Читать книгу The Uncounted Cost - Mary Gaunt - Страница 4

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"You came, and the sun came after,

And the green grew golden above;

And the flag flowers lighted with laughter,

And the meadow-sweet shook with love.

"I saw where the sun's hand pointed,

I knew what the bird's note said;

By the dawn and the dewfall anointed,

You were queen by the gold on your head.

"As the glimpse of a burnt-out ember

Recalls a regret of the sun,

I remember, forget and remember,

What love saw, done and undone."

"WELL, Anne," cried Kitty, coming into Anne's sitting-room a few days later, "you've played Providence. Ellis and her unfaithful swain are in each other's arms again and I'm looking out for a new maid. They're to be married in six weeks' time, if they don't change their minds meanwhile. Think of the anathemas that will be hurled at your devoted head six months hence. Why, Anne! Whatever is the matter?"

Anne turned a face to her cousin out of which every particle of colour and life seemed to have gone, the face of a woman who had lost everything.

"Anne!" said Kitty again, throwing off her hat. "Anne! My dear! What has happened? I know Dicky Bullen's all right, because I——"

"Dicky Bullen," repeated Anne, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, "what do you know about Dicky Bullen?"

"My dear sweet little ostrich," said Kitty not unkindly, "do you really mean to tell me you think I did not know. More than once it's been on the tip of my tongue to implore you not to make a fool of yourself, but after all you are not a child, and when a woman like you is in love it's no good arguing with her, she must go her own way. But Dicky has never thrown you over?"

Anne looked out of the window as if she could not bear the fact put into words. It was a hot, still June evening. The heat of the sun rose from the baking pavements, and away in the distance she could see the muddy river flowing by to the sea, and the roar of London came to her ears as a subdued murmur. She was hurt with a hurt that she felt would last her all her life, but, alas! that would not kill. What a long dreary vista of years she was looking down!

"I didn't do it lightly, Kitty," she said in sudden protest. "I didn't do it lightly."

"More's the pity," said Kitty. "Anne, why didn't you do it lightly? There is not a man in the world worth breaking your heart over. Oh, Anne, Anne, if you would only take amusement as it comes!"

"But——" and Anne rose and began restlessly pacing the room—"it was not amusement, it was serious, sacred, holy."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense," said Kitty. "Let us look the thing straight in the face. You and my cousin Dicky Bullen fell in love with one another, as anyone could see, and as the pay of a lieutenant in the navy, even backed by the earnings of a novelist who hopes she is going to rise, would not justify you in openly setting up housekeeping together you decided to postpone the official ceremony. He came up the stairs and swore, 'This is our bridal,' and you, poor little fool, believed him. Then in due course he grew tired——"

Anne shuddered. It was the truth shorn of the daintiness and prettiness and all the fervour she had seen in it, the delight she had had in trusting everything to the honour of the man she adored, her faith in his love and tenderness, that indescribable something that for Kitty had never been on sea or land, but for Anne made all life rosy and golden.

"He wanted me," she said, interrupting, "and you know I have always held that if two people lived together first before they bound themselves irrevocably there would be more chance of happiness in married life."

"My dear," said her cousin, "there are many drawbacks to matrimony, I admit, but it's the best arrangement we have struck yet, more especially if you don't take it too seriously. If Dicky had married you he wouldn't have left you—he wouldn't have wanted to leave you."

"He said," went on Anne, "that mentally, morally, and physically we suited each other and—and—oh, I am ashamed—ashamed," and she dropped her head on the table. "I was so proud of trusting him and he has thrown me away as if I were a worn-out glove."

"My dear, he's a cad," said Mrs Pearce, as if that settled it. "And you must make up your mind to forget him as soon as you can."

"After two years! It's impossible. Why has he done it."

"My poor Anne, you are not the woman to play that sort of game."

"It was something in me," then said Anne. "I was afraid—I was afraid——" Her voice was shaking.

"Did he come and tell you? No, of course he wrote. Let me see his letter."

Anne hesitated a moment. Her lover's letters had been sacred things, read and re-read, lending glamour to the commonplace day. This one was different. It seemed to her it had broken her life. Possibly Kitty might read it differently. It was the forlornest hope, but she was desperate, she must catch at straws. She handed over the letter.

"MY DEAR ANNE," [it began],—"I don't know how I'm to write this letter to you, but it has got to be done, you are too good for me, Anne, much too good. I'm a swab and ought to be kicked, but I want you to break our engagement, to give me back my freedom, for I can't marry you and therefore it isn't fair to you to go on. It wasn't fair to you to begin, you'll say. I know it wasn't, and I could grovel in the dust at your feet when I think of what I have done, but you are so good you'll let me off, I know. Don't fear that I shall think lightly of you because of what has been between us, you will always be one of the best women in the world to me. You have your work, you'll be famous by-and-by and soon forget one who was never half worthy of you. Do you want to know why I have changed? I have never changed in my high opinion of you, but—well there is a girl I have met since we parted, and, if you give me back my freedom, perhaps I shall try to win her. I don't know why I tell you this, only it seems fair to let you know all there is to know. I am frightfully cut up about the whole affair, but, Anne, don't think of me any more. I'm not worth it."

