I
Gleam of a thousand lights; clack and mutter of innumerable voices,
laughter, footsteps; hiss and rumble of passing trains taking gamblers
back to Nice or Mentone; fevered wailing from the violins of four
fiddlers with dark-white skins outside the cafe; and above, around,
beyond, the dark sky, and the dark mountains, and the dark sea, like
some great dark flower to whose heart is clinging a jewelled beetle. So
was Monte Carlo on that May night of 1887.
But Mark Lennan, at one of the little marble-topped tables, was in too
great maze and exaltation of spirit and of senses to be conscious of
its glare and babel, even of its beauty. He sat so very still that his
neighbours, with the instinctive aversion of the human creature to what
is too remote from its own mood, after one good stare, turned their eyes
away, as from something ludicrous, almost offensive.
He was lost, indeed, in memory of the minutes just gone by. For it had
come at last, after all these weeks of ferment, after all this strange
time of perturbation.
Very stealthily it had been creeping on him, ever since that chance
introduction nearly a year ago, soon after he settled down in
London, following those six years of Rome and Paris. First the merest
friendliness, because she was so nice about his work; then respectful
admiration, because she was so beautiful; then pity, because she was so
unhappy in her marriage. If she had been happy, he would have fled. The
knowledge that she had been unhappy long before he knew her had kept his
conscience still. And at last one afternoon she said: “Ah! if you come
out there too!” Marvelously subtle, the way that one little outslipped
saying had worked in him, as though it had a life of its own—like
a strange bird that had flown into the garden of his heart, and
established itself with its new song and flutterings, its new flight,
its wistful and ever clearer call. That and one moment, a few days later
in her London drawing-room, when he had told her that he WAS coming,
and she did not, could not, he felt, look at him. Queer, that nothing
momentous said, done—or even left undone—had altered all the future!
And so she had gone with her uncle and aunt, under whose wing one might
be sure she would meet with no wayward or exotic happenings. And he had
received from her this little letter:
“HOTEL COEUR D'OR, “MONTE CARLO. “MY DEAR MARK,
“We've arrived. It is so good to be in the sun. The flowers are
wonderful. I am keeping Gorbio and Roquebrune till you come.
“Your friend,
“OLIVE CRAMIER.”
That letter was the single clear memory he had of the time between her
going and his following. He received it one afternoon, sitting on an old
low garden wall with the spring sun shining on him through apple-trees
in blossom, and a feeling as if all the desire of the world lay before
him, and he had but to stretch out his arms to take it.
Then confused unrest, all things vague; till at the end of his journey
he stepped out of the train at Beaulieu with a furiously beating heart.
But why? Surely he had not expected her to come out from Monte Carlo to
meet him!
A week had gone by since then in one long effort to be with her and
appear to others as though he did not greatly wish to be; two concerts,
two walks with her alone, when all that he had said seemed as nothing
said, and all her sayings but ghosts of what he wished to hear; a week
of confusion, day and night, until, a few minutes ago, her handkerchief
had fallen from her glove on to the dusty road, and he had picked it up
and put it to his lips. Nothing could take away the look she had given
him then. Nothing could ever again separate her from him utterly. She
had confessed in it to the same sweet, fearful trouble that he himself
was feeling. She had not spoken, but he had seen her lips part, her
breast rise and fall. And HE had not spoken. What was the use of words?
He felt in the pocket of his coat. There, against his fingers, was that
wisp of lawn and lace, soft, yet somehow alive; and stealthily he took
it out. The whole of her, with her fragrance, seemed pressed to his face
in the touch of that lawn border, roughened by little white stars. More
secretly than ever he put it back; and for the first time looked round.
These people! They belonged to a world that he had left. They gave him
the same feeling that her uncle and aunt had given him just now, when
they said good-night, following her into their hotel. That good Colonel,
that good Mrs. Ercott! The very concretion of the world he had been
brought up in, of the English point of view; symbolic figures of health,
reason, and the straight path, on which at that moment, seemingly, he
had turned his back. The Colonel's profile, ruddy through its tan,
with grey moustache guiltless of any wax, his cheery, high-pitched:
“Good-night, young Lennan!” His wife's curly smile, her flat, cosy,
confidential voice—how strange and remote they had suddenly become! And
all these people here, chattering, drinking—how queer and far away! Or
was it just that he was queer and remote to them?
And getting up from his table, he passed the fiddlers with the
dark-white skins, out into the Place.
II
He went up the side streets to the back of her hotel, and stood by the
railings of the garden—one of those hotel gardens which exist but to
figure in advertisements, with its few arid palms, its paths staring
white between them, and a fringe of dusty lilacs and mimosas.
And there came to him the oddest feeling—that he had been there before,
peering through blossoms at those staring paths and shuttered windows.
A scent of wood-smoke was abroad, and some dry plant rustled ever so
faintly in what little wind was stirring. What was there of memory in
this night, this garden? Some dark sweet thing, invisible, to feel whose
presence was at once ecstasy, and the irritation of a thirst that will
not be quenched.
And he walked on. Houses, houses! At last he was away from them, alone
on the high road, beyond the limits of Monaco. And walking thus through
the night he had thoughts that he imagined no one had ever had before
him. The knowledge that she loved him had made everything seem very
sacred and responsible. Whatever he did, he must not harm her. Women
were so helpless!
For in spite of six years of art in Rome and Paris, he still had a
fastidious reverence for women. If she had loved her husband she would
have been safe enough from him; but to be bound to a companionship that
she gave unwillingly—this had seemed to him atrocious, even before
he loved her. How could any husband ask that? Have so little pride—so
little pity? The unpardonable thing! What was there to respect in such a
marriage? Only, he must not do her harm! But now that her eyes had said,
I love you!—What then? It was simply miraculous to know THAT, under
the stars of this warm Southern night, burning its incense of trees and
flowers!
Climbing up above the road, he lay down. If only she were there beside
him! The fragrance of the earth not yet chilled, crept to his face; and
for just a moment it seemed to him that she did come. If he could keep
her there for ever in that embrace that was no embrace—in that ghostly
rapture, on this wild fragrant bed that no lovers before had ever
pressed, save the creeping things, and the flowers; save sunlight and
moonlight with their shadows; and the wind kissing the earth! . . .
Then she was gone; his hands touched nothing but the crumbled pine dust,
and the flowers of the wild thyme fallen into sleep.
He stood on the edge of the little cliff, above the road between the
dark mountains and the sea black with depth. Too late for any passer-by;
as far from what men thought and said and did as the very night itself
with its whispering warmth. And he conjured up her face, making certain
of it—the eyes, clear and brown, and wide apart; the close, sweet mouth;
the dark hair; the whole flying loveliness.
Then he leaped down into the road, and ran—one could not walk, feeling
this miracle, that no one had ever felt before, the miracle of love.
III
In their most reputable hotel 'Le Coeur d'Or,' long since remodelled and
renamed, Mrs. Ercott lay in her brass-bound bed looking by starlight at
the Colonel in his brass-bound bed. Her ears were carefully freed
from the pressure of her pillow, for she thought she heard a mosquito.
Companion for thirty years to one whose life had been feverishly
punctuated by the attentions of those little beasts, she had no love
for them. It was the one subject on which perhaps her imagination was
stronger than her common sense. For in fact there was not, and could not
be, a mosquito, since the first thing the Colonel did, on arriving at
any place farther South than Parallel 46 of latitude, was to open the
windows very wide, and nail with many tiny tacks a piece of mosquito
netting across that refreshing space, while she held him firmly by the
coat-tails. The fact that other people did not so secure their windows
did not at all trouble the Colonel, a true Englishman, who loved to act
in his own way, and to think in the ways of other people. After that
they would wait till night came, then burn a peculiar little lamp with
a peculiar little smell, and, in the full glare of the gaslight,
stand about on chairs, with slippers, and their eyes fixed on true or
imaginary beasts. Then would fall little slaps, making little messes,
and little joyous or doleful cries would arise: “I've got that one!”
