PARADISE OR ...?
About a week later the flat was ready for them, and, their things
having preceded them, they drove over to it in the afternoon.
Tears had stood in Regina's eyes as she took her possessions out of
Everest's room at the studio to pack them.
"I have been so wonderfully happy here," she exclaimed, "I cannot help
being sorry to leave. This is where I came and took you by surprise,
and you were so good to me."
"Well, my darling, we might go on staying here, only, you see, it
is not very comfortable being obliged to go out to all our meals. I
generally only use this place in the summer, and when I am up just for
a few days or when I have a picture on hand," Everest had answered,
coming up to her.
"We shall soon furnish the flat with as much joy and happiness as we
have had here."
Regina laughed and sighed.
"The best furniture of all--joy and happiness," she repeated, and went
on steadily packing.
They had lived quite in Bohemian style at the studio, having no
servants to wait upon them, only the _concierge_ of the whole
building and his underlings, who saw to the cleaning of the place and
the arranging of the rooms, the carrying up of letters and water,
wood or coal, as required. Everest had made their own coffee in the
morning, and tea in the afternoon. For all else, they had relied on
the restaurants outside. There had been a charm in the quietness, the
simplicity of it all, in the utter absence of other eyes upon them,
even of servants, in the sense of being absolutely alone together in
this little niche of London, and to the girl a great, an indefinable
charm, in knowing this was his own, his most private, particular niche,
where he had lived and worked alone.
When they reached the flat, and Everest took her over it, Regina was
surprised at its wonderful comfort and luxury. The rooms at the studio,
where they had been staying, were large, well furnished and in perfect
order, but there had been a certain simplicity about them, a suggestion
that they were used by a bachelor in his hours of severe and solitary
work. The whole appearance and air of the flat was totally different.
It was full of beauty and luxury, and spoke of pleasure and ease, and
the delight of the senses. Everest had been preparing it for her, and
his heart had been in all the designing of it, while, as he did not
care in the least what the bills came to, everything in it was of the
most beautiful and most costly, extravagant type.
It was spacious, with a wide, high hall, square in shape, from which
the various rooms opened, and contained two large bedrooms, dining
and drawing rooms and an extra sitting-room, besides all the offices,
servants' bedrooms, kitchen and bathrooms. Regina thought the bedroom
he had arranged for them the most beautiful specimen of furnishing
she had ever seen. It was all in white and silver, with a silver
chick--that is to say, long curtains composed of vertical, swinging
threads of silver beads--enclosing the entire bed.
The walls were hung with white satin embroidered with silver, instead
of being papered, and the curtains were white satin and velvet, lined
with silver. The carpet was white velvet pile, with a design of lilies
of the valley, and their pale green leaves wreathed over it, and
outlined in silver, and all the furniture and china in the room bore
out the same design. The whole was lighted by deep rose-coloured lamps,
enclosed in fairy-like silver open-work, the tinted light flooding
everything, which otherwise might have seemed too cold, with tender
warmth.
"How exquisite! How truly lovely!" she exclaimed to him, and he flushed
and laughed, and said nothing was good enough for her, and that he had
designed the room to imitate the diamond-like radiance of her mind, and
the satin whiteness of her skin.
They went on from room to room, Regina admiring everything, her eyes
delighting in all the beauty and perfection of it, and her heart
beating uncertainly to think of the homage it all expressed for her.
They came back finally to the drawing-room, where a little fire burned
cheerily, though it was not at all cold, and the window was open. Tea
was laid ready for them, on a table near the fire, and they sat down,
opposite each other, looking into each other's eyes, and feeling that
no two human beings could possibly be more happy than they were.
Everest had thought four servants would be enough for them: a cook,
housemaid, footman, and his own valet. He had offered Regina a maid,
but she had begged to be allowed to continue without one.
"I do everything so simply and quickly for myself. I am accustomed to
it, and I don't want to become less independent."
Everest had replied it didn't matter at all, and so the question was
left.
The valet, Hammond, had greeted Regina respectfully, inwardly delighted
that his master had chosen her, and not one of "them other 'aughty and
stupid young ladies at the Rectory."
