"Tu peux connaître le monde, tu peux lire à livre ouvert dans les
plus caverneuses consciences, mais tu ne liras jamais, oh! pauvre
femme, le coeur de ton ami."
And then there came a short sequence of days, full of deep calm without,
full of strife and disturbance within.
Jane was ailing, and each day she fought with the knowledge of what
ailed her as certain strong natures fight, and even for a while keep at
bay, physical disease.
But there came a moment when she had to face the truth; when she had to
tell herself that the new, the agonising pain which racked her soul
night and day, leaving her no moment of peace, was that base passion,
jealousy.
It was horrible to feel that it was of Athena she was jealous--Athena
who seemed to be always there, between Lingard and herself. She could
not think so ill of her friend as to suppose that this was Mrs. Maule's
fault; still less would she accuse Lingard.
Gradually the knowledge had come to her that when they three were
together--Athena, Jane, and Lingard--it was as if she, Jane, was not, so
entirely was Lingard absorbed in, possessed by, Athena.
Jane Oglander could not fight with the weapons another woman in her
place might have used. She could not, that is, make the most of such odd
moments, of such scanty opportunities as she might have snatched from
Athena Maule. How could the trifling events which made up the sum of
five or six days have brought about such a change?
She had thought to be so happy at Rede Place. She had come there filled
with a sense of tremulous and yet certain gladness; in the mood to be
sought by, rather than in that which seeks, the beloved. Athena,
Richard, and Dick, if they did not love each other, surely each loved
her sufficiently to understand, to respect her joy.
The circumstances of her brother's death which had fallen like a pall on
her young life had set Jane Oglander apart from happy, normal women. To
her the world had only contained one lover--Hew Lingard; and those days
they had spent together in a peopled solitude had taught her all she
knew of the ways of love.
It was instinct which had made her shrink, that first night of her stay
at Rede Place, from Athena's insistent questioning; natural delicacy
which had made her refuse, almost with disgust, the suggestion that she
and Lingard should be set apart in an artificial solitude. As yet their
engagement was secret from the world which seemed to take so great,
so--so impertinent an interest in Hew Lingard, and she wished to keep it
so as long as possible.
Then there was another reason, one which she now told herself Athena
should have divined, why Jane wished little notice to be taken of her
engagement. She had no wish to flaunt her happiness before Dick Wantele.
But now there was no happiness to flaunt--in its place only a dumb
misery and a jealousy of which she felt an agonising shame.
To Jane Oglander it was as if another entity had entered Hew Lingard's
bodily shape--the bodily shape that was alas! so terribly dear to her.
Lingard was not unkind, he was ever careful of her comfort in all little
ways, but when they were alone together--and this happened strangely
seldom--he would fall into long silences, as if unaware that she, his
love, was there.
From these abstracted moods Jane soon learnt that she could rouse him
only in one way. He was ever ready to talk of Athena,--of their noble,
lovely, and ill-used friend; and Jane, assenting, would tell herself
that it was all true, and that only long familiarity with the strange
conditions of existence at Rede Place had made her take as calmly as she
did the tragedy of Athena Maule's life--that tragedy which now weighed
so heavily on Lingard that it blotted out for him everything and
everybody else.
"I have told her she can always come and stay with us when things get
intolerable here," he had exclaimed during one such talk, looking at
Jane with eager, ardent eyes; and she had bent her head.
Then it was with Athena he discussed their future, his and Jane's--the
future in which Mrs. Maule was, it seemed, to have so great a share.
* * * * *
It was on the seventh day of Jane's stay at Rede Place that her lover
for the first time, or so it seemed to her sore heart, sought her
company.
It fell about in this wise. Athena had been caught by Mrs. Pache, who,
taking a drive in her old safe brougham for the first time since the
motor accident, had naturally chosen Rede Place. Lingard and Dick
Wantele at last escaped, leaving Mrs. Maule prisoned by her guest. They
had gone out of doors, and chance had led them across Jane--Jane on her
way back from the Small Farm where Mabel Digby, for the first time in
her young life, lay ill in bed, unwilling to see anyone, excepting Jane.
