"Pretty soon, I fancy. Violet didn't tell me the exact date, but she did give me to understand very plainly that Sonia mustn't be left by herself any longer. She was extraordinarily overwrought and hysterical, when I saw her, but for some reason or other I never imagined.... I say, Stornaway, if it had been Raney's child, if this had happened a year ago?"
"Nothing would have saved them," I answered, "though it might have kept them artificially together, making a hellof each other's lives, when they'd be far happier apart. O'Rane was more responsible than any man for the break-up of their life; Grayle was only the instrument. The tragedy began when they married."
George smiled grimly.
"I suppose even Raney will see it, when his wife gives birth to another man's child.... Andthenwhat? Will he divorce her then? Have we got to go through all this racket again? In the meantime the nursing-home problem——"
He stopped guiltily, as the door opened and O'Rane came in to say good-night to me.
"Who's been to call here?" he asked George. "I met a car driving away."
"It was Violet Loring."
"Oh, I wish I'd known that! When next you see her, you can tell her she's a rude pig not to have pulled up. She must have seen me."
"She was in rather a hurry," George explained. "As a matter of fact, it was me she came to see."
I suppose his voice betrayed uneasiness or at least embarrassment, for O'Rane turned to him with quick sympathy.
"Nothing wrong, I hope?" he asked. "The boy's all right?"
"Oh, it wasn't that." George looked at me almost despairingly, but I could only shrug my shoulders and leave him to make up his own mind. "She came in to say that Sonia's a bit seedy," he went on. "I—as a matter of fact, I saw her for a moment yesterday and, as she was rather off colour, I thought it would be a friendly act for Vi to look her up. I don't know if you heard Lady Maitland telling me at lunch the other day that she was a bit done up."
O'Rane's face became rigid, and his voice was as set as his features.
"I didn't hear anything about it. I—You ought to have told me, George. What's the matter with her?"
George looked at me again, without winning any more help than before.
"I only saw her for a moment," he answered evasively. "She seemed rather overdone."
"But who's looking after her?"
"Nobody much at present. That was what Violet came about: she'd been to see her and thought it would be more comfortable if she were moved into a nursing home."
Nature must compensate the blind by developing their other qualities. Though he could not see George's studiedly non-committal face, O'Rane divined something hidden from him in the easily reassuring voice.
"Old man, I don't think that's the whole story, is it?" he asked with persuasive gentleness. "The nursing-home rather gives you away. Has Sonia got to have an operation?"
"There's no suggestion of it! Violet says it's nothing out of the ordinary."
"Then why a nursing-home?"
"Because she wants rather more attention than she's likely to get in her present quarters. But there's not the slightest need for you to worry yourself."
O'Rane began to pace up and down the room, chewing his lips.
"She must come here, of course," he said at length.
This time I looked up at George.
"You won't find that practicable, O'Rane," I said.
"Why not?"
"She won't come."
"Because of me, you mean? I'll clear out, if she prefers it; I should be clearing out in any event at the end of the week. But it's her home."
"You can't bring her home by force."
O'Rane's eyes lit up with sudden, burning passion.
"If I had my sight, I'd bring her myself! As I haven't, George is going to bring her for me. Yes, you are, George. You're going to take a car and have her carried into it and brought here. If she objects, you're going to make her.I'll leave the house when she tells me to. You don't understand me, you wouldn't understand me, if you lived to be a thousand; but I took an oath and I'm going to keep it. I swore in the sight of God that I would hold her in sickness and in health to love and to cherish till death parted us. I said it with her hand in mine ... in Melton chapel ... and I could feel her fingers trembling. It was a scorching July day, and I could feel the sun coming hot on my face.... I'd never been at a wedding before, for some reason; we'd rehearsed it, and Sonia'd told me how I had to stand and what I had to say.... And I kept repeating the words as we came out into the Cloisters—it was cold as the grave, and I felt her shivering as she leant on my arm. And then there was a word of command and a rattle as the Corps presented arms.... And we came out into Great Court, and I could feel the sun again. And we were marched off to Little End, and I heard a lot of yelping, and something with a cold nose pressed against my hand, and Sonia gave a little choke and said that Pebbleridge had turned out the hounds in our honour.... And before we went to Burgess' house—the words were still running in my head—I whispered 'I will love you, comfort you, honour and keep you in sickness and in health, forsaking all other.' I swore it then and I should be damned if I went back on it. This is her first sickness since we were married, and I'm not going to leave her to go through it alone until she tells me to."
His voice rang with excitement until the room echoed and Bertrand came in with eyebrows raised.
"You don't in the least understand, Raney," George began in difficulty and distress. "You were quite right; I hadn't told you the whole story——"
"I don't want to hear any more—yet," O'Rane interrupted. "I shouldn't be asking you to do this, if I could do it myself."
"Was that necessary?" George asked with a touch of stiffness and impatience. "I'll go whenever you want me to."
"You must go now. Ring up Violet and tell her to meet you there in half an hour with her car; you'll want a woman to help you. The rest of us will have our work cut out to get things ready here. Stornaway, I'm sorry to disturb you, but I shall have to find you a shakedown in some other part of the house; this is Sonia's room. Don't waste a moment, George——"
"I suppose you know it's after eleven," George interrupted.
