AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
What he did during the next few hours, Cyril never quite knew. He
retained a vague impression of wandering through endless streets and of
being now and then arrested in his heedless course by the angry
imprecations of some wayfarer he had inadvertently jostled or of some
Jehu whose progress he was blocking.
How could he have behaved like such a fool, he kept asking himself. He
had not said a thing to Anita that he had meant to say--not one. Worse
still, he had told her that he loved her! He had even held her in his
arms! Cyril tried not to exult at the thought. He told himself again and
again that he had acted like a cad; nevertheless the memory of that
moment filled him with triumphant rapture. Had he lost all sense of
shame, he wondered. He tried to consider Anita's situation, his own
situation; but he could not. Anita herself absorbed him. He could think
neither of the past nor of the future; he could think of nothing
connectedly.
The daylight waned and still he tramped steadily onward. Finally,
however, his body began to assert itself. His footsteps grew gradually
slower, till at last he realised that he was miles from home and that he
was completely exhausted. Hailing a passing conveyance, he drove to his
lodgings.
He was still so engrossed in his dreams that he felt no surprise at
finding Peter sitting in the front hall, nor did he notice the dejected
droop of the latter's shoulders.
On catching sight of his master, Peter sprang forward.
"Hsh! My lord," he whispered with his finger on his lip; and turning
slightly, he cast an apprehensive glance over his shoulder towards the
top of the stairs.
With an effort Cyril shook off his preoccupation. Following the
direction of his servant's eyes, he saw nothing more alarming than a few
dusty plants which were supposed to adorn the small landing where the
stairs turned. Before he had time to form a conjecture as to the cause
of Peter's agitation, the latter continued breathlessly: "Her Ladyship
'ave arrived, my lord!"
Having made this announcement, he stepped back as if to watch what
effect this information would have on his master. There was no doubt
that Peter's alarm was very genuine, yet one felt that in spite of it he
was enjoying the dramatic possibilities of the situation.
Cyril, however, only blinked at him uncomprehendingly.
"Her Ladyship? What Ladyship?" he asked.
"Lady Wilmersley, my lord, and she brought her baggage. I haven't known
what to do, that I haven't. I knew she ought not to stay here, but I
couldn't turn 'er out, could I?"
Cyril's mind was so full of Anita that he never doubted that it was she
to whom Peter was referring, so without waiting to ask further
questions, he rushed upstairs two steps at a time, and threw open the
door of his sitting-room.
On a low chair in front of the fire his wife sat reading quietly.
Cyril staggered back as if he had been struck. She, however, only turned
her head languidly and closing her book, surveyed him with a mocking
smile.
For a moment Cyril saw red. His disappointment added fuel to his
indignation.
"Amy! How dare you come here?" he cried, striding towards her.
She seemed in nowise affected by his anger; only her expression became,
if possible, a trifle more contemptuous.
"Your manners have sadly deteriorated since we parted," she remarked,
raising her eyebrows superciliously.
"Manners!" he exclaimed and his voice actually shook with rage. "May I
ask how you expected to be received? Is it possible that you imagine
that I am going to take you back?"
Her eyes narrowed, but she still appeared quite unconcerned.
"Do you know, I rather think you will," she drawled.
"Take you back, now that you have tired of your lover or he has become
disgusted with you, which is probably nearer the truth. Do you think I
am mad, or are you?"
He fancied that he saw her wince, but she replied calmly:
"Do not let us indulge in mutual recriminations. They are so futile."
"Mutual recriminations, indeed! I like that! What have you to reproach
me with? Didn't I marry you to save you from disgrace and penury?
Haven't I done everything I could to keep you straight?"
She rose slowly from her seat and he noticed for the first time that she
wore a low-cut gown of some diaphanous material, which revealed and yet
softened the too delicate lines of her sinuous figure. Her black hair
lay in thick waves around her face, completely covering the ears, and
wound in a coil at the back of her neck. He had never seen it arranged
in this fashion and reluctantly he had to admit that it was strangely
becoming to her. A wide band of dull gold, set with uncut gems,
encircled her head and added a barbaric note to her exotic beauty. It
was his last gift to her, he remembered.
Yes, she was still beautiful, he acknowledged, although the life she had
led, had left its marks upon her. She looked older and frailer than when
he had seen her last. But to-night the sunken eyes glowed with
extraordinary brilliancy and a soft colour gave a certain roundness to
her hollow cheeks. As she stood before him, Cyril was conscious, for the
first time in years, of the alluring charm of her personality.
