§ 1
The smallness of the house shook with her dash upstairs and the banging
of her door. For a moment Dan stood at the stair-foot, then he too
turned and went upwards. He felt mentally bruised, but still exalted, as
he opened the door of his little room and went in. The moon and the
street lamp were together in a queer troubled light, and the occasional
surfaces of furniture gleamed in pale flecks. His bed was all white, and
Thomas Helier’s bed beside it, with a blot which was Thomas Helier
himself.
Dan went over to the window, and looked out on the roofs without seeing
them. Why had Belle cried when she left him? He knew that women cry for
joy as much as for sorrow, but he did not think that Belle had cried for
joy. How could she have cried for sorrow with his arms round her and the
vows of his love upon her? Only because she still loved Ernley and still
belonged to him. Only because she loved Ernley so much that when she saw
her marriage breaking she had deliberately killed it rather than let it
drag on as a broken thing. He, Daniel, was only the stick she had taken
to break her marriage, to put her wounded love out of its pain--he was
not there to give her love but to kill her love. That night she was
expecting him to go up to her room and kill the last of her love for
Ernley. To-morrow she would wake up without love, empty, like sounding
brass or a tinkling cymbal.
He shut his eyes again and the darkness flickered as with lights on a
screen. He saw the procession of his love for Belle--his courtship of
her at Batchelors’ Hall, the tall house and the tall nodding trees, and
the black-and-white striped walls of the drawing-room where the
gramophone played. He saw himself going to seek her up the narrow lanes
by Rushlake Green, and pleading with her in the cottage at Three Cups
Corner, where the white brides mocked him from the wall.... Then he saw
her and Ernley standing together in the doorway of old Gadgett’s
bedroom, holding each other by the hand, and looking at each other with
sad eyes, as if they looked forward into their marriage and saw it
appointed for sorrow....
He knew that his love had ended there. After that there had been no
love, only despair, and then escape ... and since he had come back he
had not loved her as in the old days, but in a different, unhappier way.
He loved her for herself and himself only. He loved her as other men had
loved her before Ernley, and to-night his love for her was just a flame,
seeking to devour--not the flame of the hearth where the food is cooked
and life made warm and secure, but the flame of the burning house, which
seeks only to destroy, and is the enemy of the hearth upon which the
dead, burnt house shall fall.
He opened his eyes again and looked down at the little dark shape of
Thomas Helier asleep in his moonlit bed. Then he remembered his own
marriage. Till that moment it had been merely an empty space in his
thoughts of Belle. But now it became an island, and the rest of life the
empty sea. That year of his married life, belonging to the stranger, the
strange land and the strange language, was none the less his heart’s
true home and abiding sweetness. All that he had ever known of love was
in that marriage, which had gathered up into itself not only his love
for Rose Falla but his love for Belle Shackford. His love for Belle had
led him to his marriage with Rose, and his love for Belle had been made
holy by his marriage with Rose.
“Oh, Rose, Rose--dear little Rose--I remember that evening when I took
you into my arms in the dark cottage at Moie Fano, and outside was the
cliff like a terrible blind thing asleep in the light. Something better
than love had given you to me then. I thought, ‘All my love is in Sussex
with Belle Shackford’--and reckon I never knew that love was in our
marriage and nowhere else.... If I let Belle use me to break her
marriage, I break my own--I break faith with Rose--I break faith with
Belle. I cannot love a woman away from marriage--if I did that my love
would be like the cliff at Moie Fano--a terrible blind thing asleep in
the light.”
He sank down on his knees before the window, and his thoughts which had
been drowned came out of the water, and he knew himself to be set on a
mad and evil way. He was about to break a marriage--a wounded marriage,
it is true, but not wounded to death. Belle had taken Ernley as he had
taken Rose--“_pour le mieux et pour le pire_”--“for better for worse.”
