Catherine was returning home to Thurso House the next afternoon about
four o'clock. She had been lunching out, and a number of people, she was
glad to think, were coming to dinner; but she had a good deal to do
before that, and she hardly liked to estimate how much to think about.
Also, a telegram from Maud, who cabled to her every day, would probably
have arrived by the time she got home. That might add considerably to
the number of things to be thought about.
Ever since the departure of her husband and sister-in-law to America her
hands had been very full, and she had devoted more time than usual to
purely social duties. For she knew perfectly well that London had talked
a good deal about Thurso's "illness," in that particular tone which
means that in public and to her it was referred to as an "illness" in
the abstract, but that when two or three only were gathered together it
was discussed with far more detail and circumstance. To one of her tact,
therefore, and knowledge of life it was clear that the more she was seen
about, the more she entertained and was entertained, the less
disagreeable and loud would all the talk and scandal about him be. With
all its faults and general lack of respect, the world immensely respects
pluck and the power of facing things, and certainly Catherine had faced
things magnificently. The result already was that the world had begun to
think that it was rather a "shame" to talk about Thurso even among
intimates when Catherine was so plucky. It would very much have liked to
know why she had not gone with him, for the reason that she
gave--namely, that she abhorred the sea, and Maud delighted in it--was
too straightforward and true to be accepted at all generally. Still, on
the whole, it was a "shame" to talk. And since the memory of the world
resides in its tongue, it follows that it soon forgets when it ceases to
talk. It was understood, however, that Thurso's case was hopeless,
though Catherine--brave woman--always said that she hoped the voyage
would quite restore him after his nervous breakdown.
Catherine, in herself, believed his case to be hopeless. He had refused
to see her on the morning he left, or to say good-bye, but from her
window she had seen his face as he got into the carriage which took him
and Maud to the station, and it seemed to her that Death had already set
his seal upon it, and, as a matter of fact, she had scarcely expected
that he would reach America alive. But in spite of the news which might
reach her any day, she had, consistently with her declaration that the
voyage would probably restore him, acted as if she really thought so,
and had been indefatigable in her activities. If he ever was to come
back (and as long as he lived that possibility was still there), her
part was to minimise the gossip and discussion about him which at the
present moment was inevitable.
During that week when he was at sea she had thought about the whole
situation more deeply and earnestly than in all probability she had
thought of anything before in her very busy but very unemotional life,
and with her whole heart she had forgiven him--not by intention only,
but in fact, so that she dismissed the matter from her mind--for the
suffering and indignities he had brought on her during these last six
months. Whether he would ever read her letter or not, she did not know,
but some three days after their departure she had written to him, quite
shortly, but quite sincerely, telling him never to reproach himself as
regards her for what happened in the past, but to dismiss it as
absolutely as she had dismissed it, and devote himself to getting well.
The letter was not an easy one to write, or rather the attitude of mind
which had made it possible to write it had not been attained without
effort; for just as she was very slow to take offence, so she was
naturally slow to forgive, and the events of the last six months, with
their crowning indignity, had bitten very deeply into her. But the
effort had been made and the letter written, and she had pledged herself
to oblivion and whole-hearted forgiveness. Should he get well, she had
given him to understand that the past was blotted out, and that she was
willing and eager to join with him in making the best possible out of
the future.
But she knew quite well, with that ruthless honesty with which she
judged herself, and which was so fine a trait in her character, that she
did not expect him to live, and this, she knew, made the letter an
easier one to write, and her complete forgiveness less difficult to
arrive at, than it would otherwise have been. She thought that it was
unlikely that she would ever see him again. But she was absolutely
willing, whether he lived or died, to abide by what she had said.
There had been a grim business of telegraphic codes arranged between her
and Maud. It was clearly undesirable to telegraph in full such messages
as Maud might feel it necessary to send her, and half a dozen cryptic
words sent from New York on their arrival had told her that he had
broken down once on the voyage, but had subsequently allowed her to
throw the rest of the bottle away. His general health, Maud said, was
certainly better. Three more telegrams, reporting the events of three
more days, had come since then, each recording improvement, and it was
news of their fourth day which she was expecting to find now on her
return.
