SUGGESTION AND ASSURANCE
When Miriam went out by herself to walk, either going or returning she
took the road in which was Mallard's studio. She kept on the side
opposite the gateway, and, in passing, seemed to have no particular
interest in anything at hand. A model who one day came out of the gate,
and made inspection of the handsomely attired lady just going by,
little suspected for what purpose she walked in this locality.
And so it befell that Miriam was drawing near to the studios at the
moment when a cab stopped there, at the moment when Cecily alighted
from it. Instantly recognizing her sister-in-law, Miriam thought it
inevitable that she herself must be observed; for an instant her foot
was checked. But Cecily paid the driver without looking this way or
that, and entered the gateway. Miriam walked on for a few paces; then
glanced back and saw the cab waiting. She reached the turning of the
road, and still the cab waited, Another moment, and it drove away empty.
She stood and watched it, until it disappeared in the opposite
direction. Heedless of one or two people who came by, she remained on
the spot for several minutes, gazing towards the studios. Presently she
moved that way again. She passed the gate, and walked on to the farther
end of the road, always with glances at the gate. Then she waited
again, and then began to retrace her steps.
How many times backwards and forwards? She neither knew nor cared; it
was indifferent to her whether or not she was observed from the windows
of certain houses. She felt no weariness of body, but time seemed
endless. The longer she stood or walked, the longer was Cecily there
within. For what purpose? Yesterday she was to arrive in London; to-day
she doubtless knew all that had been going on in her absence. And dusk
fell, and twilight thickened. The street-lamps were lit. But Cecily
still remained within.
Twice or thrice some one entered or left the studio-yard, strangers to
Miriam. At length there came forth a man who, after looking about,
hurried away, and in a few minutes returned with a hansom following
him. Seeing that it stopped at the gateway, she approached as close as
she durst, keeping in shadow. There issued two persons, whom at once
she knew--Cecily with Mallard. They spoke together a moment; then both
got into the vehicle and drove away.
That evening Miriam had an engagement to dine out, together with the
Spences. When she reached home, Eleanor, dressed ready for departure
and not a little impatient, met her in the entrance-hall.
"Have you forgotten?"
"No. I am very sorry that I couldn't get back sooner. What is the time?"
It was too late for Miriam to dress and reach her destination at the
appointed hour.
"You must go without me. I hope it doesn't matter. They are not the
kind of people who plan for their guests to go like the animals of
Noah's ark."
This was a sally of unwonted liveliness from Miriam, and it did not
suit very well with her jaded face.
"Will you come after dinner?" Eleanor asked.
"Yes, I will. Make some excuse for me."
So Miriam dined alone, or made a pretence of doing so, and at nine
o'clock joined her friends. Through the evening she talked far more
freely than usual, and with a frequency of caustic remark which made
one or two mild ladies rather afraid of her.
At half-past nine next morning, when she and Eleanor were talking over
a letter Mrs. Spence had just received from Greece, a servant came into
the drawing-room to say that Mr. Elgar wished to speak with Mrs. Baske.
The ladies looked at each other; then Miriam directed that the visitor
should go up to her own sitting-room.
"This has something to do with Cecily," said Eleanor in a low voice.
"Probably."
And Miriam turned away.
As she entered her room, Reuben faced her, standing close by. He looked
miserably ill, the wreck of a man compared with what he had been at his
last visit. When the door was shut, he asked without preface, and in an
anxious tone:
"Can you tell me where Cecily is?"
Miriam laid her band on a chair, and met his gaze.
"Where she is?"
"She isn't at home. Haven't you heard of her?"
"Since when has she been away?"
Her manner of questioning seemed to Elgar to prove that her own
surprise was as great as his.
"I only went there last night," he said, "about eleven o'clock. She had
been in the house since her arrival the day before yesterday; but in
the afternoon she went out and didn't return. She left no word, and
there's nothing from her this morning. I thought it likely you had
heard something."
"I have heard many things, but not about _her_."