On hearing who had called, Miss Oglander had wished to hurry in, but
Lingard had cried imperiously, "No! you shan't be made to endure Cousin
Annie's congratulations! Come instead for a walk with me!" He had said
the words in his old voice--the voice Jane knew, loved, obeyed.
Dick Wantele looked quickly at them both. Was it possible that Lingard
was working himself free of the fetters of which he was--Dick wished to
think it possible--still unaware? "Take him to the Oakhanger," he said
to Jane. "You can get there and back in an hour----"
Side by side they hastened, walking not as lovers walk, but as do those
who feel themselves to be escaping from some danger which lies close
behind them. Jane was taking Lingard the shortest way out of the park.
At last, at last she and Lingard would be alone, away from Athena as
they had never yet been away from her during these long, to Jane these
most miserable, days.
For a while neither spoke to the other, then, as they turned into one of
the narrow streets of the little country town, Lingard broke into
hurried, disconnected speech, only to fall into moody silence as they
again emerged into the lonely country lane leading to the large,
enclosed piece of ground for which they were bound.
The Hanger, as it was familiarly called in the neighbourhood of
Redyford, was a huge natural mound rising from a low, undulating stretch
of wild furze-covered common. Through the eighteenth century it had
formed part of the estate of Rede Place, or rather it had been enclosed
and appropriated, together with other common land.
Thanks to the generosity, perhaps it should be said the sense of
justice, of Theophilus Joy, The Hanger now belonged to the little town
of Redyford. In warm weather it was used by the town folk as a picnic
resort, though the nature and formation of the ground, and of the
mountainous height which gave the place its name, made the playing of
games there impossible. This was as well, for the huge mound remained
unspoilt, and in its stark way beautiful.
* * * * *
Sharply the two breasted the rising ground. The wind swept athwart them
in short, strong gusts. Now and then there fell a spot of rain.
There was something in Jane Oglander's nature, something hidden from
those about her, which responded to wild weather. She now welcomed the
battle against wind and rain, and mounted with secret exhilaration the
steep slippery path winding its way through and under the oak-trees
which clothed the right flank of The Hanger.
Once she tripped, and Lingard for a moment put his arm round her, but
she sprang forward, away from its strong shelter; surprised, and a
little piqued, he kept behind her, letting her lead the now darkling
way, for twilight was falling.
On they climbed, till at last, emerging from under the low oak branches,
they stood, solitary figures, on a grassy ridge, bare save for a clump
of high twisted fir-trees which swayed gauntly against the vast grey
expanse of sky.
Owing to its peculiar formation, The Hanger presented, especially at
this time of the early evening, an impression of almost monstrous height
and loneliness.
Sheer down on the right from whence they had come lay the little town of
Redyford, the grey and red roofs partly hidden by the thick-set oaks.
On the left the ground sloped away more gently; but it looked to-night
as if a leap over the edge would fling one down, down into the valley of
meadowlands now white with curling mists.
Slowly they turned and walked along the ridge, their feet sinking into
the short soft turf growing in patches of pale green among the
mauve-grey and brown heather. The path led up to a summer house, a
curious circular building crowning the apex of the hill, and so wide
open to wind, rain, and view that only the deep-eaved roof afforded any
shelter to those under it.
It was there that Lingard, after a moment of hesitation, led the way.
"Jane," he said, "let us come and sit down for a moment. I have
something to ask you." And she followed him into the poor shelter the
summer house afforded. It had stopped raining; the high wind reigned
alone, victorious.
The bench on which they sat down was heavily scored with the initials of
generations of Redyford lovers; for the little round building had ever
been a temple of innocent courtship, and in the spring and summer
evenings never lacked couples sitting in silent, inarticulate happiness.
Lingard's bare hand involuntarily rested on the dented figures, the
interlaced initials....
Three weeks ago he would have prayed Jane's leave to add a J. and an H.
to these rude scores, for three weeks ago he had been one of the great
company of the world's lovers, understanding and sympathising with all
the absurdities of love.
And now--even now, though he knew himself for a traitor to the woman
sitting silent by his side, he yet felt in a strange way that the link
between them was eternal--that in no way could it be broken. Each, so he
assured himself fiercely, had a call on the other.
He was about to put this belief, this instinctive certainty, to the
test.
