Heartsick with longing for Gerard, she opened her front door. A
maidservant met her in the hall. “Has your master come home?”
“He has been in and gone out again, ma’am. He told me to let you
have this note when you arrived.” She handed her mistress the brass
letter-tray where it was lying. Irene tore open the envelope with
shaking fingers. It contained a hasty line scribbled in pencil.
“I am going away for the night. Will see you in the morning. G. M.”
She staggered as if he had struck her. What did it mean? It was
difficult enough to grasp the fact; to pierce to the underlying motive
was beyond her powers. A nameless fear assailed her. How could she live
alone through all the hours until to-morrow morning? She stared at the
words until they danced before her eyes. The fact was plain. In this
hour of her most awful need of him, he had gone from her side. Her
dismay was child-like in its piteousness.
“Did your master take any luggage with him?” she asked, steadying her
voice.
“Just his dressing-bag,” replied the maid; then breaking through
the restraint she had imposed upon herself: “And, oh, ma’am!--Mr.
Colman----?”
“He is acquitted, Jane,” said Irene.
The maid burst into tears, after the manner of her class. Suspense had
been great in the kitchen, where Hugh Colman had been invested with
mythical excellences. The cook, upon whom he had never set eyes, had
been weeping intermittently all day long. A fortiori, the naturalness
of the emotions of the parlourmaid who had waited upon him at table and
helped him on with his overcoat. It is odd how readily domestic servants
receive the impression of a guest’s personality and how genuinely their
sympathy or antipathy may be aroused. Perhaps, like silly women,
they viewed Hugh in too heroic a light--but, nevertheless, the girl’s
outburst was sincere. Irene, touched for the moment, forgot her anxiety.
But it returned swiftly as soon as she was alone. She twisted the paper
nervously in her hands, sat down upon one of the oak settles and tried
to reason away the fear. Presently she rose and went upstairs to her
room. She was desperately tired. She unpinned her veil, made a weary
pretence of rolling it up, and then sank down helpless on the edge of
the bed, her hands in her lap.
In this relaxed moral condition a woman cries softly, if a sympathetic
arm, man’s or woman’s, is put around her. When she is alone, however,
crying seems futile and undignified; she arises soon afterwards, as
Irene did, and mechanically changes her dress for a comfortable wrapper,
freshens her face-with the trivial comfort of a powder-puff’s softness,
tidies her hair, with dull, half-observant glances in her mirror, puts
_eau de cologne_ upon a clean handkerchief and wearily hangs up her
discarded garments. The lighter feminine instincts float like straws
upon the surface, beneath which other things have sunk for very
heaviness.
After this she went downstairs to the smoking:-room, whither Jane
brought her an egg beaten up in brandy. The girl hung about, eager for
a word of detail concerning the trial. The expectation was pathetic,
considering its impossibility of fulfillment. Irene dismissed her
gently, and took the stimulant, of which she stood in great need. And
then she thought, hard and anxiously.
A dreadful sense of loneliness crept over her, even more intense than
that which she had once felt before, when she had gone on board the
steamer at Bombay, journeying from one grave to another. It seemed
impossible that Gerard should not be returning. She had never craved
him so much as in this hour of crisis. Again she read the now crumpled
sheet containing his curt message. Her blind faith in his acquiescence
in the sacrifice was rudely shaken. He had gone from her in a passion of
anger. There was no other solution. She felt sick with doubt and dread.
Her eyes wandered round the room, trying to derive assurance of
his return from the familiar, external signs of his occupancy.
His fishing-rods stood in a corner in their neat canvas cases. His
cartridge-belt hung festooned beneath a hunting-trophy on the wall,
surmounted by a fox’s mask. Opposite, by the mantelpiece, stretched
his overflowing pipe-rack. On a little table by the side of the great
armchair, whose well-worn seat showed the impress of his huge limbs,
still remained his pipe of the morning, with the ashes half fallen out.
His slippers lay beneath the chair. Irene looked at them pathetically,
and again felt the very miserable desire to cry. The trivial generally
tends the flood-gates of tears. In the horrors of a siege women who have
viewed, brave-eyed, men butchered before their faces, have been known to
break down at the sight of a wrecked canary-cage.
Presently Jane came in with a letter. A commissionnaire had brought it
and was waiting in the hall for an answer. Irene took it from the
girl’s hand with a quick heart-throb. From Gerard, doubtless
explanatory--perhaps utterly reassuring. But as soon as her eyes fell
upon the envelope she recognised Hugh’s writing, and felt miserably
disappointed. The letter was addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Merriam.” It
ran:
“Dearest Ones--The terrible price you have paid for my life makes me
shrink from crossing your threshold unbidden. For such a deed it is idle
to talk of gratitude. Send for me and I shall come. But God knows what I
can say to you both. Hugh.”