"Move her to-night, if she's fit to move. Let Violet decide that."
George looked from Bertrand to me and turned helplessly to the door. O'Rane had already rung my bell and was standing in the passage tattooing the floor with impatient foot and waiting for his housekeeper. I spread a bath-towel in the middle of the floor and began to pile on it my exiguous personal effects, while Bertrand seated himself heavily in an arm-chair and begged for enlightenment. A moment later the front-door slammed, as George set out.
For an hour we worked hard to make the house ready for Mrs. O'Rane. Bertrand's one comment, when I explained the new commotion, was, "The boy's mad!Shewon't come," and from time to time, when he was being urged and driven to a fresh task, he would remonstrate gently and warn O'Rane not to be disappointed. There was never any answer. By midnight our labours were complete: the bedrooms had been reshuffled and beds made, food and drink prepared. We met in the library with vague uncertainty what to do next.
"You must tell me if it looks all right," O'Rane said to Bertrand. "I want it to look exactly as it was before. She always loved this room, and I believe itisa beautiful room."
Bertrand glanced perfunctorily round and laid his hand clumsily on the boy's shoulder.
"I told you before, David; you're going to be terribly disappointed, if you think she's coming."
"Iwould have undertaken to bring her!" he cried. "Wecan trust George. And I don't suppose he'll even say where he's taking her."
"If she doesn't know where she's coming," I interrupted, "you'd better keep out of the way till she says she'd like to see you."
"I must welcome her," O'Rane answered.
Bertrand and I exchanged glances and excused ourselves. As we turned at the door, O'Rane was standing with his watch to his ear. About three-quarters of an hour later I heard a car slowing down in the street outside.
George has told me since that his cousin and he found their patient far less difficult than they had feared. She was plunged in melancholy bordering on hysteria. Loneliness, pain and neglect had reduced her pride until she sat up in bed with her face contorted and tears trickling down her cheeks, reproaching them for never coming to see her and bitterly proclaiming that shenowknew how much trust to put in people when they said that they were her friends. George took her hand and explained that he had come to take her away where she would be tended and made happy. At once there was an indignant outburst; she would not move, she was quite well; if they would go away instead of bullying her, worrying her, threatening her, she would be all right in a moment. He let the storm spend itself and recaptured the hand that she had snatched away.
"Violet's told me what's the matter with you," he whispered. "Unless you're very quiet and good, you'll injure yourself. And you are going to be quiet and good, aren't you?" He was talking to her as though she were a child and she responded by throwing her arms round his neck and weeping convulsively. "You're going to be very good, aren't you, Sonia? And we're all going to take the greatest care of you. Violet's got her car here, and we're going to wrap you in a cloak and explain to your landlady that we're not really stealing the blankets, however much appearances may be against us, and we're going to take you away, and you're going to be in the midst of friends, and everybody's going to be kind and sweet to you, and you're goingto forget how lonely and miserable you've been the last few days."
He lifted her into a sitting position, while Lady Loring hunted for slippers and wrapped a cloak about her.
"I don't deserve it!" Mrs. O'Rane cried with sudden revulsion. "Why do you come here bothering me? It's my fault, I knew perfectly well what I was doing; I should never have done it, if he'd treated me properly, if he'd loved me. It was David's fault, you know it was; and you come here bothering me when I'm ill...."
George helped her out of bed and supported her across the room. From time to time she muttered, "Why don't you leave me alone? It washisfault, but he could never do any wrong in your eyes!" like a sobbing child in the last stages of a tornado of temper. He carried her into the car, while Lady Loring poured out a hurried explanation to the landlady. A deep drowsiness descended upon her as she felt herself being packed into a bed of cushions, while a bearskin rug was wrapped round her, but, as the engine started, she opened her eyes and enquired sleepily where she was being taken.
"You're to go to sleep and not ask questions," said George. "Is that a promise? Say it quite slowly—'I—Sonia O'Rane—promise—that—I—will—go—to—sleep—at—once—quite—quietly—and—will—not—ask—a n y—questions.'" She laughed weakly and began to repeat the words, only stumbling at her own surname. "Once again!" George ordered. "I—Sonia O'Rane—promise...." She struggled half-way through the sentence and then dropped asleep with her head pressed against his shoulder.
She was still sleeping when the car drew up at "The Sanctuary." The door stood open, George lifted her out and carried her across the pavement and into the house. The lights in the library were burning, and, as he carried her in with her head over his shoulder, she looked dully at the familiar book-cases and panelling, the high, shadowy rafters, the chairs and sofas and the preparations for a meal on the refectory table. He had borne her half-wayacross the room, when she recognised her surroundings and struggled violently to free herself. George had perforce to lay her on a sofa before she threw herself out of his arms. As he did so, O'Rane came up from behind.
"I asked George to bring you here," he explained. "I thought you'd be more comfortable at home."
She dragged herself to her feet and hurried uncertainly to the door.
"My dear, you can't go out in that state!" said Lady Loring, as she laid restraining hands on her shoulders.
"Let me go! It was atrick! You lied to me!"
O'Rane slipped forward and touched her wrist.
"I thought you'd be more comfortable at home," he repeated. "You won't find me in the way, I'm going back to Melton. I was only staying to see that you had everything you wanted."
"Let me go!" she cried again, shaking his fingers off her wrist.
