Rather less than a week after this Dyke came to Prince’s Gate by
appointment. All the preliminaries for the interview had been
completed by letters and in the most courteous manner on both
sides. Greatly as the Verinders hated him, they felt that there
was no other way of doing things. Mr. Verinder, then, politely
expressing a wish to see Mr. Dyke for the purpose of discussing
“certain matters,” Mr. Dyke had replied that he was entirely at Mr.
Verinder’s service and begged that place and time should be named.
Mr. Verinder named his own house and nine o’clock in the evening;
choosing an evening on which Emmeline could be conveniently
banished from the premises.
Mrs. Verinder had taken her to dine quietly with Mrs. Bell in
Queen’s Gate, and afterwards they and their hostess were going to
a concert given by an elderly widower. The widower had hired the
Grosvenor Gallery for his concert; it would be a grand and a late
affair; thus Mr. Verinder need not apprehend the return of his
ladies until long after midnight. The docility with which Emmeline
agreed to these arrangements had made him wonder suspiciously if
she had received confirmative instructions from the enemy. He
trusted, however, that this was not so.
It was now a quarter to nine, and he and Eustace and Mrs.
Verinder’s brother, Colonel Gussie Pollard, were seated at the
dinner table finishing their dessert. The presence of their
brother-in-law and uncle bothered Mr. Verinder, but there had
seemed to be no way of avoiding it; for his own convenience he was
staying in the house, he now had learned all about their trouble,
and his sister said she thought he would add weight to their side
of the discussion.
“I should not scruple myself to tell him it isn’t cricket,” said
Colonel Gussie, beginning to peel a second nectarine.
He was one of those very large, radiantly smooth elderly men who
take inordinate pains in cleaning, polishing, and decorating their
persons. The dress-suit of Colonel Gussie, his white waistcoat, his
jewelled buttons, studs, and little chains, suggested that he felt
he could never do quite enough for himself; and, as if for this
reason, his face was garnished with every small blob of white hair
that can be grown on a face--moustache, whisker, imperial, even
something under the plump chin, but each sample small and nicely
trimmed, and all of it neatly divided. Through the white hair his
complexion showed with the silvery pinkness of an uncooked salmon.
For the rest, he had a genial yet grand manner, was not disposed to
think evil of anybody, and when compelled to censure knew no worse
verdict than to say that a thing was not cricket.
If pushed beyond that mark and as it were forced to put on the
black cap and pass a final sentence of condemnation, he said the
thing was un-English.
Mr. Verinder secretly objected to his insistence on calling
himself colonel, since he was not a regular soldier but merely in
command of a militia or volunteer battalion attached to one of the
city regiments; and he thought it childish of him to like to be
addressed as Gussie instead of Augustus.
“Wouldn’t be playing the game,” said Colonel Gussie, as he finished
his nectarine with relish.
Then, after saying he knew that Emmeline was not contaminated
with anything of this kind, he spoke in disapproval of these
modern notions that were tending to upset the feminine half of
humanity--“emancipation,” “the new woman,” “equal rights,” and so
on. It was one thing to like advanced education and keep yourself
“up-to-date”; but this impressionist art, this Yellow Book, and all
these “problem plays”--well, they did no good, did they? There was
too much of the spirit of revolt in the air.
Eustace smoked his cigarette and stared at the ceiling. Mr.
Verinder allowed his brother-in-law to talk, only saying once, as
if to himself, “Freedom, yes, so long as it does not degenerate
into license.”
Then the butler came in, and informed them that Mr. Dyke was
upstairs.
The colonel rose at once, drawing himself to his full height, which
was at least six feet three inches, and looking magnificent.
“Come on,” he said; and they all three went upstairs to that
room behind the music-room--the room that contained the smiling
landscapes by Leader. Mr. Verinder had ordered that Dyke should be
shown into this room, because he felt it was large enough and yet
not too large for their purposes.
In spite of the hatred, the interview opened with extreme propriety
and politeness, but Mr. Verinder was at once oppressed by its
incredible fantastic nature. It was as though he had not been
really Mr. Verinder, here, among these smiling landscapes, in
Prince’s Gate, but a person wrenched out of a land of probabilities
and launched on an ocean of the impossible.