"As I said just now, I've something to ask you, Jane----" His words came
haltingly; to his listener they sounded very cold.
"Yes, Hew?" She looked round at him. He was staring at the ground as if
something lay there he alone could see.
"I asked you to come out with me to-night, because--because"--and then
in a voice so low, so hoarse, that she had to bend forward to catch the
words--"I want to ask you, to implore you, Jane--to marry me at once."
"At once?" she repeated. "When do you mean by at once, Hew?" She also
spoke in a still, low voice. They seemed to be hatching a conspiracy of
which one, if not both, should feel ashamed.
And more than ever it seemed to Jane Oglander as if another man, a
stranger, had taken possession of Hew Lingard's shape.
"I mean at once!" he answered harshly. "To-morrow--or the day after
to-morrow. There's no necessity why we should ever go back to Rede
Place! Why shouldn't we walk down to the station now, from here? We
should be in London in an hour and a half. People have often done
stranger things than that. We could send a message from the station
to----" His voice wavered, his lips refused to form Mrs. Maule's name.
He thrust the thought of Athena violently from him; and with the
muttered words, "Can't you understand? I love you--I want you, Jane----"
he turned and gathered the woman sitting so stilly by his side into his
arms.
She gave a stifled cry of surprise; and then, as he kissed her fiercely
once, twice, and then again, there broke from her a low, bitter
sigh--the sigh of a woman who feels herself debased by the caresses for
which she has longed, of which she has been starved.
To Jane Oglander a kiss, so light, so willing a loan on the part of many
women, was so intimate a gift as to be the forerunner of complete
surrender. And to-night each of Hew Lingard's kisses was to her a
profaned sacrament. Not so had they kissed on that day in London. Now
his kisses told her, as no words could have done, of a divided
allegiance.
She lay unresponsive, trembling in his arms, her eyes full of a wild,
piteous questioning....
With a sudden sense of self-loathing and shame he released her from his
arms.
"Well?" he said sullenly. "Well, Jane?" but he knew what her answer
would and must be.
"I can't do what you wish, Hew. I don't think that either of us would be
happy now--if we did that." She spoke in a quiet, restrained voice. She
was too miserable, too deeply humiliated, for tears.
Together they walked out of the summer house and retraced their steps
along the ridge.
"As I cannot do what you wish, would you like me to end our engagement?"
He turned on her fiercely. "I did not think," he cried, "that there
lived a woman in the world who could be as cruel as you have been to me
to-night!"
"I did not mean to be cruel," she said mournfully.
"Unless you wish to drive me to the devil, don't speak like that again,"
he said violently. "Promise me, I mean, that you won't think of breaking
our engagement."
She made no answer, and a few moments later in a gentler tone he asked,
"Can't you understand, Jane?"
She said humbly, "I try to understand."
A great and a healing flood of tenderness filled her heart, and as if
the spiritual tie between them was indeed of so close a nature that
Lingard felt her softening for the first time put his hand in hers.
"Jane," he said huskily, "forgive me. Try to forget to-night."
So they walked in silence, hand in hand, through the solitary lane and
the now lighted streets of Redyford, uncaring of the few passers-by.
But when they came to the park gates Lingard withdrew his hand from
hers, and at the door of the Garden Room he left her. "I won't come in
yet," he said abruptly, and turning on his heel he disappeared into the
night.
* * * * *
And with Jane's going something good and noble in Lingard went too, and
as he walked into the darkness he lashed himself into a sea of deep
injury and pain. His heart filled with anger rather than with shame when
he evoked the look almost of aversion, of protesting anguish, which had
come into her face while his lips had sought and found unresponsive her
sweet, tremulous mouth.
He had been longing, craving, for that which he had now only the right
to demand from her, and she had cruelly repulsed him.
How amazing that a fortnight--or was it three weeks?--could have so
altered a woman!
Even now the memory of those days they had spent together immediately on
his return home was dear and sacred to him.
Could he have been mistaken,--such was the question he asked himself
to-night,--in his belief that Jane Oglander had been exquisitely
sensitive, responsive as are few human beings to every high demand of
love?
