Bainbridge escorted his family to the Sinclairs' house that evening. It
was entirely a family gathering. Sinclair's sister and her husband were
present, beside his wife's relations; there were no other guests. Jim
Bainbridge, when he kissed his sister-in-law, had an odd feeling that
there was another uninvited guest there, a hovering presence of which he
alone was aware. This sinister, lurking shadow stood between Esme and
the man who, all unconscious of the danger which threatened his
happiness, welcomed his wife's relations with frank cordiality.
Bainbridge wrung his hand hard on an impulse of genuine sympathy. He
liked George. It distressed him to think of the blow which might fall
at any moment. The calm happiness of Esme's face, George's genial
smile, arrested his attention, played on his imagination to an unusual
degree. It was not his wont to notice such things; but to-night he was
stirred out of his phlegmatic indifference to a very vivid and human
interest in the concerns of these people, whose lives were overshadowed
by a tremendous crisis.
The references to the baby, the laughing congratulations of the guests,
jarred on his nerves. He refrained from any mention of the child. And
at dinner, when Georgina's health was drunk in champagne, he alone
ignored the toast. For the life of him, he could not have joined in the
farce of the general rejoicing. Later, in the drawing-room, Esme sat
down beside him and rallied him on his preoccupation.
"You are bored, Jim," she said. "I believe you are longing to be home
and in bed."
"No. But I've got the toothache," he lied.
"Poor old dear! I'm sorry. Come upstairs and have a peep at the babe
asleep. She looks such a duck in her cot."
He followed her from the room and upstairs to the nursery. There was a
nurse in charge, but she withdrew when they entered, to Jim Bainbridge's
infinite relief. Esme pulled aside the mosquito net and bent over the
cot. Her eyes, the man observed, were soft with mother-love as she
leaned down towards the sleeping child. He did not look at the child;
he was intent upon her.
"Isn't she sweet?" she said, and glanced up at him, smiling.
His own face was grave, even stern in expression. He was watching her
attentively, wondering about her, wondering how the news of Paul's
return would affect her when she knew.
"I believe you care more for that kid than you do for--any one," he said
gruffly. "If you could go back... If it were possible, say, to begin
again--with Paul... Would you be willing to give up the kid--for him?"
Abruptly she straightened herself and stood beside the cot, holding the
mosquito net in her hand, and looking at him fixedly with an air of
troubled surprise.
"Jim," she said, and her face saddened, "what put it into your mind to
ask me that question? One can never go back. I wish you hadn't said
that--to-night. What brought that idea into your mind?"
"I don't know."
He fidgeted nervously with his collar and avoided her gaze. She was
looking at him with a puzzled, questioning expression in her eyes, with
no suspicion of his purpose in mentioning Paul's name, but struck by the
coincidence that Paul should be in his thoughts, even as he was in hers.
"It's strange you should have said that," she continued. "Lately I have
been dreaming of Paul. I dream of him nearly every night."
"Dream of him!" he echoed blankly. "Do you mean that you dream that
he's alive?"
"I dream that I see him looking at me," she answered. "He looks into my
eyes and turns away; and then I wake and lie in the darkness, trembling.
The dream is always the same."
"I say! that's queer," he said, staring at her, as earlier in the day he
had stared at Hallam, as if he saw a ghost. These things were making
him superstitious. "What should make you do that, I wonder?"
"Who can say? It's a matter of nerves, I suppose." She dropped the net
she was holding and put a hand on his arm and drew him towards the door.
"Come along down, old thing," she said. "We are not good company for
one another to-night. For your toothache, and my heartache, we must
seek an anodyne in the society of the others."
But for Bainbridge's imaginary toothache there was no effective anodyne:
the complexities of the situation were altogether beyond his efforts at
elucidation. There was nothing for it but to stand by and wait for the
blow to fall.
He sat on the stoep and talked with Lake, George's brother-in-law, about
the native labour unrest, and the advisability of adopting strong
measures in quelling the agitation.
"This native question is going to be a big problem in the near future,"
Lake opined. "We give the coloured man too much power."
"What other course is possible with a civilised system of government?"
Bainbridge contended.
