THE SORCERESS walked away very slowly down the street.
She had the sensation of having fallen from a great height, after the
excitement of having fought bravely to keep her place there, and of
having anticipated every step of a combat still more severe which yet
had not come to pass after her previsions. It had been a fight lasting
for hours, from the moment Betty, all unconscious, had told her of the
house in which Charlie was. That was in the morning, and now it was late
afternoon, and the work of the day, the common work of the day in which
all the innocent common people about had been employed, was rounding
towards its end. It seemed to her a long, long time that she had been
involved, first in imagination, in severe thought, and then in actual
conflict--in this struggle, fighting for her life. From the beginning
she had made up her mind that she should fail. It was a consciously
losing game that she had fought so gallantly, never giving in; and
indeed she was not unaware, nor was she without a languid satisfaction
in the fact that she had indeed carried off the honours of the field,
that it would not be said that she had been beaten. But what did that
matter? Argument she knew and felt had nothing to do with such affairs.
She had known herself to have lost from the moment she saw Colonel
Kingsward standing there against the mantelpiece in the dining-room. It
had not been possible for her then to give in, to turn and go forth into
the street flinging down her arms. On the contrary, it was her nature to
fight to the last; and she had carried off an apparent victory. She had
marched off with colours flying from the field of battle, leaving every
enemy confounded. But she herself entertained no illusion in the matter.
It was possible no doubt that her spell might yet be strong enough upon
her middle-aged captive to make him ignore and pass over everything that
told against her--but, after considering the situation with a keen and
close survey of every likelihood, she dismissed that hope. No, her
chance was lost--again; the battle was over--again. It had been so near
being successful that the shock was greater perhaps than usual; but she
had now been feeling the shock for hours; so that her actual fall was as
much a relief as a pang, and her mind, full of resource, obstinately
sanguine, was becoming ready to pass on to the next chance, and had
already sprung up to think--What now?
I am sorry that in this story I have always been placed in natural
opposition to this woman, who was certainly a creature full of interest,
full of resource, and indomitable in her way. And she had a theory of
existence, as, it is my opinion, we all must have, making out to
ourselves the most plausible reasons and excuses for all we do. Her
struggle--in which she would not have denied that she had sometimes been
unscrupulous--had always been for a standing-ground on which, if once
attained, she could have been good. She had always promised herself that
she would be good when once she had attained--oh, excellent! kind, just,
true!--a model woman. And what, after all, had been her methods? There
had been little harm in them. Here and there somebody had been injured,
as in the case of Aubrey Leigh, of Charlie Kingsward. To the first she
had indeed done considerable harm, but then she had soothed the life of
Amy, his little foolish wife, to whom she had been more kind than she
had been unkind to him. She had not wanted to be the third person
between that tiresome couple. She had stayed in his house from a kind of
sense of duty, and had Aubrey Leigh indeed asked her to become his
second wife she would, of course, have accepted him for the sake of the
position, but with a grimace. She was not particularly sorry for having
harmed him. It served him right for--well, for being Aubrey Leigh. And
as for Bee Kingsward, she had triumphantly proved, much to her own
surprise it must be said, that it was not she who had done Bee any
harm. Then Charlie--poor Charlie, poor boy! He thought, of course, that
he was very miserable and badly used. Great heavens! that a boy should
have the folly to imagine that anything could make him miserable, at
twenty-two--a man, and with all the world before him. Miss Lance at this
moment was not in the least sorry for Charlie. It would do him good. A
young fellow who had nothing in the world to complain of, who had
everything in his favour--it was good for him to be unhappy a little, to
be made to remember that he was only flesh and blood after all.
Thus she came to the conclusion, as she walked along, that really she
had done no harm to other people. To herself, alas! she was always doing
harm, and every failure made it more and more unlikely that she would
ever succeed. She did not brood over her losses when she was thus
defeated. She turned to the next thing that offered with what would have
been in a better cause a splendid philosophy, but yet in moments like
this she felt that it became every day more improbable that she would
ever succeed.
Instead of the large and liberal sphere in which she always hoped to be
able to fulfil all the duties of life in an imposing and remarkable way,
she would have probably to drop into--what? A governess’s place, for
which she would already be thought too old, some dreadful position about
a school, some miserable place as housekeeper--she with all her schemes,
her hopes of better things, her power over others. This prospect was
always before her, and came back to her mind at moments when she was at
the lowest ebb, for she had no money at all. She had always been
dependent upon somebody. Even now her little campaign in George Street,
Hanover Square, was at the expense of the friend with whom she had lived
in Oxford, and who believed Laura was concerting measures to establish
herself permanently in some remunerative occupation. These accounts
would have to be settled somehow, and some other expedient be found by
which to try again. Well, one thing done with, another to come on--was
not that the course of life? And there was a certain relief in the
thought that it was done with.