She regarded him for a moment, her full red lips parted in an
inscrutable smile. How well he recalled that smile! He could never
fathom its meaning. In some mysterious way it suggested infinite
possibilities. How he hated it!
"You tried everything, I grant you," she said at last, "except the one
thing which would have proved efficacious."
"And what was that, pray?"
"You never loved me."
Her unexpected accusation made Cyril pause. Yes, it was true, he
acknowledged to himself. Had he not realised it during the last few days
as he had never done before?
"You don't even take the trouble to deny it," she continued. "You
married me out of pity and instead of being ashamed of it, you actually
pride yourself on the purity of your motive."
"Well, at any rate I can't see what there was to be ashamed of," he
replied indignantly.
"Of course you can't! Oh, how you good people exasperate me! You seem to
lack all comprehension of the natural cravings of a normal human being.
Pity? What did I want with pity? I wanted love!"
"It was not my fault that I could not love you."
"No, but knowing that you did not love me, it was dastardly of you to
have married me without telling me the truth. In doing so, you took from
me my objective in life--you destroyed my ideals. Oh, don't look so
sceptical, you fool! Can't you see that I should never have remained a
governess until I was twenty-five, if I had not had ideals? It was
because I had such lofty conceptions of love that I kept myself
scrupulously aloof from men, so that I might come to my mate, when I
found him, with soul, mind, and body unsullied."
She spoke with such passionate sincerity that it was with an effort
Cyril reminded himself that her past had not been as blameless as she
pictured it.
"Your fine ideals did not prevent you from becoming a drunkard--" he
remarked drily.
"When I married, I was not a drunkard," she vehemently protested. "The
existence I led was abhorrent to me, and it is true that occasionally
when I felt I could not stand it another moment, I would go to my room
after dinner and get what comfort I could out of alcohol; but what I
did, I did deliberately and not to satisfy an ungovernable appetite. I
was no more a drunkard than a woman who takes a dose of morphine during
bodily agony is a drug fiend. Of course, my conduct seems inexcusable to
you, for you are quite incapable of understanding the torture my life
was to me."
"Other women have suffered far greater misfortunes and have borne them
with fortitude and dignity."
"Look at me, Cyril; even now am I like other women?" She drew herself up
proudly. "Was it my fault that I was born with beauty that demanded its
due? Was I to blame that my blood leaped wildly through my veins, that
my imagination was always on fire? But I was, and still am,
instinctively and fundamentally a virtuous woman. Oh, you may sneer, but
it is true! Although as a girl I was starving for love, I never accepted
passion as a substitute, and you can't realise how incessantly the
latter was offered me. Wherever I went, I was persecuted by it. At times
I had a horrible fear that desire was all that I was capable of evoking;
and when you came to me in my misery, poverty, and disgrace, I hailed
you as my king--my man! I believed that you were offering me a love so
great that it welcomed the sacrifice of every minor consideration. It
never occurred to me that you would dare to ask me for myself, my life,
my future, unless you were able to give me in exchange something more
than the mere luxuries of existence."
"I also offered you my life----"
"You did not!" she interrupted him. "You offered up your life, not to
me, but to your own miserable conception of chivalry. The greatness of
your sacrifice intoxicated you and consequently it seemed to you
inevitable that I also would spend the rest of my days in humble
contemplation of your sublime character?"
"Such an idea never occurred to me," Cyril angrily objected.
"Oh, you never formulated it in so many words, I know that! You are too
self-conscious to be introspective and are actually proud of the fact
that you never stop to analyse either yourself or your motives. So you
go blundering through life without in the least realising what are the
influences which shape your actions. You fancy that you are not
self-centred because you are too shy, yes, and too vain to probe the
hidden recesses of your heart. You imagine that you are unselfish
because you make daily sacrifices to your own ideal of conduct. But of
that utter forgetfulness of self, of that complete merging and
submerging of your identity in another's, you have never had even the
vaguest conception. When you married me, it never occurred to you that I
had the right to demand both love and comprehension. You, the idealist,
expected me to be satisfied with the material advantages you offered;
but I, the degraded creature you take me to be, had I known the truth,
would never have consented to sell my birthright for a mess of pottage."
"That sounds all very fine, and I confess I may not have been a perfect
husband, but after all, what would you have done, I should like to know,
if I had not married you?"
