XV
WhenRachel finally got home she remembered with relief that Belhaven dined out that evening. She had forgotten it, forgotten everything but the misery of Eva's confession. But now she refused the dinner that the servants had prepared for her and asked, instead, for a cup of tea. She laid aside her furs mechanically and went into the old tap-room. Its aspect, with the fire on the hearth and the candles on the tea-table, gave her almost a shock. She had the dazed feeling of one who has been away a long time and come back to find material things unchanged.
She stood looking at the room, trying to recall its normal aspect, for its cheerfulness mocked her. Under her rule it had assumed an appearance so warm and homely and inviting that she had grown to love it, and it had touched her once when she found Belhaven there looking about him in a kind of despair.
"You've made it like home," he said to her, "and I wish you might come to be happy in it."
At the time she had found a gentle answer; now she felt that it would shrivel on her lips. He and Eva had sacrificed her to their sin and their cowardice; or was it only Eva's cowardice, her determination to escape the consequences of her own act? Yet, poor Eva! The thought of her, broken and penitent, touched the wellspring of her sister's sympathy. But the facts of life remained; how was she to meet them? How endure this tissue of falsehood? She, too, had helped deceive her brother-in-law, for however she tried to excuse herself, in the light of Eva's confession, she was party to a conspiracy to deceive the husband. She felt again the subtle, bonds of complicity in guilt against Astry, as if in the law she had compounded a felony; yet she was, for the first time, drawn toward him as her fellow sufferer. Astry and herself were the victims; they paid the piper. Then came again the pity for Eva, the sinner who so needed help and forgiveness, whom she could not betray, not even to escape the shackles that bound her.
Rachel walked to and fro across the room, and once she stopped and deftly arranged some flowers in a vase on the table; then her hand fell from them with a shudder. Belhaven had brought them to her the day before—and he loved her! It was an enormity, but it was true. She did not know that he only obeyed the instinct of self-preservation, that he sought to find his own soul.
Presently Bantry came in with the hot water for the teakettle, and some cake. She arranged the tea-table herself frequently in the absence of the footman. As she passed Rachel she stopped to touch the fold of her skirt.
"You're pale, Miss Rachel," she said reprovingly, "you ought to eat something more; you look all tired out."
"I'm well enough," smiled Rachel.
The woman shook her head; as she went out and closed the door behind her she muttered to herself. "She's wearing her heart out, poor lamb, and there's that little devil!" Bantry shook her fist fiercely in the direction of the Astrys'. Eva had never appealed to her. The Evas of this world rarely appeal to their servants.
Rachel continued her walk, absorbed in thought, the vital forces of her strong nature warring within her. She was rebelling against the circumstances of her existence, she was realizing that she had deliberately ruined her own life to shield a sister who ought to have borne her punishment. She had sacrificed Charter, too, and now John's love for her was the one comfort of her lot and its greatest misery; it was hers and she could not take it, it was hers and she must cast it off! She looked across her life and saw it desolate, sacrificed to Eva. She was caught in an inextricable tangle and she could not escape without betraying Eva. She stretched out her hands with an impotent gesture of despair. She was battling for life, for hope; her strong soul rose passionately within her and struggled for its own.
Her mind was so full of the thought of him that she was scarcely startled when Charter appeared at the threshold, unannounced.
"Bantry let me in," he explained; "she said you had just come from the Astrys' and I wanted to see you."
"I came back some time ago," said Rachel, with an effort to speak naturally.
But his calm was even more unnatural than hers. "I had to come; I don't intend to make my presence in the city an annoyance to you, but—"
"John!" she cried sharply.
"It must be an annoyance to feel that I can't behave like a rational being when I'm near you; I suppose I shan't behave like one to-day, although I came here determined to have a plain talk with you at last."
Rachel's face paled yet more. "Better not, John!"
"I must! I've tried to stop my ears but I can't; it's no use. Rachel, it's said that you married Belhaven to save your sister."
She was silent; her clasped hands quivered slightly.
Charter looked at her with love and reproach.
"I understand, I had no right to say it to you, but—Rachel, it's more than I can bear!"
His cry touched her heart as no agony of her own had ever touched it.
"You're very brave, John, I've always believed in you; you're good, you've got to help me bear it."
"Isn't that mocking me?" he asked bitterly.
