"I should like to hear what you can tell me," Toni said slowly; and after a moment's hesitation Herrick began the story which he had rightly called unhappy.
"It is just four years since I met the girl who was to be my wife. I was taking a holiday in Ireland at the time; and daring a visit to an old friend in Dublin I was introduced to a certain Mr. Payton, an Irish squire, who had brought his two daughters up from the country for a few weeks' gaiety. Well, we took a fancy to one another. I was always a queer sort of chap, hating convention and all the trammels of society, and I liked the old man at once. He was a big, jolly old boy, a thorough sportsman and Irish to the backbone. Poor as a rat, yet living somehow like a Prince; hospitable to a fault, and looking on debts and duns in the light of a joke."
He paused for a second, then went on quietly:
"I went back with him and his two girls after their Dublin visit was ended. They were all very kind to me, and there was a sort of charm about the old castle where they lived, always in difficulties, yet keeping open house, and managing, in some mysterious way, to have the best of everything. There are people like that, you know—people who, without possessing a penny, manage to acquire pounds' worth of everything. It's an art, and old Squire Payton had it at his finger-tips."
Outside the rain still fell. Inside the room everything was very quiet.
"Well, the end of it was that I fell in love with Eva Payton. She was just eighteen—a bewitching age, I used to think, and as pretty as a picture. Golden curls that were generally tied up with a blue ribbon, big Irish eyes, put in, as they say, with a smutty finger, a little mouth all soft curves, the tiniest, whitest teeth—oh, there's no denying she was a beauty; and she made my heart beat faster every time she looked at me."
He had spoken rather dreamily, and Toni sat still, fascinated by this authentic peep into another's life; but with a sudden rather harsh laugh, Herrick resumed his story in a different tone.
"Well, we were married. In those days I had a little money—not a great deal, but I managed to make a fair income by painting. I never told you I painted, did I? Well, I did—portraits chiefly; and made quite a decent bit of money."
Toni, who knew nothing of art and artists, never suspected that she was in the company of one of the best-known portrait-painters of the day; and Herrick was well content to keep her in ignorance.
"So we were married and came back to London. We had a house in Kensington—quite an unfashionable locality, but one of the big, old-fashioned houses you find there, with a large garden which was worth a fortune, to my way of thinking. But I soon found that my wife wasn't satisfied to live quietly, out of the world, as it were. She hankered after a house in St. John's Wood, among the 'other artists' or in Hampstead among the rich people. She didn't want to be stuck down among frumps and dowds, she said. West Kensington was all very well for women who were churchy, given up to good works, but she wanted to be in a lively, social, bridge-playing set; and she moped and pined so in our quiet life that I gave in and we moved to a much smarter locality."
Toni, her eyes fixed on his face, said nothing when he paused; and after a minute he resumed his narrative.
"Well, from the first it was an unlucky move—for me. The house was too big, and required a lot of extra furnishing. The studio wasn't as good as my other one had been, and there was only an apology for a garden. But Eva had her wish. People called on her, and finding her pretty, vivacious, clever in her quick Irish way, they took her up and made a fuss of her. She was invited here and there, and of course her personal expenditure rose in consequence. Unfortunately my work didn't increase in proportion. I had the bad luck to fall ill—the only time in my life I've ever had an illness—and for several months I was unable to touch a brush. Of course I had a little money put by, and with ordinary prudence we should have pulled through all right. But Eva had never learned prudence. She had lived all her life in an atmosphere of debt and dunning creditors and over in easy-going old Ireland no one cared a straw if one were in debt or no. So to my horror when I was convalescent I found my foolish little wife had been running up enormous bills. Everything was in arrears. The housekeeping money had gone to pay for her daily amusements, the servants were unpaid, the tradespeople clamouring."
He laughed, rather drearily.
"Well, I sold out a little stock I had and set matters right or so I thought. I put the rest of the money in the bank and told Eva she must be rather careful. But imagine my horror when one day she came to me, whimpering with fright, and confessed she had several personal bills unpaid and the creditors were pressing her. At first she did not tell me the whole truth. She prevaricated, showed me one or two bills not made up to date, and was vague about the different amounts. Finally she owned that she was in debt for nearly five hundred pounds."
"Five hundred pounds!" It was Toni's first interruption.
"Yes. Sounds a lot, doesn't it? We'd only been married a year. Still there was nothing for it but to realize some more capital, and I did it, and then asked for the bills. She brought them unwillingly, after a vain attempt to get me to entrust the payment to her; and to my surprise and relief, I found that three hundred would cover the lot."
"But——"
"Oh, it didn't—by a long way. By dint of a good deal of persuasion, I got it out of my wife that the rest was owing to different friends for bridge and racing debts. Of course I had forgotten that my little Irish wife was a born horse-lover, and, I'm sorry to say, gambler; and I ought not to have been surprised. But I was. And I'm afraid I was a bit brutal. You see I couldn't help thinking it was rather hard that the money I'd worked for was to be squandered; and I spoke rather sharply to the poor child."
Toni, listening, thought he was justified in speaking sharply, but she did not venture to say so.
"I scolded her first—she was like a child expecting to be sent to bed—and then I got a statement of her debts and paid them. But I told her, at the same time, that I should never do it again. I promised to help her in little ways if the allowance I made her was insufficient; but I pointed out to her that my income wouldn't stand the drain of huge payments like these; and she cried pitifully and promised, solemnly, that she would never play for money again."
"And she did?" Toni's interest in the story was her excuse.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course. It was in her blood. Gambling in one form or another she must have. Someone told me afterwards—after the crash—that it was an almost uncanny sight to see my wife, looking like a child with her curls and her big grey eyes, sitting at the bridge table playing feverishly into the small hours of the morning; or talking to bookmakers' clerks with an evidently inborn knowledge of the ways of horse-racing. I was a fool, of course. Instead of sitting in my studio painting portraits, I ought to have gone about with her—and yet, if I had, there'd have been no money for either of us."
He sighed heavily.
"Well, the crash came eventually. Twice more I paid her debts and twice she swore to give up her folly. Then I was sent for to a big place in Wales, to paint some portraits—those of the three daughters of the house—and of course I had to go. I had been there a month when I got an urgent wire from my solicitors to return at once; and back to town I went, to see what mischief my little wife had been getting into."
"And you found——"
"I found the house in an uproar. Waiting for me was my solicitor, and with him a Jewish-looking man who was the head of a large jeweller's business in the West End. Also—in another room—were a detective and a well-known pawnbroker. Now—can you reconstruct the story they told me—between them?"
She shook her head.
"No, I can't imagine what it was."
