Chapter Twenty One.“Thin-Spun Life.”During the next two days Grizel was haunted by a prevision of danger. She rose with it in the morning, carried it in her heart all day, was pursued by it in her dreams. On the surface all seemed smooth and placid,—a pretty house, a charming garden, a party of friends enjoying the summer weather. There were games, there was laughter, there was a flow of words, but beneath it all, her sensitive nature sensed the rumbling of a storm.The third morning the sun blazed from a cloudless sky, but within and without the air was still and lifeless, and the members of the house party, gathered round the breakfast table, showed signs of an unrefreshing night in pale and listless faces. Conversation flagged, and Grizel sounded a frank note of warning:“I’m in a vile temper. Be careful, all of you. If anyone annoys me, I’ll snap. Nothing seems right this morning. Martin, the shape of your head gets on my nerves! I can’t thinkwhyI married you.”“Neither can I, darling. Have some cream!” Martin carried the jug round the table, and tried to pour cream over a plate of strawberries, but Grizel pushed him aside.“Don’tfuss! If I want cream, I can ask for it. Some people have no tact. Why wasn’t breakfast set in the garden? Nobody thinks of anything in this house, unless I see after it myself... Let’s have a picnic lunch!”Martin looked at the Squire, the Squire looked at Martin. Their plans were made for a long day’s golf, and each felt a pang of anticipatory regret; moreover, each hated picnics, with a true man’s hatred. Grizel’s quick eyes caught the glance, and had no difficulty in understanding its meaning. It seemed indeed that she was thankful of an opportunity to snap.“Pray, don’t trouble yourselves. We don’t want anyone to come on sufferance. Captain Peignton will look after Teresa, and Cassandra and I are perfectly happy alone. Go off on your horrid old golf. We don’t want you!”“I apologise for my wife, Raynor. She is usually quite polite to her visitors. Just a little atmospheric disturbance. Take no notice. She’ll be sorry by and by.”Grizel looked across the table, and made two separate and deliberate grimaces, one at the Squire, the other at her husband.“That’s nothing to what I can do, if I choose! Better be careful! Captain Peignton, doyouwant to come? You’re engaged, of course, and engaged men used to wish to be with theirfiancées, but that’s all changed since they began to play golf. I’m a bride of six months, and my husband vowed before hundreds of witnesses to cherish me all his life, and you see how he scowls if I ask him to spare me an hour! Teresa, be warned by me, and break it off unless he gives up golf. I hate and detest golf. Golf has ruined my life. We’ll look after you, Teresa dear, don’t worry! We’ll have chicken and mayonnaise, and fruit and lemonade, and Cassandra and I will dry your tears.”“But I’m coming; I want to come!” Peignton assured her. “It’s too hot for golf, and a picnic would be good fun if we can find a spot where there’s some air, and not too much undergrowth. I like to eat at a picnic, not to be eaten myself. I was up half a dozen times last night anointing myself with ammonia.”“I know a place. I spotted it a week ago. Just beyond Queensdom, the cliff shelves steeply and leaves a patch of shade open to all the air there is. It’s quite a short walk,—a mile or a mile and a half; the servants can leave the baskets, and come back for their own lunch, and in the afternoon we’ll sleep, Cassandra and I, and discuss the iniquities of husbands, while you two go off on your lone, and come back to us for tea... What it is to be engaged!”Teresa smiled happily, Martin raised his eyes to the ceiling in tragic self-vindication.“Whois always holding forth on the necessity of exercise?Whois always warning me against the danger of a sedentary life?Whoinsisted upon a house near to golf links?Whogoads me every night of her life to arrange a match for the next day?”“I do,” cried Grizel. “Of course. It’s my duty. And then I’m furious when you go. Of course again. Any wife is. Do you expect me to bepleased?”“It would seem a natural inference.—If you really mean what you say.”“Idomean it. I want you to have everything you like; I’m a monster of unselfishness over night, but to sit still in the morning, watching you dressing yourself up, polishing your clubs, starting off grinning from ear to ear, so happy to go off without me, and to feel pleased at the time—no! that’s beyond me!” Grizel declared vigorously. “I’m human, my good man. Don’t expect me to act like an angel.”Bernard Raynor glanced across at his wife and laughed; his slow, complaisant laugh.“You must be a full-blown angel, Cass. What? Never givesyouany qualms! Wait a bit, Mrs Beverley, and you’ll find it comes easy enough. In another year you’ll be thankful to be rid of him. Deadly mistake to hang together all the time! Go your own way, and allow the other to do the same; that’s the sure tip for matrimony. Then you jog on contentedly, and avoid spars.”The blue, shallow eyes roved round the table, complacently seeking approval; complacently unconscious of the artificiality of the smiles vouchsafed. Cassandra held her head high, disdaining a reply. Grizel hugged a glorious certainty that there would be no “jogging” for her. Storms perchance, half-serious, half-pretence, clearing the atmosphere, and opening the way for a glorious “make up”; but a “jog,”—never! never! Teresa mentally condemned both, and reflected how much more wisely she herself would manageherhusband. From the beginning there should be a fair arrangement—so much time for sport, so much for home. One would not want a man pottering round all the time.Grizel’s good-humour returned with characteristic speed, nevertheless conversation still flagged. An atmosphere of strain lay over the little company, and silenced the usual merry banter. Dane and Cassandra had not looked at each other since the first greeting. They had agreed to the proposal of the picnic out of polite necessity, but to each the prospect was drearily unwelcome. Apartie carréeafforded no opportunities for the talksà deux, which were the only things for which they cared. Cassandra saw herself sitting on the cliff-side watching the two figures walk away side by side until they disappeared round the headland. What would they do when they were alone together, with no onlookers but the seagulls swirling overhead? Would he take her in his arms, would his calmness disappear, and his eyes grow dark with love and longing? Would they sit entwined together, beatifically content, asking from the wealth of the universe nothing more than this,—to be together, to be alone? Never in her life had Cassandra experienced that sensation, yet she could imagine it with mysterious, with horrible distinctness. She could project herself into Teresa’s place, and feel the tingling current of joy. And she must sit afar off in the shade, and pretend to sleep...At ten o’clock the two men started off for the golf links, but it was not until noon that the picnic party followed suit. As there was no new ground to explore, and as the eating of lunch seemed to be theraison d’êtreof the excursion, it was plainly foolish to start until the luncheon hour approached. The servants had gone on in advance to unpack the hampers, and after the walk cross the bare, unshaded fields, it was a refreshment to sit down in the cool patch of shade, and taste the refreshing sea breeze. Immediately in front the cliff curved sharply inland, so that the lap of blue waters surrounded two sides of the little platform. Marking the farther side of the narrow bay, a white headland jutted into the sea, and the sharp glare of the sun intensified each colour in its turn, blue sea, bluer sky, white cliff, crowned by a tangle of green. Inland, to the rear of the headland, lay fields of oats and barley, interspersed with patches of yellow groundsel, and the blaze of myriad poppies.Cassandra’s colour-loving eyes dwelt lingeringly upon the scene. There was not a human creature in sight; a few white-sailed yachts alone broke the surface of the waters. The soft lap of the waves added to the impression of rest and peace. She lay drinking in the beauty of it, while the final preparations for the meal were being made. In her mind was no prevision that in future years that scene was to be associated in her mind with an extremity of pain and fear, with the dawning of a joy that hurt more sharply than pain. She was conscious only of rest to her tired limbs, of satisfaction to her craving for beauty, acutely conscious of Dane Peignton’s presence, as he stood talking to Teresa, helping her to arrange the cushioned seats. For the rest, she was weary and discouraged, and oh! overpoweringly lonely! But nowadays she always felt lonely...The servants pronounced all ready, and retraced their way across the field path. Grizel made a tour of inspection and gave a favourable verdict.“It looks—scrum! Why are stray meals always so much more attractive than proper ones, and why are men so stupid that they can’t understand that they are? That’s one of the many distinctions between the sexes. All women adore picnics. All men—don’t! Why?”“Perhaps,” Dane volunteered, seating himself in front of the cloth, in response to a gesture of invitation, “perhaps because—they have longer legs.”“Well, you must tuck them up somehow. They can’t take up thewholeside!” Grizel objected, sinking down in a compact little mass in which her own legs apparently ceased to exist. “Let me see. Where do we begin? Savoury eggs, chicken mayonnaise. We’ll start on the eggs as ahors d’oeuvre, and dull the first fierceness of our appetites before getting on to the real business.—I hope everyone is hungry. Let’s be polite, and eat very slowly to make it last out. It’s such a blank feeling at a picnic when the feed’s over,—like a wedding when the bride has gone. When we’ve done, the gulls shall have their turn.Dogulls eat mayonnaise?”Cassandra was conscious of a certain effort in the light babble. She suspected that Grizel was forcing herself to talk, to ease the strain, which like a low rumble of thunder had underlain the peace of the last week. In the midst of her own pain, she felt a pang of regret for her hostess,—a pang of compunction for her own shortcomings. If only Bernard would be induced to return home! but as long as fine weather and good play were his portion, no persuasion would be of any avail. There was nothing for it but to set her teeth and endure, and—incidentally!—to make things as little trying as possible for other people. She sent a smile across the table to cheer Grizel’s heart.“I’m too lazy to be hungry. It seems a waste of time to eat, instead of peacefully feeding one’s mind on the beauty of it all. All the same these eggs are mighty good. I wonder how often before tea we shall refer to a painted sail upon a painted ocean.”“Yes, buttrynot!” Grizel pleaded earnestly. She was relieved to see Peignton help himself to a second egg, and consume it with relish; relieved to see Teresa carefully sifting sugar into her lemonade. Such simple, homely acts seemed to keep at bay the creeping dread. It was so easy for Grizel to be happy, to banish fear, and plant hope in its place. She was as quick to pounce upon signs of good, as most people are upon menaces of evil, and Cassandra’s smile was sufficient to send her spirits racing upwards. She ate and she talked; few people can do the two things at one time with out neglecting one or the other, but Grizel came triumphantly through the ordeal, keeping her listeners in a gentle ripple of laughter, and demanding nothing of them but an occasional word of response. Then in the middle of a complicated sentence she stopped, and looked sharply at her friend.“What’s the matter?”Cassandra rose with a hasty movement, struggled to speak, and pointed to her throat. “A... bone... Don’t!”The “Don’t” was accompanied by a gesture of the arm, as though to thrust away any offer of help. She walked away a few yards’ distance and stood facing the sea, while her companions looked at one another, sympathetic but calm.“A bone! In the salad. TheWretch! I’ll give her notice to-night.Poordear!”“It’s horrid swallowing a bone. I did it once. It was rabbit. Mother was quite frightened.”Peignton said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the white figure outlined against the blue, on the shoulders which rose and fell. He filled a tumbler with water and sat waiting, glass in hand. A moment passed, the upheave of the shoulders became more pronounced, he rose swiftly and walked to Cassandra’s side.She stepped away from him as he approached, waving him away, but he had seen her face and kept steadily on.“Drink this. Gulp it! It will carry it down.”The waving fingers spilled half of the liquid, he steadied it with his own hand, while she gulped, and panted, and gulped again, and struggled choking away. The drink had not dislodged the bone, it had served only to hinder the sharpened breath.Peignton hurried back to the table and seized a lump of bread. Grizel and Teresa stared wide-eyed, and silent. Even in the moment which it had taken to go and to come, Cassandra’s face had taken a deeper hue; the damp stood on her forehead, but she made a gallant effort at composure, standing with her back resolutely turned to her companions, so that they might be spared the sight of her struggles.“I’ve brought you some bread. That moves it often when water fails. Chew it for a moment, then gulp it whole. As big a piece as you can. It’s a wretched feeling, but it will pass. A big bite now!... Swallow it whole.”She snatched it from him, crammed it in her mouth, struggled with a force that was frightening to see, choked and retched, and staggered against his arm. The bone had not moved.From behind came a murmur of consternation. Grizel and Teresa swept forward, calling out confused instructions.“More water!”“Kneel down; bend your head!... Massage your throat. Press downwards! More bread; gulphard!”Cassandra faced them suddenly, her lips curved back from her teeth. She struggled to speak, but the hoarse sounds had no coherence, her eyes rolled from one face to the other, and on each as she looked there fell the dawning of mortal fear. They had read the terror in Cassandra’s eyes, the next moment they saw it afresh in the sudden violent breakdown of her composure. She no longer avoided them, but came nearer, stretching out her hands in appeal. Her face was red and mottled, and strangely, horribly changed.Grizel was white as paper, but she kept her composure better than the girl by her side, and spoke in calm, level tones.“Cassandra, try,tryto be quiet! You make things worse by rushing about. Wewillhelp you. It will be all right. Try pushing something down... Here’s the handle of my fan. Try that. Hard! Push it well down. Oh, don’t, don’t give up!”For after one desperate trial Cassandra had sent the fan spinning into space over the edge of the cliff. For a moment in her desperation she looked inclined to follow herself, and Dane quickly moved his position so as to stand between her and danger.How many moments had elapsed since they had been happily seated on the grass? So few,—so pitifully few, yet enough to wreck the exquisite machine of life! Not alone to Cassandra herself, but also to the anguished onlookers, came now the realisation that this accident was no trifling happening of a moment, but a grim battle between life and death. The bone was a long one, lodged in such a manner that to attempt to move it by the usual means was but to accelerate the process of suffocation.Cassandra was being suffocated; moment by moment the inhalations of breath became more difficult, her strength was weakening beneath the strain, but still she struggled and fought, and raised wild arms to the sky, while moment by moment, youth, beauty, and charm fell away from the blackening face, leaving behind nothing but a mask of torture and despair.Both the women were weeping, but they were unconscious of their tears. At that moment existence meant nothing more than an anguished realisation of helplessness. Theirs was the most lacerating trial of life,—the torture of looking on helplessly, and watching a fellow-creature done to death.Then suddenly the scene changed. Cassandra’s limbs gave way, and she fell to the ground, and as she fell Peignton fell after her, and knelt by her side. To the onlookers the man’s face was as unrecognisable as that of the woman; in both was the same terror, the same despair, almost it appeared, the same suffering. It was a voice which they had never heard before, which spoke now, uttering wild appealing words:“Cassandra—Darling! Oh, my precious, what can I do for you?... God show me what to do! Oh, my God, to standby and see this... I’d give my soul... It can’t be.