The forces within her were at truce. She was conscious of a suspension
of hostilities. The moment was one in which she saw, as in a mirror, her
poor, vague little soul in its hopeless wandering through life. She drew
back, not daring to see herself, and then was drawn forward by a febrile
curiosity. She felt towards them so differently that she could not think
of herself as the same person when she was with Owen as she was when she
was with Ulick. She remembered what she had heard the "dresser" say, and
she remembered the sin. But apart from the deception she practised upon
both men, there was the wrong-doing. Her conscience did not assail her
now; but she knew that she would suffer to-morrow or next day. That
sense of sin which she could not obliterate from her nature would rise
to her lips like a salt wave, and poison her life with its bitterness,
and she asked herself vain questions: Why had she left her father? Why
had she two lovers? Why did she rise to seek things that made her
unhappy? She thought of yesterday's journey to see a dying woman, and of
to-night's performance of "Tristan and Isolde." What an unhappy,
maddening jingle. The bitter wave of conscience, which rose to her lips
and poisoned her taste, forced from her an avowal that she would mend
her life. She foresaw nothing but deception, and easily imagined that
not a day would pass without lies. All her life would be a lie, and when
her nature rose in vehement revolt, she looked round for means to free
herself from the fetters and chains in which she had locked herself.
Thinking of Owen, she vowed that it must not happen again. But what
excuse would she give? Should she tell him that Ulick was her lover?
That was the only way, only it seemed so brutal. Even so she would have
a lover; and strictly speaking, she ought to send them both away. Very
probably that is what she would do in the end.... In the meantime, she
would keep them both on! Her face contracted in an expression of terror
and disgust. Had her moralising, then, ended in such miserable
selfishness as this?
To escape from her thoughts she looked out at the landscape, hoping it
would distract her. But she could take no interest in it. Yesterday it
had seemed so beautiful, but to-day it was all reversed, and the light
was different. She preferred to remember it. She thought that they must
be nearing the river, and she remembered how in one place it ran round a
field, making a silver horse shoe in the green land, they had crossed it
twice in the space of a quarter of a mile; then it followed the railway,
placid, docile, reflecting the trees and sky. Then like a child it was
soon taken with a new idea; it ran far away out of sight, and Evelyn
thought it would never return. But it came back again, turbulent and
shallow; and with woods on the steep hillside, and spanned by a
beautiful stone bridge. A little later its wanderings grew still more
perplexing, and she was not sure that it had not been joined in some
strange way by another river. But flowing round a low-lying field,
coming suddenly from behind a bend in the land, it had seemed in that
place like a pond. One bank was lined with bushes, the other lay open to
a view of a treeless plain divided by ditches. Three ladies had held
their light boat in the deep current, and she had wondered who they
were, and what was their manner of living and their desires, and though
she would never know these things, the image of these ladies in their
boat had fixed itself in her mind for ever.
Soon after the train began to slacken speed, and nervously she awaited
her destiny.
For she was uncertain whether she would send Ulick a telegram, telling
him to come to Park Lane, or whether she would drive straight to his
lodgings. At the bottom of her heart she knew that when she arrived at
St. Pancras she would tell the cabman, "Queen's Square, Bloomsbury." And
an hour later, nervous with expectation, she sat in the cab, seeing the
streets pass behind her. She was beginning to know the characteristics
of the neighbourhood, and in the afternoon light they awoke her out of a
trembling lethargy. She recognised the old iron gateway, the open space,
the thirsty fountain and the troop of neglected children. She liked the
forlorn and rusty square. She experienced a sort of sinking anguish
while waiting on the doorstep, lest he might not be at home. But when
the servant girl said Mr. Dean was upstairs, she liked her dirty,
good-natured smile, and she loved the stairs and banisters--it was all
wonderful, and she could hardly believe that in a few moments more she
would catch the first sight of his face. She would have to tell some
part of the truth; and since Lady Asher was dead, he could not fail to
believe. He would never think of asking her--she put the ugly thought
aside, and ran up the second flight.
