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Theslow weeks that had dragged by had not been happy ones for Eva Astry. Her first feeling of relief that it was done, the ordeal of Rachel's marriage and the risk that Astry would discover the motive that had prompted it, was over, and she had long ago begun to feel that she had purchased her immunity at too heavy a price. The cost of it, indeed, was chiefly revealed to her by Belhaven's attitude. The cruelty of his position began to appear to her in various aspects and she saw that her betrayal of him had cost her the chief place in his regard. She began to be vaguely aware that she had given him the right to hate her, that the sort of love she had inspired was not of a fiber to resist such an attack, that it was not even equal to the demands of common self-sacrifice. Unconsciously, too, she began to compare his attitude at the time of Astry's discovery with that of Rachel. Her sister had sacrificed herself to save her from the shadow of dishonor, while her lover had not even had the manhood to face her husband. No light in which she could view it made the situation seem less ugly, and at no time did Belhaven figure as a hero. Yet her affection for him had been strong enough to torture her with jealousy when she saw him stand up to be married to her sister. Although she knew that Rachel probably despised him, her own nature—soft and pleasure-loving—was not one to readily yield an admirer to another woman. It had been that reluctance to part with one that had made her recall Belhaven after her marriage with Astry. She could have married him in the first place but she had greatly preferred the Astry millions. It had seemed to her that all the accessories and comforts of wealth were necessary to her, that her beauty, always of a rare and lovely type, demanded the setting that Astry offered her.
She had always affected a mode of living and a class of society which had drained every purse in the family to keep her afloat, even as a young girl, and she had always intended to achieve a dazzling marriage. Astry, while failing to offer her a title and a place in Europe which she had coveted, did present the next thing to it,—the possession of a great fortune and the power to purchase the place in society which she had failed to attain through her mere beauty and charm. If she could not be a princess in a small European State, like one of her cousins, she could be the wife of an American millionaire, and she did not hesitate long over her decision. Belhaven, whose fortune was much smaller and who had squandered a large part of his income, was no match for Astry, and Eva's marriage to the latter had been celebrated with all the pomp that the Leven family, reinforced by the maternal relatives, the Sterrits, had been able to achieve. The paying for it, indeed, had driven poor Aunt Drusilla Leven into the retirement of an obscure Italian town where, as she frankly wrote her friends, washing was fabulously cheap. Profiting by this financial sacrifice, Eva had made the great match of the season and had never bestowed a thought upon poor Aunt Drusilla in her exile, except to be thankful that she did not have to invite that "old frump" to her dinners. But, after the first few months, even the society of a frump would have been more desirable than the continued criticism of a watchful, jealous, and uncongenial husband.
After his first discovery that Eva was not, as he had supposed, a beautiful and delicate replica of Rachel, Astry had been frankly disappointed. They had very little in common and he could not remain long unaware that, if Eva did not love money for its own sake, she cared greatly for the luxuries and privileges that money could obtain for her. Finding himself, therefore, an object of indifference to his young and beautiful wife, he met her with a like coldness and reserve, so that Eva was soon, like a naughty child, shut out of the inner circle of her husband's confidence. It was at this point, when they were both to blame, that she began to encourage Belhaven's renewed devotion. The result had been that Astry, no longer trusting her, had taken alarm, and there had been many quarrels, at first petty and then so serious that they led up to the moment when she had feared for Belhaven's life. Then had come the climax and her falsehood about her sister, Rachel's sacrifice to protect her, and the marriage.
Now that it was over and she was left to view the matter from every standpoint, in the cold light of common sense, she was filled with horror at the tangle she had made; and the continued necessity of acting it all out, of keeping up the tissue of falsehood that she had woven, was wearing her out. Her beauty, of that delicate and ephemeral type that is dependent on color and light, was visibly diminished. Mrs. Van Citters, happening in upon her at the unfortunate hour of noon, when all the defects are most fiercely revealed, thought that she looked absolutely pinched and white, and that only her peculiarly lovely hair and eyes saved her from being what Aunt Drusilla Leven would have called "real peaked."
