In the last week of the holidays, if only Mrs. Payne had been more acute, she might have surprised his secret. Walking the lowest of their meadows on the side of Bredon Hill, they came suddenly upon a southern slope already powdered with the flowers of cowslips. This cloth of gold was the chief glory of their spring, blooming mile on mile of meadowland, and drenching the air with a faint perfume. Mrs. Payne stooped to pick some, for the scent provoked so many memories, and to her it was one of the sensations that returned year by year with amazing freshness—that and the spice of pinks in early summer or the green odour of phlox. "Smell them, they smell like wine," she said, giving her bunch to Arthur.
"Mrs. Considine told me that there are no cowslips in their part of Devon," he said. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he went down on his knees and began to pick the flowers. The hue of their smooth stalks was pale as the first apple-leaves, springing straight and slender each above its leafy mat.
"Why are you picking so many? They're more beautiful as they are."
"If they haven't any I'd like to send her some?"
He went on picking cowslips till the light faded from the fields. Next morning he packed them carefully, and posted them, with a letter, to Lapton. She thought it very charming and thoughtful of him to send Mrs. Considine the flowers. It merely struck her as typical of his new nature, and she thought it rather shabby of Gabrielle, when, after three days of waiting, she had not acknowledged the gift. Altogether she felt that Mrs. Considine had been rather a broken reed as far as Arthur was concerned. In the beginning she had taken to her, and expected quite a lot of her. Arthur, too, seemed disturbed that she did not reply. Day after day he waited for a letter from Lapton with eagerness. There was no reason why he shouldn't have been anxious to know that his present had not gone astray. She had not seen the note that Arthur posted with his flowers.
With no more than the vaguest mistrust—for she still felt that in some way she had fallen short of full possession, Mrs. Payne saw him return to Lapton for the summer term. During the early weeks Arthur scarcely ever wrote to her, and when she protested mildly, his reply seemed to her evasive. It was a dutiful reply, and though she couldn't help admitting that in Arthur the recognition of any duty was a new thing, the suspicion that for some obscure reason she was losing him, persisted. She was not in the ordinary way a woman of acute intuitions, but her whole mind had been so wrapped up in that son of hers that she was sensitive to the smallest changes of tone, and she knew that while he was writing her letters his head had been full of other things. At the same time she had sense enough to see that with his recovery Arthur's life had become crowded with so many new interests that she couldn't reasonably expect the old degree of absorption in herself. This was the price of his recovery, and she determined to pay it without grudging.
She settled down into this state of patience and resignation. She even prepared to deny herself her usual privilege of a visit to Lapton in term-time, feeling that it would be unfair of her to interrupt the progress of Considine's remarkable system. In the meantime she kept in touch with Arthur through her jealous care of the things that he had left behind, in the arrangement of his books, in the mending of his clothes, and in the preparation of an upstairs room that he had begun to turn into a study for his holiday reading. On these inanimate traces of him she lavished a peculiar tenderness, for their presence had the effect of making her feel less lonely.
One day she took up to his new study a number of note-books that he had used during the Easter holidays. When he had sat out under the cedar in the evenings she had often noticed him writing with a pencil though she had never thought to enquire what he was doing. Now, with a chance curiosity, she happened to open one of these books and examine what he had written. She saw at once that they were verses, and laughed at the idea. But when she had read one or two of his poems she laughed no longer. She realised at once that they were love-poems, feeble and amateurish in their expression, but daringly sensual and passionate in their content. They made the good woman blush—her husband had never been so direct in his days of courtship—but to her blushes succeeded a moment of fierce maternal alarm. It was impossible, she thought, that anyone innocent of a violent sexual passion could have conceived the ideas that the verses contained. They were fully as physical, and nearly as direct, as the love-songs of Herrick. She was not only shocked, but frightened, for her long years of widowhood had isolated her from all feelings of the kind that Arthur expressed so glibly. She read the poems over again and again. She could not sleep at night for thinking of them. In the end she became convinced that the thing which she had feared most had come to pass; that even if the coming of manhood had brought to Arthur the birth of a moral sense in matters of ordinary social intercourse, the gain had been neutralised by the release of a new instinct that was powerful enough to wreck the rest. The boy was obviously and violently in love—not with any shadowy dreamed ideal, but actually with a woman of definite physical attributes. It was almost possible to reconstruct a picture from the poems. A skin of ivory, grey eyes, hair that was like night, red lips, pale hands, all rather commonplace, but, none the less, damningly definite.
It is curious that the image of Gabrielle never suggested itself to her. Perhaps it was the fact that Arthur, for some unaccountable reason, probably because he usually saw them in a half-light, had made her violet eyes—an unmistakable feature—grey. As the matter stood Mrs. Payne was convinced that he had become entangled, and intimately entangled, with some dangerous and designing woman. It was her plain duty to save him. The only thing that restrained her from immediate action was the fear that any big emotional disturbance might undo the work that Considine had already accomplished. She didn't in the least connect the passion with the reformation, and yet she wondered if interference with the one might somehow prejudice the other. It was a harrowing dilemma.
In the end, with her accustomed courage, she decided to face the risk. At any rate no harm need be done by her taking Considine into her confidence. She encouraged herself with a pathetic trust in his stability and wisdom in all matters that affected Arthur. Without even the warning of a telegram she made her decision, ordered the carriage for the station and set off for Lapton.
She arrived there late on a Saturday night to the astonishment of the Considines, who had disposed of the boys for the evening, and were sitting together in the library. Considine, who prided himself on never being surprised by an emergency, welcomed her as if there were nothing unusual in her visit, and Gabrielle, a little nervous, went off to see the housekeeper, and arrange about a room for the visitor. At the door Mrs. Payne stopped her. "If you don't mind," she said, "I should be glad if you wouldn't let Arthur know that I'm here."
Considine was quick to agree: "Certainly not, if you wish it."
Gabrielle left them and he prepared to hear her story. She was very agitated, and found it difficult to express herself. For a little time, in spite of Considine's encouragements, she beat about the bush. She felt that her revelation would amount to a criticism of Considine's management.
At last, realising that she was getting no further, she produced her documents and handed them to him.
Considine examined them slowly and judicially without a flicker of emotion. It seemed to Mrs. Payne a very solemn moment, full of awful possibilities. She waited breathlessly for his verdict.
"Well?" he said at last, putting the papers aside.
"Arthur wrote them."
"Yes…. I recognised his writing."
"He is in love with some woman."
"Presumably … yes. But I'm not so sure of that."
"What do you mean?" She gasped at the prospect of relief.
He explained to her at length. It was a very common thing for boys ofArthur's age, he said, to write verse.
"Verses of that kind?"