"Of course, I know that!" he exclaimed impatiently, averting his eyes
for a moment. "I haven't come to talk, but to ask you a simple
question. You have no idea where she is?"
Miriam moved a few steps away and seated herself. But almost at once
she arose again.
"Why didn't you go home before last night?" she asked harshly.
"I tell you, I am not going to talk of my affairs," he answered, with a
burst of passion. "If you want to drive me mad--! Can't you answer me?
Do you know anything, or guess anything, about her?"
"Yes," said Miriam, after some delay, speaking deliberately, "I can
give you some information."
"Then do so, and don't keep me in torment."
"Yesterday afternoon I happened to be passing Mr. Mallard's studio, and
I saw her enter it; she came in a cab. She stayed there an hour or two;
it grew dark whilst she was there. Then I saw them both go away
together."
Elgar stared, half incredulously.
"You saw this? Do you mean that you waited about and watched?"
"Yes."
"You had suspicions?"
"I knew what a happy home she had returned to."
Again she seated herself.
"She went there to ask about me," said Elgar, in a forced voice.
"You think so? Why to him? Wouldn't she rather have come to me? Why did
she stay so long? Why did he go away with her? And why hasn't she
returned home?"
Question followed question with cold deliberateness, as if the matter
barely concerned her.
"But Mallard? What is Mallard to her?"
"How can I tell?"
"Were they together much in Rome?"
"I think very likely they were."
"Miriam, I can't believe this. How could it happen that you were near
Mallard's studio just then? How could you stand about for hours,
spying?"
"Perhaps I dreamt it."
"Where is this studio?" he asked. "I knew the other day, but I have
forgotten."
She told him the address.
"Very well, then I must go there. You still adhere to your story?"
"Why should I invent it?" she exclaimed bitterly "And what is there
astonishing in it? What right have _you_ to be astonished?"
"Every right!" he answered, with violence. "What warning have I had of
such a thing?"
She rose and moved away with a scornful laugh. For a minute he looked
at her as she stood apart, her face turned from him.
"If I find Mallard," he said, "of course I shall tell him who my
authority is."
She turned.
"No; that you will not do!"
"And why not?"
"Because I forbid you. You will not dare to mention my name in any such
conversation! Besides"--her voice fell to a tone of indifference--"if
you meet him, there will be no need. You will ask your question, and
that will be enough. There is very little chance of his being at the
studio."
"I see that your Puritan spirit is gratified," he said, looking at her
with fierce eyes.
"Naturally."
He went towards the door. Miriam, raising her eyes and following him a
step or two, said sternly:
"In any case, you understand that my name is not to be spoken. Show at
least some remnant of honour. Remember who I am, and don't involve me
in your degradation."
"Have no fear. Your garment of righteousness shall not be soiled."
When he was gone, Miriam sat for a short time alone. She had not
foreseen this sequel of yesterday's event. In spite of all the
promptings of her jealous fear, she had striven to explain Cecily's
visit in some harmless way. Mean what it might, it tortured her; but,
in her ignorance of what was happening between Cecily and her husband,
she tried to believe that Mallard was perhaps acting the part of
reconciler--not an unlikely thing, as her better judgment told her. Now
she could no longer listen to such calm suggestions. Cecily had
abandoned her home, and with Mallard's knowledge, if not at his
persuasion.
She thought of Reuben with all but hatred. He was the cause of the
despair which had come upon her. The abhorrence with which she regarded
his vices--no whit less strong for all her changed habits of
thought--blended now with the sense of personal injury; this only had
been lacking to destroy what natural tenderness remained in her feeling
towards him. Cecily she hated, without the power of condemning her as
she formerly would have done. The old voice of conscience was not mute,
but Miriam turned from it with sullen scorn. If Cecily declared her
marriage at an end, what fault could reason find with her? If she acted
undisguisedly as a free woman, how was she to blame? Reuben's praise of
her might still keep its truth. And the unwilling conviction of this
was one of Miriam's sharpest torments. She would have liked to regard
her with disdainful condemnation, or a fugitive wife, a dishonoured
woman. But the power of sincerely judging thus was gone. Reuben had
taunted her amiss.