Pamela, who had been carefully instructed by her husband to attend strictly to her own business, found it difficult to refrain from remarking upon Eva's looks, but she began the conversation with the determination to be very guarded and to only skim the surface.
"Are you really going to stay all summer?" she inquired casually, as she folded her parasol and tossed it with her gloves on a convenient chair in the breakfast-room, where Eva had just been taking coffee and toast. "Paul and I get off to-morrow. Mother took the baby last week; it's abominable in the city now."
"Well, you see we're not in the city," Eva drawled, "and Johnstone's been interested in the tariff. Besides, I suppose we'll go to Florida this winter and—" she shrugged her shoulders—"what's the use?"
Pamela stretched out an absent-minded hand and, picking up a strawberry from the cut-glass dish on the table, dangled it by its green stem. "I suppose you like to be here on Rachel's account; she isn't going away, is she?"
"I'm sure I don't know; I suggested the pyramids of Egypt."
Pamela clung to the surface. "There are such horrible cockroaches on those Nile boats," she observed.
"I can't imagine why people here have made such a fuss about Rachel's marriage," said Eva fretfully. "One would think a bomb had exploded; they seem to catalogue it with murder and sudden death."
Pamela looked vacant. "Do they? You know I've been simply taken up with trying to keep John Charter with us; Paul and I offered all sorts of inducements but he wouldn't stay."
"Good gracious, hadn't you Mrs. Prynne? I thought they were engaged."
"Nonsense! Imagine John marrying a paper doll! I don't know who started that report unless it was Mrs. Billop."
"She's equal to anything, but I can't see her object unless she thought Mrs. Prynne had designs on Sidney."
"Poor Lottie! I think even she'd draw the line there! I was perfectly amazed when Paul told me about that supposed engagement, the day that Rachel's was announced, but I fancy that was really what put it into Mrs. Billop's head."
"I don't see why."
"Why of course you know John was in love with Rachel?"
Eva, who had been only languidly attentive, turned quickly. "What?"
Pamela reddened. "Didn't you know it? Didn't Rachel ever tell you about it?"
"Not a word."
Her visitor felt deliciously guilty; she had not intended to transgress her husband's injunctions, but, as long as she had inadvertently let the cat out of the bag, there was a wicked satisfaction in seeing Eva's amazed incredulity.
"Well, of course I knew it," she said sweetly, nibbling her strawberry, "it was perfectly easy to see; John's so thoroughly masculine that he can't hide it; you know men are just like ostriches; they bury their heads in the sand and think they're completely hidden."
"If it was so obvious, it seems rather strange, doesn't it, that I never heard anything about it?"
"Well, I suppose of course Rachel didn't reciprocate and so you didn't notice."
Eva deliberated; she began to suspect that Pamela was watching her. "No, Rachel didn't reciprocate," she risked at last; "that's certain, isn't it?"
"Yes, if we take it for granted that we always marry the people we care for."
Eva blushed,—a blush that spread painfully from brow to chin and throat,—her eyelids quivered and drooped from Pamela's gaze, she clasped her hands tightly under the table.
"Don't you think Rachel's too superbly honest to do anything else?" she asked.
"I think Rachel's perfectly lovely and the dearest girl in the world, but she looks—oh, Eva, can't you see how wretched she looks?"
"No, I haven't seen it, and she can't be; I won't let her be!" Eva's face quivered.
"There, now I've made you unhappy!" lamented Pamela, sincerely distressed and contrite. "I shouldn't have said it, but Rachel does look so pale, so worn, and you know I do love her."
"You can't love her as I do; she's the dearest thing in the world! She isn't unhappy: I won't believe it; and this is all nonsense about Charter. You dreamed it, Pamela!"
"Oh, I only said that he was in love with her!"