“Oh, John, I missed him!” And in the middle of the room, the Colonel, in
pyjamas, and spectacles (only worn in very solemn moments, low down on
his nose), would revolve slowly, turning his eyes, with that look in
them of out-facing death which he had so long acquired, on every inch
of wall and ceiling, till at last he would say: “Well, Dolly, that's the
lot!” At which she would say: “Give me a kiss, dear!” and he would kiss
her, and get into his bed.
There was, then, no mosquito, save that general ghost of him which
lingered in the mind of one devoted to her husband. Spying out his
profile, for he was lying on his back, she refrained from saying:
“John, are you awake?” A whiffling sound was coming from a nose, to
which—originally straight—attention to military duties had given a
slight crook, half an inch below the level of grizzled eyebrows raised a
little, as though surprised at the sounds beneath. She could hardly see
him, but she thought: “How good he looks!” And, in fact, he did. It was
the face of a man incapable of evil, having in its sleep the candour of
one at heart a child—that simple candour of those who have never known
how to seek adventures of the mind, and have always sought adventures of
the body. Then somehow she did say:
“John! Are you asleep?”
The Colonel, instantly alive, as at some old-time attack, answered:
“Yes.”
“That poor young man!”
“Which?”
“Mark Lennan. Haven't you seen?”
“What?”
“My dear, it was under your nose. But you never do see these things!”
The Colonel slowly turned his head. His wife was an imaginative woman!
She had always been so. Dimly he perceived that something romantic was
about to come from her. But with that almost professional gentleness
of a man who has cut the heads and arms off people in his time, he
answered:
“What things?”
“He picked up her handkerchief.”
“Whose?”
“Olive's. He put it in his pocket. I distinctly saw him.”
There was silence; then Mrs. Ercott's voice rose again, impersonal, far
away.
“What always astonishes me about young people is the way they think
they're not seen—poor dears!”
Still there was silence.
“John! Are you thinking?”
For a considerable sound of breathing, not mere whiffling now, was
coming from the Colonel—to his wife a sure sign.
And indeed he WAS thinking. Dolly was an imaginative woman, but
something told him that in this case she might not be riding past the
hounds.
Mrs. Ercott raised herself. He looked more good than ever; a little
perplexed frown had climbed up with his eyebrows and got caught in the
wrinkles across his forehead.
“I'm very fond of Olive,” he said.
Mrs. Ercott fell back on her pillows. In her heart there was just that
little soreness natural to a woman over fifty, whose husband has a
niece.
“No doubt,” she murmured.
Something vague moved deep down in the Colonel; he stretched out his
hand. In that strip of gloom between the beds it encountered another
hand, which squeezed it rather hard.
He said: “Look here, old girl!” and there was silence.
Mrs. Ercott in her turn was thinking. Her thoughts were flat and rapid
like her voice, but had that sort of sentiment which accompanies the
mental exercise of women with good hearts. Poor young man! And poor
Olive! But was a woman ever to be pitied, when she was so pretty as
that! Besides, when all was said and done, she had a fine-looking man
for husband; in Parliament, with a career, and fond of her—decidedly.
And their little house in London, so close to Westminster, was a
distinct dear; and nothing could be more charming than their cottage by
the river. Was Olive, then, to be pitied? And yet—she was not happy.
It was no good pretending that she was happy. All very well to say that
such things were within one's control, but if you read novels at all,
you knew they weren't. There was such a thing as incompatibility. Oh
yes! And there was the matter of difference in their ages! Olive was
twenty-six, Robert Cramier forty-two. And now this young Mark Lennan was
in love with her. What if she were in love with him! John would realize
then, perhaps, that the young flew to the young. For men—even the best,
like John, were funny! She would never dream of feeling for any of her
nephews as John clearly felt for Olive.
The Colonel's voice broke in on her thoughts.
“Nice young fellow—Lennan! Great pity! Better sheer off—if he's
getting—”
And, rather suddenly, she answered:
“Suppose he can't!”
“Can't?”
“Did you never hear of a 'grande passion'?”
The Colonel rose on his elbow. This was another of those occasions that
showed him how, during the later years of his service in Madras and
Upper Burmah, when Dolly's health had not been equal to the heat, she
had picked up in London a queer way of looking at things—as if they
were not—not so right or wrong as—as he felt them to be. And he repeated
those two French words in his own way, adding:
“Isn't that just what I'm saying? The sooner he stands clear, the
better.”
But Mrs. Ercott, too, sat up.
“Be human,” she said.
The Colonel experienced the same sensation as when one suddenly knows
that one is not digesting food. Because young Lennan was in danger of
getting into a dishonourable fix, he was told to be human! Really, Dolly
was—! The white blur of her new boudoir cap suddenly impinged on his
consciousness. Surely she was not getting—un-English! At her time of
life!
“I'm thinking of Olive,” he said; “I don't want her worried with that
sort of thing.”
“Perhaps Olive can manage for herself. In these days it doesn't do to
interfere with love.”
“Love!” muttered the Colonel. “What? Phew!”
If one's own wife called this—this sort of—thing, love—then, why had he
been faithful to her—in very hot climates—all these years? A sense of
waste, and of injustice, tried to rear its head against all the side
of him that attached certain meanings to certain words, and acted up
to them. And this revolt gave him a feeling, strange and so unpleasant.
Love! It was not a word to use thus loosely! Love led to marriage;
this could not lead to marriage, except through—the Divorce Court. And
suddenly the Colonel had a vision of his dead brother Lindsay,
Olive's father, standing there in the dark, with his grave, clear-cut,
ivory-pale face, under the black hair supposed to be derived from a
French ancestress who had escaped from the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Upright fellow always, Lindsay—even before he was made bishop! Queer
somehow that Olive should be his daughter. Not that she was not upright;
not at all! But she was soft! Lindsay was not! Imagine him seeing that
young fellow putting her handkerchief in his pocket. But had young
Lennan really done such a thing? Dolly was imaginative! He had mistaken
it probably for his own; if he had chanced to blow his nose, he would
have realized. For, coupled with the almost child-like candour of
his mind, the Colonel had real administrative vigour, a true sense of
practical values; an ounce of illustration was always worth to him a
pound of theory! Dolly was given to riding off on theories. Thank God!
she never acted on 'em!
He said gently:
“My dear! Young Lennan may be an artist and all that, but he's a
gentleman! I know old Heatherley, his guardian. Why I introduced him to
Olive myself!”
“What has that to do with it? He's in love with her.”
One of the countless legion that hold a creed taken at face value, into
whose roots and reasons they have never dreamed of going, the Colonel
was staggered. Like some native on an island surrounded by troubled
seas, which he has stared at with a certain contemptuous awe all his
life, but never entered, he was disconcerted by thus being asked to
leave the shore. And by his own wife!
Indeed, Mrs. Ercott had not intended to go so far; but there was in
her, as in all women whose minds are more active than their husbands',
a something worrying her always to go a little farther than she meant.
With real compunction she heard the Colonel say:
“I must get up and drink some water.”
She was out of bed in a moment. “Not without boiling!”