"I never mocked you in my life; I've always honored you."
"I don't deserve it. I'm a scoundrel, for with every thought of my heart, with every breath I draw, I'm making love to another man's wife!"
"You mustn't do it!"
He laughed, and his laugh was so strange that it startled them both. "Your advice is good; I can't follow it, that's all. Rachel, for God's sake, tell me the truth: do you love Belhaven, did you marry him of your own free will?"
Rachel turned from him and went to the fireplace; she folded her arms and laid her head upon them. She did not remember that Belhaven had stood there on the day of their marriage. She was cruelly placed; her love for Charter seemed to be the only thing in the world. What real claim had Belhaven upon her? He had deceived her, he had traded upon her loyalty to her sister, he had accepted her sacrifice, he was only her husband in name. But what if she told Charter the truth? He was good, but if she told him the truth? She loved him with all her soul.
"I don't believe you love him," he argued; "you're wretched, I can see it. I believe these hideous stories. Rachel, I have a right to know the truth, only the truth!"
She shuddered. The truth? Oh, God, how she longed to tell him the truth; her heart leaped at the thought!
"I ask for nothing else; if you love him, if you married him of your own free choice, tell me; it will help me, it will drive me away. I'm asking for bread, Rachel, and you've given me a stone."
She was weeping now, for she dared not tell him the truth, she dared not.
"Only the truth, Rachel!"
Her tears dried, they seemed burned into her eyes, and she pressed her hands against her throat; she felt as if she must surely strangle to death.
"Did you marry Belhaven of your own choice?" John asked again and his voice cut her to the heart; it was not like him to force her into a corner, but he was battling for life himself and this vivid revelation of his love was an acute agony to her.
She raised her head; she did not look at him, and her voice was very low as she replied, "Of my own choice!"
Charter turned from her and hid his face a moment in his hands,—strong, muscular, expressive hands, they were like him.
There was an intense silence.
At last he went slowly to the door. "Forgive me, I've been a brute—good-by."
But the limit of her endurance had been reached. "John," she cried, "come back!"
He turned and faced her; he looked as he had looked at death in battle. "It's no use, Rachel; thank you for telling me the truth."
"I didn't; I lied to you."
He uttered an inarticulate sound.
"I lied to you," said Rachel steadily; "now I'm going to tell you the truth. It's wrong, but I shall do it; I shall tell you the whole truth. I married Belhaven to shield my sister from Astry's anger. Astry accused her and Belhaven, she begged me to save her from disgrace. I yielded, I married him; I never loved him, I'm only his wife in name."
"Good God, was there no one in the world to stop you? No one to save you from such madness? Rachel, did you have no thought of me?"
"I thought—" her voice broke a little; she steadied herself again, "John, let it go—I married him."
"I couldn't let it go—Rachel, you knew I loved you?"
She shook her head sadly.
"You knew it, you must have known it!"
"No woman knows it until she's told."
"Is it possible that you married him thinking I didn't? What a fool I was, what a dunce! If I had only written you! But, Rachel, there was the cholera in the camp and I was with the poor fellows all the time. I thought you knew I loved you, I only tormented myself because I wasn't sure of you!"
"We were neither of us sure, it seems; it's our poor, stupid, little tragedy, John; let it go—it's over."
"You love me?" he asked gravely.
"Yes."
They stood looking at each other. There was no light in either face, no triumphant recognition of mutual feeling; to both the situation was horrible. He understood perfectly her feelings; that the fact of her marriage was unchanged, that it constituted an insuperable barrier between them; but he could not be restrained.
"I can't stand this, Rachel. Your marriage is in fact no marriage. Belhaven has no right to hold you to it; it must be broken, you shall be free!"
"I can't; don't you see it?" She held out both hands with a pathetic gesture. "Can't you see it? It would undo all I've done to save her."
"Do you think for a moment that I'll give you up for Eva?"
Her face quivered pitifully. She longed to give up, to let him take the lead and sweep her on to liberty. Then her tortured soul rose again to the struggle. "I knew you wouldn't give up; that's why I lied to you just now. I never did before, John."
"Is it possible you want this to go on?"
"It must!"
"It can't and it shan't!" he cried hotly. "I'm human, I won't give you up; you shan't be bound by such a miserable tie—the man was a cowardly brute to let you shield him."