"You implied the rest of it!"
"I'm such a romantic idiot; Paul says so."
"I hope people aren't talking about it."
"Oh, no, no!"
Eva sank back in her chair and pressed her hands over her eyes for an instant. "Why in the world did you want to frighten me so, Pamela?"
"But I didn't. I only went on talking about Rachel when I should have held my tongue; I didn't mean to worry you, but she does look wretchedly unwell and—"
"Who does?" said Astry, who had entered as she spoke.
Pamela, in some discomfiture, cast an appealing glance at Eva, but Eva offered no explanations and she was compelled to rise to the emergency alone.
"We were talking of Rachel; I think she's feeling the heat," she said feebly, as Astry shook hands with her.
"Nonsense, it's been quite cool out here and Rachel's never complained of the weather. Belhaven just told me that she'd refused to go to Newport."
Pamela looked about for her parasol and gloves; she knew that John Charter had gone to Newport to visit an aunt.
"I think it's perfectly abominable myself,—I mean the weather," she said desperately; "we're going to-morrow."
Astry moved easily over to the mantelpiece and began to arrange one of his Chinese gods. "There'll be an exodus now," he remarked, "since Congress adjourned yesterday. Massachusetts Avenue is boarded up already; only the unfashionable will dare to stay in the face of those shutters. I expect Eva to go to Lenox."
"I'm not going anywhere," she replied quickly; "this is my summer off. Don't go, Pamela; stay and we'll go over to see Rachel."
But Pamela felt guilty; if she had only skimmed the surface, she had certainly skimmed it very thoroughly. "I can't stay; think of the things I've got to do before half-past seven to-morrow morning."
"Nothing half as important as staying to see your friends," said Astry.
But Pamela would not be diverted from her flight, though she stood on the terrace a moment while she raised her pink parasol and whirled it slowly around before balancing it over her head.
"If I had a view like this I'd stay too!" she declared.
Eva, standing in the door, looked out over the magnificent prospect with languid eyes.
"Oh, you'd get tired of it! I sometimes want to paint the dome sky-blue—as the monkey did his tail."
Disregarding Eva's irreverence, Pamela waved again from the lower terrace, and then they watched her go down the long road until the fluttering pink parasol diminished to the size of a new blown peony.
Astry, who had escorted her to the gate, came back slowly and his wife noticed for the first time that his expression was unusually grave. In the broad sunshine she saw the crow's-feet about his eyes and the streak of gray in his hair; he was not handsome, but distinguished, and he had that indefinable air that is inalienable from a man of his birth and breeding. As he approached, he took a letter out of his pocket and Eva's fascinated eyes, following his movements, discovered that the envelope was small and odiously blue. Her hand tightened its hold on the white pilaster beside the door and she stood quite still, though a thrill of panic shot through her with an almost irresistible impulse of flight. He came up and proffered the letter gravely.
"I think this is yours."
She took it mechanically, coloring again almost as painfully as she had under Pamela's observation.
"Craggs brought it up with my mail this morning, I hope by mistake, but there have been others like it and it seemed worth while to tell you."
"I don't see why you keep that man!"
"My dear Eva, the excellent Craggs is invaluable; he knows how to press my trousers and hold his tongue."
"He creeps about the house like a spy."
Astry turned quickly. "I hope you don't think I employ servants to watch my wife."
She bit her lip, sudden tears in her eyes.
Her husband's face changed sharply. "At least I deserve fair treatment; I'm incapable of sinking to such a depth as that."
"You know I dislike the man."
"That's neither here nor there; the question's more vital. Did you suppose because of what I said to you that night, the night of Rachel's engagement," his voice halted an instant and then went on, "that I had set Craggs to watch you?"
Eva leaned heavily against the door with the little blue note crushed in her hand. "There was nothing else for me to think," she said in a low voice.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Astry, "is that what you think of your husband?"
He turned away and was half-way across the terrace when a new thought arrested him and he came back.
