CHAPTER XV
Which tells of a Poet that offered Himself for Sacrifice, and was Rejected of the Gods
Thelast day of September has early bridal with the night. Though the afternoon was not full spent, the dark shadows of the coming darkness held the town. In the midst of the gloom that was in Doome’s studio stood the sulky figure of the Honourable Ponsonby Wattles Ffolliott; and, at his feet, there crouched on the floor a very young and very beautiful woman, and her head was bowed. Wringing her clasped hands upon her knees she said hoarsely:
“God have mercy upon me—for this is an awful caricature of His image.... I am lost—lost.”
He fidgeted peevishly:
“You know, my dear girl, this is most annoying,” said he, with self-pitying drawl—“your taunts are in such bad taste—and it is so absolutely embarrassing. And—I so positively detest being embarrassed.”
She rose to her feet wearily:
“Ponsonby, all my things are packed, ready to go—Heaven knows there was not so much to pack—it is not that. I do not want to encumber you—to embarrass you. I am going. This place is not such a bewitching Paradise, nor its memories so sweet, that I should stay. I know your time at these rooms is up. But you—even you—must surely realize that I cannot go home where a harsh and bitterly religious step-father sits at the table.” She drooped her head: “I could not disguise my state for a day. And they are so religious.”
She fidgeted her fingers pathetically:
“No,” she moaned—“I cannot go home—there’s no smallest mercy in them.”
The Honourable Ponsonby broke into her mood:
“But—I say, my dear gal——”
How she had grown to hate the dreadful drawl!
“Ponsonby”—she grasped his arm feverishly, trying to rouse some honour in him—“I have no money—none. I shall soon be a mother. You have made it impossible for me to make money in the studios. At home,” she laughed sadly, “theythink I am studying art.” She got a-brooding. “The child will require care.... Where, in God’s name, am I to go?”
“Well—er—I don’t really know. You see I’m so bad at arranging things.... Almost an ass in some things——”
She touched his sleeve—so pathetically:
“Let the child be born in honour—a secret marriage—anything.” She shrank back. “It is dreadful to think of being tied to you,” she moaned, “but—for the child’s sake—for the child’s sake you must be made to remember your promises—youmustgive the child honour.”
She saw his inane mouth opening to the uttering of foolishness.
She dropped at his feet, bowing her head to her shame, a wounded broken woman—this little more than child—soon to be the mother of a child.
He fidgeted:
“Well, you see, my dear girl—it can’t be marriage,” he drawled, “because I’m—er—morally married already—I’m almost engaged—and you know—as a gentleman——”
She brushed her hand back over her forehead. The enormity of his idiotcy stung her, and she groaned:
“My God!” said she—“what a bleating fool this is!”
“Oh yes, call me ridiculous names,” he complained huffily—“but I’m really glad to see that you realize that—er—as a gentleman——”
She rose from the floor, and turned upon him:
“Then why, in the name of all’s that abominable, did you do this thing?”
He licked his lips sullenly, flinching a little before her:
“Well, don’t you see—I knew you would see reason, that you would see that it can’t possibly be marriage. And as to providing for you, don’t you see I have so precious little for myself—and I have such awfully expensive tastes——”
“God!” she growled, stepping to him, with a sudden urging to strike him—“I could kill you.” And she added hoarsely: “I almost think I will.”
“Now, don’t be violent—I never know what to do when a woman is violent. In my family the women are never violent.... You see, Polly——”
“Don’t befoul my name by speaking it——”
He shrugged his shoulders:
“Mydeargirl, this melodramatic way of life is most repulsive to me—it makes me feel quite nervous and ill,” he added plaintively. “You used to be such a nice girl.”
She burst into laughter, miserable laughter, and wrung her hands:
“My God, this is awful!” she said.
She fell a-brooding.
The long silence made the youth uneasy:
“Polly, don’t you see——”
“Urgh!” She swung round upon him savagely—growling as a leopard might: “Stop that awful bleating. Your voice turnsmy blood acid—is like some filthy stench to me.... If you value your life, keep that dreadful voice still.... Let me think. In God’s name, let me think.... What to do?that’sthe bewildering thing. You, who make me stand a-wonder how I suffered myself to let you touch me—you, with your dreadful idiot’s stare and slack mouth (Mother of God, I too must be a living idiot!)—you have robbed me for months to come even of benefiting by the basest traffic in which a woman may barter herself.”
Of a sudden she turned to the door:
“Go,” she said hoarsely—“go away—or I shall do you an injury. Quick! I can descend to no more foul shame than I have now known. Go—and, as you love yourself, I say, don’t let me hear that awful bleat again.”
