It was, curiously enough, a crippling awkwardness and embarrassment that
Amabel felt rather than fear or antagonism, during that evening and the
morning that followed. Augustine had left the room directly after Sir
Hugh's departure. When she saw him again he showed her a face resolutely
mute. It was impossible to speak to him; to explain. The main facts he
must see; that her husband was making love to her and that, however deep
her love for him, she rejected him.
Augustine might believe that rejection to be for his own sake, might
believe that she renounced love and sacrificed herself from a maternal
sense of duty; and, indeed, the impossibility of bringing that love into
her life with Augustine had been the clear impossibility that had
flashed for her in her need; she had seized upon it and it had armed her
in her reiterated refusal. But how tell Augustine that there had been
more than the clear impossibility; how tell him that deeper than
renouncement was recoil? To tell that would be a disloyalty to her
husband; it would be almost to accuse him; it would be to show Augustine
that something in her life was spoiled and that her husband had spoiled
it. So perplexed, so jaded, was she, so tossed by the conflicting
currents of her lesser plight, that the deeper fears were forgotten: she
was not conscious of being afraid of Augustine.
The rain had ceased next morning. The sky was crystalline; the wet earth
glittered in Autumnal sunshine.
Augustine went out for his ride and Amabel had her girls to read with.
There was a sense of peace for her in finding these threads of her life
unknotted, smooth and simple, lying ready to her hand.
When she saw Augustine at lunch he said that he had met Lady Elliston.
"She was riding with Marjory and her girl."
"Oh, she is back, then." Amabel was grateful to him for his everyday
tone.
"What is Lady Elliston's girl like?"
"Pretty; very; foolish manners I thought; Marjory looked bewildered by
her."
"The manners of girls have changed, I fancy, since my day; and she isn't
a boy-girl, like our nice Marjory, either?"
"No; she is a girl-girl; a pretty, forward, conceited girl-girl," said
the ruthless Augustine. "Lady Elliston is coming to see you this
afternoon; she asked me to tell you; she says she wants a long talk."
Amabel's weary heart sank at the news.
"She is coming soon after lunch," said Augustine.
"Oh--dear--"--. She could not conceal her dismay.
"But you knew that you were to see her again;--do you mind so much?"
said Augustine.
"I don't mind.--It is only;--I have got so out of the way of seeing
people that it is something of a strain."
"Would you like me to come in and interrupt your talk?" asked Augustine
after a moment.
She looked across the table at him. Still, in her memory, preoccupied
with the cruelty of his accusation, it was the anger rather than the
love of his parting words the other day that was the more real. He had
been hard in kindness, relentless in judgment, only not accusing her,
not condemning her, because his condemnation had fixed on the innocent
and not on the guilty--the horror of that, as well as the other horror,
was between them now, and her guilt was deepened by it. But, as she
looked, his eyes reminded her of something; was it of that fancied cry
within the church, imprisoned and supplicating? They were like that cry
of pain, those eyes, the dark rims of the iris strangely expanding, and
her heart answered them, ignorant of what they said.
"You are thoughtful for me, dear; but no," she replied, "it isn't
necessary for you to interrupt."
He looked away from her: "I don't know that it's not necessary," he
said. After lunch they went into the garden and walked for a little in
the sunlight, in almost perfect silence. Once or twice, as though from
the very pressure of his absorption in her he created some intention of
speech and fancied that her lips had parted with the words, Augustine
turned his head quickly towards her, and at this, their eyes meeting, as
it were over emptiness, both he and she would flush and look away again.
The stress between them was painful. She was glad when he said that he
had work to do and left her alone.
Amabel went to the drawing-room and took her chair near the table. A
sense of solitude deeper than she had known for years pressed upon her.
She closed her eyes and leaned back her head, thinking, dimly, that now,
in such solitude as this, she must find her way to prayer again. But
still the door was closed. It was as if she could not enter without a
human hand in hers. Augustine's hand had never led her in; and she could
not take her husband's now.
But her longing itself became almost a prayer as she sat with closed
eyes. This would pass, this cloud of her husband's lesser love. When he
knew her so unalterably firm, when he saw how inflexibly the old love
shut out the new, he would, once more, be her friend. Then, feeling him
near again, she might find peace. The thought of it was almost peace.
Even in the midst of yesterday's bewildered pain she had caught glimpses
of the old beauty; his kindly speech to Augustine, his making of ease
for her; gratitude welled up in her and she sighed with the relief of
her deep hope. To feel this gratitude was to see still further beyond
the cloud. It was even beautiful for him to be able to "fall in love"
with her--as he had put it: that the manifestations of his love should
have made her shrink was not his fault but hers; she was a nun; because
she had been a sinner. She almost smiled now, in seeing so clearly that
it was on her the shadow rested. She could not be at peace, she could
not pray, she could not live, it seemed to her, if he were really
shadowed. And after the smile it was almost with the sense of dew
falling upon her soul that she remembered the kindness, the chivalrous
protection that had encompassed her through the long years. He was her
friend, her knight; she would forget, and he, too, would forget that he
had thought himself her lover.
She did not know how tired she was, but her exhaustion must have been
great, for the thoughts faded into a vague sweetness, then were gone,
and, suddenly opening her eyes, she knew that she had fallen asleep,
sitting straightly in her chair, and that Lady Elliston was looking at
her.
She started up, smiling and confused. "How absurd of me:--I have been
sleeping.--Have you just come?"
Lady Elliston did not smile and was silent. She took Amabel's hand and
looked at her; she had to recover herself from something; it may have
been the sleeping face, wasted and innocent, that had touched her too
deeply. And her gravity, as of repressed tears, frightened Amabel. She
had never seen Lady Elliston look so grave. "Is anything the matter?"
she asked. For a moment longer Lady Elliston was silent, as though
reflecting. Then releasing Amabel's hand, she said: "Yes: I think
something is the matter."
"You have come to tell me?"
"I didn't come for that. Sit down, Amabel. You are very tired, more
tired than the other day. I have been looking at you for a long time.--I
didn't come to tell you anything; but now, perhaps, I shall have
something to tell. I must think."
She took a chair beside the table and leaned her head on her hand
shading her eyes. Amabel had obeyed her and sat looking at her guest.
"Tell me," Lady Elliston said abruptly, and Amabel today, more than of
sweetness and softness, was conscious of her strength, "have you been
having a bad time since I saw you? Has anything happened? Has anything
come between you and Augustine? I saw him this morning, and he's been
suffering, too: I guessed it. You must be frank with me, Amabel; you
must trust me: perhaps I am going to be franker with you, to trust you
more, than you can dream."
She inspired the confidence her words laid claim to; for the first time
in their lives Amabel trusted her unreservedly.
"I have had a very bad time," she said: "And Augustine has had a bad
time. Yes; something has come between Augustine and me,--many things."
"He hates Hugh," said Lady Elliston.
"How can you know that?"
"I guessed it. He is a clever boy: he sees you absorbed; he sees your
devotion robbing him; perhaps he sees even more, Amabel; I heard this
morning, from Mrs. Grey, that Hugh had been with you, again, yesterday.
Amabel, is it possible; has Hugh been making love to you?"
Amabel had become very pale. Looking down, she said in a hardly audible
voice; "It is a mistake.--He will see that it is impossible."
Lady Elliston for a moment was silent: the confirming of her own
suspicion seemed to have stupefied her. "Is it impossible?" she then
asked.
"Quite, quite impossible."
"Does Hugh know that it is impossible?"
"He will.--Yesterday, Augustine came in while he was here;--I could not
say any more."
"I see: I see"; said Lady Elliston. Her hand fell to the table now and
she slightly tapped her finger-tips upon it. There was an ominous rhythm
in the little raps. "And this adds to Augustine's hatred," she said.
"I am afraid it is true. I am afraid he does hate him, and how terrible
that is," said Amabel, "for he believes him to be his father."
"By instinct he must feel the tie unreal."
"Yet he has had a father's kindness, almost, from Hugh."
"Almost. It isn't enough you know. He suspects nothing, you think?"
"It is that that is so terrible. He doesn't suspect me: he suspects him.
He couldn't suspect evil of me. It is my guilt, and his ignorant hatred
that is parting us." Amabel was trembling; she leaned forward and
covered her face with her hands.
The very air about her seemed to tremble; so strange, so incredibly
strange was it to hear her own words of helpless avowal; so strange to
feel that she must tell Lady Elliston all she wished to know.
"Parting you? What do you mean? What folly!--what impossible folly! A
mother and a son, loving each other as you and Augustine love, parted
for that. Oh, no," said Lady Elliston, and her own voice shook a little:
"that can't be. I won't have that."
"He would not love me, if he knew."
"Knew? What is there for him to know? And how should he know? You won't
be so mad as to tell him?"
"It's my punishment not to dare to tell him--and to see my cowardice
cast a shadow on Hugh."
"Punishment? haven't you been punished enough, good heavens! Cowardice?
it is reason, maturity; the child has no right to your secret--it is
yours and only yours, Amabel. And if he did know all, he could not judge
you as you judge yourself."
"Ah, you don't understand," Amabel murmured: "I had forgotten to judge
myself; I had forgotten my sin; it was Augustine who made me remember; I
know now what he feels about people like me."
Again Lady Elliston controlled herself to a momentary silence and again
her fingers sharply beat out her uncontrollable impatience. "I live in a
world, Amabel," she said at last, "where people when they use the word
'sin,' in that connection, know that it's obsolete, a mere decorative
symbol for unconventionality. In my world we don't have your cloistered
black and white view of life nor see sin where only youth and trust and
impulse were. If one takes risks, one may have to pay for them, of
course; one plays the game, if one is in the ring, and, of course, you
may be put out of the ring if you break the rules; but the rules are
those of wisdom, not of morality, and the rule that heads the list is:
Don't be found out. To imagine that the rules are anything more than
matters of social convenience is to dignify the foolish game. It is a
foolish game, Amabel, this of life: but one or two things in it are
worth having; power to direct the game; freedom to break its rules; and
love, passionate love, between a man and woman: and if one is strong
enough one can have them all."
Lady Elliston had again put her hand to her brow, shielding her eyes and
leaning her elbow on the table, and Amabel had raised her head and sat
still, gazing at her.
"You weren't strong enough," Lady Elliston went on after a little pause:
"You made frightful mistakes: the greatest, of course, was in running
away with Paul Quentin: that was foolish, and it was, if you like to
call foolishness by its obsolete name, a sin. You shouldn't have gone:
you should have stayed: you should have kept your lover--as long as you
wanted to."