ON THE EVE OF A CHANGE
IRIS returned to Louvain by way of Paris. She had to settle up with the
doctor.
He obeyed her summons and called upon her at the hotel.
"Well, my lady," he began in his gross voice, rubbing his hands and
laughing, "it has come off, after all; hasn't it?"
"I do not desire, Dr. Vimpany, to discuss anything with you. We will
proceed to settle what business we have together."
"To think that your ladyship should actually fall in!" he replied. "Now
I confess that this was to me the really difficult part of the job. It
is quite easy to pretend that a man is dead, but not so easy to touch
his money. I really do not see how we could have managed at all without
your co-operation. Well, you've had no difficulty, of course?"
"None at all."
"I am to have half."
"I am instructed to give you two thousand pounds. I have the money here
for you."
"I hope you consider that I deserve this share?"
"I think, Dr. Vimpany, that whatever you get in the future or the
present you will richly deserve. You have dragged a man down to your
own level--"
"And a woman too."
"A woman too. Your reward will come, I doubt not."
"If it always takes the form of bank-notes I care not how great the
reward may be. You will doubtless, as a good Christian, expect your own
reward--for him and for you?"
"I have mine already," she replied sadly. "Now, Dr. Vimpany, let me pay
you, and get rid of your company."
He counted the money carefully and put it in the banker's bag in his
coat-pocket. "Thank you, my lady. We have exchanged compliments enough
over this job."
"I hope--I pray--that we may never set eyes on you again."
"I cannot say. People run up against each other in the strangest
manner, especially people who've done shady things and have got to keep
in the background."
"Enough!--enough!"
"The background of the world is a very odd place, I assure you. It is
full of interesting people. The society has a piquancy which you will
find, I hope, quite charming. You will be known by another name, of
course?"
"I shall not tell you by what name--"
"Tut--tut! I shall soon find out. The background gets narrower when you
fall into misery."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Lady Harry, that your husband has no idea whatever as to the
value of money. The two thousand that you are taking him will vanish in
a year or two. What will you do then? As for myself, I know the value
of money so well that I am always buying the most precious and
delightful things with it. I enjoy them immensely. Never any man
enjoyed good things so much as I do. But the delightful things cost
money. Let us be under no illusions. Your ladyship and your noble
husband and I all belong to the background; and in a year or two we
shall belong to the needy background. I daresay that very soon after
that the world will learn that we all belong to the criminal
background. I wish your ladyship a joyful reunion with your husband!"
He withdrew, and Iris set eyes on him no more. But the prophecy with
which he departed remained with her, and it was with a heart foreboding
fresh sorrows that she left Paris and started for Louvain.
Here began the new life--that of concealment and false pretence. Iris
put off her weeds, but she never ventured abroad without a thick veil.
Her husband, discovering that English visitors sometimes ran over from
Brussels to see the Hotel de Ville, never ventured out at all till
evening. They had no friends and no society of any kind.
The house, which stood secluded behind a high wall in its garden, was
in the quietest part of this quiet old city; no sound of life and work
reached it; the pair who lived there seldom spoke to each other. Except
at the midday breakfast and the dinner they did not meet. Iris sat in
her own room, silent; Lord Harry sat in his, or paced the garden walks
for hours.
Thus the days went on monotonously. The clock ticked; the hours struck;
they took meals; they slept; they rose and dressed; they took meals
again--this was all their life. This was all that they could expect for
the future.
The weeks went on. For three months Iris endured this life. No news
came to her from the outer world; her husband had even forgotten the
first necessary of modern life--the newspaper. It was not the ideal
life of love, apart from the world, where the two make for themselves a
Garden of Eden; it was a prison, in which two were confined together
who were kept apart by their guilty secret.
They ceased altogether to speak; their very meals were taken in
silence. The husband saw continual reproach in his wife's eyes; her sad
and heavy look spoke more plainly than any words, "It is to this that
you have brought me."
One morning Iris was idly turning over the papers in her desk. There
were old letters, old photographs, all kinds of trifling treasures that
reminded her of the past--a woman keeps everything; the little
mementoes of her childhood, her first governess, her first school, her
school friendships--everything. As Iris turned over these things her
mind wandered back to the old days. She became again a young
girl--innocent, fancy free; she grew up--she was a woman innocent
still. Then her mind jumped at one leap to the present, and she saw
herself as she was--innocent no longer, degraded and guilty, the vile
accomplice of a vile conspiracy.