The suspense was over; there was no longer the conflict between hope and
fear, which wears out the nerves and clouds the clearness of one’s
mental vision. One down, another come on! She said this to herself with
a forlorn laugh in the depths of her being, yet not so very forlorn.
This woman had a kind of pleasure in the new start, even when she did
not know what it was to be. There are a great many things in which I
avow I have the greatest sympathy with her, and find her more
interesting than a great many blameless people. Poetic justice is
generally in books awarded to such persons. But that is, one is aware,
not always the case in life.
While Miss Lance went on quietly along the long unlovely street, with
those thoughts in her mind, walking more slowly than usual, a little
languid and exhausted after her struggle, but as has been said frankly
and without _arrière pensée_ giving up the battle as lost, and accepting
her defeat--she became suddenly aware of a quick firm footstep behind,
sounding fast and continuous upon the pavement. A woman like this has
all her wits very sharply about her, the ears and the sight of a
savage, and an unslumbering habit of observation, or she could never
carry on her career. She heard the step and instinctively noted it
before her mind awoke to any sense of meaning and importance in it.
Then, all at once, as it came just to that distance behind which made it
apparent that this footstep was following someone who went before, it
suddenly slackened without stopping, became slow when it had been fast.
At this, her thoughts flew away like a mist and she became all ears, but
she was too wise to turn round, to display any interest. Perhaps it
might be that he was only going his own way, not intending to follow,
and that he had slackened his pace unconsciously without ulterior
motives when he saw her in front of him--though this Miss Lance scarcely
believed.
Perhaps--I will not affirm it--she threw a little more of her real
languor and weariness into her attitude and movements when she made this
exciting discovery. She was, in reality, very tired. She had looked so
when she left the house; perhaps she had forgotten her great fatigue a
little in the course of her walk, but it now came back again with
double force, which is not unusual in the most matter of fact
circumstances. As her pace grew slower, the footstep behind became
slower also, but always followed on. Miss Lance proceeded steadily,
choosing the quietest streets, pausing now and then at a shop window to
rest. The climax came when she reached a window which had a rail round
it, upon which she leaned heavily, every line of her dress expressing,
with a faculty which her garments specially possessed, an exhaustion
which could scarcely go further. Then she raised her head to look what
the place was. It was full of embroideries and needlework, a woman’s
shop, where she was sure of sympathy. She went in blindly, as if her
very sight were clouded with her fatigue.
“I am very tired,” she said; “I want some silk for embroidery; but that
is not my chief object. May I sit down a little? I am so very tired.”
“Certainly, ma’am, certainly,” cried the mistress of the shop, rushing
round from behind the counter to place a chair for her and offer a
glass of water. She sat down so as to be visible from the door, but
still with her back to it. The step had stopped, and there was a shadow
across the window--the tall shadow of a man looking in. A smile came
upon Miss Lance’s face--of gratitude and thanks to the kind people--also
perhaps of some internal satisfaction. But she did not act as if she
were conscious of anyone waiting for her. She took the glass of water
with many acknowledgments; she leant back on the chair murmuring,
“Thanks, thanks,” to the exhortations of the shop-woman not to hurry, to
take a good rest. She did not hurry at all. Finally, she was so much
better as to be able to buy her silks, and, declaring herself quite
restored, to go out again into the open air.
She was met by the shadow that had been visible through the window, and
which, as she knew very well, was Colonel Kingsward, stiff and
embarrassed, yet with great anxiety in his face. “I feared you were
ill,” he said, with a little jerk, the words coming in spite of him. “I
feared you were fainting.”
“Oh, Colonel Kingsward, you!”
“Yes--I feared you were fainting. It is--nothing, I hope?”
“Nothing but exhaustion,” she said, with a faint smile. “I was very
tired, but I have rested and I am a little better now.”
“Will you let me call a cab for you? You don’t seem fit to walk.”
“Oh, no cab, thanks! I would much rather walk--the air and the slow
movement does one a little good.”
She was pale, and her voice was rather faint, and every line of her
dress, as I have said, was tired--tired to death--and yet not
ungracefully tired.
“I cannot let you go like this alone.” His voice softened every moment;
they went on for a step or two together. “You had better--take my arm,
at least,” he said.
She took it with a little cry and a sudden clasp. “I think you are not a
mere man, but an archangel of kindness and goodness,” she said, with a
faint laugh that broke down, and tears in her eyes.
And I think for that moment, in the extraordinary revulsion of feeling,
Miss Lance almost believed what she said.