Dyke was in evening clothes, and perhaps recently his hair had
been cut and his beard pointed; at any rate, that aspect of
Tolstoy or the pilgrim had entirely vanished. He was standing
on the hearth-rug when they came in, and he did not move; he
stood there, a tall commanding figure; handsome too--with his
strong nose and high cheek-bones--in a careless, dare-devil, but
not swash-bucklering style; not really taller than the others,
certainly less tall and very much less round than the colonel, and
yet somehow dominating them and the whole room.
Eustace understood that they had made a mistake in procedure. It
was a trifle--no consequence, of course--but it vexed him to think
how very obviously they should have had him brought into a room
where they were sitting, so that he would have seemed like a person
summoned before a tribunal, instead of establishing him here by
himself and then coming to him, to be received by him as though
they were a deputation.
“Will you smoke?” said Eustace curtly, and he opened the silver
cigarette box that he had brought up from the dinner table.
With a gravely courteous gesture and smile--the gesture indeed
almost Spanish and antiquated in its courtesy--Dyke indicated that
he preferred not to smoke.
“My son--Eustace,” said Mr. Verinder. “And my
brother-in-law--Colonel Pollard.”
“Miss Verinder’s godfather too,” said the colonel, seating himself.
Dyke ignored the second introduction; not rudely, but as if all
that pinkness and whiteness had made no impression on him. He
appeared to be quite unaware of them, and throughout this first
interview spoke not a single word to their possessor.
“I was admiring that picture,” he said with another gesture, and he
smiled again. “Mr. Verinder, I don’t pretend to be a judge of art,
but I must say, that picture took my fancy enormously. So cleverly
painted--all the autumn tints of the foliage, and the effect of
the sunshine on the lake.” He said this as if wishing to put them
at their ease and allow them time. “A very charming picture--in my
uneducated opinion.”
“It is by Leader, R. A.,” said Mr. Verinder simply. “I have several
of them.”
He had sat down at a table on which were blotting pads with
tortoise-shell covers, boxes of porcelain, a gold photograph frame,
and a massive ivory paper-knife; picking up the knife and toying
with it, he conveyed the intimation that he wished Mr. Dyke to sit
upon the amber satin sofa which faced the table at about two yards
distance.
Dyke, immediately obeying, went to the sofa and sat down.
Eustace had gone to the double doors and he opened one of them,
disclosing the music-room as a sombre and empty vault. He closed
the door again and turning from it said that, since they were here
for a delicate confidential talk, it was just as well to make sure
they would not be overheard. This, as he had intended, set the
thing going.
Mr. Verinder, balancing the paper-knife, drove at the heart of the
matter and spoke of “these attentions and meetings.” He said he
felt sure that Dyke would himself see that they must cease.
“Mr. Verinder,” said Dyke, gravely and very gently, “I hope you
will allow me to say that I would sooner die than injure your
daughter.”
“Just so,” said Mr. Verinder. “I was quite prepared to believe so,
but--”
Dyke interrupted him. “No, I would rather kill myself many times
than harm a hair of her head.” As he said this, not only his voice
but his face softened in the most extraordinary manner; and Mr.
Verinder was pleased with the man for saying it. But Dyke went on,
with his blue eyes fixed on Mr. Verinder and his voice becoming a
mere whisper. “Not one pretty dark hair of her sweet little head.”
The outrageous use of such adjectives made Mr. Verinder tremble
from wrath; but, with difficulty controlling himself, he spoke in a
firm quiet tone.
“If there is any meaning in what you are saying, Mr. Dyke, you will
give me an assurance that no further molestation will occur.”
Dyke remained silent for a little while, and during the pause
Gussie was heard to mention the national pastime--“Not cricket,
what!” Dyke did not seem to hear him; he was now looking at the
parquetry. “Mr. Verinder,” he said, looking up, “this is not
plain-sailing, it is complicated. I suppose you know that Emmie--”
Mr. Verinder flapped with the paper-knife and grew hot and red.
The use of his daughter’s christian name, the use of a grossly
familiar abbreviation of that name! Not a member of the family ever
called her anything shorter than Emmeline. But Dyke went on, as if
oblivious of his offence.
“Emmie has done me the honour--the very great honour--to become
attached to me. Mr. Verinder, you do know that, don’t you?
Emmie--God bless her--has become very fond of me.”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Mr. Verinder wrathfully; and both the
colonel and Eustace made movements.
Dyke’s manner changed, and he spoke with a sudden biting hardness.
“Unless,” he said, “you admit that, it is useless for us to attempt
to discuss the situation.”
