Читать книгу The Bigamist - F. E. Mills Young - Страница 8

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Pamela spent the day locked in her room. She held no communication with any one. Arnott had no means of discovering how she was passing the time, because on the one occasion when he pleaded for admission she refused to open her door; and he went away troubled and sorely dissatisfied.

He left the house and did not return until evening.

When she saw him go Pamela had a mad impulse to seize the opportunity and escape from him, but she dismissed this idea almost immediately. To run away would be ridiculous: she was quite free to go at any time. And there was the child. The child was her child; it did not belong to its father. That was the one right of the unmarried mother. The child of the dishonoured union belongs as nature intended to the mother. Pamela began dimly to understand why Herbert had so hated the thought of having children; that at least was a point which counted in his favour.

She paced the room at intervals, walking restlessly between the window and the door; but for the greater part of the time she remained seated listlessly in a chair near the open window, staring out at the sunshine, thinking, thinking always, trying to resolve what she ought to do, what she intended doing. The matter rested now between those two points. She had no longer any real doubt as to what she ought to do. Every argument she advanced against taking the right step she recognised perfectly as a deliberate oversight of duty in the pursuit of her own happiness. She wanted him so. In despite of the wrong he had done her, she loved him passionately, with a love which attempted to excuse the injury because of the depth of feeling which had moved him to act as he had acted, which held him to her still in defiance of every law. He had sinned out of love for her. Was she too going to sin in order to keep him?

She realised perfectly that if she went out of his life now, though it might break her heart to leave him, though it would possibly break his, she would save from the wreckage her virtue, her self-respect; to continue to live with him, knowing what she knew, was to become an abandoned woman, a woman of loose morals, the wings of whose happiness would be clipped by the sense of her degradation. She would be a thing in the mire, soiled and ashamed,—Arnott’s woman, no longer his wife...

She broke off in her reflections, weeping passionately.

“I couldn’t bear it,” she moaned. “I couldn’t bear it.”

Then, when she grew a little calmer, she faced the alternative. Life without him... never to see him again. To live in some place where her story was unknown,—to know that he was alive, in the world somewhere, hungry for her, aching for her, as she would ache for him,—and not be able to go to him,—never to see his face, nor hear his voice again,—never to feel the clasp of his arms, his kisses on her lips... Would that be more bearable than the other, she wondered, and shivered at a prospect so utterly bleak and forlorn that she could scarce dwell on it even in her thoughts. How could she face separation from him?—such a death in life for them both?

And then began again the struggle, the fight of the soul against the desire of the flesh...

That evening Pamela went downstairs. She dined with Herbert, or rather sat through the meal; she could not eat. Neither of them spoke much. Once Arnott insisted on her drinking a glass of wine. He had noticed her lack of appetite; and he poured the wine into her glass, and stood by her while she drank it. He was keenly observant of her, and careful not to let her see his attentive regard. He wondered whether she had arrived at any decision, whether she would speak about the matter later. He was feverishly anxious to know what was in her mind. If she was bent on leaving him, he was determined to oppose her to the utmost, to exert every art, every argument he could devise to induce her to alter her decision,—to see the thing from his point of view,—to be reasonable.

When she left the table, he rose also and followed her from the room. In the hall, at the foot of the stairs, she paused, glanced at him uncertainly, and changing her mind about going upstairs, entered the drawing-room. He followed her and shut the door.

“Tell me,” he said, and stood facing her in the dull glow of the shaded lights, his voice trembling with emotion, body and features tense with the restraint he was bringing to bear on himself, to subdue the anxious desire to hear her speak, to hear her pronounce her verdict, to know the result of that long, miserable, mental struggle which he knew had been taking place in the bedroom from which she had shut him out,—“tell me what you have decided... I can’t bear this racking uncertainty any longer, Pamela... I can’t bear it.”

Pamela looked at him with perplexed, miserable eyes.

“I haven’t decided,” she said, “anything.”

Suddenly her eyes filled with tears, there was a sound of tears in her voice.

