CHAPTER IV
Thefirst snowdrop blossomed in my window-boxes this morning. Its small, white face looked so timid as it stared at me out of the fog. I felt almost sorry for its loneliness, only that I admired it so much for its bravery. It must need some courage to be the first flower of the year—a pioneer into unknown kingdoms. I know so many people who would sooner lie abed than be the first to get up on such a morning as this.
I found it for myself, but knew well I was not the first to discover it. Moxon was waiting about in the room when I came down to breakfast, doing nothing in that feverishly-occupied way which betokens subterfuge of some kind or another. I could see quite plainly what he was up to and, in such cases as these, I hate to disappoint people. He wanted me to draw his attention to the snowdrop, since, for his dignity's sake, he could not be supposed to have seen it himself. Now, to have taken no notice of it would have been cruel, yet I was sorely tempted to it. I wanted to observe to what straits of ingenuity he would be put before dire necessity compelled him to leave the room.
In such a pass as this I meet the devil of temptation half way. I succumb to him so far as to see the little play performed almost to the fall of the curtain then, in the nick of time, I surrender my advantage to spite the devil and please myself.
Moxon had placed a vase of daffodils in five different positions about the room and, compelled at last to be satisfied with them, he was about to leave me to myself. At that moment I strolled casually to the window and, at the very door, he paused.
"Oh, here's our first snowdrop in blossom," said I.
I think he liked my calling it "ours." A big smile spread across his face, and he came over to my side with such speed as he might, consistent with a proper respect for my confidence.
"Wonderful where they get the white from out of that dirty mould," said he. From the ready way he announced it, I felt sure that he had had that sentence in his mind all the time, that he had thought it would please me to know he did think of such things. He had probably been harboring it in his head since seven o'clock in the morning. Whether that is so or not, it did please me. It is just the thing I always marvel at myself.
"But don't call it dirty mould," said I. "There's hardly a thing I know so clean as a ploughed field in spring, when the earth has just been turned after a long winter."
No doubt it was I who was considering my dignity now. No matter how right a schoolboy may be in his answer, the master always corrects him, sets him right in a phrase or some insignificant fact. I was doing much the same with Moxon. All these little tricks are the efforts of the superior human being for the maintenance of dignity. I know a man who every evening of his life partakes of a glass of milk for his health's sake. One night his dog fell foul of it and consumed it all. But it was not for punishment alone that he stole two of the dog's biscuits in return. What can be more undignified than having your evening's milk stolen by your dog! What, then, can more perfectly regain your dignity than stealing two of his biscuits and calling it the adjustment of punishment to the crime? If Moxon could not openly admit that he had seen the snowdrop before, I could not entirely agree with him. It cut both ways.
"Of course, I didn't mean dirty in that sense, sir," he replied. "Only that it makes my hands what I should call not quite clean."
"When you tidy up, you mean?" said I.
"Well"—I had caught him in that trap—"yes, sir—when I—tidy up."
This all sounds very ridiculous, I admit. Two men wrangling about the bloom of a snowdrop do not present an object for much respect! But when you come to think of it, it is just of such incidents as these that life is composed, with here and there some real event falling heavily into the peaceful rippling of the stream. It may fall upon a gravel bottom, when the broken water catches in a thousand points of light the glorious reflection of the sun. It may fall where there is sleeping mud which, disturbed, sullies all the clearness of the stream. Then only Time, who not alone heals but cleanses, shall sweep the ugliness of it away.
Men and women are just as human whether it be over a field of snowdrops or a field of turnips. I would sooner it were snowdrops myself. For this is life as it seems to me—a crowd of undignified little creatures, pathetically, humorously, in all loveableness, trying to assume a dignity which they do not possess; only in great moments proving the nobility of their creation, when, by the sudden force of circumstance, they are, willy-nilly, driven to be themselves.
I little imagined as I amused myself by these thoughts with Moxon standing by, staring down with me at the timid blossom of that little snowdrop, that I for one was upon the eve of such an event as would force me by its circumstance to some definite course of action. Yet that very night I came to know of Clarissa—know of her in such a way as I had rather hear of any misfortune beside.
Ever since that day when I had heard from Mrs. Farringdon that she had returned unmarried to Dominica, I had striven with my conscience to know whether I were glad or not.
"I shall never see her again," said I.
"She's found the happiness you urged her to," replied my conscience.
"Did I really urge her to that?" I asked.
So much of a head as my conscience possesses, it nodded, and nodded vigorously.
"But did I mean it?" said I.
This is the only way with one's conscience, to silence it. Drive it into a corner of perplexity, when even truthfulness can be of no avail.
"Did I mean it?" I repeated, and my conscience could say nothing. "In the back of my mind," I continued, pressing my advantage to its uttermost, "was there not some hope that I might win her for myself? Why should I be glad then that she had gone?"
And the upshot of it all was that I neither knew whether I was glad or sorry. For this is the selfishness of that great unselfishness of love, that we will give the whole world, our life if necessary, to the woman whom we worship, but the giving must be ours.
Yet that night I knew well enough whether I were glad or not, for that night, trying in vain to find the waters of forgetfulness in the finger-bowls on my supper-room table, I saw Clarissa herself.
It was all a lie! She had never returned to Dominica; and as I pieced together the story from what I had been told, from what I saw before me then, I grew sick at heart with a nameless apprehension.
Young Fennell was with her; there was also another man—a member no doubt of the Lyric Club—and the same woman to whom the story of Clarissa had been told that night almost a year before, when first there had been sown in my mind the seed of my adventure.