"But the coloured man isn't properly civilised," Lake insisted; "that's
the point. He hasn't grasped the rudiments of citizenship yet."
"Well, we've got to teach him. He's learning."
Bainbridge's mood forced him into a reluctant opposition. He was not in
sympathy with the coloured man, but he took up his defence warmly. He
and Lake plunged into argument; while in the room behind them Mary sang
in a fresh, sweet soprano voice to Esme's accompaniment, and the rest
sat about and listened and joined in the popular choruses.
And, a few miles away, walking along the shore in the darkness, a man,
alone and with a mind black with despair, thought of the wife he had
come back to claim, and of a child which was not his...
Book 4--CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.
Throughout that night Hallam tramped along the shore, struck inland,
came back to the sea, retraced his steps over the same ground; walking
with tireless energy while he considered the position, so hopelessly
complicated by the birth of the child.
His feeling for Esme oscillated between love and hate. He thought of
her as his dear wife, and wanted her urgently; again he thought of her
as the mother of Sinclair's child, and his heart turned from her, grew
hard with bitter jealousy and revulsion. The thought of the child
infuriated him--the child who stood between him and the woman whom he
loved and who belonged to him. She was his wife; he could claim her.
But would she give up the baby for him? Would she forsake all the new
love which had come into her life for the sake of the old love, so
unexpectedly come back to her, almost like a gift from the grave? He
could not tell. Intimately as he knew her nature, confident in his
assurance that the best of her love had been given to him, there was yet
a side of her character with which he was wholly unfamiliar, the
maternal side. He had no means of judging how far her motherhood would
influence her. That the maternal instinct was deep-rooted with her he
knew; that much she had revealed to him during their married life. She
had hungered for a child...
He stood still on the sands, looking seaward, with hands clasped behind
him, his shoulders bent. He became suddenly conscious of great physical
fatigue. He had walked far and for many hours--walked, as he had been
thinking, in a circle which brought him back to the starting point, no
whit further advanced towards the solving of the problem which harassed
his mind, and which, on setting forth, he had determined to solve before
another dawn broke. And already the first sign of dawn showed in the
pallid skyline where it touched the sea. The feel of the air was fresh
and pure; it followed upon the hot darkness of the passing night like a
revivifying breath. Hallam felt its coolness on his forehead and lifted
his face to meet it, and beheld the stars glowing fainter, and the
darkness yielding reluctantly to the grey of the creeping dawn.
Another day was advancing upon him, another day of perplexity and doubt
and bitter torment; creeping upon him like a cold shadow out of the
darker shadows, bringing with it no hope, only a deeper sense of
despair.
What ought he to do?
Was it clearly his duty, as Bainbridge had sought to indicate, to leave
Esme in the undisturbed belief in his death and in her false position as
George Sinclair's wife? That course raised so many points, legal and
ethical, which made its adoption difficult, if not impossible. There
was the question of income. Why should his income, as well as his wife,
be enjoyed by the man who, even though unwittingly, had nevertheless
robbed him of everything? There was the other resource of collusive
divorce. But that was only practicable by agreement, which would
involve the disturbing of Esme's peace of mind, and invest her with the
responsibility of decision. There was the third course of claiming her
as his wife. Here again the difficulty of the child obtruded itself, an
insuperable barrier to the happiness of all concerned. He wanted his
wife, but he did not want the child; on that point he was firmly
resolved. It was the one point in the series of complications upon
which he entertained no doubt. The child was not his; he had no thought
of adopting it as his: he was jealous of it, more jealous of it than he
was of Sinclair. Its very helplessness made it a tremendous factor in
the case.
He wondered dully how Esme, when she learned of it, would receive the
news of his return? Judged by ordinary standpoints, his manner of
leaving her, of allowing her to remain uninformed as to his whereabouts,
was unpardonable. Practically it amounted to desertion, as Bainbridge
said. But his mental condition at the time he left his home was
responsible for his amazing conduct. The voyage to England had been
undertaken for the purpose of regaining strength, of regaining control
of his nerves; the rest had been due to the unfortunate accident of
circumstances: it might have happened to any one; it had happened to
other men. Plenty of fellows reported missing had turned up again. He
wondered whether any man, beside himself, had returned to his home to
find his wife married again? And, if so, how he had acted? No
precedent could have aided him in his dilemma; each case called for
individual action which must be governed largely by circumstances. The
big stumbling block in his own case was the child. Everything worked
round to that one point and stuck there; it formed a cul-de-sac to every
line of thought.
