And so it was all over.
"All over," he said to himself--"over and done with, Philip. Steady on,
Philip; take it fighting!"
But they were only words--as yet he could not "take it fighting." Nor
was the knowledge that he was never to hold her quite all the grief
that lay upon him as he made his way along the ill-lit streets. There
was, besides, a very cruel smart--the abstract pain of being such a
little to one who was so much to him.
He visited the patients who were still awake, and dressed such wounds
as needed to be dressed. He heard the little peevish questions and the
dull complaints just as he had done the night before. The nurse walked
softly past the sleepers with her shaded lamp, and once or twice he
spoke to her. And when, the doctor's duties done, the man had gained
his room, he thought of his hopes the night before, and sat with elbows
on the table while the hours struck, remembering what had happened
since.
The necessity for returning to the house so speedily, to see his
mother, was eminently distasteful; he longed to escape it. And
then suddenly he warmed towards her in self-reproach, thinking it
had been very hard of him to wish to neglect his mother in order to
spare awkwardness to another woman. His repugnance to the task was
deep-rooted, all the same, and it did not lessen as the afternoon
approached. But for the fact of yesterday's indisposition, he could
never have brought himself to overcome it.
The embarrassment that he had feared, however, was averted by Miss
Brettan's absence.
Mrs. Kincaid said that she was quite well again to-day; Mary had told
her of his call the previous evening; how long was it he had stopped?
"Oh, not very long," he said; "has the neuralgia quite gone?"
"I feel a little weary after it, that's all. Is there anything fresh,
Philip?"
"Fresh?" he answered vaguely. "No, dear. I don't know that there's
anything very fresh."
"You look tired yourself," she said; "I thought that perhaps you were
troubled?"
She thought, too, that Miss Brettan had looked troubled, and instinct
pointed to something having occurred. A conviction that her son was
getting fond of her companion had been unspoken in her mind for some
time, and under her placid questions now rankled a little wistfulness,
in feeling that she was not held dear enough for confidence. She
wanted to say to him outright: "Philip, did you tell Miss Brettan you
were fond of her when I was upstairs last night?" but was reluctant
to seem inquisitive. He, with never an inkling that she could suspect
his love, meanwhile reflected that for Mary's continued peace it was
desirable that his mother should never conjecture he had been refused.
It is doubtful whether he had ever felt so wholly tender towards her
as he did in these moments while he admitted that it was imperative
to keep the secret from her; and perhaps the mother's heart had never
turned so far aside from him as while she perceived that she was never
to be told.
They exchanged commonplaces with the one grave subject throbbing in
the minds of both. Of the two, the woman was the more laboured; and
presently he noticed what uphill work it was, and sighed. She heard the
sigh, and could have echoed it, thinking sadly that the presence of
her companion was required now to make her society endurable to him.
But she would not refer to Mary. She bent over her wool-work, and the
needle went in and out with feeble regularity, while she maintained a
wounded silence, which the man was regarding as an unwillingness to
talk.
He said at last that he must go, and she did not offer to detain him.
"I want to hurry back this afternoon; you won't mind?"
"No," she murmured; "you know what you have to do, Philip, better than
I."
He stooped and kissed her. For the first time in her life she did not
return his kiss. She gave him her cheek, and rested one hand a little
tremulously on his shoulder.
"Good-bye," she said; her tone was so gentle that he did not remark the
absence of the caress. "Don't go working too hard, Phil!"
He patted the hand reassuringly, and let himself out. Then the hand
crept slowly up to her eyes, and she wiped some tears away. The
wool-work drooped to her lap, and she sat recalling a little boy who
had been used to talk of the wondrous things he was going to do for
"mother" when he became a man, and who now had become a man, living for
a strange woman, and full of a love which "mother" might only guess.
She could not feel quite so cordial to Mary as she had done. To think
of her holding her son's confidence, while she herself was left
to speculate, made the need for surmises seem harder. And Philip
was unhappy: her companion must be indifferent to him; nothing but
that could account for the unhappiness, or for the reservation. She
could have forgiven her engrossing his affections--in time; but her
indifference was more than she could forgive.
Still, this was the woman he loved--and she endeavoured to hide her
resentment, as she had hidden her suspicions. Their intercourse
during the next week was less free than usual, nevertheless. Perhaps
the resentment was less easy to hide, or perhaps Mary's nervousness
made her unduly sensitive, but there were pauses which seemed to her
significant of condemnation. She was exceedingly uncomfortable during
this week. Sometimes she was only deterred from proclaiming what had
happened and appealing to the other's fairness to exonerate her, by
the recollection that it was, after all, just possible that the avowal
might have the effect of transforming a bush into an officer.
