Читать книгу The Great Amulet - Diver Maud - Страница 5

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"A turn, and we stand in the heart of things."

—Browning.

When Eldred Lenox sailed from India six months earlier, he would have scouted as impossible the suggestion that he might bring a wife back with him on his return: and his uncompromising avoidance of women, from boyhood upward, had seemed to justify him in his assurance. But Nature is inexorable. She has her own methods of accomplishing those things that are necessary to a man's salvation; and behold in three months the impossible had come to pass. The giant Mirabeau was right:—"ce bête de mot" ought by now to be struck out of our dictionaries.

Lenox knew little of half measures: and, having succumbed—in spite of himself, in spite of inherent prejudices and convictions—he succumbed heart and soul. That which he had unduly scorned, he now unduly exalted. Only Time and the woman could lead him into the Middle Way, which is the way of truth. For beneath the surface hardness of the Scot lurked the fire, the imaginative force, the proud sensitiveness of the Celt: a heritage from his Cornish mother, whose untimely death had left her two younger sons in the hands of a bachelor uncle, of red-hot Calvinistic views. Their father—a man of an altogether different stamp—had met his boys on rare occasions, and ardently desired to know more of them: but an Afghan knife had ended his career before he could find leisure to complete their acquaintance. The history of Anglo-India is one long chronicle of such minor tragedies.

Thus fire-eating Jock Lenox had exercised iron rule over his charges, unhampered by parental interference: had reared them in an unquestioning fear of God, and an unquestioning distrust of more than half His creatures; had impressed upon them, in season and out of season, that woman was the one fatal element in a man's life, the author of nine-tenths of its tragedy, complexity, and crime.

Yet "one touch of Nature" had annulled, in three months, the work of twenty years. So much for education!

For a while Lenox stood motionless where his wife had left him, as though life itself were suspended until her return: for despite the glory of autumn sunshine, of leaping flames upon the hearth, the room, robbed of her presence, seemed colourless, dead.

Then, as the minutes passed and she did not reappear, restlessness took possession of him; sure sign that he was very deeply moved. He crossed to the open window, but even the colossal calm of the mountains failed to quell the tumult of passion in his veins. Her last words left him anxious. There could be no peace till he had interpreted them to his full satisfaction; and the power of interpreting a woman's words could not be reckoned among his attributes.

Suddenly it occurred to him that he had pocketed two unopened envelopes before starting for church. He drew them out; rather because he needed some definite occupation, than because he felt curious as to their contents. Men of his type are rarely overburdened with correspondents.

The first was a business letter. He read it with scant attention, and returned it to his breast-pocket. The second envelope bore the handwriting of his senior subaltern, now in England on short leave. The two men were close friends; but Eldred's last letter had been written four months ago; and the envelope in his hand contained Richardson's tardy response. He broke the seal with a smile at thought of his subaltern's astonishment when he should learn the truth. The letter was longer than usual; and in glancing through it hurriedly, the name Miss Maurice caught his eye. "Great Scott!" he muttered aloud; then, with quickened interest, began upon the second page, ignoring the opening.

"Wonder if you have run across the Maurices in Zermatt," wrote Max Richardson, with no faintest prevision of the circumstances in which the thoughtless lines would be read by his friend. "Artists both of them, brother and sister; and a rather remarkable couple, I'm told. She seems to have made a hit at the Academy; and the cousins I'm staying with are very keen about her. I happened to mention that I was writing to a chap in Zermatt, and they begged me to ask if you had heard or seen anything of this Miss Maurice. There's a bit of a romance about her; that's what has pricked their interest. Seems she was engaged to Sir Roger Bennet this season. A swell in the Art patron line. Lost his heart at first sight. But evidently on closer acquaintance found her rather a handful, and too much of a Bohemian to suit his British taste! At all events there was a flare-up over something about three months ago, and Sir Roger backed out, politely but definitely. It seems that Miss Maurice was a good deal cut up. Went off to Zermatt with her brother. And now rumour has it that she is engaged, if not married, to some other chap out there, I suppose by way of a gentle intimation to Sir Roger that he hasn't broken her heart. My cousins are eaten up with curiosity to know if it's true. Women appear to be capable of that sort of thing. But it strikes a mere man as playing rather low down on a luckless devil who has done her no harm: and I don't envy him his hasty bargain, or the repenting at leisure that's bound to follow. Lord, what fools we men are! And how easily we lose our heads over a woman! All except you—the Great Invulnerable, looking down upon our folly from the superior height of a snow-peak. … "