Wearily Hallam returned to his hotel and went to bed and fell into the
heavy, unrefreshing sleep of physical and mental exhaustion.
Later in the day he went again to Jim Bainbridge's office. Bainbridge
was not in; his return was expected any minute. Hallam decided to wait
for him. He waited a long time. No one came to disturb him. His
presence was, as a matter of fact, forgotten in the excitement of the
unusual doings outside the Court House. The Square and the streets
leading to it were choked with natives, agitators, angrily demanding the
release of their leader, whom the authorities had arrested as a
disturber of, and a menace to, the peace of the community.
Hallam knew of these matters only through the talk overheard at the
hotel. He had noticed an unusually large crowd of natives when he
descended the hill on his way to see Bainbridge. The crowd had swelled
its numbers since then, though it had not yet attained to the dangerous
proportions which it did later, when the serious rioting took place, and
the massed ranks of dark forms surged in ugly rushes upon the building
which was held by a brave handful of Europeans.
The angry murmur of the mob rose and died down, and rose again, louder
and more continuous. The sounds penetrated to the quiet room where
Hallam sat, so engrossed with the turmoil of his own thoughts that these
signs of men's passions aroused beyond control excited in him merely a
faint curiosity. He rose and went out into the street to ascertain what
the disturbance was about.
The sight of the vast concourse of natives amazed him. From every
direction dark running figures appeared, many of them armed with sticks,
and all making for the same point, wedging themselves into the crowd
like stray pieces in one gigantic whole. There was no possibility of
getting past them; it would be dangerous, he realised, to go among them.
Their attitude was threatening. He had had experience of the native
when he was out of control. Lacking in discipline and all sense of
responsibility, and with an utter disregard for consequences, he was a
difficult proposition to tackle.
Hallam turned down a side street, which was silent and deserted, passed
a number of warehouses, and came out upon the fringe of the crowd. So
far nothing had happened to fan the smouldering hate into a
conflagration. It needed only, the white man realised, the throwing of
a missile or the random discharge of a firearm, to rouse the mob to a
frenzy of murderous activity. But so far the situation was in hand; the
rioting came later.
It was difficult to say who started it, from which direction came that
first shot that turned the sea of black swaying figures into a frenzied
rabble of monomaniacs with a common enemy, the white man, the ruler,
who, terribly outclassed in numbers, yet held the coloured man at bay.
They were there, behind the walls, a handful of white men, police and
ex-soldiers, armed, determined, cool-headed, maintaining law and
authority against the vast rabble of native insurgents.
Hallam heard several shots fired; heard the yells of the mob; watched
the ugly rush as it surged forward in one mighty wave of humanity.
Sticks were wielded freely, stones and other missiles came into use; the
noise swelled to pandemonium. To remain in the streets was unsafe. A
white man would receive no quarter if the mob got hold of him. Aware of
his danger, Hallam turned to retreat; and, as he made for the side
street down which he had come, the sound of a woman's scream arrested
his attention. He halted and looked round. A white woman was
struggling with a native a few yards from where he stood. It was the
work of a minute to reach her; the next, he had the native by the throat
and was choking the life out of him. The woman had fallen to the
ground. She might be hurt, or she might have fainted: Hallam did not
pause to find out. A couple of natives had seen them and were running
towards them; if they came up with them, though he might succeed in
shooting them, for he carried a revolver, it would bring the crowd upon
them; and he and the woman he had rescued would inevitably perish.
Stooping, he picked her up in his arms, and ran with her up the street,
darting through the open door of a wool-shed, where he dropped her
unceremoniously on a bale of hides and ran back to the door and secured
it.
But there was no sign without of their pursuers. The chase of fugitive
whites was less exciting than the bigger business in hand. The street
was quiet, and wore an air of desertion, as if every man had left his
post for the scene of greater activity.
Hallam turned from securing the door, and leaned with his shoulders
against it, breathing hard, in quick short breaths. With the abrupt
shutting out of the sunlight the interior of the building appeared dark;
the insufficient light, which penetrated through the dirty windows,
revealed everything dimly, like objects seen in the dusk. Neither
Hallam nor the woman had spoken. They did not speak now. She was
sitting up, looking about her with dazed eyes. She put a hand over her
eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the tall figure confronting her,
uncovered them again, and looked straight into the eyes of the man, who
stood with his shoulders against the door, watching her.
He had recognised her when he stooped over her in the street to lift
her; she had recognised him sooner. But to her it had seemed that fear
had deranged her reason; she believed that her imagination had given to
her rescuer the features of some one whom she knew to be dead. Now,
while she watched him, listened to his deep breathing, conviction came
to her that this was Paul himself, no creation of her fancy; and
suddenly, while she looked at him, the room grew dark about her, his
face faded in a mist, disappeared: she dropped back on the hides and lay
still.
Book 4--CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.
As Hallam looked down on the white face, with the eyes closed, and the
dark lashes resting on the colourless cheeks, there came back very
vividly to his memory a picture of his wife lying senseless at the foot
of the stairs, and the horror which had gripped his heart at the sight
of her lying thus, the remorse and the self-accusation which had all but
unhinged his reason. In recalling these painful memories he felt his
heart softening towards her; the jealousy which had embittered his
thoughts of her yielded to the more generous instincts of love and a
pitiful tenderness, which desired only to shield her from the distress
and embarrassment of her position.
Fate had resolved the point as to whether she should know of his return;
the responsibility of decision had been lifted from his shoulders. At
least his presence had been the means of saving her from a dreadful and
violent death. It was horrible to contemplate what might have happened
had he not been on the spot.
Deliberately he moved away from the door and approached the unconscious
figure lying on the pile of evil-smelling hides. For a while he
remained standing, looking down on the quiet form; then he took a seat
on the hides and sat still and watched for a sign of returning
consciousness. As soon as she was equal to walking he meant to take her
to Jim Bainbridge's office. He was not satisfied of their safety while
they remained where they were.
Esme recovered from her faint to find him seated beside her, watching
her with those keen eyes which seemed to search her soul. She lay still
for a while, staring back at him, too bewildered to realise at once
where she was and what had happened. Then abruptly memory came sweeping
back in a confusing rush, and the events immediately preceding her swoon
crowded into her mind. She sat up; and the man and the woman looked
steadily at one another.
"Paul!" she whispered.
"Esme!"
Her eyes filled with tears.
"Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear!" she wailed.
She broke down and cried uncontrollably. He made no move to comfort
her, or to attempt explanations; he let her cry; tears were more often a
relief than otherwise. And there was nothing he could find to say.
There was nothing, it seemed to him, to be said. Matters had reached a
deadlock. Here they were, husband and wife, together after long years
of separation; and, dividing them more effectually than the years, was
the fact of Esme's second marriage and the existence of her child.
Presently she looked up at him through her tears with eyes that were
infinitely sad, that held, too, in their look an expression of yearning
tenderness for this man, whom she had loved in the past, whom she still
loved better than any one in the world. The sight of him brought back
so many memories of the happiness which their great love for one another
had put into their lives. Why had she forgotten? The memory of the
beauty of their love should have satisfied her. What had she done by
forgetting so soon?
"They told me you were dead," she said.
"I know."
"At first I wouldn't believe it. But you sent no word, and the years
passed... Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear! Why did you leave me like that?--
without a word or a sign from you all these years?"
"I will explain later," he answered, speaking as calmly as his emotion
permitted. "For the present you must just believe that it wasn't
altogether my fault. I was ill for a long time after I left home. It
was touch and go. If there is a purpose which governs our destinies, I
suppose there was some reason why I should live. Anyhow I pulled
through with all the odds against me. And again, when men were dying
all about me, my life was preserved--I know not why, nor for what. I
have no place in the world. I am just so much dust encumbering the
earth. My return is only a distress to you. I come back to find you
gone from me."