Presently she left her room and went to seek Eleanor. Mrs. Spence was
writing; she laid down her pen, and glanced at Miriam, but did not
speak.
"Cecily has left her home," Miriam said, with matter-of-fact brevity.
Eleanor stood up.
"Parted from him?"
"It seems be didn't go to the house till late last night. She had left
in the afternoon, and did not come back."
"Then they have not met?".
"No."
"And had Cecily heard?"
"There's no knowing."
"Of course, she has gone to Mrs. Lessingham."
"I think not," replied Miriam, turning away.
"Why?"
But Miriam would give no definite answer. Neither did she hint at the
special grounds of her suspicion. Presently she left the room as she
had entered, dispirited and indisposed for talk.
Elgar walked on to the studios. He found Mallard's door, and was
beginning to ascend the stairs, when the artist himself appeared at the
top of them, on the point of going out. He recognized his visitor with
a grim movement of brows and lips, and without speaking turned back.
Reuben reached the door, which remained open, and entered. Mallard, who
stood there in the ante-room, looked at him inquiringly.
"I want a few minutes' talk with you, if you please," said Elgar.
"Come in."
They passed into the studio. The last time they had seen each other was
more than three years ago, at Naples; both showed something of
curiosity, over and above the feelings of graver moment. Mallard,
observing the signs of mental stress on Elgar's features, wondered to
what they were attributable. Was the fellow capable of suffering
remorse or shame to this degree? Or was it the outcome of that other
affair, sheer ignoble passion? Reuben, on his part, could not face the
artist's somewhat rigid self-possession without feeling rebuked and
abashed. The fact of Mallard's being here at this hour seemed all but a
disproval of what Miriam had hinted, and when he looked up again at the
rugged, saturnine, energetic countenance, and met the calmly austere
eyes, he felt how improbable it was that this man should be anything to
Cecily save a conscientious friend.
"I haven't come in answer to your invitation," Reuben began, glancing
uneasily at the pictures, and endeavouring to support an air of
self-respect. "Something less agreeable has brought me."
They had not shaken hands, nor did Mallard offer a seat.
"What may that be?" he asked.
"I believe you have seen my wife lately?"
"What of that?"
Mallard began to knit his brows anxiously. He put up one foot on a
chair, and rested his arm on his knee.
"Will you tell me when it was that you saw her?"
"If you will first explain why you come with such questions," returned
the other, quietly.
"She has not been home since yesterday; I think that is reason enough."
Mallard maintained his attitude for a few moments, but at length put
his foot to the ground again, and repeated the keen look he had cast at
the speaker as soon as that news was delivered.
"When did you yourself go home?" he asked gravely.
"Late last night."
Mallard pondered anxiously.
"Then," said he, "what leads you to believe that I have seen Mrs.
Elgar?"
"I don't merely believe; I know that you have."
Elgar felt himself oppressed by the artist's stern and authoritative
manner. He could not support his dignity; his limbs embarrassed him,
and he was conscious of looking like a man on his trial for ignoble
offences.
"How do you know?" came from Mallard, sharply.
"I have been told by some one who saw her come here yesterday, in the
late afternoon."
"I see. No doubt, Mrs. Baske?"
The certainty of this flashed upon Mallard. He had never seen Miriam
walk by, but on the instant he comprehended her doing so. It was even
possible, he thought, that, if she had not herself seen Cecily, some
one in her employment had made the espial for her. The whole train of
divination was perfect in his mind before Elgar spoke.
"It is nothing to the purpose who told me. My wife was here for a long
time, and when she went away, you accompanied her."
"I understand."
"That is more than I do. Will you please to explain it?"
"You are accurately informed. Mrs. Elgar came here, naturally enough,
to ask if I knew what had become of you."
"And why should she come to _you_?"
"Because my letter to you lay open somewhere in your house, and she
thought it possible we had been together."
