VINDICATION
Meanwhile, the Herricks and their guests--“Audrey's refugees,” as Molly
elected to describe the latter, herself included--had gathered round the
fire in the library, and were chatting desultorily while they awaited
Elisabeth's return from her visit to Tim's sick-room.
The casualties of the previous evening had been found to be augmented by
two, since Mrs. Selwyn had remained in bed throughout the day, under
the impression that she was suffering from shock, whilst Garth Trent was
discovered to have dislocated his shoulder, and had been compelled to
keep his room by medical orders.
In endeavouring to shield Tim, as they crashed to the ground together
from the tottering staircase, Trent had fallen undermost, receiving the
full brunt of the fall; and a dislocated shoulder and a severe shaking,
which had left him bruised and sore from head to foot, were the
consequences.
Characteristically, he had maintained complete silence about his injury,
composedly accompanying Sara back to Greenacres in his car, and he had
just been making his way out of the house when he had quietly fainted
away on to the floor. After which, the Herricks had taken over command.
“I think,” remarked Molly pertinently, “you might as well turn
Greenacres into an annexe to the 'Convalescent,' Audrey. You've got four
cases already.”
The Lavender Lady glanced up smilingly from one of the khaki socks
which, in these days, dangled perpetually from her shining needles, and
into which she knitted all the love, and pity, and tender prayers of her
simple old heart.
“Mr. Trent is better,” she announced with satisfaction. “I had tea
upstairs with him this afternoon.”
“Yes,” supplements Selwyn, “I fancy one of your patients has struck,
Audrey. Trent intends coming down this evening. Judson has just come
back from Far End with some fresh clothes for him.”
Audrey turned hastily to her husband.
“Good Heavens, Miles! We can't let him come down! Mrs. Durward will be
here with us.”
“Well?”--placidly from Herrick.
“Well! It will be anything but well!” retorted Audrey significantly.
“Have you forgotten what happened that day in Haven Woods? I'm not going
to have Garth hurt like that again! He may have been cashiered a hundred
times--I don't care whether he was or not!--he's a man!”
A very charming smile broke over Miles's face.
“I've always known it,” he said quietly. “And--I should think Mrs.
Durward knows it now.”
“Yes. I know it now.”
The low, contralto tones that answered were Elisabeth's. Unnoticed, she
had entered the room and was standing just outside the little group of
people clustered round the hearth--her slim, black-robed figure, with
its characteristic little air of stateliness, sharply defined in the
ruddy glow of the firelight.
A sudden tremor of emotion seemed to ripple through the room. The
atmosphere grew tense, electric--alert as with some premonition of
coming storm.
The two men had risen to their feet, but no one spoke, and the brief
rustle of movement, as every one turned instinctively towards that
slender, sable figure, whispered into blank silence.
To Miles, infinitely compassionate, there seemed something symbolical in
the figure of the woman standing there--isolated, outside the friendly
circle of the fireside group, standing solitary at the table as a
prisoner stands at the bar of judgment.
The firelight, flickering across her face, revealed its pallor and
the burning fever of her eyes, and drew strange lights from the heavy
chestnut hair that swathed her head like a folded banner of flame.
For a long moment she stood silently regarding the ring of startled
faces turned towards her. Then at last she spoke.
“I have something to tell you,” she said, addressing herself primarily,
it seemed, to Miles.
Perhaps she recognized the compassionate spirit of understanding which
was his in so great a measure and appealed to it unconsciously. Selwyn,
with sensitive perception, turned as though to leave the room, but she
stopped him.
“No, don't go,” she said quickly. “Please stay--all of you. I--I wish
you all to hear what I have to say.” She spoke very composedly, with a
curious submissive dignity, as though she had schooled herself to meet
this moment. “It concerns Garth Trent--at least, that is the name by
which you know him. His real name is Maurice--Maurice Kennedy, and he
is my cousin, Lord Grisdale's younger son. He has lived here under
an assumed name because--because”--her voice trembled a little, then
steadied again to its accustomed even quality--“because I ruined his
life. . . . The only way in which I can make amends is by telling you
the true facts of the Indian Frontier episode which led to Maurice's
dismissal from the Army. He--ought never to have been--cashiered for
cowardice.”
She paused, and with a sudden instinctive movement Sara grasped Selwyn's
arm, while the sharp sibilance of her quick-drawn breath cut across the
momentary silence.
“No,” Elisabeth repeated. “Maurice ought never to have been cashiered.
He was absolutely innocent of the charge against him. The real offender
was Geoffrey . . . my husband. It was he--Geoffrey, not Maurice--who was
sent out in charge of the reconnaissance party from the fort--and it was
he whose nerve gave way when surprised by the enemy. Maurice kept his
head and tried to steady him, but, at the time, Geoffrey must have been
mad--caught by sudden panic, together with his men. Don't judge him too
hardly”--her voice took on a note of pleading--“you must remember that
he had been enduring days and nights of frightful strain, and that the
attack came without any warning . . . in the darkness. He had no time to
think--to pull himself together. And he lost his head. . . . Maurice did
his best to save the situation. Realizing that for the moment Geoffrey
was hardly accountable, he deliberately shot him in the leg, to
incapacitate him, and took command himself, trying to rally the men.
But they stampeded past him, panic-stricken, and it was while he was
storming at them to turn round and put up a fight that--that he was shot
in the back.” She faltered, meeting the measureless reproach in Sara's
eyes, and strickenly aware of the hateful interpretation she had put
upon the same incident when describing it to her on a former occasion.
For the first time, she seemed to lose her composure, rocking a little
where she stood and supporting herself by gripping the edge of the table
with straining fingers.
But no one stirred. In poignant silence they awaited the continuance
of the tale which each one sensed to be developing towards a climax of
inevitable calamity.
“Afterwards,” pursued Elisabeth at last, “at the court-martial, two of
the men gave evidence that they had seen Geoffrey fall wounded at the
beginning of the skirmish--they did not know that it was Maurice who had
disabled him intentionally--so that he was completely exonerated from
all blame, and the Court came to the conclusion that, the command
having thus fallen to Maurice, he had lost his nerve and been guilty
of cowardice in face of the enemy. Geoffrey himself knew nothing of the
actual facts--either then or later. He had gone down like a log when
Maurice shot him, striking his head as he fell, and concussion of the
brain wiped out of his mind all recollection of what had occurred in the
fight prior to his fall. The last thing he remembered was mustering
his men together in readiness to leave the fort. Everything else was a
blank.”
Out of the shadows of the fire-lit room came a muttered question.
“Yes.” Elisabeth bent her head in answer. “There was--other evidence
forthcoming. But not then, not at the time of the trial. Then Maurice
was dismissed from the Army.”
She seemed to speak with ever-increasing difficulty, and her hand
went up suddenly to her throat. It was obvious that this self-imposed
disclosure of the truth was taking her strength to its uttermost limit.
“I had better tell you the whole story--from the beginning,” she said,
at last, haltingly, and, after a moment's hesitation, she resumed in the
hard, expressionless voice of intense effort.
“Before Maurice went out to India, he and I were engaged to be married.
On my part, it would have been only a marriage of convenience, for I
was not in love with him, although I had always been fond of him in a
cousinly way. There was another man whom I loved--the man I afterwards
married, Geoffrey Lovell--” for an instant her eyes glowed with a sudden
radiance of remembrance--“and he and I became secretly engaged, in spite
of the fact that I had already promised to marry Maurice. I expect you
think that was unforgivable of me,” she seemed to search the intent
faces of her little audience as though challenging the verdict she might
read therein; “but there was some excuse. I was very young, and at the
time I promised myself to Maurice I did not know that Geoffrey cared for
me. And then--when I knew--I hadn't the courage to break with Maurice.
He and Geoffrey were both going out to India--they were in the same
regiment--and I kept hoping that something might happen which would
make it easier for me. Maurice might meet and be attracted by some other
woman. . . . I hoped he would.”
She fell silent for a moment, then, gathering her remaining strength
together, as it seemed, she went on relentlessly--
“Something did happen. Maurice was cashiered from the Army, and I had a
legitimate reason for terminating the engagement between us. . . .
Then, just as I thought I was free, he came to tell me his case would
be reopened; there was an eye-witness who could prove his innocence, a
private in his own regiment. I never knew who the man was”--she turned
slightly at the sound of a sudden brusque movement from Miles Herrick,
then, as he volunteered no remark, continued--“but it appeared he had
been badly wounded and had only learned the verdict of the court-martial
after his recovery. He had then written to Maurice, telling him that he
was in a position to prove that it was not he, but Geoffrey Lovell who
had been guilty of cowardice. When I understood this, and realized what
it must mean, I confessed to Maurice that Geoffrey was the man I loved,
and I begged and implored him to take the blame--to let the verdict of
the court-marital stand. It was a horrible thing to do--I know that . . .
but think what it meant to me! It meant the honour and welfare of the
man I loved, as opposed to the honour and welfare of a man for whom I
cared comparatively little. Maurice was not easy to move, but I made him
understand that, whatever happened now, I should never marry him--that
I should sink or swim with Geoffrey, and at last he consented to do the
thing I asked. He accepted the blame and went away--to the Colonies, I
believe. Afterwards, as you all know, he returned to England and lived
at Far End under the name of Garth Trent.”
Such was the tale Elisabeth unfolded, and the hushed listeners, keyed
up by its tragic drama, could visualize for themselves the scene of that
last piteous interview between Elisabeth and the man who had loved her
to his own utter undoing.
She was still a very lovely woman, and it was easy to realize how
well-nigh bewilderingly beautiful she must have been in her youth,
easy to imagine how Garth--or Maurice Kennedy, as he must henceforth be
recognized--worshipping her with a boy's headlong passion, had agreed
to let the judgment of the Court remain unchallenged and to shoulder the
burden of another man's sin.
Probably he felt that, since he had lost her, nothing else mattered,
and, with the reckless chivalry of youth, he never stopped to count the
cost. He only knew that the woman he loved, whose beauty pierced him to
the very soul, so that his vision was blurred by the sheer loveliness
of her, demanded her happiness at his hands and that he must give it to
her.
“I suppose you think there was no excuse for what I did,” Elisabeth
concluded, with something of appeal in her voice. “But I did not
realize, then, quite all that I was taking from Maurice. I think that
much must be granted me. . . . But I make no excuse for what I did
afterwards. There is none. I did it deliberately. Maurice had won the
woman Tim wanted, and I hoped that if he were utterly discredited, Sara
would refuse to marry him, and thus the way would be open to Tim. So I
made public the story of the court-martial which had sentenced Maurice.
Had it not been for that, I should have held my peace for ever about
his having been cashiered. I--I owed him that much.” She was silent a
moment. Presently she raised her head and spoke in harsh, wrung accents.
“But I've been punished! God saw to that. What do you think it has meant
to me to know that my husband--the man I worshipped--had been once a
coward? It's true the world never knew it . . . but I knew it.”
The agony of pride wounded in its most sacred place, the suffering of
love that despises what it loves, yet cannot cease from loving, rang in
her voice, and her haunted eyes--the eyes which had guarded their secret
so invincibly--seemed to plead for comfort, for understanding.
It was Miles who answered that unspoken supplication.
“I think you need never feel shame again,” he said very gently. “Major
Durward's splendid death has more than wiped out that one mistake of his
youth. Thank God he never knew it needed wiping out.”
A momentary tranquility came into Elisabeth's face.
“No,” she answered simply. “No, he never knew.” Then the tide of bitter
recollection surged over her once more, and she continued passionately:
“Oh yes, I've been punished! Day and night, day and night since the
war began, I've lived in terror that the fear--his father's fear--might
suddenly grip Tim out there in Flanders. I kept him out of the
Army--because I was afraid. And then the war came, and he had to go.
Thank God--oh, thank God!--he never failed! . . . I suppose I am a bad
woman--I don't know . . . I fought for my own love and happiness first,
and afterwards for my son's. But, at least, I'm not bad enough to let
Maurice go on bearing . . . what he has borne . . . now that he has
saved Tim's life. He has given me the only thing . . . left to me . .
. of value in the whole world. In return, I can give him the one thing
that matters to him--his good name. Henceforth Maurice is a free man.”
“_What_ are you saying?”
The sharp, staccato question cut across Elisabeth's quiet, concentrated
speech like a rapier thrust, snapping the strained attention of her
listeners, who turned, with one accord, to see Kennedy himself standing
at the threshold of the room, his eyes fastened on Elisabeth's face.
She met his glance composedly; on her lips a queer little smile which
held an indefinable pathos and appeal.
“I am telling them the truth--at last, Maurice,” she said calmly. “I
have told them the true story of the court-martial.”
“You--you have told them _that_?” he stammered. He was very pale. The
sudden realization of all that her words implied seemed to overwhelm
him.
“Yes.” She rose and moved quietly to the door, then face to face with
Kennedy, she halted. Her eyes rested levelly on his; in her bearing
there was something aloofly proud--an undiminished stateliness, almost
regal in its calm inviolability. “They know--now--all that I took from
you. I shall not ask your forgiveness, Maurice . . . I don't expect it.
I sinned for my husband and my son--that is my only justification. I
would do the same again.”
Instinctively Maurice stood aside as she swept past him, her head
unbowed, splendid even in her moment of surrender--almost, it seemed,
unbeaten to the last.
For a moment there was a silence--palpitant, packed with conflicting
emotion.
Then, with a little choking sob, Sara ran across the room to Maurice
and caught his hands in hers, smiling whilst the tears streamed down her
cheeks.
“Oh, my dear!” she cried brokenly. “Oh, my dear!”