EDWARD'S ABSENCE
The injury to Edith's ankle which, according to the authorized version,
had happened on their return from the opera to the hotel, gave more
trouble than she had expected, and ten days after its infliction
she was still a limping pedestrian. This morning she was whiling
away the half-hour that would elapse before the motor took her out
with her mother, in a long chair in the strip of shade just outside
the drawing-room window, with an unread paper on her knees, hearing
rather than listening to Elizabeth's stormy performance on the piano.
The agitation that sounded there was not confined to those musical
excursions, for ever since that night at the opera there had been
something about Elizabeth that her cousin would have summed up in
the word "queer." Had not other circumstances and other people been
"queer," too, she would probably have been content to define without
analysis. As it was, she had spent a good deal of time during this
last week in attempting to penetrate this queerness of Elizabeth, and
seeing if it fitted in with other oddities. And she had come to the
uncomfortable conclusion that they were not unconnected.
Very small phenomena--more remembered now than noticed at the time--had
announced, like horns faintly blowing, the train of circumstances that
were growing peaked, like a volcano-cone, and promised eruption. Such,
for instance, had been her sense that something had happened on the
afternoon when Edward had interrupted Elizabeth's practising. It was
barely noticeable at the time, but it tended to confirm her view of
subsequent happenings, which began to take shape and substance in her
mind on the evening of the opera. That night Elizabeth had been rather
oddly excited, and though an excited Elizabeth was a daily, if not an
hourly, phenomenon, her excitement then had been of peculiar texture.
Though not given to similes, it had represented itself, quaintly
enough, to Edith's mind, under the image of Elizabeth holding some
young living thing--a puppy or a kitten--down in a bucket of water to
drown it, while to draw off attention from her employment she had been
wildly and incoherently talkative. At the time it had struck Edith that
her excitement was not merely a reaction from the climax of music and
drama; she was certainly attempting to drown something, and while her
tongue was voluble with vivid talk her fingers were holding something
down, shrinking but resolute.
This was not wholly an affair of memory and interpretation; the
impression had been conveyed to Edith at the time, and now, taken
in conjunction with other events and conclusions, it assumed the
importance of a cipher, when a numeral is prefixed to it. And the
numeral, without doubt, was Edward. For on the night of the opera,
after Elizabeth had gone to her bedroom, Edward had lingered for a
talk, and he had been as inanimate as Elizabeth had been vivid, as
grey as she had been rainbowed. He was absent-minded, preoccupied,
inaccessible; he had nothing enthusiastic or enraptured to tell her
about the opera which had so stirred his companion, and yet when
questioned he said that so far from being disappointed with it it had
been magnificent. To her comment that Elizabeth had seemed to enjoy
it, he had for reply, that "he believed she did." Half a dozen times he
had tried to rouse himself, and for a few minutes had pulled himself up
by muscular effort, as it were, to a normal level, but as often as he
thus exerted himself he fell back again below the surface, below waves
and waters. And once more her own image of Elizabeth trying to drown
something occurred to her. Then, again, Edward would ask after her
injured ankle, and not listening to her reply, repeat his inquiries; he
suggested a train for their return next morning to Heathmoor, having
himself arranged half an hour before they were to drive down in his
car. Finally, Edith, half-amused, half-piqued with him, had told him
that whether he knew it or not, he was tired, and had better follow
Elizabeth's example and go to bed. For a few minutes after that he had
roused himself to the performance of the little loverlike speeches, the
touches and hints of their relationship. It had never been the habit of
either to be demonstrative, but to-night these attentions seemed to her
purely mechanical things, wooden and creaking, not the result of the
fatigue with which she had saddled him.
