THE UNEXPECTED
Late in the evening Wilfrid received a visit from his father. Mr. Athel
had dined with his sister, and subsequently accompanied his nieces to a
concert. Beatrice should have sung, but had broken her engagement on the
plea of ill-health.
'Been at home all the evening?' Mr. Athel began by asking.
'I got home late,' Wilfrid answered, rising from his chair.
His father had something to say which cost him hesitation. He walked
about with his hands between the tails of his coat.
'Seen Beatrice lately?' he inquired at length.
'No; not since last Monday.'
'I'm afraid she isn't well. She didn't sing to-night. Didn't dine with
us either.'
Wilfrid kept silence.
'Something wrong?' was his father's next question.
'Yes, there is.'
'I'm sorry to hear that.'
Wilfrid went to the fireplace and leaned his arm upon the mantelpiece.
As he did not seem disposed to speak, his father continued--
'Nothing serious, I hope?'
'Yes; something serious.'
'You don't mean that? Anything you can talk about?'
'I'm afraid not. I shall go and see Beatrice as usual tomorrow. I may be
at liberty to tell you after that, though probably not for a few days.'
Mr. Athel looked annoyed.
'I hope this is not of your doing,' he said. 'They tell me the girl is
causing them a good deal of anxiety. For the last few days she has been
sitting alone, scarcely touching food, and refusing to speak to anyone.
If this goes on she will be ill.'
Wilfrid spoke hoarsely.
'I can't help it. I shall see her to-morrow.'
'All right,' observed his father, with the impatience which was his way
of meeting disorders in this admirable universe. 'Your aunt asked me to
tell you this; of course I can do no more.'
Wilfrid made no reply, and Mr. Athel left him.
It was an hour of terrible suffering that Wilfrid lived through before
he left the study and went to lay his head on the pillow. He had not
thought very much of Beatrice hitherto; the passion which had spurred
him blindly on made him forgetful of everything but the end his heart
desired. Now that the end was within reach, he could consider what it
was that he had done. He was acting like a very madman. He could not
hope that any soul would regard his frenzy even with compassion; on all
sides he would meet with the sternest condemnation. Who would recognise
his wife? This step which he was taking meant rupture with all his
relatives, perchance with all his friends; for it would be universally
declared that he had been guilty of utter baseness. His career was
ruined. It might happen that he would have to leave England with Emily,
abandoning for her sake everything else that he prized.
How would Beatrice bear the revelation? Mere suspense had made her ill;
such a blow as this might kill her. Never before had he been consciously
guilty of an act of cruelty or of wrong to any the least valued of those
with whom he had dealt; to realise what his treachery meant to Beatrice
was so terrible that he dared not fix his thought upon it. Her love for
him was intense beyond anything he had imagined in woman; Emily had
never seemed to him possessed with so vehement a passion. Indeed he had
often doubted whether Emily's was a passionate nature; at times she was
almost cold--appeared so, in his thought of her--and never had she
given way to that self-forgetful ardour which was so common in Beatrice.
Sweat broke out upon his forehead as he saw the tragic issues to which
his life was tending. There was no retreat, save by a second act of
apostasy so unspeakably shameful that the brand of it would drive him to
self-destruction. He had made his choice, or had been driven upon it by
the powers which ruled his destiny; it only remained to have the courage
of his resolve and to defy consequences. At least it was in no less a
cause than that of his life's one love. There was no stamp of turpitude
on the end for which he would sacrifice so much and occasion so much
misery.
He passed the time in his own rooms till the afternoon of the following
day; then, at the customary hour, he set forth to visit Beatrice. Would
she see him? In his heart he hoped that she would refuse to; yet he
dreaded lest he should be told that she was too unwell. It was a new
thing in Wilfrid's experience to approach any door with shame and dread;
between his ringing the bell and the servant's answer he learnt 'well
what those words mean.
He was admitted as usual, the servant making no remark. As usual, he was
led to Beatrice's room.
She was sitting in the chair she always occupied, and was dressed with
the accustomed perfection. But her face was an index to the sufferings
she had endured this past week. As soon as the door had closed, she
stood to receive him, but not with extended hand. Her eyes were fixed
upon him steadily, and Wilfrid, with difficulty meeting them,
experienced a shook of new fear, a kind of fear he could not account
for. Outwardly she was quite calm; it was something in her look, an
indefinable suggestion of secret anguish, that impressed him so. He did
not try to take her hand, but, having laid down his hat, came near to
her and spoke as quietly as he could.
'May I speak to you of what passed between us last Monday?'
'How can we avoid speaking of it?' she replied, in a low voice, her eyes
still searching him.