She sat for a few moments staring before her. Jane stood by respectful
and dutiful, holding the brass salver by her side. Suddenly Irene rose,
and, standing at her writing-table, dashed off a hasty line. They would
have paid the price fifty times over for his sake. She would send for
him soon, but to-night she was exhausted. He must be bright and happy.
The bond between the three was only firmer and dearer. The maid took the
note to the waiting messenger and Irene sank again into her chair by the
fire.
She felt unspeakably grateful to Hugh for writing. How could she have
received him? How explained Gerard’s absence? The thought of a meeting
was a burning fire in cheeks and bosom. Fortunately it was avoided.
She thanked the tact that always underlay and checked Hugh’s impulses.
Another man, equally generous, would have rushed to throw himself at her
feet.
The evening wore on. She sat down alone to the inevitable dinner and
forced herself to eat. Once she caught Jane looking at her curiously.
The details of the great trial’s sensational finish had reached
Sunnington and were the theme of the servants’ hall. She read amused
speculation and virtuous approbation, subtly mingled, in the girl’s
glance. She flushed miserably, in spite of effort, and her throat
contracted at the morsel she was about to swallow. Perhaps her servants
would give her notice. The ironical pettiness of the thought faintly
amused her and restored self-composure. The meal over, she returned to
the smoking-room fire and nursed her heart-ache till bedtime.
Hugh’s letter, often re-read, awakened a desire for his companionship,
vague and scarcely formulated as an idea. Yet she would have shrunk in
strange terror at his approach. Womanlike, she longed for a tender word
or gentle touch, and strove to materialise it out of Hugh’s letter. And
she was conscious of a little disappointment, so little that she would
not admit it to her reason, in the joint address. Her reason admired the
delicacy with which Hugh had conveyed his appreciation of their combined
purpose, but her woman’s instinct felt the individual lack. Ever so
subtle an acknowledgment of her separate action would have been balm to
the bruised spirit.
She slept fitfully, was up betimes, disregarding a racking headache.
Gerard would come. She would have speech with him, learn the unimagined
worst.
No letter from him. Her pile of correspondence, envelopes briefly
surveyed, remained unopened. She had not the heart to read letters. All
her throbbing thoughts were Gerard’s. He was deeply angered. She would
humble herself. Yet human certainty had never been so radiantly absolute
as hers had been in the oneness of their sacrifice, when she had offered
up his honour and her virtue. She could come to no conclusion.
For an hour she stood at the dining-room window, which looked upon the
little circular drive in front of the house, watching for her husband’s
arrival. Her every fibre yearned and dreaded. At last he appeared, swung
open the gate and strode in with a quick glance at the pale face behind
the window. Irene’s hand flew to her heart. She stepped back, pierced
by the glance, and waited. In another moment Gerard was in the room. He
clapped his hat on the table and advanced a pace or two, fixing her with
his shifty blue eyes.
“Now, let us have it out at once. What the devil have you got to say for
yourself?”
The look, the tone, the insult dashed upon her like a douche of icy
water upon an hysterical girl. She drew herself up, quivering, with a
flash in her eyes.
“You are forgetting yourself, Gerard.”
Yet an instant afterwards she softened and humbled herself as a woman
does towards the man she has been yearning for. She went to him with
outstretched arms, pleading in her face.
“Forgive me, dear! Forgive me!”
He thrust her away, rather roughly.
“Don’t make a scene. I hate it. That’s why I stayed away, so as to put a
cooling night in front of our interview. But I want an explanation, and
I think I’m entitled to it.”
Irene looked at him helplessly. She was on the high seas, rudderless.
“I thought you would willingly have given your life for Hugh,” she said.
“You were deeply moved--said there was nothing you would not give. The
scheme flashed on me. I never doubted your assent--as God hears me,
Gerard, I felt the certainty like an inspiration.”
“Damned funny inspiration to fancy that I would tamely agree to your
infidelities with another man.”
“But didn’t you understand?” she gasped.
“Perfectly. But I’m not the sort of man to share my wife with
anybody--even with my dearest friend.”
The world was rocking. Her senses swam. She lost heed of surroundings.
Found herself saying in a silly way:
“But it was all a lie, Gerard. I thought you knew.”
