there, sitting by the fire in the big chair, playing with her kitten,
thinking, dreaming, and—alone! He passed on at such a pace that people
stared; till, turning the last corner for home, he ran almost into the
arms of Oliver Dromore.
The young man was walking with unaccustomed indecision, his fur coat
open, his opera-hat pushed up on his crisp hair. Dark under the eyes, he
had not the proper gloss of a Dromore at this season of the year.
“Mr. Lennan! I've just been round to you.”
And Lennan answered dazedly:
“Will you come in, or shall I walk your way a bit?”
“I'd rather—out here, if you don't mind.”
So in silence they went back into the Square. And Oliver said:
“Let's get over by the rails.”
They crossed to the railings of the Square's dark garden, where nobody
was passing. And with every step Lennan's humiliation grew. There was
something false and undignified in walking with this young man who
had once treated him as a father confessor to his love for Nell. And
suddenly he perceived that they had made a complete circuit of the
Square garden without speaking a single word.
“Yes?” he said.
Oliver turned his face away.
“You remember what I told you in the summer. Well, it's worse now. I've
been going a mucker lately in all sorts of ways to try and get rid of
it. But it's all no good. She's got me!”
And Lennan thought: You're not alone in that! But he kept silence. His
chief dread was of saying something that he would remember afterwards as
the words of Judas.
Then Oliver suddenly burst out:
“Why can't she care? I suppose I'm nothing much, but she's known me all
her life, and she used to like me. There's something—I can't make out.
Could you do anything for me with her?”
Lennan pointed across the street.
“In every other one of those houses, Oliver,” he said, “there's probably
some creature who can't make out why another creature doesn't care.
Passion comes when it will, goes when it will; and we poor devils have
no say in it.”
“What do you advise me, then?”
Lennan had an almost overwhelming impulse to turn on his heel and leave
the young man standing there. But he forced himself to look at his face,
which even then had its attraction—perhaps more so than ever, so pallid
and desperate it was. And he said slowly, staring mentally at every
word:
“I'm not up to giving you advice. The only thing I might say is: One
does not press oneself where one isn't wanted; all the same—who knows?
So long as she feels you're there, waiting, she might turn to you at
any moment. The more chivalrous you are, Oliver, the more patiently you
wait, the better chance you have.”
Oliver took those words of little comfort without flinching. “I see,”
he said. “Thanks! But, my God! it's hard. I never could wait.” And with
that epigram on himself, holding out his hand, he turned away.
Lennan went slowly home, trying to gauge exactly how anyone who knew
all would judge him. It was a little difficult in this affair to keep a
shred of dignity.
Sylvia had not gone up, and he saw her looking at him anxiously. The one
strange comfort in all this was that his feeling for her, at any rate,
had not changed. It seemed even to have deepened—to be more real to him.
How could he help staying awake that night? How could he help thinking,
then? And long time he lay, staring at the dark.
As if thinking were any good for fever in the veins!
X
Passion never plays the game. It, at all events, is free from
self-consciousness, and pride; from dignity, nerves, scruples, cant,
moralities; from hypocrisies, and wisdom, and fears for pocket, and
position in this world and the next. Well did the old painters limn it
as an arrow or a wind! If it had not been as swift and darting, Earth
must long ago have drifted through space untenanted—to let....
After that fevered night Lennan went to his studio at the usual hour and
naturally did not do a stroke of work. He was even obliged to send away
his model. The fellow had been his hairdresser, but, getting ill, and
falling on dark days, one morning had come to the studio, to ask with
manifest shame if his head were any good. After having tested his
capacity for standing still, and giving him some introductions, Lennan
had noted him down: “Five feet nine, good hair, lean face, something
tortured and pathetic. Give him a turn if possible.” The turn had come,
and the poor man was posing in a painful attitude, talking, whenever
permitted, of the way things had treated him, and the delights of
cutting hair. This morning he took his departure with the simple
pleasure of one fully paid for services not rendered.
And so, walking up and down, up and down, the sculptor waited for Nell's
knock. What would happen now? Thinking had made nothing clear. Here was
offered what every warm-blooded man whose Spring is past desires—youth
and beauty, and in that youth a renewal of his own; what all men save
hypocrites and Englishmen would even admit that they desired. And it was
offered to one who had neither religious nor moral scruples, as they are
commonly understood. In theory he could accept. In practice he did not
as yet know what he could do. One thing only he had discovered during
the night's reflections: That those who scouted belief in the principle
of Liberty made no greater mistake than to suppose that Liberty was
dangerous because it made a man a libertine. To those with any decency,
the creed of Freedom was—of all—the most enchaining. Easy enough to
break chains imposed by others, fling his cap over the windmill, and cry
for the moment at least: I am unfettered, free! Hard, indeed, to say
the same to his own unfettered Self! Yes, his own Self was in the
judgment-seat; by his own verdict and decision he must abide. And though
he ached for the sight of her, and his will seemed paralyzed—many times
already he had thought: It won't do! God help me!
Then twelve o'clock had come, and she had not. Would 'The Girl on the
Magpie Horse' be all he would see of her to-day—that unsatisfying work,
so cold, and devoid of witchery? Better have tried to paint her—with
a red flower in her hair, a pout on her lips, and her eyes fey, or
languorous. Goya could have painted her!
And then, just as he had given her up, she came.
After taking one look at his face, she slipped in ever so quietly, like
a very good child.... Marvellous the instinct and finesse of the young
when they are women!... Not a vestige in her of yesterday's seductive
power; not a sign that there had been a yesterday at all—just confiding,
like a daughter. Sitting there, telling him about Ireland, showing him
the little batch of drawings she had done while she was away. Had she
brought them because she knew they would make him feel sorry for her?
What could have been less dangerous, more appealing to the protective
and paternal side of him than she was that morning; as if she only
wanted what her father and her home could not give her—only wanted to be
a sort of daughter to him!
She went away demurely, as she had come, refusing to stay to lunch,
manifestly avoiding Sylvia. Only then he realized that she must have
taken alarm from the look of strain on his face, been afraid that he
would send her away; only then perceived that, with her appeal to his
protection, she had been binding him closer, making it harder for him to
break away and hurt her. And the fevered aching began again—worse than
ever—the moment he lost sight of her. And more than ever he felt in the
grip of something beyond his power to fight against; something that,
however he swerved, and backed, and broke away, would close in on him,
find means to bind him again hand and foot.
In the afternoon Dromore's confidential man brought him a note. The
fellow, with his cast-down eyes, and his well-parted hair, seemed to
Lennan to be saying: “Yes, sir—it is quite natural that you should
take the note out of eyeshot, sir—BUT I KNOW; fortunately, there is no
necessity for alarm—I am strictly confidential.”
And this was what the note contained:
“You promised to ride with me once—you DID promise, and you never have.
Do please ride with me to-morrow; then you will get what you want for
the statuette instead of being so cross with it. You can have
Dad's horse—he has gone to Newmarket again, and I'm so lonely.
Please—to-morrow, at half-past two—starting from here. —NELL.”
To hesitate in view of those confidential eyes was not possible; it must
be 'Yes' or 'No'; and if 'No,' it would only mean that she would come in
the morning instead. So he said:
“Just say 'All right!'”