'I ought to have come to see you before this,' Wilfrid continued, taking
the seat to which she pointed, whilst she also sat down. 'I could not.'
'I have been expecting you,' Beatrice said, in an emotionless way.
The nervous tension with which he had come into her presence had yielded
to a fit of trembling. Coldness ran along his veins; his tongue refused
its office; his eyes sank before her gaze.
'I felt sure you would come to-day,' Beatrice continued, with the same
absence of pronounced feeling. 'If not, I must have gone to your house.
What do you wish to say to me?'
'That which I find it very difficult to say. I feel that after what
happened on Monday we cannot be quite the same to each other. I fear I
said some things that were not wholly true.'
Beatrice seemed to be holding her breath. Her face was marble. She sat
unmoving.
'You mean,' she said at length, 'that those letters represented more
than you were willing to confess?'
It was calmly asked. Evidently Wilfrid had no outbreak of resentment to
fear. He would have preferred it to this dreadful self-command.
'More,' he answered, 'than I felt at the time. I spoke no word of
conscious falsehood.'
'Has anything happened to prove to you what you then denied?'
He looked at her in doubt. Could she in any way have learnt what had
come to pass? Whilst talking, he had made up his mind to disclose
nothing definitely; he would explain his behaviour merely as arising
from doubt of himself. It would make the rest easier for her to bear
hereafter.
'I have read those letters again,' he answered.
'And you have learnt that you never loved me?'
He held his eyes down, unable to utter words. Beatrice also was silent
for a long time. At length she said--
'I think you are keeping something from me?'
He raised his face.
'Has nothing else happened?' she asked, with measured tone, a little
sad, nothing more.
The truth was forced from him, and its utterance gave him a relief which
was in itself a source of new agitation.
'Yes, something else has happened.'
'I knew it.'
'How did you--?'
'I felt it. You have met her again.'
Again he was speechless. Beatrice asked--
'Does she live in London?'
'She does.'
'You have met her, and have--have wished that you were free?'
'Beatrice, I have done worse. I have acted as though I were free.'
She shook, as if a blow had fallen upon her. Then a smile came to her
lips.
'You have asked her again to be your wife?'
'I have.'
'And she has consented?'
'Because I deceived her at the same time that I behaved dishonourably to
you.'
She fixed upon him eyes which had a strange inward look, eyes veiled
with reverie, vaguely troubled, unimpassioned. It was as though she
calmly readjusted in her own mind the relations between him and herself.
The misery of Wilfrid's situation was mitigated in a degree by mere
wonder at her mode of receiving his admissions. This interview was no
logical sequence upon the scene of a week ago; and the issue then had
been, one would have thought, less provocative of demonstration than
to-day's.
Directness once more armed her gaze, and again he was powerless to meet
it. Still no resentment, no condemnation. She asked--
'It is your intention to marry soon?'
He could not reply.
'Will you let me see you once more before your marriage?' she continued.
'That is, if I find I wish it. I am not sure. I may or may not.'
It was rather a debate with herself than an address to him.
'May I leave you now, Beatrice?' he said, suddenly. 'Every drop of blood
in me is shame-heated. In telling you this, I have done something which
I thought would be beyond my force.'
'Yes,' she murmured, 'it will be better if we part now.'
She rose and watched him as he stepped to the table and took his hat.
There was a moment's hesitation on either side, but Beatrice did not
offer her hand. She stood superbly, as a queen might dismiss one from
whom her thoughts were already wandering. He bowed, with inward
self-mockery, and left her.
Some hours later, when already the summer evening had cloaked itself,
Wilfrid found himself wandering by the river, not far from Hammersmith.
The influence of a great water flowing from darkness into darkness was
strong upon him; he was seeking for a hope in the transitoriness of all
things earthly. Would not the hour come when this present anguish, this
blood-poisoning shame, would have passed far away and have left no mark?
Was it not thinking too grandiosely to attribute to the actions of such
a one as himself a tragic gravity? Was there not supernal laughter at
the sight of him, Wilfrid Athel, an English gentleman, a member of the
Lower House of the British Parliament, posing as the arbiter of
destinies? What did it all come to? An imbroglio on the threshold of
matrimony; a temporary doubt which of two women was to enjoy the honour
of styling herself Mrs. Athel. The day's long shame led to this
completeness of self-contempt. As if Beatrice would greatly care! Why,
in his very behaviour he had offered the cure for her heartburn; and her
calmness showed how effective the remedy would be. The very wife whom he
held securely had only been won by keeping silence; tell her the story
of the last few days, and behold him altogether wifeless. He laughed
scornfully. To this had he come from those dreams which guided him when
he was a youth. A commonplace man, why should he not have commonplace
experiences?
