Weaker than herself, since they were young, impressionable clay in the
hands of the potter.
And one of them loved her.
She leant forward in her chair, and covered her face with her hands.
A week ago, it had been an obscure penniless woman who had found
courage to arrest an impending declaration of love.
To-day, the same woman,--she was rich, her own mistress, independent,
free.
With a wondering sense of the simplicity of the matter, Anne saw
herself at liberty to take a step the very existence of which, till
to-night, she had not perceived.
She sat immovable, staring into the fire, thinking. In the silence
of the sleeping house she looked at facts face to face, and made her
decision. Here was she, Anne Page, not only a rich woman and her own
mistress, but practically alone in the world. Life had hitherto offered
her nothing. Now if she had courage to take it, a great if brief
happiness was within her reach. She loved, and was beloved. Too late,
as she had thought. But was it after all too late? Again Anne reflected
while the fire upon which her unseeing eyes were fixed, leapt and sang
softly to itself. Not if she could find the further courage to buy her
happiness at a great price. To take it while it lasted, and of her own
accord relinquish it before it had ceased to be happiness.
For as she thought and planned Anne saw clearly, as only a woman who is
leaving her youth behind, can see clearly--without illusions, with only
stern facts to guide her.
René Dampierre was young. Naturally, inevitably, sooner or later, he
would turn to youth for love, and she must not stand in his way.
But because of this, could she not even for a little while know the joy
which was every woman’s birthright?
If she were willing to pay for it, why not? Whatever happened, whatever
misery was in store, at least she paid alone. She involved no one in
her debt.
A cynic might have smiled at the simplicity of her reasoning. Not one
thought of her changed circumstances entered into her reflections. She
did not consider that Anne Page the penniless companion was a very
different being from Anne Page the lady of great means. To her mind it
only affected the situation in so far that it gave her freedom; made
it possible for her to follow her own course without burdening man,
woman, or child. It was only courage that was necessary. Courage to
stake high, and not to shrink when sooner or later the odds should turn
against her.
She measured her strength, and made her decision.
The little clock on the mantelpiece struck three, with a shrill silvery
clamour. Anne started, and glanced round the familiar room with a shock
of surprise, as though she had been long away, and was astonished to
find it there.
As she rose slowly to her feet, her reflection in the glass above the
chimney-piece also startled her.
It seemed to her that for ages she had been out of the body also.
She met absorbed blue eyes in a face pale but transfigured by an inner
excitement and a great hope.
She saw a mouth sweet and tremulous, and a tall figure; very graceful,
really beautiful; and suddenly she smiled.
“It’s not absurd. Not yet,” was the certainty that suddenly filled her
with triumphant joy.
XV
Early in November, Dampierre burst one morning into Fontenelle’s
studio. They worked in the same house in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs,
René on the top floor, François two flights lower down.
He looked up as his friend came in.
“Yes. I know. She’s coming,” he said, without ceasing to paint. “This
background’s the very devil. It’s all wrong in tone.”
“How did you know?”
François nodded towards a side table. “There’s her note.”
Dampierre found it amongst a litter of brushes and palettes.
“Yes,” he said glancing over it, “she says the same thing to me. She
feels she wants a change, so she’s shut up the house for a time, and
she’ll stay in Paris possibly on her way elsewhere. That’s all she
tells me.”
“The old lady must have left her some money,” observed François, still
apparently engrossed with his background. “Looks as though it’s rather
more than enough to keep body and soul together, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, do shut up, and leave that damned picture alone, and be
sympathetic!” exclaimed René, irritably.
His eyes were bright, and he laughed rather excitedly.
“I know you’re sick she’s coming. But I can’t stand your wisdom any
longer. I’m glad, do you hear? Glad. Glad. _Glad!_ And there’s an end
of it.”
“Pardon me, but that’s just what it’s not,” returned Fontenelle.
“Very well then, it isn’t. And I don’t care. I only know I want to see
her again,--horribly. And she’ll be here to-night, thank goodness, and
I’m going to meet her at the station.”
François shrugged his shoulders, and continued to paint.
“Where’s her hotel? Oh, the Impérial. She’s got that out of Baedeker.”
He laughed.
“Come now, François. Own that sweet Anne Page in Paris will be rather
nice!”