In the pauses of their love-making, they often wandered round the walls
participating in the mystery of the Wanderers, and the sempiternal
loveliness of figures who stood with raised arms, by the streams of
Paradise. It seemed a profanation to turn from these aspirations to the
enjoyment of material love, and Evelyn looked at Ulick questioningly.
But he said that life only became wrong when it ceased to aspire. In an
Indian temple, it had once been asked who was the most holy man of all.
A young saint who had not eaten for ten days had been pointed out, but
he said that the holiest man who ever lived stood yonder. It was then
noticed that the man pointed to was drunk ... Ulick explained that the
drunkenness did not matter; it was an unimportant detail in the man's
life, for none aspired as he did; and laughing at the story, they stood
by the dusty, windy pane, her hand resting on his shoulder, and they
always remembered that that day they had seen the foliage in the square.
Lady Duckle had gone to Homburg; Owen had been obliged to go to Bath on
account of his gout; and Evelyn was free to abandon herself to her love
of Ulick and to her love of her father, and she begged him not to spoil
her happiness, but to come to Dulwich with her. His scruples were easily
argued away. She urged that he had not taken her away, he had brought
her back to her father. This last argument was convincing, and the
happiest time in their lives was the week they spent in Dulwich. They
sat down together to dinner under the lamp at the round table in the
little back room, and their evenings were passed at the harpsichord and
the clavichord; and amid the dreams and aspirations of great men they
attained their sublime nature. The music that had been given and that
was to be given at St. Joseph's furnished a never-failing subject of
discussion, and Mr. Innes told them stories of Italy in the sixteenth
century. How almost every Sunday there was a festival in some church
where the most beautiful music was heard. Along the nave were eight
choirs, four on one side and four on the other, raised on stages eight
to ten feet high, and facing one another at equal distances. Each choir
had a portable organ, and the _maître composateur_ beat the time for the
principal choir. And Mr. Innes's eyes lighted up when he spoke of the
admirable _style recitatif_ in the oratory of St. Marcellus when there
was a congregation of the Brothers of the Holy Crucifix. This order was
composed of the chief noblemen of Rome, who had therefore the power of
bringing together the rarest musicians Italy could produce. The voices
began with a psalm in motet form, and then the instruments played a
symphony, after which the voices sang a story from the Old Testament.
Each chorister represented a personage in the story, etc. He spoke of
the great organist at St. Peter's, and the wonderful inventions he is
said to have displayed in his improvisations. No one since had played
the harp like the renowned Horatio, but there was no one who could play
the lyre like the renowned Ferrabosco in England. Evelyn leaned across
the table, transported three centuries back, hearing all this music,
which she had known from her earliest years, performed by virtue of her
father's description in Italy, in St. Peter's, in the oratory of St.
Marcellus and in the church of Minerva. Sometimes her father and Ulick
began an argument, her sympathies alternated between them; she spoke
very little, preferring to listen, not liking to side with either,
agreeing with them, sometimes angering her father by her neutrality. But
one evening he was a little too insistent, and Evelyn burst into tears,
and ran upstairs to her room. The two men looked at each other, and Mr.
Innes begged Ulick to tell him if he had been unkind, and then besought
him to go upstairs and try to induce Evelyn to come down. Her face
brightened into merry laughter at her own folly, and it called from her
many entertaining remarks, so Ulick was tempted to set them one against
the other, and to do so he had only to ask if Evelyn could sing such
light soprano parts as Zerlina or Rosetta as well as her mother.
In the mornings Evelyn and Ulick lingered in the shade of the chestnut
trees or loitered in the lanes. At one moment they were telling each
other of the fatality of their passion; in the next, by some transition
of which they were not aware, they found themselves discussing some
musical question. They went for long drives; and Richmond Park, not more
than eight or ten miles distant, was at this season a beautiful,
plaintive languor. There was a strange stillness in the air and a tender
bloom upon the blue sky which spoke to the heart as no words, as only
music could. The shadows moved listlessly among the bracken, and every
vista was an enticement. Soft rain had allayed the dust of the road, and
the distant hillsides seemed in the morning mists extraordinarily blue
and romantic. There were wide prospects suggesting some great domain,
and about the large oaks which stood in these open spaces herds of deer
browsed, themselves the colour of the approaching month. About a sudden
hillside, brilliantly blue, the evanescent mist hung over the heavy
fronds, going out in the sunlight that was breaking through a grey sky.