“Very good, sir.” Then from the door: “Mr. Dromore will be away till
Saturday, sir.”
Now, why had the fellow said that? Curious how this desperate secret
feeling of his own made him see sinister meaning in this servant,
in Oliver's visit of last night—in everything. It was vile—this
suspiciousness! He could feel, almost see, himself deteriorating
already, with this furtive feeling in his soul. It would soon be
written on his face! But what was the use of troubling? What would come,
would—one way or the other.
And suddenly he remembered with a shock that it was the first of
November—Sylvia's birthday! He had never before forgotten it. In the
disturbance of that discovery he was very near to going and pouring out
to her the whole story of his feelings. A charming birthday present,
that would make! Taking his hat, instead, he dashed round to the nearest
flower shop. A Frenchwoman kept it.
What had she?
What did Monsieur desire? “Des oeillets rouges? J'en ai de bien beaux ce
soir.”
No—not those. White flowers!
“Une belle azalee?”
Yes, that would do—to be sent at once—at once!
Next door was a jeweller's. He had never really known if Sylvia cared
for jewels, since one day he happened to remark that they were vulgar.
And feeling that he had fallen low indeed, to be trying to atone with
some miserable gewgaw for never having thought of her all day, because
he had been thinking of another, he went in and bought the only ornament
whose ingredients did not make his gorge rise, two small pear-shaped
black pearls, one at each end of a fine platinum chain. Coming out with
it, he noticed over the street, in a clear sky fast deepening to indigo,
the thinnest slip of a new moon, like a bright swallow, with wings bent
back, flying towards the ground. That meant—fine weather! If it could
only be fine weather in his heart! And in order that the azalea might
arrive first, he walked up and down the Square which he and Oliver had
patrolled the night before.
When he went in, Sylvia was just placing the white azalea in the window
of the drawing-room; and stealing up behind her he clasped the little
necklet round her throat. She turned round and clung to him. He could
feel that she was greatly moved. And remorse stirred and stirred in him
that he was betraying her with his kiss.
But, even while he kissed her, he was hardening his heart.
XI
Next day, still following the lead of her words about fresh air and his
tired look, he told her that he was going to ride, and did not say with
whom. After applauding his resolution, she was silent for a little—then
asked:
“Why don't you ride with Nell?”
He had already so lost his dignity, that he hardly felt disgraced in
answering:
“It might bore her!”
“Oh, no; it wouldn't bore her.”
Had she meant anything by that? And feeling as if he were fencing with
his own soul, he said:
“Very well, I will.”
He had perceived suddenly that he did not know his wife, having always
till now believed that it was she who did not quite know him.
If she had not been out at lunch-time, he would have lunched out
himself—afraid of his own face. For feverishness in sick persons mounts
steadily with the approach of a certain hour. And surely his face, to
anyone who could have seen him being conveyed to Piccadilly, would have
suggested a fevered invalid rather than a healthy, middle-aged sculptor
in a cab.
The horses were before the door—the little magpie horse, and a
thoroughbred bay mare, weeded from Dromore's racing stable. Nell, too,
was standing ready, her cheeks very pink, and her eyes very bright. She
did not wait for him to mount her, but took the aid of the confidential
man. What was it that made her look so perfect on that little
horse—shape of limb, or something soft and fiery in her spirit that the
little creature knew of?
They started in silence, but as soon as the sound of hoofs died on the
tan of Rotten Row, she turned to him.
“It was lovely of you to come! I thought you'd be afraid—you ARE afraid
of me.”
And Lennan thought: You're right!
“But please don't look like yesterday. To-day's too heavenly. Oh! I love
beautiful days, and I love riding, and—” She broke off and looked at
him. 'Why can't you just be nice to me'—she seemed to be saying—'and
love me as you ought!' That was her power—the conviction that he did,
and ought to love her; that she ought to and did love him. How simple!
But riding, too, is a simple passion; and simple passions distract each
other. It was a treat to be on that bay mare. Who so to be trusted to
ride the best as Johnny Dromore?
At the far end of the Row she cried out: “Let's go on to Richmond now,”
and trotted off into the road, as if she knew she could do with him what
she wished. And, following meekly, he asked himself: Why? What was there
in her to make up to him for all that he was losing—his power of work,
his dignity, his self-respect? What was there? Just those eyes, and
lips, and hair?
And as if she knew what he was thinking, she looked round and smiled.
So they jogged on over the Bridge and across Barnes Common into Richmond
Park.
But the moment they touched turf, with one look back at him, she was
off. Had she all the time meant to give him this breakneck chase—or had
the loveliness of that Autumn day gone to her head—blue sky and coppery
flames of bracken in the sun, and the beech leaves and the oak leaves;
pure Highland colouring come South for once.
When in the first burst he had tested the mare's wind, this chase of
her, indeed, was sheer delight. Through glades, over fallen tree-trunks,
in bracken up to the hocks, out across the open, past a herd of amazed
and solemn deer, over rotten ground all rabbit-burrows, till just as he
thought he was up to her, she slipped away by a quick turn round trees.
Mischief incarnate, but something deeper than mischief, too! He came up
with her at last, and leaned over to seize her rein. With a cut of her
whip that missed his hand by a bare inch, and a wrench, she made him
shoot past, wheeled in her tracks, and was off again like an arrow, back
amongst the trees—lying right forward under the boughs, along the neck
of her little horse. Then out from amongst the trees she shot downhill.
Right down she went, full tilt, and after her went Lennan, lying back,
and expecting the bay mare to come down at every stride. This was her
idea of fun! She switched round at the bottom and went galloping along
the foot of the hill; and he thought: Now I've got her! She could not
break back up that hill, and there was no other cover for fully half a
mile.
Then he saw, not thirty yards in front, an old sandpit; and Great God!
she was going straight at it! And shouting frantically, he reined his
mare outwards. But she only raised her whip, cut the magpie horse over
the flank, and rode right on. He saw that little demon gather its feet
and spring—down, down, saw him pitch, struggle, sink—and she, flung
forward, roll over and lie on her back. He felt nothing at the moment,
only had that fixed vision of a yellow patch of sand, the blue sky, a
rook flying, and her face upturned. But when he came on her she was on
her feet, holding the bridle of her dazed horse. No sooner did he touch
her, than she sank down. Her eyes were closed, but he could feel that
she had not fainted; and he just held her, and kept pressing his lips to
her eyes and forehead. Suddenly she let her head fall back, and her lips
met his. Then opening her eyes, she said: “I'm not hurt, only—funny. Has
Magpie cut his knees?”
Not quite knowing what he did, he got up to look. The little horse was
cropping at some grass, unharmed—the sand and fern had saved his knees.
And the languid voice behind him said: “It's all right—you can leave the
horses. They'll come when I call.”
Now that he knew she was unhurt, he felt angry. Why had she behaved
in this mad way—given him this fearful shock? But in that same languid
voice she went on: “Don't be cross with me. I thought at first I'd
pull up, but then I thought: 'If I jump he can't help being nice'—so I
did—Don't leave off loving me because I'm not hurt, please.”
Terribly moved, he sat down beside her, took her hands in his, and said:
“Nell! Nell! it's all wrong—it's madness!”
