It was late October. People were beginning to return to London, and
among the early arrivals was Lady Milmo, who had been longing to escape
from the discomforts of foreign hotels and English country-houses to her
own familiar surroundings in Pont Street. With her came Ella, who was
anxious to resume the work of the Colony. She had spent the latter part
of July and August in Ayresford.
It had been a time of rest and quiet happiness, for she loved the old
man in a wistful, daughterly way; yet, in spite of his tender courtesy,
she had divined in him the same antagonism to Roderick as she had
discovered in Sylvester, and this had put a constraint in their
relations which had never before existed. The engagement was seldom
referred to, and though the girl's cheek flushed with pleasure at
Roderick's morning letter, yet during the rest of the day she was
happier when he was not vivid in her thoughts.
At first it had been arranged that Roderick should pay a long-promised
visit to his father at the same time. But when it came to the point
of making definite arrangements, he had found his presence, in the
interests of the Colony, essential elsewhere. As a matter of fact, the
elder Usher jarred upon his son's more refined susceptibilities. His
personal acquaintance with Ella was sufficiently annoying to Roderick;
but to sit by in silent apology, while she was being overspread with
unctuous and paternal platitudes, was an ordeal too exasperating to
face. So following as usual the line of least resistance, he had accepted
one or two pleasant and profitable invitations. His non-appearance,
though she credited herself with a feeling of disappointment, was a
relief to Ella. She had passed lately through many conflicting emotions,
and she needed solitude, a period of moral repose, wherein to realise
both herself and circumstances. For a proud girl does not surrender to a
man almost against her will, without striving in her heart to account
it to herself as a victory. The fact of the strained relations between
Matthew and Usher, of which Miss Agatha Lanyon informed her, also
mitigated her regret. They were at daggers drawn, did not even salute
each other in the street. Roderick's absence avoided a grotesque
Montague and Capulet situation. It further saved her from much personal
intercourse with Usher, for whom she entertained no very high opinion.
Once, however, she dined with him ceremoniously. He talked in his
reiterative way of the comfort a daughter would be to his old age, and
represented himself as the most generous and indulgent of parents. He
alluded to Matthew more in sorrow than in anger. A man with whom he had
been in intimate bonds of friendship for forty years to throw him over
at the last! It was grievous; it was ageing him rapidly. He was always a
faithful friend. It was his disposition. The saint leered at her out of
his red-rimmed eyes, and Ella felt a shiver of repulsion which lasted
till the next morning, when a fervid epistle from Roderick restored her
serenity.
“I can't make out why Matthew and Mr. Usher have quarrelled,” said Miss
Lanyon during the day.
“And I wonder why they haven't quarrelled for forty years,” returned
Ella. “Oh, don't look shocked, auntie. It is no reason for me to adore a
man because I am engaged to his son!”
Thenceforward she became a violent though silent partisan of Matthew in
his dispute. There must have been serious grounds for such a quarrel;
Matthew could do no wrong; therefore Usher must have treated him
shamefully. The syllogism was perfectly conclusive. This feeling and
a growing anxiety as to the old man's health did much to lessen the
constraint between them. For he was constantly ailing, and was not
the man she had seen fifteen months before. She left him with great
reluctance, in spite of the glowing impatience of Roderick, with whom
she was to spend some weeks as the guest of Sir Decimus Bland.
Now it was October, and London life began again. Lady Milmo busied
herself in spinning her gossamer web of affairs and appeared smiling and
contented. Ella devoted herself to such studies as she considered would
be of benefit in her peculiar position as Lady Director of the Colony.
Roderick was ever by with suggestion and advice. Things were going
splendidly. Some three thousand pounds had already been subscribed
and lay at Roderick's bankers. Three thousand more had been promised,
irrespective of Sir Decimus's undertaking to provide the Director's
salary. With another four thousand they could start. Ella offered to
provide it. Roderick shook his head. It had better come from the great
heart of the public. She persisted and wrote to Matthew. He urged her
almost passionately not to put money into the scheme until she was
married. Thus Roderick and Matthew were in accord on the point, and Ella
was puzzled.
