I
Gyp was going up to town. She sat in the corner of a first-class
carriage, alone. Her father had gone up by an earlier train, for the
annual June dinner of his old regiment, and she had stayed to consult
the doctor concerning “little Gyp,” aged nearly nineteen months, to whom
teeth were making life a burden.
Her eyes wandered from window to window, obeying the faint excitement
within her. All the winter and spring, she had been at Mildenham, very
quiet, riding much, and pursuing her music as best she could, seeing
hardly anyone except her father; and this departure for a spell of
London brought her the feeling that comes on an April day, when the
sky is blue, with snow-white clouds, when in the fields the lambs are
leaping, and the grass is warm for the first time, so that one would
like to roll in it. At Widrington, a porter entered, carrying a kit-bag,
an overcoat, and some golf-clubs; and round the door a little group,
such as may be seen at any English wayside station, clustered, filling
the air with their clean, slightly drawling voices. Gyp noted a tall
woman whose blonde hair was going grey, a young girl with a fox-terrier
on a lead, a young man with a Scotch terrier under his arm and his back
to the carriage. The girl was kissing the Scotch terrier’s head.
“Good-bye, old Ossy! Was he nice! Tumbo, keep DOWN! YOU’RE not going!”
“Good-bye, dear boy! Don’t work too hard!”
The young man’s answer was not audible, but it was followed by
irrepressible gurgles and a smothered:
“Oh, Bryan, you ARE—Good-bye, dear Ossy!” “Good-bye!” “Good-bye!” The
young man who had got in, made another unintelligible joke in a rather
high-pitched voice, which was somehow familiar, and again the gurgles
broke forth. Then the train moved. Gyp caught a side view of him,
waving his hat from the carriage window. It was her acquaintance of the
hunting-field—the “Mr. Bryn Summer’ay,” as old Pettance called him, who
had bought her horse last year. Seeing him pull down his overcoat, to
bank up the old Scotch terrier against the jolting of the journey, she
thought: ’I like men who think first of their dogs.’ His round head,
with curly hair, broad brow, and those clean-cut lips, gave her again
the wonder: ’Where HAVE I seen someone like him?’ He raised the window,
and turned round.
“How would you like—Oh, how d’you do! We met out hunting. You don’t
remember me, I expect.”
“Yes; perfectly. And you bought my horse last summer. How is he?”
“In great form. I forgot to ask what you called him; I’ve named him
Hotspur—he’ll never be steady at his fences. I remember how he pulled
with you that day.”
They were silent, smiling, as people will in remembrance of a good run.
Then, looking at the dog, Gyp said softly:
“HE looks rather a darling. How old?”
“Twelve. Beastly when dogs get old!”
There was another little silence while he contemplated her steadily with
his clear eyes.
“I came over to call once—with my mother; November the year before last.
Somebody was ill.”
“Yes—I.”
“Badly?”
Gyp shook her head.
“I heard you were married—” The little drawl in his voice had increased,
as though covering the abruptness of that remark. Gyp looked up.
“Yes; but my little daughter and I live with my father again.” What
“came over” her—as they say—to be so frank, she could not have told.
He said simply:
“Ah! I’ve often thought it queer I’ve never seen you since. What a run
that was!”
“Perfect! Was that your mother on the platform?”
“Yes—and my sister Edith. Extraordinary dead-alive place, Widrington; I
expect Mildenham isn’t much better?”
“It’s very quiet, but I like it.”
“By the way, I don’t know your name now?”
“Fiorsen.”
“Oh, yes! The violinist. Life’s a bit of a gamble, isn’t it?”
Gyp did not answer that odd remark, did not quite know what to make of
this audacious young man, whose hazel eyes and lazy smile were queerly
lovable, but whose face in repose had such a broad gravity. He took from
his pocket a little red book.
“Do you know these? I always take them travelling. Finest things ever
written, aren’t they?”
The book—Shakespeare’s Sonnets—was open at that which begins:
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove—”
Gyp read on as far as the lines:
“Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out even to the edge of doom—”
and looked out of the window. The train was passing through a country
of fields and dykes, where the sun, far down in the west, shone almost
level over wide, whitish-green space, and the spotted cattle browsed
or stood by the ditches, lazily flicking their tufted tails. A shaft of
sunlight flowed into the carriage, filled with dust motes; and, handing
the little book back through that streak of radiance, she said softly:
“Yes; that’s wonderful. Do you read much poetry?”
“More law, I’m afraid. But it is about the finest thing in the world,
isn’t it?”
“No; I think music.”
“Are you a musician?”
“Only a little.”
“You look as if you might be.”
“What? A little?”
“No; I should think you had it badly.”
“Thank you. And you haven’t it at all?”
“I like opera.”
“The hybrid form—and the lowest!”
“That’s why it suits me. Don’t you like it, though?”
“Yes; that’s why I’m going up to London.”
“Really? Are you a subscriber?”
“This season.”
“So am I. Jolly—I shall see you.”
Gyp smiled. It was so long since she had talked to a man of her own
age, so long since she had seen a face that roused her curiosity and
admiration, so long since she had been admired. The sun-shaft, shifted
by a westward trend of the train, bathed her from the knees up; and
its warmth increased her light-hearted sense of being in luck—above her
fate, instead of under it.
Astounding how much can be talked of in two or three hours of a railway
journey! And what a friendly after-warmth clings round those hours! Does
the difficulty of making oneself heard provoke confidential utterance?
Or is it the isolation or the continual vibration that carries
friendship faster and further than will a spasmodic acquaintanceship
of weeks? But in that long talk he was far the more voluble. There was,
too, much of which she could not speak. Besides, she liked to listen.
His slightly drawling voice fascinated her—his audacious, often witty
way of putting things, and the irrepressible bubble of laughter that
would keep breaking from him. He disclosed his past, such as it was,
freely—public-school and college life, efforts at the bar, ambitions,
tastes, even his scrapes. And in this spontaneous unfolding there was
perpetual flattery; Gyp felt through it all, as pretty women will, a
sort of subtle admiration. Presently he asked her if she played piquet.
“Yes; I play with my father nearly every evening.”
“Shall we have a game, then?”
She knew he only wanted to play because he could sit nearer, joined by
the evening paper over their knees, hand her the cards after dealing,
touch her hand by accident, look in her face. And this was not
unpleasant; for she, in turn, liked looking at his face, which had what
is called “charm”—that something light and unepiscopal, entirely lacking
to so many solid, handsome, admirable faces.
But even railway journeys come to an end; and when he gripped her hand
to say good-bye, she gave his an involuntary little squeeze. Standing
at her cab window, with his hat raised, the old dog under his arm, and a
look of frank, rather wistful, admiration on his face, he said:
“I shall see you at the opera, then, and in the Row perhaps; and I may
come along to Bury Street, some time, mayn’t I?”
Nodding to those friendly words, Gyp drove off through the sultry London
evening. Her father was not back from the dinner, and she went straight
to her room. After so long in the country, it seemed very close in Bury
Street; she put on a wrapper and sat down to brush the train-smoke out
of her hair.
For months after leaving Fiorsen, she had felt nothing but relief. Only
of late had she begun to see her new position, as it was—that of a
woman married yet not married, whose awakened senses have never been
gratified, whose spirit is still waiting for unfoldment in love, who,
however disillusioned, is—even if in secret from herself—more and more
surely seeking a real mate, with every hour that ripens her heart and
beauty. To-night—gazing at her face, reflected, intent and mournful, in
the mirror—she saw that position more clearly, in all its aridity, than
she had ever seen it. What was the use of being pretty? No longer use to
anyone! Not yet twenty-six, and in a nunnery! With a shiver, but not of
cold, she drew her wrapper close. This time last year she had at least
been in the main current of life, not a mere derelict. And yet—better
far be like this than go back to him whom memory painted always standing
over her sleeping baby, with his arms stretched out and his fingers
crooked like claws.