Ulick exclaimed, "How beautiful," and at the same moment Evelyn said,
"Look at the deer, they are going to jump the railings." But the deer
ran underneath, and galloped down the sloping park between a line of
massive oaks; and the white and the tan hinds and fawns expressed in
their life and beauty something which thrilled in the heart, and
perforce Evelyn and Ulick remained silent. The park was wreathed that
morning in sunlight and mist, it seemed to invite confidences, and the
lovers dreamed of a perfect union of soul. The carriage was told to wait
for them, and they took a path leading under a long line of trees toward
high ground. Carts had passed there, and the ruts were full of water,
but the earth about them was a little crisp, as if there had been frost
during the night. They had brought with them a score of "Parsifal," for
it was not yet certain that Evelyn would not play the part of Kundry.
Notwithstanding Ulick's criticism, she thought she would like to act in
the third act. But they were too interested in each other to open the
score, and they were excited by the wonder of Nature in the still
morning. The sky was all silver, and a very little distance bathed the
hillsides in beautiful blue tones. The leaves of the oak trees hung
languidly, as if considering the lowly earth to which they must soon
return. Yet the blood was hot and the nerves were highly strung, and
life seemed capable of great things in this moody, contemplative
morning. There was a wonder in the little wren that picked her way among
the fronds, and a thrill in the scurry of the watchful rabbit; and when
they reached the crest of the upland and saw an open expanse of park,
with the deer moving away through the mist, their souls dilated, and in
happy ecstasy they looked upon Nature with the same innocent wonderment
as the first man and woman.
The morning seemed to inspire adventure, and the little tale that Evelyn
was telling was just what was required to enhance its suggestion. By
some accident in the conversation she had been led to speak of how she
had been nearly captured by pirates in the Mediterranean. They were
becalmed off the African coast, and a boat had rowed out with fruits and
vegetables. The suspicious countenances of this boat's crew did not
strike them at the time. But they were a reconnoitring party, and next
day about four in the afternoon they noticed a vessel propelled by sails
and oars steering straight for them, as if in the intention of running
them down. It paid no attention to the cries of the captain, but came
straight at them, and would have succeeded in its design if the yacht
had not been going through the water faster than the pirates supposed,
so they fell astern, and no one thought any more of them till they
tacked, and they had almost overtaken the yacht, they were hardly
distant more than fifty yards, when their intention was suspected. The
captain put the _Medusa's_ head up to the wind, and she soon began to
leave her pursuer behind.
"We had no arms on board, they were fifty to twenty; the men would have
been massacred, and I should have finished my days in a harem."
Ulick had brought his violin with him, and they walked under the
drooping boughs, she singing and he playing old-world melodies by Lulli
and Rameau. Sometimes a passer-by stopped, and peering through,
discovered them in a hollow sitting under an oak. A snake crawled out of
its hole, and Ulick was about to rush forward to kill it, but Evelyn
laid her hand upon his, and said--
"Let it listen, poor thing. No living thing should meet its death for
its love of music."
"You're no longer the Evelyn Innes that loved Owen Asher."
"I think I have changed a great deal. I was very young when I knew him
first."
She spoke of the influence he had exercised over her, but now his ideas
meant as little as he did himself--it was all far away. Only a little
trick of speech and a turn of phrase remained to recall his passage
through her life. When they returned home she found a letter from him on
the table, and her face clouded as she read his letter, for it announced
an intention to call when he came to town, and to avoid his visit she
thought she would stop in Dulwich. But if she stayed over Saturday, she
would have to go to Mass on Sunday. Last Sunday she escaped by pleading
indisposition. She wondered which she would prefer, to face Owen or to
brave the effect that she knew Mass would produce upon her.