III
Rachel'sengagement to Belhaven was announced by Astry, before twelve o'clock the following day, in the library.
Matrimonial engagements do not, as a rule, occur during week-end parties without some preliminary symptoms. The entire family might be taken by measles unawares much more easily than to be wholly surprised by an engagement. This absence of preliminary symptoms, in fact of any symptoms at all, had the effect of making Astry's announcement as violently abrupt as an explosion of nitroglycerine.
Paul Van Citters remarked afterwards, in private, that it had quite bowled him over, but Mrs. Van Citters, though a dutiful wife, made no response; she had impressions of her own, having just heard from her husband the report of that other engagement between Charter and Mrs. Prynne. Charter was Pamela Van Citters' first cousin and she did not relish the Prynne idea, though she withheld her reasons from Paul. Being a wise woman, Pamela had never criticized Mrs. Prynne, but she was really stunned by Rachel's engagement to Belhaven. So were the others.
Sidney Billop nearly swallowed his collar-button, which he had in his mouth when his mother burst into his room to inform him. She had been one of the group in the library; Sidney had not, having sat up uncommonly late the night before trying to discover why Astry kept Belhaven so long in tête-à-tête. The engagement offered a solution, but not a satisfactory one. It was scarcely necessary for Belhaven to ask Astry's consent to his sister-in-law's marriage, and everybody knew that the Leven money, what there was of it, was in charge of a trust company and tied up in real estate, so there could have been no question of a settlement. Sidney recovered the collar-button but not his peace of mind; it was all certainly very curious.
Colonel Sedley, with an elephantine effort at playfulness, congratulated Rachel with the remark that he had hoped, at one time, that she would join the army, but she met this shaft with composure and even smiled gently at the colonel's impossible pleasantry.
The subtle charm of her personality had never been more apparent and, although she was very pale, her face had the delicate loveliness of a Greuze. The low arch of the brow, framed by dusky hair, and the thick-set, dark lashes that shadowed her dark gray eyes, seemed perfect enough, in the subdued light of the library, to establish an actual claim to beauty almost as great as Eva Astry's. She had suddenly become the central figure of the drama and her friends were surprised and even impressed by the unexpected resources she showed, for no matter how awkward and incongruous it seemed, she remained the mistress of the situation. That the situation was incongruous could not be denied; it had the appearance, at first sight, of a nine days' wonder.
"Surprised?" Pamela Van Citters exclaimed, replying to Dr. Macclesfield. "Don't ask me; I've been figuratively snatching at things to keep on my feet. I'm like Paul; it's bowled me over."
"Yet we were wondering the other day how Rachel had escaped the infection so long."
"It isn't that. Rachel's lovely and she must have refused dozens of offers already, but—it's the man!"
Dr. Macclesfield cocked an erratic eyebrow. "Why the man? Belhaven's good looking, you know, and reasonably rich, and I rather thought you women liked him."
"Oh, did you?"
The old man laughed. "Out with it, Pamela; I'm safe as the confessional."
Pamela considered; of course the doctor was safe enough, but ought she to speak the truth? She edged around the idea, fascinated with it; she was possessed with a wild desire to talk it over; she was loyal enough to Rachel, but that very loyalty made her indignant; from her point of view the engagement was an injury to Rachel.
"I suppose you know what people say?" she ventured.
"Oh, that's sometimes wide of the mark!"
"Well, it's true, I think, don't you? At least he's in love with Eva."
"My dear Pamela, how do you know that?"
"Know it?" She gave a quick glance back at the long room—they were standing in the door of the hall—to assure herself that she was unheard. "Why, it's as plain as the nose on your face!"
Macclesfield laughed. "You can't expect me to be accomplished in these details; besides, Belhaven has probably only been telling Eva how much he loved her sister."
Mrs. Van Citters met this suggestion with scorn. "Is that all you know?"
"Isn't it enough for a mere man?"
"Perhaps I shouldn't expect any more, but the idea of deliberately choosing a man who's in love with your sister! It's hard enough to keep a husband devoted anyway, and I'd want him to begin by being in love with me."
"Wouldn't it be just as well if he ended there?"
"You mean that you think he can't help falling in love with Rachel in the end?"
"Something like that, only I think he's in love with her already."
"Pff! Nothing of the sort; look at his face."
"You couldn't expect a mere man to keep hissang-froidat such a moment as this?" the doctor retorted, adjusting his eye-glasses to look at the bridegroom elect.
