CHAPTER XXV
WHEN the door closed, Cecily, without a glance at Philippa, who stood motionless just within the room, crossed blindly to the window, and stood looking out. Half consciously she noticed the cathedral tower against the sky. The sight of it reminded her of her struggles for peace and freedom, their slow attainment, her hardly won serenity. Disgust filled her mind. It was for this, then, that she had abandoned Dick, and hurried back hundreds of miles to a man who was ready to subject her once more to insult. She smiled to herself disdainfully at the thought of Rose’s credulity, of her own emotional tenderness. The door-bell rang suddenly. A moment, and she heard a man’s footstep, and a man’s voice. It was Dick! Rose was asking him into the dining-room, where she herself was sitting.
Involuntarily Cecily turned—her one instinct to go to him. Through her mind darted possibilities. She had taken no irrevocablestep—nothing was yet too late. As she turned, her eyes fell upon Philippa, whose presence she had forgotten. She was still standing, waiting till Cecily should move, and, as for the second time her eyes met Cecily’s, she was struck afresh by their desperate appeal. Well as she knew, and contemptuous as she was, of all Philippa’s posing, this new look of hers was genuine. It served to stay her steps.
Philippa made a hesitating movement towards her.
“Oh, it wasnobleof you,” she whispered.
The familiar word jarred upon Cecily. She frowned impatiently.
“Shall we leave nobility out of our conversation?” she asked. “I’m rather tired of it. Will you sit down?”
Philippa complied, and after a moment Cecily too sat down at some little distance. For an interval there was silence.
“I suppose you will admit that I managed to save you just now from a scandal,” she said at last.
“Yes, indeed,” murmured the other woman.
“Then will you look upon this as a business transaction, and pay me by speaking the truth?”
“Yes,” said Philippa again, her mournful eyes fixed upon Cecily’s.
“Did you see my husband the other night?”
“No—he wasn’t here.”
“But you came to see him?”
“Yes.”
Cecily drew in her breath a little.
“At his request, of course?” she asked lightly, with a smile.
“No—he didn’t know I was coming.”
Again they looked at one another in silence.
“Please listen,” said Cecily after a time, slowly. “Though I did not leave my husband on your account, I shouldn’t have returned to his house if I had known that his—his friendship with you was not over.”
“Itisover.”
“Then will you be kind enough to explain to me why you were here last week?”
Philippa’s eyes wavered. She began to trace patterns on the floor with her foot.
“I—I came to borrow money,” she answered under her breath.
Cecily leaned back in her chair. With Philippa’s words came a swift realization of the sordidness of a “love affair.” She wasstartled a moment later by a sudden torrent of words from the woman opposite to her.
“You’ll have to know all about it, I suppose!” she broke out in a hoarse, unnatural voice. “I’m desperate—hunted. Do you know what that feels like? Of course you don’t. There’s a man who threatens—oh, I can’t tell you!—I can’t tell you!” She broke into sudden hysterical crying.
“Hush!” said Cecily, more gently. “Tell me. You must tell me everything now. It is only fair to yourself, and to me. You wanted money, you say? But why didn’t you write, instead of——”
“Ididwrite,” she explained, between her sobs, “ever so many times. He always returned my letters unopened. He—he had discovered that I was going to marry Nigel. And then—I used to come down here and wait for him to come out. But I never saw him. One evening, when I was waiting, I saw both the servants leave the flat, and I thought he would be alone. I didn’t know he wasn’t in town. I had the latch-key. He gave it to me once, when I—when I used to work here. I knew he wrote late. I thought if I could once get to his study and see him, I might——” She paused. Cecily was still silent.
“It was very mad,” she went on, “but it seemed an opportunity. The hall door downstairs was open. I suppose there was a party going on in one of the flats, and I trusted to luck.... But he wasn’t here. I didn’t know he’d gone away....” Again her voice failed.
“And to-day?” asked Cecily. “You came back to-day to see him?”
“Yes. Of course I had no idea you were here.... I thought I might—he might....” She laid the latch-key with which she had entered on the table between them.
The room was quite still. Cecily scarcely knew how to define her sensations, but relief was one of them—the greatest. She was glad, inexpressibly glad to find her new suspicions of Robert groundless. She started when Philippa sprang with sudden passion to her feet.