But as she drove through the streets, where the shops were gay for
Christmas purchasers, her mind was busy over an emotional conflict more
intimate than even these things. As was inevitable, matters had come to
a crisis between her and Rudolf Villars, and two days ago he had
declared to her his steadfast and passionate devotion. But he had
refused to continue any longer on this present unbearable footing of
friendship. Should she now definitely reject him, he would not see her
any more, except as was necessary in the casual meetings when the world
brought them together. And she had promised to give him his answer this
evening.
She had really no idea at this moment what that answer would be. Months
ago she had determined that she would not herself break that moral law,
though, as a matter of fact, it meant little to her. But since then much
had happened: ruin and degradation had come to her husband; he had
offered her the greatest insult that, from the point of view of this
moral law, a wife can be offered, and, what was a far more vital and
determining factor in her choice, she knew now that she loved this man
with an intensity that she believed equalled his. Could the moral law
which tied her to an opium-drenched wreck have any significance compared
to the significance of her love?
Then suddenly, and for the first time, she remembered, in connection
with her choice, the letter she had written to Thurso. She had told him
that the past was utterly blotted out, and she saw how insincere that
letter would become if the blotting out of the past meant for her that
she was to console herself in the future. Already she knew that the fact
that she did not expect him to live had made the writing of it easier.
Between the two her letter did not now seem to be worth much. Yet she
had meant that letter: the best part of her meant it. But just now that
best part seemed to have dwindled to a mere pin's head in her
consciousness. Love and life and desire were trumpets and decorations to
her, and the little grey battered flag of honour was scarcely visible
among the miles of bunting, and the little voice scarcely audible in the
blare of the welcome that would be hers if she said but one word to her
lover.
Her victoria had already stopped at her door, and the footman had
turned back the fur rug that covered her knees to let her get out; but
she sat for a moment quite still, for the significance of her letter (or
its insignificance) had struck her like a blow. Till she saw it in
connection with her decision she had not known how nearly she had
decided. She had told her husband, and that with sincerity, that the
past was wiped out; all that he had said or done which had been unjust
or insulting to her she had cancelled, annihilated, as far as it
concerned her. Was she, then, going to make a fresh past, so to speak,
on her own account, to give him an opportunity to be as generous as she
had been? There was a dreadful ironical fitness about it: the
conjunction of these things was brutally apt.
Yet she had forgiven him, and that forgiveness was far more real to her
than that which was labelled sin. That did not signify anything very
particular to her, but to do this thing behind the screen of her
forgiveness seemed mean, and meanness was an impossible quality. She
had forgiven Thurso on the big scale, and the very bigness of her
nature, which enabled her to do that, made her hatred of meanness strong
also. And as she got out, she asked herself whether, if the letter which
she had written to Thurso was still unposted, she would let it go or
tear it up. And she knew that, though she might stand with it in her
hand for a little, she would still send it. She meant what she had said
in it.
* * * * *
There were some half-dozen of letters for her on the table in the hall,
and a telegram lay a little apart. As she picked these up, she spoke to
the footman.
"I shall be in to anybody till six," she said; "but to nobody after that
except Count Villars."
She had half opened the telegram when her eye fell on two little hats
and coats hung up on a rack at the end of the hall. She looked at them
a moment, feeling that they ought to convey something to her, but she
did not know what. Then she remembered that the two eldest boys were
home from school to-day for the holidays.
"Lord Raynham and Master Henry have come?" she asked.
"Yes, my lady: they arrived an hour ago."
Again she paused. Whatever she said or did to-day seemed to be laden
with significance, trivial though it appeared.
"Let them know I have come in," she said. "They will come and have tea
with me in the drawing-room in ten minutes." (What was it children liked
with their tea?) "And a boiled egg for them both," she added.
* * * * *
She went slowly up the staircase which last June had been a country lane
of wild-flowers at her ball, and looking back to that night she
wondered whether, if among her guests then had come the prescience of
what the next six months were to hold for her, she would not have chosen
to die then and there, so deeply had the iron entered. But the past was
dead: she must not forget that; and even to think of the bitterness of
it was to allow it to writhe and struggle again. But there were things
in the past--these children, for instance, though she had never found
them particularly interesting--whom the death of the past, in the sense
that she had promised it to her husband, made more alive. It was the
wretchedness and alienation of the whole past, as well as these tragic
six months, that she had meant should be dead, and she willed it more
surely in caring for all that was truly vital in it, in neglecting no
longer those whom she had neglected too much. She did not reproach
herself now for the small part that her children had had in her life;
but if Thurso lived, the letter she had written to him must be
fulfilled here also. She had forgiven him, and she must amend herself so
that he should forgive her. Even now she recognised that the children
could help in stabbing the estrangement of the past to death. She was
their mother, and though for all these years she had overlooked the joy,
just as she had forgotten the pains, of maternity, it was potential
still. So ... would it not be better if she did not even see Villars? He
would understand that as clearly as any words could make him. Yet she
rejected that, and knew the cause of her rejection--that, though she
told herself her mind was made up, she was still debating what she
should say to him.