Yes… even verses of that kind. To be perfectly candid he himself, when a boy in his teens, had done very much the same sort of thing. It was true perhaps that the verses which he had written had not been quite so … perhaps frank was the best word. On the other hand his own development had followed more normal lines. He hadn't, in the manner of Arthur, burst suddenly into blossom. All boys wrote verses. Often they wrote verses of an amatory character, not particularly because they happened to be in love, but because the bulk of English lyrical poetry, to which they went for their models, was, regrettably, of an amatory character. At this stage in a boy's development, even in the development of the greatest poets (and Arthur, he noticed in passing, did not show any signs of amazing genius) the verses were usually imitative. It rather looked as if he had been reading Herrick, or possibly the Shakespeare sonnets … the dark lady, you know. Seriously, he didn't think there was anything to worry about. He folded the papers and handed them back to her.
For once in a way Considine didn't satisfy her. There were other things, she said. Things that she hadn't attached any value to at the time when they happened, but which now seemed significant. When she came to think of it Arthur's whole behaviour during the holidays had been that of a youth who was in love. With all deference to Dr. Considine she felt that she couldn't pass the matter over. It was her plain duty to enquire into it, and find, if possible, a more obvious reason for this strange and sudden outburst.
Considine agreed that no harm could be done by a little quiet investigation. At the same time he couldn't possibly see what opportunities Arthur could have had for falling in love at Lapton.
"We're very isolated here," he said. "The Manor is a kingdom in itself. It seems to me that circumstances would force him to invent an ideal for the want of any living model."
She shook her head. There was no isolation, she said, into which love could not enter; and this, in the face of classical precedent, Considine was forced to admit. Could she, then, make any suggestions?
Mrs. Payne said, "Servants," and blushed.
Considine also blushed, but with irritation. The suggestion brought the matter uncomfortably near home.
"I think you can put that out of your mind," he said. "I'll admit that I did not consider this point when I engaged them, but I do not think you'll find any one peculiarly attractive among them."
"They're women," said Mrs. Payne obstinately.
It seemed to her that Considine's incredulity was forcing them both into a blind alley.
"If you don't mind," she said, "I think it would be better for me to talk the matter over with your wife. A woman, if you'll allow me to say so, is much more acutely sensitive to … this kind of thing."
Again Considine blushed. The prospect of engaging Gabrielle in the matter was altogether against his principles. He had always made it a rule that her essential femininity should not be compromised by any contact with the business of the school. He did not even like her to take an intimate share in the management of the house. After all she was a Hewish and a cousin of the august Halbertons. That was why he had employed Mrs. Bemerton as housekeeper.
"I shall be obliged," he said, "if you don't mention a matter that may possibly become unsavoury, to Mrs. Considine. She knows nothing of the servants, and I prefer her to take no part in the affairs of my pupils."
Altogether the good woman felt that she had been snubbed for her pains. She had expected a great deal from Considine, and even more from Gabrielle. Still, if Considine objected to his wife being consulted, she was prepared to accept his decision. The only course that remained open to her was to make enquiries for herself, and determine, by observation, what women were possibly available for the disposal of Arthur's affections.
"Very well," she said with a sigh. "If you don't wish me to speak to your wife, of course I won't."
"If you'll pardon my saying so, I think you're unduly anxious. After all, the most obvious thing is to ask Arthur himself. Why not do that?"
She hesitated and then spoke the truth.
"I'm afraid he'd tell me a lie. I don't want him to do that … now. I'd much rather find out for myself. I wish I could believe you. I do indeed."
She paused for a moment and then said, almost as if she were speaking to herself, "There's no place where there aren't opportunities. Farmer's daughters … village girls. There are more women in the world than there are men."
He couldn't help smiling at the mathematical accuracy of her remark, but once more he shook his head.
"At any rate," she said, returning to the practical aspect of the case, "I suppose you've no objection to my staying here for a day or two, and keeping my eyes open. Failing anything else I will speak to Arthur about it."
"Please consider the house your own," said Considine, who had now recovered his usual politeness.
"Thank you," she said. "You're very kind. But you know how grateful I am to you already."
Mrs. Considine returned, and a little later showed her to her room. In the candle-light of the passage Mrs. Payne was assailed by an overwhelming desire to break her promise and disclose her troubles to Gabrielle. She felt that her quest was so lonely. Gabrielle seemed to her sympathetic and she knew that it would be a great relief to her to discuss the affair with another woman. As they paused at her bedroom door, her old attraction towards Mrs. Considine that had once culminated in an impulsive kiss took hold of her again. She wanted, for some obscure reason, to kiss Gabrielle once more. Perhaps there was something in the attraction of her opposite physical type that accounted for this impulse as well as for Arthur's infatuation. For the present she suppressed her inclination. After all Considine had acted fairly enough with her, and she felt that she could not fail him in a point of honour.
Alone in her room she read over Arthur's poems again. Now that she was so near to him they impressed her less with a sense of fear and anxiety than with one of pity and of love. He was her child, and therefore to be protected and caressed. She found it difficult not to leave her room in the night, and grope her way along the creaking corridors to the room in which she knew he was sleeping. She wanted to kiss him and hold him in her arms. She placed the poems on the table at her bedside and blew out the candle. It was unfortunate for her bewilderment that Arthur had not left in his notebook the rough copy of the verses that he had sent to Gabrielle with the box of cowslips, the verses to which she had not dared to reply.
Next morning at breakfast Arthur and his mother met. All through the holidays she had been indefinitely conscious of an awkwardness between them; now, with so much guilty knowledge in her mind, the relation became definitely embarrassing. She wondered if he felt it as deeply as she did. Certainly he showed no sign of any emotion but surprise at her visit.
"But if you came last night, why on earth didn't you come along to my room?" he said. "And why are you so mysterious? What's it all about?"
She put him off as well as she could. "I wanted to see you, that was all," she said. "I thought you would be pleased by the surprise," and then: "You don't seem very pleased."
"Of course I'm pleased," he said, blushing. "But I don't understand it."
Whatever he said she knew in her heart that she wasn't wanted. It was a bitter thing to realise, but it made her more than ever certain that there was a secret to be disclosed.
After breakfast the Sunday morning routine of a country house began. She and Arthur walked together over the fields to church. The whole country breathed a lazy atmosphere of early summer. Its beauty and its placidity mocked her. Before them went the Considines. He wore a long cassock that swept the grass, as they went, while Gabrielle walked in silence at his side. Never once in their journey did she look back. It struck Mrs. Payne for the first time how young she was, how very much younger and more supple than her husband. And yet they seemed to be happy.
The service was the usual slow ceremony of a village church, Considine moving with the dignity of his vestments from the lectern and the altar to the organ seat which he also occupied. Arthur, standing or kneeling at his mother's side, appeared to be properly engrossed in the service. Singing the psalms beside him she became aware how much of a man he was now, for his voice, that had been cracking for several years, had now sunk to a deep and sonorous bass.
