Complete weird tales of.., p.426
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 426
There is a regulation forbidding prisoners to converse upon the subject of their misdemeanours, but neither he nor she seemed to be aware of it.
Moreover, she was truly convinced that no nun in cloister was as hopelessly certain of safety from world and flesh and devil as was her heart and its meditations, under the aegis of admitted wedlock.
She looked down at the ring she wore, and a faint shiver passed over her.
“You are going to Mrs. Ascott?”
“Yes, to make her a Trianon and a smirking little park. I can’t quarrel with my bread and butter, but I wish people would let these woods alone.”
She sat very still and thoughtful, hands clasped on her knee.
“So you are going to Mrs. Ascott,” she repeated. And, still thoughtful: “I am so fond of Alida Ascott.... She is very pretty, isn’t she?”
“Very,” he said absently.
“Don’t you think so?” — warmly.
“I never met her but once.”
She was considering him, the knuckle of one forefinger resting against her chin in an almost childish attitude of thoughtful perplexity.
“How long are you to remain there, Garry?”
“Where?” — coming out of abstraction.
“There — at Mrs. Ascott’s?”
“Oh, I don’t know — a month, I suppose.”
“Not longer?”
“I can’t tell, Shiela.”
Young Mrs. Malcourt fell silent, eyes on the ground, one knee loosely crossed over the other, and her small foot swinging gently above its blue shadow on the gravel.
Some details in the eternal scheme of things were troubling her already; for one, the liberty of this man to come and go at will; and the dawning perception of her own chaining.
It was curious, too, to be sitting here so idly beside him, and realise that she had belonged to him so absolutely — remembering the thousand thrilling intimacies that bound them immortally together — and now to be actually so isolated, so beyond his reach, so alone, so miserably certain of her soul’s safety!... And now, for the first time, she missed the pleasures of fear — the exquisite trepidation that lay in unsafety — the blessed thrill of peril warning her to avoid his eyes, his touch, his — lips.
She glanced uneasily at him, a slow side gaze; and met his eyes.
Her heart had begun beating faster; a glow grew in her veins; she closed her eyes, sitting there surprised — not yet frightened.
Time throbbed on; rigid, motionless, she endured the pulsing silence while the blood quickened till body and limbs seemed burning; and suddenly, from heart to throat the tension tightened as though a cry, echoing within her, was being strangled.
“Perhaps you had better — go—” she managed to say.
“Why?”
She looked down at her restless fingers interlacing, too confused to be actually afraid of herself or him.
What was there to fear? What occult uneasiness was haunting them? Where might lie any peril, now? How could the battle begin again when all was quiet along the firing line — quiet with the quiet of death? Do dead memories surge up into furies? Can dead hopes burn again? Is there any resurrection for the insurgent passions of the past laid for ever under the ban of wedlock? The fear within her turned to impatience — to a proud incredulity.
And now she felt the calm reaction as though, unbidden, an ugly dream, passing, had shadowed her unawakened senses for a moment, and passed away.
As long as they lived there was nothing to be done. Endurance could cease only with death. What was there to fear? She asked herself, waiting half contemptuously for an answer. But her unknown self had now subsided into the obscurity from whence it rose. The Phantom of the Future was laid.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIII
A CAPITULATION
AS HAMIL LEFT the garden Malcourt sauntered into view, halted, then came forward.
“I’m glad to see you,” he said pleasantly.
“Thank you.”
Neither offered to shake hands; Malcourt, lightly formal, spoke of Hamil’s illness in a few words, using that excellent taste which was at his command when he chose to employ it. He expressed his pleasure in Hamil’s recovery, and said that he was ready at any time to take up the unfinished details of Portlaw’s business, agreeing with Hamil that there remained very little to talk over.
“The main thing, of course, is to squelch William’s last hopes of any Rhine castles,” continued Malcourt, laughing. “If you feel like it to-day I’ll bring over the plans as you sketched them.”
“In a day or two,” nodded Hamil.
“Or perhaps you will lunch with m — with us, and you and I can go over the things comfortably.”
But he saw by the scarcely perceptible change in Hamil’s face that there were to be no such relations between them, informal or otherwise; and he went on quietly, closing his own suggestion:
“Or, if you like, we’ll get Portlaw some morning after his breakfast, and end the whole matter by laying down the law to him.”
“That would be perfectly agreeable to me,” said Hamil. He spoke as though fatigued, and he looked it as he moved toward his house, using his walking-stick. Malcourt accompanied him to the road.
“Hamil,” he said coolly, “may I suggest something?”
The other turned an expressionless face toward him: “What do you wish to suggest?”
“That, some day when you feel physically better, I’d like to go over one or two matters with you — privately—”
“What matters?”
“They concern you and myself.”
“I know of no private matters which concern you and myself — or are ever likely to.”
Malcourt’s face darkened. “I think I warned you once that one day you would misunderstand my friendship for you.”
Hamil straightened up, looking him coldly in the eye.
