In her bedroom at the Villa des Ombres Marny Geradine was standing
before the open window staring out into the darkness. She stood very
still, her colourless face set like a mask of marble, her hands clasped
tightly behind her. Only the tempestuous rise and fall of her delicately
rounded bosom betrayed the inward tumult that was raging within her.
Five minutes ago she had dismissed a white faced and pleading Ann and
now, alone, she was facing a decision that took all her courage to
sustain.
It was the night of the Governor’s annual ball. By now she should have
been dressed. But the wonderful Paris creation that Geradine had
insisted on ordering specially for the occasion still lay in shimmering
folds on the _chaise longue_ and Marny had not changed from the simple
teagown in which she had dined.
She was not going to the ball. She was not going to submit again to the
open shame and humiliation that had been her portion throughout her
married life but which during the last few weeks had reached a
culminating point of horror. Her husband’s gross intemperance, his
notorious infidelities, his callous disregard for anything beyond his
own pleasure, had driven her at last to rebellion. She had reached the
end of her endurance. She knew that at home she must continue to suffer
the brutal treatment he meted out to her but she had resolved never to
appear in public with him again. How would he receive her decision? How
would she brave his anger? Why did she think only of his strength, of
the hectoring bullying voice she dreaded, of the merciless hands that
made her shrink in physical fear that was an agony? Intolerant of the
least opposition to his lightest wish what would he do to her! A shudder
of pure terror ran through her. If he would only come—as she knew he
would come to demand the reason of her lateness. Waiting was torture.
And yet when the door burst open and banged violently to again and she
heard his heavy step behind her the dread she had felt before was as
nothing to the paralysing fear that now rushed over her robbing her of
all power of movement.
She could have shrieked when his hands closed with crushing force on her
shoulders and he swung her round to face him. But she managed to control
herself and meet his furious stare courageously. He was in the
quarrelsome stage of semi-intoxication that of late had been his usual
state, drunk enough to be cruel and vindictive, sober enough to be
dangerous.
“Not dressed yet! What the hell have you been doing all this time?
You’re damnably late!”
She was used to being sworn at, she had come to feel that nothing he
could say could hurt her any more, and tonight it did not seem to matter
very much what he said.
She forced herself to answer him.
“I’m not going to the ball, Clyde.”
He glared at her in speechless anger, his hands slipping from her
shoulders, his dark red face flushing deeper, the veins on his forehead
standing out like whipcord.
“The devil you’re not! And why, might I ask?” he bellowed furiously.
Panic driven, the temptation to evade the issue she had raised, the
cowardly impulse to plead illness to allay his wrath was almost more
than she could suppress. But she fought back the words that rushed to
her lips and turned away with a little hopeless gesture.
“You know why,” she said in a low voice.
“I’m damned if I do!”
She turned to him swiftly.
“You know, Clyde,” she said steadily, “you know perfectly well why I
dread going out with you. You’ve known ever since we were married.”
“I know you’re a little fool,” he retorted angrily. “Look here, Marny,
I’ve had enough of this nonsense. You’ll go to this dam’ ball whether
you like it or not, just as you will go anywhere and everywhere I choose
you shall go. I’ll give you ten minutes to be ready—not a second more.
And you can keep your infernal objections to yourself in future. I’m not
going to be preached at by anybody, much less by you. Look sharp and
don’t keep me waiting any longer. Ten minutes—that’s your limit,” he
shouted and moved as if to leave the room. She shivered, her pale face
whiter than before, but her determination was stronger than her fear.
“It’s no use, Clyde. I’m not going,” she said slowly. And for the first
time he heard a ring of obstinacy in her voice. He swung back towards
her, staring at her for a moment incredulously, rocking slightly on his
feet, his big hands clenching as he worked himself up to a pitch of
passionate rage.
“You mean that?” he said thickly. Her dry lips almost refused their
office.
“Yes,” she whispered faintly.
“You deliberately disobey me?” She wrung her hands in sudden agony.
“I’ve always obeyed you, always done what you wished—but this—oh, I
can’t. I _can’t_!”
He towered over her, his bloodshot eyes menacing. “You can’t?” he
sneered. “I rather think you both can and will. There’s only one person
in this house who says ‘can’t’—and that’s me. You’ll do what you’re
told, now and always. Put on that dress—and God help you if you keep me
waiting!”
She lifted a quivering face of desperate appeal.
“Clyde—I—_Clyde_!” Her voice broke in a cry of terrible anguish as he
struck her, the whole weight of his powerful body behind the smashing
blow that sent her reeling across the room to fall with a sickening
crash on the parquet floor.
He looked down at her callously, his crimson face twitching, his big
frame shaking with passion. Then he walked slowly across the room and
sat down heavily on the bed, his smouldering eyes still fixed with a
look of cruel satisfaction on the prostrate little figure that lay so
still. He had no compunction for what he had done. She had come to the
wrong shop if she thought she was going to roughride him with any of her
silly notions. He would jolly well make it clear to her tonight that he
would brook no disobedience, no questioning of his habits, no thwarting
of his wishes. Damned little puritan—who shrank from his embraces as if
she were a ravished nun instead of a normal athletic young woman with
healthy red blood in her veins. He wanted a mate in his arms not a
beautiful piece of statuary whose reserve and coldness infuriated him.
