A PAGE FROM THE PAST
She swept into the room, humming a light opera tune, bringing with her
the usual flood of perfumes, suggestion of cosmetics, a vivid apparition
of the artificial. Her skirts rustled aggressively, her voice was just
one degree too loud. Mannering rose to his feet a little wearily.
She looked at him with raised eyebrows.
"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "What have you been doing with yourself,
Lawrence? You look like a ghost!"
"I am quite well," he answered, calmly.
"Then you don't look it," she answered, bluntly. "Where have you been for
the last few weeks?"
"Up in the North," he answered. "It was very hot, and I had a great deal
to do. I suppose I am suffering, like the rest of us, from a little
overwork."
She spread herself out in a chair opposite to him.
"Don't stand," she said; "you fidget me. I have something to say to you."
"So I gathered from your note," he remarked.
"You haven't hurried."
"I only got back to London last night," he answered. "I could scarcely
come sooner, could I?"
"I suppose not," she admitted.
Then for a moment or two she was silent. She was watching him a little
curiously.
"Is this true?" she asked, "this rumour?"
"Won't you be a little more explicit?" he begged.
"They say that you are going to marry the Duchess of Lenchester!"
"It is true," he answered.
She leaned forward. Her clasped hands rested upon her knee. She seemed to
be examining the tip of her patent shoe. Suddenly she looked up at him.
"You ought to have come and told me yourself!" she said.
"I had no opportunity," he reminded her. "I left London the morning
after--it happened--and I returned last night."
"Political business?" she asked.
"Entirely."
"Lawrence," she said, "I don't like it."
"Why not?" he asked. "Has mine been such a successful life, do you think,
that you need grudge me a little happiness towards its close?"
"Bosh!" she answered. "You are only forty-six. You are a young man
still."
"I had forgotten my years," he declared. "I only know that I am tired."
"You look it," she remarked. "I must say that there is very little of the
triumphant suitor about you. You work too hard, Lawrence."
"If I do," he asked, with a note of fierceness in his tone, "whose fault
is it? I was almost happy at Blakely. I had almost learned to forget. It
was you who dragged me out again. You were not satisfied with half of my
income; you were always in debt, always wanting more money. Then
Borrowdean made use of you. He wanted me back into politics, you wanted
more money for your follies and extravagances. Back I had to come into
harness. Blanche, I've tried to do my duty to you, but there is a limit.
I owed you a comfortable place in life, and I have tried to see that you
have it. I have never refused anything you have asked me, I have never
mentioned the sacrifices which I have been forced to make. But there is
a limit. I draw it here. I will not suffer any interference between the
Duchess of Lenchester and myself!"
Blanche Phillimore rose slowly to her feet. He was used to her fits of
passion, but there was no sign of anything of the sort in her face. She
was agitated, but in some new way. Her words were an attack, but her
manner suggested rather an appeal. Her large, fine eyes, her one
perfectly natural feature, were soft and luminous. They seemed somehow to
transfigure her face. To him it seemed like the foolish, handsome woman
of fifteen years ago who had suddenly come to life again.
"You owed me--a comfortable place in life, Lawrence! Thank--you. You have
paid the debt very well. You owed me--a respectable guardianship; you
paid that, too. Thank you again. Now tell me, do you owe me nothing
else?"
"I owed you one debt," he said, gravely, "which neither I nor any other
man who incurs it can ever discharge."
"I am glad you realize it," she answered. "But have you ever tried to
discharge it? You have given me a home and money to throw away on any
folly which could kill thought. What about the rest?"
"Blanche," he said, gravely, "the rest was impossible! You know that as
well as I do."
"It is fifteen years ago, Lawrence," she said, "and all that time we have
fenced with our words. Now I am going to speak a little more plainly. You
robbed me of my husband. The fault may not have been wholly yours, but
the fact remains. You struck him, and he died. I was left alone!"
Mannering's face was ashen. The whole horrible scene was rising up again
before him. He covered his face with his hands. It was more distinct than
ever. He saw the man's flushed face, heard his stream of abuse, felt the
sting of his blow, the hot anger with which he had struck back. Then
those few awful moments of suspense, the moment afterwards when they had
looked at one another. He shivered! Why had she let loose this flood of
memories? She was speaking to him again.