—It can’t. It’s not possible!... Cassandra,try, try! For my sake, for my sake, darling... How am I to live...”The wild words surged on. Did anyone hear? or hearing understand? Even to Teresa herself they seemed for the moment to voice nothing but the cry of her own heart. The shadow of death had obliterated the things of life; nothing counted, nothing mattered, but Cassandra, and her struggle for breath. With every moment her strength was ebbing, the faint whistling sounds emerged less frequently from her writhing lips, the black tint deepened on her cheeks, even as she gazed, the staring eyes rolled and fixed.Then Peignton pounced. Like a wild beast leaping on its prey, he pounced upon the prostrate form, and lifting it in his arms he shook and tore, he dragged and bent. The two women shrieked, and hid their faces. Of all the terrors that had been, the most ghastly and blood-curdling of all was the sight of this maniac figure with its superhuman strength, and the jointless, lifeless form, tossed to and fro; beaten, abused. The onlookers thought,—if thought were possible,—that Dane had gone mad. It seemed the crowning horror that in death Cassandra’s body should be so outraged; but they had no strength to move or protest.Suddenly came a cry; a cry of triumph, not grief. Peignton had sunk to the ground, but Cassandra lay in his arms, and the breath was once more whistling through her lips.“It has moved!” he cried. “It has moved! She breathes. For God’s sake,Water!”In a second it was in his hand, and Teresa knelt, holding the jug, while he sprinkled drops on the dark brow, and moistened the cracking lips. The face resting against his shoulder was still unrecognisable, still terrible to see, but momentarily life was flowing back. The brutal wildness of Dane’s assault had done its work in removing the block, and air was rushing back into the flattened lungs. The marvellous intricacy of the machine of life was at work once more...Peignton bathed, and the two women knelt by his side, watching with fascinated eyes. Gradually as the dark hue faded, other marks came into view, the marks of bruises left by frenzied fingers. There were marks on Cassandra’s brow, on her cheek, on the slim column of her throat, on her hands, on the arms beneath the torn fragments of sleeves. Everywhere there were bruises. The women held their breath at the sight, Peignton groaned and shuddered as with a nausea of horror, but he went on bathing, his hand resolutely steadied to hoard the precious drops. Only once, with an uncontrollable impulse, he bent and pressed his lips against the most cruel of the marks, holding her close the while, crooning over her in a passion of tenderness, and as he lifted his head Cassandra’s eyes opened, and looked upward into his face. They were conscious eyes, and the opening of them brought back the first resemblance to that Cassandra who had so horribly lost her identity. Deeply, darkly blue they stared out of the disfigured face, met Dane’s adoring gaze, and gazed back. For a moment it seemed as though the wraith of a smile were dawning in their depths, then pain claimed her once more, and she groaned and winced, lifting a hand to her bruised throat. It was a piteous little action, and Dane’s self-possession broke down at the sight. Once more he bent his head to hers. Once more the caressing words burst forth.“Darling, forgive me! Ihadto do it!...” Then for the first time Grizel felt a tremor pass through the figure of the girl by her side, and looked with a pang into a set white face. Through her quick mind flashed the realisation that here was another threatened death,—the death of Teresa’s youth... She laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and spoke in brisk, commonplace tones:“She must be laid down. Collect the cushions and make a bed. She will come round more quickly lying flat.”Teresa rose and with automatic obedience set about her work. Grizel took advantage of her absence to seize Dane’s arm between a vigorous finger and thumb. Her eyes met his with a gleam of anger.“Pull yourself together! Think what you are saying. Have you forgotten that Teresa is here?”Apparently he had. Even now when he was reminded, his blank look showed that his mind was incapable of realising her existence. Grizel wasted no more words. Nor indeed was there time, for Teresa came back carrying the piled cushions. Their gay colour accentuated the pallor of her own face, but she was composed as ever, and arranged an impromptu bed on the grass with firm, capable hands.“That’s right. Perfectly flat; her head must not be raised. Now, Captain Peignton! this way a please! Pacing the sea.”Peignton’s answer was to entwine his arms more firmly; it seemed to the watching eyes as if Cassandra herself nestled closer in response. Grizel bent downwards, and forcibly unloosed the clasped hands.“I am accustomed to nursing... you must obey me, please. You are doing her harm, keeping off the air. Lay her down here. At once!”Grizel had different ways of enforcing her will, but they were invariably successful. The stem tone of command roused Peignton into obedience. With painful effort he rose, laid his burden on the cushions, and stood over her, straightening his cramped arms. The mad output of strength which had saved Cassandra’s life had left him almost as much exhausted as herself, but so far he had had no time to think of himself. Now that his work was over, the realisation would come. Grizel poured out a glass of wine, and forced it into his hands.“Drink it—this moment! You can’t afford to break down, there’s too much to be done. We will stay with her here. You must go home for help!”“No!”“Don’t dispute, please... You will do as I say. Nature will help her now; we can only leave her alone. You must go home and telephone,—to the Club House for her husband, to the village for the doctor. They must come straight here. And the car,—it must drive to the nearest point, and wait. Possibly in an hour she may be able to walk. If not, she can be carried.”“I’ll carry her!”“Her husband will carry her, or the men. Tell two men to come, and bring brandy, smelling-salts, anything you think of. If you are wise you will lie down yourself. You are worn out, and can do no good here. We don’t want two invalids. Now, please!”For a moment Peignton stood gazing down at the motionless figure on the grass. Then hunching his shoulders, turned inland, and took the field path.Teresa straightened herself to watch him as he went. She was kneeling by Cassandra’s side, but he had no glance for her. She watched him pass swiftly down the narrow path between the barley and the oats. The poppies blazed their brightest red; the patches of groundsel shone golden in the sun.Cassandra lay motionless, with closed eyes, her breathing growing momentarily more natural and regular. Grizel smoothed the hair from her brow, laid a practised finger on her pulse, and crept away, beckoning Teresa to follow.“All right! doing well. Leave her alone. The air is her best medicine. Perhaps she will sleep. Teresa, dear! get me some wine.”She collapsed in a limp little heap on the grass, and raised a piteous face. To evoke Teresa’s pity for herself, not to pity Teresa, that was her inspiration, and to this intent she made the most of the natural exhaustion. Teresa waited upon her deftly, and then quite calmly and sensibly proceeded to wait upon herself. Grizel’s eyes widened with amaze as she beheld the girl with a wine-glass in one hand, and a sandwich, in the other, eating and drinking with as much apparent composure as if the tragic interruption had never occurred.To the ardent, impulsive nature such composure seemed unnatural, almost brutal. “Howcanshe?” Grizel asked herself blankly. “How can she? Oh, Martin, dear, to know your love gone, and to sit down quietly to eat sandwiches! Chewing.—Chewing! What can it feel like to be made like that? It’s marvellous, it’s magnificent,mais ce n’est pas la femme! Poor, poor little Teresa, and my poor, beautiful Cassandra, and poor Dane Peignton, poor Squire, poor Everybody! God help us all... We’re in a rare muddle! What is to happen next?”Her breath caught in an involuntary sob, and Teresa put out a protecting arm. Grizel leant against it, careful still to demand, rather than offer consolation, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, hand clasped in hand, while the minutes dragged past. From time to time Grizel rose and tiptoed across the grass to look at Cassandra’s face. Once she breathed her name, and the blue eyes opened in a recognising glance, but instantly they closed again, and the whole pose of the figure proclaimed an extremity of fatigue.“But it will pass; it will pass!” Grizel whispered to Teresa on her return. “It was a maddening experience. We were all mad, I think. It was enough to make us mad. Millions of people go through life, and never even imagine such a horror. But it was so short... only a few minutes... it will pass... it will pass!”“Oh, yes!” said Teresa steadily, “it will pass.” The healthy colour had come back to her cheeks. Beyond a certain hardness in the set of the lips, the smooth young face showed no sign of the recent conflict.A quarter of an hour dragged by; half an hour. Cassandra’s breath came in deep, steady respirations, her hands lay slack by her side, she slept the sleep of exhaustion, and the two women sat silently watching her from afar. Three-quarters of an hour, an hour, and then at last, over the shimmer of barley came the sight of hurrying figures,—the Squire and Martin running to the rescue.Grizel rose, crossed to Cassandra’s side, and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. She must be prepared for the men’s appearance. There must be no more shocks.“Wake up, dear. It’s time. The men will be here in a minute to take us home. Sit up! You are such a dishevelled old dear. Let me tidy you up.”Cassandra had started painfully at the first touch, but she sat up now, supporting herself on her hands, while Grizel smoothed the straying hair, and gave deft touches to the disordered attire. On the colourless face the bruises stood out with increasing distinctness, the lips were swollen, the eyes seemed to have retreated into the head. Grizel seized a light scarf, tied it hoodwise under the chin, and pulled forward the screening folds. She had a woman’s tender commiseration for the loss of beauty, a woman’s natural instinct to conceal it from masculine eyes. Thus the Squire, hurrying forward, beheld his wife sitting erect, orderly in attire, with face discreetly shaded.“Good God, Cass, you gave me a fright! I’ve run all the way... Swallowed a bone, eh? Beastly carelessness. Peeling all right now?”For a moment Grizel felt inclined to repent that shrouding veil!“She’snotat all right, Mr Raynor. It was a terrible time... We must get her home as quickly as possible, and put her to bed.”“Poor old Cass!” said the Squire kindly. “Feel a bit played out, eh? It’s all over, you know; all over now. We’ll soon have you all right. Think you could walk, if I gave you an arm? The car is waiting, at the end of the field.”Cassandra rose with unexpected strength, and the Squire tucked her arm in his, with a pat of reassurement. “That’s a good girl. Told you you weren’t half as bad as you thought! You’ll feel A1 after an hour’s rest.”The two figures passed on in advance, Cassandra’s head bowed low over her breast, and the three who were left, stared after them in dumb amaze. Martin had passed his arm round Grizel’s shoulder, and she clung to him, trembling with mingled misery and indignation.“Martin! Martin! she nearly died... she was fighting for her life before our eyes! It was horrible,—the most ghastly horror. We felt as if we should go mad, too. She has been down to the very gates of death, and he smiles, he jokes,—he is as calm as if nothing had happened! Has henoheart?”“No imagination, dearest. That’s the trouble. Nothing is real to him that he hasn’t seen. You poor girls! you look worn out yourselves. Come! there will be room for you in the car, and you will want to look after her when she gets home. I’ll come back, and wait till the men arrive for the hampers.”He held out his free hand and slid it through Teresa’s arm.“Your man is chasing the doctor. You’ll find him waiting at home. What a comfort that he was with you!”“He saved her life,” Teresa said. “Not one man in a thousand would have done as he did. He was so brave.”“I know someone braver!” said Grizel in her heart.
During the next two days Grizel was haunted by a prevision of danger. She rose with it in the morning, carried it in her heart all day, was pursued by it in her dreams. On the surface all seemed smooth and placid,—a pretty house, a charming garden, a party of friends enjoying the summer weather. There were games, there was laughter, there was a flow of words, but beneath it all, her sensitive nature sensed the rumbling of a storm.
The third morning the sun blazed from a cloudless sky, but within and without the air was still and lifeless, and the members of the house party, gathered round the breakfast table, showed signs of an unrefreshing night in pale and listless faces. Conversation flagged, and Grizel sounded a frank note of warning:
“I’m in a vile temper. Be careful, all of you. If anyone annoys me, I’ll snap. Nothing seems right this morning. Martin, the shape of your head gets on my nerves! I can’t thinkwhyI married you.”
“Neither can I, darling. Have some cream!” Martin carried the jug round the table, and tried to pour cream over a plate of strawberries, but Grizel pushed him aside.
“Don’tfuss! If I want cream, I can ask for it. Some people have no tact. Why wasn’t breakfast set in the garden? Nobody thinks of anything in this house, unless I see after it myself... Let’s have a picnic lunch!”
Martin looked at the Squire, the Squire looked at Martin. Their plans were made for a long day’s golf, and each felt a pang of anticipatory regret; moreover, each hated picnics, with a true man’s hatred. Grizel’s quick eyes caught the glance, and had no difficulty in understanding its meaning. It seemed indeed that she was thankful of an opportunity to snap.
“Pray, don’t trouble yourselves. We don’t want anyone to come on sufferance. Captain Peignton will look after Teresa, and Cassandra and I are perfectly happy alone. Go off on your horrid old golf. We don’t want you!”
“I apologise for my wife, Raynor. She is usually quite polite to her visitors. Just a little atmospheric disturbance. Take no notice. She’ll be sorry by and by.”
Grizel looked across the table, and made two separate and deliberate grimaces, one at the Squire, the other at her husband.
“That’s nothing to what I can do, if I choose! Better be careful! Captain Peignton, doyouwant to come? You’re engaged, of course, and engaged men used to wish to be with theirfiancées, but that’s all changed since they began to play golf. I’m a bride of six months, and my husband vowed before hundreds of witnesses to cherish me all his life, and you see how he scowls if I ask him to spare me an hour! Teresa, be warned by me, and break it off unless he gives up golf. I hate and detest golf. Golf has ruined my life. We’ll look after you, Teresa dear, don’t worry! We’ll have chicken and mayonnaise, and fruit and lemonade, and Cassandra and I will dry your tears.”