Then, as one who has been wearing coloured glasses puts them off and
sees things in their own true colours, she saw how she had been pulled
down by a blind infatuation to the level of the man who had held her in
his fascination; she saw him as he was--reckless, unstable, careless of
name and honour. Then for the first time she realised the depths into
which she was plunged and the life which she was henceforth doomed to
lead. The blind love fell from her--it was dead at last; but it left
her bound to the man by a chain which nothing could break; she was in
her right senses; she saw things as they were; but the knowledge came
too late.
Her husband made no attempt to bridge over the estrangement which had
thus grown up between them: it became wider every day; he lived apart
and alone; he sat in his own room, smoking more cigars, drinking more
brandy-and-water than was good for him; sometimes he paced the gravel
walks in the garden; in the evening, after dinner, he went out and
walked about the empty streets of the quiet city. Once or twice he
ventured into a cafe, sitting in a corner, his hat drawn over his eyes;
but that was dangerous. For the most part he kept in the streets, and
he spoke to no one.
Meantime the autumn had given place to winter, which began in wet and
dreary fashion. Day and night the rain fell, making the gravel walks
too wet and the streets impossible. Then Lord Harry sat in his room and
smoked all day long. And still the melancholy of the one increased, and
the boredom of the other.
He spoke at last. It was after breakfast.
"Iris," he said, "how long is this to continue?"
"This--what?"
"This life--this miserable solitude and silence."
"Till we die," she replied. "What else do you expect? You have sold our
freedom, and we must pay the price."
"No; it shall end. I will end it. I can endure it no longer."
"You are still young. You will perhaps have forty years more to
live--all like this--as dull and empty. It is the price we must pay."
"No," he repeated, "it shall end. I swear that I will go on like this
no longer."
"You had better go to London and walk in Piccadilly to get a little
society."
"What do you care what I do or where I go?"
"We will not reproach each other, Harry."
"Why--what else do you do all day long but reproach me with your gloomy
looks and your silence?"
"Well--end it if you can. Find some change in the life."
"Be gracious for a little, and listen to my plan. I have made a plan.
Listen, Iris. I can no longer endure this life. It drives me mad."
"And me too. That is one reason why we should not desire to change it.
Mad people forget. They think they are somewhere else. For us to
believe that we were somewhere else would be in itself happiness."
"I am resolved to change it--to change it, I say--at any risk. We will
leave Louvain."
"We can, I dare say," Iris replied coldly, "find another town, French
or Belgian, where we can get another cottage, behind high walls in a
garden, and hide there."
"No. I will hide no longer. I am sick of hiding."
"Go on. What is your plan? Am I to pretend to be some one else's
widow?"
"We will go to America. There are heaps of places in the States where
no English people ever go---neither tourists nor settlers--places where
they have certainly never heard of us. We will find some quiet village,
buy a small farm, and settle among the people. I know something about
farming. We need not trouble to make the thing pay. And we will go back
to mankind again. Perhaps, Iris--when we have gone back to the
world--you will--" he hesitated--"you will be able to forgive me, and
to regard me again with your old thoughts. It was done for your sake."
"It was not done for my sake. Do not repeat that falsehood. The old
thoughts will never come back, Harry. They are dead and gone. I have
ceased to respect you or myself. Love cannot survive the loss of
self-respect. Who am I that I should give love to anybody? Who are you
that you should expect love?"
"Will you go with me to America--love or no love? I cannot stay here--I
will not stay here."
"I will go with you wherever you please. I should like not to run
risks. There are still people whom it would pain to see Iris Henley
tried and found guilty with two others on a charge of fraudulent
conspiracy."
"I wouldn't accustom myself, if I were you, Iris, to speak of things
too plainly. Leave the thing to me and I will arrange it. See now, we
will travel by a night train from Brussels to Calais. We will take the
cross-country line from Amiens to Havre; there we will take boat for
New York--no English people ever travel by the Havre line. Once in
America we will push up country--to Kentucky or somewhere--and find
that quiet country place: after that I ask no more. I will settle down
for the rest of my life, and have no more adventures. Do you agree,
Iris?"