After that early-morning escape, Fiorsen had lurked after her for weeks,
in town, at Mildenham, followed them even to Scotland, where Winton had
carried her off. But she had not weakened in her resolution a second
time, and suddenly he had given up pursuit, and gone abroad. Since
then—nothing had come from him, save a few wild or maudlin letters,
written evidently during drinking-bouts. Even they had ceased, and for
four months she had heard no word. He had “got over” her, it seemed,
wherever he was—Russia, Sweden—who knew—who cared?
She let the brush rest on her knee, thinking again of that walk with
her baby through empty, silent streets, in the early misty morning last
October, of waiting dead-tired outside here, on the pavement, ringing
till they let her in. Often, since, she had wondered how fear could have
worked her up to that weird departure. She only knew that it had not
been unnatural at the time. Her father and Aunt Rosamund had wanted
her to try for a divorce, and no doubt they had been right. But her
instincts had refused, still refused to let everyone know her secrets
and sufferings—still refused the hollow pretence involved, that she had
loved him when she never had. No, it had been her fault for marrying him
without love—
“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds!”
What irony—giving her that to read—if her fellow traveller had only
known!
She got up from before the mirror, and stood looking round her room,
the room she had always slept in as a girl. So he had remembered her
all this time! It had not seemed like meeting a stranger. They were not
strangers now, anyway. And, suddenly, on the wall before her, she saw
his face; or, if not, what was so like that she gave a little gasp. Of
course! How stupid of her not to have known at once! There, in a brown
frame, hung a photograph of the celebrated Botticelli or Masaccio “Head
of a Young Man” in the National Gallery. She had fallen in love with
it years ago, and on the wall of her room it had been ever since.
That broad face, the clear eyes, the bold, clean-cut mouth, the
audacity—only, the live face was English, not Italian, had more humour,
more “breeding,” less poetry—something “old Georgian” about it. How
he would laugh if she told him he was like that peasant acolyte with
fluffed-out hair, and a little ruching round his neck! And, smiling, Gyp
plaited her own hair and got into bed.
But she could not sleep; she heard her father come in and go up to his
room, heard the clocks strike midnight, and one, and two, and always the
dull roar of Piccadilly. She had nothing over her but a sheet, and still
it was too hot. There was a scent in the room, as of honeysuckle. Where
could it come from? She got up at last, and went to the window. There,
on the window-sill, behind the curtains, was a bowl of jessamine. Her
father must have brought it up for her—just like him to think of that!
And, burying her nose in those white blossoms, she was visited by
a memory of her first ball—that evening of such delight and
disillusionment. Perhaps Bryan Summerhay had been there—all that time
ago! If he had been introduced to her then, if she had happened to dance
with him instead of with that man who had kissed her arm, might she not
have felt different toward all men? And if he had admired her—and had
not everyone, that night—might she not have liked, perhaps more than
liked, him in return? Or would she have looked on him as on all her
swains before she met Fiorsen, so many moths fluttering round a candle,
foolish to singe themselves, not to be taken seriously? Perhaps she had
been bound to have her lesson, to be humbled and brought low!
Taking a sprig of jessamine and holding it to her nose, she went up to
that picture. In the dim light, she could just see the outline of the
face and the eyes gazing at her. The scent of the blossom penetrated her
nerves; in her heart, something faintly stirred, as a leaf turns over,
as a wing flutters. And, blossom and all, she clasped her hands over her
breast, where again her heart quivered with that faint, shy tremor.
It was late, no—early, when she fell asleep and had a strange dream. She
was riding her old mare through a field of flowers. She had on a black
dress, and round her head a crown of bright, pointed crystals; she sat
without saddle, her knee curled up, perched so lightly that she hardly
felt the mare’s back, and the reins she held were long twisted stems of
honeysuckle. Singing as she rode, her eyes flying here and there, over
the field, up to the sky, she felt happier, lighter than thistledown.
While they raced along, the old mare kept turning her head and biting at
the honeysuckle flowers; and suddenly that chestnut face became the face
of Summerhay, looking back at her with his smile. She awoke. Sunlight,
through the curtains where she had opened them to find the flowers, was
shining on her.
II
Very late that same night, Summerhay came out of the little Chelsea
house, which he inhabited, and walked toward the river. In certain moods
men turn insensibly toward any space where nature rules a little—downs,
woods, waters—where the sky is free to the eye and one feels the broad
comradeship of primitive forces. A man is alone when he loves, alone
when he dies; nobody cares for one so absorbed, and he cares for nobody,
no—not he! Summerhay stood by the river-wall and looked up at the stars
through the plane-tree branches. Every now and then he drew a long
breath of the warm, unstirring air, and smiled, without knowing that he
smiled. And he thought of little, of nothing; but a sweetish sensation
beset his heart, a kind of quivering lightness his limbs. He sat down
on a bench and shut his eyes. He saw a face—only a face. The lights went
out one by one in the houses opposite; no cabs passed now, and scarce a
passenger was afoot, but Summerhay sat like a man in a trance, the smile
coming and going on his lips; and behind him the air that ever stirs
above the river faintly moved with the tide flowing up.
It was nearly three, just coming dawn, when he went in, and, instead of
going to bed, sat down to a case in which he was junior on the morrow,
and worked right on till it was time to ride before his bath and
breakfast. He had one of those constitutions, not uncommon among
barristers—fostered perhaps by ozone in the Courts of Law—that can do
this sort of thing and take no harm. Indeed, he worked best in such long
spurts of vigorous concentration. With real capacity and a liking
for his work, this young man was certainly on his way to make a
name; though, in the intervals of energy, no one gave a more complete
impression of imperturbable drifting on the tides of the moment.
Altogether, he was rather a paradox. He chose to live in that little
Chelsea house which had a scrap of garden rather than in the Temple
or St. James’s, because he often preferred solitude; and yet he was
an excellent companion, with many friends, who felt for him the
affectionate distrust inspired by those who are prone to fits and starts
of work and play, conviviality and loneliness. To women, he was almost
universally attractive. But if he had scorched his wings a little
once or twice, he had kept heart-free on the whole. He was, it must be
confessed, a bit of a gambler, the sort of gambler who gets in deep,
and then, by a plucky, lucky plunge, gets out again, until some day
perhaps—he stays there. His father, a diplomatist, had been dead fifteen
years; his mother was well known in the semi-intellectual circles of
society. He had no brothers, two sisters, and an income of his own. Such
was Bryan Summerhay at the age of twenty-six, his wisdom-teeth to cut,
his depths unplumbed.
When he started that morning for the Temple, he had still a feeling of
extraordinary lightness in his limbs, and he still saw that face—its
perfect regularity, its warm pallor, and dark smiling eyes rather wide
apart, its fine, small, close-set ears, and the sweep of the black-brown
hair across the low brow. Or was it something much less definite he
saw—an emanation or expression, a trick, a turn, an indwelling grace, a
something that appealed, that turned, and touched him? Whatever it was,
it would not let him be, and he did not desire that it should. For this
was in his character; if he saw a horse that he liked, he put his money
on whatever it ran; if charmed by an opera, he went over and over again;
if by a poem, he almost learned it by heart. And while he walked along
the river—his usual route—he had queer and unaccustomed sensations, now
melting, now pugnacious. And he felt happy.
He was rather late, and went at once into court. In wig and gown, that
something “old Georgian” about him was very visible. A beauty-spot or
two, a full-skirted velvet coat, a sword and snuff-box, with that
grey wig or its equivalent, and there would have been a perfect
eighteenth-century specimen of the less bucolic stamp—the same strong,
light build, breadth of face, brown pallor, clean and unpinched cut of
lips, the same slight insolence and devil-may-caredom, the same clear
glance, and bubble of vitality. It was almost a pity to have been born
so late.