She had seriously troubled him, then! Now he would not sleep—the blood
went to his head so quickly. He would just lie awake, trying not to
disturb her. She could not bear him not to disturb her. It seemed so
selfish of her! She ought to have known that the whole subject was too
dangerous to discuss at night.
She became conscious that he was standing just behind her; his figure in
its thin covering looked very lean, his face strangely worn.
“I'm sorry you put that idea into my head!” he said. “I'm fond of
Olive.”
Again Mrs. Ercott felt that jealous twinge, soon lost this time in
the motherliness of a childless woman for her husband. He must not be
troubled! He should not be troubled. And she said:
“The water's boiling! Now sip a good glass slowly, and get into bed, or
I'll take your temperature!”
Obediently the Colonel took from her the glass, and as he sipped, she
put her hand up and stroked his head.
IV
In the room below them the subject of their discussion was lying very
wide awake. She knew that she had betrayed herself, made plain to
Mark Lennan what she had never until now admitted to herself. But the
love-look, which for the life of her she could not keep back, had been
followed by a feeling of having 'lost caste.' For, hitherto, the world
of women had been strictly divided by her into those who did and those
who did not do such things; and to be no longer quite sure to which
half she belonged was frightening. But what was the good of thinking, of
being frightened?—it could not lead to anything. Yesterday she had
not known this would come; and now she could not guess at to-morrow!
To-night was enough! To-night with its swimming loveliness! Just to
feel! To love, and to be loved!
A new sensation for her—as different from those excited by the
courtships of her girlhood, or by her marriage, as light from darkness.
For she had never been in love, not even with her husband. She knew
it now. The sun was shining in a world where she had thought there was
none. Nothing could come of it. But the sun was shining; and in that
sunshine she must warm herself a little.
Quite simply she began to plan what he and she would do. There were six
days left. They had not yet been to Gorbio, nor to Castellar—none of
those long walks or rides they had designed to do for the beauty of
them. Would he come early to-morrow? What could they do together? No one
should know what these six days would be to her—not even he. To be with
him, watch his face, hear his voice, and now and then just touch him!
She could trust herself to show no one. And then, it would be—over!
Though, of course, she would see him again in London.
And, lying there in the dark, she thought of their first meeting, one
Sunday morning, in Hyde Park. The Colonel religiously observed Church
Parade, and would even come all the way down to Westminster, from his
flat near Knightsbridge, in order to fetch his niece up to it. She
remembered how, during their stroll, he had stopped suddenly in front of
an old gentleman with a puffy yellow face and eyes half open.
“Ah! Mr. Heatherley—you up from Devonshire? How's your
nephew—the—er—sculptor?”
And the old gentleman, glaring a little, as it seemed to her, from
under his eyelids and his grey top hat, had answered: “Colonel Ercott,
I think? Here's the fellow himself—Mark!” And a young man had taken
off his hat. She had only noticed at first that his dark hair grew—not
long—but very thick; and that his eyes were very deep-set. Then she saw
him smile; it made his face all eager, yet left it shy; and she decided
that he was nice. Soon after, she had gone with the Ercotts to see his
'things'; for it was, of course, and especially in those days, quite an
event to know a sculptor—rather like having a zebra in your park.
The Colonel had been delighted and a little relieved to find that the
'things' were nearly all of beasts and birds. “Very interestin'” to one
full of curious lore about such, having in his time killed many of them,
and finding himself at the end of it with a curious aversion to killing
any more—which he never put into words.
Acquaintanceship had ripened fast after that first visit to his studio,
and now it was her turn to be relieved that Mark Lennan devoted himself
almost entirely to beasts and birds instead of to the human form,
so-called divine. Ah! yes—she would have suffered; now that she loved
him, she saw that. At all events she could watch his work and help it
with sympathy. That could not be wrong....
She fell asleep at last, and dreamed that she was in a boat alone on the
river near her country cottage, drifting along among spiky flowers
like asphodels, with birds singing and flying round her. She could move
neither face nor limbs, but that helpless feeling was not unpleasant,
till she became conscious that she was drawing nearer and nearer to
what was neither water nor land, light nor darkness, but simply some
unutterable feeling. And then she saw, gazing at her out of the rushes
on the banks, a great bull head. It moved as she moved—it was on both
sides of her, yet all the time only one head. She tried to raise her
hands and cover her eyes, but could not—and woke with a sob.... It was
light.
Nearly six o'clock already! Her dream made her disinclined to trust
again to sleep. Sleep was a robber now—of each minute of these few days!
She got up, and looked out. The morning was fine, the air warm already,
sweet with dew, and heliotrope nailed to the wall outside her window.
She had but to open her shutters and walk into the sun. She dressed,
took her sunshade, stealthily slipped the shutters back, and stole
forth. Shunning the hotel garden, where the eccentricity of her early
wandering might betray the condition of her spirit, she passed through
into the road toward the Casino. Without perhaps knowing it, she was
making for where she had sat with him yesterday afternoon, listening
to the band. Hatless, but defended by her sunshade, she excited the
admiration of the few connoisseurs as yet abroad, strolling in blue
blouses to their labours; and this simple admiration gave her pleasure.
For once she was really conscious of the grace in her own limbs,
actually felt the gentle vividness of her own face, with its nearly
black hair and eyes, and creamy skin—strange sensation, and very
comforting!
In the Casino gardens she walked more slowly, savouring the aromatic
trees, and stopping to bend and look at almost every flower; then, on
the seat, where she had sat with him yesterday, she rested. A few paces
away were the steps that led to the railway-station, trodden upwards
eagerly by so many, day after day, night after night, and lightly or
sorrowfully descended. Above her, two pines, a pepper-tree, and a palm
mingled their shade—so fantastic the jumbling of trees and souls in this
strange place! She furled her sunshade and leaned back. Her gaze,
free and friendly, passed from bough to bough. Against the bright sky,
unbesieged as yet by heat or dust, they had a spiritual look, lying
sharp and flat along the air. She plucked a cluster of pinkish berries
from the pepper-tree, crushing and rubbing them between her hands to
get their fragrance. All these beautiful and sweet things seemed to be a
part of her joy at being loved, part of this sudden summer in her heart.
The sky, the flowers, that jewel of green-blue sea, the bright acacias,
were nothing in the world but love.
And those few who passed, and saw her sitting there under the
pepper-tree, wondered no doubt at the stillness of this dame bien mise,
who had risen so early.
V
In the small hours, which so many wish were smaller, the Colonel had
awakened, with the affair of the handkerchief swelling visibly. His
niece's husband was not a man that he had much liking for—a taciturn
fellow, with possibly a bit of the brute in him, a man who rather rode
people down; but, since Dolly and he were in charge of Olive, the notion
that young Lennan was falling in love with her under their very noses
was alarming to one naturally punctilious. It was not until he fell
asleep again, and woke in full morning light, that the remedy occurred
to him. She must be taken out of herself! Dolly and he had been slack;
too interested in this queer place, this queer lot of people! They had
neglected her, left her to. . . Boys and girls!—One ought always to
remember. But it was not too late. She was old Lindsay's daughter; would
not forget herself. Poor old Lindsay—fine fellow; bit too much, perhaps,
of the—Huguenot in him! Queer, those throw-backs! Had noticed in horses,
time and again—white hairs about the tail, carriage of the head—skip
generations and then pop out. And Olive had something of his look—the
same ivory skin, same colour of eyes and hair! Only she was not severe,
like her father, not exactly! And once more there shot through the
Colonel a vague dread, as of a trusteeship neglected. It disappeared,
however, in his bath.
