When Toni related the episode of Lady Martin's note to Eva Herrick, the
latter asked a startling question.
"Toni, why don't you leave your husband?"
"Leave my husband?" Toni stared at her, wide-eyed.
"Yes. Oh, anyone can see you're neither of you happy. Mr. Rose knows all
the time that he ought not to have married you just to get even with
that horrid Saxonby woman, and anyhow you're not the least bit in the
world suited to one another."
Toni was very pale.
"You don't think so?"
"I'm sure of it." Eva threw away the cigarette she held and sat upright.
"You ought to have married a man who would love you whatever you
did--who wouldn't want you to be booky and clever, but would think you
perfect in every way. Not a man who feels himself superior to you half
the time, and finds fault the other half."
"But my husband doesn't find fault." She spoke in a low voice.
"Doesn't he? Well, it sounds like it," said Eva, piling the cushions
behind her curly golden head. "I heard him scolding you over a book
you'd mislaid one day, and he nearly jumped down your throat about Miss
Loder this very morning."
"That was entirely my fault," said Toni quickly; and Eva saw that if she
were to succeed in her malicious project she must change her plan of
attack.
Being as quick-witted as she was cruel, she adopted a new method
instantly.
"Of course. I was only joking. Seriously, I think Mr. Rose is
wonderfully good. I'm sure it would hurt him awfully to think he had
been unkind or impatient with you, Toni. After all, he married you to
please himself, didn't he? And it's not a bit fair to you to visit it on
your head afterwards."
"To visit--what, Eva?"
"Why, I hardly know what to say." Eva smiled subtly to herself. "Of
course, it may be only my imagination. I daresay you make Mr. Rose as
happy as any woman could do. I expect he works too hard and that's why
he looks so worried."
"Does he look worried?" queried Toni softly. "I suppose I ought to have
noticed it--but----"
"But you didn't?" Eva leaned across and patted the girl's arm. "Never
mind, dear, it's probably my fancy. I daresay Mr. Rose is not a very
lively person at any time--and, after all, one can't always be feeling
cheerful."
"You mean," said Toni, who, like other primitive people, was apt to be
disconcertingly outspoken, "you mean that Owen--my husband--isn't happy.
At least--is that what you mean?"
"Well, I suppose I did mean that," said Eva with pretended reluctance.
"But it's all nonsense--I had no business to say it, Toni. Do forget it,
will you?"
"No." Toni spoke very quietly. "I shan't forget it. But I want to know a
little more. You think Owen is unhappy because he is married to me. Do
you think he would be happier if I went away and left him? Is that what
you are too kind, too generous to imply?"
Eva's heart gave a sudden throb. Her first aim in life ever since the
prison gates clanged behind her at the end of her term of confinement
had been to do some harm in the world, to make up for the injury which
she considered had been done to her; and no weak emotions such as pity
or generosity could be allowed to hold her back.
To her oddly-perverted mind, it seemed that if she could persuade Toni
to leave her husband, to wreck her home and her future, she would have
got "her own back" to a considerable degree; and she had a double motive
in her hatred of Owen, who, as she well knew, distrusted her personally
and disliked her friendship with his young wife.
Any person connected with a big penal settlement will tell you that
there is never any certainty as to the moral result of a term of
imprisonment on any given prisoner.
To some natures, the punishment may be both a deterrent and an excellent
lesson, while to others the educational value may be great and the
deterrent effect almost _nil_; but in one class of prisoner--the class
to which Eva Herrick belonged--imprisonment wakes only the worst and
basest of all emotions, a desire, perforce stifled during the period of
punishment, for revenge.
That she had suffered, on the whole, justly, never weighed for one
instant with Eva herself. That she had been guilty of a crime was less
than nothing. What did weigh with her was the fact that she had been
found out, and forced to undergo a humiliating and degrading punishment;
and from the moment when she came to her senses after the swoon which
had mercifully cut short the scene in court, Eva Herrick's whole being
had been in revolt against a world where such things were allowed to be.
Her whole pleasure, indeed, while in prison, had been found in planning
how, in the future, she could render miserable the life of the husband
who had not, so she considered, stood by her; and it was a bitter
disappointment to her to find that try as she might she could not
torture him to the breaking-point.
