A CRISIS
Viviette having repaired the disorder caused by her tears went down to
tea. Mrs. Ware, Katherine, and a curate deliberately calling or taking
shelter from the rain were in the drawing-room. Austin, to his mother's
mild astonishment, had sent down a message to the effect that he was
busy. On ordinary occasions Viviette would have flirted monstrously with
the clerical youth, and sent him away undecided whether to offer to
share his lodgings and hundred pounds a year with her, or to turn
Catholic and become a monk. But now she had no mind to flirtation. She
left him to the undisturbing wiles of Mrs. Ware, and petted and
surreptitiously fed Dick's Irish terrier, whose brown eyes looked
pathetic inquiry as to his master's whereabouts. She was sobered by the
uncomprehended scene in the armoury--sobered by Dick's violence and by
Austin's final coldness. A choice had been put before her in deadly
earnest; she had refused to make one. But the choice would have to be
made very soon, unless she sent both her lovers packing, a step which
she did not for a moment contemplate.
"You must promise to marry one or the other and end this tension," said
Katherine, a little later, after the curate had gone with Mrs. Ware to
look at her greenhouses.
"I wish to goodness I could marry them both," said Viviette. "Have a
month with each, turn and turn about. It would be ideal."
"It would be altogether horrid!" exclaimed Katherine. "How could such a
thought enter your head?"
"I suppose it must have entered every woman's head who has two men
she's fond of in love with her at once. I said yesterday that it was
great fun being a woman. I find it's a d.d.d.d. imposition!"
"For heaven's sake, child, make up your mind quickly," said Katherine.
Viviette sighed. Which should it be? Dick, with his great love and rough
tenderness and big, protecting arms, or Austin with his conquering ways,
his wit, his charm, his perception? Austin could give her the luxury
that her sensuous nature delighted in, social position, the brilliant
life of London. What could Dick give her? It would always be a joy to
dress herself for Austin. Dick would be content if she went about in
raiment made of dusters and bath towels. In return, what could she give
each of these men? She put the question to herself. She was not
mercenary or heartless. She gave of herself freely and loved the giving.
What could she give to Austin? What could she give to Dick? These
questions, in her sober mood, weighed the others down.
When the rain ceased and a pale sun had dried the gravel, she went out
into the grounds by herself and faced the problem. She sighed
again--many times. If only they would let her have her fun out and give
her answer six months hence!
Her meditations were cut short by the arrival of a telegraph boy on his
bicycle at the front gate. He gave her the telegram. It was for Austin.
Her heart beat. She went into the house with the yellow envelope
containing Dick's destiny and mounted to the little room off the first
landing which had been Austin's private study since his boyhood. She
knocked. Austin's voice bade her enter. He rose from the desk where, pen
in hand, he had been sitting before a blank sheet of paper, and without
a word took the telegram. She noticed with a shock that he had curiously
changed. The quick, brisk manner had gone. His face was grey.
"It is _the_ telegram, isn't it?" she asked eagerly.
"Yes," said he, handing it to her. "It's from Lord Overton."
She read: "The very man. Send him along to me early to-morrow. Hope he
can start immediately."
"Oh, how splendid!" she exclaimed with a little gasp of happiness. "How
utterly splendid! Thank heaven!"
"Yes. Thank heaven," Austin acquiesced gravely. "I forgot to mention to
you that Lord Overton knows Dick personally," he added, after a pause.
"They met at my house the last time Dick was in London."
"This _is_ good news," said Viviette. "At last I can give him a birthday
present worth having."
"He will not be here for his birthday," said Austin, in cold, even
tones. "He must catch the mail to-night."
Viviette echoed: "To-night?"
"And in all probability he will sail for Vancouver in a day or two. It
won't be worth his while to come back here."
She laid a hand on her heart, which fluttered painfully.
"Then--then--we'll never see him again?"
"Probably not."
"I didn't think it would be so sudden," she said, a little wildly.
"Neither did I. But it's for the best."
"But supposing he wants some time to look about him?"
"I'll see to everything," said Austin.
"Anyhow, I must be the first to tell him," said Viviette.
"You will do me a very great favour if you will let me have that
privilege," said Austin. "I make a particular point of it. I have some
serious business to discuss with him before dinner, and that will be the
time for me to break the news."
He was no longer the fairy godmother's devoted and humble factotum. He
spoke with a cold air of authority that chilled the fairy godmotherdom
in Viviette's bosom. Her prettly little scheme dwindled into
childishness before the dark, incomprehended thing that had happened.
She assented with unusual meekness.
"But I'm desperately disappointed," she said.
"My dear Viviette," he answered more kindly, and looking at her with
some wistfulness, "the pleasures and even the joy of life have to give
way to the sober, business side of existence. It isn't very gay, I know,
but we can't alter it."
He held out his hand. Instinctively she gave him hers. He raised it to
his lips and held the door open for her. She went out scarcely knowing
that she had been dismissed. Austin closed the door, stood unsteadily
for a moment like a man stricken with great pain, and then, sitting
down at his desk again, put his elbows on the table, rested his head in
his hands, and stared at the white piece of paper. When would Dick come
home? He had given orders that Dick should be asked to go to him as soon
as he arrived. Would Dick ever come home again? It was quite possible
that some misfortune might have happened. Tragedy is apt to engender
tragedy. He shuddered, hearing in his fancy the tramp of men, and seeing
a shrouded thing they carried across the hall. He bitterly accused
himself for not having sought Dick far and wide as soon as he had made
his ghastly discovery. But he had required time to recover his balance.
The horrible suddenness had stunned him. Attempted fratricide is not a
common happening in gentle families. He had to accustom himself to the
atmosphere of the abnormal, so as to state the psychological case in its
numberless ramifications. This he had done. His head was clear. His
unalterable decision made. Now the minutes dragged with leaden feet
until Dick should come.
Viviette was the first to see him. She had dressed early for dinner,
and, as the late June afternoon had turned out fine, was taking her
problem out to air on the terrace when she came upon him standing at the
door of his armoury. His hair was wet and matted, his eyes bloodshot,
his clothes dripping, and he himself splashed with mud from head to
foot. He trembled all over, shaken by a great terror. The case of
pistols had gone. Who had taken them? Had the loaded pistol been
discovered?
As Viviette appeared, robed in deep blue chiffon that seemed torn from
the deep blue evening sky, and looking, in the man's maddened eyes,
magically beautiful, he held out imploring hands.
"Come in for a moment. For the love of God come in for a moment."
He stepped back invitingly. She hesitated for a second on the threshold,
and then followed him down the dim gallery, past the screen where all
the swords and helmets lay scattered on the table. He looked at her
haggardly, and she met his gaze with kind eyes in which there was no
mockery. No. Nothing had happened, he told himself; otherwise she would
shrink from him as from something accursed.
"My God, if you knew how I love you!" he said hoarsely. "My God, if you
only knew!"
His suffering racked her heart. All her pity melted over him. She laid
her caressing fingers on his arm.
"Oh, my poor Dick!" she said.
[Illustration: He held out imploring hands.]
The touch, the choke in her voice, brought about Viviette's downfall.
Perhaps she meant it to do so. Who can tell? What woman ever knows? In a
flash his arms were around her and his kisses, a wild, primitive man's
kisses, were on her lips, her eyes, her cheeks. Her face was crushed
against the rough wet tweed of his coat, and its odour, raw and coarse,
was in her nostrils. She drooped, intoxicated, gasping for breath in his
unheeding giant's grip, but she made no effort to escape. As he held her
a thrill, agonising and delicious, swept through her, and she raised her
lips involuntarily to his and closed her eyes. At last he released her,
mangled, tousled, her very self a draggled piece of chiffon like the
night-blue frock, soiled with wet and mud.
"Forgive me," he said, "I had no right. Least of all now. God knows what
is to become of me. But whatever happens, you know that I love you."
She had her hands clasped before her face. She could not look at him.
"Yes, I know," she murmured.
In another moment he had gone, leaving Viviette, who had entered the
room a girl, transformed into a woman with the first shiver of passion
in her veins.
Dick, vaguely conscious of damp and dirt, went up to his bedroom. The
sight of his evening things spread out on the bed reminded him that it
was nearly dinner-time. Mechanically he washed and dressed. As he was
buckling on his ready-made white tie--his clumsy fingers, in spite of
many lessons from Viviette, had never learned the trick of tying a
bow--a maid brought him a message. Mr. Austin's compliments and would he
see Mr. Austin for a few moments in Mr. Austin's room. The words were
like the dreaded tap on the shoulder of the hunted criminal.
"I'll come at once," he said.
He found Austin sitting on the chair by his desk, resting his chin on
his elbow. He did not stir as Dick entered.
"You want to speak to me?"
"Yes," said Austin. "Will you sit down?"
"I'll stand," said Dick impatiently. "What have you to say to me?"
"I believe you have expressed your desire to leave England and earn your
living in a new country. Is that so?"
The brothers' eyes met. Dick saw that the loaded pistol had been
discovered, and read no love, no pity, only condemnation in the hard
gaze. Austin was pronouncing sentence.
"Yes," he replied sullenly.
"I happen," said Austin, "to know of an excellent opportunity. Lord
Overton, whom you have met, wants a man to take charge of his timber
forests in Vancouver. The salary is £700 a year. I wired to Lord Overton
asking for the appointment on your behalf. This is his answer."
Dick took the telegram and read it with muddled head. Austin had lost no
time.
"You see, it fits in admirably. You can start by the night mail. Your
sudden departure needs no other explanation to the household than this
telegram. I hope you understand."
"I understand," said Dick bitterly. A sudden memory of words that
Viviette had used the day before occurred to him. "I understand. This is
to get me out of the way. 'David put Uriah in the forefront of the
battle.' Vancouver is the forefront."
"Don't you think we had better avoid all unprofitable discussion?"
Austin rose and confronted him. "I expect you to accept this offer and
my conditions."
"And if I refuse?" asked Dick, with rising anger. "What dare you
threaten me with?"
Austin raised a deprecatory hand.
"Do you suppose I'm going to threaten you? I simply expect you not to
refuse. Your conscience must tell you that I have the right to do so.
Doesn't it?"
Dick glowered sullenly at the wall and tugged his great moustache.
"You force me to touch on things I should have liked to keep hidden,"
said Austin. "Very well." He took a scrap of crumpled paper from the
desk. "Do you recognise this? It formed the wad of the pistol that was
in _your_ hand."
Dick started back a pace. "You're wrong," he gasped. "It was _your_
pistol that was loaded."
"No. Yours. The cap missed fire, or I should have been a dead
man--murdered by my brother."
"Stop," cried Dick. "Not murdered. No, no, not murdered. It was in fair
fight. I gave you the choice. When I thought I had the unloaded one I
called on you to fire. Why the devil didn't you? I wanted you to fire. I
was mad for you to fire. I wanted to be killed there and then. No one
can say I shirked it. I gave you your chance."
"That's nothing to do with it," said Austin sternly. "When you fired you
meant murder. Your face meant killing. And supposing I had fired--and
killed you! Good God! I would sooner you had killed me than burdened my
soul with your death. It would have been less cowardly. Yes, cowardly.
The conditions were not even. To me it was trivial fooling. To you,
deadly earnest. Are you not man enough to see that I have the right to
exact some penalty?"
Dick remained silent for a few moments, while the powers of light and
darkness struggled together in his soul. At last he said in a low voice,
hanging his head:
"I'll accept your terms."
"You leave by the night mail for Witherby."
"Very well."
"There's another point," said Austin. "The most important point of all.
You will not speak alone to Viviette before you start."
Dick turned with an angry flash,
"What?"
"You will not speak to Viviette alone. When you are gone--for there is
no need for you to come back here before you sail--you will not write to
her. You will go absolutely and utterly out of her life."
Dick broke into harsh, furious laughter.