He was out before eight o'clock, a thin upright figure in hard straw hat
and grey flannel clothes, walking with the indescribable loose poise
of the soldier Englishman, with that air, different from the French,
German, what not, because of shoulders ever asserting, through their
drill, the right to put on mufti; with that perfectly quiet and modest
air of knowing that, whatever might be said, there was only one way
of wearing clothes and moving legs. And, as he walked, he smoothed his
drooping grey moustache, considering how best to take his niece out of
herself. He passed along by the Terrace, and stood for a moment looking
down at the sea beyond the pigeon-shooting ground. Then he moved on
round under the Casino into the gardens at the back. A beautiful spot!
Wonderful care they had taken with the plants! It made him think
a little of Tushawore, where his old friend the Rajah—precious old
rascal!—had gardens to his palace rather like these. He paced again to
the front. It was nice and quiet in the early mornings, with the sea
down there, and nobody trying to get the better of anybody else. There
were fellows never happy unless they were doing someone in the eye. He
had known men who would ride at the devil himself, make it a point
of honour to swindle a friend out of a few pounds! Odd place this
'Monte'—sort of a Garden of Eden gone wrong. And all the real, but quite
inarticulate love of Nature, which had supported the Colonel through
deserts and jungles, on transports at sea, and in mountain camps,
awoke in the sweetness of these gardens. His dear mother! He had never
forgotten the words with which she had shown him the sunset through the
coppice down at old Withes Norton, when he was nine years old: “That
is beauty, Jack! Do you feel it, darling?” He had not felt it at the
time—not he; a thick-headed, scampering youngster. Even when he first
went to India he had had no eye for a sunset. The rising generation
were different. That young couple, for instance, under the pepper-tree,
sitting there without a word, just looking at the trees. How long, he
wondered, had they been sitting like that? And suddenly something in the
Colonel leaped; his steel-coloured eyes took on their look of out-facing
death. Choking down a cough, he faced about, back to where he had stood
above the pigeon-shooting ground.... Olive and that young fellow!
An assignation! At this time in the morning! The earth reeled. His
brother's child—his favourite niece! The woman whom he most admired—the
woman for whom his heart was softest. Leaning over the stone parapet, no
longer seeing either the smooth green of the pigeon-shooting ground, or
the smooth blue of the sea beyond, he was moved, distressed, bewildered
beyond words. Before breakfast! That was the devil of it! Confession,
as it were, of everything. Moreover, he had seen their hands touching on
the seat. The blood rushed up to his face; he had seen, spied out, what
was not intended for his eyes. Nice position—that! Dolly, too, last
night, had seen. But that was different. Women might see things—it
was expected of them. But for a man—a—a gentleman! The fullness of his
embarrassment gradually disclosed itself. His hands were tied. Could he
even consult Dolly? He had a feeling of isolation, of utter solitude.
Nobody—not anybody in the world—could understand his secret and intense
discomfort. To take up a position—the position he was bound to take up,
as Olive's nearest relative and protector, and—what was it—chaperon,
by the aid of knowledge come at in such a way, however unintentionally!
Never in all his days in the regiment—and many delicate matters
affecting honour had come his way—had he had a thing like this to deal
with. Poor child! But he had no business to think of her like that. No,
indeed! She had not behaved—as—And there he paused, curiously unable to
condemn her. Suppose they got up and came that way!
He took his hands off the stone parapet, and made for his hotel. His
palms were white from the force of his grip. He said to himself as he
went along: “I must consider the whole question calmly; I must think it
out.” This gave him relief. With young Lennan, at all events, he
could be angry. But even there he found, to his dismay, no finality
of judgment. And this absence of finality, so unwonted, distressed him
horribly. There was something in the way the young man had been sitting
there beside her—so quiet, so almost timid—that had touched him. This
was bad, by Jove—very bad! The two of them, they made, somehow, a nice
couple! Confound it! This would not do! The chaplain of the little
English church, passing at this moment, called out, “Fine morning,
Colonel Ercott.” The Colonel saluted, and did not answer. The greeting
at the moment seemed to him paltry. No morning could be fine that
contained such a discovery. He entered the hotel, passed into the
dining-room, and sat down. Nobody was there. They all had their
breakfast upstairs, even Dolly. Olive alone was in the habit of
supporting him while he ate an English breakfast. And suddenly he
perceived that he was face to face already with this dreadful situation.
To have breakfast without, as usual, waiting for her, seemed too
pointed. She might be coming in at any minute now. To wait for her, and
have it, without showing anything—how could he do that?
He was conscious of a faint rustling behind him. There she was, and
nothing decided. In this moment of hopeless confusion the Colonel acted
by pure instinct, rose, patted her cheek, and placed a chair.
“Well, my dear,” he said; “hungry?”
She was looking very dainty, very soft. That creamy dress showed off
her dark hair and eyes, which seemed somehow to be—flying off somewhere;
yes—it was queer, but that was the only way to put it. He got no
reassurance, no comfort, from the sight of her. And slowly he stripped
the skin from the banana with which he always commenced breakfast. One
might just as well be asked to shoot a tame dove or tear a pretty flower
to pieces as be expected to take her to task, even if he could, in
honour. And he sought refuge in the words:
“Been out?” Then could have bitten his tongue off. Suppose she answered:
“No.”
But she did not so answer. The colour came into her cheeks, indeed, but
she nodded: “It's so lovely!”
How pretty she looked saying that! He had put himself out of court
now—could never tell her what he had seen, after setting, as it were,
that trap for her; and presently he asked:
“Got any plans to-day?”
She answered, without flinching in the least:
“Mark Lennan and I were going to take mules from Mentone up to Gorbio.”
He was amazed at her steadiness—never, to his knowledge, having
encountered a woman armoured at every point to preserve a love that
flies against the world. How tell what was under her smile! And in
confusion of feeling that amounted almost to pain he heard her say:
“Will you and Aunt Dolly come?”
Between sense of trusteeship and hatred of spoiling sport; between
knowledge of the danger she was in and half-pitying admiration at the
sight of her; between real disapproval of an illicit and underhand
business (what else was it, after all?) and some dim perception that
here was something he did not begin to be able to fathom—something that
perhaps no one but those two themselves could deal with—between these
various extremes he was lost indeed. And he stammered out:
“I must ask your aunt; she's—she's not very good on a mule.”
Then, in an impulse of sheer affection, he said with startling
suddenness: “My dear, I've often meant to ask, are you happy at home?”
“At home?”
There was something sinister about the way she repeated that, as if the
word “home” were strange to her.
She drank her coffee and got up; and the Colonel felt afraid of her,
standing there—afraid of what she was going to tell him. He grew very
red. But, worse than all, she said absolutely nothing; only shrugged her
shoulders with a little smile that went to his heart.
VI
On the wild thyme, under the olives below the rock village of Gorbio,
with their mules cropping at a little distance, those two sat after
their lunch, listening to the cuckoos. Since their uncanny chance
meeting that morning in the gardens, when they sat with their hands just
touching, amazed and elated by their own good fortune, there was not
much need to say what they felt, to break with words this rapture of
belonging to each other—so shyly, so wildly, so, as it were, without
reality. They were like epicures with old wine in their glasses, not yet
tired of its fragrance and the spell of anticipation.
And so their talk was not of love, but, in that pathetic way of
star-crossed lovers, of the things they loved; leaving out—each other.
It was the telling of her dream that brought the words from him at last;
but she drew away, and answered:
“It can't—it mustn't be!”
Then he just clung to her hand; and presently, seeing that her eyes were
wet, took courage enough to kiss her cheek.
Trembling and fugitive indeed that first passage of their love. Not much
of the conquering male in him, nor in her of the ordinary enchantress.