"At least he needn't look as if he expected to be hung!"
"Oh, that's natural enough, my dear," Macclesfield retorted, with a chuckle. "Mrs. Billop's got him in tow."
"He looked just the same before she got him, which shows where he is! It makes me indignant—not on his account, of course you know that! He's not half good enough for Rachel and he ought to be down on his knees to get her; but he's mad about Eva. He's been watching Eva all the time; any one can see it."
The doctor smiled grimly. "She'll bear watching."
"Oh, she's pretty enough, and, heavens, what a gown! Her clothes cost a fortune. It doesn't seem fair, and I've told her so, to be so pretty and to have so much money to make you more so."
"You can't imagine all the compliments Pamela's paying you, Eva," said the old doctor, as their hostess came past them in one of her excursions across the room.
"It's because I'm so happy over dear Rachel's happiness," she replied, with a beaming glance.
Belhaven, who heard this, regarded her with sudden amazement. There was always a time when Eva's lovers were amazed, usually just before they were disillusioned, and Belhaven found it difficult, at the moment, to meet her on her own ground. What had been to him a kind of exhibition, in which he was compelled to pose as the unwilling dancing-bear, was apparently an occasion of joy and relief to her. He did not appreciate the fact that, having saved her own skin, Eva was not keenly aware that his was gone. And if he caught a look of exasperation on Astry's face, it did not enlighten him to the fact that Astry had traveled that road before him, had asked for bread and received a stone.
But Dr. Macclesfield, ruminating on Pamela's remarks, was not so easily misled. He had known the two sisters all their lives and he observed Eva shrewdly.
"I wonder what the little devil's been up to?" he thought. "She's acting a little more elaborately than usual; she's aware herself that she's acting, and as a rule it's a second nature. She never did anything natural in her life except to have chicken-pox when she was seven."
Family doctors accumulate a store of perfectly useless but uncomfortable information; that is the penalty we pay for expert advice, we reveal our affairs and our tongues.
Meanwhile, Paul Van Citters and the ItalianChargé d'Affaireshaving fallen into the toils of little Mrs. Prynne, Astry found himself offering his best cigars to Colonel Sedley as a means of diverting him from his one idea. But, though the fragrant Havana somewhat softened the edge of the colonel's observations, it did not entirely change the course of his conversation.
"I say, Astry, how about Charter?" he said. "You know I thought he was hard hit when he was here last."
Astry lit his own cigar carefully. "I'm not responsible for that, you know," he said dryly.
"I know that if he's come a cropper you didn't lend him the horse! But he's a fine fellow, Astry, a splendid fellow! I'd like to have seen Miss Leven marry a man like that."
"Exactly, but isn't it for her to choose after all?"
Sedley nodded slowly. "Of course, but, by Jove," he added, after a moment of silent puffing at his cigar, "what queer men women choose!"
Astry colored slightly and frowned, yet he was aware that Sedley did not know that he had loved Rachel first and asked her to marry him before Eva came back from a two years' stay in Paris. Rachel had refused him, simply because she did not love him. Knowing this, Astry had always regarded her as above the consideration of fortune, and it angered him the more that she should have deliberately chosen Belhaven. He was conscious, too, and it embittered his mood, that he had never hated Belhaven so on Eva's account, nor been so jealous of him as he was now, watching him stand close to Rachel to receive the congratulations of their bewildered friends. What would Rachel say to Belhaven, what would she do? The position was so forced, so unreal, that it affected Astry like a distasteful tragedy realistically acted but imperfectly staged.
"I have a feeling that Charter'll be considerably knocked up about it," persisted Sedley; "and he's made a splendid record in the Philippines."
"Well, a man who can stand the Philippines can stand a disappointment in love."
"They tell me the climate's a perfect Turkish bath, but we've done a lot in Manila; it'll be half-way decent now that the moat's grassed over and their confounded drains filled up."
"Oh, if you've got to drains!"
The colonel laughed good-humoredly. "I don't know but that they're more in my line than match-making," he said.
All this while Rachel had been listening to appropriate remarks and Mrs. Billop was particularly affectionate.
"My dear," she whispered, "I'm envious; you're positively the only one I should have loved for Sidney."