She was his wife—and dam’ lucky to be so. She might have been on the
streets if it hadn’t been for him. If she wasn’t satisfied—well, he’d a
grievance himself if it came to that. They’d been married five years,
why the devil hadn’t she given him the heir he wanted? And lashing
himself to greater fury he waited, making no effort to aid her until she
regained consciousness. She stirred at last, moaning with pain, her
slender body convulsed with terrible shuddering. Dragging herself to her
feet she stood swaying giddily, her hands pressed on her throbbing
temple, her heavy eyes looking listlessly about her till they rested at
length on Geradine’s massive figure and into them there flashed suddenly
the horror of dawning remembrance. With a little choking sound she
turned and staggering a few steps fell into a chair before the dressing
table, burying her head in her arms amongst the costly appointments that
littered its shining surface, her shoulders shaking with hard tearless
sobs.
And as Geradine had watched her insensible so did he watch her now,
pitiless and unmoved. He had no use for half measures. If she had to be
taught a lesson it should be at least a thorough one. He lurched to his
feet and strode across the room, halting beside her with his arms folded
across his broad chest, his foot beating with angry impatience against
the floor. “How much longer are you going to keep me waiting?”
The harsh words jarred like a stab of actual pain and sick and faint she
raised her eyes to his. One look convinced her of his determination. He
meant it, oh, very well she knew he meant it! Too dazed, too broken to
oppose him further she knew that she would have to obey; that, cost her
what it might, she would have to dress and go with him. With a stifled
gasp of pain she struggled to her feet, her head reeling, and caught at
the table for support, pushing the heavy hair off her forehead and
wincing as her fingers touched her injured temple.
“If you will please go I will ring for my maid,” she muttered
indistinctly, choking back the hysterical sobs that rose in her throat.
“I’ll go when it suits me, and you’ll ring for no maid,” he said
sharply. “You’ll dress a dam’ sight quicker with me in the room. It
won’t be the first time I’ve valeted you, and it won’t be the last I’m
willing to bet. And I’m hanged if I’ll have that grim faced old harridan
you call your maid poking her nose in where she isn’t wanted. I’m about
fed up with her as it is. She’s not the kind of woman I want about you,
anyhow. She’ll have to go, and the sooner the better. You can pay her
her wages tomorrow and tell her to clear out by the first available
boat.”
“_Clyde!_” The sharp cry was wrung from her. And forgetting her pain,
her fear, everything but the heartless ultimatum he had launched at her
she sprang towards him, clutching at him with trembling hands, her face
working convulsively, pleading as she would not have stooped to plead
for herself.
“Clyde, Clyde, you don’t mean it, you _can’t_ mean it! You can’t send
her away, you couldn’t be so cruel. She’s old, I’m all she’s got, it
would kill her to leave me. And you promised—you promised me faithfully
I might keep her. It will break her heart. Oh, Clyde, be generous. Do
what I ask, just this once. If you let me keep her I’ll never oppose you
again. I’ll do anything you wish—I’ll be anything you wish—”
A sneering look of triumph crossed his face as he flung her from him.
“You’ll do as I wish without any bargains, my lady,” he said
significantly. “You’ve had your orders and there’s an end of the matter.
The thing’s finished. And might I remind you that the horses have
already been waiting an hour?”
That was apparently all that mattered to him. Of less value at the
moment than the pedigreed animals he prided, distress of mind, the pain
and weariness of her bruised and aching body was beyond his
consideration. A feeling of numbness came over her, a kind of frozen
apathy that seemed to turn her into a mere automaton, and without a word
she turned slowly to do his bidding. She had a curious impression that
the white-faced weary-looking woman reflected in her mirror was some
other than herself, that, divorced from her own body, she was watching
the suffering of a total stranger. And as she dressed with mechanical
haste only one thing was clear and instant with her—the consciousness
of menacing eyes that followed her every movement until their burning
stare became a veritable torment. But, throughout the process of her
toilet he spoke only once, a characteristic remark: “Put a bit o’ colour
on your face. You’re as white as a ghost.”
“I haven’t any,” she faltered.
“Haven’t—any? Good God!” he ejaculated and relapsed into silence. But
when she was dressed he came to her, and as his critical gaze travelled
slowly over her slim figure the heavy scowl smoothed from his face and
the old look of proprietory admiration crept back into his eyes. With
the quick change of mood that was so marked in him he caught her in his
arms with sudden passion. “Damn it all, Marny, what the devil do you
want to make me lose my temper for?” he grumbled petulantly. “Give me a
kiss, and don’t be such a little fool again.”
Sick with loathing but helpless against his strength perforce she lifted
her face to his. But unsatisfied he laughed with angry contempt. “Do you
call that a kiss? Gad, you’ve a lot to learn!” he said scornfully, and
crushed his mouth once more against her trembling lips. Then he let her
go and, swelling with the sense of his own magnanimity, hurried her with
heavy jocularity to the waiting carriage, there to soothe his ruffled
feelings with a cigar which he smoked in silence during the short drive
into Algiers.
And huddled in her own corner of the roomy victoria Marny leaned back
and rested her aching head against the cushions, staring before her with
fixed unseeing eyes.