And then they went, outwardly sober enough, riding their mules down the
stony slopes back to Mentone.
But in the grey, dusty railway-carriage when she had left him, he was
like a man drugged, staring at where she had sat opposite.
Two hours later, at dinner in her hotel, between her and Mrs. Ercott,
with the Colonel opposite, he knew for the first time what he was faced
with. To watch every thought that passed within him, lest it should by
the slightest sign betray him; to regulate and veil every look and every
word he spoke to her; never for a second to forget that these other
persons were actual and dangerous, not merely the insignificant and
grotesque shadows that they seemed. It would be perhaps for ever a part
of his love for her to seem not to love her. He did not dare dream of
fulfilment. He was to be her friend, and try to bring her happiness—burn
and long for her, and not think about reward. This was his first real
overwhelming passion—so different to the loves of spring—and he brought
to it all that naivete, that touching quality of young Englishmen, whose
secret instinct it is to back away from the full nature of love, even
from admitting that it has that nature. They two were to love, and—not
to love! For the first time he understood a little of what that meant. A
few stolen adoring minutes now and then, and, for the rest, the presence
of a world that must be deceived. Already he had almost a hatred of that
orderly, brown-faced Colonel, with his eyes that looked so steady
and saw nothing; of that flat, kindly lady, who talked so pleasantly
throughout dinner, saying things that he had to answer without knowing
what they signified. He realized, with a sense of shock, that he was
deprived of all interests in life but one; not even his work had any
meaning apart from HER. It lit no fire within him to hear Mrs. Ercott
praise certain execrable pictures in the Royal Academy, which she had
religiously visited the day before leaving home. And as the interminable
meal wore on, he began even to feel grief and wonder that Olive could
be so smiling, so gay, and calm; so, as it seemed to him, indifferent to
this intolerable impossibility of exchanging even one look of love. Did
she really love him—could she love him, and show not one little sign
of it? And suddenly he felt her foot touch his own. It was the faintest
sidelong, supplicating pressure, withdrawn at once, but it said: 'I know
what you are suffering; I, too, but I love you.' Characteristically, he
felt that it cost her dear to make use of that little primitive device
of common loves; the touch awoke within him only chivalry. He would
burn for ever sooner than cause her the pain of thinking that he was not
happy.
After dinner, they sat out on a balcony. The stars glowed above the
palms; a frog was croaking. He managed to draw his chair so that he
could look at her unseen. How deep, and softly dark her eyes, when for
a second they rested on his! A moth settled on her knee—a cunning little
creature, with its hooded, horned owl's face, and tiny black slits of
eyes! Would it have come so confidingly to anyone but her? The Colonel
knew its name—he had collected it. Very common, he said. The interest in
it passed; but Lennan stayed, bent forward, gazing at that silk-covered
knee.
The voice of Mrs. Ercott, sharper than its wont, said: “What day does
Robert say he wants you back, my dear?”
He managed to remain gazing at the moth, even to take it gently from her
knee, while he listened to her calm answer.
“Tuesday, I believe.”
Then he got up, and let the moth fly into the darkness; his hands and
lips were trembling, and he was afraid of their being seen. He had never
known, had not dreamed, of such a violent, sick feeling. That this man
could thus hale her home at will! It was grotesque, fantastic, awful,
but—it was true! Next Tuesday she would journey back away from him to be
again at the mercy of her Fate! The pain of this thought made him grip
the railing, and grit his teeth, to keep himself from crying out. And
another thought came to him: I shall have to go about with this feeling,
day and night, and keep it secret.
They were saying good-night; and he had to smirk and smile, and
pretend—to her above all—that he was happy, and he could see that she
knew it was pretence.
Then he was alone, with the feeling that he had failed her at the first
shot; torn, too, between horror of what he suddenly saw before him, and
longing to be back in her presence at any cost.... And all this on the
day of that first kiss which had seemed to him to make her so utterly
his own.
He sat down on a bench facing the Casino. Neither the lights, nor
the people passing in and out, not even the gipsy bandsmen's music,
distracted his thoughts for a second. Could it be less than twenty-four
hours since he had picked up her handkerchief, not thirty yards away?
In that twenty-four hours he seemed to have known every emotion that man
could feel. And in all the world there was now not one soul to whom he
could speak his real thoughts—not even to her, because from her, beyond
all, he must keep at any cost all knowledge of his unhappiness. So
this was illicit love—as it was called! Loneliness, and torture! Not
jealousy—for her heart was his; but amazement, outrage, fear. Endless
lonely suffering! And nobody, if they knew, would care, or pity him one
jot!
Was there really, then, as the ancients thought, a Daemon that liked to
play with men, as men liked to stir an earwig and turn it over and put a
foot on it in the end?
He got up and made his way towards the railway-station. There was the
bench where she had been sitting when he came on her that very morning.
The stars in their courses had seemed to fight for them then; but
whether for joy he no longer knew. And there on the seat were still the
pepper berries she had crushed and strewn. He broke off another bunch
and bruised them. That scent was the ghost of sacred minutes when her
hand lay against his own. The stars in their courses—for joy or sorrow!
VII
There was no peace now for Colonel and Mrs. Ercott. They felt themselves
conspirators, and of conspiracy they had never had the habit. Yet how
could they openly deal with anxieties which had arisen solely from what
they had chanced secretly to see? What was not intended for one's eyes
and ears did not exist; no canon of conduct could be quite so sacred.
As well defend the opening of another person's letters as admit the
possibility of making use of adventitious knowledge. So far tradition,
and indeed character, made them feel at one, and conspire freely. But
they diverged on a deeper plane. Mrs. Ercott had SAID, indeed, that here
was something which could not be controlled; the Colonel had FELT it—a
very different thing! Less tolerant in theory, he was touched at
heart; Mrs. Ercott, in theory almost approving—she read that dangerous
authoress, George Eliot—at heart felt cold towards her husband's niece.
For these reasons they could not in fact conspire without, in the end,
saying suddenly: “Well, it's no good talking about it!” and almost at
once beginning to talk about it again.
In proposing to her that mule, the Colonel had not had time, or, rather,
not quite conviction enough as to his line of action, to explain so
immediately the new need for her to sit upon it. It was only when, to
his somewhat strange relief, she had refused the expedition, and
Olive had started without them, that he told her of the meeting in the
Gardens, of which he had been witness. She then said at once that if she
had known she would, of course, have put up with anything in order to
go; not because she approved of interfering, but because they must think
of Robert! And the Colonel had said: “D—n the fellow!” And there the
matter had rested for the moment, for both of them were, wondering
a little which fellow it was that he had damned. That indeed was the
trouble. If the Colonel had not cared so much about his niece, and had
liked, instead of rather disliking Cramier; if Mrs. Ercott had not found
Mark Lennan a 'nice boy,' and had not secretly felt her husband's niece
rather dangerous to her peace of mind; if, in few words, those three had
been puppets made of wood and worked by law, it would have been so
much simpler for all concerned. It was the discovery that there was
a personal equation in such matters, instead of just a simple rule of
three, which disorganized the Colonel and made him almost angry; which
depressed Mrs. Ercott and made her almost silent.... These two good
souls had stumbled on a problem which has divided the world from birth.
Shall cases be decided on their individual merits, or according to
formal codes?
Beneath an appearance and a vocabulary more orthodox than ever, the
Colonel's allegiance to Authority and the laws of Form was really
shaken; he simply could not get out of his head the sight of those two
young people sitting side by side, nor the tone of Olive's voice, when
she had repeated his regrettable words about happiness at home.