He had known nothing of the worse in his marriage with Rose, for his
Rose had been a sweet flower plucked before the rains. But if they had
lived on together they would probably have had to forgive just like
everyone else. He could have forgiven Rose anything--Rose would have
forgiven him anything. By that same power Ernley could forgive Belle and
Belle could forgive Ernley. And Belle had less to forgive Ernley than
she thought ... there lay Daniel’s shame. He was a thief breaking into
the inn of marriage with a lie. What does it matter? The inn of marriage
is empty--it is already robbed. No--love is still there. Respect and
trust and seemliness are gone, but love is still there--sitting alone
and waiting for the others to come back ... love of the mother for the
children and the children for the mother--love of the wife for the
husband and the husband for the wife. Belle knew that, and that was why
she wanted him to break into the inn of marriage and help her kill
love--love waiting in the empty house till her children return.... “But
I can’t do that--I can’t--because for a year I, too, lived with love in
the inn of marriage, and if I kill Belle’s love for her husband I kill
my own for Belle, my own for Rose, my own for our child, since these are
all part of the same thing. Oh, God, I can’t do it--I can’t hurt the
best thing you’ve ever given me--your own thing--part of yourself.”
§ 2
The dawn was breaking, with the masts of the ships standing up before it
like spears before a banner. Dan still knelt beside the window in the
dishevelment of a sleepless night. His collar was askew, and that tie,
damned of Pearl Johnson, was under one ear. His hair was rumpled out of
its sleekness, and the long, straight lick of it hung sideways almost to
his shoulder. He must clean and tidy himself before he went up to Belle
and told her that his own marriage had been too great a treasure for him
to be the thief of hers.
He must tell her at once, so that she could go back at once to Ernley.
If she went now the situation might be saved. Indeed, the very fact of
her having gone away might take from her that certainty which had so
disenchanted her husband. This thing that had happened might be the very
thing needed to establish happiness for Belle and Ernley. Whether Belle
had loved Daniel or not, or Ernley had loved Pearl or not, was no
matter. Pearl and Daniel had been useful to break up a hard piece of
life--and now that their task was done, Pearl could go to her Mr.
Johnson, and Daniel could go....
He plunged his head into his basin of cold water. What should he do when
he had lost Belle? Didn’t he still love her? Yes--but that terrible,
stripped future which had once enticed him now filled him entirely with
fear. He could not take Belle away from everything that truly belonged
to her--her marriage, her home, her husband, her children ... any more
than he could go away himself from all that truly belonged to him--his
marriage, his home, Rose Falla or Notre Helier.
The baby was still asleep--he had slept peacefully all through the night
of his father’s distress. Soon he would be waking and demanding
attention in one form or another. Poor little kid--at least one would
not have to part with him now ... or only for a little while. His father
would have to go away for a little while, to forget this new sound of
Belle’s footsteps in his life. Going away was a great cure for
everything--made everything seem like shadows on glass ... then when you
came back you could pick up things again in a new way--he had picked up
his love for Belle in a new way; if he had picked it up in the old way
he could not have renounced it now. But there was sea water in the blood
of his father’s son, and a sea change was a change of heart. When did
the _White King_ sail from Middlesbrough?...
§ 3
From Belle’s window, too, one could see the masts of the ships, but now
the sunlight gleamed upon them--they were no longer lances but Aaron’s
rod in flower. As Dan came stooping into the attic with its low-set
window, the first thing he saw was the flowering of Aaron’s rod against
the sea. The dawn was full of colour--rose and brown and blue, and the
breeze of it rushed into the attic, both salt and sweet.
It was almost like an encounter, and gave him a queer sense of
exaltation, and the strength to look at Belle as she lay on the bed,
outside the clothes, wrapped in a purple cotton kimono, over which her
hair flowed tawny and challenging. Her face was hidden in the hollow of
one elbow, and she slept incredibly, in spite of his knock and his
entrance and the flowering of the dawn.
But immediately he came and stood beside her she woke--she sat up,
sweeping the hair out of her eyes. Her hair frightened him--it was so
aggressively abandoned, so bright, so coarse, so curly.... He remembered
the fine silk of Rose’s hair among his fingers and upon his lips. Belle
had let down her hair to smother and bind him--- a crude and easy charm.
