Читать книгу The Uncounted Cost - Mary Gaunt - Страница 9

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"Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring

Your Winter Garment of Repentance fling:

The Bird of Time has but a little way

To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.

"The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,

The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one,

Each morn a thousand Roses brings, you say:

Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday."

THE July evening was very hot and breathless, with that stifling breathlessness that makes the heat of London harder to bear than the heat of any other part of the world. The stones of the streets had absorbed the sun and now that he was set were giving out his heat over again. There was no air, no freshness, and Anne Lovat, sitting at her wide-open window, was gasping. She was very weary, perhaps more mentally than physically, but the mind reacted on the body. She thought of the country, of the yellow fragrant hay-fields, of shady trees and babbling brooks, and then there came the remembrance of the heavy scent of roses and lilies, roses that seemed to breathe forth the incense of love itself. She heard again the sound of a voice telling a man's passionate love. She felt the clasp of his hand. She saw the look in his eyes.

"I love you. I want you. I shall never want anyone but you."

She had believed and trusted, and he had played her false. Even her remembrances now were a shame to her and made life more intolerable. It had lasted for two years, and then he could write that he would try to win another woman. Oh, was that what men were like? Was it true, as her mother had always said, as Kitty declared, that man was ever the hunter, tired at once when he came up with his quarry. It did not matter whether it was true generally or not, individually she had failed, failed, and the question was, was it worth while going on living? No, that was not the question. She knew the answer to that. To-night it was not worth while, but the only way out was death, and death would mean talk, and all manner of sordid detail, such as she shrank from. It was the going on that was so hard.

A pile of papers lay before her. She had worked despite herself, it was as if she had been dragging a heavy load through the Slough of Despond, and Castle Beautiful was not beyond but behind, and every weary step she took brought her closer to a dreary barren land where for sole companionship she would have her unattainable desires.

In a sudden utter abandonment of misery she had flung herself on the floor, hopeless and heartbroken, beyond all tears, when she was roused by a sharp knock at the door. Her heart gave a bound, and she knew that hope was not dead in her, that every minute of her life she was waiting for him. He would surely come to see the woman he had professed to love so desperately. She looked in the glass and saw the faint colour in her white cheeks. The knock came again, hurried, imperious, and with sinking heart she realised that it was not his knock. But if life was to be lived, the small things must to attended to, the door must be answered.

"Kitty!"

"Oh, my dear, I was so afraid you weren't at home."

"Come in, I am glad to see you," and indeed she was. Only one person in the world would she rather have seen than Kitty Pearce, and at least with Kitty she could have the relief of talking about him, would perhaps hear something of him.

Kitty came in, tossing off the scarf she wore about her shoulders. "Oh, my dear, I'm in such trouble, and I want your advice."

"Take off your hat." This Kitty did with a certain respect. The hat could not be refreshed with an iron, like the scarf; and then she flung herself into an easy-chair. Anne's mind went off fruitlessly wondering what she would have said, how she would have felt, had Kitty been Dicky Bullen.

"Anne, I'm in such an awful state of mind."

"About what, Kitty?"

"About Joe Cunningham, of course."

"Then he was with you?"

Kitty dabbed a small square of lace to her eyes and mouth.

"You knew he was. You knew he was coming."

"Yes, I know." She was sorry for Captain Cunningham, but after all he was a man, and a man's life could not be wrecked like a woman's. "Alone, alone," the refrain of an old song kept recurring to her, "I am alone, alone." All her life she had dreaded being alone, and now she was to be alone for ever and ever.

But Kitty misinterpreted her silence. "Anne, you are a dear. Most women would have said, 'I told you so.'"

"It's bad enough without that," said Anne, bringing her thoughts back to another's trouble.

Kitty made a little movement with her hands. "I'm breaking my heart about it."

Then Anne did glance up quickly, and laughed a little with that other side of her mind, that could always see the humour of a thing, for Kitty looked like some bright butterfly, a creature not to be associated with tragedy.

"How do you look when you are hurt, Kitty?"

"Exactly as I do now, I suppose. I shouldn't dread of mourning in sackcloth and ashes. I'd as soon cut myself with a knife like a savage. When I feel miserable I always put on my best clothes, at least it save my self-respect."

"Then judging by your clothes you must be very miserable indeed."

"Anne, what would you have done?"

"I don't know," said Anne truthfully enough, and back to her mind, hurting her with a cruel pang, came the thought that there was no Dicky Bullen now to ask what should be done; he would have known. "Of course Captain Cunningham can say nothing, but it is a big sacrifice for you to accept."

"He isn't Captain Cunningham now, only plain Mr Cunningham," wailed Kitty. "I wrote to him and told him how much I appreciated what he had done," and she laughed a little ruefully.

"Poor fellow! What did he say?"

Kitty held out a crumpled telegraph form with a whimsical smile.

"I came like Water, and like Wind I go," it said, and it was signed "Cunningham."

"What's one to do with a man like that?"

"What did you write to him?"—we must take an interest in the affairs of others whether we will or not. The world goes steadily on for all our woe.

"How sorry I was, and if he would come to see me I'd do my best to be nice to him, and comfort him. Oh, surely, Anne, you can guess. An afternoon, an evening with me would have cheered him up. I'm not really bad, you know, I'd have given anything for this not to have happened, but since it has——"

"Since it has he doesn't expect you to rush forward and give yourself away. What is he going to do?" Again the thought would intrude itself that she ought to be asking this question of Dicky Bullen.

"I don't know. I remember him saying once in joke that if he did try and go overland he'd have to go to West Africa. I suppose he means this to be the end of the flirtation. It's one way of breaking off; I never thought he'd do it like this."

"Did you expect him to break it off?" asked Anne. She would not be self-absorbed, she would think about other people. Hers was not the only trouble in the world.

"My dear girl, of course. What else? Such things can't go on for very long if you are to keep straight. A little doubt, a little amusement, a moment's certainty, a little weariness and then good-bye. It's the way of all things, you know that."

"Oh no, no," Anne was vehement. If the bitterness in her own life hurt, she found it still worse to think that no one was in earnest, no one cared as she cared. "Surely sometimes a—a flirtation, an attraction lasts?"

"I don't think so," said Kitty, and she really spoke very thoughtfully. "Married people get accustomed to each other, and sometimes they manage a little excitement, especially if they've been apart for a time, but they only stick together because society has wisely ordained that they must, otherwise a couple of years at the most would see the end of the most intense devotion."

"Please, Kitty," said Anne, with a little quiver in her voice.

"Doesn't that idea give you some comfort? Anne, your case isn't unique. You know, or you ought to know, it is always the one who cares most who suffers. If you had thrown him over he would be running after you still."

Anne rose from her chair. "Kitty," she said, "can't you understand I am not made like that? I cannot play or make believe when I care. He has thrown me over. I don't know whether it was my fault or my misfortune, but I did my best, and I know my love was worth having, though he may have thought otherwise."

"Well," said Kitty, "I expect he's very uncomfortable now, wondering what you are doing, and simply hating you because you have not answered his letter."

Another stab for Anne. It hurt her to think that the man who had protested such love should hate her; but life had to be lived, she told herself again, and even Kitty must not be wearied with her affairs.

She sat down. "I was not thinking about myself for once," she lied, "but about Captain Cunningham's trouble, and you, of course."

"Don't include me. You see he won't even accept my consolation."

Anne lay back in her chair, and put her hands behind her head.

"I don't understand," she said. "This man ruins himself for you, and you accept the sacrifice, and yet you neither of you pretend to care. You don't even want to see each other."

"You do me an injustice," said Kitty ruefully. "I want to see him very much. It is he who declines. He has too much on hand to be bothered with a woman at present. Oh, I understand thoroughly, poor dear, and no one could be more grateful for what he has done for me than I am. If ever I can do anything for him I will. As for me—well, I know one or two others who will be quite pleased to come and sit down under the trees, and say pretty things."

"Kitty, I believe I should think more of you if you ran away with someone," said Anne vehemently. "I think your views of life are shocking."

Kitty stretched her arms above her head. "Personally, I find life very flat. Africa could hardly be worse."

"In mercy to Fred, then why don't you try?"

"It is exactly because I am merciful to Fred that I don't. Here something might turn up, but in Africa, if it were dull, and we know beforehand it would be, deadly, there would be no getting away from it. A doctor can't afford to pay his wife's passage home once a week."

"Oh, Kitty, I would go to the ends of the earth for the man I loved."

"I know you would, you little fool," Kitty spoke very kindly. "Oh, Anne, what views you have about men and women!"

"I am right, in spite of the fact that I have failed," said Anne. "I know there are reliable honest men in the world, worthy of the very best a woman can give them, and if she—she——" Her voice was shaking; all she had hoped and lost came so vividly before her.

"I know—your old story—if she is economically independent you want to say; but although you think a woman must be economically independent in order to be happy with a man, you allow yourself to be so dependent on a man for love that you are bankrupt when he leaves you. Use the same common-sense in your feelings as you do in your monetary affairs——"

"I can't," said Anne, and all her loss swept over her again with full force, "I can't."

"Pooh! Some other man will come." Kitty had talked herself into a cheerful mood again, but Anne interrupted.

"No; never, never. Don't you understand what it was to me? He was—he was——" She stopped, unable to go on, unwilling to break down.

"Oh, my poor Anne. You don't know what a comforter Time is."

Anne turned her face away. "I don't want to be comforted, if the only comfort is to be had in forgetfulness," she said in a whisper.

Kitty put her hand on her hair very kindly.

"Anne, some good will come of it. Cheer up, some good will come of it, and you have your work."

"Yes, I have my work," said Anne forlornly.

"What troubles me is that poor Joe Cunningham hasn't even that. I wish I could help him somehow," and she knitted her brows and looked so desperately thoughtful that Anne laughed.