"I will do anything that you wish," she replied coldly.
"Very well. Let us lose no time. I feel choked here. Will you go into
Brussels and buy a Continental Bradshaw or a Baedeker, or something
that will tell us the times of sailing, the cost of passage, and all
the rest of it? We will take with us money to start us with: you will
have to write to your bankers. We can easily arrange to have the money
sent to New York, and it can be invested there--except your own
fortune--in my new name. We shall want no outfit for a fortnight at
sea. I have arranged it all beautifully. Child, look like your old
self." He took an unresisting hand. "I want to see you smile and look
happy again."
"You never will."
"Yes--when we have got ourselves out of this damnable, unwholesome way
of life; when we are with our fellow-creatures again. You will forget
this--this little business--which was, you know, after all, an unhappy
necessity."
"Oh! how can I ever forget?"
"New interests will arise; new friendships will be formed--"
"Harry, it is myself that I cannot forgive. Teach me to forgive myself,
and I will forget everything."
He pressed her no longer.
"Well, then," he said, "go to Brussels and get this information. If you
will not try to conquer this absurd moral sensitiveness--which comes
too late--you will at least enable me to place you in a healthier
atmosphere."
"I will go at once," she said, "I will go by the next train."
"There is a train at a quarter to two. You can do all you have to do
and catch the train at five. Iris"--the chance of a change made him
impatient--"let us go to-morrow. Let us go by the night express. There
will be English travellers, but they shall not recognise me. We shall
be in Calais at one in the morning. We will go on by an early train
before the English steamer comes in. Will you be ready?"
"Yes; there is nothing to delay me. I suppose we can leave the house by
paying the rent? I will go and do what you want."
"Let us go this very night."
"If you please; I am always ready."
"No: there will be no time; it will look like running away. We will go
to-morrow night. Besides, you would be too tired after going to
Brussels and back. Iris, we are going to be happy again--I am sure we
are." He, for one, looked as if there was nothing to prevent a return
of happiness. He laughed and waved his hands. "A new sky---new
scenes--new work--you will be happy again, Iris. You shall go, dear.
Get me the things I want."
She put on her thick veil and started on her short journey. The
husband's sudden return to his former good spirits gave her a gleam of
hope. The change would be welcome indeed if it permitted him to go
about among other men, and to her if it gave her occupation. As to
forgetting--how could she forget the past, so long as they were reaping
the fruit of their wickedness in the shape of solid dividends? She
easily found what she wanted. The steamer of the Compagnie Generale
Transatlantique left Havre every eighth day. They would go by that
line. The more she considered the plan the more it recommended itself.
They would at any rate go out of prison. There would be a change in
their life. Miserable condition! To have no other choice of life but
that of banishment and concealment: no other prospect than that of
continual fraud renewed by every post that brought them money.
When she had got all the information that was wanted she had still an
hour or two before her. She thought she would spend the time wandering
about the streets of Brussels. The animation and life of the cheerful
city--where all the people except the market-women are young--pleased
her. It was long since she had seen any of the cheerfulness that
belongs to a busy street. She walked slowly along, up one street and
down another, looking into the shops. She made two or three little
purchases. She looked into a place filled with Tauchnitz Editions, and
bought two or three books. She was beginning to think that she was
tired and had better make her way back to the station, when suddenly
she remembered the post-office and her instructions to Fanny Mere.
"I wonder," she said, "if Fanny has written to me."
She asked the way to the post-office. There was time if she walked
quickly.
At the Poste Restante there was a letter for her--more than a letter, a
parcel, apparently a book.
She received it and hurried back to the station.
In the train she amused herself with looking through the leaves of her
new books. Fanny Mere's letter she would read after dinner.
At dinner they actually talked. Lord Harry was excited with the
prospect of going back to the world. He had enjoyed his hermitage, he
said, quite long enough. Give him the society of his fellow-creatures.
"Put me among cannibals," he said, "and I should make friends with
them. But to live alone--it is the devil! To-morrow we begin our new
flight."
After dinner he lit his cigar, and went on chattering about the future.
Iris remembered the packet she had got at the post-office, and opened
it. It contained a small manuscript book filled with writing and a
brief letter. She read the letter, laid it down, and opened the book.