A MAN’S HONOUR
“Will you give me your heart?” she said.
“Oh, I gave it you long ago,” said he.
“Why, then, I threw it away,” said she.
“And what will you give me instead?
Will you give me your honour?” she said.
“Elizabeth!”
There was a pause.
“Elizabeth—open your door!”
Elizabeth Chantrey came back from a long way off. Mary was calling her.
Mary was knocking at her door. She got up rather wearily, turned the
key, and with a little gasp, Mary was in the room, shutting the door,
and standing with her back against it. The lamp burned low, but
Elizabeth’s eyes were accustomed to the gloom. Mary Mottisfont’s bright,
clear colour was one of her great attractions. It was all gone and her
dark eyes looked darker and larger than they should have done.
“Why, Molly, I thought you had gone home. Edward told me he was sending
you home an hour ago.”
“He told me to go,” said Mary in a sort of stumbling whisper. “He told
me to go—but I wanted to wait and go with him. I knew he’d be upset—I
knew he’d feel it—when it was all over. I wanted to be with him—oh,
Liz——”
“Mary, what is it?”
Mary put up a shaking hand.
“I’ll tell you—don’t stop me—there’s no time—I’ll tell you—oh, I’m
telling you as fast as I can.”
She spoke in a series of gasps.
“I went into your little room behind the dining-room. I knew no one
would come. I knew I should hear any one coming or going. I opened the
door into the dining-room—just a little——”
“Mary, what _is_ it?” said Elizabeth. She put her arm round her sister,
but Mary pushed her away.
“Don’t—there’s no time. Let me go on. David came down. He came into the
dining-room. He talked to Edward. He said, ‘I can’t sign the
certificate,’ and Edward said, ‘Why not?’ and David said,
‘Because’—Liz—I can’t—oh, Liz, I can’t—I can’t.”
Mary caught suddenly at Elizabeth’s arm and began to sob. She had no
tears—only hard sobs. Her pretty oval face was all white and drawn.
There were dark marks like bruises under her hazel eyes. The little dark
rings of hair about her forehead were damp.
“Dearest—darling—my Molly dear,” said Elizabeth. She held Mary to her,
with strong supporting arms, but the shuddering sobs went on.
“Liz—it was poison. He says it was poison. He says there was poison in
the tea—arsenic poison—and Edward took him the tea. Liz—Liz, why do such
awful things happen? Why does God let them happen?”
Elizabeth was much taller than her sister—taller and stronger. She
released herself from the clutching fingers, and let both her hands fall
suddenly and heavily upon Mary’s shoulders.
“Molly, what are you talking about?” she cried.
Mary was startled into a momentary self-control.
“Mr. Mottisfont,” she said. “David said it was poison—poison, Liz.”
Her voice fell to a low horrified whisper at the word, and then rose on
the old gasp of, “Edward took him the tea.” A numbness came upon
Elizabeth. Feeling was paralysed. She was conscious neither of horror,
anxiety, nor sorrow. Only her brain remained clear. All her
consciousness seemed to have gone to it, and it worked with an
inconceivable clearness and rapidity.
“Hush, Mary,” she said. “What are you saying? Edward——”
Mary pushed her away.
“Of course not,” she said. “Liz, if you dared—but you don’t—no one could
really—Edward of all people. But there’s all the talk, the scandal—we
can’t have it. It must be stopped. And we’re losing time, we’re losing
time dreadfully. I must go to David, and stop him before he writes to
any one, or sees any one. He must sign the certificate.”
Elizabeth stood quite still for a moment. Then she went to the
wash-stand, poured out a glass of water, and came back to Mary.
“Drink this, Molly,” she said. “Yes, drink it all, and pull yourself
together. Now listen to me. You can’t possibly go to David.”
“I must go, I must,” said Mary. Her tone hardened. “Will you come with
me, Liz, or must I go alone?”
Elizabeth took the empty glass and set it down.
“Molly, my dear, you must listen. No—I’m thinking of what’s best for
every one. You don’t want any talk. If you go to David’s house at this
hour—well, you can see for yourself. No—listen, my dear. If I ring David
up, and ask him to come here at once—at _once_—to see me, don’t you see
how much better that will be?”
Mary’s colour came and went. She stood irresolute.
“Very well,” she said at last. “If he’ll come. If he won’t, then I’ll go
to him, and I don’t care what you say, Elizabeth—and you must be
quick—quick.”
They went downstairs in silence. Mr. Mottisfont’s study was in darkness,
and Elizabeth brought in the lamp from the hall, holding it very
steadily. Then she sat down at the great littered desk and rang up the
exchange. She gave the number and they waited. After what seemed like a
very long time, Elizabeth heard David’s voice.
“Hullo!”
“It is I—Elizabeth,” said Elizabeth Chantrey.
“What is it?”
“Can you come here at once? I want to see you at once. Yes, it is very
important—important and urgent.”
Mary was in an agony of impatience. “What does he say? Will he come?
Will he come at once?”
But Elizabeth answered David and not her sister.
“No, presently won’t do. It must be at once. It’s really urgent, David,
or I wouldn’t ask it. Yes, thank you so much. In my room.”
She put down the receiver, rang off, and turned to Mary.
“He is coming. Had you not better send Edward a message, or he will be
coming back here? Ring up, and say that you are staying with me for an
hour, and that Markham will walk home with you.”
In Elizabeth’s little brown room the silence weighed and the time
lagged. Mary walked up and down, moving
perpetually—restlessly—uselessly. There was a small Dutch mirror above
the writing-table. Its cut glass border caught the light, and reflected
it in diamond points and rainbow flashes. It was the brightest thing in
the room. Mary stood for a moment and looked at her own face. She began
to arrange her hair with nervous, trembling fingers. She rubbed her
cheeks, and straightened the lace at her throat. Then she fell to pacing
up and down again.
“The room’s so hot,” she said suddenly. And she went quickly to the
window and flung it open. The air came in, cold and mournfully damp.
Mary drew half a dozen long breaths. Then she shivered, her teeth
chattered. She shut the window with a jerk, and as she did so David
Blake came into the room. It was Elizabeth he saw, and it was to
Elizabeth that he spoke.
“Is anything the matter? Anything fresh?” Elizabeth moved aside, and all
at once he saw Mary Mottisfont.
“Mary wants to speak to you,” said Elizabeth. She made a step towards
the door, but Mary called her sharply. “No, Liz—stay!”
And Elizabeth drew back into the shadowed corner by the window, whilst
Mary came forward into the light. For a moment there was silence. Mary’s
hands were clasped before her, her chin was a little lifted, her eyes
were desperately intent.
“David,” she said in a low fluttering voice, “oh, David—I was in here—I
heard—I could not help hearing.”
“What did you hear?” asked David Blake. The words came from him with a
sort of startled hardness.
“I heard everything you said to Edward—about Mr. Mottisfont. You said it
was poison. I heard you say it.”
“Yes,” said David Blake.
“And Edward took him the tea,” said Mary quickly. “Don’t you see,
David—don’t you see how dreadful it is for Edward? People who didn’t
know him might say—they might think such dreadful things—and if there
were an inquest—” the words came in a sort of strangled whisper. “There
can’t be an inquest—there _can’t_. Oh, David, you’ll sign the
certificate, won’t you?”
David’s face had been changing while she spoke. The first hard startled
look went from it. It was succeeded by a flash of something like horror,
and then by pain—pain and a great pity.
“No, Mary, dear, I can’t,” he said very gently. He looked at her, and
further words died upon his lips. Mary came nearer. There was a big
chair in front of the fireplace, and she rested one hand on the back of
it. It seemed as if she needed something firm to touch, her world was
shifting so. David had remained standing by the door, but Mary was not a
yard away from him now.
“You see, David,” she said, still in that low tremulous voice, “you see,
David, you haven’t thought—you can’t have thought—what it will mean if
you don’t. Edward might be suspected of a most dreadful thing. I’m sure
you haven’t thought of that. He might even”—Mary’s eyes widened—“he
might even be _arrested_—and tried—and I couldn’t bear it.” The hand
that rested on the chair began to tremble very much. “I couldn’t _bear_
it,” said Mary piteously.
“Mary, my dear,” said David, “this is a business matter, and you mustn’t
interfere—I can’t possibly sign the certificate. Poor old Mr. Mottisfont
did not die a natural death, and the matter will have to be inquired
into. No innocent person need have anything to be afraid of.”
“Oh!” said Mary. Her breath came hard. “You haven’t told any one—not
yet? You haven’t written? Oh, am I too late? Have you told people
already?”
“No,” said David, “not yet, but I must.”
The tears came with a rush to Mary’s eyes, and began to roll down her
cheeks.
“No, no, David, no,” she said. Her left hand went out towards him
gropingly. “Oh, no, David, you mustn’t. You haven’t thought—indeed you
haven’t. Innocent people can’t always prove that they are innocent. They
_can’t_. There’s a book—a dreadful book. I’ve just been reading it.
There was a man who was quite, quite innocent—as innocent as Edward—and
he couldn’t prove it. And they were going to hang him—David!”
Mary’s voice broke off with a sort of jerk. Her face became suddenly
ghastly. There was an extremity of terror in every sharpened feature.
Elizabeth stood quite straight and still by the window. She was all in
shadow, her brown dress lost against the soft brown gloom of the
half-drawn velvet curtain. She felt like a shadow herself as she looked
and listened. The numbness was upon her still. She was conscious as it
were of a black cloud that overshadowed them all—herself, Mary, Edward.
But not David. David stood just beyond, and Mary was trying to hold him
and to draw him into the blackness. Something in Elizabeth’s deadened
consciousness kept saying over and over again: “Not David, not David.”
Elizabeth saw the black cloud with a strange internal vision. With her
bodily eyes she watched David’s face. She saw it harden when Mary looked
at him, and quiver with pain when she looked away. She saw his hand go
out and touch Mary’s hand, and she heard him say:
“Mary, I can’t. Don’t ask me.”
Mary put her other hand suddenly on David’s wrist. A bright colour
flamed into her cheeks.