“I don’t know what to do,” she moaned. “I’ve thought, and thought... I can’t see a way out.”

A momentary gleam of triumph leaped into his eyes. He held out his arms.

“My dear!” he said.

She made no move towards him. She leaned forward, resting her arms on the back of a chair, her gaze fixed on the carpet.

“There seems only one thing to do,” she resumed in an expressionless voice... “There is only one thing,—no decent minded woman would consider any other course.”

“You mean parting?” he said, and his face hardened.

“Yes,—parting,” she echoed, and lifted her gaze and scrutinised him intently. “It won’t undo the evil; but it sets things right, as far as it is possible to right them now.”

“Look here!” he cried. He went to her and knelt on the chair upon which she leaned and looked up into her face... “Could you part from me? ... Could you? Think what we have been to one another,—all that our love has meant, and then think of being apart,—always,—never seeing one another even... Could you do it, Pam?”

Her troubled eyes met his, clouded with a mist of tears.

“Don’t!” she muttered, and put a hand quickly to her throat. “I’ve been thinking about it—like that all day.”

“And you can’t face it!” he said. He laid a hand firmly upon hers where it rested upon the back of the chair. “My dear... you can’t face it... I can’t face it. I’ve looked at the matter all round; and I can’t face parting now any better than I could face renunciation five years ago. It’s out of the question. It can’t be, Pamela. We’ve gone a long way beyond that.”

“But the other thing,—to stay,—that’s impossible too.”

“No,” he asserted. “That’s the only thing left us. Except for the compunction I feel in the pain this knowledge has brought you, it hasn’t altered anything for me. I’m trying to look at it from your point of view. The relative values of our position are not changed for me, you see. When you have recovered from the shock of the revelation, I’m hoping you will see things as I do. Nothing is altered really. I have regarded you always sacredly as my dear wife. You will ever remain so to me. Nothing can alter that.”

“But I am not your wife,” Pamela said. “Do you think I can ever forget that, now I know? Every time that my eyes meet yours that thought will be in my mind... not you wife,—only your—”

“Don’t say it,” he said sharply, and gripped her hand hard. “You are my wife.” He spoke with a certain obstinacy, as though his purpose were to insist on her imagination taking hold of realities which she sought to overlook, which were none the less realities to him because he justified them by his own standard in defiance of conventional law.

“I’m not going to give you up, Pamela. I’m going to keep you. If you left me I should follow you. Don’t you see that parting for us is impossible? If we loved less it might be easy to talk of parting,—easy to assume a smug respectability, and give up a little for the satisfaction of feeling virtuous. But people don’t give up everything for the sake of virtue—and to part now would be giving up everything for you and me.”

“But I can’t,” she insisted, “continue to live here—as your wife. It’s not only a case of conscience, it’s a matter of self-respect. I should hate myself.”

This was a fresh issue. He had not foreseen this, and he realised his inadequacy to grasp the point; it was too intrinsically feminine for his understanding. He stared at her in baffled perplexity.

“Do you mean,” he began, and paused, scrutinising her tortured face with disconcerted, incredulous eyes.

He stood up, and moved away from her, and remained with his back to her, facing the window. Then abruptly he faced round again.

“What do you want to do?” he asked, his nerves on edge with the intolerable strain. “For God’s sake, be reasonable! I can’t stand this any longer. Do you mean that you want to leave me?”

Pamela made no answer. She bent forward and leaned her face in her hands and broke into bitter weeping. In a moment he was beside her. He took her in his arms, and drew her head down to his breast, and held her so, still sobbing, with her face hidden in her hands. Tenderly he kissed the bright hair.

“Poor little woman!” he said.

She clung to him, sobbing and weeping in his embrace.

“Oh! I can’t,” she wailed... “I can’t.”

Again the light of victory shone in the man’s eyes. He held her more closely.

“No,” he said; “we couldn’t do it... Never to meet again! ... We couldn’t do it, dear.”