Mr. Verinder said he would not admit it; certainly not. But, on
consideration, he said he would go as far as possible to meet
Dyke’s argument; he would admit as much as this--that, to some
extent, Dyke had unfortunately fascinated the imagination of her;
against a young inexperienced girl Dyke had employed the advantage
given by age, the glamour of romance, and so forth; and he wound up
to the effect that two hundred years ago it would have been said
that Dyke had thrown a spell over her.
Dyke answered, sadly, that he had thrown no spell. The first
evening he had certainly told her a few of his adventures.
“Oh, yes,” said Eustace, sneering. “Othello and Desdemona”;
and he quoted a few words of the famous speech. “‘Hair-breadth
escapes--antres vast and deserts idle.’ But then Othello wasn’t a
married man. Unfortunately you are.”
Dyke had now risen from the sofa. He walked about the room and
began to make a noise. To Mr. Verinder, in the midst of his
anger and distress, the striding up and down of Dyke was a fresh
discomfort, a new surface-sting. If anybody walked about rooms in
that house, it should be he, the master of the house; it was a
habit of his. No one else had the right to take the floor on him.
“Of course I’m married,” said Dyke, loudly, almost shouting. “How
can I help that? It’s my misfortune, not my fault. Besides, I told
her so. I told her so at once.”
“She doesn’t weigh the consequences,” said the father.
“She _has_ weighed them,” Dyke shouted. Then he went on more
quietly, but with the incisive hardness that was almost worse
than noise. “Besides, she’s over twenty-one; she has independent
means--why shouldn’t she do what she likes? She’s her own mistress.”
“Exactly. But we don’t want her to be your mistress,” said the
sneering brother. “That’s just what it amounts to.”
From this point onwards the thing was devoid of hope; and they
knew it really. Dyke made more and more noise; he rumpled his
hair, brandished his arms, broke his shirt front; and the other
three felt their helplessness. How could they tackle this hulking
ruffian, this savage in dress clothes who disregarded all rules,
who cared nothing for civilization? They were three tame men, and
utterly impotent against a wild man. He overwhelmed their minds
by his unchecked fierceness; but it should be noted that they had
not any unworthy physical fear of him, although Eustace, more
particularly, felt that at any moment Dyke might strike him. That
odd, hideously vulgar expression, A word and a blow, echoed in the
troubled thoughts of Eustace. A blow, a struggle, a disgraceful
episode, at any moment now.
They appealed to his better feeling, and he seemed to have none.
They spoke of law and decency, and he inveighed against the cursed
law. A wife that wasn’t a wife, but tied to her irrevocably--a
millstone round his neck--“Poor unhappy lady, God forgive me for
speaking of her like that. _She’s_ not to blame. No, no, it’s the
law’s to blame.”
As he said all this he was banging on the table in front of Mr.
Verinder, so forcibly that the porcelain boxes danced and the gold
frame fell over.
“It’s fellows like you who make these infernal laws. Why don’t you
alter them? Why do you allow people to be tormented and bedevilled
because that sort of thing pleased a pack of dirty verminous monks
hundreds of years ago? Poor little innocent Emmie too! I feel the
cruelty of her situation just as much as you do--and a dashed sight
more. It’s monstrous and iniquitous”; and he strode away from the
table waving his arms.
In every lull Mr. Verinder said the same sort of thing--that facts
were facts, laws laws, proprieties proprieties. “You must see it,
Mr. Dyke. On reflection, you _must_ see it. I decline to believe
that you yourself will wish to continue--”
Dyke swore that he had no choice; he would continue, he could not
stop.
“What do you propose to do then?” asked Mr. Verinder.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Dyke.
Mr. Verinder said he wanted Dyke to give her up altogether.
“_Never!_” Dyke roared at them now.
So the thing went on. Eustace was livid with rage, trembling.
The colonel, unnoticed, chattered and fumed. Mr. Verinder felt
possessed by that sensation of the dreamlike nature, the sheer
fantasticness of it all--this quiet room, with the loud voices
in it, servants probably listening on the stairs; yet also the
awareness of the framework of society all round them still
unbroken; his friends next door enjoying a little music after
dinner in one of _their_ drawing-rooms, or playing a rubber of
whist for moderate points; a small evening-party at Number Ten;
above everything, the Albert Hall such a little distance away,
with a ballad concert as usual;--only in here this raging lunatic
trying to turn the whole world upside down. But perhaps the
colonel’s agitation and horror were even more painful than what
his brother-in-law underwent. To him the thing was so appallingly
obnoxious, so immeasurably far from the spirit of the game he
worshipped. He continued to say it; and close to his lips,
contained but certain to be released if the strain lasted, there
hovered the crushing black-cap epithet--un-English.