Rachel did not sink under this tremendous compliment but she smiled a little. To have escaped Sidney was something. But she reflected that Mrs. Billop only said it because she was safely out of the way. Sidney was one of those interesting youths who remain firmly staked in the list as safe home-prizes, guarded by their anxious mothers, who flutter about them clucking wildly at every speck on the horizon, lest it prove to be a matrimonial chicken-hawk descending upon their offspring. Mrs. Billop would have clucked very wildly had she thought that Rachel intended to descend upon Sidney, for she regarded Rachel as strong-minded, a new woman.
It was fortunate that Rachel was strong-minded, else she would scarcely have faced the ordeal without betraying herself. As it was, she went through it successfully and saw most of the guests pairing off for the day to leave her alone with Belhaven, a prospect at once amazing and terrible. What would she do with Belhaven?
Astry asked himself the same question with conscious irritation, as he went off in his motor with Count Massena, Pamela, and Mrs. Prynne. Eva was asking it with a thrill of jealousy, as she sallied forth to the tennis-court with Sidney and Van Citters. Dr. Macclesfield was asking it with grim humor, as he disposed of Mrs. Billop and Colonel Sedley in the wagonette, and, perhaps, no one was more embarrassed by it than Belhaven himself.
The last guest had drifted out of the library. They had been left obviously alone together, and as the wagonette disappeared, they turned from the window and faced each other in the broad, uncompromising light of noon, with only the slight screen of the striped awning that shielded the long terrace. Rachel remembered instantly the figure on that terrace the night before; then she raised her eyes and met those of Belhaven. The man's handsome face, keen-featured, clean-shaven and well proportioned, was haggard, and his expression, as he met Rachel's clear glance, was deeply shamed. She saw it with a quick thrill of doubt: had Eva told her the truth? Then suddenly her cheek reddened deeply; was it because he must marry her? The situation was intolerable. They stood looking at each other a long moment in painful silence before she moved a little away from him and took the nearest chair; her knees were trembling so that she could not stand, but she was apparently calm.
"Will you sit down?" she said coldly; "I must speak to you."
Belhaven obeyed mechanically; he wanted to speak, too, but his lips were parched, for he felt that he had a coward's part. He had known it ever since he looked in the clear depths of her gray eyes. He was tasting the fruits of his indiscretions and he rebelled against it, for, like most sinners, he would greatly have preferred to go free. He was ashamed to look at Rachel; he felt himself suddenly a moral leper. He had never entertained so poor an opinion of himself as he did at that moment, and he had never been aware before that he profoundly admired her. He met her eyes at last and was surprised that her expression was so tranquil; it was even kind,—companions in misery are sometimes drawn to each other.
"I'm sorry for you," she said quietly, "we're in an unhappy situation. I'm nearly as sorry for you as I am for myself, which is saying a good deal," she added, with the ghost of a smile.
Belhaven pulled himself together. "I don't deserve your pity," he said hoarsely.
Again Rachel felt a thrill of doubt, but she passed it over. "I'm sorry we have to go through with it—this marriage—but it's the only thing to do."
Belhaven was silent; he wanted to tell her that he would face the worst, that he would not accept the sacrifice, but words choked him. He had not courage enough; he stormed in his heart but it was true, he was a coward! He heard Rachel's voice again and it seemed a long way off.
"I suppose—oh, really I don't know what to say to you," she cried, almost breaking down after her fine beginning; "it's—it's hard to talk of it, but I suppose we've got to do it. You and I alone know that she's innocent and you and I are forced to save her from—from the consequences of her indiscretion!"
She broke off, waiting for him to answer but he did not; he, too, flushed a dark red during her speech and then paled to the lips. He was silent.
"It was her folly," Rachel began again, in a low voice, "but you—you're a man of the world, it's just unpardonable in you; you can't blame Johnstone for what he's done! If only Eva had told the real truth—but she was so frightened, she's afraid he'll kill you and she's flung the thing upon me—so I've got to save her. I'm doing it for her sake, I—I—" Her voice failed her altogether, she turned scarlet, and her lips trembled.
He looked up into her eyes. He had never before encountered this kind of a woman and he was impressed. There was a dignity about her, even in the midst of her embarrassment, that made him feel that her soul kept a space to move in too elevated for him to enter.
"I think it's fine of you," he said haltingly; "it's tremendously plucky—of course I can make no excuses. I don't. I love her; it's my fault; I suppose such things have happened before;" this was a very old excuse but he used it unconsciously; "I'd give my right hand to save her from it all, but I feel I'm a coward to let you do this."
