FACE TO FACE.
"Oh, I was the husband and you were the wife;
We met, and we married, and parted.
Our meeting was happy, our marriage was strife:
Our parting left each broken-hearted.
Our hearts are now cured of their anguish and shame;
We've learned each our lesson of sorrow;
'Tis folly to need the same lesson again,
And so I will bid you 'good-morrow.'"
Sir Rupert's study, which was one of the most comfortable apartments
in the house, was placed in the east angle of the building, so that
two of the walls were formed by the outside of the house. It was
lighted by four French windows, two of which were generally open in
fine weather, looking out on to the terrace.
It was furnished in a heavy, stately fashion, with cumbersome oaken
furniture, upholstered in green morocco, and the walls, hung with
velvety dark-green paper, were surrounded with low oaken bookcases,
the height of a man, filled with well-selected volumes. On top of
these cases were placed choice specimens of ceramic art, consisting of
red Egyptian water-jars, delicate figures in Dresden china, and huge
bowls of porcelain, bizarre with red and blue dragons. Interspersed
with these, quaint effigies of squat Hindoo idols, grotesque bronze
gods from Japan, and hideous fetishes from Central Africa.
Dainty water-colour pictures in slender gilt frames lightened the
sombre tints of the walls, and between these were highly polished
steel battle-axes, old-fashioned guns, delicate but deadly pistols of
modern workmanship, and dangerous-looking swords, all arranged in
symmetrical patterns. The floor of polished oak was covered with
buffalo skins from American prairies, opossum rugs from Australian
plains, striped tiger-skins from Indian jungles, and white bear-skins
from the cold north; while in the centre of the room stood the desk,
piled with books and loose papers. The whole room had a workmanlike
appearance and an air of literary comfort eminently attractive to a
bookish man.
On this night the two French windows were wide open, and into the room
floated the rich perfumes of the flowers, broken by the pungent smell
of a cigar which Sir Rupert was smoking as he sat writing at his desk.
At his feet on either side were heavy books, carelessly thrown down
after use, and scattered sheets of paper, while amid the confused mass
on the desk itself was the red blotting-pad and the white note-paper
on which he was writing. There was a lamp on his left, from beneath
the green shade of which welled a flood of heavy yellow light--so
heavy that it seemed to rest sluggishly on the floor and be unable to
rise to the ceiling, where the shade made a dark circle.
Within--the yellow lighted room, the silent man writing rapidly, the
steady ticking of the clock, and the acrid tobacco scent. Without--the
close night, moonless and starless, the air drowsy with heat, the
faint flower-odours, and the sombre masses of the trees sleeping dully
under the soporific influence of the atmosphere.
There was something weird in the uncanny stillness of the night, a
kind of premonition of coming woe, which would have certainly affected
the nerves of a highly-strung man; but Sir Rupert did not believe in
nerves, and wrote on carelessly without giving a thought to the
strange prophetic feeling in the air.
If he had only known he would have fallen on his knees and prayed for
the protection of his guardian angel until the red dawn broke through
the dread shadows of the fatal night.
The rapid scratching of the pen, the sharp peremptory tick of the
clock, and suddenly a distinct knock at the door. Sir Rupert raised
his head with an expectant look on his face.
"Come in!"
A woman entered, tall and stately, arrayed in sombre garments; she
entered slowly, with a faltering step, and paused in the shadow before
the desk. Sir Rupert, his eyes dazzled by the glare of the lamp, could
see her face but indistinctly in the semi-twilight, and only heard her
short hurried breathing, which betokened great agitation.
"Mrs. Belswin, is it not?"
The woman placed one hand on her throat, as if striving to keep down
an attack of hysteria, and answered in a low, choked voice--
"Yes!"
"I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you said, madam."
"I--I am Mrs. Belswin."
Sir Rupert started, and passed his hand across his face with a
confused sense of memory, but, dismissing the sudden flash of thought,
he arose to his feet, and pointed politely to a chair.
"Will you not be seated, Mrs. Belswin?"
She was foolish to betray her identity, but whether it was that her
resolution failed her, or that her nerve gave way, or that she
determined to forestall discovery, with an appealing cry she fell on
her knees.
"Rupert!"
"God!"
He tore the shade off the lamp. The heavy, concentrated, yellow light
spread through the room in clear waves of brilliance, and there on the
floor, with wild, white face, with outstretched, appealing hands, with
the agony of despair in her eyes, he saw his divorced wife.