"I was left alone," she repeated, quietly, "and I have been alone ever
since. You don't know much about women, Lawrence. You never did! Try and
realize, though, what that must mean to a woman like myself, not strong,
not clever, with very few resources--just a woman. I cared for my
husband, I suppose, in an average sort of way. At any rate he loved me.
Then--there was you. Oh, you never made love to me, of course. You were
not the sort of man to make love to another man's wife. But you used to
show that you liked to be with me, Lawrence. Your voice and your eyes and
your whole manner used to tell me that. Then there came--that hideous
day! I lost you both. What have I had since, Lawrence?"
"Very little, I am afraid, worth having."
"'Very little--worth having'!" She flung the words from her with
passionate scorn. "I had your alms, your cold, hurried visits, when you
seemed to shiver if our fingers touched. It would have seemed to you, I
suppose, a terrible sin to have touched the lips of the woman whom you
had helped to rob of her husband, to have spoken kindly to her, to have
given her at least a little affection to warm her heart. Poor me! What a
hell you made of my days, with your selfish model life, your panderings
to conscience. I didn't want much, you know, Lawrence," she said, with a
sudden choking in her voice. "I would never have robbed you of your peace
of mind. All I wanted was kindness. And I think, Lawrence, that it was a
debt, but you never paid it."
Mannering had a moment of self-revelation, a terrible, lurid moment.
Every word that she had said was true.
"You have never spoken to me like this before," he reminded her,
desperately. "I never knew that you cared."
"Don't lie!" she answered, calmly. "You turned your head away that you
might not see. In your heart you knew very well. What else, do you think,
made me, a very ordinary, nervous sort of woman, get you out of the house
that day, tell my story, the story that shielded you, without faltering,
put even the words into your own mouth? It was because I was fool enough
to care! And oh, my God, how you have tortured me since! You would sit
there, coldly censorious, and reason with me about my friends, my manner
of life. I knew what you thought. You didn't hide it very well. Lawrence,
I wonder I didn't kill you!"
"I wish that you had," he said, bitterly.
She nodded.
"Oh, I know how you are feeling just now," she said. "Truth strikes home,
you know, and it hurts just a little, doesn't it? In a few days your
admirable common sense will prevail. You will say to yourself: 'She was
that sort of woman, she had that sort of disposition, she was bound to
go to the dogs, anyway!' So you are going to marry the Duchess of
Lenchester, Lawrence!"
He stood up.
"Blanche," he said, "that was all a mistake. I didn't understand. Let us
forget that day altogether. Marry me now, and I will try to make up for
these past years."
She stared at him blankly. The colour in her cheek was like a lurid patch
under the pallor of her skin. She gave a little gasp, and her hand went
to her side. Then she laughed hardly, almost offensively.
"What a man of sentiment," she declared. "After fifteen years, too, and
only just engaged to another woman! No, thank you, my dear Lawrence. I've
lived my life, such as it has been. I'm not so very old, but I look
fifty, and I've vices enough to blacken an entire neighbourhood. Fancy,
if people saw me, and heard that you might have married the Duchess of
Lenchester. They'd hint at an asylum."
"Never mind about other people," he said. "Give me a chance, Blanche, to
show that I'm not such an absolute brute."
"Rubbish," she interrupted. "Fifteen years ago I would have married you.
In fact, I expected to. The reason why I found the courage to shield you
from any unpleasantness that awful day was because I knew if trouble came
and there was any scandal you would feel yourself obliged to marry me,
and I wanted you to marry me--because you wanted to. What an idiot I was!
Now, please go away, Lawrence. Marry the Duchess, if you like, but don't
worry me with your re-awakened conscience. I'm going my own way for the
rest of my few years, and the less I see of you the better I shall be
pleased. You will forgive me--but I have an engagement--down the river!
I really must hurry you off."
Her teeth were set close together, the sobs seemed tangled in her throat.
It seemed to her that all the longing in her life was concentrated in
that one passionate desire, that he should seize her in his arms now,
hold her there--tell her that it had all been a mistake, that the ugly
times were dreams, that after all he had cared--a little! The room swam
round with her, but she pointed smilingly to the door, which her trim
parlour-maid was holding open. And Mannering went.