Since that night, instead of seeing him, as she was accustomed to do,
every evening on his return from town, she had not once set eyes on
him. He had telephoned next day that stress of business kept him that
night in London (a thing that occasionally happened) but the same
stress of business, it appeared, had prevented his coming down to his
house next door ever since. A Sunday had intervened, and he had merely
told her that he was engaged to pay a week-end visit, and this morning
a further note had come, saying that a similar engagement prevented his
coming down on the Saturday that was at hand. It was true that he had
written to her with frequent regularity, for every morning presented
her with a note from him, but those communications were of the most
unsatisfactory description, with perfunctory regrets for his continued
absence, and perfunctory assurances of the imperativeness of the
employments which detained him. Once he had said that the hot weather
had pulled him down from the usual serenity of his health, and visited
him with headaches, but her inquiry and sympathy on this point had
brought forth no further allusion to it. He was still staying at the
Savoy Hotel, for while work was so heavy it was not worth while getting
to Heathmoor late in the evening, only to leave by the early train
in the morning. This, he said, would only add further fatigue to a
fatiguing day. And he had clearly written in, between lines, "I should
not set eyes on you, even. How is your ankle?"
These notes, as has been mentioned, arrived with regularity, but they
were not the only communications received at Arundel from him. Twice,
to Edith's knowledge, Elizabeth had heard from him, and, allowing
herself now to suspect everything and everybody, Edith imagined
that her cousin had heard oftener than that. For the early post was
delivered at the house an hour before breakfast-time, and was sent up
to the rooms of its various destinations. But a week ago now, Edith,
by chance, had come down before its arrival, and when it came had
sorted it out herself and seen the neat unmistakable handwriting; and
to-day, in obedience to a definite jealousy and suspicion, she had
come down early again, and again found that Edward had written to her
cousin. This time, hating herself for it, yet unable to resist, she
had fingered the envelope and come to the conclusion that there were
certainly two sheets in it. To neither of these letters had Elizabeth
made the slightest allusion.
There remained to colour, as it were, all these various outlined
features with a general "wash" the aspect of Elizabeth, the impression
of her. Of Edward she could only judge by the tenor of his notes,
and in them he revealed nothing except reticence. But Elizabeth was
here, her moods, her appearance, her voice, all gave information about
her; and if Edward's notes suggested reticence, Elizabeth suggested
repression. It required very little knowledge of human nature (luckily
for Edith, since her acquirements in that supreme branch of knowledge
were of the most elementary description) to see that her mind was beset
by some monstrous incubus. Often she sat silent and absorbed, and
then, with an effort, would break into a torrent of broken-winged high
spirits and gaiety, which presented the appearance of a fair forgery of
her normal appreciative pleasure in life. Then, with equal suddenness,
she would seem incapable of keeping up this spurious pageant, and in
the middle of some voluble extravagance she would sink back again into
a nervous silence. More than once this change had come on the ringing
of the front door bell, which, sounding in the kitchen passage, was
clearly audible from the garden. Not once or twice only in this last
week had Edith seen her drop suddenly into a restless silence when this
innocent harbinger was heard, while with eager and shrinking anxiety
she watched beneath dropped eyelids for the appearance of a visitor.
Sometimes some such would appear and Elizabeth would soon make an
excuse for a visit to the house or a conjecture as to the arrival of
the post.
Now up till the moment of her falling in love with Edward, Edith's
potentialities for jealousy had remained practically dormant and
sealed up in her nature, the reason presumably being that she had not
cared enough about anybody to be able to wake that green-eyed monster,
three-quarters fiend and one-quarter angel, from its hibernation. For
though jealousy is a passion which at first sight seems wholly ugly
and contemptible, it must not be forgotten that its very existence
postulates the pre-existence among its ancestors of love. Love, we may
say, represents one of its grandparents; it is always of that noble
descent. Or, if it be argued that a passion so utterly mean is wholly
lacking in the open-hearted trust which so emphatically is in the
essence of love, it must at least be conceded that love is in the hand
that turns the key or breaks the seal of the cell where jealousy lies
confined, then flings open the door to let the wild and secret prisoner
escape and roam. The love that is lofty, that seeks not its own, will
no doubt wring its hands in despair to see what sort of intruder it has
set loose, will use its best efforts, shocked at the appearance of this
monster, to confine it again; but without love never has jealousy been
allowed to get free, to root about among the springing crops of the
heart, devouring, trampling, spoiling. And in Edith's case her love had
from the first come mixed with the sense and pride of possession; its
first act, while yet new-born, was to set guards round its treasure,
sentinels to watch. To-day they were wide-eyed and alert.