She could not venture to repeat the retirement to her room the next
time the doctor came. Nearly a fortnight had gone by. And she forced
herself to turn to him with a few remarks. He was not the man to
disguise his feelings successfully by a flow of small-talk; his life
had not qualified him for it; and it was an ordeal to him to sit there
in the presence of Mary and witness attempts in which he perceived
himself unqualified to co-operate. His knowledge that the simulated
ease should have originated with himself rather than with her made his
ineptitude seem additionally ungracious, and he feared she must think
him boorish, and disposed to parade his disappointment for the purpose
of exciting her compassion.
Strongly, therefore, as he had wished to avoid a break in the social
routine, his subsequent visits were made at longer intervals, and more
often than not curtailed on the plea of work. It was, as yet at all
events, impossible for him to behave towards her as if nothing untoward
had happened, and to shun the house awhile looked to him a wiser course
than to haunt it with discomposure patent. Thus the restraint that
Mrs. Kincaid was imposing on herself had a further burden to bear:
Miss Brettan was keeping her son from her side. The pauses became more
frequent, and, to Mary, more than ever ominous. Indeed, while the
mother mused mournfully on the consequences of her engagement, the
companion herself was questioning how long she could expect to retain
it. She began to consider whether she should relinquish it, to elude
the indignity of a dismissal. And even if Mrs. Kincaid did fail to
suspect the reason for her son's absenting himself, the responsibility
was the same, she reflected. It was she who divided the pair, she who
was accountable for the hurt expression that the old lady's face so
often wore now. She felt wearily that women had a great deal to endure
in life, what with the men they cared for, and the men for whom they
did not care. There seemed no privileges pertaining to their sex; being
feminine only amplified the scope for vexation. A fact which she did
not see was that one of the most pathetic things in connection with
the unloved lover is the irritability with which the woman so often
thinks about him.
With what sentiments she might have listened to Kincaid had she met
him prior to her intimacy with Carew one may only conjecture. Now he
touched her not at all; but the intimacy had been an experience which
engulfed so much of her sensibility, that she had emerged from it a
different being. Kincaid's rival, in truth, was the most powerful one
that can ever oppose a lover; the rival of constant remembrance--always
a doughty antagonist, and never so impregnable as when the woman is
instinctively a virtuous woman and has fallen for the man that she
remembers.
It occurred to Mary to seek an opportunity for letting the doctor know
that he was paining his mother by so rarely coming now; but such an
opportunity was not easy to gain, for when he did come his mother of
course was present. She thought of writing, but by word of mouth a hint
would suffice, while a letter, in the circumstances, would have its
awkwardness.
More than two months had gone by when Mrs. Kincaid made her plaint. It
was on a Sunday morning. Mary was standing before the window, looking
out, while the elder woman sat moodily in her accustomed seat.--
"Are we going to church?" asked Mary.
"Yes, I suppose so; there's plenty of time, isn't there?"
"Oh, yes, it's early yet--not ten. What a lovely day! The spring has
begun."
"Yes," assented the other absently.
There was a short silence, and then:
"I shan't run any risk of missing Dr. Kincaid by going out; I needn't
be afraid of that!" she added.
Her voice had in it so much more of pathos than of testiness, that
after the instant's dismay her companion felt acutely sorry for her.
"A doctor's time is scarcely his own, is it?" she murmured, turning.
Mrs. Kincaid did not reply immediately, and the delay seemed to Mary to
accentuate the feebleness of her answer.
"I mean," she said, "that it isn't as if he were able to leave the
hospital whenever he liked. There may be cases----"
"He used to be able to come often; why shouldn't he be able now?"
"Yes----" faltered Mary.
"I haven't asked him; it is a good reason that keeps him from me, of
course. But it's hard, when you're living in the same town as your son,
not to have him with you more than an hour in a month. I don't see much
more of him than that, lately. The last time he came, he stayed twenty
minutes. The time before, he said he was in a hurry before he said,
'How do you do?' He never put his hat down--you may have; noticed it?"
"Yes, I noticed it," Mary admitted.
"You know; oh, you do know!" she cried inwardly, with a sinking of the
heart. "_Now_, what am I to do?"
"Don't imagine I am blaming him," went on Mrs. Kincaid, "I am not
blaming anybody; the reason may be very strong indeed. Only it seems
rather unfair that I should have to suffer for it, considering that I
don't hear what it is."
