Vera told her husband that she did not mind solitude; yet it was a face
of ashen whiteness that he left behind when he shut the door of her
dressing-room, after his hurried and cheerful good-bye on the first day
of the Goodwood meeting.
He was driving his sixty horse-power Daimler to Goodwood, steering for
himself, while the chauffeur sat behind ready for road repairs, or to
give a hand in carrying a corpse to the nearest hospital.
The speed limit was naturally disregarded, as the thing that Claude
wanted was excitement, the hazards of the road as they sped past hamlet
and farm, followed by the long, white dust-cloud that flashed across
the landscape like the fiery tail of a comet, while startled villagers
gaped, and wondered if a car had passed. Peril was the zest that made
the journey worth doing: to feel that his hand upon the wheel held life
at his disposal, and that any awkward turn in the road might bring him
sudden death.
He was gone, and Vera was alone in the gloomy London house--so much
more gloomy than the vast halls and galleries of the Roman villa,
where colossal windows let in vast spaces of blue sky. Here the
heavily-draped sashes admitted only a slit of sunshine, tempered by
London smoke.
She was alone, but she told herself that solitude did not matter. It
was not solitude that weighed upon her spirits as she roamed from room
to room in the emptiness and silence. It was the sense of _not_ being
alone that weighed upon her. It was the consciousness of a silent
presence--the invisible third who had come between her and her husband
of late--who had come back into her life. In the noontide of her love,
while passion reigned supreme, and the man she loved filled her world,
the shadow had been lifted from her path. She had seen all old things
dimly--dazzled by the glory of her life's sun. She had remembered
nothing, except her childish bliss with the boy who was to be her fate.
Her life began and ended in her husband; as it had begun and ended
in Claude Rutherford when he was only her friend and companion, the
light-hearted companion, whose presence meant happiness.
In the first two years of her second marriage she had been completely
absorbed in that transcendent love, and in the ceaseless round of
pleasures and excitements that her husband contrived for her, filling
her days and nights with emotional moments, with little social triumphs
and trivial ambitions.
Satiety came in an hour--or it may be that it came so slowly and so
gradually that there was an hour when Vera awoke to the consciousness
that she was tired of everything, that the earth with all its changing
loveliness, its surprises of mountain and lake, wood and river,
was but a sterile promontory, and the blue vault above Como only a
pestilent congregation of vapours. The suddenness of the revelation was
startling; but the not uncommon malady that afflicted the Prince of
Denmark had been eating her heart for a long time before she was aware
of its hold upon her. And with the coming of satiety, the distaste
for amusement, the distrust of love, came the shadow. Memory that had
been lulled asleep by the magic philtre of passion, awakened and was
alive again. She roamed the great, silent house, haunting with a morbid
preference those rooms that were particularly associated with the dead
man, that range of spacious rooms on the ground floor where nothing had
been altered since Mario Provana lived in them: his library, and the
severe, official-looking sitting-room adjoining, where he was often
closeted with his partners and allies, his head clerks and managers,
his business visitors from Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Madrid, New York.
When the drawing-rooms had been transformed by a gayer style of
decoration, more in harmony with Vera's frivolous entertainments,
Claude had been urgent that these ground-floor rooms should be
refurnished, and every trace of their severe, business-like aspect done
away with and even certain priceless old masters that Provana had been
proud of despatched with ruthless haste to Christie's sale room; but to
his astonishment Vera had told him that nothing was to be changed in
the rooms her husband had occupied--that all things touched or valued
by him were to be sacred.
For this reason, while approving Claude's plan of colour for the walls
and draperies and carpets in the drawing-rooms, she had insisted upon
retaining the Italian cabinets of ebony and ivory, and the Florentine
mosaic tables, the things that had been collected all over Italy a
century ago, in the beginning of the Provana riches.
And now, solitary and dejected, she moved restlessly from room to
room. Sometimes standing before one of the bookcases in the library,
looking along the titles of books that she had learnt to love, in those
far-off days before she had been launched by the Disbrowes--a frail
cockle-shell, spinning round and round in the Society whirlpool--while
she and her husband were still unfashionable enough to sit together
in the autumn twilight, or to spend _tête-à-tête_ evenings in this
solemn-looking room. His mind was with her there to-day, in the July
sunshine, as it had been in those evenings of the past, while he was
a living man. His remembered speech was in her ears to-day, grave and
earnest, telling her the things she loved to hear, widening her view of
life, opening the gate to new knowledge, the knowledge of authors she
had never heard of, the story of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and
poets, whose names had been only names till he made them living people,
people to be admired and loved. He had taught her to comprehend and
love Dante to appreciate the verse of Carducci, the prose of Manzoni.
He had taught her to revere Cavour, to adore St. Francis of Assisi,
to weep for Savonarola and Giordano Bruno. He had made Italy a land
of genius and valour, a land alive from the Alps to the Adriatic with
heroic memories. He had made her know and love the history of his
country, almost as he himself loved it.