"You must be quite tired with all that tour of inspection," Everest
said, as they drew up their chairs to the table, "have some of these
hot scones to restore you."
"I shall soon be restored from such a pleasant fatigue as that," she
returned, laughing. "The rooms are so beautiful, they are just like
lovely pictures, and you have had so many of your own things brought
here they look as if we had been living in them for months already."
He had brought many personal things there, and a few of his own
pictures, which pleased her more than anything. They were finely
finished paintings of tropical scenery, and she spent a long time
studying them. Her own picture of "The Enchanted Garden" he could not
bear to part with from his bedroom, and it stood by itself on a table,
at the foot of the white and silver bed.
A few days after their installation, Everest had to leave her, to go
into the country, and after a morning's work on her new picture she
spent the afternoon playing the piano.
About four o'clock she rang for tea, and just after it had been brought
heard the hall door open and footsteps and voices outside.
She opened the drawing-room door and saw that the footman was
interviewing a tiny and extremely dainty feminine young person, dressed
in black velvet and a small toque covered with Parma violets.
She had a sheaf of papers in her hands, some keys and a gold pencil,
and a velvet bag swung from her grey gloved wrist. A sudden tremor of
interest, though she could not tell why, and could only see the back of
the intruder, ran through Regina.
"But I must have left it here, because I have already looked on the
stairs and everywhere," she heard the girl saying.
"I am sorry, madam, but nothing has been noticed here," the footman was
replying, when his mistress stepped forward.
The visitor turned, and Regina saw she was face to face with the
beautiful, cameo-like countenance she had seen in the velvet case in
Everest's room at Stossop. She recognised it instantly--in fact it was
such a striking face, and of such a marked type, it would have been
quite impossible not to do so. For the first instant Regina thought
that the girl had come to see her. Then she remembered that, though
she, Regina, knew her by her portrait and through Everest's remarks,
the girl had never seen and probably never heard of herself, and was in
ignorance equally of Everest's being at this address. It was just a
strange chance that had brought them together.
"I have lost my pocket-book, with all my notes in it--so tiresome!" the
girl was saying, as she turned to Regina.
"I called to see the flat above, and mistook the number. I came in here
before I discovered my mistake, and so I thought I might have dropped
my book here, as I can't find it anywhere else. I am tired to death
with looking at flats and worrying over them and now, in addition, to
lose my pocket-book...."
She looked very tired, her face was flushed, she seemed nervous and
half-inclined to cry.
A thought came to Regina that she would like to see more of her. She
was truly beautiful, and she was Everest's cousin.
"I am so sorry," she said aloud, "but won't you come in and rest for a
few moments, and have tea with me? I am quite alone, and just going to
have mine."
The girl hesitated. Behind Regina she could see the luxurious and
inviting room, with its tea-table, burdened with good things. She was
dreadfully tired and thirsty ... her motor was downstairs at the door,
and could easily wait ... tea would be delightful and she could spin
home afterwards in no time.
"Oh, thanks.... Well, do you know, I think I will really.... It is too
kind of you...."
"I shall be delighted," returned Regina. And the footman closed the
door, while the two women passed into the drawing-room.
She gave her guest a low easy-chair by the fire, facing the window, and
the talk was all about the lost pocket-book for many minutes, and while
Regina listened and sympathised she studied intently the face opposite
her. The girl was very fair, light curls of absolute and natural gold
showed under her tiny hat, her eyes were large and blue, and surmounted
by pale brown eyebrows, most perfectly and delicately arched. The
features were exquisite in their refinement, in their delicacy and
finish of form. A tiny, straight nose, a little curled upper lip, a
most exactly and elaborately curved mouth of scarlet, a ring of small,
even teeth, a perfect chin, set on a round column of throat, made up
a face of great beauty. The skin was of the colour and appearance of
ivory, and, now that the flush was dying away, colourless, except for
its even tone of cream. She was exceedingly small, there seemed hardly
any body at all in the tight-fitting black velvet gown.
In the large, voluptuous easy-chair she looked like a beautiful little
French doll. She explained how her aunt and herself were looking at
flats for some friends, and how to-day her aunt had been ill and unable
to come, and had begged her to motor to some different addresses,
and how she had done so, and made a lot of notes as to prices and
conditions--that this was the last to be visited, and that having done
that, and coming downstairs, she had missed her book, which contained
the whole fruits of her labours, and she was ready to cry with vexation
over it, etc., etc.