Except that once or twice he drew a face on blotting-paper and smeared
it over, he remained normally attentive to his “lud” and the matters in
hand all day, conducted without error the examination of two witnesses
and with terror the cross-examination of one; lunched at the Courts in
perfect amity with the sucking barrister on the other side of the case,
for they had neither, as yet, reached that maturity which enables an
advocate to call his enemy his “friend,” and treat him with considerable
asperity. Though among his acquaintances Summerhay always provoked
badinage, in which he was scarcely ever defeated, yet in chambers and
court, on circuit, at his club, in society or the hunting-field, he had
an unfavourable effect on the grosser sort of stories. There are men—by
no means strikingly moral—who exercise this blighting influence. They
are generally what the French call “spirituel,” and often have rather
desperate love-affairs which they keep very closely to themselves.
When at last in chambers, he had washed off that special reek of
clothes, and parchment, far-away herrings, and distemper, which clings
about the law, dipping his whole curly head in water, and towelling
vigorously, he set forth alone along the Embankment, his hat tilted up,
smoking a cigar. It was nearly seven. Just this time yesterday he had
got into the train, just this time yesterday turned and seen the face
which had refused to leave him since. Fever recurs at certain hours,
just so did the desire to see her mount within him, becoming an
obsession, because it was impossible to gratify it. One could not call
at seven o’clock! The idea of his club, where at this time of day he
usually went, seemed flat and stale, until he remembered that he might
pass up Bury Street to get to it. But, near Charing Cross, a hand smote
him on the shoulder, and the voice of one of his intimates said:
“Halo, Bryan!”
Odd, that he had never noticed before how vacuous this fellow was—with
his talk of politics, and racing, of this ass and that ass—subjects
hitherto of primary importance! And, stopping suddenly, he drawled out:
“Look here, old chap, you go on; see you at the club—presently.”
“Why? What’s up?”
With his lazy smile, Summerhay answered:
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,’” and turned on
his heel.
When his friend had disappeared, he resumed his journey toward Bury
Street. He passed his boot shop, where, for some time, he had been
meaning to order two pairs, and went by thinking: ’I wonder where SHE
goes for things.’ Her figure came to him so vividly—sitting back in that
corner, or standing by the cab, her hand in his. The blood rushed up in
his cheeks. She had been scented like flowers, and—and a rainy wind!
He stood still before a plate-glass window, in confusion, and suddenly
muttered aloud: “Damn it! I believe I am!” An old gentleman, passing,
turned so suddenly, to see what he was, that he ricked his neck.
But Summerhay still stood, not taking in at all the reflected image of
his frowning, rueful face, and of the cigar extinct between his lips.
Then he shook his head vigorously and walked on. He walked faster,
his mind blank, as it is sometimes for a short space after a piece of
sell-revelation that has come too soon for adjustment or even quite
for understanding. And when he began to think, it was irritably and at
random. He had come to Bury Street, and, while he passed up it, felt a
queer, weak sensation down the back of his legs. No flower-boxes this
year broke the plain front of Winton’s house, and nothing whatever but
its number and the quickened beating of his heart marked it out for
Summerhay from any other dwelling. The moment he turned into Jermyn
Street, that beating of the heart subsided, and he felt suddenly morose.
He entered his club at the top of St. James’ Street and passed at once
into the least used room. This was the library; and going to the French
section, he took down “The Three Musketeers” and seated himself in a
window, with his back to anyone who might come in. He had taken this—his
favourite romance, feeling in want of warmth and companionship; but he
did not read. From where he sat he could throw a stone to where she was
sitting perhaps; except for walls he could almost reach her with his
voice, could certainly see her. This was imbecile! A woman he had only
met twice. Imbecile! He opened the book—
“Oh, no; it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown altho’ its height be taken.”
“Point of five! Three queens—three knaves! Do you know that thing of
Dowson’s: ’I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion’? Better
than any Verlaine, except ’Les sanglots longs.’ What have you got?”
“Only quart to the queen. Do you like the name ’Cynara’?”
“Yes; don’t you?”
“Cynara! Cynara! Ye-es—an autumn, rose-petal, whirling, dead-leaf
sound.”
“Good! Pipped. Shut up, Ossy—don’t snore!”
“Ah, poor old dog! Let him. Shuffle for me, please. Oh! there goes
another card!” Her knee was touching his—!...
The book had dropped—Summerhay started.
Dash it! Hopeless! And, turning round in that huge armchair, he snoozed
down into its depths. In a few minutes, he was asleep. He slept without
a dream.
It was two hours later when the same friend, seeking distraction, came
on him, and stood grinning down at that curly head and face which just
then had the sleepy abandonment of a small boy’s. Maliciously he gave
the chair a little kick.
Summerhay stirred, and thought: ’What! Where am I?’
In front of the grinning face, above him, floated another, filmy,
charming. He shook himself, and sat up. “Oh, damn you!”
“Sorry, old chap!”
“What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock.”
Summerhay uttered an unintelligible sound, and, turning over on the
other arm, pretended to snooze down again. But he slept no more.
Instead, he saw her face, heard her voice, and felt again the touch of
her warm, gloved hand.
III
At the opera, that Friday evening, they were playing “Cavalleria” and
“Pagliacci”—works of which Gyp tolerated the first and loved the second,
while Winton found them, with “Faust” and “Carmen,” about the only
operas he could not sleep through.
Women’s eyes, which must not stare, cover more space than the eyes of
men, which must not stare, but do; women’s eyes have less method, too,
seeing all things at once, instead of one thing at a time. Gyp had seen
Summerhay long before he saw her; seen him come in and fold his opera
hat against his white waistcoat, looking round, as if for—someone. Her
eyes criticized him in this new garb—his broad head, and its crisp,
dark, shining hair, his air of sturdy, lazy, lovable audacity. He looked
well in evening clothes. When he sat down, she could still see just a
little of his profile; and, vaguely watching the stout Santuzza and the
stouter Turiddu, she wondered whether, by fixing her eyes on him, she
could make him turn and see her. Just then he did see her, and his
face lighted up. She smiled back. Why not? She had not so many friends
nowadays. But it was rather startling to find, after that exchange of
looks, that she at once began to want another. Would he like her dress?
Was her hair nice? She wished she had not had it washed that morning.
But when the interval came, she did not look round, until his voice
said:
“How d’you do, Major Winton? Oh, how d’you do?”
Winton had been told of the meeting in the train. He was pining for
a cigarette, but had not liked to desert his daughter. After a few
remarks, he got up and said:
“Take my pew a minute, Summerhay, I’m going to have a smoke.”
He went out, thinking, not for the first time by a thousand: ’Poor
child, she never sees a soul! Twenty-five, pretty as paint, and clean
out of the running. What the devil am I to do about her?’
Summerhay sat down. Gyp had a queer feeling, then, as if the house
and people vanished, and they two were back again in the
railway-carriage—alone together. Ten minutes to make the most of! To
smile and talk, and enjoy the look in his eyes, the sound of his voice
and laugh. To laugh, too, and be warm and nice to him. Why not? They
were friends. And, presently, she said, smiling:
“Oh, by the way, there’s a picture in the National Gallery, I want you
to look at.”
“Yes? Which? Will you take me?”
“If you like.”
“To-morrow’s Saturday; may I meet you there? What time? Three?”
Gyp nodded. She knew she was flushing, and, at that moment, with the
warmth in her cheeks and the smile in her eyes, she had the sensation,
so rare and pleasant, of feeling beautiful. Then he was gone! Her father
was slipping back into his stall; and, afraid of her own face, she
touched his arm, and murmured:
“Dad, do look at that head-dress in the next row but one; did you ever
see anything so delicious!”
And while Winton was star-gazing, the orchestra struck up the overture
to “Pagliacci.” Watching that heart-breaking little plot unfold, Gyp
had something more than the old thrill, as if for the first time she
understood it with other than her aesthetic sense. Poor Nedda! and poor
Canio! Poor Silvio! Her breast heaved, and her eyes filled with tears.