He met her most poisoned and bitter shafts with a patience which
nothing, it seemed, could pierce. When she taunted him, he only smiled;
and when she reviled him he left her presence; so that the only way in
which she could win any satisfaction was by detailing to him exaggerated
accounts of the treatment she had received in prison.
These stories, untrue and impossible as many of them were, made him
wince, not knowing indeed how cunning was the invention behind them; and
many times when she was more maddening than usual, Herrick schooled
himself to patience by reminding himself of the drastic punishments
which had apparently been meted out to her.
When at length she found that Jim was impervious to her stings, Eva
looked around her for another victim; and found one in the person of
Toni Rose.
It did not take Eva long to read, more or less correctly, the position
between Toni and her husband; and although she was quite shrewd enough
to realize that the situation would probably adjust itself in time, Eva
was determined to prevent any such adjustment with every weapon in her
power.
Unhappily it proved only too easy for a woman such as she was to direct
the affair pretty much as she willed it; and her suggestion to Toni that
she should leave her husband had been carefully led up to by scores of
insinuations, of carelessly-dropped hints, and scraps of repeated
conversations heard on the subject of the Roses' married life.
She was careful to let none of the elation she felt escape her as she
replied to Toni's speech after a significant pause.
"Put that way, it sounds dreadful," she said, pretending to shudder. "I
don't think I really meant that. I only thought that perhaps--your
husband is a writer, you know, an artist--with the artistic temperament,
I suppose; and everyone knows that genius is difficult to live with."
"I don't care for myself," said Toni hastily. "I could always be
happy--with Owen--but if you really think I spoil his life----"
"Oh, don't say that, dear." Eva spoke soothingly. "I daresay I am
entirely mistaken. Of course, you know best how you get on; and after
all Mr. Rose is so keen on his work he hasn't much time for outside
things."
"I wonder what Owen would say--or do--if I left him?" She spoke
musingly; and Eva's heart beat tumultuously as she noted the result of
her tentative suggestion.
"Go after you and bring you back, I expect." Such was Eva's reply.
"Then there wouldn't be much use in going," said Toni quickly, and Eva
read the relief in her eyes.
"No--not if you went like that." Her tone was purposely cryptic.
"But--how else should I go?"
"Why, if you really wanted to go----" Eva broke off with a laugh. "Don't
be so silly, Toni. You talk as though I had really meant my stupid
suggestion."
"Didn't you mean it?" Toni's gaze was disconcerting.
"Why, of course not. Come, Toni, let's have tea. I'll send for Jim, too.
It's getting quite dark."
"Wait a moment," said Toni. "Eva, if I made up my mind to leave
Owen--for his own sake--how could I prevent him fetching me back?"
"You really mean it?" Eva's tone sent a chill through Toni's veins.
"Supposing you really saw that it was for Owen's good--that by remaining
with him you were spoiling his life, ruining his career--making him
unhappy, in short--you mean in _that_ case how could you prevent him
searching for you?"
"Yes," Toni said, her eyes on the fire, "that is what I mean."
"There's only one way, Toni." She was careful to speak lightly. "If you
went away with another man----" for a moment even her nerve failed her,
but she conquered her weakness and went on calmly, and her grey Irish
eyes were as cold as ice as she looked at Toni. "Then your husband would
probably divorce you, and devote himself to his career."
For a second Toni's pallor alarmed her. All the girl's colour died away,
leaving her curiously white round the mouth, a sign of emotion to which
Eva was not blind; and Mrs. Herrick wondered, uneasily, if Toni were
about to faint.
But Toni was in no fainting mood.
"You think that, Eva? You think that if I were gone--out of his life
altogether--Owen would forget me and find happiness in his work?"
"I think so, yes. Oh, Toni, I know I seem unkind," said Eva, Judas-like.
"Believe me I wouldn't have told you if you hadn't pressed me. It only
struck me that perhaps--you will forgive me, dear?--perhaps you didn't
manage to make your husband very happy--and if you really did want him
to forget you----"
"No, I don't make him happy," said Toni with a sigh. "It is funny, isn't
it, when I love him so much? But you're right in one thing. I am
spoiling his life; and my going away won't help him unless I go for
good."