"You wouldn't." For a moment a sort of tenderness softened his tone, which hardened again as he went on. "It seems my wife had never, from the beginning, told me the truth, with regard to the extent of her liabilities. Besides those I knew of, she owed two or three hundreds to a money-lender, to whom she had gone in a panic on first discovering she was in debt. He had lent her the money, at an enormous rate of interest, and as she had been unable to pay anything he was now pressing for immediate payment. Distracted by his threats, and by the other bills which her extravagance had run up, too terrified to appeal to me after her solemn promises, Eva conceived a really desperate plan. Taking advantage of my absence she went to Jordan and Green, the jewellers, and asked if she might have a very fine pearl necklace on approval. They demurred a little, politely, at first, and asked her name, whereon she gave it, without hesitation, as Lady Eileen Greenlay, an Irish girl with whom she had been acquainted in Dublin, and to whom she bore a striking resemblance. She gave them Lady Eileen's address in Hamilton Terrace, and one of the clerks, who knew the lady by sight, advised the head of the firm that this was really she. Of course they knew the family were wealthy people, and as Eva was beautifully dressed, with furs—unpaid for—worth two hundred pounds, they let her have the necklace, and off she went with it."
"But how risky!" Toni breathed the word in horror.
"A desperate woman sticks at very little," Herrick reminded her grimly. "Well, the misguided girl took her trophy and went off to Rockborough, the big pawnbroker, where she displayed the necklace and asked for a loan. Seeing no reason to doubt her genuineness, they advanced her a large sum—though not, of course, the full value of the jewels, and she took the money and paid the money-lender and one or two more people who were pressing her. But it happened by a queer coincidence that a day or two later Jordan and Green had a visit from an aunt of the real Lady Eileen's, who wished to send her a little diamond pendant for a birthday present; and when she gave the address to which it was to be sent as one of the best hotels in Mentone, the jewellers became uneasy. They instituted inquiries, found the young lady's family were all out of town, the Hamilton Terrace house closed; and it became pretty evident they had been hoaxed."
He paused; but Toni did not speak.
"The first thing they did was to make inquiries at the big pawnbrokers, and of course they knew in an hour or two that they had been done. With a queer sort of cleverness, Eva had given herself out, to the second lot of people, as an actress to whom the necklace—a present—was worth little compared with the value in cash; and they had believed her story. But naturally it was soon proved to be false; and at first matters were at a deadlock. Well, the police were called in; and by dint of many inquiries among taxi-drivers, the girl was finally traced to the money-lender's office in Holborn. He, of course, was as close as the grave; but one of his clerks was bribed into giving the lady's name; and everything was easy after that."
"Oh, poor girl!" Toni's soft heart felt a great compassion for the frightened wife.
"At first, of course, she denied everything. Unfortunately, Lord Thirsk, the father of the girl she had impersonated, took up a very violent attitude and demanded the utmost restitution; and since so many people were in the secret it was absolutely impossible to hush it up. I did my best; I offered everything I had in the world if they would let the matter drop without a prosecution, but it was useless. The thing had to go to court, and there was a big excitement over the case."
"And——"
"Oh, the result was a foregone conclusion. In spite of everything, in spite of her denials, her terrified lies, her vain attempts to clear herself by"—he hesitated—"by implicating me, the case against her was as clear as the day. I tried my hardest—I perjured myself to try to clear her of the worst guilt—I strove my best to make her out my tool, but it wasn't any good. The Counsel on the other side simply turned me inside out in two minutes. In spite of all my efforts I couldn't convince him I'd had a hand in it—and of course my absence from town showed the truth pretty plainly. Well, Eva spoke out, in the end."
Ho set his lips as he thought of the miserable girl's confession, following on hours of mental torture at the hands of the prosecuting Counsel.
"In the end I think it was a relief to her to speak the truth. After seeing all her lies, all the pitiful, sordid little lies, torn to pieces, after hearing all the weight of evidence against her, seeing the net close in on her—on one helpless, terrified little girl—she gave in and begged desperately for mercy. She seemed to think if she told the truth—at last—they would pardon her, let her off, and she poured out the whole story and cried out for forgiveness. She couldn't believe they would send her to prison...."
His brow was wet with the reminiscent agony of those closing scenes.
"Of course they could do nothing but sentence her. Then, when she understood that she was to be sent to prison after all, she went nearly off her head with fright ... she swore she'd lied, retracted everything she'd said ... oh, there was a terrible scene—she shrieked when they tried to silence her, clung to the dock so that they shouldn't take her away ... my God! It was horrible, horrible to see her, so little and fragile, screaming to me to save her from the men who were all against her...."
Toni, white to the lips, could see it all. She had forgotten her own griefs now in contemplation of this far more terrible sorrow.
"Even the Judge was upset when he had to sentence her. The court was full of women—I told you the case had attracted a lot of attention—but thank God they were rendered miserable by their presence there in the end. When she heard her sentence—eighteen months in the second division—she couldn't grasp it at first—and then just as I was beginning to feel I must do something or I should go mad, she fainted clean away and was carried out insensible."
"Oh, Mr. Herrick,"—Toni, her eyes full of tears, spoke impetuously—"how terrible for you—for you both! Did you go to her and try to comfort her?"
He was silent for a long moment. Then—
"That was the worst of all." His voice was grim. "When once she realised that she was helpless, that she was to be kept in prison, against her will, for eighteen long months, all her love for me turned to hate. By a queer, perverted instinct she blamed me for everything that had happened. She persisted in asserting that I could have saved her if I would. It was quite useless for me to say anything. I was allowed to see her once more—with my solicitor—and she heaped reproaches on my head till my blood ran cold. She called me a scoundrel, a coward, because I hadn't succeeded in shifting the blame to my own shoulders. She raged against her fate, swore she wouldn't obey the rules, would starve herself to death—and taunted me with the fact, that while she was suffering, starving, in a prison cell, I should be warm and well-fed at home. She screamed out that she hated me, wished me dead—and my last glimpse of her was as she disappeared, her face distorted with passion till all the soft childish beauty had vanished."
"And she is there now?"
"In prison? Yes."
"But—is the time nearly over?"
"Yes. Four weeks to-day Eva will be set free." He stared out of the window with unseeing eyes. "And then will come the question—what are we to do?"
"To do?" She did not understand.
"Yes. You know, she will never forgive me. In her childish, unreasonable way, she persists in thinking everything that happened was my fault. If I had given her more money, she would not have got into debt. If I hadn't gone to Wales and left her alone she would never have done the thing; and if I had only lied better, the blame would have been mine—and the punishment."
"But it was she who was guilty——"
"I know—but if I could have gone to prison in her stead, God knows I'd have gone—willingly. Things are so different for men. When I think of her, the little, soft, fragile thing I married, shut up alone in a cell, wearing prison garments, eating rough prison food, being ordered about by harsh, domineering women, why, I almost curse myself that I am free to walk about under God's blue sky!"
"Shall you go back to London—when she is free?"
"I don't know—I don't know," he said rather drearily. "I let the house at once—gave it up at the next quarter, and our things are stored. I wanted to get away from it all, so I came down here and took the bungalow, but of course it won't suit Eva."
"Couldn't you—change your name?"
"That's done already," he said. "Just after the trial an uncle obligingly died and left me nine thousand pounds on the understanding I should take his name; so I did, of course, and turned myself from James Vyse into James Herrick."
"Then no one will know?"
"No. But this life, this vagabond river life that both you and I love, wouldn't suit Eva very long. No, I'm afraid we shall have to seek some 'city of bricks and mortar'—but even my wife won't be keen on London, and it's the only city one can live in properly."
While he talked, the rain had ceased; and he rose as he spoke the last words.