It was not until Considine ascended the pulpit and began to preach, that Mrs. Payne became conscious of anything extraordinary. At first she was held by the sermon, which was unusually well constructed, but in the middle of it she became aware that Arthur was not listening. He sat straight in the pew beside her as though he were intent on the preacher, but all the time his eyes were wandering to the other side of the aisle. Mrs. Payne tried to follow their direction. Here, presumably, was a fairly representative collection of the female inhabitants of the village. Here she might expect to find the farmer's daughter, or, in the last emergency, the housemaid, on whom his affections were centred. She heard no more of Considine, only watching Arthur's eyes, and watching, she soon discovered that these were for Mrs. Considine and her alone. She could not deny the fact that Gabrielle, with her fine pale profile set against a pillar of grey sandstone, was a creature of amazing beauty. She herself was fascinated by this vision of refinement and grace to such a degree that she almost shared in Arthur's rapture.
For a little while she could not be sure of it, for this was the last possibility that had entered her mind: but at last it seemed that Gabrielle became conscious of the gaze that she could not see. Suddenly, without the least warning, she turned her head in Arthur's direction. Their eyes met. She blushed faintly, and, at the same moment, became aware of Mrs. Payne. The blush deepened, spreading into the ivory whiteness of her neck; and Mrs. Payne had no need to look at her any longer, for she knew.
Her mind leapt quickly to the whole situation. In the light of this evidence she recalled a hundred things that had not even puzzled her before. She saw the reason for the strange fate that had overtaken their correspondence, she divined the secret of Gabrielle's sudden reticence, and the break in Arthur's frank enthusiasms. She knew that she had made a triumphant discovery, but in her elation realised that it would be wiser to go gently. This was a secret that could not be blurted out without disaster. The situation needed careful handling.
Once in possession of certain knowledge it was no longer difficult for her to interpret Arthur's moods. In the afternoon when they sat out under the trees on the lawn, she stumbled on a strange corroboration. She had fallen into a doze in a lounge chair at his side, and when she awoke she saw that he was reading poetry. He seemed to be reading one poem over and over again, and a sudden curiosity made her ask what he was reading. "Tennyson," he said, and closed the book. But he had left a long grass for marker between the pages, and when they moved towards the house at tea-time she picked up the book and opened it. Her eyes fell upon a significant stanza from "Maud."
She came to the village church,And sat by a pillar alone;An angel watching an urnWept over her, carved in stone:And once, but once, she lifted her eyes,And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blushed,To find they were met by my own …
Mrs. Payne's heart beat faster as she read the verse. Later in the day, to test him, she asked him what he had been reading. She half expected him to tell her a lie, but, strangely enough, it was the truth that he gave her.
"What do you like about 'Maud'?" she said.
"I like it all," he replied. "It's the kind of thing that anyone might feel." He hesitated. "And there's one part of it in particular——"
She waited, with her heart in her mouth.
"What is that?" she said.
"Oh, right at the beginning. I don't suppose it would mean much to you. I can't remember it exactly, but it starts like this:
I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,The red-ribbed ledges drip with a silent horror of blood …
I can't remember any more…"
"But why should that appeal to you?" she asked, disappointed.
"I don't know. It reminds me of something that happened to me once."
She did not feel that it would be profitable to press him further on this uninteresting point.
All that afternoon and evening Mrs. Payne watched them. The rôle of detective was unnatural to her, and once or twice she couldn't help feeling that it was unworthy, and that she herself was an ogress, they were so young and so unsuspicious. She had an impression not that they were deliberately hiding anything from her, but that the understanding between them somehow tacitly excluded her from their intimacy. She felt out of it at Lapton, hovering impotently on the edge of the magic circle that their passion had created. The strangest thing of all about this amazing relation of theirs was its air of innocence. She was so keenly aware of this, and felt herself so likely to fall a victim to the idea's persuasions, that she had to make an unusual effort, to remain awake and alive to her plain duty, and to the fact that this simple and natural love affair was a crime against society, a disaster that might wreck not only Considine's home, but all Arthur's future.
She could not make up her mind what to do, and this unsettled her, for in the ordinary way she was a woman of determination who acted first and afterwards considered the propriety of her actions. Her first impulse was to go straight to Considine and say, "I told you so." This course presented her with the opportunity of an easy triumph, and was in keeping with her downright traditions; but in this case she was not in the least anxious to make a personal score. She saw that if she told Considine she would be firing the train to an explosion that might end in nothing but useless wreckage. Considine, for instance, admittedly touchy on the subject of Gabrielle, might refuse to believe her and show her the door. Arthur would be forced to leave Lapton; and she thought too highly of Considine's influence on him to run the risk of a relapse. On the other hand Considine might believe her, and put the very worst construction on what she told him. She saw the possibility of Arthur's being landed in the Divorce Court, which was unthinkable. She abandoned the idea of approaching Considine at all.
The next course that suggested itself was that of tackling Arthur; but the atmosphere of mistrust, if not of actual hostility, that at present involved their relations made her think twice about this. She could not dare to treat Arthur as a normal person, for she knew that his hold on normality was recent and precarious, and feared that a violent or passionate scene might undo in a moment all the developments that had been accomplished in the last six months. Even if they escaped this catastrophe it was possible that she might offend him so deeply as to lose him.
There remained Gabrielle, and though she knew that she was old enough to speak to Gabrielle with the authority of a mother, she felt that this would be impossible at Lapton. It was a curious attitude that she found difficult to explain, but it seemed to her that to tackle Mrs. Considine in her husband's house was dangerous, that it would give to Gabrielle an unreasonable but inevitable advantage. At Lapton Mrs. Payne felt she was a stranger, insecure of her ground, and therefore in an inferior position; and this struck her more forcibly when she reflected that, though she was confident of the rightness of her conclusions, the actual evidence that she possessed was extremely small. She admitted to herself that it would be difficult to carry her point on the strength of looks and blushes, and was thankful that she had not been betrayed by her instincts into hasty action.
Lying sleepless on her bed that night with her eyes open in the dark she evolved a new plan that would not only give her the advantage of choosing the site of the coming struggle, but would eliminate the uncertain element of Considine and probably provide her with evidence to strengthen her charge. This change of plan involved a duplicity against which her straightforward nature rebelled, but with Arthur's future at stake she would have stopped at nothing. After breakfast on the Monday morning she went to Considine in his study, thanked him for his kind consideration, and confessed that she had been needlessly alarmed. Considine gracefully accepted this confession and the implied apology, assuring her once more that there was really nothing to worry about. Then, very carefully she made another suggestion. It was usual at Lapton for the pupils to go home for a long week-end at half term. She wondered if Mrs. Considine would like to come back to Overton with Arthur? The rest and change would do her good, and it would be interesting for Gabrielle, who had seen so little of England, to visit Cotswold. Mrs. Payne promised to take great care of her. She gave her invitation in a way that suggested that it was an attempt to make amends for her suspicions. It conveyed at the same time an implicit confidence and an anxiety to please.
Considine tumbled headlong into her trap. He thanked her for her invitation, saying that he had no objection, but that Gabrielle, of course, must decide for herself. His tone made it clear that such a visit must be regarded as a condescension. The Halbertons, he said, had been begging Gabrielle for a long time to spend a week with them, but she was devoted to Lapton.
