“MY LIFE CONTINUES YOURS, AND YOUR LIFE MINE.”
They started by the eleven-o’clock train from Fowey next morning,
husband and wife, in a strangely silent companionship--Isola very pale
and still as she sat in a corner of the railway carriage, with her back
to the rivers and the sea. Naturally, in a place of that kind, they
could not get away without being seen by some of their neighbours.
Captain Pentreath was going to Bodmin, and insisted upon throwing away
a half-finished cigar in order to enjoy the privilege of Colonel and
Mrs. Disney’s society, being one of those unmeditative animals who
hate solitude. He talked all the way to Par, lit a fresh cigar during
the wait at the junction, and reappeared just as the colonel and his
wife were taking their seats in the up-train.
“Have you room for me in there?” he asked, sacrificing more than
half of his second cigar. “I’ve got the _Mercury_--Jepps is in for
Stokumpton--a great triumph for our side.”
He spread out the paper, and made believe to begin to read with a great
show of application, as if he meant to devour every syllable of Jepps’s
long exposition of the political situation; but after two minutes he
dropped the _Mercury_ on his knees and began to talk. There were people
in Fowey who doubted whether Captain Pentreath could read. He had been
able once, of course, or he could hardly have squeezed himself into the
Army; but there was an idea that he had forgotten the accomplishment,
except in its most elementary form upon sign-boards, and in the
headings of newspaper articles, printed large. It was supposed that the
intensity of effort by which he had taken in the cramming that enabled
him to pass the ordeal of the Examiners had left his brain a blank.
“You’re not going further than Plymouth, I suppose?” he asked.
“We are going to London.”
“Are you really, now? A bad time of year for London--fogs and thaws,
and all kinds of beastly weather.”
And then he asked a string of questions--futile, trivial, vexing as
summer flies buzzing round the head of an afternoon sleeper; and then
came the welcome cry of Bodmin Road, and he reluctantly left them.
The rest of the journey was passed almost in silence. They had the
compartment to themselves for the greater part of the time, and they
sat in opposite corners, pretending to read--Isola apparently absorbed
in a book that she had taken up at random just before she started, when
the carriage was at the door, and while Allegra was calling to her to
make haste.
It was Carlyle’s “Hero Worship.” The big words, the magnificent
sentences, passed before her eyes like lines in an unknown language.
She had not the faintest idea what she was reading; but she followed
the lines and turned the leaf at the bottom of a page mechanically.
Martin Disney applied himself to the newspapers which he had
accumulated on the way--some at Par, some at Plymouth, some at Exeter,
till the compartment was littered all over with them. He turned and
tossed them about one after the other. Never had they seemed so
empty--the leaders such mere beating the air; the hard facts so few and
insignificant. He glanced at Isola as she sat in her corner, motionless
and composed. He watched the slender, white hands turning the leaves of
her book at regular intervals.
“Is your book very interesting?” he asked, at last, exasperated by her
calmness.
He had been attentive and polite to her, offering her the papers,
ordering tea for her at Exeter, doing all that a courteous husband
ought to do; but he had made no attempt at conversation--nor had she.
This question about the book was wrung from him by the intensity of his
irritation.
“It is a book you gave me years ago at Dinan,” she answered, looking at
him piteously. “‘Hero Worship.’ Don’t you remember? I had never read
anything of Carlyle’s before then. You taught me to like him.”
“Did I? Yes, I remember--a little Tauchnitz volume bound in
morocco--contraband in England. A cheat--like many things in this life.”
He turned his face resolutely to the window, as if to end the
conversation, and he did not speak again till they were moving slowly
into the great station, in the azure brightness of the electric light.
“I have telegraphed for rooms at Whitley’s,” he said, naming a small
private hotel near Cavendish Square, where they had stayed for a few
days before he started for the East.
“Do you think it would be too late for us to call at Hans Place before
we go to our hotel?”
She started at the question. He saw her cheeks crimson in the lamplight.
“I don’t think the lateness of hour will matter,” she said, “unless
Gwendolen is dining out. She dines out very often.”
“I hope to-night may be an exception.”
“Do you want very much to see her?” asked Isola.
“Very much.”
“You are going to question her about me, I suppose?”
“Yes, Isola, that is what I am going to do.”
“It is treating me rather like a criminal; or, at any rate, like a
person whose word cannot be believed.”
“I can’t help myself, Isola. The agony of doubt that I have gone
through can only be set at rest in one way. It is so strange a thing,
so impossible as it seems to me, that you should have visited your
sister while I was away, although no letter I received from you
contained the slightest allusion to that visit--an important event in
such a monotonous life as yours--and although no word you have ever
spoken since my return has touched upon it; till all at once, at a
moment’s notice, when I tell you of your journey from London and the
slander to which it gave occasion--all at once you spring this visit
upon me, as if I ought to have known all about it.”
