Stephen said: ‘Go on,’ and her voice sounded husky.
‘Oh, my dear—it’s so dreadfully hard to tell you. The pay was rotten, not enough to live on—I used to think that they did it on purpose, lots of the girls used to think that way too—they never gave us quite enough to live on. You see, I hadn’t a vestige of talent, I could only dress up and try to look pretty. I never got a real speaking part, I just danced, not well, but I’d got a good figure.’ She paused and tried to look up through the gloom, but Stephen’s face was hidden in shadow. ‘Well then, darling—Stephen, I want to feel your arms, hold me closer—well then, I—there was a man who wanted me—not as you want me, Stephen, to protect and care for me; God, no, not that way! And I was so poor and so tired and so frightened; why sometimes my shoes would let in the slush because they were old and I hadn’t the money to buy myself new ones—try to think of that, darling. And I’d cry when I washed my hands in the winter because they’d be bleeding from broken chilblains. Well, I couldn’t stay the course any longer, that’s all. . . .’
The little gilt clock on the desk ticked loudly. Tick, tick! Tick, tick! An astonishing voice to come from so small and fragile a body. Somewhere out in the garden a dog barked—Tony, chasing imaginary rabbits through the darkness.
‘Stephen!’
‘Yes, my dear?’
‘Have you understood me?’
‘Yes—oh, yes, I’ve understood you. Go on.’
‘Well then, after a while he turned round and left me, and I just had to drag along as I had done, and I sort of crocked up—couldn’t sleep at night, couldn’t smile and look happy when I went on to dance—that was how Ralph found me—he saw me dance and came round to the back, the way some men do. I remember thinking that Ralph didn’t look like that sort of man; he looked—well, just like Ralph, not a bit like that sort of man. Then he started sending me flowers; never presents or anything like that, just flowers with his card. And we had lunch together a good few times, and he talked about that other man who’d left me. He said he’d like to go out with a horsewhip—imagine Ralph trying to horsewhip a man! They knew each other quite well, I discovered; you see, they were both in the hardware business. Ralph was out after some big contract for his firm, that was why he happened to be in New York—and one day he asked me to marry him, Stephen. I suppose he was really in love with me then, anyhow I thought it was wonderful of him—I thought he was very broad-minded and noble. Good God! He’s had his pound of flesh since; it gave him the hold over me that he wanted. We were married before we sailed for Europe. I wasn’t in love, but what could I do? I’d nowhere to turn and my health was crocking; lots of our girls ended up in the hospital wards—I didn’t want to end up that way. Well, so you see why I’ve got to be careful how I act; he’s terribly and awfully suspicious. He thinks that because I took a lover when I was literally down and out, I’m likely to do the same thing now. He doesn’t trust me, it’s natural enough, but sometimes he throws it all up in my face, and when he does that, my God, how I hate him! But oh, Stephen, I could never go through it all again—I haven’t got an ounce of fight left in me. That’s why, although Ralph’s no cinch as a husband, I’d be scared to death if he really turned nasty. He knows that, I think, so he’s not afraid to bully—he’s bullied me many a time over you—but of course you’re a woman so he couldn’t divorce me—I expect that’s really what makes him so angry. All the same, when you asked me to leave him for you, I hadn’t the courage to face that either. I couldn’t have faced the public scandal that Ralph would have made; he’d have hounded us down to the ends of the earth, he’d have branded us, Stephen. I know him, he’s revengeful, he’d stop at nothing, that weak sort of man is often that way. It’s as though what Ralph lacks in virility, he tries to make up for by being revengeful. My dear, I couldn’t go under again—I couldn’t be one of those apologetic people who must always exist just under the surface, only coming up for a moment, like fish—I’ve been through that particular hell. I want life, and yet I’m always afraid. Every time that Ralph looks at me I feel frightened, because he knows that I hate him most when he tries to make love—’ She broke off abruptly.
And now she was crying a little to herself, letting the tears trickle down unheeded. One of them splashed on to Stephen’s coat sleeve and lay there, a small, dark blot on the cloth, while the patient arms never faltered.
‘Stephen, say something—say you don’t hate me!’
A log crashed, sending up a bright spurt of flame, and Stephen stared down into Angela’s face. It was marred by weeping; it looked almost ugly, splotched and reddened as it was by her weeping. And because of that pitiful, blemished face, with the pitiful weakness that lay behind it, the unworthiness even, Stephen loved her so deeply at that moment, that she found no adequate words.
‘Say something—speak to me, Stephen!’
Then Stephen gently released her arm, and she found the little white box in her pocket: ‘Look, Angela, I got you this for your birthday—Ralph can’t bully you about it, it’s a birthday present.’
‘Stephen—my dear!’
