Quite calmly and quietly Toni went about her preparations for departure.
The scene in the library had turned the scale in favour of her flight.
Owen had openly avowed his opinion that their hasty marriage had been a
mistake; and now that the passion of rage and jealousy which had
possessed her had died away, Toni could see no other method of relieving
the situation than by leaving Greenriver at once.
She would go away with Leonard Dowson, thereby leaving the way open for
Owen to divorce her. Her own future life occupied but the smallest
fraction of her thoughts. Somehow her power of visualizing the future
seemed to stop short with her departure from her home; and although she
had a very clear vision of Owen, relieved from the incubus of her
presence, and free to devote himself to the work which, she had
persuaded herself, meant more to him than any purely domestic happiness,
she never gave even a passing thought to her own existence when once she
had severed the ties which bound her to the old house by the river.
Very early in the morning of the day following her interview with Dowson
she had posted a note to him. There was only one short sentence on the
little sheet of paper--only three words; but she know it would be
enough.
"I will come. TONI."
That was all; and yet as she wrote the little sentence, Toni had a
queer, stifling sensation as though she were indeed signing her own
death-warrant.
The note would be delivered at lunch-time; and about two o'clock Toni
began to look for an answer, though she knew it was hardly likely the
young man would reply so promptly.
At three o'clock she went out into the garden. Her head was throbbing
painfully, her cheeks burnt with a scarlet flush, and it was surely
quicksilver and not blood which ran so swiftly through her veins.
The day was unseasonably warm, and a slight fog hung about, making the
air damp and heavy. Owen had gone to town immediately after lunch; and
Toni was inexpressibly relieved by his absence.
They had barely spoken to one another to-day. Owen was suffering from
one of his worst neuralgic headaches, which at all times made him feel
disinclined for speech; and Toni said little because she had nothing to
say.
At half-past three a note was delivered to her by a lad wheeling a
bicycle; and when the messenger had withdrawn, Toni opened the grey
envelope with fingers that shook. Inside she found a fairly long letter,
which had evidently been written in haste, for the writing was untidy,
and here and there a word was almost illegible.
"I can hardly believe you will come, Toni." So ran the letter in which
Leonard Dowson accepted, the happiness promised to him. "It seems too
good, too exceedingly, marvellously good to be true. Yet your little
letter lies before me, and you are too kind, too sincere to deceive me.
So it is true; and the sun has risen on my grey and lonely life. Then
listen, Toni. I have made all preparations for my own departure
to-night. I have paid off my servants, the rent, and left everything in
order; and I am in possession of a sufficient sum of money in notes and
gold to enable us to live for some months in peace on the Continent. Now
comes the question of our meeting. I have ascertained that the night
boat leaves Dover about eleven; and in order to cross to Calais, on the
way to Paris, we must take the boat train from Victoria. I think it will
be safer to motor up to town rather than risk meeting any acquaintances
in the train; and a car will be waiting at the corner of Elm Lane at six
o'clock. That will give us sufficient time to catch the train, and will
be pleasanter than the other mode of travelling. With regard to your
luggage, do not trouble to bring more than a dressing-case; for it will
be my pleasure and privilege in future to provide you with all you may
desire. I have still much to do, so will bid you farewell until the
precious moment which brings you to my side."
He had evidently hesitated over his signature; there were one or two
erasures; but at length he had written, his name firmly, without any
attempt at a formal leave-taking.
For perhaps a minute Toni stared at the two words "Leonard Dowson"; and
a chill, as of anticipatory dread, swept over her at the sight of that
firm, clerkly handwriting.
Until this moment she had looked upon Leonard's proposal as the one and
only means of setting Owen free. Once she had taken this step, had
burned her boats, her husband would surely accept his freedom with a
feeling of vast relief; and in spite of everything Toni had only one
thought--that of Owen's good.
But suddenly she was afraid, with a purely human, selfish fear for
herself. To what was she condemning herself by this unlawful flight?
When once Owen had accepted her sacrifice, had set in order the
machinery of the law which should give him his release, what would
become of her? Would she be obliged to marry a man for whom she felt
only a tepid friendship, unwarmed by the smallest coal from the fire of
love? She had found life sad even when married to the man she loved; but
what would it be to her as the wife of a man to whom she was almost
completely indifferent?