"No, I'm going. But isn't it more comfortable?"
She looked stonily round, and her eyes came to rest on his face.
"Oh, yes. It's more comfortable. Now may I go, please?"
"You had better stay. Let me help you upstairs, and then I'll leave the house. I was hoping you'd be glad to be back. And I'd waited so long."
He smiled and held out his hands to her. She looked at him for a moment; then her eyes closed, and she began to sway.
"Take me home!" she whimpered, as George sprang forward to catch her.
"You must stay here to-night."
"Iaskyou to take me home!"
O'Rane put one arm under her shoulders, and the other under her knees.
"It's too late now, and you're tired, darling," he whispered. "To-morrow, if you like. I'm just going to carry you up to bed, as I used to do at Crowley Court when youwere twelve and I came over for the holidays. Do you remember? And then I'll say good-night, and Violet will put you to bed and take care of you. Don't struggle, Sonia sweetheart! You can't hate me so much that you can't bear to let me touch you or carry you up a flight of stairs when you're ill."
As I kept deafly and pusillanimously to my room, I am far from sure what happened during the remainder of the night. O'Rane, I believe, carried his wife up to bed, left her in charge of Lady Loring and accepted from the tired butler at Loring House an armchair in the library for his own accommodation. Bertrand was already in bed, I heard George going to bed as the car started outside; by two o'clock all was quiet.
I remember that, when I was young enough to play baccarat for high stakes and impressionable enough to be embarrassed by a scene, I stayed in a house where certain unpleasantness took place at the card-table. The dispute and recriminations were bad enough, the night of reflection—after a dozen final councils adjourned from bedroom to bedroom—was worse, but worst of all was our uncertain meeting next day, when we stood whispering by the fire in the dining-room, peevishly waiting for breakfast and watching the door to see whether the cause of the unpleasantness would shew himself. Bertrand, George and I stood whispering next morning with much the same embarrassment; breakfast lay on the table, and none of us paid any attention to it. The time was early for me and late for George; I have no idea at what hour Bertrand usually rose, but I remember he was soothing himself with the first cigarette I had ever seen him smoke, at intervals forgetting that it was not a cigar and trying to hold it between his teeth.
Our attitude of vague expectancy was broken up by the arrival of Lady Loring in a creased, black evening dress with a travelling rug over her shoulders. Her eye-lids were pink with fatigue and her arms mottled with cold.
"We look a nice band of conspirators!" she exclaimed. "Now, willsomebody tell me what it's all about?"
"How's Sonia?" George asked.
"She went to sleep the moment her head touched the pillow and she was sleeping like a child whenever I looked at her. I think you're all needlessly alarmed about her, but then you're only men.I've been through it all, so I know exactly what it feels like to imagine you're being neglected. But what does anybody want me to do?"
She beckoned us to the table and sat down rather wearily, looking from one to another.
"The trouble is, dear lady," Bertrand grunted, "that we don't know. I suppose you've heard that these two young idiots have had a disagreement? Does that young woman upstairs know where she is?"
"She'll know the moment she wakes up. Is David here?"
"He said he'd beg a shakedown at your house, Violet," George interrupted.
Lady Loring hummed dubiously.
"To judge from her condition yesterday," she ventured, "she's hardly accountable for her actions. It's not to be wondered at, you know, when you think what she's been through—and the way she's lived on her nerves for years. If you'll tell me what you want done, of course...."
It was easier to concentrate our attention on breakfast. George soon hurried away to his office, Bertrand lighted a cigar and went off to a committee meeting, after stumping the library for half an hour, with the ends of his walrus moustache pulled into a circle, and murmuring at five-minute intervals, "What are two fat old men likeusdoing in this galley?" A telephone message from O'Rane enquired how his wife was, and Lady Loring took the opportunity of arranging with her maid for a supply of clothes to be sent round. The conversation reminded me of her vigil, and I told her that, if she would lie down until luncheon, I would take a book, a chafing-dish and a bowl of bread and milk and sit outside Mrs. O'Rane's door in case she wanted anything. Half-way through the morningO'Rane tiptoed upstairs for a change of linen; Bertrand relieved guard while I went down and took a light meal with Lady Loring. It was not until three or four o'clock that I heard sounds of movement within the sick-room.
I went in to find Mrs. O'Rane considerably altered since our last meeting, but more collected than I had anticipated. She asked for food and, when I had brought her the bowl of bread and milk, begged me to stay and talk to her. Her first question was who had brought her to "The Sanctuary," and, when I had told her, she lay back on the pillows with closed eyes to avoid giving away any points.
"I feel better than I did yesterday," she said at length. "I shall go back to my own rooms to-day."
"You'll be wiser to stay here."
She smiled rather sneeringly.
"You think it's the simplest thing in the world for me to stay here."
"The wisest," I corrected her. "Your husband's not here, by the way, and you can be sure of being well looked after."
"Oh, don't say that again! You think it'seasyfor me to lie here and be looked after by people who despise me and hate me...."
I got up and lifted the tray from her bed.
"I'm going to leave you now," I said. "Sleeping's much better for you than talking, and I'm afraid I've got rather a faculty for getting on your nerves."
Her lower lip at once fell and trembled with nervous contrition.
"I didn't mean to be rude, but I do feel soill! And youdoall hate me! To bring mehere!"
She gave a single breathless sob, and tears began to well into her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. I pulled a chair to the bedside and took her hand.
"The older I get," I said, "the greater disparity I find between the theory and practice of hating. Theoretically I hate no end of a lot of people, but, if I had the power of venting my hatred on them, I don't see myself using itmuch. As a matter of fact, I had a talk with George the other night about you; I said that the madcap life here was fantastically impossible, that your husband had himself to blame more than any other man for driving you out of the house——"
"That wasn't why I left him," she interrupted quickly.
"You didn't leave him because you thought he was unfaithful to you."
"Iknowhe was. I had proofs."
"Supplied by Grayle?" I hazarded. She looked at me steadily without answering. "Well, when you've time, I should re-examine those proofs in the light of your general knowledge of your husband. If you're interested in my opinion of you"—her eyes lit up eagerly—"you'd sooner be insulted than ignored, wouldn't you?"—expectancy gave way to affected anger—"Well, I don't hate you, but you were a little fool to marry such a man; your instinct, your knowledge of life, your knowledge of him ought to have made it impossible. Having married him and considering his affliction, I blame you for not effacing yourself, obliterating your own individuality to stay with him. After that——" I dropped her hand and strolled to the window. "You were young, entitled to make your own life; it's not easy to justify, but it seems to follow almost naturally from the premisses. It happens to have turned out a failure, but no one can hate you for an error of judgement, particularly when you've shewn that your instinct about men is unreliable; you shewed it with O'Rane, I believe you shewed it before ... and fortunately pulled up before it was too late. I feel this so strongly that I told O'Rane it would be a tragedy, if you ever tried to come back to him; there'd be a second catastrophe worse than the first.... I'm afraid he's too much in love with you to use his imagination."
She pressed the palms of both hands against her eyes.
"I can't stay here," she exclaimed irrelevantly. "I've no right to turn David out."
"You needn't worry aboutthat. He's given you the right,and you're turning him out for less than a week. For the matter of that——"
Her face grew suddenly set and her eyes scornful. "I suppose in spite of all the fine words this is all a trick to try andforceme back here?"
"I've not the least doubt that O'Rane hopes you'll return to him," I told her frankly; "he probably will, even when he knows what's the matter with you,—no, he doesn't know even that at present;—but he's living in a fool's paradise."
With another of her quick facial regroupings—which is the only phrase I can find to indicate the shortening of a line here, its lengthening there, the droop or lift of the corners of her mouth, the dilatation of a pupil, the sudden gleam which turned her brown eyes almost golden, the tilt of the nose or the sudden birth of a dimple—she was smiling with her old demure self-confidence.
"I'm vain enough to think I can make almost any man want to live with me," she said, darting a glance from beneath lowered eyelashes.
"Come, that's more like yourself!" I laughed.
Thereupon the smiles and coquetry vanished as though I had struck her in the face. Yes, I had always hated her, always disapproved of her, regarded her as a flirt, taken everyone's side against her. There was no good in her, was there? Nothing ever to be said in her defense?... She lashed herself from one fury to another for ten minutes, only stopping from exhaustion and discouragement at my failure to answer.
"Icould make him love me!" she panted in conclusion. "I shouldn't even need to make him, he's in love with me now. ButIcould make him happy. You think I can't. You think I can't! Youknowyou think I can't!"
I laid my hand on hers; she slapped at it petulantly, but without any great desire to hurt, I fancied.
"Mrs. O'Rane——"
"Why don't you call me Sonia?" she interrupted with complete detachment from all that we had been discussing."Everyone does. I suppose you prefer to keep—at a distance!"
And then I did a thing which still surprises me. I got up and sat on the edge of her bed. (There was a spring-mattress which I largely capsized, so that she was thrown half on her side.) I put one arm round her shoulders, drew her to me and kissed her on the forehead and both cheeks. I remember thinking at the time what an amazing thing it was to do, and the thought was confused with a knowledge that her face was dry and burning. She put her arms on my shoulders and returned the kiss; quite dispassionately I noticed that her lips were crumpled and dry as brown paper.
"Don't you think you're really rather a silly baby, Sonia?" I said. "If you could remember the times we've met, I should tell you frankly that for half of them I wanted to go away and keep at the farthest possible distance. For the other half——"
Her eyes brightened in anticipation of a compliment.
"Well?"
"It doesn't matter now. Why won't you believe that everyone here wants to help you?"
"Because I don't see why they should. I didn't expect it, I don't ask for it; I made up my mind at the time...."
She choked and drew herself closer to me, sobbing quietly but inconsolably until I felt her arms relaxing and laid her back on the pillows, a pathetically disfigured and moist piece of something that was above all wonderfully youthful.
"If you'll promise not to cry, I'll stay and talk to you," I said. "Otherwise——" I must have made some unconscious movement, for she clutched at my sleeve. "Do you promise? Well, I'm only a man...."
She pulled herself suddenly upright.
"Where's David?" she demanded.
"At Loring House, I believe,—only a man, as I was saying, but I can tell you that you'll wear yourself out, if you go on like this. You've got a great grievance against all of us, you say we hate you and despise you; wouldn't itbe fairernotto say that till we've given you some better cause than you've had at present?"
