Later in the morning, when she was on her way to the station alone with
Amaldi, it was even worse, but she had no temptation to cry now. This
new pain that had sprung suddenly to life in her had the searing quality
of hot iron. She kept stealing glances at his face, as he sat beside her
in the gondola looking straight ahead, his under-lids drawn slightly up.
It gave him a queer, short-sighted yet uncanny look, as though he were
trying to focus some apparition of the future. He was thinking:
"If she has to choose between me and her son--she will choose her son."
Sophy was thinking:
"How long will it be before I see him again?... What if I never see him
again?" She felt as if some inner force were tearing her in two. She had
just begun to realise that in finding Bobby again she might lose Amaldi.
She put her hand on his.
"Marco...." she whispered. Her voice was full of fear and pain.
His hand turned under hers, clasped it tight. He looked at her but said
nothing.
"I'm afraid...." she whispered again. "Not only about Bobby ... about
us...."
"I know," he said this time.
He tried to think of some words of comfort, but they would not come. He
was obsessed by the suffocating pain of his desire to help and guard her
in this dreadful crisis, and the knowledge that the only thing he could
do for her was to keep away, to let her take that long, anxious journey
alone. At the time when she needed him most he could do nothing. His
love was powerless. It was because of his love that this dark thing had
come upon her. He said at last, rather mechanically:
"When you see the solicitor, things will clear, I feel certain....
You'll write me as soon as you've seen him?"
"Yes ... yes," she answered eagerly. "And you ... you'll write to me ...
every day, won't you?... That will be my only comfort ... my only...."
She choked and could not go on.
He asked her where he should address his letters, and she answered "to
Breene."
"They will be forwarded to me wherever I am ... you see.... I don't know
yet where I shall be ... just at first...."
Again she broke off.
They had reached the station. It was now a quarter to ten. Only fifteen
minutes more and they would be parted--for how long?
But even for these fifteen minutes they could not be together. Amaldi
had still to see to things--to find out whether her luggage was all on
board. She watched him as he went to and fro with his light, nervous
step. It was all so unreal. Even he looked unreal. She could not see his
face plainly at this distance. She tried to recall it, and it frightened
her when she found that she could not imagine it clearly though she had
looked at it so often and so earnestly during the past hour. Would she
be unable to see his face in her thought when they were really parted?
Then she began to watch the station clock. Only ten minutes more
now--only nine ... eight----
He came back with a _fachino_, who gathered up her bags, and went off
towards the train with them. Seven minutes now....
She sprang to her feet.
"Let us walk together...." she said, "somewhere away from all these
people...."
They went slowly down the long station, beside the rails over which her
train would soon be rolling. Their white, drawn faces would have
attracted more attention were not such faces often seen at railway
stations. One or two people gave them a passing glance of curiosity.
About them sounded voices and footsteps, trundling wheels, sharp
whistlings, the clang of testing hammers, the stridor of escaping steam,
all made harsher and more echoing by the vaulted roof and stone walls of
the station.
He offered her his arm, and she clung to it faint with pain. The
clattering, grinding, sibilant din added to her misery. The acrid smell
of coal-smoke recalled hateful memories. She had so many things she
wished to say. They jostled in her mind. She could not choose which one
to say first. And with him it was much the same. Then he murmured
something that she could not catch. She clutched his arm, saying, "What
is it?... Tell me again.... I didn't hear."
The scream of an engine drowned her voice. They heard the guard's
whistle. People were scrambling into the carriages. A fat man in plaid
trousers was running ridiculously, his bag banging against his legs.
People laughed. Amaldi was helping her into a carriage. The guard
slammed the door. She stood at the window and reached out her hand to
him. He grasped it, looking up at her in silence. Then the train began
to move. He walked beside it for a little way. The rhythm of the wheels
quickened. The trucks began their clangorous, jerky sing-song. The
closely clasped hands were drawn apart. She felt the rushing air chill
on her hand that was still warm from his. She sank back, pulling down
the brown travelling veil that she had thrown back for her last look at
him. With closed eyes she tried to recall his face, and, as before, in
the station, it refused to come clearly to her. Mile after mile she sat
there without stirring, and it seemed to her that she must have cried
out with the sharp misery of it all, but for the motion of the train
which seemed in some inexplicable way to dull the edge of her suffering.
When the train stopped at some station she could scarcely endure the
sudden stillness. Then when it rushed on again, again in that odd way,
her pain became once more soothed.
But after half an hour or so this haze of stupefaction lifted, leaving
her face to face with clear agony once more. It was the thought of her
son that racked her now ... her little son, flesh of her flesh, heart of
her heart. What must he, too, be enduring?--he who had once begged her
never to leave him again, "for Jesus' sake, Amen." She could see his
little, pale face upturned to the car windows at Sweet-Waters station
and hear the tremble in his voice. She felt as though a knife were being
turned round and round in her breast. Then black fear seized her again
... fear of what it might be in Lady Wychcote's power to do against
her--what she might have done already. Would Mr. Surtees really be her
friend? Would he believe her? Would all those strange men believe her
story? Would she have to tell it to them face to face?-- Perhaps go
into Court?