"And leave her to you? I might have known that the lawyer would have had
me in the trap. But this time you've over-reached yourself. I'll never
give her up. Do you hear me? Never--never--never! I would go through the
horror of to-day a thousand times--day by day until I die, rather than
give her up to you. You shall not take this last thing from me--this
hope of winning her--as you have taken everything else. You have
supplanted me since first you learned to speak. It has been Esau
and Jacob--"
"Or Cain and Abel," said Austin.
"You can taunt me if you like," cried Dick, goaded to fury, and the
whole bitterness of a lifetime surging up in passionate speech. "I have
got past feeling it. Your life has been one continual taunt of me. You
have thought me a dull, good-natured boor, delighted to have a word
thrown at him now and again by the elegant gentleman, and rather
honoured than otherwise to be ridden over roughshod, or kicked into the
mud when it pleased the elegant gentleman to ride by. No, listen to me,"
he thundered, as Austin was about to protest. "By God, you shall listen
this time. You've made me your butt, your fool, your doer of trivial
offices. I've wondered sometimes why you haven't addressed me as 'my
good fellow,' and asked me to touch my cap to you. I've borne it all
these years without complaining--but do you know what it is to eat your
heart out and remain silent? I have borne it for my mother's sake--in
spite of her dislike of me--and for your sake, because I loved you. Yes.
If ever one man has loved another I've loved you. But you took no heed.
What was my affection worth? I was only the stupid, dull boor ... but I
suffered it all till you came between me and her. I had spent the whole
passion of my life upon her. She was the only thing left in the world
for which I felt fiercely. I hungered for her, thirsted for her, my
brain throbbed at the thought of her, the blood rushed through my veins
at the sight of her. And you came between us. And if I have damned my
soul, by God! the damnation is your doing. Do you think, while I live,
that I'll give her up to you? I'll get my soul's worth, anyhow."
He smote his palm with his clenched fist and strode about the little
room. Austin sat for a while dumb with astonishment and dismay. His
cherished, lifelong conception of "dear old Dick" lay shattered. A new
Dick appeared to him, a personality stronger, deeper than he could have
imagined. A new respect for him, also a new pity that was generous and
not contemptuous, crept into his heart.
"Listen, Dick," said he, using the familiar name for the first time. "Do
I understand that you accuse me of sending you out to Vancouver and
hastening your departure so as to gain my own ends with Viviette?"
"Yes," returned Dick. "I do. You have laid this trap for me."
"Have you ever heard me lie to you?"
"No," said Dick.
"Then I tell you, as man to man, that until this afternoon I had no
suspicion that your feelings towards Viviette were deeper than those of
an elder brother."
Dick laughed bitterly. "You couldn't conceive a clod like me falling in
love. Well?"
"That's beside the question," said Austin. "I did not behave
dishonourably towards you. I came down. I fell in love with Viviette.
How could I help it? How could I help loving her? How could I help
telling her so? But she is young and innocent, and her heart is her own
yet. Tell me--man to man--dare you say that you have won it or that I
have won it?"
"What's the good of talking?" said Dick, relapsing into his sullen mood.
"If I go she is yours. But I won't go."
Austin rose again and laid his hand on his brother's arm.
"Dick. If I give her up, will you obey my conditions?"
"You give her up voluntarily? Why should you?"
"A damnable thing was done this afternoon," said Austin. "I see I had my
share in it, and I as well as you have to make reparation. Man alive!
You are my brother," he cried with an outburst of feeling. "The nearest
thing in the world to me. Do you think I could rest happy with the
knowledge that a murderous devil is always in your heart, and that it's
in my power to--to exorcise it? Do you think the cost matters? Come.
Shall we make this bargain? Yes or no?"
"It's easy for you to promise," said Dick. "But when I am gone, how can
you resist?"
Austin hesitated for a moment, biting his lips. Then, with the air of a
man who makes an irrevocable step in life, he crossed the room and
rang the bell.
"Ask Mrs. Holroyd if she will have the kindness to come here for a
minute," he said to the servant.
Dick regarded him wonderingly. "What has Mrs. Holroyd to do with our
affairs?"
"You'll see," said Austin, and there was silence between them till
Katherine came.