Was it that his unspoken, unconfessed treachery had killed, obliterated
in her the power of response? Nay, it was far more likely that he had
made a mistake,--that the woman he loved was cold, as many tender women
are cold, temperamentally incapable of that fusion of soul and body
which is the essence of love between a man and a woman.
Had he not discovered this lack in Jane through his contact with a very
different nature--with one who was full of quick, warm-blooded, generous
impulses? Athena Maule might do foolish things,--she had admitted to him
that more than once she had been tempted to do wild, reckless
things,--but it was only her heart that would lead her astray.
The man in Lingard, knowing as he thought the hidden truth which
underlay her story, felt full of burning sympathy.
As he at last walked back to the house, it was pleasant to him to feel
that he would be able to forget the painful, the humiliating hour he had
gone through with the woman who was to be his wife, in the company of
Athena Maule.
* * * * *
Athena was in her boudoir. She had been there alone for two hours, and
they had been hours filled with impatient revolt and anxiety.
After Mrs. Pache had gone Athena had tried to find first Jane, and then
Lingard. Then Dick Wantele, meeting her, had casually observed that the
two others had gone out for a long walk.
Jane and Lingard out together beyond her ken and pursuit? The knowledge
stabbed her. Athena was convinced, aye quite honestly convinced, that
these two, her friends both of them, were ill-suited the one to the
other.
She felt the breach between herself and Jane, and it hurt her the more
because she had done nothing--nothing to deserve that Jane should avoid
her as she sometimes felt sure Jane was doing.
It was not her fault if General Lingard was gradually coming to see the
terrible mistake he had made. But to-night, while waiting, too excited,
too impatient to do anything but sit and stare into the fire, she told
herself that she was also disappointed in Lingard.
What a strange, peculiar man he was! Since the night before Jane
Oglander's arrival he had said nothing--nothing that is, that all the
world might not have heard. And yet she could not mistake his thraldom.
If nothing else had proved it, Dick Wantele's behaviour would have done
so. Twice in the last few days Dick had made a strong, a meaning, appeal
to Athena to leave Rede Place. Her heart swelled at the thought of
Dick's discourtesy and unkindness. She even wondered if he had dared to
say anything to Lingard. During the last two days Lingard had certainly
avoided finding himself alone with her....
The only one of them all who seemed perfectly at ease, and who was as
usual absorbed in his own selfish ills and in his dull books, was
Richard. Fortunately he took up a great deal of Jane's time.
* * * * *
At last, when it was nearly seven o'clock, the door opened, and Lingard
came in. He had instinctively made his way to her, without stopping to
think whether he were wise or no in what he was doing. During the last
two days, putting a strong restraint on himself, he had avoided Athena,
and his strange request to Jane, his pleading for an immediate marriage,
had been the outcome of the state in which he found himself.
But now everything was changed. Jane had denied him, and he felt an
imperative need of the kind, comfortable words Athena would lavish on
him. He was sick of lies--of the lies he had told himself. He hungered
for Athena's presence. What an unmannerly brute she must have thought
him, to have avoided her as he had done, all that day and all the day
before!
Very gently she bade him sit down, and in some subtle fashion she
ministered to Lingard in a way that restored to a certain extent his
feeling of self-respect. And then at last, when secure that there would
be no interruptions, for the dinner bell had rung some moments before,
she leant forward and said slowly, "Is something the matter? Is anything
troubling you, Hew? Is it a matter in which I can help?"
She desired above all things that he should speak to her of Jane
Oglander. But her wish was not to be gratified.
"Everything is troubling me," he said sombrely. "Everything!"
She moved a little nearer to him. Her hand lay close to his. Suddenly he
took her hand and held it. "I loathe myself," he said in a low voice. "I
needn't tell you the reason why, Athena,--you know, you understand----"
"Ah! Yes--I understand," there was a thrill in her voice. "How often I
have felt ashamed of my own longing--of my longing to be free!"
It was a bow at a venture. He looked at her with dazed eyes. That was
not what he had meant. Then suddenly he caught fire from her thin flame.
"If you were free?" he repeated thickly. "I wish to God, Athena, that
you were free----"
She withdrew her hand from his, and got up. "It's nearly eight o'clock,"
she said quietly. "We must go up and dress now."