For some long minutes I was too amazed to do anything but watch them unperceived. Two bottles of champagne stood on the table, and one by one the five courses of the supper were placed before them. They all ate and drank as though it were the one essential meal of their day—all of them except Clarissa, who nibbled at her bread like a little mouse, only sipping from her glass lest they should fill it up again too soon. But in the laughing and the talking she was no exception to the rest. To all the popular tunes of the day they rapped with their forks in applause upon the table. It was just that type ofpartie carréeI had seen so often in those rooms; so often wondered at for the hollowness of the enjoyment it suggested. They would—had I not known them—have been just such a company of players as I am accustomed to watch in this one particular theatre of mine. But, being Clarissa, it was no play to me then. Every time she laughed, I felt it buffet in my face. Every time when with the others she tapped her fork upon the table, she might have been driving the prongs of it into my flesh. That she could find laughter with such men and women! That she could applaud that loathsome music, which only sensualizes the minds of those that hear it! All these thoughts burnt hot inside me, and yet I could do no more than stay and watch it to the end.
There was, moreover, in my mind the determination that I still had some questions to ask that young man before I let him out of my sight again. With that intention, therefore, I sat quietly in my seat. I had settled with myself that I would speak to him when they were all going out—contrive that he should remain behind, since, if there should be words between us, as was most likely, it should not in any way disgrace Clarissa.
In the first few moments I had thought it strange for it to be here that I should meet Clarissa again. But there was not so much strangeness in it after all. A man always returns to his old haunts. It is the instinct of the animal for its lair, the salmon for its pool. But though he had seen me there before, he little expected to see me there again.
It was with no little satisfaction that I noted his first glance of recognition and the look of consternation that followed it. He waited just a moment, thinking, doubtless, to hide from me the fact that he had seen me; then, leaning across the table, he whispered something into Clarissa's ear. With that same startled expression of the frightened bird, she looked across the room and her eyes met mine.
In that one sudden moment, I felt she was recalling every word I had said to her that morning on the cliffs at Ballysheen. For her eyes had no hatred in them now; only fear, the fear as when one is discovered and is ashamed. She tried to meet my look, and though in my eyes I felt there was showing all the affection I had so lately come to realize, yet still she failed. In a moment she was looking away again, forcing herself to talk to the man beside her as if the incident had passed completely from her mind.
Presently young Fennell leaned across the table and spoke to her once more, then rose and came down the room.
"Shall I speak to him now?" I thought. Later I wished to God I had, for he passed out of the room and, as the time went by, I realized that he was not coming back again. To make sure I went to the cloak-room in the vestibule. They told me he had gone.
"Damnation!" I exclaimed. The liveried attendants stood there with meaningless faces, powerless to help me. I was powerless to help myself.
For a while I remained there undecided, staring at the door through which he must have passed. He had escaped me. It roused a thousand suspicions in my mind. He feared our meeting. But why? What had happened? I felt sick with the multitude of suggestions that came pouring into my brain. There was only one thing to be done—to speak with Clarissa. Once having brought my determination to that, I went back to my table and called a waiter.
"Give me," said I, "a piece of paper and a pencil."
He brought them to me, standing by me at my direction while I wrote. "Dear Mrs. Fennell," I scribbled—my hands were shaking foolishly—"may I have five minutes' conversation with you if you can spare them after supper? I shall not offend you again as I did before."
"Take this," said I, "to the lady at that table, the lady with the dark hair, and ask for an answer. Say that I do not wish to disturb her while she is with friends."
"I'm sorry, sir," he replied, "but we are not allowed to deliver notes."
"That be damned for a tale!" said I. "What the devil do you mean? Do you want to suggest that I'm trying to force my acquaintance on a lady whom I don't know?"
"I'm sorry, sir—but those are our orders. There's been some unpleasantness on two or three occasions."
I told him to send me the head-waiter. Themaître d'hôtelcame, rubbing his hands. These foreigners with their genial faces and silky ways! I always see such contempt in their cunning little eyes.
"You've seen me here pretty often," I began.
He laved his hands more obsequiously than ever as he bowed assent.
"Well—there's a lady over there at that table. She is a friend of mine. I don't know the people with whom she is supping and, therefore, don't wish to disturb their party. Kindly take this note over to her. If you don't deliver it I shall be compelled to do so myself."
He took the note without a word.
For the first few moments while he was gone, I could not look in that direction. Now I suppose I know the madness which comes to those who love. It is madness. It is nothing less. In that short space I might have been another being, so overwhelming was the rush of emotions that trampled through me. In as many seconds I was prompted to the doing of a hundred different things; yet I sat there quietly, scarcely moving, until I raised my eyes and saw Clarissa with nervous fingers opening my note. The other woman was looking round in my direction with curious eyes, in which I could trace that half-puzzled look of recognition. But not once did Clarissa turn her eyes towards me. Even when she had finished reading it, she kept her face averted; then, giving some message to the head-waiter, she turned to the man on her right and began to speak as though it were in some hurried explanation. Again the woman stared at me. The man stared, too. Only Clarissa kept her face away. I saw her little fingers feverishly making countless pellets with her bread.
The next moment themaître d'hôtelwas bending down with smooth apologies and speaking in my ear.
"The lady is very sorry, sir—but she is afraid there must be some mistake."
"What do you mean?" I asked quickly; but all the time I kept my eyes upon Clarissa. "What do you mean?" I repeated.
"The lady is very sorry, sir," he said again, "but she's afraid there must be some mistake."
A multitude of things came to my mind to be said, but not one of them passed my lips. With such precision as I thought could scarcely be in my nature, I took my note which he had brought back with him, tearing it slowly and evenly into a hundred little pieces, and laid them in a pile upon my table.
"My bill," said I.