“You’d better ask her to tea here to-morrow. Your place is even more
of a pig-sty than mine. We shall see Dacier and Thouret at the _Lilas_
this evening. We can ask them then.”
“All right. But I’m not going to have you about all the time mind!”
“You won’t,” returned his friend briefly. “I can’t stand fools.”
René’s face darkened for a moment, but the retort died on his lips.
“Look here, old man,” he urged. “Don’t be a beast. I’m serious.”
“_Tant pis_,” was François’ implacable reply.
But when next day Anne was actually in his studio, and he heard her
voice, and saw her smile, and listened to the laughing clamour around
her, as she sat in the only armchair that was not broken, and drank
execrable tea out of a cup which did not match its saucer, it was
difficult even for Fontenelle to be anything but gay and pleased.
With an odd mixture of sensations, he noticed how fair her skin looked
against her black dress. The fur she wore on her shoulders was also
exceedingly becoming. François, who as a painter of many women’s
portraits knew something of the cost of feminine apparel, looked at it
with a certain surprise. Either the old lady had been fairly generous,
or Anne in her one day’s shopping, had been disgracefully extravagant.
In either case the result was admirable. He emerged from his
reflections to find a furious discussion raging as to which restaurant
she should be taken to dine.
“_Café de la Régence_,” said François authoritatively, “and afterwards
we’ll drive back to the _Lilas_.”
* * * * *
It was several days before Anne found herself alone with René.
He came to her hotel one morning, and carried her off to lunch with him
at a little restaurant in the neighbourhood of his studio.
“You have such a devoted body-guard, that I never get a word with you,”
he complained. “And I want you to see my pictures. We must get in
before the light goes. It gets so confoundedly dark in the afternoons
now.”
Later on in the great gaunt studio at the top of the pile of
buildings in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, Anne stood before some
of the pictures which in after years were to fetch great sums from
art collectors, which were to be discussed by connoisseurs, to be
execrated, loved, praised, condemned, admired.
She did not see them. For her at the moment, they were non-existent.
One thing only was in her mind; one idea, and that in the form of a
question.
How should she accomplish what she had come to do?
This was the first time René had deliberately sought her alone, and
in the circumstance, without malice, she divined the influence of
François Fontenelle.
He had meant to be careful. He had meant to see her only in the
presence of others, but,--she knew him so well that she could have
smiled,--to-day he had thrown prudence to the wind.
Tenderness was in his voice, in his eyes, even while he kept tender
words from his lips.
It grew dusk while she lingered. The blue of twilight filled the
windows, and a ruddy gleam from the stove lay along the floor. Anne sat
down on the couch, and René settled cushions at her back.
His hand touched her arm, and for a moment it rested there, before he
turned abruptly away.
Earlier in the day, Anne had spoken of returning to Dymfield.
“You mustn’t go yet,” he broke out all at once. “You won’t leave Paris
yet?”
The words were an appeal, and his voice was not steady.
“I came to see you,” said Anne deliberately.
He turned to her sharply. It was too dark to see his face, but she
heard the anxiety in his tone.
“All of us--or me?”
“To see you.”
He threw himself on his knees beside her. “Anne,” he whispered, “stay.
I want you. Will you marry me?”
He had taken her hands and was holding them tight against his breast.
“No, René.”
The words were decisive, but she made no effort to release herself, and
her hands rested quietly in his.
“Sit here, beside me,” she said, moving a little on the couch. “I want
to talk to you.”
Wondering at something in her voice, he obeyed in silence, and she went
on speaking, still very quietly.
“I won’t marry you, dear, because I’m too old for you. I will never
marry you. But if you want me, I will stay.”
In his amazement, he let her hands drop, and bent forward to see her
face.
Quite quietly, Anne got up. “It’s very dark,” she said. “I’ll light the
candles. I saw where you put the matches.”
He watched her in a sort of stupor as she went to a side table for the
matches, and lighted one after another of the candles in a sconce on
the opposite side of the room.
Did she know what she had said? Had he understood her?
He sat staring at her as she reached up to the sconce, the movement
throwing into relief the lines of her beautiful figure.
When the last candle was lighted, she turned to him smiling.
“No. You haven’t misunderstood me,” she said. “Now you can see my face
you will know you have not.”
She came swiftly across the room, and sat down beside him.