Rachel turned from him. Looking out into the beautiful sunshine, she saw a busy little bevy of white butterflies skim past the window; a bird sang persistently, sweetly; it was free, it was good to be free. Her hands trembled in her lap; she did not look back at him.
"It will be only a marriage in name," she forced herself to say. "I'll try to interfere with your life as little as I can and I shall expect you to consider my feelings too."
"I quite understand."
There was again a painful silence, then they both heard Eva's laugh, an exceedingly sweet, light-hearted, care-free laugh that was her characteristic. It came to them from the tennis-court and Belhaven shuddered. Rachel rose, steadying herself with a hand on the back of the chair.
"I believe there's nothing more to say," she said gently.
He had risen too. "The marriage?" he asked, hesitatingly.
She turned white to the lips. "Johnstone has set next Thursday; these people leave to-morrow and Wednesday; would you—" She looked up; for one wild moment she felt that she must appeal to him to be man enough to save her.
But his answer killed the last faint hope. "Any time will do," he said, avoiding her eyes.
She turned away with a slight gesture of despair; there was nothing to hope from such a man as this, and she went quietly to the door. As she reached it, he came quickly over and opened it for her. He had been like a man in a dream and now his face flushed deeply again.
"I humbly beg your pardon," he said hoarsely.
Rachel bent her head and passed out. Belhaven closed the door behind her and threw himself into the nearest chair with a groan.
"You and I alone know that she's innocent and you and I are forced to protect her!" Could Rachel have invented a more refined torment? He thought not. He saw himself as in a mirror; she had held it up to reflect his image and he found it hideous. He was a coward! It burns a man's soul to realize that. We are fond of heroics, we like to picture ourselves undaunted in the firing line; more causes have been won in day-dreams than were ever lost in reality, more forlorn hopes have found a leader than there were hopes of any kind to lead. But when the crisis comes, the hero suddenly collapses, the old cowardly self comes out from behind the hayrick, is affrighted and runs back. Belhaven had never known himself until those three awful hours when Astry kept him a prisoner in that same room waiting for Rachel's decision, waiting for a woman to save him for her sister's sake; not even for his own sake, but for some one else's. Alone he was obviously not worth saving; she had told him so. Belhaven, left alone in the most uncomfortable moment of his life, began to realize forcibly that he was not worth it; he was marooned on an island of sentimental purpose and he had no sentiment. He was thirty-two and he had never done a useful thing in his life unless it was to give his old clothes to his man servant, whom they fitted rather better than most cast-off clothes do. He had lived hard, drank hard, spent his money hard; he would have spent all of it, if a wise and frugal parent had not trusteed a large portion of the principal so that the worst that could happen were periods of impecuniosity, seasons of financial drought, like a summer after a dry St. Swithin's day, before the interest from those trusteed thousands began to come in again.
Yet Belhaven was not vicious, he was not even hardened, and he had fallen foolishly in love with Eva Astry chiefly because she wanted him to fall in love with her. Like most of his predecessors in flirtation, he did not know that that was her perpetual attitude; he supposed that he was an exception, he thought Eva really loved him better than herself. But Rachel knew better; something in her manner told him that she knew better, but she did not dream that her sister was anything but innocent. Belhaven had caught a glimpse of her soul, he had dimly discerned the mental attitude; he knew that Eva had deceived her and he was deeply ashamed. Yet he was not strong enough to go out and face Astry; his three hours with Astry had almost been the death of him; the man was as relentless as an Indian and as clever as a devil.
Belhaven got up and walked about the library. What should he do? If he went away it would do no good; it was cowardly and it would do no good, Astry would pursue him and blazon out the truth. If he refused to marry Rachel, Astry would kill him. If Eva—his mind stopped there; Eva had betrayed him. At the last ditch, the hardest pinch, she had bargained with the enemy for her own safety; she had delivered him, bound hand and foot, to Astry. She was cruel. Eva, the darling, little creature, the soft pink and white beauty, whose tender flesh could endure no pain, whose heart could endure no suffering,—this paragon had suddenly failed him. She had left him in the lurch, she had gathered up her skirts and fled before the deluge. He began dimly to understand Eva; he was slowly, painfully, laboriously, to climb the road which Astry had traveled before him. It is a long road and it is well worn by the footprints of many pilgrims; he whose feet are once set upon this road, turns not back.