Mr. Anson's reader reported favourably on Owen's book, and in a very
short time satisfactory terms were agreed upon between author and
publisher, and the work of proof-reading and revision began.
Unfortunately at the same time Owen felt his arm to be more than usually
painful; and a visit to town proved the necessity for further treatment,
of which perfect rest was a feature: with the result that once again
Owen was forced to accept the help of a secretary in his work.
Miss Loder, naturally, filled the post; and once more she came to
Greenriver, and took her place in the stately old library, where she and
Owen passed strenuous hours daily.
To Toni Miss Loder's presence was growing ever more and more
distasteful. Although Toni was not an intellectual woman, she had sharp
wits; and possibly she understood Millicent Loder's personality a good
deal better than Owen was able to do. And what Toni saw--and Toni's
intuition was rarely at fault--led her to distrust the other girl with
all her heart and soul.
Miss Loder belonged to a rather uncommon variant of the type of
emancipated womanhood. Although intensely modern in many ways she had
never been able to lose her inborn sense of the superiority of man in
mental as well as in physical matters.
She had none of the loudly-expressed scorn of the other sex by which
many women seek to hide their disappointment at the indifference of
members of that sex towards them.
Although she was by force of circumstance a Suffragist, she did not for
one moment imagine that with the coming of votes for women the whole
industrial and social problem of the country would be solved. Unlike
many women, she was quite content to work under a man, and although she
was well able to think for herself on all vital questions, she liked to
hear and assimilate the opinions of the men with whom she came in
contact.
She preferred men, indeed, to women; and her attitude towards them,
though never in the least familiar, held a good comradeship, a kind of
large tolerance which annoyed and irritated those of her girl
acquaintances who looked upon men as their natural enemies and the
enemies of all feminine progress.
Shrewd, competent, fully assured of her own ability to face the world
alone, Miss Loder had never thought seriously of marriage. She delighted
in her independence, was proud of the fact that she was able to command
a good salary, and her habit of mind was too genuinely practical to
allow of any weak leanings towards romance. She did not wish to marry.
She had none of the fabled longing for domesticity, as exemplified in a
well-kept house and a well-filled nursery, with which the average man
endows the normal woman. She looked on children, indeed, mainly as the
materials on whom this or that system of education might be tested; and
she was really of too cold, too self-sufficing a nature to feel the need
of any love other than that of relation or friend.
But since she had worked for Owen Rose, Millicent had begun to change
her views. At first she had merely been attracted by his brilliance, as
any clever girl might have been, had found it stimulating to work with
him, and had been pleased and proud when he selected her to be his
coadjutor in the task of writing his first book. She had been, in truth,
so keenly interested in the author that she had overlooked the man; and
it is a fact that until she came down, at his request, to his house to
work there, away from the busy office, his personality had been so vague
to her that she could not even have described his appearance with any
accuracy.
But the sight of his home, the stately old house set in its spacious
gardens and surrounded by magnificent trees, had shaken Millicent out of
her intellectual reverie into a very shrewd and wide-awake realization
of the man himself.
In his own home he shook off the conventions of the office, became more
human, more approachable; and no woman, least of all one as mentally
alert, as open-eyed as Miss Loder, could have passed with him through
those strenuous hours in which his book was born without gaining a
pretty complete insight into his character.
And with knowledge came a new and less comprehensible emotion. At first
Miss Loder had accepted the fact of her employer's marriage as one
accepts any fixed tradition; and the subject rarely entered her thoughts
during working hours.
Gradually she began to feel a faint curiosity as to what manner of woman
Owen Rose's wife might be; and she welcomed her summons to Greenriver on
the ground that now she would be able to solve the problem for herself.
When she finally saw Toni, her first emotion was one of surprise that
this dark-eyed girl should be the mistress of Greenriver; and very
slowly that surprise died and was succeeded by a feeling of envy which
grew day by day. At first Miss Loder grudged the unconscious Toni her
established position as _châtelaine_ of this eminently desirable home;
and Toni's very simplicity, the youthful _insouciance_ with which she
filled that position, was an added annoyance. Later, Miss Loder began to
grudge Toni more than that. As she spent more and more time in Owen's
company, as she grew more and more intimate with the workings of his
mind, of his rich and poetic imagination, Miss Loder began to fall under
the spell of the man himself.
