Mrs. Fox-Darriel was walking across the hall on her way to the staircase
when Camelia entered. She had not seen Camelia since the morning's
catastrophe, a catastrophe as yet unannounced, but plainly discernible
in the departure of the Henges, in Lady Paton's retirement, Camelia's
disappearance, and Mary's heavy silence. Mary herself hardly knew as
yet, could only suspect, with a sickening droop of disappointment
following a hope, unreasonable perhaps, but delicious while it so
briefly lasted.
Mrs. Fox-Darriel plied her with profitless questions during tea-time;
she only knew that Sir Arthur had ridden away, that Lady Henge had
followed with the boxes, that Aunt Angelica was in her room, and that
Camelia had gone out. Mrs. Fox-Darriel was not disposed to let Camelia
off easily; and now, undeterred by the almost vacant stare her young
hostess bent upon her, she rushed at her imperatively.
"You look quite half mad, Camelia! What is the matter? The Henges are
gone, she as gloomy as a hearse. I have not seen your mother since
breakfast. Has a thunderbolt struck the house? You accepted Arthur Henge
yesterday, and to-day you give him his _congé_. Is it possible?"
Camelia's hand waved her aside. What did this chattering, rattling
creature want of her? She belonged to a dim primeval age, the age of
yesterday, before the cataclysm had changed everything.
"No; you are not going to get rid of me like that!" Mrs. Fox-Darriel
followed her swiftly up the stairs. "That would be a little too bad, to
leave me, all curiosity, frying in my own ignorance. Now, Camelia, let
me have the whole truth of it. What has happened?" She confronted her in
her room.
"Yes, I have broken my engagement."
"Why? great heavens, why?"
"I don't love him. Please go, Frances."
Mrs. Fox-Darriel crossed her arms and surveyed her friend in an
exasperated silence.
"Was that so necessary?" she asked presently, while Camelia, sitting in
a low chair half turned from her, unbuttoned her muddy boots and
gaiters.
"Yes, it was. I wish you would go away."
"You know what every one will think--you know what _I_ think!--that you
accepted him to prove you could throw him over. You try him on to show
that you can fit him, and then kick him away, precisely as you kick away
that muddy boot. It is an unheard-of thing. It is distinctly nasty."
Camelia leaned back with closed eyes, hardly hearing, certainly not
caring for the words, though their sound was an importunate jangling at
her ears, wearisome, irritating.
"As for the egregious folly of it! well, my dear, you may have plans
into which I am not initiated, but the day will come, I think, in which
you will own that you have behaved like a horrid little fool." Mrs.
Fox-Darriel moved towards the door, not caring to outstay her climax,
yet urged to an addenda by the exasperating, almost slumbering
indifference of Camelia's face. "I will go. You want to finish your cry.
Have you been walking about the lanes crying? I am off to the Dormers
to-morrow; I only stayed on here because of you; my occupation now is
decidedly gone."
"Good-bye," said Camelia.
When she was alone she rose and bolted the door. Her ten miles had tired
her physically, and she sank back into her chair, her stockinged feet
stretched out, her muddy skirts clinging damply about her ankles.
Yes, let the whole truth surge over her, and find her unresisting.
He did not love her; had never loved her. He despised her. The
remembrance of his scorn crept over her like a gnawing flame. The shame
of last night's dancing, of his reluctant embrace, that she had courted,
came upon her in an awful revelation; and the wilful, desperate passion
of to-day, sure of the hidden treasure he withheld from her in
punishment only--a child pounding at a locked door. And the room was
empty; there had been no treasure. She had forced him to open to her the
dreadful vacancy. His sad friendship, smarting still from its momentary
debasement, had sheltered her from the keenest pang; it was as if he had
held her hand as, together, they went into that vacant room; now, alone,
the realization of her own abasement stunned her. But she loved him. It
had not been for her love that he had scorned her, though
misinterpreting it so cruelly. She had made it impossible that she
should ever retrieve herself, or that he should ever see the truth; her
falseness had blinded him to her only worth, yet even now the
consciousness of that worth held her from utter loss of self-respect,
the consciousness of the intrinsic nobility of her devotion, rejected
alas! seen with darkest disfigurements, but standing upright and
unashamed at the centre of her life. This great love was like an
over-soul, a nobler self looking with sad eyes at the prostrate, the
utterly confounded Camelia.
Then came throbs of loneliness and terror. He was going away! She sprang
up under the knife-like thrust of the thought. Oh! if at least he had
believed her! If at least he had seen tragedy, not a poor, silly farce,
the only noble thing in her life distorted to a wretched folly. Only
outwardly had she been a child screaming for an unattainable toy. She
walked up and down the room, her hands wrung together, until a quivering
weakness of fatigue came over her, and she flung herself face downwards
on the bed.
Sobs came with the despairing posture. Her whole body shook with them.
A tiny, timid knock at the door broke in on the miserable satisfaction
of woe expressed.
Camelia held back her weeping and listened silently.
"Camelia," said her mother's voice, a voice tremulous with tears, "may I
not see you, my darling?"
In her agonizing self-absorption Camelia heard the words with a
resentment made fierce by sympathy crushed down.
"No," she said, steadying her voice, for her mother must not think her
weeping in regret over her act of repudiation, "you can't."
"Please, my child "--Lady Paton evidently began to sob, and Camelia,
wrapping herself in a sense of necessary and therefore justified
brutality, again buried her head in the pillow. Yes, she was a brute, of
course, but--how silly of her mother to stand there crying! How
tactless, at least; for Camelia at once hated herself for the other
word. What did she expect? She seemed nearly as remote as Frances--not
quite, for she could see Frances and repulse her with complete
indifference, and she could not meet her mother indifferently. There
would be the pain, the irritation of feigning.
"Don't be cruel, dear." The words reached her dimly through the pillow.
Cruel! Camelia smiled bitterly. _She_ did not know. The apparent cause
for grief was slight indeed; the real one was locked forever in her
heart, so let them think her cruel.
The hopeless little click of the door-knob showed that her mother's hand
had been appealingly laid upon it. Her slow footstep passed along the
hall. Camelia lay in her damp, hot pillow, her eyes closed. "Yes I am a
brute," she said to herself; and then, thinking of Perior, her tears
flowed again.