"Well, Mrs. Rose, I've showed you the skeleton in my cupboard—and he's a pretty grisly object, isn't he? But I don't want to depress you with a recital of my woes. After all, life's sweet, sister—and you and I, thanks be to God, have the soul of the gipsy within us, which is made quite happy, poor feckless thing, by the sight of the sun or the music of the breeze!"
Her eyes kindled with sudden comprehension.
"Yes—and you've shown me what a fool I am to think myself unhappy!" She too sprang up, and her body was full of vigour and youth again. "I won't give in, Mr. Herrick! You've not given in, and you've heaps more cause than I have. After all, I'm young and I love nature and—and my husband—and Ihavea soul—you told me so! And in time Owen will be satisfied with me, won't he?"
"Of course he will!" In his heart Herrick thought the man who was dissatisfied with this eager, enthusiastic, courageous youth must be hard indeed to please.
"I've read nearly all those books," she said proudly, "and I can read French ever so much better now. And I won't care for Miss Loder's cold stares and her amused little laugh when I do something silly. And if I go on trying, I shall soon be a fit companion for Owen, shan't I, Mr. Herrick?"
"Dear little child," he said, laying his hand on her shoulder, "don't try too hard! Read your books, study languages, take an interest in the vital questions of the day—but don't lose your tenderness, your sympathy, your freshness of heart. Grow up if you will, but don't grow too fast! And in cultivating your soul, don't forget that a woman's heart is her sweetest, rarest treasure after all!"
He released her gently.
"There! My sermon's over—and so, apparently, is the rain. And that blithe footstep I hear outside surely heralds the approach of Mrs. Spencer!"
He was right. After a loud knock the door opened briskly to disclose Mrs. Spencer bearing a lighted lamp; and Herrick went forward to relieve her of her burden.
"Enter the Lady with the Lamp!" quoth he, smiling. "Well, Mrs. Spencer, the rain's over and gone, and it's time we went too, eh, Mrs. Rose?"
"I suppose so." She took up the coat she had thrown aside. "Has the chauffeur had some tea, Mrs. Spencer?"
"Lor yes, ma'am, and enjoyed it too," responded the landlady, beaming. "A rare good trencherman he be an' all! I'd sooner meat him for a week nor a fortnight, as they say in our parts."
"Meet him?" Even Herrick did not recognise the idiom.
"Yes, sir—board him, give him his meat," explained Mrs. Spencer volubly. "But I can't say as much for you and the young lady, sir."
She looked regretfully at the still loaded plates.
"We've had a lovely tea, Mrs. Spencer," said Toni, her heart very warm towards this comely woman who had known her father. "I shall come and see you again some day. May I?"
Mrs. Spencer immediately invited her to come as often as she liked; and then covered both Toni and Herrick with confusion by refusing to take a penny for their tea.
"What—me take money from Roger Gibbs' lass?" she said, her manner filled with the mingled independence and respect of the best type of countrywoman. "Not I, sir. We Yorkshire folks don't grudge a cup o' tea and a bit of fatty cake to them as is like ourselves, exiles in a strange land. Besides, it's been a rare treat to see the young lady. To think that Roger Gibbs' lile lass should come drivin' up in one of they great mutter-cars, too!"
"Yes, and it's really time she drove away in it," responded Herrick pleasantly. "I think I hear Fletcher bringing it round."
There was a tentative hoot from Fletcher's horn at that moment; and after a grateful farewell, and a vain attempt to pay, at least, for Fletcher's tea, Herrick took Toni out and installed her in the car.
He refused her invitation to drive home with her, alleging that his health required exercise; and though Toni might have been forgiven for thinking fifteen miles' ride over a wet and muddy road, under a still cloudy sky, rather a strenuous form of exercise, some newly acquired intuition told her he really wished to be alone.
She said good-bye, therefore, without attempting to press the matter; and a moment later the car glided away, its lamps gleaming in the rural blackness of the village street.
As he rode home, his tyres splashing through puddles, and spattering him with mud, Herrick's face was very tired and worn, but in his eyes there lurked a little faint light of happiness that he had helped another weary soul a few steps forward on its pilgrimage over a thorny road.
"Poor little soul!" He smiled as he recognized the form his sympathy took. "After all she's right—she has a soul—and even though it brings her suffering and tears, it's worth the price. And yet—I wonder if it would have been kinder to leave her alone—not to encourage that hope of hers to make herself more intellectually worthy of her husband? I didn't make much success of wakingmyUndine's soul to life! All I got was her hatred—and from the beginning she lied to me!"
Luckily at that moment his lamp blew out, viciously; and with a muttered execration of the creatures he called Boo-Boos, he dismounted and relighted the flame, whose vagaries throughout the rest of the long ride kept him so fully occupied that he had neither time nor inclination to meditate on such abstractions as souls.
By the end of September, Owen's book was finished; and on a beautiful autumn morning he and Toni set off in the car on a journey to town, where a publisher, who was also a personal friend, was waiting to receive the manuscript.
Mr. Anson was a kindly, energetic man of middle age; and he had secretly long expected Owen to turn novelist; so that he accepted the bulky manuscript with a real curiosity as to its value.
He promised to let the author know his decision at an early date; and then invited Owen and his wife to lunch with him at the Carlton, an invitation which Owen accepted at once, rather to Toni's dismay.
They were his sole guests; and beneath his kind and courteous manner, Toni lost her shyness and charmed her host by her girlish simplicity and directness.
It happened that the conversation turned on the bungalows which lined the banks of the river as it flowed through Willowhurst; and presently Mr. Anson asked a question.
"You've got Vyse down there, haven't you? You know the chap I mean—the portrait-painter."
"I don't think so." Owen was puzzled. "At least I have not heard of him being there. Have you, Toni?"
"Yes—Mr. Anson means Mr. Herrick," said Toni quietly. "He told me the other day he had changed his name."
"Ah yes, I remember now—something about some money, I believe. You know him, Mrs. Rose?"
"Yes. He fished me out of the river one day when I had fallen in," said Toni smiling. "And he has been to see us several times—but I didn't know he was famous," she finished naïvely.
"Didn't you? Why, he is—or was—one of the foremost men in his own line until there was the trouble with his wife."
"Surely you don't mean that jewel affair?" Owen asked meditatively. "Didn't Vyse's wife steal a pearl necklace or something of the sort? I seem to remember something about it—though I did not connect it with this chap."
"His wife—who was one of the prettiest Irish girls I ever saw—got a valuable necklace on approval and pawned it for money to pay her debts, yes. Poor fellow, it broke him up completely."
"Really?" Owen was interested. "Where is she—the wife—now? Did he leave her, or what happened?"
"She is in prison," returned the other man slowly. "I understand her time is nearly up, and I am wondering what they will do when she comes out again."
"In prison—ah yes, I recollect the affair now, though I was away at the time. Got eighteen months, didn't she?"
"Yes. It was the most painful experience I've ever had, to listen to her being sentenced." Mr. Anson's florid face grew grave. "It happened that her Counsel was a nephew of mine, and I promised to hear him handle the case. But, of course, it was hopeless from the start."
