TRIST ACTS ON HIS OWN RESPONSIBILITY.
As Mrs. Wylie made her way slowly and peacefully up the broad stairs,
she suddenly found herself face to face with the man whom she had
last seen in the still Arctic dawn, bearing the body of her dead
husband down over the rocks towards her. She gave a little gasp of
surprise, but nothing more. The next instant she was holding out her
gloved hand to greet him. But even she--practised, gifted woman of
the world as she was--could not meet him with a smile. In gravity
they had parted, gravely they now met again. He was not quite the
same as other men to Mrs. Wylie, for there was the remembrance of an
indefinite semi-bantering agreement made months before, while the
sunshine of life seemed to be glowing round them both--an agreement
that they should not be mere acquaintances, mere friends (although
the friendship existing between an elderly woman and a young man is
not of the ordinary, practical, every-day type--there is a suggestion
of something more in it), and Trist had fulfilled the promise then
given.
He had taken her quite unawares, with that noiseless footstep of his
which we noticed before, and the colour left her face for a moment.
'_You!_' she exclaimed; 'I did not expect you.'
As he took her hand his all-seeing gaze detected a slight indication
of anxiety, and he knew that his presence was not at that moment
desired by Mrs. Wylie. Due credit is not always given to us men for
the possession of eyes. Our womenfolk are apt to forget that we move
just as much as they, and in most cases infinitely more in the world,
and among the world's shoals and quicksands. We may not be so quick
at reading superficial indications as our mothers, sisters, or wives;
but I think many of us (while keeping vanity in bounds) are much more
capable of perceiving when our presence is desired or distasteful
than is usually supposed. There are some of us, methinks, who, if
chivalry failed to withhold our tongues, could tell of very decided
preferences shown, and shown unsought; of glances, and even words,
advanced to guide us whither the water runs smoothly. And let us
hope that if such have been the case, we turn to the rougher channel
we love better, without a smile of self-conceit.
Twice within the last hour Theodore Trist had perceived that there
was a reason why those who held Alice Huston dearest should desire
that he avoided meeting her. What this reason was her own husband
had unwittingly told him; confirming brutally what he had read in
Brenda's unconsciously expressive face a few moments before. And
yet, in face of this undoubted knowledge, he seemed deliberately to
court the danger that the two women feared, and sought to avert.
He was not a man to be blinded by a false impression. Nor was he one
of those who act impulsively. His mind was of too practical, too
steady, and too concentrated a type to be suddenly conquered by a
mere prompting of the heart. At this juncture of his life he acted
coolly and with foresight. Of Alice Huston he knew enough to feel
quite sure of his mastery over her. If she loved him (which
supposition had been thrown in his face many times since the evening
when he had first been called upon to give assistance to those who
stood in Captain Huston's little cabin), he did not appear in the
least afraid of his own capability of killing that love.
He turned from Mrs. Wylie and greeted the younger woman, who followed
her, with a self-possessed smile; and from his manner even Mrs. Wylie
could gather nothing, and she was no mean reader of human faces. She
glanced at them as they stood together on the stairs and asked
herself a question:
'What part is he playing, that of a scoundrel or a fool?'
She could not conceive a third alternative just then, because she did
not know Alice Huston so well as Theo Trist knew her.
Before Mrs. Huston, who was blushing very prettily, had time to
speak, Trist imparted his news with a certain rapid bluntness.
'Your husband is upstairs,' he said. 'Brenda will keep him in the
drawing-room for a few minutes. I have a bag here with some
necessaries for you. Will you come with me, or will you go upstairs
to your husband?'
'Will ... I ... go with you?' stammered the beautiful woman in a
frightened whisper. 'Where to, Theo?'
Mrs. Wylie leant against the broad balustrade and breathed rapidly.
She was really alarmed, but even fear could not conquer her
indomitable placidity.
'I will conduct you to a safe hiding-place to-night, and Brenda will
join you to-morrow morning,' said Trist in a tone full of
concentrated energy, though his eyes never lighted up. 'Be quick and
decide, because Brenda is alone upstairs with ... him.'
Mrs. Wylie's eyebrows moved imperceptibly beneath her veil. She
thought she saw light.
Mrs. Huston played nervously with a tassel that was hanging from her
dainty muff for the space of a moment; then she raised her eyes, not
to Trist's face, but to Mrs. Wylie's. Instantly she lowered them
again.
'I will go with you!' she said, almost inaudibly, and stood blushing
like a schoolgirl between two lovers.
