The intense heat of early afternoon quivered on the steep woods which
fell to the river opposite the house. The sunlit stream curved under
them, moving clear and quiet over depths of brown, tangled
water-growths, and along its fringe of gray and green reeds and grasses
and creamy plumes of meadow-sweet. The house was not very large. It was
square and white; an old wistaria, an old Gloire-de-Dijon, and a newer
carmine cluster-rose contended for possession of its surface. Striped
awnings were down over all the lower windows and some of the upper. A
large lawn, close-shorn and velvety green, as only Thames-side lawns can
be, stretched from the house to the river. It had no flower-beds on it,
but a cedar here, an ilex there, dark and substantial on their own dark
shadows, and trellises and pillars overrun by a flood of roses of every
shade, from deep crimson to snow white. The lawn was surrounded by
shrubberies and plantations, and beyond it there was nothing to be seen
except the opposite woods and the river, and sometimes boats passing by
with a measured sound of oars in the rowlocks, or the temporary
commotion of a little steam-launch. It looked a respectable early
Victorian house, but it had never been quite that, for it had been
built by George Goring's father fifty years earlier, and he himself had
spent much of his boyhood there.
Everything and every one seemed asleep, except a young man in flannels
with a flapping hat hanging over his eyes, who stood at the end of a
punt and pretended to fish. There was no one to look at him or at the
house behind him, and if there had been observers, they would not have
guessed that they were looking at the Garden of Eden and that he was
Adam. Only last evening he and that fair Eve of his had stood by the
river in the moonlight, where the shattering hawthorn-bloom made the air
heavy with sweetness, and had spoken to each other of this their
exquisite, undreamed-of happiness. There had been a Before, there would
be an After, when they must stand on their defence against the world,
must resist a thousand importunities, heart-breaking prayers, to return
to the old, false, fruitless existence.
But just for these days they could be utterly alone in their paradise,
undisturbed even by the thoughts of others, since no one knew they were
there and together. Alas! they had been so only forty-eight hours, and
already a cold little serpent of anxiety had crept in among their roses.
Before entrusting herself to him, Mildred had told him that, in spite of
her apparent good health, she was occasionally subject to long
trance-like fits, resembling sleep; should this happen, it would be
useless to call an ordinary doctor, but that a Miss Timson, a well-known
scientific woman and a friend of hers, must be summoned at once. He had
taken Miss Timson's address and promised to do so; but Mildred had not
seemed to look upon the fit as more than a remote contingency. Perhaps
the excitement, the unconscious strain of the last few days had upset
her nerves; for this morning she had lain in what he had taken for a
natural sleep, until, finding her still sleeping profoundly at noon, he
had remembered her words and telegraphed to Miss Timson. An answer to
his telegram, saying that Miss Timson would come as soon as possible,
lay crumpled up at the bottom of the punt.
The serpent was there, but Goring did not allow its peeping coils
thoroughly to chill his roses. His temperament was too sanguine, he felt
too completely steeped in happiness, the weather was too beautiful. Most
likely Mildred would be all right to-morrow.
Meantime, up there in the shaded room, she who had been Mildred began to
stir in her sleep. She opened her eyes and gazed through the square
window, at the sunlit awning that overhung it, and at the green leaves
and pale buds of the Gloire-de-Dijon rose. There was a hum of bees close
by that seemed like the voice of the hot sunshine. It should have been a
pleasant awakening, but Milly awoke from that long sleep of hers with a
brooding sense of misfortune. The remembrance of the afternoon when she
had so suddenly been snatched away returned to her, but it was not the
revelation of Ian's passionate love for her supplanter that came back to
her as the thing of most importance. Surely she must have known that
long before, for now the pain seemed old and dulled from habit. It was
the terrible strength with which the Evil Spirit had possessed her,
seizing her channels of speech even while she was still there, hurling
her from her seat without waiting for the passivity of sleep. No, her
sense of misfortune was not altogether, or even mainly, connected with
that last day of hers. Unlike Mildred, she had up till now been without
any consciousness of things that had occurred during her quiescence, and
she had now no vision; only a strong impression that something terrible
had befallen Ian.