“You can ask Gwendolen as many questions as you like,” answered Isola,
with an offended air, “and you will see if she denies that I was with
her in the December you were away.”
Colonel Disney handed his wife into a station brougham. The two
portmanteaux were put upon the roof, and the order was given--99, Hans
Place--for albeit Mr. Hazelrigg’s splendid mansion was described on his
cards and his writing-paper as The Towers, it is always as well to have
a number for common people to know us by.
No word was spoken during the long drive from Paddington; no word
when the neat little brougham drew up in front of a lofty flight of
steps leading up to a Heidelberg doorway, set in the midst of a florid
red-brick house, somewhat narrow in proportion to its height, and with
over much ornament in the way of terra cotta panelling, bay and oriel,
balcony and pediment.
A footman in dark green livery and rice powder opened the door. Mrs.
Hazelrigg was at home. He led the way to one of those dismal rooms
which are to be found in most fine houses--a room rarely used by the
family--a kind of pound for casual visitors. Sometimes the pound is
as cold and cheerless as a vestry in a new Anglican church; sometimes
it affects a learned air, lines its walls with books that no one ever
reads, and calls itself a library. Whatever form or phase it may take,
it never fails to chill the visitor.
There was naturally no fire in this apartment. Isola sank shivering
into a slippery leather chair, near the Early English fender; her
husband walked up and down the narrow floor space. This lasted for
nearly ten minutes, when Gwendolen came bursting in, a vision of
splendour, in a grey satin tea-gown, frothed with much foam of creamy
lace and pale pink ribbon, making a cascade of fluffiness from chin to
slippered toes.
“What a most astonishing thing!” she cried, after kissing Isola, and
holding out both her plump, white hands to the colonel. “Have you
dear, good people dropped from the clouds? I thought you were nearly
three hundred miles away when the man came to say you were waiting
to see me. It is a miracle we are dining at home to-night. We are so
seldom at home. Of course you will stay and dine with us. Come up to my
room and take off your hat, Isa. No, you needn’t worry about dress,”
anticipating Disney’s refusal; “we are quite alone. I am going to dine
in my tea-gown, and Daniel is only just home from the city.”
“You are very kind; no, my dear Mrs. Hazelrigg, we won’t dine with
you to-night,” answered Disney. “We have only just come up to town.
We drove across the park to see you before going to our hotel. Our
portmanteaux are waiting at the door. We are in town for so short a
time that I wanted to see you at once--particularly as I have--a rather
foolish question to ask you.”
His voice grew husky, though he tried his uttermost to maintain a
lightness of tone.
“Ask away,” said Gwendolen, straightening herself in her glistening
grey gown, a splendid example of modern elegance in dress and
demeanour, and altogether a more brilliant and imposing beauty than the
pale, fragile figure sitting in a drooping attitude beside the fireless
hearth. “Ask away,” repeated Gwendolen, gaily, glancing at her sister’s
mournful face as she spoke. “If I can answer you I will--but please to
consider that I have a wretched memory.”
“You are not likely to forget the fact I want to ascertain. My wife and
I have had an argument about dates--we are at variance about the date
of her last visit to you--while I was away--and I should like to settle
our little dispute, though it did not go so far as a wager. When was
she with you? On what date did she leave you?”
All hesitation and huskiness were gone from manner and voice. He stood
like a pillar, with his face turned towards his sister-in-law, his eyes
resolute and inquiring.
“Oh, don’t ask me about dates,” cried Gwendolen, “I never know dates.
I buy Letts in every form, year after year--but I never can keep up
my diary. Nothing but a self-acting diary would be of any use to me.
It was in December she came to me--and in December she left--after a
short visit. Come, Isa. You must remember the dates of your arrival and
departure, better than I. You don’t live in the London whirl. You don’t
have your brains addled by hearing about Buenos Ayres, Reading and
Philadelphias, Berthas, Brighton A’s, and things.”
Martin Disney looked at her searchingly. Her manner was perfectly easy
and natural, of a childlike transparency. Her large, bright, blue eyes
looked at him--fearless and candid as the eyes of a child.
“You ought to remember that it was on the last day of the year I left
this house,” said Isola, in her low, depressed voice, as of one weary
unto death. “You said enough about it at the time.”
“Did I? Oh, I am such a feather-head, _tête de linotte_, as they used
to call me at Dinan. So it was--New Year’s Eve--and I was vexed with
you for not staying to see the New Year in. That was it. I remember
everything about it now.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hazelrigg,” said Martin Disney, and then going over to
his wife, he said gravely, “Forgive me, Isola, I was wrong.”