She drew back from his embrace and, seating herself in the chair, continued to weep hopelessly. He fell on his knees beside her.

“I’m a brute to have brought this on you,” he muttered. “But I loved you so... Dearest heart, say you forgive me.”

He caught her wrists and pulled her hands from her face and kissed the tear-drenched eyes.

“Pamela, my darling, forgive me. I meant no harm to you. I never meant you to know.”

She regarded him with brimming eyes.

“Oh! I wish,” she said, “that I didn’t love you so well.”

He kissed her hands. He had won in this first struggle. With patience, he told himself, he would recover the whole ground.

For an hour Pamela remained with him, talking the matter threadbare. Arnott did most of the talking; Pamela listened, acquiescing by her silence to much that he urged in his own defence, occasionally interrupting him, more occasionally disputing a point. Gradually he worked round to the subject of their future relations. On this point Pamela was more difficult. She held views of her own in regard to that; and the discussion at times took a bitter tone. He pleaded, he argued eloquently, he even offered concessions. He was patient and displayed a tender consideration which moved her to a corresponding tenderness, but did not shake her resolve.

They were still at cross purposes when, heavy with fatigue and misery, she arose and announced her intention of going to bed. The discussion, he recognised, would have to be postponed to some future time. This exasperated him; he left that the delay minimised his chances of victory. Further wrestling with her conscience might confirm her in her resolution, would inevitably make persuasion more difficult. Ultimate victory depended largely on his success in wearing down her scruples before they had time to harden into a conviction of duty.

He eyed her resentfully, and bit his lip to keep back the sharp words of reproach which came to his tongue.

The puritanical strain in the composition of a good woman was the most baffling factor to cope with; the element of passion became a weak, a futile argument against its frigid strength.

“You are punishing me heavily, Pamela,” he said.

She turned towards him slowly. Her sad eyes dwelt for a long moment on his face and then looked deliberately away.

“My dear, I am not wishing to punish,” she said. “It is equally hard for me.”

“Then why...” he began, and paused, irresolute and almost ungovernably angry. “It’s monstrous,” he muttered. “Absurd! We might as well be apart altogether.”

Pamela made no response, but went with a dragging step out of the room, up the stairs to the bedroom where she had spent the tragic hours of that weary day.

When he was alone, Arnott moved to a chair and seated himself, and remained lost in a gloomy reverie, his sombre gaze fixed sullenly on the floor. The hand of the clock revolved slowly twice round the dial before he roused himself from his bitter reflections. He saw no way out of this muddle. If Pamela persisted in her present attitude it meant the end of their happiness together; her daily presence in his home under the conditions she imposed would prove merely an aggravation.

Arnott’s nature was passionate, and his love for Pamela was of the quality that refuses to be subdued. He had never practised restraint; the thought was intolerable. The fever of desire which had led to his bigamous marriage still fired his blood, and moved him to passionate rebellion against Pamela’s decree. He refused to submit to this cold-blooded arrangement. He would have it out with her; he would overcome her scruples; he would,—he must win.

He got up, switched off the lights in the room, and passed out into the hall. He switched off the hall light also, and went up the darkened stairs. From beneath the door of Pamela’s room a thin line of light told him that she was awake. He fancied he heard a movement inside the room, and listened. Then deliberately he advanced and tried the door. It was locked.

He gritted his teeth, and passed on and entered his dressing-room. For that night at least he had to admit defeat. Oddly, at the moment, though smarting with indignation at being thus determinedly denied admittance, he respected her decision, even while bitterly opposed to it,—he respected her.

He sat on the edge of his bed and beat softly on the carpet with his foot. A tormenting desire for her gripped him, as it had not gripped him since the days before he had married her—those days when he had recognised how impossible it was for him to do without her, when finally he had flung every consideration aside and gone through the form of a marriage, which he knew was no marriage, because he could not give her up. His need of her now was every whit as insistent as it had been then. Its very urgency had broken down every law, razed every barrier: it should, he told himself, surmount also this new obstacle which fate had flung in his path.