‘Yes—I want you to wear it always, so that you’ll remember how much I love you. I think you forgot that just now when you talked about hating—Angela, give me your hand, the hand that used to bleed in the winter.’
So the pearl that was pure as her mother’s diamonds were pure, Stephen slipped on to Angela’s finger. Then she sat very still, while Angela gazed at the pearl wide-eyed, because of its beauty. Presently she lifted her wondering face, and now her lips were quite close to Stephen’s, but Stephen kissed her instead on the forehead. ‘You must rest,’ she said, ‘you’re simply worn out. Can’t you sleep if I keep you safe in my arms?’
For at moments, such is the blindness and folly yet withal the redeeming glory of love.
Ralphsaid very little about the ring. What could he say? A present given to his wife by the daughter of a neighbour—an unusually costly present of course—still, after all, what could he say? He took refuge in sulky silence. But Stephen would see him staring at the pearl, which Angela wore on her right-hand third finger, and his weak little eyes would look redder than usual, perhaps with anger—one could never quite tell from his eyes whether he was tearful or angry.
And because of those eyes with their constant menace, Stephen must play her conciliatory role; and this she must do in spite of his rudeness, for now he was openly rude and hostile. And he bullied. It was almost as though he took pleasure in bullying his wife when Stephen was present; her presence seemed to arouse in the man everything that was ill-bred, petty and cruel. He would make thinly-veiled allusions to the past, glancing sideways at Stephen the while he did so; and one day when she flushed to the roots of her hair with rage to see Angela humble and fearful, he laughed loudly: ‘I’m just a plain tradesman, you know; if you don’t like my ways, then you’d better not come here.’ Catching Angela’s eye, Stephen tried to laugh too.
A soul-sickening business. She would feel degraded; she would feel herself gradually losing all sense of pride, of common decency, even, so that when she returned in the evening to Morton she would not want to look the old house in the eyes. She would not want to face those pictures of Gordons that hung in its hall, and must turn away, lest they by their very silence rebuke this descendant of theirs who was so unworthy. Yet sometimes it seemed to her that she loved more intensely because she had lost so much—there was nothing left now but Angela Crossby.
Watchingthis deadly decay that threatened all that was fine in her erstwhile pupil, Puddle must sometimes groan loudly in spirit; she must even argue with God about it. Yes, she must actually argue with God like Job; and remembering his words in affliction, she must speak those words on behalf of Stephen: ‘Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet Thou dost destroy me.’ For now in addition to everything else, she had learnt of the advent of Roger Antrim. Not that Stephen had confided in her, far from it, but gossip has a way of travelling quickly. Roger spent most of his leisure at The Grange. She had heard that he was always going over from Worcester. So now Puddle, who had not been much given to prayer in the past, must argue with God, like Job. And perhaps, since God probably listens to the heart rather than to the lips, He forgave her.
Stupidwith misery and growing more inept every day, Stephen found herself no match for Roger. He was calm, self-assured, insolent and triumphant, and his love of tormenting had not waned with his manhood. Roger was no fool; he put two and two together and his masculine instinct deeply resented this creature who might challenge his right of possession. Moreover, that masculine instinct was outraged. He would stare at Stephen as though she were a horse whom he strongly suspected of congenital unsoundness, and then he would let his eyes rest on Angela’s face. They would be the eyes of a lover, possessive, demanding, insistent eyes—if Ralph did not happen to be present. And into Angela’s eyes there would come an expression that Stephen had seen many times. A mist would slowly cloud over their blueness; they would dim, as though they were hiding something. Then Stephen would be seized with a violent trembling, so that she could not stand any more but must sit with her hands clasped tightly together, lest those trembling hands betray her to Roger. But Roger would have seen already, and would smile his slow, understanding, masterful smile.
Sometimes he and Stephen would look at each other covertly, and their youthful faces would be marred by a very abominable thing; the instinctive repulsion of two human bodies, the one for the other, which neither could help—not now that those bodies were stirred by a woman. Then into this vortex of secret emotion would come Ralph. He would stare from Stephen to Roger and then at his wife, and his eyes would be red—one never knew whether from tears or from anger. They would form a grotesque triangle for a moment, those three who must share a common desire. But after a little the two male creatures who hated each other, would be shamefully united in the bond of their deeper hatred of Stephen; and divining this, she in her turn would hate.
It couldnot go on without some sort of convulsion, and that Christmas was a time of recriminations. Angela’s infatuation was growing, and she did not always hide this from Stephen. Letters would arrive in Roger’s handwriting, and Stephen, half crazy with jealousy by now, would demand to see them. She would be refused, and a scene would ensue.