Within those doubled figures of the tragi-comedy she seemed to see, to
feel that passionate love—too swift, too strong, too violent, sweet and
fearful within them.
“Thou hast my heart, and I am thine for ever—
To-night and for ever I am thine!
What is there left to me? What have I but a heart that is broken?”
And the clear, heart-aching music mocking it all, down to those last
words:
La commedia e finita!
While she was putting on her cloak, her eyes caught Summerhay’s. She
tried to smile—could not, gave a shake of her head, slowly forced her
gaze away from his, and turned to follow Winton.
At the National Gallery, next day, she was not late by coquetry, but
because she had changed her dress at the last minute, and because she
was afraid of letting him think her eager. She saw him at once standing
under the colonnade, looking by no means imperturbable, and marked the
change in his face when he caught sight of her, with a little thrill.
She led him straight up into the first Italian room to contemplate his
counterfeit. A top hat and modern collar did not improve the likeness,
but it was there still.
“Well! Do you like it?”
“Yes. What are you smiling at?”
“I’ve had a photograph of that, ever since I was fifteen; so you see
I’ve known you a long time.”
He stared.
“Great Scott! Am I like that? All right; I shall try and find YOU now.”
But Gyp shook her head.
“No. Come and look at my very favourite picture ’The Death of Procris.’
What is it makes one love it so? Procris is out of drawing, and not
beautiful; the faun’s queer and ugly. What is it—can you tell?”
Summerhay looked not at the picture, but at her. In aesthetic sense, he
was not her equal. She said softly:
“The wonder in the faun’s face, Procris’s closed eyes; the dog, and the
swans, and the pity for what might have been!”
Summerhay repeated:
“Ah, for what might have been! Did you enjoy ’Pagliacci’?”
Gyp shivered.
“I think I felt it too much.”
“I thought you did. I watched you.”
“Destruction by—love—seems such a terrible thing! Now show me your
favourites. I believe I can tell you what they are, though.”
“Well?”
“The ’Admiral,’ for one.”
“Yes. What others?”
“The two Bellini’s.”
“By Jove, you ARE uncanny!”
Gyp laughed.
“You want decision, clarity, colour, and fine texture. Is that right?
Here’s another of MY favourites.”
On a screen was a tiny “Crucifixion” by da Messina—the thinnest of high
crosses, the thinnest of simple, humble, suffering Christs, lonely, and
actual in the clear, darkened landscape.
“I think that touches one more than the big, idealized sort. One feels
it WAS like that. Oh! And look—the Francesca’s! Aren’t they lovely?”
He repeated:
“Yes; lovely!” But his eyes said: “And so are you.”
They spent two hours among those endless pictures, talking a little of
art and of much besides, almost as alone as in the railway carriage.
But, when she had refused to let him walk back with her, Summerhay
stood stock-still beneath the colonnade. The sun streamed in under; the
pigeons preened their feathers; people passed behind him and down there
in the square, black and tiny against the lions and the great column. He
took in nothing of all that. What was it in her? She was like no one
he had ever known—not one! Different from girls and women in society
as—Simile failed. Still more different from anything in the half-world
he had met! Not the new sort—college, suffrage! Like no one! And he knew
so little of her! Not even whether she had ever really been in love.
Her husband—where was he; what was he to her? “The rare, the mute, the
inexpressive She!” When she smiled; when her eyes—but her eyes were so
quick, would drop before he could see right into them! How beautiful she
had looked, gazing at that picture—her favourite, so softly, her lips
just smiling! If he could kiss them, would he not go nearly mad? With
a deep sigh, he moved down the wide, grey steps into the sunlight. And
London, throbbing, overflowing with the season’s life, seemed to him
empty. To-morrow—yes, to-morrow he could call!
IV
After that Sunday call, Gyp sat in the window at Bury Street close to a
bowl of heliotrope on the window-sill. She was thinking over a passage
of their conversation.
“Mrs. Fiorsen, tell me about yourself.”
“Why? What do you want to know?”
“Your marriage?”
“I made a fearful mistake—against my father’s wish. I haven’t seen my
husband for months; I shall never see him again if I can help it. Is
that enough?”
“And you love him?”
“No.”
“It must be like having your head in chancery. Can’t you get it out?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Divorce-court! Ugh! I couldn’t!”
“Yes, I know—it’s hellish!”
Was he, who gripped her hand so hard and said that, really the same
nonchalant young man who had leaned out of the carriage window, gurgling
with laughter? And what had made the difference? She buried her face
in the heliotrope, whose perfume seemed the memory of his visit; then,
going to the piano, began to play. She played Debussy, McDowell, Ravel;
the chords of modern music suited her feelings just then. And she was
still playing when her father came in. During these last nine months
of his daughter’s society, he had regained a distinct measure of
youthfulness, an extra twist in his little moustache, an extra touch of
dandyism in his clothes, and the gloss of his short hair. Gyp stopped
playing at once, and shut the piano.
“Mr. Summerhay’s been here, Dad. He was sorry to miss you.”
There was an appreciable pause before Winton answered:
“My dear, I doubt it.”
And there passed through Gyp the thought that she could never again be
friends with a man without giving that pause. Then, conscious that her
father was gazing at her, she turned and said:
“Well, was it nice in the Park?”
“Thirty years ago they were all nobs and snobs; now God himself doesn’t
know what they are!”
“But weren’t the flowers nice?”
“Ah—and the trees, and the birds—but, by Jove, the humans do their best
to dress the balance!”
“What a misanthrope you’re getting!”
“I’d like to run a stud for two-leggers; they want proper breeding. What
sort of a fellow is young Summerhay? Not a bad face.”
She answered impassively:
“Yes; it’s so alive.”
In spite of his self-control, she could always read her father’s
thoughts quicker than he could read hers, and knew that he was
struggling between the wish that she should have a good time and the
desire to convey some kind of warning. He said, with a sigh:
“What does a young man’s fancy turn to in summer, Gyp?”
Women who have subtle instincts and some experience are able to impose
their own restraint on those who, at the lifting of a hand, would become
their lovers. From that afternoon on, Gyp knew that a word from her
would change everything; but she was far from speaking it. And yet,
except at week-ends, when she went back to her baby at Mildenham, she
saw Summerhay most days—in the Row, at the opera, or at Bury Street.
She had a habit of going to St. James’s Park in the late afternoon and
sitting there by the water. Was it by chance that he passed one day
on his way home from chambers, and that, after this, they sat there
together constantly? Why make her father uneasy—when there was nothing
to be uneasy about—by letting him come too often to Bury Street? It was
so pleasant, too, out there, talking calmly of many things, while in
front of them the small ragged children fished and put the fishes into
clear glass bottles, to eat, or watch on rainy days, as is the custom of
man with the minor works of God.
So, in nature, when the seasons are about to change, the days pass,
tranquil, waiting for the wind that brings in the new. And was it
not natural to sit under the trees, by the flowers and the water, the
pigeons and the ducks, that wonderful July? For all was peaceful in
Gyp’s mind, except, now and then, when a sort of remorse possessed her,
a sort of terror, and a sort of troubling sweetness.
V
Summerhay did not wear his heart on his sleeve, and when, on the
closing-day of term, he left his chambers to walk to that last meeting,
his face was much as usual under his grey top hat. But, in truth, he had
come to a pretty pass. He had his own code of what was befitting to a
gentleman. It was perhaps a trifle “old Georgian,” but it included doing
nothing to distress a woman. All these weeks he had kept himself in
hand; but to do so had cost him more than he liked to reflect on. The
only witness of his struggles was his old Scotch terrier, whose dreams
he had disturbed night after night, tramping up and down the long
back-to-front sitting-room of his little house. She knew—must know—what
he was feeling. If she wanted his love, she had but to raise her
finger; and she had not raised it. When he touched her, when her dress
disengaged its perfume or his eyes traced the slow, soft movement of her
breathing, his head would go round, and to keep calm and friendly had
been torture.