Elgar reflected. Yes, he remembered that the letter was left on his
table.
"And where did she go afterwards? Where did you conduct her?"
"I went rather more than half-way home with her, in the cab" replied
Mallard, somewhat doggedly. "I supposed she was going on to Belsize
Park."
"Then you know nothing of her reason for not doing so?"
"Nothing whatever."
Elgar became silent. The artist, after moving about quietly, turned to
question him with black brows.
"Hasn't it occurred to you that she may have joined Mrs. Lessingham in
the country?"
"She has taken nothing--not even a travelling-bag."
"You come, of course, from the Spences' house?"
Elgar replied with an affirmative. As soon as he had done so, he
remembered that this was as much as corroborating Mallard's conjecture
with regard to Miriam; but for that he cared little. He had begun to
discern something odd in the relations between Miriam and Mallard, and
suspected that Cecily might in some way be the cause of it.
"Did they not at once suggest that she was with Mrs. Lessingham?"
Elgar muttered a "No," averting his face.
"What _did_ they suggest, then?"
"I saw only my sister," said Reuben, irritably.
"And your sister thought I was the most likely person to know of Mrs.
Elgar's whereabouts?"
"Yes, she did."
"I am sorry to disappoint you," said Mallard, coldly. "I have given you
all the information I can."
"All you _will_," replied Elgar, whose temper was exasperated by the
firmness with which he was held at a scornful distance. He began now to
imagine that Mallard, from reasons of disinterested friendship, had
advised Cecily to seek some retreat, and would not disclose the secret.
More than that, he still found incredible.
Mallard eyed him scornfully.
"I said 'all I _can_,' and I don't deal in double meanings. I know
nothing more than I have told you. You are probably unaccustomed, of
late, to receive simple and straightforward answers to your questions;
but you'll oblige me by remembering where you are."
Elgar might rage inwardly, but he had no power of doubting what he
heard. He understood that Mallard would not even permit an allusion to
anything save the plain circumstances which had come to light.
Moreover, the artist had found a galling way of referring to the events
that had brought about this juncture. Reuben was profoundly humiliated;
he had never seen himself in so paltry a light. He could have shed
tears of angry shame.
"I dare say the tone of your conversation," he said acridly, "was not
such as would reconcile her to remaining at home. No doubt you gave her
abundant causes for self-pity."
"I did not congratulate her on her return home; but, on the other hand,
I said nothing that could interfere with her expressed intention to
remain there."
"She told you that she had this intention?" asked Reuben, with some
eagerness.
"She did."
As in the dialogue of last evening, so now, Mallard kept the sternest
control upon himself. Had he obeyed his desire, he would have scarified
Elgar with savage words; but of that nothing save harm could come. His
duty was to smooth, and not to aggravate, the situation. It was a blow
to him to learn that Cecily had passed the night away from home, but he
felt sure that this would be explained in some way that did no injury
to her previous resolve. He would not admit the thought that she had
misled him. What had happened, he could not with any satisfaction
conjecture, but he was convinced that a few hours would solve the
mystery. Had she really failed in her determination, then assuredly she
would write to him, even though it were without saying where she had
taken refuge. But he persisted in hoping that it was not so.
"Go back to your house, and wait there," he added gravely, but without
harshness. "For some reason best known to yourself, you kept your wife
waiting for nearly two days, in expectation of your coming. I hope it
was reluctance to face her. You can only go and wait. If I hear any
news of her, you shall at once receive it. And if she comes, I desire
to know of it as soon as possible."
Elgar could say nothing more. He would have liked to ask several
questions, but pride forbade him. Turning in silence he went from the
studio, and slowly descended the stairs Mallard heard him pause near
the foot, then go forth.
Reuben had no choice but to obey the artist's directions. He walked a
long way, the exercise helping him to combat his complicated
wretchedness, but at length he felt weary and threw himself into a cab.
The servant who opened the door to him said that Mrs. Elgar had been in
for a few minutes, about an hour ago; she would be back again by
lunch-time.