"Done? I would have worked and hoped, and if work had failed me, I would
have begged and hoped. I would even have starved, before abandoning the
hope that some day I should find the man who was destined for me. When I
at last realised that you did not love me, you cannot imagine my
despair. I consumed myself in futile efforts to please you, but the very
intensity of my love prevented me from exercising those arts and
artifices which might have brought you to my feet. My emotion in your
presence was so great that it sealed my lips and made you find me a dull
companion."
"I never thought you dull. You know very well that it was not that which
alienated me from you. When I married you, I may not have been what is
called in love with you, but I was certainly fond of you, and if you had
behaved yourself, I should no doubt in time have become more closely
united to you. You talk of 'consuming' yourself to please me. Nice,
effective word, that! I must add it to my vocabulary. But you chose a
strange means of gaining my affections when you took to disgracing
yourself both privately and publicly."
The passionate resentment which had transfigured her slowly faded from
Amy's face, leaving it drawn and old; her voice, when she spoke, sounded
infinitely weary.
"When I knew for a certainty that a lukewarm affection was all you would
ever feel for me, I lost hope, and in losing hope, I lost my foothold on
life. I wanted to die--I determined to die. Time and time again, I
pressed your pistol to my forehead, but something stronger than my will
always prevented me from pulling the trigger; and finally I sought
forgetfulness in drink, because I had not the courage to find it in
death. At first I tried to hide my condition from you, but there came a
moment when the sight of your bland self-satisfaction became unbearable,
when your absolute unconsciousness of the havoc you had made of my life
maddened me. I wanted you to suffer! Oh, not as I had suffered, you are
not capable of that; but at any rate I could hurt your vanity and deal a
death-blow to your pride! You had disgraced me when you tricked me into
giving myself to a man who did not love me; I determined to disgrace you
by reeling through the public streets. And I was glad, glad!" she cried
with indescribable bitterness. "When I saw you grow pale with anger,
when I saw you tremble with shame, I suppose you fancy that I must, at
times, have suffered from remorse and humiliation? I swear that never
for a moment have I regretted the course I chose. I am ashamed of
nothing except that I lacked the courage to kill myself. Drink? I bless
it! How I welcomed the gradual deadening of my senses, the dulling of my
fevered brain! When I awoke from my long torpor and found myself at
Charleroi, I cursed the doctor who had brought me back to life. Little
by little the old agony returned. The thought of you haunted me day and
night, while a raging thirst racked my body, and from this twofold
torture the constant supervision of the nurses prevented me from
obtaining even a temporary respite. It was hell!"
For a moment Cyril felt a wave of pity sweep over him, but suddenly he
stiffened.
"You forget to mention that--consolation was offered you."
"Consolation! Had I found that, I should not be here! I admit, however,
that when I first noticed that M. de Brissac was attracted by me, I was
mildly pleased. It was a solace to my wounded vanity to find that some
one still found me desirable. But I swear that it never even occurred to
me to give myself to him, till the doctor told me that you were coming
to take me away with you. See you again? Subject myself anew to your
indifference--your contempt? Never! So I took the only means of escaping
from you which offered itself. And I am glad, glad that I flung myself
into the mire, for by defiling love, I killed it. I am at last free from
the obsession which has been the torment of my life. Neither you nor any
other man will again fire my imagination or stir my senses. I am dead,
but I am also free--free!"
As she spoke the last words her expression was so exalted that Cyril was
forced to grant her his grudging admiration. As she stood before him,
she seemed more a spirit than a woman; she seemed the incarnation of
life, of love, of the very fundamentals of existence. She was really an
extraordinary woman; why did he not love her, he asked himself. But even
as this flashed through his mind the memory of his long martyrdom
obtruded itself. He saw her again not as she appeared then, but as the
central figure in a succession of loathsome scenes.
"Your attempt to justify yourself may impose on others, but not on me. I
know you too well! You are rotten to the core. What you term love is
nothing but an abnormal craving, which no healthy-minded man with his
work in life to do could have possibly satisfied. Our code, however, is
too different for me to discuss the matter with you. And so, if you have
quite finished expatiating on my shortcomings, would you kindly tell me
to what I owe the honour of your visit?"
She turned abruptly from him and leaned for a minute against the
mantelpiece; then, sinking into a chair, she took a cigarette from a box
which lay on the table near her and proceeded to light it with apparent
unconcern. Cyril, however, noticed that her hand trembled violently.