“Listen, René. I will not marry you, for many reasons. Two months ago I
was prepared never to see you again. But things have altered. I haven’t
told you yet, but all my circumstances have changed. I’m a rich woman
now, and my life is my own, to do what I like with it. And because I
love you, I propose to give it to you, for a little while at least. As
long as you want me. Until----”
Her voice, quite calm and quiet at first, broke at the last words, and
she paused abruptly.
René sprang to his feet, and drew her quickly up from the sofa into his
arms.
“Anne!” he cried. “Sweet Anne Page!” the words came brokenly between
tremulous laughter. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You will marry
me, of course, because we love each other, because----”
She put one hand on his shoulder, and so kept him at arm’s length.
“I will never marry you,” she repeated. “If you won’t consent to let me
stay as I suggest, I shall say good-bye to you now, and I will not see
you again.
“Remember René, you’re not talking to a girl. You’re dealing with a
woman who knows her own mind, and will have this or nothing. If I stay
we both have perfect freedom. I am old enough to do what I please with
my life. And I please to do this. René,” for the first time the colour
came to her cheeks, and her eyes wavered, “you’ll make me shy if I have
to ask you so many times to let me stay.”
She looked suddenly so like a child as she spoke, that in spite of his
perplexed amazement, Dampierre smiled.
He kissed her soft hair, and then her lips. “You’re adorable,” he
murmured. “But you amazing woman, you’re an _enfant terrible_! What am
I to do with you?”
“Don’t you see how simple it is?” she asked. “I’m rich now, so I can
stay as long as you--as long as I please.” She altered the pronoun
hurriedly. “And you have plenty of money, too, René, haven’t you? I
mean that we are each quite independent. It makes it all so easy.”
He laughed again as the only expression of his otherwise inexpressible
emotions.
She was as guileless, as simple as a child. Yet she was
proposing----Good God, what was she not proposing? And above all she
meant what she proposed; meant it absolutely. He looked into her eyes,
and knew that no words of his would move her.
“But Anne, Anne!” he stammered. “You’re saying awful things. Not
from my point of view, but as an Englishwoman. _Mon Dieu!_ as an
Englishwoman with the fear of Mrs. Grundy if not the fear of God before
her eyes!”
She looked at him, and his words, which amazement and uncertainty had
made flippant, died before the sadness of her glance.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “Nobody troubles about me. Nobody
has ever troubled. I have never been happy all my life. And now when
I could have happiness without hurting any one, why must I give it up
because of a world in which I have no concern?” She paused a moment,
and looked at him uncertainly.
“You think I ought to feel I’m doing wrong? Perhaps I ought. But I
_don’t_ feel it, René. I should be doing wrong if I married you,
because----” She left the sentence unfinished, forbearing to tell him
that he would some day thank her for his freedom.
“Don’t argue about it,” she said, smiling, though her eyes were full
of tears. “It’s my last word. If you won’t agree, I shall go back to
Dymfield to-morrow.”
“No. Don’t let us waste time now, at any rate,” he exclaimed eagerly.
“We shall have plenty of time to talk and argue. Just now I’m too
absurdly happy!”
He drew her down beside him on the sofa, and covered her eyes with
kisses.
“Anne! do you know what a sweet thing you are? No, of course you don’t
know, and that’s what make you so delicious!”
Even while she thrilled from head to foot with an almost unbearable
happiness, Anne remembered the price at which it was bought, and told
herself that it was not too dear.
“I only know I’m happy,” she whispered. “But I’m afraid of waking up
and finding it’s a dream.”
* * * * *
Again and again, through the years as they passed, her own words came
back to her.
In the summer evenings at Dymfield, she thought of them. When she
travelled, they often came to her as she stood before some picture in
church or gallery. She thought of them sometimes at night, when on
some Italian terrace she sat watching the sunset.
To-day she remembered them, as she walked home through the sunshine,
and mounted the stately Spanish steps towards her apartment on the
heights.
“Twenty years ago!” She repeated the words to herself in wonder.
“It was a beautiful dream, and thank God, I never waked.”
XVI
Dr. Dakin was spending the night in town on his way to Paris.
For the previous fortnight, urged not so much by the impressive hints
concerning his duty thrown out by Mrs. Carfax, as by a curious change
in his wife’s letters to him, he had been on thorns of impatience to
join her in Paris, and bring her home.
The serious illness of a patient, an exasperating case which always
seemed on the point of mending, only to sink into another relapse, kept
him prisoner.