Quite unconsciously Toni was exaggerating Owen's attitude towards his
marriage, was accepting as his last word a few irritable sentences wrung
from him by fatigue and annoyance at having seen the corrected proofs
destroyed in a fit of childish temper on the part of his wife.
Far from regretting his marriage, Owen merely regretted Toni's
unreasonableness in the matter of Miss Loder; and once that young woman
was removed from the scene, Owen had no doubt that he and his wife would
shake down again quite comfortably and forget the recent scenes between
them.
But Toni, who always meant exactly what she said, and unconsciously
expected the same sincerity of speech from others, had taken Owen
literally; and although for a moment a flood of human weakness had
overtaken her as she gazed at Leonard Dowson's firm signature, she never
really faltered in her purpose.
When she had read the fatal letter once more, she went back into the
house, and there she burned the document with almost mechanical
forethought.
Then she went upstairs to her room and carefully packed her
dressing-bag. She did not take very much. Somehow it seemed unnecessary
to burden herself with many things; and when she had finished her
packing and had hidden the bag in her capacious wardrobe, she went
downstairs and sat by the drawing-room fire to wait until Kate saw fit
to bring tea.
When, at the usual time, Kate entered, she moved across the room to
light the lamps; but Toni sent her away with this part of her duty
undone. To-night Toni wished to sit in the firelight. The fog had
thickened in the last hour, and now it pressed against the windows like
a chill, ghostly presence, hiding the garden, the river, the trees in
thick and clammy folds. Looking across the room from her seat by the
fire Toni shivered; and it seemed unkind of Fate to ordain that her last
memories of Greenriver should be shrouded in the cold and creeping mist.
She turned back to the fire with a shiver; and sat gazing into the
leaping flames, while her tea grew cold and the hands of the clock crept
inexorably onwards.
At half-past five she must leave the house. True, the meeting-place was
distant barely a quarter of a mile, but Owen might return early, and she
had no desire to run the risk of meeting him.
A short cut over the fields would both shorten the way and minimize the
danger of running into her husband; and Toni looked up, startled, when
the silver clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of five.
Only thirty minutes, and her life at Greenriver would come to an end.
Never again would she roam through the beautiful old house, never sit in
this charming, panelled room, with its ghostly yet alluring fragrance as
of bygone lavender and roses. Never again would she wander in the
garden, revelling in the beauties of colour and scent and form which
made so lovely a picture in the glorious setting of turf and river.
Never again would she stroll beneath the tall trees in the summer dusk,
while the owls hooted eerily and the nightingale murmured luscious
love-songs to the dreaming roses. The river would know her no more;
never again would her feet tread the towing-path where in the early
morning she had been used to saunter, with her faithful Jock by her
side----
Ah! At the thought of Jock, Toni uttered a little cry. She had forgotten
him until this moment--his dear canine image blurred by a mist of
thoughts and tears; but now she remembered him only too well; and her
heart was pierced by the thought of his fidelity--to be, alas, so poorly
rewarded. Owen would be good to him, of course. He would be well fed and
kindly treated, since everyone in the house had a soft corner for the
jolly, riotous, affectionate Airedale; but he would miss his own loving
mistress; and Toni could not bear to think of the wistful expression his
honest brown eyes would wear when he found that she had apparently
deserted him.
At that moment, almost as though her thought had called him to her, she
heard him at the door. He did not scratch the panel, after the manner of
many of his kind, but stood upright and rattled the handle with his
nose; and Toni ran to open the door, feeling a positive criminal beneath
the warmth and confidence of his greeting.
She took him to the fireplace and snuggled down with him on the thick
fur rug on the hearth. She gave him his saucerful of tea, and fed him
recklessly with macaroons; but Jock was uneasy beneath her
ministrations.
There is no friend so quick to grasp a tense situation as a dog.
Although Toni spoke in almost her usual voice, and fondled him with more
than her usual affection, Jock knew quite well that there was something
wrong.
Leaving the last macaroon untouched, he came and stood close by her
side, looking up into her face with a puzzled, wistful expression, and
presently he stood up on his hind legs and licked her face solemnly with
his warm red tongue.