Her teeth snapped like the cracking of a nut. Then the corners of her mouth drooped, and she began to cry again.
"If youwouldhit me!" Her head fell back until I could see only a quivering throat and the under side of her chin. "My God! what I've been through! No one knows! No one caneverknow!"
I gave her some water to drink and asked leave to light a cigarette.
"When I was a small boy," I said, "there was a big oak press in my bedroom which used to reflect the firelight until I thought that all manner of goblins were coming out to attack me. I never got rid of the idea until I was shewn inside it by daylight—I remember it was full of the drawing-room summer chintzes;—then I never feared it again. Does it help you to talk about things, Sonia?"
Her face set itself again, but this time in resolution. For two hours I listened to the most terribly frank self-revelation that I am ever likely to hear. Like a sinner worked up to make confession, she told me of her life from the age of sixteen, when she had fallen romantically in love with O'Rane and when her mother had, quite properly, told her not be ridiculous. For years she had been incited—I had almost written "excited"—to make a great match; she had rushed into an engagement with an honoured title, half feeling all the time that she was pledged to the trappings of a man rather than to the man himself; and, when the engagement ended, she had set herself, like a prisoner at the triangles, to shew that it did not hurt, that she was not going to allow her capacity for enjoyment to be killed; and, when her own people looked askance at her, she had traded her charms among others who fawned on her and whom she despised. The outbreak of war found her unplaced—without mission or niche; she had thrown herself into war-work—and broken down, she had lain useless, neglected and tacitly contemned until she met O'Rane, blind and icily self-sufficient.
Then she had married him in the delirium of self-immolation, only to find that his passionate idealism for the future was transmuted into a white-hot zest to perfect the present. He was prepared to practise the Sermon on the Mount in a tweed suit and soft hat. For a month she shared his life as she would have partaken of an impromptu mid-night picnic in the Green Park. Then a homing instinct had rebelled against the promiscuous publicity of their life, she had felt that his love for her was diluted beyond taste by a vague devotion to mankind. She had treasured slights where no slights were intended and vented irritabilities where none was justified. His smiling patience had evoked a sense of hopelessness, followed by a desire for self-assertion. They had quarrelled, and, rather than admit herself in the wrong, she had blindly groped for evidence against him which the heat of inconvertible resentment would torture her into believing. Grayle had supplied it....
She told me unreservedly of the conflicting influences upon her of three men at the same time. All were in love with her after their kind. O'Rane himself, most sympathetic with men and least understanding of women, gave her the keys and cheque-book of his life, imagining that undemonstrative, uncaressing fidelity would meet with like return; Beresford offered a romantic devotion which posed her frigidly among mountain snows and would have sent him through fire to avenge an insult to his idealised conception. And Grayle had strode in, compelling and indifferent, slighting and frightening her alternately, at a time when she was instinctively yearning to be called to order, taken in hand, shaken and even beaten.
"I was like the 'Punch' picture of the woman in a thunderstorm," she laughed. "I wanted a man there just to tell me not to make a fool of myself. Poor David never, never ..."
Grayle desired her until she felt safe in playing with him, then he neglected her until in pique she set out to try the temper of her charms; ultimately he terrorised herinto a surrender which neither blind trust nor deaf devotion could compass.
She told me of her mood when she felt that Grayle was overpowering her, of her drunken willingness to believe what she knew was untrue. She described her parting with O'Rane as she might have described herself beating a child because she was out of temper and had to pretend that someone else was in fault. I was given an unsparing account of her life in Milford Square, which she entered with an unsubstantial hope that she would find love and a quivering sense that she had come like a dog to be beaten. Not a day and night had passed before she found that she had outstayed her welcome, that she was pressing on him for all his life what he desired for an unoccupied afternoon. Their life together was like the record of wife-beating by a besotted husband refined in method by the play of sarcastic wit on impressionable senses. At last there had come a day when he put into words the taunt that hitherto lacked only verbal clarity; she riposted with the charge that he was discarding her to clear the way to his political ambitions; every hoarded grudge and bitterness was dragged into the light, unseemly reproaches were uttered with the knowledge that all were exaggerated and most without foundation; and in a breathing-space both discovered that the articulation of such hidden and reserved acerbity made it impossible for them ever to live together again.
She had walked into the street with his last scurrility stinging her ears and cheeks until she found herself tearlessly crying. It was no use crying, when she needed all her wits to decide her next move, all her composure to face it. A lodging for the night had to be found in some place where she would not be interrogated, and for long her mind wavered slowly from one to another of the neighbourhoods in which she had lived and which all the while she knew were the first for her to reject—Rutland Gate, Manchester Square, Curzon Street, Westminster. It was hard to think of anywhere else; one needed a map, one ofthose easy maps that were pasted on the walls of Underground stations....
The long recital had exhausted her pent antagonism, and she described her experiences as General Lampwood's driver with humour and an occasional preening of her feathers.
"One day I knew I was going to have a child," she threw out abruptly. "It—it made me quite ill. Then—well, you know the rest. I'm not complaining. I never thought it was going to be easy or pleasant, but, if I had my time over again——"
"I think not, Sonia," I said.