From inside the drawing-room came the sound of the galloping squadrons
of chord and scale and harmony; Brahms was working up to one of his
great intellectual crises with an attack thought out, brilliantly
manoeuvred, before delivering the irresistible assault. Then quite
suddenly the music entirely ceased in the middle of a bar, and there
was dead silence. For half a second Edith conjectured the turning of a
page, but the half second grew and grew, and it was clear that it was
no such momentary halt as this that had been called. Simply, Elizabeth
had finished, had broken off in the middle.
An idea, an explanation leaped into Edith's mind, suggested to her by
one of her green-eyed sentinels, and in her present mental condition,
sapped as it was by the secret indulgence of a week's jealousy, she was
unable to resist testing the accuracy of her conjecture as she was to
resist the demands of her lungs for air. But in pursuance of her object
she waited without moving until the pulse in her clenched hand had
throbbed a hundred beats. Then very quietly she got out of her chair
and went softly in through the open garden door into the drawing-room.
Elizabeth was sitting with her back towards her at the writing-table
that stood at the far end of the room. As Edith entered the swift
passage of her pen ceased, and she sat with her head resting on one
hand, thinking intently. Then, taking it up again, she began writing
once more. Edith had seen enough for her present purpose, and she took
an audible step forward. Instantly Elizabeth turned round, and as she
turned she shut the blotting-book on her unfinished letter.
"Oh, how you startled me!" she said. "I thought somehow you had gone
out driving with Aunt Julia."
Edith sat down.
"No, the car has not come round yet," she said. "It will be here in a
minute. We shall pass the post-office; I will post your letter for you."
Elizabeth turned farther round in her chair, but her hand still lay on
the closed blotting-book.
"Oh, I was only just beginning a scribble to father!" she said. "It
will not be ready."
Edith considered the days of the week; but she felt that she knew it
was not to her father that Elizabeth was writing.
"It will just catch the mail if I post it for you," she said.
"Otherwise it will have to wait another week."
"Then it must wait another week," said Elizabeth.
Jealous people never themselves feel the wantonness and cruelty of
their unconfirmed suspicions; they only know that these are not
suspicions at all, but certainties.
"I noticed that you had a letter from Edward again this morning," she
said.
Elizabeth slightly shifted the blotting-book, and Edith registered the
fact--for so it seemed to her--that the letter was lying there.
"Again?" said Elizabeth.
Edith felt that she was not being wise. But jealousy is of all passions
the most pig-headed; it only says "I must know, I must know!"
"Yes, you heard from him a week ago."
Elizabeth, who had been startled by her cousin's entry, was cool enough
now. She perfectly understood what prompted this catechism. But little
did Edith know how gallant a battle was being fought on her behalf
by the girl whom she now so utterly distrusted and suspected; little
also did she know that which Elizabeth was using her whole strength to
conceal.
Elizabeth laughed; she meant to laugh, anyhow; the effort might pass
for a laugh.
"Yes, I believe I did," she said. "And as for that, I rather fancy you
have been hearing from him every day."
"Naturally. Did he say in his letter to you when he expected to come
down here again? He has not told me that."
"No, he did not mention it, as far as I remember. He appears to be very
busy."
"He appears to have time to write very long letters to you!" said
Edith, hatred and resentment flashing out. Till that moment she had not
known that she hated her cousin.
Elizabeth opened her blotting-book, took out of it her unfinished
letter, and from under it Edward's. She slipped them into a piece of
music that lay there, and, holding it in her hand, stood up and left
the table.
