"Bless your soul, of course not! Her father left the greater part of his
money to our boy, you know. Most of it is still held in trust for our
boy, who is named after him. Not a penny of it belongs to Patricia, and
even I cannot touch anything but a certain amount of interest."
Mr. Charteris looked at the colonel with eyes that were sad and hurt
and wistful. "I am perfectly aware of your reason for telling me this,"
he said, candidly. "I know I have always been thought a mercenary man
since my marriage. At that time I fancied myself too much in love with
Anne to permit any sordid considerations of fortune to stand in the way
of our union. Poor Anne! she little knows what sacrifices I have made
for her! She, too, would be dreadfully unhappy if I permitted her to
realize that our marriage was a mistake."
"God help her--yes!" groaned Musgrave.
"And as concerns Patricia, you are entirely right. It would be hideously
unfair to condemn her to a life of comparative poverty. My books sell
better than you think, Rudolph, but still an author cannot hope to
attain affluence so long as he is handicapped by any reverence for the
English language. Yes, I was about to do Patricia a great wrong. I
rejoice that you have pointed out my selfishness. For I have been
abominably selfish. I confess it."
"I think so," assented Musgrave, calmly. "But, then, my opinion is,
naturally, rather prejudiced."
"Yes, I can understand what Patricia must mean to you"--Mr. Charteris
sighed, and passed his hand over his forehead in a graceful
fashion,--"and I, also, love her far too dearly to imperil her
happiness. I think that heaven never made a woman more worthy to be
loved. And I had hoped--ah, well, after all, we cannot utterly defy
society! Its prejudices, however unfounded, must be respected. What
would you have? This dunderheaded giantess of a Mrs. Grundy condemns me
to be miserable, and I am powerless. The utmost I can do is to refrain
from whining over the unavoidable. And, Rudolph, you have my word of
honor that henceforth I shall bear in mind more constantly my duty
toward one of my best and oldest friends. I have not dealt with you
quite honestly. I confess it, and I ask your pardon." Mr. Charteris held
out his hand to seal the compact.
"Word of honor?" queried Colonel Musgrave, with an odd quizzing sort of
fondness for the little novelist, as the colonel took the proffered
hand. "Why, then, that is settled, and I am glad of it. I told you, you
know, it wouldn't do. See you at supper, I suppose?"
And Rudolph Musgrave glanced at the bath-house, turned on his heel, and
presently plunged into the beech plantation, whistling cheerfully. The
effect of the melody was somewhat impaired by the apparent necessity of
breaking off, at intervals, in order to smile.
The comedy had been admirably enacted, he considered, on both sides; and
he did not object to Jack Charteris's retiring with all the honors of
war.
V
The colonel had not gone far, however, before he paused, thrust both
hands into his trousers' pockets, and stared down at the ground for a
matter of five minutes.
Musgrave shook his head. "After all," said he, "I can't trust them.
Patricia is too erratic and too used to having her own way. Jack will
try to break off with her now, of course; but Jack, where women are
concerned, is as weak as water. It is not a nice thing to do, but--well!
one must fight fire with fire."
Thereupon, he retraced his steps. When he had come to the thin spot in
the thicket, Rudolph Musgrave left the path, and entered the shrubbery.
There he composedly sat down in the shadow of a small cedar. The sight
of his wife upon the beach in converse with Mr. Charteris did not appear
to surprise Colonel Musgrave.
Patricia was speaking quickly. She held a bedraggled parasol in one
hand. Her husband noted, with a faint thrill of wonder, that, at times,
and in a rather unwholesome, elfish way, Patricia was actually
beautiful. Her big eyes glowed; they flashed with changing lights as
deep waters glitter in the sun; her copper-colored hair seemed luminous,
and her cheeks flushed, arbutus-like. The soft, white stuff that gowned
her had the look of foam; against the gray sky she seemed a freakish
spirit in the act of vanishing. For sky and water were all one lambent
gray by this. In the west was a thin smear of orange; but, for the rest,
the world was of a uniform and gleaming gray. She and Charteris stood in
the heart of a great pearl.
