EDWARD'S RETURN
Elizabeth's letter to Edward had pressed upon him an immediate return
to Heathmoor, at the cost of his week-end engagement, if such existed.
To them both the desire of their hearts for each other had been
revealed on that night of the opera, as chaos suddenly made manifest by
a flash of lightning, and on all considerations it had been more decent
and wise that he should absent himself. But, as Elizabeth had foreseen,
this absence could not indefinitely continue, since it implied absence
from Edith as well as herself, and was but of the nature of a temporary
measure, to give breathing-space and time for reflection. She had told
him, but not with confidence, that absence would restore his legitimate
allegiance; poor girl, she had but little trust herself in the mildness
of that prescription, which was, so to speak, but a dose where the
knife was called for. In any case, Edith's revealed suspicions had
rendered his return necessary. Whatever the solution of that knot into
which the heart-strings of three young folk were tangled, it must be
dealt with by his presence here.
For both girls the interval before he could answer, whether his reply
was an argued negative to Elizabeth or an affirmative announcement to
Edith, passed in acute discomfort, that rose and fell, like the ebb and
flow of the physical pain of some deep-seated mischief, into crises of
anguish and numb reactions. There was not an employment, there was
scarcely a topic of conversation that did not conduct them sooner or
later to an impassable road, where was a red flag and a danger signal.
The hours passed in broken conversation and aching silences, with
Edith sentinelled about by her fears and jealousies, Elizabeth torn
with longings, and hearing amid the troubled peace of her renunciation
voices that accused her of bitter cruelty to herself and to him and
poured scorn on the tragic folly of her refusal. Twenty times that
day she felt she could barely resist the need of telegraphing to him,
cancelling her letter, and, acceding to his imperative desire, of
simply taking the next train up to town, going to him, and saying,
"I have come." But her will renounced him still, and her will still
dominated her deeds. And all the time she knew that Edith watched her
with sidelong glances that were quickly removed when her own eyes met
them. Sometimes it seemed that Edith must speak, so intense was the
miserable strain, but she always shied away at the last moment. Over
those palpitating duellists, who never quite came to blows, presided
Mrs. Hancock, unconscious and bland, foolish and voluble. She had
experienced a moment's discomfort this morning, when Edith spoke to her
of Edward's continued absence, but, as Mr. Martin would have her do,
she dismissed it with complete success from her mind, telling herself
that she had quite cleared it all up, and made Edith comfortable again.
The obvious constraint that hung over the two girls she merely refused
to admit into her mind. It might batter and ring at the door, and there
was no need for her even to open that door a chink, and assert that
she was out. She sat and knitted at her crossovers, and in the evening
played patience, refusing to hear the signals of distress and trouble.
Next day came a telegram from Edward to Edith announcing his arrival
at half-past seven that evening, and asking, or rather supposing, that
he might dine with them. It was delivered at lunch-time, and Edith, as
she tore it open, glanced at Elizabeth opposite, and saw the sudden
whiteness of her face, saw that she sat with her fork half-raised to
her lips, then put it back on her plate again, that she waited with
hand pressed to the table to control its trembling. His message gave
rise to debate, for Mrs. Hancock and Edith were engaged to dine at the
Vicarage that night, and a small solitary dinner had already, three
hours before, been ordered for Elizabeth. There was to be a slip, a
lamb cutlet--quite enough and not too much.
"Of course, it would be natural," said Mrs. Hancock, "to ask him to
come and have a little dinner with you, dear Elizabeth, and then you
could amuse yourselves by playing to each other afterwards till Edith
and I returned. And then Edith and I could have made an excuse to get
away perhaps at ten, or even five minutes before. But now your dinner
is ordered; it is very provoking, and Mrs. Williams----"
Edith interrupted, watching Elizabeth narrowly. Her jealousy seemed to
have divided itself into two camps. Part (and for the moment this was
the stronger) allied itself with this scheme; if Elizabeth and Edward
had an evening together, things (if there were things) would declare
themselves; there would be an answer to that eternal question, "I want
to know; I want to know!"