"What do you know about the length of his letter to me?" she asked.
Edith saw her mistake. The instinct that said "I must know, I must
know!" had been wonderfully ill-inspired in its notions of how to find
out.
"I happened to take it up; it was a thick letter," she said, hopelessly
trying to efface her steps, giving as reason an irrational excuse.
"I don't know the thickness of Edward's letter to you," said Elizabeth.
"It is no concern of mine how many sheets he writes you."
She paused a moment.
"You speak as if you resent Edward's writing to me at all," she added.
Edith saw that she could get at nothing in this way. Swiftly and
unexpectedly she shifted her attack, answering Elizabeth's comment by
another question.
"Why does he keep away from Heathmoor?" she said.
Elizabeth had not been expecting anything of this kind. She winced as
from a blow, and had to wait a moment before she could trust her voice
to be steady.
"Has he not told you?" she asked. "I thought it was work during the
week, and a couple of visits for the Sundays that he is away."
Two instincts were dominant in Edith--love and jealousy, inextricably
intertwined, disputing for mastership. Love and its yearning anxiety--a
cord, so to speak, of which jealousy held the other end, pulled her
here.
"But it's so strange of him," she said; "and his letters are strange! I
don't understand it at all. Can't you help me to understand, Elizabeth?
You are so much cleverer than I! Has it anything to do with music?"
There was no mistaking the sudden and piteous sincerity of her tone.
Half a minute ago she had been all anger, all hate, all suspicion. Now
she appealed to her whom she had hated and suspected.
Elizabeth felt her eyes grow suddenly dim.
"If I were you, I wouldn't worry, Edith!" she said. "I should be quiet,
not let my thoughts run away with me, and--and trust that everything is
all right."
"Then there is something wrong?" asked Edith.
"I didn't say that. I didn't mean to imply it. Take it that he is busy,
that he has visits he feels he must pay. Why should he conceal things
from you? Why should you assume there is anything to conceal?"
Edith instinctively shrank from making the direct accusation which all
this week her jealousy had been dinning in her ears so that her head
rang with it. Elizabeth would simply deny it, but it would put her on
her guard (here jealousy was busy to prompt) and the chance of finding
out more would be lost. Her emotion had narrowed and enfeebled the
scope and power of thought; she could make no plan.
"I am very unhappy," she said simply.
Elizabeth took a step towards her.
"I am sorry for that, dear," she said. "But--but don't make yourself
unhappy. Don't contribute to it."
The expected summons came, and even as the wheels of the motor
crunched the gravel Lind sounded the gong and Mrs. Hancock entered.
The household books had proved at least a sovereign less than she had
expected, also the coral necklace with the pearl clasp had come back
from the jeweller's in its new case, with Edith's initials on it. She
felt that these two delightful phenomena were somehow dependent on each
other; the money she had spent on the new case seemed to be returned to
her by the modesty of the household books.
"Dearest, are you ready?" she asked Edith. "Let us start at once and we
can go round by the old mill. And what delicious tunes you have been
playing, Elizabeth, my dear. Edward will think you have got on when he
hears you again. Why, you hardly limp at all this morning, Edith! I
knew that the lotion I gave you last night would make you better."
Mrs. Hancock settled herself among her cushions. She had lately got
a new one, rather stiff and resisting, which admirably supported the
small of her back. The footstool from the stores continued to give
complete satisfaction.
"And such a lovely day!" she said. "Just not too hot! Oh, what a jolt,
and yet I hardly felt it at all with my new cushion. I see there has
been a dreadful accident in a Welsh colliery. So sad for the poor
widows and families! What a lot of misery there is in the world. But,
as Mr. Martin says, we should not dwell on it too much, for fear of
dimming our sense of thankfulness for all our blessings. And Edward?
Have you heard from Edward? When is that naughty boy coming back? You
will have to scold him, dear, for neglecting you while he absorbs
himself in making money. There! Did you not hear the cuckoo just say
'Cuck'?--there is a rhyme about it. Yes, Edward is really quite greedy,
stopping up in London like this to make money. Yet, after all, dear,
you must consider that he is working for you, making himself rich for
you."