"Oh, Jock, you naughty boy," said Toni, between crying and laughter.
"You know you're not allowed to kiss me! But--oh, Jock, darling, how I
shall miss you!"
Two great tears fell on the dog's head; and others followed. In a minute
Toni was weeping her heart out; and the dog, rendered still more uneasy
by this behaviour, lifted up his voice in a melancholy whine.
Suddenly Toni dashed away her tears and started to her feet with a
suddenness which almost upset Jock.
"Jock, it's no use going on like this. We're a couple of idiots--at
least, I'm one, and you're a darling old stupid. But it's time to go,
Jock. To _go_. Do you hear? I'm leaving Greenriver, Jock, leaving my
home, my husband, everything I have in the world. I'm going away, Jock,
going with a man I hardly know. I shall be called wicked, and I suppose
I am; but I can't help it. I've got to go--but oh, Jock, how much easier
it would be to die!"
She took a last look round the beautiful room, which like most rooms
looked its best in the rosy firelight; and then she went slowly out,
Jock pressing closely to her side.
Up the broad stairs she went. In the gallery the Ten Little Ladies
burned bravely; and as she walked between them Toni could not see their
tiny flames for the tears which blurred her sight.
Very slowly she entered her room, Jock pressing beside her all the time.
It did not take long to don her thick fur coat and soft little hat. She
remembered a veil, but at first forgot her gloves; and at the last
moment she had to go back for the dressing-bag and for her purse,
wherein reposed ten pounds given her by Owen some weeks earlier.
At last she was ready; and bag in hand she opened the door leading into
the gallery and stood looking round her for one long, last moment.
Jock, puzzled, stood beside her, gazing anxiously into her face; but she
did not notice him; and when at length she moved slowly away Jock fell
back a pace and stole behind her down the long gallery.
The old house was very still. From the shut-off regions behind the green
baize door came, now and then, the murmur of voices; but for the most
part Greenriver lay hushed in lamp-lit, flower-scented silence.
Never had the big hall looked so attractive as now, in the mellow light
of the wood fire on the capacious hearth. On the oval oak table a big
jar of chrysanthemums stood out, white and copper and mauve, against the
panelled wall; and a sombre corner was lightened by the pink and cream
blossoms of a tall azalea sent in that morning by an attentive gardener.
Over everything lay the sense of a great peace and tranquillity. The oak
settee with its big, bright cushions, the tapestries hung on the dark
walls, the flowers, the books strewn here and there, the big tiger-skin
hearthrug, the enormous basket-chairs covered, too, with skins of tiger
and leopard--never had the hall looked so alluring, so safe, so inviting
to its mistress as on this foggy autumn night when she was about to
leave its shelter.
With a long shudder Toni descended the last step of the great staircase,
and drifted slowly across the hall in the direction of the front door.
Jock, following, pressed a little too closely against her, and turning,
Toni saw, the faithful little friend whom she was about to leave gazing
at her with a human appeal in his honest face.
"Take me! Let me go with you where you go! Why go out into the dim cold
night alone, when you can have beside you one to protect you and give
you love?"
She could almost fancy he said the words; and two great tears fell
swiftly as she bent and patted him with her free hand.
"No, Jock darling, I can't take you." She sobbed as she spoke. "I must
leave you behind--with all the other things I love."
Jock, understanding the finality of her tone, whined uneasily, and
wagging his tail besought her to reconsider her decision. But Toni could
bear no more. With a quick, passionate movement she opened the big door
hurriedly, and, heedless of his whining, passed through blindly into the
night, pulling the door to after her with the miserable, hopeless
feelings of a traitor in her heart.
Pausing for an instant she heard Jock sniffing interrogatively beneath
the door; and knew he was hoping desperately that it would open to give
him freedom; but with the tears running down her face she went slowly
down the steps and was swallowed up by the cold, wet fog which lurked,
ghost-like, round the house.
Leonard Dowson was waiting for her, impatiently, feverishly, by the car;
but one glance at her warned him that this was no time for lover-like
protestations.