He had walked in this direction with the thought of passing beneath
Emily's window before he returned home, yet, now that he was not more
than half an hour's walk from her, he felt weary and looked aside for a
street which should lead him to the region of vehicles. As he did so, he
noticed a woman's form leaning over the riverside parapet at a short
distance. A thought drew him nearer to her. Yes, it was Emily herself.
'You were coming to see me?' she asked.
Love in a woman's voice--what cynicism so perdurable that it will bear
against that assailant? In the dusk, he put her gloved hand against his
lips, and the touch made him once more noble.
'I had meant to, beautiful, but it seemed too late, and I was just on
the point of turning back. You always appear to me when I most need
you.'
'You wanted to speak to me, Wilfrid?'
'When do I not? My life seems so thin and poor; only your breath gives
it colour. Emily, I shall ask so much of you. I have lost all faith in
myself; you must restore it.'
They stood close to each other, hand in hand, looking down at the dark
flow.
'If I had not met you, Wilfrid,' she said, or whispered, 'I think my end
must have been there--there, below us. I have often come here at night.
It is always a lonely place, and at high tide the water is deep.'
His hand closed upon hers with rescuing force.
'I am carrying a letter,' Emily continued, 'that I was going to post
before I went in. I will give it you now, and I am glad of the
opportunity; it seems safer. I have written what I feel I could never
say to you. Read it and destroy it, and never speak of what it
contains.'
She gave him the letter, and then he walked with her homewards.
On the morrow, shortly after breakfast, he was sitting in his study,
when a knock came at the door. He bade enter, and it was Beatrice. She
came towards him, gave her hand mechanically, and said--
'Can you spare me a few minutes?'
He placed a chair for her. Her eyes had not closed since they last
looked at him; he saw it, though the expression of her features was not
weariness.
'There is one thing, Wilfrid, that I think I have a right to ask you.
Will you tell me why she left you, years ago?'
Her tone was that of one continuing a conversation. There might have
been no break between yesterday and to-day. We cannot always gather from
the voice what struggle has preceded utterance.
Wilfrid turned away. On the table lay that letter of Emily's; he had
read it many times, and was reading it when the knock disturbed him.
With a sudden movement, he took up the sheet of paper and held it to
Beatrice.
'It is there--the reason. I myself have only known it a few hours. Read
that. I have no right to show it you--and no right to refuse.'
Beatrice held the letter for a brief space without turning her eyes upon
it. Wilfrid walked to a distance, and at length she read. Emily had
recounted every circumstance of her father's death, and told the history
of her own feelings, all with complete simplicity, almost coldly. Only
an uncertainty in the hand-writing here and there showed the suffering
it had cost her to look once more into the very eyes of the past. Yet it
was of another than herself that she wrote; she felt that even in her
memory of woe.
They faced each other again. Beatrice's eyes were distended; their
depths lightened.
'I am glad! I am glad you met her before it was too late!'
Her voice quivered upon a low, rich note. Such an utterance was the
outcome of a nature strong to the last limit of self-conquest. Wilfrid
heard and regarded her with a kind of fear; her intensity passed to him;
he trembled.
'I have nothing to pardon,' she continued. 'You were hers long before my
love had touched your heart. You have tried to love me; but this has
come soon enough to save us both.'
And again--
'If I did not love you, I should act selfishly; but self is all gone
from me. In this moment I could do greater things to help you to
happiness. Tell me; have you yet spoken to--to the others?'
'To no one.'
'Then do not. It shall all come from me. No one shall cast upon you a
shadow of blame. You have done me no wrong; you were hers, and you
wronged her when you tried to love me. I will help you--at least I can
be your friend. Listen; I shall see her. It shall be I who have brought
you together again--that is how the shall all think of it. I shall see
her, and as your friend, as the only one to whom you have yet spoken. Do
you understand me, Wilfrid? Do you see that I make the future smooth for
her and you? She must never know what _we_ know, And the others--they
shall do as I will; they shall not dare to speak one word against you.
What right have they, if _I_ am--am glad?'
He stood in amaze. It was impossible to doubt her sincerity; her face,
the music of her voice, the gestures by which her eagerness expressed
herself, all were too truthful. What divine nature had lain hidden in
this woman! He gazed at her as on a being more than mortal.
'How can I accept this from you?' he asked hoarsely.
'Accept? How can you refuse? It is my right, it is my will! Would you
refuse me this one poor chance of proving that my love was unselfish? I
would have killed myself to win a tender look from you at the last
moment, and you shall not go away thinking less of me than I deserve.
You know already that I am not the idle powerless woman you once thought
me; you shall know that I can do yet more. If _she_ is noble in your
eyes, can _I_ consent to be less so?'
Passion the most exalted possessed her. It infected Wilfrid. He felt
that the common laws of intercourse between man and woman had here no
application; the higher ground to which she summoned him knew no
authority of the conventional. To hang his head was to proclaim his own
littleness.
'You are not less noble, Beatrice,' his voice murmured.
'You have said it. So there is no longer a constraint between us. How
simple it is to do for love's sake what those who do not know love think
impossible. I will see her, then the last difficulty is removed. That
letter has told me where she lives. If I go there to-day, I shall find
her?'
'Not till the evening,' Wilfrid replied under his breath.
'When is your marriage?'
He looked at her without speaking.
'Very soon? Before the end of the session?'
'The day after to-morrow.'
She was white to the lips, but kept her eyes on him steadily.
'And you go away at once?'
'I had thought'--he began; then added, 'Yes, at once; it is better.'
'Yes, better. Your friend stays and makes all ready for your return.
Perhaps I shall not see you after to-day, for that time. Then we are to
each ether what we used to be. You will bring her to hear me sing? I
shall not give it up now.'
She smiled, moved a little away from him, then turned again and gave her
hand for leave-taking.
'Wilfrid!'
'Beatrice?'
'She would not grudge it me. Kiss me--the last time--on my lips!'
He kissed her. When the light came again to his eyes, Beatrice had gone.
In the evening Emily sat expectant. Either Wilfrid would come or there
would be a letter from him; yes, he would come; for, after reading what
she had written, the desire to speak with her must be strong in him. She
sat at her window and looked along the dull street.
She had spent the day as usual--that is to say, in the familiar school
routine; but the heart she had brought to her work was far other than
that which for long years had laboriously pulsed the flagging moments of
her life. Her pupils were no longer featureless beings, the sole end of
whose existence was to give trouble; girl-children and budding womanhood
had circled about her; the lips which recited lessons made unconscious
music; the eyes, dark or sunny, laughed with secret foresight of love to
come. Kindly affection to one and all grew warm within her; what had
been only languid preferences developed in an hour to little less than
attachments, and dislikes softened to pity. The girls who gave promise
of beauty and tenderness she looked upon with the eyes of a sister;
their lot it would be to know the ecstasy of whispered vows, to give and
to receive that happiness which is not to be named lest the gods become
envious. Voices singing together in the class practice which had ever
been a weariness, stirred her to a passion of delight; it was the choral
symphony of love's handmaidens. Did they see a change in her? Emily
fancied that the elder girls looked at each other and smiled and
exchanged words in an undertone--about her.
It was well to have told Wilfrid all her secrets, yet in the impatience
of waiting she had tremors of misgiving; would he, perchance, think as
she so long had thought, that to speak to anyone, however near, of that
bygone woe and shame was a sin against the pieties of nature, least of
all excusable when committed at the bidding of her own desires? He would
never breathe to her a word which could reveal such a thought, but
Wilfrid, with his susceptibility to the beautiful in character, his
nature so intensely in sympathy with her own, might more or less
consciously judge her to have fallen from fidelity to the high ideal.
Could he have learnt the story of her life, she still persevering on her
widowed way, would he not have deemed her nobler? Aid against this
subtlety of conscience rose in the form of self-reproof administered by
that joyous voice of nature which no longer timidly begged a hearing,
but came as a mandate from an unveiled sovereign. With what right, pray,
did she desire to show in Wilfrid's eyes as other than she was? That
part in life alone becomes us which is the very expression of ourselves.
What merit can there be in playing the votary of an ascetic conviction
when the heart is bursting with its stifled cry for light and warmth,
for human joy, for the golden fruit of the tree of life? She had been
sincere in her renunciation; the way of worthiness was to cherish a
sincerity as complete now that her soul flamed to the bliss which fate
once more offered her.
The hours passed slowly; how long the night would be if Wilfrid neither
wrote to her nor came. But he had written; at eight o'clock the glad
signal of the postman drew her to the door of her room where she stood
trembling whilst someone went to the letter-box, and--oh, joy! ascended
the stairs. It was her letter; because her hands were too unsteady to
hold it for reading, she knelt by a chair, like a child with a new
picture-book, and spread the sheet open. And, having read it twice, she
let her face fall upon her palms, to repeat to herself the words which
danced fire-like b re her darkened eyes. He wrote rather sadly, but she
would not have had it otherwise, for the sadness was of love's innermost
heart, which is the shrine of mortality.