Lenox read no further. The last words enraged him, like a blow between the eyes, and set the blood hammering in his temples. It would seem, at times, that Fate selects with fiendish nicety the psychological moment when her arrows will strike deepest, and stick fastest. Thus, when his thirst was at its height, Lenox found the cup dashed from his lips; and that by the hand of his best friend:—a master-stroke of Olympian comedy.

With a curse he flung the letter on to the table.

Wounded love, wounded pride, and baulked desire so clashed in him that clear thought was impossible. He only knew that he had been deliberately deceived, the most intolerable knowledge to a man incapable of deceit: and with the knowledge all the natural savage in him sprang to life. If Richardson had appeared before him in the flesh, it is doubtful whether he could have stayed his hand: the more so, since he believed that the man had written the truth: that this girl—whom it seemed that he had wooed with quite unnecessary reverence—had taken the best he could give, and utilised it as a mere salve for her wounded vanity.

He understood now why her heart had proved more difficult of access than her hand. He had believed it unawakened; had dreamed, as lovers will, of warming it into life with the fire of his own great love: and lo, he found himself forestalled by this execrable man in England. Clearly he had been a fool;—an infatuated fool! He stabbed himself with the epithet: and a vivid memory of his uncle's stock cynicisms turned the knife in the wound. All the prejudices and tenets of his youth rushed back upon him now: an avenging host, mocking at his discomfiture; narrowing his judgment; blinding him to the woman's point of view.

And while he still stood battling with himself in a vain effort to regain his shaken self-control, the bedroom door opened, and his wife came quickly towards him.

His changed aspect arrested her: and the sight of her facing him thus, with the sunlight in her eyes and on her hair, her young purity of outline emphasised by the simplicity of her dress, so stirred his senses, that, in defiance of pride, the whole heart of him went out to her, claiming her for his own. But it is at just such crises that habit reveals itself as the hand of steel in a silken glove; and before she could open her lips, Jock Lenox had stretched out a ghostly arm from his grave in Aberdeen, and shut to the door of his nephew's heart.

Quita glanced hurriedly from the discarded letter to her husband's face.

"My dear, … what has gone wrong? You look terrible. Have you had bad news?"

The irony of the question brought a smile to his lips.

"Yes. I have had bad news. Read it for yourself." And he pushed the letter towards her.

"Why? Who is it from?"

"A friend of mine, in England, who seems to know a good deal more about you than I do."

"What on earth do you mean?" she asked sharply.

"You know well enough what I mean. Read that letter if your memory needs refreshing."

Her first instinct was indignant refusal. Then curiosity conquered. Besides, she wanted above all things to gain time: and while she read, her husband watched her keenly, with God knows what of forlorn hope at his heart.

But a twisted truth is more formidable than a lie; and intuition warned Quita that Lenox was in no mood to appreciate the fine shades of distinction between the literal facts and Max Richardson's free translation of the same. His frankly masculine comments fired her cheeks; and at the sight Lenox could restrain himself no longer.

"By Heaven! You care for that fellow still!" he broke out hotly. "And you had the effrontery to take those solemn words on your lips this morning, with the love of … another man in your heart!"

Quita Lenox, whatever her failings, lacked neither spirit nor courage.

She threw back her head, and faced his anger bravely.

"How dare you say such things to me? I … don't care for him. I—I hate him!"

"Proof conclusive. Indifference kills hatred. No doubt you wanted to convince yourself, and him, that you were indifferent; and to that end you must needs crucify the first man who comes handy. An admirable sample of feminine justice!"

"Eldred, … you have no right to speak like that. I won't hear you."

"I have every right; and you shall hear me. It was one thing to know that you could not give me all I wanted at the start. One hoped to set that right, in time. But to accept me because another man's defection had piqued your vanity, … God knows how you could dare to do it! I see now why you found me unlike an ordinary lover. No doubt that other fellow—curse him—took full advantage of his privileged position: while to me you seemed a thing so sacred that I hardly dared lay a hand on you. I might have known that a man who is fool enough to put a woman on a pedestal, is bound to pay a long price for his folly."

