Читать книгу The Reckless Lady - Philip Gibbs - Страница 6

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She felt a little sick and faint. Yes, that was the man to whom she once belonged. There had been a safe distance between them for nearly fifteen years—all the way to India. Now he was back. She had forgotten him, or pretended to. She had thrust him into the secret cupboard of her mind, never mentioned him to Stephen and Sylvia—wiped him out of life. Now the sight of him in that crowd, with the sun in his eyes, touched her with the cold remembrance of those things she had tried to forget, believed she had forgotten—the supreme folly of her life, the miserable past, the weakness for which she had paid a frightful price. Now it was all back again. The price had not been paid; he was asking for it.

She would be bound to meet him in Monte Carlo, not a big place, not a town in which it was easy to avoid unpleasant people. They would come face to face, more directly than in that crowd. What should she do then? Pretend not to see him? Stare straight into those hawk-like eyes as though they were a stranger’s?

Yes, she was sick with fright, because of Stephen and Sylvia. She had read that letter which Henry had brought; that terrible letter which had kept her awake all night, in agony.

“I’m getting an old man ... Helen’s wickedness ... I have a right to my children now ... I’m glad that other man died for England’s sake. It blots out his infamy a little.... Send me Helen’s address.... My legal and moral right.”

So he had written, as she remembered every word of it. The same self-righteous, moralising man! Her “wickedness”—yes, but not all her fault. He had driven her to it, because of his stern way, his devotion to duty, when she wanted companionship, gaiety, the fun of life; his utter lack of understanding that a pretty woman, a young wife in an Indian hill station, ought not to be left alone for six months at a stretch. The “other man”; what a poor, weak, treacherous thing! He had left her after six months for another woman; left her penniless with Stephen and Sylvia. His death in the war “for England’s sake” had been the only decent thing in his life. Now Dick was back again, an old man almost, eager to get the son and daughter who owed nothing to him in affection or loyalty. Nothing! She had worked for them, struggled for them, earned every penny for them, except an occasional gift from her own relations, poor as church mice. She had given music lessons, French lessons, Italian lessons until she was sick of the drudgery, and found lately an easier way of getting money—as long as her luck held out. She had brought them up to be innocent and good, to love beauty and the gracious things of life. She had given them a good time, grudging no sacrifice to make them happy. And they adored her and thought her the most wonderful mother in the world. What did they owe to their father in all that? What right had he to come back now, after all these years, and whine for them? She would see herself dead before she yielded them up her genius, Stephen, her beautiful Sylvia!

Mrs. Fleming went to the English tea-shop in the rue de Monaco. A cup of tea might take away that faint feeling she had. Afterwards she would go to the Casino and try her luck for an hour or two....

That was a secret she had to keep from Stephen and Sylvia—that wonderful luck of hers by which they had been living lately. She had had some very nasty knocks now and then. She had been driven almost to her last five francs, but mostly she had made good, winning heavily at times, just when her nerve was beginning to fail. A terrible strain on the nerves! The children little knew how hard it was sometimes to be jolly with them, to keep a laughing face, to enter into their spirit of fun, when her head was aching and her nerves jumping after that torture at the tables.

She had had to lie to them a little, and that was a pity. She had to sneak into the Casino while they were busy elsewhere; Stephen painting, Sylvia playing tennis. At night, sometimes, she slipped down from the little villa they had above the town, while they were dancing at some hotel with a group of friends. Stephen hated leaving her alone, and was conscience-stricken if he went out too much, though sometimes she longed for him to leave her, so that she might find time to earn her living—and theirs, poor dears! Several times she had nearly been caught. Once Stephen had been scared because he had gone to fetch her from a hotel where she was supposed to be dining with some friends—the Harveys—when she was having a streak of bad luck in the Sporting Club. One of her bad nights, and not less because of the bewilderment in her boy’s eyes—the startled doubt—when she told a little white lie to him. It was all very troublesome and nerve-racking, but necessary—for the children’s sake. The only way of giving them their good time, and their chance in life. Lately she had been unlucky again—yesterday she had lost more than she cared to own to herself—but the luck would turn again, as it always did.