He suddenly felt very far away from her.
“Well,” she said sullenly--“what do you want now?”
“I want to talk to you.”
He pulled a chair beside the bed and sat down. She yawned and stretched
her arms, then suddenly burst into tears.
“Belle--Belle--don’t cry. You know you don’t really love me.”
“Since when have you discovered that?”
Her voice was not sweet.
“Since I said good night to you--when you cried.... I guessed then that
you’d come to me not because you loved me, but because you loved
Ernley.”
“You’re damned clever, ain’t you.”
“And, Belle, I saw I was a swine, for I was keeping something back from
you--something about Ernley.”
“What?”
“That he hasn’t been with Pearl Jenner at Hastings.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw her here in Newhaven last night.”
Belle seized his arm.
“She was at the café,” faltered Daniel, realizing how treacherous he
must now appear--“I saw her in the other room--that’s why I went in to
get a programme, and----”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew it ud made a difference to your feelings about Ernley.
You see, it wasn’t only that she was there--she’d got a man with
her--her husband.”
“D’you mean to say she’s married?”
“Just--they’re off to Paris to-day.”
“And you never told me?”
“I--I couldn’t.”
“Why?--why?”
“Because I knew it ud mean I’d lose you--you’d go back to Ernley after
that.”
“Cad!” shrieked Belle. “You dirty little cad!”
She sprang off the bed, and stood before him barefooted on the floor,
blazing with anger. She was so much the virago that he almost cowered,
and the shame of his own fear made him angry, too. He rose to his feet,
and then suddenly the fear of his own shame drove down upon him and
swept the anger out of his heart. After all, Belle was right. He had
behaved like a cad with that lie of silence. If Belle had not wept like
that at the foot of the stairs, how much of her life would he have left
her? She was saved only by her tears.
“I’m sorry, Belle--forgive me, Belle.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Because I loved you and reckon I wasn’t strong enough to tell you
something that might send you from me.”
“And why are you strong enough now--when it’s too late?”
“My dear, it ain’t too late.”
“Too late! Of course it’s too late. I’ve stopped away a whole night from
home--the servants all know, even if I manage to get back before Ernley
does.... I never said anything--I just cleared out. It’ll be easy enough
to prove I spent the night along of you here--I reckon Ernley could get
a divorce on it if he wanted to, and maybe he will want to.”
“Oh, no, he won’t.”
“Not that I care if he does. I’ll never believe he wasn’t in love with
Pearl Jenner; and as for her being married now, it only means that she’s
got a good eye for her chances, which I never doubted, and that he’ll
soon find somebody else. We’re done with each other, so your lovely
conscience and pure heart go for nothing.”
“Belle, don’t go mocking at my conscience and my heart. I don’t set up
for being good--I know I ain’t. But I just felt as somehow I couldn’t
spoil a thing like marriage.”
“Marriage! What are you talking about? Mine’s spoilt already, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. You only think so because you’ve mixed up marriage with
love, and they ain’t the same thing really.”
“You needn’t tell me that.”
“I mean that when you’re in love and go back on each other, you
generally can’t forgive, but in marriage you can--always.”
Belle sat down heavily upon the bed.
“What’s come over you, Daniel?”
“Nothing--it’s the same as I’ve always felt, but can’t explain. I think
a lot about marriage. I never was more surprised by anything than I was
by my marriage. I’ve never told you about it, Belle, but it was like
this. I met a girl at a dancing-place in Jersey, and she told me she was
done for and must go on the streets for a living. I’d had a drop too
much, so when I got worked up about what she told me, I never stopped to
think sense, but just put her in my boat and took her over to Sark with
me. Then that crowd at the Pêche à Agneau wouldn’t keep her--they said
she must go back--and she cried ... and begged me to save her ... so
just out of pity I said I’d marry her, and I was in a mortal funk about
it--I didn’t really love her and was only doing it out of pity. But I
swore I’d go through with it, for it was up to me, so to speak. Then
when we went into church and the minister prayed and I put on her ring I
suddenly saw it all different. And when I came out of church I knew we
belonged to each other and ud be happy together, no matter how it had
all started. And after that ... well, I can’t speak about it--but ...
well, of course you know she died. But if it had gone on it would always
have been good, because we were like being one person, and if one went
against the other it would just be like being sick with yourself, as you
are at times. You always forgive yourself in the end--you can’t help it.
And then there’s the kid--there’s your kids, Belle. You can’t get shut
of a marriage so easy as you think--by just walking out of the door.
It’s all mixed up with everything else in your life.”
Belle sat silent, leaning her head against the bedpost.
“You can’t get shut of a marriage,” Daniel repeated--“all that talk
about divorce is just silly. You’re a part of Ernley and the children
are a part of you both, and there you are, and nothing can be done about
it.”
“Oh, can’t it, just! And reckon it will be done when Ernley finds out.”
“There ain’t nothing for him to find out--except that you loved him so
much that you were driven half mad when you thought he loved somebody
else. You know you don’t really love me, Belle. It’s twice you’ve taken
me because you loved Ernley, but reckon I can’t bear any more of that.”
“And you don’t really love me.”
“No--all I’ve ever done is to want to get married. I’m not the same sort
as you--I can’t go in for these big love affairs and all that. They
scare me and I act silly. I’d have loved you as my wife and have made
you a good husband, but I can’t go loving you outside marriage--I’m not
made that way. The only woman I’ve ever loved is Rose, just because she
was my wife.”
“And now she’s dead, will you marry again?”
“Maybe. I could love any good woman that was my wife. I’m sorry, Belle.
I know it doesn’t sound very good, but it’s the way I’m made. It means
that I’ll always be happier than you, but not so interesting.”
Belle smiled, and for the first time he saw almost a look of tenderness
in her eyes.
“You poor child. Reckon I’ve scared you. No--maybe I’m not your sort,
Daniel. Though the Lord knows that the trouble with Ernley has been
because of my being too homely since I married. He never thought of my
becoming a mother when I had children.”
“It’ll do him a lot of good, your going off like this--he won’t feel so
sure of you. Ernley doesn’t like feeling sure.”
“Well, I do.”
“And so you will--if he doesn’t.”
Belle stood up again and went towards the window, twisting up her hair
as she walked. The action seemed somehow to show that she had done with
him.
“You talk sense, Daniel. You do sometimes. You’ve treated me badly this
last day and night, but I’ve treated you badly these years. Reckon
you’re the sort of man that women make a refuge of. Well, I won’t do it
again. I hope you’ll meet some kind, good woman who’ll marry you and
protect you from the likes of me. For if I go back to Ernley, I don’t
expect I’ll be happy--not for years, anyway. But, of course, I know in
my heart that he belongs to me and I to him, and nobody else will ever
do. I dare say we’ll both be all the better for this shake-up--I dunno.
He’s hit me and been hurt--I’ve hit him and been hurt ... there’s no
telling what difference that ull make. But you’ll have to keep out of
it, Daniel. Ernley will hate you after this.”
“Hate me! That’s odd, after all that’s gone before.”
“If he doesn’t hate you, the same as I hate Pearl Jenner, I’ll know it’s
all no use.”
“Well, anyhow, I’ll be going away.”
“Where?”
Daniel looked out towards the sea.
“My father wrote only the other day, offering me a berth as cook on a
Geordie sailing next week from Middlesbrough.”
“And what will you do with the child?”
“Leave him with Em.”
“Shall you be happy at sea?”
“Happier than in spoiling your life on land.”
“You haven’t spoiled my life, Daniel. I’ve spoiled my own. Perhaps it’s
not quite spoilt.”
She held out her hand to him, and he took it limply.
“Oh, Belle----”
“I must dress now. Get out. I hope they haven’t heard us talking.”
“Not up here. I’ll go down. Will you be having breakfast with me and get
an early start?”
“Yes, I must be back when Ernley comes. Then I can tell him everything
and perhaps he will tell me something.”
He went out, with nothing in his heart except a great longing for the
sea.