‘That man’s your lover! Have I gone starving only for this—that you should give yourself to Roger Antrim? Show me that letter!’
‘How dare you suggest that Roger’s my lover! But if he were it’s no business of yours.’
‘Will you show me that letter?’
‘I will not.’
‘It’s from Roger.’
‘You’re intolerable. You can think what you please.’
‘WhatamI to think?’ Then because of her longing, ‘Angela, for God’s sake don’t treat me like this—I can’t bear it. When you loved me it was easier to bear—I endured it for your sake, but now—listen, listen. . . .’ Stark naked confessions dragged from lips that grew white the while they confessed: ‘Angela, listen. . . .’
And now the terrible nerves of the invert, those nerves that are always lying in wait, gripped Stephen. They ran like live wires through her body, causing a constant and ruthless torment, so that the sudden closing of a door or the barking of Tony would fall like a blow on her shrinking flesh. At night in her bed she must cover her ears from the ticking of the clock, which would sound like thunder in the darkness.
Angela had taken to going up to London on some pretext or another—she must see her dentist; she must fit a new dress.
‘Well then, let me come with you.’
‘Good heavens, why? I’m only going to the dentist!’
‘All right, I’ll come too.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’ Then Stephen would know why Angela was going.
All that day she would be haunted by insufferable pictures. Whatever she did, wherever she went, she would see them together, Angela and Roger. . . . She would think: ‘I’m going mad! I can see them as clearly as though they were here before me in the room.’ And then she would cover her eyes with her hands, but this would only strengthen the pictures.
Like some earth-bound spirit she would haunt The Grange on the pretext of taking Tony for a walk. And there, as likely as not, would be Ralph wandering about in his bare rose garden. He would glance up and see her perhaps, and then—most profound shame of all—they would both look guilty, for each would know the loneliness of the other, and that loneliness would draw them together for the moment; they would be almost friends in their hearts.
‘Angela’s gone up to London, Stephen.’
‘Yes, I know. She’s gone up to fit her new dress.’
Their eyes would drop. Then Ralph might say sharply: ‘If you’re after the dog, he’s in the kitchen,’ and turning his back, he might make a pretence of examining his standard rose-trees.
Calling Tony, Stephen would walk into Upton, then along the mist-swept bank of the river. She would stand very still staring down at the water, but the impulse would pass, and whistling the dog, she would turn and go hurrying back to Upton.
Then one afternoon Roger came with his car to take Angela for a drive through the hills. The New Year was slipping into the spring, and the air smelt of sap and much diligent growing. A warm February had succeeded the winter. Many birds would be astir on those hills where lovers might sit unashamed—where Stephen had sat holding Angela clasped in her arms, while she eagerly took and gave kisses. And remembering these things Stephen turned and left them; unable just then to endure any longer. Going home, she made her way to the lakes, and there she quite suddenly started weeping. Her whole body seemed to dissolve itself in weeping; and she flung herself down on the kind earth of Morton, shedding tears as of blood. There was no one to witness those tears except the white swan called Peter.
Terrible, heart-breaking months. She grew gaunt with her unappeased love for Angela Crossby. And now she would sometimes turn in despair to the thought of her useless and unspent money. Thoughts would come that were altogether unworthy, but nevertheless those thoughts would persist. Roger was not rich; she was rich already and some day she would be even richer.
She went up to London and chose new clothes at a West End tailor’s; the man in Malvern who had made for her father was getting old, she would have her suits made in London in future. She ordered herself a rakish red car; a long-bodied, sixty horse power Métallurgique. It was one of the fastest cars of its year, and it certainly cost her a great deal of money. She bought twelve pairs of gloves, some heavy silk stockings, a square sapphire scarf pin and a new umbrella. Nor could she resist the lure of pyjamas made of white crêpe de Chine which she spotted in Bond Street. The pyjamas led to a man’s dressing-gown of brocade—an amazingly ornate garment. Then she had her nails manicured but not polished, and from that shop she carried away toilet water and a box of soap that smelt of carnations and some cuticle cream for the care of her nails. And last but not least, she bought a gold bag with a clasp set in diamonds for Angela.
All told she had spent a considerable sum, and this gave her a fleeting satisfaction. But on her way back in the train to Malvern, she gazed out of the window with renewed desolation. Money could not buy the one thing that she needed in life; it could not buy Angela’s love.
Thatnight she stared at herself in the glass; and even as she did so she hated her body with its muscular shoulders, its small compact breasts, and its slender flanks of an athlete. All her life she must drag this body of hers like a monstrous fetter imposed on her spirit. This strangely ardent yet sterile body that must worship yet never be worshipped in return by the creature of its adoration. She longed to maim it, for it made her feel cruel; it was so white, so strong and so self-sufficient; yet withal so poor and unhappy a thing that her eyes filled with tears and her hate turned to pity. She began to grieve over it, touching her breasts with pitiful fingers, stroking her shoulders, letting her hands slip along her straight thighs—Oh, poor and most desolate body!