She clenched her hands in her helpless anguish until they ached and
burnt.... O God!... God! Suppose that some ill had come to him. Suppose
she were never to hear that eager, strong little voice again.... She
stood up suddenly to her full height. People in the carriage stared at
her. She dropped back again wondering if she had cried out....
About sunset the train began to mount the Gothard. Now she was in the
grip of a new horror--the memory of the last time that she had taken
this journey. She could see, as if it had been yesterday, Gerald
Wychcote's thin, frail figure looking so much frailer than usual in its
unaccustomed black--that awful, oblong black box guarded by Gaynor in
the luggage van--the box in which Cecil travelled like goods on a goods
train.... Now it was for Cecil's son that she was taking the dreadful
journey.... Again it seemed to her that she saw his angry, hard blue
eyes staring at her and heard him saying, "Where is my son, eh? What
have you done with my son between you--you and your latest lover?"
She grasped her head in both hands, wondering if the wild pain in it
meant brain fever....
It was drizzling next morning when they reached Boulogne, but the sea
was calm. She looked hungrily at the grey curtain of mist that shut out
England.
The crossing was short. And yet it seemed to her an eternity before the
steamer docked at Folkestone. Had Mr. Surtees received the telegram that
Amaldi had sent for her night before last? Would he be there to meet
her? Her heart beat to suffocation, as she leaned over the taffrail
staring down at the crowd below. Then it gave a sudden leap----
Yes--there he was. His prim, kindly old face was anxiously upturned. He
was looking for her just as she was looking for him. She waved to him
... called his name. A few moments more and she was beside him. She
tried to speak, but no sound came from her white lips. He hurried to
tell her what he knew that she was trying to ask.
"Your son is with Lady Wychcote at Dynehurst, Mrs. Chesney," he said. "I
saw her ladyship yesterday."
Sophy staggered. The old lawyer offered his arm. He looked almost as
pale as she did. He wanted to fetch her a glass of brandy, but she would
not have it.
"I shall be quite right ... quite right in a moment," she kept gasping.
She bent her head as she walked beside him, struggling with a desire to
burst into inane laughter. Hateful throes of hysteria convulsed her
throat. She overcame them by a violent effort of will that left her
feeling weaker than ever. She clung blindly to Mr. Surtees' arm,
stumbling now and then.
"I reserved a compartment in the London train," he told her. "Do you
wish your maid to go with us, or in the next compartment?"
"Not with us," murmured Sophy. "I wish to talk with you quite alone."
She regained her composure little by little, and as soon as the train
was under way turned to him and said in a firm voice:
"Mr. Surtees--what did Lady Wychcote say to you about me?-- What reason
did she give for abducting my son?"
The solicitor flushed and his eyes fell away from hers.
"If you will excuse me a moment, Mrs. Chesney," he answered, "there is a
paper in my bag that I would like to show you. I ... a ... have embodied
in writing the gist of her ladyship's ... a ... remarks."
He opened a small black bag as he spoke and took out a legal looking
paper. He half unfolded it, glanced nervously at its contents, then
hesitated.
"It is most painful to me to have to submit this document to you, Mrs.
Chesney," he said, distress in his voice. "I beg you to believe that I
have never had a more painful duty to perform."
"Thank you, Mr. Surtees," said Sophy. She changed colour cruelly, but
her tone was still firm and quiet. "Let me see it, please...."
He gave her the paper, and looked away from her while she read it.
It stated that the Viscountess Wychcote alleged that her
daughter-in-law, the Hon. Mrs. Cecil Chesney, widow of the late Hon.
Cecil Chesney, etc., etc., was an improper person to have the care of
the young peer, her son, Viscount Wychcote, as she, Viscountess
Wychcote, believed that Mrs. Chesney had committed adultery with the
Marchese Marco Amaldi. Then followed Lady Wychcote's reasons for so
believing, and for the first time Sophy learned that Colonel Bollingham
had seen her enter Amaldi's lodgings in Clarges Street the day after his
supposed accident.
She sat motionless for some time after reading this accusation, then she
spoke to the solicitor:
"Mr. Surtees...." she said.
He turned unhappily.
"Mr. Surtees," she repeated, looking straight into his eyes with her own
so passionately intent and still, "I am going to tell you the whole
truth--so help me God."
She lifted her right hand slightly as she spoke, her eyes fixed on his.
He bent his head mechanically as if acknowledging her oath. Then
clearly, slowly, pausing now and then to command herself, Sophy told him
the whole story of Amaldi's love for her and hers for him. The old
lawyer sat listening intently. After the first few moments he forgot his
distressing embarrassment in the deep human interest of the story that
was being unfolded before him. As Sophy drew near the end and told of
the bad news that Barti had brought from Switzerland, and of how the
accident to Amaldi's mother had made her so late in returning to Venice,
of how she had found Lady Wychcote there a day before her intended
visit, and of all that she had endured next day when she feared at first
that some dreadful accident had happened to her son--as she told all
this very simply, very movingly in plain, quiet words, the sedate face
of Mr. Surtees grew first discomposed then rather grim.
Sophy ceased. The whispering roar of the heavy English train filled the
silence for a little. Then she said:
"Do you believe me, Mr. Surtees?"
He answered gravely, even solemnly.
"I do believe you, Mrs. Chesney."
At this Sophy broke down, and hiding her face from him cried bitterly.