He walked out of the room in his weak-kneed way, huffily, and was gone.
She stood listening there, until all echo of him, dandified, weak-kneed, had passed out of her ears.
And when the world was become wholly silent, the tense mood passed. She sank to the seat of the sofa and bent her brows on the problem, what to do? Before her was blackness. No writing across the sullen sky.
As she sat thus in the gloom, scowling at cruelty, a key turned in the lock outside, there was the loud slam of the outer door, a heavy step or so, and a man’s figure entered into the dusk of the room.
“Eustace Lovegood!” she said hoarsely. “The good God must have sent you.”
The big man started; took off his hat:
“Bless my soul, Miss Whiffels,youhere! Mr. Doome has asked me to use his rooms—for a month.... But I did not know there was anyone—I mean, he—must have forgotten.”
“No,” she said—“I have no business here—none. Eustace, I am a desperate woman. I don’t know—where—to go.”
“My dear lady!”
“Why should I show a modesty that I once had—a long while ago—quite some months now——”
“My dear good——”
“Listen, Eustace. I must state the indecent thing to somebody. This man has debauched me—body and soul——”
“Good God! Bartholomew Doome?”
“No, no. This Ffolliott person——”
“Ffolliott?” His surprise was unmitigated.
She laughed bitterly:
“Yes—that is the worst part of my shame. It bleats in my ears just like that.”
“But——”
“Listen. He will not keep his bond—I cannot appeal to any sense of honour. He himself does not know how to spell the word.”
“What! you are not married to him?”
She smiled grimly:
“No. My degradation has not sunk to that. He has not even the will nor the desire to support me even for a little while—until the child is born.”
The big man frowned:
“Oh, I do not think he is quite such an unmitigated cad as that!”
She rose from the sofa wearily and went to the fireplace:
“I should like some smallest proof,” she said—“for This is the father of—my—child.... Give me some smallest proof, Eustace, that this man has a shred of manhood—the least little frayed shred. I have made every appeal—appeals for enslavement which, if granted, would have bitten into me like the teeth of a dog. But, for the child’s sake, I held out my hand to be bitten, bared my breast, begged him to befoul me with his benefits!”
She uttered a little harsh laugh:
“I was saved the dog’s teeth of that ignominy,” she said.
Lovegood had stood, pondering hard; he suddenly remembered a five-pound note which had been paid to him that day.
He coughed:
“Well, as it happens, he has given me rather an embarrassing task to fulfil,” he said. “He sends you some money by me—I wish my friends would not always give me their unpleasant duties to perform.”
The big man tugged the crisp banknote out of his breast-pocket, and brought it to her.
She took it; and crumpled it in her hand:
“I will touch nothing,” she began passionately, swinging her hand to fling the money into the fire—stopped—turned sharply and looked keenly at Lovegood:
“Oh, Eustace—it’s clean after all! What a sweet big-hearted liar you are!”
She went up to him, pulled down his great head, and kissed him on the cheek.
“My God!” said she—“you make me sane.... But you are a wretched poor hand at any deceit.... A poorer evil-doer surely was never born.... But, as a matter of fact, the very heavens are against you this time—the bleating awful Thing has only just left the place.”
“Yes, God forgive me, I saw him. He smelt of Poudre d’Amour to the Haymarket.”
He led her to the sofa, sat down beside her, and took her hand:
“Don’t let us pollute the air with him any more,” he said—“let us talk about pleasant things—likeyou.”
The girl was becoming quieted.
“Yes,” she said—“I must try and keep myself from horrors—for the sake of the little one.... Eustace, I believe you have something of the woman in your big heart—and, thank God, you have come to me—for this man has made it impossible for me totalk to women.... So I have had to buy a book. It told me all about the influences upon the unborn child.... I must get the memory of this man out of my mind—cleanse my ears of him. You must come and see me and keep me from thinking—the blood that ought to be leaping for delight of this little one was being turned to poison—and, now, since big awkward you came into this twilight, I am almost glad the little one is coming.”
The big man, elbow on knee, leaned his chin on his knuckles and looked at her:
“Miss Polly,” said he—“I see a better way out. Suppose you let me father the child! You might do worse. I am a lonely man.”
She shook her head sadly:
“There is no such good in store for me,” she said.
She took his face between her two slender hands and kissed him—on the brows and cheek and lips and chin:
“I wonder how it is that no woman has loved you, Eustace.... It will come.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
He could not trust himself to speak.
She sighed sadly:
“One day you will know why I say No,” she said. “You will know that I loved you too well.”
“I think,” said he—“I think I know now.”