"I did it for Eva; I've betrayed her by telling you."
"Eva wasn't worth it," said John, in honest wrath. "No one is worth it. Rachel, I won't endure it."
"We've got to endure it; I can't publicly disgrace my sister."
"You needn't; Belhaven can make the way easy,—he can and he shall!"
She shook her head. "He won't."
"He must."
She still shook her head.
A light broke in on John. "He loves you!" he cried suddenly.
She blushed and her eyes filled with tears. "Yes."
He turned and walked to and fro, his white face set and hard. She watched him, reading him, trembling for him, with that intuitive knowledge of his strength and his weakness which is an instinct with a woman who loves much.
He swung around suddenly and faced her. "And you?" he asked, with great bitterness.
She met his eyes bravely; she tried to speak but it was too much.
John caught her in his arms. "You do love me still?" he cried passionately.
"With all my heart!" she said, for one blind moment swept away, and, yielding to her own grief and his rebellion, she clung to him. Then she recalled herself, her heart struggled back to meet fate again. "John, we must part now—I'd hoped to keep your friendship, but we've lost even that—there was, after all, no middle course."
"Do you think I'll give you up now? This marriage is a mockery; it's got to be annulled."
She looked up at him, struggling to be calm. "John, I've always believed in you, I've always trusted you; I trust you now to help me to do right. I'm weak; I'm broken down; you know it, you've felt it—help me to be myself!"
"I can't, and it isn't right, it's an outrage; who ever heard of such a thing? Eva has no right to your life, Belhaven has no right to you—you're mine!"
"I'm not yours while I'm his wife," she said steadily, and she slipped out of his arms and stood trembling.
"His wife!" John laughed bitterly. "You're not, you can't remain his wife, loving me. I can't think that of you, Rachel!"
"Don't think it. I couldn't."
"And you call it right to keep up this sham? It's a lie, Rachel, a living lie!"
She wrung her hands in a kind of agony. "John, I can't bear much more; you'll have to leave me now. Give me a little time, I—I can't bear it!"
"My darling, forgive me!"
"Don't, John," she sobbed, "don't kiss me again—I've got to give you up."
"I won't give you up."
"I've no right to disgrace poor Eva, to disgrace Astry; he's had enough to bear, and that's what it would cost. Can't you see it?"
"It needn't, but Belhaven must release you, I'll make him."
"John, I can't do it. I love you, let me believe in you."
"Have I got to suffer for Belhaven?"
She slipped down on her knees beside a chair, and burying her head on her arms, gave way to her grief. The spiritual agony had given birth to agony of the body and she wept bitterly. He tried to raise her in his arms but she resisted, still weeping.
"Rachel, you'll make me kill Belhaven."
She looked up at that, her eyes still full of tears.
"John, I did it of my own free will. The man has suffered too; it's cruel to him, I can't disgrace and ruin him now. I can't betray Eva, I can't simply think of my own happiness; I'm not like that! I did it myself. I thought you didn't care; I was angry, blind, and, yes, I did want to save my sister, but I've often thought that perhaps I wouldn't have done it but for my anger. I deserve to be punished, and I've got to bear it somehow. What would be the use of it all if, at the first temptation, I gave in and told the world the whole miserable story? When mother was dying she made me promise to be good to Eva; she said she might need all that I could give, she knew her! I can't disgrace her. She's heart-broken about it all, she's sorry; I think I can bring her back to her husband. It's worth trying, John. I've always believed in you, I've always trusted you; help me to be true to myself, help me—because you love me!"
"I can't give you up."
She turned away from him, struggling hard for more composure. "Give me a little time, John. I—I can't bear any more now!"
"You mean you want me to go now? I'll do your bidding, Rachel, but I'll never give you up; I can't."
"Oh, I know—I know, but go—please, John, I can't answer now—I can't do wrong."
"I'm going—you see I'm not trying to force it; I won't even touch you, but I won't give you up."
She did not answer, but stood with bowed head, the charm and grace of her figure outlined against the soft, warm glow of the room, her hands wrung together to hide their trembling. He turned at the door and looked back at her and she tried to smile. There is sometimes mortal agony behind a smile.
"Because I love you, John," she said, with a gesture of appeal.
He turned with a groan and went out into the night.