“But I’m coming; I want to come!” Peignton assured her. “It’s too hot for golf, and a picnic would be good fun if we can find a spot where there’s some air, and not too much undergrowth. I like to eat at a picnic, not to be eaten myself. I was up half a dozen times last night anointing myself with ammonia.”
“I know a place. I spotted it a week ago. Just beyond Queensdom, the cliff shelves steeply and leaves a patch of shade open to all the air there is. It’s quite a short walk,—a mile or a mile and a half; the servants can leave the baskets, and come back for their own lunch, and in the afternoon we’ll sleep, Cassandra and I, and discuss the iniquities of husbands, while you two go off on your lone, and come back to us for tea... What it is to be engaged!”
Teresa smiled happily, Martin raised his eyes to the ceiling in tragic self-vindication.
“Whois always holding forth on the necessity of exercise?Whois always warning me against the danger of a sedentary life?Whoinsisted upon a house near to golf links?Whogoads me every night of her life to arrange a match for the next day?”
“I do,” cried Grizel. “Of course. It’s my duty. And then I’m furious when you go. Of course again. Any wife is. Do you expect me to bepleased?”
“It would seem a natural inference.—If you really mean what you say.”
“Idomean it. I want you to have everything you like; I’m a monster of unselfishness over night, but to sit still in the morning, watching you dressing yourself up, polishing your clubs, starting off grinning from ear to ear, so happy to go off without me, and to feel pleased at the time—no! that’s beyond me!” Grizel declared vigorously. “I’m human, my good man. Don’t expect me to act like an angel.”
Bernard Raynor glanced across at his wife and laughed; his slow, complaisant laugh.
“You must be a full-blown angel, Cass. What? Never givesyouany qualms! Wait a bit, Mrs Beverley, and you’ll find it comes easy enough. In another year you’ll be thankful to be rid of him. Deadly mistake to hang together all the time! Go your own way, and allow the other to do the same; that’s the sure tip for matrimony. Then you jog on contentedly, and avoid spars.”
The blue, shallow eyes roved round the table, complacently seeking approval; complacently unconscious of the artificiality of the smiles vouchsafed. Cassandra held her head high, disdaining a reply. Grizel hugged a glorious certainty that there would be no “jogging” for her. Storms perchance, half-serious, half-pretence, clearing the atmosphere, and opening the way for a glorious “make up”; but a “jog,”—never! never! Teresa mentally condemned both, and reflected how much more wisely she herself would manageherhusband. From the beginning there should be a fair arrangement—so much time for sport, so much for home. One would not want a man pottering round all the time.
Grizel’s good-humour returned with characteristic speed, nevertheless conversation still flagged. An atmosphere of strain lay over the little company, and silenced the usual merry banter. Dane and Cassandra had not looked at each other since the first greeting. They had agreed to the proposal of the picnic out of polite necessity, but to each the prospect was drearily unwelcome. Apartie carréeafforded no opportunities for the talksà deux, which were the only things for which they cared. Cassandra saw herself sitting on the cliff-side watching the two figures walk away side by side until they disappeared round the headland. What would they do when they were alone together, with no onlookers but the seagulls swirling overhead? Would he take her in his arms, would his calmness disappear, and his eyes grow dark with love and longing? Would they sit entwined together, beatifically content, asking from the wealth of the universe nothing more than this,—to be together, to be alone? Never in her life had Cassandra experienced that sensation, yet she could imagine it with mysterious, with horrible distinctness. She could project herself into Teresa’s place, and feel the tingling current of joy. And she must sit afar off in the shade, and pretend to sleep...
At ten o’clock the two men started off for the golf links, but it was not until noon that the picnic party followed suit. As there was no new ground to explore, and as the eating of lunch seemed to be theraison d’êtreof the excursion, it was plainly foolish to start until the luncheon hour approached. The servants had gone on in advance to unpack the hampers, and after the walk cross the bare, unshaded fields, it was a refreshment to sit down in the cool patch of shade, and taste the refreshing sea breeze. Immediately in front the cliff curved sharply inland, so that the lap of blue waters surrounded two sides of the little platform. Marking the farther side of the narrow bay, a white headland jutted into the sea, and the sharp glare of the sun intensified each colour in its turn, blue sea, bluer sky, white cliff, crowned by a tangle of green. Inland, to the rear of the headland, lay fields of oats and barley, interspersed with patches of yellow groundsel, and the blaze of myriad poppies.
Cassandra’s colour-loving eyes dwelt lingeringly upon the scene. There was not a human creature in sight; a few white-sailed yachts alone broke the surface of the waters. The soft lap of the waves added to the impression of rest and peace. She lay drinking in the beauty of it, while the final preparations for the meal were being made. In her mind was no prevision that in future years that scene was to be associated in her mind with an extremity of pain and fear, with the dawning of a joy that hurt more sharply than pain. She was conscious only of rest to her tired limbs, of satisfaction to her craving for beauty, acutely conscious of Dane Peignton’s presence, as he stood talking to Teresa, helping her to arrange the cushioned seats. For the rest, she was weary and discouraged, and oh! overpoweringly lonely! But nowadays she always felt lonely...
The servants pronounced all ready, and retraced their way across the field path. Grizel made a tour of inspection and gave a favourable verdict.
“It looks—scrum! Why are stray meals always so much more attractive than proper ones, and why are men so stupid that they can’t understand that they are? That’s one of the many distinctions between the sexes. All women adore picnics. All men—don’t! Why?”
“Perhaps,” Dane volunteered, seating himself in front of the cloth, in response to a gesture of invitation, “perhaps because—they have longer legs.”
“Well, you must tuck them up somehow. They can’t take up thewholeside!” Grizel objected, sinking down in a compact little mass in which her own legs apparently ceased to exist. “Let me see. Where do we begin? Savoury eggs, chicken mayonnaise. We’ll start on the eggs as ahors d’oeuvre, and dull the first fierceness of our appetites before getting on to the real business.—I hope everyone is hungry. Let’s be polite, and eat very slowly to make it last out. It’s such a blank feeling at a picnic when the feed’s over,—like a wedding when the bride has gone. When we’ve done, the gulls shall have their turn.Dogulls eat mayonnaise?”
Cassandra was conscious of a certain effort in the light babble. She suspected that Grizel was forcing herself to talk, to ease the strain, which like a low rumble of thunder had underlain the peace of the last week. In the midst of her own pain, she felt a pang of regret for her hostess,—a pang of compunction for her own shortcomings. If only Bernard would be induced to return home! but as long as fine weather and good play were his portion, no persuasion would be of any avail. There was nothing for it but to set her teeth and endure, and—incidentally!—to make things as little trying as possible for other people. She sent a smile across the table to cheer Grizel’s heart.
“I’m too lazy to be hungry. It seems a waste of time to eat, instead of peacefully feeding one’s mind on the beauty of it all. All the same these eggs are mighty good. I wonder how often before tea we shall refer to a painted sail upon a painted ocean.”
“Yes, buttrynot!” Grizel pleaded earnestly. She was relieved to see Peignton help himself to a second egg, and consume it with relish; relieved to see Teresa carefully sifting sugar into her lemonade. Such simple, homely acts seemed to keep at bay the creeping dread. It was so easy for Grizel to be happy, to banish fear, and plant hope in its place. She was as quick to pounce upon signs of good, as most people are upon menaces of evil, and Cassandra’s smile was sufficient to send her spirits racing upwards. She ate and she talked; few people can do the two things at one time with out neglecting one or the other, but Grizel came triumphantly through the ordeal, keeping her listeners in a gentle ripple of laughter, and demanding nothing of them but an occasional word of response. Then in the middle of a complicated sentence she stopped, and looked sharply at her friend.
“What’s the matter?”
Cassandra rose with a hasty movement, struggled to speak, and pointed to her throat. “A... bone... Don’t!”
The “Don’t” was accompanied by a gesture of the arm, as though to thrust away any offer of help. She walked away a few yards’ distance and stood facing the sea, while her companions looked at one another, sympathetic but calm.
“A bone! In the salad. TheWretch! I’ll give her notice to-night.Poordear!”
“It’s horrid swallowing a bone. I did it once. It was rabbit. Mother was quite frightened.”
Peignton said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the white figure outlined against the blue, on the shoulders which rose and fell. He filled a tumbler with water and sat waiting, glass in hand. A moment passed, the upheave of the shoulders became more pronounced, he rose swiftly and walked to Cassandra’s side.
She stepped away from him as he approached, waving him away, but he had seen her face and kept steadily on.
“Drink this. Gulp it! It will carry it down.”
The waving fingers spilled half of the liquid, he steadied it with his own hand, while she gulped, and panted, and gulped again, and struggled choking away. The drink had not dislodged the bone, it had served only to hinder the sharpened breath.
Peignton hurried back to the table and seized a lump of bread. Grizel and Teresa stared wide-eyed, and silent. Even in the moment which it had taken to go and to come, Cassandra’s face had taken a deeper hue; the damp stood on her forehead, but she made a gallant effort at composure, standing with her back resolutely turned to her companions, so that they might be spared the sight of her struggles.
“I’ve brought you some bread. That moves it often when water fails. Chew it for a moment, then gulp it whole. As big a piece as you can. It’s a wretched feeling, but it will pass. A big bite now!... Swallow it whole.”
She snatched it from him, crammed it in her mouth, struggled with a force that was frightening to see, choked and retched, and staggered against his arm. The bone had not moved.
From behind came a murmur of consternation. Grizel and Teresa swept forward, calling out confused instructions.
“More water!”
“Kneel down; bend your head!... Massage your throat. Press downwards! More bread; gulphard!”
Cassandra faced them suddenly, her lips curved back from her teeth. She struggled to speak, but the hoarse sounds had no coherence, her eyes rolled from one face to the other, and on each as she looked there fell the dawning of mortal fear. They had read the terror in Cassandra’s eyes, the next moment they saw it afresh in the sudden violent breakdown of her composure. She no longer avoided them, but came nearer, stretching out her hands in appeal. Her face was red and mottled, and strangely, horribly changed.
Grizel was white as paper, but she kept her composure better than the girl by her side, and spoke in calm, level tones.
“Cassandra, try,tryto be quiet! You make things worse by rushing about. Wewillhelp you. It will be all right. Try pushing something down... Here’s the handle of my fan. Try that. Hard! Push it well down. Oh, don’t, don’t give up!”
For after one desperate trial Cassandra had sent the fan spinning into space over the edge of the cliff. For a moment in her desperation she looked inclined to follow herself, and Dane quickly moved his position so as to stand between her and danger.
How many moments had elapsed since they had been happily seated on the grass? So few,—so pitifully few, yet enough to wreck the exquisite machine of life! Not alone to Cassandra herself, but also to the anguished onlookers, came now the realisation that this accident was no trifling happening of a moment, but a grim battle between life and death. The bone was a long one, lodged in such a manner that to attempt to move it by the usual means was but to accelerate the process of suffocation.
Cassandra was being suffocated; moment by moment the inhalations of breath became more difficult, her strength was weakening beneath the strain, but still she struggled and fought, and raised wild arms to the sky, while moment by moment, youth, beauty, and charm fell away from the blackening face, leaving behind nothing but a mask of torture and despair.
Both the women were weeping, but they were unconscious of their tears. At that moment existence meant nothing more than an anguished realisation of helplessness. Theirs was the most lacerating trial of life,—the torture of looking on helplessly, and watching a fellow-creature done to death.
Then suddenly the scene changed. Cassandra’s limbs gave way, and she fell to the ground, and as she fell Peignton fell after her, and knelt by her side. To the onlookers the man’s face was as unrecognisable as that of the woman; in both was the same terror, the same despair, almost it appeared, the same suffering. It was a voice which they had never heard before, which spoke now, uttering wild appealing words:
“Cassandra—Darling! Oh, my precious, what can I do for you?... God show me what to do! Oh, my God, to standby and see this... I’d give my soul... It can’t be.—It can’t. It’s not possible!... Cassandra,try, try! For my sake, for my sake, darling... How am I to live...”
The wild words surged on. Did anyone hear? or hearing understand? Even to Teresa herself they seemed for the moment to voice nothing but the cry of her own heart. The shadow of death had obliterated the things of life; nothing counted, nothing mattered, but Cassandra, and her struggle for breath. With every moment her strength was ebbing, the faint whistling sounds emerged less frequently from her writhing lips, the black tint deepened on her cheeks, even as she gazed, the staring eyes rolled and fixed.
Then Peignton pounced. Like a wild beast leaping on its prey, he pounced upon the prostrate form, and lifting it in his arms he shook and tore, he dragged and bent. The two women shrieked, and hid their faces. Of all the terrors that had been, the most ghastly and blood-curdling of all was the sight of this maniac figure with its superhuman strength, and the jointless, lifeless form, tossed to and fro; beaten, abused. The onlookers thought,—if thought were possible,—that Dane had gone mad. It seemed the crowning horror that in death Cassandra’s body should be so outraged; but they had no strength to move or protest.
Suddenly came a cry; a cry of triumph, not grief. Peignton had sunk to the ground, but Cassandra lay in his arms, and the breath was once more whistling through her lips.
“It has moved!” he cried. “It has moved! She breathes. For God’s sake,Water!”
In a second it was in his hand, and Teresa knelt, holding the jug, while he sprinkled drops on the dark brow, and moistened the cracking lips. The face resting against his shoulder was still unrecognisable, still terrible to see, but momentarily life was flowing back. The brutal wildness of Dane’s assault had done its work in removing the block, and air was rushing back into the flattened lungs. The marvellous intricacy of the machine of life was at work once more...