“Malcourt,” he said, “there is no reason for the slightest pretence between us. I don’t like you; I don’t dislike you; I simply don’t take you into consideration at all. The accident of your intrusion into a woman’s life is not going to make any more difference to me than it has already made, nor can it affect my complete liberty and freedom to do and say what I choose.”
“I am not sure that I understand you, Hamil.”
“Well, you can certainly understand this: that my regard for — Mrs. Malcourt — does not extend to you; that it is neither modified nor hampered by the fact that you happen to exist, or that she now bears your name.”
Malcourt’s face had lost its colour. He began slowly:
“There is no reason, I think—”
“I don’t care what you think!” said Hamil. “It is not of any consequence to me, nor will it govern me in any manner.” He made a contemptuous gesture toward the garden. “Those flower-beds and gravel walks in there — I don’t know whether they belong to you or to Mrs. Malcourt or to Portlaw; and I don’t care. The accidental ownership of property will not prevent my entering it; but its ownership by you would prevent my accepting your personal invitation to use it or even enter it. And now, perhaps, you understand.”
Malcourt, very white, nodded:
“It is so useless,” he said— “all this bitterness. You don’t know what you’re saying.... But I suppose you can’t help it.... It always has been that way; things go to smash if I try to do anything.... Well, Hamil, we’ll go on in your own fashion, if we must — for a while. But” — and he laughed mirthlessly— “if it ends in a little shooting — you mustn’t blame me!”
Hamil surveyed him in cold displeasure.
“I always expected you’d find your level,” he observed.
“Yes, I’ll find it,” mused Malcourt, “as soon as I know what it ought to be. Under pressure it is difficult to ascertain such things; one’s true level may be higher or lower. My father and I have often discussed this matter — and the ethics of straight shooting.”
Hamil’s eyes narrowed.
“If you mean that as a threat” — he began contemptuously; but Malcourt, who had suddenly assumed that curious listening attitude, raised his hand impatiently, as though silencing interruption.
And long after Hamil had turned on his heel and gone, he stood there, graceful head lowered a little and partly turned as though poetically appreciative of the soft twittering music which the bluebirds were making among the falling apple-bloom.
Then, slowly, not noticing Hamil’s departure, he retraced his steps through the garden, head slightly inclined, as though to catch the murmur of some invisible companion accompanying him. Once or twice he nodded, a strange smile creeping over his face; once his lips moved as though asking a question; no sound came from them, but apparently he had his answer, for he nodded assent, halted, drew a deep breath, and looked upward.
“We can try that,” he said aloud in his naturally pleasant voice; and, entering the house, went upstairs to his wife’s apartments.
Shiela’s maid answered his knock; a moment later, Shiela herself, gowned for the afternoon, came to the door, and her maid retired.
“Do you mind my stepping in a moment?” he asked.
She glanced back into her own bedroom, closed the door, and led the way to the small living-room at the other end of the house.
“Where’s that maid of yours?” he asked.
“Sewing in my dressing-room. Shall I send her downstairs?”
“Yes; it’s better.”
So Shiela went away and returned shortly saying that her maid had gone; and then, with a questioning gesture to her husband, she seated herself by the open window and looked out into the sunshine, waiting for him to speak.
“Do you know,” he said abruptly, “what saved Cardross, Carrick & Co. from going to the wall?”
“What?” The quick, crisp question sounded like the crack of a tiny whip.
He looked at her, languidly amused.
“You knew there was a panic?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“You knew that your father and Mr. Carrick were worried?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t realise they were in bad shape?”
“Not — very. Were they?”
“That they needed money, and that they couldn’t go out into the market and borrow it because nobody would lend any money to anybody?”
“I do not understand such details.”
“Details? Ah — yes, quite so.... Then you were not aware that a run was threatened on the Shoshone Securities Company and certain affiliated banks?”
“Yes — but I did not suppose it meant anything alarming.”
“And you didn’t understand that your father and brother-in-law could not convert their securities into the ready cash they needed to meet their obligations — did you?”
“I do not understand details, Louis.... No.”
“Or that they were desperate?”
Her face altered pitifully.
“On the edge of bankruptcy?” he went on.
“What!”
“Then,” he said deliberately, “you don’t know what helped them — what tided them over those two days — what pulled them through by the slimmest margin that ever saved the credit of anybody.”
“Not — my money?”
“Yes; your money.”
“Is it true, Louis?”
“Absolutely.”
She leaned her head on her hand and sat gazing out of the open window. There were tears very near her eyes, but the lids closed and not one fell or even wet the thick lashes resting on her cheeks.
“I supposed it would please you to know what you have done.”
The face she turned toward him was wonderful in its radiance.
She said: “I have never been as happy in all my life, I think. Thank you for telling me. I needed just — that.”
He studied her for a moment, nimble wits at work. Then:
“Has your father — and the others — in their letters, said anything about it to you?”
“Yes, father has. He did not say matters had been desperate.”