She looked from one joyless face to the other, and sat without a word
on the chair that Austin placed for her. Her woman's intuition divined a
sequel to the afternoon's drama. Some of it she had already learned.
For, going earlier into Viviette's room, she had found her white and
shaken, still disordered in hair and dress as Dick had left her; and
Viviette had sobbed on her bosom and told her with some incoherence that
the monkey had at last hit the lyddite shell in the wrong place, and
that it was all over with the monkey. So, before Austin spoke, she half
divined why he had summoned her.
Her heart throbbed painfully.
"Dick and I," said Austin, "have been talking of serious matters, and we
need your help."
She smiled wanly. "I'll do whatever I can, Austin."
"You said this afternoon you would do anything I asked you. Do you
remember?"
"Yes, I said so--and I meant it."
"You said it in reply to my question whether you would accept me if I
asked you to marry me."
Dick started from the sullen stupor into which he had fallen and
listened with perplexed interest.
"You are not quite right in your tenses, Austin," she remarked. "You
said: Would I have accepted you if you had asked me?"
"I want to change the tense into the present," he replied.
She met his glance calmly. "You ask me to marry you in spite of what you
told me this afternoon?"
"In spite of it and because of it," he said, drawing up a chair near to
her. "A great crisis has arisen in our lives that must make you forget
other words I spoke this afternoon. Those other words and everything
connected with them I blot out of my memory forever. I want you to do me
an infinite service. If there had been no deep affection between us I
should not dare to ask you. I want you to be my wife, to take me into
your keeping, to trust me as an upright man to devote my life to your
happiness. I swear I'll never give you a moment's cause for regret."
She plucked for a while at her gown. It was a strange wooing. But in her
sweet way she had given him her woman's aftermath of love. It was a
gentle, mellow gift, far removed from the summer blaze of passion, and
it had suffered little harm from the sadness of the day. She saw that he
was in great stress. She knew him to be a loyal gentleman.
"Is this the result of that scene in the armoury?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," said Austin.
"I was right then. It was a matter of life and death."
"It was," said he. "So is this."
She looked again from one face to the other, rose, hesitated for a
moment--and then held out her hand. "I am willing to trust you,
Austin," she said.
He touched her hand with his lips and said gravely: "I will not fail
your trust."
As soon as she had gone he went to the chair where Dick sat in gloomy
remorse and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Well?" said he.
"I agree," Dick groaned, without looking up. "I have no alternative. I
appreciate your generosity."
Then Austin spoke of the appointment in Vancouver. He explained how the
idea had occurred to him; how Viviette had come late the night before to
tell him of what he had never before suspected--Dick's desire to go
abroad; how they had conspired to give him a birthday surprise; how they
had driven over to Witherby to send the telegram to Lord Overton. And as
he spoke, Dick looked at him with a new ghastliness on his face.
"This afternoon--in the dining-room--when you said that Viviette had
told you everything--?"
"About your wish to go to the Colonies. What else?"
"And what I overheard in the armoury--about a telegram--telling
me--putting me out of my misery?"
"Only whether we should tell you to-night or to-morrow about the
appointment. Dick--Dick," said Austin, deeply moved by the great
fellow's collapse, "if I have wronged you all these years, it was
through want of insight, not want of affection. If I have taunted you,
as you say, it was merely a lifelong habit of jesting which you never
seemed to resent. I was unconscious of hurting you. For my blindness and
carelessness I beg your forgiveness. With regard to Viviette--I ought to
have seen, but I didn't. I don't say you had no cause for jealousy--but
as God hears me--all the little conspiracy to-day was lovingly
meant--all to give you pleasure. I swear it."
Dick rose and stumbled about among the furniture. The setting sun fell
just below the top of the casement window, and its direct rays flooded
the little room and showed Dick in a strange, unearthly light.
"I wronged you," he said bitterly. "Even in my passions I'm a dull fool.
I thought you a damned cad, and I got more and more furious, and I
drank--I was drunk all this afternoon--and madness came, and when I saw
you kiss her--yes, I saw you, I was peeping from behind the
screen--things went red before my eyes, and it was then that I loaded
the pistol to shoot you on the spot. God forgive me! May God have
mercy upon me."