Quite unconsciously she was becoming ever more attracted by his manner,
his voice, his ways; and once or twice she found herself wondering, with
a kind of sick envy, in what light he appeared to the woman who was his
wife.
Through it all, however, Miss Loder's paramount emotion was one of envy
for the mistress of Greenriver. She used to think, as she came into the
house each morning, that it would have suited her much better, as a
background, than it would ever suit the quaint, childish-looking Toni;
and it grew almost unendurable to her to have to sit at the luncheon
table as a guest--not even that--and watch Toni's ridiculous assumption
of dignity as she sat in her high-backed chair opposite her husband.
There was no doubt about it that Greenriver would have suited Miss Loder
very well as a home; and she grew to dislike Toni more and more as the
full realization of the girl's good fortune penetrated her mind.
Toni had been quite right in detecting the malice beneath Millicent's
pretended friendliness. It seemed to Miss Loder that the only way to
pierce this upstart girl's armour of complacency was to launch shafts of
cleverly-veiled contempt; and although to Owen these darts were either
imperceptible or merely accidental, Toni knew very well that they were
intended to wound.
Owen, wrapped up in his book, and only anxious to further the work as
rapidly as possible, had no time to spare for these feminine amenities.
He realized, of course, that Toni did not care for Miss Loder; but he
thought he understood that her dislike came, rather pathetically, from
her consciousness of her own shortcomings: and had no idea that Miss
Loder herself was largely responsible for the lack of harmony between
them.
On what might be called the literary side of him, he thought Millicent
Loder an excellent secretary, the one woman with whom he found it
possible to work; but on what might be called the personal side, his
interest was _nil_. True, he liked her trim appearance, though he would
never have dreamed of comparing it with Toni's more unconventional
attraction. He admired her quiet independence, and recognized her at
once as belonging to his own world; but he never thought of her in any
relation save that of secretary and general assistant; and even Toni was
sufficiently wise to recognize the fact.
All the same Toni mistrusted the other woman; and it was with a feeling
of intensest apprehension that she received Owen's announcement that
Barry had arranged for a substitute at the office--thus setting Miss
Loder free to resume her work at Greenriver.
* * * * *
It chanced on a beautiful October day that Owen found it necessary to go
to town on business connected with the _Bridge_; and for once he went up
by train, bidding Toni use the car if she felt so inclined.
She did feel inclined; and after a very early lunch, jumped into the
waiting motor, and directed Fletcher to drive over to Cherry Orchard, in
the hope of inducing the doctor's daughters to share her excursion.
Disappointment awaited her, however. Both the Tobies were away from home
on a short visit, and Toni was obliged to proceed alone.
She had enjoyed a couple of hours' spin in the frosty air, when she
found herself being carried swiftly past the railway station, and a
thought struck her which she communicated to Fletcher without delay.
Yes, Fletcher opined, it was just time the London train was due, and
since it was quite possible Mr. Rose had travelled by it, he obligingly
brought the car to a standstill outside the station entrance.
Toni jumped lightly out, an alluring little figure in her beautiful
sable coat and cap, and made her way swiftly on to the platform,
glancing at the big station clock as she did so.
The train was not due for five minutes; and to pass the interval of
waiting, Toni strolled over to the bookstall in search of a paper. As
she stood turning over a few magazines, a familiar voice accosted her,
and she moved quickly to face the speaker.
"Mrs. Rose--I hope you have not quite forgotten me?"
"Mr. Dowson! Of course I've not forgotten you." She put out a friendly
little hand, which the young man seized in a fervent grasp. "My cousin
Fanny told me you were coming down to Sutton."
"Yes. I had to change here. It's an awkward little journey." He was
gazing at her fixedly, but withal so respectfully that Toni could not
take offence. "You are, I believe, a resident of this little riverside
colony of Willowhurst?"
"Well, we live by the river," said Toni cheerfully, amused, as of yore,
by his somewhat pedantic diction. "But do tell me, Mr. Dowson, how do
you expect to make a fortune here?"
"I do not expect to do so," he informed her promptly. "I assure you this
move on my part was not actuated by any mercenary motive, Mrs. Rose."