"That's a delightful plan, mother," she said; "and surely Mrs. Williams
has got some cold beef. Edward says nobody can need more than plenty of
cold beef for dinner. He and Elizabeth will enjoy an evening together;
they will talk over the opera and play. And we shan't be obliged to
hurry back from the Martins'."
This rather diabolical speech hit its mark. Elizabeth blushed furiously
as she heard the yapping bitterness in Edith's voice. And it was not
only with the rush of the conscious blood that her face flared; anger
flamed at the innuendo, the double meanings.
"In fact, I needn't reply to Edward's telegram at all," said Edith,
"and he will naturally come here for dinner."
Elizabeth looked up at her cousin. At the moment she completely and
fervently hated her.
"Oh, that wouldn't do, Edith!" she said. "Edward would come over
here all anxiety to see you, and find only me. He would be horribly
disappointed and make himself very disagreeable. I shouldn't wonder if
he went straight back to London again."
That was the first pass of the naked swords between them; yesterday
they had not come to the touch of the steel, and the first bout was
distinctly in Elizabeth's favour. Elizabeth had not parried only,
she had attacked. And yet it was only with foolish words that could
not wound that she had thrust. Had Edith only known, her cousin was
fighting for her with a loyalty that was as divine as it was human, and
calling on the loyalty of her lover to be up in arms. But her assault,
with its sharp double meaning, only gratified a moment's laudable
savagery and she instantly turned to her aunt.
"Oh, Aunt Julia," she said, "I should so like an evening alone. Do tell
Edward you are out; he can be here all Sunday. I want to write to Daddy
and I want to practise. Not play, but practise."
"Well, it would put Mrs. Williams out," said Mrs. Hancock, "to know
that she had to provide dinner for Edward as well, for as for letting
him eat nothing but cold beef, I think she would sooner leave my
service than do that. Edward is a great favourite with Mrs. Williams.
Indeed, where she would get provisions I don't know, for it's early
closing, and even such shops as we have here are shut. I think your
plan is the best, dear, and your father wouldn't like not to hear from
you, and then there's your practice as well. I'll write a note to him.
Has everybody finished? And which of you would like to drive with me
this afternoon?"
Elizabeth, conscious of her own loyalty, did not in the least mind
having another thrust at her cousin. Edith had provoked her; Edith
should take the consequences--the superficial ones. She turned to her.
"It will be a good punishment for Edward," she said, "to find that you
are out. You will be paying him back in his own coin for keeping away
so long. Perhaps he will come round after you get back. If I were you I
should say I was tired and would not see him."
Edith looked at her with her real anxiety, making anxious, imploring
signals. Elizabeth saw and disregarded them.
"Of course, it would be the worst punishment of all for him," she said,
"if you let him come round expecting to find you and he found only me
alone with my lamb-cutlet. But you mustn't punish him as much as that,
Edith. It would be too cruel."
Mrs. Hancock had passed out of the dining-room on the quest for the
longer paragraphs in the _Morning Post,_ and for a moment the two girls
faced each other. Elizabeth was still quivering with indignation at
Edith's first wanton attack, the attack which sounded so friendly and
pleasant a salutation and which both knew was so far otherwise. And
if Edith only knew what wrestlings, what blind strivings after light
Elizabeth had undergone for her....
"Don't scold him too much," she said. "He is so nice. I love Edward!
Shall I drive with Aunt Julia this afternoon, or would you like to?"
Elizabeth ran upstairs to her room and locked herself in. Already she
was sick at heart for her barren dexterity. She had pricked Edith
with her point, made her wince, startled her into miserable silence.
And what was the good of it all? It did not even for the moment allay
the savage anguish of her own wound. She threw herself on her bed and
sobbed.