If only the thing had not been so human! If only she had been someone
else's niece, it would clearly have been her duty to remain unhappy. As
it was, the more he thought, the less he knew what to think. A man who
had never had any balance to speak of at his bank, and from the nomadic
condition of his life had no exaggerated feeling for a settled
social status—deeming Society in fact rather a bore—he did not unduly
exaggerate the worldly dangers of this affair; neither did he honestly
believe that she would burn in everlasting torment if she did not
succeed in remaining true to 'that great black chap,' as he secretly
called Cramier. His feeling was simply that it was an awful pity; a sort
of unhappy conviction that it was not like the women of his family to
fall upon such ways; that his dead brother would turn in his grave; in
two words that it was 'not done.' Yet he was by no means of those who,
giving latitude to women in general, fall with whips on those of their
own family who take it. On the contrary, believing that 'Woman in
general' should be stainless to the world's eye, he was inclined to make
allowance for any individual woman that he knew and loved. A suspicion
he had always entertained, that Cramier was not by breeding 'quite the
clean potato' may insensibly have influenced him just a little. He had
heard indeed that he was not even entitled to the name of Cramier, but
had been adopted by a childless man, who had brought him up and left him
a lot of money. There was something in this that went against the grain
of the childless Colonel. He had never adopted, nor been adopted by
anyone himself. There was a certain lack about a man who had been
adopted, of reasonable guarantee—he was like a non-vintage wine, or a
horse without a pedigree; you could not quite rely on what he might
do, having no tradition in his blood. His appearance, too, and
manner somehow lent colour to this distrust. A touch of the tar-brush
somewhere, and a stubborn, silent, pushing fellow. Why on earth had
Olive ever married him! But then women were such kittle cattle, poor
things! and old Lindsay, with his vestments and his views on obedience,
must have been a Tartar as a father, poor old chap! Besides, Cramier, no
doubt, was what most women would call good-looking; more taking to the
eye than such a quiet fellow as young Lennan, whose features were rather
anyhow, though pleasant enough, and with a nice smile—the sort of young
man one could not help liking, and who certainly would never hurt a
fly! And suddenly there came the thought: Why should he not go to young
Lennan and put it to him straight? That he was in love with Olive? Not
quite—but the way to do it would come to him. He brooded long over this
idea, and spoke of it to Mrs. Ercott, while shaving, the next morning.
Her answer: “My dear John, bosh!” removed his last doubt.
Without saying where he was going, he strolled out the moment after
breakfast—and took a train to Beaulieu. At the young man's hotel he sent
in his card, and was told that this Monsieur had already gone out for
the day. His mood of marching straight up to the guns thus checked, he
was left pensive and distraught. Not having seen Beaulieu (they spoke
of it then as a coming place), he made his way up an incline. That whole
hillside was covered with rose-trees. Thousands of these flowers were
starring the lower air, and the strewn petals of blown and fallen roses
covered the light soil. The Colonel put his nose to blossoms here and
there, but they had little scent, as if they knew that the season was
already over. A few blue-bloused peasants were still busy among them.
And suddenly he came on young Lennan himself, sitting on a stone and
dabbing away with his fingers at a lump of putty stuff. The Colonel
hesitated. Apart from obvious reasons for discomfiture, he had that
feeling towards Art common to so many of his caste. It was not work, of
course, but it was very clever—a mystery to him how anyone could do it!
On seeing him, Lennan had risen, dropping his handkerchief over what he
was modelling—but not before the Colonel had received a dim impression
of something familiar. The young man was very red—the Colonel, too, was
conscious suddenly of the heat. He held out his hand.
“Nice quiet place this,” he stammered; “never seen it before. I called
at your hotel.”
Now that he had his chance, he was completely at a loss. The sight of
the face emerging from that lump of 'putty stuff' had quite unnerved
him. The notion of this young man working at it up here all by himself,
just because he was away an hour or two from the original, touched him.
How on earth to say what he had come to say? It was altogether different
from what he had thought. And it suddenly flashed through him—Dolly was
right! She's always right—hang it!
“You're busy,” he said; “I mustn't interrupt you.”
“Not at all, sir. It was awfully good of you to look me up.”
The Colonel stared. There was something about young Lennan that he had
not noticed before; a 'Don't take liberties with me!' look that made
things difficult. But still he lingered, staring wistfully at the young
man, who stood waiting with such politeness. Then a safe question shot
into his mind:
“Ah! And when do you go back to England? We're off on Tuesday.”
While he spoke, a puff of wind lifted the handkerchief from the modelled
face. Would the young fellow put it back? He did not. And the Colonel
thought:
“It would have been bad form. He knew I wouldn't take advantage. Yes!
He's a gentleman!”
Lifting his hand to the salute, he said: “Well, I must be getting back.
See you at dinner perhaps?” And turning on his heel he marched away.
The remembrance of that face in the 'putty stuff' up there by the side
of the road accompanied him home. It was bad—it was serious! And the
sense that he counted for nothing in all of it grew and grew in him. He
told no one of where he had been....
When the Colonel turned with ceremony and left him, Lennan sat down
again on the flat stone, took up his 'putty stuff,' and presently
effaced that image. He sat still a long time, to all appearance watching
the little blue butterflies playing round the red and tawny roses. Then
his fingers began to work, feverishly shaping a head; not of a man, not
of a beast, but a sort of horned, heavy mingling of the two. There was
something frenetic in the movement of those rather short, blunt-ended
fingers, as though they were strangling the thing they were creating.
VIII
In those days, such as had served their country travelled, as befitted
Spartans, in ordinary first-class carriages, and woke in the morning at
La Roche or some strange-sounding place, for paler coffee and the
pale brioche. So it was with Colonel and Mrs. Ercott and their niece,
accompanied by books they did not read, viands they did not eat, and one
somnolent Irishman returning from the East. In the disposition of legs
there was the usual difficulty, no one quite liking to put them up, and
all ultimately doing so, save Olive. More than once during that night
the Colonel, lying on the seat opposite, awoke and saw her sitting,
withdrawn into her corner, with eyes still open. Staring at that little
head which he admired so much, upright and unmoving, in its dark straw
toque against the cushion, he would become suddenly alert. Kicking
the Irishman slightly in the effort, he would slip his legs down, bend
across to her in the darkness, and, conscious of a faint fragrance as of
violets, whisper huskily: “Anything I can do for you, my dear?” When she
had smiled and shaken her head, he would retreat, and after holding his
breath to see if Dolly were asleep, would restore his feet, slightly
kicking the Irishman. After one such expedition, for full ten minutes he
remained awake, wondering at her tireless immobility. For indeed she was
spending this night entranced, with the feeling that Lennan was beside
her, holding her hand in his. She seemed actually to feel the touch
of his finger against the tiny patch of her bare palm where the glove
opened. It was wonderful, this uncanny communion in the dark rushing
night—she would not have slept for worlds! Never before had she felt
so close to him, not even when he had kissed her that once under the
olives; nor even when at the concert yesterday his arm pressed hers;
and his voice whispered words she heard so thirstily. And that
golden fortnight passed and passed through her on an endless band of
reminiscence. Its memories were like flowers, such scent and warmth and
colour in them; and of all, none perhaps quite so poignant as the memory
of the moment, at the door of their carriage, when he said, so low that
she just heard: “Good-bye, my darling!”
He had never before called her that. Not even his touch on her cheek
under the olives equalled the simple treasure of that word. And above
the roar and clatter of the train, and the snoring of the Irishman,
it kept sounding in her ears, hour after dark hour. It was perhaps not
wonderful, that through all that night she never once looked the future
in the face—made no plans, took no stock of her position; just yielded
to memory, and to the half-dreamed sensation of his presence close
beside her. Whatever might come afterwards, she was his this night. Such
was the trance that gave to her the strange, soft, tireless immobility
which so moved her Uncle whenever he woke up.