“I shan’t give her up.”
Dyke was blustering fiercely as he moved here and there. Once he
threatened Eustace, saying that if there was any attempt to bully
Emmie, he would break every bone in his body. Finally he left them,
mentally shattered.
He was gone, right out of the house.
* * * * *
Then, quite late, after eleven-thirty, there was a tremendous
sustained ringing of the front-door bell. What could it be? The
house on fire? Mr. Verinder, half unrobed, hurried down from
his dressing-room to the first floor, and looked over the gilt
balustrade into the hall. It was the man come back again--but
altered, strange, in a totally different mood. He forced his way
past the butler, past Eustace, past Gussie, and shouted upward.
“Verinder, I must talk to you. Verinder--my dear fellow--I can’t
sleep to-night, until you and I have settled it.”
And he came up the stairs; with Eustace and the colonel following,
both of them really scared now.
“Go in there,” said Eustace, and, while Dyke entered the darkened
room, he whispered to his father: “If he is violent I shall send
for the police.”
Mr. Verinder ran up for a dressing-jacket, came down and sat at the
same table, looking queer without his collar. As Eustace switched
on the lamps the Leaders sprang into life, smiling at them all
again. Dyke threw his slouch hat and an Inverness cape to the
floor, stood with his hair absurdly ruffled; then sank upon the
amber satin sofa.
“I have been walking about, feeling half mad,” he began in a humble
tone, then paused. His face was strangely pale, as though all the
blood had gone from it; and they noticed, during the pause, that he
seemed suddenly to shiver or gasp for breath. “Look here. I want
to apologise to you--Out there, trying to think, I felt that I
deserved to be kicked. Anybody would say you’re quite right--from
your point of view.” And he looked at them most piteously. “I’m
sorry I made a noise. But please make allowances. This--this
entanglement--or whatever you like to call it--is so tragically
serious for both of us. I mean for her as well as for me. That’s
why I beg you to bear with me--to reach an understanding, a
solution--to do anything rather than just quarrel about it. If, to
begin with, you can only put yourself in my place”; and he seemed
to be wringing his hands. “Verinder, I want that girl. I simply
can’t live without her.”
He said these last words in a hoarse whisper that was more
disturbing to hear than if it had been a loud cry of pain. It
jarred upon the ear, it set one’s teeth on edge; and the expression
of his haggard face added to the physical commotion he produced,
even if one did not think of what he had said. The colonel felt the
commotion all through his stout body; Eustace held up an arm, as if
calling for invisible cabs.
“Verinder!” He was perceptibly shivering--a tremor that made
his limbs jerk. “Verinder--don’t you see? This is tearing me to
pieces. Surely you can comprehend? You were young once--under
forty, full of life. Perhaps you were unhappy too--as I have
been--lonely--Didn’t you ever feel the longing to make a girl your
own?”
Mr. Verinder, once more white with anger, shouted in his turn.
“Will you remember that I am her father.”
“I know. Forgive me. I express myself badly.” And he sat staring
at the carpet, and shivering as though some fever of the jungle
again had him in its clutch. They watched him; and when he raised
his head they saw it for moment convulsed and twitching. He put
his hand to his forehead, and then continued to speak. “You and
I must have it out, mustn’t we? We can’t leave it all in doubt.
I must settle it before I sail for South America”; and he gave a
groan. “I want that girl. I can’t live without her. She has become
the whole world to me. She wants me, too. And, remember, other
people mayn’t want her like that--I mean, as I do.” As he went on
it seemed to them that delirium had set in. He was raving at them
now. “We can’t do without each other. Well, that’s love. Love!
What is it? I can’t say. But no one’s to blame for it. A chance? A
fatality? Some day these things will be scientifically ascertained,
and then the accident of love will be avoidable--to be guarded
against. But it isn’t now.”
He paused as if for breath, and cast glances round the room before
he went on again.
“Verinder, I know you want to do what’s right and proper. You’re
a man of high principle--no one could doubt that. Only don’t be
hide-bound--or tied down by prejudice. Look the thing in the face.
I see the obstacles, plainly, from your point of view--but somehow
we _must_ get over them. You and your friends are people of the
world--you have all sorts of social riddles at your fingers’ ends.