"I never expected a bed of roses," she answered haughtily. Then she suddenly covered her face with her hands. "You mean I'm not through with it yet? Mr. Stornaway, is it—is it as bad as people say? I'm not a coward, really; I don't believe I should mind if Iwantedit, if I were praying for a child, if it was going to be a child I should love.... That was what made me ill. When I first knew and I remembered the awful day when he turned me out of the house.... I wanted to kill myself. There was a big motor lorry racing along Knightsbridge, and I made up my mind to step in front ... as if I hadn't heard it. I stood on the kerb and put one foot forward.... Oh, but I wanted to live so badly! I couldn't, I simply couldn't! It was like tearing myself in two with my own hands. I just had time to think of next spring and all the early flowers coming up.... And then I knew that I should have to go through with it!"
Her eyes closed, and she lay without speaking until I made sure that she was asleep. I was treading lightly to the door when she called out and asked to be supplied with paper and a pencil.
"You're just in the mood to go to sleep," I protested.
She shook her head obstinately.
"I couldn't sleep, if I tried. You say David's at Loring House?"
"He spent last night there and looked in here this morning for clean clothes. I've no idea where he is now."
She looked at me with the set, unrevealing expression which I had seen once or twice already.
"Let me know if he comes in to-morrow," she said.
We had not to wait so long, for O'Rane, behind the pretext of packing books and clothes for his return to Melton, came in after dinner and examined me keenly on the condition of his wife. I mentioned that she had hinted at a desire to see him or at least to know his whereabouts, and, for all his control of himself, O'Rane's face was transfigured.
"I'm—here now," he said significantly.
"That means I'm to go up and find out if she wants to see you and if Lady Loring will let her?"
There was a sound of voices, as I knocked at the door—the nurse mildly begging her patient to go to sleep, Sonia resolutely and not too petulantly protesting that she had just finished. I delivered myself of my message, while she sat turning over a pile of manuscript and trying to read it and listen to me at the same time.
"Will you look at this?" she said at length.
She had written a condensed but pitiless version of the story which she had told me, starting with the day when she had chosen to believe that O'Rane was unfaithful to her and ending with the morning when she knew that she was going to bear Grayle a child.
"It's not very legible," she commented casually. "My writing's not up to much at the best of times, but when I'm in bed it's hopeless."
"I can read it," I said.
"I want you to read it to David," she went on in the same tone.
I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing.
"Will you do that for me?" she asked.
"If you wish it."
"Thank you very much. Now I think I shall go to sleep."
I went downstairs and led O'Rane to the far end of thelibrary. He stood with his hands in his pockets and his back to the fire, rocking in his old way from heel to toe.
"Have you read it?" he asked me, when I had explained his wife's request.
"Yes."
He held out his hand for the papers.
"And you remember everything she said?"
"Pretty well."
He rocked in silence for a moment and then smiled whimsically.
"I suppose you could—forget it, if you tried?" he suggested. "Perhaps it would help you to forget it, if we got rid of this. I usually burn myself when I start playing with fire; perhaps you wouldn't mind putting this in. Don't set the chimney alight, will you?"
The next morning I again mounted guard, while Lady Loring rested. We had agreed that, if no change for the worse shewed itself, it would be quite unnecessary to continue this day and night attendance. Physically Sonia was quite normal, but her nerves were unstrung, and for a time it had certainly looked as if hysteria might develop into something graver. Two nights' untroubled sleep, the belated recognition that she was among friends and, most of all, the relief of confession had braced her and built up her self-respect. When I went in to see her she was still a little defiant, but it was the defiance of courage.
"Is David here?" was her first question.
"He went back to Loring House when he'd finished his packing," I answered.
Sonia looked at me in silence, and her eyes narrowed.
"Oh! Sothat'sit," she murmured at length.
"What is what?" I asked.
She sighed carelessly.
"You were right, and he was wrong, that's all. I was right too.... I knew that, when I left this house, I'd leftDavid for good; if I hadn't known it then, I knew it when—when we came here that night and he offered to drop the divorce if I'd leave—you remember? He thought he was somehow so different from other men.... What did he actually say?"
"He didn't say anything, Sonia. I think you're on the wrong tack. He just asked if I'd read the letter and if I remembered it. I said 'Yes.' Then he smiled and begged me to forget it."
"But didn't you read it to him?"
"He asked me to burn it."
She looked at me for some moments without understanding, then pulled herself lower into the bed and half turned away, shading her eyes with her hand. I walked to the window and gave her nearly a quarter of an hour to order her thoughts. At the end I asked her why she had written the letter.
"I felt I owed it to him," she said slowly. "I don't regret it, though I suppose it's a selfish sort of gratification.... If he'd left me alone, I should have said nothing, but when he went out of his way to have me brought here and looked after.... I—suppose it's very magnanimous to burn a letter of that kind without reading it, but I'd sooner have had him read it. If he comes here, I shall have to tell him ... at least that I'm going to have a child. Please don't think that I'm running away from what I've done. I'm not trying to work on his feelings, I'm not trying to make him take me back; I couldn't go back, if he begged me, if his life depended on it."
"Then it doesn't matter much whether he reads the letter or not."
Sonia nodded slowly.
"I must see David, though."
"It will upset you without doing him any good."
She bit her lip to steady herself.
"Perhaps it will cure him," she suggested.