During the five years that had been a physical as well as mental
martyrdom she had suffered much at her husband’s hands. In the furious
rages to which he was liable he had often hurt her cruelly but until
tonight he had never deliberately struck her. But it was not of his
brutality towards herself that Geradine’s wife was thinking now as the
carriage rolled swiftly along the deserted road. Her mind was filled
with only one thought. Ann! How to tell her. How to break to the
faithful old woman the fact that her lifelong service must end so
abruptly, so callously? Where would she go, what would she do? To face
the world again at seventy! Marny’s hands clenched in sudden anguish.
Would she even be allowed to help her if necessity arose? Herself she
was penniless, Castle Fergus had passed to Geradine and she was
dependent on him even for the very _sous_ she flung to the Arab beggars
who clustered round her carriage. How, after tonight, could she ever
appeal to him again. And yet, for Ann’s sake, she knew that she would
have to make that appeal and court not only his almost certain refusal
but the consequent anger that would assuredly be directed against
herself. Why was she such a craven, why did the thought of her own
miserable suffering obtrude when it was Ann, and only Ann, who mattered!
Her husband’s impatient voice roused her to the fact that the carriage
was at a standstill. Tonight, the gala night of the year, the Governor’s
palace was filled to overflowing, a scene of vivid animation, gorgeous
with oriental splendour, rioting with colour and echoing with a
confusion of voices laughing and chattering in a score of different
languages. The spacious rooms, flaming with lights and decorated with a
wealth of scented flowers, were crowded—a motley gathering of nearly
every race and creed moving in a never ceasing stream to the strains of
the crashing military band.
The gaudy costumes of the desert sheiks, the crimson burnouses of the
grave-faced Caids, the striking and picturesque uniforms of Spahis and
Zouaves made distinctive notes in the brilliant assembly that eclipsed
even the radiant hues of the marvellous toilettes of the French and
English ladies.
To Marny, dazzled by the light and deafened by the uproar, it seemed as
if she had stepped suddenly into pandemonium. For once she was even glad
of the nearness of her husband whose burly figure was an effectual
barrier against the press that thronged them as they moved slowly
towards the low dais where the Governor, heated and weary with
handshaking but beaming with happiness and hospitality, stood amongst a
group of highly placed officials and European consuls. Near him General
Sanois, less obviously enjoying himself, was deep in conversation with a
tall and venerable-looking Caid. And at the foot of the dais was
clustered a little group of sheiks from the far south, gazing about them
with calm aloofness but keenly alive to every detail and circumstance of
the evening’s entertainment.
There were many curious glances that followed and many eager tongues
that discussed the tardy appearance of the two important English guests
as they made their slow passage across the room, and the Governor whose
twinkling eyes were roving constantly in quest of new faces was quick to
notice their arrival. Punctilious to a nicety he stepped forward to
greet them with a deference that was due to Geradine’s rank and to the
beauty of his wife. But as she responded to his gallant and happy little
speech of welcome Marny’s voice faltered slightly and her pale face
flushed with a wave of beautiful colour, for near her in the little
group of desert men beside the dais she saw Carew standing clad like
them in native robes but distinguished by the dark blue burnous he
affected. And Geradine, whose French was as limited as was the
Governor’s English, while replying somewhat laboriously to his host’s
courtesies had also noticed the tall Arab-clad figure and grasped
eagerly at the chance of cutting short a conversation that bored him
infinitely.
“I’m hanged if that isn’t my friend of the sandstorm,” he exclaimed, and
waved pointedly at Carew who, unwilling to add to the public attention
already aroused, came forward reluctantly and submitted to a boisterous
greeting. With a loud laugh Geradine turned again to the visibly
astonished Governor. “Seems a decent sort of chap,” he said
condescendingly. “Pulled me out of no end of a hole in the desert a week
or two ago. Introduce him to my wife, will you? She’s interested in the
natives. And, Marny,” he added, his own slight interest already
evaporating, “you speak the lingo better than I do, say something civil
to the fellow—only for heaven’s sake remember he’s a Mohammedan and
don’t put your foot into it and enquire for his wife and family. And
when you’re tired of him His Excellency will find you partners if you
want to dance. I’m off to get a drink.” And with a careless nod he swung
on his heel in search of the nearest buffet.
His graceless incivility was no more than much that Marny had been
called upon frequently to endure but tonight his boorishness was almost
more than she could bear. His mistake with regard to Carew though
regrettable was a perfectly natural one, but his cavalier treatment of
the courteous little Frenchman was unpardonable. Scarlet with shame and
confusion she could find no words to break the awkward silence that
ensued. But the Governor, whose saving sense of humour was fortunately
greater than his feeling of mortification, plunged nobly into the breach
and made the best of the embarrassing situation in which he found
himself. “Madame,” he stammered, with twitching lips, “I—I have the
honour to present to you Monsieur Carew—a compatriot of your own,” and
fled to hide his secret enjoyment of a contretemps he found exquisitely
amusing. Carew the woman hater—and he had just introduced him to the
most beautiful woman in Algiers. _Bon Dieu, quelle comédie!_ But to
Marny it was no comedy. Miserable and tongue-tied, giddy with pain, she
tried vainly to collect herself, to formulate some adequate excuse that
should cover her husband’s blunder and lessen the resentment she was
sure the man beside her must feel at being publicly forced into an
action that was totally against his universally known principles. Would
he blame her for being the cause, though the unwitting cause, of his
present predicament? Would he too leave her in this crowded room, the
cynosure of curious eyes, to find her way alone to the group of English
dowagers with whom she had the slightest acquaintance? Super-sensitive
and innately shy the very thought of it made her shrink. The few seconds
that had passed since the Governor’s hurried departure seemed magnified
into hours. Angry at her own gaucherie she had nerved herself to make
some halting apology when the opening bars of a waltz rising above the
din of conversation occasioned a general rush for partners and in the
comparative quiet that followed she heard the deep soft voice that had
become so dear to her speaking with the slow hesitancy she had noticed
before.
“You are looking very tired, Lady Geradine. Shall I take you out of this
babel?”
And almost before she realised it she found herself walking beside him
down the length of the long room, piloted skilfully between the dancing
couples who already filled the floor. Once or twice he paused to
exchange a nod and a passing word with a uniformed officer or an
isolated group of Arabs, but she hardly noticed these slight
interruptions and at length they reached the rapidly emptying entrance
hall. Crossing it he turned down a short corridor that opened into a
little winter garden where chairs were placed amongst palms and banks of
tropical plants. At the moment the place was deserted. And quiet and
dimly lit to Marny it seemed a haven of refuge after the glare and noise
of the crowded reception rooms. With a feeling of relief she followed
him to a fern-screened couch at the further end of the conservatory and
sank into the low seat, stripping the long gloves from her hands and
closing her eyes wearily. And looking down at her Carew saw her face
convulsed with a sudden spasm of pain.
He was still inwardly raging at the incident of a few minutes ago, still
seething with the strange hatred that had laid so strong a hold upon
him—hatred that, aggravated by Geradine’s discourteous and overbearing
manner, seemed tonight to have reached its culminant pitch. It was with
difficulty that he had controlled himself just now in the ballroom. But
something had restrained him, something—more impellent even than his
desire to avoid a collision that could only have ended in a public
fracas—that had risen up within him at the sight of the girl’s strained
face. And as he looked at her now with his black brows drawn together in
a heavy scowl he was still wondering at the impulse that had come to him
to shield her, still trying vainly to understand his own motive in
bringing her here. What had prompted him?
Was it anger or pleasure or only pity he felt as he stared again at the
little drooping figure? A curious expression crept into his sombre eyes.
What a child she looked—what a weary white-faced child!
“You ought to be at home and in bed,” he said, almost roughly. “Can I
get you anything—champagne or a cup of coffee?”
She glanced up with a start.
“No, please, it’s nothing. Only a headache,” she stammered. “I don’t
know what’s the matter with me tonight,” she added with a shaky laugh.
“I’m not given to headaches. I’m as strong as a horse, really.” But as
she uttered her valiant little boast her voice broke and she looked
away, twisting her gloves nervously between her hands. He could see that
she was struggling with herself but he made no attempt to forestall the
explanation he guessed was coming and waited, still standing, for her to
speak. She turned to him at last, her troubled gaze not reaching his
face but lingering on the picturesque details of his Arab dress.
“Sir Gervas—I’m sorry—that stupid blunder—” she faltered. Then
suddenly her eyes met his and words came tumbling out in breathless
haste. “—but you were with him that night in the desert, you let him
think you were an Arab. He couldn’t possibly know you were English, that
you could understand—”
“Do you think I mind being taken for an Arab?” he interrupted, pulling
his heavy cloak closer round him and sitting down beside her. “It was a
perfectly natural mistake and not worth a moment’s consideration,
certainly not worth the value of a pair of gloves,” he added with a
faint smile. And reaching out he drew them deliberately from between her
twitching fingers. His voice was extraordinarily gentle but there was in
it an underlying note of finality that made further apology impossible,
and with a little sigh she relapsed into silence.
For a time she watched him smoothing the creases from the crumpled
gloves, wondering at his unexpected presence.
“I didn’t think you would be here tonight,” she said at length. “You
don’t really like—this sort of thing, do you?” she added, with a vague
movement of her hand towards the distant ballroom.
“Loathe it,” he answered promptly, moving slightly to face her and
settling his long limbs more comfortably into the corner of the sofa.
“But I make a point of coming to this particular function if I happen to
be in Algiers. I meet old friends.”
“Desert friends?”
He nodded assent to the eager question.
“Is that why you wear Arab dress?”
“Partly,” he shrugged, “they would hardly know me in European clothes.
But principally because I prefer it.”
“As you prefer to speak Arabic or French, rather than English?” she
hazarded.
“How do you know?”
She flushed under his stare and looked away with an odd little smile.
“When you talk you stop sometimes as if you were searching for a word,”
she said, rather hesitatingly, “and the other day, in the Bouzaréa
woods, half the time you were speaking in French.”
“I have scarcely spoken English for twelve years,” he said shortly. Then
as if to cover the slight piece of personal information he had let slip
he added:
“There is no longer any need for you to restrict your rides, Lady
Geradine. The woods are safe enough now.”