“Why? Don't think about it! I don't want you to think—only to love me.”
“My child, you don't know what love is!”
For answer she only flung her arms round his neck; then, since he held
back from kissing her, let them fall again, and jumped up.
“Very well. But I love you. You can think of THAT—you can't prevent
me!” And without waiting for help, she mounted the magpie horse from the
sand-heap where they had fallen.
Very sober that ride home! The horses, as if ashamed of their mad chase,
were edging close to each other, so that now and then his arm would
touch her shoulder. He asked her once what she had felt while she was
jumping.
“Only to be sure my foot was free. It was rather horrid coming down,
thinking of Magpie's knees;” and touching the little horse's goat-like
ears, she added softly: “Poor dear! He'll be stiff to-morrow.”
She was again only the confiding, rather drowsy, child. Or was it that
the fierceness of those past moments had killed his power of feeling? An
almost dreamy hour—with the sun going down, the lamps being lighted one
by one—and a sort of sweet oblivion over everything!
At the door, where the groom was waiting, Lennan would have said
good-bye, but she whispered: “Oh, no, please! I AM tired now—you might
help me up a little.”
And so, half carrying her, he mounted past the Vanity Fair cartoons,
and through the corridor with the red paper and the Van Beers' drawings,
into the room where he had first seen her.
Once settled back in Dromore's great chair, with the purring kitten
curled up on her neck, she murmured:
“Isn't it nice? You can make tea; and we'll have hot buttered toast.”
And so Lennan stayed, while the confidential man brought tea and toast;
and, never once looking at them, seemed to know all that had passed, all
that might be to come.
Then they were alone again, and, gazing down at her stretched out in
that great chair, Lennan thought:
“Thank God that I'm tired too—body and soul!”
But suddenly she looked up at him, and pointing to the picture that
to-day had no curtain drawn, said:
“Do you think I'm like her? I made Oliver tell me about—myself this
summer. That's why you needn't bother. It doesn't matter what happens to
me, you see. And I don't care—because you can love me, without feeling
bad about it. And you will, won't you?”
Then, with her eyes still on his face, she went on quickly:
“Only we won't talk about that now, will we? It's too cosy. I AM nice
and tired. Do smoke!”
But Lennan's fingers trembled so that he could hardly light that
cigarette. And, watching them, she said: “Please give me one. Dad
doesn't like my smoking.”
The virtue of Johnny Dromore! Yes! It would always be by proxy! And he
muttered:
“How do you think he would like to know about this afternoon, Nell?”
“I don't care.” Then peering up through the kitten's fur she murmured:
“Oliver wants me to go to a dance on Saturday—it's for a charity. Shall
I?”
“Of course; why not?”
“Will YOU come?”
“I?”
“Oh, do! You must! It's my very first, you know. I've got an extra
ticket.”
And against his will, his judgment—everything, Lennan answered: “Yes.”
She clapped her hands, and the kitten crawled down to her knees.
When he got up to go, she did not move, but just looked up at him; and
how he got away he did not know.
Stopping his cab a little short of home, he ran, for he felt cold and
stiff, and letting himself in with his latch-key, went straight to the
drawing-room. The door was ajar, and Sylvia standing at the window. He
heard her sigh; and his heart smote him. Very still, and slender, and
lonely she looked out there, with the light shining on her fair hair so
that it seemed almost white. Then she turned and saw him. He noticed her
throat working with the effort she made not to show him anything, and he
said:
“Surely you haven't been anxious! Nell had a bit of a fall—jumping into
a sandpit. She's quite mad sometimes. I stayed to tea with her—just to
make sure she wasn't really hurt.” But as he spoke he loathed himself;
his voice sounded so false.
She only answered: “It's all right, dear,” but he saw that she kept her
eyes—those blue, too true eyes—averted, even when she kissed him.
And so began another evening and night and morning of fever, subterfuge,
wariness, aching. A round of half-ecstatic torment, out of which he
seemed no more able to break than a man can break through the walls of a
cell....
Though it live but a day in the sun, though it drown in tenebrous night,
the dark flower of passion will have its hour....
XII
To deceive undoubtedly requires a course of training. And, unversed in
this art, Lennan was fast finding it intolerable to scheme and watch
himself, and mislead one who had looked up to him ever since they were
children. Yet, all the time, he had a feeling that, since he alone knew
all the circumstances of his case, he alone was entitled to blame or to
excuse himself. The glib judgments that moralists would pass upon his
conduct could be nothing but the imbecilities of smug and pharisaic
fools—of those not under this drugging spell—of such as had not blood
enough, perhaps, ever to fall beneath it!
The day after the ride Nell had not come, and he had no word from her.
Was she, then, hurt, after all? She had lain back very inertly in that
chair! And Sylvia never asked if he knew how the girl was after her
fall, nor offered to send round to inquire. Did she not wish to speak of
her, or had she simply—not believed? When there was so much he could
not talk of it seemed hard that just what happened to be true should be
distrusted. She had not yet, indeed, by a single word suggested that
she felt he was deceiving her, but at heart he knew that she was not
deceived.... Those feelers of a woman who loves—can anything check their
delicate apprehension? . . .
Towards evening, the longing to see the girl—a sensation as if she were
calling him to come to her—became almost insupportable; yet, whatever
excuse he gave, he felt that Sylvia would know where he was going. He
sat on one side of the fire, she on the other, and they both read books;
the only strange thing about their reading was, that neither of them
ever turned a leaf. It was 'Don Quixote' he read, the page which had
these words: “Let Altisidora weep or sing, still I am Dulcinea's and
hers alone, dead or alive, dutiful and unchanged, in spite of all the
necromantic powers in the world.” And so the evening passed. When she
went up to bed, he was very near to stealing out, driving up to the
Dromores' door, and inquiring of the confidential man; but the thought
of the confounded fellow's eyes was too much for him, and he held out.
He took up Sylvia's book, De Maupassant's 'Fort comme la mort'—open at
the page where the poor woman finds that her lover has passed away
from her to her own daughter. And as he read, the tears rolled down his
cheek. Sylvia! Sylvia! Were not his old favourite words from that old
favourite book still true? “Dulcinea del Toboso is the most beautiful
woman in the world, and I the most unfortunate knight upon the earth. It
were unjust that such perfection should suffer through my weakness. No,
pierce my body with your lance, knight, and let my life expire with my
honour....” Why could he not wrench this feeling from his heart, banish
this girl from his eyes? Why could he not be wholly true to her who
was and always had been wholly true to him? Horrible—this will-less,
nerveless feeling, this paralysis, as if he were a puppet moved by a
cruel hand. And, as once before, it seemed to him that the girl was
sitting there in Sylvia's chair in her dark red frock, with her eyes
fixed on him. Uncannily vivid—that impression!... A man could not go on
long with his head in Chancery like this, without becoming crazed!
It was growing dusk on Saturday afternoon when he gave up that
intolerable waiting and opened the studio door to go to Nell. It was
now just two days since he had seen or heard of her. She had spoken of a
dance for that very night—of his going to it. She MUST be ill!
But he had not taken six steps when he saw her coming. She had on a grey
furry scarf, hiding her mouth, making her look much older. The moment
the door was shut she threw it off, went to the hearth, drew up a little
stool, and, holding her hands out to the fire, said:
“Have you thought about me? Have you thought enough now?”