“David, you used to be fond of me—once—not long ago. You said you would
do anything for me. Anything in the world. You said you loved me. And
you said that nowadays a man did not get the opportunity of showing a
woman what he would do for her. You wanted to do something for me then,
and I had nothing to ask you. Aren’t you fond of me any more, David?
Won’t you do anything for me now?—now that I ask you?”
David pulled his hand roughly from her grasp. He pushed past her, and
crossed the room.
“Mary, you don’t know what you are asking me,” he said in a tone of
sharp exasperation. “You don’t know what you are talking about. You
don’t seem to realise that you are asking me to become an accessory
after the fact in a case of murder.”
Mary shuddered. The word was like a blow. She spoke in a hurried
whispering way.
“But Edward—it’s for Edward. What will happen to Edward? And to me?
Don’t you care? We’ve only been married six months. It’s such a little
time. Don’t you care at all? I never knew such dreadful things could
happen—not to one’s self. You read things in papers, and you never
think—you never, never think that a thing like that could happen to
yourself. I suppose those people don’t all die, but I should die. Oh,
David, aren’t you going to help us?”
She spoke the last words as a child might have spoken them. Her eyes
were fixed appealingly upon David’s face. Mary Mottisfont had very
beautiful eyes. They were hazel in colour, and in shape and expression
they resembled those of another Mary, who was also Queen of Hearts.
Elizabeth Chantrey became suddenly aware that she was shaking all over,
and that the room was full of a thick white mist. She groped in the mist
and found a chair. She made a step forward, and sat down. Then the mist
grew thinner by degrees, and through it she saw that Mary had come quite
close to David again. She was looking up at him. Her hands were against
his breast, and she was saying:
“David—David—David, you said the world was not enough to give me once.”
David’s face was rigid.
“You wouldn’t take what I had to give,” he said very low. He had
forgotten Elizabeth Chantrey. He saw nothing but Mary’s eyes.
“You didn’t want my love, Mary, and now you want my honour. And you say
it is only a little thing.”
Mary lifted her head and met his eyes.
“Give it me,” she said. “If it is a great thing, well, I shall value it
all the more. Oh, David, because I ask it. Because I shall love you all
my life, and bless you all my life. And if I’m asking you a great
thing—oh, David, you said that nothing would be too great to give me.
Oh, David, won’t you give me this now? Won’t you give me this one thing,
because I ask it?”
As Mary spoke the mist cleared from before Elizabeth’s eyes and the
numbness that had been upon her changed slowly into feeling. She put
both hands to her heart, and held them there. Her heart beat against her
hands, and every beat hurt her. She felt again, and what she felt was
the sharpest pain that she had ever known, and she had known much pain.
She had suffered when David left Market Harford. She had suffered when
he ceased to write. She had suffered when he returned only to fall
headlong in love with Mary. And what she had suffered then had been a
personal pang, a thing to be struggled with, dominated, and overcome.
Now she must look on whilst David suffered too. Must watch whilst his
nerves tautened, his strength failed, his self-control gave way. And she
could not shut her eyes or look away. She could not raise her thought
above this level of pain. The black cloud overshadowed them and hid the
light of heaven.
“Because I ask you, David—David, because I ask you.”
Mary’s voice trembled and fell to a quivering whisper.
Suddenly David pushed her away. He turned and made a stumbling step
towards the fireplace. His hands gripped the narrow mantelshelf. His
eyes stared at the wall. And from the wall Mary’s eyes looked back at
him from the miniature of Mary’s mother. There was a long minute’s
silence. Then David swung round. His face was flushed, his eyes looked
black.
“If I do it can you hold your tongues?” he said in a rough, harsh voice.
Mary drew a deep soft breath of relief. She had won. Her hands dropped
to her side, her whole figure relaxed, her face became soft and young
again.
“O David, God bless you!” she cried.
David frowned. His brows made a dark line across his face. Every feature
was heavy and forbidding.
“Can you hold your tongues?” he repeated. “Do you understand—do you
fully understand that if a word of this is ever to get out it’s just
sheer ruin to the lot of us? Do you grasp that?”
Elizabeth Chantrey got up. She crossed the room, and stood at David’s
side, nearly as tall as he.
“Don’t do it, David,” she said, with a sudden passion in her voice.
Mary turned on her in a flash.
“Liz,” she cried; but David stood between.
“It’s none of your business, Elizabeth. You keep out of it.” The tone
was kinder than the words.
Elizabeth was silent. She drew away, and did not speak again.
“I’ll do it on one condition,” said David Blake. “You’d better go and
tell Edward at once. I don’t want to see him. I don’t suppose he’s been
talking to any one—it’s not exactly likely—but if he has the matter’s
out of my hands. I’ll not touch it. If he hasn’t, and you’ll all hold
your tongues, I’ll do it.”
He turned to the door and Mary cried: “Won’t you write it now? Won’t you
sign it before you go?”
David laughed grimly.
“Do you think I go about with my pockets full of death certificates?” he
said. Then he was gone, and the door shut to behind him.
Elizabeth moved, and spoke.
“I will tell Markham that you are ready to go home,” she said.