He held out his hands to her with a pleading look, and she rose slowly
from her chair, and let her head fall upon his breast as he put his
arms round her, soothing and caressing her.
“My poor girl, I was wrong--wrong--wrong--a sinner against your truth
and purity,” he murmured low in her ear; and then he added laughingly,
to Gwendolen, “Were we not fools to dispute about such a trifle?”
“All married people are fools on occasion,” answered Mrs. Hazelrigg. “I
have often quarrelled desperately with Daniel about a mere nothing--not
because he was wrong, but because I wanted to quarrel. That kind of
thing clears the air--like a thunderstorm. One feels so dutiful and
affectionate afterwards. Dan gave me this sapphire ring after one of
our biggest rows,” she added, holding up a sparkling finger.
Daniel Hazelrigg came into the room while she was talking of him, a
large man, with a bald head and sandy beard, a genial-looking man,
pleased with a world in which he had been permitted always to foresee
the rise and fall of stocks. The Hazelriggs were the very type of
a comfortable couple, so steeped in prosperity and the good things
of this world as to be hardly aware of any keener air outside the
gardenia-scented atmosphere of their own house; hardly aware of men who
dined badly or women who made their own gowns; much less of men who
never dined at all, or women who flung themselves despairing from the
parapets of the London bridges.
Mr. Hazelrigg came into the room beaming, looked at his wife and
smiled, as he held out his hand to Colonel Disney, looked at his
sister-in-law and smiled again, and held out his hand to her, the smile
broadening a little, as if with really affectionate interest.
“I’m very glad to see you, my dear Mrs. Disney; but I can’t compliment
you upon looking as well as you did when we last met.”
“She is tired after her long journey,” said Gwendolen, quickly. “That’s
all there is amiss.”
“The sooner we get to our hotel the better for both of us,” said
Disney. “We are dusty and weather-beaten, and altogether bad company.
Good night, Mrs. Hazelrigg.”
“But surely you’ll stop and dine; it’s close upon eight,” remonstrated
Hazelrigg, who was the essence of hospitality. “You can send on your
luggage, and go to your hotel later.”
“You are very good, but we are not fit for dining out. Isola looks half
dead with fatigue,” answered Disney. “Once more, good night.”
He shook hands with husband and wife and hurried Isola to the door.
“Be sure you come to me the first thing to-morrow,” said Gwendolen
to her sister. “I shall stay in till you come, and I can drive
you anywhere you want to go for your shopping--Stores, Lewis and
Allanby’s--anywhere. I want to show you my drawing-room. I have changed
everything in it. You’ll hardly know it again.”
She and her husband followed the departing guests to the hall, saw
them get into the little brougham and drive off into the night; and
then Gwendolen put her arm through her husband’s with a soft clinging
affectionateness, as of a Persian cat, that knew when it was well
housed and taken good care of.
“Poor Isa! how awfully ill she looks,” sighed Gwendolen.
“Ghastly. Are all women alike, I wonder, Gwen?”
“I think you ought to know what kind of woman I am by this time,”
retorted his wife, tossing up her head.
* * * * *
Martin Disney and his wife were alone in their sitting-room at the
hotel, somewhat bare and unhomelike, as hotel rooms must always
be, despite the march of civilization which has introduced certain
improvements. He had made a pretence of dining in the coffee-room
below, and she had taken some tea and toast beside the fire; and now at
ten o’clock they were sitting on each side of the hearth, face to face,
pale and thoughtful, and strangely silent.
“Isola, have you forgiven me?” he asked at last.
“With all my heart. Oh, Martin, I could never be angry with you--never.
You have been so good to me. How could I be angry?”
“But you have the right to be angry. I ought not to have doubted. I
ought to have believed your word against all the world; but that man
raised a doubting devil in me. I was mad with fears and suspicions,
wild and unreasonable--as I suppose jealousy generally is. I had never
been jealous before. Great God! what a fearful passion it is when a
man gives himself up to it. I frightened you by my vehemence, and then
your scared looks frightened me. I mistook fear for guilt. Isola, my
beloved, let me hear the truth from your own lips--the assurance--the
certainty,” he cried with impassioned fervour, getting up and going
over to her, looking down into the pale, upturned face with those dark,
earnest eyes which always seemed to search the mysteries of her heart.
“Let there be no shadow of uncertainty or distrust between us. I have
heard from your sister that you were with her when you said you were.
That is much. It settles for that vile cad’s insinuated slander; but it
is not enough. Let the assurance come to me from your lips--from yours
alone. Tell me--by the God who will judge us both some day--Are you my
own true wife?”