Peignton bathed, and the two women knelt by his side, watching with fascinated eyes. Gradually as the dark hue faded, other marks came into view, the marks of bruises left by frenzied fingers. There were marks on Cassandra’s brow, on her cheek, on the slim column of her throat, on her hands, on the arms beneath the torn fragments of sleeves. Everywhere there were bruises. The women held their breath at the sight, Peignton groaned and shuddered as with a nausea of horror, but he went on bathing, his hand resolutely steadied to hoard the precious drops. Only once, with an uncontrollable impulse, he bent and pressed his lips against the most cruel of the marks, holding her close the while, crooning over her in a passion of tenderness, and as he lifted his head Cassandra’s eyes opened, and looked upward into his face. They were conscious eyes, and the opening of them brought back the first resemblance to that Cassandra who had so horribly lost her identity. Deeply, darkly blue they stared out of the disfigured face, met Dane’s adoring gaze, and gazed back. For a moment it seemed as though the wraith of a smile were dawning in their depths, then pain claimed her once more, and she groaned and winced, lifting a hand to her bruised throat. It was a piteous little action, and Dane’s self-possession broke down at the sight. Once more he bent his head to hers. Once more the caressing words burst forth.
“Darling, forgive me! Ihadto do it!...” Then for the first time Grizel felt a tremor pass through the figure of the girl by her side, and looked with a pang into a set white face. Through her quick mind flashed the realisation that here was another threatened death,—the death of Teresa’s youth... She laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and spoke in brisk, commonplace tones:
“She must be laid down. Collect the cushions and make a bed. She will come round more quickly lying flat.”
Teresa rose and with automatic obedience set about her work. Grizel took advantage of her absence to seize Dane’s arm between a vigorous finger and thumb. Her eyes met his with a gleam of anger.
“Pull yourself together! Think what you are saying. Have you forgotten that Teresa is here?”
Apparently he had. Even now when he was reminded, his blank look showed that his mind was incapable of realising her existence. Grizel wasted no more words. Nor indeed was there time, for Teresa came back carrying the piled cushions. Their gay colour accentuated the pallor of her own face, but she was composed as ever, and arranged an impromptu bed on the grass with firm, capable hands.
“That’s right. Perfectly flat; her head must not be raised. Now, Captain Peignton! this way a please! Pacing the sea.”
Peignton’s answer was to entwine his arms more firmly; it seemed to the watching eyes as if Cassandra herself nestled closer in response. Grizel bent downwards, and forcibly unloosed the clasped hands.
“I am accustomed to nursing... you must obey me, please. You are doing her harm, keeping off the air. Lay her down here. At once!”
Grizel had different ways of enforcing her will, but they were invariably successful. The stem tone of command roused Peignton into obedience. With painful effort he rose, laid his burden on the cushions, and stood over her, straightening his cramped arms. The mad output of strength which had saved Cassandra’s life had left him almost as much exhausted as herself, but so far he had had no time to think of himself. Now that his work was over, the realisation would come. Grizel poured out a glass of wine, and forced it into his hands.
“Drink it—this moment! You can’t afford to break down, there’s too much to be done. We will stay with her here. You must go home for help!”
“No!”
“Don’t dispute, please... You will do as I say. Nature will help her now; we can only leave her alone. You must go home and telephone,—to the Club House for her husband, to the village for the doctor. They must come straight here. And the car,—it must drive to the nearest point, and wait. Possibly in an hour she may be able to walk. If not, she can be carried.”
“I’ll carry her!”
“Her husband will carry her, or the men. Tell two men to come, and bring brandy, smelling-salts, anything you think of. If you are wise you will lie down yourself. You are worn out, and can do no good here. We don’t want two invalids. Now, please!”
For a moment Peignton stood gazing down at the motionless figure on the grass. Then hunching his shoulders, turned inland, and took the field path.
Teresa straightened herself to watch him as he went. She was kneeling by Cassandra’s side, but he had no glance for her. She watched him pass swiftly down the narrow path between the barley and the oats. The poppies blazed their brightest red; the patches of groundsel shone golden in the sun.
Cassandra lay motionless, with closed eyes, her breathing growing momentarily more natural and regular. Grizel smoothed the hair from her brow, laid a practised finger on her pulse, and crept away, beckoning Teresa to follow.
“All right! doing well. Leave her alone. The air is her best medicine. Perhaps she will sleep. Teresa, dear! get me some wine.”
She collapsed in a limp little heap on the grass, and raised a piteous face. To evoke Teresa’s pity for herself, not to pity Teresa, that was her inspiration, and to this intent she made the most of the natural exhaustion. Teresa waited upon her deftly, and then quite calmly and sensibly proceeded to wait upon herself. Grizel’s eyes widened with amaze as she beheld the girl with a wine-glass in one hand, and a sandwich, in the other, eating and drinking with as much apparent composure as if the tragic interruption had never occurred.
To the ardent, impulsive nature such composure seemed unnatural, almost brutal. “Howcanshe?” Grizel asked herself blankly. “How can she? Oh, Martin, dear, to know your love gone, and to sit down quietly to eat sandwiches! Chewing.—Chewing! What can it feel like to be made like that? It’s marvellous, it’s magnificent,mais ce n’est pas la femme! Poor, poor little Teresa, and my poor, beautiful Cassandra, and poor Dane Peignton, poor Squire, poor Everybody! God help us all... We’re in a rare muddle! What is to happen next?”
Her breath caught in an involuntary sob, and Teresa put out a protecting arm. Grizel leant against it, careful still to demand, rather than offer consolation, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, hand clasped in hand, while the minutes dragged past. From time to time Grizel rose and tiptoed across the grass to look at Cassandra’s face. Once she breathed her name, and the blue eyes opened in a recognising glance, but instantly they closed again, and the whole pose of the figure proclaimed an extremity of fatigue.
“But it will pass; it will pass!” Grizel whispered to Teresa on her return. “It was a maddening experience. We were all mad, I think. It was enough to make us mad. Millions of people go through life, and never even imagine such a horror. But it was so short... only a few minutes... it will pass... it will pass!”
“Oh, yes!” said Teresa steadily, “it will pass.” The healthy colour had come back to her cheeks. Beyond a certain hardness in the set of the lips, the smooth young face showed no sign of the recent conflict.
A quarter of an hour dragged by; half an hour. Cassandra’s breath came in deep, steady respirations, her hands lay slack by her side, she slept the sleep of exhaustion, and the two women sat silently watching her from afar. Three-quarters of an hour, an hour, and then at last, over the shimmer of barley came the sight of hurrying figures,—the Squire and Martin running to the rescue.
Grizel rose, crossed to Cassandra’s side, and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. She must be prepared for the men’s appearance. There must be no more shocks.
“Wake up, dear. It’s time. The men will be here in a minute to take us home. Sit up! You are such a dishevelled old dear. Let me tidy you up.”
Cassandra had started painfully at the first touch, but she sat up now, supporting herself on her hands, while Grizel smoothed the straying hair, and gave deft touches to the disordered attire. On the colourless face the bruises stood out with increasing distinctness, the lips were swollen, the eyes seemed to have retreated into the head. Grizel seized a light scarf, tied it hoodwise under the chin, and pulled forward the screening folds. She had a woman’s tender commiseration for the loss of beauty, a woman’s natural instinct to conceal it from masculine eyes. Thus the Squire, hurrying forward, beheld his wife sitting erect, orderly in attire, with face discreetly shaded.
“Good God, Cass, you gave me a fright! I’ve run all the way... Swallowed a bone, eh? Beastly carelessness. Peeling all right now?”
For a moment Grizel felt inclined to repent that shrouding veil!
“She’snotat all right, Mr Raynor. It was a terrible time... We must get her home as quickly as possible, and put her to bed.”
“Poor old Cass!” said the Squire kindly. “Feel a bit played out, eh? It’s all over, you know; all over now. We’ll soon have you all right. Think you could walk, if I gave you an arm? The car is waiting, at the end of the field.”
Cassandra rose with unexpected strength, and the Squire tucked her arm in his, with a pat of reassurement. “That’s a good girl. Told you you weren’t half as bad as you thought! You’ll feel A1 after an hour’s rest.”
The two figures passed on in advance, Cassandra’s head bowed low over her breast, and the three who were left, stared after them in dumb amaze. Martin had passed his arm round Grizel’s shoulder, and she clung to him, trembling with mingled misery and indignation.
“Martin! Martin! she nearly died... she was fighting for her life before our eyes! It was horrible,—the most ghastly horror. We felt as if we should go mad, too. She has been down to the very gates of death, and he smiles, he jokes,—he is as calm as if nothing had happened! Has henoheart?”
“No imagination, dearest. That’s the trouble. Nothing is real to him that he hasn’t seen. You poor girls! you look worn out yourselves. Come! there will be room for you in the car, and you will want to look after her when she gets home. I’ll come back, and wait till the men arrive for the hampers.”
He held out his free hand and slid it through Teresa’s arm.
“Your man is chasing the doctor. You’ll find him waiting at home. What a comfort that he was with you!”
“He saved her life,” Teresa said. “Not one man in a thousand would have done as he did. He was so brave.”
“I know someone braver!” said Grizel in her heart.
Chapter Twenty Two.Judgment of Youth.For the rest of the afternoon the house was still as the grave, each member of the little party preserving a rigorous silence for the sake of those others who were presumably asleep, but with the exception of Cassandra sleep was conspicuous by its absence. The Squire retired to a distant corner of the garden, and practised putting by himself, reflecting ruefully on his interrupted game. Martin sat by Grizel’s couch, mentally abusing himself for the morning’s desertion. Grizel had asked him to join the picnic, and he had preferred to go off on his own devices. Probably if he had been present, the accident would have happened just the same, but he would have been beside her to help and support. Excuse himself as he might, the fact remained that Grizel had gone through an appalling experience alone. The thought filled him with a passion of tenderness and remorse, and even in the depths of her mental and physical exhaustion, Grizel luxuriated in the consciousness, and lured him on with tender wiles. It was all the rest she wanted, just to lie still, holding Martin’s hand, to feel his touch on her forehead. The unconsciousness of sleep would have been poor in comparison, for her heart needed healing more than her body. A few hours, a few days at most, and even Cassandra herself would have surmounted the physical strain of the morning, but what of the hidden danger from which the veil had been torn aside? Now that it had been revealed—what was to happen to those three young lives?Grizel had given her husband a detailed account of the accident, but she had refrained from telling him of Dane’s mad words. Whether or not she would ever tell him, would depend on future events. He had a right to know everything that concerned herself, but she would have felt it to be a disloyalty to her friends to have betrayed the new complication which had come into their lives. It was for them to work out their own salvation; for her, as the onlooker, to be silent, and wait.As for Martin, he was too much absorbed in his wife to display undue curiosity, and his eyes had discovered nothing mysterious in the condition of either Teresa or Dane himself.“The fellow is played out. He must have been half crazed to do what he did. No man would have the strength in a normal condition. In the great moments of life we draw drafts on our reserve forces, and no effort seems too great. But we have to pay up. Peignton condensed the energy of months into three or four minutes, and for the moment he is bankrupt. It must have been a blood-curdling sight for you, my darling,—and that poor girl, Teresa! She seemed the calmest of the party, by the way.”“Calmness is comparative—everything is comparative. It’s impossible to know how much people feel... Oh, Beloved, there are so many sorts, and if they don’t feelourway, it may be just as bad to them! Martin! we’ve been married six months, we know each other six hundred times better than when we began, and there’s this virtue about me—I don’t pretend! You know the worst of me, as well as the best. Honestly—on your solemnest oath,—have youeverbeen sorry?”Martin did not reply. He smiled a smile of ineffable content. Grizel tilted her head on the cushion, and smiled back. “Iknewyou haven’t. That’s why I asked. If there had been the faintest doubt, I couldn’t have faced it to-day. But there are so many months—life is so long. Martin! you might change!”Martin’s face sobered. His thoughts flew back to the girl wife who, for a few short months, had shared his life; at whose death life itself had seemed to end. He had been but twenty-five at the time, and he had suffered with all the fierce intensity of youth. If Juliet had made a similar suggestion in those far-off days, he would have refuted it with scorn, yet hehadchanged; the young image had faded, and a living woman now filled his heart. Was it the remembrance of Juliet, which made Grizel doubt?“So long as you live, Grizel, it isn’t possible that I could change. A man who had once loved you could never be satisfied with an ordinary woman. And I am a man now, not a boy. Even—even if I were alone again—”She leant forward in a quick caress.“You are not going to be alone! I am not going to leave you, Honey! If I were, I should not ask for promises. It’s because I intend to live on to eighty or ninety, that I’m anxious. I couldn’t bear it if you grew cool and cold. I wouldn’ttryto bear it! Prosaic matrimony would drive me to the devil. I can’t tell you what sort of devil,—there might be several, but a devil it would certainly be. But if you’ll love me, dear, I’ll grow nearer the angels!”He laid his head beside hers on the cushion, and they sat silently, through blessed moments of communion. In heart and love they were at one, but their thoughts carried them on different voyages. When he spoke again, it was to say in tones of kindly toleration:“Don’t be too hard on the poor Squire. He’s a good fellow, and, as you say, there are all sorts. Presumably she loved that sort. She chose him, you know.”“Unfortunately she didn’t. She chose a waking man, who fell asleep the moment he’d got her, and has slept on steadily ever since. He was in love, you see, and love galvanised him into a show of life, and poor, dear Cassandra saw the miracle, and believed it was going to last. You’re a man, my dear, and you’re an author, and you write very clever books, but you don’t realise for a moment how intoxicating it is for a woman to hold the reins in her own hands, while a lord of creation kneels trembling at her feet! It’s the one little time of her life when she is master, and it goes to her head. He tells her that she is the sun, and the moon, and the eleven stars, and that his only object in life is to adore her for evermore, and that if she won’t have him he’ll pine away and die on Wednesday week, and the poor dear thing believes every word, and is so touched to find herself of such importance after being just an ordinary, superfluous girl, that she will promise anything he likes to ask. I am talking, of course,” said Grizel markedly, “ofcountrygirls! Girls like Cassandra, shut up in moated granges a dozen miles from the nearest anywhere.Notof myself! It wasnonovelty to me to have men squirming!”