While he could see her almost every day, this control had been just
possible; but now that he was about to lose her—for weeks—his heart
felt sick within him. He had been hard put to it before the world. A
man passionately in love craves solitude, in which to alternate between
fierce exercise and that trance-like stillness when a lover simply aches
or is busy conjuring her face up out of darkness or the sunlight. He had
managed to do his work, had been grateful for having it to do; but to
his friends he had not given attention enough to prevent them saying:
“What’s up with old Bryan?” Always rather elusive in his movements,
he was now too elusive altogether for those who had been accustomed
to lunch, dine, dance, and sport with him. And yet he shunned his own
company—going wherever strange faces, life, anything distracted him a
little, without demanding real attention. It must be confessed that he
had come unwillingly to discovery of the depth of his passion, aware
that it meant giving up too much. But there are women who inspire
feeling so direct and simple that reason does not come into play; and
he had never asked himself whether Gyp was worth loving, whether she had
this or that quality, such or such virtue. He wanted her exactly as she
was; and did not weigh her in any sort of balance. It is possible for
men to love passionately, yet know that their passion is but desire,
possible for men to love for sheer spiritual worth, feeling that the
loved one lacks this or that charm.
Summerhay’s love had no such divided consciousness. About her past,
too, he dismissed speculation. He remembered having heard in the
hunting-field that she was Winton’s natural daughter; even then it had
made him long to punch the head of that covertside scandal-monger. The
more there might be against the desirability of loving her, the more he
would love her; even her wretched marriage only affected him in so far
as it affected her happiness. It did not matter—nothing mattered except
to see her and be with her as much as she would let him. And now she
was going to the sea for a month, and he himself—curse it!—was due in
Perthshire to shoot grouse. A month!
He walked slowly along the river. Dared he speak? At times, her face was
like a child’s when it expects some harsh or frightening word. One could
not hurt her—impossible! But, at times, he had almost thought she would
like him to speak. Once or twice he had caught a slow soft glance—gone
the moment he had sight of it.
He was before his time, and, leaning on the river parapet, watched the
tide run down. The sun shone on the water, brightening its yellowish
swirl, and little black eddies—the same water that had flowed along
under the willows past Eynsham, past Oxford, under the church at
Clifton, past Moulsford, past Sonning. And he thought: ’My God! To have
her to myself one day on the river—one whole long day!’ Why had he been
so pusillanimous all this time? He passed his hand over his face. Broad
faces do not easily grow thin, but his felt thin to him, and this gave
him a kind of morbid satisfaction. If she knew how he was longing, how
he suffered! He turned away, toward Whitehall. Two men he knew stopped
to bandy a jest. One of them was just married. They, too, were off to
Scotland for the twelfth. Pah! How stale and flat seemed that which till
then had been the acme of the whole year to him! Ah, but if he had
been going to Scotland WITH HER! He drew his breath in with a sigh that
nearly removed the Home Office.
Oblivious of the gorgeous sentries at the Horse Guards, oblivious of
all beauty, he passed irresolute along the water, making for their usual
seat; already, in fancy, he was sitting there, prodding at the gravel,
a nervous twittering in his heart, and that eternal question: Dare I
speak? asking itself within him. And suddenly he saw that she was before
him, sitting there already. His heart gave a jump. No more craning—he
WOULD speak!
She was wearing a maize-coloured muslin to which the sunlight gave a
sort of transparency, and sat, leaning back, her knees crossed, one hand
resting on the knob of her furled sunshade, her face half hidden by her
shady hat. Summerhay clenched his teeth, and went straight up to her.
“Gyp! No, I won’t call you anything else. This can’t go on! You know it
can’t. You know I worship you! If you can’t love me, I’ve got to break
away. All day, all night, I think and dream of nothing but you. Gyp, do
you want me to go?”
Suppose she said: “Yes, go!” She made a little movement, as if in
protest, and without looking at him, answered very low:
“Of course I don’t want you to go. How could I?”
Summerhay gasped.
“Then you DO love me?”
She turned her face away.
“Wait, please. Wait a little longer. When we come back I’ll tell you: I
promise!”
“So long?”
“A month. Is that long? Please! It’s not easy for me.” She smiled
faintly, lifted her eyes to him just for a second. “Please not any more
now.”
That evening at his club, through the bluish smoke of cigarette after
cigarette, he saw her face as she had lifted it for that one second; and
now he was in heaven, now in hell.
VI
The verandahed bungalow on the South Coast, built and inhabited by
an artist friend of Aunt Rosamund’s, had a garden of which the chief
feature was one pine-tree which had strayed in advance of the wood
behind. The little house stood in solitude, just above a low bank of
cliff whence the beach sank in sandy ridges. The verandah and thick pine
wood gave ample shade, and the beach all the sun and sea air needful to
tan little Gyp, a fat, tumbling soul, as her mother had been at the
same age, incurably fond and fearless of dogs or any kind of beast, and
speaking words already that required a glossary.
At night, Gyp, looking from her bedroom through the flat branches of the
pine, would get a feeling of being the only creature in the world. The
crinkled, silvery sea, that lonely pine-tree, the cold moon, the sky
dark corn-flower blue, the hiss and sucking rustle of the surf over the
beach pebbles, even the salt, chill air, seemed lonely. By day, too—in
the hazy heat when the clouds merged, scarce drifting, into the blue,
and the coarse sea-grass tufts hardly quivered, and sea-birds passed
close above the water with chuckle and cry—it all often seemed part of a
dream. She bathed, and grew as tanned as her little daughter, a regular
Gypsy, in her broad hat and linen frocks; and yet she hardly seemed to
be living down here at all, for she was never free of the memory of that
last meeting with Summerhay. Why had he spoken and put an end to their
quiet friendship, and left her to such heart-searchings all by herself?
But she did not want his words unsaid. Only, how to know whether to
recoil and fly, or to pass beyond the dread of letting herself go, of
plunging deep into the unknown depths of love—of that passion,
whose nature for the first time she had tremulously felt, watching
“Pagliacci”—and had ever since been feeling and trembling at! Must it
really be neck or nothing? Did she care enough to break through all
barriers, fling herself into midstream? When they could see each other
every day, it was so easy to live for the next meeting—not think of what
was coming after. But now, with all else cut away, there was only the
future to think about—hers and his. But need she trouble about his?
Would he not just love her as long as he liked?
Then she thought of her father—still faithful to a memory—and felt
ashamed. Some men loved on—yes—even beyond death! But, sometimes,
she would think: ’Am I a candle-flame again? Is he just going to burn
himself? What real good can I be to him—I, without freedom, and with my
baby, who will grow up?’ Yet all these thoughts were, in a way, unreal.
The struggle was in herself, so deep that she could hardly understand
it; as might be an effort to subdue the instinctive dread of a
precipice. And she would feel a kind of resentment against all the happy
life round her these summer days—the sea-birds, the sunlight, and the
waves; the white sails far out; the calm sun-steeped pine-trees; her
baby, tumbling and smiling and softly twittering; and Betty and the
other servants—all this life that seemed so simple and untortured.
To the one post each day she looked forward terribly. And yet his
letters, which began like hers: “My dear friend,” might have been read
by anyone—almost. She spent a long time over her answers. She was not
sleeping well; and, lying awake, she could see his face very distinct
before her closed eyes—its teasing, lazy smile, its sudden intent
gravity. Once she had a dream of him, rushing past her down into the
sea. She called, but, without turning his head, he swam out further,
further, till she lost sight of him, and woke up suddenly with a pain in
her heart. “If you can’t love me, I’ve got to break away!” His face, his
flung-back head reminded her too sharply of those words. Now that he was
away from her, would he not feel that it was best to break, and forget
her? Up there, he would meet girls untouched by life—not like herself.