Then she, for whom Puddle was actually praying at that moment, must now pray also, but blindly; finding few words that seemed worthy of prayer, few words that seemed to encompass her meaning—for she did not know the meaning of herself. But she loved, and loving groped for the God who had fashioned her, even unto this bitter loving.
Stephen’stroubles had begun to be aggravated by Violet, who was always driving over to Morton, ostensibly to talk about Alec, in reality to collect information as to what might be happening at The Grange. She would stay for hours, very skilfully pumping while she dropped unwelcome hints anent Roger.
‘Father’s going to cut down his allowance,’ she declared, ‘if he doesn’t stop hanging about that woman. Oh, I’m sorry! I always forget she’s your friend—’ Then looking at Stephen with inquisitive eyes: ‘But I can’t understand that friendship of yours; for one thing, howcanyou put up with Crossby?’ And Stephen knew that yet once again, county gossip was rife about her.
Violet was going to be married in September, they would then live in London, for Alec was a barrister. Their house, it seemed, was already bespoken: ‘A perfect duck of a house in Belgravia,’ where Violet intended to entertain largely on the strength of a bountiful parent Peacock. She was in the highest possible fettle these days, invested with an enormous importance in her own eyes, as also in those of her neighbours. Oh, yes, the whole world smiled broadly on Violet and her Alec: ‘Such a charming young couple,’ said the world, and at once proceeded to shower them with presents. Apostle teaspoons arrived in their dozens, so did coffee-pots, cream-jugs and large fish slices; to say nothing of a heavy silver bowl from the Hunt, and a massive salver from the grateful Scottish tenants.
On the wedding day not a few eyes would be wet at the sight of so youthful a man and maiden ‘joined together in an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency.’ For such ancient traditions—in spite of the fact that man’s innocency could not even survive one bite of an apple shared with a woman—are none the less apt to be deeply moving. There they would kneel, the young newly wed, ardent yet sanctified by a blessing, so that all, or at least nearly all, they would do, must be considered both natural and pleasing to a God in the image of man created. And the fact that this God, in a thoughtless moment, had created in His turn those pitiful thousands who must stand for ever outside His blessing, would in no way disturb the large congregation or their white surpliced pastor, or the couple who knelt on the gold-braided, red velvet cushions. And afterwards there would be plentiful champagne to warm the cooling blood of the elders, and much shaking of hands and congratulating, and many kind smiles for the bride and her bridegroom. Some might even murmur a fleeting prayer in their hearts, as the two departed: ‘God bless them!’
So now Stephen must actually learn at first hand how straight can run the path of true love, in direct contradiction to the time-honoured proverb. Must realize more clearly than ever, that love is only permissible to those who are cut in every respect to life’s pattern; must feel like some ill-conditioned pariah, hiding her sores under lies and pretences. And after those visits of Violet Antrim’s, her spirits would be at a very low ebb, for she had not yet gained that steel-bright courage which can only be forged in the furnace of affliction, and which takes many weary years in the forging.
The splendidnew motor arrived from London, to the great delight and excitement of Burton. The new suits were completed and worn by their owner, and Angela’s costly gold bag was received with apparent delight, which seemed rather surprising considering her erstwhile ban upon presents. Yet could Stephen have known it, this was not so surprising after all, for the bag infuriated Ralph, thereby distracting his facile attention for the moment, from something that was far more dangerous.
Filled with an ever-increasing need to believe, Stephen listened to Angela Crossby: ‘You know there’s nothing between me and Roger—if you don’t, then you above all people ought to,’ and her blue, child-like eyes would look up at Stephen, who could never resist the appeal of their blueness.
And as though to bear out the truth of her words, Roger now came to The Grange much less often; and when he did come he was quietly friendly, not at all lover-like if Stephen was present, so that gradually her need to believe had begun to allay her worst fears. Yet she knew with the true instinct of the lover, that Angela was secretly unhappy. She might try to appear light-hearted and flippant, but her smiles and her jests could not deceive Stephen.
‘You’re miserable. What is it?’
And Angela would answer: ‘Ralph’s been vile to me again—’ But she would not add that Ralph was daily becoming more suspicious and more intolerant of Roger Antrim, so that now her deadly fear of her husband was always at war with her passion.