"If you merely go, without any apparent reason, your husband will be
miserable, unsettled, give up everything to find you, to bring you
back----"
She was startled by a sudden exclamation from Toni.
"But, Eva, if you're so sure he'd want me back----"
"Why should you go?" Eva smiled a little, patiently. "Don't you see,
dear, if you go like that, Mr. Rose will be so alarmed, so upset, that
of course he'll want to find you. He would think you'd perhaps run away
because you were unhappy, and he'd do all he could to get you back on
your own account. Oh, I know Mr. Rose is very fond of you,
Toni"--somehow her very inflection made Toni's conception of Owen's love
shrivel into nothingness--"and he couldn't rest if he thought you were
unhappy. He would bring you back, and things would be just the same
again. He would do his work, helped by Miss Loder, I suppose, and you
would go on as you are now. After all, Toni, you know you have a lot to
be grateful for."
She looked at the girl to see how far she might safely go, but Toni
never moved; and Eva was emboldened to proceed.
"You have a lovely home--Greenriver is quite a show place, and after
all, you and your husband never quarrel, do you? So that on the whole
you'd be a little fool if you gave up all these very substantial
benefits. Eh, Toni?"
Eva was clever. She knew exactly the spur to apply to Toni's flagging
mood, and she smiled to herself when she heard Toni's reply.
"Do you think I would hesitate to give up Greenriver--and all the
rest--to make my husband happy?"
And looking at her Eva knew she would not. Mistaken, Toni might often
be--foolish, self-willed, a little intolerant of advice; but she would
never be selfish. If she could be convinced that her departure would be
beneficial to the man she loved, she would certainly leave him, though
it broke her heart to go.
"No, of course not." Eva spoke a trifle vaguely. "But you couldn't go,
Toni. It would be impossible. Why, your husband would think you were
mad."
"Would he? Perhaps I am." Toni's smile was a little melancholy.
"Sometimes I think this is all a dream--that I'm not Owen's wife at
all--that Greenriver and the gardens and everything else are merely
imagination. I can't believe it's true. If it is, how is it that
everything has gone so terribly, horribly wrong?"
She paused, gazing before her with puzzled eyes.
"I thought once that if I married Owen I should be the happiest girl in
the world. But I'm not. I'm the most miserable. I--sometimes I wish--oh,
I don't know what I wish!"
"Come, Toni"--Eva rose as though to change the subject--"you mustn't be
so despondent. Let me ring the bell--it's nearly five, and I'm sure you
want a cup of tea."
"Not yet, Eva." In Toni's voice was a new note, a note of decision,
which Eva's ear was quick to detect. "When you say I should go away with
another man, who had you in your mind?"
A moment Eva waited. Then:
"I meant the man who has the misfortune to adore you, Toni, the man who
gave up everything, his practice, his prospects, London, everything, for
your sake. You know the man I mean. You know as well as I do that
Leonard Dowson adores the very ground you walk on."
"Leonard Dowson!" Toni smiled drearily. "Think of leaving _Owen_ for
Leonard Dowson!"
"Oh, I know he's not in the same class," said Eva, with ostentatious
frankness, "and I don't for a moment suppose he would make you happy.
I'm afraid I wasn't thinking much of you, dear, when I mentioned his
name. Somehow I forgot that you have as much right to happiness as
anyone."
"_My_ happiness doesn't matter," said Toni for the second time. "But I
think you are wrong, Eva. Mr. Dowson never thinks of me--now."
"Doesn't he?" Eva permitted herself to smile. "My dear child, he's just
crazy about you. He told me all about it one day when you weren't
there--how he'd loved you for years and years and was heart-broken when
you refused him. He only came down here to be near you, and if you would
only smile on him a little he would do anything in the world for you."
"He wouldn't give up his work for me, Eva."
"Ah, you haven't heard of his good luck." Eva had carefully refrained
from the announcement until the moment was ripe. "He has just come into
some money--nearly two hundred a year; and he can chuck dentistry
to-morrow, if he likes."
"Even then, he wouldn't want a scandal----"
"Oh, Toni, I could shake you," said Eva, sitting down with a thump on
the sofa near her. "Because some people have not got red blood in their
veins, you think no one has. I tell you Leonard Dowson would throw up
everything to-morrow--brave any amount of scandal, if only you would go
with him. He could take you abroad somewhere, America perhaps; and then,
when your husband had got his divorce, you could marry Leonard and
settle down as nicely as possible. Then Owen would be free to do as he
chose with his life, and this unhappy state of things would be
forgotten."
"Marry him? Marry Leonard Dowson?" Even yet Toni could not assimilate
the idea.
"Well, why not? He is madly in love with you, Toni. He would give up
everything in the world for you, and I honestly think that things are
impossible as they are. But of course you know better than I do, and if
you feel you must stay with your husband----"
"No--no." Toni's breath came in short gasps, as though she had been
running. "I can't stay with Owen. I make him miserable, he's ashamed of
me--I'm no good to him, only a bore--a useless creature who's tied to
him ... if I were gone he would be really better off--and as you say, he
could marry again----"
"I don't suppose he would do that," said Eva gently. "You know he _is_
very fond of you, Toni--I got even Jim to acknowledge that the other
night"--she watched Toni wince at the "even"--"and it's only that
you--well, you're not quite his sort, somehow."
Her words seemed to rouse Toni to anger.
"You have said that already," she said sharply. "You needn't repeat it."
"I'm sorry, Toni." Eva's big eyes looked imploringly into hers. "I'm
afraid I've said far too much to-day. After all, I have no earthly right
to interfere, and you are quite justified in resenting my interference."
Toni's sudden anger died away.
"Oh, you were quite right," she said, sighing as she spoke.
"I'm glad you said what you did--and I can't help knowing you are right.
Only"--she shivered, and her face looked white and pinched--"somehow
until I heard you saying it I hoped I myself was making a mistake."
"But--you'll not do anything rash?" Eva was vaguely uneasy at the result
of her plot.
"Oh, no, I'll do nothing rash," said Toni, with a queer smile; and Eva's
uneasiness deepened.
Luckily for her their conversation was cut short at that moment by the
entrance of Herrick, accompanied by Olga, and followed by the maid
bearing the tea-tray.
When the lamp had been lighted and the maid had withdrawn, Herrick shot
a glance at the face of his wife's visitor; and he saw at once that
something was wrong.
He did not betray his knowledge by the slightest sign; but talked to the
two girls in his usual kindly, whimsical fashion while Eva dispensed
tea.
"All the boats are really put away for the winter now," he said
presently. "I think yours--and ours--have been the last, Mrs. Rose. We
have had such wonderfully mild weather; but I'm afraid we shan't get any
more boating this season."
"Shan't we?" Toni sighed faintly. "I'm sorry--I have enjoyed the river
so much."
"Yes. We've had a glorious summer. But after all the winter will soon
pass and we'll be getting the boats out again."
"I hope we shan't be here when it's time to get the boats out," said Eva
crisply. "A winter here would just about finish me off."
"Oh, it's not bad," Herrick rejoined. "Sometimes it is quite pleasant
all the year round--though we get a fog now and again, of course."
"I don't propose remaining to sample the fogs," said Eva quietly. "Of
course you will do as you choose, but seeing I've never been properly
warm for months--we don't have nice fires in prison, you know--I think
you owe it to me to take me somewhere sunny this winter."
Herrick's face clouded, as it always did at any reference to Eva's
prison life; and Toni felt desperately uncomfortable.
She put down her cup and rose.
"I must really be going home, Eva. I didn't mean to stay to tea."
"Must you go? I'm sorry. I hoped you'd stay to dinner and enliven us a
little. Jim and I don't have very jovial evenings, do we, Jim? Sometimes
I think I might as well be back in my cell."
"Eva--don't." Herrick spoke quietly, and his wife laughed.
"My dear Jim, why be so squeamish? If Mrs. Rose doesn't mind associating
with jail-birds, I don't see why you should. I'm thinking of writing a
book on my experiences in prison, Toni. Do you think Mr. Rose would
collaborate with me--lick my raw stuff into shape, so to speak?"
Before Toni could reply, Herrick interrupted.
"If you are going, Mrs. Rose, I'll take you across the river in the old
punt, and see you home along the towing-path. It is the shortest way,
but it's lonely at night."
"Thank you, Mr. Herrick. May Olga come, too?"
"Of course. She would be very much hurt if she were left behind."
"How silly you are over that great dog of yours, Jim." Mrs. Herrick
included even dogs in her universal hatred nowadays. "I declare I wish
someone would poison the beast."
This threat, uttered not for the first time, made Herrick set his lips
firmly, and for once his wife regretted her taunt.
"Oh, I'm not going to do it," she said with a laugh. "Good-bye, Toni, if
you must go. I'll come and look you up in a day or two."
When Toni and Herrick were alone, walking along the towing-path in the
darkness, Herrick turned to Toni with a sigh.
"Mrs. Rose, I can't tell you how sorry I am--nor how grateful I am both
to you and Mr. Rose for your kindness to my poor little wife."
"Oh, don't say that," begged Toni, her warm heart filled with pity for
him. "I like your wife immensely--we are friends, you know, and you must
not forget she has suffered terribly."
"Yes, I suppose she has. And yet"--he spoke vehemently--"has she
suffered so much as I have done--as I shall go on doing as long as we
both live? Oh, I've no right to say it--I ought to be man enough to
suffer in silence--but it's hard to bear her constant allusions to her
prison life--her taunts--wouldn't you think she would be glad to forget
all that, to put it behind her? Yet every day she talks of it. She never
allows me to forget for one instant that she has been in hell--and every
word she utters is an indictment of me, a reproach for the cowardice
which let her go to prison."
"Oh, Mr. Herrick--I'm so sorry...."
The stammered words brought a smile to Herrick's face.
"Poor child! I ought not to blame her--rather to pity her.... I _do_
pity her with all my heart. But she won't let me sympathize with her.
One word and she flies at me. She is unhappy here, yet she will make no
plans for going abroad. She talks as though I kept her here, when God
knows I would go to the ends of the earth if she wished it."
"Yes, I know, but I think if you go on being patient with her," hazarded
Toni, "she will come to her better self again. Don't you agree with me?"
"I don't know." His tone was rather despairing. "Sometimes I fear both
our lives are ruined. It's wonderful what an effect a wife has on her
husband's life--and _vice versâ_, of course. Some people seem to think
that a man and woman can 'live their own lives' quite apart from each
other if they like. But they can't. When they are husband and wife they
are bound to exercise an enormous influence on each other's life; and
when two people are thoroughly out of sympathy with each other, life,
for both of them, is bound to be a failure."
"You think so?" Toni's mind had flown to her own unhappiness, but for
once Herrick did not read what was in her thoughts.
"Yes. Don't you? Now, looking at it dispassionately, how do you expect
Eva and me ever to re-discover the happiness we have so effectually
lost? Remember, Eva is convinced that all her sufferings are directly
due to me. She persists in thinking that if I had chosen I could either
have prevented her case ever going to court, or could have taken the
blame myself and gone to prison in her stead. The consequence is, she
hates me, resents my presence near her, and will bear me an undying
grudge all the days of her life."
"But you couldn't have taken the blame."
"Of course not, but women are often illogical, and Eva certainly is. No,
the fact remains that I represent, to Eva, the coward who condemned her
to a severe and mortifying punishment; and she won't forgive me."
"But in time----"
"Sometimes I am inclined to think it's a hopeless experiment--our life
together." Herrick spoke sombrely. "I have been wondering seriously of
late whether it would not be better to make over all my property to my
wife and rid her of my presence, I believe she would be happier by
herself."
"You mean--get a divorce?" faltered Toni.
"A divorce?" In spite of himself Herrick laughed. "Oh dear no. I don't
think I need take quite such drastic measures as that. What I thought
was to set Eva up somewhere, in some new place, where she could start
afresh, and then take myself off quietly--to California, or New Zealand,
or somewhere of the sort, where an able-bodied fellow like me can be
sure of picking up a living."
"But would Eva let you go?"
"Ah, there's the rub!" He spoke in a lighter tone. "When it came to the
point she might think that even an unsatisfactory husband was better
than none. But, speaking seriously, I believe two people so incompatible
as we two are better apart."
"Do you?" In the dark Toni's eyes were frightened. "Don't you think,
then, that one ought to stand by one's own actions? I mean if a husband,
say, honestly thought it would be better for his wife to be free from
him, would you advise him to go and leave her? Or the other way about.
Should the wife go, if she was sure that by staying she did the man
harm?"
Herrick was tired, disheartened by the frequent scenes with his wife,
depressed by the grim autumn night; therefore for once his sympathies
wore dormant and his intuition slept.
He had no idea that Toni was speaking personally, that she was calling
on him to help her to make the most important decision of her life; and
he was, moreover, in a mood which found the idea of self-sacrifice, of
renunciation of one's own happiness strangely attractive.
"If he--or she--were practically convinced that departure would be the
best way out--for both--why then I should say by all means go." In the
darkness he did not see Toni's sudden deathly pallor. "Of course it
would always be rather hard to be quite sure on that point; but in a
case where one could be more or less certain--well, perhaps I'm wrong,
but I should say the step would be thoroughly justifiable."
For a perceptibly long moment Toni did not speak. Then she changed the
subject abruptly by asking her companion the time; and after striking
one or two matches he was able to assure her that it was just six.
"Oh, then Owen will be back." She hastened her steps as she spoke, and
there was little more conversation between them as they hurried along.
At the gate he bade her farewell, refusing an invitation to enter; and
Toni went through the garden into the house, there to be met by a
telegram from Owen announcing that he had been delayed in town and would
not be home in time for dinner.
Toni was oddly relieved by this fact. She had an important matter to
think out; and for once Owen's absence was welcome.
She dined alone, a rather forlorn little figure in the big dining-room;
and after her hurried meal she went into the drawing-room and stood
looking out over the lawn with unseeing eyes.
The night had turned warm, unseasonably so for November, and Toni
suddenly felt a great desire to be out in the air among the trees and
shrubs, which were faintly perceptible in the light of a thin and waning
moon.
Kate, surprised by an imperative summons, brought a wrap as directed;
and calling Jock to accompany her, Toni stepped out of the long window
on to the gravel outside.
For a moment Kate stood watching her young mistress, struck by something
a little desolate in her appearance; but when Toni had moved slowly away
down the path, Jock gambolling beside her, Kate withdrew from the window
and returned to her interrupted supper.
Toni paced slowly up and down for some minutes, while the night air
played over her bared head. It was less oppressively warm out here than
in the house, and into Toni's nature-loving heart there stole a sudden
sense of comfort; as though all the living things around her were
whispering vague words of love and cheer to her forlorn spirit.
However miserable she might be, Toni was never quite so wretched out of
doors. It was as though some vital part of her responded to the call of
her great mother, the earth; as though in her veins ran some fluid akin
to the sap which coursed through the branches of the trees. Indoors,
between four walls, she might feel grief as a crushing burden; but once
outside, with only the vast sky above her head, her sorrow invariably
lightened; and to-night was no exception.
At the end of half an hour's quiet pacing up and down the gravel walk
Toni felt herself calmed and strengthened. She told herself there was no
need at present to dwell further on the matter which filled her
thoughts. She would banish it from her mind for the time being; and with
this wise resolution, she turned to retrace her steps up the avenue
towards the house.
Suddenly Jock barked loudly, following the bark with a low growl; and
Toni's heart gave a great jump.
She had strolled almost to the big iron gates leading to the road; and
she wondered for a moment whether a tramp had found his way into the
grounds on some nefarious errand. She stood still, thinking as she did
so that she heard a rustle in a bush close at hand, and then Jock
growled again, a fierce, low rumbling in his throat, which frightened
Toni almost out of her wits.
With a voice which would shake, she called out to the dog; and then
there was a sudden silence which was almost more sinister. She had laid
her hand on the Airedale's collar at the sound of his first bark; but
feeling really nervous now, she was just about to let him go when there
was a half-apologetic cough from the bushes behind her, and a voice she
knew said, rather timidly:
"Mrs. Rose! Please don't be alarmed--it's only me--Leonard Dowson."