In Paris they drove from station to station in a vehicle unfit for
three—'to stretch their legs'—as the Colonel said. Since he saw in his
niece no signs of flagging, no regret, his spirits were rising, and he
confided to Mrs. Ercott in the buffet at the Gare du Nord, when Olive
had gone to wash, that he did not think there was much in it, after all,
looking at the way she'd travelled.
But Mrs. Ercott answered:
“Haven't you ever noticed that Olive never shows what she does not want
to? She has not got those eyes for nothing.”
“What eyes?”
“Eyes that see everything, and seem to see nothing.”
Conscious that something was hurting her, the Colonel tried to take her
hand.
But Mrs. Ercott rose quickly, and went where he could not follow.
Thus suddenly deserted, the Colonel brooded, drumming on the little
table. What now! Dolly was unjust! Poor Dolly! He was as fond of her as
ever! Of course! How could he help Olive's being young—and pretty; how
could he help looking after her, and wanting to save her from this mess!
Thus he sat wondering, dismayed by the unreasonableness of women. It did
not enter his head that Mrs. Ercott had been almost as sleepless as
his niece, watching through closed eyes every one of those little
expeditions of his, and saying to herself: “Ah! He doesn't care how I
travel!”
She returned serene enough, concealing her 'grief,' and soon they were
once more whirling towards England.
But the future had begun to lay its hand on Olive; the spell of the past
was already losing power; the sense that it had all been a dream grew
stronger every minute. In a few hours she would re-enter the little
house close under the shadow of that old Wren church, which reminded her
somehow of childhood, and her austere father with his chiselled face.
The meeting with her husband! How go through that! And to-night! But she
did not care to contemplate to-night. And all those to-morrows wherein
there was nothing she had to do of which it was reasonable to complain,
yet nothing she could do without feeling that all the friendliness
and zest and colour was out of life, and she a prisoner. Into those
to-morrows she felt she would slip back, out of her dream; lost, with
hardly perhaps an effort. To get away to the house on the river, where
her husband came only at weekends, had hitherto been a refuge; only she
would not see Mark there—unless—! Then, with the thought that she would,
must still see him sometimes, all again grew faintly glamorous. If
only she did see him, what would the rest matter? Never again as it had
before!
The Colonel was reaching down her handbag; his cheery: “Looks as if it
would be rough!” aroused her. Glad to be alone, and tired enough now,
she sought the ladies' cabin, and slept through the crossing, till the
voice of the old stewardess awakened her: “You've had a nice sleep.
We're alongside, miss.” Ah! if she were but THAT now! She had been
dreaming that she was sitting in a flowery field, and Lennan had drawn
her up by the hands, with the words: “We're here, my darling!”
On deck, the Colonel, laden with bags, was looking back for her, and
trying to keep a space between him and his wife. He signalled with his
chin. Threading her way towards him, she happened to look up. By the
rails of the pier above she saw her husband. He was leaning there,
looking intently down; his tall broad figure made the people on each
side of him seem insignificant. The clean-shaved, square-cut face, with
those almost epileptic, forceful eyes, had a stillness and intensity
beside which the neighbouring faces seemed to disappear. She saw him
very clearly, even noting the touch of silver in his dark hair, on each
side under his straw hat; noting that he seemed too massive for his
neat blue suit. His face relaxed; he made a little movement of one hand.
Suddenly it shot through her: Suppose Mark had travelled with them, as
he had wished to do? For ever and ever now, that dark massive creature,
smiling down at her, was her enemy; from whom she must guard and keep
herself if she could; keep, at all events, each one of her real thoughts
and hopes! She could have writhed, and cried out; instead, she tightened
her grip on the handle of her bag, and smiled. Though so skilled in
knowledge of his moods, she felt, in his greeting, his fierce grip of
her shoulders, the smouldering of some feeling the nature of which she
could not quite fathom. His voice had a grim sincerity: “Glad you're
back—thought you were never coming!” Resigned to his charge, a feeling
of sheer physical faintness so beset her that she could hardly reach
the compartment he had reserved. It seemed to her that, for all her
foreboding, she had not till this moment had the smallest inkling of
what was now before her; and at his muttered: “Must we have the old
fossils in?” she looked back to assure herself that her Uncle and Aunt
were following. To avoid having to talk, she feigned to have travelled
badly, leaning back with closed eyes, in her corner. If only she could
open them and see, not this square-jawed face with its intent gaze of
possession, but that other with its eager eyes humbly adoring her. The
interminable journey ended all too soon. She clung quite desperately to
the Colonel's hand on the platform at Charing Cross. When his kind face
vanished she would be lost indeed! Then, in the closed cab, she heard
her husband's: “Aren't you going to kiss me?” and submitted to his
embrace.
She tried so hard to think: What does it matter? It's not I, not my
soul, my spirit—only my miserable lips!
She heard him say: “You don't seem too glad to see me!” And then: “I
hear you had young Lennan out there. What was HE doing?”
She felt the turmoil of sudden fear, wondered whether she was showing
it, lost it in unnatural alertness—all in the second before she
answered: “Oh! just a holiday.”
Some seconds passed, and then he said:
“You didn't mention him in your letters.”
She answered coolly: “Didn't I? We saw a good deal of him.”
She knew that he was looking at her—an inquisitive, half-menacing
regard. Why—oh, why!—could she not then and there cry out: “And I love
him—do you hear?—I love him!” So awful did it seem to be denying her
love with these half lies! But it was all so much more grim and hopeless
than even she had thought. How inconceivable, now, that she had ever
given herself up to this man for life! If only she could get away from
him to her room, and scheme and think! For his eyes never left her,
travelling over her with their pathetic greed, their menacing inquiry,
till he said: “Well, it's not done you any harm. You look very fit.” But
his touch was too much even for her self-command, and she recoiled as if
he had struck her.
“What's the matter? Did I hurt you?”
It seemed to her that he was jeering—then realized as vividly that
he was not. And the full danger to her, perhaps to Mark himself, of
shrinking from this man, striking her with all its pitiable force, she
made a painful effort, slipped her hand under his arm, and said: “I'm
very tired. You startled me.”
But he put her hand away, and turning his face, stared out of the
window. And so they reached their home.
When he had left her alone, she remained where she was standing, by her
wardrobe, without sound or movement, thinking: What am I going to do?
How am I going to live?
IX
When Mark Lennan, travelling through from Beaulieu, reached his rooms in
Chelsea, he went at once to the little pile of his letters, twice hunted
through them, then stood very still, with a stunned, sick feeling. Why
had she not sent him that promised note? And now he realized—though not
yet to the full—what it meant to be in love with a married woman. He
must wait in this suspense for eighteen hours at least, till he could
call, and find out what had happened to prevent her, till he could hear
from her lips that she still loved him. The chilliest of legal lovers
had access to his love, but he must possess a soul that was on fire, in
this deadly patience, for fear of doing something that might jeopardize
her. Telegraph? He dared not. Write? She would get it by the first post;
but what could he say that was not dangerous, if Cramier chanced to
see? Call? Still more impossible till three o'clock, at very earliest,
to-morrow. His gaze wandered round the studio. Were these household
gods, and all these works of his, indeed the same he had left twenty
days ago? They seemed to exist now only in so far as she might come to
see them—come and sit in such a chair, and drink out of such a cup, and
let him put this cushion for her back, and that footstool for her feet.