And now his spirit filled the room in which the man had lived. His
shadow had come into the house that had been his, and had taken
possession of the place and of the atmosphere. Whatever might still
remain of the undisciplined love, the passion of unreasoning youth,
that she had given to her second husband, she could never again release
herself from that first marriage tie. It was the bond of death.
She went into the dining-room when luncheon was announced, carrying
a volume of Browning, and made some pretence of eating, with the book
open by the side of her plate, a proceeding upon which the butler
expatiated somewhat severely that afternoon as he lingered over tea in
the housekeeper's comfortable parlour.
"I don't know what's come over the Missus," he said, as he took an
unwelcome "stranger" out of his second cup, and parenthetically, "This
tea isn't what it was, Mrs. Manby. She don't eat enough for a tomtit,
let alone a sparrow--and she's falling back into that dreamy way she
was in when Provana was in America, and for a long time before that,
as you may remember; that time when it was always not at home to Mr.
Rutherford."
"She was trying to break with him," said Mrs. Manby. "I give her credit
for that."
"So you may, but that kind of trying was never known to answer, when
once they've begun to carry on," remarked Mr. Sedgewick; "I've watched
too many such cases not to know the inevitability of them," he added,
having picked up the modern jargon, more or less incorrectly.
* * * * *
The long day wore on to the melancholy twilight, and Vera was dreading
the appearance of her maid to remind her that it was time to dress
for her solitary dinner. She had talked lightly of having Lady Susan
at her disposal, but she knew that her friend was at that very hour
contributing to the vivacity of one of the smartest of the Goodwood
house-parties, and would be so engaged till the end of the week. She
had thought, in her weariness of the mill-round, that solitude would be
better than the Society that had long become distasteful; but she found
that, in the melancholy hour between dog and wolf, the shadows in a
London house were full of fear, vague and shapeless fear, an oppression
that had neither form nor name, and that was infinitely worse than any
materialisation. She was standing by the window in her morning-room
looking down into the grey emptiness of the wide carriage way, where
no carriages were passing, and on pavements where unfashionable
pedestrians were moving quickly through a drizzling rain, when a
servant announced Father Hammond.
"Can you forgive me for calling at such an unorthodox time? I happened
to be passing your door, and as I have called several times at the
right hour and not found you, I thought I would try the wrong hour."
"No hour can be wrong that brings you," she said in a low voice, as
she gave him her hand; and the words sounded more sincere than such
speeches usually are.
"I am glad to hear you say as much, and I believe you. In the whirlpool
of frivolity a few serious moments may have the charm of contrast."
"I have done with the whirlpool."
"Tired of it? After only three years? There are some of my flock who
have been going round in the same witches' dance for a quarter of a
century, and are still in the crowd on the Brocken. I can but think you
have made the pace too fast since your second marriage, or perhaps it
is your husband who has made the pace."
"You must not think that. We both like the same things. We are
companions now as we were when I was a child at Disbrowe Park, and when
we were so happy together."
Her eyes filled with tears. Oh, how far away that time of innocent
gladness seemed, as she looked back! What an abyss yawned between then
and now.
"I have distressed you," the priest said gently, taking her hand.
"No, no, but it is always painful to look back."
Father Hammond drew her towards the sofa by the open window, and seated
himself at her side.
"Let us have a real friendly talk now I have been so lucky as to find
you alone," he said. "I am glad--very glad--that you are tired of the
whirlpool, for to be tired of a bad kind of life is the beginning
of a better kind of life. You know what I think of modern Society,
especially in its feminine aspect, and how I have grieved over the
women who were made for better things than the witches' dance. We have
talked of these things in your first husband's lifetime, but then
I thought you were taking your frivolous pleasures with a careless
indifference that showed your heart was not engaged in them, and that
you had a mind for higher things. Even your dabbling with Mr. Symeon's
quasi-supernatural philosophy was a sign of superiority. His disciples
are not the basest or most empty-headed among worldlings, though they
keep touch with the world. In those days you know I had hopes of you,
but since you have been Claude Rutherford's wife, I have seen you
given up to an insatiate love of pleasure, a headlong pursuit of every
new thing, the more extravagant and the more dangerous the more hotly
pursued by you and your husband; so that it has become a byword, 'If
the thing is to cost a fortune, and to risk a life, the Rutherfords
will be in it.'"
"Claude is impetuous, easily caught by novelty," she said
deprecatingly, with lowered eyelids.
"He was not always so impetuous, rather a loiterer, indifferent to all
strenuous pleasures, delighting in all that is best in literature,
and worshipping all that is best in art, though too idle to achieve
excellence even in the art he loved. But since his marriage--and
forgive me if I say since his command of your wealth--he has changed
and degenerated."
"You are not complimentary to his wife," Vera said, with a faint laugh.