She looked around the bedroom, and it seemed to her very strange;
something like an hotel room, yet at once too sumptuous and too shabby.
There was a faded pink flock wall-paper with a gilt pattern upon it, the
chairs were gilded and padded and covered with worn pink damask, the bed
was gilded and hung with faded pink silk curtains. Everywhere there was
pink and gilding, and everywhere it was old and faded and rubbed. A few
early Victorian lithographs hung on the walls, portraits of
ballet-dancers and noblemen with waists and whiskers. No one had tidied
the room since the night before, and fine underclothing was flung
carelessly about on chairs, a fussy petticoat here, the bodice of an
evening dress there; everywhere just that touch of mingled daintiness
and disorder which by this time Milly recognized only too well.
The bed was large, and some one else had evidently slept there besides
herself, for the sheet and pillow were rumpled and there was a
half-burnt candle and a man's watch-chain on the small table beside it.
Wherever she was then, Ian was there too, so that she was at a loss to
understand her own sinister foreboding.
She pulled at the bell-rope twice.
There were only three servants in the house; a housekeeper and two
maids, who all dated from the days of Mrs. Maria Idle, ex-mistress of
the late Lord Ipswich, dead herself now some six months. The housekeeper
was asleep, the maids out of hearing. She opened the door and found a
bathroom opposite her bedroom. It had a window which showed her a strip
of lawn with flower-beds upon it, beyond that shrubberies and tall trees
which shut out any farther view. A hoarse cuckoo was crying in the
distance, and from the greenery came a twittering of birds and sometimes
a few liquid pipings; but there was no sound of human life. The place
seemed as empty as an enchanted palace in a fairy story.
Milly's toilet never took her very long. She put on a fresh, simple
cotton dress, which seemed to have been worn the day before, and was
just hesitating as to whether she should go down or wait for Ian to
come, when Clarkson, the housekeeper, knocked at her door.
"I thought if you was awake, madam, you might like a bit of lunch," she
said.
Milly refused, for this horrible feeling of depression and anxiety made
her insensible to hunger. She looked at the housekeeper with a certain
surprise, for Clarkson was as decorated and as much the worse for wear
as the furniture of the bedroom. She was a large, fat woman, laced into
a brown cashmere dress, with a cameo brooch on her ample bosom; her hair
was unnaturally black, curled and dressed high on the top of her head,
she had big gold earrings, and a wealth of powder on her large, red
face.
"Can you tell me where I am likely to find Mr. Stewart?" asked Milly,
politely.
The woman stared, and when she answered there was more than a shade of
insolence in her coarse voice and smile.
"I'm sure I can't tell, madam. Mr. Stewart's not our gentleman here."
Milly, understanding the reply as little as the housekeeper had
understood the question, yet felt that some impertinence was intended
and turned away.
There was nothing for it but to explore on her own account. A staircase
of the dull Victorian kind led down to a dark, cool hall. The front door
was open. She walked to it and stood under a stumpy portico, looking
out. The view was much the same as that seen from the bathroom, only
that instead of grass and flower-beds there was a gravel sweep, and,
just opposite the front door, a circle of grass with a tall
monkey-puzzle tree in the centre. Except for the faded gorgeousness of
the bedroom, the house looked like an ordinary country house, belonging
to old people who did not care to move with the times. Why should she
feel at every step a growing dread of what might meet her there?
She turned from the portico and opened, hesitatingly, the door of a room
on the opposite side of the hall. It was a drawing-room, with traces of
the same shabby gorgeousness that prevailed in the bedroom, but
mitigated by a good deal of clean, faded chintz; and at one end was a
brilliant full-length Millais portrait of Mrs. Maria Idle in blue silk
and a crinoline. It was a long room, pleasant in the dim light; for
although it had three windows, the farthest a French one and open, all
were covered with awnings, coming low down and showing nothing of the
outer world but a hand's breadth of turf and wandering bits of creeper.