And the letter was signed with initials—"R. L. B."

Kitty tossed it aside contemptuously, and Anne, with anxious eyes devouring her face, read no comfort for her there.

"It's exactly as he says, you're too good for him. The average man doesn't appreciate truth and constancy in a woman. He's regarded her as his slave and plaything for so long, that when she gives him a chance he acts in the old, old way. Take his advice and don't think about him any more. He's not worth it."

"I can't answer it," moaned Anne, "I can't. Why are vows made in church or declarations in a registry office more sacred to him than vows such as we made! I shall keep them all my life."

"I hope devoutly you won't."

"I couldn't give him leave to marry another woman." She was walking restlessly about the room again. "Why should I put myself on a level with a woman of the street?"

"Oh, don't answer it," said Kitty with decision, "I should like to punish Dicky, and waiting for an answer is always chastening."

"Then I'll write," said Anne hastily, "I don't want to hurt him."

Kitty changed her tactics. "My dear, he would only think the less of you for your pains. He wants to break with you, and the mention of another woman makes it final. You know very well if he hadn't said something of the kind you would have written imploring him to come to you, and done your best to win him back."

"Of course," said Anne simply.

"He knows how to manage you."

Anne shivered. The words sounded so brutal. But Kitty Pearce was kind. She knew that the danger was lest Anne, like many another loving woman, should not realise that the man wanted the thing over and done with. If she sank her pride now it would only be to suffer fresh humiliation afterwards.

"I wish I were dead," Anne whispered.

"Nonsense. He isn't worth it. Follow his suggestion, Anne, work and make a name for yourself. Your new book is sold, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Anne, "I thought he would be so pleased." And the thought of the pleasure she had hoped to give him brought the tears to her hard hot eyes, tears that ran over on to her white cheeks. "I thought my books——"

"You misread Dicky Bullen if you thought he would take an interest in your books. My dear girl, he never read a book in his life except the Navy List. You and Dicky hadn't a thing in common except your love, and that you idealised. Think of him as ordinary common clay and you don't know how it will help you to pull through. I know my cousin Dicky, and I assure you he is very ordinary clay. I didn't think he'd do quite such a mean thing, but in a way it was your fault. You would regard an ordinary flirtation as Love, Love with a very capital L indeed."

"I should have been ashamed to have done anything else," said Anne below her breath.

"It was a very foolish proceeding in the case of a commonplace young man like Dicky. He couldn't stand the rarefied atmosphere in which you made him live. A year hence you will be thankful he did throw you over. You're a nice girl, Anne. Any man might admire you and sit at your feet for a little, the mistake was that you should be so desperately in earnest over a thing that ought to be taken lightly."

Anne turned away and flung herself face downwards on the sofa. There lay the bitterness. She had counted this thing high and holy, and he, the man of her dreams, showed her that he considered it an ordinary liaison. For him it had involved no responsibility. "I am a swab and ought to be kicked," he had written, but she knew that a man who really felt that would not have thrown her over. Such words counted for nothing.

"Anne," her cousin bent over her and put her hands on her shoulder, "listen to me a moment. I know you feel utterly wretched now, but there are other things in the world besides love. Don't you know that the great fault in your writings has been that you always make your women yearning to lay their heads on some man's shoulder. Your men are right enough. They know there are other things in the world worth winning beside a woman. You've a plot in your hand now. Make a name for yourself."

Anne knew her trade and laughed bitterly. "Don't you know that you can't sell a story that ends badly?"

"Make it end happily then. Exaggerate, change, do anything you like, but use the central idea for a foundation. You're so great on ideals you can make the woman who had an honest purpose succeed and the man who betrays her fail—no, not fail—just miss the best in life."

Anne's face was drawn and pinched with pain. "It might come afterwards, I suppose," she said. "I am old enough to know that success in a small thing is better than failure in everything, but if you only knew what it is to think of getting through even to-night."

"That's the way to take it," said Kitty. "One thing at a time. To-night. I think we can settle that with a good dose of sulphonal. Anne, I'm going to stay with you to-night."

"If you only would," said Anne, who felt terrified at the idea of being left alone with her thoughts, "Kitty, I don't think I can go on living."

"Nonsense, the story is only just begun. You'll have many good times yet. Don't give him the satisfaction of thinking he was wise to cast you off. I am never likely to make a name for myself, but I understand the beginning of the process, it has to be done little by little. A good night's rest to-night and to-morrow you will begin to write your book."

"It wouldn't matter if one didn't love," said Anne wearily.

"Of course. That's it. It's the greatest mistake, I'm always watching the effects—in others. I'm afraid you may do the same thing again though."

Anne shook her head. If she could only die.

The last hot rays of the sun were turning the muddy river to gold, the roar of the streets was like subdued music telling of the sorrow and the struggle of the great city. "It is better to strive, it is better to strive," so I sang to those who could hear. Kitty heard it without understanding, but Anne's whole soul was crying out against its lesson. "I can strive no longer," her heart was saying. "I am crushed and broken. I want to die."