He had everything before him; could he possibly go on wanting one who
had nothing before her? Some blue-eyed girl with auburn hair—that type
so superior to her own—would sweep, perhaps had already swept him, away
from her! What then? No worse than it used to be? Ah, so much worse that
she dared not think of it!
Then, for five days, no letter came. And, with each blank morning, the
ache in her grew—a sharp, definite ache of longing and jealousy, utterly
unlike the mere feeling of outraged pride when she had surprised Fiorsen
and Daphne Wing in the music-room—a hundred years ago, it seemed. When
on the fifth day the postman left nothing but a bill for little Gyp’s
shoes, and a note from Aunt Rosamund at Harrogate, where she had gone
with Winton for the annual cure, Gyp’s heart sank to the depths. Was
this the end? And, with a blind, numb feeling, she wandered out into the
wood, where the fall of the pine-needles, season after season, had made
of the ground one soft, dark, dust-coloured bed, on which the sunlight
traced the pattern of the pine boughs, and ants rummaged about their
great heaped dwellings.
Gyp went along till she could see no outer world for the grey-brown
tree-stems streaked with gum-resin; and, throwing herself down on her
face, dug her elbows deep into the pine dust. Tears, so rare with her,
forced their way up, and trickled slowly to the hands whereon her chin
rested. No good—crying! Crying only made her ill; crying was no relief.
She turned over on her back and lay motionless, the sunbeams warm on her
cheeks. Silent here, even at noon! The sough of the calm sea could not
reach so far; the flies were few; no bird sang. The tall bare pine stems
rose up all round like columns in a temple roofed with the dark boughs
and sky. Cloud-fleeces drifted slowly over the blue. There should be
peace—but in her heart there was none!
A dusky shape came padding through the trees a little way off,
another—two donkeys loose from somewhere, who stood licking each other’s
necks and noses. Those two humble beasts, so friendly, made her feel
ashamed. Why should she be sorry for herself, she who had everything
in life she wanted—except love—the love she had thought she would never
want? Ah, but she wanted it now, wanted it at last with all her being!
With a shudder, she sprang up; the ants had got to her, and she had to
pick them off her neck and dress. She wandered back towards the beach.
If he had truly found someone to fill his thoughts, and drive her out,
all the better for him; she would never, by word or sign, show him that
she missed, and wanted him—never! She would sooner die!
She came out into the sunshine. The tide was low; and the wet foreshore
gleamed with opal tints; there were wandering tracks on the sea, as of
great serpents winding their way beneath the surface; and away to the
west the archwayed, tawny rock that cut off the line of coast was like
a dream-shape. All was dreamy. And, suddenly her heart began beating to
suffocation and the colour flooded up in her cheeks. On the edge of the
low cliff bank, by the side of the path, Summerhay was sitting!
He got up and came toward her. Putting her hands up to her glowing face,
she said:
“Yes; it’s me. Did you ever see such a gipsified object? I thought
you were still in Scotland. How’s dear Ossy?” Then her self-possession
failed, and she looked down.
“It’s no good, Gyp. I must know.”
It seemed to Gyp that her heart had given up beating; she said quietly:
“Let’s sit down a minute”; and moved under the cliff bank where they
could not be seen from the house. There, drawing the coarse grass blades
through her fingers, she said, with a shiver:
“I didn’t try to make you, did I? I never tried.”
“No; never.”
“It’s wrong.”
“Who cares? No one could care who loves as I do. Oh, Gyp, can’t you love
me? I know I’m nothing much.” How quaint and boyish! “But it’s eleven
weeks to-day since we met in the train. I don’t think I’ve had one
minute’s let-up since.”
“Have you tried?”
“Why should I, when I love you?”
Gyp sighed; relief, delight, pain—she did not know.
“Then what is to be done? Look over there—that bit of blue in the grass
is my baby daughter. There’s her—and my father—and—”
“And what?”
“I’m afraid—afraid of love, Bryan!”
At that first use of his name, Summerhay turned pale and seized her
hand.
“Afraid—how—afraid?”
Gyp said very low:
“I might love too much. Don’t say any more now. No; don’t! Let’s go in
and have lunch.” And she got up.
He stayed till tea-time, and not a word more of love did he speak. But
when he was gone, she sat under the pine-tree with little Gyp on her
lap. Love! If her mother had checked love, she herself would never have
been born. The midges were biting before she went in. After watching
Betty give little Gyp her bath, she crossed the passage to her bedroom
and leaned out of the window. Could it have been to-day she had lain on
the ground with tears of despair running down on to her hands? Away to
the left of the pine-tree, the moon had floated up, soft, barely visible
in the paling sky. A new world, an enchanted garden! And between her and
it—what was there?
That evening she sat with a book on her lap, not reading; and in her
went on the strange revolution which comes in the souls of all women who
are not half-men when first they love—the sinking of ’I’ into ’Thou,’
the passionate, spiritual subjection, the intense, unconscious giving-up
of will, in preparation for completer union.
She slept without dreaming, awoke heavy and oppressed. Too languid to
bathe, she sat listless on the beach with little Gyp all the morning.
Had she energy or spirit to meet him in the afternoon by the rock
archway, as she had promised? For the first time since she was a small
and naughty child, she avoided the eyes of Betty. One could not be
afraid of that stout, devoted soul, but one could feel that she knew too
much. When the time came, after early tea, she started out; for if she
did not go, he would come, and she did not want the servants to see him
two days running.
This last day of August was warm and still, and had a kind of
beneficence—the corn all gathered in, the apples mellowing, robins
singing already, a few slumberous, soft clouds, a pale blue sky, a
smiling sea. She went inland, across the stream, and took a footpath
back to the shore. No pines grew on that side, where the soil was
richer—of a ruddy brown. The second crops of clover were already high;
in them humblebees were hard at work; and, above, the white-throated
swallows dipped and soared. Gyp gathered a bunch of chicory flowers.
She was close above the shore before she saw him standing in the rock
archway, looking for her across the beach. After the hum of the bees and
flies, it was very quiet here—only the faintest hiss of tiny waves. He
had not yet heard her coming, and the thought flashed through her: ’If
I take another step, it is for ever! She stood there scarcely breathing,
the chicory flowers held before her lips. Then she heard him sigh, and,
moving quickly forward, said:
“Here I am.”
He turned round, seized her hand, and, without a word, they passed
through the archway. They walked on the hard sand, side by side, till he
said:
“Let’s go up into the fields.”
They scrambled up the low cliff and went along the grassy top to a
gate into a stubble field. He held it open for her, but, as she passed,
caught her in his arms and kissed her lips as if he would never stop. To
her, who had been kissed a thousand times, it was the first kiss. Deadly
pale, she fell back from him against the gate; then, her lips still
quivering, her eyes very dark, she looked at him distraught with
passion, drunk on that kiss. And, suddenly turning round to the gate,
she laid her arms on the top bar and buried her face on them. A sob came
up in her throat that seemed to tear her to bits, and she cried as if
her heart would break. His timid despairing touches, his voice close to
her ear:
“Gyp, Gyp! My darling! My love! Oh, don’t, Gyp!” were not of the least
avail; she could not stop. That kiss had broken down something in her
soul, swept away her life up to that moment, done something terrible and
wonderful. At last, she struggled out:
“I’m sorry—so sorry! Don’t—don’t look at me! Go away a little, and
I’ll—I’ll be all right.”
He obeyed without a word, and, passing through the gate, sat down on the
edge of the cliff with his back to her, looking out over the sea.
Gripping the wood of the old grey gate till it hurt her hands, Gyp
gazed at the chicory flowers and poppies that had grown up again in the
stubble field, at the butterflies chasing in the sunlight over the
hedge toward the crinkly foam edging the quiet sea till they were but
fluttering white specks in the blue.
But when she had rubbed her cheeks and smoothed her face, she was no
nearer to feeling that she could trust herself. What had happened in
her was too violent, too sweet, too terrifying. And going up to him she
said:
“Let me go home now by myself. Please, let me go, dear. To-morrow!”