Not till the previous day had he considered it safe to telegraph for
the doctor he had engaged to look after his practice during his own
absence, and a still further delay had been occasioned by the necessity
of meeting this man in London to explain the peculiar nature of the
case under treatment.
Leaving his hotel in the evening, he walked westward in search of a
place to dine, meditating in a troubled fashion as he walked. His
wife had been away more than three months, and he had made no effort
to recall her. The visit, accepted ostensibly at least, partly on the
ground of her health, was in any case to have been a long one. Then
followed the plea of the cure which a certain well-known physician
had prescribed, and again her husband had agreed to her wishes. He
told himself to be patient. After his talk with Miss Page, he had been
full of hope. But it would not do to annoy Madge by bringing her home
again before she wished to come. It would be wiser to let her tire
of Paris, and then when she returned, he would take the advice of a
wise and charming woman, and perhaps there might yet be happiness for
Madge,--and for him too.
So he had waited, forcing himself to self-control through his hourly
longing for her.
At first, for many weeks, her letters were discouraging;--hurried and
indifferent. She was enjoying Paris. She felt better, or not so well.
They were the letters of a woman who writes perfunctorily, from a sense
of duty. Quite lately they had altered, and though the change in them
filled him with delight, it was joy mingled with uneasiness. They were
hysterical letters, composed of vague self-reproaches about her selfish
neglect of him, mingled with terms of endearment, and assertions of
her own unworthiness.
Fatal letters to write to a man who possessed a trace of cynicism, or
of what is commonly called knowledge of the world, but to the simple
mind of her husband, they suggested only alarming fears for her bodily
health. He must go and fetch her home immediately. Poor little Madge!
In the midst of his anxiety, he was not insensible of a thrill of joy
at the thought that from whatever cause, her heart had turned to him.
With this thought in his mind, he again dismissed as an impertinence, a
letter he had lately read containing more than a hint that his wife’s
protracted stay in Paris was due to a certain bad influence exercised
upon her in the past.
He had never considered the matter seriously, yet as he entered the
dining-room a moment later, the whole circumstance of the letter and
its accusation, was recalled by the sight of a face he remembered.
He had turned into a restaurant in the Haymarket, to which on their
rare visits to town, he had once taken Madge to dine.
With the sentimental idea at which he scarcely smiled, of finding the
exact place they had on that occasion occupied, he went upstairs, and
was glad to find the table in the corner disengaged. He had given his
order to the waiter, before seated at some little distance across the
room, he saw the man he recognized.
For the moment he was puzzled, then like a flash came the memory of a
dinner party at Fairholme Court six months ago, and with it in a flood
the further memory of other things he had for the moment forgotten.
Monsieur Fontenelle apparently did not see him, but apart from the fact
that he had liked him, Dr. Dakin was quite determined to recall their
previous meeting to his consciousness.
Madge had sometimes mentioned him in letters. If he had recently come
from Paris, he would have news of her. He left his place and crossed to
his neighbour’s table, with outstretched hand.
“We met at a very pleasant little dinner at Fairholme Court, some
months ago,” he began. “My name is Dakin. I expect you’ve forgotten it.
Yours is a name one can’t forget.”
Fontenelle gave him a hasty glance; then took the hand he offered, with
a charming smile.
“But of course! When Miss Page was our hostess. Have you heard from her
lately? I am told she is coming back.”
“Won’t you come to my table, as we have neither of us begun to feed?”
suggested Dr. Dakin. “It’s quieter there. Out of the draught.”
“Delighted!” François assured him.
The change was effected.
“I can give you the latest news of your wife,” he said almost before
he was seated. “I saw her only yesterday. I called in fact to make my
farewells.”
“How is she?” inquired the doctor anxiously. It was the one question
that concerned him.
“Not altogether well, I fancy. A little homesick. Paris possibly a
little on her nerves.”
He took up the wine list. “Can we agree as to wine?”
The doctor made a hasty gesture. “Anything you like. I’m on my way to
bring her home,” he observed.
Fontenelle, who was giving the waiter elaborate directions about
warming the Burgundy he had selected, did not at once reply.
When the man had hurried off with a _Bien Monsieur!_ he looked at his
companion.