Edith turned round sharply, so sharply, in fact, that her mother was
startled, for sudden movements were not characteristic of her.
"Do you really think that is all, mother?" she said. "And if so, how
about the Sundays? He was not here last Sunday, and he is not coming
down for next Sunday."
"But what do you mean, Edith?" asked Mrs. Hancock. "You have not had a
quarrel or anything?"
What Edith could not say to her cousin was possible now.
"No, we have not quarrelled," she said. "But what if he doesn't even
care to quarrel? What if he has ceased to care at all? Or"--it came out
with difficulty--"or if he cares for somebody else?"
Mrs. Hancock was sufficiently disturbed not to call attention to
another cuckoo, that, in defiance of the rhyme, was still gifted with
complete speech.
"But what a wild and dreadful idea!" she said. "Have you any reason for
supposing so?"
So far could Edith go. But she could not tell her mother that she had
definite suspicions that affinities, attractions had begun to exert
their force between her lover and Elizabeth. The chief feeling that
kept her silent was pride. The confession would be humiliating; she
would be acknowledging herself as having failed to feed the affection
she had inspired. Her love for him, genuine though it was, and the best
of which her nature was capable, was not large enough to make her drown
herself. She still kept her own head above water, not guessing that
it is through the drowning, the asphyxiation of self, that the full
life of love is born. A second cause of reticence, less dominant, was
her belief in Edward's loyalty. It was overlaid with suspicion, which,
ivy-like, covered it, and thrust pushing tendrils between the stones
of its solidity, but beneath all this rank growth it was still there.
She did not yet quite soberly believe all that she suspected. She sat
silent a moment, to her mother's huge discomfort, weighing her pride in
the balance and confusing it with her loyalty.
"If it were not for his absence I should not have any reason," she
said. "But I don't understand his absence."
The gospel according to Mr. Martin was of the greatest assistance on
this point.
"Then, my dear, dismiss it altogether," said Mrs. Hancock, with relief.
"Why, it was that very point that Mr. Martin spoke of last Sunday.
Ah! I remember; you could not go to church because of your ankle.
But he told us that we ourselves were responsible for most of our
own unhappiness, and that if we only determined to feel cheerful and
thankful we should find the causes of thankfulness being multiplied
round us. Was it not a coincidence that he preached on that very
subject? One can hardly call it a coincidence; indeed, one feels sure
there must have been some purpose behind it. What lovely sunshine, is
it not? And there is the old mill. So picturesque! Tell Denton to stop
a moment and let us look at it."
A pause was made for the contemplation of this particular cause for
thankfulness, and Mrs. Hancock put up her parasol to temper the other.
"Well, that is nice!" she said. "Shall we drive on? I have never heard
Mr. Martin more convincing and eloquent, and I'm sure he practises
what he preaches, for he has always got a smile and a pleasant word
for everybody. So dismiss it all from your mind, dear, and I'll be
bound you will find Edward coming down here before many days are past,
just the same as ever, showing how right Mr. Martin is, for your
cheerfulness will be rewarded. I see nothing odd in his having to stop
up in town all the week; and as for his going away for a couple of
Sundays to see his friends, what could be more natural? You would not
wish him to be without friends, I am sure, or to shirk the claims of
friendship. And since you said that his absence was your only ground
for your dreadfully foolish idea, I think we may consider that we've
disposed of that. Now let us look about us and enjoy ourselves. Oh,
there's a windmill! How its sails are going round!"
Mrs. Hancock cast a slightly questioning glance at her daughter to
see if Mr. Martin's wonderful prescription was acting at once, like
laughing-gas, and, finding that Edith still sat serious and silent,
proceeded to administer other fortifying medicines.