"At any rate I may ask her?" said Mrs. Payne.
"Certainly, certainly—you'll find her in the garden."
Mrs. Payne was in some doubt as to what Gabrielle's answer would be.
She moved to the proposal obliquely, feeling like a conspirator, and one so unused to conspiracy that her manner was bound to betray her. They began by talking about the gardens at Overton, the beauty of Cotswold stone, the essential difference of her country from that in which Lapton lay.
"You can't know England," she said, "until you've seen the Vale ofEvesham."
She didn't care twopence ha'penny for the Vale of Evesham—she was just talking for time. Gabrielle listened to her very quietly, and Mrs. Payne took her silence for evidence that she was playing her hand badly. This flustered her. She became conscious of the fact that nature had built her too roughly for diplomacy. Not daring to hedge any longer she blurted out her invitation, and Gabrielle, instantly delighted, accepted, transforming herself, in Mrs. Payne's mind from a subtle designing creature into something very like a victim. So, for one moment she appeared; but in the next Mrs. Payne felt nothing but exultation at the successful beginning of her plan.
"Arthur has told me that there are nightingales at Overton," said Gabrielle dreamily. "I wonder if I shall hear one? There are no nightingales in Ireland or in this part of England." And although Mrs. Payne could hardly accept an interest in ornithology for explanation of her readiness to come to Overton, she was quick to promise that nightingales should be in full song at the next weekend.
Thus having laid her plans, she resisted, though with difficulty, all her impulses to continue her search for evidence. It was hard to do so, for all through the evening Gabrielle and Arthur were together in her presence, and she found it impossible not to watch them out of the corner of her eye or strain her ears to catch what they were saying; but she realised that the least slip at this stage might ruin her chances of success, and devoted her attention or as much of it as she could muster, to Considine. Next morning, with a sense of successful strategy, she returned to Overton by an early train.
The rest of the week was for her a period of acute suspense. For Gabrielle and Arthur it was one of delightful anticipation. On Friday at midday Considine drove them to Totnes station, the scene of their last parting, and set them on their journey. They watched him standing serious on the platform as the train went out, and when they lost sight of his tall figure at a curve in the line, it seemed to them as though the last possible shadow had been lifted from them. In the first part of their journey a soft rain hid the shapes of the country through which they passed, so soft that they could keep the windows open, and yet so dense as to give them a feeling of delicious loneliness, for they could see nothing but the grassed embankments starred with primroses. All through the Devon valleys and over the turf moors of Somerset this weather held. It was not until they had changed at Bristol and crept under the escarpment of the lower Cotswolds that the air cleared.
At a junction below the southern end of Bredon they emerged in an air that this vast sheeting of fine moisture had washed into a state of brilliant clarity. The evening through which they drove to Overton was full of birdsong and sweet with the smell of young and tender green. There was not a breath of wind, but the sky was cool, and into it the old trees lifted their branches with an air of youth and vernal strength. When the road climbed, scattered woodlands stretched beneath them in clear and comely contours. A hovering kestrel hung poised like a spider swinging from a thread. She swooped, and her chestnut back was lit into flame. The great elms that gird the village of Overton received them. Arthur touched up the horse as they swung past the church and a row of cottages with long trim gardens.
Mrs. Payne, who was working on the herbaceous border in front of the house, heard the grating of the carriage wheels on the gravel of the drive. She took off her gardening gloves and came to meet them. Arthur jumped down from the carriage and kissed his mother. Gabrielle, also approaching her, put up her face to be kissed, and Mrs. Payne, who could not very well refuse her, felt that the kiss was a kind of betrayal. She wished, in her instinctive honesty, that it could have been avoided.
It was a bad beginning, and gave her a hint of the kind of emotional conflict that she had let herself in for when she assumed the rôle of detective. What made it a hundred times worse was the fact that she really liked kissing Gabrielle, for her kindly heart warmed to the girl again as it had warmed when first they met. "I'm sentimental," she thought, "for heaven's sake let us get it over!"
Gabrielle, however, was quite unconscious of the struggle that divided Mrs. Payne's breast. She was a child launched on a holiday with the friend of her choice in the most delightful season of the year. She didn't scent any hostility in the atmosphere of Overton; and this was strange in a person who moved through life by the aid of intuitions rather than reasons. She felt contented at Overton, just as she had felt contented at Roscarna. She was more at home there than she could ever have been at Lapton or Clonderriff; her mind was as sensitive to sky changes as the surface of a lonely lake. Mrs. Payne had given her an airy bedroom facing west, and while the maid unpacked her things Gabrielle stood at the window looking out over meadows, golden in the low sun. Beneath her lay the lawns, smooth and kempt and of a rich, an almost Irish green, on which the black shadows of cedar branches were spread. A tall hedge of privet divided the lawns from the vegetable garden in which a man was working methodically. She saw the pattern of paths and hedges from above as though they were lines in a picture. In the middle of the lawn stood a square of clipped yew trees, making a hollow chamber of the kind that formal gardeners call a yew-parlour, with a stone sundial in the middle of it. "What a jolly place for children to play in," she thought. A blackbird broke into a whistle in the privet hedge and brought her heart to her mouth. Could any nightingale sing sweeter?
"I think that is all, madam," said the maid demurely. Gabrielle smiled at her and thanked her, and the girl smiled back. Like everything else in Mrs. Payne's admirably managed house she was fresh and clean, homelier than the frigid servants at Halberton House, happier—that was the only word—than Gabrielle's own servants at Lapton. Yes, happier——
When she came downstairs Arthur was waiting for her.
"I thought you were never coming," he said. Their time was short and he was anxious to show her all the altars of his childhood. They met Mrs. Payne in the hall. She smiled at them with encouragement, for it was part of her settled plan to let them have their own way and so tempt them into a naturalness that might betray them. She, too, had the feeling that she was fighting against time.
Arthur was full of enthusiasms. They went together to the stables, where he introduced her to Hollis, the coachman standing in his shirtsleeves in a saddle-room that smelt of harness-polish. He stood in front of a cracked mirror brushing his hair, hissing softly, as though he were grooming a horse, and round his waist was a red-striped belt of the webbing out of which a horse's belly-band is made.
"Well, Mr. Arthur, you're looking up finely, sir," he said, touching his forelock. Even the stables exhaled the same atmosphere of pleasant leisure as the house.
"I want you to get a side-saddle ready for Brunette to-morrow, Hollis," said Arthur. "Mrs. Considine and I are going for a ride over the hill."
At the end of the stables they encountered a pair of golden retrievers. For a moment they stared at Arthur, and then, suddenly recognising him, made for him together, jumping up with their paws on his shoulders and licking him with their pale tongues.
"What beauties," Gabrielle cried.
"Yes, they come from Banbury," he said. "I'll get you a pup next term if you'd like one."