"Then why not speak to Dr. Kincaid? If he understood that you felt his
absence so keenly, you may be sure he'd try to come oftener. Why don't
you tell him that you miss him?"
"I shall never sue to my son for his visits," said the old lady with a
touch of dignity, "nor shall I ask him why he stays away. That is quite
his own affair. At my age we begin to see that our children have rights
we mustn't intrude into--secrets that must be told to us freely, or not
told at all. We begin to see it, only we are old to learn. There, my
dear, don't let us talk about it; it's not a pleasant subject. I think
we had better go and dress."
Mary looked at her helplessly; there was a finality in her tone which
precluded the possibility of any advance. It was more than ever
manifest that the task of remonstrating with him devolved upon Mary
herself, and she decided to write to him that afternoon. Shortly after
dinner Mrs. Kincaid went into the garden, and, left to her own devices
in the parlour, Mary drew her chair to the escritoire. She would write
a few lines, she thought, however clumsy, and send them at once.
Still, they were not easy lines to produce, and she nibbled her pen a
good deal in the course of their composition; the self-consciousness
that invaded some of the sentences was too glaring. When the note was
finished at last, she slipped it into her pocket, and told Mrs. Kincaid
she would like to go for a walk.
"Oh, by all means; why not?"
"I thought perhaps you might want me."
"No," said Mrs. Kincaid; "I shall get along very well--I'm gardening."
She was, indeed, more cheerful than she had been for some time, busying
herself among the violets, and stooping over the crocuses to clear the
soil away.
"Go along," she added, nodding across her shoulder; "a walk will do you
good!"
Though the wish had been expressed only to avoid giving the letter to a
servant, Mary thought that she might as well profit by the chance; and
from the post-office she sauntered as far as the beach. Then it struck
her that the doctor might pay his overdue visit this afternoon, and she
was sorry that she had gone out. The laboured letter might have been
dispensed with--she might have had a word with him before he joined his
mother in the garden! She turned back at once--and as she neared the
Lodge, she saw him leaving it. They met not fifty yards from the door.
"Well, have you enjoyed your walk--you haven't been very far?" he said.
"Not very," said she; "I changed my mind. How did you find your mother?"
"She had been pottering about on the wet ground, which wasn't any too
wise of her. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I ... She has been missing you a little, I think; she wants you
there more often."
"Oh?" he said; "I'm very sorry. Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure; it is more than a little she misses you. As a matter
of fact, I have just written to you, Dr. Kincaid."
"To me? What--about this?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know," he said; "I never supposed she'd miss me like that. It
was very kind of you."
"I wanted to speak to you about it before. I have seen for some time
she was distressed."
"Has she said anything?"
"She only mentioned it this morning, but I've noticed."
"It was very kind of you," he repeated; "I'm much obliged."
Both suffered slightly from the consciousness of suppression; and after
a few seconds she said boldly:
"Dr. Kincaid, if you're staying away with any idea of sparing
embarrassment to me, I beg that you won't."
"Well, of course," he said, "I thought you'd rather I didn't come."
"But do you suppose I can consent to keep you from your mother's house?
You must see ... the responsibility of it! What I should like to know
is, are you staying away solely for my sake?"
"I didn't wish to intrude my trouble on you."
"No," she said; "that isn't what I mean. I am glad I have met you; I
want to speak to, you plainly. I have thought that perhaps it hurt you
to come; that my being there reminded--that you didn't like it? If
that's so----"
"I think you're exaggerating the importance of the thing! It is very
nice and womanly of you, but you are making yourself unhappy for
nothing. I have had a good deal to occupy me of late--in future I'll go
oftener."
"I feel very guilty," she answered. "If I am right in thinking it would
be pleasanter for you to stay away than to go there and see me, my
course is clear. It's not my home, you know; I'm in a situation, and it
can be given up."
"You mustn't talk like that. I must have blundered very badly to give
you such an idea. Don't let's stand here! Do you mind turning back a
little way? If what I said to you obliged you to leave Westport, I
should reproach myself for it bitterly."
They strolled slowly down the street; and during a minute each of the
pair sought phrases.
"It's certain," she said abruptly, "that my being your mother's
companion is quite wrong! If I weren't in the house you'd go there the
same as you used to. I can't help feeling that."
"But I _will_ go there the same as I used to. I have said so."
"Yes," she murmured.
"Doesn't that satisfy you?"
"You'll go, but the fact remains that you'd rather not; and the cause
of your reluctance is my presence there."