"The husband—this chap Herrick—was blameless, I suppose?"
"Quite. He knew nothing about it, though the girl tried her hardest to implicate him. He did his best, too, would have sworn anything to clear her and take the blame, but her lies were all so dreadfully patent it was no use. In the end she told the truth, thinking it would help her; but it was too late then."
"She took it badly?"
"Terribly. She cried and shrieked for mercy, fought like a tiger with the officials who tried to take her away, and screamed reproaches at her husband, till everyone was sick of the scene. Of course, she never dreamed they would send her—a lady, and a delicate bit of a girl, too—to prison like a common thief, and she completely lost her self-control when she realized what was going to happen. It was a relief to everyone when she gave one last cry and fainted right away."
"Hard lines on the husband," said Owen, reflectively.
"Deuced hard lines—and he as decent a fellow as ever stepped. Why he ever married her, God only knows. She didn't care a bit for him—wasted his money and then reviled him because he'd no more. Of course, she came of a rotten stock—wasters and gamblers every one—and this was how the hereditary taint came out in her."
"She must have served most of her sentence by now?"
"Comes out next week. I wonder what he will do with her. She's not the sort of woman to live in a shanty by the riverside, and yet he can't very well bring her back to town."
"I wonder?" Owen glanced at his watch. "I say, Anson, I don't want to be rude—after our excellent lunch!—but I've an appointment at the office at three and it's a quarter to now."
"All right, my boy, I won't detain you." Anson rose at once. "I'm glad you keep an eye on theBridge—it's a fine little review and going ahead all the time."
Owen's face brightened at this authoritative praise.
"I'm glad you think go. Of course, we are jolly lucky in our staff, and we've got the best sort of contributors, too."
"Yes. By the way, how on earth have you managed to get all this stuff turned out with a disabled arm?" He patted the thick packet of manuscript and glanced at Owen's inconspicuous sling wonderingly. "Perhaps Mrs. Rose helped you?" He looked, with a smile, at Toni.
"No." She coloured hotly. "I did not help at all."
"Miss Loder—my secretary at the office—came down to help me," said Owen easily. "She is used to the work, you see, and does it excellently."
"I see." The kindly eyes had seen Ton's flush. "Well, no doubt Mrs. Rose is satisfied to inspire your work and let others do the manual labour. The power behind the throne, eh, Mrs. Rose? That's what women used to be, bless them, before these dreadful Suffragettes arose to destroy woman's real influence by violence and wrongheadedness."
"I expect my wife is jolly thankful the book's finished," said Owen laughing. "She has had a pretty thin time while I've been writing it. But now I suppose there will be a lull of a few weeks?"
"Oh, I won't keep you long," said Mr. Anson genially. "I'll send the manuscript to the reader to-night, and let you know as soon as possible."
They parted from their host on the pavement out side the Carlson, and Owen turned to Toni.
"Now, dear, what will you do? Will you come with me to the office, or have you any shopping?"
Toni bit her lip nervously. She had a request to make, and did not know how to set about it.
"Well?" Owen watched her, wondering why she looked embarrassed.
"Owen, would you mind if I went to Brixton to see my aunt? I—I'm afraid they think I'm a little unkind, and after all they have always been good to me."
"Why, Toni"—Owen was genuinely surprised—"you don't mean to say you are afraid to ask me that! Of course you can go. I'll come to fetch you when I've finished my work, if you like."
"Will you?" She knew how such a visit would gratify her aunt. "Shall I take a taxi, then, Owen? You'll want the car."
"Yes, I think that would be best, then you can stay as long as possible. What time shall I come, Toni? Half-past five or so?"
"Yes. That will be lovely. Then we'll have a jolly ride home."
He called a taxi accordingly and installed Toni therein; and he stood back to watch her gliding away from him in the mellow September sunshine, before he hurried to the office where Barry was impatiently awaiting his arrival.
Toni found several members of the Gibbs family at home when at length she reached her destination.
Being Thursday, Fanny was enjoying her weekly holiday, and was delighted to see Toni; more especially because she had a piece of news to confide which appealed strongly to Fanny's romantic nature.
When the first greetings were over, and Mrs. Gibbs had retired with the hospitable intention of "putting on the kettle," Fanny beckoned mysteriously to Toni to mount the narrow stairs leading to the room the girls had formerly shared in common.
Toni mounted obediently; and for a second she forgot to wonder what Miss Gibbs' extraordinary signals might imply, for a sudden feeling of gratitude to Owen for having lifted her out of this dingy atmosphere flooded her impressionable nature.
Surely when she too had slept beneath this low ceiling the room had not been quite so small, so stuffy. The wall-paper was the one she and Fanny had themselves chosen years ago, but it was oddly faded and dirty now, and in one corner a great piece had peeled off, hanging in strips and disclosing the plaster behind. The common furniture, too—the rickety deal dressing-table, the broken chair, the unpainted iron bedsteads—thinking of her own airy, spacious, bedroom with its shining toilet-table, its linen bedspread, its big windows opening on to a view of the river and the fields beyond, Toni wondered how she had ever endured life in these sordid, depressing surroundings.
Luckily Fanny was too full of her news to notice Toni's involuntary shudder as she looked round the close little bedroom; and barely waiting to shut the door she blurted out her tidings.
"Toni, you remember Lennie Dowson—the fellow who was sweet on you?"
Toni nodded casually, her eyes still roaming round her, and Fanny felt vaguely disappointed that the subject was so evidently uninteresting.
"Well, he's going to Sutton, three miles from Willowhurst, and I truly believe it's because he wants to be near you!"
She had succeeded in arousing Toni's interest at last.
"Leonard Dowson? Do you mean the dentist? But what on earth will he do in Sutton?"
"Look at people's teeth, I suppose," returned Miss Gibbs practically. "He was in night before last, and he told Ma he was sick of London, and this was a change for the better. It is a town, isn't it. And I s'pose people by the river have toothache same as us, don't they?"
"It is a town—of a sort," said Toni, "but I shouldn't have thought Mr. Dowson would have settled there. He always said London was the one place in the world for him."
"That was when you were there," returned Fanny sagely. "I don't b'lieve he's ever got over you, Toni. Ma says she never saw such a change in anyone, and you know he was always fond of you. That's why he's going to Sutton, you may take my word for it."
To Fanny's surprise Toni spoke coldly.
"I really can't imagine how you can be so silly, Fanny. How can it affect Mr. Dowson where I am? I'm married now, and anyway he was never anything to me."
"Still, he might be faithful to his first love," giggled Fanny.
"Fanny!" Toni faced her angrily. "You are simply odious when you talk like that. Leonard Dowson's first love, indeed? If he says that about me it is simply impertinence, and I don't care to hear you talk such nonsense."
She got up indignantly as she spoke and moved to the door.
"If that is all you have got to say," she said, "I will go and talk to Auntie." And she had the door open before Fanny found her tongue.
Then:
"Oh, I say, Toni, don't be horrid and stuck-up." Fanny's wail brought Toni to a standstill. "If youareMr. Rose's wife, and a fine lady, and in with a lot of smart people, you needn't go and be nasty to your own cousin."
