THE LOVELY ANDRIA.
While Beryl Corselas slept like a dead girl in the flying
railway-carriage, a woman sat in a beautiful house in London and
wondered why she was remembering the strange goblin child. “I’m not fit
to think of her or the convent, either,” she thought grimly. “Who would
believe that I was ever Andria Heathcote, or brought up in a convent
school?”
She got up and looked at herself in a glass with an insight that does
not come to happy women. The world had taught her that a woman with a
clear skin and good teeth has it in her own hands to be beautiful, but
it was something else that had taught her to build up her beauty as an
architect builds a palace for a king.
Her red-brown hair was but a little ruddier than in convent-days. She
had been too wise to dye it; her round, young face was chiseled into
the firmness of a delicate cameo by the sure hands of Love and vain
longing; her brave mouth was more scornful, more self-reliant than of
old, and the queer, veiled look was gone from her blue eyes. They were
bold, under the lashes and brows she had learned to darken, and the
head that had bowed so easily to rebuke was set proudly now. And yet
there was little for Andria Erle to glory in. She turned sharply from
the glass. “Bah! The child would not know me, nor I her,” she thought.
“I wonder why I am thinking of her. Oh, I’m nervous--nervous! And I
have no real cause, I can’t have any.”
But the step with which she paced the room was not that of a woman at
ease. She was sick with a terror that grew daily, and she knew it. She
looked at the magnificence about her, not indifferently, as she had
been wont to look, but like a woman who holds luxury by a frail tenure
and fears to lose it. Yet the luxury of the place came last to her
troubled mind. There was more than that to lose; love and trust, that
might go any day. To keep her thoughts away from that she tried to
remember the convent, but it only maddened her.
“Oh, Mother Benedicta!” she said to herself. “You knew too little
about the world when you sent me to a house like lady Parr’s. You and
the good sisters would have thought that house hell on earth from the
things that went on there. I might have, too, if I hadn’t been a blind
fool. But I wouldn’t go back. I’ve been happy; I’ve had my day--and
I’ve no reason to think it’s done yet. I know,” deliberately, “I’ve no
reason!” and while she swore it to herself she kept listening for the
postman’s knock.
It seemed to thunder through the house before she knew it. But the
servant who brought in the one letter that had come found his mistress
sitting reading, her exquisite paled satin tea-gown in careful folds
about her languid figure.
Her heart knocked at her ribs as she took the letter; as the door
closed behind the man she sprang to her feet, crushing the thin note to
her breast.
“Oh, thank God!” she breathed, “thank God. I knew it would come. I knew
he didn’t mean to throw me over.”
She kissed the senseless letter like a living thing. She knew each line
of the address--every letter was dear to her; yet Beryl Corselas would
not have known the name on the envelope, which certainly was not Andria
Heathcote. To Mother Felicitas it might not have been so strange.
It was not for five minutes that Andria opened the letter, and when she
did so she no longer thanked God for it.
It was a white, haggard wretch who crawled to a sofa and lay there
staring at the written sheet in her hand like one who cannot
understand. Yet it was plain English, and began, “Dear Andria,” as
letters do. But her face was convulsed out of all beauty as she felt
those few sentences burning into her brain; a dreadful trembling took
her.
“I’m going to cry; and I won’t cry!” she said savagely. She was on her
feet and across the room to where a stand of spirits and soda waited
for a visitor who would never come back to that house. But though she
poured out neat whisky and drank it, it could not stop that horrible
trembling.
“I’m to go. He’s done with me!” she thought. “I--that thanked God at
the sight of his letter;” her lips quivered in spite of her; “who’ve
been faithful for five years.”
She tried to read the letter slowly and sanely, but one sentence in
it seemed to leap to her eyes. “Of course you know our marriage was
nonsense. The clergyman was never even ordained. It would not hold good
anywhere, even in Scotland.”
“Then what am I?” thought Andria, and, being a brave woman, kept in the
cry. She read on mechanically.
“The fact is I’m ruined. I haven’t got a penny left, and my father is
nearly as bad. You have plenty of sense, you will see for yourself that
I must give in to him and marry money. He will be beside himself till
we are on our feet again and there is an heir to the property. He would
never hear of my marrying you, even if our madness had not passed by
this time. You will understand this is not a pleasant letter for me to
write, so I will close it. I send you what money I can spare, but you
need not expect any more, for I haven’t got it. The sheriff will seize
the furniture to-morrow, but my father’s agent will take over the house
and pay the servants. Let me have your address, like a sensible girl.
But I know you will see reason, especially as you are not tied to me in
any way, and the end would have had to come some day.”
There was no signature, and there were two pages preceding what was,
after all, the gist of the matter. Andria Heathcote, who had never been
Andria Erle except in her own mind, crept to her sofa and lay there,
her face buried in the silk cushions Raimond Erle had chosen that very
spring. But now it was November, and this was “a last year’s nest.”
