THE BLOT ON THE SNOW
The brothers got on very well at first; they sat silent or talked
about things which interested neither. They were as little as
possible alone.
Gradually, however, Gerard’s persistent lightheartedness produced
the opposite effect of a dead weight on the other man. His very
laugh, so easy, so frequent, jarred on Otto’s hearing.
“Debt is theft,” thought Otto. “How can he find it in his heart to
laugh with such debts as his?” And the Baron bent once more, with a
resolute sigh, over his weary pile of accounts.
Gerard, meanwhile, was manfully making the best of his return
to his old home. He rejoiced to be again among the familiar
surroundings, and especially he rejoiced in his mother’s company.
He spent long hours in her boudoir every morning, helping her with
the Memoir, and, therefore, talking much about old times. It was a
difficult diversion. He did his very best to laugh.
He also did his very best to make things pleasant with Otto.
Towards Ursula he could not but feel differently; he avoided her as
much as possible, and she, in her eagerness to conciliate, seemed
almost to be laying herself out to please him. Their relations were
strained, and everybody noticed it.
“And what do you say to the baby, Gerard?” demanded Aunt Louisa.
“Nothing, aunt. One has to say, ‘Tiddie, iddie, too-tums, then,’ to
babies, or something of that kind, and I don’t feel equal to it. I
never say anything to babies.”
“Ah, but this is _the_ baby,” retorted the old maid, annoyed.
“However, I can understand your not caring much about him; he has
definitely put your handsome nose out of joint.”
Gerard did not answer, in his sudden distress. And then, that
none might harbor such horrible thoughts with any show of reason,
he set himself to heroically admiring his little nephew, and the
forlornness of his affectionate nature soon facilitated the task.
Ursula was delighted at this _rapprochement_ on neutral ground. She
initiated her brother-in-law into many shades of infant development
where the careless observer would merely have seen a blank.
They were together by the cradle in the breakfast-room on the
morning of Christmas Eve. There was to be a small dinner-party in
the evening, the Christmas Tree for the villagers not taking place
till the following day. The Van Trossarts were coming, and Helena
Van Troyen with her husband. Helena had written to say that she
must bring a German friend of Willie’s.
“He is beginning to take notice,” said Ursula, for the twentieth
time. “Don’t you see how he opens and shuts his little fingers?”
“But he always did that,” objected Gerard.
“He did it without any reason,” exclaimed the young mother, sagely.
“He does it now _when he knows there’s something near_.”
Gerard laughed, Ursula laughed also; she was happy in the
possession of her husband, of her little son, all the warmth of a
woman’s home.
In another moment Gerard’s face had clouded over. “Ursula,” he
said, with a violent effort, “there’s one thing I _must_ ask you.
I ought to have asked it a year ago. It’s wickedness letting these
things rankle. Why did you make trouble between Helena and me?”
A flood of scarlet poured over her drooping face. She tried to
speak, but, for only answer, fresh waves came sweeping up across
the dusky damask of her cheeks. She sank down beside the cradle,
hiding away from him.
“Can you not guess?” she whispered--into the baby clothes.
No; he could not guess. He had already sufficiently wronged Otto
with regard to the Adeline business; all through the year he had
striven to convince himself that Mademoiselle Papotier must have
been mistaken. Spoiled darling of many women as he undoubtedly was,
he had not enough of the coxcomb in him honestly to believe that
this woman had acted solely from pique. Nor could he have uttered
that explanation, though it still hovered round him.
“Gerard, I knew,” said Ursula, so low that he had to bend over her
half-hidden head. “I _knew_. Oh, Gerard, if only you had married
the other one.”
Then a long silence arose between them, for Gerard had understood.
In the strange bluntness of our world-wide morality it had never
entered into this honorable gentleman’s head that any one could
deem Adeline’s claim on him an obstacle to his proper settlement.
And now that strange “cussedness,” partly chivalric and modest,
which always caused him to blow out the lights on his brighter
side, checked the easy vindication that he had actually offered
marriage to the foolish little dress-maker. He stood silent and
ashamed. Ursula did not lift her face from the sheltering coverlet.
When at last he spoke it was to say: “In one thing I have long
misjudged you, Ursula. I should like to confess that just now. I
didn’t believe you about that stupid rendezvous. I have admitted to
myself since then that you went, as you said, for another’s sake.”
He understood that Ursula had somehow constituted herself Adeline’s
protectress. “I want to confess that just now,” he repeated,
contritely.
She did not thank him for telling her he no longer thought her a
liar, and worse. “So you believe now,” she simply said, lifting her
head at last. “You believe in my honest acceptance of Otto.” Then
she rose from the floor, flushed and troubled, but with a proud
curve of her neck.
“Ursula,” said the young officer, as much troubled as herself,
“I thank God for the lesson you have taught me. I--if more women
thought as you do, we men would be better than we are.” His young
face was very solemn, he looked straight towards her. Unconsciously
she laid one hand on the breast of her little sleeping child, and,
with an upward flutter of her strong brave eyes, held out the
other. He took it, hesitated, and then, stooping, touched it with
his lips.
[Illustration: “SHE SANK DOWN BESIDE THE CRADLE, HIDING AWAY FROM
HIM”]
When he dropped it, there stood Otto, in the doorway, watching them.
He came forward into the room, pretending not to have seen.
“Well, Gerard,” he said, with forced geniality, “so here is the
heir. Some day I hope this young man will sit in my seat and look
after the dear old place better than I do.”
Gerard resented the palpable aim of the words.