He helped her in, covering her with the big fur rug he had had the
forethought to bring; and then, with a delicacy which could only have
been taught him by love, he left her alone in the interior of the car
and mounted the seat beside the chauffeur.
Even now he could hardly believe his good-fortune. With all his
education, his later Socialistic tendencies, his conviction that one man
was as good, primarily, as another, and that only brains and application
counted in the race of life, he could never bring himself to look on
Toni as an ordinary human being, inferior to him by reason of her sex,
her less scientific brain, her lack of the power, mental and physical,
which was, to him, the prerogative of manhood.
Other women he might judge contemptuously or admiringly, as the case
might be. But he could never consider Toni as a woman like those
others--possibly because to him she was not _a_ woman, but--mystical
distinction!--_the_ woman. In a vague, unreasoning way he recognized
Toni's limitations. She was not clever, not even what he called
well-educated. She would never fill any important position in the world,
would never shine in any public capacity, would never seek to usurp
man's prerogatives, and would be content to live quietly in some little
corner of the world without longing to dash into the battlefield of
human desires and human conflicts, as other women were doing every day.
But through it all Toni was the one woman he loved, the woman who
represented to him all that was loveliest and best of her sex; and this
narrow-chested, narrow-minded and quite unattractive young dentist had
this much of greatness in his soul, that he could love a woman
completely.
The car was running smoothly through the streets of a little town when
there was a loud report, which even Toni, roused from her half-dazed
stupor, recognized as the bursting of a tyre; and the next instant
Leonard appeared at the door of the car, concern and apprehension in his
face.
"I am so sorry--one of the front tyres has burst, and the man will have
to repair it as well as he can in the fog."
"Where are we?" asked Toni idly, seeing beyond the figure of Dowson a
few blurred lights as of houses or shops.
"Luckily we are at Stratton," said Leonard more cheerfully. "Right in
front of some sort of an hotel, too. Won't you come in a moment and get
warm? It's too foggy and damp for you to wait out here."
Without speaking Toni threw aside the rug and stepped out of the car.
The raw, chilly air pierced her to the bone, even through the thick fur
of her coat; and she shivered as she stood there, looking pathetically
young and slight to the eyes of the man beside her.
"Come into the 'Red Lion,' or whatever they call it." He put a hand,
rather timidly, on her sleeve, and Toni allowed him to lead her towards
the entrance of the hotel, whose lamps shone bravely through the fog,
making blurred splashes of yellow light in the murky grey gloom.
Opening the door, Leonard led her into the cheery entrance hall; and the
next minute a stout, motherly-looking woman bustled out of a small
side-office, and asked what might be the visitors' pleasure.
Leonard explained that a slight accident to their car would delay them a
few moments; and since the night was so inclement, he had persuaded the
lady to come inside, in search of fire and lights.
The stout landlady grasped the situation immediately, and led the way up
a short flight of stairs to a sitting-room on the first floor, where a
bright fire burned, and thick red curtains, closely drawn, successfully
excluded the clammy fog, and created an atmosphere of well-being and
good cheer.
"Wouldn't the lady like a cup of tea or coffee, sir?" The woman had
noted Toni's pallor. "It can be ready in a moment--and a sandwich or two
as well?"
After consulting his watch and calculating they had time to spare,
Leonard ordered coffee and sandwiches at once; and the woman withdrew in
a smiling haste which seemed to betoken the desire to lose no time.
Toni had sunk into a chair by the fire, and was leaning forward holding
her hands to the blaze. In her face was so patent a misery that for a
moment Dowson's heart failed him and he stood staring at her with a
sudden horrible conviction that in luring her from her home and husband
he was doing a wicked and heartless action. In that illuminating moment
he could almost have found the strength to give her up, to undo, as far
as he might, this thing which he had done. And then common sense came to
his aid. It was not the experiences of this night which had thinned the
rounded curve of the girl's cheek, had brought the hopeless droop to the
soft lips, the despair to the once-laughing eyes. It was rather the
happenings of the months preceding this night, the months of her married
life; and once again love and desire swept away scruples; and Leonard
was ready to fight the whole world for possession of the woman he loved.
But somehow he could not stay in the room with that pathetic, appealing
little figure. He racked his brains for an excuse to leave her for a
moment or two; and suddenly the idea he sought came to him in a flash.