Their evening was crowded with such small wonders. "I can't show you half the things I want to," he said. "It's ridiculous that you should only be here for three days." He would have gone on for ever, and she had to warn him when the clock in the stables struck seven that they had only just time to dress for dinner. On the way upstairs he showed her his new study, with the bookshelves that he had bought in the last holidays.
"I do all my writing here," he said, and then suddenly but shyly emboldened: "it was here that I wrote to you when I sent you the cowslips."
He had never dared to mention the incident before.
"You didn't answer me," he went on. "Why didn't you answer me? I wish you'd tell me."
"Arthur—I couldn't—you know that I couldn't."
A panic seized her and she went blushing to her room.
She was still flushed with excitement or pleasure when she came down to dinner. Mrs. Payne, in a matronly dress of black, sat at the head of the table with Arthur and Gabrielle on either side of her facing each other. The arrangement struck her as a triumph of strategy. From this central position she could see them both and intercept any such glances as had passed between them in the church at Lapton. In this she was disappointed, for there was nothing to be seen in the behaviour of either but a transparent happiness. "They only want encouragement," she thought, and settled down deliberately to put them at their ease, a proceeding that was quite unnecessary for the last feeling that could have entered either of their minds was that of guilt.
So the evening passed, in the utmost propriety. No look, no sign, no symptom of unusual tenderness appeared. It even seemed that Gabrielle was particularly anxious to make the conversation general. "Oh, you're artful!" thought Mrs. Payne, "but I'll have you yet." They talked of Lapton, of Considine and of the Traceys. Only once did Mrs. Payne surprise a single suspicious circumstance.
"I showed Mrs. Considine the dogs, mother," he said. "She's fallen in love with Boris."
"Yes, his eyes are like amber," said Gabrielle.
"So I thought I'd like to write to Banbury to-morrow and get her a puppy."
"Certainly, dear," said Mrs. Payne suavely. Bedtime came. Gabrielle and Arthur shook hands in the most ordinary fashion. Mrs. Payne, seeing Gabrielle to her door and submitting, once again, to an uncomfortable kiss, felt that her triumphant plan had already shown itself to be a failure. She went along the passage to her own room with a sense of bewilderment and defeat. She could not sleep for thinking. She wondered, desperately, if when all other methods had failed, as she now expected they would, she could possibly approach their secret from another angle, laying aside her watchful inactivity and becoming in defiance of all her principles an "agent provocateuse." If it came to the worst she might be forced to do this, for very little time was left to her. If she remained static she would be powerless. Next day, she reflected, they had planned a ride over the flat top of Bredon Hill. She could not go with them; she could not even watch them; yet who knew what shames might be perpetrated in that secrecy as they rode through the green lanes of the larch plantations? Never was a better solitude made for lovers. Her imaginings left her tantalised and thwarted, for she was sure now, more than ever, that there was a secret to be surprised.
She lay there sleepless in the dark till the stable clock slowly struck twelve. Then she sighed to herself and decided that she must try to sleep.
Lying thus, upon the verge of slumber, Mrs. Payne became aware of a sound of light steps in the corridor outside her room. She opened her eyes and lay with tense muscles listening. The sound was unmistakable, and the steps came from the direction of Arthur's room, the only one on that side of hers that was occupied. The steps came nearer. Passing her bedroom door they became tiptoe and cautious, as though the walker, whoever he might be, was anxious not to arouse her attention. The sound passed and grew fainter down the length of the corridor, and she knew then that the very worst had happened, for Gabrielle's room lay at the end of the passage. Many things she had dreaded, but not this last enormity.
She crept out of bed, neglecting in her anxiety to put on a dressing-gown, and went softly to the door. She wondered how she could open it without making a noise, and if, when she had opened it, she could hear at such a distance.
Very carefully with her hot hand she turned the door handle and opened a small chink that fortunately allowed her to look along the passage towards Gabrielle's room. Through a window halfway down the corridor moonlight cut across it, throwing on the floor the distorted shadow of an Etruscan vase. She remembered that Arthur's father had bought it in Italy on their honeymoon, yet, while this thought went through her mind, her ears were strained to listen. She could do no more, for the further end of the passage was plunged by this insulating flood of moonlight into inscrutable darkness.
It was so quiet that she felt that she had missed him; he had already entered her room; but while she considered the awful indignity of surprising him there, the sound of a light tapping on the door's panel relieved her. She thanked God that she was still in time.
The knock was repeated and evidently answered, for now she heard him speak in a whisper. He called her Mrs. Considine—it was ridiculous! "Are you awake?" she heard. "The nightingale—yes, the nightingale. We could go down into the garden under the trees. If you're game. How splendid of you! … Yes, I'll wait below …. Outside, under your window."
Before Mrs. Payne could pull herself together she heard his steps returning. She closed the door fearfully. He came along the passage and stopped for a moment just outside her room. There was nothing between them but an oak door, so thin, she felt, that he must surely hear her anxious breath. She dared not breathe, but in a moment he passed by.
Why had he stopped outside her door? What curious filial instinct had made him think of her at that moment? Had he thought kindly, or only perhaps suspiciously, wondering if she were safely asleep? She couldn't tell. Her mind was too full of disturbing emotions to allow her to think. One thing emerged foremost from her confusion, a feeling of devout thankfulness that her first fears had not been justified, and as the dread of definite and paralysing defeat lifted from her mind, she realised with a sudden exultation that chance had given her the very opportunity for which she had been waiting and scheming. If she went carefully she might see them together, alone and unsuspecting, and know for certain by their behaviour how far matters had gone.
She dared not switch on the light or strike a match for fear that her windows might become conspicuous. Very gently she released one of the blinds, admitting the light of the luminous sky. She dressed hurriedly, catching sight of her figure in the long pier glass as she pulled on her stockings. For the moment it struck her as faintly ludicrous to see this middle-aged woman in a long white nightdress behaving like a creature in a detective story. It was extravagant. People of her age and figure and general sobriety didn't do this sort of thing in real life. But the seriousness of her mission recalled her, and while she had been considering the picturesque aspects of the case she found that she had actually, unconsciously dressed … and only just in time, for now she heard the lighter step of Gabrielle in the passage.
The sound gave her a sudden flush of anger. She wanted, there and then, to open her door and ask Gabrielle where she was going. It was tantalising to let the thing go on and hold her hand. She clutched on to the foot of the bed to save herself from doing anything so rash. Gabrielle's steps passed, and the house was quiet again. The most difficult moment had come. "I hope to goodness none of the servants are awake," she thought…
Reaching the top of the staircase she heard them whispering in the hall. It seemed that they were going out brazenly by the front door, and since it seemed to her that to follow them closely would be dangerous she herself hastened round to the back staircase and let herself out of the house by a side door set in an angle of the building that sheltered her.
An eastward drift of cloud came over, hiding the moon, and she was glad of this, for the crude moonlight had put her to shame by its brilliance. She wondered to see the clouds moving so fast, for in the garden not a tree stirred but one aspen that made a sound as of gentle rain. She heard the grating of their feet on the drive, and then, by the sudden cessation of this sound, guessed that they had stepped on to the lawn. Arthur's low voice came to her clearly. "He's stopped singing, but I think he'll sing again," and from Gabrielle a whispered "Yes."