She hid her face in her hands and wept afresh. Gone from him! That was
how he saw it. She had not been faithful to his memory even.
"Tell me about yourself," she pleaded. "I want you to fill in the
blank. I want to know where you've been--all about everything. I don't
understand. Tell me."
"Not now--nor here," he said, rising. "It's a long story; and we should
be moving out of this. Can you walk as far as Jim's office? I think we
should be safer there."
As though reminded by his caution of the disturbance in the streets,
which the sight of him had driven temporarily from her thoughts, she
stood up and remained in an attentive attitude, listening to the din,
which penetrated to their quiet shelter with horrible distinctness. Men
were out there a few yards away, fighting and being injured, killed
perhaps, as she might have been but for Paul. She lifted frightened
eyes to his face.
"What is it?" she asked. "What is happening?"
"It's a riot," he answered. "The gaol will be overfull as a result of
this noisy disturbance. I hope some of the brutes will get shot."
"You saved my life, Paul," she said, looking at him gravely.
He made no answer to that. He went to the door and unfastened it and
looked out into the street. With the opening of the door the tumult
seemed to swell in volume, but the street itself was quiet; there was no
one within sight. He turned to her swiftly and took hold of her arm and
led her outside.
"There is nothing to be nervous about," he said. "We shan't meet a
soul. I came this way just before I saw you."
None the less, he carried his revolver in his hand, and hurried her up
the street, keeping a sharp look-out against surprise, until he got her
safely to Bainbridge's office. The room when they entered it was empty
as when he had left it, and showed no sign of its owner having been
there.
Esme sat down, white and shaken, and leaned back in her chair without
speaking. A clerk came to the door and inquired whether he could do
anything. Her appearance, hatless and dishevelled and white, had struck
him when she entered. She asked for water; and he went away to fetch
it. Hallam took the glass from him when he returned with it and carried
it to her himself.
"Mrs Sinclair isn't hurt, I hope?" the clerk asked.
"No," Hallam answered curtly; and the clerk withdrew.
At the sound of her name, Esme's eyes sought Hallam's face. She saw it
harden, saw the lips compress themselves, as he turned with the glass in
his hand and approached her chair. She took the glass from him with a
word of thanks, and drank the contents slowly, while he paced the carpet
with long, uneasy strides, backwards and forwards, before the open
window.
"Paul," she asked suddenly, "have you seen Jim?"
"I saw him yesterday," he answered, without pausing in his walk.
"Yesterday!" she echoed, her thoughts reverting to the dinner party, and
to the curious preoccupation of her brother-in-law's manner. Jim had
known yesterday that Paul was alive; and he had said nothing.
"He told you--about me?" she said.
"Yes--everything that matters."
She put the glass down on the desk and stood up and confronted him.
"What am I to do?" she wailed. "Oh! what am I to do?"
"That," he answered with surprising quietness, "is a question which no
one can resolve but yourself. It is for you to decide."
"But I don't know what to do," she returned distressfully. "I--Oh, dear
heaven! what a terrible position to be placed in!"
She wrung her hands and turned away from him and stood leaning against
the frame of the window, where the warm fresh air poured in on her, and
the distant sounds of the din in the streets came to her ears like
something far off, something altogether outside her own concerns. The
horror of her encounter with the Kaffir was submerged, almost forgotten,
in the bewilderment of Paul's return. Paul knew of her second
marriage--which was no marriage. He must know, since he had spoken with
Jim, of her child. The child's future welfare was her chief concern.
She resented the injury done to it as a deliberate wrong wrought through
the agency of this man by his long absence, his inexplicable silence.
She felt bitter when she thought of it.
"Why did you leave me in ignorance of your whereabouts?" she asked.
"Was it fair to treat me like that? You had all my love, all my
confidence. Surely you might have trusted me! Whatever you were doing,
wherever you were, I should have understood. I would have waited
patiently. I was prepared to wait after reading your letter. I judged
from it that you would not return to me until you were sure of yourself,
even though it meant separation for all our lives. But you could have
let me know you were alive. It was cruel to keep silent all these
years."
"Yes," he allowed; "had it been intentional it would have been."