"Wasn't it?" She felt vaguely uncomfortable. "Well, I hope you will
succeed. After all, I suppose people do have toothache in the country."
"Fortunately, they do," was Mr. Dowson's reply, and Toni was happily
able to acquit him of any unkind meaning. "But may I say that I have
never seen you looking so well, Mrs. Rose? Evidently the river life
suits you admirably."
Toni did look particularly well at that moment. The keen frosty air had
brought a tinge of wild-rose to her cheeks, and a sparkle to her eyes;
and the animation of her expression hid the very slight traces of mental
distress which at a less favourable moment might have been evident to a
searching scrutiny.
"I'm very well, thanks," she replied carelessly. "I've been motoring,
and now I'm waiting for my husband. He has been in town to-day."
Although she did not wish to dismiss the young man summarily, he
imagined she desired him to go; and since to the true lover his
mistress' unspoken wish has the force of a command, Mr. Dowson hastened
to obey what he deemed her bidding.
"I must hurry to the other side to take my train," he said immediately.
"May I express my pleasure at meeting you, Mrs. Rose--and also to see
you look so well," he added heartily, if ungrammatically.
She shook hands with him, debating with herself as to the advisability
of inviting him to Greenriver; but fortunately the arrival of the London
train cut short their farewells at an opportune moment, and Mr. Dowson
left her before she had time to decide the point.
Owen was not among the few passengers who got out of the train; and
after waiting a moment or two to make sure, Toni turned away to find
herself confronted with Mr. Herrick, who with a worried look on his face
was interrogating one of the sleepy porters.
"No, sir, there isn't no cabs. There wasn't but three, and the gentlemen
was very quick about taking 'em."
"Well, I must get one somehow." Herrick, quite overlooking Toni in his
disturbance, spoke sharply, and Toni wondered vaguely why he was so
annoyed. "You can ring one up from the livery stables, can't you?"
"What's the matter, Jim? No cab, I suppose. Well, they can just fetch
one--and quick, too."
The words, spoken behind her in an unmistakably Irish voice made Toni
start. She understood, all at once, that this was Mrs. Herrick's
home-coming; and she felt a sudden curiosity to see the woman who had
lately gone through so bitter an experience.
She half turned away; then a thought struck her, and she turned quickly
back again and rushed into speech.
"Mr. Herrick, I couldn't help hearing you say you wanted a cab just now.
Will you let me drive you--and your wife--home in the car? Do--it would
save you having to wait so long."
Herrick, whose usual philosophic calm appeared to have deserted him,
hesitated.
"Why, Mrs. Rose, it's awfully good of you--but----"
"Oh, do!" Toni spoke eagerly, and the woman who stood by turned to her
impulsively.
"Are you offering to take us home in your car?" Her voice was full of
Irish melody. "It is very kind of you--and for myself, I'm so tired I'd
accept with pleasure. But"--there was something malignant in the glance
she gave her husband--"perhaps we'd better wait for a cab."
"Oh, do come, please," Toni begged, her bright eyes pleading to be
allowed to do this little service. "It's a big car, and I'm all alone in
it."
"Very well." Mrs. Herrick turned to her husband. "Come along, Jim; the
luggage can come on later."
And in less than five minutes the matter was arranged. Herrick elected
to sit beside the chauffeur, so that Toni and her new acquaintance sat
together in the body of the car. Mrs. Herrick's large and rather
new-looking dressing-bag on the floor at their feet.
Toni gave the direction to the openly interested Fletcher, and the car
glided away through the group of loafers hanging round the station
entrance, and settled down into a steady hum on the road leading to the
Hope House.
Toni seized a moment while Mrs. Herrick was busy with the fastening of
her bag to steal a look at her companion; and in that brief glance she
received two distinct impressions--one that Eva Herrick was a bitterly
unhappy woman, the other that she had no intention of allowing other
people to escape from her own aura of bitterness.
In person Mrs. Herrick was short and slight, with a look of finish about
her probably handed down through generations of her Irish ancestors. Her
small features were cut as clearly as a cameo, and her short upper lip,
while giving her an air of pride which was unpleasing, was in itself
beautiful. Her eyes, the big Irish eyes which had first enslaved
Herrick, were lovely in shape and colour, but they were encircled by
disfiguring blue shadows, and the fine skin had a tell-tale pallor which
spoke of long indoor confinement.