By soon after eight she had finished her dinner and was sitting in the
drawing-room, neither writing to her father nor practising. For the
last half-hour she had had one overpowering sensation in her mind,
which absorbed the active power of thought, and spread itself like a
dense enveloping mist, obscuring all other perceptions--namely, the
knowledge that in the house next door Edward sat alone, or perhaps
walked in the garden, longing to catch sight of her over the low brick
wall. She, too, would have spent this hour of darkening twilight
outside but for fear of seeing him, or more exactly but for the longing
to see him which she must starve and deny. No doubt she would have to
see him, have to listen to his pleading; but it was part of her resolve
that she would use all her will to hold herself apart. But the thought
of him possessed her, and she could not concentrate her mind enough
even to attempt to practise or to write her overdue letter. It had
taken all her nervous force to arrive where she was; now, like a bird
after the flight of migration, she had to rest, to let the time go by,
without stirring up her activities; for any activity she roused seemed
to be directed from the cause of purpose that excited it, and to be
sucked into the mill-race that but ran the swifter for an added volume
of awakened perception.
Soon mere inactivity became even more impossible than employment,
and she opened the piano. The wonder of music, which his love had so
magically quickened in her, perhaps would not desert her even now, and
she set herself to study the intellectual as well as the technical
intricacies of Brahms' variations on the Handel themes. If she could
give them any attention at all, she felt she could give them her
whole attention; it was impossible merely to paddle knee-deep in that
profound and marvellous sea; you had either to swim, or not enter it
at all. She bent her mind to her work, as a man bends the resisting
strength of a bow. She would string it; she willed that it should bend
itself to its task.
How marvellous was this artistic vision! To the composer, the theme
was like some sweet, simple landscape, a sketch of quiet country with
a stream, perhaps, running through it. Then he set himself to see
it in twenty different ways. He saw it with gentle morning sunshine
asleep over it; he saw it congested with winter, green with the young
growth of spring, triumphant in the blaze of summer, and gorgeous with
the flare of the dying year. He saw it with rain-clouds lowering on
its hills and swelling its streams with gathered waters; he saw it
underneath the lash of rain, and echoing to the drums of thunder; he
saw it beneath the moonlight, and white with starshine on snow.
Suddenly Elizabeth held her hands suspended over the keys, and in her
throat a breath suspended. Through the maze of melody she had heard
another sound, faint and tingling, that pierced through the noise
of the vibrating strings. A bell had rung. Hearing it, she knew that
unconsciously she had been listening for it with the yearning with
which the eyes of the shipwrecked watch for a sail.
There were steps in the hall, a few words of indistinguishable talk,
and she turned round on her music-stool and faced the door. It opened,
whispering on the thick carpet, and Edward stood there.
In silence he held out both hands to her, and she rose. But she did not
advance to him, or he to her.
She felt her lip trembling as she spoke.
"You should not have come," she said.
"You told me to come."
"But not to me. I told you to come to Edith."
He sat down in a chair near her.
"You have got to hear what I have to say," he said. "You have not heard
it yet."
"Yes; you have written to me. I have answered you."
"I can't express myself in writing. I can only write symbols of what I
mean."
"I understood your symbols very well. I am sure you understood mine."
It seemed to her that the real struggle had only just begun. Even as
he had said, what he wrote had only been symbols compared to the awful
reality of his presence. The short, sharp sentence that each had spoken
rang with keen hostility; in each love was up in arms, battling, as
with an enemy, for a victory that must be hard won.
"You speak as if you hated me for coming," he said. "If you do, I can't
help it."
She raised her eyes to him.
"Oh, my dear, don't make it harder for me," she said. "It's hard enough
already. I can't bear much more."
"I am going to make it as hard for you as I possibly can," said he. "I
don't care what it costs you, so long as I convince you."
"You won't even convince me."
"I shall try my best. I believe your happiness as well as mine is at
stake."
He paused a moment, and his voice, which had been low and quiet, like
hers, suddenly raised itself.
"I want you!" he cried. "Oh, can you know what it means to want like
that? I don't believe you can, or you could not resist. Do you realize
what has happened? how, by a miracle of God-sent luck, we two have
found each other? And you think that there can be an obstacle between
us! There can't be! There is nothing in the world that is real enough
to come between us. You do love me. I was wrong when I said I didn't
believe you knew what it meant to want. When, for one moment, you clung
to me, you knew. You were real then; you were yourself. But since then
you have held up a barrier between us. I am here to tear it down."
"You can't tear it down," said Elizabeth.