Mrs. Payne could scarcely be certain of the words she heard: she knew that she ought in some way to get nearer to them, but the expanse of dewy turf by which they were surrounded made it impossible for her to approach without being seen. Very cautiously she cut across to the left and into the shelter of the privet hedge, along which she stole until she reached their level.
They stood together in the middle of the lawn without speaking. At last Gabrielle shivered. Arthur noticed it quickly. "I hope you're not cold," he said.
"No, I'm not cold—only—only we're so exposed out here. If we could get a little more into the shadow I should feel more comfortable——"
"That's easily managed," he said laughing. "We can go over by the sundial. It's called a yew-parlour, I think. It might have been made for us."
So they passed into its shade. Mrs. Payne noticed eagerly that his hand was not on her arm. The yew hedge that now sheltered them concealed her also from their sight, and, greatly relieved, she crept along her cover of privet into the shadow of a mulberry tree where, by stooping a little, she could watch them unperceived.
"What a wonderful night," Gabrielle whispered.
"I never knew such a night," he said. "It feels a bit like that evening when we stood leaning over the bridge by the lake."
"Don't," she said. "I want to forget it. Can you smell the dew?"
"Yes, and the scent of may coming over from the meadows."
"We call it whitethorn in Ireland."
There was a long pause, then he spoke again.
"I think you look sad to-night," he said. "Are you sorry that you came?"
"No, no—of course not. It's the moonlight that makes me paler than usual. But I'm always pale. You shouldn't look at me so closely, Arthur."
"I love to look at you. It isn't always that I get the chance. I just wanted to be certain that you weren't anxious. You don't think that we oughtn't to have come here?"
"No, why shouldn't we?" she said, turning her face away.
Then suddenly, in the edge of the copse beyond the nearest field, the nightingale began. The song was so beautiful in the stillness of the night that even Mrs. Payne, who had other things to think of, felt its influence. It was a strange, unearthly moment.
"You hear it?" Arthur whispered; but Gabrielle did not answer; she laid her hand on his sleeve and Arthur trembled at her touch. So they stood listening, close together, while Arthur took the hand that held him. She smiled and turned her eyes towards him but they could not look at each other for long. She surrendered herself to his arms and they kissed.
Mrs. Payne saw their faces close together in the dusk and their shadowy bodies entwined. She could bear it no longer, but turned and groped her way back along the privet hedge to the door from which she had first come. She did not know where she was going or how she went until she found that she had reached her own bedroom again. There, in her dressing-gown, she threw herself on the bed and fell into a fit of violent sobbing. She lay there shaken by sobs like a disconsolate child. Over in the coppice the nightingale sang exultantly as if he knew of the wonder that his song had revealed to the lovers who listened to him with their lips together.
It seemed to Mrs. Payne an endless time before she heard the steps of Gabrielle returning. She thanked heaven when she knew that she was coming back alone. The bedroom door closed and the sound pulled her together. It suggested to her that the time had now come when something must be done, and though it would have been much pleasanter to let the matter stand over until the morning, she knew that nothing could be gained by waiting, since all of the three people concerned were at that moment awake, and the crisis of the affair had been reached.
The reasons that had dissuaded her from tackling Arthur himself when first her suspicions were aroused still held. She regarded a scene with him as dangerous, for she could not be certain that a big emotional disturbance would not throw him back into his old nature, quite apart from the fact that it would wound her motherly heart. Against Gabrielle, on the other hand, she knew that she could steel herself. Gabrielle was a woman, a woman younger than herself, and, what was more, a visitor in her house. She was satisfied that she could tell Gabrielle what she thought of her, and, in a single interview bring this most uncomfortable and dangerous state of affairs to an end.
She got out of bed again and dressed methodically. This time she wasn't going to put up with any condition that detracted from her dignity. So, having done her hair afresh and satisfied herself that all traces of her breakdown had disappeared, she set out with a high degree of confidence to Gabrielle's room. There was no light in it, but while she stood at the door she heard Gabrielle softly singing to herself inside. Singing! … Mrs. Payne hardened her heart and knocked at the door. The singing stopped. There was no other sound. Then she knocked again. She heard a soft rustle as Gabrielle stepped to the door. The door opened, and Gabrielle, in her nightdress and bare feet, stood before her. She stared at Mrs. Payne. Who could guess that she knew the reason of her visit? She only said: "Oh … it's you! I wondered…."
"May I come in?" said Mrs. Payne in a hard voice. As a matter of fact nothing could have stopped her going in.
"Of course," said Gabrielle. "Do…." She shivered slightly.
"You'd better put on a dressing-gown," said Mrs. Payne firmly. "I want to talk to you."
Gabrielle obeyed her, like a small child, slipped an embroidered kimono over her shoulders and stood facing Mrs. Payne. She looked her straight in the eyes, and said in a low voice: "Well, what is it?"
"We won't pretend," said Mrs. Payne. "You know quite well what it is."
"Yes … I suppose you mean Arthur."
"And you."
"You saw us go out to-night … heard us?"
"Yes."
Gabrielle made a gesture of impatience. "Well, why shouldn't we? It was the nightingale. Why shouldn't we listen to a nightingale? I'd never heard one."
"I followed you into the garden."
"That was a mean thing to do!"
"Perhaps it was. No … I'd a right to do it. I saw everything that happened."
"When we kissed each other?"
Mrs. Payne nodded. Gabrielle looked at her challengingly. "It was the first time," she said. There was a pause and then she burst out passionately. "I love him … we love each other. You can't stop us!"
"It's got to be stopped," said Mrs. Payne.
Gabrielle turned away and perched herself on the end of the bed. She appeared to be thinking, and when next she spoke it was almost dreamily.
"It was the first time. We didn't know before to-night."
There was nothing dreamy about Mrs. Payne's reply. She believed thatGabrielle was acting a part, and had no patience with her.
"That's rubbish," she said. "I don't believe it."
Gabrielle jumped to her feet and faced her again, blazing with pride and anger and amazingly beautiful.
"You don't believe me? How dare you? I've told you that we didn't know.I don't tell lies. You're insulting me…."
She was so passionate that Mrs. Payne was almost convinced. She softened for a moment. "After all, yououghtto have known," she said. "You're a married woman."
"Married …" Gabrielle repeated. "Yes … but I didn't know. I've told you I didn't. That's enough."
"Well, if you didn't know, Idid," said Mrs. Payne with a laugh.
"How? Tell me how?"
"It wasn't difficult to see."
"I can't imagine it. But I know nothing of love. Only once…" andGabrielle relapsed into her dream, standing with her hand on the bedpostgazing towards the window. After a second she turned again quickly."Then, if you knew, was that why you invited me here?"
Mrs. Payne said: "Yes——"
"Why didn't you tell me instead of doing that?"
