A MIRACLE
In the afternoon of the following day Tyson was sitting with Molly in the
dining-room when he was told that Captain Stanistreet had called and had
asked to see him. "Was he--?" Yes, the Captain was in the drawing-room.
Tyson was a little surprised at the announcement; for though the shock of
the fire had somewhat obscured his recollection of the events that
preceded it, Molly had unfortunately recalled them to his memory. But he
had clean forgotten some of the details. Consequently he was more than a
little surprised when Stanistreet, without any greeting or formality
whatsoever, took two letters from his pocket and flung one of them on the
window-seat.
"That's your letter," he said. "And here's the answer."
He laid Molly's little note down beside it.
Tyson stared at the letters rather stupidly. That correspondence was one
of the details he had forgotten. He also stared at Stanistreet, who
looked horribly ill. Then he took up Molly's note and examined it without
reading a word. It was crumpled, dirty, almost illegible, as if Louis had
thrust it violently into his pocket, and carried it about with him for
weeks.
"If you really don't know what it means," said Stanistreet, "I'll tell
you. It means that your wife had only one idea in her head. She didn't
understand it in the least, but she stuck to it. She thought of it from
morning till night, when other women would have been amusing themselves;
thought of it ever since you married her and left her. Unfortunately,
it kept her from thinking much of anything else. There were many things
she might have thought of--she might have thought of _me_. But she
didn't."
"Thanks. I know that as well as you. Did it ever occur to you to think of
her?"
"I shouldn't be here if I hadn't thought of her."
"Oh--" Tyson stepped over to the empty fireplace. It was the only thing
in the room that was left intact.
His attitude suggested that he was lord of the hearth, and that his
position was indestructible.
"Since you considered your testimony to my wife's character so
indispensable, may I ask why you waited five weeks to give it?"
Tyson could play with words like a man of letters; he fought with them
like the City tailor's son.
"You post your letters rather late. I left town an hour after I got
hers."
"It was the least you could do."
"Then I got ill. That also was the least I could do. But I did my best to
die too, for decency's sake. Needless to say, I did not succeed."
"I see. You thought of yourself first, and of her afterwards. What I want
to know is, would you have thought of me, supposing--only supposing--you
could have taken advantage of the situation?"
"No. In that case I would not have thought of you. I would have thought
of her."
"In other words, you would have behaved like a scoundrel if you'd got
the chance." The twinkle in Tyson's eyes intimated that he was enjoying
himself immensely. He had never had the whip-hand of Stanistreet before.
"I would have behaved like a damned scoundrel, if you like. But I
wouldn't have left her. Not even to marry and live morally ever after.
I can be faithful--to another man's wife."
The twinkle went out like a spark, and Tyson looked at his hearth. It was
dangerous to irritate Stanistreet, for there was no end to the things he
knew. So he only said, "Do you mind not shouting quite so loud. She's in
there--she may hear you."
She had heard him; she was calling to Nevill. He went to her, leaving the
door of communication unlatched.
"Is that Louis?" she asked. Tyson muttered something which Stanistreet
could not hear, and Molly answered with an intense pleading note that
carried far. "But I _must_ see him."
He started forward at the sound of her voice. I believe up to the very
last he clung to the doubt that was his hope. But Tyson had heard the
movement and he shut the door.
The pleading and muttering went on again on the other side. Heaven only
knew what incriminating things the little fool was saying in there! As
Stanistreet waited, walking up and down the empty room, he noticed for
the first time that it _was_ empty. Only the other day it had been
crammed with things that were symbols or monuments of the foolishness
of Mrs. Nevill Tyson. Now ceiling and walls were foul with smoke, the gay
white paint was branded and blistered, and the floor he walked on was
cleared as if for a dance of devils. But it was nothing to Stanistreet.
It would have been nothing to him if he had found Mrs. Nevill Tyson's
drawing-room utterly consumed. There was no reality for him but his own
lust, and anger, and bitterness, and his idea of Mrs. Nevill Tyson.
Presently Tyson came back.
"You can go in," he said, "but keep quiet, for God's sake!"
Stanistreet went in.
Tyson looked back; he saw him stop half-way from the threshold.