"You shall tear it down yourself. I didn't know what love meant when I
got engaged to Edith; that was because I hadn't seen you. Oh, I know,
two years ago I had set eyes on you, but I hadn't seen you. It was
obvious that I couldn't love just because I hadn't seen you. I couldn't
unlock my heart without the key. And you were the key. Elizabeth, oh,
Elizabeth, I worship you! Oh, my darling, what is the use of torturing
me as you have been doing during these awful days! You won't go on--you
won't!"
He had left his chair and was kneeling before her, with his hands
clasped together on her lap. As he had said, his written words were
but symbols compared to the reality; they were but as pictures of
flames compared to the burning of authentic fire, as splashes of paint
compared to actual sunshine. She could not speak just yet; only with
the quivering semblance of a smile and eyes that were bright with tears
could she answer him. But she did not shrink from him, nor move, and
she laid her hands on his.
"Edward!" she said at last, and again, "Edward!"
Against some inward weight of unacknowledged conviction he allowed
himself to hope, and, bending, he kissed the hands that lay on his. Not
now, even, did she shrink, for she could not. It was as much as she
could do not to respond. And she could not respond.
"You see, then?" he whispered. "At last you see!"
He looked up and faced the tender, inexorable love in her eyes.
"I see more clearly than ever," she said. "Please, dear, don't
interrupt me. Not by word or by look even. I can't marry you
unless--unless Edith voluntarily gives you up. I can't. I can't accept
love that can be mine only through your disloyalty, through your
breaking a promise you have given. And I can't let you take my love on
those terms. It would kill love; it would kill the most sacred thing
there is. No; loyalty is as sacred. And you mustn't ask her to set you
free. Love can only give, only give--it cannot ask for itself."
He got up, wild with impotent yearning, inflamed to his inmost fibre.
"But are you flesh and blood!" he cried, "or are you some--some
unsubstantial phantom that does not feel?"
She rose also with fire of loyalty to meet his fire of passion,
and flung out her words with a strength that more than matched his
violence.
"No, I am flesh and blood," she said, "and you know that I love you.
But love is holier to me than to you. I can't love you differently. We
can never come together while a single thread of loyalty, of common
honour, has to be snapped to let us."
He interrupted.
"Trust your heart, my darling," he said; "only trust that!"
"I do trust it. And I trust yours. You know you are battling with not
me alone, but yourself. There is something within you that tells you I
am right."
"My cowardice. Nothing more. My fear of unpleasant things for which my
real self does not care two straws."
She shook her head at him; then advanced and laid her long hands on his
shoulders.
"It is just your real self that does care," she said. "Oh, my dear, I
do not mean it is your false self that loves me. But it is your false
self that has been urging me to-night. Edward"--and again her lips so
trembled that she could scarcely speak--"Edward, I don't want to spare
you one moment of the wretchedness that has come upon us, nor would I
spare myself. If we were not suffering so, we should not love so. All
our suffering is part of our love. I don't know why it has happened
like this, why God didn't allow us to meet sooner. And that doesn't
concern us. It is so. What does concern us is not to graft our love
on to disloyalty and unfaithfulness. It is in our power to do right.
I can't deliberately choose to find happiness for you or for me in a
crime."
"Crime!"
"Yes, the worst sort of crime, for it is one that is a crime that we
should commit against each other. I don't think"--and a shadow of a
smile hung round Elizabeth's mouth--"I don't think I should feel so
very bad if I murdered some one whom I hate. But in this I should be
murdering all that is best in the man I love."
"You are talking wildly!" he said. "Murder! What nonsense!"
"I never spoke more deliberately," said she.
Again he was stung to a frenzy of impotence.
"And you admit you love me!" he cried. "You admit it!"
"But of course. Don't--don't be so silly!"
"But I can't do it. I can't let you go!" he broke out again. "And would
you have me marry Edith, you, who talk about the sacredness of love?"
Elizabeth pushed him gently away from her.
"I don't know. I haven't had room in me to think about that," she said.
"It has taken me, well--all my time to think about us."
He was silent a moment,
"Do you think she will let me go, when she knows?" he asked.
"I think she does know. At least I think she guesses."
"Well?"
"I can't tell. But I think she loves you. I am sure she loves you. And
it is hard to let go a person one loves."
