A Man’s Pain.
Lawrence received his first intimation of what had happened through
Gwen; as Paddy had foreseen.
He had been sitting most of the morning in his den, with the London
newspapers, the lovers having all taken themselves off, with an air
that forbade any one to follow on their peril, but he had not done much
reading. Small wonder, indeed! Why read of stocks and shares, of wars
and rumours of Wars, of the vagaries of Cabinet Ministers, and the
sweet, childlike levity of Irish members—when the happiness for which
your whole life seems to have been waiting is coming to you to-day?
No, Lawrence did not read, he sat instead, gazing into the fire, making
delightful plans for the future, in which Paddy was all in all. The
chair she had sat in was pulled up to the hearth, but he had not used
it since; he felt it was her chair now, and his fancy loved to see her
sitting there still, with her two little hands clasping the two arms,
and her head leaning back with that slight air of weariness which
somehow made her only the more enchanting.
He was strangely happy that one morning, there had never been anything
in all his life before in the least like it. In the afternoon he meant
to go and look for her by the loch; he believed she would be waiting
for him—and if not, well he would go to the Parsonage and claim her.
He went over the interview in his fancy, detail by detail, as it might
be, as he would like it to be.
Paddy would be shy, that was a delicious thought to him. He had known
too many of the women who meet a man half-way without the slightest
qualm, and practically thrust his first kiss upon him, thinking of it
only as one of many to follow. How different it would be with Paddy! He
even wondered, with a little inward smile, whether she would let him
kiss her at all this first interview, or at any rate before they were
just parting. He did not mean to press her or hurry her in any way.
Once having her promise, he could afford to wait.
Still it was deliriously sweet to think of, and he sat forward with his
arms across his knees picturing the sacred moment. He thought how he
would coax her, and how she would yield gradually, and then he would
fold her in his arms and hold her tight against his heart while their
lips met.
He was roused by a step coming along the passage to his door, a hurried
step, that had a suggestion of being agitated in some way. Then the
door opened, and Gwen put her head in to see if he was there. Finding
he was, she came in and shut the door quietly behind her, and something
in the quiet of her usually radiant face was ominous.
“What has happened between you and Paddy, Lawrence?” she asked, coming
close up to him. “I thought everything was all right; that it was
practically settled.” He clenched his hands suddenly.
“It is. Why?”
Gwen looked at him, and a wave of painful feeling passed over her face.
“She has run away,” she said; “she went back to London alone last
night.”
Instantly, as in a flash, he understood. He did not speak, he did not
utter a sound, but sat there in a silence that became terrible, his
hands clenched and his mouth rigid. Gwen gave a little shiver.
At last to break the awful tension she continued:
“We called to see her this morning—Bob and I, and they told us she had
crossed last night. They told us some sort of a tale about her uncle
wanting her, but of course I didn’t believe it. I just pretended to,
and then came back here feeling as if I’d had a shock.”
Still he did not speak nor move, only staring with that fixed gaze into
vacancy. If there was any difference at all, he was grinding his teeth
together, to hold in check some inner tumult, rising momentarily
higher.
Gwen grew a little frightened. She had never seen him like this, never
seen any man, in the first deadly throes of an anguish that was as life
and death to him.
“What are you going to do, Lawrie?” she said. “Perhaps, she has not
really run away from you.”
Still no word or sign.
She put her hand on his shoulder to rouse him.
“What are you going to do, Lawrie?” she asked again.
“Go to the devil!” in a low, bitter voice of unmistakable meaning, and
without raising his eyes.
She slipped down on her knees beside him and clasped her hands round
his arm.
“Don’t, Lawrie—don’t,” she prayed, all her long affection for him
crystallising, and grasping just all that his bitter words might mean.
“I can’t bear you to take it like this. Oh! it is terrible, and just
when I am so happy. I will go to Paddy, she will listen to me—I will
make her see things differently. Lawrie, don’t look like that—she shall
be yours, I promise you she shall. You shall have your happiness.”