And so vividly could he see her lying back in that chair looking across
at him, that he could hardly believe she had never yet sat there. It was
odd how—without any resolution taken, without admission that their love
could not remain platonic, without any change in their relations, save
one humble kiss and a few whispered words—everything was changed. A
month or so ago, if he had wanted, he would have gone at once calmly to
her house. It would have seemed harmless, and quite natural. Now it was
impossible to do openly the least thing that strict convention did
not find desirable. Sooner or later they would find him stepping over
convention, and take him for what he was not—a real lover! A real lover!
He knelt down before the empty chair and stretched out his arms. No
substance—no warmth—no fragrance—nothing! Longing that passed through
air, as the wind through grass.
He went to the little round window, which overlooked the river. The last
evening of May; gloaming above the water, dusk resting in the trees, and
the air warm! Better to be out, and moving in the night, out in the ebb
and flow of things, among others whose hearts were beating, than stay in
this place that without her was so cold and meaningless.
Lamps—the passion-fruit of towns—were turning from pallor to full
orange, and the stars were coming out. Half-past nine! At ten o'clock,
and not before, he would walk past her house. To have this something to
look forward to, however furtive and barren, helped. But on a Saturday
night there would be no sitting at the House. Cramier would be at home;
or they would both be out; or perhaps have gone down to their river
cottage. Cramier! What cruel demon had presided over that marring of her
life! Why had he never met her till after she had bound herself to
this man! From a negative contempt for one who was either not sensitive
enough to recognize that his marriage was a failure, or not chivalrous
enough to make that failure bear as little hardly as possible on his
wife, he had come already to jealous hatred as of a monster. To be face
to face with Cramier in a mortal conflict could alone have satisfied his
feeling.... Yet he was a young man by nature gentle!
His heart beat desperately as he approached that street—one of those
little old streets, so beautiful, that belonged to a vanished London. It
was very narrow, there was no shelter; and he thought confusedly of what
he could say, if met in this remote backwater that led nowhere. He would
tell some lie, no doubt. Lies would now be his daily business. Lies and
hatred, those violent things of life, would come to seem quite natural,
in the violence of his love.
He stood a moment, hesitating, by the rails of the old church. Black,
white-veined, with shadowy summits, in that half darkness, it was like
some gigantic vision. Mystery itself seemed modelled there. He turned
and walked quickly down the street close to the houses on the further
side. The windows of her house were lighted! So, she was not away!
Dim light in the dining-room, lights in the room above—her bedroom,
doubtless. Was there no way to bring her to the window, no way his
spirit could climb up there and beckon hers out to him? Perhaps she was
not there, perhaps it was but a servant taking up hot water. He was at
the end of the street by now, but to leave without once more passing
was impossible. And this time he went slowly, his head down, feigning
abstraction, grudging every inch of pavement, and all the time furtively
searching that window with the light behind the curtains. Nothing! Once
more he was close to the railings of the church, and once more could not
bring himself to go away. In the little, close, deserted street, not a
soul was moving, not even a cat or dog; nothing alive but many discreet,
lighted windows. Like veiled faces, showing no emotion, they seemed to
watch his indecision. And he thought: “Ah, well! I dare say there
are lots like me. Lots as near, and yet as far away! Lots who have to
suffer!” But what would he not have given for the throwing open of those
curtains. Then, suddenly scared by an approaching figure, he turned and
walked away.
X
At three o'clock next day he called.
In the middle of her white drawing-room, whose latticed window ran the
whole length of one wall, stood a little table on which was a silver
jar full of early larkspurs, evidently from her garden by the river. And
Lennan waited, his eyes fixed on those blossoms so like to little blue
butterflies and strange-hued crickets, tethered to the pale green stems.
In this room she passed her days, guarded from him. Once a week, at
most, he would be able to come there—once a week for an hour or two of
the hundred and sixty-eight hours that he longed to be with her.
And suddenly he was conscious of her. She had come in without sound, and
was standing by the piano, so pale, in her cream-white dress, that her
eyes looked jet black. He hardly knew that face, like a flower closed
against cold.
What had he done? What had happened in these five days to make her like
this to him? He took her hands and tried to kiss them; but she said
quickly:
“He's in!”
At that he stood silent, looking into that face, frozen to a dreadful
composure, on the breaking up of which his very life seemed to depend.
At last he said:
“What is it? Am I nothing to you, after all?”
But as soon as he had spoken he saw that he need not have asked, and
flung his arms round her. She clung to him with desperation; then freed
herself, and said:
“No, no; let's sit down quietly!”
He obeyed, half-divining, half-refusing to admit all that lay behind
that strange coldness, and this desperate embrace; all the self-pity,
and self-loathing, shame, rage, and longing of a married woman for the
first time face to face with her lover in her husband's house.
She seemed now to be trying to make him forget her strange behaviour;
to be what she had been during that fortnight in the sunshine. But,
suddenly, just moving her lips, she said:
“Quick! When can we see each other? I will come to you to
tea—to-morrow,” and, following her eyes, he saw the door opening, and
Cramier coming in. Unsmiling, very big in the low room, he crossed
over to them, and offered his hand to Lennan; then drawing a low chair
forward between their two chairs, sat down.
“So you're back,” he said. “Have a good time?”
“Thanks, yes; very.”
“Luck for Olive you were there; those places are dull holes.”
“It was luck for me.”
“No doubt.” And with those words he turned to his wife. His elbows
rested along the arms of his chair, so that his clenched palms were
upwards; it was as if he knew that he was holding those two, gripped one
in each hand.
“I wonder,” he said slowly, “that fellows like you, with nothing in the
world to tie them, ever sit down in a place like London. I should have
thought Rome or Paris were your happy hunting-grounds.” In his voice, in
those eyes of his, a little bloodshot, with their look of power, in his
whole attitude, there was a sort of muffled menace, and contempt, as
though he were thinking: “Step into my path, and I will crush you!”
And Lennan thought:
“How long must I sit here?” Then, past that figure planted solidly
between them, he caught a look from her, swift, sure, marvellously
timed—again and again—as if she were being urged by the very presence
of this danger. One of those glances would surely—surely be seen by
Cramier. Is there need for fear that a swallow should dash itself
against the wall over which it skims? But he got up, unable to bear it
longer.
“Going?” That one suave word had an inimitable insolence.
He could hardly see his hand touching Cramier's heavy fist. Then he
realized that she was standing so that their faces when they must say
good-bye could not be seen. Her eyes were smiling, yet imploring; her
lips shaped the word: “To-morrow!” And squeezing her hand desperately,
he got away.
He had never dreamed that to see her in the presence of the man who
owned her would be so terrible. For a moment he thought that he must
give her up, give up a love that would drive him mad.
He climbed on to an omnibus travelling West. Another twenty-four hours
of starvation had begun. It did not matter at all what he did with them.
They were simply so much aching that had to be got through somehow—so
much aching; and what relief at the end? An hour or two with her,
desperately holding himself in.
Like most artists, and few Englishmen, he lived on feelings rather
than on facts; so, found no refuge in decisive resolutions. But he made
many—the resolution to give her up; to be true to the ideal of service
for no reward; to beseech her to leave Cramier and come to him—and he
made each many times.
At Hyde Park Corner he got down, and went into the Park, thinking that
to walk would help him.
A great number of people were sitting there, taking mysterious anodyne,
doing the right thing; to avoid them, he kept along the rails, and ran
almost into the arms of Colonel and Mrs. Ercott, who were coming from
the direction of Knightsbridge, slightly flushed, having lunched and
talked of 'Monte' at the house of a certain General.