“When is it to be, dearest?” asked Roderick one day.
The question came suddenly after a short pause in their talk. It was
during the few minutes before dinner. Roderick was dining in Pont
Street, and Lady Milmo not having come down yet, they were alone.
“You know,” replied Ella, with a half-smile.
“Ah, do I?” said he. “I don't love contingencies. I long for the
glorious life with you, my wonderful Ella. And I am a man, and waiting
is hard.”
She flushed slightly. The consciousness of being desired ever quickens
a woman's pulses. But she also loves the sense of mastery in maintaining
herself within impregnable walls. In this perhaps lies the delicious
paradox of her sex.
“I keep to my terms,” she said. “Within a week of our starting for the
Colony. Not before. It will give a new sacredness to our work and to our
married life if we begin them both at the same time.”
“But who knows when the inauguration of the colony will be?” asked
Roderick.
“It could be now, practically, if you would let me furnish the deficit.”
“Ah, no,” he said. “You would be acting against a principle very dear
to me. It must be others who give their money. We give our lives. If
you subscribe, the prestige of the Colony as a great public movement is
gone. It is bound to come to ripeness. But like an exquisite fruit it
takes time.”
“I am happy to wait for the ripening,” said Ella.
“But I?” He threw out his arms passionately. “Ella, do you know what the
madness of love is? Don't you fear that in the first rapturous days of
life with you I might forget the work for your enchantment? Would it
not be better to begin the work in the sweet fulness of our wedded
life,--when we have learned each other in the way that only wedded life
can teach?”
“It will be better to begin things together,” she replied with feminine
reiteration.
He pleaded flamboyantly. Why not fix the date of his great happiness
for Christmas,--the time of universal rejoicing? The marriage would
stimulate imaginations. The deficit would be made up fourfold.
Subscriptions would come in by way of wedding gifts. Ella remained
calmly obdurate.
“Before I loved you, the cause was everything to me. Since then, you are
everything. The cause is second. It is the irrefragable law of life and
love.”
“To me,” replied Ella, “the cause and you are one.”
She glanced up swiftly and caught, as it seemed, a look of irritation on
his face,--a contraction of the brows, a snarl of the lips between the
auburn moustache and beard, showing the teeth. But it passed like a
lightning flash and left his face aglow with such exuberant adoration
that she attributed it to some-trick of shadow, and dismissed it from
her mind.
But as the days went on, a vague uneasiness took root and began to
grow. Roderick spoke less of the Colony, more of herself. Negotiations
appeared to be at a standstill. No more names swelled the subscription
list; Roderick took no further steps to make fresh converts among the
young and ardent. He pleaded the necessity of work to supply ordinary
personal needs. He tried to awaken her enthusiasm over a flaring picture
of _Love the Destroyer_, which he had begun to paint. She went one day
to his studio to see it. Love stood, triumphant and cruel, a two-handed
sword in his hand. Around him was the carnage for which he was
responsible. An emaciated creature at last gasp was kissing his feet.
There was a suggestion of the flesh in it that jarred upon the girl. The
commonplace of the conception chilled her. She remained staring at the
picture. It was long before she could trust herself to look at Roderick.
At last she did so, unable to hide her disappointment.
“You do not like it?” said Roderick, eagerly.
“Forgive me--” she began rather piteously.
“Say no more,” he cried, and with a magnificent gesture he seized a
cloth, and in great, swift sweeps of his arm smeared the picture into
a horrid chaos of greens and yellows. Ella sprang forward with a little
cry.
“So perish all in me that you deem unworthy!” he exclaimed fervently.