Summerhay looked up.
“Whatever you wish, Gyp—always!”
He pressed her hand against his cheek, then let it go, and, folding his
arms tight, resumed his meaningless stare at the sea. Gyp turned away.
She crossed back to the other side of the stream, but did not go in for
a long time, sitting in the pine wood till the evening gathered and the
stars crept out in a sky of that mauve-blue which the psychic say is the
soul-garment colour of the good.
Late that night, when she had finished brushing her hair, she opened her
window and stepped out on to the verandah. How warm! How still! Not a
sound from the sleeping house—not a breath of wind! Her face, framed
in her hair, her hands, and all her body, felt as if on fire. The moon
behind the pine-tree branches was filling every cranny of her brain with
wakefulness. The soft shiver of the wellnigh surfless sea on a rising
tide, rose, fell, rose, fell. The sand cliff shone like a bank of snow.
And all was inhabited, as a moonlit night is wont to be, by a magical
Presence. A big moth went past her face, so close that she felt the
flutter of its wings. A little night beast somewhere was scruttling in
bushes or the sand. Suddenly, across the wan grass the shadow of the
pine-trunk moved. It moved—ever so little—moved! And, petrified—Gyp
stared. There, joined to the trunk, Summerhay was standing, his face
just visible against the stem, the moonlight on one cheek, a hand
shading his eyes. He moved that hand, held it out in supplication. For
long—how long—Gyp did not stir, looking straight at that beseeching
figure. Then, with a feeling she had never known, she saw him coming. He
came up to the verandah and stood looking up at her. She could see all
the workings of his face—passion, reverence, above all amazement; and
she heard his awed whisper:
“Is it you, Gyp? Really you? You look so young—so young!”
VII
From the moment of surrender, Gyp passed straight into a state the more
enchanted because she had never believed in it, had never thought that
she could love as she now loved. Days and nights went by in a sort of
dream, and when Summerhay was not with her, she was simply waiting with
a smile on her lips for the next hour of meeting. Just as she had never
felt it possible to admit the world into the secrets of her married
life, so, now she did not consider the world at all. Only the thought of
her father weighed on her conscience. He was back in town. And she felt
that she must tell him. When Summerhay heard this he only said: “All
right, Gyp, whatever you think best.”
And two days before her month at the bungalow was up, she went, leaving
Betty and little Gyp to follow on the last day. Winton, pale and
somewhat languid, as men are when they have been cured, found her when
he came in from the club. She had put on evening dress, and above the
pallor of her shoulders, her sunwarmed face and throat had almost the
colour of a nectarine. He had never seen her look like that, never seen
her eyes so full of light. And he uttered a quiet grunt of satisfaction.
It was as if a flower, which he had last seen in close and elegant
shape, had bloomed in full perfection. She did not meet his gaze quite
steadily and all that evening kept putting her confession off and
off. It was not easy—far from easy. At last, when he was smoking his
“go-to-bed” cigarette, she took a cushion and sank down on it beside his
chair, leaning against his knee, where her face was hidden from him,
as on that day after her first ball, when she had listened to HIS
confession. And she began:
“Dad, do you remember my saying once that I didn’t understand what you
and my mother felt for each other?” Winton did not speak; misgiving had
taken possession of him. Gyp went on: “I know now how one would rather
die than give someone up.”
Winton drew his breath in sharply:
“Who? Summerhay?”
“Yes; I used to think I should never be in love, but you knew better.”
Better!
In disconsolate silence, he thought rapidly: ’What’s to be done? What
can I do? Get her a divorce?’
Perhaps because of the ring in her voice, or the sheer seriousness of
the position, he did not feel resentment as when he lost her to Fiorsen.
Love! A passion such as had overtaken her mother and himself! And this
young man? A decent fellow, a good rider—comprehensible! Ah, if the
course had only been clear! He put his hand on her shoulder and said:
“Well, Gyp, we must go for the divorce, then, after all.”
She shook her head.
“It’s too late. Let HIM divorce me, if he only will!”
Winton needed all his self-control at that moment. Too late? Already!
Sudden recollection that he had not the right to say a word alone kept
him silent. Gyp went on:
“I love him, with every bit of me. I don’t care what comes—whether it’s
open or secret. I don’t care what anybody thinks.”
She had turned round now, and if Winton had doubt of her feeling,
he lost it. This was a Gyp he had never seen! A glowing, soft,
quick-breathing creature, with just that lithe watchful look of the
mother cat or lioness whose whelps are threatened. There flashed through
him a recollection of how, as a child, with face very tense, she would
ride at fences that were too big. At last he said:
“I’m sorry you didn’t tell me sooner.”
“I couldn’t. I didn’t know. Oh, Dad, I’m always hurting you! Forgive
me!”
She was pressing his hand to her cheek that felt burning hot. And he
thought: “Forgive! Of course I forgive. That’s not the point; the point
is—”
And a vision of his loved one talked about, besmirched, bandied
from mouth to mouth, or else—for her what there had been for him, a
hole-and-corner life, an underground existence of stealthy meetings kept
dark, above all from her own little daughter. Ah, not that! And yet—was
not even that better than the other, which revolted to the soul his
fastidious pride in her, roused in advance his fury against tongues that
would wag, and eyes that would wink or be uplifted in righteousness?
Summerhay’s world was more or less his world; scandal, which—like
all parasitic growths—flourishes in enclosed spaces, would have every
chance. And, at once, his brain began to search, steely and quick, for
some way out; and the expression as when a fox broke covert, came on his
face.
“Nobody knows, Gyp?”
“No; nobody.”
That was something! With an irritation that rose from his very soul, he
muttered:
“I can’t stand it that you should suffer, and that fellow Fiorsen go
scot-free. Can you give up seeing Summerhay while we get you a divorce?
We might do it, if no one knows. I think you owe it to me, Gyp.”
Gyp got up and stood by the window a long time without answering. Winton
watched her face. At last she said:
“I couldn’t. We might stop seeing each other; it isn’t that. It’s what
I should feel. I shouldn’t respect myself after; I should feel so mean.
Oh, Dad, don’t you see? He really loved me in his way. And to pretend!
To make out a case for myself, tell about Daphne Wing, about his
drinking, and baby; pretend that I wanted him to love me, when I got
to hate it and didn’t care really whether he was faithful or not—and
knowing all the while that I’ve been everything to someone else! I
couldn’t. I’d much rather let him know, and ask him to divorce me.”
Winton replied:
“And suppose he won’t?”
“Then my mind would be clear, anyway; and we would take what we could.”
“And little Gyp?”
Staring before her as if trying to see into the future, she said slowly:
“Some day, she’ll understand, as I do. Or perhaps it will be all over
before she knows. Does happiness ever last?”
And, going up to him, she bent over, kissed his forehead, and went out.
The warmth from her lips, and the scent of her remained with Winton like
a sensation wafted from the past.
Was there then nothing to be done—nothing? Men of his stamp do not, as
a general thing, see very deep even into those who are nearest to them;
but to-night he saw his daughter’s nature more fully perhaps than ever
before. No use to importune her to act against her instincts—not a bit
of use! And yet—how to sit and watch it all—watch his own passion with
its ecstasy and its heart-burnings re-enacted with her—perhaps for many
years? And the old vulgar saying passed through his mind: “What’s bred
in the bone will come out in the meat.” Now she had given, she would
give with both hands—beyond measure—beyond!—as he himself, as her mother
had given! Ah, well, she was better off than his own loved one had been.
One must not go ahead of trouble, or cry over spilled milk!