“I suppose he does not dare commit such a thing to paper — yet.... You do not burn your letters,” he added blandly.
“I have no reason to.”
“It might save servants’ gossip.”
“What gossip?” — in cold surprise.
“There’s a desk full of Hamil’s letters upstairs, judging from the writing on the envelopes.” He added with a smile: “Although I don’t pry, some servants do. And if there is anything in those letters you do not care to have discussed below stairs, you ought either to lock them up or destroy them.”
Her face was burning hot; but she met his gaze with equanimity, slowly nodding serene assent to his suggestion.
“Shiela,” he said pleasantly, “it looks to me as though what you have done for your family in that hour of need rather balances all accounts between you and them.”
“What?”
“I say that you are square with them for what they have done in the past for you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean, Louis.”
He said patiently: “You had nothing to give but your fortune, and you gave it.”
“Yes.”
“Which settles your obligations toward them — puts them so deeply for ever in your debt that—” He hesitated, considering the chances, then, seriously persuasive:
“They are now in your debt, Shiela. They have sufficient proof of your unselfish affection for them to stand a temporary little shock. Why don’t you administer it?”
“What shock?” — in an altered voice.
“Your divorce.”
“I thought you were meaning that.”
“I do mean it. You ought to have your freedom; you are ruining your own life and Hamil’s, and — and—”
“Yours?”
“Let that go,” he said almost savagely; “I can always get along. But I want you to have your freedom to marry that damned fool, Hamil.”
The quick blood stung her face under his sudden blunt brutality.
“You think that because I returned a little money to my family, it entitles me to publicly disgrace them?”
Malcourt’s patience was fast going.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Shiela, shed your swaddling clothes and act like something adult. Is there any reason why two people situated as we are cannot discuss sensibly some method of mitigating our misfortune? I’ll do anything you say in the matter. Divorce is a good thing sometimes. This is one of the times, and I’ll give you every reason for a successful suit against me—”
She rose, cheeks aflame, and in her eyes scorn ungovernable.
He rose too, exasperated.
“You won’t consider it?” he asked harshly.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not coward enough to ask others to bear the consequences of my own folly and yours!”
“You little fool,” he said, “do you think your family would let you endure me for one second if they knew how you felt? Or what I am likely to do at any moment?”
She stood, without replying, plainly waiting for him to leave the room and her apartments. All her colour had fled.
“You know,” he said, with an ugly glimmer in his eyes, “I need not continue this appeal to your common sense, if you haven’t got any; I can force you to a choice.”
“What choice?” — in leisurely contempt.
He hesitated; then, insolently: “Your choice between — honest wifehood and honest divorce.”
For a moment she could not comprehend: suddenly her hands contracted and clinched as the crimson wave stained her from throat to brow. But in her eyes was terror unutterable.
“I — I beg — your pardon,” he stammered. “I did not mean to frighten you—”
But at his first word she clapped both hands over her ears, staring at him in horror — backing away from him, shrinking flat against the wall.
“Confound it! I am not threatening you,” he said, raising his voice; but she would not hear another word — he saw that now — and, with a shrug, he walked past her, patient once more, outwardly polite, inwardly bitterly amused, as he heard the key snap in the door behind him.
Standing in his own office on the floor below, he glanced vacantly around him. After a moment he said aloud, as though to somebody in the room: “Well, I tried it. But that is not the way.”
Later, young Mrs. Malcourt, passing, saw him seated at his desk, head bent as though listening to something interesting. But there was nobody else in the office.
When at last he roused himself the afternoon sun was shining level in the west; long rosy beams struck through the woods turning the silver stems of the birches pink.
On the footbridge spanning the meadow brook he saw his wife and Hamil leaning over the hand-rail, shoulder almost touching shoulder; and he went to the window and stood intently observing them.
They seemed to be conversing very earnestly; once she threw back her pretty head and laughed unrestrainedly, and the clear sound of it floated up to him through the late sunshine; and once she shook her head emphatically, and once he saw her lay her hand on Hamil’s arm — an impulsive gesture, as though to enforce her words, but it was more like a caress.
A tinge of malice altered Malcourt’s smile as he watched them; the stiffening grin twitched at his cheeks.
“Now I wonder,” he thought to himself, “whether it is the right way after all!... I don’t think I’ll threaten her again with — alternatives. There’s no telling what a fool might do in a panic.” Then, as though the spectacle bored him, he yawned, stretched his arms and back gracefully, turned and touched the button that summoned his servant.
“Order the horses and pack as usual, Simmons,” he said with another yawn. “I’m going to New York. Isn’t Mr. Portlaw here yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you say he went away on horseback?”
“Yes, sir, this morning.”
“And you don’t know where?”
“No, sir. Mr. Portlaw took the South Road.”
Malcourt grinned again, perfectly certain, now, of Portlaw’s destination; and thinking to himself that unless his fatuous employer had been landed in a ditch somewhere, en route, he was by this time returning from Pride’s Fall with considerable respect for Mrs. Ascott.