Mrs. Wylie raised her head, sniffing danger like an old hen when she
hears the swoop of long wings above the chicken-yard. Her eyes
turned from Alice Huston's face, with a slow impatience almost
amounting to contempt, and rested upon Theodore Trist's meek orbs,
raised to meet hers meaningly. Then somehow her honest tongue found
itself tied, and she said nothing at all. The flood of angry words
subsided suddenly from her lips, and she waited for the further
commands of this soft-spoken, soft-stepping, soft-glancing man, with
unquestioning obedience.
He moved slightly, looked down at the bag in his hand, and then
glanced comprehensively from the top of Mrs. Huston's smart bonnet to
the sole of her small shoe. He could not quite lay aside the old
campaigner, and the beautiful woman was moved by a strange suspicion
that this young man was not admiring her person, but considering
whether her attire were fit for a long journey on a November evening.
'Come, then!' he said.
Still Mrs. Huston hesitated.
Suddenly she appeared to make up her mind, for she went up two steps
and kissed Mrs. Wylie with hysterical warmth. This demonstration
seemed to recall Trist to a due sense of social formula. He
returned, and shook hands gravely with the widow.
'Go to Brenda!' he whispered, and the matron bowed her head.
Again she raised her eyebrows, and there was a flicker of light in
her eyes like that which gleams momentarily when a person is on the
brink of a great discovery.
The next minute she was running upstairs, while the footsteps of the
two fugitives died away in the roar of traffic.
'Theo,' she said to herself, while awaiting an answer to her summons
at her own door, 'must be of a very confiding nature. He expects
such utter and such _blind_ faith at the hands of others.'
The maid who opened the door was all eagerness to impart to her
mistress certain vague details and incomprehensible sounds which had
reached her curious ears. She had a thrilling tale of how Captain
Huston, 'lookin' that funny about the eyes,' had rung loudly and
pushed roughly through the open door; how there had been loud words
in the drawing-room, and then a noise like 'movin' a pianer'; how a
silence had followed, and, finally, how Mr. Trist (and not Captain
Huston, as might have been expected) had left just a minute ago. But
the evening milkman was destined, after all, to receive the first and
unabridged account of these events. Mrs. Wylie merely said, 'That
will do, Mary,' in her unruffled way, and passed on.
She entered the drawing-room, and found Brenda standing near the
window, with one hand clasping the folds of the curtain.
Captain Huston was sitting on a low chair beside the fire, weeping
gently. His bibulous sobs were the only sound that broke an
unpleasant silence. Brenda was engaged in adding to her experiences
of men and their ways a further illustration tending towards
contempt. Her eyes were dull with pain, but she carried her small
head with the usual demure serenity which was naught else but the
outcome of a sweet, maidenly pride, as she advanced towards Mrs.
Wylie.
'He is quite gentle and tractable now!' she whispered.
Mrs. Wylie took her hand within her fingers, clasping it with a soft
protecting strength.
'Is he ... tipsy?'
'No!' answered Brenda, with a peculiar catch in her breath; 'he is
only stupefied.'
'Stupefied ... how?'
'I ... I will tell you afterwards.'
The quick-witted matron had already discovered that some of her
furniture was slightly displaced, so she did not press her question.
At this moment Captain Huston rose to his feet, and took up a
position on the hearthrug.
'I do not know,' he said, with concentrated calmness, 'whether the
law has anything to say against people who harbour runaway wives;
but, at all events, society will have an opinion on the subject.'
He ignored the fact that he had in no way greeted Mrs. Wylie,
addressing his remarks to both ladies impartially. By both alike his
attack was received in silence.
'I will find her,' he continued. 'You need have no false hopes on
that score. All the Theodore Trists in the world (which is saying
much--for scoundrels are common enough) will not be able to hide her
for long!'
Mrs. Wylie still held Brenda's hand within her own. At the mention
of Trist's name there was an involuntary contraction of the white
fingers, and the widow suddenly determined to act.
'Captain Huston,' she said gravely, 'when you are calmer, if you wish
to talk of this matter again, Brenda and I will be at your service.
At present I am convinced that it is better for your wife to keep
away from you--though I shall be the first to welcome a
reconciliation.'
He shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly to the door. It was
Brenda who rang the bell. Captain Huston passed out of the room
without another word.