And he answered: “Yes, I've thought, but I'm no nearer.”
“Why? Nobody need ever know you love me. And if they did, I wouldn't
care.”
Simple! How simple! Glorious, egoistic youth!
He could not speak of Sylvia to this child—speak of his married life,
hitherto so dignified, so almost sacred. It was impossible. Then he
heard her say:
“It can't be wrong to love YOU! I don't care if it is wrong,” and saw
her lips quivering, and her eyes suddenly piteous and scared, as if
for the first time she doubted of the issue. Here was fresh torment!
To watch an unhappy child. And what was the use of even trying to make
clear to her—on the very threshold of life—the hopeless maze that he was
wandering in! What chance of making her understand the marsh of mud and
tangled weeds he must drag through to reach her. “Nobody need know.” So
simple! What of his heart and his wife's heart? And, pointing to his new
work—the first man bewitched by the first nymph—he said:
“Look at this, Nell! That nymph is you; and this man is me.” She got
up, and came to look. And while she was gazing he greedily drank her in.
What a strange mixture of innocence and sorcery! What a wonderful young
creature to bring to full knowledge of love within his arms! And he
said: “You had better understand what you are to me—all that I shall
never know again; there it is in that nymph's face. Oh, no! not YOUR
face. And there am I struggling through slime to reach you—not MY face,
of course.”
She said: “Poor face!” then covered her own. Was she going to cry, and
torture him still more? But, instead, she only murmured: “But you HAVE
reached me!” swayed towards him, and put her lips to his.
He gave way then. From that too stormy kiss of his she drew back for a
second, then, as if afraid of her own recoil, snuggled close again. But
the instinctive shrinking of innocence had been enough for Lennan—he
dropped his arms and said:
“You must go, child.”
Without a word she picked up her fur, put it on, and stood waiting for
him to speak. Then, as he did not, she held out something white. It was
the card for the dance.
“You said you were coming?”
And he nodded. Her eyes and lips smiled at him; she opened the door,
and, still with that slow, happy smile, went out....
Yes, he would be coming; wherever she was, whenever she wanted him!...
His blood on fire, heedless of everything but to rush after happiness,
Lennan spent those hours before the dance. He had told Sylvia that he
would be dining at his Club—a set of rooms owned by a small coterie of
artists in Chelsea. He had taken this precaution, feeling that he could
not sit through dinner opposite her and then go out to that dance—and
Nell! He had spoken of a guest at the Club, to account for evening
dress—another lie, but what did it matter? He was lying all the time, if
not in words, in action—must lie, indeed, to save her suffering!
He stopped at the Frenchwoman's flower shop.
“Que desirez-vous, monsieur? Des oeillets rouges—j'en ai de bien beaux,
ce soir.”
Des oeillets rouges? Yes, those to-night! To this address. No green with
them; no card!
How strange the feeling—with the die once cast for love—of rushing, of
watching his own self being left behind!
In the Brompton Road, outside a little restaurant, a thin musician was
playing on a violin. Ah! and he knew this place; he would go in there,
not to the Club—and the fiddler should have all he had to spare, for
playing those tunes of love. He turned in. He had not been there since
the day before that night on the river, twenty years ago. Never since;
and yet it was not changed. The same tarnished gilt, and smell of
cooking; the same macaroni in the same tomato sauce; the same Chianti
flasks; the same staring, light-blue walls wreathed with pink flowers.
Only the waiter different—hollow-cheeked, patient, dark of eye. He,
too, should be well tipped! And that poor, over-hatted lady, eating her
frugal meal—to her, at all events, a look of kindness. For all desperate
creatures he must feel, this desperate night! And suddenly he thought
of Oliver. Another desperate one! What should he say to Oliver at
this dance—he, aged forty-seven, coming there without his wife! Some
imbecility, such as: 'Watching the human form divine in motion,'
'Catching sidelights on Nell for the statuette'—some cant; it did not
matter! The wine was drawn, and he must drink!
It was still early when he left the restaurant—a dry night, very calm,
not cold. When had he danced last? With Olive Cramier, before he knew he
loved her. Well, THAT memory could not be broken, for he would not dance
to-night! Just watch, sit with the girl a few minutes, feel her hand
cling to his, see her eyes turned back to him; and—come away! And
then—the future! For the wine was drawn! The leaf of a plane-tree,
fluttering down, caught on his sleeve. Autumn would soon be gone, and
after Autumn—only Winter! She would have done with him long before he
came to Winter. Nature would see to it that Youth called for her, and
carried her away. Nature in her courses! But just to cheat Nature for a
little while! To cheat Nature—what greater happiness!
Here was the place with red-striped awning, carriages driving away,
loiterers watching. He turned in with a beating heart. Was he before
her? How would she come to this first dance? With Oliver alone? Or had
some chaperon been found? To have come because she—this child so lovely,
born 'outside'—might have need of chaperonage, would have been some
comfort to dignity, so wistful, so lost as his. But, alas! he knew he
was only there because he could not keep away!
Already they were dancing in the hall upstairs; but not she, yet; and
he stood leaning against the wall where she must pass. Lonely and out of
place he felt; as if everyone must know why he was there. People stared,
and he heard a girl ask: “Who's that against the wall with the hair and
dark moustache?”—and her partner murmuring his answer, and her voice
again: “Yes, he looks as if he were seeing sand and lions.” For whom,
then, did they take him? Thank heaven! They were all the usual sort.
There would be no one that he knew. Suppose Johnny Dromore himself came
with Nell! He was to be back on Saturday! What could he say, then? How
meet those doubting, knowing eyes, goggling with the fixed philosophy
that a man has but one use for woman? God! and it would be true! For
a moment he was on the point of getting his coat and hat, and sneaking
away. That would mean not seeing her till Monday; and he stood his
ground. But after to-night there must be no more such risks—their
meetings must be wisely planned, must sink underground. And then he saw
her at the foot of the stairs in a dress of a shell-pink colour, with
one of his flowers in her light-brown hair and the others tied to the
handle of a tiny fan. How self-possessed she looked, as if this were
indeed her native element—her neck and arms bare, her cheeks a deep soft
pink, her eyes quickly turning here and there. She began mounting the
stairs, and saw him. Was ever anything so lovely as she looked just
then? Behind her he marked Oliver, and a tall girl with red hair, and
another young man. He moved deliberately to the top of the stairs on
the wall side, so that from behind they should not see her face when she
greeted him. She put the little fan with the flowers to her lips; and,
holding out her hand, said, quick and low:
“The fourth, it's a polka; we'll sit out, won't we?”
Then swaying a little, so that her hair and the flower in it almost
touched his face, she passed, and there in her stead stood Oliver.
Lennan had expected one of his old insolent looks, but the young man's
face was eager and quite friendly.
“It was awfully good of you to come, Mr. Lennan. Is Mrs. Lennan—”
And Lennan murmured:
“She wasn't able; she's not quite—” and could have sunk into the shining
floor. Youth with its touching confidence, its eager trust! This was the
way he was fulfilling his duty towards Youth!