She talked prettily enough, but Regina saw, long before the recital,
with its many repetitions, its unnecessary details, its confused
arrangement, was over, the kind of mental equipment she possessed. The
losing of the pocket-book was exactly what might have been expected of
the silly, feather-headed little creature.
After the pocket-book's loss had been thoroughly deplored, Regina led
her into general conversation. She thought possibly, as her visitor's
eyes strayed about, they might recognise some of Everest's things,
but she did not seem to do so, nor to know the pictures, on which, at
Regina's invitation, she expressed some very banal opinions. She seemed
to admire the furniture of the flat a good deal more.
Regina, who, like all great natures, had practically the double
disposition of male and female in her, was always greatly attracted, as
a man is, by beauty and grace in a woman.
She felt no hostility to it, and no jealousy, so that Everest's
cousin had appealed to her favourably at first. At the end, however,
of half-an-hour the girl had tired and bored her by the inanity of
everything she said, and she found herself wondering whether, if the
girl married, the husband would shortly after commit suicide or enter
a lunatic asylum, or what would be his fate, and she was glad when the
visitor said she must go.
"It's been too awfully sweet of you!" she said. "I've enjoyed the rest
so much, and feel quite well again.... Good-bye...."
Regina wished her good-bye and accompanied her to the hall. True to
English traditions of good breeding, they had conversed all the time
without asking each other a single question, or hearing each other's
names.
When her visitor had gone, Regina walked over to the fire and gazed
long at her own face in the mirror.
Though it had not the beauty of line of the other girl's, it possessed
something that hers had not.
Then she commenced walking up and down the room. She was asking herself
this question:
"That girl, with all her possessions and her beauty, could she make a
man as happy as I can, I wonder?"
The thing interested her, and she pondered over it deeply and nearly
made herself late in dressing for dinner.
When Everest came back she recounted the whole incident, just as it had
happened, and saw him contract his eyebrows.
"So Sybil's in town now," he remarked merely, and seemed disinclined to
pursue the subject.
For many days after this, Everest was very much occupied, and out a
great deal, and Regina devoted herself to the painting for Burton.
They would be leaving England shortly for the winter, and she was
anxious to complete her work in good time before they had to start. She
had called her subject "The Great Denial," and she hoped to make it as
strong a picture as "The Murderer."
It was the interior of a monastic cell, of which the cold grey stone
was illumined by a feeble candle flame. On the stone ledge, that served
as table, stood a plate of untouched bread, by a flagon of water,
equally untasted. On the floor, stretched out, with his arms extended
in the form of a cross, lay the poor, attenuated, emaciated figure of a
young monk, apparently asleep.
Upon his face rested an expression of extreme beatitude. The whole end
of the cell was in vivid light, a sort of rose colour deepening into
crimson and shot through with gold, and from the centre of the rosy
mist lifted itself the etherealised form of a woman. In her face shone
all the purest and tenderest qualities of sexual love, as she seemed to
smile on the poor, thin figure on the flagstones.
Regina worked on this picture slowly, lovingly, with tender care,
different entirely from the fierce rush of inspiration, the fury of
energy in which she had accomplished the other. She painted chiefly
while Everest was out, and this was often, for he had a good deal to do
and attend to before leaving England for an indefinite time.
As no marriage had been given out, he could not introduce Regina to
any of his friends. He disliked equally the idea of lying directly
about her position, and of running the risk of her being annoyed or
insulted by them. So he saw little of his friends, and refused all the
invitations he could. Where he was obliged to accept, he went alone,
and Regina was quite happy, for she wanted nothing but Everest himself;
friends, amusement, gaiety, display--all these were nothing to her. Her
love and her art filled to overcrowding her daily life.