Something in her voice brought Toni quickly back into the room.
"Don't be silly, Fan!" She spoke impetuously. "Of course I am not being stuck-up; you know I wouldn't be nasty to you for the world, but I do so hate that sort of talk about men being fond of you and all that."
"Well, I didn't know you minded," said Fanny humbly, and Toni's heart smote her.
"Oh, Fan, I don't mind—really—and I didn't mean to be cross. Now tell me, how do you like my frock? It's the first time I've had it on."
And in the ensuing animated discussion on frocks and frills Fanny lost that queer, uncomfortable sense of inferiority which had sprung to birth beneath Toni's manner.
Somehow, after that Toni found the time drag. She was gentle and friendly with her aunt, affectionate towards Lu, cordial with her uncle and the rest; but she found herself longing for Owen's arrival as a signal for her release.
The good-natured chatter, the well-meant inquisitiveness which found vent in a ceaseless inquiry into the details of her new life, the noisy jokes and laughter, the very persistence of the hospitality which filled her cup and plate over and over again—they all jarred this afternoon; and quite involuntarily Toni sighed for the peace and spaciousness, the gracious calm and tranquillity of Greenriver.
When Owen at last arrived it was with an inward glee that Toni heard the clock strike six; for now his visit must of necessity be short.
Possibly Owen saw her pallor, for he announced almost at once that although he regretted the fact, he must carry off his wife without delay; and after a brief interchange of courtesies, the family escorted Toni to the car, whose glories most of them now beheld for the first time.
As Owen was still unable to drive, he took his seat by Toni in the body of the car; and when they were safely away Toni turned to him with a sigh of pleasure.
"Owen, I thought you were never coming."
"Was I very long?" Owen was struck by her tone. "What's the matter, Toni? Are you tired, dear, or have the cousins been too much for you?"
"Oh, no, not exactly," Toni was always loyal, but to-day her loyalty had been severely tried. "But I can't help comparing the house with Greenriver, and I was longing all the time to get back to the garden and the big rooms."
Owen did not smile at her naïve confession.
"You like your home, Toni? Greenriver pleases you?"
"I think it's the loveliest house in the world," Toni said fervently. "And sometimes I can hardly believe it is I who live there. You see, all my life I have been used to little houses, and it seems almost incredible that I should have the right to go about as I like—and even pick the flowers in the garden."
"Poor little Toni." Her gratitude touched Owen. "Sometimes I have fancied you found it rather dull. I have been obliged to leave you so much alone lately; but now we can have a holiday until the book's fate is decided."
"Will you be busy then?"
"Well, there will be the proofs to revise. And, to tell you the truth, Toni, I'm dying to get to work on another story."
"Are you? But what about theBridge?"
"Oh, I won't neglect that, of course. But everything is running smoothly there and Barry is turning out trumps, too. He has grasped the whole thing as I never expected him to do. He's going to get a bigger salary almost at once, and then I suppose he will marry Miss Lynn."
He gave a sudden exclamation as the car swerved aside to avoid a lumbering cart which took up more than its share of the road.
"What's Fletcher doing, confound him? I say, Toni, this wretched arm of mine doesn't seem to me to be getting on very well. The bone's knit all right, but I have a fearful lot of pain in it sometimes."
"Oh, have you, Owen?" Toni grew pale in an instant. "What does Dr. Mayne say? You saw him a few days ago, didn't you?"
"Yes, but I don't think he knows very much about it. He's a nice old chap, but a bit behind the times. I have a good mind to go and see some man in town one day next week. It's such a confounded handicap for a writer not to be able to hold a pen."
"What about your proofs?" Her heart sank as she asked the question.
"Oh, Miss Loder can do those—under my supervision," he said carelessly. "I'm not bothering about them so much as about my new book; and I've been commissioned to write a series of articles for theLamp, which really ought to be put in hand at once."
For a moment there was silence. Then:
"Could I do your proofs?" Toni said, in a voice which shook in spite of all her efforts.
"Oh, it's awfully sweet of you, dear." Owen tried his hardest to avoid hurting her. "But there is no occasion to worry you. I don't like to see you bending over a desk when there is no need. Miss Loder has to do something, anyway, and she might just as well do my work as anyone's."
"Must she come down to Greenriver?" Now Toni's voice betrayed her, and Owen looked up sharply.
"Why not? Do you mean you would rather she did not come?"
"Much rather." For once Toni's inward feelings burst their bounds, driving her to open revolt. "I don't like Miss Loder about all day—I never feel free—there's an oppression in the air so long as she is in the house."
Owen was surprised and annoyed by this speech; and showed his annoyance plainly.
"Don't you think you are rather prejudiced, Toni? You have never liked the girl, and I can't imagine why. She does her work well, and doesn't interfere with you in the least."
"Interfere with me—no, perhaps not," said Toni, her breast heaving stormily, her cheeks very red. "She laughs at me, though, which is worse—sneers—oh, I know she thinks I'm a little fool, and so I am; but I am at least your wife—the mistress of Greenriver, and she might remember that and treat me with a little more respect."
"Respect? My dear Toni, you are talking nonsense. How should the girl treat you? She is always polite," said Owen, "and you know after all she is ten years older than you——"
"Only ten?" Toni's assumption of surprise was excellently done. "I thought she was much more—she always seems to me so staid—so—so middle-aged."
Owen's brow cleared suddenly and he burst out laughing.
"You silly little thing! Compared with you, Miss Loderismiddle-aged, but she's a rattling secretary and I don't like to hear her abused. Still, if you dislike the idea of her coming, I'll go to town, or do without her. After all, I must not get too dependent on the girl—I'm afraid I'm growing lazy. But if my arm still bothers me——"
Instantly Toni's anger melted away and a rush of affection and sympathy took its place.
"I'm sorry, Owen—I didn't mean to be cross. I was talking nonsense—of course you must have Miss Loder, I suppose I am jealous of her—because she is so clever, and I'm such a little idiot."
"I don't want a clever wife, thank you," laughed Owen, little dreaming how his careless words cut into the quivering soul of the girl beside him. "I want a pretty, lively, jolly little girl—half Italian for choice—who is a cross between a wood-nymph and—sometimes—a tiger-cat—or kitten! And it seems to me I have got just exactly what I want."
With an effort Toni smiled, in response to his good-natured jesting; and Owen never knew that his well-meant words caused Toni to shed tears before she slept that night.
Mr. Anson's reader reported favourably on Owen's book, and in a very short time satisfactory terms were agreed upon between author and publisher, and the work of proof-reading and revision began.
Unfortunately at the same time Owen felt his arm to be more than usually painful; and a visit to town proved the necessity for further treatment, of which perfect rest was a feature: with the result that once again Owen was forced to accept the help of a secretary in his work.
Miss Loder, naturally, filled the post; and once more she came to Greenriver, and took her place in the stately old library, where she and Owen passed strenuous hours daily.
To Toni Miss Loder's presence was growing ever more and more distasteful. Although Toni was not an intellectual woman, she had sharp wits; and possibly she understood Millicent Loder's personality a good deal better than Owen was able to do. And what Toni saw—and Toni's intuition was rarely at fault—led her to distrust the other girl with all her heart and soul.