Can’t you find an answer? Can’t you cut the knot? If we could
only tide over--get round the obstacle--then we should come to
daylight one day. No,” he cried forcibly. “I mustn’t say that--I
mustn’t hint that my unhappy wife may die and cut the knot herself.
Besides, it isn’t true. Her physical health is excellent. She’ll
probably live to a hundred”; and once more he groaned. “But one
thing is certain, Verinder. You can’t say we must be left quite
without hope--and remain divided for ever. Oh, no, that would be
inhuman. Neither of us could submit. Verinder, my dear fellow, it’s
in your power to make it hard for us or easy. Don’t make it hard
for us.”
All this last part of his appeal had seemed to them worse than
delirium, grotesque and terrible in its nearness to a kind of
perverted impossible logic. Now he seemed suddenly to collapse on
the sofa in a fit of profound dejection. His back stooped, his
hands dangled down between his knees, his head subsided almost upon
his chest, and he sighed at brief intervals. They watched him, as
if spellbound.
He changed his attitude, and sat now with an elbow on the back of
the sofa and his head leaning on his hand; and he sighed, as if
sick with emotion.
Then there occurred what was perhaps the most astounding incident
of the night. The colonel had launched his last word; now he darted
round behind the sofa, bent over Dyke, seized his shoulder, and
shook him. What was it? Some deep invincible instinct of remote
antiquity--the instinct that compels the tame animal to take all
risks and fly at and worry the wild beast when it lies prostrate
and in pain? Or was it just frenzy and disgust aroused in the
colonel by the sight and the sound of something so devastatingly
un-English. But Dyke, plainly supposing that the action was
prompted by compassionate sympathy, spoke to the colonel for the
first time, and in tones of grateful affection.
“Thanks, old boy,” said Dyke; and then, as the colonel continued to
shake his shoulder, “Don’t trouble, dear old chap. I shall be all
right directly.”
The colonel dropped his hands and tottered away from the sofa. To
him the thing had become like the fourth dimension, or the fifth;
beyond the range of intellect, brain-destroying. He thought vaguely
that if it went on he should faint.
Mr. Verinder was running his fingers round the open neck of his
shirt. He felt that his universe had crumbled. He felt that the
only sane thing for him to do would be to speak as if to a child,
and say, “Mr. Dyke, stop making these afflicted noises; get up, go
home to bed, and don’t be so ridiculous.” He would have said it
perhaps, if he could. But strangely, inexplicably, Mr. Dyke was
_not_ ridiculous; he was still awe-inspiring--dreadful. Yes, that
was the word. In the language of the locality, the man had made a
dreadful exhibition.
He got up presently, without being told to do so.
“It’s not a bit of good my making promises that I can’t keep. I’ve
made one promise about it already--to my father--and I’ll keep
that. My father’s a clergyman--in Devonshire.”
He shook hands with Mr. Verinder, gave the colonel a wan smile, and
went. Eustace let him out, watched by Gussie; the butler standing
by, looking very anxious.
When they came upstairs again Mr. Verinder was still sitting at the
table.
“Do you think Dyke had been drinking?” he asked, tapping with the
paper knife.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Eustace.
“He didn’t smell of alcohol,” said Gussie, “when I stooped over him
on the sofa.”
“That makes it all the worse,” said Mr. Verinder, stonily.
“Thank goodness,” said Eustace, “that mother and Emmeline didn’t
come back before we had got rid of him.” And he lit a cigarette
with fingers that trembled.
After this they had a plain perception of the force they were up
against. As Mr. Verinder looked at the imposing façade of the
house, he felt that, solid as he had always considered it to be,
it afforded a frail protection. He sighed as he drove away from
it--his menaced stronghold, his undermined fortress.
He went once again to see Mr. Williams in Spring Gardens, but
without any hope that Mr. Williams would be able to help him.
“What can one do?”
Mr. Williams seemed to think that one could do nothing.
“You mean to say,” said Mr. Verinder, frowning, “that if I know
this man intends to abduct my daughter--”
“Oh, you can hardly call it that, I think,” said Mr. Williams;
and he moved towards his book-shelves, as if with the intention
of taking out the letter A and looking up the article entitled
Abduction. But then he was mechanically checked by something
already in his mind. “By the way, Miss Verinder herself has been
here.”
“She has, has she? What for?”