"I wanted to make certain."
"Why didn't you tell my husband?"
"For your sake. I wanted to save you."
"No, you didn't… You weren't thinking of me. You were thinking ofArthur."
This was perfectly true, but Mrs. Payne had not gone through hell to discuss fine points of that kind. She had left her room in very much the same frame of mind as she would have adopted in approaching the dismissal of a servant. She had expected to be met with passionate denials, had prepared herself, indeed, for a stormy "scene"; instead of which Gabrielle appeared to be curious rather than disturbed about her discovery, and a great deal more interested in the psychological than in the practical aspects of the case. If she had offered any violent opposition to Mrs. Payne, Mrs. Payne could have given her violence in return. But she didn't. The mood of exaltation into which their love-making had lifted her made her regard this woman with something nearer to pity than dislike. Her attitude implied that to consider the practical aspect of the affair would be in the nature of a condescension. Mrs. Payne naturally resented this, but in any case Gabrielle had taken the wind out of her sails. They were drifting—rather unpleasantly—away from the object of her visit. She pulled herself—and then Gabrielle—up short.
"You can't pretend not to realise the seriousness of your position," she said. "You're a married woman. If you persist in this madness you'll ruin your whole life. I'll be candid with you. What happens to you doesn't matter to me; but what happens to Arthur does. Can't you see the end of it?"
"No … it's only begun…."
"Then I'll tell you the end. Your husband will divorce you."
"Then I shall be free? And why not? We don't love each other. Why should we go on living together? The thought of him makes me shudder … now."
"That is your affair. I'm afraid I can't help you in it. But Arthur is mine. I'm not going to see him dragged into this … impossibility. No … we can't discuss it like this. You may be as innocent as you pretend to be—though it's difficult to believe it. You imagine you're in love. You're drifting out of an ordinary sort of friendship into … what I saw to-night. Well, that can only lead to the most awful unhappiness for all of us. You must consider it finished. We won't have any disturbance; but, all the same, you can't see Arthur again. We'll invent some reason to explain your going away to-morrow … something plausible … to satisfy him. With your husband it will be more difficult. But I'm prepared to help you. It can be managed without any scandal if we work together… I'm sure you'll agree with me and be sensible about it. If you won't, I can't answer for the consequences."
Mrs. Payne was presuming too much. All the time that she spoke Gabrielle sat with lowered eyes, motionless but for little protesting movements of her hands; now she turned upon her, speaking very low and rapidly.
"You think I can give him up? You think it's possible? Love … the only thing I want! The thing I've never had! Happiness… Why should you ruin our happiness? You've had yours. Oh, you're selfish. I shan't give him up if he wants me. Ask him yourself if he loves me… Ah, you're afraid. You daren't. You daren't!"
She almost laughed, and Mrs. Payne knew that she had spoken the truth. It looked, for a moment, as if she were going to be beaten on this point, for Gabrielle snatched at her weakness, repeating the unanswerable "You daren't!" Then, suddenly, without any warning, the girl's triumphant spirit collapsed. From the verge of laughter she toppled over into tears. She put her hands to her eyes and then, turning her back on Mrs. Payne, collapsed on her bed, weeping bitterly.
At the sight of this thankfulness flooded Mrs. Payne's heart; but beneath this dominant emotion, which came almost as the result of her conscious wish, flowed another that she would gladly have suppressed: pity, nothing less, for the child who lay sobbing on the bed. A minute before she had seen in Gabrielle her most dangerous enemy in the world; now, even though she rejoiced in the girl's sudden collapse, she felt that she wanted to take her in her arms and kiss her and comfort her. For a moment or two she fought against it, but in the end, scarcely knowing what she had done, she found that she was fondling Gabrielle's hand and being shaken by the communicated passion of her sobs. One thought kept running through her brain: "I've won … I've won, and can afford to be generous," and this, together with the curious physical liking that she had always felt for Gabrielle, disarmed her. She set herself to comforting the child. It was the last thing in the world she had intended to do, but it came natural to her motherly soul. She was glad, indeed, that Gabrielle did not resent these attentions, as she very well might have done. Gradually her sobbing ceased and she began to speak, clinging all the time to Mrs. Payne, herself not guiltless of a sympathetic tear, while she told her the story of her early years: of the wild life she had led at Roscarna, of Jocelyn's debauches and Biddy's rough mothering.
It was the first time that all this flood of reminiscence had been loosed. Gabrielle had never made a confidante before, and it was an ecstasy of tears and laughter to dwell upon these memories, and to rehearse them. "I was so happy as a child," she said, "so awfully happy. But now there's nothing left."
Mrs. Payne, still sympathetic, found herself suddenly plunged into the ardours of the Radway affair; the miraculous meeting on the Clonderriff road; the halcyon days of August, and then the overwhelming tragedy.
"They made me marry him," said Gabrielle, clutching at her hand. "They made me. I didn't understand. It was cruel. It would have been better if I had died like my baby."
She relapsed into tears, and Mrs. Payne, quite bowled over by the piteousness of her case, tried to soothe her with caresses. It was a curious end, she reflected, to the punitive expedition on which she had set forth. Holding Gabrielle triumphantly in her arms she did not realize the mistake that she had made. It wasn't the end at all, it was merely the beginning.
"You see what a terrible time I've had," Gabrielle pleaded, drying her tears. "I always felt that you were the only person I could talk to about these things. I knew you would sympathize … you're so human. Now you can understand why I can't live without Arthur. Do you see?" She looked up, pleading, into Mrs. Payne's eyes.
Her quiet words staggered that good woman. She had to pull herself together and begin all over again. It wasn't easy, for the sympathetic mood into which the girl's story had betrayed her had subtly weakened her purpose. She felt that her position was false. She must reassert herself, and so she hurriedly freed herself from Gabrielle's arms and stood with her back to the door. Gabrielle too rose and faced her. Her tears had put an end to the dreamy mood in which Mrs. Payne had found her at first. Now she was determined, dangerous, ready to fight with all the quickness of her wits and the suppleness of her youth against the elder woman's dogged devotion. They faced one another, ready to fight to the end, for the possession of the thing they each loved best, and both of them realized the bitter nature of the struggle.
"We can't speak of that again," said Mrs. Payne. "I thought that was understood. Surely you didn't imagine that by playing on my feelings you could make me change my mind? I'm sorry you misunderstood me. I will write to your husband to-morrow. For Arthur's sake I hope you won't tell him the real explanation of your going back, and of Arthur's staying here. I think you owe that to us … even if you don't realise that it's also the best for yourself." She turned towards the door. "I think we had better say good-night. There is a train at seven-fifty in the morning. I'm sorry it's so early, but there's no other. As I may not see you again I'll say good-bye now. There's no reason why we shouldn't part friends."
She held out her hand, she couldn't think why, but as she did soGabrielle clasped it. "No … don't go!" she pleaded.
"There's nothing more to be said." But Gabrielle still held her hand and would not let it go.
