and found herself
face to face with the poet. Knowles had been wandering through the crowd
with evasive eyes, successfully dodging the ladies of his acquaintance,
while his air of abstraction took all quality of offence from the
unerring precision of his movements. But when he saw Miss Craven he
stopped. He had an inkling of the truth, and respected her feelings too
much to slight her while Wyndham's marriage was still a topic of the
hour.
"Not bad for the boy, that!" said he, smiling gently at Sappho. "He's
coming out, isn't he?"
"So are you, I think--in a new line too!"
"Ah--er--not quite a new one. I've been taken that way before."
She was about to make some pretty speech when they were joined by Ted,
who had not noticed Audrey. His forehead puckered slightly when he saw
her, but that was no doubt from sympathy with her probable
embarrassment. For the first time in their acquaintance he was
indifferent to the touch of the small hand that had tried to mould his
destiny. If the truth must be told, in the flush of his success Ted had
found out that his passion for Audrey was only the flickering of the
flame on the altar dedicated to eternal Art. He listened to her
compliments without that sense of apotheosis which (however low he rated
it) her criticism had been wont to produce.
"Don't let's be seen looking at it any longer," he said at last; "let's
go and pretend to get excited about some other fellow's work."
So they left Audrey to herself. She turned back and went down the room
to see "The Witch of Atlas," the lady robed in her "subtle veil" of
starbeams and mist. Her view of this picture was somewhat obstructed by
a stout gentleman who, together with a thin lady, was taking up the
whole of the available space before it. His companion, a badly-dressed
young woman with a double eye-glass, was trying to decipher the lines
quoted in her catalogue. As Audrey paused she looked up and stared, as
only a woman with a double eye-glass can stare, at the same time
attracting the stout gentleman's attention by a movement of her elbow.
"Look, uncle, quick! That's her! That's the person!"
"What's that, Nettie?" (The stout gentleman swung round as if on a
pivot, as Audrey moved gracefully by.) "You don't mean to say so?
Where's Ted?"
She walked on through the rooms, depressed by the meeting with
Knowles--it suggested Wyndham. She would be meeting _him_ next. And
indeed she met him in the first gallery, where her aimless wanderings
had brought her again.
His wife was with him. Audrey knew that she must meet her some time, and
she had expected to see in Alison Fraser an enlarged edition of herself;
she had even feared an _edition de luxe_, which would have been
intolerable. She was prepared for distinction; but she saw with a finer
agony the slight figure, the sweet proud face with its setting of pale
gold hair, and worse than all, the indefinable air of remoteness and
reserve which made Mrs. Langley Wyndham more than a "distinguished"
woman. Wyndham lifted his hat and would have passed on; but Audrey, to
show her perfect self-possession, stopped and held out her hand. He felt
it trembling as he took it in a preoccupied manner; and Mrs. Langley
Wyndham became instantly absorbed in picture No. 1.
"Have you seen young Haviland's performance?" asked Wyndham. (He had to
say something.)
"Yes; it's a very fine study."
"So Knowles tells me. But everything's a fine study in this collection.
There ought to be 'a fine' for the abuse of that expression."
"But it really is; go and see for yourself."
"It's his sister, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Ah, that accounts for it. He could give his mind to it in that case."
Wyndham was surprised at his own fatuity; his remarks sounded like the
weird inanities that pass for witticisms in dreams.
"Perhaps. But never mind Mr. Haviland; I want you to introduce me to
your wife."
Wyndham looked round; his wife had turned an unconscious back.
"Oh--er--thank you, you're very kind, but--er--we're just going."
He had not meant them so, but his words were like a whip laid across
Audrey's shoulders. He moved on, and his wife joined him.
Audrey came across them half an hour later, stooping over some designs
in black and white. She saw Mrs. Langley Wyndham look up in her
husband's face with a smile, raising her golden eyebrows. The look was
one of those intimate trifles that have no meaning beyond the two
persons concerned in it. For Audrey, smarting from Wyndham's insult, it
was the flick of the lash in her face.