“Oh!” she cried, “how you despise me, don’t you? But if you’d had my existence—— Do you know what life means for a woman who has no money?” she demanded, fiercely. “Do you know what it means to be turned out into the world when your parents die, without influence, without proper training for any work, just to sink or swim as you can? I tell you, you clutch atanything, at anybody.... I shall have to tell you.... I lived with a woman once—and there was some money—I”—she moistened her dry lips—“I had the handling of her—money, and I—I meant to return it, of course. But she found out before I had time. She was hard—as hard as nails. She gave me a certain time to pay it back, and if I didn’t she threatened to make it public. Well—I borrowed it—I had to—from a man.” Again she suddenly lowered her eyes—and Cecily understood. “It’s he who threatens,” she went on in a choking voice. “It’s not paid back yet—and he’s poor—— Oh, you’ve never met such a man in your world, of course!Youdon’t know the sort of man who would—— It’s the money he wants. And I can’t marry Nigel, because he—this man will go to him, and——”
She threw herself on the sofa and hid her face.
Cecily drew nearer. Human misery is terrible to witness. She was moved inexpressibly. Philippa’s affectations, her poses, her exasperating mannerisms, had dropped from her, leaving her just a naked, shivering human soul, desperately afraid.
“Philippa!” she whispered, bending overher, “if only you had ever, evenoncebefore, been sincere with me!” She spoke in a voice trembling with pity, and Philippa looked up.
“Go on,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to tell me everything.”
Philippa raised her head, pushing her hair away from her haggard eyes. She looked old and beaten and hunted as she sat there.
“There’s nothing much to tell,” she said, doggedly. “That’s what I did—and I’ve paid for it. It’s awful to get into a net. I saw your husband was interested in me—at the beginning, I mean. I couldn’t afford to let him go.”
The slow color rose to Cecily’s cheek. Chaotic emotions surged within her; among them shame, and a curious despairing pity that after all her husband had never been loved—merely tricked,—deceived. “Poor Robin!” she found herself repeating silently, with a sort of passion of protection, as she returned in thought to the “little” name of their happy days.
Philippa was still talking, wildly, incoherently, as though with relief.
“And then when I met Nigel, and he wanted to marry me, I was thankful. I was so tired of struggling and having to pretend. Iwanted to feel safe and—and sheltered. I wanted it so much. And now I shall lose him too. And it will all begin over again—all over again——” She stopped, drawing a long, exhausted breath.
Cecily rose and went to the window, which she threw wider open. She felt that she wanted fresh air. Then she turned. “Listen!” she said. “Don’t say any more. Go home now, and write to me. Tell me just what you want to put things straight, and I’ll manage it somehow.”
For a minute Philippa sat motionless, staring, her mouth a little open, her untidy hair hanging round her face.
“You mean——?” she began.
“I should like to put things quite straight for you,” Cecily answered, simply.
Philippa rose rather unsteadily to her feet. She began to realize that she was safe. With the knowledge, her old self, the self made out of incessant posing, constant mental attitudinizing, began to gather like a shell over the elemental human being for whom Cecily had been experiencing a very passion of pity.
She pushed her crushed hat at the right angle, her head drooped to its accustomed position, a little on one side, her body reassumedits yearning lines. She held out both hands to Cecily.
“How we have misjudged each other, you and I!” she exclaimed, employing the deep tones in her voice. “I thought you unsympathetic, unimaginative. And you no doubt thought me——” She hesitated. It became difficult with Cecily’s eyes upon her to suggest the possible mental attitude she might formerly have adopted towards her husband’s secretary. “You have a fine nature,” she murmured. “You——”
Cecily checked her sharply. The impulsive wave of pity had passed.
“Please don’t,” she said, coldly. “I’m not noble, nor generous, nor a fine character, nor any of the things you are fond of talking about.” Her heart began to beat quickly. “You altered the world for me!” she cried, with a sudden passion for which she could not account. “Some onewould have done it anyhow, no doubt; I have realized that. But it happened to beyou. If I were jealous now, I couldn’t lift a finger to help you. But the worst of it is, I’m not jealous any more, and because you’re a woman, too,—and that in itself is hard enough,—I’ll help you now. You have taught me to put it out of anyman’s power to hurt me much again. But listen to me!” Her voice rang imperatively. Philippa raised unwilling eyes, and the women looked at each other. “For what I’ve had to kill to make it possiblenotto be hurt, I will never forgive you to the end of my life.” The words were uttered with an intense deliberation. Philippa paled, and turned away without offering her hand.
Before she reached the door, she heard Cecily’s voice again. This time it was quite under control. She spoke as though they had been conducting an ordinary business interview.
“Good-bye. Please tell me exactly how matters stand, and everything shall be arranged.”
Philippa closed the door. She was saved, but it had been at a price.