As Emily knelt thus by the chair there came another knock at the
house-door, the knock of a visitor. She did not hear it, nor yet the tap
at her own door which followed. She was startled to consciousness by her
landlady's voice.
'There's a lady wishes to see you, Miss Hood.'
'A lady?' Emily repeated in surprise. Then it occurred to her that it
must be Mrs. Baxendale, who knew her address and was likely to be in
London at this time of the year. 'Does she give any name?'
No name. Emily requested that the visitor should be introduced.
Not Mrs. Baxendale, but a face at first barely remembered, then growing
with suggestiveness upon Emily's gaze until all was known save the name
attached to it. A face which at present seemed to bear the pale signs of
suffering, though it smiled; a beautiful visage of high meanings,
impressive beneath its crown of dark hair. It smiled and still smiled;
the eyes looked searchingly.
'You do not remember me, Miss Hood?'
'Indeed, I remember you--your face, your voice. But your name--? You are
Mrs. Baxendale's niece.'
'Yes; Miss Redwing.'
'O, how could I forget!'
Emily became silent. The eyes that searched her so were surely kind, but
it was the time of fears. Impossible that so strange a visit should be
unconnected with her fate. And the voice thrilled upon her strung nerves
ominously; the lips she watched were so eloquent of repressed feeling.
Why should this lady come to her? Their acquaintance had been so very
slight.
She murmured an invitation to be seated.
'For a moment,' returned Beatrice, 'you must wonder to see me. But I
think you remember that I was a friend of the Athels. I am come with Mr.
Athel's leave--Mr. Wilfrid.'
Emily was agitated and could not smooth her features.
'Oh, don't think I bring you bad news!' pursued the other quickly,
leaning a little forward and again raising her eyes. She had dropped
them on the mention of Wilfrid's name. 'I have come, in fact, to put Mr.
Athel at ease in his mind.' She laughed nervously. 'He and I have been
close friends for a very long time, indeed since we were all but
children, and I--he--you won't misunderstand? He has told me--me alone
as yet--of what has happened, of the great good fortune that has come to
him so unexpectedly. If you knew the terms of our friendship you would
understand how natural it was for him to take me into his confidence,
Miss Hood. And I begged him to let me visit you, because'--again she
laughed in the same nervous way--'because he was in a foolish anxiety
lest you might have vanished; I told him it was best that he should have
the evidence of a very practical person's senses that you were really
here and that he hadn't only dreamt it. And as we did know each other,
you see--You will construe my behaviour kindly, will you not?'
'Surely I will, Miss Redwing,' Emily responded warmly. 'How else could I
meet your own great kindness?'
'I feared so many things; even at the door I almost turned away. There
seemed so little excuse for my visit. It was like intruding upon you.
But Mr. Athel assured me that I should not be unwelcome.'
Emily, overcome by the sense of relief after her apprehensions, gave
free utterance to the warm words in which her joy voiced itself. She
forgot all that was strange in Beatrice's manner or attributed it merely
to timidity. Sympathy just now was like sunshine to her; she could not
inquire whence or why it came, but was content to let it bathe her in
its divine solace.
'If you knew how it has flattered me!' Beatrice continued, with a
semblance of light-hearted goodness which her hearer had no thought of
criticising. 'It is the final proof of Mr. Athel's good opinion. You
know his poor opinion of conventional people and conventional behaviour.
He is determined that no one shall be told till--till after
Wednesday--making me the sole exception, you see. But seriously I am
glad he did so, and that I have been able to meet you again just at this
time. Now I can assure him that you are indeed a living being, and that
there is no danger whatever of your disappearing.'
Emily did not join the musical laugh, but her heart was full, and she
just laid her hand on that of Beatrice.
'It was only for a moment,' the latter said, rising as she felt the
touch. 'This is no hour for paying visits, and, indeed, I have to hurry
back again. I should like to--only to say that you have my very kindest
wishes. You forgive my coming; you forgive my hastening away so?'
'I feel I ought to thank you more,' broke from Emily's lips. 'To me,
believe, it is all very like a dream. O, it was kind of you to come! You
can't think,' she added, with only apparent irrelevance, 'how often I
have recalled your beautiful singing; I have always thought of you with
gratitude for that deep pleasure you gave me.'
'O, you shall hear me sing again!' laughed Beatrice. 'Ask Mr. Athel to
tell you something about that. Indeed, it must be good-bye.'
They took each other's hands, but for Emily it was not sufficient; she
stepped nearer, offering her lips.
Beatrice kissed her.