“I am, Martin--I am your own true wife,” she answered, with an
earnestness that thrilled him. “I have not a thought that is not of
you. I love you with all my heart and mind. Is not that enough?”
“And you have never wronged me? You have been true and pure always? I
call upon God to hear your words, Isola. Is that true?”
“Yes, yes; it is true.”
“God bless you, darling! I will never speak of doubt again. You are
my own sweet wife, and shall be honoured and trusted to the end of my
days. Thank God, the cloud is past, and we can be happy again!”
She rose from her low seat by the fire, and put her arms round his
neck, and hid her face upon his breast, sobbing hysterically.
“My own dear girl, I have been cruel to you--brutal and unkind; but
you would forgive me if you knew what I have suffered since noon
yesterday; and, indeed, my suffering began before then. That man’s
harping on Lostwithiel’s name in all his talk with you--his air of
meaning more than he said--and your embarrassment, awakened suspicions
that had to be set at rest somehow. Remember the disadvantages under
which I labour--the difference in our ages; my unattractiveness as
compared with younger men. These things predisposed me to doubt your
love. I have not had a moment’s peace since the night of that odious
dinner-party. Yes; I have felt a new sensation. I know what jealousy
means. But it is past. Praise be to God, it is past. I have come out of
the cloud again. Oh, my love, had it been otherwise! Had we been doomed
to part!”
“What would you have done, Martin?” she asked, in a low voice, with her
face still hidden against his breast, his arms still round her.
“What would I have done, love? Nothing to bring shame on you. Nothing
to add to your dishonour or sharpen the agony of remorse. I should have
taken my son--my son could not be left under the shadow of a mother’s
shame. He and I would have vanished out of your life. You would have
heard no more of us. The world would have known nothing. You would have
been cared for and protected from further evil--protected from your own
frailty. So far, I would have done my duty as your husband to the last
day of my life; but you and I would never have looked upon each other
again.”
* * * * *
Colonel Disney and his wife stayed in London two days; perhaps to give
a colour to their sudden and in somewise unexplained journey; but Isola
refused all her sister’s invitations, to lunch, to drive, to dine,
to go to an afternoon concert at the Albert Hall, or to see the last
Shakespearean revival at the Lyceum. She pleaded various excuses; and
Gwendolen had to be satisfied with one visit, at afternoon teatime,
when husband and wife appeared together, on the eve of their return to
Cornwall.
“It was too bad of you not to come to me yesterday morning, as you
promised,” Gwendolen said to her sister. “I stayed indoors till after
luncheon on your account; and the days are so short at this time of
year. I couldn’t do any shopping.”
Mrs. Hazelrigg was one of those young women for whom life is
flavourless when they have nothing to buy. She was so well supplied
with everything that women desire or care for that she had to invent
wants for herself. She had to watch the advertisements in order to
tempt herself with some new wish; were it only for a patent toast-rack,
or a new design in ivory paper-knives. The stationers helped to
keep life in her by their new departures in writing-paper. Papyrus,
Mandarin, Telegraphic, Good Form, Casual, mauve, orange, scarlet,
verdigris green. So long as the thing was new it made an excuse for
sitting in front of a counter and turning over the contents of a
show-case.
“You never came to look at my drawing-room by daylight,” she went on
complainingly. “You can’t possibly judge the tints by lamplight. Every
chair is of a different shade. I think you have treated me shamefully.
I have sent you more telegrams than I could count. And I had such lots
to talk about. Have you heard from Dinan lately?”
“Not since August, when mother wrote in answer to our invitation for
her and father to spend a month with us. I felt it was hopeless when I
wrote to her.”
“Utterly hopeless! Nothing will tempt her to cross the sea. She writes
about it as if it were the Atlantic. And Lucy Folkestone tells me she
is getting stouter.”
“You mean mother?”
“Yes, naturally. There’s no fear of Lucy ever being anything but bones.
Mother is stouter and more sedentary than ever, Lucy says. It’s really
dreadful. One doesn’t know where it will end,” added Gwendolen, looking
down at her own somewhat portly figure, as if fearing hereditary evil.
“I shall have to take Isa and the boy to Dinan next summer,” said
Disney. “It is no use asking the father and mother to cross the
channel; though I think they would both like to see their grandson.”
“Mother raved about him in her last letter to me,” replied Gwendolen.
“She was quite overcome by the photograph you sent her, only she has
got into such a groove--her knitting, her novel, her little walk on
the terrace, her long consultations with Toinette about the smallest
domestic details--whether the mattresses shall be unpicked to-day or
to-morrow, or whether the _lessive_ shall be a week earlier or a week
later. It is dreadful to think of such a life,” added Gwendolen, as if
her own existence were one of loftiest aims.