"I spoke of that note just now to warn you. As I said, several have been put with my mail, though plainly addressed to you. I have reason to think that the servants do it purposely. I can assure you that I have no wish to see them."
Eva tried to answer him, to assure him that the letter was of no importance, but she could not; her tongue refused to utter the denial and she remained standing for a while as he had left her, her head resting against the white pilaster and her eyes closed. He had been dignified and almost kind and she felt humbled to the dust before his just anger. She began to be vaguely aware that she had judged him by a standard too mean for a man of his intellect and strength of character; she felt that she had given him the right to despise her and her humiliation strangled her natural impulse to defend herself at his expense. Besides, there was that letter in her pocket. How many of them had he seen? She shuddered at the thought of the blue conspicuousness of that cheap envelope with its over-powering perfume. No one could mistake one of them, and the servants had been watching them, the servants who probably knew the hand-writing. That thought thrust out the other which had clothed Astry in a new aspect.
She made her way into the house and slowly ascended the stairs to her own room. Her heart was heavy as she closed the door and locked it. Then she drew the letter out of her pocket, read it, and tore it up with keen disgust. It was from her former maid, Zélie, and it demanded five hundred dollars. There had been three of these in a month, and to each of them Eva had responded with a cheque. But money only increased the demand for money; it was like casting a piece of paper into a sucking draught of a furnace,—it was consumed in a twinkling.
Ever since Rachel dismissed the French girl, Eva had been in terror of her tongue, and then blackmail actually began. At first it was easy to pay a little, and then a little more; the sense of security was too sweet to be dear at any price. But security could not be purchased; a hundred was a mere drop in the bucket, and Zélie could dictate her terms. She was with Mrs. Billop; Mrs. Billop desired to know everything, but Zélie had been faithful to Eva, how faithful Eva could judge, but she was perishing for money, she was the sole support of aged parents, she must be paid or—she left the rest to Eva's imagination, and Eva knew Mrs. Billop. She longed extremely to be rid of Mrs. Billop and Zélie, but money was no longer plentiful; she had nearly exhausted her own cheque-book and an appeal to Astry was impossible, since their relations were strained to the breaking-point. She had borrowed heavily of Rachel, but now even Rachel asked questions. Of course there was Belhaven, but here some instinct innate in her blood stayed Eva; she was not sordid and she hated to ask Belhaven to pay the price of Zélie's silence. Moreover she felt that Belhaven was slipping away from her; he had honestly kept faith with Rachel, he had tried to let the past go, and, lately, she had even felt in his manner, his detached air, his vagrant glances, that he had ceased altogether to feel her spell, that he was eluding her. He no longer looked only at her, he no longer felt her presence in the room; he had grown distant and deeply thoughtful. Clearly she could not appeal to Belhaven.
Alone in her room Eva went over her accounts, studying them with an anxiety new to her. She wrote an eager note to one of her father's trustees suggesting a new investment that would bring greater results; then she remembered Aunt Drusilla Leven, still in her self-imposed exile. An appeal to her would, perhaps, avert the danger if Aunt Drusilla had managed to recuperate financially in the interval. Meanwhile Eva could only spare two hundred for the cormorant which is called blackmail. Only two hundred—that made five thousand in five months. The sum was appalling. Eva rebelled against it, and she rose and paced the room angrily, her cheeks red. She needed a great deal of money herself; she was wildly extravagant, and she would have to curtail her own luxuries for this. It was odious! A servant, a little French girl, a worthless creature, who was to be feared chiefly because she would not hesitate to falsify the matter from the beginning to the end and make a mountain out of a mole-hill! She would not endure it, and she tore up the cheque and wrote one for fifty and a note to say it was the last, she had paid enough.
She received no reply to this letter; no word was said, no sign made. After all, she reflected, she had won the victory; she had only needed a little courage. What a fool she had been!
Yes, what a fool, but the piper must always be paid.