"He has often told us to busy ourselves with plans and thoughts
for others," she said. "And there, again, how he practises what he
preaches: he has had the dining-room repapered, since Mrs. Martin
thought it was a little gloomy, and has given her the most beautiful
new carpet for her sitting-room. And I'm sure I've never been happier
in my life than this summer, with all your future, dear, to plan and
scheme for, and with Elizabeth as well to think about. I must say I
haven't had a moment to think about myself, even if I had wanted to."
Her kind face beamed with such smiles as Mr. Martin considered to be
symptomatic of the Christian life.
"I've got a plan about Elizabeth," she said, "though it's a secret
yet. But I should like to tell you about it. I am thinking of making
a proposal to Elizabeth and suggesting that she should not go back
to India as early as October. There is no great affection between
her and her stepmother, and I expect she often feels very lonely and
unhappy there, with no music and, as far as I can judge, only soldiers
to talk to. Dear Elizabeth! I think she is enjoying our quiet life
at Heathmoor. I dare say that after those dreadful wildernesses and
jungles in India it seems to her one round of excitement and pleasure
and parties and operas, all given her free. Indeed, I have a further
plan still, which will make her quite wild with pleasure, I am sure. I
am thinking of asking her to come with me to Egypt, and I have written
to ask Uncle Bob about it, just to see if he will allow it before I say
anything to her. Of course, he would pay for her journey--and, indeed,
it is all on the way to India--and her hotel expenses. But I should not
dream of charging her for her share of our sitting-room, if we have
one. I shall go shares with Edward in that, and I dare say the servants
at the hotel would not expect her to tip them!"
Mrs. Hancock's plans for other people always necessitated a certain
amount of interpretation; it was important to look at them from her
point of view. Here the interpretation was easy. It had occurred to
her that she would be rather lonely when Edith and Edward left after
their marriage, and that in Egypt it would be pleasant to have somebody
in constant attendance on her, since the other two, presumably, would
want to make all kinds of expeditions that she herself might not care
to join in. She liked Elizabeth's vitality and fervour, finding it
stimulating. This point she touched on next.
"I declare Elizabeth is as good as a tonic," she said, "with all her
high spirits and gaiety, though for the last ten days she has not been
quite so lively. I dare say it is the hot weather, though, to be sure,
she ought to be used to that. Here we are, on the heath again. We shall
be at home in ten minutes. How quickly we have come! Well, my darling,
I do think I have managed to disperse your clouds for you this morning.
I don't think Edward's absence will give you any more anxiety now
that we have talked so fully about it. There is nothing like talking
a thing thoroughly over. You will see that it will not be long before
his stress of work is finished. Perhaps he is making quantities and
quantities of money, for I hear that sometimes on the Stock Exchange
people make fortunes in quite a short time. Would not that be exciting?"
Mrs. Hancock, as has been seen, had a great belief in the imitative
instinct, which she interpreted by means of her own. To her it meant
that if she herself felt thoroughly content and happy, it was certain
that those round her would feel happy too, for she diffused happiness.
In the same way, if she felt very well she knew that she diffused a
spirit of health. It was a comfortable belief (like all the clauses of
her creed), and she would have been quite incredulous if she had been
told that all she had done was to accentuate Edith's suspicions by
her allusion to Elizabeth's diminished liveliness, and to depress her
thoroughly at the thought of Elizabeth joining them on the Egyptian
tour. And had Edith known how Elizabeth had been spending this last
hour while her mother had been so rich in unconvincingness, she would
have known how solid her suspicions really were.
The girl had gone up to her bedroom after the motor had started in
order to be secure against any further interruption, and had again
read through the letter she had received from Edward that morning,
which, as Edith had ascertained, contained two sheets. She heard his
voice in the pleading sentences; it seemed to her as she read, with
eyes that ever and again were too dim to decipher the words, that he
was actually talking to her. And she could not interrupt him, argue
with him as she would have done if he had been here; she had to fight
the cumulative effect of those close-written lines. He besought her to
allow him to come down, for it was at her instance that he stayed away,
and tell Edith all. He scouted as childish the idea that absence could
make any difference, that he could forget what she had called "the
excited madness of that evening." Above all, again and yet again, with
a lover's clamorous iteration, he begged her to see him.
Elizabeth sat with this letter in front of her for a long time after
she had finished reading and rereading it, letting her tears have their
way with her. In strange guise had the soft god come to her, girt about
with bitterness and impossibilities. She raged at herself for loving
him; she reviled this torturing demon that others found so sweet, but
how she longed for the changed, transfigured aspect that he burned
to show her. Once, for mere relief of heart, she filled a page with
scrawled words of love, only to tear it up again, and once she filled
another page with useless denials, with cold assertions that Edward
was nothing to her, that she was perfectly indifferent to him. That,
too, was fruitless; he knew she loved him, and even if she could have
convinced him that it was not so, she could not have brought herself so
to convince him to deny the most sacred truth that she had ever known.
She could no more have done that than she could accept the love which
brought misery on another and rose from the ashes of a broken promise.
If there was no binding force in loyalty all ties were dissolved.
After a while her sobs grew quieter, and she tore up the letter she had
begun to him when Edith, that morning, had come in from the garden.
Till then, Elizabeth had not known that her cousin suspected anything,
that she had begun to put the real construction on Edward's absence.
Now it was necessary to quiet those suspicions, to let Edward know
also, in a way she could not convey by letter, that while Edith claimed
his promise, that promise could not be broken for any reason whatever.
Nothing in the world seemed so certain as this. Edith must voluntarily
give him up before.... Then she carefully erased that sentence. That
contingency was not to be thought of yet.
Elizabeth felt utterly weary and confused and heart-sick. Obstacles,
menacing and monstrous, faced her in whichever direction she turned.
Perhaps Edward's presence would only confirm and strengthen Edith's
suspicions, and lead her to the certainty which she suspected. Yet if
Edward continued to be absent, that would lead to a break on his side,
at his initiative, and it was that above all that must be avoided.
If he threw her over, said he could not marry her, the hosts of hell
and heaven combined would not be able to bring Elizabeth to him. She
could not take what by right was Edith's against Edith's will. It was
possible, and more than possible, that Edith might see he did not love
her, and not release him only, but bid him begone. And yet Edward had
never loved her, while she, loving him in her own manner, had been
content with his liking and friendly intimacy. When she knew that his
heart had been awakened, but not for her, would she still desire that
moonlight, when his sun had risen on another land? Elizabeth, as she
finished her letter to Edward, felt that she had not the slightest idea.
The letter got written, and no word of tenderness or love appeared
in it; it might have been penned by some fossil of a family friend
and written in prehistoric ink, for if she had not written like that
there was but one other way in which she could write to him, and she
would have said, "I am coming to you." The thinnest partition, but
a partition the most impenetrable, insulated her from him. On this
point her will stood utterly firm. In this short, dry note she did not
attempt to argue the question; she merely told him that he must come
down at once, and put an end to Edith's intolerable suspicions. "But
for you to break your engagement to her will not bring me one step
nearer you," were the concluding words. Whether she was acting wisely
or not, whether there was not some step she could take later that would
be cleverer, more tactful, she could not consider. The situation was
simple enough, and they had to wait for Edith to decide its solution.
The thing was done; that cold, hard little sentence that finished
her letter was written. All this last week of his absence she had
wondered whether her will would stand firm enough to enable her to
tell him that, and to make no other answer to his pleading. She knew
that when he came down, as he assuredly would on the next day, she
would be obliged to see him, to let him in justice state the case for
himself. But she had now her own word to bind her; she would be able,
by memory, to recapture the spirit of the moment when she wrote it. It
was her definite decision, and the knowledge of it would fortify her.
She would need it, she felt, when she was face to face with him and her
overwhelming need of him.