Her hair, by nature crisp and golden, looked dull and lifeless in the
shadow of her hat; and over the whole dainty face and figure there was
an indefinable blight, a sort of shadow which dimmed and blurred their
naturally clean and clear contours.
As she removed her gloves to fumble with the lock of her bag. Toni
noticed that the small, well-shaped hands were rough and badly kept; and
Toni's soft heart was wrung by these evidences of a sordid, toilsome
past.
Suddenly Mrs. Herrick sat upright and gazed at Toni with a look which
held something of criticism.
"You live down here I suppose?"
"Yes. We live at Greenriver, about a mile from your bungalow."
"Ah. Been here long?"
"Only a few months."
"I see. You haven't known my husband very long, then?"
"No. He pulled me out of the river one day," said Toni, "and we have
seen him pretty often during the summer."
"Then I suppose you know where I've been?" Her eyes shone maliciously.
"Oh, don't pretend you didn't know. I'm sure my worthy husband must have
told you the whole story."
Toni, scarlet with embarrassment, and wishing from the bottom of her
heart that she had never offered the use of her car, said nothing; and
with a grating little laugh the other woman continued her speech.
"I expect everyone knows I have been in prison." Luckily she did not
raise her voice; and Herrick, possibly foreseeing the necessity, had
taken care to engage the chauffeur in conversation. "Eighteen
months--almost--spent in _hell_. Oh!" Her small, sharp teeth bit her lip
venomously. "It drives me mad to think of it. And it could all have been
avoided if my husband had been a man."
"Oh!" Toni revolted inwardly against her callousness.
"Oh, I suppose he's told you some tale or other." Mrs. Herrick spoke
fiercely, and all her childish beauty waned beneath her passion; "Well,
whatever he says, it is I who have paid the bill. Prison! My God, you
don't know what it is to be shut up in a cell like a beast--to be
ordered about like a dog, to be starved on coarse food, made to sleep on
a bed you wouldn't dare to give your servant!"
Toni, very pale, tried to stem the torrent of her words.
"Mrs. Herrick--please--really I don't think you ought to say this to
me----"
"Ought? Why do you say that?" Eva Herrick looked contemptuously at her
would-be mentor. "If you had been shut up as I have been, you would talk
as you liked. Thank God I can talk if I can do nothing else."
Quite suddenly her manner changed. She gave a little laugh which was
oddly fascinating, and laid her hand on Toni's arm.
"Come, now, Mrs. Rose, don't be getting angry with me." Her brogue lent
a charm to her speech. "I'll admit I've no earthly right to talk so;
it's bad form to begin with and a poor return for your kindness. But
remember, I've gone through an experience that's enough to kill a woman,
and you can't expect me to forget it all at once. So you must forgive
me. Will you?"
"Oh, of course I will." Toni spoke quickly. "And I had no right to speak
as I did. But--you must forget all that is past. Won't you try?"
"Sure, I'll try." Eva's lovely eyes filled with tears. "But I know what
will happen. Your husband won't let you know me, of course, and if Jim
and I are left alone, we'll be murdering one another one fine day."
"Oh, please don't talk so. Of course my husband will let me know you,"
said Toni in distress; and she was glad to find from the slackening of
the car that their conversation must be cut short.
Jim Herrick, more silent and worn-looking than Toni had ever seen him,
helped his wife to alight and then shook hands gratefully with Toni.
"So many thanks, Mrs. Rose." His big, bright eyes looked into hers,
almost as the eyes of a nice dog might have done. "You have saved us a
long wait, and I'm only sorry we have taken you out of your way."
"Oh, that's nothing," Toni said. "I like being out on these bright days,
and I'm ever so glad I happened to be at the station."
She shook hands with Mrs. Herrick, who looked a pitifully fragile figure
as she stood beside the car; and then Toni gave the order for home, and
Fletcher obeyed that order too promptly to allow of any further
leave-takings.
Just for one moment Jim Herrick stood looking after the car, and in his
heart there was a great sickness of apprehension.
With the best intention in the world to be fair to his wife, he could
not help comparing the fresh, simple-hearted Toni with the world-weary
and disillusioned Eva; and at the thought of the future his spirits sank
to zero.