In the tea-shop there were some people she knew—an old Colonel Rattray and his wife, who bowed to her from one of the tables, and the old Vicomte de Tilques, who waved a dirty glove at her in a gallant way. She had met him in Biarritz and he was inclined to be amorous in a senile way and called her “chère petite femme” until she flared out at his insolence. At the other end of the shop was the Countess of Wandle who played every night in the Sporting Club, for small stakes, and was bad-tempered when she lost. A fat old thing, with a habit of talking scandal about the beauties of King Edward’s young days when she was one of them—though hard to believe now.

And opposite Mrs. Fleming, at the very next table, was the man who was her husband.

He must have come away from the crowd at the same time as herself and walked faster. It was his voice which startled her and made her wish to hide herself behind the little Japanese tea-pot. How well she remembered that stern way of ordering tea from the servants as though he were giving an order on the parade-ground.

“A pot of Indian tea, not too weak, please. And some buttered toast.”

Ridiculous words to strike terror into a woman’s soul! Mrs. Fleming was conscious of terror. He was bound to see her. Those hawk eyes of his were already roving about the room, looking for any familiar face. They stopped on her. Their eyes met. She felt the blood ebb from her face, leaving it cold. For a moment or two he sat very quiet, while she fumbled with a piece of cake, with her eyes on her plate. Then she was conscious that he had risen from his chair. She heard it slide on the polished boards. He was walking over to her with his steady tread.

“Helen,” he said quietly. “May I have a word with you?”

She spoke in a low voice that sounded strange to her own ears.

“This is hardly the place, is it?”

“That’s true,” he said. “I’ll wait for you outside, if I may. Don’t let me hurry you, though. Finish your tea.”

That was like him always in the old days. That self-control, that insistence on finishing tea first, or breakfast, or dinner—before another quarrel, or a domestic crisis. Like Francis Drake, he would have finished his game of bowls before attacking the Armada.

He countermanded his own tea and left the shop, leaving something for the waitress.

Mrs. Fleming wondered whether fifteen years had made her look as old as he did. He had changed a little in his manner, she thought. He was more gentle, in spite of that way in which he had ordered tea. He looked a little broken. She felt a pang of pity for him. Yes, he must be lonely.... And then she was conscious only of fright again. How would she ward off his demand to see the children, to take charge of them, to steal them from her? Never that! He was pacing up and down outside the shop. She could see his grey-clad figure, his felt hat. He was doing sentry-go! Mrs. Fleming had a wild thought of escaping through the back of the shop, but that was frustrated by a quick glance assuring her that the shop had no back. No way of escape! She would have to face up to it—this awful interview. Perhaps the sooner the better, to get it over.

She paid her small bill, rose in a leisurely way, smiled in answer to the old Vicomte’s bow—a wicked old man!—walked in her elegant way past the tea-tables. She had pride, and nerve, though inwardly she was quaking.

Outside, her husband raised his hat.

“Let’s walk into the gardens,” he said quietly. “There’s sure to be a seat there.”

“What do you want to say to me?” she asked, with a kind of anger in her voice.

He did not answer that question, but spoke again, as though he had not heard.

“I find this cold wind trying, in spite of the sunshine. Getting old, I suppose, and India makes one’s blood thin.”

They walked together, silently, towards the gardens, this man and woman who had once loved with passion. Yes, he had been passionate, and ardent, and romantic, in those early days, and she had clung to him. Twenty-one years since their wedding-day! Fifteen years since her flight from him. Now like yesterday.

“You’ve hardly changed,” he said presently, and gave her a side glance.

She was conscious of a little colour flushing her face. It pleased her vanity—her ridiculous, incurable vanity!—to know that he did not see much change in her.

“I still feel young,” she said. “In spite of—everything.”

Her husband sighed rather loudly, with something like a groan.

“I feel older than my years. India takes it out of a man, especially when his country rewards him for faithful service by base ingratitude. Dyer and I saved India. Everybody who knows India knows that. And those fools howled us down in Parliament, called us assassins, when we had saved the slaughter of white women, forced the Government to censure us—dismiss us from the service, by Heaven! Well, I shan’t live to see the end of the British Empire. But it’s coming.”

Mrs. Fleming made a comical little grimace which he did not see. With her queer sense of humour she was beginning to find a little comedy in this meeting, in spite of its tragedy. It was like that husband of hers to talk about the downfall of the British Empire after all those years. He had seen it coming twenty-one years ago! ... Drat the British Empire!

She said, “Here’s a seat.”