"It is you who are insisting on the reluctance," he fenced; "_I've_
not said I am reluctant. I thought you'd prefer me to avoid you for a
while; personally----"
"Oh!" she said, "do you think I've not seen? I know very well the
position is a false one!"
"I told you I'd never become a worry to you," he said humbly; "I've
been trying to keep my word."
"You've been everything that is considerate; the fault is my own. I
ought to have resigned the place the day after you spoke to me."
"I don't think that would have helped me much. You must understand that
a change like that was the very last thing I wanted my love to effect."
At the word "love" the woman flinched a little, and he himself had not
been void of sensation in uttering it. The sound of it was loud to both
of them. But to her it added to the sense of awkwardness, while to the
man it seemed to bring them nearer.
"It was very dense of me," he went on; "but with all the consequences
of speaking to you that I foresaw I never took into account the one
that has happened. I wondered if I was justified in asking you to give
up a comfortable living for such a home as I could offer; I considered
half a dozen things; but that I might be making the house unbearable to
you I overlooked. Now, with your interest at heart all the time, I've
injured you! I can't tell you how sorry I am to learn it."
"It's not unbearable," she said; "'unbearable' is much too strong. But
I do see my duty, and I know the right thing is for me to go away; your
mother would have you then as she ought to have you. While I stop, it
can never be really free for either of you. And of course she knows!"
"Do you think she does?" he exclaimed.
"Are women blind? Of course she knows! And what can she feel towards
me? It's only the affection she has for you that prevents her
discharging me."
"Oh, don't!" he said. "'Discharging' you!"
"What am I? I'm only her servant. Don't blink facts, Dr. Kincaid; I'm
your mother's companion, a woman you had never seen two years ago. It
would have been a good deal better for you if you had never seen me at
all!"
"You can't say what would have been best for _me_," he returned
unsteadily; "I'd rather have known you as I do than that we hadn't met.
For yourself, perhaps----"
"Hush!" she interrupted; "we can neither of us forget what our meeting
was. For myself, I owe my very life to meeting you; that's why the
result of it is so abominable--such a shame! I haven't said much, but I
remember every day what I owe you. I know I owe you the very clothes I
wear."
"Oh, for God's sake!" he muttered.
"And my repayment is to make you unhappy--and her unhappy. It's noble!"
Her pace quickened, and to see her excited acted upon him very
strongly. He longed to comfort her, and because this was impossible by
reason of the disparity of their sentiments, the sight of her emotion
was more painful. He had never felt the hopelessness of his attachment
so heavy on him as now that he saw her disturbed on account of it,
and realised at the same time that it debarred him from offering her
consolation. They walked along, gazing before them fixedly into the
vista of the shut-up shops and Sunday quietude, until at last he said
with an effort:
"If you did go you'd make me unhappier than ever."
She did not reply to this; and after a glance at the troubled profile:
"I am ready to do whatever you want," he added; "whatever will make the
position easiest to you. It seems that, with the best intentions, I've
only succeeded in giving annoyance to you both. But the wrong to my
mother can be remedied; and if I drive you away I shall have done some
lasting harm.... Why don't you say that you'll remain?"
"Because I'm not sure about it. I can't determine."
"Your objection was the fancy that you were responsible for my seeing
her so seldom; I've promised to see her as often as I can."
She bit her lip. She said nothing.
"I can't do any more--can I?"
"No," she confessed.
"Then, what's the matter?"
"The matter is that----"
"What?"
"You show me more plainly every minute that I _ought_ to go."
Something in the dumbness with which the announcement was received told
her how unexpected it had been. And, indeed, to hear that his love,
unperceived by himself, had been fighting against him was the hardest
thing that he had had to bear. Sensible that every remonstrance that
escaped him would estrang them further, the man felt helpless. They
were crossing the churchyard now, and she said something about the
impracticability of her going any further.
"Well, as you'll come oftener, our talk hasn't been useless!"
"Wait a second," he said. He paused by the porch, and looked at her. "I
can't leave you like this. Mary----!"
"Oh!" she faltered, "don't say anything--don't!"
"I must. What's the good?--I keep back everything, and you still know!
You'll always know. Nothing could have been more honestly meant than
my assurance that I'd never bring distress to you, and I've brought
distress. Let's look the thing squarely in the eyes: you, won't be my
wife, but you needn't go away. What would you do? Whom do you know?
Leaving my loss of you out of the question, think of my self-reproach!"
Inside the church an outburst of children's voices, muffled somewhat by
the shut door, but still too near to be wholly beautiful, rose suddenly
in a hymn. She stood with averted face, staring over the rankness of
the grass that the wind was stirring lightly among the gravestones.
"Let's look at the thing squarely for once," he said again. "We're
both remembering I love you--there's nothing gained by pretending. If
the circumstances were different, if you had somewhere to go I should
have less right to interfere; but as it is, your leaving would mean a
constant shame to me. All the time I should be thinking: 'She was at
peace in a home, and you drove her out from it!' To see the woman he
cares for go away, unprotected, among strangers, to want perhaps for
the barest necessaries--what sort of man could endure it? should feel
as if I had turned you out of doors." A sudden tremor seized her; she
shivered.
"Sit down," he said authoritatively. "We must come to an understanding!"
But his protest was not immediately continued, and in the shelter of
the porch both were thoughtful. She was the first to speak again, after
all.
"You're persuading me to be a great coward," she said; "and I am not a
very brave woman at the best. If I do what is right, I may give you
pain for a little while, but I shall spare you the unhappiness you'll
have if you go on meeting me."
"You consider my happiness and her happiness, but not your own. And
why?--you'd spare me nothing."
"You'll never be satisfied. Oh, yes, let us be honest with each
other, you're right! Your misgivings about me are true enough; but
you are principally anxious for me to stop that you may still see me.
And what'll come of it? I can never marry you, never; and you'll be
wretched. If I gave you a chance to forget----"
"I shall never forget, whether you stop or whether you go."
"You _must_ forget!" she cried. "You must forget me till it is as if
you had never known me. I won't be burdened with the knowledge that I'm
spoiling your life. I won't!"
"Mary!" he said appealingly.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "it's cruel! I wish to God I had died before you
loved me!"
"You don't know what you're saying! You make me feel----Why," he
demanded, under his breath--"why could it never be--in time, if you
stay? I'll never speak of it any more till you permit it, not a
sign shall tell you I'm waiting; but by-and-by--will it be always
impossible? Dearest, it holds me so fast, my love of you. Don't be
harsher than you need; it's so real, so deep. Don't refuse me the right
to hope--in secret, by myself; it's all I have, all I'll ask of you for
years, if you like--the right to think that you may be my wife some
day. Leave me that!"
"I can't," she said thickly; "it would be a lie."
"You could never care for me--not so much as to let _me_ care for
_you_?"
A movement answered him, and his head was lowered. He sat, his chin
supported by his palm, watching the restless working of her hands in
her lap. The closing words of the hymn came out distinctly to them
both, and they listened till the hush fell, without knowing that they
listened.
"May I ask you one thing? You know I shall respect your confidence. Is
it because you care for some other man?"
"No, no," she said vehemently, "I do not care!"
"Thank God for that! While there's no one you like better, you'll be
the woman I want and wait for to the end."
Her hands lay still; the compulsion for avowal was confronting her at
last. To hear this thing and sanction it by leaving him unenlightened
would be a wrong that she dared not contemplate; and under the
necessity for proclaiming that her sentiments could never affect the
matter, she turned cold and damp. Twice she attempted the finality
required, and twice her lips parted without sound.
"Dr. Kincaid----"
He raised his eyes to her, and the courage faded.
"Don't think," he said, "that I shall ever make you sorry for telling
me that. You've simply removed a dread. I'm grateful to you."
"Oh," she murmured, in a suffocating voice, "it makes no difference.
How am I to explain the--why don't you understand?"
"What is it I should understand?"
"You mustn't be grateful; you're mistaken. Never in the world, so long
as we live! There was someone else; I----"
"Be open with me," he said sternly; "in common fairness, let us have
clearness and truth! You just declared that you didn't care for anyone?"
"No," she gasped, "I did say that--I meant I didn't care. I don't--we
neither care; he doesn't know if I am alive, but ... there used to be
another man, and----"
"Oh, my God, you are going to tell me you are married?"
She shook her head. His eyes were piercing her; she felt them on her
wherever she looked.
"Then speak and be done! 'There was another man.' What more?"
Suddenly the first fear had entered his veins, and, though he was
conscious only of a vague oppression, he was already terrified by the
anticipation of what he was going to hear.
"'There was another man,'" he repeated hoarsely. "What of him?"
She was leaning forward, stooping so that her face was completely
hidden. With the silence that had fallen inside the church, the scene
was quieter than it had been, and the stillness in the air intensified
her difficulty of speech. She struggled to evolve from her confusion
the phrase to express her impurity, but all the terms looked shameless
and unutterable alike; and the travail continued until, faint with the
tension of the pause and the violent beating of her heart, she said
almost inaudibly:
"I lived with him three years."