He was lashing himself more mercilessly than he lashed her: and in the torment of his spirit he did not pause to consider the possible effect of his words on a recklessly impulsive woman.

"Really … you are insufferable!" she retorted, her breath coming short and quick. "I have a little pride also; and you had better stop before you push me too far. For I tell you frankly, I don't care enough for you to stand this sort of treatment at your hands."

The counter-stroke stung like a lash. The lines about his mouth hardened, and he straightened himself sharply.

"Pity you were not more frank with me twenty-four hours ago. Then we might both have been spared this morning's ironical service. However, the thing is done now. … "

"Indeed, it's not done!" she flashed out defiantly. "I have no notion of being your wife on sufferance, I assure you. We are only on the threshold as yet. We need not go a step farther unless we choose. And after what you have said to me, … I do not choose."

For an instant the man was stunned into silence; then, in a desperate impulse, took a step towards her.

"Quita, … you don't realise what you are saying? Nothing can alter the fact that we are man and wife, now and always."

She motioned him from her with an imperious gesture.

"Don't touch me, please. I do realise, perfectly, that we are not free to make any more dangerous experiments. But we are at least free to live and work independently of one another. Of course I know that you can compel me to remain with you,"—her colour deepened on the words.—"But I know also that you have too much chivalry, too much pride, to force yourself upon me against my wish."

"By God, yes!" he answered from between his teeth. "And … what is your wish, may I ask?"

For the first time she hesitated, and lowered her eyes.

"I believe our wishes are identical," she said.

"No need to trouble about mine. You can put them out of court altogether."

His tone spurred her to instant decision.

"My wish is to go back to Zermatt at once, by the funicular; and … that we should not see one another again. I will accept nothing from you. I can earn my own living, as I have done till now. Thank God, Michael is too blessedly Bohemian to make a fuss, or be horrified at things. He will simply be overjoyed to get me back."

She turned from him hastily; and he stood, like a man paralysed, watching her go. On the threshold of the bedroom door she looked back.

"Don't think of writing to me, or of trying to patch up a reconciliation between us," she said on a softened note. "Mended things are never reliable. I can neither forget nor forgive what you have said to me to-day, and when you have had time to think things over, you will probably feel thankful that I had the courage to leave you."

The soft closing of the door roused him, and he sprang forward with her name on his lips. Then Pride gripped him; Pride, and the habit of self-mastery hammered into him by his redoubtable uncle. The fact that our spirits thus live and work, deathlessly, in the lives and hearts of those with whom we have come into contact, is a form of immortality too seldom recognised by man.

In the silence that followed, Lenox looked blankly round the empty room:—the room where they should have spent their first evening together. Then the irony, the finality of it all, overwhelmed him, and he sank upon the nearest chair. "What have I done? … My God, what have I done?" he breathed aloud. And it is characteristic of the man that, for all his grinding sense of injury, he blamed himself more bitterly than he blamed his wife.

His eye fell on the letter, which, had it contained a bombshell, could scarce have wrought more damage in so short a space of time. Tearing it across and across, he flung it into the fire, and derived a gloomy satisfaction from watching it burn. But though paper and ink were reduced to ashes, neither fire nor steel could annihilate the winged words, thoughtlessly penned, that had altered the course of two lives.

Footsteps in the bedroom brought Lenox again to his feet.

He flung the door open, expecting—he knew what.

An apathetic hotel porter was removing Quita's trunk: and nothing that had been said or done in the last half-hour had hurt him so keenly as this insignificant item:—the touch of commonplace that levels all things.

With a gesture he indicated his own portmanteau. "Take that also," he said, and strode out of the room.

At least he had the right to shield her from comment. To all appearance they must leave the place together! and he settled his account with the smiling manageress, adding simply: "Madame has had bad news."

He took a later train down the hill; deposited his trunk in a hotel bedroom; and spent his wedding-night under the stars; walking, ceaselessly, aimlessly, to deaden the ache at his heart.

Next morning he despatched half a dozen lines to Richardson disowning all knowledge of Miss Maurice's concerns: and three weeks later he sailed from Brindisi without seeing his wife again.