But sheltered though she lived in this happy seclusion, certain rumours
of the enormity of Everest's conduct reached the attentive ears of his
family, and to her surprise, one afternoon, she received a visit from
Everest's sister. She was sitting alone in the large drawing-room of
the flat, half buried in one of the luxurious arm-chairs, contemplating
with dreamy satisfaction the finished picture, to which she had been
adding a few final touches, softening here and there some over-dark
lines. With the brush still in her hand, she sat far back in her chair,
gazing on her work, while the light outside diminished and the great
room grew dim, lighted only by the wavering glow from the fire. She
would not ring for the tea to be brought up till Everest came back,
nor turn on the light; she would wait for him, and from gazing on
the picture she gradually fell to musing in the shadow-filled room
and meditating on her life. How supremely happy she was in it! She
could not imagine at that moment one other gift that she would demand
from the gods, if she had had the privilege of doing so. How perfect
the union between herself and her lover was! She wondered if it were
usual, this harmony of wish and desire, of thought and expression,
of outlook and view between two people, if it were usual for women
to feel that adoration for the lover or husband they chose that she
felt for Everest, so that his mere entering the room gave her joy, his
smile upon her a passionate delight, the sound of his voice an excited
pleasure, while his desire for herself carried her away to a paradise
of which afterwards her brain could hardly realise or reconstruct in
memory the ecstasy. As she was dreaming in these soft reveries the door
suddenly opened, and, thinking it was Everest himself, she sprang up to
welcome him.
It was the footman, however, who handed her a salver, from which she
took and read the little white slip:
"Miss Lanark."
"Say I am at home," she said, and turned on the light, filling the
room with soft rose colour from its many-shaded lamps. After a moment
Miss Lanark entered. The luxury of the beautifully furnished room
struck upon her senses disagreeably, the warmth, the light, the extreme
comfort of it, the beauty of its velvet hangings and carpet, its silken
curtains, the fragrance of the exotic flowers on the tables impressed
her just as she expected to be impressed, coming to her brother's
rooms from the severe simplicity of her own Scottish home. Here was
comfort, luxury, beauty; all the accompaniments of _vice_. She glanced
towards her hostess, standing to receive her. Here too, just as she
expected: the girl was richly dressed; a gown of pastel-blue velvet
fitted close--so closely and smoothly Miss Lanark had never seen,
except on the stage, in her rare visits to the theatre--the beautiful,
supple figure of the wearer, and fell in gracious folds round her.
There seemed old lace and some pearls about her throat, and above
rose her face, so soft and warm and vivid in its fair colouring that
it suggested being painted. Yes, it was all there just as she had
imagined. The picture was complete. Beauty, ease, luxury, happiness,
these must and did mean--sin.
She took the chair the girl drew forward for her. She was very calm and
self-possessed, and Regina thrilled through all her being, recognising
in her just that same wonderful grace of bearing, that air of perfect
breeding, that charmed her so in Everest. She was about ten years
older than he was, and her hair was grey, while his was quite black,
but she had the same beautiful features, only whereas in Everest's case
the face was all light and fire, life and animation, the sister's was
dead and grey and cold, unsmiling and severe.
"I have come to talk to you about my brother," she said, without any
preface, and Regina heard the gentle, refined tones of Everest's voice,
only with the music left out.
"I am so glad," she rejoined simply. "There is no subject so dear to
me. I worship him."
This last phrase offended Miss Lanark; men and women, in her
estimation, should like and esteem each other. They should not use the
word "worship" about each other, but keep that for their Maker. She
passed this over in silence on this occasion, and pursued coldly:
"Then don't you see how wrong it is to be living with him like this,
and keeping him from doing his duty to himself and his family?"
"What is Everest's duty?" queried Regina, gazing at her visitor with
genuine interest.
For the moment Miss Lanark was disconcerted. She had not really
thought of that. The ordinary run of people make use of a number of
set phrases, that have been composed for them and passed on by others,
and the direct questions of the few who think for themselves generally
bring confusion and discomfort upon them.
"Well ... er ... to ... er ... marry some proper and fitting person,
and have children to inherit his name and estates."
"Wouldn't it be just as good for the family, and everybody, if his
brother inherited them?"
Again Miss Lanark felt a little uncertain of her ground.
"No," she said, with some asperity, after a minute; "I don't think it
would."
"But Everest was not doing all that when he met me," objected Regina.
"He spent his time travelling about over the world, and loving and
being loved by all sorts of people."
Miss Lanark drew herself together very rigidly on her chair, the lines
of her mouth set.
"I am quite aware that Everest has been very wild," she said icily,
"but we all hoped he would come home and settle down now to a quiet and
godly life."
Regina was silent for a few moments. Her gaze swept round the peaceful,
restful room, where the walls had never echoed a hard or unloving word
all the time that she and Everest had occupied it, which had enclosed
a shrine of perfect love, where both had vied with each other in
self-sacrifice, in tenderness, in devotion, and wondered if indeed any
life could be more godly than theirs.
"We all hoped he would marry his cousin, Lady Constance Sybil Graham,
on his return to this country, and he would have done, I believe, but
for you. He would now, if--if----" She hesitated.
"You think it would be a good beginning for the godly life, to desert
me, when I love him and he loves me, in order to marry someone who has
a better worldly position, is that it?" Regina asked, leaning forward.
Her eyes were full of mirth.
Miss Lanark felt horribly embarrassed. It is so difficult to keep
up the religious and the worldly line of argument side by side. She
hesitated and then said coldly:
"A sister has to consider her brother's worldly interests as well as
the welfare of his soul, and if you would listen to your better nature,
and set him free by going away from him, both would benefit, I feel
sure."
This was a little ambiguous, but Regina understood the "both" to refer
to Everest's soul and his worldly interests. She looked away to the
fire in silence; to her open, courageous nature, to her singleness
of mind, it seemed truly marvellous this straining after the cloak
of religion, this dragging of the mantle of piety round the grinning
skeleton of lust after riches and worldly good.
Miss Lanark brought with her into this room, where Everest and she
had led such a frank, sincere and natural existence, just the same
atmosphere of falsity, of pretence, of humbug, that had pervaded the
Rectory. She could well understand how Everest had hated his home as
she had hated hers, and with this thought came the sweet recollection
of a phrase of his, uttered in one of their close embraces:
"I have never known happiness till now."
"Everest is perfectly free to leave me if he likes," she answered,
after a minute. "I should never stand in the way of his marrying or
doing anything he wishes, but while he is perfectly happy I am not
going to leave him and cause him distress and pain, nor am I going to
try to force him into a marriage with a commonplace woman, who I don't
believe could satisfy him."
"Commonplace woman! A girl of that splendid family, with all that money
and a title!"
"None of those things prevent her being commonplace," returned Regina
calmly.
"You've never seen her, you don't know anything about her."
"Yes; she came here one day for a few minutes, about some business."
"You could not tell in that time what she was like."
"I saw her and talked to her. I should be very stupid if I could not
tell then what sort of person she was."
Miss Lanark rocked herself backwards and forwards in her chair in
silence.
"To think of my brother," she moaned, after a pause, "with all his
wealth, his attainments, his opportunities, doing nothing with
them--living in sin, like this!"
Regina leant back in her chair.
"Everest is rather anxious to marry me," she remarked. "Would you like
that better, if he did?"
Miss Lanark started and sat bolt upright:
"_You! Marry you!_ A country rector's daughter, and an _artist_!" Had
she said "criminal" the accent could not have been more marked. "And
Everest! He could have anybody! There is not one girl in town who would
refuse him ... and then, to marry you!"
"Still, he would not be living in sin, would he?" returned Regina,
nibbling the end of her paint-brush and looking across the red
firelight at her visitor, with a laugh in her great, lustrous eyes.
Miss Lanark covered her face with her thin, beautifully gloved hands.
"Oh, it is all horrible!--whether he marries you or lives with you....
Cannot you go away and leave him to marry someone suitable, as he would
have done, but for you?"
"You think for him to marry a woman he disliked, and perhaps hated,
would be better than to live with one he loves, without marriage?"
"Oh _yes_!" replied Miss Lanark, so fervently that Regina sat silent,
thinking how truly "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,"
marvelling at the distance away from the truth of their religion the
modern Christian has got.
"Well, you see, I don't. I consider hate is a wrong and wicked thing in
itself, essentially evil; and I think wedded hate is a great deal worse
than unwedded love, so that I am afraid I cannot meet you in any way,
except by accepting Everest's proposal that we should marry each other,
but so far, for his sake, I have thought it better for him to be quite
free."
Miss Lanark wiped her eyes and coughed, then she said hesitatingly:
"Of course, if you would go, Everest is in a position to give you a
very good allowance indeed." She stopped weakly, her throat seemed to
dry at the words.
Regina simply laughed, quietly, musically. Miss Lanark recognised what
a charm such a laugh would have for a man.
"I don't think I am in need of an allowance from Everest, or anybody
else," she answered, glancing at the great picture, on which the red
light of the fire glowed softly, as if it would caress it.
Just at that moment the door opened and Everest came in. Regina sprang
up and ran to meet him, as she was accustomed to do. They embraced and
kissed, quite oblivious of their visitor, whom Regina had, for the
moment, utterly forgotten, and Everest had not even seen, submerged as
she was in the depths of a velvet chair, with its back to the door.
Regina remembered her after a minute.
"Your sister is here," she whispered in his ear, as they came together
towards the fire.
During their embrace by the door, Miss Lanark, who had never been
kissed by a man in her life, and who secretly felt great curiosity as
to what the dreadful sensation would be like, was sitting rigidly with
locked hands in her lap, gazing straight before her into the fire when
they approached. She was telling herself, inwardly, she hated people
making exhibitions of their feelings before others, but it was all like
the rest; just what she had expected: extravagance everywhere, and no
restraint of any kind.
"How are you, Clara?" asked Everest, in not too pleased a tone. "I
didn't know you were in town."
"No," returned Miss Lanark coldly. "I came yesterday on purpose to see
if various reports I had heard at home were true, and to call upon,"
she hesitated, and then added, "this lady."
Everest did not take up her speech in any way.
"How did you get this address?" he said merely, taking the silk scarf
from his neck. Regina, watching his face, saw it grow dark with
annoyance.
"I went to the studio, and they gave it me there," his sister rejoined,
rising.
"You will stay and have some tea with us surely, now Everest has come
in," Regina said, with her hand on the bell, but Miss Lanark declined
stiffly.
She felt she must get away from this distasteful place. The whole
atmosphere seemed to her hot with emotion, loving emotion, and
loving emotion meant wickedness. Had Miss Lanark wished to make a
representation of hell, she would certainly have drawn all the damned
souls kissing each other. To have depicted them murdering or robbing,
toasting or frying or torturing each other, would have seemed to be
delineating too trivial and insignificant offences, but if they were
represented as kissing! That would immediately explain why they were
there, and how fully they deserved it.
She held out her hand to Regina.
"I sincerely hope you will think over what I have said. We all of us
have to make sacrifices to duty."
"Certainly," returned Regina, "One's duty towards others should be the
first thought in one's life."
Her tone was calm, grave and beautiful; she voiced exactly what was
indeed the rule of her being.
Miss Lanark felt as if someone had thrown cold water in her face. She
turned to the door in silence.
"I suppose I shall see you before you go abroad this winter, Everest?"
she added to her brother.
"Oh, no doubt--we sha'n't start till September," he rejoined, going to
the door to hold it open for her.
Miss Lanark's thin cheek flushed at the word "we." So this beautiful,
warm-looking, kissing woman was going to be taken out with him! She
lifted her eyes at the door, and hers and her brother's met.
His brows were quite calm, his forehead smooth, but his gaze met hers
with an iron determination in it.
"You had better not interfere with my affairs," was what it plainly
said, and she went out, cold with anger and indignation.
Everest came quickly over to the hearth.
"What has that tiresome woman been saying?" he asked.
Regina had resumed her seat, and was gazing into the fire.
"Nothing, dearest, very particular. Only what I know already; that in a
worldly sense I am not good enough for you.... And she also seemed to
think if you married a rich woman it would be good for your soul, as
well as your prospects, though I can't follow her reasoning myself!"
"Damned lot of hypocrites, all my people are!" remarked Everest in
answer; and then he thought of John Marlow and his letter of "profound
sorrow." "I suppose they are all like that, don't let's bother about
them! Give me some tea."
The tea had been brought in, and Regina poured it out for him with
loving care over every detail. He took it from her, and they sat in
silence for a few minutes, rejoicing in being together again after some
hours' separation.
Then Everest leant forward and said very earnestly:
"I think, my darling, you had better marry me now, before we start
on the Egyptian tour. I want to take you up the Nile this winter, and
show you the Soudan. I was arranging about it to-day, my own dahabeeyah
is there, and I have given orders it's all to be refitted for you, by
September.... Then, later, we'll go into camp together, and do a little
lion-hunting, if you like.... But, you see, it's all rather risky work,
and I would like to know that we were married, and it was all straight
and square, so that if there were any accident to me you would be in a
good position."
"If there were any accident to you, nothing would matter any more at
all," returned Regina, in a low tone; and Everest came over and knelt
by her low chair, putting both arms round the supple waist, that felt
so warm and soft in its smooth velvet casing.
"Dear little girl, you are much too good to me. Nobody has ever loved
me as you do. I bought a rifle and a pistol for you to-day, and I am
having a gold plate with 'My Darling' engraved on it, put on both,
because you said you loved to hear me say that."
"But, if we do go to the Soudan, you won't ask me to kill anything,
will you?" she asked, a look of startled apprehension in her eyes. "As
far as I am concerned, the animals are all my personal friends and
relations. They are one family with human beings. I do not think there
is any real difference. Life is uniform everywhere. Only in some forms
it has greater power and capacity than in others."
"I shall not ask you to kill anything," returned Everest, smiling. "But
you must learn to shoot well, both with a pistol and rifle. It's quite
as necessary, more necessary, for a woman than a man. And you will be
a splendid shot, with your eye, that can see the deviation of a hair
in your painting. That feeling for the straight line must mean good
shooting. And our marriage? Come, now...."
"If you continue perfectly happy with me, and other things ... are just
as we wish ... then I will marry you at Khartoum," replied Regina very
softly, a beautiful, crimson flush passing over her face, "but not
before...." And then she kissed him, and let her white fingers play
with his thick and glorious black hair, and Everest forgot what they
were talking about, forgot everything, except that where she was was
paradise, though Miss Lanark, as we know, had thought of another place
in connection with her brother's flat.
Late that same night, lying in her white and silver bed, Regina thought
very seriously over things, her mind being very far from sleep. As
from the first, she only had the single desire to do the best for
Everest; and for many days now the question had haunted her mind:
what if Nature, by some evil fate, denied her after all the power of
maternity? She had heard and read that passionate, excitable natures
gifted mentally, and sensitive in mind and brain, were not the best
reproducers of their race. Nature cares for the type, the rule, and to
exceptional beings she denies sometimes the rights she allows to those
who are stolid, faithful models of the average.
Regina felt her own wish went for nothing in the matter. On the
contrary, as in artistic creation, a great wish seems to war against
production. She thought of all the poor royal women who, through the
ages, had asked the common gift, and been denied!
No; incredible as it seemed to her, considering all the health and
strength and love they both possessed, it still might be that she
would not be able to give him the one thing he had said he wished in
marriage. Then, if he was married to her, bound to her, it would be
impossible for him ever to realise his desire for an heir, ever to
dispose of his property as he wanted to. She, herself, could not free
him, except by her death, which would mean sorrow, or her desertion,
which would mean disgrace--for him. She, unfruitful, useless, would be
standing in the place of another woman, who possibly would have done
for him what she could not.
The thought was so bitter she clenched her hands as it came to her.
No, she would leave him free, until at least she was sure she had the
capacity for motherhood.
Even then she might not bear a son, but that was a risk she must take,
and every other woman equally with her, since conventional law makes it
necessary that marriage must precede the birth of the child for it to
be legitimate. That, she could not help, no means of hers could avoid
that risk for him. But no other would she allow, for her own advantage.
Truly and really, she kept to her duty, as she had announced it to Miss
Lanark.
And wearied out at last, by much thought for the dear, unconscious one
beside her she too, at last, fell asleep.
The next day the rifle and the pistol were sent home, and Everest
explained to her carefully all the properties and powers of the
death-dealing objects. She listened to it all most attentively:
"This is the best part about them, I think," she said, when he had
finished, and bent over the "My Darling" engraved upon them, and kissed
it.