Miss Loder belonged to a rather uncommon variant of the type of emancipated womanhood. Although intensely modern in many ways she had never been able to lose her inborn sense of the superiority of man in mental as well as in physical matters.
She had none of the loudly-expressed scorn of the other sex by which many women seek to hide their disappointment at the indifference of members of that sex towards them.
Although she was by force of circumstance a Suffragist, she did not for one moment imagine that with the coming of votes for women the whole industrial and social problem of the country would be solved. Unlike many women, she was quite content to work under a man, and although she was well able to think for herself on all vital questions, she liked to hear and assimilate the opinions of the men with whom she came in contact.
She preferred men, indeed, to women; and her attitude towards them, though never in the least familiar, held a good comradeship, a kind of large tolerance which annoyed and irritated those of her girl acquaintances who looked upon men as their natural enemies and the enemies of all feminine progress.
Shrewd, competent, fully assured of her own ability to face the world alone, Miss Loder had never thought seriously of marriage. She delighted in her independence, was proud of the fact that she was able to command a good salary, and her habit of mind was too genuinely practical to allow of any weak leanings towards romance. She did not wish to marry. She had none of the fabled longing for domesticity, as exemplified in a well-kept house and a well-filled nursery, with which the average man endows the normal woman. She looked on children, indeed, mainly as the materials on whom this or that system of education might be tested; and she was really of too cold, too self-sufficing a nature to feel the need of any love other than that of relation or friend.
But since she had worked for Owen Rose, Millicent had begun to change her views. At first she had merely been attracted by his brilliance, as any clever girl might have been, had found it stimulating to work with him, and had been pleased and proud when he selected her to be his coadjutor in the task of writing his first book. She had been, in truth, so keenly interested in the author that she had overlooked the man; and it is a fact that until she came down, at his request, to his house to work there, away from the busy office, his personality had been so vague to her that she could not even have described his appearance with any accuracy.
But the sight of his home, the stately old house set in its spacious gardens and surrounded by magnificent trees, had shaken Millicent out of her intellectual reverie into a very shrewd and wide-awake realization of the man himself.
In his own home he shook off the conventions of the office, became more human, more approachable; and no woman, least of all one as mentally alert, as open-eyed as Miss Loder, could have passed with him through those strenuous hours in which his book was born without gaining a pretty complete insight into his character.
And with knowledge came a new and less comprehensible emotion. At first Miss Loder had accepted the fact of her employer's marriage as one accepts any fixed tradition; and the subject rarely entered her thoughts during working hours.
Gradually she began to feel a faint curiosity as to what manner of woman Owen Rose's wife might be; and she welcomed her summons to Greenriver on the ground that now she would be able to solve the problem for herself. When she finally saw Toni, her first emotion was one of surprise that this dark-eyed girl should be the mistress of Greenriver; and very slowly that surprise died and was succeeded by a feeling of envy which grew day by day. At first Miss Loder grudged the unconscious Toni her established position aschâtelaineof this eminently desirable home; and Toni's very simplicity, the youthfulinsouciancewith which she filled that position, was an added annoyance. Later, Miss Loder began to grudge Toni more than that. As she spent more and more time in Owen's company, as she grew more and more intimate with the workings of his mind, of his rich and poetic imagination, Miss Loder began to fall under the spell of the man himself.
Quite unconsciously she was becoming ever more attracted by his manner, his voice, his ways; and once or twice she found herself wondering, with a kind of sick envy, in what light he appeared to the woman who was his wife.
Through it all, however, Miss Loder's paramount emotion was one of envy for the mistress of Greenriver. She used to think, as she came into the house each morning, that it would have suited her much better, as a background, than it would ever suit the quaint, childish-looking Toni; and it grew almost unendurable to her to have to sit at the luncheon table as a guest—not even that—and watch Toni's ridiculous assumption of dignity as she sat in her high-backed chair opposite her husband.
There was no doubt about it that Greenriver would have suited Miss Loder very well as a home; and she grew to dislike Toni more and more as the full realization of the girl's good fortune penetrated her mind.
Toni had been quite right in detecting the malice beneath Millicent's pretended friendliness. It seemed to Miss Loder that the only way to pierce this upstart girl's armour of complacency was to launch shafts of cleverly-veiled contempt; and although to Owen these darts were either imperceptible or merely accidental, Toni knew very well that they were intended to wound.
Owen, wrapped up in his book, and only anxious to further the work as rapidly as possible, had no time to spare for these feminine amenities. He realized, of course, that Toni did not care for Miss Loder; but he thought he understood that her dislike came, rather pathetically, from her consciousness of her own shortcomings: and had no idea that Miss Loder herself was largely responsible for the lack of harmony between them.
On what might be called the literary side of him, he thought Millicent Loder an excellent secretary, the one woman with whom he found it possible to work; but on what might be called the personal side, his interest wasnil. True, he liked her trim appearance, though he would never have dreamed of comparing it with Toni's more unconventional attraction. He admired her quiet independence, and recognized her at once as belonging to his own world; but he never thought of her in any relation save that of secretary and general assistant; and even Toni was sufficiently wise to recognize the fact.
All the same Toni mistrusted the other woman; and it was with a feeling of intensest apprehension that she received Owen's announcement that Barry had arranged for a substitute at the office—thus setting Miss Loder free to resume her work at Greenriver.
It chanced on a beautiful October day that Owen found it necessary to go to town on business connected with theBridge; and for once he went up by train, bidding Toni use the car if she felt so inclined.
She did feel inclined; and after a very early lunch, jumped into the waiting motor, and directed Fletcher to drive over to Cherry Orchard, in the hope of inducing the doctor's daughters to share her excursion.
Disappointment awaited her, however. Both the Tobies were away from home on a short visit, and Toni was obliged to proceed alone.
She had enjoyed a couple of hours' spin in the frosty air, when she found herself being carried swiftly past the railway station, and a thought struck her which she communicated to Fletcher without delay.
Yes, Fletcher opined, it was just time the London train was due, and since it was quite possible Mr. Rose had travelled by it, he obligingly brought the car to a standstill outside the station entrance.
Toni jumped lightly out, an alluring little figure in her beautiful sable coat and cap, and made her way swiftly on to the platform, glancing at the big station clock as she did so.
The train was not due for five minutes; and to pass the interval of waiting, Toni strolled over to the bookstall in search of a paper. As she stood turning over a few magazines, a familiar voice accosted her, and she moved quickly to face the speaker.
"Mrs. Rose—I hope you have not quite forgotten me?"
"Mr. Dowson! Of course I've not forgotten you." She put out a friendly little hand, which the young man seized in a fervent grasp. "My cousin Fanny told me you were coming down to Sutton."
"Yes. I had to change here. It's an awkward little journey." He was gazing at her fixedly, but withal so respectfully that Toni could not take offence. "You are, I believe, a resident of this little riverside colony of Willowhurst?"
"Well, we live by the river," said Toni cheerfully, amused, as of yore, by his somewhat pedantic diction. "But do tell me, Mr. Dowson, how do you expect to make a fortune here?"