"It's impossible!" he cried suddenly.
"She may find it so."
"I wasn't thinking of her," said he.
He stretched out his arms wide and towards her.
"Elizabeth!" he cried.
She wavered where she stood. Never yet had the balance hung so evenly,
as when now he made his final appeal to her, wordless except for her
own name, for into that his whole soul went. She felt dragged to him by
a force almost irresistible. From him and her alike for the moment all
the ties and considerations of loyalty and honour were loosed; he knew
only his overmastering need, she, the intensity of a woman's longing to
give herself. Had the choice been then for the first time to be made,
she would have flung herself to him. But the force of the choice she
had made before had already made itself firm within her.
"No, no, no!" she said, and the words were drops of blood. Then once
more she had power to turn from him.
She went back to the piano to close it, and mechanically shut up the
music she had been playing from. Then, though she had heard nothing,
she felt that some change had come into the room. From the edge of the
field of vision she saw that Edward had turned towards the door, and
she looked. The door was open, and Edith stood there.
Elizabeth let the piano-lid slip from her hands, and it fell with a
bang and jar of wires.
"You are back early," she said. "At least it is early, is it not? Has
Aunt Julia come back?"
"No. I telephoned for the car, and left almost immediately after
dinner. My ankle began to hurt again."
The reaction after her struggle had begun in Elizabeth. Though it was
for Edith's advantage she had done battle, it was not for Edith's sake,
and the sight of her cousin suddenly filled her with bitter resentment.
She felt perfectly sure also that this reason for her return was wholly
fictitious; she had come back like this for an entirely different
purpose. Elizabeth feigned an exaggerated sympathy.
"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, "and surely, Edith, it is madness to
stand like that. I am sure you are in agonies. Of course you will go to
bed at once. Shall not I ring for Filson? And then I will telephone
and ask Dr. Frank to come round immediately. Is it very bad? Poor dear!
But anyhow you have the pleasure of seeing Edward. You did not expect
to find him here, did you? Did you?"
Goaded and self-accused of a foolish attempt at deceit, Edith turned to
her.
"Yes, I did," she said, "I thought it extremely probable."
"Ah, and can it have been for the sake of finding him here as much as
for the sake of your ankle, which I see you still continue to stand on,
that you came back? Edward, do you hear? Edith expected to find you
here. So she is not disappointed. And I'm sure her ankle feels much
better."
It was scarcely possible to believe that this jeering, scoffing girl
was the same who five minutes before pleaded with her lover with such
womanly strength, such splendid self-repression, or that she could have
thus battled for the rights of her whom she now so bitterly taunted.
And indeed the mere identity of Edith was but a casual accident;
Elizabeth had ranged herself on the side of a principle rather than the
instance of it. For the rest, after the scene in which she had called
upon every ounce of her moral force to aid her, she had nervously,
entirely collapsed with a jar like that of the fallen piano-lid. Then
her collapse spread a little farther; the angry fire that burned in her
for this pitiful subterfuge went out, and, swaying as she stood, she
put her hands before her eyes.
"I'm giddy!" she said. "I'm afraid I'm going to faint!"
Edward took a quick step towards her, but she waved him aside and fell
on to the sofa. Edith looked at her without moving.
"You will be all right if you sit still a moment," she said, "and then
I think it is you who had better go to bed. As Edward is here, I want
to talk to him privately. Leave her alone, Edward; she is better left
alone."
He paid no attention to this, and went to the sofa.
"Can I do anything for you?" he said. "Can't I get you some water, or
some brandy?"
Elizabeth sat up.
"I shall be all right," she said. "I will just sit here a minute or
two. Then I will go. Edith wants to talk to you. She--she has not seen
you for so long."
Slowly her vitality returned, and with it for the second time that day
the aching sense of the uselessness of her bitter, ironical words to
her cousin, of the sheer stupidity of their wrangle. If Edith chose to
tell a foolish tale about her ankle, it concerned nobody but herself.
It did not matter, for one thing only in the world mattered. And with
regard to that, for the present, she felt a total apathy. She had done
her part; nobody, not even herself, could require anything more of her.
She felt hugely and overwhelmingly tired, nothing more at all. She got
up.