“You are going to fetch her you say? Good! I think all she wants
is the rest and quiet of your charming village. Paris is not the
place for nervous women, doctor. The atmosphere is too exciting--too
distracting.” He made a little comprehensive gesture with both hands.
“But you don’t think she’s ill?”
In spite of himself, in spite of his British horror of displaying
emotion, the doctor’s voice shook a little.
“_Mais non! Mais non. Rien de tout_,” returned his companion, with a
reassuring smile. “Madame is suffering a little from her ‘cure.’ That
is only to be expected. Pardon!” he laughed genially. “For the moment I
forgot I was not speaking to a layman.”
The doctor laughed also, and tried to forget that the mere mention of
his wife’s name had set his heart beating.
He applied himself to his dinner.
“Did I understand that you’re going to leave Paris for long?” he asked.
“I think you said you had been to say good-bye to Madge--to my wife?”
“I’m really uncertain,” returned François, regarding him with keen
smiling eyes. “I’m over here on business connected with the exhibition
to which your countrymen with more politeness than discretion have
elected me President. After that?” He shrugged his shoulders with a
characteristic gesture. “I don’t know. A journey to Egypt, perhaps. But
that depends on circumstances. Did I tell you that Miss Page is coming
home? She may even be in Paris by this time. Mrs. Dakin is evidently
looking forward to seeing her.”
For a moment the doctor was silent.
“Miss Page is an old friend of yours--a great friend?” he asked
suddenly.
“I think I may say my best and dearest friend.”
At the mention of Anne’s name an imperceptible change crept into his
manner. An undercurrent of irony, too subtle for his companion’s
apprehension, vanished from his voice and from his words, which were
grave and deliberate.
“I might with truth repeat what you have said,” returned the doctor
slowly.
He took up his knife and fork, and absently replaced them on his plate,
into which he stared, as though lost in thought.
“And so,” said François, watching him, “you are naturally indignant
about a certain story----”
The other man looked up quickly.
“I know all about it,” Fontenelle went on. “Madame Didier, who belongs
to a certain feminine type indigenous to every country, has worked
with great industry, and Fortune has favoured her. During her visit to
England, she came across a certain Mrs. Crosby, the wife of old Mrs.
Burbage’s nephew.”
He paused, and critically tasted the wine which the waiter had just
poured into his glass.
“_Bon!_” he exclaimed appreciatively.
“This woman,” he continued, “convinced that her husband’s inheritance
was stolen from him by our friend, naturally paints her in the glaring
colours of an adventuress.”
Both men smiled.
“The character suits Anne Page, doesn’t it? At any rate it suited
Madame Didier, who with unfailing resource has patiently unearthed the
story of twenty years ago. This story, I understand, she has lost no
time in communicating to the wife of the vicar of your idyllic village,
whence having reached the fountain head, I imagine it is flowing in
refreshing streams through the entire county?”
“No,” returned the doctor quickly. “The vicar, whatever qualities he
may lack, happens to be a gentleman, and is moreover one of Miss Page’s
many friends. Fortunately this woman, Madame Didier, wrote to him, not
to Mrs. Carfax, and as the letter to some extent concerned my wife, he
brought it to me.”
Fontenelle gently raised his eyebrows, but refrained from comment.
“The vicar,” Dr. Dakin went on with a half smile, “is filled with
righteous indignation about what he naturally believes an impudent lie.
He has written to his correspondent, threatening pains and penalties
if she communicates with his wife, or tries in any way to spread the
scandal. He’s a wise man,” he added dryly. “Mrs. Carfax is not the
woman to be trusted with the reputation of her dearest friends.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“I didn’t tell him,” continued the doctor, “that I had previously heard
the story from my wife, who assures me it is true.”
François’s expression was inscrutable.
“And--pardon me--you, I imagine, regard the matter as, well let us say
as an Englishman?”
“If as I suppose I am to understand, you mean that I’m naturally a
hypocrite,” returned the doctor rather stiffly, “you are mistaken. Miss
Page is the best, the most generous woman I have ever met. Whatever her
life may have been, that is the result. The rest doesn’t concern me.”
A sudden light sprang into the other man’s eyes.
“I beg your pardon,” he said simply, in a tone of sincerity.
He looked round the room which was now hot, crowded, and noisy with the
clink of glasses, and the babel of talk.
“Have you anything to do this evening? If not, will you come round to
my club where we can smoke in peace?”