"Rupert!"
Step by step he retreated before the kneeling figure, with startled
eyes and dry lips, until he leant against the wall, and thrust out
cruel hands to keep off this spectre of the past.
"You!"
"Yes. I--your wife!"
"My wife!"
He burst out into a discordant laugh, on which, like a wounded snake,
she dragged herself painfully along the floor until she reached his
feet.
"Keep off," he whispered, in a hoarse voice; "keep off, you shameless
creature!"
"But hear me."
"Hear you!--hear you!" said Sir Rupert, in a tone of concentrated
scorn. "I heard you twenty years ago. The law heard you; the world
heard you. What can you say to me now that I did not hear then?"
"Pity me. Oh, Rupert, pity me!"
"Pity you! You that had no pity on me! You that ruined my life--that
blasted my name--that made my home desolate! Pity you! I am not an
angel! I am a man."
The woman twisted her hands together, and burst out crying into floods
of hot bitter tears that burned and seared her cheeks--those cheeks
that burned with shame at the righteous scorn of the man who had
trusted her and whom she had wronged.
"What are you doing here?" said Pethram, harshly. "Rise and answer me.
Don't lie grovelling there with your crocodile tears."
"Have you no mercy?"
"None for such as you."
At these cruel words she arose to her feet with an effort and leaned
heavily against the wall, while her husband took his seat in stern
anger, as if she were a criminal brought before him for sentence.
"You are Mrs. Belswin?"
"Yes."
"My daughter's companion?"
"She is mine as well as yours."
"Silence!" he said, sternly. "Do not dare to claim the child which you
left so cruelly twenty years ago. Have you no shame?"
"Shame!" she replied bitterly. "Yes, I have shame. I know what shame
is--twenty years of bitter, cruel shame. God of mercy, twenty years!"
"Twenty thousand years would not be too much for your sin."
"Are you so pure yourself that you can judge me so harshly?"
"I am not here to argue such a question," he said, coldly, with a
cruel look in his eyes. "I want to know what you are doing here."
"I came as a companion to my daughter."
"And you told her----"
"I told her nothing," said Mrs. Belswin, vehemently. "So help
me, Heaven! she knows nothing. I am her companion, her paid
companion--nothing more."
"I am glad you have had the sense to spare my daughter the story of
your shame. How did you obtain the situation?"
"It was advertised, and I got it through Dombrain."
"Did he know who you were?"
"How could he? Do you think all the world knows the story of my
folly?"
"Your folly!" he repeated, with deep scorn; "your sin you mean.
Dombrain was a long time in New Zealand; he must have heard of the
case."
"If he did he never saw me. He did not recognise me."
Sir Rupert looked at her doubtfully, as if he would drag the truth
from her unwilling lips. She stood before him white, silent, defiant,
and he arose slowly to his feet.
"Twenty years ago," he said, coldly, "the law gave me my freedom from
you, and I thought never to see you again. Like a thief you have
entered my house during my absence. You have dared to contaminate with
your presence my child--yes, my child, not yours. She ceased to be
yours when you forsook her. How you obtained this entrance I will make
it my business to find out; but now that I know that Mrs. Belswin is
my divorced wife, I order her to leave my house at once. Go!"
She uttered a piteous cry, and stretched out her hands towards him in
an agony of despair.
"No, no! you cannot be so cruel."
"I am not cruel. By your own act you forfeited your right to remain
under my roof."
"But my child."
"Your child! Ah, you remember her now, after deserting her for twenty
years! Do you think I will permit you to contaminate her young life by
your presence? Do you think that I can see you day after day and not
remember what you were, and see what you are?"
His wife cowered before his vehemence, and, covering her face with her
hands, shrank against the wall.
"Rupert!" she said, in a low pleading voice, "do not be so harsh with
me. If I have sinned I have suffered for my sin. For twenty years I
have longed for a sight of my child, but until now I dared not see
her. Chance sent you away and gave me an opportunity of living with
her as a companion. She does not know who I am. She will never know
who I am, and as her paid companion she loves me! Let me stay beside
her and have some happiness in my wretched life."
"No; I will not! I wonder you dare ask me."
"I dare anything for my child."
"It is too late to talk like that--twenty years too late."
"You will let me stay. Oh, Rupert, let me stay."
"No!"
"For God's sake."
"No! No!"
"Reflect! Some day you may need mercy. How can you expect it if you
deny it to me?"