When they had passed into the ballroom he went back to his position
against the wall. They were dancing Number Three; his time of waiting,
then, was drawing to a close. From where he stood he could not see the
dancers—no use to watch her go round in someone else's arms.
Not a true waltz—some French or Spanish pavement song played in waltz
time; bizarre, pathetic, whirling after its own happiness. That chase
for happiness! Well, life, with all its prizes and its possibilities,
had nothing that quite satisfied—save just the fleeting moments of
passion! Nothing else quite poignant enough to be called pure joy! Or so
it seemed to him.
The waltz was over. He could see her now, on a rout seat against the
wall with the other young man, turning her eyes constantly as if to make
sure that he was still standing there. What subtle fuel was always being
added to the fire by that flattery of her inexplicable adoration—of
those eyes that dragged him to her, yet humbly followed him, too! Five
times while she sat there he saw the red-haired girl or Oliver bring men
up; saw youths cast longing glances; saw girls watching her with cold
appraisement, or with a touching, frank delight. From the moment that
she came in, there had been, in her father's phrase, 'only one in it.'
And she could pass all this by, and still want him. Incredible!
At the first notes of the polka he went to her. It was she who found
their place of refuge—a little alcove behind two palm-plants. But
sitting there, he realized, as never before, that there was no spiritual
communion between him and this child. She could tell him her troubles or
her joys; he could soothe or sympathize; but never would the gap between
their natures and their ages be crossed. His happiness was only in
the sight and touch of her. But that, God knew, was happiness enough—a
feverish, craving joy, like an overtired man's thirst, growing with the
drink on which it tries to slake itself. Sitting there, in the scent of
those flowers and of some sweet essence in her hair, with her fingers
touching his, and her eyes seeking his, he tried loyally not to think of
himself, to grasp her sensations at this her first dance, and just
help her to enjoyment. But he could not—paralyzed, made drunk by that
insensate longing to take her in his arms and crush her to him as he had
those few hours back. He could see her expanding like a flower, in all
this light, and motion, and intoxicating admiration round her. What
business had he in her life, with his dark hunger after secret hours;
he—a coin worn thin already—a destroyer of the freshness and the glamour
of her youth and beauty!
Then, holding up the flowers, she said:
“Did you give me these because of the one I gave you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do with that?”
“Burned it.”
“Oh! but why?”
“Because you are a witch—and witches must be burned with all their
flowers.”
“Are you going to burn me?”
He put his hand on her cool arm.
“Feel! The flames are lighted.”
“You may! I don't care!”
She took his hand and laid her cheek against it; yet, to the music,
which had begun again, the tip of her shoe was already beating time. And
he said:
“You ought to be dancing, child.”
“Oh, no! Only it's a pity you don't want to.”
“Yes! Do you understand that it must all be secret—underground?”
She covered his lips with the fan, and said: “You're not to think;
you're not to think—never! When can I come?”
“I must find the best way. Not to-morrow. Nobody must know, Nell—for
your sake—for hers—nobody!”
She nodded, and repeated with a soft, mysterious wisdom: “Nobody.”
And then, aloud: “Here's Oliver! It was awfully good of you to come.
Good-night!”
And as, on Oliver's arm, she left their little refuge, she looked back.
He lingered—to watch her through this one dance. How they made all the
other couples sink into insignificance, with that something in them
both that was better than mere good looks—that something not outre or
eccentric, but poignant, wayward. They went well together, those two
Dromores—his dark head and her fair head; his clear, brown, daring eyes,
and her grey, languorous, mesmeric eyes. Ah! Master Oliver was happy
now, with her so close to him! It was not jealousy that Lennan felt. Not
quite—one did not feel jealous of the young; something very deep—pride,
sense of proportion, who knew what—prevented that. She, too, looked
happy, as if her soul were dancing, vibrating with the music and the
scent of the flowers. He waited for her to come round once more, to get
for a last time that flying glance turned back; then found his coat and
hat and went.
XIII
Outside, he walked a few steps, then stood looking back at the windows
of the hall through some trees, the shadows of whose trunks, in the
light of a street lamp, were spilled out along the ground like the
splines of a fan. A church clock struck eleven. For hours yet she would
be there, going round and round in the arms of Youth! Try as he might
he could never recapture for himself the look that Oliver's face had
worn—the look that was the symbol of so much more than he himself could
give her. Why had she come into his life—to her undoing, and his own?
And the bizarre thought came to him: If she were dead should I really
care? Should I not be almost glad? If she were dead her witchery would
be dead, and I could stand up straight again and look people in the
face! What was this power that played with men, darted into them,
twisted their hearts to rags; this power that had looked through her
eyes when she put her fan, with his flowers, to her lips?
The thrumming of the music ceased; he walked away.
It must have been nearly twelve when he reached home. Now, once more,
would begin the gruesome process of deception—flinching of soul, and
brazening of visage. It would be better when the whole thievish business
was irretrievably begun and ordered in its secret courses!
There was no light in the drawing-room, save just the glow of the
fire. If only Sylvia might have gone to bed! Then he saw her, sitting
motionless out there by the uncurtained window.
He went over to her, and began his hateful formula:
“I'm afraid you've been lonely. I had to stay rather late. A dull
evening.” And, since she did not move or answer, but just sat there very
still and white, he forced himself to go close, bend down to her, touch
her cheek; even to kneel beside her. She looked round then; her face was
quiet enough, but her eyes were strangely eager. With a pitiful little
smile she broke out:
“Oh, Mark! What is it—what is it? Anything is better than this!”
Perhaps it was the smile, perhaps her voice or eyes—but something gave
way in Lennan. Secrecy, precaution went by the board. Bowing his head
against her breast, he poured it all out, while they clung, clutched
together in the half dark like two frightened children. Only when he had
finished did he realize that if she had pushed him away, refused to let
him touch her, it would have been far less piteous, far easier to bear,
than her wan face and her hands clutching him, and her words: “I never
thought—you and I—oh! Mark—you and I—” The trust in their life together,
in himself, that those words revealed! Yet, not greater than he had
had—still had! She could not understand—he had known that she could
never understand; it was why he had fought so for secrecy, all through.
She was taking it as if she had lost everything; and in his mind she
had lost nothing. This passion, this craving for Youth and Life, this
madness—call it what one would—was something quite apart, not touching
his love and need of her. If she would only believe that! Over and over
he repeated it; over and over again perceived that she could not take
it in. The only thing she saw was that his love had gone from her to
another—though that was not true! Suddenly she broke out of his arms,
pushing him from her, and cried: “That girl—hateful, horrible, false!”
Never had he seen her look like this, with flaming spots in her white
cheeks, soft lips and chin distorted, blue eyes flaming, breast heaving,
as if each breath were drawn from lungs that received no air. And
then, as quickly, the fire went out of her; she sank down on the sofa;
covering her face with her arms, rocking to and fro. She did not cry,
but a little moan came from her now and then. And each one of those
sounds was to Lennan like the cry of something he was murdering. At last
he went and sat down on the sofa by her and said:
“Sylvia! Sylvia! Don't! oh! don't!” And she was silent, ceasing to
rock herself; letting him smooth and stroke her. But her face she kept
hidden, and only once she spoke, so low that he could hardly hear: “I
can't—I won't keep you from her.” And with the awful feeling that no
words could reach or soothe the wound in that tender heart, he could
only go on stroking and kissing her hands.