"I do not expect to do so," he informed her promptly. "I assure you this move on my part was not actuated by any mercenary motive, Mrs. Rose."
"Wasn't it?" She felt vaguely uncomfortable. "Well, I hope you will succeed. After all, I suppose people do have toothache in the country."
"Fortunately, they do," was Mr. Dowson's reply, and Toni was happily able to acquit him of any unkind meaning. "But may I say that I have never seen you looking so well, Mrs. Rose? Evidently the river life suits you admirably."
Toni did look particularly well at that moment. The keen frosty air had brought a tinge of wild-rose to her cheeks, and a sparkle to her eyes; and the animation of her expression hid the very slight traces of mental distress which at a less favourable moment might have been evident to a searching scrutiny.
"I'm very well, thanks," she replied carelessly. "I've been motoring, and now I'm waiting for my husband. He has been in town to-day."
Although she did not wish to dismiss the young man summarily, he imagined she desired him to go; and since to the true lover his mistress' unspoken wish has the force of a command, Mr. Dowson hastened to obey what he deemed her bidding.
"I must hurry to the other side to take my train," he said immediately. "May I express my pleasure at meeting you, Mrs. Rose—and also to see you look so well," he added heartily, if ungrammatically.
She shook hands with him, debating with herself as to the advisability of inviting him to Greenriver; but fortunately the arrival of the London train cut short their farewells at an opportune moment, and Mr. Dowson left her before she had time to decide the point.
Owen was not among the few passengers who got out of the train; and after waiting a moment or two to make sure, Toni turned away to find herself confronted with Mr. Herrick, who with a worried look on his face was interrogating one of the sleepy porters.
"No, sir, there isn't no cabs. There wasn't but three, and the gentlemen was very quick about taking 'em."
"Well, I must get one somehow." Herrick, quite overlooking Toni in his disturbance, spoke sharply, and Toni wondered vaguely why he was so annoyed. "You can ring one up from the livery stables, can't you?"
"What's the matter, Jim? No cab, I suppose. Well, they can just fetch one—and quick, too."
The words, spoken behind her in an unmistakably Irish voice made Toni start. She understood, all at once, that this was Mrs. Herrick's home-coming; and she felt a sudden curiosity to see the woman who had lately gone through so bitter an experience.
She half turned away; then a thought struck her, and she turned quickly back again and rushed into speech.
"Mr. Herrick, I couldn't help hearing you say you wanted a cab just now. Will you let me drive you—and your wife—home in the car? Do—it would save you having to wait so long."
Herrick, whose usual philosophic calm appeared to have deserted him, hesitated.
"Why, Mrs. Rose, it's awfully good of you—but——"
"Oh, do!" Toni spoke eagerly, and the woman who stood by turned to her impulsively.
"Are you offering to take us home in your car?" Her voice was full of Irish melody. "It is very kind of you—and for myself, I'm so tired I'd accept with pleasure. But"—there was something malignant in the glance she gave her husband—"perhaps we'd better wait for a cab."
"Oh, do come, please," Toni begged, her bright eyes pleading to be allowed to do this little service. "It's a big car, and I'm all alone in it."
"Very well." Mrs. Herrick turned to her husband. "Come along, Jim; the luggage can come on later."
And in less than five minutes the matter was arranged. Herrick elected to sit beside the chauffeur, so that Toni and her new acquaintance sat together in the body of the car. Mrs. Herrick's large and rather new-looking dressing-bag on the floor at their feet.
Toni gave the direction to the openly interested Fletcher, and the car glided away through the group of loafers hanging round the station entrance, and settled down into a steady hum on the road leading to the Hope House.
Toni seized a moment while Mrs. Herrick was busy with the fastening of her bag to steal a look at her companion; and in that brief glance she received two distinct impressions—one that Eva Herrick was a bitterly unhappy woman, the other that she had no intention of allowing other people to escape from her own aura of bitterness.
In person Mrs. Herrick was short and slight, with a look of finish about her probably handed down through generations of her Irish ancestors. Her small features were cut as clearly as a cameo, and her short upper lip, while giving her an air of pride which was unpleasing, was in itself beautiful. Her eyes, the big Irish eyes which had first enslaved Herrick, were lovely in shape and colour, but they were encircled by disfiguring blue shadows, and the fine skin had a tell-tale pallor which spoke of long indoor confinement.
Her hair, by nature crisp and golden, looked dull and lifeless in the shadow of her hat; and over the whole dainty face and figure there was an indefinable blight, a sort of shadow which dimmed and blurred their naturally clean and clear contours.
As she removed her gloves to fumble with the lock of her bag. Toni noticed that the small, well-shaped hands were rough and badly kept; and Toni's soft heart was wrung by these evidences of a sordid, toilsome past.
Suddenly Mrs. Herrick sat upright and gazed at Toni with a look which held something of criticism.
"You live down here I suppose?"
"Yes. We live at Greenriver, about a mile from your bungalow."
"Ah. Been here long?"
"Only a few months."
"I see. You haven't known my husband very long, then?"
"No. He pulled me out of the river one day," said Toni, "and we have seen him pretty often during the summer."
"Then I suppose you know where I've been?" Her eyes shone maliciously. "Oh, don't pretend you didn't know. I'm sure my worthy husband must have told you the whole story."
Toni, scarlet with embarrassment, and wishing from the bottom of her heart that she had never offered the use of her car, said nothing; and with a grating little laugh the other woman continued her speech.
"I expect everyone knows I have been in prison." Luckily she did not raise her voice; and Herrick, possibly foreseeing the necessity, had taken care to engage the chauffeur in conversation. "Eighteen months—almost—spent inhell. Oh!" Her small, sharp teeth bit her lip venomously. "It drives me mad to think of it. And it could all have been avoided if my husband had been a man."
"Oh!" Toni revolted inwardly against her callousness.
"Oh, I suppose he's told you some tale or other." Mrs. Herrick spoke fiercely, and all her childish beauty waned beneath her passion; "Well, whatever he says, it is I who have paid the bill. Prison! My God, you don't know what it is to be shut up in a cell like a beast—to be ordered about like a dog, to be starved on coarse food, made to sleep on a bed you wouldn't dare to give your servant!"
Toni, very pale, tried to stem the torrent of her words.
"Mrs. Herrick—please—really I don't think you ought to say this to me——"
"Ought? Why do you say that?" Eva Herrick looked contemptuously at her would-be mentor. "If you had been shut up as I have been, you would talk as you liked. Thank God I can talk if I can do nothing else."
Quite suddenly her manner changed. She gave a little laugh which was oddly fascinating, and laid her hand on Toni's arm.
"Come, now, Mrs. Rose, don't be getting angry with me." Her brogue lent a charm to her speech. "I'll admit I've no earthly right to talk so; it's bad form to begin with and a poor return for your kindness. But remember, I've gone through an experience that's enough to kill a woman, and you can't expect me to forget it all at once. So you must forgive me. Will you?"
"Oh, of course I will." Toni spoke quickly. "And I had no right to speak as I did. But—you must forget all that is past. Won't you try?"
"Sure, I'll try." Eva's lovely eyes filled with tears. "But I know what will happen. Your husband won't let you know me, of course, and if Jim and I are left alone, we'll be murdering one another one fine day."