She bit at her arm fiercely that pain might keep away tears. None of
Raimond Erle’s servants should see that the woman who had never been
his wife had been crying in her shame and anger. She wondered how
much they knew. All London probably knew more than she had done. She
remembered how Raimond had had no friends but men, how she had gone
among them by the nickname of “The Lovely Andria”; how some of them had
openly thought her shameless--the remembrance made her writhe where she
lay.
A silver clock chimed, and she counted the sweet strokes.
“Five!” Five already, and she would not sleep another night under this
roof. The whisky had steadied her, helped her; she rose and looked in
the glass that an hour ago had reflected a woman who had hope left in
her and saw that no eye but her own would see any difference. Andria
Erle had looked nervous; Andria Heathcote was only a shade paler, a
little harder-eyed.
She turned to ring the bell, and saw something on the hearth-rug. It
was a check for ten pounds, and at first she would have let it lie.
After five years he was turning her out of the house with ten pounds!
But it occurred to her suddenly that she had no other money in the
world.
“It is bad to have been made a fool of, but it is worse to keep on
being a fool,” she said, with queer calmness, and stooped for the check.
Another woman would have sat down and written an answer to that letter,
which would have cut even Raimond Erle. But to quarrel openly was not
Andria’s way. If an opportunity came to repay she would repay; it was
no use to write what he need not read unless he chose. Once more she
turned to ring for a servant, and this time did not falter.
“Send my maid to me,” she said. “I have had a letter from Mr. Erle. He
is not returning and I am going away. Lord Erceldonne’s agent will pay
your wages.”
She spoke gently as she always did, and the servant admired her for
it; he knew, as she thought, that things were at an end. But he liked
her, as did every one who had ever served her, and he kept his sympathy
from his face.
Her maid came as quickly as if she had been waiting outside the door.
“I want you to pack for me at once, Louise, I am going away to-night,
and I must leave you here.”
“But, madam, you can never do without me,” said the girl awkwardly. She
would like to go with the mistress who had never spoken unkindly even
when she was displeased.
“There is no room for you where I am going.” Andria’s voice was gentle
still. “You need not pack my evening gowns. But you must hurry, Louise.”
“Madam’s jewels, of course!” said the maid, with tears in her eyes. All
the household but the mistress had known the end was coming.
Andria turned to the windows.
“I will see to the jewels,” she answered in a suffocated voice. “I will
not take them.”
The maid dared not say more. But it was well that Andria did not see
her packing. Every gorgeous gown her mistress owned was in the boxes
decorously covered with underlinen and every-day clothes by the time
Mrs. Erle came up-stairs.
Her jewels were spread out on the toilet-table; perhaps the faithful
maid thought the sight of them would tempt her mistress to take them.
But she shivered as the gorgeous, shining things glittered in the
candle-light. Every one of them had meant something in the days when
love was young; each stone held its separate insult now. She put
them back in her jewel-case with averted face and ungentle hands.
Diamonds and pearls, opals and beryls, not one would she keep; and
her wedding-ring fell with a clink on the mass. Andria Heathcote had
nothing to do with the baubles Andria Erle had loved.
She stood up straight and fair as Louise dressed her in a plain black
gown. For three months she had been dreading this day, fearing heavily
to note the small signs of its approach; but now that it was here she
felt curiously calm.
“Tell James to call a cab,” she said, “and this is for you! You are
a kind girl, Louise, and I have liked you.” She held out a long gold
chain set with pearls. It was her own, not his; she had a right to give
it away.
But the maid was crying.
“Don’t cry, child, for me,” she said steadily, “and take care of the
jewels till Mr. Travers, the agent, comes to-morrow. He will give you a
receipt for them, and you must send it to Mr. Erle at the club.”
“But you’ll come back, madam?” cried Louise, sobbing.
“No. Oh! my poor Louise, cheer up. There are better mistresses than
I’ve been.”
“No, no!” said the girl passionately, “none. What haven’t you done for
me and my mother?” The French girl would have kissed Andria’s hand, but
with a queer feeling of superstition her mistress stooped and kissed
her cheek. It was something to have a creature to say farewell to;
there would be none to greet her home.
“Get the cab,” she repeated. And when the girl was gone she went
to her writing-table. There was a photograph there and she stared
at it. Why had she loved him? He was just a long-legged, haggard,
gentlemanly-looking man, like scores of others, yet she had sold her
soul for him.
Her hand was on the picture to put it in the fire, but a sudden thought
flamed in her eyes and stayed her hand. On the back of it was written:
“Raimond to Andria; on their wedding-day.” She would keep it! The
world was thick, they might never meet; but if they did that writing
might confound his dearest plans. She slipped the photograph into her
pocket and went down-stairs. The French girl, with a pang at her heart,
watched her get into the cab and drive away.