It was atrocious—horrible—this that he had done! God knew that he had
not sought it—the thing had come on him. Surely even in her misery she
could see that! Deep down beneath his grief and self-hatred, he knew,
what neither she nor anyone else could know—that he could not have
prevented this feeling, which went back to days before he ever saw
the girl—that no man could have stopped that feeling in himself. This
craving and roving was as much part of him as his eyes and hands, as
overwhelming and natural a longing as his hunger for work, or his need
of the peace that Sylvia gave, and alone could give him. That was the
tragedy—it was all sunk and rooted in the very nature of a man. Since
the girl had come into their lives he was no more unfaithful to his wife
in thought than he had been before. If only she could look into him, see
him exactly as he was, as, without part or lot in the process, he had
been made—then she would understand, and even might not suffer; but she
could not, and he could never make it plain. And solemnly, desperately,
with a weary feeling of the futility of words, he went on trying: Could
she not see? It was all a thing outside him—a craving, a chase after
beauty and life, after his own youth! At that word she looked at him:
“And do you think I don't want my youth back?”
He stopped.
For a woman to feel that her beauty—the brightness of her hair and eyes,
the grace and suppleness of her limbs—were slipping from her and from
the man she loved! Was there anything more bitter?—or any more sacred
duty than not to add to that bitterness, not to push her with suffering
into old age, but to help keep the star of her faith in her charm
intact!
Man and woman—they both wanted youth again; she, that she might give it
all to him; he, because it would help him towards something—new! Just
that world of difference!
He got up, and said:
“Come, dear, let's try and sleep.”
He had not once said that he could give it up. The words would not pass
his lips, though he knew she must be conscious that he had not said
them, must be longing to hear them. All he had been able to say was:
“So long as you want me, you shall never lose me... and, I will never
keep anything from you again.”
Up in their room she lay hour after hour in his arms, quite unresentful,
but without life in her, and with eyes that, when his lips touched them,
were always wet.
What a maze was a man's heart, wherein he must lose himself every
minute! What involved and intricate turnings and turnings on itself;
what fugitive replacement of emotion by emotion! What strife between
pities and passions; what longing for peace! . . .
And in his feverish exhaustion, which was almost sleep, Lennan hardly
knew whether it was the thrum of music or Sylvia's moaning that he
heard; her body or Nell's within his arms....
But life had to be lived, a face preserved against the world,
engagements kept. And the nightmare went on for both of them, under the
calm surface of an ordinary Sunday. They were like people walking at the
edge of a high cliff, not knowing from step to step whether they would
fall; or like swimmers struggling for issue out of a dark whirlpool.
In the afternoon they went together to a concert; it was just something
to do—something that saved them for an hour or two from the possibility
of speaking on the one subject left to them. The ship had gone down,
and they were clutching at anything that for a moment would help to keep
them above water.
In the evening some people came to supper; a writer and two painters,
with their wives. A grim evening—never more so than when the
conversation turned on that perennial theme—the freedom, spiritual,
mental, physical, requisite for those who practise Art. All the stale
arguments were brought forth, and had to be joined in with unmoved
faces. And for all their talk of freedom, Lennan could see the
volte-face his friends would be making, if they only knew. It was not
'the thing' to seduce young girls—as if, forsooth, there were freedom
in doing only what people thought 'the thing'! Their cant about the free
artist spirit experiencing everything, would wither the moment it came
up against a canon of 'good form,' so that in truth it was no freer than
the bourgeois spirit, with its conventions; or the priest spirit, with
its cry of 'Sin!' No, no! To resist—if resistance were possible to this
dragging power—maxims of 'good form,' dogmas of religion and morality,
were no help—nothing was any help, but some feeling stronger than
passion itself. Sylvia's face, forced to smile!—that, indeed was a
reason why they should condemn him! None of their doctrines about
freedom could explain that away—the harm, the death that came to a man's
soul when he made a loving, faithful creature suffer.
But they were gone at last—with their “Thanks so much!” and their
“Delightful evening!”
And those two were face to face for another night.
He knew that it must begin all over again—inevitable, after the stab of
that wretched argument plunged into their hearts and turned and turned
all the evening.
“I won't, I mustn't keep you starved, and spoil your work. Don't think
of me, Mark! I can bear it!”
And then a breakdown worse than the night before. What genius, what
sheer genius Nature had for torturing her creatures! If anyone had
told him, even so little as a week ago, that he could have caused such
suffering to Sylvia—Sylvia, whom as a child with wide blue eyes and
a blue bow on her flaxen head he had guarded across fields full of
imaginary bulls; Sylvia, in whose hair his star had caught; Sylvia, who
day and night for fifteen years had been his devoted wife; whom he loved
and still admired—he would have given him the lie direct. It would have
seemed incredible, monstrous, silly. Had all married men and women such
things to go through—was this but a very usual crossing of the desert?
Or was it, once for all, shipwreck? death—unholy, violent death—in a
storm of sand?
Another night of misery, and no answer to that question yet.
He had told her that he would not see Nell again without first letting
her know. So, when morning came, he simply wrote the words: “Don't come
today!”—showed them to Sylvia, and sent them by a servant to Dromore's.
Hard to describe the bitterness with which he entered his studio that
morning. In all this chaos, what of his work? Could he ever have peace
of mind for it again? Those people last night had talked of 'inspiration
of passion, of experience.' In pleading with her he had used the words
himself. She—poor soul!—had but repeated them, trying to endure them,
to believe them true. And were they true? Again no answer, or certainly
none that he could give. To have had the waters broken up; to be plunged
into emotion; to feel desperately, instead of stagnating—some day he
might be grateful—who knew? Some day there might be fair country again
beyond this desert, where he could work even better than before. But
just now, as well expect creative work from a condemned man. It seemed
to him that he was equally destroyed whether he gave Nell up, and with
her, once for all, that roving, seeking instinct, which ought, forsooth,
to have been satisfied, and was not; or whether he took Nell, knowing
that in doing so he was torturing a woman dear to him! That was as far
as he could see to-day. What he would come to see in time God only knew!
But: 'Freedom of the Spirit!' That was a phrase of bitter irony indeed!
And, there, with his work all round him, like a man tied hand and foot,
he was swept by such a feeling of exasperated rage as he had never
known. Women! These women! Only let him be free of both, of all women,
and the passions and pities they aroused, so that his brain and his
hands might live and work again! They should not strangle, they should
not destroy him!
Unfortunately, even in his rage, he knew that flight from them both
could never help him. One way or the other the thing would have to be
fought through. If it had been a straight fight even; a clear issue
between passion and pity! But both he loved, and both he pitied. There
was nothing straight and clear about it anywhere; it was all too
deeply rooted in full human nature. And the appalling sense of rushing
ceaselessly from barrier to barrier began really to affect his brain.
True, he had now and then a lucid interval of a few minutes, when the
ingenious nature of his own torments struck him as supremely interesting
and queer; but this was not precisely a relief, for it only meant, as in
prolonged toothache, that his power of feeling had for a moment ceased.
A very pretty little hell indeed!