Sometimes it seemed to the girl that Angela used her as a whip wherewith to lash Ralph. She would lead Stephen on to show signs of affection which would never have been permitted in the past. Ralph’s little red eyes would look deeply resentful, and getting up he would slouch from the room. They would hear the front door being closed, and would know that he had gone for a walk with Tony. Yet when they were alone and in comparative safety, there would be something crude, almost cruel in their kisses; a restless, dissatisfied, hungry thing—their lips would seem bent on scourging their bodies. Neither would find deliverance nor ease from the ache that was in them, for each would be kissing with a well-nigh intolerable sense of loss, with a passionate knowledge of separation. After a little they would sit with bent heads, not speaking because of what might not be spoken; not daring to look each other in the eyes nor to touch each other, lest they should cry out against this preposterous lovemaking.
Completely confounded, Stephen racked her brains for anything that might give them both a respite. She suggested that Angela should see her fence with a celebrated London fencing master whom she had bribed to come down to Morton. She tried to arouse an interest in the car, the splendid new car that had cost so much money. She tried to find out if Angela had an ungratified wish that money could fulfil.
‘Only tell me what I can do,’ she pleaded, but apparently there was nothing.
Angela came several times to Morton and dutifully attended the fencing lessons. But they did not go well, for Stephen would glimpse her staring abstractedly out of the window; then the sly, agile foil with its blunt tipped nose, would slip in under Stephen’s guard and shame her.
They would sometimes go far afield in the car, and one night they stopped at an inn and had dinner—Angela ringing up her husband with the old and now threadbare excuse of a breakdown. They dined in a quiet little room by themselves; the scents of the garden came in through the window—warm, significant scents, for now it was May and many flowers multiplied in that garden. Never before had they done such a thing as this, they had never dined all alone at a wayside inn miles away from their homes, just they two, and Stephen stretched out her hand and covered Angela’s where it rested very white and still on the table. And Stephen’s eyes held an urgent question, for now it was May and the blood of youth leaps and strains with the sap in early summer. The air seemed breathless, since neither would speak, afraid of disturbing the thick, sweet silence—but Angela shook her head very slowly. Then they could not eat, for each was filled with the same and yet with a separate longing; so after a while they must get up and go, both conscious of a sense of painful frustration.
They drove back on a road that was paved with moonlight, and presently Angela fell fast asleep like an unhappy child—she had taken her hat off and her head lay limply against Stephen’s shoulder. Seeing her thus, so helpless in sleep, Stephen felt strangely moved, and she drove very slowly, fearful of waking the woman who slept like a child with her fair head against her shoulder. The car climbed the steep hill from Ledbury town, and presently there lay the wide Wye valley whose beauty had saddened a queer little girl long before she had learnt the pain of all beauty. And now the valley was bathed in whiteness, while here and there gleamed a roof or a window, but whitely, as though all the good valley folk had extinguished their lamps and retired to their couches. Far away, like dark clouds coming up out of Wales, rose range upon range of the old Black Mountains, with the tip of Gadrfawr peering over the others, and the ridge of Pen-cerrigcalch sharp against the skyline. A little wind ruffled the bracken on the hillsides, and Angela’s hair blew across her closed eyes so that she stirred and sighed in her sleep. Stephen bent down and began to soothe her.
Then from out of that still and unearthly night, there crept upon Stephen an unearthly longing. A longing that was not any more of the body but rather of the weary and homesick spirit that endured the chains of that body. And when she must drive past the gates of Morton, the longing within her seemed beyond all bearing, for she wanted to lift the sleeping woman in her arms and carry her in through those gates; and carry her in through the heavy white door; and carry her up the wide, shallow staircase, and lay her down on her own bed, still sleeping, but safe in the good care of Morton.
Angela suddenly opened her eyes: ‘Where am I?’ she muttered, stupid with sleep. Then after a moment her eyes filled with tears, and there she sat all huddled up, crying.
Stephen said gently: ‘It’s all right, don’t cry.’
But Angela went on crying.
Likea river that has gradually risen to flood, until it sweeps everything before it, so now events rose and gathered in strength towards their inevitable conclusion. At the end of May Ralph must go to his mother, who was said to be dying at her house in Brighton. With all his faults he had been a good son, and the redness of his eyes was indeed from real tears as he kissed his wife good-bye at the station, on his way to his dying mother. The next morning he wired that his mother was dead, but that he could not get home for a couple of weeks. As it happened, he gave the actual day and hour of his return, so that Angela knew it.
The relief of his unexpectedly long absence went to Stephen’s head; she grew much more exacting, suggesting all sorts of intimate plans. Supposing they went for a few days to London? Supposing they motored to Symond’s Yat and stayed at the little hotel by the river? They might even push on to Abergavenny and from there motor up and explore the Black Mountains—why not? It was glorious weather.