The act brought the woman in her to his feet. Who was she to judge the
creation of an artist's genius? Had he let it stand, she would have
loved the picture. The annihilation, at her bidding, of the result of
days of artistic travail smote her with a sense of guilt. She was ready
to lament a lost masterpiece. She would never rest until he repainted
it. He magnanimously refused. The first impression of a picture on a
pure and beautiful soul was the true one. She would be the touchstone of
all his life's work. He sent her away at once raised and humbled. But
to make amends, she threw herself earnestly into a new conception of
the subject that he put before her, and watched it taking shape upon the
canvas with intense eagerness. And in the meanwhile the Colony was not
quite so much on the surface of her thoughts. Now and then, however, she
questioned him anxiously. Once he turned upon her in solemn reproach,--
“Do I understand that you are afraid of my faltering in the sacred cause
to which we have devoted ourselves?”
Ella was impressed with his dignity and again rebuked herself for her
want of faith. Women are indignant when they are told how often they are
taken in by fustian.
November came. She met Sylvester at dinner one evening at Lady Milmo's
for the first time since the At Home in July, given to celebrate her
engagement. He sat silent during the meal. Roderick, who made the
fourth, was in his gayest mood. Rebellious defiance again came uppermost
in the girl's heart, and she strove to put forward all her brilliance.
She compared the two men: one, cold, sombre, severe,--a mere intellect
clothed in the outer semblance of humanity; the other warm-hearted,
enthusiastic, sensitive to every impression of life, and gifted with
a perception of a world that had never entered into the purview of
his fellow's dreams. She fortified her unmitigated resentment against
Sylvester with disdain. How could she ever have loved such a bloodless
piece of mechanism? She lashed with scorn her girlish folly. A
heightened colour and an added lustre to her eyes rendered dazzling her
ordinary girlish beauty.
“You are not one, but all wondrous womankind's epitome to-night,”
whispered Roderick, in the drawing-room afterwards.
“That is foolishness,” she replied, “but I--I was just going to say I
have never felt so proud of you as I have done this evening.”
Roderick laughed. “I'm afraid it is because dear old Syl sits by so glum
while I'm such a chatterbox,” he said.
Ella shot a swift glance upwards. Really this man had marvellous
intuition. Could he ever have suspected--? Her cheek burned. But to her
comforting no trace of malicious insinuation lurked in the frankness of
his eyes. His deprecation of her tribute was sincere.
Lady Milmo went to the piano. She had a dainty taste in music, and
having lately added an obscure but colossal Herzigovinan rhapsodist to
her menagerie, found intense delight in his compositions. He was only
two and twenty and had already reached op. 236. This Lady Milmo began
to play, while Roderick self-sacrificingly turned over the leaves.
Sylvester exchanged commonplace remarks with Ella. The consciousness of
the task he had undertaken somewhat weighed upon him. He was to break
off the marriage. How? Only by fair means. A man of scrupulous honour,
he characterised as foul any secret investigations into Roderick's
financial position or past career. Nor could he asperse Roderick's
character while maintaining with him a semblance of friendly relations.
To declare open war would be foolish. He could do nothing but bide his
opportunity. Meanwhile he was less than ever at his ease with Ella. She,
however, interpreted his constraint as contemptuous indifference, and
once more she longed for battle. The memory of her humiliation on
the night of Lady Milmo's reception only made her irritation more
unbearable. A chance remark about his father gave her the longed for
opportunity to stab.
“I suppose you know Uncle Matthew's health is failing,'' she said
suddenly.
“I am afraid so,” he said.
“Then why aren't you by his side to take care of him? Since you left he
has been gradually breaking down. Neglect is killing him.”
Sylvester curled the ends of his moustache and regarded her impassively.
“You are trying to hurt me,” he said. “I do not neglect my father.”
“No. You are a paragon of all the excellences. If you had some
infirmities, you might be a better and a happier man.”
“I do not believe in the new doctrine of the saving quality of evil,”
he replied. “I am of the old-fashioned opinion that evil taints the
character, blunts the moral sense, and comes out sooner or later in evil
actions.”
“You talk like a Sunday-school tract,” said Ella, with a short laugh.
“But I was speaking of Uncle Matthew--”
“I should like to speak of him too,” said Sylvester, curtly. “Your
engagement is a great unhappiness to him. He loves you like his own
daughter. You know that. If you had consulted him beforehand, perhaps it
would have been kinder. What his reasons are for wishing it broken off I
do not know, but you may be quite certain they are good ones.”
