MRS. HERBERT was unhappy. She clothed herself with discrimination, and
drove frequently with Sir Ralph. She had given up her reputation, and
cared nothing for what people thought or said, and they said all they
could say. The subject of the behaviour of a woman whose husband is
away, and who is continually (they said always) with another man, is
inexhaustible. Sir Ralph was kind to her. His was the kindness of
stupidity, and he did not mind her being very silent.
She despised herself. It would have been brave of her to have sent him
away. Sir Ralph never kissed her, and he seldom stayed later than eleven
o’clock. No one knew this, nor would they have believed it if she said
so.
Lily bore the cold and indifferent greetings of her friends with an
absence of notice which could only be attributed to guilt.
It was September. Mrs. Herbert was in town, with occasional days at the
sea. She preferred to remain at her flat. Sir Ralph thought she stayed
because town was empty, therefore a constant recognition of him and of
her, when together, by their mutual friends was impossible, and they
could meet in peace and in half secret.
This was not Mrs. Herbert’s real reason. She was waiting for her
husband. She was always expecting him, always hoping that he might come
back, and very often she seemed to hear his step on the stairs, to hear
the click of his latch-key, and that was all. She feared to be away for
long; he would perhaps come, and not finding her waiting would imagine
things. She tolerated Sir Ralph while she slightly despised him. Love
always bored her; he had told her he loved her. She had replied that
love was a detail. He might love her if he liked; it kept him from
mischief, no doubt.
“And you?” he asked.
“Oh, me! From suicide, perhaps.”
The day was fine. Mrs. Herbert put on her newest dress to drive and
lunch and dine with Sir Ralph somewhere out of town.
“Have you seen the papers?” he asked, when they had shaken hands, and he
had not kept the resolution, which he made every day, of kissing her. It
was easy to resolve when he came up in the lift.
“I never read them in the morning. In the evening I do—advertisements
and everything. Tell me the news.”
“Perhaps it would be as well for you not to drive to-day. . . . It would
not look well for one’s future wife to be seen even while there is any
uncertainty. It would look as if you had no respect for the world’s
arrangements. I will stay here with you. You may do as you like, but it
is as well to respect etiquette.”
“What are you talking about? Tell me. Who is your future wife? Is she a
nun?”
Sir Ralph handed her the _Morning Post_.
“Read that.”
“‘Yacht gone down of Mr. Blakeley’s,’” she read. “Well? What has that to
do with me? ‘All hands lost, and the names of the passengers.’”
“Read them! Read them!” he said.
And she read:
“Blakeley and his wife—together—lucky souls. Mrs. Grey, I never liked
her. John Colquhoun—Herbert!—Herbert! What!” she exclaimed. “Jack—it
can’t be—is it true? Jack. . . . God! it is cruel, cruel, and I have
waited—waited, believing he would come—believing, and he was only
cruising about with Mrs. Grey. Go away,” she said, with sudden energy
and anger. “Go now. I hate you, hate you, hate you! It is for you that
he thinks I have given him up; fool—as if I would or could. Now, it is
forever—why is it? Why is it? I must hurt something!” She picked up a
yellow vase full of sweet peas, and threw it away from her. It crashed
against the brass fender. “Jack loathed that vase, now it is broken—but
the sweet peas are spilt. Help me to pick up the flowers—do help me.
They look so red—they are bruised and half-dead—they seem human—they
suffer. They are Jack’s favourite flower. Go! go—why don’t you go?”
“I cannot bear to leave you. Lily, think of me—a little—think of—”
“Leave me. Go now, and never come back.”
She threw herself down on the floor, crushing her fresh dress and
knocking down another vase, which broke. She lay there and could not
cry—could only moan, long shuddering moans of sorrow. Alone,
alone—always now, and forever, and he never would know that she had
loved him—loved him! If only she had written to him!
* * * * *
Launa was busy with her clothes, and people were giving her teaspoons.
Paul had gone to Germany. He would return in time for her wedding. Hugh
Wainbridge and Lord Wainbridge, who liked his future niece very much,
had her all to themselves. Lady Wainbridge sent her volumes of sermons
and books on the disappointments of the marriage state.
“I suppose it is wretched,” said Launa; “but people seem to bear it
fairly well after a time.”
“I could,” said her lover, “with you. Don’t believe all you read in my
aunt’s books.”
“Thank you,” she replied gaily.
They were alone in the music-room. The piano had vases of flowers, and a
strip—a beautiful deadening strip—of velvet upon it. Launa’s piano had
hitherto been bare.
Matrimony and music—more often matrimony and discord. She did not play
very much, only little things for Lord Wainbridge; Chopin and ghosts
went together.
“How do you like my dress?” she asked.
Mr. Wainbridge inspected her critically.
“It is too black,” he said.
It fell in long straight folds made of some soft black material. It was
becoming and yet dreary, like the robe of a sister of charity.
“It suits you; but you look like a widow.”
“Death,” she said; “how unlucky of you to say that! I dreamed of a
coffin last night—my own—and I was getting in and out of it to see if
it fitted.”