All day he had the premonition, amounting to certainty, that Nell would
take alarm at those three words he had sent her, and come in spite of
them. And yet, what else could he have written? Nothing save what must
have alarmed her more, or plunged him deeper. He had the feeling that
she could follow his moods, that her eyes could see him everywhere, as a
cat's eyes can see in darkness. That feeling had been with him, more or
less, ever since the last evening of October, the evening she came back
from her summer—grown-up. How long ago? Only six days—was it possible?
Ah, yes! She knew when her spell was weakening, when the current wanted,
as it were, renewing. And about six o'clock—dusk already—without the
least surprise, with only a sort of empty quivering, he heard her knock.
And just behind the closed door, as near as he could get to her, he
stood, holding his breath. He had given his word to Sylvia—of his own
accord had given it. Through the thin wood of the old door he could hear
the faint shuffle of her feet on the pavement, moved a few inches this
way and that, as though supplicating the inexorable silence. He seemed
to see her head, bent a little forward listening. Three times she
knocked, and each time Lennan writhed. It was so cruel! With that
seeing-sense of hers she must know he was there; his very silence would
be telling her—for his silence had its voice, its pitiful breathless
sound. Then, quite distinctly, he heard her sigh, and her footsteps move
away; and covering his face with his hands he rushed to and fro in the
studio, like a madman.
No sound of her any more! Gone! It was unbearable; and, seizing his hat,
he ran out. Which way? At random he ran towards the Square. There she
was, over by the railings; languidly, irresolutely moving towards home.
XIV
But now that she was within reach, he wavered; he had given his word—was
he going to break it? Then she turned, and saw him; and he could not go
back. In the biting easterly wind her face looked small, and pinched,
and cold, but her eyes only the larger, the more full of witchery, as if
beseeching him not to be angry, not to send her away.
“I had to come; I got frightened. Why did you write such a tiny little
note?”
He tried to make his voice sound quiet and ordinary.
“You must be brave, Nell. I have had to tell her.”
She clutched at his arm; then drew herself up, and said in her clear,
clipped voice:
“Oh! I suppose she hates me, then!”
“She is terribly unhappy.”
They walked a minute, that might have been an hour, without a word; not
round the Square, as he had walked with Oliver, but away from the house.
At last she said in a half-choked voice: “I only want a little bit of
you.”
And he answered dully: “In love, there are no little bits—no standing
still.”
Then, suddenly, he felt her hand in his, the fingers lacing, twining
restlessly amongst his own; and again the half-choked voice said:
“But you WILL let me see you sometimes! You must!”
Hardest of all to stand against was this pathetic, clinging, frightened
child. And, not knowing very clearly what he said, he murmured:
“Yes—yes; it'll be all right. Be brave—you must be brave, Nell. It'll
all come right.”
But she only answered:
“No, no! I'm not brave. I shall do something.”
Her face looked just as when she had ridden at that gravel pit. Loving,
wild, undisciplined, without resource of any kind—what might she not do?
Why could he not stir without bringing disaster upon one or other? And
between these two, suffering so because of him, he felt as if he had
lost his own existence. In quest of happiness, he had come to that!
Suddenly she said:
“Oliver asked me again at the dance on Saturday. He said you had told
him to be patient. Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was sorry for him.”
She let his hand go.
“Perhaps you would like me to marry him.”
Very clearly he saw those two going round and round over the shining
floor.
“It would be better, Nell.”
She made a little sound—of anger or dismay.
“You don't REALLY want me, then?”
That was his chance. But with her arm touching his, her face so pale
and desperate, and those maddening eyes turned to him, he could not tell
that lie, and answered:
“Yes—I want you, God knows!”
At that a sigh of content escaped her, as if she were saying to herself:
'If he wants me he will not let me go.' Strange little tribute to her
faith in love and her own youth!
They had come somehow to Pall Mall by now. And scared to find himself
so deep in the hunting-ground of the Dromores, Lennan turned hastily
towards St. James's Park, that they might cross it in the dark, round
to Piccadilly. To be thus slinking out of the world's sight with the
daughter of his old room-mate—of all men in the world the last perhaps
that he should do this to! A nice treacherous business! But the thing
men called honour—what was it, when her eyes were looking at him and her
shoulder touching his?
Since he had spoken those words, “Yes, I want you,” she had been
silent—fearful perhaps to let other words destroy their comfort. But
near the gate by Hyde Park Corner she put her hand again into his, and
again her voice, so clear, said:
“I don't want to hurt anybody, but you WILL let me come sometimes—you
will let me see you—you won't leave me all alone, thinking that I'll
never see you again?”
And once more, without knowing what he answered, Lennan murmured:
“No, no! It'll be all right, dear—it'll all come right. It must—and
shall.”
Again her fingers twined amongst his, like a child's. She seemed to
have a wonderful knowledge of the exact thing to say and do to keep him
helpless. And she went on:
“I didn't try to love you—it isn't wrong to love—it wouldn't hurt her. I
only want a little of your love.”
A little—always a little! But he was solely bent on comforting her now.
To think of her going home, and sitting lonely, frightened, and unhappy,
all the evening, was dreadful. And holding her fingers tight, he kept on
murmuring words of would-be comfort.
Then he saw that they were out in Piccadilly. How far dared he go with
her along the railings before he said good-bye? A man was coming towards
them, just where he had met Dromore that first fatal afternoon nine
months ago; a man with a slight lurch in his walk and a tall, shining
hat a little on one side. But thank Heaven!—it was not Dromore—only one
somewhat like him, who in passing stared sphinx-like at Nell. And Lennan
said:
“You must go home now, child; we mustn't be seen together.”
For a moment he thought she was going to break down, refuse to leave
him. Then she threw up her head, and for a second stood like that, quite
motionless, looking in his face. Suddenly stripping off her glove, she
thrust her warm, clinging hand into his. Her lips smiled faintly, tears
stood in her eyes; then she drew her hand away and plunged into the
traffic. He saw her turn the corner of her street and disappear. And
with the warmth of that passionate little hand still stinging his palm,
he almost ran towards Hyde Park.
Taking no heed of direction, he launched himself into its dark space,
deserted in this cold, homeless wind, that had little sound and no
scent, travelling its remorseless road under the grey-black sky.
The dark firmament and keen cold air suited one who had little need of
aids to emotion—one who had, indeed, but the single wish to get rid,
if he only could, of the terrible sensation in his head, that bruised,
battered, imprisoned feeling of a man who paces his cell—never, never
to get out at either end. Without thought or intention he drove his
legs along; not running, because he knew that he would have to stop the
sooner. Alas! what more comic spectacle for the eyes of a good citizen
than this married man of middle age, striding for hours over those dry,
dark, empty pastures—hunted by passion and by pity, so that he knew not
even whether he had dined! But no good citizen was abroad of an autumn
night in a bitter easterly wind. The trees were the sole witnesses of
this grim exercise—the trees, resigning to the cold blast their crinkled
leaves that fluttered past him, just a little lighter than the darkness.
Here and there his feet rustled in the drifts, waiting their turn
to serve the little bonfires, whose scent still clung in the air. A
desperate walk, in this heart of London—round and round, up and down,
hour after hour, keeping always in the dark; not a star in the sky, not
a human being spoken to or even clearly seen, not a bird or beast;
just the gleam of the lights far away, and the hoarse muttering of the
traffic! A walk as lonely as the voyage of the human soul is lonely from
birth to death with nothing to guide it but the flickering glow from its
own frail spirit lighted it knows not where....