‘Angela, please come away with me, darling—just for a few days—we’ve never done it, and I’ve longed to so often. You can’t refuse, there’s nothing on earth to prevent your coming.’
But Angela would not make up her mind, she seemed suddenly anxious about her husband: ‘Poor devil, he was awfully fond of his mother. I oughtn’t to go, it would look so heartless with the old woman dead and Ralph so unhappy—’
Stephen said bitterly; ‘What about me? Do you think I’m never unhappy?’
So the time slipped by in heartaches and quarrels, for Stephen’s taut nerves were like spurs to her temper, and she stormed or reproached in her dire disappointment:
‘You pretend that you love me and yet you won’t come—and I’ve waited so long—oh, my God, how I’ve waited! But you’re utterly cruel. And I ask for so little, just to have you with me for a few days and nights—just to sleep with you in my arms; just to feel you beside me when I wake up in the morning—I want to open my eyes and see your face, as though we belonged to each other. Angela, I swear I wouldn’t torment you—we’d be just as we are now, if that’s what you’re afraid of. You must know, after all these months, that you can trust me—’
But Angela set her lips and refused: ‘No, Stephen, I’m sorry, but I’d rather not come.’
Then Stephen would feel that life was past bearing, and sometimes she must ride rather wildly for miles—now on Raftery, now on Sir Philip’s young chestnut. All alone she would ride in the early mornings, getting up from a sleepless night unrefreshed, yet terribly alive because of those nerves that tortured her luckless body. She would get back to Morton still unable to rest, and a little later would order the motor and drive herself across to The Grange, where Angela would usually be dreading her coming.
Her reception would be cold: ‘I’m fairly busy, Stephen—I must pay off all these bills before Ralph gets home;’ or: ‘I’ve got a foul headache, so don’t scold me this morning; I think if you did that I just couldn’t bear it!’ Stephen would flinch as though struck in the face; she might even turn round and go back to Morton.
Came the last precious day before Ralph’s return, and that day they did spend quite peaceably together, for Angela seemed bent upon soothing. She went out of her way to be gentle to Stephen, and Stephen, quick as always to respond, was very gentle in her turn. But after they had dined in the little herb garden—taking advantage of the hot, still weather—Angela developed one of her headaches.
‘Oh, my Stephen—oh, darling, my head’s too awful. It must be the thunder—it’s been coming on all day. What a perfectly damnable thing to happen, on our last evening too—but I know this kind well; I’ll just have to give in and go to my bed. I’ll take a cachet and then try to sleep, so don’t ring me up when you get back to Morton. Come to-morrow—come early. I’m so miserable, darling, when I think that this is our last peaceful evening—’
‘I know. But are you all right to be left?’
‘Yes, of course. All I need is to get some sleep. You won’t worry, will you? Promise, my Stephen!’
Stephen hesitated. Quite suddenly Angela was looking very ill, and her hands were like ice. ‘Swear you’ll telephone to me if you can’t get to sleep, then I’ll come back at once.’
‘Yes, but don’t do that, will you, unless I ring up—I should hear you, of course, and that would wake me and start my head throbbing.’ Then as though impelled, in spite of herself, by the girl’s strange attraction, she lifted her face: ‘Kiss me . . . oh, God . . . Stephen!’
‘I love you so much—so much—’ whispered Stephen.
It waspast ten o’clock when she got back to Morton: ‘Has Angela Crossby rung up?’ she inquired of Puddle, who appeared to have been waiting in the hall.
‘No, she hasn’t!’ snapped Puddle, who was getting to the stage when she hated the mere name of Angela Crossby. Then she added: ‘You look like nothing on earth; in your place I’d go to bed at once, Stephen.’
‘You go to bed, Puddle, if you’re tired—where’s Mother?’
‘In her bath. For heaven’s sake do come to bed! I can’t bear to see you looking as you do these days.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re all wrong. Go and look at your face.’
‘I don’t very much want to, it doesn’t attract me,’ smiled Stephen.
So Puddle went angrily up to her room, leaving Stephen to sit with a book in the hall near the telephone bell, in case Angela should ring. And there, like the faithful creature she was, she must sit on all through the night, patiently waiting. But when the first tinges of dawn greyed the window and the panes of the semi-circular fanlight, she left her chair stiffly, to pace up and down, filled with a longing to be near this woman, if only to stand and keep watch in her garden—Snatching up a coat she went out to her car.
Sheleft the motor at the gates of The Grange, and walked up the drive, taking care to tread softly. The air had an indefinable smell of dew and of very newly born morning. The tall, ornate Tudor chimneys of the house stood out gauntly against a brightening sky, and as Stephen crept into the small herb garden, one tentative bird had already begun singing—but his voice was still rather husky from sleep. She stood there and shivered in her heavy coat; the long night of vigil had devitalized her. She was sometimes like this now—she would shiver at the least provocation, the least sign of fatigue, for her splendid physical strength was giving, worn out by its own insistence.
