VIVIETTE TAKES THE RISK
Presently Dick raised the face of Cain when he told the Lord that his
punishment was greater than he could bear. Tears leaped to Austin's
eyes, but he turned his head away lest Dick should see them. He would
have given years of his life to spare Dick--everything he had in the
world--save his deep convictions of right and wrong. He was responsible
for Viviette. That risk of horror he could not let her run. He had
hoped, with a great agony of hope, that Dick would have seen it for
himself. To formulate it had been torture. But he could not weaken. The
barrier between Dick and Viviette was not of his making. It was composed
of the grim psychological laws that govern the abnormal. To have
disregarded it would have been a crime from which his soul shrank. All
the despair in Dick's face, though it wrung his heart, could not move
him. It was terrible to be chosen in this way to be the arbiter of
Destiny. But there was the decree, written in letters of blood and
flame. And Dick had bowed to it.
"What's to become of her?" he groaned.
"This will be her home, as it always has been," said Austin.
"I don't mean that--but between us we shall break her heart. She has
given it to me just in time for me to do it. My luck!"
Austin tried to comfort him. A girl's heart was not easily broken. Her
pride would suffer most. Pain was inevitable. But Time healed many
wounds. In this uncertain world nothing was ever so good as we hoped,
and nothing ever so bad as we feared. Dick paid little heed to the
platitudes.
"She must be told!"
"Not what happened this afternoon," cried Austin quickly. "That we bury
forever from all human knowledge."
"Yes," said Dick, staring in front of him and speaking in a dull, even
voice. "We must hide that. It's not a pretty thing to spread before a
girl's eyes. It will be always before my own--until I die. But she must
be told that I can't marry her. I can't ride away and leave her in doubt
and wonder forever and ever."
"Let us face this horrible night as best we can," said Austin. "Avoid
seeing her alone. You'll be with mother or packing most of the evening.
Slip away to Witherby an hour or so before your time. When you're gone
I'll arrange matters. Leave it to me."
He made one of his old, self-confident gestures. But now Dick felt no
resentment. His spirit in its deep abasement saw in Austin the better,
wiser, stronger man.
At a quarter-past eight they went slowly downstairs to what promised to
be a nightmare kind of meal. There would be four persons, Viviette,
Katherine, and themselves, in a state of suppressed eruption, and two,
Mrs. Ware and the unspeakable Banstead, complacently unaware of volcanic
forces around them, who might by any chance word bring about disaster.
There was danger, too--and the greatest--from Viviette, ignorant of
Destiny. Austin dreaded the ordeal; but despair and remorse had benumbed
Dick's faculties; he had passed the stage at which men fear. With his
hand on the knob of the drawing-room door Austin paused and looked
at him.
"Pull yourself together, man. Play your part. For God's sake, try to
look cheerful."
Dick tried. Austin shivered.
"For God's sake, don't," he said.
They entered the drawing-room, expecting to find the three ladies, and
possibly Lord Banstead, assembled for dinner. To Austin's discomfiture,
Viviette was alone in the room. She rose, made a step or two to meet
them, then stopped.
"What a pair of faces! One would think it were the eve of Dick's
execution, and you were the hangman measuring him for the noose."
"Dick," said Austin, "is leaving us to-night--possibly for many years."
"I don't see that he is so very greatly to be pitied," said Viviette,
trying in vain to meet Dick's eyes. She drew him a pace or two aside.
"Did you read my note--or did you tear it up like the other one?"
"I read it," he said, looking askance at the floor.
"Then why are you so woe-begone?"
He replied in a helpless way that he was not woe-begone. Viviette was
puzzled, hurt, somewhat humiliated. She had made woman's great surrender
which is usually followed by a flourish of trumpets very gratifying to
hear. In fact, to most women the surrender is worth the flourish. But
the recognition of this surrender appeared to find its celebration in a
funeral march with muffled drums. A condemned man being fitted for the
noose, as she had suggested, a mute conscientiously mourning at his own
funeral, a man who had lost a stately demesne in Paradise and had been
ironically compensated by the gift of a bit of foreshore of the Styx
could not have worn a less joyous expression than he on whom she had
conferred the boon of his heart's desire.
"You're not only woe-begone," she said, with spirit, "but you're utterly
miserable. I think I have a right to know the reason. Tell me, what
is it?"