He looked at her for a moment or two and then thumped his fist on the
dining-table. The shock upset a little epergne of flowers and the water
flooded the dark-red table-cover.
“And I say it wasn’t a lie. There!”
“Gerard!”
The voice, pitched high, rang through the house. A cry of terror,
incredulity, reproach. They remained looking at each other he doggedly,
unmoved, with slightly crossed eyes; she in blank anguish of amazement.
“I don’t beat about the bush. I come straight to the point. You and
Colman carried on behind my back. Do you suppose I was fool enough not
to see it? I was only biding my time. It came sooner than I expected.
A _coup de théâtre_. I thought something was wrong by the unnecessary
state of excitement you have been in the last few weeks. It must have
been exciting, with a vengeance! All I can say is, that I admire your
pluck. How long has this been going on? Tell me.”
“It was a mere invention--pure perjury--to save his life--your
friend--my friend. What am I to say?
“Oh, my God, Gerard!” she burst out. “You are not in earnest--you are
angry--saying this to try me, for some reason that I don’t understand.”
The thought of his belief in her sworn statement had never entered her
mind during the most fear-racked moment. The fact dazed her. He shook
his great shoulders impatiently.
“You had better give it up and answer my question.”
“I have answered it--my whole life with you has answered it.”
“It has,” he sneered. “And more fool I for not having taken the answer
before. And I tell you, I was getting pretty sick of it--the eternal
Hugh, Hugh--damn him!--in every sentence you uttered--the everlasting
sight of him in the house----”
“But I thought he was as dear to you as I was!” broke in Irene, aghast.
“It suited your purpose to think so. I never told you so. I’m sick of
it--utterly sick of it. Sick of your flim-flammeries of philosophy and
the higher life and noble work in the world and all that rot. And now
I’m heartily glad it’s over.”
“Over?” she echoed, falteringly.
“Yes, over. I’m not going to play the injured husband. I’m going to be
free; to do what I like and live as I like, and you can go off with your
lover and help him to write his measly poetry. It has been choking me
for years. I’m going to get free of it all.”
Irene listened, stupefied. He seemed some unutterable stranger that had
obtained access to her presence, she knew not how. He thrust his hands
into his pockets and turned away. The gesture was familiar. Times out of
number he had stood so, looming huge between herself and the light. It
touched a tender chord, brought back the Gerard she had known and
worshipped. Again she flew to him, caught him by the lapels of his coat
and broke into a loud cry.
“But Gerard--my husband--am I a woman capable of such a thing?”
He unloosened her hands and drew apart from her.
“All women are the same--Madonas or Messalinas.”
“Then Hugh----”
“I tell you I hate him,” said Gerard, vindictively.
Then, suddenly, beneath his furious anger Irene saw the man as he was,
and her idol lay shivered at her feet.
“Was that why you never told me of his having saved your life?”
Taken aback for the moment, he looked at her enquiringly.
“Because you hated him and were jealous of him all the time?”
“I told you my reasons. I haven’t come now to discuss them.”
He crossed the room and caught up his hat.
“I wish I had not come at all,” he said, with a drop in his tone to
sullenness. “I should have sent my solicitor. Your brazening it out made
me lose my temper.”
Irene interposed herself between him and the door.
“We can’t part like this,” she said in a queer voice. “Tell me what your
wishes are and I’ll try to obey them.”
Gerard reflected for a moment, checking a spiteful outburst. He had said
his say. Further display of anger was futile. Also he knew something
of Irene, and was aware that plain words would fall coldest upon her
intelligence.
“After what has passed,” he said, “I can’t live in this house while you
are here.”
“I will leave it to-day,” said Irene.
“Take your time. I don’t want to inconvenience you more than I can
help.”
“You are very kind, Gerard,” said Irene, in bitter irony.
“I will have everything that belongs to you despatched wherever you
think fit,” he continued, unheeding.
“And then?”
He shrugged his shoulders, looked at her askance for a second.
“Then I get my divorce.”
Her mind, dazed by exhaustion and the pain and the successive cataclysms
of this disastrous interview, had not travelled a second beyond the
lurid present. The bald word was a new shock, the final sledgehammer
blow that sent love reeling. She grew very white.
“You intend to--divorce--me?” she said, slowly.
“That is my intention,” he replied, somewhat abashed before her staring
eyes.
Irene shrank away from the door, and turned gropingly towards a couch
against the wall. Gerard lingered for a moment on the threshold. Then
he left her. She sank upon the couch shuddering and faint, looking
helplessly at the upset flowers and the soaking pool of water upon the
table-cover.