It was sweet with flowers, and on a consol table before a mirror stood a
high vase from which waved and twined tall sprays and long streamers of
cluster-roses, carmine and white. It was beautiful, yet Milly turned
away from it almost with a shudder. She recognized the touch of the hand
that must have set the roses there. And the nameless horror grew upon
her.
Except for the flowers, there was little sign of occupation in the room.
A large round rosewood table was set with blue glass vases on mats and
some dozen photograph--albums and gift-books, dating from the sixties.
But on a stool in a corner lay a newspaper; and the date on it gave her
a shock. She had supposed herself to have been away about four months;
she found she had been gone sixteen. There had been plenty of time for a
misfortune to happen, and she felt convinced that it had happened. But
what? If Ian or Tony were dead she would surely still be in mourning.
Then on a little rosewood escritoire, such as ladies were wont to use
when they had nothing to write, she spied an old leather writing-case
with the initials M. B. F. upon it. It was one Aunt Beatrice had given
her when she first went to Ascham, and it seemed to look on her
pleasantly, like the face of an old friend. She found a few letters in
the pockets, among them one from Ian written from Berlin a few days
before, speaking of his speedy return and of Tony's amusing letter from
the sea-side. She began to hope her feeling of anxiety and depression
might be only the shadow of the fear and anguish which she had suffered
on that horrible afternoon sixteen months ago. She must try not to think
about it, must try to be bright for Ian's sake. Some one surely was with
her at this queer place, since she was sharing a room with another
person--probably a female friend of that Other's, who had such a crowd
of them.
She drew the awning half-way up and stood on the step outside the French
window. The lawn, the trees, the opposite hills were unknown to her, but
the spirit of the river spoke to her familiarly, and she knew it for the
Thames. A gardener in shirt-sleeves was filling a water-barrel by the
river, under a hawthorn-tree, and the young man in the punt was putting
up his fishing-tackle. As she looked, the strangeness of the scene
passed away. She could not say where it was, but in some dream or vision
she had certainly seen this lawn, that view, before; when the young man
turned and came nearer she would know his face. And the dim, horrible
thing that was waiting for her somewhere about the quiet house, the
quiet garden, seemed to draw a step nearer, to lift its veil a little.
Who was it that had stood not far from where the gardener was standing
now, and seen the moon hanging large and golden over the mystery of the
opposite woods? Whoever it was, some one's arm had been fast around her
and there had been kisses--kisses.
It took but a few seconds for these half-revelations to drop into her
mind, and before she had had time to reflect upon them, the young man in
the punt looked up and saw her standing there on the step. He took off
his floppy hat and waved it to her; then he put down his tackle, ran to
the near end of the punt and jumped lightly ashore. He came up the green
lawn, and her anxiety sent her down to meet him almost as eagerly as
love would have done. The hat shaded all the upper part of his face, and
at a distance, in the strong sunshine, the audacious chin, the red lower
lip, caught her eye first and seemed to extinguish the rest of the face.
And suddenly she disliked them. Who was the man, and how did she come to
know him? But former experiences of strange awakenings had made her
cautious, self-controlling, almost capable of hypocrisy.
"So you're awake!" shouted George, still a long way down the lawn.
"Good! How are you? All right?"
She nodded "Yes," with a constrained smile.
In a minute they had met, he had turned her around, and with his arm
under hers was leading her towards the house again.
"All right? Really all right?" he asked very softly, pressing her arm
with his hand and stooping his head to bring his mouth on a level with
her ear.
"Very nearly, at any rate," she answered, coldly, trying to draw away
from him.
"What are you doing that for?" he asked. "Afraid of shocking the
gardener, eh? What queer little dear little ways you've got! I suppose
Undines are like that."
He drew her closer to him as he threw back his head and laughed a noisy
laugh that jarred upon her nerves.
Milly began to feel indignant. It was just possible that a younger
sister in Australia might have married and brought this extraordinary
young man home to England, but his looks, his tone, were not fraternal;
and she had never forgotten the Maxwell Davison episode. She walked on
stiffly.
"Every one seems to be out," she observed, as calmly as she could.
He frowned.
"You mean those devils of servants haven't been looking after you?" he
asked. "Yet I gave Clarkson her orders. Of course they're baggages, but
I haven't had the heart to send them away from the old place, for who on
earth would take them? I expect we aren't improving their chances, you
and I, at this very moment; in spite of respecting the gardener's
prejudices."
He chuckled, as at some occult joke of his own.
They stooped together under the half-raised awning of the French window,
and entered the dim, flower-scented drawing-room side by side. The young
man threw off his hat, and she saw the silky ripple of his nut-brown
hair, his smooth forehead, his bright-glancing hazel eyes, all the happy
pleasantness of his countenance. Before she had had time to reconsider
her dislike of him, he had caught her in his arms and kissed her hair
and face, whispering little words of love between the kisses. For one
paralyzed moment Milly suffered these dreadful words, these horrible
caresses. Then exerting the strength of frenzy, she pushed him from her
and bounded to the other side of the room, entrenching herself behind
the big rosewood table with its smug mats and vases and albums.
"You brute! you brute! you hateful cad!" she stammered with trembling
lips; "how dare you touch me?"
George Goring stared at her with startled eyes.
"Mildred! Dearest! Good God! What's gone wrong?"
"Where's my husband?" she asked, in a voice sharp with anger and terror.
"I want to go--I must leave this horrid place at once."
"Your husband?"
It was Goring's turn to feel himself plunged into the midst of a
nightmare, and he grew almost as pale as Milly. How in Heaven's name was
he going to manage her? She looked very ill and must of course be
delirious. That would have been alarming in any case, and this
particular form of delirium was excruciatingly painful.
"Yes, my husband--where is he? I shall tell him how you've dared to
insult me. I must go. This is your house--I must leave it at once."
Goring did not attempt to come near her. He spoke very quietly.
"Try and remember, Mildred; Stewart is not here. He will not even be in
England till to-morrow. You are alone with me. Hadn't you better go to
bed again and--" he was about to say, "wait until Miss Timson comes,"
but as it was possible that the advent of the person she had wished him
to summon might now irritate her, he substituted--"and keep quiet? I
promise not to come near you if you don't wish to see me."
"I am alone here with you?" Milly repeated, slowly, and pressed her hand
to her forehead. "Good God," she moaned to herself, "what can have
happened?"
"Yes. For Heaven's sake, go and lie down. I expect the doctor can give
you something to soothe your nerves and then perhaps you'll remember."
She made a gesture of fierce impatience.
"You think I'm mad, but I'm not. I have been mad and I am myself again;
only I can't remember anything that's happened since I went out of my
mind. I insist upon your telling me. Who are you? I never saw you before
to my knowledge."
Her voice, her attitude were almost truculent as she faced him, her
right hand dragging at the loose clasp of a big photograph album. Every
word, every look, was agony to Goring, but he controlled himself by an
effort.
"I am George Goring," he said, slowly, and paused with anxious eyes
fixed upon her, hoping that the name might yet stir some answering
string of tenderness in the broken lyre of her mind.
She too paused, as though tracking some far-off association with the
name. Then:
"Ah! poor Lady Augusta's husband," she repeated, yet sterner than before
in her anger. "My friend Lady Augusta's husband! And why am I here alone
with you, Mr. Goring?"
"Because I am your lover, Mildred. Because I love you better than any
one or any thing in the world; and yesterday you thought you loved me,
you thought you could trust all your life to me."