It was only for a second, but to Stanistreet it seemed eternity. From all
eternity Mrs. Nevill Tyson had been lying there on that couch, against
those scarlet cushions, with the blinds up and the sun shining full on
her small, scarred face, and on her shrunken, tortured throat.
She held out her hand and said, "I thought it was you. I wanted to see
you. Can you find a chair?"
He murmured something absolutely trivial and sat down by her couch,
playing with the fringe of the shawl that covered her.
"Did I hear you say you had been ill?" she asked.
He leant forward, bending his head low over the fringe; she could not see
his face. "I had inflammation of something or other, and I went partially
off my head--got out of bed and walked about in an east wind with a
temperature of a hundred and two, decimal point nine."
"Oh, Louis, how wicked of you! You might have died!"
"No such luck."
"For shame! I've been ill too; did you know? Of course you didn't, or
else you'd have come to ask how I was, wouldn't you? No, you wouldn't.
How could you come when you were ill?"
"I would have come. I didn't know."
"Didn't you? Oh, well--we had a fire here, and I was burnt; that's all.
How funny you not knowing, though. It was in all the papers--'Heroic
conduct of a lady.' Aren't they silly, those people that write papers.
I wasn't heroic a bit."
"I--I never saw it. I was in Paris."
"In Paris? Ah, I love Paris! That's where I went for my honeymoon. Was
that where you were ill?"
"Yes."
"Poor Louis! And I was so happy there."
Poor Louis!--she had loved Nevill in him and he was still a part of
Nevill. And for the rest, she who understood so much, who was she to
judge him?
He looked at her. By this time his sensations had lost the sting of
pity and horror. He could look without flinching. The fire had only burnt
the lower frame-work of the face, leaving the features untouched; the
eyes still glowed under their scorched brows with a look half-tender,
half-triumphant.
It was as if they said, "See what it was you loved so much."
The little fool, tortured into wisdom, was that what she meant? It was
always hard to fathom her meanings. Could it be that?
Yes, it must be. She had sent for him, not because she wanted to see
him, but because she wanted him to see her. She had sent for him to save
him. The sight of her face had killed her husband's love; she had
supposed that it would do the same kind office for his. Would any other
woman have thought of it? It was preposterous, of course; but it would
not have been Mrs. Nevill Tyson's idea without some touch of divine
absurdity.
But--could any other woman have done it? "See what it was you loved so
much." Poor little fool!
And he saw. This was not Mrs. Nevill Tyson, but it was the woman that he
had loved. Her being Mrs. Nevill Tyson was an accident; it had nothing to
do with _her_. Her beauty too? It was gone. So was something that had
obscured his judgment of her. He had doubted her over and over again,
unwillingly at first, willfully at the end; but he knew now that if for
one instant she had justified his skepticism he would have ceased to love
her. It was the paradox of her purity, dimly discerned under all his
doubt, that had tormented and fascinated him; and she held him by it
still.
His fingers worked nervously, plaiting and unplaiting the fringe.
"You were burnt. Where was Nevill then?"
"He was here."
"Was _he_ burnt?"
"No; but he might have been. He--he helped to put the fire out. Oh,
Louis, it's horribly hard on him!"
Stanistreet clenched his teeth lest he should blaspheme.
"How long have you known Nevill?" she asked, as if she had read his
thoughts.
"I don't know. A long time--"
"How many years? Think."
"Fifteen perhaps. We were at Marlborough together in seventy-eight."
"You've known him twenty years then. And you have known me--three?"
"Four, Molly--four next September."
"Well, four then. It isn't a long time. And you see it wasn't enough, to
know me in, was it?"
He said nothing; but the fringe dropped from his fingers.
"You were Nevill's best friend too, weren't you?"
"Yes. His best friend, and his worst, God help me!"
"I suppose that means you've quarreled with him? I thought I heard you.
But, of course, you didn't know."
"Forgive me, I did not." He had misunderstood her--again!
"Well, you know now. I wasn't worth quarreling about, was I?"
He got up and leaned out of the window, looking into the dull street that
roared seventy feet below. Then he sighed; and whether it was a sigh of
relief or pain he could not tell.
Neither did Mrs. Nevill Tyson in her great wisdom know.