Ella looked across the room to the piano where the Herzigovinan rhapsody
was in full tumult of crashing chords, and then edged nearer Sylvester
on the couch where they were sitting.
“Are you aware that you are committing an impertinence in speaking to me
like that?” she said in an undertone. “How dare you? I acknowledge Uncle
Matthew as my guardian. But you--what right have you to touch upon my
affairs? What concern can you have in them?”
“Absolutely none,--personally. But my father is dear to me. If I could
break off your engagement to please him, I should do so.”
“Are you going to try?”
“Yes, I shall try,” he replied coldly. Their eyes met in undisguised
enmity.
“It would take a better man than you, Sylvester Lanyon,” she said.
She rose and walked to the fireplace, with an air of great stateliness.
Sylvester did not attempt to follow her, but lay back on the couch as
if rapt in the music. But his evil mood was upon him. He had at once
divined her desire to wound him in his tenderest spot. It was like a
woman. He felt a great scorn for her. The music suddenly ceased. He
uttered a conventional murmur. Roderick broke into ecstatic comment.
“A divine genius! Interpreting the message of the wild winds of his
mountain fastnesses,--the elemental throbbing in the hearts of his
rugged forefathers. Ella, Moskovic must come to Walden. This supreme
spirit must not be clogged by the banality of London concert rooms. He
must breathe the freedom of the woods and streams.”
“He has half consented already,” said Ella.
“The silly fool!” muttered Sylvester, beneath his breath.
“Ah, my comrade,” cried Roderick, turning suddenly round, “what message
has science to deliver comparable to this?”
“None that I'm aware of, thank Heaven!” replied Sylvester.
Roderick broke into his gay laughter and crossed the room.
“We must think of him kindly, as good Catholics do of those that sit in
darkness and ignorance, eh, Ella?”
With a lover's gesture he passed his arm lightly around Ella's waist,
and drew her with ever so delicate a pressure a little nearer to him,
and looked tenderly into her eyes.
Sylvester started to his feet. A feeling unexpected, undreamed of,
hateful, passed through him,--a wave of disgust, of sudden, fierce
hatred of Roderick standing there as the undisputed possessor of Ella
Defries. Had the man kissed her, he would have struck him. A phrase
formulated in Heaven knows what cell of his brain leaped with ghastly
suddenness into his mind. How dare that loathsome brute touch her? The
revulsion was physical, almost unendurable. It lasted but a moment or
two. Then Ella moved away and Lady Milmo came up with a light remark,
and the world was as it was before,--a great grim vanity which he
regarded with apathetic indifference.
He took his leave early, pleading professional duties. Ella gave him
a defiant hand and her lips had a contemptuous curl as she bade him
good-night. Roderick, taking upon himself the part of man of the house,
accompanied him downstairs and pressed whisky and soda upon him amid
fervid expressions of regard. The discreet man-servant helped him on
with his overcoat, and the welcome cold air of the street was upon him.
There was a touch, of early frost and the stars shone clear. The memory
of his unaccountable seizure half an hour ago brought back the memory
of a night in Ayresford when he had read, as his heart prompted, the
message of the stars. He hailed a passing cab, entered it with the air
of a man who has the business of life to consider and not the dreams
of a dead past. But in spite of himself the dreams came back, ugly and
chilling, and he spent the drive home in brooding thought. What did
Roderick's caresses matter to him? Did he not despise Ella utterly? For
aught he cared they might marry into eternal misery to-morrow. It was
only for his father's sake that he wished to part them. Roderick was a
plausible knave, Ella a woman, feline, treacherous, delicate of face and
gross of soul. They were well paired. He laughed cynically as he settled
down to his evening's work in his laboratory. Here at least were things
which he could understand. The growth of a bacillus in a bed of jelly
was comprehensible. He could see it, test it. But who could see the
growth of a lie in the heart of a human being? And the man himself was
unconscious that a dead love had awakened that evening from its sleep
and had passionately, for one brief instant, raised the stone that
covered the mouth of its tomb.