She tapped a small, impatient foot.
"We haven't told my mother yet," Austin explained, "and Dick is rather
nervous as to the way in which she will take the news."
"Yes," said Dick, with lame huskiness. "It's on mother's account."
Viviette laughed somewhat scornfully.
"I am not a child, my dear Austin. No man wears a face like that on
account of his mother--least of all when he meets the woman who has
promised to be his wife."
She flashed a challenging glance at Austin, but not a muscle of his grey
face responded. Her natural expectations were baffled. There was no
start of amazement, no fierce movement of anger, no indignant look of
reproach. She was thrown back on herself. She said:
"I don't think you quite understand. Dick had two aims in life--one to
obtain a colonial appointment, the other--so he led me to suppose--to
marry me. He has the appointment, and I have promised to marry him."
"I know," said Austin, "but you must make allowances."
"If that's all you can say on behalf of your client," retorted Viviette,
"I rather wonder at your success as a barrister."
"Don't you think, my dear," said Austin gently, "that we are treading on
delicate ground?"
"Delicate ground!" she scoffed. "We seem to have been treading on a
volcano all the afternoon. I'm tired of it." She faced the two men with
uplifted head. "I want an explanation."
"Of what?" Austin asked.
"Of Dick's attitude. What has he got to be miserable about? Tell me."
"But I'm not miserable, my dear Viviette," said poor Dick, vainly
forcing a smile. "I'm really quite happy."
Her woman's intuition rejected the protest with contumely. All the
afternoon he had been mad with jealousy of Austin. An hour ago he had
whirled her out of her senses in savage passion. But a few minutes
before she had given him all a woman has to give. Now he met her with
hang-dog visage, apologies from Austin, and milk-and-water asseveration
of a lover's rapture. The most closely-folded rosebud miss of Early
Victorian times could not have faced the situation without showing
something of the Eve that lurked in the heart of the petals. So much the
less could Viviette, child of a freer, franker day, hide her just
indignation under the rose-leaves of maidenly modesty.
"Happy!" she echoed. "I've known you since I was a child of three. I
know the meaning of every light and every shadow that passes over your
face--except this shadow now. What does it mean?"
She asked the question imperiously, no longer the elfin changeling, the
fairy of bewildering moods of Austin's imagination, no longer the
laughing coquette of Katherine's less picturesque fancy, but a modern
young woman of character, considerably angered and very much in earnest.
Austin bit his lip in perplexity. Dick looked around like a hunted
animal seeking a bolting-hole.
"Dick is anxious," said Austin, at length, seeing that some explanation
must be given, "that there should be no engagement between you before he
goes out to Vancouver."
"Indeed?" said Viviette. "May I ask why? As this concerns Dick and
myself, perhaps you will leave us alone for a moment so that Dick
may tell me."
"No, no," Dick muttered hurriedly. "Don't leave us, Austin. We can't
talk of such a thing now."
Again she tapped her foot impatiently.
"Yes, now. I'm going to hear the reason now, whatever it is."
The brothers exchanged glances. Dick turned to the window, and stared
at the mellow evening sky.
Austin again was spokesman.
"Dick finds he has made a terrible and cruel mistake. One that concerns
you intimately."
"Whatever Dick may have done with regard to me," replied Viviette, "I
forgave him for it beforehand. When once I give a thing I don't take it
back. I have given him my love and my promise."
"My dear," said Austin, gravely and kindly. "Here are two men who have
loved you all your life. Don't think hardly of us. You must be brave and
bear a great shock. Dick can't marry you."
She looked at him incredulously.
"Can't marry me? Why not?"
"It would be better not to ask."
She moved swiftly to Dick, and with her light touch swung him round to
face the room.
"I don't understand. Is it because you're going out into the wilds?
That doesn't matter. I told you I would go to Vancouver with you. I want
to go. My happiness is with you."
Dick groaned. "Don't make it harder for me."
"What are you keeping from me?" she asked. "Is it anything you don't
think fit for my ears? If so, speak. I'm no longer a child. Is there
another woman in the case?"
She met Austin's eyes full. He said: "No, thank God! Nothing of that
sort." And as her eyes did not waver, he made the bold stroke. "He finds
that he doesn't love you as much as he thought. There's the whole
tragedy in a few words."