"You have heard my determination. Go!"
"Now?"
"At this moment."
"You would turn me out of your house like a dog?"
"I would, and I do! It is all that you deserve at my hands."
"Is there no mercy?"
"None--from me. Go!"
"I will not go," cried Mrs. Belswin, in despair. "I will not go, I
tell you."
Sir Rupert advanced towards the bell rope.
"Then I will order my servants to turn you out."
"But, Rupert, think. Kaituna will learn who I am."
"Better that than she should be contaminated by your presence."
The woman clasped her hands together, and then in a frenzy of rage
dashed across the room to pull him away from the bell-rope.
"You shall not! you shall not!" she shrieked, her fierce eyes flashing
with mad anger. "I will stay! I am a reckless woman! I love my child!
I will not go!"
"I have the power to make you go, and I will," said Pethram, coldly.
"Are you a man or a devil?"
"I am what you have made me."
"What I made you!" she hissed, in a voice shaking with bitter scorn.
"No! it is you who have made me what I am. I loved you when I married
you. As there is a God above, I loved you; but with your cold, cruel
words, with your sarcastic sneers, with your neglect you killed that
love. I had no friend. I was only a girl, and you crushed my heart. I
was dying for the love and tenderness which you refused to give me."
"I was a good husband."
"As the world says, 'A good husband.' You gave me a good home. You
surrounded me with every comfort. To all outward appearance, I had
nothing left to desire. Ah, how little you, with your cold, cruel
nature, know what a woman wants. I desired love! I desired tenderness,
but I did not get it. Oates was kind to me. He cheered my loneliness,
and in a moment of madness I went with him. I regretted it the moment
afterwards. I have regretted it ever since. God knows how miserable my
life has been. Now I have a chance of happiness, I will take advantage
of it. I will stay with my child; you can do what you like, you can
say what you like--I stay."
Without changing a muscle of his face, Sir Rupert heard his miserable
wife to the end, then advanced once more to the bell.
"You have said all; now go, or I will have you turned out."
Mrs. Belswin laughed scornfully.
"Do what you like," she said, indifferently. "You have said what you
will do; I have said what I will do."
For the first time Sir Rupert hesitated, and let his hand fall without
ringing the bell.
"You fiend!" he said, in a cold fury. "Having made my life miserable
before, you now come to do so again. But I knew I was never safe from
your malice. Dombrain, to whom I told all your vile conduct, said you
would come again."
"He said that? Dombrain said that?"
"Yes."
"And he is a fit judge of my conduct!" she burst out in passionate
anger. "Do you know who he is? Do you know what he was? A convict--an
embezzler--a man who has served his term in prison."
"My solicitor--Mr. Dombrain?" he said, incredulously.
"Mr. Dombrain!" she scoffed, sneeringly. "Mr. Damberton is his real
name, and it was by knowing what he was and what he is, that I forced
him to receive me as your daughter's companion. I would have spared
him had he spared me, but now--well, you know the worst of him."
"Yes, and I know the worst of you," he said, fiercely. "Oh, you played
your cards well. But I will turn you out of my house, and to-morrow I
will expose Dombrain or Damberton's real position to all the world."
"You can do what you like about him, but I stay here."
"You go, and at once."
"I will not," she said, desperately.
"Then I will shame you in the eyes of your own child," he replied,
resolutely, seizing the bell rope.
"No, no! not that!"
"I say I will. Either you go at once, or I call in Kaituna and tell
her who and what you are."
Mrs. Belswin writhed in anguish.
"Oh, I could not bear that! My own child! Pity, pity!"
"Will you go?"
"Pity! pity!"
"Will you go?"
"Yes, yes! My own child! I will go. Yes, don't ring the bell; I will
go now. But do not tell her--oh, Rupert, do not tell her!"
"I will tell nothing if you leave this house at once."
She dragged herself slowly towards the window, conscious that she was
beaten. Firm on every point, reckless to the verge of despair, the
thought that her own child should know her shame was too much even for
her.
"Oh, God! is there no mercy?"
"None! Go!"
On the threshold of the window she stood, with her tall form drawn up
to its full height, and her fierce eyes flashing with rage.
"You part the mother and the child. You drive me out of your house
like a dog. But remember with whom you have to deal. To-night it is
your turn; to-morrow it will be mine."
He looked at her with a scornful smile, and in a moment she was
swallowed up by the darkness of the night, from whence she had emerged
like a spectre of the past.