But he only shook her off roughly.
“Leave me alone. You! you have got your happiness, what do you know
about mine?”
It was the first time in her life that he had spoken roughly to her,
and Gwen shrank back almost as if she had been struck.
“You can’t—you can’t—mean to speak to me like that, Lawrie—”
“I think you had better go away,” was all he said. “I might do you an
injury.”
For a moment she was transfixed, then she rose to her feet, and turned
slowly to the door. Here she paused a moment.
“I will tell them you are not well, and do not want any lunch,” she
said. “Later on I will come back.”
After lunch Mrs Blake rose quickly from the table, and went toward the
door. Gwen was immediately in a fever of anxiety. What should she do?
In desperation she put a detaining hand upon the mother’s arm:
“You—you—are not going to Lawrence?” she stammered.
“My dear,” answered Mrs Blake, “didn’t you say he was not well?”
“I know—I know—but—indeed, it would be better to leave him alone for a
little.” Mrs Blake regarded her with surprise. “I don’t understand
you,” she said a little haughtily. “I only wish to see if I can do
anything for him.”
“He said he did not want to be disturbed,” murmured poor Gwen
distractedly.
“My dear, I am his mother,” and Mrs Blake passed out of the room.
Gwen stood a moment watching her cross the hall with a fascinated gaze,
and then suddenly darted across to the drawing-room, and burying her
face in a sofa-cushion burst into tears, to the unutterable
consternation of her faithful giant, who followed immediately, and had
much ado to soothe her. They were startled presently by the sound of a
door being violently slammed, as only a man could slam it, and then
halting footsteps approached the hall. Gwen went to the door, but drew
back horror-struck. Mrs Blake was going toward the stairs, and her face
was the colour of a corpse. She looked as if she were dazed and
petrified. Then Kathleen, who had been waiting nervously in the
dining-room, crossed quickly to her with open arms, and a little cry
of, “Mother! Mother! what is it?—are you ill?”
Her mother looked at her as if she could hardly understand, and then
dropped senseless. A second later Bob Russell carried her upstairs, and
laid her on her bed. Gwen stayed with Kathleen until she had come
round, and then slipped away to the drawing-room again, feeling utterly
unstrung. Doreen and her _fiancé_ were fortunately out to lunch.
“It was Lawrence,” she said, in reply to Bob’s anxious questions; “he
must have been terrible, and to her, his own mother! Oh, it is awful,
Bob,” and the tears streamed down her face again. Bob sprang to his
feet.
“Shall I go and throttle him!—the worm! A man who can behave like that
to his mother, isn’t fit to live. I’ll go and tell him so—I’ll—I’ll—”
“Oh, no, no, no,” cried Gwen, “you don’t understand. It is dreadful of
him, but he is mad about something. I knew it, and I tried to stop
her.”
The giant went on muttering imprecations, however, and Owen had hard
work to hold him when presently that distant door slammed again. She
crossed to the window quickly, and was just in time to see Lawrence
stride down the drive, with that terrible fixed look still on his face.
No one sat down to dinner that night, except Kathleen, and Gwen, and
Bob Russell. Mrs Blake was too ill, and Lawrence did not come back.
Doreen and her barrister were still away.
Kathleen was in a state of pent-up fury, which now and then burst its
bounds in passionate indictment against her brother. “Why can’t he stay
away,” she said, “if he can’t behave like a gentleman? I’m sure we
don’t want him here, he is always a wet blanket, and upsets mother
about something or other every day. It has been the same ever since he
went to college. He doesn’t care for anything in heaven or earth except
himself; I’m sick of it. If he doesn’t go away and stay away, I’ll just
take mother to live somewhere else altogether.”
Gwen was much too fond of Lawrence and much too staunch to her friends
not to speak a word for him in spite of her own inward anger.
“There is a reason for it, Kit,” she said. “Don’t judge him to-day.