She reeled back as if struck. "Dick doesn't love me?" Then the
announcement seemed so grotesque in its improbability that she began to
laugh, a trifle hysterically.
"Is this true?"
"It's quite true," said poor Dick.
"You see, my dear," said Austin, "what it costs him--what it costs us
both--to tell you this."
"But I don't understand. I don't understand!" she cried, with sudden
piteousness. "What did you mean, then--a little while ago--in
the armoury?"
Austin, who did not see the allusion, had to allow Dick to speak for
himself.
"I was drunk," said Dick desperately. "I've been drinking heavily of
late--and not accountable for my actions. I oughtn't to have done what
I did."
"And so, you see," continued Austin, with some eagerness, "when he
became confronted with the great change in his life--Vancouver--he
looked at things soberly. He found that his feelings towards you were
not of the order that would warrant his making you his wife."
Before Viviette could reply the door opened, and Mrs. Ware and
Katherine entered the room. Mrs. Ware, ignorant of tension, went
smilingly to Austin, and, drawing down his shapely head with both hands,
kissed him.
"My dear, dear boy, I'm so glad, so truly glad. Katherine has just told
me."
"Told you what, mother?" asked Viviette quickly, with a new sharpness in
her voice.
Mrs. Ware turned a beaming face. "Can't you guess, darling? Oh, Austin,
there's no living woman whom I would sooner call my daughter. You've
made me so happy."
The facile tears came, and she sat down and dried them on her little
wisp of handkerchief.
"I thought it for the best to tell your mother, Austin," said Katherine,
somewhat apologetically. "We were speaking of you--and--I couldn't
keep it back."
Viviette, white-lipped and dazed, looked at Austin, Katherine, and Dick
in turns. She said, in the high-pitched voice, to Austin:
"Have you asked Katherine to marry you?"
"Yes," he replied, not quite so confidently, and avoiding her
glance--"and she has done me the honour of accepting me."
Katherine held out a conciliatory hand to Viviette. "Won't you
congratulate me, dear?"
"And Austin, too," said Mrs. Ware.
But Viviette lost control of herself. "I'll congratulate nobody," she
cried shrilly. She burned with a sense of intolerable outrage. Only a
few hours before she had been befooled into believing herself to be the
mistress of the destinies of two men. Both had offered her their love.
Both had kissed her. The memory lashed her into fury. Now one of them
avowed that she had been merely the object of a drunken passion, and
the other came before her as the affianced husband of the woman who
called herself her dearest friend.
Katherine, in deep distress, laid her hand on the girl's arm. "Why not,
dear? I thought that you and Dick--in fact--I understood--"
Viviette freed herself from Katherine's touch.
"Oh, no, you didn't. You didn't understand anything. You didn't try to.
You are all lying. The three of you. You have all lied, and lied, and
lied to me. I tell you to your faces you have lied to me." She swung
passionately to each in turn. "'Austin can never be anything to me but a
friend'--how often have you said that to me? Ah--Saint Nitouche! And
you"--to Austin--"How dared you insult me this morning? And you--how
have you dared to insult me all the time? You've lied--the whole lot of
you--and I hate you all!"
Mrs. Ware had risen, scared and trembling.
"What does the girl mean? I've never heard such unladylike words in a
drawing-room in my life."
Dick blundered in: "It's all my fault, mother--"
"I've not the slightest doubt of that," returned the old lady with
asperity. "But what Austin and Katherine have to do with it I
can't imagine."
The servant opened the door.
"Lord Banstead."
He entered a cold, strange silence. Everyone had forgotten him. He must
have attributed the ungenial atmosphere to his own lateness--it was
half-past eight--for he made penitent apology to Mrs. Ware. Austin
greeted him coldly. Dick nodded absently from the other side of the
room. Viviette, with a sweeping glance of defiance at the assembled
family, held herself very erect, and with hard eyes and quivering lips
came straight to the young fellow.
"Lord Banstead," she said. "You have asked me four times to marry you.
Did you mean it, or were you lying, too?"
Banstead's pallid cheeks flushed. He was overcome with confusion.
"Of course I mean it--meant to ask you again to-day--ask you now."
"Then I will marry you."
Dick strode forward, and, catching her by the wrist, swung her away from
Banstead, his face aflame with sudden passion.
"No, by God, you shan't!"
Banstead retreated a few paces, scared out of his life. Mrs. Ware sought
Austin's protecting arm.
"What does all this mean? I don't understand it."
Austin led her to the door. "I'll see nothing unpleasant happens, dear.
You had better go and tell them to keep back dinner yet a few minutes."
His voice and authority soothed her, and she left the room, casting a
terrified glance at Dick, standing threateningly over Lord Banstead, who
had muttered something about Viviette being free to do as she liked.
"She can do what she likes, but, by God! she shan't marry you."
"I'm of age," declared Viviette fiercely. "I marry whom I choose."
"Of course she can," said Banstead. "Are you taking leave of your
senses?"
"How dare you ask a pure girl to marry you?" cried Dick furiously. "You,
who have come straight here from--"
Banstead found some spirit. "Shut up, Ware," he interrupted. "Play the
game. You've no right to say that."
"I have the right," cried Dick.
"Hush!" said Austin, interposing.
"There's no need to prolong this painful discussion. To-morrow--as
Viviette's guardian--"
"To-morrow?" Dick shouted. "Where shall I be to-morrow? Away from
here--unable to defend her--unable to say a word."
"If you said a thousand words," said Viviette, "they wouldn't make an
atom of difference. Lord Banstead has asked me to marry him. I have
accepted him openly. What dare you say to it?"
"Yes," said Banstead. "She has made no bones about it. I've asked her
five times. Now she accepts me. What have you to say to it?"
"I say she shan't marry you," said Dick, glaring at the other.
"Steady, steady, Dick," said Austin warningly. But Dick shook his
warning angrily aside, and Austin saw that, once again that day, Dick
was desperate.
"Not while I live shall she marry you. Don't I know your infernal
beastly life?"
"Now, look here," said Banstead, at bay. "What the deuce have you got to
do with my affairs?"
"Everything. Do you think she loves you, cares for you, honours you,
respects you?"
Viviette faced him with blazing eyes.
"I do," she said defiantly.
"It's a lie," cried Dick. "It's you that are lying now. Heaven and
earth! I've suffered enough to-day--I thought I had been through
hell--but it's nothing to this. She loves me--do you hear
me?--me--me--me--and I can't marry her--and I don't care a damn who
knows the reason."
"Stop, man," said Austin.
"Let me be. She shall know the truth. Everyone shall know the truth. At
any rate, it will save her from this."
"I will do it quietly, later, Dick."
"Let me be, I tell you," said Dick, with great, clumsy, passionate
gesture. "Let's have no more lies." He turned to Viviette. "You wrote me
a letter. You said you loved me--would marry me--come out to
Vancouver--the words made me drunk with happiness--at first. You saw me.
I refused your love and your offer. I said I didn't love you. I lied. I
said I couldn't marry you. It was the truth. I can't. I can't. But love
you! Oh, my God! My God! There were flames of hell in my heart--but
couldn't you see the love shining through?"
"Don't, Dick, don't," cried Katherine.
"I will," he exclaimed wildly. "I'll tell her why I can't marry any
woman. I tried to murder Austin this afternoon!"
Katherine closed her eyes. She had guessed it. But Viviette, with parted
lips and white cheeks, groped her way backwards to a chair, without
shifting her terror-stricken gaze from Dick; and sitting, she gripped
the arms of the chair.
There was a moment of tense silence. Banstead at last relieved his
feelings with a gasping, "Well, I'm damned!"
Dick continued:
"It was jealousy--mad jealousy--this afternoon--in the armoury--the mock
duel--one of the pistols was loaded. I loaded it--first, in order to
kill him out of hand--then I thought of the duel--he would have his
chance--either he would kill me or I would kill him. Mine happened to be
loaded. It missed fire. It was only the infinite mercy of God that I
didn't kill him. He found it out. He has forgiven me. He's worth fifty
millions of me. But my hands are red with his blood, and I can't touch
your pure garments. They would stain them red--and I should see red
again before my eyes some day. A man like me is not fit to marry any
woman. A murderer is beyond the pale. So I said I didn't love her to
save her from the knowledge of this horror. And now I'm going to the
other side of the world to work out my salvation--but she shall know
that a man loves her with all his soul, and would go through any torment
and renunciation for her sake--and, knowing that, she can't go and throw
herself away on a man unworthy of her. After what I've told you, will
you marry this man?"
Still looking at him, motionless, she whispered, "No."
"I say!" exclaimed Banstead. "I think--"
Austin checked further speech. Dick looked haggardly round the room.
"There. Now you all know. I'm not fit to be under the same roof with
you. Good-bye."
He slouched in his heavy way to the door, but Viviette sprang from her
chair and planted herself in his path.
"No. You shan't go. Do you think I have nothing to say?"
"Say what you like," said Dick sadly. "Nothing is too black for me.
Curse me, if you will."
She laughed, and shook her head. "Do you think a woman curses the man
who would commit murder for the love of her?" she cried, with a strange
exultation in her voice. "If I loved you before--don't you think I love
you now a million times more?"
Dick fell back, thrilled with amazement.
"You love me still?" he gasped. "You don't shrink--"
"Excuse me," interrupted Banstead, crossing the room. "Does this mean
that you chuck me, Miss Hastings?"
"You must release me from my promise, Lord Banstead," she said gently.
"I scarcely knew what I was doing. I'm very sorry. I've not behaved
well to you."
"You've treated me damned badly," said Banstead, turning on his heel.
"Good-bye, everybody."
Austin, moved by compunction, tried to conciliate the angry youth, but
he refused comfort. He had been made a fool of, and would stand that
from nobody. He would not stay for dinner, and would not put his foot
inside the house again.
"At any rate," said Austin, bidding him good-bye, "I can rely on you not
to breathe a word to anyone of what you've heard this evening?"
Banstead fingered his underfed moustache.
"I may be pretty rotten, but I'm not that kind of cad," said he. And he
went, not without a certain dignity.
Dick took Viviette's hand and kissed it tenderly.
"God bless you, dear. I'll remember what you've said all my life. I can
go away almost happy."
"You can go away quite happy, if you like," said Viviette. "Take me with
you."
"To Vancouver?"
Austin joined them. "It is impossible, dear," said he.
"I go with him to Vancouver," she said.
Dick wrung his hands. "But I daren't marry you, Viviette, I daren't, I
daren't."
"Don't you see that it's impossible, Viviette?" said Austin.
"Why?"
"I've explained it to Dick. He has hinted it to you. You're scarcely old
enough to understand, my dear. It is the risk you run."
"Such men as I can't marry," said Dick loyally. "You don't understand.
Austin is right. The risk is too great."
She laughed in superb contempt.
"The risk? Do you think I'm such a fool as not to understand? Do you
think, after what I've said, that I'm a child? Risk? What is life or
love worth without risk? When a woman loves a fierce man she takes the
risk of his fierceness. It's her joy. I'll take the risk, and it will be
a bond between us."
Austin implored her to listen to reason. She swept his arguments aside.
"God forbid. I'll listen to love," she cried. "And if ever a man wanted
love, it's Dick. Reason! Come, Dick, let us leave this god and goddess
of reason alone. I've got something to say which only you can hear."
She dragged him in a bewildered state of mind to the door, which she
held open. She was absolute mistress of the situation. She motioned to
Dick to precede her, and he obeyed, like a man in a dream. On the
threshold she paused, and flashed defiance at Austin, who appeared to
her splendid scorn but a small, narrow-natured man.
[Illustration: "I want you to love me forever and ever."]
"You can say and think what you like, you two. You are civilised
people--and I suppose you love in a civilised way according to reason.
I'm a primitive woman, and Dick's a primitive man--and, thank God! we
understand each other, and love each other as primitive people do."
She slammed the door, and in another moment was caught in Dick's great
arms.
"What do you want to say that only I can hear?" he asked after a while.
"This," she said. "I want you to love me strongly and fiercely for ever
and ever--and I'll be a great wife to you--and, if I fail--if I am ever
wanton, as I have been to-day--for I have been wanton--and all that has
happened has been my fault--if ever I play fast and loose with your love
again--I want you to kill me. Promise!"
She looked at him with glowing eyes. All the big man's heart melted
into adoring pity. He took her face in both his hands as tenderly as he
would have touched a prize rose bloom.
"Thank God, you're still a child, dear," he said.