She had known the answer already in her heart, but the fact stated
plainly by another, became even more dreadful, more intolerable, than
before. She uttered a low cry and covered her eyes with her hand.
"Mildred--dearest!" he breathed imploringly.
Then she raised her head and looked straight at him with flaming eyes,
this fair, fragile creature transformed into a pitiless Fury. She forgot
that indeed an Evil Spirit had dwelt within her; George Goring might be
victim rather than culprit. In this hour of her anguish the identity of
that body of hers, which through him was defiled, that honor of hers,
yes and of Ian Stewart's, which through him was dragged in the dust,
made her no longer able to keep clearly in mind the separateness of the
Mildred Stewart of yesterday from herself.
"I tell you I was mad," she gasped; "and you--you vile, wicked man!--you
took advantage of it to ruin my life--to ruin my husband's life! You
must know Ian Stewart, a man whose shoes you are not fit to tie. Do you
think any woman in her senses would leave him for you? Ah!--" she
breathed a long, shuddering breath and her hand was clinched so hard
upon the loose album clasp that it ran into her palm.
"Mildred!" cried George, staggered, stricken as though by some fiery
rain.
"I ought to be sorry for your wife," she went on. "She is a splendid
woman, she has done nothing to deserve that you should treat her so
scandalously. But I can't--I can't"--a dry sob caught her voice--"be
sorry for any one except myself and Ian. I always knew I wasn't good
enough to be his wife, but I was so proud of it--so proud--and now--Oh,
it's too horrible! I'm not fit to live."
George had sunk upon a chair and hidden his face in his hands.
"Don't say that," he muttered hoarsely, almost inaudibly. "It was my
doing."
She broke out again.
"Of course it was. It's nothing to you, I suppose. You've broken my
husband's heart and mine too; you've hopelessly disgraced us both and
spoiled our lives; and all for the sake of a little amusement, a little
low pleasure. We can't do anything, we can't punish you; but if curses
were any use, oh, how I could curse you, Mr. Goring!"
The sobs rising in a storm choked her voice. She rushed from the room,
closing the door behind her and leaving George Goring there, his head on
his hands. He sat motionless, hearing nothing but the humming silence of
the hot afternoon.
Milly, pressing back her tears, flew across the hall and up the stairs.
The vague nightmare thing that had lurked for her in the shadows of the
house, when she had descended them so quietly, had taken shape at last.
She knew now the unspeakable secret of the pink and gold bedroom, the
shabbily gorgeous bed, the posturing dancers, the simpering, tailored
noblemen. The atmosphere of it, scented and close, despite the open
window, seemed to take her by the throat. She dared not stop to think,
lest this sick despair, this loathing of herself, should master her. To
get home at once was her impulse, and she must do it before any one
could interfere.
It was a matter of a few seconds to find a hat, gloves, a parasol. She
noticed a purse in the pocket of her dress and counted the money in it.
There was not much, but enough to take her home, since she felt sure the
river shimmering over there was the Thames. She did not stay to change
her thin shoes, but flitted down the stairs and out under the portico,
as silent as a ghost. The drive curved through a shrubbery, and in a
minute she was out of sight of the house. She hurried past the lodge,
hesitating in which direction to turn, when a tradesman's cart drove
past. She asked the young man who was driving it her way to the station,
and he told her it was not very far, but that she could not catch the
next train to town if she meant to walk. He was going in that direction
himself and would give her a lift if she liked. She accepted the young
man's offer; but if he made it in order to beguile the tedium of his
way, he was disappointed.
The road was dusty and sunny, and this gave her a reason for opening her
large parasol. She cowered under it, hiding herself from the women who
rolled by in shiny carriages with high-stepping horses; not so much
because she feared she might meet acquaintances, as from an instinctive
desire to hide herself, a thing so shamed and everlastingly wretched,
from every human eye. And so it happened that, when she was close to the
station, she missed seeing and being seen by Tims, who was driving to
Mr. Goring's house in a hired trap which he had sent to meet her.