“Dearest, you and I shall always be together.”
“Always?” she repeated, with a little shiver, as if some ghost of the
past was near, “always.”
Already his mind did not answer hers. She did not want him always.
“It was a horrid dream. It frightened me.”
“You will never be frightened with me. Have you heard about Herbert?”
“I have heard nothing about him.”
“He was yachting with Blakeley in the Mediterranean, and the yacht went
down. They were all drowned.”
“All? Mr. Herbert too?”
“Yes.”
“How terrible! I am so sorry for Lily, and I liked him very much. What
will she do? She loves him, I am sure of that. It is terrible.”
“Darling you feel for all women. But for her—she has Sir Ralph.”
“Yes, but she does not love him. I must go to her. I may as well go
now.”
“Now? It is tea-time.”
“Well, why not? With her it is probably no time, simply a long, dreary
future through which she must exist. I will change my dress; ring for
tea, and then you can come with me—in a hansom.”
“Mrs. Herbert has said vile things about you and me. She said you
were—”
“I know. But now she is in trouble, and I am sorry for her. I can forget
what she has said. She was once my friend, and so I will go to her.”
She dressed quickly, and they drove to Mrs. Herbert’s.
Launa did not ask whether Lily would see her. She sent him away and went
in alone. A bewildered maid, whose eyes were red with weeping, led the
way to the drawing-room.
Mrs. Herbert lay, face downwards, on the big sofa. She had stayed on the
floor until the maids lifted her on to it.
In her mind was a galloping medley of thoughts and regrets, of
ungratified desires; a repetition of words she had not said, and now
could never say, hurried through her brain with torturing reiteration.
Launa kneeled by her.
“I have come to you to try and comfort you.”
Mrs. Herbert moaned—and then started.
“You! you! Oh Launa, I am so wretched. He is dead—dead without knowing
how I love him. . . . He will never know. Is it really you, Launa? I was
a brute to you; I was jealous of you. Can you forgive me? I am alone,
alone. I thought he was fond of you.”
“He used to talk of you,” said Launa.
“Help me!” said the other. “It is all over.”
For some days Launa stayed with her. Lily was more than miserable; she
was crushed, and could not bear to be alone.
There was so much inaction, none of those details which have to be
fulfilled when anyone dies at home, no work was to be done except the
purchasing of black, no beautiful flowers to arrange, no farewell look,
painful, yet a comfort, for in the last sleep the wayfarer appears at
peace. There was nothing, only a dumb hideous sorrow and remorse,
endless torment, weary reflection on a dreadful past, which she would
have blotted out if she could, and the tears of repentance wash away
nothing.
* * * * *
Some days had passed since the dreadful tidings.
Mrs. Herbert went exhausted to bed, and Launa left her to go home.
Hugh Wainbridge had come to fetch her, and stayed until after tea. Launa
was resting when Sylvia came in.
She wandered about the room touching everything until Launa said:
“Sit down, Sylvia, unless you desire to be slain.”
Sylvia obediently sat down.
She had grown morose and variable. She no longer took an interest in Mr.
George and his frivolities, and she worked very hard.
Launa talked a little about Lily.
“I know,” said Sylvia, “that she is miserable now, and yet I envy her.
They were together for a time, he loved her and she loved him. She can
remember it all. What is the use of goodness? Good women live and die
without knowing love, mad real love. Men marry them, but—why didn’t I
do as he wanted me to do? He loved me, he asked me over and over again
to belong to him absolutely, and I refused. He promised to settle all he
had on me, and no one need have known. I loved him—how I do still love
him! I thought I was doing right, and I believed that God would reward
us—us mind—I _believed_ that. I was sure that together we should be
rewarded. He would never have died if I had gone, and people could have
called me bad, but I would have been gloriously happy with him.”
“It is awful,” said Launa, “the apparent futility of all things.”
“I have never lived, never had any life, nor joy, nothing except empty
applause at the theatre. . . . I am so wretched, so wretched. I will go
to see Mrs. Herbert and tell her I envy her. He has held her in his
arms, he has kissed her, and I ache for the touch of those arms I shall
never feel, I hunger for the kisses I shall never have.”
“Ah, never,” said Launa softly.
Sylvia continued:
“I shall be sorry to-morrow when I remember all I have said. You are
lucky, you are happy, and I—She is better off; I wish I had had her
chances—if I had lived with him he would never have left me. Will he
ever know how I love him? Will he, Launa? Say something. Don’t stare at
me. Will he? Do you believe it?”
“Many waters cannot quench love, nor death, nor parting, nor marriage,
nor anything.”
“No,” said Sylvia, “nor marriage. He was married to a devil. A
reputation never brought a woman comfort. You never say to yourself ‘I
am respectable!’ You do not feel as if respectability were a new frock
in which to rejoice. Would you, Launa, have received me if I had
been—what would my label be?”
“There are no men, there is no man, who is worthy of a woman giving up
everything for him.”
“There is love, love, love. I will go to see Mrs. Herbert to-morrow. It
is so easy to call men unworthy, but life is dreary when one tries to be
good.”