VIII
Gyp had a wakeful night. The question she herself had raised, of telling
Fiorsen, kept her thoughts in turmoil. Was he likely to divorce her if
she did? His contempt for what he called ’these bourgeois morals,’ his
instability, the very unpleasantness, and offence to his vanity—all this
would prevent him. No; he would not divorce her, she was sure, unless
by any chance he wanted legal freedom, and that was quite unlikely. What
then would be gained? Ease for her conscience? But had she any right
to ease her conscience if it brought harm to her lover? And was it not
ridiculous to think of conscience in regard to one who, within a year of
marriage, had taken to himself a mistress, and not even spared the home
paid for and supported by his wife? No; if she told Fiorsen, it would
only be to salve her pride, wounded by doing what she did not avow.
Besides, where was he? At the other end of the world for all she knew.
She came down to breakfast, dark under the eyes and no whit advanced
toward decision. Neither of them mentioned their last night’s talk, and
Gyp went back to her room to busy herself with dress, after those
weeks away. It was past noon when, at a muffled knock, she found Markey
outside her door.
“Mr. Fiorsen, m’m.”
Gyp beckoned him in, and closed the door.
“In the hall, m’m—slipped in when I answered the bell; short of shoving,
I couldn’t keep him out.”
Gyp stood full half a minute before she said:
“Is my father in?”
“No, m’m; the major’s gone to the fencin’-club.”
“What did you say?”
“Said I would see. So far as I was aware, nobody was in. Shall I have a
try to shift him, m’m?”
With a faint smile Gyp shook her head.
“Say no one can see him.”
Markey’s woodcock eyes, under their thin, dark, twisting brows, fastened
on her dolefully; he opened the door to go. Fiorsen was standing there,
and, with a quick movement, came in. She saw Markey raise his arms as if
to catch him round the waist, and said quietly:
“Markey—wait outside, please.”
When the door was shut, she retreated against her dressing-table and
stood gazing at her husband, while her heart throbbed as if it would
leap through its coverings.
He had grown a short beard, his cheeks seemed a little fatter, and his
eyes surely more green; otherwise, he looked much as she remembered him.
And the first thought that passed through her was: ’Why did I ever pity
him? He’ll never fret or drink himself to death—he’s got enough vitality
for twenty men.’
His face, which had worn a fixed, nervous smile, grew suddenly grave
as her own, and his eyes roved round the room in the old half-fierce,
half-furtive way.
“Well, Gyp,” he said, and his voice shook a little: “At last! Won’t you
kiss me?”
The question seemed to Gyp idiotic; and suddenly she felt quite cool.
“If you want to speak to my father, you must come later; he’s out.”
Fiorsen gave one of his fierce shrugs.
“Is it likely? Look, Gyp! I returned from Russia yesterday. I was a
great success, made a lot of money out there. Come back to me! I will be
good—I swear it! Now I have seen you again, I can’t be without you.
Ah, Gyp, come back to me! And see how good I will be. I will take you
abroad, you and the bambina. We will go to Rome—anywhere you like—live
how you like. Only come back to me!”
Gyp answered stonily:
“You are talking nonsense.”
“Gyp, I swear to you I have not seen a woman—not one fit to put beside
you. Oh, Gyp, be good to me once more. This time I will not fail. Try
me! Try me, my Gyp!”
Only at this moment of his pleading, whose tragic tones seemed to her
both false and childish, did Gyp realize the strength of the new feeling
in her heart. And the more that feeling throbbed within her, the harder
her face and her voice grew. She said:
“If that is all you came to say—please go. I will never come back to
you. Once for all, understand, PLEASE.”
The silence in which he received her words, and his expression,
impressed her far more than his appeal; with one of his stealthy
movements he came quite close, and, putting his face forward till it
almost touched her, said:
“You are my wife. I want you back. I must have you back. If you do not
come, I will kill either you or myself.”
And suddenly she felt his arms knotted behind her back, crushing her
to him. She stilled a scream; then, very swiftly, took a resolve, and,
rigid in his arms, said:
“Let go; you hurt me. Sit down quietly. I will tell you something.”
The tone of her voice made him loosen his grasp and crane back to see
her face. Gyp detached his arms from her completely, sat down on an
old oak chest, and motioned him to the window-seat. Her heart thumped
pitifully; cold waves of almost physical sickness passed through and
through her. She had smelt brandy in his breath when he was close to
her. It was like being in the cage of a wild beast; it was like being
with a madman! The remembrance of him with his fingers stretched out
like claws above her baby was so vivid at that moment that she could
scarcely see him as he was, sitting there quietly, waiting for what she
was going to say. And fixing her eyes on him, she said softly:
“You say you love me, Gustav. I tried to love you, too, but I never
could—never from the first. I tried very hard. Surely you care what a
woman feels, even if she happens to be your wife.”
She could see his face quiver; and she went on:
“When I found I couldn’t love you, I felt I had no right over you. I
didn’t stand on my rights. Did I?”
Again his face quivered, and again she hurried on:
“But you wouldn’t expect me to go all through my life without ever
feeling love—you who’ve felt it so many times?” Then, clasping her hands
tight, with a sort of wonder at herself, she murmured: “I AM in love.
I’ve given myself.”
He made a queer, whining sound, covering his face. And the beggar’s
tag: “‘Ave a feelin’ ’eart, gentleman—‘ave a feelin’ ’eart!” passed
idiotically through Gyp’s mind. Would he get up and strangle her? Should
she dash to the door—escape? For a long, miserable moment, she watched
him swaying on the window-seat, with his face covered. Then, without
looking at her, he crammed a clenched hand up against his mouth, and
rushed out.
Through the open door, Gyp had a glimpse of Markey’s motionless figure,
coming to life as Fiorsen passed. She drew a long breath, locked the
door, and lay down on her bed. Her heart beat dreadfully. For a moment,
something had checked his jealous rage. But if on this shock he began
to drink, what might not happen? He had said something wild. And she
shuddered. But what right had he to feel jealousy and rage against her?
What right? She got up and went to the glass, trembling, mechanically
tidying her hair. Miraculous that she had come through unscathed!
Her thoughts flew to Summerhay. They were to meet at three o’clock by
the seat in St. James’s Park. But all was different, now; difficult and
dangerous! She must wait, take counsel with her father. And yet if she
did not keep that tryst, how anxious he would be—thinking that all sorts
of things had happened to her; thinking perhaps—oh, foolish!—that she
had forgotten, or even repented of her love. What would she herself
think, if he were to fail her at their first tryst after those days of
bliss? Certainly that he had changed his mind, seen she was not worth
it, seen that a woman who could give herself so soon, so easily, was one
to whom he could not sacrifice his life.
In this cruel uncertainty, she spent the next two hours, till it was
nearly three. If she did not go out, he would come on to Bury Street,
and that would be still more dangerous. She put on her hat and walked
swiftly towards St. James’s Palace. Once sure that she was not being
followed, her courage rose, and she passed rapidly down toward the
water. She was ten minutes late, and seeing him there, walking up and
down, turning his head every few seconds so as not to lose sight of the
bench, she felt almost lightheaded from joy. When they had greeted with
that pathetic casualness of lovers which deceives so few, they walked
on together past Buckingham Palace, up into the Green Park, beneath the
trees. During this progress, she told him about her father; but only
when they were seated in that comparative refuge, and his hand was
holding hers under cover of the sunshade that lay across her knee, did
she speak of Fiorsen.
He tightened his grasp of her hand; then, suddenly dropping it, said:
“Did he touch you, Gyp?”
Gyp heard that question with a shock. Touch her! Yes! But what did it
matter?
He made a little shuddering sound; and, wondering, mournful, she looked
at him. His hands and teeth were clenched. She said softly:
“Bryan! Don’t! I wouldn’t let him kiss me.”
He seemed to have to force his eyes to look at her.
“It’s all right,” he said, and, staring before him, bit his nails.
Gyp sat motionless, cut to the heart. She was soiled, and spoiled for
him! Of course! And yet a sense of injustice burned in her. Her heart
had never been touched; it was his utterly. But that was not enough
for a man—he wanted an untouched body, too. That she could not give; he
should have thought of that sooner, instead of only now. And, miserably,
she, too, stared before her, and her face hardened.