I was not present when they met; I do not even know how long they were together. Sometime before dinnerO'Rane came into the library and sat down in front of the fire without speaking. From his haggard face I guessed that he had been taken as much by surprise as any of us. During dinner he roused himself with an effort, and I remember that we discussed the coming unrestricted submarine campaign, the danger of starvation, the inadequacy of our food control and the likelihood of finding America ranged on our side in the war. We talked very earnestly—I believe, very intelligently,—as though we had a critical audience and were shewing our best form; but it was wonderfully unengrossing.
"It's just a year since I was in America," I remember beginning in preface to some new argument.
"I say—she told you everything, didn't she?" O'Rane interrupted.
"Yes."
He forced a smile.
"It rather—brings it home to one, doesn't it?"
"And yet—is this any worse for you than when they were living together?"
"I was really not thinking of myself for the moment. My God, Stornaway, if you were a woman and hated a man as she hates Grayle, how would you like to be feeling that he'd had anything to do with your child, how'd you like to go through all this hell of childbirth to bearhim, a child? All your life, even if you came to love it or at least to be kind to it, you'd always be reminded, wouldn't you? You'd trace a likeness, it would seem to get stronger and stronger.... I wonder what we should do?"
"I imagine most women would try to stop the child being born."
O'Rane looked up quickly.
"Sonia wouldn't."
"Then I'm afraid she's got to accept this as her punishment."
"Hers?" he murmured.
I made no answer, but my mind went back to the luncheon at Crowley Court, when Roger Dainton sat withdrooping mouth and troubled brown eyes, wondering if he had heard aright that his own daughter was likely to be divorced, waiting to wake up from the bad dream. And I remembered Lady Dainton. She had an adequate allowance of maternal feeling, I doubt not, but on that day she was less moved by Sonia's plight than by a sense of social failure, of a rare and delicate instrument broken—as if after twenty years' training the hand of the violinist was become paralysed.
"It's a bit one-sided, isn't it?" suggested O'Rane quietly.
I still said nothing. Grayle was being punished in the one part of him that I knew to be capable of feeling, but perhaps the punishment did not stop there. For all I could tell he might in time know a pang of desire to see his own child. O'Rane's black eyes were sunk low in their sockets.
"It's damnably all-embracing," I said.
He pushed his chair back and returned to the fire, where he threw himself on a sofa.
"D'you know where George is dining to-night?" he asked. "I want to talk to him.... I suppose you think me a great fool, Stornaway, for not seeing it before. I loved her so much, I love her so much still.... Anyone can manage a boat when the water's calm, it wouldn't have required much love just to live with Sonia while everything was sunny, but I was prepared to do so much more.... When I went down to Melton the night after she left me, I set my teeth and told myself that I must keep my head. I knew it wasn't a trifle, like a fit of bad temper, I knew it was a very big thing she'd done. And I haven't much use for the kind of man who blindly protests beforehand that he'll forgive his wife whatever she may do.... It isn't love, it isn't generosity; it's just dam' folly. But I did feel that my love for Sonia would be a poor, cold thing, if it only lasted while everything was going well, if it wasn't strong enough to live through a bad storm. You won't exactly have to strain yourself to imagine what it was like thinking of her with Grayle.... I don't know that I can explain, it's all the little things, the little personaltouches that I missed—even without being able to see her. She was such fun, she always enjoyed life and got so much out of it; she made a story out of everything and she loved telling me everything she'd been doing and she knew I loved hearing about it. I missed that frightfully when I was alone at Melton, before she left me; I used to feel quite jealous when I thought of her going about with other people, being a success, when I wasn't there to hear about it afterwards. But I always knew that I should be with her again in a few months. Well, I felt that my love for her would be just like other people's love, if I didn't first of all mind like hell and then recognise that inspiteof it all, inspiteof it all.... You saw me trying to get her away from him—for her own sake; it honestly was; I tried to keep myself in the background. You know I always hoped she'd come back. But now...."
He drew his legs up under him and sat with his chin on his fists.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"That's what I wanted to see George about. She must have the house as long as she wants it, and I'll try to persuade Violet to come and look after her regularly when the time draws near. Then if she'd like to go on living here.... You see, there's rather an important money question. I've got the freehold, so there's no rent to pay, but Bertrand runs the place. He won't stay on with her and without me, and I doubt if we can afford the upkeep by ourselves. I shall make myself responsible for Sonia, of course, but we shall have to cut things pretty fine. George is my trustee, and I wanted to discuss it with him.... As regards the child...." He paused, and I could see him furtively moistening his lips. "Something's got to be done about that. Itwillbe Sonia's child, and, whoever else is to blame, the kid mustn't suffer. If I make George trustee of a fund.... That gives him an official status, you see; he'd have a voice in the upbringing of the child, the education—I don't trust a woman by herself——"
"Are you—recognising the child?" I asked.
"Certainly." He smiled for the first time. "Poor little devil! it will have as much right to my name as I have. I daresay you know that my father ran away with someone else's wife? Ever since the smash came—I'd never thought of it before—I've been wondering how the other man felt. Fellow called Raynter—he was at the Legation at Berne. My father ran away with her, and Raynter wouldn't divorce her.... I've never preciselylikedbeing illegitimate, because it seemed a reflection on my father, but I always used to think there was a certain amount of romance about the whole thing.... Bertrand knew my mother; he says she was one of the most beautiful women in Europe; my father loved her and they were frightfully happy for the little time that they lived together before I was born. I—I thought it was very fine and plucky of them.... But lately I've been wondering what Raynter thought of it all, what kind of lifehehad. I believe he loved my mother too, and it killed her when I was born. I wonder what he thought of the man who'd killed his wife.... I suppose you never met him in your diplomatic wanderings?"
"No. He left the service immediately after what you've been describing."
"What happened to him?"
"I believe he took to drink," I said.
O'Rane made a sound of disgust.
"But perhaps it's just because it doesn't appeal to me ..." he apologised. "I certainly did hope to be finished off in France after I'd lost my sight, but there's such a tenacity about life. I'm glad I pulled through, even to be where I am and as I am now. Yes, I've been feeling that there may be rather more to say for Raynter and—I suppose—rather less—for my father."
He fell to musing, and I smoked in silence until George came in. Then we had the discussion re-opened; Bertrand returned from the House at eleven, and I heard it a third time. If O'Rane hoped for advice or comfort, I am afraidhe did not get it, though Bertrand did indeed tell him bluntly that he was burdening himself needlessly.
"I could have got rid of it all by divorcing her," was the only answer.
"You're not responsible for the child."
"Somebody's got to be."
Bertrand sighed and held his peace, while George and O'Rane talked in undertones.
"What are you going to do yourself?" I asked.
"I've hardly thought. You see, until four hours ago I'd always contemplated having Sonia as—as part of my life. I've got to think things out afresh.... But there's plenty of time. For the present, of course, I'm going back to Melton. To-morrow."
"Have you said good-bye to Sonia?" George enquired. "I mean, have I got to explain all this to her?"
O'Rane hesitated in doubt.
"I'm not quite sure. You see, she said she wanted to tell me something, and I went in, and then she told me that she was going to have a child. I can't say if Ishewedanything—more than surprise, I mean. I said—I really don't know what Ididsay. We talked about how she was, and I said I hoped she was better, and was there anything that she wanted? And she asked me when I was going back to Melton.... I told her to let me know if there was anything I could do.... We didn't take any formal farewell, but I came away as soon as I could, we weren't either of us enjoying it very much."
"You gather that she proposes to stay here?"
"I think so. And I should tell anyone who asks. This is the natural place for her to be, her friends may as well come to see her. I shall get over to Crowley Court as soon as I can and tell her parents ... and I think the best thing I can do is to find work of some kind abroad. We've thrown dust in everyone's eyes for fairly long, but it can't go on indefinitely, if she's living here and I never come near the place ... I don't know yet; I haven't had time to think. I never thought that her having a child by someoneelse could suddenly make all the difference, but it has. I'm notangrywith her, oraggrieved, or anything of that kind, but I've just discovered that she doesn't belong to me any more. I'd still do anything she asked me to do, but something's been killed, something's been taken away.... If only someone else were going to benefit by it! I believe I could forgive Grayle, if he'd proved that he was making her happier than I'd done.... We haven't made much of a success, have we?"
He smiled wistfully, and his face looked suddenly older, as if the accumulated strain of years had exhausted him. Bertrand took his arm and told him to go to bed. George and I got off our chairs and waited without knowing what to do.
"Is Violet on duty?" he asked. "If you're all going up, I'll come with you and see if Sonia wants anything."
The bedroom door was ajar, and I saw Lady Loring reading a book. She raised one finger warningly, as O'Rane came into the room; then remembered that he could not see the signal and touched his wrist.
"Is she asleep?" he whispered.
"Yes."
He felt his way to the bed and ran one hand lightly over the blankets until it reached the pillow. Then he bent slowly forward, listening to his own breathing, and kissed his wife on the forehead.
"You'll look after her well, won't you, Violet?" he said, as they came to the door.
"Trust me, David," she whispered. "I'll do all I can, and we'll get in a regular nurse to-morrow."
It may have been fatigue, but I thought that she was looking worried.
"You told me this morning," I said, "that a nurse wasn't necessary any more for the present."
"I didn't think so—then, but she's not quite so well to-night. We mustn't talk here, or we shall wake her. You didn't say anything to upset her, did you, David?"
"I hope not. What's been the matter?"
We came into the passage, and George and Bertrand considerately whispered good-night and left us. I would have gone, too, but O'Rane had slipped his arm through mine.
"She's so nervous and fanciful," Lady Loring explained, "that she makes herself quite ill. I suppose, never having been through it before.... To-night she was quite ridiculous. Didn't it sometimes happen in bad cases that the mother or the child had to be sacrificed? Well, what happened then? And who decided? She worked herself up into the most pitiful state, imagining herself unconscious and at the mercy of a mere brutal man, who could order her to be killed." Lady Loring looked through the open door and smiled compassionately. "She's so afraid of dying, David, that it never occurs to her that this sort of thing is happening every hour of the day and that it's theexceptionfor anything to go wrong. I don't quite know what to do about her...."
O'Rane stood for a moment without speaking; then he disengaged his arm and said good-night to us. I heard him busying himself in the library for a few minutes; the front door closed gently, and I caught the sound of footsteps, as he walked away. The next morning he telephoned to ask how his wife was. In the afternoon he called with a cab for his luggage and drove to Waterloo without coming into the house.