All this passed like a series of pictures rapidly presented to her as
she went up the stairs. Then she paused underneath the electric light at
the top, and took out the telegram from the envelope. She looked first
at the end of it, as was natural, to see from whom it came, expecting
to find it was from Maud. But it was signed "Thurso."
Then she read it.
"I am cured, and I humbly entreat your pardon, though your letter
so generously has given it me. Shall I come back, or would you
possibly come out here? I will return immediately if you
wish.--THURSO."
She read it once, and read it again, in order to be sure of the sense of
this incredible thing. Could it be a hoax? If so, who could have played
so grim a joke? But she hardly grasped it. Yet it was clear and in
order; the hour at which it was sent off was there, and the hour of
English time when it had been received.
"But it is incredible," she said to herself. "It means a miracle."
She passed into the drawing-room, looking round consciously and narrowly
at the pictures and the furniture, warming her hands at the fire, and
feeling the cold of the marble chimney-piece to convince herself of the
reality and normalness of her sensations. She opened a letter or two,
and they also were quite ordinary and commonplace; there was an
invitation to dinner, a few replies to invitations of her own, all
signed with familiar names. A footman was bringing in tea: he had drawn
two high chairs up to the table, and had put a plate and an egg-cup
opposite each. Everything except this telegram indicated that the world
was going on in its normal manner. She had ordered a boiled egg, as a
treat, for the two boys. There were the egg-cups.
The boys? Whose? Hers and Thurso's.
Then a sudden wave of cynical amusement, coming in from the ocean of the
world in which her life was passed, went over her head for a moment. She
felt that she was being unreal, melodramatic, in that she suddenly
thought of her children like this, of her husband, of forgiveness, of
all the stale old properties and stock solutions of difficulties. It was
like some preposterous Adelphi piece, and she was the burglar who was
suddenly filled with repentance and remorse because he heard the clock
strike twelve, as he remembered to have heard it strike on New Year's
night in young and innocent days. As if burglars thought of their
childhood when they were engaged in the plate-closet! Or as if people
like herself thought of maternal obligations and marriage vows when at
last love had really come into their lives! Of course, they forgot
everything except that, instead of suddenly remembering all sorts of
other things which they had, spontaneously and habitually, forgotten for
so long. If all this had been described in a book she read, or acted in
a play, she would have thrown the book aside, or have got up from her
seat at the play whispering, "How perfectly ridiculous! How absolutely
unlike life! I think we won't stop for the end, as I am sure there is
going to be an impossible reconciliation."
Yet what would have seemed to her so unreal in fiction or drama was now
extraordinarily real when it actually happened to occur. She wondered
whether the life she had led all these years was as unreal as fiction of
this sort or drama of this sort would have seemed to her.
Thurso was cured, so he said. He besought her forgiveness. The children
were coming down to tea with her. She expected Villars. There was enough
there to occupy her mind for the few minutes that would elapse before
the children came.
Poor old Mumbo-Jumbo, that fetish called Morality or Duty, which had
been to her but a doll with a veil over its face, was showing signs of
life, giving sudden, spasmodic movements, twitching at the veil. What
its face was like she had really no idea, for in so many things she had
practically been untempted. But all these years she had been kind, she
had been generous, she had had the instinct for helping those who
suffered. Perhaps the face would not be so very ugly.
* * * * *
The message that the two boys were to come down to tea had not been
productive, up above, of any notable rapture. Raynham, aged eleven, had
said, "Oh, bother!" and Henry had asked if they would have to stop long.
Their mother was a radiant but rather terrifying vision to them. She was
usually doing something else, and must not be interrupted. That summed
up their knowledge of her.