She dragged the coat more closely around her, and stared at the house which was reddening with sunrise. Her heart beat anxiously, fearfully even, as though in some painful anticipation of she knew not what—every window was dark except one or two that were fired by the sunrise. How long she stood there she never knew, it might have been moments, it might have been a lifetime; and then suddenly there was something that moved—the little oak door that led into that garden. It moved cautiously, opening inch by inch, until at last it was standing wide open, and Stephen saw a man and a woman who turned to clasp as though neither of them could endure to be parted from the arms of the other; and as they clung there together and kissed, they swayed unsteadily—drunk with loving.
Then, as sometimes happens in moments of great anguish, Stephen could only remember the grotesque. She could only remember a plump-bosomed housemaid in the arms of a coarsely amorous footman, and she laughed and she laughed like a creature demented—laughed and laughed until she must gasp for breath and spit blood from her tongue, which had somehow got bitten in her efforts to stop her hysterical laughing; and some of the blood remained on her chin, jerked there by that agonized laughter.
Pale as death, Roger Antrim stared out into the garden, and his tiny moustache looked quite black—like an ink stain smeared above his tremulous mouth by some careless, schoolboy finger.
And now Angela’s voice came to Stephen, but faintly. She was saying something—what was she saying? It sounded absurdly as though it were a prayer—‘Christ!’ Then sharply—razor-sharp it sounded as it cut through the air: ‘You, Stephen!’
The laughter died abruptly away, as Stephen turned and walked out of the garden and down the short drive that led to the gates of The Grange, where the motor was waiting. Her face was a mask, quite without expression. She moved stiffly, yet with a curious precision; and she swung up the handle and started the powerful engine without any apparent effort.
She drove at great speed but with accurate judgment, for now her mind felt as clear as spring water, and yet there were strange little gaps in her mind—she had not the least idea where she was going. Every road for miles around Upton was familiar, yet she had not the least idea where she was going. Nor did she know how long she drove, nor when she stopped to procure fresh petrol. The sun rose high and hot in the heavens; it beat down on her without warming her coldness, for always she had the sense of a dead thing that lay close against her heart and oppressed it. A corpse—she was carrying a corpse about with her. Was it the corpse of her love for Angela? If so that love was more terrible dead—oh, far more terrible dead than living.
The first stars were shining, but as yet very faintly, when she found herself driving through the gates of Morton. Heard Puddle’s voice calling: ‘Wait a minute. Stop, Stephen!’ Saw Puddle barring her way in the drive, a tiny yet dauntless figure.
She pulled up with a jerk: ‘What’s the matter? What is it?’
‘Where have you been?’
‘I—don’t know, Puddle.’
But Puddle had clambered in beside her: ‘Listen, Stephen,’ and now she was talking very fast, ‘listen, Stephen—is it—is it Angela Crossby? It is. I can see the thing in your face. My God, what’s that woman done to you, Stephen?’
Then Stephen, in spite of the corpse against her heart, or perhaps because of it, defended the woman: ‘She’s done nothing at all—it was all my fault, but you wouldn’t understand—I got very angry and then I laughed and couldn’t stop laughing—’ Steady—go steady! She was telling too much: ‘No—it wasn’t that exactly. Oh, you know my vile temper, it always goes off at half cock for nothing. Well, then I just drove round and round the country until I cooled down. I’m sorry, Puddle, I ought to have rung up, of course you’ve been anxious.’
Puddle gripped her arm: ‘Stephen, listen, it’s your mother—she thinks that you started quite early for Worcester, I lied—I’ve been nearly distracted, child. If you hadn’t come soon, I’d have had to tell her that I didn’t know where you were. You must never,nevergo off without a word like this again—But I do understand, oh, I do indeed, Stephen.’
But Stephen shook her head: ‘No, my dear, you couldn’t—and I’d rather not tell you, Puddle.’
‘Some day you must tell me,’ said Puddle, ‘because—well, because I do understand, Stephen.’
Thatnight the weight against Stephen’s heart, with its icy coldness, melted; and it flowed out in such a torrent of grief that she could not stand up against that torrent, so that drowning though she was she found pen and paper, and she wrote to Angela Crossby.