She turned to him swiftly. “What do you mean?” she said with sudden
breathlessness. And as she listened to his bald unvarnished account of
the end of Abdul el Dhib the colour that had risen to her face died out
of it leaving her white to the lips. She was shivering when he finished,
her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap. “And it was because of
me—because of what you did for me that night,” she burst out
passionately. “Oh, I never thought, I never guessed the risk you were
taking! And you knew all the time! It was he you meant when you warned
me not to ride alone. It was he you thought was coming that morning in
the woods when Tanner brought the horses, and that very night—oh, if he
had killed you, it would have been _my_ fault! And I—I—” She pulled
herself up sharply, aghast at the sound of her own voice, at the
confession that had been almost wrung from her. A wave of burning colour
suffused her face and tingling with shame she averted it hastily,
veiling her eyes with the thick dark lashes that swept downward to her
cheek—but not before he had seen the look that flashed into them, a
look that sent the blood racing madly through his veins and made his
heart leap with sudden violence. For a moment he sat rigid, stunned with
self-realisation, the hands that were clasped around his knee tightening
slowly until the knuckles shone white through the tanned skin. Then with
a tremendous effort he mastered himself.
“Nobody’s fault but my own, I’m afraid,” he said with forced lightness.
“I knew the man I was dealing with. I have good friends in Algiers who
gave me warnings in plenty and because I chose to ignore them what
happened was due to my carelessness.”
“It still doesn’t lessen my obligation,” she said in a stifled voice.
But his quiet tone, his imperturbable manner was fast restoring her own
self-possession. Indifferent himself, why should he guess the true cause
of her agitation? Perhaps what had seemed so blatant to her had escaped
him, and he had seen in her outburst only a natural womanly distress for
the danger of a man who had risked his life on her behalf. And the
formal courtesy of his next words further reassured her. “There was
never any obligation,” he said quietly. “I merely did what anybody else
would have done under the circumstances.” And abruptly he changed the
conversation to the recent race meeting at Biskra. Convinced that he had
not divined her secret, her feeling of self-consciousness and restraint
wore gradually away and only the joy of his companionship remained. She
would get from it what she could, she would live for the moment and its
transient happiness and leave to the future the misery and loneliness
that was going to be so much harder to bear than it had ever been.
Enough that she was with him and that she loved him, loved him as she
had never thought it possible to love. A love that should be her secret
strength in the bitter years to come.
Silence fell between them again. And content to wait until he should
choose to speak she sat very still beside him, watching him covertly as
he leant back with his hands clasped behind his head, his half-shut eyes
staring straight before him as if he saw more than the ferns and fairy
lights at which he was looking. Tonight his face seemed graver, sterner
than she had ever seen it. A tragic face it appeared to her, a face that
bore the deep-cut marks of sorrow and disappointment. And she wondered,
with a dull pain in her heart, what had been the tragedy that had driven
him to the solitary wilds of the desert. She knew nothing of his
history, his name and the nature of his work amongst the Arabs were all
that Mrs. Chalmers had confided, and she had no means of ever knowing. A
being apart, a type that had been a revelation, he would pass out of her
life, abruptly as he had come into it, to forget her in the greater
interest of his chosen vocation. It was strange to think of him as a
doctor, living a life of arduous toil and terrible risk. Into what
savage and lonely places must he go to wrestle with the pain and
suffering he sought to alleviate. El Hakim—the desert healer! And she,
who loved him, would have no knowledge of his achievements, would never
know the final happening that would terminate that life of noble and
self-sacrificing endeavour. In the pitiless years that stretched so
barrenly ahead she would have only a memory to cling to, a memory that
would be at once her consolation and her pain. Into the tender, brooding
eyes fixed on him there came a look of mingled pride and anguish. He
would never know, thank God he would never know! But if he had cared, if
she had brought sorrow to him—she caught her trembling lip fiercely
between her teeth and began with fumbling haste to draw on the long
gloves he had laid on the sofa between them.
“Oughtn’t we to be going back to the other room?”
He turned his head slowly.
“There’s plenty of time,” he said lazily, “they are still dancing.”
“But your desert friends—”
“—can wait,” he said succinctly. And dreading the noisy ballroom, too
tired and too utterly indifferent at the moment to care if she was
outraging the proprieties Marny did not press the matter. The quiet
conservatory, the restfulness and courage she seemed to derive from the
mere presence of the man beside her were giving her strength to meet the
ordeal that still lay before her, the ugly scene that invariably
terminated Geradine’s so-called nights of amusement. It would happen
tonight, as it always happened, and she would have to go through with
it. For how many more years? She thrust the thought from her and turned
again to Carew. But before she could speak the peaceful little winter
garden was invaded. Not a dancing couple seeking for a solitary spot in
which to continue a flirtation begun in the ballroom but two men who,
deeming the place empty, did not trouble to modulate their voices as
they took possession of a wicker seat a few feet away from the
fern-hidden sofa.
“And this _soi-disant countess_—this copper-haired goddess you are
raving about—” the words were uttered in fluent French but with a rough
Slavonic accent.
“_Soi-disant!_ I have it from her own lips,” interrupted an indignant
voice that Carew recognised as belonging to Patrice Lemaire.
“Possibly,” was the caustic rejoinder, “but not necessarily correct for
all that. An Austrian, you say, from Vienna? The wife of a Count Sach
who held a court appointment, and who abused her infamously—and now,
since his death, a lady of independent means who travels through Europe
trying to forget her unhappy past?”
“That is what I said. Do you doubt it?”
“Your word, no. But the lady’s—yes.”
“Why?”
“You forget, my friend, that I am also of Vienna. I have no recollection
of a Count Sach who held a court appointment, or of the lady who styles
herself Countess Sach. And she is no more Austrian than you are,
Lemaire. From her accent I should judge her to be English.”
“English? Bah! She doesn’t speak a word of the language.”
“She was speaking it very fluently half-an-hour ago with the _grand
Anglais_ who is drinking himself tipsy in the buffet.”
“With Geradine—that _beast_! _Bon Dieu_, she said the very sight of him
revolted her!”
“She will probably find the contents of his pocketbook less revolting,
my credulous young friend. _Une femme de moeurs légères_, or I’m very
much mistaken.”
And listening to the cynical laugh that followed, Marny wondered
bitterly what more of shame and humiliation was yet in store for her. At
the first mention of her husband she had been startled into a quick
involuntary movement but a strong arm had held her back in her seat and
cool, steady fingers had closed warningly over her ice-cold hands.
Wrestling with her own misery, she was scarcely conscious of Lemaire’s
furious protest or of the stormy altercation that ensued, and when at
last the sound of the men’s angry voices died away as they took their
dispute elsewhere it was some time before she realised that her hands
still lay in Carew’s firm grasp. She disengaged them silently. There was
nothing to say, nothing that either of them could say. They had
overheard what was not intended for them to hear. And the Austrian’s
insinuations were very likely true. Geradine had spoken more than once
of the beautiful Viennese who had recently dawned on Algiers society
with no introductions but with an audacity of manner that had served her
amply instead. That his acquaintance had probably developed into a more
intimate relationship was no matter for surprise to the wife who was
fully aware of his flagrant infidelities. It was only one more insult
added to the many indignities he had put upon her, one more humiliation
to bear—and ignore.
But if she was to retain any kind of hold over herself she must end at
once the brief companionship that had given her so much happiness. The
proximity of the man beside her, the sense of his unspoken sympathy, the
sudden realisation of the sensuous appeal of her surroundings with its
dim obscurity and intoxicating odour of languorous-scented flowers was
filling her with an overwhelming fear of herself. She dared not stay
with him, dared not give way to the emotion which, growing momentarily
greater, seemed to be robbing her of all strength. The exalted feeling
that before had made her glad that only she should suffer was weakening
in the natural, human longing for the love that would never be hers. If
she could but tell him, could feel if only for once the clasp of his
arms around her, the touch of his lips on hers! She shivered. What was
she thinking—what shameless thing had she become? And trembling with
the very madness of her own wild thoughts she rose quickly to her feet,
her face coldly set, her voice tuned to level indifference.
“I am quite rested now, Sir Gervas. Shall we go back to the ballroom?”
Moving away as she spoke she gave him no option but to follow her, and
an incoming stream of people put a period to anything but trivial speech
between them.
In the central hall, crowded so as to make progress almost an
impossibility, an artillery colonel caught at Carew’s arm in passing.
“When you have time, _mon cher_,” he said hurriedly. “His Excellency is
asking for you. He is in the White Salon with Sanois and the chief of
the Ben Ezra.”
Marny glanced contritely at her escort. How long since he had taken her
out of the crowded ballroom, how long had she trespassed on his time?
“I am afraid I have monopolised you very selfishly,” she murmured shyly,
“You must have so many friends.”
But her faltering words seemed to be lost in the din of voices, for he
made no answer and his attention appeared to be wholly engaged in
fending from her the jostling press which surged around them. And five
minutes later he had left her with the British Consul’s wife and was
retracing his steps to join the informal conference that was taking
place in the White Salon.
He did not go back to the public rooms and the end of the evening found
him still sitting in the Governor’s study with Sanois and a few of the
more Gallicized chiefs. And for some time after the sheiks had retired
he lingered chatting with the general, delaying as long as possible the
moment when he must face alone the shattering self-understanding that
had come to him.
The chiming of a deep-toned clock warned him at length of the lateness
of the hour and he had risen reluctantly to his feet when Patrice
Lemaire burst into the room. The boy’s usually smiling face was flushed
with anger and he flung himself into a chair with an explosion of wrath
that did not tend to make more comprehensible the rambling sentences he
let fall. That somebody had gone home early and defrauded him of the
dances she had promised; that somebody else, name witheld, was a vile
calumniator; and that there had been a “beastly scene,” which he did not
particularise, was all he would vouchsafe. And unable to get anything
more definite from him the elder man soon left him to nurse his
grievances in solitude.
There were still a few guests wandering about the hall waiting for
carriages that were delayed, and a harassed attache seized upon Carew to
beg a lift for an elderly Frenchman who was forlornly contemplating a
weary walk back to his hotel at Mustapha.
Only when he had dropped his talkative companion was Carew able to give
full sway to his own thoughts, and when he reached the villa he walked
up the flagged path too absorbed to notice the shafts of light filtering
through the closed jalousies of the big front room which, though kept in
scrupulous orderliness, had never been used since his mother’s death.
He passed into the Mauresque hall and was moving slowly in the direction
of his own rooms when Hosein, emerging from a shadowy corner, glided
forward to intercept him.
“The _lalla_,” he murmured hesitatingly, his hands sweeping upward to
his forehead in a quick salaam.
His master faced him swiftly.
“The lalla—?” he repeated sharply.
The big Arab nodded.
“The _lalla_ who awaits my lord,” he said softly.
For a moment Carew’s heart seemed to stand still and under the deep tan
his face went suddenly white. She had come to him—God in heaven, she
had come to him! Hosein’s tall figure was wavering curiously before him
as he forced a question in a voice he did not recognise for his own.
“Where?”
“In the salon, lord,” replied Hosein and gave way with another deep
salaam. And the whispering swish-swish of his robes had died away before
Carew moved.
“In the salon—” He started violently. She had come to him—and he—.
His face was rigid as he went towards the painted door.
It yielded to his touch and swung to noiselessly behind him, too
noiselessly to be heard by her who, at the further end of the room, was
standing before the portrait from which she had stripped the curtains
that had veiled it for so many years. She was humming a little song, a
frankly indecent song of the boulevards, her copper-crowned head thrown
back, her gleaming shoulders twitching from time to time with a petulant
movement of impatience.
And behind her, leaning against the portiere in which his hands were
clenched, Carew stood as if turned to stone staring—staring—not at the
slender, girlish form he had hoped and yet dreaded to see, but at the
tall sinuously graceful figure of the woman who had been his wife. His
wife—that brazen thing of shame, half naked in a dress whose audacity
revolted him! Fool, fool to have thought his own mad longing
possible!—to have thought that _she_—He wrenched his thoughts from
her. And the other? Why had he not guessed, why had nothing warned him
when he sat listening in the little winter garden to the angry protests
of Patrice Lemaire and the caustic comments of the Austrian who “was
also of Vienna!” And yet, how could he have known, how imagine that she
could ever come into his life again. And why had she come? To dupe him
once more, to try and make of him again the same besotted fool who had
loved her with the blind ardour of a man’s first passion? That love was
dead, killed by her own duplicity. Between them was an unbridgeable
gulf—and the memory of a tiny fragile child abandoned with callous
indifference. A rush of cold rage filled him and with blazing eyes he
swept across the room.
His soft-booted feet made no sound on the thick rugs and still
unconscious of his presence the woman broke off her song with a yawn and
a flippant remark addressed to the portrait, and turned to find him at
her elbow. For what seemed an eternity they stared at each other, her
eyes but little below the level of his, then she turned away with an odd
little strangled sound that might have been either a sob or a laugh.
“Why are you here?” His deep voice was hard as steel and she raised her
head slowly and looked at him, a look in which there was latent
admiration, wonder, and an underlying suggestion of cunning curiously
blended. “I saw you at the ball. They told me you were going back to the
desert. I had to come,” she faltered.
“Why?” His face was devoid of all expression as he flung the single word
at her. With a lithe, almost feline movement of her graceful body that
was undisguisedly alluring she swayed nearer, her eyes all languorous
appeal, her hands outstretched towards him. “I came because I could not
stay away,” she whispered, her voice a subtle caress,
“because—because—oh, Gervas, can’t you understand? I had to
come—because—I—love you, because I have always loved you—in spite of
what I did. And I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t think, I didn’t
realise, he swept me off my feet. And then when it was too late—too
late”—her arms were round his neck, her palpitating limbs pressed close
to his—“can you guess what I suffered, can you guess what my life has
been! Gervas, you loved me once, for the sake of that love forgive me
now, forgive—”
Throughout her amazing declaration he had stood like a rock, his face
averted. But as her voice died away in a trembling whisper he turned his
head quickly, too quickly for the comfort of the woman who clung to him
with passionate fervidness for in the eyes that dropped almost instantly
under his searching gaze he read, not the love and contrition her words
implied, but a look of hard, eager cupidity. The look of a gambler who
watches a last and desperate throw. It was not a tardy desire for his
forgiveness but some other motive which as yet he did not understand
that had driven her to seek a reconciliation with the man who had once
been clay in her hands. Though his heart was dead to her, almost he had
pitied her, almost he had believed her. The sobbing pleading voice, the
absolute abandon with which she had flung herself upon him had been a
wonderful piece of acting. She played her part with a skill and
eloquence that, but for that last fatal slip, had almost convinced him.
But self-convicted she stood for what she was, a consummate mistress of
deceit—a liar as she had always been. To how many others had she made
that same glib appeal? To how many others had she tendered the charms
she so lavishly displayed? The hateful thought leaped unbidden to his
mind as he looked at her with a kind of horror, fastidiously conscious
of the deterioration that was so visibly apparent in her. The beautiful
face so close to his was exquisite as he remembered it, but he seemed to
see it suddenly with new eyes—the face of a woman lost to every sense
of morality. To what had she sunk during the years since she had left
him? What had she become—she who had been his wife, who had been the
mother of his son! “_Une femme de moeurs légères._” The Austrian’s
sneering voice seemed to echo hideously through the silent room and with
a shudder he unclasped her fingers and put her from him.
“I could have forgiven you—anything,” he said slowly, “but the child—”
his voice broke despite him and a look of bitter pain convulsed his
face—“the child you left to die alone—and you knew he was dying—”
“It’s a lie,” she cried shrilly. “I didn’t know.”
He raised his hand with a gesture that silenced her.
“It is the truth,” he said with accusing sternness. “Do you think there
was nobody to tell me? The doctor, the nurses, everybody but you, his
mother, knew that he couldn’t live. And you left him. My God, you left
him!”
She flung him a glance of furious anger, “You always cared for him more
than me,” she sneered, and for a moment she braved him audaciously with
heaving bosom and quivering lips. Then she flinched under his steady
eyes and shrinking from him flung herself face downwards on a sofa and
broke into a storm of tears. Tears of rage and mortification. With a
feeling of suffocation he turned away, not troubling to refute the taunt
she knew as well as he to be untrue. The room that was redolent with
memories of the noble woman who had lived in it seemed suddenly fouled
and contaminated. And heartsick and shaken by the scene he had gone
through he crossed to a window and flinging back the jalousies, leant
against the framework, staring unseeingly out into the night, struggling
to regain the self-control that had almost left him. He was all at sea,
striving to solve the problem of the woman who lay sobbing on the sofa
behind him. That the life she had chosen had ended in disaster was
beyond all question. What she had become was too obvious to be mistaken.
It was written plainly on her face for all to see. But what had brought
her to such a pass, what had induced the moral _débâcle_ that was so
apparent? What desperate strait had driven her to the course she had
adopted tonight? It was not for love of him she had taken such a step
nor did she want his love. What then did she want that she had come to
him like any common courtesan seeking by purely physical enticement to
regain the old ascendancy she had had over him? There seemed only one
possible solution. And yet, remembering the liberal settlement he had
made on her, he wondered how even that was possible. With a deep sigh he
pulled himself together and went slowly back to her.
“Why did you come to me tonight, Elinor?”
She was still lying prone among the silken cushions, but at the sound of
his voice she sat up, shivering as though the room were cold, her hands
clutching at the soft pillows of the sofa.
“I told you,” she said sullenly.
He made a gesture of impatience.
“Oh, for God’s sake don’t tell me any lies,” he said wearily. “You never
cared for me, you don’t care for me now. Tell me the truth. For only the
truth will help either of us tonight. Why did you come?”
For a second her eyes met his then she looked away and a wave of burning
colour swamped the delicate pink and white of her painted cheeks.
“Because I’m at the end of my tether—because I’m broke,” she said with
a reckless laugh that made him wince.
“And the money I settled on you?” he said slowly, hating the necessity
that forced him to speak of it.
“Gone—long since. Did you think I could live on that?” she flashed
contemptuously.
With an effort he restrained himself. What use to point out to her that
what she regarded as a pittance would have kept an ordinary family in
luxury.
“Then what you want is money—just money?” he said, his voice as
contemptuous as her own.
“I must live,” she retorted.
“And how have you lived?” he said heavily. The colour rose again to her
face. “What is that to you?” she muttered.
“Nothing—in one sense. If I am to finance you again—everything,” he
said curtly. “But I must have details. Without them I will do nothing.”
He paused for a minute, fighting his abhorrence of the whole situation.
“You call yourself the Countess Sach. It is not the name of the man for
whom you left me. Is he dead?”
“I don’t know—I left him,” she answered, very low.
“Why?”
“We quarrelled. I left him,” she repeated monotonously.
“Did he marry you?”
“No. I—I told you. We quarrelled,” there was a touch of asperity in her
fretful voice.
“Did he want to marry you? Was the rupture your fault or his?” For a
long time there was no answer then a whispered “Mine” came to him almost
inaudibly.
“And the Count Sach?”
“There is no Count Sach.”
He turned away with a shrug of hopeless perplexity. He had learned all
he cared to know. To force from her the whole story of those sordid
years was beyond him. It would do no good to either. She had followed of
her own free will the broad path that leads to destruction and she had
proved to him again tonight her utter unworthiness. Heartless and
without shame, she wanted nothing from him but the means of continuing
the life she had deliberately chosen. He had provided for her once, by
no argument or reasoning was she entitled to his further bounty. In no
sense was he responsible for her. In no sense? With his black brows
drawn together in the heavy scowl that was so characteristic, he paced
from end to end of the long room, wrestling with himself. And on the
sofa where she sat immovable the woman watched the passing and repassing
of the tall, stately figure, with glittering eyes that were hard with
doubt and fear. What would he do? And gradually the thought came to her
that if she could ever have loved any one, she might have loved this
man. Not as he was in those old days at Royal Carew, but as he was now.
How he had changed! And as she looked at the stern set face that was so
different from what she remembered, a sudden feeling of fear ran through
her. If he would only speak, only stop that monotonous pacing, only do
something to end this horrible waiting.
He came to her at last and she stumbled to her feet to meet him. He
spoke swiftly, in a voice that was hoarse and strained. He would settle
nothing on her, but because she had been his wife, because of the child
she had borne him, he would make her an allowance to be paid quarterly
through his solicitors. He made no conditions but he warned her that
under no circumstances would the allowance ever be increased.
With averted head and tightly compressed lips she listened to him in
silence and when he finished speaking she made no comment and gave him
no thanks. And no further word was spoken between them until she left
the villa in his carriage, driven by Hosein whose silent tongue could be
depended upon. And as the sound of the wheels died away, Carew went back
into the house. His face was drawn and gray and his usually elastic step
dragged as he passed slowly through the empty halls and across the
moonlit courtyard to his own rooms at the back of the house and from
there out on to the verandah. For an instant he stood, his haggard eyes
upraised to the starry brilliance of the sky, then with a groan that
seemed to almost burst his heart, he dropped into a chair and buried his
face in his hands.