"I shall take your advice, Edith, and go to bed," she said. "If there
is anything you want to tell me afterwards, please come up to my room.
Good-night, Edward!"
Not till her steps had passed away up the stairs did either of the
two others speak. Edith's face, firm, pretty, plump, showed not the
slightest sign of emotion. She stood in front of the empty fire-place,
waving her feather fan backwards and forwards opposite her knee,
looking at it.
"I think you had better tell me what has happened," she said. "Or if
you find a difficulty in doing that I will tell you. You imagine that
you have fallen in love with Elizabeth."
An answer seemed superfluous. After a little pause she apparently
thought so too, and went on, still in the same quiet, passionless tone.
"I have often watched you and her," she said. "She has used her music
as an instrument to encourage you and draw you on----"
"That is not so!" said Edward.
"Of course you are bound to defend her. It is manly of you, and what I
should expect from you. But that does not matter."
"Yes, it does matter," said he. "Throughout the fault has been entirely
mine. You have got to believe that. You do not understand her at all if
you think otherwise."
"I do not want to understand Elizabeth. Her nature and mine are so far
apart that I do not attempt to understand her. What is perfectly clear
to me is that she knew that you and I were engaged, and she has tried
to come between us. So far I understand her, and for me that is far
enough."
Edward looked at her. Half an hour ago he had wondered whether
Elizabeth was flesh and blood. Now he wondered if Edith was.
"You are absolutely mistaken about her," he said. "It is she who has
been unswervingly loyal to you. The disloyalty has been entirely mine.
I know I can't make you believe it, but it is so."
Edith met his eye looking at her steadily without tremor.
"Yes, you can make me believe it, if you ask me to release you from
your engagement to me," she said. "Do you do that?"
The waving of her fan ceased as she waited for his answer. She stood
absolutely still, a marvel of self-control.
"No, I don't ask that," he said. "All the same, you must believe what
I tell you about your cousin."
"And if I can't?"
"I will force you to. I will tell you what happened on the night of the
opera; I will tell you why I have kept away all these days. I will even
show you the letter from her that brought me back. You will have to
believe."
For the moment nothing seemed to matter to him except that Edith should
believe this, and in the silence that followed he watched her face, and
marvelled at the change that came there. It was as if it was possible
to see the belief penetrating into her brain, and transforming her
features, even as the thaws of the spring penetrate into the congealed
ground, softening its outlines and bedewing the spear-heads of frozen
grass with moisture, that percolates and liquefies the ice-bound
tussocks. Even so, Edith, frozen with jealous hate for Elizabeth,
melted at the words the truth of which it was impossible to doubt,
for the nature of the proofs he offered was the guarantee for them.
She had to believe. And this unfreezing melted her; the crust of her
hardness was dissolved, and pitiful imperative yearnings welled up from
the very springs of her, that pierced and flooded the ground that had
been sealed to their outflow. As far as her will went, she banished her
bitterness and blame of Elizabeth; she was herself alone with her lover
and her love, that was more adamantine than this mere frozen surface of
hatred and jealousy had been. Till that crust was dissolved, the inner
springs could not flow; now it was melted and they flooded her.
Her fan dropped unregarded at her feet, and she clasped her hands
together.
"I believe you," she said. "It is you who--who are responsible. But you
don't ask me to release you. That is well, for--for I can't release
you. You can refuse to marry me, I suppose. A man can always do that if
he has made a girl love him and has asked her to marry him."
He did not answer, and she went on winding and unwinding her fingers.
"You see I love you," she said, "and I can't let you go. And only a
few weeks ago you liked me enough anyhow to want me to marry you.
You thought you would be very well content to live with me always. I
think that was about it. And I felt much the same towards you. Then
immediately, when I found you wanted me, I began to love you. And I
love you more and more. Before that nothing in the world had meant
anything to me. Even if you asked me to let you go, I could not."
Still he said nothing, and she came up close to him, treading on her
fan and breaking the ivory sticks of it.
"It would be simply impossible for me," she said. "Do you think that
by my own act I could give you up, and let you marry Elizabeth--as I
suppose you would do?"
She pointed through the open window at his house next door.