Catherine remembered a pack of ridiculous cards which had once produced
shouts of laughter when the children were playing with their father.
They concerned Mr. Bones the butcher, and the families of other
portentous and legendary personages. She remembered the day, too, a wet
afternoon in July, when they had played with them, and went to a
cupboard in the drawing-room where cards were kept, and among other
packs discovered these joyous presentments. The children were going to
have eggs also with their tea. That was a treat, too.
They came in immediately afterwards, rather shy, and very anxious to
"behave." But insensibly, with the instinct of children, they soon saw
that "behaviour" was not required. The radiant vision begged a spoonful
of Henry's egg, and asked Raynham to spare her one corner of the
delicious toast he had buttered for himself. He gave her the butteriest
corner of all, and Henry parted with precious yolk.
There was news also. Father was away--and some nameless dagger stabbed
her as she realised that this was the first they had heard of it--and
had been ill. Then there was good news: he was ever so much better, and
soon he was coming home, or perhaps mamma was going out to see him--yes,
America. Millions of miles off. What ocean? Atlantic, of course. Even
Henry knew that.
Soon there was no thought in the minds of the children as to how long it
was necessary to stop. The wonderful cards were produced, and they all
sat on the hearth-rug, and mamma was too stupid for anything. For she
had the whole flesh-eating family of Mr. Bones the butcher in her hand
and never declared it; so Henry, having, to his amazement, been passed
Mr. Bones himself, bottled Mr. Bones up, although he wasn't collecting
him. This was a plan of devilish ingenuity, for had he passed Mr. Bones
to Raynham, Raynham might have given him back to mamma, who, perhaps,
then would have seen her foolishness.
The game was growing deliriously exciting when an interruption came, and
Raynham again said, "Oh, bother!" But mamma did not get up from the
hearth-rug, though the children were told to do so.
"Get up, boys," she said, "and shake hands with Count Villars. But don't
let me see your cards. I am going to win. How are you, Count Villars?
The boys are just home from school. This is Raynham, this is Henry. Do
give yourself some tea, and be kind, and let us finish our game."
Catherine again proved herself perfectly idiotic, and Henry threw down
his cards with a shriek.
"All the Snips, the tailors!" he cried.
"Oh, bother!" shouted Raynham; "and I have all the Buns but one."
"And I have all the Bones but one!" said their mother. "Now go upstairs,
darlings, and take the cards with you, if you like."
"And is father coming home?" asked Raynham.
"Perhaps I am going to him. I don't know yet. Off you go!"
"And are we to shake hands again with him?" asked Henry in a whisper.
"Yes, of course. Always shake hands when you you leave the room."
There was silence for a moment after the boys had gone. Catherine broke
it.
"I have just had a telegram from America," she said, "from Thurso
himself. He is better. He says he is cured. He asks me if I will go
there, or if he shall come back."
She was still sitting on the hearth-rug, where she had been playing with
her sons. But here she got up.
"I think I shall go to him," she said quietly. "That will be the best
plan for--several reasons."
And then the situation, which she had thought of as being of the nature
of Adelphi melodrama, broke down from the melodramatic point of view,
and began to play itself on more natural lines. He should have been the
villain of the piece, she the gutteral heroine. But he was not a villain
any more than she was a heroine.
"I think I have always loved you," she said. "But I can't be mean. He
says he is cured. And--he asks my forgiveness, though he had it already.
He asks it, you see. That makes a difference. If I stopped here, if
I---- In that case I should be refusing it him. It would amount to
that."
Villars put down his cup, and looked at her, but without moving, without
speaking.
"Say something," she said.
He got up too, and stood by her.
"I say 'Yes,'" he said.
* * * * *
Two days afterwards Catherine came up towards evening onto the deck of
the White Star liner on which she was travelling. The sun had just sunk,
but in the east the crescent moon had risen, while in the west, whither
she was journeying, there was still the after-glow of sunset. She was
leaving the east, where the moon was, but she was moving towards that
other light. And she was content that it should be so. She would not
have had anything different. The west, too, where she was going, had
meant so much to Thurso; it had meant all to him. It was easier to weigh
the moon than to weigh the veiled light of the sunken sun. She had
renounced, blindly, it might be; but if for her, too, in the west, in
the after-glow....
THE END.
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End of Project Gutenberg's The House of Defence v. 2, by E. F. Benson