What a letter! All the pent-up passion of months, all the terrible, rending, destructive frustrations must burst from her heart: ‘Love me, only love me the way I love you. Angela, for God’s sake, try to love me a little—don’t throw me away, because if you do I’m utterly finished. You know how I love you, with my soul and my body; if it’s wrong, grotesque, unholy—have pity. I’ll be humble. Oh, my darling, I am humble now; I’m just a poor, heart-broken freak of a creature who loves you and needs you much more than its life, because life’s worse than death, ten times worse without you. I’m some awful mistake—God’s mistake—I don’t know if there are any more like me, I pray not for their sakes, because it’s pure hell. But oh, my dear, whatever I am, I just love you and love you. I thought it was dead, but it wasn’t. It’s alive—so terribly alive to-night in my bedroom. . . .’ And so it went on for page after page.
But never a word about Roger Antrim and what she had seen that morning in the garden. Some fine instinct of utterly selfless protection towards this woman had managed to survive all the anguish and all the madness of that day. The letter was a terrible indictment against Stephen, a complete vindication of Angela Crossby.
Angelawent to her husband’s study, and she stood before him utterly shaken, utterly appalled at what she would do, yet utterly and ruthlessly determined to do it from a primitive instinct of self-preservation. In her ears she could still hear that terrible laughter—that uncanny, hysterical, agonized laughter. Stephen was mad, and God only knew what she might do or say in a moment of madness, and then—but she dared not look into the future. Cringing in spirit and trembling in body, she forgot the girl’s faithful and loyal devotion, her will to forgive, her desire to protect, so clearly set forth in that pitiful letter.
She said: ‘Ralph, I want to ask your advice. I’m in an awful mess—it’s Stephen Gordon. You think I’ve been carrying on with Roger—good Lord, if you only knew what I’ve endured these last few months! I have seen a great deal of Roger, I admit—quite innocently of course—still, all the same, I’ve seen him—I thought it would show her that I’m not—that I’m not—’ For one moment her voice seemed about to fail her, then she went on quite firmly: ‘that I’m not a pervert; that I’m not that sort of degenerate creature.’
He sprang up: ‘What?’ he bellowed.
‘Yes, I know, it’s too awful. I ought to have asked your advice about it, but I really did like the girl just at first, and after that, well—I set out to reform her. Oh, I know I’ve been crazy, worse than crazy if you like; it was hopeless right from the very beginning. If I’d only known more about that sort of thing I’d have come to you at once, but I’d never met it. She was our neighbour too, which made it more awkward, and not only that—her position in the county—oh, Ralph, youmusthelp me, I’m completely bewildered. How on earth does one answer this sort of thing? It’s quite mad—I believe the girl’s half mad herself.’
And she handed him Stephen’s letter.
He read it slowly, and as he did so his weak little eyes grew literally scarlet—puffy and scarlet all over their lids, and when he had finished reading that letter he turned and spat on the ground. Then Ralph’s language became a thing to forget; every filthy invective learnt in the slums of his youth and later on in the workshops, he hurled against Stephen and all her kind. He called down the wrath of the Lord upon them. He deplored the non-existence of the stake, and racked his brains for indecent tortures. And finally: ‘I’ll answer this letter, yes, by God I will! You leave her to me, I know how I’m going to answer this letter!’
Angela asked him, and now her voice shook: ‘Ralph, what will you do to her—to Stephen?’
He laughed loudly: ‘I’ll hound her out of the county before I’ve done—and with luck out of England; the same as I’d hound you out if I thought that there’d ever been anything between you two women. It’s damned lucky for you that she wrote this letter, damned lucky, otherwise I might have my suspicions. You’ve got off this time, but don’t try your reforming again—you’re not cut out to be a reformer. If there’s any of that Lamb of God stuff wanted I’ll see to it myself and don’t you forget it!’ He slipped the letter into his pocket, ‘I’ll see to it myself next time—with an axe!’
Angela turned and went out of the study with bowed head. She was saved through this great betrayal, yet most strangely bitter she found her salvation, and most shameful the price she had paid for her safety. So, greatly daring, she went to her desk and with trembling fingers took a sheet of paper. Then she wrote in her large, rather childish handwriting: ‘Stephen—when you know what I’ve done, forgive me.’
Twodays later Anna Gordon sent for her daughter. Stephen found her sitting quite still in that vast drawing-room of hers, which as always smelt faintly of orris-root, beeswax and violets. Her thin, white hands were folded in her lap, closely folded over a couple of letters; and it seemed to Stephen that all of a sudden she saw in her mother a very old woman—a very old woman with terrible eyes, pitiless, hard and deeply accusing, so that she could but shrink from their gaze, since they were the eyes of her mother.
Anna said: ‘Lock the door, then come and stand here.’
In absolute silence Stephen obeyed her. Thus it was that those two confronted each other, flesh of flesh, blood of blood, they confronted each other across the wide gulf set between them.
Then Anna handed her daughter a letter: ‘Read this,’ she said briefly.
And Stephen read: