from head to foot; and when he flung his arms round her, she gave a long
sigh, closing her eyes. With his lips on hers, he could feel her almost
fainting; and he too had no consciousness of anything but that long
kiss.
Next day, they went abroad to a little place not far from Fecamp, in
that Normandy countryside where all things are large—the people, the
beasts, the unhedged fields, the courtyards of the farms guarded so
squarely by tall trees, the skies, the sea, even the blackberries
large. And Gyp was happy. But twice there came letters, in that
too-well-remembered handwriting, which bore a Scottish postmark. A
phantom increases in darkness, solidifies when seen in mist. Jealousy is
rooted not in reason, but in the nature that feels it—in her nature that
loved desperately, felt proudly. And jealousy flourishes on scepticism.
Even if pride would have let her ask, what good? She would not have
believed the answers. Of course he would say—if only out of pity—that
he never let his thoughts rest on another woman. But, after all, it was
only a phantom. There were many hours in those three weeks when she felt
he really loved her, and so—was happy.
They went back to the Red House at the end of the first week in
October. Little Gyp, home from the sea, was now an almost accomplished
horsewoman. Under the tutelage of old Pettance, she had been riding
steadily round and round those rough fields by the linhay which they
called “the wild,” her firm brown legs astride of the mouse-coloured
pony, her little brown face, with excited, dark eyes, very erect, her
auburn crop of short curls flopping up and down on her little straight
back. She wanted to be able to “go out riding” with Grandy and Mum
and Baryn. And the first days were spent by them all more or less in
fulfilling her new desires. Then term began, and Gyp sat down again to
the long sharing of Summerhay with his other life.
VII
One afternoon at the beginning of November, the old Scotch terrier,
Ossian, lay on the path in the pale sunshine. He had lain there all
the morning since his master went up by the early train. Nearly sixteen
years old, he was deaf now and disillusioned, and every time that
Summerhay left him, his eyes seemed to say: “You will leave me once too
often!” The blandishments of the other nice people about the house were
becoming to him daily less and less a substitute for that which he
felt he had not much time left to enjoy; nor could he any longer bear a
stranger within the gate. From her window, Gyp saw him get up and stand
with his back ridged, growling at the postman, and, fearing for the
man’s calves, she hastened out.
Among the letters was one in that dreaded hand writing marked
“Immediate,” and forwarded from his chambers. She took it up, and put it
to her nose. A scent—of what? Too faint to say. Her thumb nails sought
the edge of the flap on either side. She laid the letter down. Any other
letter, but not that—she wanted to open it too much. Readdressing it,
she took it out to put with the other letters. And instantly the thought
went through her: ’What a pity! If I read it, and there was nothing!’
All her restless, jealous misgivings of months past would then be set at
rest! She stood, uncertain, with the letter in her hand. Ah—but if there
WERE something! She would lose at one stroke her faith in him, and her
faith in herself—not only his love but her own self-respect. She dropped
the letter on the table. Could she not take it up to him herself? By
the three o’clock slow train, she could get to him soon after five. She
looked at her watch. She would just have time to walk down. And she
ran upstairs. Little Gyp was sitting on the top stair—her favourite
seat—looking at a picture-book.
“I’m going up to London, darling. Tell Betty I may be back to-night, or
perhaps I may not. Give me a good kiss.”
Little Gyp gave the good kiss, and said:
“Let me see you put your hat on, Mum.”
While Gyp was putting on hat and furs, she thought: “I shan’t take a
bag; I can always make shift at Bury Street if—” She did not finish
the thought, but the blood came up in her cheeks. “Take care of Ossy,
darling!” She ran down, caught up the letter, and hastened away to the
station. In the train, her cheeks still burned. Might not this first
visit to his chambers be like her old first visit to the little house
in Chelsea? She took the letter out. How she hated that large, scrawly
writing for all the thoughts and fears it had given her these past
months! If that girl knew how much anxiety and suffering she had caused,
would she stop writing, stop seeing him? And Gyp tried to conjure up her
face, that face seen only for a minute, and the sound of that clipped,
clear voice but once heard—the face and voice of one accustomed to have
her own way. No! It would only make her go on all the more. Fair game,
against a woman with no claim—but that of love. Thank heaven she had not
taken him away from any woman—unless—that girl perhaps thought she had!
Ah! Why, in all these years, had she never got to know his secrets, so
that she might fight against what threatened her? But would she have
fought? To fight for love was degrading, horrible! And yet—if one did
not? She got up and stood at the window of her empty carriage. There was
the river—and there—yes, the very backwater where he had begged her to
come to him for good. It looked so different, bare and shorn, under the
light grey sky; the willows were all polled, the reeds cut down. And a
line from one of his favourite sonnets came into her mind:
“Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.”
Ah, well! Time enough to face things when they came. She would only
think of seeing him! And she put the letter back to burn what hole it
liked in the pocket of her fur coat.
The train was late; it was past five, already growing dark, when she
reached Paddington and took a cab to the Temple. Strange to be going
there for the first time—not even to know exactly where Harcourt
Buildings were. At Temple Lane, she stopped the cab and walked down that
narrow, ill-lighted, busy channel into the heart of the Great Law.
“Up those stone steps, miss; along the railin’, second doorway.” Gyp
came to the second doorway and in the doubtful light scrutinized the
names. “Summerhay—second floor.” She began to climb the stairs. Her
heart beat fast. What would he say? How greet her? Was it not absurd,
dangerous, to have come? He would be having a consultation perhaps.
There would be a clerk or someone to beard, and what name could
she give? On the first floor she paused, took out a blank card, and
pencilled on it:
“Can I see you a minute?—G.”
Then, taking a long breath to quiet her heart, she went on up. There was
the name, and there the door. She rang—no one came; listened—could hear
no sound. All looked so massive and bleak and dim—the iron railings,
stone stairs, bare walls, oak door. She rang again. What should she do?
Leave the letter? Not see him after all—her little romance all come to
naught—just a chilly visit to Bury Street, where perhaps there would
be no one but Mrs. Markey, for her father, she knew, was at Mildenham,
hunting, and would not be up till Sunday! And she thought: ’I’ll leave
the letter, go back to the Strand, have some tea, and try again.’
She took out the letter, with a sort of prayer pushed it through
the slit of the door, heard it fall into its wire cage; then slowly
descended the stairs to the outer passage into Temple Lane. It was
thronged with men and boys, at the end of the day’s work. But when she
had nearly reached the Strand, a woman’s figure caught her eye. She was
walking with a man on the far side; their faces were turned toward each
other. Gyp heard their voices, and, faint, dizzy, stood looking back
after them. They passed under a lamp; the light glinted on the woman’s
hair, on a trick of Summerhay’s, the lift of one shoulder, when he was
denying something; she heard his voice, high-pitched. She watched them
cross, mount the stone steps she had just come down, pass along the
railed stone passage, enter the doorway, disappear. And such horror
seized on her that she could hardly walk away.
“Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!” So it went in her mind—a kind of moaning, like
that of a cold, rainy wind through dripping trees. What did it mean? Oh,
what did it mean? In this miserable tumult, the only thought that did
not come to her was that of going back to his chambers. She hurried
away. It was a wonder she was not run over, for she had no notion what
she was doing, where going, and crossed the streets without the least
attention to traffic. She came to Trafalgar Square, and stood leaning
against its parapet in front of the National Gallery. Here she had her
first coherent thought: So that was why his chambers had been empty! No
clerk—no one! That they might be alone. Alone, where she had dreamed of
being alone with him! And only that morning he had kissed her and said,
“Good-bye, treasure!” A dreadful little laugh got caught in her throat,
confused with a sob. Why—why had she a heart? Down there, against the
plinth of one of the lions, a young man leaned, with his arms round a
girl, pressing her to him. Gyp turned away from the sight and resumed
her miserable wandering. She went up Bury Street. No light; not any sign
of life! It did not matter; she could not have gone in, could not stay
still, must walk! She put up her veil to get more air, feeling choked.
The trees of the Green Park, under which she was passing now, had still
a few leaves, and they gleamed in the lamplight copper-coloured as that
girl’s hair. All sorts of torturing visions came to her. Those empty
chambers! She had seen one little minute of their intimacy. A hundred
kisses might have passed between them—a thousand words of love! And he
would lie to her. Already he had acted a lie! She had not deserved
that. And this sense of the injustice done her was the first relief she
felt—this definite emotion of a mind clouded by sheer misery. She had
not deserved that he should conceal things from her. She had not had one
thought or look for any man but him since that night down by the
sea, when he came to her across the garden in the moonlight—not one
thought—and never would! Poor relief enough! She was in Hyde Park now,
wandering along a pathway which cut diagonally across the grass. And
with more resolution, more purpose, she began searching her memory for
signs, proofs of WHEN he had changed to her. She could not find them.
He had not changed in his ways to her; not at all. Could one act love,
then? Act passion, or—horrible thought!—when he kissed her nowadays, was
he thinking of that girl?
She heard the rustling of leaves behind. A youth was following her along
the path, some ravening youth, whose ungoverned breathing had a kind of
pathos in it. Heaven! What irony! She was too miserable to care, hardly
even knew when, in the main path again, she was free from his pursuit.
Love! Why had it such possession of her, that a little thing—yes, a
little thing—only the sight of him with another, should make her suffer
so? She came out on the other side of the park. What should she do?
Crawl home, creep into her hole, and lie there stricken! At Paddington
she found a train just starting and got in. There were other people in
the carriage, business men from the city, lawyers, from that—place where
she had been. And she was glad of their company, glad of the crackle of
evening papers and stolid faces giving her looks of stolid interest from
behind them, glad to have to keep her mask on, afraid of the violence
of her emotion. But one by one they got out, to their cars or their
constitutionals, and she was left alone to gaze at darkness and the
deserted river just visible in the light of a moon smothered behind the
sou’westerly sky. And for one wild moment she thought: ’Shall I open the
door and step out—one step—peace!’
She hurried away from the station. It was raining, and she drew up her
veil to feel its freshness on her hot face. There was just light enough
for her to see the pathway through the beech clump. The wind in there
was sighing, soughing, driving the dark boughs, tearing off the leaves,
little black wet shapes that came whirling at her face. The wild
melancholy in that swaying wood was too much for Gyp; she ran, thrusting
her feet through the deep rustling drifts of leaves not yet quite
drenched. They clung all wet round her thin stockings, and the rainy
wind beat her forehead. At the edge, she paused for breath, leaning
against the bole of a beech, peering back, where the wild whirling wind
was moaning and tearing off the leaves. Then, bending her head to the
rain, she went on in the open, trying to prepare herself to show nothing
when she reached home.
She got in and upstairs to her room, without being seen. If she had
possessed any sedative drug she would have taken it. Anything to secure
oblivion from this aching misery! Huddling before the freshly lighted
fire, she listened to the wind driving through the poplars; and once
more there came back to her the words of that song sung by the Scottish
girl at Fiorsen’s concert:
“And my heart reft of its own sun,
Deep lies in death-torpor cold and grey.”
Presently she crept into bed, and at last fell asleep.
She woke next morning with the joyful thought: ’It’s Saturday; he’ll
be down soon after lunch!’ And then she remembered. Ah, no! It was too
much! At the pang of that remembrance, it was as if a devil entered into
her—a devil of stubborn pride, which grew blacker with every hour of
that morning. After lunch, that she might not be in when he came, she
ordered her mare, and rode up on the downs alone. The rain had ceased,
but the wind still blew strong from the sou’west, and the sky was torn
and driven in swathes of white and grey to north, south, east, and west,
and puffs of what looked like smoke scurried across the cloud banks
and the glacier-blue rifts between. The mare had not been out the day
before, and on the springy turf stretched herself in that thoroughbred
gallop which bears a rider up, as it were, on air, till nothing but the
thud of hoofs, the grass flying by, the beating of the wind in her
face betrayed to Gyp that she was moving. For full two miles they went
without a pull, only stopped at last by the finish of the level. From
there, one could see far—away over to Wittenham Clumps across the
Valley, and to the high woods above the river in the east—away, in the
south and west, under that strange, torn sky, to a whole autumn land, of
whitish grass, bare fields, woods of grey and gold and brown, fast being
pillaged. But all that sweep of wind, and sky, freshness of rain, and
distant colour could not drive out of Gyp’s heart the hopeless aching
and the devil begotten of it.
VIII
There are men who, however well-off—either in money or love—must gamble.
Their affections may be deeply rooted, but they cannot repulse fate when
it tantalizes them with a risk.
Summerhay, who loved Gyp, was not tired of her either physically or
mentally, and even felt sure he would never tire, had yet dallied for
months with this risk which yesterday had come to a head. And now,
taking his seat in the train to return to her, he felt unquiet; and
since he resented disquietude, he tried defiantly to think of other
things, but he was very unsuccessful. Looking back, it was difficult for
him to tell when the snapping of his defences had begun. A preference
shown by one accustomed to exact preference is so insidious. The
girl, his cousin, was herself a gambler. He did not respect her as he
respected Gyp; she did not touch him as Gyp touched him, was not—no,
not half—so deeply attractive; but she had—confound her! the power of
turning his head at moments, a queer burning, skin-deep fascination,
and, above all, that most dangerous quality in a woman—the lure of an
imperious vitality. In love with life, she made him feel that he was
letting things slip by. And since to drink deep of life was his nature,
too—what chance had he of escape? Far-off cousinhood is a dangerous
relationship. Its familiarity is not great enough to breed contempt, but
sufficient to remove those outer defences to intimacy, the conquest of
which, in other circumstances, demands the conscious effort which warns
people whither they are going.
Summerhay had not realized the extent of the danger, but he had known
that it existed, especially since Scotland. It would be interesting—as
the historians say—to speculate on what he would have done, if he could
have foretold what would happen. But he had certainly not foretold the
crisis of yesterday evening. He had received a telegram from her at
lunch-time, suggesting the fulfilment of a jesting promise, made in
Scotland, that she should have tea with him and see his chambers—a small
and harmless matter. Only, why had he dismissed his clerk so early? That
is the worst of gamblers—they will put a polish on the risks they run.
He had not reckoned, perhaps, that she would look so pretty, lying back
in his big Oxford chair, with furs thrown open so that her white throat
showed, her hair gleaming, a smile coming and going on her lips; her
white hand, with polished nails, holding that cigarette; her brown eyes,
so unlike Gyp’s, fixed on him; her slim foot with high instep thrust
forward in transparent stocking. Not reckoned that, when he bent to take
her cup, she would put out her hands, draw his head down, press her lips
to his, and say: “Now you know!” His head had gone round, still went
round, thinking of it! That was all. A little matter—except that, in
an hour, he would be meeting the eyes of one he loved much more. And
yet—the poison was in his blood; a kiss so cut short—by what—what
counter impulse?—leaving him gazing at her without a sound, inhaling
that scent of hers—something like a pine wood’s scent, only sweeter,
while she gathered up her gloves, fastened her furs, as if it had been
he, not she, who had snatched that kiss. But her hand had pressed his
arm against her as they went down the stairs. And getting into her
cab at the Temple Station, she had looked back at him with a little
half-mocking smile of challenge and comradeship and promise. The link
would be hard to break—even if he wanted to. And yet nothing would come
of it! Heavens, no! He had never thought! Marriage! Impossible! Anything
else—even more impossible! When he got back to his chambers, he
had found in the box the letter, which her telegram had repeated,
readdressed by Gyp from the Red House. And a faint uneasiness at its
having gone down there passed through him. He spent a restless evening
at the club, playing cards and losing; sat up late in his chambers over
a case; had a hard morning’s work, and only now that he was nearing
Gyp, realized how utterly he had lost the straightforward simplicity of
things.
When he reached the house and found that she had gone out riding alone,
his uneasiness increased. Why had she not waited as usual for him to
ride with her? And he paced up and down the garden, where the wind
was melancholy in the boughs of the walnut-tree that had lost all its
leaves. Little Gyp was out for her walk, and only poor old Ossy kept him
company. Had she not expected him by the usual train? He would go and
try to find out. He changed and went to the stables. Old Pettance was
sitting on a corn-bin, examining an aged Ruff’s Guide, which contained
records of his long-past glory, scored under by a pencil: “June
Stakes: Agility. E. Pettance 3rd.” “Tidport Selling H’Cap: Dorothea, E.
Pettance, o.” “Salisbury Cup: Also ran Plum Pudding, E. Pettance,” with
other triumphs. He got up, saying:
“Good-afternoon, sir; windy afternoon, sir. The mistress ’as been gone
out over two hours, sir. She wouldn’t take me with ’er.”
“Hurry up, then, and saddle Hotspur.”
“Yes, sir; very good, sir.”
Over two hours! He went up on to the downs, by the way they generally
came home, and for an hour he rode, keeping a sharp lookout for any sign
of her. No use; and he turned home, hot and uneasy. On the hall table
were her riding-whip and gloves. His heart cleared, and he ran upstairs.
She was doing her hair and turned her head sharply as he entered.
Hurrying across the room he had the absurd feeling that she was standing
at bay. She drew back, bent her face away from him, and said:
“No! Don’t pretend! Anything’s better than pretence!”
He had never seen her look or speak like that—her face so hard, her eyes
so stabbing! And he recoiled dumbfounded.
“What’s the matter, Gyp?”
“Nothing. Only—don’t pretend!” And, turning to the glass, she went on
twisting and coiling up her hair.
She looked lovely, flushed from her ride in the wind, and he had a
longing to seize her in his arms. But her face stopped him. With fear
and a sort of anger, he said:
“You might explain, I think.”
An evil little smile crossed her face.
“YOU can do that. I am in the dark.”
“I don’t in the least understand what you mean.”
“Don’t you?” There was something deadly in her utter disregard of him,
while her fingers moved swiftly about her dark, shining hair—something
so appallingly sudden in this hostility that Summerhay felt a peculiar
sensation in his head, as if he must knock it against something. He sat
down on the side of the bed. Was it that letter? But how? It had not
been opened. He said:
“What on earth has happened, Gyp, since I went up yesterday? Speak out,
and don’t keep me like this!”
She turned and looked at him.
“Don’t pretend that you’re upset because you can’t kiss me! Don’t be
false, Bryan! You know it’s been pretence for months.”
Summerhay’s voice grew high.
“I think you’ve gone mad. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, yes, you do. Did you get a letter yesterday marked ’Immediate’?”
Ah! So it WAS that! To meet the definite, he hardened, and said
stubbornly:
“Yes; from Diana Leyton. Do you object?”
“No; only, how do you think it got back to you from here so quickly?”
He said dully:
“I don’t know. By post, I suppose.”
“No; I put it in your letter-box myself—at half-past five.”
Summerhay’s mind was trained to quickness, and the full significance of
those words came home to him at once. He stared at her fixedly.
“I suppose you saw us, then.”
“Yes.”
He got up, made a helpless movement, and said:
“Oh, Gyp, don’t! Don’t be so hard! I swear by—”
Gyp gave a little laugh, turned her back, and went on coiling at her
hair. And again that horrid feeling that he must knock his head against
something rose in Summerhay. He said helplessly:
“I only gave her tea. Why not? She’s my cousin. It’s nothing! Why should
you think the worst of me? She asked to see my chambers. Why not? I
couldn’t refuse.”
“Your EMPTY chambers? Don’t, Bryan—it’s pitiful! I can’t bear to hear
you.”
At that lash of the whip, Summerhay turned and said:
“It pleases you to think the worst, then?”
Gyp stopped the movement of her fingers and looked round at him.
“I’ve always told you you were perfectly free. Do you think I
haven’t felt it going on for months? There comes a moment when pride
revolts—that’s all. Don’t lie to me, PLEASE!”
“I am not in the habit of lying.” But still he did not go. That awful
feeling of encirclement, of a net round him, through which he could not
break—a net which he dimly perceived even in his resentment to have
been spun by himself, by that cursed intimacy, kept from her all to no
purpose—beset him more closely every minute. Could he not make her see
the truth, that it was only her he REALLY loved? And he said:
“Gyp, I swear to you there’s nothing but one kiss, and that was not—”
A shudder went through her from head to foot; she cried out:
“Oh, please go away!”
He went up to her, put his hands on her shoulders, and said:
“It’s only you I really love. I swear it! Why don’t you believe me? You
must believe me. You can’t be so wicked as not to. It’s foolish—foolish!
Think of our life—think of our love—think of all—” Her face was frozen;
he loosened his grasp of her, and muttered: “Oh, your pride is awful!”
“Yes, it’s all I’ve got. Lucky for you I have it. You can go to her when
you like.”
“Go to her! It’s absurd—I couldn’t—If you wish, I’ll never see her
again.”
She turned away to the glass.
“Oh, don’t! What IS the use?”
Nothing is harder for one whom life has always spoiled than to find
his best and deepest feelings disbelieved in. At that moment, Summerhay
meant absolutely what he said. The girl was nothing to him! If she was
pursuing him, how could he help it? And he could not make Gyp believe
it! How awful! How truly terrible! How unjust and unreasonable of her!
And why? What had he done that she should be so unbelieving—should think
him such a shallow scoundrel? Could he help the girl’s kissing him? Help
her being fond of him? Help having a man’s nature? Unreasonable, unjust,
ungenerous! And giving her a furious look, he went out.
He went down to his study, flung himself on the sofa and turned his face
to the wall. Devilish! But he had not been there five minutes before
his anger seemed childish and evaporated into the chill of deadly and
insistent fear. He was perceiving himself up against much more than a
mere incident, up against her nature—its pride and scepticism—yes—and
the very depth and singleness of her love. While she wanted nothing but
him, he wanted and took so much else. He perceived this but dimly, as
part of that feeling that he could not break through, of the irritable
longing to put his head down and butt his way out, no matter what the
obstacles. What was coming? How long was this state of things to last?
He got up and began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him, his
head thrown back; and every now and then he shook that head, trying to
free it from this feeling of being held in chancery. And then Diana! He
had said he would not see her again. But was that possible? After that
kiss—after that last look back at him! How? What could he say—do? How
break so suddenly? Then, at memory of Gyp’s face, he shivered. Ah, how
wretched it all was! There must be some way out—some way! Surely some
way out! For when first, in the wood of life, fatality halts, turns her
dim dark form among the trees, shows her pale cheek and those black eyes
of hers, shows with awful swiftness her strange reality—men would be
fools indeed who admitted that they saw her!
IX
Gyp stayed in her room doing little things—as a woman will when she is
particularly wretched—sewing pale ribbons into her garments, polishing
her rings. And the devil that had entered into her when she woke that
morning, having had his fling, slunk away, leaving the old bewildered
misery. She had stabbed her lover with words and looks, felt pleasure in
stabbing, and now was bitterly sad. What use—what satisfaction? How by
vengeful prickings cure the deep wound, disperse the canker in her life?
How heal herself by hurting him whom she loved so? If he came up again
now and made but a sign, she would throw herself into his arms. But
hours passed, and he did not come, and she did not go down—too truly
miserable. It grew dark, but she did not draw the curtains; the sight
of the windy moonlit garden and the leaves driving across brought a
melancholy distraction. Little Gyp came in and prattled. There was
a tree blown down, and she had climbed on it; they had picked up two
baskets of acorns, and the pigs had been so greedy; and she had been
blown away, so that Betty had had to run after her. And Baryn was
walking in the study; he was so busy he had only given her one kiss.
When she was gone, Gyp opened the window and let the wind full into her
face. If only it would blow out of her heart this sickening sense that
all was over, no matter how he might pretend to love her out of pity! In
a nature like hers, so doubting and self-distrustful, confidence, once
shaken to the roots, could never be restored. A proud nature that went
all lengths in love could never be content with a half-love. She
had been born too doubting, proud, and jealous, yet made to love too
utterly. She—who had been afraid of love, and when it came had fought
till it swept her away; who, since then, had lived for love and nothing
else, who gave all, and wanted all—knew for certain and for ever that
she could not have all.
It was “nothing” he had said! Nothing! That for months he had been
thinking at least a little of another woman besides herself. She
believed what he had told her, that there had been no more than a
kiss—but was it nothing that they had reached that kiss? This girl—this
cousin—who held all the cards, had everything on her side—the world,
family influence, security of life; yes, and more, so terribly much
more—a man’s longing for the young and unawakened. This girl he could
marry! It was this thought which haunted her. A mere momentary outbreak
of man’s natural wildness she could forgive and forget—oh, yes! It was
the feeling that it was a girl, his own cousin, besieging him, dragging
him away, that was so dreadful. Ah, how horrible it was—how horrible!
How, in decent pride, keep him from her, fetter him?
She heard him come up to his dressing-room, and while he was still
there, stole out and down. Life must go on, the servants be hoodwinked,
and so forth. She went to the piano and played, turning the dagger in
her heart, or hoping forlornly that music might work some miracle. He
came in presently and stood by the fire, silent.
Dinner, with the talk needful to blinding the household—for what is
more revolting than giving away the sufferings of the heart?—was almost
unendurable and directly it was over, they went, he to his study, she
back to the piano. There she sat, ready to strike the notes if anyone
came in; and tears fell on the hands that rested in her lap. With all
her soul she longed to go and clasp him in her arms and cry: “I don’t
care—I don’t care! Do what you like—go to her—if only you’ll love me a
little!” And yet to love—a LITTLE! Was it possible? Not to her!
In sheer misery she went upstairs and to bed. She heard him come up
and go into his dressing-room—and, at last, in the firelight saw him
kneeling by her.
“Gyp!”
She raised herself and threw her arms round him. Such an embrace a
drowning woman might have given. Pride and all were abandoned in an
effort to feel him close once more, to recover the irrecoverable
past. For a long time she listened to his pleading, explanations,
justifications, his protestations of undying love—strange to her and
painful, yet so boyish and pathetic. She soothed him, clasping his head
to her breast, gazing out at the flickering fire. In that hour, she rose
to a height above herself. What happened to her own heart did not matter
so long as he was happy, and had all that he wanted with her and away
from her—if need be, always away from her.
But, when he had gone to sleep, a terrible time began; for in the small
hours, when things are at their worst, she could not keep back her
weeping, though she smothered it into the pillow. It woke him, and all
began again; the burden of her cry: “It’s gone!” the burden of his:
“It’s NOT—can’t you see it isn’t?” Till, at last, that awful feeling
that he must knock his head against the wall made him leap up and tramp
up and down like a beast in a cage—the cage of the impossible. For, as
in all human tragedies, both were right according to their natures. She
gave him all herself, wanted all in return, and could not have it. He
wanted her, the rest besides, and no complaining, and could not have it.
He did not admit impossibility; she did.
At last came another of those pitying lulls till he went to sleep in her
arms. Long she lay awake, staring at the darkness, admitting despair,
trying to find how to bear it, not succeeding. Impossible to cut his
other life away from him—impossible that, while he lived it, this
girl should not be tugging him away from her. Impossible to watch and
question him. Impossible to live dumb and blind, accepting the crumbs
left over, showing nothing. Would it have been better if they had been
married? But then it might have been the same—reversed; perhaps worse!
The roots were so much deeper than that. He was not single-hearted and
she was. In spite of all that he said, she knew he didn’t really want to
give up that girl. How could he? Even if the girl would let him go! And
slowly there formed within her a gruesome little plan to test him.
Then, ever so gently withdrawing her arms, she turned over and slept,
exhausted.
Next morning, remorselessly carrying out that plan, she forced herself
to smile and talk as if nothing had happened, watching the relief in his
face, his obvious delight at the change, with a fearful aching in her
heart. She waited till he was ready to go down, and then, still smiling,
said:
“Forget all about yesterday, darling. Promise me you won’t let it make
any difference. You must keep up your friendship; you mustn’t lose
anything. I shan’t mind; I shall be quite happy.” He knelt down and
leaned his forehead against her waist. And, stroking his hair, she
repeated: “I shall only be happy if you take everything that comes your
way. I shan’t mind a bit.” And she watched his face that had lost its
trouble.
“Do you really mean that?”
“Yes; really!”
“Then you do see that it’s nothing, never has been anything—compared
with you—never!”
He had accepted her crucifixion. A black wave surged into her heart.
“It would be so difficult and awkward for you to give up that intimacy.
It would hurt your cousin so.”
She saw the relief deepen in his face and suddenly laughed. He got up
from his knees and stared at her.
“Oh, Gyp, for God’s sake don’t begin again!”
But she went on laughing; then, with a sob, turned away and buried her
face in her hands. To all his prayers and kisses she answered nothing,
and breaking away from him, she rushed toward the door. A wild thought
possessed her. Why go on? If she were dead, it would be all right for
him, quiet—peaceful, quiet—for them all! But he had thrown himself in
the way.
“Gyp, for heaven’s sake! I’ll give her up—of course I’ll give her up.
Do—do—be reasonable! I don’t care a finger-snap for her compared with
you!”
And presently there came another of those lulls that both were beginning
to know were mere pauses of exhaustion. They were priceless all the
same, for the heart cannot go on feeling at that rate.
It was Sunday morning, the church-bells ringing, no wind, a lull in the
sou’westerly gale—one of those calms that fall in the night and last, as
a rule, twelve or fifteen hours, and the garden all strewn with leaves
of every hue, from green spotted with yellow to deep copper.
Summerhay was afraid; he kept with her all the morning, making all sorts
of little things to do in her company. But he gradually lost his fear,
she seemed so calm now, and his was a nature that bore trouble badly,
ever impatient to shake it off. And then, after lunch, the spirit-storm
beat up again, with a swiftness that showed once more how deceptive were
those lulls, how fearfully deep and lasting the wound. He had simply
asked her whether he should try to match something for her when he went
up, to-morrow. She was silent a moment, then answered:
“Oh, no, thanks; you’ll have other things to do; people to see!”
The tone of her voice, the expression on her face showed him, with a
fresh force of revelation, what paralysis had fallen on his life. If he
could not reconvince her of his love, he would be in perpetual fear—that
he might come back and find her gone, fear that she might even do
something terrible to herself. He looked at her with a sort of horror,
and, without a word, went out of the room. The feeling that he must hit
his head against something was on him once more, and once more he sought
to get rid of it by tramping up and down. Great God! Such a little
thing, such fearful consequences! All her balance, her sanity almost,
destroyed. Was what he had done so very dreadful? He could not help
Diana loving him!
In the night, Gyp had said: “You are cruel. Do you think there is any
man in the world that I wouldn’t hate the sight of if I knew that to see
him gave you a moment’s pain?” It was true—he felt it was true. But
one couldn’t hate a girl simply because she loved you; at least he
couldn’t—not even to save Gyp pain. That was not reasonable, not
possible. But did that difference between a man and a woman necessarily
mean that Gyp loved him so much more than he loved her? Could she not
see things in proportion? See that a man might want, did want, other
friendships, even passing moments of passion, and yet could love her
just the same? She thought him cruel, called him cruel—what for? Because
he had kissed a girl who had kissed him; because he liked talking to
her, and—yes, might even lose his head with her. But cruel! He was not!
Gyp would always be first with him. He must MAKE her see—but how? Give
up everything? Give up—Diana? (Truth is so funny—it will out even in a
man’s thoughts!) Well, and he could! His feeling was not deep—that was
God’s truth! But it would be difficult, awkward, brutal to give her up
completely! It could be done, though, sooner than that Gyp should think
him cruel to her. It could be—should be done!
Only, would it be any use? Would she believe? Would she not always now
be suspecting him when he was away from her, whatever he did? Must he
then sit down here in inactivity? And a gust of anger with her swept
him. Why should she treat him as if he were utterly unreliable? Or—was
he? He stood still. When Diana had put her arms round his neck, he could
no more have resisted answering her kiss than he could now fly through
the window and over those poplar trees. But he was not a blackguard, not
cruel, not a liar! How could he have helped it all? The only way would
have been never to have answered the girl’s first letter, nearly a year
ago. How could he foresee? And, since then, all so gradual, and nothing,
really, or almost nothing. Again the surge of anger swelled his heart.
She must have read the letter which had been under that cursed bust
of old Voltaire all those months ago. The poison had been working ever
since! And in sudden fury at that miserable mischance, he drove his fist
into the bronze face. The bust fell over, and Summerhay looked stupidly
at his bruised hand. A silly thing to do! But it had quenched his anger.
He only saw Gyp’s face now—so pitifully unhappy. Poor darling! What
could he do? If only she would believe! And again he had the sickening
conviction that whatever he did would be of no avail. He could never get
back, was only at the beginning, of a trouble that had no end. And, like
a rat in a cage, his mind tried to rush out of this entanglement now at
one end, now at the other. Ah, well! Why bruise your head against walls?
If it was hopeless—let it go! And, shrugging his shoulders, he went out
to the stables, and told old Pettance to saddle Hotspur. While he stood
there waiting, he thought: ’Shall I ask her to come?’ But he could not
stand another bout of misery—must have rest! And mounting, he rode up
towards the downs.
Hotspur, the sixteen-hand brown horse, with not a speck of white, that
Gyp had ridden hunting the day she first saw Summerhay, was nine years
old now. His master’s two faults as a horseman—a habit of thrusting, and
not too light hands—had encouraged his rather hard mouth, and something
had happened in the stables to-day to put him into a queer temper; or
perhaps he felt—as horses will—the disturbance raging within his rider.
At any rate, he gave an exhibition of his worst qualities, and Summerhay
derived perverse pleasure from that waywardness. He rode a good hour up
there; then, hot, with aching arms—for the brute was pulling like the
devil!—he made his way back toward home and entered what little Gyp
called “the wild,” those two rough sedgy fields with the linhay in the
corner where they joined. There was a gap in the hedge-growth of the
bank between them, and at this he put Hotspur at speed. The horse went
over like a bird; and for the first time since Diana’s kiss Summerhay
felt a moment’s joy. He turned him round and sent him at it again, and
again Hotspur cleared it beautifully. But the animal’s blood was up now.
Summerhay could hardly hold him. Muttering: “Oh, you BRUTE, don’t pull!”
he jagged the horse’s mouth. There darted into his mind Gyp’s word:
“Cruel!” And, viciously, in one of those queer nerve-crises that beset
us all, he struck the pulling horse.
They were cantering toward the corner where the fields joined, and
suddenly he was aware that he could no more hold the beast than if a
steam-engine had been under him. Straight at the linhay Hotspur dashed,
and Summerhay thought: “My God! He’ll kill himself!” Straight at the
old stone linhay, covered by the great ivy bush. Right at it—into it!
Summerhay ducked his head. Not low enough—the ivy concealed a beam! A
sickening crash! Torn backward out of the saddle, he fell on his back
in a pool of leaves and mud. And the horse, slithering round the linhay
walls, checked in his own length, unhurt, snorting, frightened, came
out, turning his wild eyes on his master, who never stirred, then
trotted back into the field, throwing up his head.
X
When, at her words, Summerhay went out of the room, Gyp’s heart sank.
All the morning she had tried so hard to keep back her despairing
jealousy, and now at the first reminder had broken down again. It
was beyond her strength! To live day after day knowing that he, up in
London, was either seeing that girl or painfully abstaining from seeing
her! And then, when he returned, to be to him just what she had been, to
show nothing—would it ever be possible? Hardest to bear was what seemed
to her the falsity of his words, maintaining that he still really loved
her. If he did, how could he hesitate one second? Would not the very
thought of the girl be abhorrent to him? He would have shown that, not
merely said it among other wild things. Words were no use when they
contradicted action. She, who loved with every bit of her, could not
grasp that a man can really love and want one woman and yet, at the same
time, be attracted by another.
That sudden fearful impulse of the morning to make away with herself and
end it for them both recurred so vaguely that it hardly counted in her
struggles; the conflict centred now round the question whether life
would be less utterly miserable if she withdrew from him and went back
to Mildenham. Life without him? That was impossible! Life with him? Just
as impossible, it seemed! There comes a point of mental anguish when the
alternatives between which one swings, equally hopeless, become each
so monstrous that the mind does not really work at all, but rushes
helplessly from one to the other, no longer trying to decide, waiting
on fate. So in Gyp that Sunday afternoon, doing little things all the
time—mending a hole in one of his gloves, brushing and applying ointment
to old Ossy, sorting bills and letters.
At five o’clock, knowing little Gyp must soon be back from her walk, and
feeling unable to take part in gaiety, she went up and put on her hat.
She turned from contemplation of her face with disgust. Since it was no
longer the only face for him, what was the use of beauty? She slipped
out by the side gate and went down toward the river. The lull was over;
the south-west wind had begun sighing through the trees again, and
gorgeous clouds were piled up from the horizon into the pale blue. She
stood by the river watching its grey stream, edged by a scum of torn-off
twigs and floating leaves, watched the wind shivering through the
spoiled plume-branches of the willows. And, standing there, she had a
sudden longing for her father; he alone could help her—just a little—by
his quietness, and his love, by his mere presence.
She turned away and went up the lane again, avoiding the inn and the
riverside houses, walking slowly, her head down. And a thought came, her
first hopeful thought. Could they not travel—go round the world? Would
he give up his work for that—that chance to break the spell? Dared she
propose it? But would even that be anything more than a putting-off? If
she was not enough for him now, would she not be still less, if his work
were cut away? Still, it was a gleam, a gleam in the blackness. She came
in at the far end of the fields they called “the wild.” A rose-leaf hue
tinged the white cloud-banks, which towered away to the east beyond
the river; and peeping over that mountain-top was the moon, fleecy and
unsubstantial in the flax-blue sky. It was one of nature’s moments
of wild colour. The oak-trees above the hedgerows had not lost their
leaves, and in the darting, rain-washed light from the setting sun, had
a sheen of old gold with heart of ivy-green; the hail-stripped beeches
flamed with copper; the russet tufts of the ash-trees glowed. And past
Gyp, a single leaf blown off, went soaring, turning over and over, going
up on the rising wind, up—up, higher—higher into the sky, till it was
lost—away.
The rain had drenched the long grass, and she turned back. At the gate
beside the linhay, a horse was standing. It whinnied. Hotspur, saddled,
bridled, with no rider! Why? Where—then? Hastily she undid the latch,
ran through, and saw Summerhay lying in the mud—on his back, with eyes
wide-open, his forehead and hair all blood. Some leaves had dropped on
him. God! O God! His eyes had no sight, his lips no breath; his heart
did not beat; the leaves had dropped even on his face—in the blood on
his poor head. Gyp raised him—stiffened, cold as ice! She gave one cry,
and fell, embracing his dead, stiffened body with all her strength,
kissing his lips, his eyes, his broken forehead; clasping, warming him,
trying to pass life into him; till, at last, she, too, lay still, her
lips on his cold lips, her body on his cold body in the mud and the
fallen leaves, while the wind crept and rustled in the ivy, and went
over with the scent of rain. Close by, the horse, uneasy, put his head
down and sniffed at her, then, backing away, neighed, and broke into a
wild gallop round the field....
Old Pettance, waiting for Summerhay’s return to stable-up for the night,
heard that distant neigh and went to the garden gate, screwing up his
little eyes against the sunset. He could see a loose horse galloping
down there in “the wild,” where no horse should be, and thinking: “There
now; that artful devil’s broke away from the guv’nor! Now I’ll ’ave to
ketch ’im!” he went back, got some oats, and set forth at the best gait
of his stiff-jointed feet. The old horseman characteristically did not
think of accidents. The guv’nor had got off, no doubt, to unhitch that
heavy gate—the one you had to lift. That ’orse—he was a masterpiece of
mischief! His difference with the animal still rankled in a mind that
did not easily forgive.
Half an hour later, he entered the lighted kitchen shaking and
gasping, tears rolling down his furrowed cheeks into the corners of his
gargoyle’s mouth, and panted out:
“O, my Gord! Fetch the farmer—fetch an ’urdle! O my Gord! Betty, you and
cook—I can’t get ’er off him. She don’t speak. I felt her—all cold. Come
on, you sluts—quick! O my Gord! The poor guv’nor! That ’orse must ’a’
galloped into the linhay and killed him. I’ve see’d the marks on the
devil’s shoulder where he rubbed it scrapin’ round the wall. Come
on—come on! Fetch an ’urdle or she’ll die there on him in the mud. Put
the child to bed and get the doctor, and send a wire to London, to the
major, to come sharp. Oh, blarst you all—keep your ’eads! What’s the
good o’ howlin’ and blubberin’!”
In the whispering corner of those fields, light from a lantern and the
moon fell on the old stone linhay, on the ivy and the broken gate, on
the mud, the golden leaves, and the two quiet bodies clasped together.
Gyp’s consciousness had flown; there seemed no difference between them.
And presently, over the rushy grass, a procession moved back in the wind
and the moonlight—two hurdles, two men carrying one, two women and a man
the other, and, behind, old Pettance and the horse.
XI
When Gyp recovered a consciousness, whose flight had been mercifully
renewed with morphia, she was in her bed, and her first drowsy movement
was toward her mate. With eyes still closed, she turned, as she was
wont, and put out her hand to touch him before she dozed off again.
There was no warmth, no substance; through her mind, still away in the
mists of morphia, the thoughts passed vague and lonely: ’Ah, yes, in
London!’ And she turned on her back. London! Something—something up
there! She opened her eyes. So the fire had kept in all night! Someone
was in a chair there, or—was she dreaming! And suddenly, without knowing
why, she began breathing hurriedly in little half-sobbing gasps. The
figure moved, turned her face in the firelight. Betty! Gyp closed her
eyes. An icy sweat had broken out all over her. A dream! In a whisper,
she said:
“Betty!”
The muffled answer came.
“Yes, my darlin’.”
“What is it?”
No answer; then a half-choked, “Don’t ’ee think—don’t ’ee think! Your
Daddy’ll be here directly, my sweetie!”
Gyp’s eyes, wide open, passed from the firelight and that rocking figure
to the little chink of light that was hardly light as yet, coming in at
one corner of the curtain. She was remembering. Her tongue stole out and
passed over her lips; beneath the bedclothes she folded both her hands
tight across her heart. Then she was not dead with him—not dead! Not
gone back with him into the ground—not—And suddenly there flickered in
her a flame of maniacal hatred. They were keeping her alive! A writhing
smile forced its way up on to her parched lips.
“Betty, I’m so thirsty—so thirsty. Get me a cup of tea.”
The stout form heaved itself from the chair and came toward the bed.
“Yes, my lovey, at once. It’ll do you good. That’s a brave girl.”
“Yes.”
The moment the door clicked to, Gyp sprang up. Her veins throbbed; her
whole soul was alive with cunning. She ran to the wardrobe, seized her
long fur coat, slipped her bare feet into her slippers, wound a piece
of lace round her head, and opened the door. All dark and quiet! Holding
her breath, stifling the sound of her feet, she glided down the stairs,
slipped back the chain of the front door, opened it, and fled. Like a
shadow she passed across the grass, out of the garden gate, down the
road under the black dripping trees. The beginning of light was mixing
its grey hue into the darkness; she could just see her feet among the
puddles on the road. She heard the grinding and whirring of a motor-car
on its top gear approaching up the hill, and cowered away against the
hedge. Its light came searching along, picking out with a mysterious
momentary brightness the bushes and tree-trunks, making the wet road
gleam. Gyp saw the chauffeur turn his head back at her, then the car’s
body passed up into darkness, and its tail-light was all that was left
to see. Perhaps that car was going to the Red House with her father, the
doctor, somebody, helping to keep her alive! The maniacal hate flared up
in her again; she flew on. The light grew; a man with a dog came out of
a gate she had passed, and called “Hallo!” She did not turn her head.
She had lost her slippers, and ran with bare feet, unconscious of
stones, or the torn-off branches strewing the road, making for the lane
that ran right down to the river, a little to the left of the inn, the
lane of yesterday, where the bank was free.
She turned into the lane; dimly, a hundred or more yards away, she
could see the willows, the width of lighter grey that was the river. The
river—“Away, my rolling river!”—the river—and the happiest hours of all
her life! If he were anywhere, she would find him there, where he had
sung, and lain with his head on her breast, and swum and splashed about
her; where she had dreamed, and seen beauty, and loved him so! She
reached the bank. Cold and grey and silent, swifter than yesterday, the
stream was flowing by, its dim far shore brightening slowly in the first
break of dawn. And Gyp stood motionless, drawing her breath in gasps
after her long run; her knees trembled; gave way. She sat down on the
wet grass, clasping her arms round her drawn-up legs, rocking herself to
and fro, and her loosened hair fell over her face. The blood beat in her
ears; her heart felt suffocated; all her body seemed on fire, yet numb.
She sat, moving her head up and down—as the head of one moves that is
gasping her last—waiting for breath—breath and strength to let go life,
to slip down into the grey water. And that queer apartness from self,
which is the property of fever, came on her, so that she seemed to see
herself sitting there, waiting, and thought: ’I shall see myself dead,
floating among the reeds. I shall see the birds wondering above me!’
And, suddenly, she broke into a storm of dry sobbing, and all things
vanished from her, save just the rocking of her body, the gasping of her
breath, and the sound of it in her ears. Her boy—her boy—and his
poor hair! “Away, my rolling river!” Swaying over, she lay face down,
clasping at the wet grass and the earth.
The sun rose, laid a pale bright streak along the water, and hid himself
again. A robin twittered in the willows; a leaf fell on her bare ankle.
Winton, who had been hunting on Saturday, had returned to town on Sunday
by the evening tram, and gone straight to his club for some supper.
There falling asleep over his cigar, he had to be awakened when they
desired to close the club for the night. It was past two when he reached
Bury Street and found a telegram.
“Something dreadful happened to Mr. Summerhay. Come quick.—BETTY.”
Never had he so cursed the loss of his hand as during the time that
followed, when Markey had to dress, help his master, pack bags, and
fetch a taxi equipped for so long a journey. At half-past three they
started. The whole way down, Winton, wrapped in his fur coat, sat a
little forward on his seat, ready to put his head through the window
and direct the driver. It was a wild night, and he would not let Markey,
whose chest was not strong, go outside to act as guide. Twice that
silent one, impelled by feelings too strong even for his respectful
taciturnity, had spoken.
“That’ll be bad for Miss Gyp, sir.”
“Bad, yes—terrible.”
And later:
“D’you think it means he’s dead, sir?”
Winton answered sombrely:
“God knows, Markey! We must hope for the best.”
Dead! Could Fate be cruel enough to deal one so soft and loving such a
blow? And he kept saying to himself: “Courage. Be ready for the worst.
Be ready.”
But the figures of Betty and a maid at the open garden gate, in the
breaking darkness, standing there wringing their hands, were too much
for his stoicism. Leaping out, he cried:
“What is it, woman? Quick!”
“Oh, sir! My dear’s gone. I left her a moment to get her a cup of tea.
And she’s run out in the cold!”
Winton stood for two seconds as if turned to stone. Then, taking Betty
by the shoulder, he asked quietly:
“What happened to HIM?”
Betty could not answer, but the maid said:
“The horse killed him at that linhay, sir, down in ’the wild.’ And the
mistress was unconscious till quarter of an hour ago.”
“Which way did she go?”
“Out here, sir; the door and the gate was open—can’t tell which way.”
Through Winton flashed one dreadful thought: The river!
“Turn the cab round! Stay in, Markey! Betty and you, girl, go down to
’the wild,’ and search there at once. Yes? What is it?”
The driver was leaning out.
“As we came up the hill, sir, I see a lady or something in a long dark
coat with white on her head, against the hedge.”
“Right! Drive down again sharp, and use your eyes.”
At such moments, thought is impossible, and a feverish use of every
sense takes its place. But of thought there was no need, for the gardens
of villas and the inn blocked the river at all but one spot. Winton
stopped the car where the narrow lane branched down to the bank, and
jumping out, ran. By instinct he ran silently on the grass edge, and
Markey, imitating, ran behind. When he came in sight of a black shape
lying on the bank, he suffered a moment of intense agony, for he thought
it was just a dark garment thrown away. Then he saw it move, and,
holding up his hand for Markey to stand still, walked on alone,
tiptoeing in the grass, his heart swelling with a sort of rapture.
Stealthily moving round between that prostrate figure and the water, he
knelt down and said, as best he could, for the husk in his throat:
“My darling!”
Gyp raised her head and stared at him. Her white face, with eyes
unnaturally dark and large, and hair falling all over it, was strange to
him—the face of grief itself, stripped of the wrappings of form. And he
knew not what to do, how to help or comfort, how to save. He could see
so clearly in her eyes the look of a wild animal at the moment of its
capture, and instinct made him say:
“I lost her just as cruelly, Gyp.”
He saw the words reach her brain, and that wild look waver. Stretching
out his arm, he drew her close to him till her cheek was against his,
her shaking body against him, and kept murmuring:
“For my sake, Gyp; for my sake!”
When, with Markey’s aid, he had got her to the cab, they took her,
not back to the house, but to the inn. She was in high fever, and soon
delirious. By noon, Aunt Rosamund and Mrs. Markey, summoned by telegram,
had arrived; and the whole inn was taken lest there should be any noise
to disturb her.
At five o’clock, Winton was summoned downstairs to the little so-called
reading-room. A tall woman was standing at the window, shading her eyes
with the back of a gloved hand. Though they had lived so long within ten
miles of each other he only knew Lady Summerhay by sight, and he waited
for the poor woman to speak first. She said in a low voice:
“There is nothing to say; only, I thought I must see you. How is she?”
“Delirious.”
They stood in silence a full minute, before she whispered:
“My poor boy! Did you see him—his forehead?” Her lips quivered. “I will
take him back home.” And tears rolled, one after the other, slowly down
her flushed face under her veil. Poor woman! Poor woman! She had turned
to the window, passing her handkerchief up under the veil, staring out
at the little strip of darkening lawn, and Winton, too, stared out into
that mournful daylight. At last, he said:
“I will send you all his things, except—except anything that might help
my poor girl.”
She turned quickly.
“And so it’s ended like this! Major Winton, is there anything
behind—were they really happy?”
Winton looked straight at her and answered:
“Ah, too happy!”
Without a quiver, he met those tear-darkened, dilated eyes straining
at his; with a heavy sigh, she once more turned away, and, brushing her
handkerchief across her face, drew down her veil.
It was not true—he knew from the mutterings of Gyp’s fever—but no one,
not even Summerhay’s mother, should hear a whisper if he could help it.
At the door, he murmured:
“I don’t know whether my girl will get through, or what she will do
after. When Fate hits, she hits too hard. And you! Good-bye.”
Lady Summerhay pressed his outstretched hand.
“Good-bye,” she said, in a strangled voice. “I wish you—good-bye.” Then,
turning abruptly, she hastened away.
Winton went back to his guardianship upstairs.
In the days that followed, when Gyp, robbed of memory, hung between life
and death, Winton hardly left her room, that low room with creepered
windows whence the river could be seen, gliding down under the pale
November sunshine or black beneath the stars. He would watch it,
fascinated, as one sometimes watches the relentless sea. He had snatched
her as by a miracle from that snaky river.
He had refused to have a nurse. Aunt Rosamund and Mrs. Markey were
skilled in sickness, and he could not bear that a strange person should
listen to those delirious mutterings. His own part of the nursing was
just to sit there and keep her secrets from the others—if he could. And
he grudged every minute away from his post. He would stay for hours,
with eyes fixed on her face. No one could supply so well as he just that
coherent thread of the familiar, by which the fevered, without knowing
it, perhaps find their way a little in the dark mazes where they wander.
And he would think of her as she used to be—well and happy—adopting
unconsciously the methods of those mental and other scientists whom he
looked upon as quacks.
He was astonished by the number of inquiries, even people whom he had
considered enemies left cards or sent their servants, forcing him to the
conclusion that people of position are obliged to reserve their human
kindness for those as good as dead. But the small folk touched him daily
by their genuine concern for her whose grace and softness had won their
hearts. One morning he received a letter forwarded from Bury Street.
“DEAR MAJOR WINTON,
“I have read a paragraph in the paper about poor Mr. Summerhay’s death.
And, oh, I feel so sorry for her! She was so good to me; I do feel it
most dreadfully. If you think she would like to know how we all feel for
her, you would tell her, wouldn’t you? I do think it’s cruel.
“Very faithfully yours,
“DAPHNE WING.”
So they knew Summerhay’s name—he had not somehow expected that. He did
not answer, not knowing what to say.
During those days of fever, the hardest thing to bear was the sound of
her rapid whisperings and mutterings—incoherent phrases that said so
little and told so much. Sometimes he would cover his ears, to avoid
hearing of that long stress of mind at which he had now and then
glimpsed. Of the actual tragedy, her wandering spirit did not seem
conscious; her lips were always telling the depth of her love, always
repeating the dread of losing his; except when they would give a
whispering laugh, uncanny and enchanting, as at some gleam of perfect
happiness. Those little laughs were worst of all to hear; they never
failed to bring tears into his eyes. But he drew a certain gruesome
comfort from the conclusion slowly forced on him, that Summerhay’s
tragic death had cut short a situation which might have had an even more
tragic issue. One night in the big chair at the side of her bed, he woke
from a doze to see her eyes fixed on him. They were different; they saw,
were her own eyes again. Her lips moved.
“Dad.”
“Yes, my pet.”
“I remember everything.”
At that dreadful little saying, Winton leaned forward and put his lips
to her hand, that lay outside the clothes.
“Where is he buried?”
“At Widrington.”
“Yes.”
It was rather a sigh than a word and, raising his head, Winton saw her
eyes closed again. Now that the fever had gone, the white transparency
of her cheeks and forehead against the dark lashes and hair was too
startling. Was it a living face, or was its beauty that of death?
He bent over. She was breathing—asleep.
XII
The return to Mildenham was made by easy stages nearly two months after
Summerhay’s death, on New Year’s day—Mildenham, dark, smelling the same,
full of ghosts of the days before love began. For little Gyp, more
than five years old now, and beginning to understand life, this was the
pleasantest home yet. In watching her becoming the spirit of the place,
as she herself had been when a child, Gyp found rest at times, a little
rest. She had not picked up much strength, was shadowy as yet, and if
her face was taken unawares, it was the saddest face one could see. Her
chief preoccupation was not being taken unawares. Alas! To Winton, her
smile was even sadder. He was at his wits’ end about her that winter and
spring. She obviously made the utmost effort to keep up, and there was
nothing to do but watch and wait. No use to force the pace. Time alone
could heal—perhaps. Meanwhile, he turned to little Gyp, so that they
became more or less inseparable.
Spring came and passed. Physically, Gyp grew strong again, but since
their return to Mildenham, she had never once gone outside the garden,
never once spoken of The Red House, never once of Summerhay. Winton had
hoped that warmth and sunlight would bring some life to her spirit, but
it did not seem to. Not that she cherished her grief, appeared, rather,
to do all in her power to forget and mask it. She only had what used to
be called a broken heart. Nothing to be done. Little Gyp, who had been
told that “Baryn” had gone away for ever, and that she must “never speak
of him for fear of making Mum sad,” would sometimes stand and watch her
mother with puzzled gravity. She once remarked uncannily to Winton:
“Mum doesn’t live with us, Grandy; she lives away somewhere, I think. Is
it with Baryn?”
Winton stared, and answered:
“Perhaps it is, sweetheart; but don’t say that to anybody but me. Don’t
ever talk of Baryn to anyone else.”
“Yes, I know; but where is he, Grandy?”
What could Winton answer? Some imbecility with the words “very far” in
it; for he had not courage to broach the question of death, that mystery
so hopelessly beyond the grasp of children, and of himself—and others.
He rode a great deal with the child, who, like her mother before her,
was never so happy as in the saddle; but to Gyp he did not dare suggest
it. She never spoke of horses, never went to the stables, passed all the
days doing little things about the house, gardening, and sitting at her
piano, sometimes playing a little, sometimes merely looking at the keys,
her hands clasped in her lap. This was early in the fateful summer,
before any as yet felt the world-tremors, or saw the Veil of the Temple
rending and the darkness beginning to gather. Winton had no vision
of the coif above the dark eyes of his loved one, nor of himself in a
strange brown garb, calling out old familiar words over barrack-squares.
He often thought: ’If only she had something to take her out of
herself!’
In June he took his courage in both hands and proposed a visit to
London. To his surprise, she acquiesced without hesitation. They went up
in Whit-week. While they were passing Widrington, he forced himself to
an unnatural spurt of talk; and it was not till fully quarter of an
hour later that, glancing stealthily round his paper, he saw her sitting
motionless, her face turned to the fields and tears rolling down it. And
he dared not speak, dared not try to comfort her. She made no sound, the
muscles of her face no movement; only, those tears kept rolling down.
And, behind his paper, Winton’s eyes narrowed and retreated; his face
hardened till the skin seemed tight drawn over the bones, and every inch
of him quivered.
The usual route from the station to Bury Street was “up,” and the cab
went by narrow by-streets, town lanes where the misery of the world is
on show, where ill-looking men, draggled and over-driven women, and the
jaunty ghosts of little children in gutters and on doorsteps proclaim,
by every feature of their clay-coloured faces and every movement of
their unfed bodies, the post-datement of the millennium; where the lean
and smutted houses have a look of dissolution indefinitely put off, and
there is no more trace of beauty than in a sewer. Gyp, leaning forward,
looked out, as one does after a long sea voyage; Winton felt her hand
slip into his and squeeze it hard.
That evening after dinner—in the room he had furnished for her mother,
where the satinwood chairs, the little Jacobean bureau, the old brass
candelabra were still much as they had been just on thirty years ago—she
said:
“Dad, I’ve been thinking. Would you mind if I could make a sort of home
at Mildenham where poor children could come to stay and get good air and
food? There are such thousands of them.”
Strangely moved by this, the first wish he had heard her express since
the tragedy, Winton took her hand, and, looking at it as if for answer
to his question, said:
“My dear, are, you strong enough?”
“Quite. There’s nothing wrong with me now except here.” She drew his
hand to her and pressed it against her heart. “What’s given, one can’t
get back. I can’t help it; I would if I could. It’s been so dreadful for
you. I’m so sorry.” Winton made an unintelligible sound, and she went
on: “If I had them to see after, I shouldn’t be able to think so much;
the more I had to do the better. Good for our gipsy-bird, too, to have
them there. I should like to begin it at once.”
Winton nodded. Anything that she felt could do her good—anything!
“Yes, yes,” he said; “I quite see—you could use the two old cottages to
start with, and we can easily run up anything you want.”
“Only let me do it all, won’t you?”
At that touch of her old self, Winton smiled. She should do everything,
pay for everything, bring a whole street of children down, if it would
give her any comfort!
“Rosamund’ll help you find ’em,” he muttered. “She’s first-rate at all
that sort of thing.” Then, looking at her fixedly, he added: “Courage,
my soul; it’ll all come back some day.”
Gyp forced herself to smile. Watching her, he understood only too well
the child’s saying: “Mum lives away somewhere, I think.”
Suddenly, she said, very low:
“And yet I wouldn’t have been without it.”
She was sitting, her hands clasped in her lap, two red spots high in her
cheeks, her eyes shining strangely, the faint smile still on her
lips. And Winton, staring with narrowed eyes, thought: ’Love! Beyond
measure—beyond death—it nearly kills. But one wouldn’t have been without
it. Why?’
Three days later, leaving Gyp with his sister, he went back to Mildenham
to start the necessary alterations in the cottages. He had told no one
he was coming, and walked up from the station on a perfect June
day, bright and hot. When he turned through the drive gate, into the
beech-tree avenue, the leaf-shadows were thick on the ground, with
golden gleams of the invincible sunlight thrusting their way through.
The grey boles, the vivid green leaves, those glistening sun-shafts
through the shade entranced him, coming from the dusty road. Down in
the very middle of the avenue, a small, white figure was standing, as if
looking out for him. He heard a shrill shout.
“Oh, Grandy, you’ve come back—you’ve come back! What FUN!”
Winton took her curls in his hand, and, looking into her face, said:
“Well, my gipsy-bird, will you give me one of these?”
Little Gyp looked at him with flying eyes, and, hugging his legs,
answered furiously:
“Yes; because I love you. PULL!”