For the life of her she could not have walked a yard further. This meeting had taken all the strength from her. And her heart was beating ridiculously.

She sat down on one of the white wooden seats under the palm-trees in the Casino gardens. Some of the Carnival folk passed in their masks and dominoes. One of them was blowing a squeaker through his pasteboard mask with its long nose. Another threw a handful of confetti at her as he passed.

“Life’s not a Carnival,” said her husband, with contempt. “It’s mostly tragedy. Like yours and mine, Helen.”

“Mostly mine,” she answered. “You’ve been all right.”

He poked the gravel path with his stick.

“I’m not going back into old history,” he said. “You needn’t be afraid of that. Let the dead past bury its dead, with all its wickedness and weakness.”

“The past comes back sometimes,” said Mrs. Fleming bitterly. She resented this coming back of her own past, when she had buried it so deeply, with such infinite care.

That old Richard of hers—Dick, as she had called him—was still fiddling about in the gravel with the point of his stick. He seemed to be talking to himself rather than to her, thinking aloud, she supposed.

“At our time of life—mine, anyhow—we can only pray for strength to carry on and do our duty to the end.”

“Duty!”

She spoke the word with a laugh, very scornful. How she had hated that word! He had always been using it in the old days as a reason for the most unpleasant things, as the unanswerable argument. “It’s my duty, Helen. Don’t you see that? ... I hate leaving you alone so much. But I must do my duty. Don’t you understand?”

No, she had not understood. She had refused to understand why her life should be spoilt for that mystic tyranny over her husband’s soul. Duty! Fiddlesticks! What about a husband’s duty to a pretty young wife, bored, lonely, homesick, restless, full of spirit?

He looked at her searchingly when she mocked at that word. It seemed to remind him of the old days.

“Yes, I remember!” he said. “You never liked the idea of duty. Perhaps I made a fetish of it. But I still believe in it as the guiding principle of life. Otherwise there’s anarchy, and no law. Look at England—now! All these damned Socialists clamouring for rights. They never say a word about duties.”

“I believe in tolerance,” said Mrs. Fleming. “Tolerance, kindness, charity, pity.”

It was very absurd that they should be talking abstract principles like this in these gardens of the Casino. It was utterly ridiculous, if one looked at it with a sense of humour. Unfortunately her sense of humour was feeling a little weak, submerged by a creepy-crawly feeling of fear. What did he want with her? Why had he waylaid her like this?

He was thinking over her words.

“Tolerance?” he asked. “I never believed in it much. One can’t tolerate evil. That’s weakness. But I agree about charity and kindness. I want to be kind, Helen. Looking back, I see that I was a little to blame—for what happened. Too hard, perhaps. Too hot-tempered. Too impatient with your love of pleasure. Unkind, sometimes.... Well, if it’s any good to you, Helen, you have my forgiveness after all these years. For the sake of the children.”

So it had come, as she knew that it must come. It was to get the children that he wished to forget and forgive. Never! Never!

“They’ve grown up,” he said. “Stephen and Sylvia! I remember them as curly-headed babies, and rather a nuisance! Always crying with their ayah. Different now! Sylvia is charming. Almost a woman, and as beautiful as you were, Helen. And the boy is attractive. A fine fellow.”

Mrs. Fleming stared at him in a startled, bewildered way.

“How do you know?” she asked. “Where did you see them?”

“I took tea with them,” he answered with the smile of a man who has stolen a march on the enemy. “I didn’t tell them who I was, though. Not quite fair before seeing you.”

Mrs. Fleming gave a little cry of anguish which startled two old ladies strolling through the Casino gardens with their sunshades up. They turned to look at her a moment.

“How dare you speak to them!” she asked fiercely. “How dare you! They’re mine!”

“Mine too,” said her husband quietly.

“No,” she said. “I’ve brought them up, educated them, given them everything in life. For fifteen years you’ve ignored them utterly.”

“For your sake, partly,” said Colonel Fleming. “I didn’t want to be cruel—in spite of everything. I was hard, as you say, but not cruel.”

“You didn’t want them,” said Mrs. Fleming. “You lived your life in India and cared for nothing else.”

“What else was there to care for,” he asked, “after you had left me, Helen? You forget that I loved you, in my hard way. Hard men love most, perhaps! Anyhow, after you went there was only my duty. I gave my life to India. Before the war, during the war, after the war. For the Empire’s sake. Now I’m back, unrewarded, broken and lonely. Damned lonely. That’s why I want my boy and girl.”

“They’re mine!” said Mrs. Fleming, and there was passion in her voice.

“Mine too,” said Colonel Fleming quietly again. “A share of them, Helen. That’s all I ask; a share.”

“No,” said Mrs. Fleming. “No. You will want to steal them from me. You will tell them how wicked I was, how noble you were! Because you’re lonely now, after your work in India—at a loose end—you think that you can come back like this and take them from me, after years of forgetfulness. You want a little companionship! How nice to have a son and daughter ready made! To comfort you in your old age! ... You should have thought of that before. Your forgiveness is too late, my friend. I don’t want your forgiveness. You didn’t give it when I asked for it, prayed for it, on bended knees, weeping, broken-hearted, afraid. You spoke of duty then, and that wonderful honour of yours! You cursed me and cast me out. Nothing would have happened if you had had a little pity in your heart—a little understanding. Do you remember that night in the Cromwell Road when you came home on leave? I remember! You went away, leaving me to that man, with the two little ones—rather a nuisance then! Always crying with their ayah! You went back to India. Duty to the Empire! A stern, righteous, wronged man! And I stayed with the children, working for them, with never a penny from you, nor from those rich relatives of yours, those narrow, mean, virtuous people of yours, so shocked because of my immorality!”

“That’s not fair,” said Colonel Fleming sharply. “I sent you money which you refused to take. I was willing to make a generous allowance. I have settled everything on the two children.”

Mrs. Fleming ignored him and continued her passionate monologue.

“I’ve drudged for that boy and girl of mine, suffered for them, given them the best in my heart and soul. They think I’m wonderful—the best woman in the world. Do you think I’m going to let you rake up the past with them, spoil their ideal of me, take them over from me? No! They’re what I’ve made them, by love. By love! They’re all mine now. Every bit of them. Go away and leave them to me.”

Colonel Fleming poked the path with his stick again, tapped one little pebble which had become loosened.

“I’ve a legal right,” he said. “I should hate to use that argument—hardly fair!—but I’ve a legal right. They’re my children. I want to know them. Morally, I’ve a right.”

“None!” answered Mrs. Fleming, harshly.

“As for the past,” said Colonel Fleming, “I suppose they know something about it already? Surely you’ve told them something? They’re old enough to know.”

“They’re innocent,” she answered. “I’ve kept them innocent. They know only that we quarrelled, and parted. And they’re on my side!”

She spoke the last words with a kind of triumph in her voice. It was her victory—this love of her children. They believed in her. They were on her side. He could not alter that.

“You ought to have told them,” said the Colonel gloomily. “One day they’ll find out. Bound to. Then they will think the worse of you. Truth is always best.”

Mrs. Fleming became a little pale. He had touched upon the secret fear of her life, against which she had always fought. “One day they will find out.” For years she had postponed that day when Stephen’s eyes would lose their adoration of her, because of that finding out; when Sylvia’s innocence of life would be smirched and spoilt by the knowledge of her mother’s guilt. She had warned old friends, avoided people who had known her in India—except dear old Henry, who could be trusted to the death—kept away from England, built up a careful barrier of silence between the present and the past, laughed away the sudden startling childish questions of Stephen and Sylvia about her early days of marriage. “What sort of a man was our father?” “Why did you quarrel with him?” “Why doesn’t he send you any money?” “Why don’t you marry again, Mother?—you’re young enough, and wonderfully beautiful!” For several years they hadn’t worried about all that. She had kept them so busy with the present, so satisfied with the life she had made for them. But one day they were bound to find out—and that day had come near because of this man’s apparition.

Colonel Fleming spoke again.

“I don’t want to worry you, or hurry you. Think it out, Helen. Let me have the children for six months or so each year. I’d like to take them back to England with me.”

Mrs. Fleming rose from the seat, and there was no colour in her face, her beautiful face into which laughter came so quickly, as a rule.

“I would rather die first,” she said, hoarsely, and she put out her hands, as though warding off the vision of that parting—for six months!—with the boy and girl who were all things in life to her.

“Think it over,” said Colonel Fleming. “I beg of you.”

But Mrs. Fleming walked away from him without an answer, leaving him standing there, poking the gravel, in the sunlight that shone through the tall palm-trees in the gardens of the Casino.