“To ask about her securities. She wants all papers sent to her
bank. She said she would discontinue our arrangements, you know,
and henceforth manage her affairs herself. She brought her maid
with her, and they took some papers I gave her then and there
straight on to the bank, I believe.”
Mr. Verinder thought that this was very significant. He said it
suggested premeditated defiance and rebellion.
The solicitor said, smiling mildly, that she had not the air of
“a rebel.” No, she had seemed “very quiet and sensible,” and
he somehow implied that he would like to venture to add “very
good-looking, too.”
In conclusion, Mr. Verinder asked, “Would you advise me to have her
watched by detectives?”
“Oh, surely not? What could be gained by that?”
“It is her mother’s suggestion. At least we should then know her
movements--and perhaps some of his. He alleges that he means soon
to sail for South America. Of course, if one knew for certain that
he was out of the country! If we did do it, could you arrange it
for us?”
Mr. Williams said yes, if really necessary; but he must own that
this class of thing was not in his line, or in the line of the firm.
“Then I will not trouble you further,” said Mr. Verinder stiffly.
* * * * *
“Emmeline,” he said that afternoon, or on an afternoon very near to
it, “come in here, please, I want to speak to you.”
Mrs. Verinder had given him a warning; he was flushed, angry,
uncomfortable, as he stood at the dining-room door and waited for
his daughter. He spoke sternly now, as she appeared at the bottom
of the staircase.
“Father, I am going out.”
“Going out as late as this? Why, it’s nearly seven o’clock. And
where’s your maid? Where’s that girl--where’s Louisa?”
“I don’t require her. I’m not going far.”
“No, so I think.” He made her come into the dining-room, and he
closed the door behind her.
She was wearing a queer little fashionable hat made of chip straw,
with rosebud ornaments, and a white spotted veil neatly drawn
under her chin; her dark simple dress was of the kind then known
as “tailor-made,” fitting close to the waist, but enormously wide
at the shoulders; as she stood looking at her father and quivering
in anxiety, she had that gentle inoffensive charm of feminine
prettiness which du Maurier was at the moment drawing so cleverly.
“Father, I beg you not to detain me. I have an appointment.”
“You won’t keep it. Do you understand? Sit down. I won’t allow you
to leave this room.”
“Do you mean you’ll use force to prevent me?”
“If necessary. Sit down--over there.”
She sat down then, meekly, despairingly; but almost immediately she
got up again.
“Father, let me go, please. To-morrow he is leaving London for a
day or two. I want to see him before that.”
Although she had not moved from her chair, he stepped between it
and the door; and he angrily told her to be seated. Once or twice
more she rose and implored him to let her go. Then she sat still,
in agony. She thought of this lost hour, this hour of mellow
sunlight beyond the trees, by the water of Kensington Gardens; and
of her lover waiting for her.
It was a cruel little scene, and Mr. Verinder felt the cruelty of
it. He knew that he was inflicting anguish; worse, much worse than
if he had really employed force. Throughout the dragging hour he
might have beaten her, thrown her down upon the floor, knelt on her
chest, and he would have hurt her less. He walked about the room
torturing and tortured; his thoughts on fire, and yet his heart
coldly aching.
Once she said words that sounded like an echo of another voice, but
in her pathetically pleading tones they stabbed Mr. Verinder with a
stiletto thrust.
“I’m not very happy, as it is, father. Please don’t make things
harder.”
“My dear girl,” Mr. Verinder groaned, “do you think I’m happy
either? Have I been unkind till now? Have I reproached you, even
now? How else can I act? I see you drifting”--and he clung to this
word--“drifting quite unconsciously to perils that you cannot
measure.”
She said no more, and she never changed her attitude in her chair
until Mr. Verinder, ostentatiously consulting his watch, said it
was time to dress for dinner. As he glanced at her it seemed to him
that her nose had grown sharp and thin beneath the veil; her eyes
were dry and hard, so that the face, instead of being like a young
girl’s, made him think of a haggard woman who has “knocked about”
and “been through a lot.”
She herself had thought all the while of the man who was waiting
for her, thinking, “He will give me another five minutes; now he
won’t wait any longer; now he has really abandoned hope.”
She had lost the hour with him. It was gone for ever; nothing could
bring it back. Out of her life they had taken it; this hour of love
they had stolen from her--the hour that should have had love in it;
and life is so pitifully short, holding, if you count them, so few
hours of any sort.