A resolution taken and embedded in the mortar of fact always gives
relief, even if a death-sentence is involved in it. The acute edge of
suspense is removed, and when Elizabeth, having posted her letter,
strolled out again into the garden, she was conscious of a certain
tranquillity, to which for the last ten days she had been an utter
stranger. She did not suppose that there was anything more than a lull
in the tempest; she knew that it must again howl and buffet round her,
but even as on the night after the opera, she had felt a momentary calm
as she looked at the moonlit flood-tide, so now she was given another
respite. But now she felt securer; she had gained a little ground, she
could look out over the contention and estimate the odds against her as
less desperate.
It was just here she had walked on the dewy morning, in ecstasy of
unreflecting happiness, when the instinct to give thanks to Some One
first came to her. To-day she saw the triumphant riot of midsummer
under a noonday sun, and she, no less than the garden, was surrounded
by the burden and heat. The dew and freshness had faded from the cool
petals, and the heavy heads of the roses drooped on their stems. But
with brimming eyes and bitten lip she encouraged herself to exhibit a
sturdier pluck than they. She would not yield, she would not hang her
head, she would, whatever the issues might be, be grateful to the power
that had come into her soul, the power to love. Ignorantly, ten days
ago, she had thought that sufficient; now, with greater knowledge,
she wondered whether her ignorance had not told her right, after all.
Then it seemed to matter nothing so long as she loved; now, just for a
little while, she knew it mattered nothing. She caught a glimpse, as of
snow-peaks behind storm-clouds, of a reality so lofty, so serene, that
she almost distrusted her eyes.
Suddenly her mind sped on its magic flight to the low white house at
Peshawar, from which so often she had lifted her eyes up through the
heat-haze to the quivering lines of eternal snows, to the steadfast
peaks that rose above all dust and storm-cloud, and she smiled as she
recognized by what association of ideas her mind had winged its way
thither. The gardens there would be withered in the heat, but she
yearned for the scene where life had been so unperplexed. Above all,
she yearned for her father, who even now retained the simplicity of
youth; she yearned for his comradeship, his wisdom, his patience,
his sympathy. She could have told him all the trouble so easily and
confidently; she could hear him say, "Lizzie, dear, I am so sorry, but,
of course, you had to do just what you did." She could have argued with
him, taking the side of her longing and love, telling him that nothing
could be counted or reckoned with against the fact that she and Edward
loved each other. And again she could hear him say, "My dear, I know
you don't think that really." And then she could have said, "No, no,
I don't mean it," and have sobbed her heart out against that rough
homespun jacket which he wore in the garden.
The garden! At the end was a low wall, over which one night she had
vaulted, when, just outside, lay the dying Brahmin, to whom a beggar's
death by the wayside, needy, indigent, was a triumph that transcended
all telling, was the finding of that which all his life he had sought.
His eyes, already dim in death, were open not upon death, but life.
He had renounced all the fair things that the world offered to find
something infinitely fairer. Round him, tired, hungry, dying, the
banner of some stupendous triumph waved.
How had he reached that? By seeking.
And how had he sought? By renunciation.
And what had he found? Life.
The moment had worn the vividness and splendour of a dream, and
Elizabeth was again conscious of the heavy-headed flowers and the
noonday heat. The wheels of the motor scraped on the gravel sweep at
the other side of the house, and in another minute she would be plunged
back in the deeds and the needs of every day. But she no longer felt
so utterly alone and desolate; far behind the storm she had seen the
snows, and for a moment the moonlight had shone on the face of the
dying Brahmin. There was some tie between them all, something that
expressed itself in the peace of the great silence, and in the vision
of the dying eyes, and--was she not right in hoping?--in the choice she
had just made. There was one thread running through them, there was a
factor common to them all.
And here was Mrs. Hancock coming into the garden.
"My dear, is it wise to be out in this sun without a hat?" she asked.
"You have had a nice quiet time for your practising, haven't you? I was
telling Edith that I felt sure Edward would think you had got on, when
he comes down here again."