"Could I see you living there with _her?_" she asked. "Hear the gate
clang as you went in on your return in the evening? See the lights lit
in the house and quenched again at night, and know you were there with
her, and that I had permitted it? Never, never! You can refuse to marry
me, if you will; that is your affair. But don't, Edward, don't!" and
her voice broke.
He felt utterly humiliated by her sudden entreaty. It was pitiful, it
was intolerable that she whom he had sought light-heartedly with a view
to comfort and quiet happiness and domestic peace should abase herself
to him, asking that he should not withdraw so paltry a gift. He had
known and liked and admired her for years, and had offered her, not
knowing how cheap and shabby was his devotion, what was wholly unworthy
of her acceptance. In return now she gave him unreservedly all she had,
all she was capable of, only asking that his rubbish should not be
taken from her.
And now as he sat there, full of cold pity for her, full of scorn
for himself that he should give her pity and be unable to give her
warmth, she knelt to him, clasping his knees. And her beseeching, so
grovelling, so abandoned, seemed only to degrade him. Knowing now that
he knew what love was, how royal was the gift she brought him, he saw
himself bankrupt and abject, receiving the supplications of some noble
petitioner.
With streaming eyes and voice that choked she besought him.
"Just give me what you can, my darling," she said, "and oh, how content
I will be! It is so short a time ago that you thought I could make you
happy, and I can--believe me, I can. I was not worthy when you asked
me first, but I have learned so much since I began to love you, and I
am worthier now. You have always liked me, we have always been good
friends, and you will get over this sudden infatuation for Elizabeth. I
will be so good about that; I won't be jealous of her. It wasn't your
fault that you fell in love with her; I will never reproach you for it.
We shall be so happy together very soon; she will go back to India and
you will forget. I will do anything except give you up!"
Once or twice he had tried to interrupt her, but she swept his words
away in the torrent of her entreaties. But here for a moment her voice
utterly choked, and he put his arm round her, raising her, dragging
her from her knees. Weeping hysterically, she clung to him, burying
her face on his shoulder, and all the tenderness and kindliness in his
nature came to him.
"My dear, don't talk like that," he said, soothing her, "and don't cry
like that. Dry your eyes, Edith; there is nothing to cry about."
"Tell me, then," she sobbed, "what are you going to do with me?"
Still with his arm about her he led her across the room to the sofa
where, half an hour ago, Elizabeth had fallen. There was no possibility
of choice left him, and he saw that clearly enough. He could not
break a promise made to one who loved him, the strength of whose love
he had not even conjectured before. Undemonstrative and reticent by
nature, Edith had never yet shown him her heart, nor had he known how
completely it was his. There was no struggle any more; there was left
to him only the self-humiliating task of comforting her.
"God knows I will give you all I can," he said. "I will do my best to
make you happy. But, my dear, don't humiliate me any more. I know that
you are giving me all a woman can give a man. And it is sweet of you to
forgive me; I don't deserve to be forgiven. There, dry your eyes. Let
me dry them for you. Never, never, I hope, will you cry again because
of me."
Edith's sobbing had ceased, and with a woman's instinct she began to
repair with deft fingers the little disorder of her dress.
"Oh, I will love you so, my darling!" she whispered. "We shall be
happy; I know we shall be happy. And when I give you the best gift of
all, when I give you a child, and another child...."
"Yes, yes, I know," he said. "And how their grannie will love them!"
She shrank away from him a moment at this. He had said anything that
might comfort and quiet her, which came to his tongue.
"And how we shall love them!" he added quickly. "There, you look more
yourself."
Still leaning on him, as if loth to let him go, she turned her
tear-stained face round to the mirror above the sofa.
"Ah, but what a fright!" she said. "I shall just go and wash my face
and then come back to you. Mother will be in any minute now. And I
shall look into Elizabeth's room, shall I not? She--she said she wanted
to know."
The sounds of the arrival of the motor hastened her departure upstairs,
and next moment Mrs. Hancock came in.
"Well, it is nice to see you, my dear!" she said. "But I can't say it's
a surprise, for I told Edith I was sure you would look in. But where's
Edith? And where's Elizabeth?"