After inhaling a few puffs, she threw her head back and looked at him
tauntingly from between her narrowed lids.
"Because, my dear Cyril, I read in yesterday's paper that your wife had
been your companion on your ill-timed journey from Paris. So I thought
it would be rather amusing to run over and find out a few particulars as
to the young person who is masquerading under my name."
She had caught Cyril completely off his guard and he felt for a moment
incapable of parrying her attack.
"I assure you," he stuttered, "it is all a mistake--" He hesitated; he
could think of no explanation which would satisfy her.
"I expected you to tell me that she was as pure as snow!" she exclaimed
with a scornful laugh. "But how you with your puritanic ideas managed to
get yourself into such an imbroglio passes my understanding. Really, I
consider that you owe it to me, to satisfy my curiosity."
"I regret that I am unable to do so."
"So do I! Still, as I shall no doubt solve the riddle in a few days, I
can possess my soul in patience. Meanwhile I shall enjoy watching your
efforts to prevent me from learning the truth."
"Unfortunately for you, that pleasure will be denied you. You are going
to leave this house at once and we shall not meet again till we do so
before judge and jury."
Amy settled herself more comfortably in her chair.
"So you will persist in trying to bluff it out? Foolish Cyril! Don't you
realise that I hold all the cards and that I am quite clever enough to
use them to the best advantage? You see, knowing you as I do, I am
convinced that the motive which led you to sacrifice both truth and
honour is probably as praiseworthy as it is absurd. But having made such
a sacrifice, why are you determined to render it useless? I cannot
believe that you are willing to face the loss not only of your own
reputation but of that of the young person who has accepted your
protection. How do you fancy she would enjoy figuring as corespondent in
a divorce suit?"
Cyril felt as if he were caught in a trap.
"My God," he cried, "you wouldn't do that! I swear to you that she is
absolutely innocent. She was in a terrible situation and to say that she
was my wife seemed the only way to save her. She doesn't even know I am
married!"
"Really? And have you never considered that when she finds out the
truth, she may fail to appreciate the delicacy which no doubt prevented
you from mentioning the trifling fact of my existence? It is rather
funny that your attempts to rescue forlorn damsels seem doomed to be
unsuccessful! Or were your motives in this case not quite so impersonal
as I fancied? Has Launcelot at last found his Guinevere? If so, I may
yet be avenged vicariously."
"Your presence is punishment enough, I assure you, for all the sins I
ever committed! But come to the point. What exactly is it that you are
threatening me with?"
"Publicity, that is all. If neither you nor this woman object to its
being known that you travelled together as man and wife, then I am
powerless."
"But you have just acknowledged that you know that our relation is a
harmless one," cried Cyril.
"I do not know it--but--yes, I believe it. Do you think, however, that
any one else will do so?"
"Surely you would not be such a fiend as to wreck the life of an
innocent young girl?"
"If her life is wrecked, whose fault is it? Not mine, at all events. It
was you who by publicly proclaiming her to be your wife, made it
impossible for her disgrace to remain a secret. Don't you realise that
even if I took no steps in the matter, sooner or later the truth is
bound to be discovered? Now I--and I alone--can save you from the
consequences of your folly. If you will agree not to divorce me, I
promise not only to keep your secret, but to protect the good name of
this woman by every means in my power."
"I should like to know what you expect to gain by trying to force me to
take you back? Is it the title that you covet, or do you long to shine
in society? But remember that in order to do that, you would have
radically to reform your habits."
"I have no intention of reforming and I don't care a fig for
conventional society!"
"You tell me that you no longer love me and that you found existence
with me unsupportable. Why then are you not willing to end it?"
"It is true, I no longer love you, but while I live, no other woman
shall usurp my place."
"Your place! When you broke your marriage vows, you forfeited your right
to a place in my life. But I will make a compact with you. You can have
all the money you can possibly want as long as you neither do nor say
anything to imperil the reputation of the young lady in question."
"All the wealth in the world could not buy my silence!"
"This is too horrible!" cried Cyril almost beside himself. "In order to
shield a poor innocent child, you demand that I sacrifice my freedom, my
future, even my honour? Have you no sense of justice, no pity?"
"None. I have said my last word. It is now for you to decide whether I
am to go or stay. Well--which is it to be?"
Cyril looked into her white, set face; what he read there destroyed his
last, lingering hope.
"Stay," he muttered through his clenched teeth.