“What a very undignified word! Don’t dare to apply it to me. I’ll kneel, as much as you like, but I refuse to squirm!” Martin stretched himself, and rose to his feet. Grizel was better, beginning to talk in her natural vein, and his conscience began to prick him about his guest. “Do you think you could manage to get a little deep now! I really ought to look after poor old Raynor.”Grizel accorded a gracious permission, and submitted meekly to an irritating process which Martin called “making her comfortable.” When the door was closed behind him, she deftly rearranged all the accessories which he had misplaced, and composed herself for the long-deferred rest, but it was not to be. In less than five minutes a knock sounded at the door, and after a moment’s pause was repeated in a more insistent fashion.“Come in!” cried Grizel clearly, and Teresa’s head peeped enquiringly round the corner of the door.“You are alone?” she asked. “I hoped you would be. I couldn’t rest, and I knew you couldn’t either. Do you mind if I sit down and talk a few minutes?”“Do, dear; I’d like it,” Grizel said kindly, her eyes fixed on the girl’s figure, with an astonished admiration. Teresa had taken off her dress, and put on a plainly made blue cashmere dressing-gown, the loose folds of which disguised the somewhat ungainly lines of her figure, and gave to it an effect of dignity and height. Her hair had been unloosed and hung in two heavy plaits to her waist, giving a Gretchen-like expression to the fair, blue-eyed face. Teresa had prepared herself for her siesta with characteristic thoroughness, but apparently without avail. She seated herself beside Grizel’s couch, folded her hands on her knee, and asked a level question:“I wanted to know. Have you told your husband everything that happened?”“Everything about the accident itself. Nothing more, Teresa.”For a moment the blue eyes lightened with gratitude.“Ithoughtyou wouldn’t. But most women would. Thank you. I’d rather no one was told.”“No one shall hear anything from me. It is not my business. I shall forget it, Teresa!”The girl shook her head.“You can’t do that. I don’t think I want you to forget. It’s a help to have someone who understands. Mrs Beverley—do you think hemeantit?”Grizel sat upright on the sofa, her small hands locked on her knee, and for a long silent minute blue eyes and hazel met in a steady gaze. There were no secrets between the two women at the end of that minute.“Yes, Teresa,” said Grizel unsteadily. “I think he did.”“You know he did,” corrected Teresa gravely. She was silent for another moment, sitting motionless with downcast eyes, then deliberately raised them again and continued:“At the time he did mean it... She is so beautiful, and fascinating. Everyone admires her. And it was terrible to watch her choking before one’s eyes. It wrung one’s heart. What he said at the time should not be counted. He was not sane. I am thinking of the time before.—Do you,—do you think he meant itbefore?”Grizel did not speak. To her impetuous ardent nature, the girl’s composure seemed terrible and unnatural. It affected her more strongly than the most violent hysteria. She sat crunched up into the corner of the sofa, looking white and scared, and helpless, flinching before the steady scrutiny of the blue eyes.“Please tell me.”“Teresa, I—wondered! It troubled me. Lately I felt sure. I was sorry it had been arranged to come here together. I tried to alter it; you know I tried... Didyounever suspect?”Teresa hesitated. The colour had faded from her cheek, but she was still calm and collected.“Not—that! I knew he admired her—that was of course. I knew he liked to be with her whenever he could. Once or twice I felt—lonely! But she was married.—I never dreamt of this. I have read of men falling in love with married women, but I have never known it in real life. I did not think he was that sort.” Scorn spoke in her voice, a youthful intolerance and contempt. It was not only on her own account that she was suffering. Peignton had been to her the ideal man, and the ideal had fallen. The whole structure of life seemed shaken under her feet.Grizel looked at her, with a saddened glance.“Poor, dear, little girl! It’s hard for you, but you must try to understand. You’ve lived in a very sheltered little corner, dear, where the difficult things of life have been hidden away out of sight. It’s hard for you to be quite fair, and see the other point of view as well as your own. But you must try. You mustn’t condemn poor Dane. He was engaged to you, and he has fallen in love with another woman. It sounds bad enough on the face of it, but you and I who know him, and have watched him these last months, know that there has been nothing deliberate about it, nothing guilty or underhand. He was engaged to you and he was faithful to you—in intent. He wanted to be faithful. The other thing was just a great trial wave which overtook him and swept him off his feet.”Teresa set her lips, her face hard and cold.“It could not have swept him, if he had been firm! If he had been faithful to me, he could not have noticed any other woman in that way. I never noticed another man. I don’t understand it.”Grizel sighed. The youthful arrogance of the girl was at once pitiful and menacing. To her there existed but the two hard lines, a right and a wrong, the maze of intersecting paths had no existence in her eyes. Her judgment, like that of all young untried things, was relentlessly hard.Grizel sat looking at her, pondering what to say.“When you first knew Cassandra you were fascinated by her. You felt a longing to see her again. Every time you saw her, you admired her more. You have told me about it, so often. In a feminine way you fell in love with her yourself, Teresa. Yououghtto understand.”“He was engaged to me!” echoed Teresa obstinately. Suddenly her face quivered with pathos “And—I’m young—I’m pretty.—I loved him.Why? Why? Why?”“Oh, my poor child!” Grizel cried sharply, and the tears started to her eyes. Poor, ignorant, complaisant Teresa fighting against the mysteries of life, demanding explanation of the inexplicable,—what tenderness, what forgiveness was to be expected from such an attitude?“He chose me,” she insisted. “It was his own doing. Nobody made him. It was his own choice. And he had met herbeforehe asked me. We used to talk about her together.—I was glad when he was enthusiastic... She was my friend, and a married woman with a husband and—that big boy! He is ten years old. She must be thirty at the least.” All the arrogance of the early twenties rang in Teresa’s voice. “It’s such folly—such madness! It isn’t as if she could ever—love him back.”Silence. Teresa looked up sharply, held Grizel’s eyes in a hard, enquiring stare and deliberately repeated the pronouncement.“It isn’t possible that she could care for him.”“Did you find it so difficult, Teresa?”“Why do you compare her with me? It’s different. You know it’s different.”“Yes, I do know. You were a free, happy girl with your life ahead.Heryouth, the best part of her youth has gone, and she has never had the joy that every woman needs. You know what I mean. We need not go into it. Some men mean well, but they have no right to be husbands! The women who have to live with them are slowly starved to death.”“She has her boy.”“Yes, she has her boy. For a few weeks in the year.”“He is her son all the year round.”“That’s perfectly true, Teresa.”“A married woman with a son oughtnotto love another man.”“That’s perfectly true, Teresa. Do you never by any chance do anything you should not? Can’t you find the least scrap of pity in your heart for other people who are more unhappy than yourself?”“I am not sorry for people who do wrong. It’s easy to talk, Mrs Beverley. Suppose it was your own husband, and you had seen him, as I did to-day, with another woman—with Cassandra herself. How wouldyoufeel?”Grizel’s grimace was more expressive than words.“My dear, I can’t imagine it. I’d rather not. I should certainly not be calm. I’m an impetuous person who is bound to let off steam, and there would be a considerable amount of steam on that occasion, but I’m older than you, and have seen more of the world, so that perhaps it would come easier—after the first explosion—to be sorry for them as well as myself.”“Why should one be sorry?”“Because theyarein the wrong, and are bringing sorrow on others, whereas you are the injured martyr, who is sinned against. There’s considerable balm in the position—for those who like it. How do you suppose poor Dane will feel at the prospect of his next interview with you?”Teresa’s face quivered again.“He hasn’t wanted many interviews lately. We’ve hardly been alone an hour since we came here. I suppose I—should have suspected... but I didn’t. He has never been demonstrative, but he chose me, he said he loved me. Itrustedhim.”There was pathos in the lingering on those last words. Grizel made a little crooning sound of tenderness, and stretched out a consoling hand, but Teresa ignored it, and rose slowly to her feet.“Thank you. You’ve told me all I wanted to know. And I’m grateful to you for not telling your husband. Please don’t mention anything to a single person. The less that is said about it the easier it will be to—”“To—?” Grizel’s eyes dilated. She sat upright on the sofa, her whole body a-quiver with eagerness. “Towhat, Teresa?”“To put things right,” said Teresa, and marched stolidly from the room.
For the rest of the afternoon the house was still as the grave, each member of the little party preserving a rigorous silence for the sake of those others who were presumably asleep, but with the exception of Cassandra sleep was conspicuous by its absence. The Squire retired to a distant corner of the garden, and practised putting by himself, reflecting ruefully on his interrupted game. Martin sat by Grizel’s couch, mentally abusing himself for the morning’s desertion. Grizel had asked him to join the picnic, and he had preferred to go off on his own devices. Probably if he had been present, the accident would have happened just the same, but he would have been beside her to help and support. Excuse himself as he might, the fact remained that Grizel had gone through an appalling experience alone. The thought filled him with a passion of tenderness and remorse, and even in the depths of her mental and physical exhaustion, Grizel luxuriated in the consciousness, and lured him on with tender wiles. It was all the rest she wanted, just to lie still, holding Martin’s hand, to feel his touch on her forehead. The unconsciousness of sleep would have been poor in comparison, for her heart needed healing more than her body. A few hours, a few days at most, and even Cassandra herself would have surmounted the physical strain of the morning, but what of the hidden danger from which the veil had been torn aside? Now that it had been revealed—what was to happen to those three young lives?
Grizel had given her husband a detailed account of the accident, but she had refrained from telling him of Dane’s mad words. Whether or not she would ever tell him, would depend on future events. He had a right to know everything that concerned herself, but she would have felt it to be a disloyalty to her friends to have betrayed the new complication which had come into their lives. It was for them to work out their own salvation; for her, as the onlooker, to be silent, and wait.
As for Martin, he was too much absorbed in his wife to display undue curiosity, and his eyes had discovered nothing mysterious in the condition of either Teresa or Dane himself.
“The fellow is played out. He must have been half crazed to do what he did. No man would have the strength in a normal condition. In the great moments of life we draw drafts on our reserve forces, and no effort seems too great. But we have to pay up. Peignton condensed the energy of months into three or four minutes, and for the moment he is bankrupt. It must have been a blood-curdling sight for you, my darling,—and that poor girl, Teresa! She seemed the calmest of the party, by the way.”
“Calmness is comparative—everything is comparative. It’s impossible to know how much people feel... Oh, Beloved, there are so many sorts, and if they don’t feelourway, it may be just as bad to them! Martin! we’ve been married six months, we know each other six hundred times better than when we began, and there’s this virtue about me—I don’t pretend! You know the worst of me, as well as the best. Honestly—on your solemnest oath,—have youeverbeen sorry?”
Martin did not reply. He smiled a smile of ineffable content. Grizel tilted her head on the cushion, and smiled back. “Iknewyou haven’t. That’s why I asked. If there had been the faintest doubt, I couldn’t have faced it to-day. But there are so many months—life is so long. Martin! you might change!”
Martin’s face sobered. His thoughts flew back to the girl wife who, for a few short months, had shared his life; at whose death life itself had seemed to end. He had been but twenty-five at the time, and he had suffered with all the fierce intensity of youth. If Juliet had made a similar suggestion in those far-off days, he would have refuted it with scorn, yet hehadchanged; the young image had faded, and a living woman now filled his heart. Was it the remembrance of Juliet, which made Grizel doubt?
“So long as you live, Grizel, it isn’t possible that I could change. A man who had once loved you could never be satisfied with an ordinary woman. And I am a man now, not a boy. Even—even if I were alone again—”
She leant forward in a quick caress.
“You are not going to be alone! I am not going to leave you, Honey! If I were, I should not ask for promises. It’s because I intend to live on to eighty or ninety, that I’m anxious. I couldn’t bear it if you grew cool and cold. I wouldn’ttryto bear it! Prosaic matrimony would drive me to the devil. I can’t tell you what sort of devil,—there might be several, but a devil it would certainly be. But if you’ll love me, dear, I’ll grow nearer the angels!”
He laid his head beside hers on the cushion, and they sat silently, through blessed moments of communion. In heart and love they were at one, but their thoughts carried them on different voyages. When he spoke again, it was to say in tones of kindly toleration:
“Don’t be too hard on the poor Squire. He’s a good fellow, and, as you say, there are all sorts. Presumably she loved that sort. She chose him, you know.”
“Unfortunately she didn’t. She chose a waking man, who fell asleep the moment he’d got her, and has slept on steadily ever since. He was in love, you see, and love galvanised him into a show of life, and poor, dear Cassandra saw the miracle, and believed it was going to last. You’re a man, my dear, and you’re an author, and you write very clever books, but you don’t realise for a moment how intoxicating it is for a woman to hold the reins in her own hands, while a lord of creation kneels trembling at her feet! It’s the one little time of her life when she is master, and it goes to her head. He tells her that she is the sun, and the moon, and the eleven stars, and that his only object in life is to adore her for evermore, and that if she won’t have him he’ll pine away and die on Wednesday week, and the poor dear thing believes every word, and is so touched to find herself of such importance after being just an ordinary, superfluous girl, that she will promise anything he likes to ask. I am talking, of course,” said Grizel markedly, “ofcountrygirls! Girls like Cassandra, shut up in moated granges a dozen miles from the nearest anywhere.Notof myself! It wasnonovelty to me to have men squirming!”
“What a very undignified word! Don’t dare to apply it to me. I’ll kneel, as much as you like, but I refuse to squirm!” Martin stretched himself, and rose to his feet. Grizel was better, beginning to talk in her natural vein, and his conscience began to prick him about his guest. “Do you think you could manage to get a little deep now! I really ought to look after poor old Raynor.”
Grizel accorded a gracious permission, and submitted meekly to an irritating process which Martin called “making her comfortable.” When the door was closed behind him, she deftly rearranged all the accessories which he had misplaced, and composed herself for the long-deferred rest, but it was not to be. In less than five minutes a knock sounded at the door, and after a moment’s pause was repeated in a more insistent fashion.
“Come in!” cried Grizel clearly, and Teresa’s head peeped enquiringly round the corner of the door.
“You are alone?” she asked. “I hoped you would be. I couldn’t rest, and I knew you couldn’t either. Do you mind if I sit down and talk a few minutes?”
“Do, dear; I’d like it,” Grizel said kindly, her eyes fixed on the girl’s figure, with an astonished admiration. Teresa had taken off her dress, and put on a plainly made blue cashmere dressing-gown, the loose folds of which disguised the somewhat ungainly lines of her figure, and gave to it an effect of dignity and height. Her hair had been unloosed and hung in two heavy plaits to her waist, giving a Gretchen-like expression to the fair, blue-eyed face. Teresa had prepared herself for her siesta with characteristic thoroughness, but apparently without avail. She seated herself beside Grizel’s couch, folded her hands on her knee, and asked a level question:
“I wanted to know. Have you told your husband everything that happened?”
“Everything about the accident itself. Nothing more, Teresa.”
For a moment the blue eyes lightened with gratitude.
“Ithoughtyou wouldn’t. But most women would. Thank you. I’d rather no one was told.”
“No one shall hear anything from me. It is not my business. I shall forget it, Teresa!”
The girl shook her head.
“You can’t do that. I don’t think I want you to forget. It’s a help to have someone who understands. Mrs Beverley—do you think hemeantit?”
Grizel sat upright on the sofa, her small hands locked on her knee, and for a long silent minute blue eyes and hazel met in a steady gaze. There were no secrets between the two women at the end of that minute.
“Yes, Teresa,” said Grizel unsteadily. “I think he did.”
“You know he did,” corrected Teresa gravely. She was silent for another moment, sitting motionless with downcast eyes, then deliberately raised them again and continued:
“At the time he did mean it... She is so beautiful, and fascinating. Everyone admires her. And it was terrible to watch her choking before one’s eyes. It wrung one’s heart. What he said at the time should not be counted. He was not sane. I am thinking of the time before.—Do you,—do you think he meant itbefore?”
Grizel did not speak. To her impetuous ardent nature, the girl’s composure seemed terrible and unnatural. It affected her more strongly than the most violent hysteria. She sat crunched up into the corner of the sofa, looking white and scared, and helpless, flinching before the steady scrutiny of the blue eyes.
“Please tell me.”
“Teresa, I—wondered! It troubled me. Lately I felt sure. I was sorry it had been arranged to come here together. I tried to alter it; you know I tried... Didyounever suspect?”
Teresa hesitated. The colour had faded from her cheek, but she was still calm and collected.
“Not—that! I knew he admired her—that was of course. I knew he liked to be with her whenever he could. Once or twice I felt—lonely! But she was married.—I never dreamt of this. I have read of men falling in love with married women, but I have never known it in real life. I did not think he was that sort.” Scorn spoke in her voice, a youthful intolerance and contempt. It was not only on her own account that she was suffering. Peignton had been to her the ideal man, and the ideal had fallen. The whole structure of life seemed shaken under her feet.
Grizel looked at her, with a saddened glance.
“Poor, dear, little girl! It’s hard for you, but you must try to understand. You’ve lived in a very sheltered little corner, dear, where the difficult things of life have been hidden away out of sight. It’s hard for you to be quite fair, and see the other point of view as well as your own. But you must try. You mustn’t condemn poor Dane. He was engaged to you, and he has fallen in love with another woman. It sounds bad enough on the face of it, but you and I who know him, and have watched him these last months, know that there has been nothing deliberate about it, nothing guilty or underhand. He was engaged to you and he was faithful to you—in intent. He wanted to be faithful. The other thing was just a great trial wave which overtook him and swept him off his feet.”
Teresa set her lips, her face hard and cold.
“It could not have swept him, if he had been firm! If he had been faithful to me, he could not have noticed any other woman in that way. I never noticed another man. I don’t understand it.”
Grizel sighed. The youthful arrogance of the girl was at once pitiful and menacing. To her there existed but the two hard lines, a right and a wrong, the maze of intersecting paths had no existence in her eyes. Her judgment, like that of all young untried things, was relentlessly hard.
Grizel sat looking at her, pondering what to say.
“When you first knew Cassandra you were fascinated by her. You felt a longing to see her again. Every time you saw her, you admired her more. You have told me about it, so often. In a feminine way you fell in love with her yourself, Teresa. Yououghtto understand.”
“He was engaged to me!” echoed Teresa obstinately. Suddenly her face quivered with pathos “And—I’m young—I’m pretty.—I loved him.Why? Why? Why?”
“Oh, my poor child!” Grizel cried sharply, and the tears started to her eyes. Poor, ignorant, complaisant Teresa fighting against the mysteries of life, demanding explanation of the inexplicable,—what tenderness, what forgiveness was to be expected from such an attitude?
“He chose me,” she insisted. “It was his own doing. Nobody made him. It was his own choice. And he had met herbeforehe asked me. We used to talk about her together.—I was glad when he was enthusiastic... She was my friend, and a married woman with a husband and—that big boy! He is ten years old. She must be thirty at the least.” All the arrogance of the early twenties rang in Teresa’s voice. “It’s such folly—such madness! It isn’t as if she could ever—love him back.”
Silence. Teresa looked up sharply, held Grizel’s eyes in a hard, enquiring stare and deliberately repeated the pronouncement.
“It isn’t possible that she could care for him.”
“Did you find it so difficult, Teresa?”
“Why do you compare her with me? It’s different. You know it’s different.”
“Yes, I do know. You were a free, happy girl with your life ahead.Heryouth, the best part of her youth has gone, and she has never had the joy that every woman needs. You know what I mean. We need not go into it. Some men mean well, but they have no right to be husbands! The women who have to live with them are slowly starved to death.”
“She has her boy.”
“Yes, she has her boy. For a few weeks in the year.”
“He is her son all the year round.”
“That’s perfectly true, Teresa.”
“A married woman with a son oughtnotto love another man.”
“That’s perfectly true, Teresa. Do you never by any chance do anything you should not? Can’t you find the least scrap of pity in your heart for other people who are more unhappy than yourself?”
“I am not sorry for people who do wrong. It’s easy to talk, Mrs Beverley. Suppose it was your own husband, and you had seen him, as I did to-day, with another woman—with Cassandra herself. How wouldyoufeel?”
Grizel’s grimace was more expressive than words.
“My dear, I can’t imagine it. I’d rather not. I should certainly not be calm. I’m an impetuous person who is bound to let off steam, and there would be a considerable amount of steam on that occasion, but I’m older than you, and have seen more of the world, so that perhaps it would come easier—after the first explosion—to be sorry for them as well as myself.”
“Why should one be sorry?”
“Because theyarein the wrong, and are bringing sorrow on others, whereas you are the injured martyr, who is sinned against. There’s considerable balm in the position—for those who like it. How do you suppose poor Dane will feel at the prospect of his next interview with you?”
Teresa’s face quivered again.
“He hasn’t wanted many interviews lately. We’ve hardly been alone an hour since we came here. I suppose I—should have suspected... but I didn’t. He has never been demonstrative, but he chose me, he said he loved me. Itrustedhim.”
There was pathos in the lingering on those last words. Grizel made a little crooning sound of tenderness, and stretched out a consoling hand, but Teresa ignored it, and rose slowly to her feet.
“Thank you. You’ve told me all I wanted to know. And I’m grateful to you for not telling your husband. Please don’t mention anything to a single person. The less that is said about it the easier it will be to—”
“To—?” Grizel’s eyes dilated. She sat upright on the sofa, her whole body a-quiver with eagerness. “Towhat, Teresa?”
“To put things right,” said Teresa, and marched stolidly from the room.
Chapter Twenty Three.Between Two Women.It was late on the following morning when Teresa, sitting over her embroidery in the garden, saw Dane Peignton making his way towards her across the lawn. It was his first appearance since the return from the fateful picnic, and Teresa, looking at him, marvelled at the change which twenty-four hours had wrought. She herself had suffered from shock and disillusionment, yet the mirror had shown no change, the fresh pink colour had not faded from her cheeks, her eyes were clear and blue. The first realisation of the truth of Grizel’s words came to her at the sight of Dane’s lined face. At the glance of his wan eyes, the forced smile faded from her lips. A shiver of dread passed through her at the realisation that there was to be no covering up of the ugly truth. The grim determination of Peignton’s mien showed that he was braced for the ordeal of confession.They shook hands, and he seated himself beside her. A clump of shrubs hid the windows of the house, no path broke the smooth stretch of green; they were alone, free from the fear of interruption.“I hope you feel better this morning,” said Teresa primly. She was embroidering a large entwined monogram on a square of green velvet. The monogram was Peignton’s own, and the square was designed for the back of a blotter for his writing table. He had watched its progress from the first stitches onward, and had given his opinion on contrasting shades. His face twisted with pain as he watched the sweep of the needle with the long brown thread.“Thank you, yes. I am better.—I was—very tired!”Teresa sewed on, her eyes downcast, the needle rhythmically lifting and falling to take up another neat, accurate stitch. Her low muslin collar showed the line of the young bending throat.Peignton’s eyes softened into tenderness as he watched her. He stretched out his hand, and intercepted another upward sweep.“Dear! Put that down... We’ve got to have this out... There is so much that we have to say to each other, Teresa!”Teresa disengaged her hand, folded her work, and turned a resolutely composed face.“Why need we say anything at all?”“Why?” He stared at her in perplexity. “You ask me that when you know... you have seen...”“I must forget. We must both forget. I mustn’t judge you for... for what happenedthen. I think it will be best if we never speak of it again.”Peignton was silent, stricken dumb by amazement, and the paralysing feeling of helplessness which Grizel had experienced at a similar moment. The crass certainty of Teresa’s common sense appeared at this moment the most baffling of barriers. He stared at her hopelessly for a long minute, before making his reply.“That is impossible. There could be no peace for either of us. In justice to myself, I must explain. It seems an extraordinary thing to say, but it is the simple truth that until I came down here—until a couple of days ago, I did not know that I loved Lady Cassandra. Only yesterday morning I had decided to make an excuse to go home, to put myself out of temptation; then, an hour later, I saw her, as it seemed, dying before my eyes, and I forgot everything else. It was wrong, of course, confoundedly unkind,—humiliating for you. I apologise with all my soul, Teresa, but can’t you see how inevitable it was?”“If you loved her in the first instance, I suppose it was inevitable,” said Teresa steadily. “But you were engaged to me.” She lifted her eyes with a reproachful glance. “You choseme. You said you loved me... All these weeks we have gone on peacefully, without a hitch. I never noticed any change. As you insist on talking about it, I should like to understand one thing.—Is it that you grew tired of me? Was I different from what you expected? When did you stop—caring for me at all?”“My dear, I have not stopped! I do care. You have been all that is sweet and kind. I tell you honestly that I care for you more, not less, than when we were first engaged.”“Then—Why? Idon’tunderstand!”“Ah, Teresa, neither did I... That’s the pity of it. It was a mistake from the beginning. I was lonely, and I wanted a wife, and I liked you better than any of the other girls. I was honestly fond of you, dear. I am now,—but, Teresa! it was affection, not love. I had no idea what that meant.—It is only the last few days that I have known... There is a world of difference between the two things.”The colour flamed in Teresa’s cheeks.“Thereisa world of difference. One is right. The other is—sin! It is wicked to love your friend’s wife.”Dane’s lips twisted in a grim smile.“It is a misfortune, Teresa, a horrible misfortune for us all, but there is nothing that could possibly be called wicked about it, as matters stand to-day. Don’t be too hard on me. I am about as miserable as a man can be. There seems no way out of it. I’d give everything I possess, if I could go back and be as I was when we were first engaged, content and happy, with the prospect of happiness to come.”“Ididmake you happy for a time, then, even though it wasn’t—the best?” Teresa’s face relaxed from its hard composure; a faint twitching showed at the corner of the mouth. “Dane! what was it? Tell me! I must know. What was it made you love her more? She’s beautiful, but I’m pretty too, and so much younger, and she wears lovely clothes, but you liked me to be simple; and she’s clever and amusing—sometimes! but other times she’s quite dull, and we had always plenty to say, you and I. I took an interest in all you did.”Dane’s sigh was compounded of pity for Teresa, and for himself at the memory of that “interest.” It was true that she had questioned him ceaselessly about his affairs, and had on frequent occasions offered advice concerning their management. He had been mildly bored, mildly amused; looking back on his intercourse withhis fiancée, a contented boredom seemed to have been his normal condition. And she compared herself with Cassandra, wanted—pitiful heavens! to have the difference defined. He shook his head in dumb helplessness, but Teresa’s flat voice obstinately repeated the request.“Dane! You must tell mewhy?”“Teresa, it’s impossible. Good God, don’t you realise how impossible it is? Why did you care for me instead of other fellows, younger, better looking—that young Hunter, for example?”“Mr Hunter never paid me any attention.”“You mean to say,” he stared at her blankly, “that if he had, ifanyman had—”But at that she showed a wholesome anger.“You know I don’t. You know I would not. At once, from the very beginning I cared for you. I prayed every night of my life that you would love me back. I used to watch for you wherever I went. If I saw you drive past in the dog-cart, I was happy for hours. When you were ill that time I was ill too. They thought it was a chill, but it wasn’t, it was misery, and not being able to help. One day there was a button hanging loose on your coat. Ilongedto mend it! That’s all I wanted,—just to be able to look after you, and mend your things, and make you comfortable, and sit beside you in the evenings and talk, and watch you smoke. I’m old-fashioned and domesticated. Lady Cassandra used to laugh at me, and call me Victorian and men laugh too. They say they like old-fashioned girls, but they don’t. They may be ‘fond’ of them, as you are fond of me, but they get tired, and then—then... they meet the Cassandras... and forget everything! duty, faithfulness—honour—”“There is no loss of honour in this case, Teresa. That is one of the things you must not say. This is a bad enough business for us all—don’t make it worse than it is! There has been no deceit, no double dealing. It was only two days ago that I realised how things were, and then I determined to leave. It was that accident which took us unawares.”Before he realised his slip, Teresa had pounced upon the word.“Us! You mean that?Shecares too? How do you know? How do you know?”“I did not mean to imply anything of the kind,” Peignton said sternly, and his eyes sent forth a warning flash. Not for the world would he have answered, not for a hundred worlds have confessed to a living creature—the wondrous, incredible fact that even in her deadly exhaustion Cassandra had understood, and responded to his love. Her eyes had met his, her lips had moved, the tiny flutterings of movement had brought her nearer to his heart. He knew that her spirit had responded, and through all the bristling difficulties of the moment the knowledge brought joy. “We will leave Lady Cassandra’s name out of the discussion,” he said coldly. “You are not concerned with her, only with me. It’s banal to go on repeating that I’m sorry, you know that well enough. The question now is,—how can we break off our engagement in the way least unpleasant foryou? It’s bound to be unpleasant, but—things pass! In a year or two you’ll meet another fellow, and look back upon this episode, and be glad that it came to nothing. I’m giving you a lot of trouble, but I’ve not made a hash of your whole life, as I have of my own... Think of that, Teresa, and try to forgive me!”“I shall never care for another man while you are unmarried, and I should be miserable living on at home, as Mary has done, year after year, with nothing happening to break the monotony. So youwouldspoil my life as well as your own. And what would you do living alone? You are not strong. You said you needed a home. You’ll have to leave this place and go away among strangers. You’ll be miserable!”“Very miserable, Teresa!”“And I shall be miserable too. It’s senseless. Dane! will you do something for me—to show that you really are sorry, and to help us both to,—to get over this?”“I will indeed, Teresa. Only try me.”“Then marry me at once, and let us go away together to live in another place.”He stared at her, stunned, incredulous. Of all the wild, impossible requests this was the last which he had expected. He could hardly believe that he had heard aright.“Marryyou? Teresa! You can’t mean it. When you know that I love—”She held up a warning hand.“I thought she was not to be mentioned! Yes! I do mean it, Dane. It’s the best thing for you, as well as for me. Can’t you see that it’s the best thing?”“I see that it’s impossible. Excuse me, if I’m brutal. If you could do it, I couldn’t. I should be wretched. I should make you wretched.”“You weren’t wretched when we were first engaged! You chose me, and you were satisfied, until this happened. If we were far away in a new place, you would be satisfied again—I could make you satisfied.—I... I don’t say—” the even voice quavered over the admission—“that it would be thesame. It can never be the same for either of us, it would be better than nothing. We would find a little home, and make it pretty. You would be interested in the land. There’d be the shooting, and you could keep a horse, and hunt. We’d grow all our own fruit and vegetables. There would be neighbours... They would ask us out, and we could give little parties in return. Quite cheaply. There would be quite a lot of things to interest you, and fill up the time. And... there might be children!”These last words came with a gasp, rendered additionally touching by the effort which they entailed. Teresa did not approve of such allusions, and did violence to her own feelings in giving them utterance. It was only the desperation of her need which made her daring. Her chin quivered with a childlike helplessness, and Dane looking on felt a pang of tenderness and remorse.“You poor little girl! You dear little girl! You are too kind to me. I don’t deserve it, but I’ll be grateful to you all my life. I’ll never forget you, but, I can’t do it, dear—I can’t! Try to understand. Put yourself in my place...I’m in love.”“But it’s no use,” Teresa repeated stolidly. “It’s no use.” She was fighting doggedly with her back to the wall, fighting for love, and for something only less precious than love, the preservation of her own position among her neighbours. In the estimation of the village Teresa Mallison was a social success. Lady Cassandra had “taken her up,” and while other girls hung on season after season without sign of an admirer, Teresa at twenty-two had become engaged to the most eligible bachelor of the neighbourhood. At the present moment she had reached the zenith of her success, and was actually visiting “in the county.” Only those who have had their habitation in country towns can realise the devastating burden of public opinion. In the first bitterness of disappointed love, Teresa could still think with a shudder of what “they” would say; could imagine eyes peering from behind short blinds, hear the jangle of the bell announcing callers, sympathetically curious, and full of commiseration for the “Poor Dear!...” It was torture to Teresa to think of becoming a Poor Dear!“It’s no use. You can’t live here. It would only mean—Dane! have you thought for a moment what itwouldreally mean? Of course you will have to leave Chumley.”“Is it ‘of course’?”Her eyes rebuked him for his weakness.“It would bewickedto stay. The Squire would never have you in his house if he knew, but he wouldnotknow, and he would keep worrying you to go... if you stayed away you would have to lie and pretend; if you went, it would be just the same—lies and pretence! And it would get worse, not better. There could be no happiness meeting each other like that. Only misery and deceit. Think of what it would be, and then of the other life, the life with me... Doing right... Comfort.Peace.”The tears came now, and rolled down her cheeks. She looked very young, and pitiful, and appealing, with her hand stretched out towards him, the hand on which shone the ring he had given!Dane took that hand and folded it between his own, he was touched into tenderness by the girl’s clinging devotion, and his conscience told him that she was right in her prophecies. He was one of the many Englishmen whose religion amounted to a determination to be straight in their dealings with their fellows. He knew himself to be guilty of many failings, but it had seemed inconceivable that he could ever stoop to double dealing, far less to the extremity of deceit involved in making love to the wife of a friend. Six months ago had such a case been presented to him he would have tolerated no excuse, no palliation, would have poured forth condemnation with relentless lips, but now... God knew his ideals were unchanged, God knew he wished to do the right, but he was no longer confident of his own strength. If in the future he found himself alone with Cassandra, and she looked at him as she had looked for that one breathless moment, if her hand clung again to his, as it had clung, what about honour then, what about loyalty to his friend, and fealty to the girl to whom he was engaged? By the beat in his heart, by the throb in his veins, he knew that such considerations would be but straws upon the wind, to be hurled aside by the rushing forces of nature. Despicable, base, unworthy it might be, but if that moment came, it would find Cassandra in his arms!It came to this then, that there was only one course open to him as an honourable man, and that course was—flight! He must leave Chumley, put a barrier of distance between himself and his temptation, and start life afresh.“I made you happy once.—I could do it again if we were alone.”Teresa’s voice broke in upon his reverie, repeating her former argument in insistent tones. Her blue eyes were so wistful that it seemed cruel to point out the difference between then and now. Nevertheless it had to be done.“I am afraid it would not be so easy. At that time I had no other thought. Now Iknow!”“It is not going to make you happy to hanker after a married woman. It will make you wicked. You will begin to wish in your own heart that he would—die! It would be like committing a murder in your heart. We are taught to pray to be delivered from temptation, it would be walking into it deliberately to stay here,—to allow yourself to go on caring... Oh, Dane, wouldn’t it be better for you, wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it, to have me beside you, loving you, helping you, making a home? I don’t say it could be the best thing—the best thing is over—but wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it, be better than loneliness, and wandering, or... sin?”Peignton looked at her helplessly. The deadly logic of her words there was no denying. A man must have been a stone who had failed to be touched by her earnestness.“Teresa, if it were possible—anything that is possible I would promise at once. But I cannot face marrying just now.”“But you won’t break it off!” Teresa cried eagerly. She had now the first advantage in the fight, and her eye lightened with hope. “Promise me that, and we will leave the rest... You can make an excuse and go abroad. There was no time fixed for our wedding, so no one will talk. And in a few months I could come out to you, and we could be married abroad, and travel until you heard of another post. I’ve always wanted to travel. You said you looked forward to showing me things.”It was quite true. Dane as a world-traveller had found amusement in the country-bred girl’s primitive ideas of sightseeing, and had occupied occasional spare hours in sketching out programmes of imaginary tours. The remembrance came back to him with the remoteness of a childish dream, from which years had sapped the savour. Then he had been interested, amused; it had seemed a goodly task to act as Teresa’s guide; now the prospect filled him with dreary dread. He saw a mental picture of himself walking the sunlit streets, with a leaden heart, dragging through interminable lengths of galleries, sitting overtête-à-têtemeals in crowded restaurants, obliged to talk, obliged to smile, and act the bridegroom’s part. With a wince of pain he saw himself and Teresa ensconced in a dream-like hotel on a dream-like Italian lake, watching happy lovers wander about a garden of almost unearthly beauty. Oh God, that beauty! How it would intensify every longing; how hopelessly, maddeningly wretched a man might be, alone, in Eden!He did not speak, but his face spoke for him, and Teresa flushed and winced. She had humbled her pride to the dust, but it was impossible any longer to blind herself to the fact that for the time being her influence over Dane was dead. He had no feeling left but the kindly pity which was but another stab to her heart. Mind and heart alike were so filled by another image that there was no loophole by which she could enter in. For a bitter moment Teresa digested the fact, and faced the truth. She had done her utmost and she had failed, there remained to her but one hope—time! Given time and separation from the temptation her chance might return, but for the present she must stand aside. One more argument remained to her, and that she had hoped need not be made. She braced herself now to deliver it.“For Lady Cassandra’s sake, it would be better if our engagement were not broken off now, when we are staying in the same house. People have noticed that you admire her. They might talk.”He looked up quickly, and stretched out an impetuous hand.“That’s good of you—to think of that! I wouldn’t for the whole world drag her name into it. They’ve no right to talk; I’ve given them no cause, but if there’s any fear...Thankyou, Teresa!”His hand gripped hers, but for the first time the girl’s fingers remained limp and irresponsive in his grasp. She was horribly sore, horribly wounded, her endurance was at an end, she wanted to get away to her own room, and hide her head and cry. She rose and faced him with a grave young dignity.“I want you to understand that if she, Lady Cassandra, were free, I would give you back your promise at once! You would not have needed to ask me, I should have spoken myself; but if I set you free because you love a married woman, I am helping you to—sin! I won’t do it. You are engaged to me, and I shall keep you to your promise. It isn’t nice for a girl to have to force herself upon a man. If I didn’t love you I couldn’t do it, but I do love you, and I know that some day you will understand, and be grateful to me.”She turned without allowing him time for a reply, and marched stiffly across the lawn towards the house.
It was late on the following morning when Teresa, sitting over her embroidery in the garden, saw Dane Peignton making his way towards her across the lawn. It was his first appearance since the return from the fateful picnic, and Teresa, looking at him, marvelled at the change which twenty-four hours had wrought. She herself had suffered from shock and disillusionment, yet the mirror had shown no change, the fresh pink colour had not faded from her cheeks, her eyes were clear and blue. The first realisation of the truth of Grizel’s words came to her at the sight of Dane’s lined face. At the glance of his wan eyes, the forced smile faded from her lips. A shiver of dread passed through her at the realisation that there was to be no covering up of the ugly truth. The grim determination of Peignton’s mien showed that he was braced for the ordeal of confession.
They shook hands, and he seated himself beside her. A clump of shrubs hid the windows of the house, no path broke the smooth stretch of green; they were alone, free from the fear of interruption.
“I hope you feel better this morning,” said Teresa primly. She was embroidering a large entwined monogram on a square of green velvet. The monogram was Peignton’s own, and the square was designed for the back of a blotter for his writing table. He had watched its progress from the first stitches onward, and had given his opinion on contrasting shades. His face twisted with pain as he watched the sweep of the needle with the long brown thread.
“Thank you, yes. I am better.—I was—very tired!”
Teresa sewed on, her eyes downcast, the needle rhythmically lifting and falling to take up another neat, accurate stitch. Her low muslin collar showed the line of the young bending throat.
Peignton’s eyes softened into tenderness as he watched her. He stretched out his hand, and intercepted another upward sweep.
“Dear! Put that down... We’ve got to have this out... There is so much that we have to say to each other, Teresa!”
Teresa disengaged her hand, folded her work, and turned a resolutely composed face.
“Why need we say anything at all?”
“Why?” He stared at her in perplexity. “You ask me that when you know... you have seen...”
“I must forget. We must both forget. I mustn’t judge you for... for what happenedthen. I think it will be best if we never speak of it again.”
Peignton was silent, stricken dumb by amazement, and the paralysing feeling of helplessness which Grizel had experienced at a similar moment. The crass certainty of Teresa’s common sense appeared at this moment the most baffling of barriers. He stared at her hopelessly for a long minute, before making his reply.
“That is impossible. There could be no peace for either of us. In justice to myself, I must explain. It seems an extraordinary thing to say, but it is the simple truth that until I came down here—until a couple of days ago, I did not know that I loved Lady Cassandra. Only yesterday morning I had decided to make an excuse to go home, to put myself out of temptation; then, an hour later, I saw her, as it seemed, dying before my eyes, and I forgot everything else. It was wrong, of course, confoundedly unkind,—humiliating for you. I apologise with all my soul, Teresa, but can’t you see how inevitable it was?”
“If you loved her in the first instance, I suppose it was inevitable,” said Teresa steadily. “But you were engaged to me.” She lifted her eyes with a reproachful glance. “You choseme. You said you loved me... All these weeks we have gone on peacefully, without a hitch. I never noticed any change. As you insist on talking about it, I should like to understand one thing.—Is it that you grew tired of me? Was I different from what you expected? When did you stop—caring for me at all?”
“My dear, I have not stopped! I do care. You have been all that is sweet and kind. I tell you honestly that I care for you more, not less, than when we were first engaged.”
“Then—Why? Idon’tunderstand!”
“Ah, Teresa, neither did I... That’s the pity of it. It was a mistake from the beginning. I was lonely, and I wanted a wife, and I liked you better than any of the other girls. I was honestly fond of you, dear. I am now,—but, Teresa! it was affection, not love. I had no idea what that meant.—It is only the last few days that I have known... There is a world of difference between the two things.”
The colour flamed in Teresa’s cheeks.
“Thereisa world of difference. One is right. The other is—sin! It is wicked to love your friend’s wife.”
Dane’s lips twisted in a grim smile.
“It is a misfortune, Teresa, a horrible misfortune for us all, but there is nothing that could possibly be called wicked about it, as matters stand to-day. Don’t be too hard on me. I am about as miserable as a man can be. There seems no way out of it. I’d give everything I possess, if I could go back and be as I was when we were first engaged, content and happy, with the prospect of happiness to come.”
“Ididmake you happy for a time, then, even though it wasn’t—the best?” Teresa’s face relaxed from its hard composure; a faint twitching showed at the corner of the mouth. “Dane! what was it? Tell me! I must know. What was it made you love her more? She’s beautiful, but I’m pretty too, and so much younger, and she wears lovely clothes, but you liked me to be simple; and she’s clever and amusing—sometimes! but other times she’s quite dull, and we had always plenty to say, you and I. I took an interest in all you did.”
Dane’s sigh was compounded of pity for Teresa, and for himself at the memory of that “interest.” It was true that she had questioned him ceaselessly about his affairs, and had on frequent occasions offered advice concerning their management. He had been mildly bored, mildly amused; looking back on his intercourse withhis fiancée, a contented boredom seemed to have been his normal condition. And she compared herself with Cassandra, wanted—pitiful heavens! to have the difference defined. He shook his head in dumb helplessness, but Teresa’s flat voice obstinately repeated the request.
“Dane! You must tell mewhy?”
“Teresa, it’s impossible. Good God, don’t you realise how impossible it is? Why did you care for me instead of other fellows, younger, better looking—that young Hunter, for example?”
“Mr Hunter never paid me any attention.”
“You mean to say,” he stared at her blankly, “that if he had, ifanyman had—”
But at that she showed a wholesome anger.
“You know I don’t. You know I would not. At once, from the very beginning I cared for you. I prayed every night of my life that you would love me back. I used to watch for you wherever I went. If I saw you drive past in the dog-cart, I was happy for hours. When you were ill that time I was ill too. They thought it was a chill, but it wasn’t, it was misery, and not being able to help. One day there was a button hanging loose on your coat. Ilongedto mend it! That’s all I wanted,—just to be able to look after you, and mend your things, and make you comfortable, and sit beside you in the evenings and talk, and watch you smoke. I’m old-fashioned and domesticated. Lady Cassandra used to laugh at me, and call me Victorian and men laugh too. They say they like old-fashioned girls, but they don’t. They may be ‘fond’ of them, as you are fond of me, but they get tired, and then—then... they meet the Cassandras... and forget everything! duty, faithfulness—honour—”
“There is no loss of honour in this case, Teresa. That is one of the things you must not say. This is a bad enough business for us all—don’t make it worse than it is! There has been no deceit, no double dealing. It was only two days ago that I realised how things were, and then I determined to leave. It was that accident which took us unawares.”
Before he realised his slip, Teresa had pounced upon the word.
“Us! You mean that?Shecares too? How do you know? How do you know?”
“I did not mean to imply anything of the kind,” Peignton said sternly, and his eyes sent forth a warning flash. Not for the world would he have answered, not for a hundred worlds have confessed to a living creature—the wondrous, incredible fact that even in her deadly exhaustion Cassandra had understood, and responded to his love. Her eyes had met his, her lips had moved, the tiny flutterings of movement had brought her nearer to his heart. He knew that her spirit had responded, and through all the bristling difficulties of the moment the knowledge brought joy. “We will leave Lady Cassandra’s name out of the discussion,” he said coldly. “You are not concerned with her, only with me. It’s banal to go on repeating that I’m sorry, you know that well enough. The question now is,—how can we break off our engagement in the way least unpleasant foryou? It’s bound to be unpleasant, but—things pass! In a year or two you’ll meet another fellow, and look back upon this episode, and be glad that it came to nothing. I’m giving you a lot of trouble, but I’ve not made a hash of your whole life, as I have of my own... Think of that, Teresa, and try to forgive me!”
“I shall never care for another man while you are unmarried, and I should be miserable living on at home, as Mary has done, year after year, with nothing happening to break the monotony. So youwouldspoil my life as well as your own. And what would you do living alone? You are not strong. You said you needed a home. You’ll have to leave this place and go away among strangers. You’ll be miserable!”
“Very miserable, Teresa!”
“And I shall be miserable too. It’s senseless. Dane! will you do something for me—to show that you really are sorry, and to help us both to,—to get over this?”
“I will indeed, Teresa. Only try me.”
“Then marry me at once, and let us go away together to live in another place.”
He stared at her, stunned, incredulous. Of all the wild, impossible requests this was the last which he had expected. He could hardly believe that he had heard aright.
“Marryyou? Teresa! You can’t mean it. When you know that I love—”
She held up a warning hand.
“I thought she was not to be mentioned! Yes! I do mean it, Dane. It’s the best thing for you, as well as for me. Can’t you see that it’s the best thing?”
“I see that it’s impossible. Excuse me, if I’m brutal. If you could do it, I couldn’t. I should be wretched. I should make you wretched.”
“You weren’t wretched when we were first engaged! You chose me, and you were satisfied, until this happened. If we were far away in a new place, you would be satisfied again—I could make you satisfied.—I... I don’t say—” the even voice quavered over the admission—“that it would be thesame. It can never be the same for either of us, it would be better than nothing. We would find a little home, and make it pretty. You would be interested in the land. There’d be the shooting, and you could keep a horse, and hunt. We’d grow all our own fruit and vegetables. There would be neighbours... They would ask us out, and we could give little parties in return. Quite cheaply. There would be quite a lot of things to interest you, and fill up the time. And... there might be children!”
These last words came with a gasp, rendered additionally touching by the effort which they entailed. Teresa did not approve of such allusions, and did violence to her own feelings in giving them utterance. It was only the desperation of her need which made her daring. Her chin quivered with a childlike helplessness, and Dane looking on felt a pang of tenderness and remorse.
“You poor little girl! You dear little girl! You are too kind to me. I don’t deserve it, but I’ll be grateful to you all my life. I’ll never forget you, but, I can’t do it, dear—I can’t! Try to understand. Put yourself in my place...I’m in love.”
“But it’s no use,” Teresa repeated stolidly. “It’s no use.” She was fighting doggedly with her back to the wall, fighting for love, and for something only less precious than love, the preservation of her own position among her neighbours. In the estimation of the village Teresa Mallison was a social success. Lady Cassandra had “taken her up,” and while other girls hung on season after season without sign of an admirer, Teresa at twenty-two had become engaged to the most eligible bachelor of the neighbourhood. At the present moment she had reached the zenith of her success, and was actually visiting “in the county.” Only those who have had their habitation in country towns can realise the devastating burden of public opinion. In the first bitterness of disappointed love, Teresa could still think with a shudder of what “they” would say; could imagine eyes peering from behind short blinds, hear the jangle of the bell announcing callers, sympathetically curious, and full of commiseration for the “Poor Dear!...” It was torture to Teresa to think of becoming a Poor Dear!
“It’s no use. You can’t live here. It would only mean—Dane! have you thought for a moment what itwouldreally mean? Of course you will have to leave Chumley.”
“Is it ‘of course’?”
Her eyes rebuked him for his weakness.
“It would bewickedto stay. The Squire would never have you in his house if he knew, but he wouldnotknow, and he would keep worrying you to go... if you stayed away you would have to lie and pretend; if you went, it would be just the same—lies and pretence! And it would get worse, not better. There could be no happiness meeting each other like that. Only misery and deceit. Think of what it would be, and then of the other life, the life with me... Doing right... Comfort.Peace.”
The tears came now, and rolled down her cheeks. She looked very young, and pitiful, and appealing, with her hand stretched out towards him, the hand on which shone the ring he had given!
Dane took that hand and folded it between his own, he was touched into tenderness by the girl’s clinging devotion, and his conscience told him that she was right in her prophecies. He was one of the many Englishmen whose religion amounted to a determination to be straight in their dealings with their fellows. He knew himself to be guilty of many failings, but it had seemed inconceivable that he could ever stoop to double dealing, far less to the extremity of deceit involved in making love to the wife of a friend. Six months ago had such a case been presented to him he would have tolerated no excuse, no palliation, would have poured forth condemnation with relentless lips, but now... God knew his ideals were unchanged, God knew he wished to do the right, but he was no longer confident of his own strength. If in the future he found himself alone with Cassandra, and she looked at him as she had looked for that one breathless moment, if her hand clung again to his, as it had clung, what about honour then, what about loyalty to his friend, and fealty to the girl to whom he was engaged? By the beat in his heart, by the throb in his veins, he knew that such considerations would be but straws upon the wind, to be hurled aside by the rushing forces of nature. Despicable, base, unworthy it might be, but if that moment came, it would find Cassandra in his arms!
It came to this then, that there was only one course open to him as an honourable man, and that course was—flight! He must leave Chumley, put a barrier of distance between himself and his temptation, and start life afresh.
“I made you happy once.—I could do it again if we were alone.”
Teresa’s voice broke in upon his reverie, repeating her former argument in insistent tones. Her blue eyes were so wistful that it seemed cruel to point out the difference between then and now. Nevertheless it had to be done.
“I am afraid it would not be so easy. At that time I had no other thought. Now Iknow!”
“It is not going to make you happy to hanker after a married woman. It will make you wicked. You will begin to wish in your own heart that he would—die! It would be like committing a murder in your heart. We are taught to pray to be delivered from temptation, it would be walking into it deliberately to stay here,—to allow yourself to go on caring... Oh, Dane, wouldn’t it be better for you, wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it, to have me beside you, loving you, helping you, making a home? I don’t say it could be the best thing—the best thing is over—but wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it, be better than loneliness, and wandering, or... sin?”
Peignton looked at her helplessly. The deadly logic of her words there was no denying. A man must have been a stone who had failed to be touched by her earnestness.
“Teresa, if it were possible—anything that is possible I would promise at once. But I cannot face marrying just now.”
“But you won’t break it off!” Teresa cried eagerly. She had now the first advantage in the fight, and her eye lightened with hope. “Promise me that, and we will leave the rest... You can make an excuse and go abroad. There was no time fixed for our wedding, so no one will talk. And in a few months I could come out to you, and we could be married abroad, and travel until you heard of another post. I’ve always wanted to travel. You said you looked forward to showing me things.”
It was quite true. Dane as a world-traveller had found amusement in the country-bred girl’s primitive ideas of sightseeing, and had occupied occasional spare hours in sketching out programmes of imaginary tours. The remembrance came back to him with the remoteness of a childish dream, from which years had sapped the savour. Then he had been interested, amused; it had seemed a goodly task to act as Teresa’s guide; now the prospect filled him with dreary dread. He saw a mental picture of himself walking the sunlit streets, with a leaden heart, dragging through interminable lengths of galleries, sitting overtête-à-têtemeals in crowded restaurants, obliged to talk, obliged to smile, and act the bridegroom’s part. With a wince of pain he saw himself and Teresa ensconced in a dream-like hotel on a dream-like Italian lake, watching happy lovers wander about a garden of almost unearthly beauty. Oh God, that beauty! How it would intensify every longing; how hopelessly, maddeningly wretched a man might be, alone, in Eden!
He did not speak, but his face spoke for him, and Teresa flushed and winced. She had humbled her pride to the dust, but it was impossible any longer to blind herself to the fact that for the time being her influence over Dane was dead. He had no feeling left but the kindly pity which was but another stab to her heart. Mind and heart alike were so filled by another image that there was no loophole by which she could enter in. For a bitter moment Teresa digested the fact, and faced the truth. She had done her utmost and she had failed, there remained to her but one hope—time! Given time and separation from the temptation her chance might return, but for the present she must stand aside. One more argument remained to her, and that she had hoped need not be made. She braced herself now to deliver it.
“For Lady Cassandra’s sake, it would be better if our engagement were not broken off now, when we are staying in the same house. People have noticed that you admire her. They might talk.”
He looked up quickly, and stretched out an impetuous hand.
“That’s good of you—to think of that! I wouldn’t for the whole world drag her name into it. They’ve no right to talk; I’ve given them no cause, but if there’s any fear...Thankyou, Teresa!”
His hand gripped hers, but for the first time the girl’s fingers remained limp and irresponsive in his grasp. She was horribly sore, horribly wounded, her endurance was at an end, she wanted to get away to her own room, and hide her head and cry. She rose and faced him with a grave young dignity.
“I want you to understand that if she, Lady Cassandra, were free, I would give you back your promise at once! You would not have needed to ask me, I should have spoken myself; but if I set you free because you love a married woman, I am helping you to—sin! I won’t do it. You are engaged to me, and I shall keep you to your promise. It isn’t nice for a girl to have to force herself upon a man. If I didn’t love you I couldn’t do it, but I do love you, and I know that some day you will understand, and be grateful to me.”
She turned without allowing him time for a reply, and marched stiffly across the lawn towards the house.