Edward shook hands.
"Elizabeth went to bed half an hour ago," he said. "She was not feeling
very well. Edith has just gone upstairs. She was going to look in and
see how she was."
Mrs. Hancock sat down to her patience-table. She always played patience
when she had been to a party, to calm herself after the excitement.
"Isn't that like my darling Edith!" she said. "Forgetting all about her
ankle, I'll be bound, and even about you, though you mustn't scold her
for it. She will have told you that her ankle began to pain her. Fancy!
There is a second king already. Ring the bell, dear Edward, I must
have a little lemonade, and no doubt you would like a whisky and soda.
Another ace--how provoking!"
Mrs. Hancock had a tremendous belief in her own perspicacity, and,
looking at the young man, came to the very distinct conclusion
that something had happened. His voice sounded rather odd, too.
Simultaneously she caught sight of the wreck of Edith's fan on
the floor. Her remarkable powers of imagination instantly enabled
her to connect this deplorable accident--for Edith was usually so
careful--with whatever it was that had happened. Perhaps there had been
a little tiff over Edward's long-continued absence. She summoned up all
her tact and all her optimism.
"Why, if that isn't Edith's fan!" she said. "She must have dropped it
and stepped on it. Or it would be more like Elizabeth to step on it.
And what a long time you have been away. Edith was almost disposed to
blame you for that, until she and I had a good talk together. I told
her it would never do for you to neglect either your business or your
friends. Once Mr. Hancock was away from me for a month, when there was
either a slump or a boom in the markets. Dear me, how the old words
come back to one, though I'm sure I forget what they mean! Has it been
a slump or a boom, dear Edward, all this last fortnight?"
"Oh, everything has been pretty quiet," said he absently. He could
barely focus his attention enough on what she was saying to understand
her. Upstairs Edith had gone in to see Elizabeth--to tell her what had
happened----
"I see," said Mrs. Hancock, with great cordiality. "And so you have had
to watch things very carefully. Such a pleasant dinner at Mr. Martin's,
and a great deal of wise and witty talk. And I have such a lovely plan
for Elizabeth, which I shall tell her about to-morrow, so there's no
reason why I should not tell you now. I mean to let her stay with me
after you have taken my darling away, all October and November, and
come with me to Egypt, so that we shall all meet again, our happy
little party. I have just heard from her father, who, of course,
will pay for her travelling expenses, and he is quite agreeable, if
Elizabeth likes. I quite look forward to telling her; she will go mad
with joy, I think, for imagine a girl seeing Egypt at her age! I am
very fond of Elizabeth; she is lively and cheerful, though I think she
has felt the heat this last fortnight. So affectionate, is she not? And
I'm not sure she doesn't like her Cousin Edward best of all of us."
This amazing display of tactful conversation, designed to take Edward's
mind off any little tiff that he might have had with Edith, demanded
some kind of appreciation from him.
"I should be delighted to know that Elizabeth liked me," he said.
"You may be sure she does. Such a common interest you have, too, in
music. Ah! here is Edith; and my patience is coming out in spite
of that horrid ace which blocked me so long. We were talking about
Elizabeth, dear, and I was telling Edward how fond she is of him."
The poor lady had touched the limit of his endurance.
"I think I must be getting to bed," he said.
"Not wait and chat while I have my lemonade? Well, dear, it is nice to
see you again, and I have no doubt that Edith will see you out, and
lock the door after you, so that I need not ring for Lind again. Edith,
my darling, your fan! Who could have stepped on it? Was it Elizabeth?
And has your ankle ceased to pain you?"
Edward followed Edith out into the hall. There was no repressing his
anxiety to know.
"Did you see her?" he asked.
"Yes. Oh, Edward, I have been wronging Elizabeth so. And I am sorry.
She told me she didn't care for you, not one scrap. It--it had never
entered her head. I asked her forgiveness for having had such dreadful
thoughts about her. I don't know how I thought so. It has made me quite
happy. You see, she never thought of you. And she kissed me and forgave
me."
She lifted her face to his.
"She told me to tell you," she said. "She----"
Edward kissed her quickly and stepped out into the black,
cloud-shadowed night.