A mocking voice broke on his ear as he watched the car gliding swiftly
down the road.
"When you've finished staring at that young woman, Jim, perhaps you'll
open the gate." Eva stood back to allow him to reach the latch. "I must
say this is a nice place to bring me to. Is it a cottage or what?"
"It's quite a decent little place, dear," he said steadily, as he held
open the gate for her to pass through. "Of course, I quite understand
that it is only a temporary arrangement, but you will try to put up with
it, won't you?"
"I suppose I shall have to," she replied ungraciously; and then she
uttered an impatient exclamation as the big white dog tore over the lawn
to meet her master, uttering deep-throated bays of welcome the while.
"You've still got that beast, then--go down, you brute," she added, as
Olga approached, with instinctive courtesy, to greet her former
mistress.
"Don't snap at her, dear," said Herrick kindly. "The poor creature is
only trying to say how do you do."
"Then she can say it to someone else," said Eva curtly. "I hate big
dogs--I wish you'd get rid of her."
Herrick made no reply, but opened the door, and they went into the house
together.
Eva passed into the quaintly attractive sitting-room with a frown on her
face, which lightened, however, at sight of the tea-table standing
ready, and pulling off her gloves and coat she flung herself into a low
chair with a sigh of fatigue.
"Heavens, how thirsty I am," she said. "Give me some tea, Jim--quickly."
And as he moved forward to obey her, her eyes followed him with a
curious expression in their grey depths.
"What's for dinner?" she asked, suddenly, and Herrick looked his memory
to recall the _menu_.
"Soup, roast chicken, plum tart, and a savoury," he said at last,
smiling with a rather pathetic attempt at cheerfulness. "Mrs. Swastika,
as I call her, is what is known as a 'good plain cook,' but anything at
all elaborate throws her off her balance altogether."
"Have you no other servants?" she demanded shortly.
"Not yet. I didn't want them, you know, and I thought you would prefer
to choose them yourself."
"I? If I can get any," she said darkly, drawing her delicate brows
together resentfully. "Of course they won't stay when they find out
things; but we must be decently waited on."
Herrick made no reply; and his silence exasperated the girl, whose
nerves were all on edge.
"Oh, don't stand there saying nothing." Her voice was shrill. "Of
course, you think I ought to wait on myself--now. And I suppose because
I've been in prison you expect me to be thankful to be here--even in a
hole like this. Well, I'm not. I hate the place. It's common and shabby
and horrid, and I'm not going to live all anyhow, to please you."
Herrick, dismayed at the vehemence of her manner, could find no words;
and she went on with increasing passion:
"I'm your wife--if I _am_ a jail-bird!" She flung the taunt at him, and
her whole little figure was shaken with the intensity of her emotion.
"If you think I'm going to pretend to be penitent--and grateful to
you--you are wrong! I _hate_ you, Jim, I loathe and despise you--you
might have taken the blame on your shoulders--and instead you stood by
and watched them torture me. _You've_ not been to prison, _you've_ not
been bullied and despised--you've not spent weeks and months in a
loathsome little cell where the sun never shone and there was never a
breath of air--you've not been called by a number, and preached at by
the chaplain--oh, no, you've been living here in the sunshine--enjoying
yourself, eating good food--your chicken and your savouries--and for all
I know passing as a single man, and keeping your disgraced wife in the
background!"
She struck the table sharply with her hand, and her cup and saucer fell
to the ground and smashed, the tea trickling in a brown stream over the
dim blues and greens of the Persian carpet.
She ignored the catastrophe.
"Well, you've got me back now, and I'm going to make _your_ life what
mine has been for the last year and a half! I've longed for this moment,
Jim"--she set her teeth--"longed for it during the horrible days and the
still more horrible nights. It was only my hatred of you that kept me
alive in the first ghastly weeks. I could have died--I was very ill at
first, and they thought I'd die--but I knew I wouldn't. I meant to live
so that I could tell you again to your face that I hate you, hate
you--_hate_ you! And I'm going to show you what hate is, Jim--I'm going
to make you wish you were dead--or in prison, as I have been. Oh, my
God--I wish--I wish I _were_ dead!"
With a sudden collapse of all her powers she dropped, face downwards, on
the big divan, and burst into a fit of wild and uncontrollable sobbing.
With an effort whose magnitude he himself only half realized, Herrick
went softly over to the weeping, writhing figure, and laid his hand very
gently on her shoulder.
"Eva, for pity's sake----"
She flung off his hand as though it had been a venomous serpent which
had touched her; and again her wild sobbing filled the room.
"Eva, listen to me, dear." Herrick sat down beside her and spoke in a
quiet tone, which yet pierced through her sobs. "You must not say
anything like that to me again. There isn't any question of hatred
between you and me. We are together now, and we must build up a new and
happy life together which will help us to forget the less happy past.
Come, dear, look up and tell me you will help me to make a fresh start."
She did not speak, but her sobs lessened as though she were listening.
"Now, Eva, sit up and dry your eyes and we will drop the subject. Come
upstairs and have a rest before dinner. You are tired out and want a
good sleep."
She rose without a word, but in her face he read only fatigue, none of
the softening which he had hoped to see.
"Yes. I'm tired--dead tired." She moved languidly towards the door. "I
think I shall never be anything else--now."
Her fit of passion had indeed worn her out. For the rest of the evening
she was quiet and listless; and she went upstairs very early to bed,
leaving Herrick to sit alone with his dog, smoking his pipe, and facing
the future with a sinking heart.
He sat there until the hour was really late; and then crept upstairs
very softly to avoid waking Eva, if indeed she slept.
Just as he reached her door he heard a faint, strangled cry, and rushed
into her room to find her in the throes of one of the nightmares which
he found, later, were a dreadful legacy from her prison life. On waking,
her relief at finding she was not, as usual, alone was so great that for
the first time she clung to Herrick as she might have done in happier
days; and as he soothed her and pushed the damp golden curls from her
brow she spoke naturally, with none of the resentment she had hitherto
displayed.
Her husband's heart melted towards her in this gentler mood; and long
after she had fallen asleep again, soothed by his presence, he sat
watching her uneasy slumber with a feeling of compassion which, had she
realized it, must surely have done something to bridge the gulf which
now yawned between them.
In the morning she was her hard, mocking self again; and Herrick's
patience was sorely tried in the days which followed.
It seemed, indeed, as though she had stated her feelings for him
correctly, as though she did really hate him with a bitter and
relentless hatred. The prison life had changed her whole being, turned
her from a brilliant, reckless, worldly girl, warmhearted and
extravagant, but generous to a fault, into a cold, malignant, callous
woman, nursing a grudge until it attained gigantic proportions, and
fully resolved to exact from her husband and the world a heavy payment
for the humiliating punishment she had been forced to undergo.
Herrick could never discover that she felt that punishment to be
deserved. The whole world was to blame, but never she herself. It was
the fault of her husband, who had kept her short of money; of the
tradespeople who had pressed her, of the usurers who had got her into
their clutches--the fault of everyone save Eva Herrick; and the fact
that they had all, as it were, combined against her, that together they
had been too much for her, embittered her outlook on life to such a
degree that she was positively incapable of any reasonable analysis of
her own guilt.
It was her husband against whom her resentment was chiefly directed.
With all the perversity of her ill-regulated, half-formed mind, she
refused to realize the fact that it had been absolutely impossible for
Herrick to take her crime on to his own shoulders. She clung childishly
to the notion that if he had wished he could have borne the blame and
endured the consequences; and since there is no reason to doubt that to
a girl in her position her life in prison was a horrible experience, her
bitterness is perhaps hardly to be wondered at, after all.
Her sentence had left on soul and body traces which would never be
effaced; and sometimes Herrick could hardly believe that this cold,
cynical, bitter-tongued woman was indeed the gay Irish girl he had
married.
But in spite of everything she was his wife. And Herrick was not the man
to shirk an obligation which was so plainly marked as this. Although he
shrank inwardly from her constant recriminations, he never let her see
how he was wounded by her biting tongue; and to all her reproaches he
presented so serene and complacent a front that she sometimes desisted
from very weariness.
So the autumn days went on; and if Herrick felt sometimes that in spite
of the beautiful world around him, life was no longer full of "sweet
things," he never wavered in his resolve to do all in his power to make
up to Eva, for the misery she had endured behind those heartless prison
walls.