"Ah, believe me," she was saying, "Rudolph isn't an ophthalmic bat. But
God keep us all respectable! is Rudolph's notion of a sensible
morning-prayer. So he just preferred to see nothing and bleat out
edifying axioms. That is one of his favorite tricks. No, it was a comedy
for my benefit, I tell you. He will allow a deal for the artistic
temperament, no doubt, but he doesn't suppose you fetch along a
white-lace parasol when you go to watch a sunset--especially a parasol
he gave me last month."
"Indeed," protested Mr. Charteris, "he saw nothing. I was too quick for
him."
She shrugged her shoulders. "I saw him looking at it. Accordingly, I
paid no attention to what he said. But you--ah, Jack, you were splendid!
I suppose we shall have to elope at once now, though?"
Charteris gave her no immediate answer. "I am not quite sure, Patricia,
that your husband is not--to a certain extent--in the right. Believe me,
he did not know you were about. He approached me in a perfectly
sensible manner, and exhibited commendable self-restraint; he has played
a difficult part to admiration. I could not have done it better myself.
And it is not for us who have been endowed with gifts denied to Rudolph,
to reproach him for lacking the finer perceptions and sensibilities of
life. Yet, I must admit that, for the time, I was a little hurt by his
evident belief that we would allow our feeling for each other--which is
rather beyond his comprehension, isn't it, dear?--to be coerced by
mercenary considerations."
"Oh, Rudolph is just a jackass-fool, anyway." She was not particularly
interested in the subject.
"He can't help that, you know," Charteris reminded her, gently; then, he
asked, after a little: "I suppose it is all true?"
"That what is true?"
"About your having no money of your own?" He laughed, but she could see
how deeply he had been pained by Musgrave's suspicions. "I ask, because,
as your husband has discovered, I am utterly sordid, my lady, and care
only for your wealth."
"Ah, how can you expect a man like that to understand--you? Why, Jack,
how ridiculous in you to be hurt by what the brute thinks! You're as
solemn as an owl, my dear. Yes, it's true enough. My father was not very
well pleased with us--and that horrid will--Ah, Jack, Jack, how
grotesque, how characteristic it was, his thinking such things would
influence you--you, of all men, who scarcely know what money is!"
"It was even more grotesque I should have been pained by his thinking
it," Charteris said, sadly. "But what would you have? I am so abominably
in love with you that it seemed a sort of desecration when the man
lugged your name into a discussion of money-matters. It really did. And
then, besides--ah, my lady, you know that I would glory in the thought
that I had given up all for you. You know, I think, that I would
willingly work my fingers to the bone just that I might possess you
always. So I had dreamed of love in a cottage--an idyl of blissful
poverty, where Cupid contents himself with crusts and kisses, and mocks
at the proverbial wolf on the doorstep. And I give you my word that
until to-day I had not suspected how blindly selfish I have been! For
poor old prosaic Rudolph is in the right, after all. Your delicate,
tender beauty must not be dragged down to face the unlovely realities
and petty deprivations and squalid makeshifts of such an existence as
ours would be. True, I would glory in them--ah, luxury and riches mean
little to me, my dear, and I can conceive of no greater happiness than
to starve with you. But true love knows how to sacrifice itself. Your
husband was right; it would not be fair to you, Patricia."
"You--you are going to leave me?"
"Yes; and I pray that I may be strong enough to relinquish you forever,
because your welfare is more dear to me than my own happiness. No, I do
not pretend that this is easy to do. But when my misery is earned by
serving you I prize my misery." Charteris tried to smile. "What would
you have? I love you," he said, simply.
"Ah, my dear!" she cried.
Musgrave's heart was sick within him as he heard the same notes in her
voice that echoed in Anne's voice when she spoke of her husband. This
was a new Patricia; her speech was low and gentle now, and her eyes held
a light Rudolph Musgrave had not seen there for a long while.
"Ah, my dear, you are the noblest man I have ever known; I wish we women
could be like men. But, oh, Jack, Jack, don't be quixotic! I can't give
you up, my dear--that would never be for my good. Think how unhappy I
have been all these years; think how Rudolph is starving my soul! I want
to be free, Jack; I want to live my own life,--for at least a month or
so--"
Patricia shivered here. "But none of us is sure of living for a month.
You've shown me a glimpse of what life might be; don't let me sink back
into the old, humdrum existence from a foolish sense of honor! I tell
you, I should go mad! I mean to have my fling while I can get it. And I
mean to have it with you, Jack--just you! I don't fear poverty. You
could write some more wonderful books. I could work, too, Jack dear.
I--I could teach music--or take in washing--or something, anyway. Lots
of women support themselves, you know. Oh, Jack, we would be so happy!
Don't be honorable and brave and disagreeable, Jack dear!"
For a moment Charteris was silent. The nostrils of his beak-like nose
widened a little, and a curious look came into his face. He discovered
something in the sand that interested him.
"After all," he demanded, slowly, "is it necessary--to go away--to be
happy?"
"I don't understand." Her hand lifted from his arm; then quick remorse
smote her, and it fluttered back, confidingly.
Charteris rose to his feet. "It is, doubtless, a very spectacular and
very stirring performance to cast your cap over the wind-mill in the
face of the world; but, after all, is it not a bit foolish, Patricia?
Lots of people manage these things--more quietly."
"Oh, Jack!" Patricia's face turned red, then white, and stiffened in a
sort of sick terror. She was a frightened Columbine in stone. "I thought
you cared for me--really, not--that way."
Patricia rose and spoke with composure. "I think I'll go back to the
house, Mr. Charteris. It's a bit chilly here. You needn't bother to
come."
Then Mr. Charteris laughed--a choking, sobbing laugh. He raised his
hands impotently toward heaven. "And to think," he cried, "to think that
a man may love a woman with his whole heart--with all that is best and
noblest in him--and she understand him so little!"
"I do not think I have misunderstood you," Patricia said, in a crisp
voice. "Your proposition was very explicit. I--am sorry. I thought I had
found one thing in the world which I would regret to leave--"
"And you really believed that I could sully the great love I bear you by
stooping to--that! You really believed that I would sacrifice to you my
home life, my honor, my prospects--all that a man can give--without
testing the quality of your love! You did not know that I spoke to try
you--you actually did not know! Eh, but yours is a light nature,
Patricia! I do not reproach you, for you are only as your narrow
Philistine life has made you. Yet I had hoped better things of you,
Patricia. But you, who pretend to care for me, have leaped at your first
opportunity to pain me--and, if it be any comfort to you, I confess you
have pained me beyond words." And he sank down on the log, and buried
his face in his hands.
She came to him--it was pitiable to see how she came to him, laughing
and sobbing all in one breath--and knelt humbly by his side, and raised
a grieved, shamed, penitent face to his.
"Forgive me!" she wailed; "oh, forgive me!"
"You have pained me beyond words, Patricia," he repeated. He was not
angry--only sorrowful and very much hurt.
"Ah, Jack! dear Jack, forgive me!"
Mr. Charteris sighed. "But, of course, I forgive you, Patricia," he
said. "I cannot help it, though, that I am foolishly sensitive where you
are concerned. And I had hoped you knew as much."
She was happy now. "Dear boy," she murmured, "don't you see it's just
these constant proofs of the greatness and the wonderfulness of your
love--Really, though, Jack, wasn't it too horrid of me to misunderstand
you so? Are you quite sure you're forgiven me entirely--without any
nasty little reservations?"
Mr. Charteris was quite sure. His face was still sad, but it was
benevolent.
"Don't you see," she went on, "that it's just these things that make me
care for you so much, and feel sure as eggs is eggs we will be happy?
Ah, Jack, we will be so utterly happy that I am almost afraid to think
of it!" Patricia wiped away the last tear, and laughed, and added, in a
matter-of-fact fashion: "There's a train at six-five in the morning; we
can leave by that, before anyone is up."
Charteris started. "Your husband loves you," he said, in gentle reproof.
"And quite candidly, you know, Rudolph is worth ten of me."
"Bah, I tell you, that was a comedy for my benefit," she protested, and
began to laugh. Patricia was unutterably happy now, because she, and not
John Charteris, had been in the wrong. "Poor Rudolph!--he has such a
smug horror of the divorce-court that he would even go so far as to
pretend to be in love with his own wife in order to keep out of it.
Really, Jack, both our better-halves are horribly commonplace and they
will be much better off without us."
"You forget that Rudolph has my word of honor," said Mr. Charteris, in
indignation.
And that instant, with one of his baffling changes of mood, he began to
laugh. "Really, though, Patricia, you are very pretty. You are April
embodied in sweet flesh; your soul is just a wisp of April cloud, and
your life an April day, half sun that only seems to warm, and half
tempest that only plays at ferocity; but you are very pretty. That is
why I am thinking, light-headedly, it would be a fine and past doubt an
agreeable exploit to give up everything for such a woman, and am
complacently comparing myself to Antony at Actium. I am thinking it
would be an interesting episode in one's _Life and Letters_. You see, my
dear, I honestly believe the world revolves around John
Charteris--although of course I would never admit that to you if I
thought for a moment you would take me seriously."
Then presently, sighing, he was grave again. "But, no! Rudolph has my
word of honor," Mr. Charteris repeated, and with unconcealed regret.
"Ah, does that matter?" she cried. "Does anything matter, except that we
love each other? I tell you I have given the best part of my life to
that man, but I mean to make the most of what is left. He has had my
youth, my love--there was a time, you know, when I actually fancied I
cared for him--and he has only made me unhappy. I hate him, I loathe
him, I detest him, I despise him! I never intend to speak to him
again--oh, yes, I shall have to at supper, I suppose, but that doesn't
count. And I tell you I mean to be happy in the only way that's
possible. Everyone has a right to do that. A woman has an especial
right to take her share of happiness in any way she can, because her
hour of it is so short. Sometimes--sometimes the woman knows how short
it is and it almost frightens her.... But at best, a woman can be really
happy through love alone, Jack dear, and it's only when we are young and
good to look at that men care for us; after that, there is nothing left
but to take to either religion or hand-embroidery, so what does it
matter, after all? Yes, they all grow tired after a while. Jack, I am
only a vain and frivolous person of superlative charm, but I love you
very much, my dear, and I solemnly swear to commit suicide the moment my
first wrinkle arrives. You shall never grow tired of me, my dear."
She laughed to think how true this was.
She hurried on: "Jack, kneel down at once, and swear that you are
perfectly sore with loving me, as that ridiculous person says in
Dickens, and whose name I never could remember. Oh, I forgot--Dickens
caricatures nature, doesn't he, and isn't read by really cultured
people? You will have to educate me up to your level, Jack, and I warn
you in advance you will not have time to do it. Yes, I am quite aware
that I am talking nonsense, and am on the verge of hysterics, thank you,
but I rather like it. It is because I am going to have you all to myself
for whatever future there is, and the thought makes me quite drunk. Will
you kindly ring for the patrol-wagon, Jack? Jack, are you quite sure you
love me? Are you perfectly certain you never loved any one else half so
much? No, don't answer me, for I intend to do all the talking for both
of us for the future! I shall tyrannize over you frightfully, and you
will like it. All I ask in return is that you will be a good boy--by
which I mean a naughty boy--and do solemnly swear, promise and affirm
that you will meet me at the side-door at half-past five in the morning,
with a portmanteau and the intention of never going back to your wife.
You swear it? Thank you so much! Now, I think I would like to cry for a
few minutes, and, after that, we will go back to the house, before
supper is over and my eyes are perfectly crimson."
In fact, Mr. Charteris had consented. Patricia was irresistible as she
pleaded and mocked and scolded and coaxed and laughed and cried, all in
one bewildering breath. Her plan was simple; it was to slip out of
Matocton at dawn, and walk to the near-by station. There they would take
the train, and snap their fingers at convention. The scheme sounded
preposterous in outline, but she demonstrated its practicability in
performance. And Mr. Charteris consented.
Rudolph Musgrave sat in the shadow of the cedar with fierce and confused
emotions whirling in his soul. He certainly had never thought of this
contingency.