* * * * *
That morning, quite early, Miss Verinder walked out of the house by
herself; and she did not return for three days.
During her absence Mr. and Mrs. Verinder took what seemed perhaps
an odd course, and yet it would have been difficult in the
circumstances to propose a better one. They wished to maintain
“appearances” as far as might be possible, to avoid premature
scandal, to keep the talk within the four walls of home; and also
they were in this predicament, that they did not really know if
Miss Verinder would come back next minute or never. They therefore
entered into a conspiracy with their servants, giving orders rather
than explanations, and instructing them to tell inquirers that
Miss Verinder was ill in bed upstairs--nothing serious, merely
indisposition, but bed advisable.
Mrs. Bell, of Queen’s Gate, worried them badly by her good-natured
solicitude. She was fond of Emmeline; and learning of the
indisposition, she came often, brought hot-house grapes, and begged
that if reading aloud was out of the question, she might at least
be permitted to sit by the bedside and hold the invalid’s hand.
Except by Mrs. Bell few inquiries were made.
It was just before dinner when Emmeline reappeared. Her mother and
father received her alone in the boudoir; directly she came in,
her father seized her by the wrist, and Mrs. Verinder sat down
on a “pouf” in the middle of the room. Mr. Verinder released his
daughter, almost casting her from him, and began walking to and
fro; while Mrs. Verinder, sitting in a huddled fashion, following
him with her eyes, so that her head moved from side to side exactly
as heads move when people are watching the flight of the ball at
a lawn-tennis match. Her hands were shaking, her watchful face
expressed great distress as well as fear and wonder. Emmeline
seemed calm and fearless.
“What’s the meaning of this?” said Mr. Verinder tragically, in
spite of the commonplace character of the question.
“I am sorry, father, for any trouble and anxiety I have caused--but
I couldn’t help it.”
“Couldn’t help it?”
“I mean, you were keeping me a prisoner. Well, I had to break my
prison.”
“Where have you been?”
Emmeline remained silent.
“Emmeline, why don’t you answer?” said her mother. “Can’t you see
what I’m suffering?”
“Leave her to me,” said Mr. Verinder. “You have been with that man?”
“Yes--if by that man you mean Mr. Dyke”; and Emmeline squared her
shoulders and looked her father full in the face.
“For--for these three days you have been living with him as if you
were his wife?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Verinder uttered a suffocated cry, and it seemed for an
instant as if Mr. Verinder was about to hurl himself upon Emmeline
and fling her down at his feet; but then he turned his back on her,
walked to a window and opened the curtains as if in need of more
air.
“And you haven’t yet told us where,” said Mrs. Verinder, making
strange throat sounds as well as speaking.
“Liverpool,” said Emmeline quietly.
“Liverpool!” Mrs. Verinder repeated the word, and moaned. “You
went that distance--to Liverpool--without even a dressing-bag! No
things--not even a brush and comb!”
“I got things there.”
“Then where are they? You have come back without anything.”
“I left them.”
Mrs. Verinder uttered another cry. “So that you could return to
him!”
Then there came a tapping on the outer panels of the door.
“Come in,” shouted Mr. Verinder furiously.
It was the butler; and Mr. Verinder swore at him roundly. For the
first time in his life he swore at a servant, and with ladies
present.
“Damn you, you fool, what do you mean by knocking at the door. Why
did you do it?”
The butler said he thought they were talking business, and was loth
to disturb them. But he wished to know about the dinner.
To Mr. Verinder that tap had been symbolic; it seemed to imply the
end of keeping up pretences. It was this thought that made him
swear.
“Dinner! Yes, at once”; and he looked at his watch. “Eight-fifteen!”
They sat down to dinner and Emmeline joined them. Sherry was poured
out for Mr. Verinder to drink with his soup; he could smell, before
it came in, the shrimp sauce that was to go with the turbot; there
was general conversation--about the weather and politics, just as
usual.
What had happened had happened; yet there they were. In appearance
at least, the world was going round at the same pace. The Albert
Hall still stood on the old site.
During the course of the evening Emmeline told them that it would
be wiser for them to let her go away altogether; and she was
unshaken by the storm that both parents launched. She said she was
very sorry; she knew they must hate her now; it would be better for
everybody if they parted. What amazed them most was her courage. It
was as though she drew all this new strength and character from the
man. In their distress and confusion they told her so.
“I don’t recognize you”; “You are changed”; “I simply do not
recognize you”; and so on.