It would almost seem that the ingenuous Mary anticipated the call,
for she was waiting in the passage to show Captain Huston out. She
returned almost at once to the drawing-room, with a view (cloaked
beneath a prepared question respecting tea) of satisfying her
curiosity regarding the sound which had suggested the moving of a
'pianer.' But there was no sign of disorder; everything was in its
place, and Brenda was standing idly near the mantelpiece.
'We will take tea at once, Mary,' said Mrs. Wylie, unloosening her
bonnet-strings.
Mary was forced to retire, meditating as she went over the
inscrutability and coldness of the ordinary British lady.
'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Wylie, when the door was closed. 'Now tell me,
Brenda! What has happened? Did these two men meet here? I am quite
in the dark, and have a sort of dazed feeling, as if I had been
reading Carlyle at the French plays, and had got them mixed up.'
'Theo came first,' answered Brenda, 'to warn us that Captain Huston
had come home in the same steamer as himself, without, however,
recognising him. While we were talking, the other came in. He did
not see Theo, who was behind the door...'
'I suppose he was tipsy?'
'No; he was quite sober. He looked horrible. His eyes were
bloodshot--his lips unsteady...'
Mrs. Wylie stopped the description with a sharp, painful nod of her
head. To our shame be it, my brothers, she knew the rest!
'Was he quite clear and coherent?'
'Yes!'
'But ... just now...' argued Mrs. Wylie, vainly endeavouring to make
Brenda resume the narrative--'just now he was quite stupid?'
'Yes.'
'What happened, Brenda?'
At this moment Mary brought in the tea and set it briskly down on a
small table. Brenda stepped forward, and began pouring out.
'What happened, Brenda?' repeated Mrs. Wylie, when the door was
closed.
Then she approached, took the teapot from her hand, and by gentle
force turned the motherless girl's face towards herself.
'My darling,' she whispered, drawing the slim form to her breast,
'why should you hide your tears from _me_?'
I have endeavoured to make it clear that this girl was not an
emotional being. There were no hysterical sobs--merely a few silent
tears, and the narrative was continued.
'He came in, and asked me to tell him where Alice was. I refused,
and then...'
'Then...?'
'He tried to hit me.'
'Tried ... Brenda?'
'Well ... he just reached me.'
'And ... Theo?' asked Mrs. Wylie. 'What did Theo do?'
There was a short pause, during which both ladies attended to their
cups with an unnatural interest.
'I have never seen him like that before,' murmured the girl at
length. 'I did not know that men were ever like that. It was ...
rather terrible ... almost suggestive of some wild animal. He
knocked him down and ... and kicked him round the room like a dog!'
'My poor darling,' whispered Mrs. Wylie. 'I ought never to have left
you here alone. We might have guessed that that man Huston would be
home soon. Did he hurt you, Brenda?'
'No; he frightened me a little, that was all.'
'I am very glad you had Theo!' Mrs. Wylie purposely turned away as
she said these words.
Brenda sipped her tea, and made no reply.
It had been twilight when Mrs. Wylie returned home, and now it was
almost dark. The two ladies sat in the warm firelight, with their
feet upon the fender. Tea laid aside, they continued sitting there
while the flames leapt and fell again, glowing on their thoughtful
faces, gleaming on the simple jewellery at their throats. From the
restless streets came a dull, continuous roar as of the sea. I hear
it now as I write, and would fain lay aside the pen and wonder over
it; for it rises and falls, swells and dies again, with a long, slow,
mournful rhythm full of life, and yet joyless; soporific, and yet
alive with movement. There is no sound on earth like it except the
hopeless song of breaking waves. Both alike steal upon the senses
with an indefinable suggestion of duration, almost amounting to a
glimmer of what is called eternity. Both alike reach the heart with
a subtle, undeniable lovableness. Londoners and sailors cannot
resist its music, for both return to it in their age, whithersoever
they may have wandered.
Mrs. Wylie it was who moved at last, rising with characteristic
determination, as if the pastime of thought were a vice not wisely
encouraged. She stood before Brenda in her widow's weeds, looking
down through the dim light with a faint smile.
'Come,' she said; 'we must get ready for dinner. Remember that Mrs.
Hicks is going to call for you at eight o'clock to take you to that
Ancient Artists' Guild soirée. I should put on a white dress if I
were you, and violets. The gifted William Hicks, whom we met in the
Park this afternoon, asked what flowers he should bring, and I
suggested violets.'
Brenda laughed suddenly, but her hilarity finished in a peculiar,
abrupt way.
'Telle est la vie!' she murmured, as she rose obediently. 'What a
labour this enjoyment sometimes is!'