"Oh, please don't talk so. Of course my husband will let me know you," said Toni in distress; and she was glad to find from the slackening of the car that their conversation must be cut short.
Jim Herrick, more silent and worn-looking than Toni had ever seen him, helped his wife to alight and then shook hands gratefully with Toni.
"So many thanks, Mrs. Rose." His big, bright eyes looked into hers, almost as the eyes of a nice dog might have done. "You have saved us a long wait, and I'm only sorry we have taken you out of your way."
"Oh, that's nothing," Toni said. "I like being out on these bright days, and I'm ever so glad I happened to be at the station."
She shook hands with Mrs. Herrick, who looked a pitifully fragile figure as she stood beside the car; and then Toni gave the order for home, and Fletcher obeyed that order too promptly to allow of any further leave-takings.
Just for one moment Jim Herrick stood looking after the car, and in his heart there was a great sickness of apprehension.
With the best intention in the world to be fair to his wife, he could not help comparing the fresh, simple-hearted Toni with the world-weary and disillusioned Eva; and at the thought of the future his spirits sank to zero.
A mocking voice broke on his ear as he watched the car gliding swiftly down the road.
"When you've finished staring at that young woman, Jim, perhaps you'll open the gate." Eva stood back to allow him to reach the latch. "I must say this is a nice place to bring me to. Is it a cottage or what?"
"It's quite a decent little place, dear," he said steadily, as he held open the gate for her to pass through. "Of course, I quite understand that it is only a temporary arrangement, but you will try to put up with it, won't you?"
"I suppose I shall have to," she replied ungraciously; and then she uttered an impatient exclamation as the big white dog tore over the lawn to meet her master, uttering deep-throated bays of welcome the while. "You've still got that beast, then—go down, you brute," she added, as Olga approached, with instinctive courtesy, to greet her former mistress.
"Don't snap at her, dear," said Herrick kindly. "The poor creature is only trying to say how do you do."
"Then she can say it to someone else," said Eva curtly. "I hate big dogs—I wish you'd get rid of her."
Herrick made no reply, but opened the door, and they went into the house together.
Eva passed into the quaintly attractive sitting-room with a frown on her face, which lightened, however, at sight of the tea-table standing ready, and pulling off her gloves and coat she flung herself into a low chair with a sigh of fatigue.
"Heavens, how thirsty I am," she said. "Give me some tea, Jim—quickly." And as he moved forward to obey her, her eyes followed him with a curious expression in their grey depths.
"What's for dinner?" she asked, suddenly, and Herrick looked his memory to recall themenu.
"Soup, roast chicken, plum tart, and a savoury," he said at last, smiling with a rather pathetic attempt at cheerfulness. "Mrs. Swastika, as I call her, is what is known as a 'good plain cook,' but anything at all elaborate throws her off her balance altogether."
"Have you no other servants?" she demanded shortly.
"Not yet. I didn't want them, you know, and I thought you would prefer to choose them yourself."
"I? If I can get any," she said darkly, drawing her delicate brows together resentfully. "Of course they won't stay when they find out things; but we must be decently waited on."
Herrick made no reply; and his silence exasperated the girl, whose nerves were all on edge.
"Oh, don't stand there saying nothing." Her voice was shrill. "Of course, you think I ought to wait on myself—now. And I suppose because I've been in prison you expect me to be thankful to be here—even in a hole like this. Well, I'm not. I hate the place. It's common and shabby and horrid, and I'm not going to live all anyhow, to please you."
Herrick, dismayed at the vehemence of her manner, could find no words; and she went on with increasing passion:
"I'm your wife—if Iama jail-bird!" She flung the taunt at him, and her whole little figure was shaken with the intensity of her emotion. "If you think I'm going to pretend to be penitent—and grateful to you—you are wrong! Ihateyou, Jim, I loathe and despise you—you might have taken the blame on your shoulders—and instead you stood by and watched them torture me.You'venot been to prison,you'venot been bullied and despised—you've not spent weeks and months in a loathsome little cell where the sun never shone and there was never a breath of air—you've not been called by a number, and preached at by the chaplain—oh, no, you've been living here in the sunshine—enjoying yourself, eating good food—your chicken and your savouries—and for all I know passing as a single man, and keeping your disgraced wife in the background!"
She struck the table sharply with her hand, and her cup and saucer fell to the ground and smashed, the tea trickling in a brown stream over the dim blues and greens of the Persian carpet.
She ignored the catastrophe.
"Well, you've got me back now, and I'm going to makeyourlife what mine has been for the last year and a half! I've longed for this moment, Jim"—she set her teeth—"longed for it during the horrible days and the still more horrible nights. It was only my hatred of you that kept me alive in the first ghastly weeks. I could have died—I was very ill at first, and they thought I'd die—but I knew I wouldn't. I meant to live so that I could tell you again to your face that I hate you, hate you—hateyou! And I'm going to show you what hate is, Jim—I'm going to make you wish you were dead—or in prison, as I have been. Oh, my God—I wish—I wish Iweredead!"
With a sudden collapse of all her powers she dropped, face downwards, on the big divan, and burst into a fit of wild and uncontrollable sobbing.
With an effort whose magnitude he himself only half realized, Herrick went softly over to the weeping, writhing figure, and laid his hand very gently on her shoulder.
"Eva, for pity's sake——"
She flung off his hand as though it had been a venomous serpent which had touched her; and again her wild sobbing filled the room.
"Eva, listen to me, dear." Herrick sat down beside her and spoke in a quiet tone, which yet pierced through her sobs. "You must not say anything like that to me again. There isn't any question of hatred between you and me. We are together now, and we must build up a new and happy life together which will help us to forget the less happy past. Come, dear, look up and tell me you will help me to make a fresh start."
She did not speak, but her sobs lessened as though she were listening.
"Now, Eva, sit up and dry your eyes and we will drop the subject. Come upstairs and have a rest before dinner. You are tired out and want a good sleep."
She rose without a word, but in her face he read only fatigue, none of the softening which he had hoped to see.
"Yes. I'm tired—dead tired." She moved languidly towards the door. "I think I shall never be anything else—now."
Her fit of passion had indeed worn her out. For the rest of the evening she was quiet and listless; and she went upstairs very early to bed, leaving Herrick to sit alone with his dog, smoking his pipe, and facing the future with a sinking heart.
He sat there until the hour was really late; and then crept upstairs very softly to avoid waking Eva, if indeed she slept.
Just as he reached her door he heard a faint, strangled cry, and rushed into her room to find her in the throes of one of the nightmares which he found, later, were a dreadful legacy from her prison life. On waking, her relief at finding she was not, as usual, alone was so great that for the first time she clung to Herrick as she might have done in happier days; and as he soothed her and pushed the damp golden curls from her brow she spoke naturally, with none of the resentment she had hitherto displayed.
Her husband's heart melted towards her in this gentler mood; and long after she had fallen asleep again, soothed by his presence, he sat watching her uneasy slumber with a feeling of compassion which, had she realized it, must surely have done something to bridge the gulf which now yawned between them.