And, so tired that he could hardly move his legs, but free at last of
that awful feeling in his head—free for the first time for days and
days—Lennan came out of the Park at the gate where he had gone in, and
walked towards his home, certain that tonight, one way or the other, it
would be decided....
XV
This then—this long trouble of body and of spirit—was what he
remembered, sitting in the armchair beyond his bedroom fire, watching
the glow, and Sylvia sleeping there exhausted, while the dark plane-tree
leaves tap-tapped at the window in the autumn wind; watching, with
the uncanny certainty that, he would not pass the limits of this night
without having made at last a decision that would not alter. For even
conflict wears itself out; even indecision has this measure set to its
miserable powers of torture, that any issue in the end is better than
the hell of indecision itself. Once or twice in those last days even
death had seemed to him quite tolerable; but now that his head was clear
and he had come to grips, death passed out of his mind like the shadow
that it was. Nothing so simple, extravagant, and vain could serve him.
Other issues had reality; death—none. To leave Sylvia, and take this
young love away; there was reality in that, but it had always faded
as soon as it shaped itself; and now once more it faded. To put such a
public and terrible affront on a tender wife whom he loved, do her to
death, as it were, before the world's eyes—and then, ever remorseful,
grow old while the girl was still young? He could not. If Sylvia had not
loved him, yes; or, even if he had not loved her; or if, again, though
loving him she had stood upon her rights—in any of those events he might
have done it. But to leave her whom he did love, and who had said to
him so generously: “I will not hamper you—go to her”—would be a
black atrocity. Every memory, from their boy-and-girl lovering to the
desperate clinging of her arms these last two nights—memory with its
innumerable tentacles, the invincible strength of its countless threads,
bound him to her too fast. What then? Must it come, after all, to giving
up the girl? And sitting there, by that warm fire, he shivered. How
desolate, sacrilegious, wasteful to throw love away; to turn from the
most precious of all gifts; to drop and break that vase! There was not
too much love in the world, nor too much warmth and beauty—not, anyway,
for those whose sands were running out, whose blood would soon be cold.
Could Sylvia not let him keep both her love and the girl's? Could she
not bear that? She had said she could; but her face, her eyes, her voice
gave her the lie, so that every time he heard her his heart turned sick
with pity. This, then, was the real issue. Could he accept from her such
a sacrifice, exact a daily misery, see her droop and fade beneath it?
Could he bear his own happiness at such a cost? Would it be happiness
at all? He got up from the chair and crept towards her. She looked very
fragile sleeping there! The darkness below her closed eyelids showed
cruelly on that too fair skin; and in her flax-coloured hair he saw what
he had never noticed—a few strands of white. Her softly opened lips,
almost colourless, quivered with her uneven breathing; and now and
again a little feverish shiver passed up as from her heart. All soft and
fragile! Not much life, not much strength; youth and beauty slipping! To
know that he who should be her champion against age and time would day
by day be placing one more mark upon her face, one more sorrow in her
heart! That he should do this—they both going down the years together!
As he stood there holding his breath, bending to look at her, that
slurring swish of the plane-tree branch, flung against and against the
window by the autumn wind, seemed filling the whole world. Then her
lips moved in one of those little, soft hurrying whispers that unhappy
dreamers utter, the words all blurred with their wistful rushing.
And he thought: I, who believe in bravery and kindness; I, who hate
cruelty—if I do this cruel thing, what shall I have to live for; how
shall I work; how bear myself? If I do it, I am lost—an outcast from my
own faith—a renegade from all that I believe in.
And, kneeling there close to that face so sad and lonely, that heart so
beaten even in its sleep, he knew that he could not do it—knew it
with sudden certainty, and a curious sense of peace. Over!—the long
struggle—over at last! Youth with youth, summer to summer, falling leaf
with falling leaf! And behind him the fire flickered, and the plane-tree
leaves tap-tapped.
He rose, and crept away stealthily downstairs into the drawing-room, and
through the window at the far end out into the courtyard, where he had
sat that day by the hydrangea, listening to the piano-organ. Very dark
and cold and eerie it was there, and he hurried across to his studio.
There, too, it was cold, and dark, and eerie, with its ghostly plaster
presences, stale scent of cigarettes, and just one glowing ember of the
fire he had left when he rushed out after Nell—those seven hours ago.
He went first to the bureau, turned up its lamp, and taking out some
sheets of paper, marked on them directions for his various works;
for the statuette of Nell, he noted that it should be taken with his
compliments to Mr. Dromore. He wrote a letter to his banker directing
money to be sent to Rome, and to his solicitor telling him to let the
house. He wrote quickly. If Sylvia woke, and found him still away, what
might she not think? He took a last sheet. Did it matter what he wrote,
what deliberate lie, if it helped Nell over the first shock?
“DEAR NELL,
“I write this hastily in the early hours, to say that we are called
out to Italy to my only sister, who is very ill. We leave by the first
morning boat, and may be away some time. I will write again. Don't fret,
and God bless you.
“M. L.”
He could not see very well as he wrote. Poor, loving, desperate child!
Well, she had youth and strength, and would soon have—Oliver! And he
took yet another sheet.
“DEAR OLIVER,
“My wife and I are obliged to go post-haste to Italy. I watched you both
at the dance the other night. Be very gentle with Nell; and—good luck to
you! But don't say again that I told you to be patient; it is hardly the
way to make her love you.
“M. LENNAN.”
That, then, was all—yes, all! He turned out the little lamp, and groped
towards the hearth. But one thing left. To say good-bye! To her, and
Youth, and Passion!—to the only salve for the aching that Spring and
Beauty bring—the aching for the wild, the passionate, the new, that
never quite dies in a man's heart. Ah! well, sooner or later, all men
had to say good-bye to that. All men—all men!
He crouched down before the hearth. There was no warmth in that
fast-blackening ember, but it still glowed like a dark-red flower. And
while it lived he crouched there, as though it were that to which he was
saying good-bye. And on the door he heard the girl's ghostly knocking.
And beside him—a ghost among the ghostly presences—she stood. Slowly the
glow blackened, till the last spark had faded out.
Then by the glimmer of the night he found his way back, softly as he had
come, to his bedroom.
Sylvia was still sleeping; and, to watch for her to wake, he sat down
again by the fire, in silence only stirred by the frail tap-tapping of
those autumn leaves, and the little catch in her breathing now and then.
It was less troubled than when he had bent over her before, as though in
her sleep she knew. He must not miss the moment of her waking, must be
beside her before she came to full consciousness, to say: “There, there!
It's all over; we are going away at once—at once.” To be ready to offer
that quick solace, before she had time to plunge back into her sorrow,
was an island in this black sea of night, a single little refuge point
for his bereaved and naked being. Something to do—something fixed, real,
certain. And yet another long hour before her waking, he sat forward
in the chair, with that wistful eagerness, his eyes fixed on her face,
staring through it at some vision, some faint, glimmering light—far out
there beyond—as a traveller watches a star....