He leant his arms on the sill and buried his face.
"I can't ask your forgiveness," he went on, after a moment. "It would
be a mockery." He laughed mirthlessly. "How can I say. 'I'm sorry I
meant to murder you--please don't think anything about it?'" He turned
with a fierce gesture. "Oh, you must take it all as said, man! Now, have
you finished with me? I can't stand it much longer, I agree to all your
terms. I'll drive over to Witherby now and wait for the train--and
you'll be free of me."
He turned again and moodily looked out of the window in the full flood
of the sunset.
"We must play the game, Dick," said Austin gently, "and go through the
horrible farce of dinner--for mother's sake."
Dick heard him vaguely. Below, on the terrace, Viviette was walking, and
she filled his universe. She had changed the bedraggled frock for the
green one she had worn the night before. Presently she raised her eyes
and saw him leaning out of the window.
"Have they told you that dinner is not till a quarter past eight?" she
cried, looking deliciously upwards, with a dainty hand to her cheek.
"Lord Banstead sent a message to mother that he was unexpectedly
detained, and mother has put back dinner. Isn't it impudence?"
But Dick was far too crushed with misery to respond. He nodded
dejectedly. She remained staring up at him for a while and then ran into
the house.
Dick listlessly mentioned the postponement of dinner.
"I'm sorry I asked the little brute, but I couldn't avoid it."
"What does it matter?" said Austin. He was silent for a moment. Then he
came close to Dick.
"Dick," said he. "Let us end this awful scene as friends and brothers.
As Heaven hears me, there is no bitterness in my heart. Only deep
sorrow--and love, Dick. Shake hands."
Dick took his hand and broke down utterly, and said such things of
himself as other men do not like to hear. Presently there was a light
rap of knuckles at the door. Austin opened it and beheld Viviette.
"I won't disturb you," she said; "I only want to give this note to
Dick."
"I will hand it to him," said Austin.
She thanked him and departed. He closed the door and gave Dick the note.
Dick opened it, read, and with a great cry of "Viviette!" rushed to the
door. Austin interposed, grasped him by the wrist:
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to her," shouted Dick wildly, wrenching himself free. "Read
this." He held up the note before Austin's eyes, with shaking fingers.
Austin read:
"I can't bear to see the misery on your face, when I can make you happy.
I love you, dear, better than anything on earth. I know it now, and
I'll go out with you to Vancouver."
"She loves me. She'll marry me. She'll go out to Vancouver!" cried Dick.
"It changes everything. I must go to her."
"You shall not go," said Austin.
"Shall not? Who dares prevent me?'
"I do. I hold you to your word."
"But, man alive! she loves me--don't you see? The bargain is dissolved.
This is none of my seeking. She comes of her own free will. I am
going to her."
Austin put both his hands affectionately on the big man's shoulders and
forced him into a chair.
"Listen to me just for one minute, Dick. Dick, you dare not marry. Don't
drive me to tell you the reason. Can't you see for yourself why I've
imposed this condition on you all along?"
"I know no reason," said Dick. "She loves me, and that is enough."
The greyness deepened over Austin's face and the pain in his eyes.
"I must speak, then, in plain terms. That horrible murder impulse is the
reason. Today, in a fit of frenzied jealousy, you would have killed me,
your brother. Is there any guarantee that, in another fit of frenzied
jealousy, you might not--?"
A shudder ran through Dick's great frame. He stretched out his hand.
"For God's sake--don't."
"I must--until you see this ghastly business in its true aspect. Look at
the lighter side of Viviette's character. She is gay, fond of
admiration, childishly fond of teasing, a bright creature of bewildering
moods. Would she be safe in your hands? Might you not one day again see
things red before your eyes and again go mad?"
"Don't say any more," Dick said in a choking voice. "I can't stand it."
"Heaven knows, I didn't want to say as much."
Dick shuddered again. "Yes, you are right. I am a man with a curse. I
can't marry her. I daren't."