"I am too much in earnest to be polite, but it is not your influence
that has done harm, it is your money--that fatal gold which has changed
the whole aspect of Society within the last thirty years, a change
that will continue from bad to worse as long as diamond mines and gold
mines are productive, and the inheritors of great names can smile at
the vulgarity of millionaires who 'do them well' and will give the open
hand of friendship to a host who to-morrow may be branded as a thief
What does it matter, if the thief has bought Lord Somebody's estate,
and shooting that is among the best in England?"
"Well, it is all done with now, as far as I am concerned," Vera said
wearily. "I used to go everywhere Claude liked to go. People laughed
at us for being inseparable; but I am sick to death of it all, and now
he must go to the fine houses alone. No doubt he will be all the more
welcome."
"Perhaps; but I did not come to talk of trivialities or to echo
hackneyed diatribes against a state of things so corrupt and evil that
its vices have become the staple of every preacher's discourses, cleric
or layman. I want to talk about you and your husband, not about the
world you live in. Since you have done with the whirlpool, there is
nothing to keep you from better influences. Will you let mine be the
hand to lead you along the passive way of light and love, the way that
leads to pardon and peace?"
Vera turned from him, trying to hide her agitation, but the feelings he
had awakened were too strong, and she let her head fall upon the arm of
the sofa, and gave herself up to a passion of tears.
"Pardon?" she gasped, amidst her sobs; "you know I need pardon?"
"We all need pity and pardon. No man's life is spotless, and the life
you and Claude have been living is a life of sin--aimless, sensual,
godless. I have had a wide experience of men, I have known the best and
the worst, and have seen the strange transmutations that may take place
in a man, under certain influences--how the sinner may become a saint,
and the saint fall into an abyss of sin--but I have never seen changes
so sudden and so inexplicable as those I have seen in your husband,
whom I have known, and I think I may say I have loved, from the time
when he began to have a will and a mind."
"I hope you do not blame me for his having left the monastery and come
back to the world."
"How can I blame you when his mother was the active agent? She is a
good woman, though a weak one, where her affections are engaged. She
was perfectly frank with me. She told me how you had refused to use
your influence to keep her son in the world, and she loved you because
she thought it was his love for you that made him abandon his purpose.
She rejoiced in his marriage, but I doubt if she has been any more
edified than I have been in watching the life you and her son have
been leading since then. No, I do not blame you for Claude's sudden
breakdown, but I deeply deplore that he should have turned back, since
I know that his resolution to have done with the world was a right
one--astounding as it seemed to me when I first heard of it. I urged
him against a step for which I thought him utterly unprepared. I did
not believe in his vocation, but after-consideration made me take a
different view of his case. I knew that such a man would never have
contemplated such a renunciation without so strong a reason that it was
my duty to encourage him in his sacrifice of the world rather than to
hold him back. I will say something more than this, Mrs. Rutherford,
I will tell you that if it was to make his peace with God that your
husband entered the Roman monastery, he lost all hope of peace when he
left it, and he will never know rest for his heart and his conscience
until he returns to the path that leads to the cloister."
"Claude is happy enough," Vera answered lightly. "He has so many
occupations and interests. He is not as tired of things as I am. But no
doubt I shall have to go on giving parties now and then, on Claude's
account. He is not tired of the maelstrom, and it would not please him
for me to drop out altogether, and to be talked about as eccentric, or
'not quite right.'"
She spoke with a weariness that moved the priest to pity. And then he
spoke to her--as he had sometimes spoken in the past--words that were
profoundly earnest, even eloquent, for what highly-educated man, or
even what uneducated man, can miss being eloquent when his faith is
deeply rooted and sincere, and his feelings are strongly moved?
He offered her the shelter of the Church, the only armour of defence
against the weariness and wickedness of life. He would have led her
in the passive way of light and love. He offered her the only certain
cure for that _Welt-Schmerz_ of which her husband had complained when
he wanted to end his life in a cloister. He had pleaded with her before
to-day, had tried to win her, years ago, when the pleasures of life had
still something of their first freshness. He had tried vainly then,
and his efforts were as vain now. She answered him coldly, almost
mechanically. Yes; it was true that she was tired of everything, as
Claude had been years ago, before their marriage, as he would be again
perhaps by and by. But the Church could not help her. If she were to
become a Roman Catholic it would only be in order to escape from the
world--to do as Claude had wished to do, and make an end of a life that
had lost all savour. But until she was prepared to take the veil she
would remain as she was--a believer, but not in formulas--a believer,
in the after-life and in the influencing minds, the purified souls that
had crossed the river.
"I see you prefer Mr. Symeon's religion of the day before yesterday to
that of the saints and martyrs of two thousand years," Cyprian Hammond
said in his coldest tones, as he rose to leave her. "You are as dark a
mystery as your husband is. God help you both, for I fear I cannot."
The grey darkness of a wet summer night was in the room as Vera rose to
ring the bell and switch on the lamps. The clear white light showed her
face drawn and pale, but very calm.
She held out both her hands to the priest.
"Forgive me," she said; "the day may come when I shall ask you to open
the convent door for me; but I am not ready yet."