He had omitted to wire to Paris for rooms in the quiet little hotel he
had selected for their stay; and although it was not a matter of vital
necessity to do so, it would perhaps be just as well to make sure of
them, so that there need be no troublesome delay on arrival. There was a
post-office a hundred yards away, and he would only be gone for a few
moments. He did not venture to approach Toni, but speaking from the door
explained that he had forgotten to engage rooms in Paris, and if she
would excuse him for a minute or two he would rectify the omission. She
agreed gently, giving him a tired little smile; and he wasted no time in
departing on his errand.
When the door had closed behind him, Toni came to herself with a long,
slow shiver. Somehow until this moment she had not really understood all
that her flight implied. She had been so intent upon Owen's welfare,
that save for a few moments in the garden at Greenriver her own had been
forgotten; and although she had accepted Leonard Dowson's proposal with
an almost startling readiness, she had done so in the manner of one who,
drowning, clutches at a straw.
She had known, of course, that there would be a price to pay; but she
had not realized until this second how great that price would be.
Somehow the very nature of Leonard's errand had brought the whole
position home to her with almost overwhelming force; and suddenly Toni
knew that she could not go on with the adventure she had undertaken so
rashly.
She could not--_could_ not--go to Paris with this man, who for all his
devotion was a stranger to her. She could leave Owen, though it seemed
like tearing her heart out of her breast to go. But she could not go
away with another man.
Gone all at once was the glamour of her sacrifice. Although she knew
that by carrying out her scheme to the bitter end she might set Owen
free, it seemed to her at this moment that such freedom, so basely won,
could never bring her husband the happiness she craved for him.
For the first time, too, the thought of self would not be banished. She
saw the whole foolish, irrational, Quixotic scheme in its true light;
and flesh and blood shrank from a surrender which had no faintest touch
of love--or even passion--to dignify sordidness.
No. She could leave her husband--and in a sudden blinding flash of
insight she knew she could not--now--go back to Greenriver; but she
could not proceed farther on this shameful way.
To go to the hotel in Paris with this other man, to travel with him in
the enforced intimacy of their dual solitude, to pass, for all she knew,
as his wife when in reality she was the wife of the one man for whom the
great mystic trinity of body, soul and spirit passionately craved--oh,
no. She could not go on--and with the certainty came the need for haste.
Suddenly the only thing which seemed to matter in all the world was that
she must be gone before Leonard Dowson returned. If once he came back
and heard her decision, there would be scenes, reproaches, persuasions,
a hundred emotions let loose; and Toni was guiltily conscious, through
all her new-born resolution, that she was treating this man who loved
her unfairly.
He had been gone five minutes--he might return at any second. Tip-toeing
across to the window, Toni parted the red curtains and lifted a lath of
the old-fashioned Venetian blind to peer through into the fog.
She could not see much. Outside the hotel she could just distinguish the
blurred shape of the car, the lamps flaring yellowly in the mist; but
the shops and houses opposite were blotted out by the curtain of fog;
and she knew she risked running into the man from whom she longed,
desperately, to escape.
Where she would go did not matter now. Plans must be made
afterwards--now she had but one desire, to flee into the fog and be lost
to sight.
She was actually moving towards the door when a thought struck her.
Tearing a bit of paper from the fly-leaf of a book on the table, she
took from the deep pocket of her coat a little pencil, and scribbled a
message--as short, almost, as that which had announced to Leonard her
previous decision.
"I can't go on with you. I am going. TONI."
She had no time for more. Every second was precious; and even now she
doubted whether she were in time to make her escape.
She opened the door and listened. Nothing was heard but the mutter of
voices in the bar downstairs; and there was no one in sight. A moment
she stood, her heart in her throat, driven nearly distracted between
impatience and terror. Then she turned back into the room, snatched up
her gloves and purse from the table and ran down the broad stairs and
across the square hall with frenzied haste.
A sound of footsteps in a passage close at hand made her start
nervously. Without delaying a second she opened the great door, letting
in a rush of cold, raw air, and, not venturing to look round, lest even
now she should be intercepted in her flight, she slipped through the
aperture and fled into the night.