“Who knows?” he replied, lightly. “He may never have money to keep
it up. If he has brothers and sisters, the estate goes to pieces
anyhow. What’s the use of your struggling and wasting your life for
an idea? Why not sell a couple of farms and have done?”
“That’s what you would do,” said Otto, grimly; “sell the whole
thing.”
“Yes, I should, if I really wanted the money.”
“I know you would,” shouted Otto, breaking loose, glad of the
pretext. “I know you would, you spendthrift! Spendthrift and
profligate, you would do anything--for pleasure.”
His eye flashed from one to the other, and Ursula read the flash.
She remained standing quite still, her hand on the baby’s coverlet.
Gerard shrugged his shoulders. “My dear fellow, don’t be so angry.
I shall sell nothing,” he said, and walked into the adjoining room.
Otto, already ashamed of himself, went out by the passage-door.
The baby was fast asleep, breathing heavily. Ursula remained
standing still.
* * * * *
The room was very silent. Presently a quick spasm of trembling
shook her, and with a frightened glance to right and left, she
hurried away down the vestibule, out into the wintry morning.
She ran swiftly along the avenue and turned into the high road,
taking the longest route to the village because it had lain
straight in front of her. The gaunt ice-rimmed trees in the pallid
air swam round about her through a mist of her own creating; the
desolate plain, stretching white and cold, seemed to mock her with
its snow-bound loneliness. She shuddered as she ran.
Near the turnpike she stopped. She would meet a human being there,
the turnpike man. He would touch his cap. Not that. She shrank back.
And in the pause she asked herself where she was going. To her
father, of course, home to her father’s consistent love--the one
thing in this world she could forever rely on. Home, to the old
home, to weep out her agony upon one faithful breast.
And even as she pictured to herself for a moment what she would do
when she reached the comfort of that embrace, she felt that she
could not do it. There are valleys of the shadow through which a
true-hearted woman must take her way alone.
She stood, a black speck in the surrounding bleakness. The turnpike
man, peeping through his little window by his cosey stove, wondered
lazily why she did not come on.
At last she turned, and, slowly retracing her steps, branched off
into the park. Her one aspiration now was to get away from all
possible contact with sympathy. She went stumbling, as fast as she
could, over the uneven, snow-laden ground, deeper, only deeper into
the silence of the wood. Her foot caught in invisible roots, she
hurt herself without perceiving it. Her eyes were dry and hard,
despite the cloud behind them.
Gasping for breath, she sank down in the snow and leaned up against
a tree. All around and beyond her was the absolute desertion she
had longed for, stretching away in an unending sameness of confused
black pillars, whose naked tracery bore the pellucid vault of
heaven. The dull glitter, all-pervading, lighted up her forest
“sanctuary”; not a sound was heard, except when, once, a snapped
twig came rustling to the ground.
Her husband had doubted her honor. Even supposing he had done so
for the moment only, during the briefest flash of thought. What
did that matter? He had doubted her. Other words and acts now came
falling into their places, deepening an impression never before
perceived. She brushed them away indignantly; she wanted none of
these. It was enough.
She could never go back to him. How could she see him? How speak to
him? How could daily contact be possible between a husband and the
wife whom, for one instant only, his thought had sullied? He who
thinks thus once may at any hour pollute his thoughts anew. Priest
and priestess cannot kneel again in the temple one of them has
desecrated; no repentance, no forgiveness can wipe away the stain
across the marble god. She hung staring in front of her, and the
soaking snow crept upwards on her dress.
She had no wish to do anything tragic, to make any scene or
scandal. Only she felt that she _could_ not go back to her
husband’s welcoming smile. It was not the insult to herself,
although that drenched her cheek with purple; it was the new horror
that had arisen between them as if a toad were seated in his heart.
Gerard’s wickedness of loose living was not as bad as this. Oh, men
were horrible, horrible!
Something moved on the white ground in front of her, so close that
she could not but notice it. A red-breast, half frozen, hopped near
in a flutter of perky contemplation, wondering, perhaps, if she was
alive. She pitied the poor little forsaken creature, and felt in
her pocket, with a sudden movement that scared him, for some morsel
of bread which she knew could not possibly be there.
And as she sat, hopelessly waiting, she could not tell for what,
the distant boom of the village clock came faintly trembling
towards her in one long stroke, the half-hour.
Half-past--what? Previous warnings must have reached her unheard.
She looked at her watch. Half-past twelve. And at noon little Otto
would have cried out for her, dependent upon his mother for the
very flow of his life.
She started to her feet, and commenced running as best she
could among the trees. Constantly she stumbled in her haste;
once she fell prone into a yielding snowdrift. She hurried on
breathlessly--a clearing showed her the house; she rejoiced to see
it. How long the time still seemed till she had reached the step!
In the hall her husband crossed her path. She shrank aside: the
wailing of the child, above the nurse’s vain attempts at hushing,
already fell upon her ear.
Otto remarked with astonishment the condition she was in, but he
said nothing. Gerard’s voice could be heard in the distance, amid
the clash of billiard balls. He was teaching Harriet to play.
“Go,” said Ursula, roughly, to the nurse. She flung to the door of
the nursery, and, violently, locked it. Then she took the screaming
child to her breast. Her teeth were firm set; her whole face was
hard and rigid, but her eyes were very tender.
Half an hour later she went down to lunch. Her guests were talking
and laughing. Otto came forward immediately to speak about the
afternoon’s arrangements. The Van Trossarts must be fetched from
the station. The Dowager beckoned her aside.
“My dear,” said the Dowager, “the butcher has forgotten the
cutlets.”