He’ll be all right again presently.”
“Until the next time,” with an angry sneer, very like her brother’s. “I
tell you it isn’t good enough, Owen. He’s not going to behave like this
to mother again, I’ll get between them if he kills me for it. What has
he ever been to her but a curse?—drinking, and gambling, and idling
about the world. Oh, I dare say he’s charming enough to you always! we
all know there isn’t a man could be more fascinating when he likes, but
how much does that go for beside scenes like this?”
Gwen set her teeth.
“You are not fair,” she said. “Lawrence has behaved like a brute
to-day, and I dare say it isn’t the first time, but he has neither
gambled nor drunk for years, and there have been times when he was
goodness itself to his mother.”
“And few and far enough between too,” sneered Kathleen. “I’m only
thankful that he hasn’t got engaged to any friend of mine; for if I
cared for her very much, I’d sooner see her in her grave than married
to Lawrence.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Gwen sharply, and then stopped short, suddenly
remembering she was a guest, and the dinner finished in a constrained
silence.
“Bob and I will go on to Dublin to-morrow,” she told Kathleen later,
“and don’t bother about us this evening. We will look after each other,
and you stay with Mrs Blake.”
When Doreen and her _fiancé_ returned, she made up some sort of a tale
to them, and then persuaded every one to go to bed early, that
Lawrence, if he returned, might come in and go to his room unnoticed.
She did not go to bed herself, however, but sat up with her door open,
waiting for him. At two o’clock in the morning she heard his latchkey
in the front door, and went down bravely to meet him.
When Lawrence saw her he glared at her angrily, but she took no notice,
though inwardly shocked at the unspeakable change on his face since the
morning. He was deathly white, with an almost tigerish expression, and
she knew he had been drinking.
“I couldn’t rest until I knew you had come in,” she said, trying to
speak naturally.
“What did you suppose I should do?” with a bitter sneer. “Go and drown
myself, or cross to England with a pistol! No, thank you! I’m not that
sort. I shall not oblige any _Police News_ with a paragraph.”
“What are you going to do, Lawrie?” unheeding him. “Bob and I are going
on to Dublin to-morrow—you come too—”
He strode into the dining-room without answering—and she followed him.
On the sideboard stood the spirit decanters as usual, and she saw his
eye instantly turn to them, and a second later he had his hand upon the
whisky.
Quickly she was at his side:
“Don’t have any more, Lawrie,” pleadingly. “You have had quite enough,”
and she placed her hand over his. For one moment he glared at her
again, then let go, and sinking into a chair by the table, buried his
face in his hands.
“Have you been playing billiards?” she asked, resting her hand on his
shoulder.
“Yes.”
“For high sums, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“I hope there isn’t misery in some other house in Newry to-night,
through you.”
“On the contrary, some of them must feel quite rich.”
“Then you lost?”
“Yes.”
“I’m very glad.”
“Thank you,” dryly.
Gwen stood looking at him, noting vaguely the lines that had deepened
in his face, and wondering what to do.
“Lawrie.”
“Yes.”
“Your mother is ill. She fainted, and Bob carried her upstairs.”
He winced, but his face did not soften.
“You must have behaved like a blackguard to her,” and there was a
tremor of intense feeling in Gwen’s voice.
“It’s quite likely. But I warned her—why did she come in? I told her
not to, and she has known me long enough.”
“I wonder what Paddy would think of it?”
He ground his teeth.
“What does it matter?—what does anything matter? I used not to care,
and I will be the same again. I have been a fool to let myself get set
upon anything—” He got up, and pushed his chair aside roughly. “I am
going away to-morrow! I don’t know where, except that I shall go to
London first—afterward, to the devil, as I said before.”
He turned to the door, and she could not but follow.
“You needn’t worry any more to-night. I won’t touch the whisky again,
and I won’t shoot myself,” and without waiting for her, he strode off
up the stairs.