"Only be merciful to me," she cried. "Let us think about it. There must be some other way. Supposing … supposing that we go back to Lapton just in the ordinary way: supposing that I promise you faithfully that nothing more shall happen. Listen, we never, never kissed before to-night. I'll give you my word of honour that it shan't happen again … if only you'll let him go back to us. Isn't that fair? Surely it's fair…."
Mrs. Payne shook her head.
"You mean that you don't believe me … you won't trust me?"
"I can't trust both of you. Do you think I don't know what love is?"
"But think … think of all these months in which we've been so happy together without a word of love! I love him … you know I love him … I believe I love him more than you do. No, don't be angry with me for saying that! Don't you think my love is strong enough to prevent me from doing anything that could possibly harm him? Can't you believe that?"
"No … it's too dangerous. You can answer for yourself, but you can't answer for Arthur."
"Oh, if you loved him as you say you do … as I believe you do … wouldn't you trust him? I'll talk to him. I can tell him anything. I'll tell him exactly how things stand. I'll tell him what I've promised you. Only don't take him away from me altogether. I couldn't bear it … I couldn't." She turned back on herself. "Why won't you believe in him?"
"You should know why that's impossible. Haven't I told you his history? You've only known him for a year. I've had him for seventeen and loved him all the time." She became almost passionate. "He's my son. And all those years my love has been full of the awful bitterness of his trouble. The tears! The disappointments! You know nothing of them. You can't realize how I've struggled and schemed and had my hopes raised and dashed to the ground … time after time. To see the person that you love best in the world, a part of your own body, living without a soul: a thief, a liar—that's the plain truth—inhuman and cruel … But you know as well as I do what he was."
"I do know what he was."
"And now, thanks to your husband—God knows I'm grateful!—he's better. He's what I knew he ought to have been all these awful years. And then you come on the scene—you, who've borne nothing of all the years before—and begin to drag him down again. You must be mad to think I could risk it!"
"But don't I know all this? Do you think I'm less anxious than you are that he should stay as he is? Only trust me … trust me! His future … think of that…."
Mrs. Payne laughed bitterly, but Gabrielle persisted.
"His future … My husband says that he can make a success of him. He can take a high place in a Government examination; he can get into the diplomatic service. Just believe that I love him too much to stand in his way. Why, I can even help him. If he does this I know that he'll want influence.Youhaven't influence to help him. I don't want to belittle you, but I know you've nothing but your money, while Icanhelp him. My cousin is Lord Halberton. He's been a Cabinet minister. There's no knowing what he mightn't do with his help. If you love anyone as I do him, why shouldn't you give your life to his interests? That's what I'd do. I'd think of nothing else. I'd give all my thoughts to him. And I promise … oh, I promise faithfully, that I won't let him love me … if only you'll let me love him."
Mrs. Payne stiffened. "You're trying to bribe me," she said, "and I'm not the kind of person who can be bribed. I don't care that much about his future! Until the last month I never so much as dreamed that any future of that kind was possible. It's quite enough for me that he should settle down here into the sort of life that his father would have lived if he'd been spared. I don't want to share his successes with you…."
"Ah, you're jealous!"
"Of course I'm jealous. I've reason to be. He's mine. But even if I could trust you … and I believe I could … Arthur's future wouldn't tempt me to risk his present. No … it's too dangerous."
"Dangerous…" Gabrielle clutched at the word. "Dangerous!" She became suddenly quiet and intense. "I don't believe you know where the danger lies," she said.
"I can see the most obvious danger, and that's a love affair with a married woman."
"You can't see any other? You said just now that Arthur had changed thanks to my husband. Perhaps my husband took the credit for it and you believed it. But it isn't true. I've seen the change coming hour by hour, day by day. Every moment of it I've watched and treasured. He did not change because he worked with my husband. He changed because I loved him and he loved me. I know it … I've known it all the time. What did your love do for him in all those years? Nothing … nothing at all. For heaven's sake don't think I'm boasting! Your love never changed him a hair's breadth, and you know it!"
Mrs. Payne gasped. "You don't realize what you're saying."
"But I do … I do. You say his body's part of you—belongs to you. I'll give you that. But this soul … his new soul … is mine. That's part of our love. Ours and nobody else's…."
Mrs. Payne choked back her emotion. "I don't grudge it you," she said,"I only thank God for it gratefully … gratefully."
"But you don't see what I mean," said Gabrielle slowly. "Arthur has changed because he loves me. He's ceased to be cruel because he knows that for him to be cruel pains me. He's learned to see things just as I see them. And now you want to separate us … even after what I have promised you. Can't you see what I'm afraid of?"
She paused, and Mrs. Payne was silent. Gabrielle quickly pressed her advantage.
"If you separate us, if you try to destroy our love, you'll be taking away from him the thing that's saved him. How do you know that he won't slip back again? You can take his body from me … I know that … but you may lose more than you get."
Mrs. Payne stood staring straight in front of her.
"Then you will know what you are worth to him." Gabrielle's tone was almost scornful. "You see how it stands," she continued. "We both of us want him for ourselves, we want him as he is to-day … and we can't either of us have him without the other's consent. You hold his body, and I hold his soul. Let's be reasonable. Let's compromise. I'm ready to do my part. Oh, I beg you to be reasonable!"
"You're a devil, not a woman," said Mrs. Payne.
"But you see that I'm right?" Gabrielle persisted.
Mrs. Payne summoned all her strength. "No, I don't. I don't believe it."
"Ah, you pretend that you don't! But you're bluffing me. I know it. Why did you come to me about this instead of to Arthur himself? Because you were afraid. That was the reason."
The shot was made at a venture, but Gabrielle quickly saw that it had taken effect. She followed it up:
"You thought that if you upset him he might lose what he's gained. You don't know—we none of us know yet—how deep the change is. You didn't dare to face that little risk; but it's nothing compared with the one you want to take now. That's what you've got to face!"
She could say no more. When she stopped speaking Mrs. Payne knew that the girl's eyes were fixed on her eagerly, desperately, trying to search into her mind. The older woman stood there still and bewildered by the choice that had been presented to her. It was the most awful moment in her emotional life. Her mind was a battlefield on which her love, her sense of right, her acquired conventions, her religion, and her hungry maternal passion were pitted against one formidable dread. She wanted to shield Arthur against harm: from a social disaster no less than from what she considered a mortal sin; and, above all, after these years of patient suffering, she wanted him for herself. It was neither religion nor morality that drove her to her final decision, but a thing far stronger: her passionate instinct to possess the son of her body. Even if she were to lose him, to rescue no more than the changeling that she had always known, she could not bring herself to share him with any other woman on earth. He was hers and hers alone. She did not know if she were right. She did not care if she were wrong. The decision formed itself inexorably in her mind. She could only obey it. Gabrielle, watching her narrowly, saw a sudden peace descend upon her agonised face. Mrs. Payne gave a long shuddering sigh. Then she spoke, dully, mechanically: