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Title: Suspense, Volume II (of 3)
Author: Henry Seton Merriman
Release date: September 23, 2024 [eBook #74461]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Richard Bentley and Son
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUSPENSE, VOLUME II (OF 3) ***
SUSPENSE
BY
HENRY SETON MERRIMAN
AUTHOR OF 'YOUNG MISTLEY,' 'THE PHANTOM FUTURE'
ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
1890
[_All rights reserved_]
Some there are who laugh and sing
While compassed round by sorrow;
To this ev'ning's gloom they bring
The sunshine of to-morrow.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER
I. AT SEA
II. SISTERS
III. ALICE RETURNS
IV. TO THE FRONT
V. UNDER FIRE
VI. TRIST ACTS
VII. QUICKSANDS
VIII. MASKED
IX. IN CASE OF WAR
X. A PROBLEM
XI. MRS. WYLIE LEADS
XII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SEA
XIII. CROSS-PURPOSES
XIV. A SOCIAL CONSPIRACY
SUSPENSE
CHAPTER I.
AT SEA.
One fine day late in the autumn of eighteen hundred and seventy-six,
a steamer emerged from the haze that lay over the Atlantic and the
northern waters of the Bay of Biscay. Those who were working in the
fields behind the lighthouse of the Pointe de Raz saw her approach
the land, sight the lighthouse, and then steer outwards again on a
course due north through the channel dividing the Ile de Sein from
the rocky headland jutting out from this most western point of Europe
into the Atlantic.
Those on board the steamer, looking across the blue waters, saw the
faint outline of a high broken coast, and all round them a sea
divided into races and smooth deep pools large enough to anchor a
whole fleet had there been bottom within reach. Islands, islets, and
mere rocks; some jutting high up, some nestling low. A dangerous
coast, and a splendid fishing-ground.
There were further points of interest on the waters; namely, a whole
fleet of sardine-boats from Douarnenez and Audierne, scudding here
and there with their bright brown sails, sometimes glowing in the
sun, sometimes brooding darkly in the shadow. It was a beautiful
picture, because the colours were brilliant; the blue sea gradually
merged into bright green, and finished off in the distance with
yellow sand or deep-brown cliff. The hills towards Breste, to the
north, were faintly outlined in a shadowy haze of blue, while close
at hand the long Atlantic sweep came bounding in and broke into
dazzling white over the rocks.
On the deck of the steamer the passengers paused in their afternoon
promenade, and, leaning their arms on the high rail, contemplated the
bright scene with evident satisfaction. The small fishing-boats were
of a more British build than most of them had seen for some years.
The brown lug-sails were like the sails of an English fishing-boat,
and many of these swarthy-faced wanderers had recollections of
childhood which came surging into their minds at the sight of a blue
sea with a brown sail on it. The high rocky land might well be
England, with its neat yellow lighthouse and low-roofed cottages
nestling among the scanty foliage and careful cultivation. It was so
very different from Madras, so unlike Bombay, so infinitely superior
to Hong Kong. The breeze even was different from any that had
touched their faces for many a day, and some of them actually felt
cold--a sensation almost forgotten.
The captain of this splendid steamer was a gentleman as well as a
good sailor, and he endeavoured to make his passengers feel at home
while under his care. Therefore he now walked aft and stood beside
the chair of a beautiful woman who was always alone, always
indifferent, always repelling.
'This is a pretty sight, Mrs. Huston,' he said pleasantly, without
looking down at her, but standing beside her chair. He gazed across
the water towards the Pointe de Raz, with the good-natured patience
of a man who does not intend to be snubbed. Once, during his first
voyage as commander, a woman had disappeared from the deck one dark
night, and since then the shrewd 'passenger' captain had kept his eye
upon pretty women who neither flirted nor quarrelled at sea.
'Yes,' was the indifferent answer; and the sailor's keen gray eyes
detected the fact that the fair lashes were never raised.
'It brings the fact before one,' he continued, 'that we are getting
near home.'
'Yes,' with pathetic indifference. She did not even make the
pretence of looking up, and yet there was no visible interest in the
book that lay upon her lap.
The sailor moved a little, and leant his elbows upon the rail,
looking round his ship with a critical and all-seeing eye.
'I hope,' he said cheerily, 'that there is no one on board to whom
the sight of Eddystone will not give unmitigated pleasure. We shall
be there before any of us quite realize that the voyage is drawing to
an end.'
Then the beautiful woman made a little effort. The man's kindness of
heart was so obvious, his disinterested desire to cheer her voluntary
solitude was so gentlemanly in its feeling and so entirely free from
any suggestion of inquisitiveness, that she, as a lady, could no
longer treat him coldly. All through the voyage this same quiet
watchfulness over her comfort (which displayed itself in little
passing acts, and never in words) had been exercised by the man,
whose most difficult duties were not, perhaps, connected solely with
the perils of the sea. She raised her head and smiled somewhat
wanly, and there was in the action and in the expression of her eyes
a sudden singular resemblance to Brenda Gilholme. But it was a weak
copy. There was neither the invincible pluck nor the unusual
intellectuality to be discerned.
'I shall be glad,' she said, 'to see England again. Although the
voyage has been very pleasant and very ... peaceful. Thanks to you.'
'Not at all,' he answered with breezy cheerfulness; 'I have done
remarkably little to make things pleasant. It has been a quiet
voyage. We are, I think, a quiet lot this time. Invalids mostly--in
body, or mind!'
At these last words the lady looked up suddenly into the captain's
pleasant face. In her manner there was a faint suggestion of
coquetry--so faint as only to be a very pleasing suggestion. Women
who have been flirts in former years have this glance, and they never
quite lose it. Personally speaking, I like it. There comes from its
influence an innocent and very sociable sensation of familiarity with
old and young alike. Someday I shall write a learned disquisition on
the art and so-called vice of flirting. Look out for it, reader.
Mind and secure an early copy from your stationer. From its
thoughtful pages you cannot fail to glean some instructive matter.
And ye, oh flirts! buy it up and show it to your friends; for it will
be a defence of your maligned species. Flirts are the salt of social
existence. A girl who cannot flirt is ... is ... well ... is not the
girl for me.
The mariner looked down into the sad face, and smiled in a
comprehensive way which seemed in some inexplicable manner to bring
them closer together.
'Then,' said the lady, 'as I am in the enjoyment of rude health and
likely to last for some years yet, I may infer that you know all
about me.'
The captain looked grave.
'I know,' he answered, 'just little enough to be able to reply that I
know nothing when people do me the honour of inquiring; and just
sufficient to feel that your affairs are better left undiscussed by
us.'
She nodded her head, and sat looking at her own hands in a dull,
apathetic way. Woman-like, she acted in direct opposition to his
most obvious hint.
'I suppose,' she murmured, 'that gossips have been thrashing the
whole question out with their customary zest.'
'Ceylon is a hot-bed of gossips. Everyone is up in his neighbour's
affairs, and a fine voyage in a comfortable steamer is not calculated
to still busy tongues!'
She shrugged her shoulders indifferently, and looked up at him with a
slight pout of her pretty lips.
'Who cares?' she asked with well-simulated levity. He, however, did
not choose to appear as if he were deceived, which simple feat was
well within his histrionic capabilities; for his life was one long
succession of petty diplomatic efforts.
'I think,' he said coolly, 'that you have done perfectly right in
keeping yourself quite apart from the rest of them.' He looked round
upon the other passengers, seated or lolling about the deck, with a
fatherly tolerance. 'And if I may suggest it, you cannot do better
than to continue doing so for the next day or two. Avoid more
particularly the older women. The jealousy of a young girl is
dangerous, but the repelled patronage of an older woman, bristling
with the consciousness of her own wearisome irreproachability, is
infinitely more to be feared!'
This remark from the lips of a man who undoubtedly knew more than is
usually known of the feminine side of humanity appeared to suggest
material for thought to the somewhat shallow brain of his hearer.
She dropped the lightly reckless style at once, and the thought that
this honest and simple-hearted sailor was in love with her slowly
died a natural death. There followed, moreover, upon its demise an
uncomfortable suggestion that, although he was probably honest, he
was not consequently simple-hearted--that he was, in fact, a match
for her, and, knowing it, was not at that moment disposed to measure
mental blades with her.
'I am glad,' she said humbly, 'that my sister will be at Plymouth to
meet me.'
'Did you,' inquired the sailor, 'write from Port Said to Miss
Gilholme?'
She raised her head with a questioning air, but did not look up.
'Miss Gilholme,' she repeated--'how do you know her name?'
'Oh,' laughed the captain, 'I am a sort of walking directory. There
is a constant procession of men and women passing before me. Many of
them turn aside and say a few words. Sometimes we find mutual
acquaintances, sometimes only mutual interests. Sometimes they pass
by again, and on occasion we become friends.'
'Then you have not met her?'
'No--I have not had that pleasure.'
'It _is_ a pleasure,' said the beautiful woman very earnestly. Had
she only known it, her face was infinitely lovelier in grave repose
than in most piquante _bouderie_.
'I can quite believe it,' replied the sailor, with a gallantry which
even Mrs. Huston could not take as anything more than conventional.
'She is my guardian angel!' murmured she pathetically.
Her companion smiled slightly, in a very unsympathetic way. His
opinion of 'guardian angels' was taken from a practical and
lamentably unpoetical point of view. Having played the part himself
on several occasions with more or less conspicuous success, he
inclined to a belief that the glory of guardian angelism is of a
negative description. There are certain people in the world who will
accept all and any service, and to whom the feeling of indebtedness
is without a hint of shame. In time they come to consider such
service as has previously and hitherto been rendered them in the
light of a precedent. Gradually the debt seems to glide from the
shoulders of the debtor to those of the creditor, and having once
rendered a service, the renderer has simply placed himself under an
obligation to continue doing so.
When Mrs. Huston, therefore, mentioned the fact that her sister was
her guardian angel, the pathos of the observation was somewhat lost
upon her hearer; who, moreover, was slightly prejudiced against
Brenda because such guardian angels as had crossed his path were of a
weak and gullible nature. He never made her acquaintance, but the
impression thus conceived--though totally erroneous--was never
dispelled by such small details of her story as came to his knowledge
in later years.
'I hear,' the captain went on to explain, in his cheery impersonal
way, 'scraps of family histories here and there, and then am rather
surprised to meet members of these families, or persons connected
with them.'
Mrs. Huston bravely quelled a desire to talk of her own affairs, and
smiled vaguely.
'I have no doubt,' she said with mechanical pleasantness, 'that we
have a great many mutual acquaintances--if we only knew how to hit
upon the vein.'
'Of course we have--the world, and especially the Indian world, is
very small.'
'I wonder who they are?' murmured Mrs. Huston, raising her eyes to
her companion's face.
'Mention a few of your friends,' he suggested, looking down into her
eyes somewhat keenly.
'No--you begin!'
He changed his position somewhat, and stood upright, free from the
rail, but his glance never left her face.
'Theodore Trist!'
Instantly she averted her eyes. For a moment she was quite off her
guard, and her fingers strayed in a nervous, aimless way among the
pages of her open book. To her pale cheeks the warm colour mounted
as if a glowing ruby reflection had suddenly been cast upon the
delicate skin.
She expressed no surprise by word or gesture, and there was a pause
of considerable duration before at length she spoke.
'Where is he now?' she asked in a low voice.
The captain stroked his grizzled moustache reflectively. He acted
his part well, despite her sudden and lamentable failure.
'Let me think ... He is in Constantinople to the best of my
knowledge. He is engaged in watching Eastern affairs. It seems that
Turkey and Russia cannot keep their hands off each other's throats
much longer. At present there is an armistice, but Trist has been
through the late war between Servia and Turkey.'
'Do you know him well?' she asked at length, after a second pause.
'Yes. He is a friend of mine.'
'A great friend?'
'I think I may say so.'
'He is also a friend of ours--of my sister and myself,' said Mrs.
Huston calmly.
She had quite recovered her equanimity by now, and the pink colour
had left her cheeks.
'I have known him,' said the captain conversationally, 'for many
years now. Soon after he made his name he went out to the East with
me, and we struck up a friendship. He is not a man who makes many
friends, I imagine.'
'No,' murmured Mrs. Huston, in a voice which implied that the subject
was not distasteful to her, but she preferred her companion to talk
while she listened.
'But,' continued the sailor, 'those who claim him as a friend have an
unusual privilege. He is what we vaguely call at sea a "good" man--a
man upon whom it is safe to place reliance in any emergency, under
all circumstances.'
'Yes,' said the lady softly.
'He has been doing wonderful work out in the East since the beginning
of the insurrection. We have a set of men out there such as no
nation in the world could produce except England--fellows who go
about with their lives literally in their hands, for they're
virtually unprotected--men who are soldiers, statesmen, critics,
writers and explorers all in one. They run a soldier's risk without
the recompense of a soldier's grave. A statesman's craft must be
theirs, while they are forced to keep two diplomatic requirements
ever before their eyes. England _must_ have news; the army
authorities (whose word is law) _must_ be conciliated. Travelling by
day and night alike, never resting for many consecutive hours, never
laying aside the responsibility that is on their shoulders, they are
expected to write amidst the din of battle, on a gun-carriage
perhaps, often in the saddle, and usually at night when the wearied
army is asleep; they are expected, moreover, to write well, so that
men sitting by their firesides in London, with books of reference at
hand, may criticise and seek in vain for slip or error. They are
expected to criticise the stratagem of the greatest military heads
around them without the knowledge possessed by the officers who
dictate their coming and their going, throwing them a piece of stale
news here and there as they would throw a bone to a dog. All this,
and more, is done by our war-correspondents; and amidst these
wonderful fellows Theodore Trist stands quite alone, immeasurably
superior to them all.'
The vehement sailor was interrupted by the sound of the first
dinner-bell, and a general stir on deck. At sea, meal-times are
hailed with a more visible joy than is considered decorous on land,
and no time is lost in answering the glad summons.
Mrs. Huston rose languidly from her seat and moved forward towards
the spacious saloon staircase.
'Yes,' she answered thoughtfully; 'Theo must be very clever. It is
difficult to realize that one's friends are celebrated, is it not?'
The captain walked by her side, suiting his crisp, firm step to her
languid gait, which was, nevertheless, very graceful in its rhythmic
ease. Her voice was clear, gentle, and somewhat indifferent. On her
face there was no other expression than the customary suggestion of
pathetic apathy.
'I suppose,' she continued in a conventional manner, 'that he will
not be home for some time.'
'No. There will be a big war before this question is settled, and
Trist will be in the thick of it.'
With a slight inclination of the head she passed away from him and
disappeared down the saloon stairs. The captain turned away and
mounted the little brass ladder leading to the bridge with
sailor-like deliberation.
'And, young woman,' he muttered to himself, 'you had better go down
to your cabin and thank your God on your bended knees that Theodore
Trist is not in England, nor likely to cross your path for many
months to come.'
He looked round him with his habitual cheery keenness, and said a few
words to the second officer who was on duty. Could he have seen
Theodore Trist standing at that moment on the deck of a quick
despatch-boat, racing through the Bosphorus and bound for England, he
would not, perhaps, have laughed so heartily at a very mild joke made
by his subordinate a few moments later.
'And yet,' he reflected as he made his way below in answer to the
second dinner-bell--'and yet she does not seem to me to be the sort
of woman for Trist--not good enough! Perhaps the gossips are wrong
after all, and he does not care for her!'
CHAPTER II.
SISTERS.
More than one idler in Plymouth Station, one morning in October,
turned his head to look again at two women walking side by side on
the platform near to the London train. One, the taller of the two,
was exceptionally beautiful, of a fair delicate type, with an almost
perfect figure and a face fit for a model of the Madonna, so pure in
outline was it, so innocent in its meaning. The younger woman was
slightly shorter. She was clad in mourning, which contrasted
somewhat crudely with the brighter costume of her companion. It was
evident that these two were sisters; they walked in the same easy
way, and especially notable was a certain intrepid carriage of the
head, which I venture to believe is essentially peculiar to high-born
Englishwomen.
By the side of her sister, Brenda Gilholme might easily pass
unnoticed. Mrs. Huston was, in the usual sense of the word, a
beautiful woman, and such women live in an atmosphere of notoriety.
Wherever they go they are worshipped at a distance by those beneath
them in station, patronized by those above them, respected by their
equals, because, forsooth, face and form are moulded with delicacy
and precision. The mind of such a woman is of little importance; the
person is pleasing, and more is not demanded. Only her husband will
some day awaken to the fact that worship from a distance might have
been more satisfactory. The effect of personal beauty is a
lamentable factor which cannot be denied. All men, good and bad
alike, come under its influence. A lovely woman can twist most of us
round her dainty finger with a wanton disregard for the powers of
intellect or physical energy.
Brenda was not beautiful; she was only pretty, with a dainty
refinement of heart which was visible in her delicate face. But her
prettiness was in no way tainted with weakness, as was her sister's
beauty. She was strong and thoughtful, with a true woman's faculty
for hiding these unwelcome qualities from the eyes of inferior men.
She had grown up in the shadow of this beautiful sister, and men had
not cared to seek for intellect where they saw only a reflected
beauty. She had passed through a social notoriety, but eager eyes
had only glanced at her in passing. She had merely been Alice
Gilholme's sister, and now--here on Plymouth platform--Alice Huston
was assuming her old superiority. My brothers, think of this! It
must have been a wondrous love that overcame such drawbacks, that
passed by with tolerance a thousand daily slights. And Brenda's love
for her sister accomplished all this. Ah, and more! In the days
that followed there was a greater wrong--a wrong which only blind
selfishness could have inflicted--and this also Brenda Gilholme
forgave.
The sisters had met on the steamboat landing a few moments
previously. A rattling drive through the town had followed, and now
they were able to speak together alone for the first time. There had
been no display of emotion. The beautiful lips had met lightly, the
well-gloved fingers had clasped each other with no nervous hysterical
fervour, and now it would seem that they had parted but a week ago.
Emotion is tabooed in the school through which these two had
passed--the school of nineteenth-century society--and, indeed, we
appear to get along remarkably well without it.
'My dear,' Mrs. Huston was saying, 'he will be home by the next boat
if he can raise the money. We cannot count on more than a week's
start.'
'And,' inquired Brenda, 'can he raise the money?'
'Oh yes! If he can get as far as the steamboat office without
spending it.'
Brenda looked at her sister in a curious way.
'Spending it on what ... Alice?'
'On--drink!'
Mrs. Huston was not the woman to conceal any of her own grievances
from quixotically unselfish motives.
Brenda thought for some moments before replying.
'Then,' she said at length, with some determination, 'we must make
sure of our start, if, that is, you are still determined to leave
him.'
Mrs. Huston was looking down at her sister's neat black dress, about
which there was a subtle air of refined luxury, which seems natural
to some women, and part of their being.
'Yes, yes, I suppose we must. By the way, dear, you are in mourning
... for whom?'
'For Admiral Wylie,' replied Brenda patiently.
'But it is two months--is it not?--since his death, and he was no
relation. I think it is unnecessary. Black is so melancholy, though
it suits your figure.'
'I am living with Mrs. Wylie,' Brenda explained with unconscious
irony. 'Are you still determined that you cannot live with your
husband, Alice?'
'My dear, he is a brute! I am not an impulsive person, but I think
that if he should catch me again, it is very probable that I should
do something desperate--kill myself, or something of that sort.'
'I do not think,' observed Brenda serenely, 'that you would ever kill
yourself.'
The beautiful woman laughed in an easy, lightsome way, which was one
of her many social gifts. It was such a pleasantly infectious laugh,
so utterly light-hearted, and so ready in its vocation of filling up
awkward pauses.
'No, perhaps not. But in the meantime, what is to become of me?
Will Mrs. Wylie take me in for a day or two, or shall we seek
lodgings? I have some money, enough to last a month or so; but I
must have two new dresses.'
'Mrs. Wylie has kindly said that you can stay as long as you like.
But, Alice, it would never do to stay in London. You must get away
to some small place on the sea-coast, or somewhere where you will not
be utterly bored, and keep in hiding until he comes home, and I can
find out what he intends to do.'
'My dear, I shall be utterly bored anywhere except in London. But
Brenda, tell me ... you have got into a habit of talking exactly like
Theo Trist!'
Brenda met her sister's eyes with a bright smile.
'How funny!' she exclaimed. 'I have not noticed it.'
'No, of course; you--would not notice it. When will he be home?'
The girl stopped and looked critically at an advertisement suspended
on the wall near at hand. It was a huge representation of a coloured
gentleman upon his native shore, making merry over a complicated pair
of braces. She had never seen the work of art before, and for some
unknown reason in the months--ay, and in the years that followed--her
dislike for it was almost nauseating in its intensity.
'I don't know,' she replied indifferently.
'We,' continued Mrs. Huston, following out her own train of thought,
'are so helpless. We want a man to stand by us. Of course papa is
of no use. I suppose he is spouting somewhere about the country. He
generally is.'
'No,' replied Brenda, with a wonderful tolerance. 'We cannot count
on him. He is in Ireland. I had a postcard from him the other day.
He said that I was not to be surprised or shocked to hear that he was
in prison. He is trying to get himself arrested. It is, he says,
all part of the campaign.'
Again Mrs. Huston's pretty laughter made things pleasant and sociable.
'I wonder what that means,' she exclaimed, smoothing a wrinkle out of
the front of her jacket for the benefit of a military-looking man,
with a cigar in his mouth, who stared offensively as he passed.
Brenda shrugged her shoulders slightly, and said nothing. She did
not appear to attach a very great importance to her father's
political movements, in which culpable neglect she was abetted by the
whole of England.
'What we require,' continued Mrs. Huston, 'is an energetic man with
brains.'
'I am afraid that energetic men with brains have in most cases their
own affairs to look after. It is only the idle ones with tongues who
have time to devote to other people's business.'
'The "brute," my dear, is clever; we must remember that. And he is
terribly obstinate. There is a sort of stubborn bloodhoundism about
him which makes me shiver when I think that he is even now after me,
in all probability.'
'We must be cool and cunning, and brave to fight against him,' said
Brenda practically.
At this moment the guard came forward, and held the door of their
compartment invitingly open. They got in, and found themselves
alone. They were barely seated, opposite to each other, when the
train glided smoothly away.
Brenda sat a little forward, with her gloved hand resting on the
window, which had been lowered by the guard. They were seated on the
landward side of the train, and as she looked out her eyes rested on
the rising hills to the north with a vague, unseeing gaze.
A slight movement made by Mrs. Huston caused her at length to look
across, and the two sisters sat for a second searching each other's
eyes for the old heartwhole frankness which never seems to survive
the death of childhood and the birth of separate interests in life.
'Theo,' said the elder woman significantly at last, 'is brave and
cool and cunning, Brenda.'
The girl made an effort, but the old childish confidence was dead.
From Theo Trist, the disciple of stoicism, she had perhaps learnt
something of a creed which, if a mistaken one, renders its followers
of great value in the world, for they never intrude their own private
feelings upon public attention. That effort was the last. It was a
beginning in itself--the first stone of a wall destined to rise
between the two sisters, built by the gray hands of Time.
'But,' suggested Brenda, 'Theo is in Bulgaria.'
Mrs. Huston smiled with all the conscious power of a woman who,
without being actually vain, knows the market value and the moral
weight of her beauty.
'Suppose I telegraphed to him that I wanted him to come to me at
once.'
Brenda fixed her eyes upon her sister's face. For a second her
dainty lip quivered.
'You must not do that,' she said, in such a tone of invincible
opposition that her sister changed colour, and looked somewhat
hastily in another direction.
'I suppose,' murmured the elder woman after a short silence, 'that it
is quite impossible to find out when he may return?'
'Quite impossible. This "Eastern Question," as it is called, is so
complicated that I have given up trying to follow it--besides, I do
not see what Theo has to do with the matter. We must act alone,
Alice.'
'But women are so helpless.'
Brenda smiled in a slightly ironical way.
'Why should they be?' she asked practically. 'I am not afraid of
Captain Huston. He is a gentleman, at all events.'
'He _was_!' put in his wife bitterly.
'And I suppose there is something left of his former self?'
'Not very much, my dear. At least, that phase of his present
condition has been religiously hidden from my affectionate gaze.'
Brenda drew her gloves pensively up her slim wrists, smoothing out
the wrinkles in the black kid. There was in her demeanour an air of
capable attention, something between that accorded by a general to
his aide-de-camp on the field of battle, and the keen watchfulness of
a physician while his patient speaks.
'Theo,' she said conversationally, 'would be a great comfort to us.
He is so steadfast and so entirely reliable. But we must do without
him. We will manage somehow.'
'I am horribly afraid, Brenda. It has just come to me; I have never
felt it before. You seem to take it so seriously, and ... and I
expected to find Theo at home.'
'Theo is one of the energetic men with brains who have their own
affairs to attend to,' said Brenda, in her cheery way. 'We are not
his affairs; besides, as I mentioned before, he is in Bulgaria--in
his element, in the midst of confusion, insurrection, war.'
'But,' repeated Mrs. Huston, with aggravating unconsciousness of the
obvious vanity of her words, 'suppose I telegraphed for him?'
Brenda laughed, and shook her head.
'I have a melancholy presentiment that if you telegraphed for him he
would not come. There is a vulgar but weighty proverb about making
one's own bed, which he might recommend to our notice.'
'Then Theo must have changed!'
Brenda raised her round blue eyes, and glanced sideways out of the
window. She was playing idly with the strap of the sash, tapping the
back of her hand with it.
'Theo,' she observed indifferently, 'is the incarnation of
steadfastness. He has not changed in any perceptible way. But he
is, before all else, a war-correspondent. I cannot imagine that
anyone should possess the power of dragging him away from the seat of
war.'
Mrs. Huston smiled vaguely for her own satisfaction. Her imagination
was apparently capable of greater things. It was rather to be
deplored that, when she smiled, the expression of her beautiful face
was what might (by a true friend behind her back) be called a trifle
vacuous.
'He wrote,' continued the younger sister, 'a very good article the
other day, which came just within the limits of my understanding. It
was upon the dangers of alliance; and he showed that an ally who, in
any one way, might at some time prove disadvantageous, is better
avoided from the very first. It was _àpropos_ of the
Turkish-Christian subjects welcoming a Russian invasion. It seems to
me, Alice, that our position is rather within the reach of that
argument.'
'Being a soldier's wife, I do not know much about military matters;
but it seems to me that a retreat should be safely covered at all
costs.'
'Not at _all_ costs,' said Brenda significantly. Her colour had
changed, and there was a wave of pink slowly mounting over her throat.
Mrs. Huston smiled serenely, and shrugged her shoulders.
'I do not see,' she expostulated frankly, 'what harm there can be in
calling in the aid of an old friend.'
'I would rather work alone!' was Brenda's soft reply.
And in those two casual remarks there lay hidden from the gaze of
blinder mortals the story of two lives.
CHAPTER III.
ALICE RETURNS.
In her pleasant room on the second-floor of Suffolk Mansions, Mrs.
Wylie awaited the arrival of the two sisters.
From without there came a suggestion of bustling life in the
continuous hum of wheel-traffic and an occasional cry, not
unmelodious, from enterprising news-vendors. Within, everything
spoke of peaceful, pleasant comfort. There was a large table in the
centre of the room literally covered with periodical and permanent
literature--a pleasant table to sit by, for there was invariably
something of interest lying upon it, a safe stimulant to
conversation. The dullest and shyest man could always find something
to say to the ready listener who sat in a low cane-chair just beyond
the table, near the fire, with her back to the window. There were
many strange ornaments about, and a number of curiosities such as
women rarely purchase in foreign lands; also sundry small impedimenta
suggestive of things nautical.
Withal there was in the very atmosphere a sense of womanliness. The
subtle odours emanating from wooden constructions, conceived and
executed by dusky strangers, were overpowered by the healthier and
livelier smell of flowers. Heliotrope nestled modestly in low vases
from Venice. There was also mignonette, and on the mantelpiece a
great snowy bunch of Japanese anemones thrust into a bronze vase from
that same distant land, all looking, as it were, in different
directions, each carrying its graceful head in a different way, no
two alike, and yet all lovely, as only God can make things.
I cannot explain in what lay the charm of Mrs. Wylie's drawing-room,
though it must have emanated from the lady herself. There is no room
like it that I know of, where both men and women experience a sudden
feeling of homeliness, an entire sense of refined ease. The
surroundings were not too fragile for the touch of a man, and yet
there was in them that subtle influence of grace and daintiness which
appeals to the more delicate fibres of a woman's soul, and makes her
recognise her own element.
The widowed lady herself was little changed since we last met her in
the Far North. But those who knew her well were cognizant of the
fact that the outward signs of late bereavement so gracefully worn
were no cynical demonstration of a conventional grief. The
white-haired old man sleeping among the nameless sons of an Arctic
land was as truly mourned by this cheerful Englishwoman as ever
husband could desire. There was perhaps a smaller show of cultivated
grief, such as the world loves to contemplate, than was strictly in
keeping with her widow's cap. No lowered tones pulled up a harmless
burst of hilarity. No smothered sighs were emitted at inappropriate
times in order to impress upon a world, already full enough of
sorrow, the presence of an abiding woe.
But Brenda Gilholme knew that the cure was incomplete. She had
carried through, to the end, the task left her by Theo Trist. The
_Hermione_ lay snugly anchored by the oozy banks of a Suffolk river,
and Mrs. Wylie was, so to speak, herself again--that is to say, she
was once more a woman full of ready sympathy, gay with the gay,
sorrowing with the afflicted. If Brenda in her analytical way saw
and acknowledged the presence of a difference, it was perhaps nothing
more than an overstrained feminine susceptibility. At all events,
the general world opined that Mrs. Wylie was as jolly as ever.
Moreover, they insinuated in a good-natured manner that the Admiral
was, after all, many years her senior, and that she in all human
probability had some considerable span of existence to get through
yet, which he could not have shared owing to advance of infirmity.
One admirable characteristic had survived, however, this change in
her life. The cheery independence of this lady was untouched by the
hand of sorrow. It was her creed that at all costs a smile should be
ready for the world. Regardless of criticism, she trod her own path
through a hypercritical generation; and by seeking to cast the light
of a brave hopefulness upon it, she illuminated the road on which her
near contemporaries held their way. One great secret of her method
was industry. In her gentle womanliness she sought work, not afar,
but in her own field, and found it as all women can find work if they
seek truly.
Even while she was awaiting the arrival of the sisters, she was not
idle. On her lap there lay a huge scrap-book, and with scissors and
paste she was busy collecting and arranging in due order sundry
newspaper cuttings. That scrap-book will in after-years be
historical, for it contained every word ever printed from the
handwriting of Theodore Trist up to the date of the day when Mrs.
Wylie sat alone in her drawing-room. From its pages more than one
book on the art of making war has since been compiled, and from those
printed words more than one general of many nationalities would
confess to having learnt something.
The lady's quick ear detected the sound of a cab suddenly stopping,
and when a bell rang a few moments later she laid aside her scissors
and rose from her seat with no sign of surprise.
'I wonder,' she said, 'of what tragedy or comedy this may be the
beginning.'
There was a certain matronly grace in her movements as she opened the
door and drew Brenda Gilholme to her arms.
'Alice has come with me!' said the girl.
'Yes, dear,' replied Mrs. Wylie, and she proceeded to greet the
taller sister with a kiss also, but of somewhat less warmth.
Then the three ladies passed into the drawing-room together. There
was a momentary pause, during which Mrs. Huston mechanically loosened
the strings of her smart little bonnet and looked round the room
appreciatively.
'How perfectly delicious,' she exclaimed, 'it is to see a comfortable
English drawing-room again! I almost kissed the maid who opened the
door; she was such a pleasant contrast to sneaking Cingalese
servants.'
Mrs. Wylie smiled sympathetically, but became grave again
instantaneously. Her eyes rested for a second on Brenda's face.
'Alice,' explained Brenda, coming forward to the fireplace and
raising one neatly shod foot to the fender, 'does not give a very
glowing account of Ceylon.'
'Nor,' added Mrs. Huston with light pathos, 'of the blessed state of
matrimony.'
Mrs. Wylie drew forward a chair.
'Sit down,' she said hospitably, 'and warm yourselves. We will have
some tea before you take your things off.'
'And now Alice,' she resumed, after seating herself in the softly
lined cane chair near the literary table, 'tell me all ... you wish
to tell me.'
'Oh,' replied the beautiful woman, removing her gloves daintily,
'there is not much to tell. Moreover, the story has not the merit
even of novelty. The raw material is lamentably commonplace, and I
am afraid I cannot make a very interesting thing of it. Wretched
climate, horribly dull station, thirsty husband. _Voilà tout!_'
'To which, however,' suggested Mrs. Wylie with a peculiar intonation,
'might perhaps be added military society and Indian habits.'
The younger woman shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
'Oh no!' she exclaimed irresponsibly. 'But all that is a question of
the past, and the present is important enough to require some
attention.'
She extended her feet to the warmth of the fire, and contemplated her
small boots with some satisfaction.
'Yes...?'
'I have bolted,' she said, replying to the inferred query, 'and he is
in all probability after me.'
Mrs. Wylie turned aside the screen which she was holding between her
face and the fire. Her intelligent eyes rested for a moment on the
speaker's face, then she transferred her attention to Brenda, who
stood near the mantelpiece with her two gloved hands resting on the
marble. The girl was gazing down between her extended arms into the
fire, and a warm glow nestled rosily round her face. The eyes were
too sad for their years.
'I am very sorry to hear it,' said the widow with conviction.
'There was no alternative. I could not stand it any longer.'
'How did you manage it?' asked Mrs. Wylie quietly, almost too quietly.
'Oh, I got rid of some jewellery, and there was a Captain Markynter
who was kind enough to get my ticket and see me off!'
A peculiar silence followed this cool remark. Mrs. Wylie sat quite
still, holding the palm screen before her face. Brenda stood
motionless as a statue. Mrs. Huston curved her white wrist, and
looked compassionately at a small red mark made by the button of her
glove. At length the uneasy pause was broken. Without moving,
Brenda spoke in a cool, clear voice, almost monotonous.
'Alice,' she explained, 'is a great advocate for masculine
assistance. She considers us totally incapable of managing our own
affairs, and powerless to act for ourselves. She has been regretting
all day that Theo should be away, and consequently beyond our call.'
Mrs. Huston laughed somewhat forcedly, and drew in her feet.
'It is like this,' she explained. 'If my husband catches me I think
I shall probably kill myself! Theo is so strong and reliable, and
somehow ... so _capable_, that I naturally thought of him in my
emergency.'
'Naturally,' echoed Mrs. Wylie mechanically.
At that moment she was not thinking whether her monosyllabic remark
was cruelly sarcastic or simply silly. Her whole mind was devoted to
the study of Brenda's face, upon which the firelight glowed; but in
the proud young features there was nothing legible--nothing beyond a
somewhat anxious thoughtfulness.
'I think,' continued Mrs. Huston, 'that we may count on a week's
start. My affectionate husband cannot be here before then.'
To this neither lady made reply. The servant came in, and in a few
moments tea was served. Brenda presided over the little basket
table, and prepared each cup with a foreknowledge of the several
tastes. During this there was no word spoken. From the nonchalance
of the ladies' manner one might easily have imagined that the younger
couple had just come in from a long day's shopping.
'Have you,' asked the widow at length, as she stirred her tea
placidly, 'thought of what you are doing?'
'Oh yes!' was the laughing rejoinder, in which, however, there was no
mirth. 'Oh yes! I have thought, and thought, and thought, until the
subject was thrashed out dry. There was nothing else to do but
think, and read yellow-backed novels, all the voyage home.'
'Then,' murmured the widow, with gentle interrogation, 'this Captain
Parminter did not come home with you?'
Mrs. Huston changed colour, and her lips moved slightly. She glanced
towards Mrs. Wylie beneath her dark lashes, and answered with
infinite self-possession:
'No! And his name is Markynter.'
The palm-leaf did not move. Presently, however, Mrs. Wylie laid it
aside, and asked for some more tea.
'Well,' she said cheerily, 'I suppose we must make the best of a very
bad bargain. What do you propose to do next?'
In the most natural and confiding way imaginable, Mrs. Huston looked
up towards her sister, who was still standing. There was an almost
imperceptible shrug of her shoulders.
'Brenda,' she answered, 'says that I must run away and hide in some
small village, which is not exactly a cheerful prospect.'
'It would hardly do,' said Brenda, as if in defence of her own
theory, 'to go down to Brighton and stay at the Bedford Hotel, for
instance.'
'If,' added Mrs. Wylie in the same tone, 'you really want to avoid
your husband, you must certainly hide; but I do not see what you can
gain by such a proceeding. It can never be permanent, and you will
soon get tired of chasing each other round England.'
'Perhaps he will get tired of it first.'
'If he does, what will your position be? Somewhat ambiguous, I
imagine.'
'It cannot be worse than it is at present.'
'Oh yes,' replied the widow calmly. 'It can!'
She set her empty cup on the tray, and sat with her two hands clasped
together on her lap. She had not come through fifty years of life,
this placid lady, without learning something of the world's ways, and
she recognised instantly what Alice Huston's position was. It was
the old story which is told every day in all parts of the world, more
especially, perhaps, in India--the wearisome tale of a mistaken
marriage between a man of small intellect and a woman of less. If
both husband and wife be busy, the one with his bread-winning, the
other with her babies, such unions may be a near approach to animal
happiness--no more can be hoped for. The very instincts of it are
animal, and as such it is safe. But if one or both be idle, the
result is simply 'hell.' No other expression can come near it.
Captain Huston's military duties were not such as occupied more than
a few hours of the week, and during the rest of his existence he was
actively idle. His mind was fallow; he was totally without resource,
without occupation, without interest. There is no man on earth to
beat the ordinary British military officer in downright futile
idleness. The Spanish Custom-house official runs a close race with
the Italian inn-keeper in this matter, but both enjoy their laziness,
and are never bored. When our commissioned defender is naturally of
an idle turn of mind, he is intensely bored; his existence is one
long yawn, and the faculty of enjoyment dies a natural death within
his soul. I can think of no more despicable sample of humanity than
a man who cannot find himself something to do under all
circumstances, and in all places; and surely no one can blame his
Satanic majesty for a proverbial readiness to supply the deficiency
from his own store of easy tasks.
If Alice Gilholme had searched through the entire army-list, she
could scarcely have found a man less suitable to be her husband than
Captain Huston. Petty, short-sighted jealousy on his part, vapid
coquetry on hers, soon led to the inevitable end, and the result was
thrown upon the hands of Brenda and Mrs. Wylie with easy nonchalance
by the spoilt child of society.
It was no sudden disillusionment for Brenda, but merely one more
wretched curtain torn aside to display the hideous reality of human
existence and human selfishness. No thought of complaint entered the
girl's head. With a pathetic silence she simply applied herself to
the task set before her, with no great hope of reaching a
satisfactory solution.
Before the three ladies had spoken further upon the subject chiefly
occupying their thoughts, the drawing-room door was thrown open, and
with studied grace William Hicks crossed the threshold.
The hat that he carried daintily in his left hand was not quite the
same in contour as those worn by his contemporaries. To ensure this
peculiarity, the artist was forced to send to Paris for his
head-gear, where he paid a higher price and received an inferior
article. But the distinction conferred by a unique hat is
practically immeasurable and without price. Mr. Hicks' gloves were
also out of the common; likewise his strangely-cut coat and misshapen
continuations.
The _tout ensemble_ was undoubtedly pleasing. It must have been so,
because he was obviously satisfied, and the artistic eye is the
acknowledged arbitrator in matters of outward adornment, whether it
be of mantelshelves or human forms divine.
The three ladies turned to greet him with that ready feminine smile
which is ever there to lubricate matters when the social wheel may
squeak or grate.
'Oh, bother!' whispered Brenda to herself, as she held out her hand.
'What?' exclaimed Hicks, with languid surprise and visibly deep
pleasure. 'Mrs. Huston! I am delighted. When I left my studio and
plunged into all this mist and gloom this afternoon, I never thought
that both would be dispelled so suddenly.'
'Is it dispelled?' asked Mrs. Huston, glancing playfully towards the
window.
'In here it is. But then,' he added, as he shook hands with Mrs.
Wylie, 'there is never any mist or gloom in this room.'
With a pleasant laugh, as if deprecating his own folly, he turned to
greet Brenda, who had stood near the mantelpiece with her gloved hand
extended. Then his manner changed. Moreover, it was a distinctly
advantageous alteration. One would have imagined, from the
expression of his handsome but thoroughly weak face, that if there
was anybody on earth whom he respected and admired, almost as much as
he respected and admired William Hicks, that person was Brenda.
For her he had no neatly-turned pleasantry--no easy, infectious laugh.
'I did not know you were coming home, Mrs. Huston,' he said, turning
again to that lady. Then his social training enabled him to detect
unerringly that he might be on a dangerous trail, and with ready
skill he turned aside. 'This is not the best time of year,' he
continued, 'to return to your native shores. Personally I am rather
disgusted with the shore in question, but we must surely hope for
some more sunshine before we finally bid farewell to the orb of day
for the winter. We poor artists are the chief sufferers, I am sure.'
'At all events,' put in Mrs. Wylie easily, 'you take it upon
yourselves to grumble most. There is always something to displease
you--the want of daylight, the scarcity of buyers, or the hopeless
stupidity of the hanging-committee.'
'I think I confine my observations to the weather,' murmured Hicks,
gazing sadly into the fire, towards which bourne Brenda's glance was
also apparently directed, for she presently pressed the glowing coals
down with the sole of her dainty boot, and quite lost the studied
poesy of the artist's expression. 'I am, I think,' he continued
humbly, 'independent of buyers and hanging-committees. I do not
exhibit at Burlington House, and you know I never sell.'
'Indeed,' said Mrs. Huston, with slight interest, for the elder lady
had turned away and was busy with her second cup of tea, which was
almost cold.
'No,' answered Hicks, with the eagerness that comes to egotistical
talkers when they are sure of a new listener. 'No. I don't care to
enter into competition with men who depend more upon conventional
training than natural talent. The Royal Academy is only a human
institution, and, perhaps, it is only natural that their own students
should be favoured before all others. I am not an Academy student,
you know!'
Mrs. Huston contented herself with no more compromising affirmative
than a gracious inclination of the head. It is just possible that,
fresh from Ceylon, and consequently deplorably ignorant of artistic
affairs as she was, the knowledge that William Hicks was not an
Academy student had been denied her. This most lamentable fact,
however, if it existed, she concealed with all the cleverness of her
sex, and Hicks came to the conclusion, later on, that she must have
known. He could not conceive it possible that a woman moving in
intelligent circles, although in the outer rims thereof, and far from
the living centre of Kensington, could be unaware of such an
important item in his own personal history; this being no mean part
of the artistic history of the nineteenth century.
Enveloped as he was, however, in conceit, he had the good taste to
perceive that his bewildering presence was on this particular
occasion liable to be considered bliss of an alloyed description, and
in a short time he took his leave.
As he was moving round and saying good-bye, Mrs. Huston returned to
the artistic question, from which they had never strayed very far.
Indeed, art was somewhat apt to become a nauseating subject of
conversation wherever William Hicks was allowed to influence matters
to any extent.
'You have never sent pictures to the Academy, then?' she asked
innocently.
'Oh no!' he answered with mild horror. 'Good-bye, so glad to see you
home again.'
And then he vanished.
Mrs. Wylie watched his retreating figure with a pleasant and sociable
expression on her intelligent face.
'That,' she was reflecting, 'is a lie!' She happened to know that
Hicks had been refused a place on the walls of Burlington House.
If I were a ghost, or if I ever come to be one, I shall not take up
the old, time-worn craft of frightening people during the stilly
hours. Instead of such uninteresting work, I shall make a collection
in a phantom pocket-book of asides and murmured reflections. From
such, an interesting study of earthly existence, and more
particularly of social life, might well be made.
On those phantom pages might, for instance, be inscribed the
reflections of William Hicks as he made his way down the broad
staircase of Suffolk Mansions.
'Whew!' was their tenor; 'ran right into it. She's left him; I could
see that. Seems to me she's on the verge of a catastrophe--divorce
or separation, or something like that.'
In the drawing-room Mrs. Wylie was saying reflectively to either or
both of her companions:
'This is the beginning of it. That man will tell everyone he meets
before going to bed to-night that you are home. He did not ask where
your husband was, which shows that he wanted to know; consequently he
will wonder over it, and will take care to tell everyone what he is
wondering about.'
CHAPTER IV.
TO THE FRONT.
A week later Brenda was sitting in the same apartment again. But
this time she was alone. From pure kindness of heart Mrs. Wylie had
managed to allow the girl an afternoon's leisure, and Brenda was
spending this very happily amidst her books and magazines. She was,
in her way, a literary person, this brilliant young scholar; but,
belonging to a universal age, universality was also hers. With the
literary she could show herself well-read; with the purely
pleasure-seeking she could also find sympathy. In these times of
mixed circles, men and women must needs be able to talk upon many
subjects, whether they know aught about them or nothing.
Brenda Gilholme was not, however, a brilliant talker. She could have
written well had she been moved thereto by that restless spirit which
makes some people look upon existence as a blank without pens and
paper. But as yet she was content to read, and her young mind
thirsted for the grasp of other folks' thoughts as a fisherman's
fingers itch for the rod.
During the last week Alice Huston's presence in Mrs. Wylie's
household had not been an unmixed success. There was a slight and
almost imperceptible impatience in the widow's manner, in the
inflection of her pleasant voice, in her very glance when her eyes
rested upon her guest's gracious form. Gradually the story had come
out, and some details were related with unguarded carelessness,
resulting in the conclusion, as far as Mrs. Wylie and Brenda were
concerned, that Captain Huston might also have a story to tell,
differing in tone and purport from that related by his wronged
spouse. Her case against her husband was not very clear, and in her
relation of it there was in some vague way a sense of suppression and
easy adaptation both pointing to the same end. If Brenda felt this
and drew her own conclusions from it, she allowed no sign of such
conclusions to appear, but accepted the situation without comment.
The natural result of this unfeminine behaviour was a wane of
confidence between the sisters. It is easy enough, even for the most
reticent person, to make known to some chosen familiar certain
details hitherto suppressed when once the subject is broached; but to
continue confiding in a bosom friend who accepts all statements
without surprise, horror or sympathy is a different matter.
Brenda's manner of listening was neither forbidding nor indifferent.
It was merely unenthusiastic, and its chief characteristic was a
certain measured attention, as if the details were imprinting
themselves indelibly upon a prepared mental surface, where they might
well remain intact and legible for many years. Mrs. Wylie, glancing
at the two sisters over her book, or her palm-leaf screen, conceived
a strange thought. She imagined that she detected in Brenda's manner
and demeanour a certain subtle resemblance to the manner and
demeanour of one who was far away, and whose influence upon the
girl's life could not well have been very great, namely, Theodore
Trist.
When the war-correspondent was not on active service, he lived in
London, and, as was only natural to one of his calling, moved in such
intervals in a circle of men and women influential in the political
world. He was a reticent speaker, but an excellent listener, and
Mrs. Wylie, as the wife of an active naval politician, had many
opportunities of watching in her placid way this strange young man
among his fellows. Theodore Trist's chief fault was, in her eyes, a
lack of enthusiasm. He waited too patiently on the course of events,
and moved too guardedly when he moved at all. It was a very womanly
view of a man's conduct, and one held, I think, by nineteen out of
twenty mothers who have brought brilliant sons into the world.
These characteristics the widow now began to see developing subtly in
the soul of Brenda Gilholme, and a keen study of the girl during this
trying time only confirmed her suspicions. She began to feel
nervously sure that the companionship of Mrs. Huston was bad for her,
and with this knowledge to urge her she calmly forced her way in
between the two sisters.
If Brenda lacked enthusiasm (which failure is characteristic of this
calculating and practical generation), she atoned for the want by a
wondrous steadfastness. By word, and deed, and silence, she
demonstrated continuously her intention to stand by her sister and do
for her all that lay in her power. In this spirit of dumb devotion
Mrs. Wylie was pleased to see a suggestion of Theo Trist's soldierly
obedience to the call of duty in which there was no question of
personal inclination. She may have been right. Women see deeper
into these subtle human influences than men. There are many small
powers at work in every-day life, guiding our social barque,
withholding us or urging us on, dictating, commanding, approving, or
disapproving; and the motive of these is woman's will. The eye that
guides is a woman's heart; the brake that checks is a woman's
instinct. Mrs. Wylie was probably, therefore, quite right in her
supposition; for it is such men as Theo Trist who leave the impress
of their individuality upon those who come in contact with them--men
who speak little and listen well, who think deeply and never speak of
their thoughts. It is not your talkative man with a theory for every
emergency, with a most wonderful and universal knowledge, who rules
the world. The influence of these is comparatively small. Their
experience is too vast to be personal, and thus loses weight. Their
theories are too indefinite, too sweeping, and too general for
practical application to human affairs, which are things not to be
generally treated at all. We are a sheepish generation. Our
thoughts are held in common; we theorize in crowds and hold
principles in a multitude, but God's grand individuality is not dead
yet. It lives somewhere in our hearts, and at strange odd moments we
still act unaccountably, according to the dictates of that enfeebled
organ.
There is a subtle difference between the male and female intellects
respecting anxiety. Most women can conceal it better than their
brothers and husbands when the necessity for concealment arises, but
they suffer no less on that account. In fact, the weight of it is
greater and more wearing, because in solitude they brood over it more
than men. They have not the same power of laying it aside and taking
up a book or occupation with the deliberate intention of courting
absorption, as possessed by us.
Brenda was apparently immersed in the pages of an intellectual
monthly review, but at times her sweet innocent eyes wandered from
the lines and rested meditatively on the glowing fire. The girl was
restless. She moved each time she turned a page, glancing sometimes
at the small clock on the mantelpiece, sometimes towards the window,
whence an ever-waning light fell gloomily upon her.
There was in her soul a vague sense of discomfort, which was as near
an approach to imaginative anxiety as her strong nature could
compass; and to this she was gradually giving way. Her interest in
the magazine upon her lap had never been else than perfunctory, and
now she could not take in the meaning of the carefully rounded and
somewhat affected phrases.
Alice Huston had been a week in Mrs. Wylie's chambers, and there was
no positive reason now to suppose that her husband was not in London.
But the beautiful woman possessed little sense of responsibility, and
none of consideration for others. She simply refused to leave town
until the following Monday, because, she argued, the sound of wheels,
the gay whirl of life, was so intensely refreshing to her. Mrs.
Wylie would scarcely interfere, because she was not quite certain
that Captain Huston was unfit to take care of his wife. She could
not decide whether it was better to keep them apart or to allow Alice
to run into the danger of being followed and claimed by her husband.
The widow had very successfully followed a placid principle of
non-interference all through her life, and now she applied it to the
calamitous affairs of Captain and Mrs. Huston. She recognised very
clearly that the man had made as evil a bargain as the woman. In
both there was good material, capable of being wrought into good
results by advantageous circumstances. The circumstance of their
coming together and contracting a life-long alliance was
disadvantageous to the last degree, _voilà tout_. It was a matter
for themselves to settle. There are some people who, in a crisis,
form themselves into a reserve--not necessarily out of range, but
beyond the din and confusion of the melée: of these was Mrs. Wylie.
If necessity demanded it, she was capable of leading an assault or
withstanding an attack, but as a clear-headed, watchful commander of
reserves she was incomparable.
Brenda knew this. She had an analytical way of studying such persons
as influenced her daily life, and in most cases she arrived at a very
accurate result. That Mrs. Wylie was watching events, but would not
influence them, she was well aware, and, moreover, she now felt that
someone was needed who would calmly step to the front and act with a
bold acceptance of responsibility. That she herself was the person
to take this position seemed undeniable. There could be no one else.
No other could be expected to assume the task.
But there was another, and Brenda would not confess, even
indefinitely in her own thoughts, that she knew it.
At length she laid her book down, and sat gazing softly into the
fire. When the bell rang at the end of the long passage beside the
kitchen-door, she never moved. When the maid opened the drawing-room
door, with the mumbled announcement of a name to whose possessor no
door of Mrs. Wylie's was ever shut, Brenda failed to hear the name,
and half turned her head without much welcome in her eyes.
She was preparing to rise politely from her seat when a dark form
passed between the window and herself. There, upon the hearthrug,
within touch of her black skirt, stood Theo Trist! Theo--quiet,
unemotional, strong as ever; Theo--with a brown face, and his bland,
high forehead divided into two portions of white and of mahogany,
where the fez had rested, keeping off the burning sun, but casting no
shadow; Theo--to the fore, as usual, in his calm, reliable
individuality, just at the moment when he was required.
Brenda gave a little gasp, and the eyes that met his were, for a
second, contracted with some quick emotion, which he thought was fear.
'Theo!' she exclaimed, '_Theo!_' Then she stopped short, checking
herself suddenly, and as she rose he saw the frightened look in her
eyes again.
They shook hands, and for a brief moment neither seemed able to frame
a syllable. Brenda's lips were dry, and her throat was parched--all
in a second.
He looked round the room as if seeking someone, or the indication of
a presence, such as a work-basket, a well-known book, or some similar
token. Brenda concluded that he was wondering where Mrs. Wylie might
be, and suddenly she found power to speak in a steady, even voice.
'Mrs. Wylie is out!' she said. 'I expect her in by tea-time.'
He nodded his head--indicated the chair which she had just left--and,
when she was seated, knelt down on the hearthrug, holding his two
hands to the fire.
'Where is Alice?' he asked, in a peculiar monotone.
'She is out with Mrs. Wylie---- Then ... you know?'
'Yes, Brenda, I know!' he answered gravely.
The girl sat forward in her low chair, with her two arms resting upon
her knees, her slim, white hands interlocked. For a time she was off
her guard, forgetting the outward composure taught in the school of
which she was so apt a pupil. She actually allowed herself to
breathe hurriedly, to lean forward, and drink in with her eager eyes
the man's every feature and every movement. He was not looking
towards her, but of her fixed gaze he was well aware. The sound of
her quick respiration was close to his ear; her soft, warm breath
reached his cheek. With all his iron composure, despite his cruel
hold over himself, he wavered for a moment, and the hands held out to
the glow of the fire shook perceptibly. But his meek eyes never lost
their settled expression of speculative contemplation. Whatever
other men might do, whatever women might suffer, Theodore Trist was
sufficient for himself. The flame leapt up, and fell again with a
little bubbling sound, glowing ruddily upon the two faces. He
remained quite motionless, quite cold. It was the face of the great
Napoleon again--inscrutable, deep beyond the depth of human
soundings, cruel and yet sweet--but the high forehead seemed to
suggest an infinite possibility of something else; some lack of
energy, or some great negation, which cancelled at one blow the
resemblance that lay in lip and chin and profile.
Presently Brenda leant back in the chair. There was a screen on the
table near her--Mrs. Wylie's palm-leaf--and she extended her hand to
take it, holding it subsequently between her face and the fire, so
that if Trist had turned his head he could not have seen anything but
her slim, graceful form, her white hand and wrist, and the screen
glowing rosily. He did not turn, however, when he spoke.
'I will tell you,' he said, 'how I came to know.'
Before continuing, he rubbed his hands slowly together. Then he rose
from his knees and remained standing near the fire close to her, but
without looking in her direction. He seemed to be choosing his words.
'I came home,' he said at length, 'from Gibraltar in an Indian
steamer, a small boat with half a dozen passengers. There was no
doctor on board. One evening I was asked to go forward and look at a
second-class passenger who was suffering from ... from delirium
tremens.'
He stopped in an apologetic way, as if begging her indulgence for the
use of those two words in her presence.
'Yes...' she murmured encouragingly.
'It was Huston.'
As he spoke he turned slightly, and glanced down at her. She had
entirely regained her gentle composure now, and the colour had
returned to her face. Her attention was given to his words with a
certain suppressed anxiety, but no surprise whatever.
'Did,' she asked at length--'did he recognise you?'
'No.'
'And he never knew, and does not know now, that you were on board?'
It would seem that he divined her thoughts, detecting the hidden
importance of her question.
'No,' he answered meaningly, as he turned and looked down at
her--'no; but he has not forgotten my existence.'
She raised her eyes quickly, but their glance stopped short suddenly
at the elevation of his lips. It was only by an effort that she
avoided meeting his gaze.
'I do not know,' she said with a short laugh, in an explanatory way,
'much about ... about it. Is it like ordinary delirium, where people
talk in a broken manner without realizing what they are saying?'
'Yes; it is rather like that.'
She examined the texture of the screen with some attention.
'Do you mind telling me, Theo,' she asked at length evenly, 'whether
he mentioned your name?'
Trist reflected for a moment. He moved restlessly from one foot to
the other, then spoke in a voice which betrayed no emotion beyond
regret and a hesitating sympathy.
'He said that Alice had run away to join her old lover--meaning me.'
'Are you sure he meant ... you?'
'He mentioned my name; there could be no doubt about it.'
Brenda rose suddenly from her seat and crossed the room towards the
window. There she stood with her back towards him, a graceful, dark
silhouette against the dying light, looking into the street.
He moved slightly, but did not attempt to follow her.
'It is rather strange,' she said at length, 'that the first name she
mentioned on landing at Plymouth should be yours.'
A look of blank surprise flashed across his face, and then he
reflected gravely for some moments.
'I am sorry to hear it,' he said slowly, 'because it would seem that
my name has been bandied between them, and if that is the case my
hands are tied. I cannot help Alice as I should have liked to do.'
'I told Alice some time ago that it would be much better for us to
manage this ... this miserable affair without your help.'
'You are equal to it,' he said deliberately.
She laughed with a faint gleam of her habitual brightness.
'Thank you. That is a very pretty sentiment, but it is hardly the
question.'
'My help,' he continued, 'need not be obvious to every casual
observer. But I am not going to leave you to fight this out alone,
Brenda. I was forced to leave you once, and I am not going to do it
again. What does Mrs. Wylie say to it all?'
'Nothing as yet. She is waiting on events.'
'Ah, then, she is in reserve as usual. When the time comes, we may
rely upon her help. But until then...'
'Theo,' interrupted Brenda in an agonized voice, 'the time _has_
come!'
She started back from the window, her face as white as her snowy
throat, her eyes contracted with horror.
'He is there!' she whispered hoarsely, pointing towards the
window--'in the street. Coming into the house!'
Her little hands clutched his sleeve with a womanly abandonment of
restraint, and he stood quite still in his self-reliant manhood.
Then he found with surprise that his right arm was round her
shoulders protecting her.
'Come,' he said with singular calmness--'come into another room.
I--see him here.'
As he spoke he gently urged her towards the door, but she resisted,
and for a moment there was an actual physical struggle.
'No,' she said, 'I will see him. It is better. Alice may come in at
any moment, and before then I must know how matters stand between
them.'
Trist hesitated, and at that moment the bell rang. They stood side
by side looking at the closed door, listening painfully.
'Perhaps,' whispered Trist, 'the maid will say that Mrs. Wylie is
out.'
They could hear the light footstep of the servant, then the click of
the latch.
A murmur of words followed, ending in the raised tone of a male voice
and a short sharp exclamation of fear from the maid.
Instinctively Trist sprang towards the door.
There was a sound of heavy footsteps in the passage. Trist's fingers
were on the handle. He glanced towards Brenda appealingly.
'Leave it!' she exclaimed. 'Let him come in.'
Before the words were out of her lips the door was thrown open,
concealing Theodore Trist.
CHAPTER V.
UNDER FIRE.
A tall, well-built man entered the room hurriedly and stopped short,
facing Brenda, who met his gaze with gentle self-possession.
'Ah!' he muttered in a thick voice, and his unsteady hand went to his
long fair moustache.
It was a terribly unhealthy face upon which Brenda's eyes rested
inquiringly. The skin was cracked in places, and the cheeks were
almost blue. The eyelids were red and the eyes bloodshot, while
there was a general suggestion of puffiness and discomfort in the
swollen features. The man was distinctly repulsive, and yet, with a
small amount of tolerance, he was a figure to demand pity. Despite
his dissipated air, there was that indefinite sense of refinement
which belongs to birth and breeding, and which never leaves a man who
has once moved among gentlemen. There was even a faint suggestion of
military vanity in his dress and carriage, though his figure was by
no means so smart as it must have been in bygone days.
The room was rather dark, and he glanced round, failing to see Theo
Trist, who was leaning against the wall behind him.
'Ah!' he repeated; 'Brenda. I suppose you are in it, too!'
She made no reply, but stood before him in all her maidenly sweetness
and strength, looking into his face through the twilight with clear
and steady eyes which he hesitated to meet. Into his weak soul a
flood of bitter memories rushed tumultuously--memories of a time when
he could meet those eyes without that sudden feeling of self-hatred
which was gnawing at his heart now. His tone was not harsh nor
violent, but there was an undernote of determination which was not
pleasant to the ear.
'Tell me,' he continued thickly, 'where my wife is to be found.'
Trist noticed that she never took her eyes off Huston's face, never
glanced past the sleek, closely-cropped head towards himself. In
some subtle way her wish was conveyed to him--the wish that he should
remain there and continue, if possible, to be unnoticed by Huston.
This he did, leaning squarely against the wall, his meek eyes riveted
on the girl's face with a calm, expectant attention. From his
presence Brenda gathered that strength and self-reliance which, I
think, God intends women to gather from the companionship of men.
'No, Alfred,' she answered, using his Christian name with a gentle
diplomacy which made him waver for a moment and sway backwards upon
his rigid legs; 'I must not tell you that yet.'
'What right have you to withhold it?'
'She is my sister. I must do the best I can for her.'
He laughed in an unpleasant way.
'By throwing her into the path of the man she has always----'
'Stop!' commanded Brenda.
'Why? Why should I stop? I suppose Trist is in England. That is
why she came home, no doubt.'
'She has never spoken to Theodore Trist since she married you.
Besides, that is not the question. Tell me why you want to find
Alice. What do you propose to do?'
'That is _my_ affair!' he muttered roughly. 'You have no business to
stand between man and wife. If you persist in doing so, it must be
at your own risk, and I tell you plainly that you run a chance of
being roughly handled.'
As he spoke he advanced a pace menacingly. Still she never betrayed
Trist's presence by the merest glance in his direction. He, however,
moved slightly, without making any sound.
Huston looked slowly round the room with bloodshot, horrible eyes.
'Tell me!' he hissed, thrusting forward his face so that she drew
back--not from fear, but to avoid a faint aroma of stale cigar-smoke.
'No!' she answered.
'Deny that Trist loved Alice--if you dare!' he continued, in the same
whistling voice.
Still she never called for Trist's assistance. She was very pale,
and the last words seemed to strike her in the face as a blow.
'I deny nothing!'
'Tell me,' he shouted hoarsely, 'where Alice is!'
'No!'
'Then take _that_, you...'
He struck her with his clenched fist on the shoulder--but she had
seen his intention, and by stepping back avoided the full force of
the blow. She staggered a pace or two and recovered herself.
Without a sound Trist sprang forward, and the same instant saw Huston
fall to the ground. He rolled over and over, a shapeless mass with
limbs distended. As he rolled, Trist kicked him as he never would
have kicked a dog.
'Oh ... h ... h ...!' shrieked the soldier. 'Who is that?'
'It is Trist ... you _brute_!'
But Huston lay motionless, with limp hands and open mouth. He was
insensible.
Leaving him, Trist turned to Brenda, who was already holding him back
with a physical force which even at that moment caused him a vague
surprise.
'Theo! Theo!' she cried, 'what are you doing?'
He looked into her face sharply, almost fiercely--and she caught her
breath convulsively at the sight of his eyes. They literally flashed
with a dull blue gleam, which was all the more ghastly in so calm a
face; for though he was ashen-gray in colour, his features were
unaltered by any sign of passion. Even in his wild rage this man was
incongruous.
'Has he hurt you?' he asked in a dull, hollow voice; and, while he
spoke, his fingers skilfully touched her shoulder in a quick,
searching way never learnt in drawing-rooms.
'No--no!' she cried impatiently. 'But you have killed _him_!'
She broke away from him and knelt on the floor, bending over the
prostrate form of the soldier. Her bosom heaved from time to time
with a bravely suppressed sob.
'Don't touch him,' said Trist, in an unconsciously commanding tone.
'He is all right.'
Obediently, she rose and stepped away, while he lifted the limp form,
and placed it in a chair.
Slowly Captain Huston opened his eyes. He heaved a deep sigh, and
sat gazing into the fire with a hopeless and miserable apathy.
Behind him the two stood motionless, watching. Presently he began to
mutter incoherently, and Brenda turned away, sickened, from the
woeful sight.
'I wonder,' she whispered, 'if this sort of thing is to go on.'
Trist's mobile lips were twisted a little as if he were in bodily
pain, while he glanced at her furtively. There was nothing for him
to say--no hope to hold out.
They moved away to the window together without speaking, both
occupied with thoughts which could not well have been pleasant.
Trist's features wore a grave, concentrated expression, totally
unlike the philosophical and contemplative demeanour which he usually
carried in the face of the world. There was food enough for mental
stones to grind, and he was not a man to take the most sanguine view
of affairs. His philosophy was of that rare school which is not
solely confined to making the best of other folks' troubles. His own
checks and difficulties were those treated philosophically; while the
griefs of others--more especially, perhaps, of Alice and
Brenda--caused him an exaggerated anxiety. It has been the
experience of the present writer that women are infinitely better
fitted to stand adversity than men. There is a certain brave little
smile which our less mobile lips can never frame. But Theodore Trist
had lived chiefly among men, and his human speciality was the
fighting animal. He knew a soldier as few of his contemporaries knew
him; but of sweet woman-militant he was somewhat ignorant.
Perhaps he took this trouble too seriously. Of that I cannot give an
opinion, for we all have an individual way of getting over our
fences, and we never learn another. Personally, I must confess to a
penchant for those men who go steadily, with a cool, clear head, and
a firm hand, realizing full well the risk they are about to run--men
who do not put a _blind_ faith in luck, nor look invariably for
Fortune's smiles.
In Trist's place many would have uttered some trite consolatory or
wildly hopeful remark, which would in no wise have deceived a young
person of Brenda's austere discrimination. In this, however, he fell
lamentably short of his duty. After a thoughtful pause he merely
whispered:
'Here we are again, Brenda--in a tight place. There is some fatality
which seems to guide our footsteps on to thorny pathways. There is
nothing to be done but face it.'
'Is it,' she asked simply, 'a case for action, or must we wait upon
events?'
'I would suggest ... action.'
'Yes...' she said, in little more than a whisper, after a pause, 'I
think so too--more especially now ... that you suggest it. Your
natural bias is, as a rule, in the direction of masterly inactivity.'
He smiled slowly.
'Perhaps ... so!'
'Therefore your conviction that action is necessary must be very
strong before you would suggest it.'
'I feel,' he said, with some deliberation, 'that it will be better to
keep them apart in the meantime.'
A strange, uneasy look passed across the girl's face. It happened
that there was only one man on all the broad earth whom she trusted
implicitly--the man at her side--and for a second that one unique
faith wavered. With a sort of mental jerk--as of a person who makes
a quick effort to recover a wavering balance--she restored her
courageous trustfulness.
'Yes,' she murmured, 'I am sure of it.'
'And I suppose ... I suppose we must do it. You and I, Brenda?'
It was a wonderful thing how these two knew Alice Huston. Her faults
were never mentioned between them. The infinite charity with which
each looked upon these faults was a mutual possession, unhinted at,
half concealed. Brenda knew quite well what was written between the
lines of his outspoken supposition, and replied to his unasked
question with simple diplomacy.
'Yes--_we_ must do it.'
Trist moved a little. He turned sideways, and glanced out of the
window. His attitude was that of a man whose hands were in his
pockets, but he was more than half a soldier--a creature morally and
literally without pockets--and his hands hung at his sides.
'It is a ... a pretty strong combination.'
She smiled, and changed colour so slightly that he no doubt failed to
see it.
'Yes,' she answered cheerfully. 'It succeeded once before. But Mrs.
Wylie is not quite herself yet, Theo! That is why I don't want her
to have any trouble in this matter. We have no right to seek her
aid.'
The last words might easily have passed unheeded, but Brenda felt,
even as she spoke them, that they contained another meaning;
moreover, she recognised by his sudden silence that Trist was
wondering whether this second suggestion had been intended. Uneasily
she raised her eyes to his face. He was looking down at her gravely,
and for some seconds their glances met.
If an excuse to seek Mrs. Wylie's assistance was hard to find, much
more so was it open to question respecting Trist's spontaneous help.
Why should he offer it? By what right could she accept it? And
while they looked into each other's eyes, these two wondered over
those small questions. There was a reason--the best reason of
all--namely, that the offer was as spontaneous and natural as the
acceptance of it. But why--why this spontaneity? Perhaps they both
knew. Perhaps she suspected, and suspected wrongly. Perhaps neither
knew definitely.
At last she turned her head, and naturally her glance was directed
downwards into Piccadilly.
'There they are,' she whispered hurriedly, 'looking into the
jeweller's shop opposite. What are we to do, Theo?'
He almost forestalled her question, so rapid was his answer. There
was no hesitation, no shirking of responsibility. She had simply
asked him, and simply he replied.
'Go,' he said, 'and throw some things into a bag. I will stay here
and watch him. When the bag is ready, leave it in the passage and
come back here. I will take it, go down, and take her straight away.'
'Where?'
'I don't know,' he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders.
There was a momentary hesitation on the girl's part. She perceived a
terrible flaw in Trist's plan, and he divined her thoughts.
'It will be all right,' he whispered. 'No one knows that I am in
England. I will telegraph to-night, and you can join her to-morrow.
You ... can trust me, Brenda.'
There was a faint smile of confidence on her face as she turned away
and hurried from the room.
Although her light footsteps were almost inaudible, the slight
_frôlement_ of her dress seemed to rouse the stupefied man on the low
chair near the fire. Perhaps there was in the rhythm of her
movements some subtle resemblance to the movements of his wife. He
raised his head and appeared to listen in an apathetic way, but
presently his chin dropped heavily again upon his breast, and the
dull eyes lost all light of intelligence.
Trist turned away and looked out of the window. The two ladies were
still lingering near the jeweller's shop. Alice Huston appeared to
be pointing out to her companion some specially attractive ornament,
and Mrs. Wylie was obeying with a patient smile.
The war-correspondent smiled in a peculiar way, which might well have
expressed some bitterness, had he been the sort of man to speak or
think bitterly of anyone. The whole picture was so absurdly
characteristic, even to the small details--such as Mrs. Wylie's
good-natured patience, scarce concealing her utter lack of interest
in the jewellery, and Alice Huston's eyes glittering with reflex of
the cold gleam of diamonds; for there is a light that comes into the
eyes of some women at the mere mention of precious stones.
While he was watching them the ladies turned and crossed the street,
coming towards him. He stepped back from the window in case one of
them should raise her eyes, and at the same moment Brenda entered the
room.
She glanced towards Huston, who was rousing himself from the torpor
which had followed his maltreatment at Trist's hands, and which was
doubtless partly due to the drink-sodden condition of his mind and
body.
'All I want,' whispered the war-correspondent, following her glance,
'is three minutes' start from that man.'
'You had better go!' she answered anxiously below her breath.
'Yes; they are on the stairs ... but ... tell me, Brenda, promise me
on your honour, that he did not hurt you.'
'I promise you,' she said, with a faint smile.
Then he left her.
CHAPTER VI.
TRIST ACTS ON HIS OWN RESPONSIBILITY.
As Mrs. Wylie made her way slowly and peacefully up the broad stairs,
she suddenly found herself face to face with the man whom she had
last seen in the still Arctic dawn, bearing the body of her dead
husband down over the rocks towards her. She gave a little gasp of
surprise, but nothing more. The next instant she was holding out her
gloved hand to greet him. But even she--practised, gifted woman of
the world as she was--could not meet him with a smile. In gravity
they had parted, gravely they now met again. He was not quite the
same as other men to Mrs. Wylie, for there was the remembrance of an
indefinite semi-bantering agreement made months before, while the
sunshine of life seemed to be glowing round them both--an agreement
that they should not be mere acquaintances, mere friends (although
the friendship existing between an elderly woman and a young man is
not of the ordinary, practical, every-day type--there is a suggestion
of something more in it), and Trist had fulfilled the promise then
given.
He had taken her quite unawares, with that noiseless footstep of his
which we noticed before, and the colour left her face for a moment.
'_You!_' she exclaimed; 'I did not expect you.'
As he took her hand his all-seeing gaze detected a slight indication
of anxiety, and he knew that his presence was not at that moment
desired by Mrs. Wylie. Due credit is not always given to us men for
the possession of eyes. Our womenfolk are apt to forget that we move
just as much as they, and in most cases infinitely more in the world,
and among the world's shoals and quicksands. We may not be so quick
at reading superficial indications as our mothers, sisters, or wives;
but I think many of us (while keeping vanity in bounds) are much more
capable of perceiving when our presence is desired or distasteful
than is usually supposed. There are some of us, methinks, who, if
chivalry failed to withhold our tongues, could tell of very decided
preferences shown, and shown unsought; of glances, and even words,
advanced to guide us whither the water runs smoothly. And let us
hope that if such have been the case, we turn to the rougher channel
we love better, without a smile of self-conceit.
Twice within the last hour Theodore Trist had perceived that there
was a reason why those who held Alice Huston dearest should desire
that he avoided meeting her. What this reason was her own husband
had unwittingly told him; confirming brutally what he had read in
Brenda's unconsciously expressive face a few moments before. And
yet, in face of this undoubted knowledge, he seemed deliberately to
court the danger that the two women feared, and sought to avert.
He was not a man to be blinded by a false impression. Nor was he one
of those who act impulsively. His mind was of too practical, too
steady, and too concentrated a type to be suddenly conquered by a
mere prompting of the heart. At this juncture of his life he acted
coolly and with foresight. Of Alice Huston he knew enough to feel
quite sure of his mastery over her. If she loved him (which
supposition had been thrown in his face many times since the evening
when he had first been called upon to give assistance to those who
stood in Captain Huston's little cabin), he did not appear in the
least afraid of his own capability of killing that love.
He turned from Mrs. Wylie and greeted the younger woman, who followed
her, with a self-possessed smile; and from his manner even Mrs. Wylie
could gather nothing, and she was no mean reader of human faces. She
glanced at them as they stood together on the stairs and asked
herself a question:
'What part is he playing, that of a scoundrel or a fool?'
She could not conceive a third alternative just then, because she did
not know Alice Huston so well as Theo Trist knew her.
Before Mrs. Huston, who was blushing very prettily, had time to
speak, Trist imparted his news with a certain rapid bluntness.
'Your husband is upstairs,' he said. 'Brenda will keep him in the
drawing-room for a few minutes. I have a bag here with some
necessaries for you. Will you come with me, or will you go upstairs
to your husband?'
'Will ... I ... go with you?' stammered the beautiful woman in a
frightened whisper. 'Where to, Theo?'
Mrs. Wylie leant against the broad balustrade and breathed rapidly.
She was really alarmed, but even fear could not conquer her
indomitable placidity.
'I will conduct you to a safe hiding-place to-night, and Brenda will
join you to-morrow morning,' said Trist in a tone full of
concentrated energy, though his eyes never lighted up. 'Be quick and
decide, because Brenda is alone upstairs with ... him.'
Mrs. Wylie's eyebrows moved imperceptibly beneath her veil. She
thought she saw light.
Mrs. Huston played nervously with a tassel that was hanging from her
dainty muff for the space of a moment; then she raised her eyes, not
to Trist's face, but to Mrs. Wylie's. Instantly she lowered them
again.
'I will go with you!' she said, almost inaudibly, and stood blushing
like a schoolgirl between two lovers.
Mrs. Wylie raised her head, sniffing danger like an old hen when she
hears the swoop of long wings above the chicken-yard. Her eyes
turned from Alice Huston's face, with a slow impatience almost
amounting to contempt, and rested upon Theodore Trist's meek orbs,
raised to meet hers meaningly. Then somehow her honest tongue found
itself tied, and she said nothing at all. The flood of angry words
subsided suddenly from her lips, and she waited for the further
commands of this soft-spoken, soft-stepping, soft-glancing man, with
unquestioning obedience.
He moved slightly, looked down at the bag in his hand, and then
glanced comprehensively from the top of Mrs. Huston's smart bonnet to
the sole of her small shoe. He could not quite lay aside the old
campaigner, and the beautiful woman was moved by a strange suspicion
that this young man was not admiring her person, but considering
whether her attire were fit for a long journey on a November evening.
'Come, then!' he said.
Still Mrs. Huston hesitated.
Suddenly she appeared to make up her mind, for she went up two steps
and kissed Mrs. Wylie with hysterical warmth. This demonstration
seemed to recall Trist to a due sense of social formula. He
returned, and shook hands gravely with the widow.
'Go to Brenda!' he whispered, and the matron bowed her head.
Again she raised her eyebrows, and there was a flicker of light in
her eyes like that which gleams momentarily when a person is on the
brink of a great discovery.
The next minute she was running upstairs, while the footsteps of the
two fugitives died away in the roar of traffic.
'Theo,' she said to herself, while awaiting an answer to her summons
at her own door, 'must be of a very confiding nature. He expects
such utter and such _blind_ faith at the hands of others.'
The maid who opened the door was all eagerness to impart to her
mistress certain vague details and incomprehensible sounds which had
reached her curious ears. She had a thrilling tale of how Captain
Huston, 'lookin' that funny about the eyes,' had rung loudly and
pushed roughly through the open door; how there had been loud words
in the drawing-room, and then a noise like 'movin' a pianer'; how a
silence had followed, and, finally, how Mr. Trist (and not Captain
Huston, as might have been expected) had left just a minute ago. But
the evening milkman was destined, after all, to receive the first and
unabridged account of these events. Mrs. Wylie merely said, 'That
will do, Mary,' in her unruffled way, and passed on.
She entered the drawing-room, and found Brenda standing near the
window, with one hand clasping the folds of the curtain.
Captain Huston was sitting on a low chair beside the fire, weeping
gently. His bibulous sobs were the only sound that broke an
unpleasant silence. Brenda was engaged in adding to her experiences
of men and their ways a further illustration tending towards
contempt. Her eyes were dull with pain, but she carried her small
head with the usual demure serenity which was naught else but the
outcome of a sweet, maidenly pride, as she advanced towards Mrs.
Wylie.
'He is quite gentle and tractable now!' she whispered.
Mrs. Wylie took her hand within her fingers, clasping it with a soft
protecting strength.
'Is he ... tipsy?'
'No!' answered Brenda, with a peculiar catch in her breath; 'he is
only stupefied.'
'Stupefied ... how?'
'I ... I will tell you afterwards.'
The quick-witted matron had already discovered that some of her
furniture was slightly displaced, so she did not press her question.
At this moment Captain Huston rose to his feet, and took up a
position on the hearthrug.
'I do not know,' he said, with concentrated calmness, 'whether the
law has anything to say against people who harbour runaway wives;
but, at all events, society will have an opinion on the subject.'
He ignored the fact that he had in no way greeted Mrs. Wylie,
addressing his remarks to both ladies impartially. By both alike his
attack was received in silence.
'I will find her,' he continued. 'You need have no false hopes on
that score. All the Theodore Trists in the world (which is saying
much--for scoundrels are common enough) will not be able to hide her
for long!'
Mrs. Wylie still held Brenda's hand within her own. At the mention
of Trist's name there was an involuntary contraction of the white
fingers, and the widow suddenly determined to act.
'Captain Huston,' she said gravely, 'when you are calmer, if you wish
to talk of this matter again, Brenda and I will be at your service.
At present I am convinced that it is better for your wife to keep
away from you--though I shall be the first to welcome a
reconciliation.'
He shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly to the door. It was
Brenda who rang the bell. Captain Huston passed out of the room
without another word.
It would almost seem that the ingenuous Mary anticipated the call,
for she was waiting in the passage to show Captain Huston out. She
returned almost at once to the drawing-room, with a view (cloaked
beneath a prepared question respecting tea) of satisfying her
curiosity regarding the sound which had suggested the moving of a
'pianer.' But there was no sign of disorder; everything was in its
place, and Brenda was standing idly near the mantelpiece.
'We will take tea at once, Mary,' said Mrs. Wylie, unloosening her
bonnet-strings.
Mary was forced to retire, meditating as she went over the
inscrutability and coldness of the ordinary British lady.
'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Wylie, when the door was closed. 'Now tell me,
Brenda! What has happened? Did these two men meet here? I am quite
in the dark, and have a sort of dazed feeling, as if I had been
reading Carlyle at the French plays, and had got them mixed up.'
'Theo came first,' answered Brenda, 'to warn us that Captain Huston
had come home in the same steamer as himself, without, however,
recognising him. While we were talking, the other came in. He did
not see Theo, who was behind the door...'
'I suppose he was tipsy?'
'No; he was quite sober. He looked horrible. His eyes were
bloodshot--his lips unsteady...'
Mrs. Wylie stopped the description with a sharp, painful nod of her
head. To our shame be it, my brothers, she knew the rest!
'Was he quite clear and coherent?'
'Yes!'
'But ... just now...' argued Mrs. Wylie, vainly endeavouring to make
Brenda resume the narrative--'just now he was quite stupid?'
'Yes.'
'What happened, Brenda?'
At this moment Mary brought in the tea and set it briskly down on a
small table. Brenda stepped forward, and began pouring out.
'What happened, Brenda?' repeated Mrs. Wylie, when the door was
closed.
Then she approached, took the teapot from her hand, and by gentle
force turned the motherless girl's face towards herself.
'My darling,' she whispered, drawing the slim form to her breast,
'why should you hide your tears from _me_?'
I have endeavoured to make it clear that this girl was not an
emotional being. There were no hysterical sobs--merely a few silent
tears, and the narrative was continued.
'He came in, and asked me to tell him where Alice was. I refused,
and then...'
'Then...?'
'He tried to hit me.'
'Tried ... Brenda?'
'Well ... he just reached me.'
'And ... Theo?' asked Mrs. Wylie. 'What did Theo do?'
There was a short pause, during which both ladies attended to their
cups with an unnatural interest.
'I have never seen him like that before,' murmured the girl at
length. 'I did not know that men were ever like that. It was ...
rather terrible ... almost suggestive of some wild animal. He
knocked him down and ... and kicked him round the room like a dog!'
'My poor darling,' whispered Mrs. Wylie. 'I ought never to have left
you here alone. We might have guessed that that man Huston would be
home soon. Did he hurt you, Brenda?'
'No; he frightened me a little, that was all.'
'I am very glad you had Theo!' Mrs. Wylie purposely turned away as
she said these words.
Brenda sipped her tea, and made no reply.
It had been twilight when Mrs. Wylie returned home, and now it was
almost dark. The two ladies sat in the warm firelight, with their
feet upon the fender. Tea laid aside, they continued sitting there
while the flames leapt and fell again, glowing on their thoughtful
faces, gleaming on the simple jewellery at their throats. From the
restless streets came a dull, continuous roar as of the sea. I hear
it now as I write, and would fain lay aside the pen and wonder over
it; for it rises and falls, swells and dies again, with a long, slow,
mournful rhythm full of life, and yet joyless; soporific, and yet
alive with movement. There is no sound on earth like it except the
hopeless song of breaking waves. Both alike steal upon the senses
with an indefinable suggestion of duration, almost amounting to a
glimmer of what is called eternity. Both alike reach the heart with
a subtle, undeniable lovableness. Londoners and sailors cannot
resist its music, for both return to it in their age, whithersoever
they may have wandered.
Mrs. Wylie it was who moved at last, rising with characteristic
determination, as if the pastime of thought were a vice not wisely
encouraged. She stood before Brenda in her widow's weeds, looking
down through the dim light with a faint smile.
'Come,' she said; 'we must get ready for dinner. Remember that Mrs.
Hicks is going to call for you at eight o'clock to take you to that
Ancient Artists' Guild soirée. I should put on a white dress if I
were you, and violets. The gifted William Hicks, whom we met in the
Park this afternoon, asked what flowers he should bring, and I
suggested violets.'
Brenda laughed suddenly, but her hilarity finished in a peculiar,
abrupt way.
'Telle est la vie!' she murmured, as she rose obediently. 'What a
labour this enjoyment sometimes is!'
CHAPTER VII.
QUICKSANDS.
'Wot's this--runaway couple?' asked a pallid and slipshod waiter of
his equally-unwholesome colleague in the dining-room attached to a
large City railway-station.
'D'no,' answered the second, with weary indifference; 'we don't offen
see _that_ sort down 'ere.'
'There's a sort,' continued the first attendant, pulling down his
soup-stained waistcoat, 'o' haristocratic simplicity about them and
their wants as pleases my poetic and 'igh-born soul.'
'Indeed,' yawned the other with withering sarcasm.
'Yes, indeed!'
The sarcasm was treated with noble scorn by its victim, who was
called away at that moment by a bumping sound within the
lift-cupboard.
In the meantime Trist and Alice Huston were turning their attention
to dinner.
The novelty of the situation pleased the lady vastly. There was a
spice of danger coupled with a sense of real security imparted by the
presence of her calm and resourceful companion which she appreciated
thoroughly. For Trist there was, however, less enjoyment in the
sense of novelty. A war-correspondent is a man to whom few
situations are, strictly speaking, novel, and it is, or should be,
his chief study to acquire the virtue of adaptability, and never to
allow himself to be carried away by the forces of environment.
His sense of chivalry was too strong to allow the merest suggestion
of weariness, but in his inmost heart there was a vague uneasiness at
the thought that there was still an hour before the train for the
east coast left, not the station where they were at present, but one
near at hand. He knew that to the fugitive every moment is of
immeasurable value, but for the time being he feared no pursuit. His
measures had been too carefully taken for that, and all the private
detectives in London could not approach this impenetrable strategist
in cunning or foresight.
Only an hour had passed since he and Alice Huston had met on the
stairs of Suffolk Mansions, and since then the excellent construction
of a London cab and the justly-praised smoothness of London roadways
had effectually put a stop to any conversation of a connected or
confidential nature.
At first Alice had been too frightened to resent this, and
subsequently the manner of her companion, which was at once
reassuring and repelling, had checked her efforts. Now the pallid
waiters were almost within earshot, and Theodore Trist, who concealed
a keen power of observation beneath a demeanour at times
aggravatingly stolid, was fully aware that they were interested, and
consequently inquisitive. The result of this knowledge was a
singular lack of the ordinary outward signs of mystery. He spoke in
rather louder tones than was his wont, told one or two amusing
anecdotes, and laughed at them himself, while Mrs. Huston
unconsciously aided him by smiling in a slightly weary way. This
last conjugal touch of human nature went far to convince the waiter
that the two were after all nothing more interesting than husband and
wife.
'Theo, I have so _much_ to tell you,' whispered Mrs. Huston once when
the waiter was exchanging civilities with the cook's assistant down a
speaking-tube.
'Yes,' replied Trist, interested in his bread; 'wait until we are in
the train.'
'Where are we going?'
'I will tell you afterwards; these fellows might hear. Will you have
wine? What shall it be, something light--say Niersteiner?'
He softened his apparent brusqueness with a smile, and she blushed
promptly, which was an unnecessary proceeding. Trist's sang-froid
was phenomenal.
By a simple subterfuge, of which he was almost ashamed, he had
obtained tickets to a small east-coast watering-place without leaving
any trace whatever, and at seven o'clock they left Liverpool Street
Station, in the same compartment, without having allowed the railway
officials to perceive that they were acquainted. There were but few
first-class passengers in the train, and they were alone in the
compartment. The light provided was not a brilliant specimen of its
kind; reading or pretending to read was out of the question. There
was nothing to do but talk, so Trist gave himself over to the tender
mercies of his companion, and for the time vouchsafed his entire
attention to the details of a story too common and too miserable to
recapitulate here. Probably you, who may turn these pages, know the
story; if not, an old traveller takes the liberty of wishing that you
never may.
'And,' said Mrs. Huston between half-suppressed sobs, when the tale
was told, 'I simply could not stand it any longer, so I came home. I
... I _hoped_, Theo, to find you in England, and when Brenda told me
that you were in the East, busy with some horrid war, it was the last
straw. I wonder why people want to fight at all. Why can't the
world live in peace?'
Trist tugged pensively at the arm-rest, and looked out into the
darkness without replying. He did not seem at that moment prepared
to answer the extremely pertinent and relevant question propounded.
If Mrs. Huston had expected a proper show of masculine emotion, she
must have been slightly disappointed; for during no part of her
narrative had the incongruous face opposite to her, beneath the
ludicrous lamp, displayed aught else than a most careful and
intelligent attention. What she required was sympathy, not
attention. Her story was not calculated to withstand too close a
study. Being in itself emotional, it was eminently dependent upon an
emotional reception; it was, in fact, a woman's narrative, fit for
relation by a peaceful fireside, in the hush of twilight, on the top
(so to speak) of tea and muffins, and to a woman's ear. Retailed to
a hard practical man of the world in a noisy train, where the more
pathetic vocal inflections were inaudible; after dinner, and while
narrator and listener wore thick wraps and gloves, it lost weight
most lamentably. She ought to have thought of these trifles, which,
however, are no trifles. You, dear madam, know better than to
attempt to soften your husband's stony heart when he is protected by
gloves, or boots, or top-coat. Ah! these little things make a mighty
difference.
Trist was an ardent follower of that school of philosophy which seeks
to ignore the emotions. By means of cold suppression he would fain
have wiped all passions out of human nature, and, having moved amidst
bloodshed and among men engaged in bloodshed, he had learnt that our
deepest feelings are, after all, mere matters of habit. From the
Eastern lands he knew so well, it is probable that he had brought
back some reflection of that strange Oriental apathy of life which is
incomprehensible to our more highly-strung Western intellects.
When Mrs. Huston pushed her dainty veil recklessly up over the front
of her bonnet, and made no pretence of hiding the tears that rendered
her lovely face almost angelic in its pathos, Trist made no further
acknowledgment of emotion than a momentary contraction of the
eyelids. He continued tugging pensively at the leather arm-rest,
while his eyes only strayed at times from the flashing lights of
peaceful village or quiet town to the beautiful form crouching
against the sombre cushions opposite to him.
'Oh why ... did you ever let me marry him?' sobbed Alice miserably.
He glanced at her with a peculiar twist of his lips, downwards, to
one side. Then he shrugged his shoulders very slightly.
'I? ... What had I to do with it, Alice?'
There was something in his voice, a certain dull concentration, which
had the singular effect of checking her sobs almost instantaneously,
although her breast heaved convulsively at short intervals, like the
swell that follows a storm at sea, long after the rage has subsided.
She touched her eyes prettily with a diminutive handkerchief, and
made an effort to recover her serenity, smoothing a wrinkle out of
the front of her dress.
'Well,' she sighed, 'I suppose you had as much influence over me as
anybody. And ... and you never liked him, Theo. I could see that,
and lately the recollection of it has come back to me more vividly.'
'You forget that I was in China at the time of your engagement. My
influence could not have been very effective at such a range--even if
I had taken it upon myself to exert it, which would have been an
unwarrantable liberty.'
'I was so young,' she pleaded, 'and so inexperienced.'
'Twenty-two,' he observed reflectively; 'and you had your choice, I
suppose, of all the best men in London.'
In some vague way Mrs. Huston's eyes conveyed a contradiction to this
statement, although her lips never moved. A man less dense than this
war-correspondent appeared to be would have understood readily enough
what that glance really signified.
'I hope,' he continued imperturbably, 'that this misunderstanding is
only temporary...'
She laughed bitterly, and examined the texture of her lace
handkerchief with a gracefully impatient poise of the head.
'Huston ... loves you.'
'And _you_,' she answered pertly, 'hate him! Why? Tell me why,
Theo.'
'I hate no one in the world,' he answered. 'Not on principle, but
because I have met no one as yet whom I could hate. There has
invariably been some redeeming point.'
'And what is my husband's redeeming point?'
'His love for you,' answered Trist promptly, and with such calm
assurance that his companion evacuated her false position at once,
and returned to her original line of argument.
'I only had Brenda,' she murmured sorrowfully; 'and she is like you.
She listens and listens and listens, but never gives any real advice.'
'If she had, would you have taken it?' suggested Trist.
The graceful shoulders moved interrogatively and indifferently.
'I suppose not.'
During the silence that followed, Trist looked at his watch, openly
and without disguise. The journey, which was a short one, was almost
half accomplished, and the train was now running at a breakneck pace
through the level Suffolk meadows. Hardly a light was visible over
all the silent land. There were no tunnels and no bridges,
consequently the sounds of travel were reduced to a minimum. It is
the petty local trains that make the most noise; the great purposeful
expresses run almost in silence. In this, my brothers, I think we
resemble trains in some degree. There are those among us who make
little way upon Life's iron track with a great noise; and those who
travel far are silent.
'I don't believe you care a fig what becomes of me!' said Mrs. Huston
at length in a reckless way.
He looked at her with a slow grave smile, but made no other answer.
'Do you?' she asked coquettishly.
He was quite grave now, and her breathing became slightly accelerated.
'Yes!' quite simply.
Presently Trist roused himself, as if from unpleasant reflections,
and began talking about the future.
'I should like to know,' he said, 'exactly what you think of doing,
because I have not much time. At any moment Russia may declare war
against Turkey, and I shall have to go at once.'
'If Russia declares war, I shall kill myself, I think.'
He laughed, and changed his position, drawing in his feet, and
leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees.
'No,' he said with genial energy, 'I would not do that, if I were
you. If I may be allowed to make a suggestion, it seems to me that
you will do well to come to a distinct understanding with Huston,
either through the mediation of Mrs. Wylie or by letter. You cannot
go on long like this.'
'What sort of understanding?' she inquired, with that nonchalant
impatience of detail which seems to be the special prerogative of
beautiful women.
'Ask him to give you three months to think over matters; at the
expiration of that time you can have an interview with him, and come
to some definite agreement respecting the future.'
She sighed, and leant back wearily, looking at him in a curious,
snake-like way beneath her lowered lids.
'Three months will make no difference.'
'Nevertheless ... try it.'
'I want,' she said in a dull voice, '... a divorce!'
For a moment a veil seemed to have been lifted from his eyes; all
meekness vanished, and the glance was keen, far-sighted, almost cruel.
'You cannot get that, Alice. It is impossible!'
She turned her face quite away from him and looked out of the window,
jerking the arm-rest nervously. Her breath clouded the glass. She
murmured something inaudible.
'Eh?' he inquired.
'I could make it possible,' she said jerkily, and her voice died away
in a sickening little laugh.
For some moments there was a horrible silence, and then Theo Trist
spoke in a strange, thick voice, quite unlike his own.
'Alice,' he said, 'do you ever think of Brenda? Do you ever think of
_anyone_ but yourself?'
The words came as a cold and chilling surprise to Mrs. Huston, and
she began slowly to realize that she had met with something which was
entirely new to her. She had come in contact with a man upon whom
the effect of her beauty was of no account. Her powers of
fascination seemed suddenly to have left her, and across her mind
there flashed a gleam of that unpleasant light by the aid of which we
are at times enabled to see ourselves as others see us. It was only
natural and womanlike that she should resent the shedding of this
light, and visit her resentment, not upon the disclosure made by it,
but on the illuminator of the unpleasant scene.
'Oh,' she muttered angrily, 'you are all against me! No one cares
for me; no one makes allowances.'
Trist smiled in a slow, strong way which was infinitely pathetic.
'No,' he said, 'no one makes allowances; you must never expect that.'
Then Mrs. Huston's tears began to flow again, and the self-contained
man opposite to her sat with white bloodless lips and contracted eyes
staring into the blackness of the night.
CHAPTER VIII.
MASKED.
The soirée of the Ancient Artists' Guild was in the full flow of its
success. There had been some excellent music, and the programme
promised more. The brilliancy of the attendance was equal to the
highest hopes of the most ambitious committee. Long hair and strange
dresses vouched for the presence of self-conscious intellect; small
receding foreheads, hopeless mouths, and fair but painted faces,
announced the presence of that shade of aristocracy which prefers to
patronize.
William Hicks was not on the committee of the Ancient Artists, but he
moved about from group to group, dispensed ices, and exchanged
artistic jargon with a greater grace than was at the command of that
entire august body. By some subtle means, peculiarly his own, he
managed to convey to many the erroneous idea that he was in some
indefinite way connected with the obvious success of this soirée; and
several stout ladies went so far as to thank him, later on, for a
pleasant evening, which gratitude he graciously and deprecatingly
disowned in such a way as to make it appear his due. The pleasant
evening had been in most cases spent between a nervous concern as to
the effect produced by personal and filial adornment, and an
ill-disguised contempt for common women who flaunt titles and
diamonds (both uncoveted) in the faces of their superiors, possessing
neither. But we men cannot be expected to understand those things.
Chiefly was William Hicks' devotion laid at Brenda's feet. For her
was reserved his sweetest smile, just tempered with that suggestion
of poetic pathos which he knew well how to sprinkle over his mirth.
To her ear was retailed the very latest witticism, culled from the
brain of some other man, and skilfully reproduced, not as a cutting,
but as a modest seedling. To her side he returned most often, and
over her chair stooped most markedly.
It has been hinted already that Hicks, with all his talents and
mental gifts, was not an observant man. In certain small diplomacies
of social life he was no match for the quiet-faced girl whom he was
pleased to honour this evening with his conspicuous attention.
She was miserably anxious, but she hid it from him; and he talked on,
quite ignorant of the fact that she was in no manner heeding his
words. Her quick, acquired smile was ready enough; when an answer
was required, she was equal to the occasion. Ah! these social
agonies! There is a sort of pride in enduring them with cheerful
stoicism.
'I am glad,' murmured Hicks, with a deprecating smile, 'that my
mother succeeded in dragging you here. It is a sort of intellectual
treat for me. We painters are so incurably shoppy in our talk, that
it is really a relief to have you at my mercy--so to speak. This is
a success, is it not? There are a great many celebrities in the
room.'
'Indeed?'
'Yes; and I always feel a slight difference in the atmosphere when
there is someone present with a name one likes to hear.'
He looked round the room with glistening eye and delicate nostrils
slightly distended, as if sniffing his native atmosphere of Fame.
'One can generally recognise a celebrated man or woman, I think,' he
continued. 'There is an indefinite feeling of power--a strength of
individuality which seems to hover round them like an invisible halo.'
'Ye-es,' murmured Brenda vaguely. A moment later she was conscious
of having looked round the room as if in search of halos, and
wondered uncomfortably whether her companion had seen the movement.
Then a stout lady, with a very dark complexion, suddenly raised an
exquisite voice, and a complete silence acknowledged its power
instantaneously. It was a quaint old song, with words that might
have had no meaning whatever, beyond trite regrets for days that
could never come again, had they been sung with less feeling--less
true human sympathy.
Brenda literally writhed beneath the flood of harmony. She tried not
to listen--tried vainly to look round her and think cynical thoughts
about the hollow shams of society, but some specially deep and tender
note would reach her heart, despite the wall of worldliness that she
had built around it. It would seem that that stout cheery woman
could see through the smiles, through the affected masks, and
penetrate to the heart, which is never quite safe from the sudden
onslaught of youthful memories surviving still, youthful hopes since
crushed, and youthful weaknesses never healed.
Brenda looked round the room with a semi-interested little smile
(such as we see in church sometimes when a preacher has got well hold
of his audience), and suddenly her face grew white, her breath seemed
to catch, and for some seconds there was no motion of her throat or
bosom. Respiration seemed to be arrested. With an effort she
recovered herself, and a great sigh of relief filled her breast.
Among a number of men beneath the curtained doorway she had
recognised an upright sturdy form, beside which the narrower
shoulders and sunken chests of poetic and artistic celebrities seemed
to shrink into insignificance. The way in which this man carried his
head distinguished him at once from those around him. He was of
quite a different stamp from his companions, most of whom depended
upon some peculiarity of dress or hair to distinguish them from the
very ordinary ruck of young men.
Across that vast room Trist's eyes met Brenda's, and although his
calm face changed in no way, betrayed by no slightest tremor that he
had come with the wild hope of meeting her, his lips moved.
'Thank God, I have done it!' he muttered, beneath the whirl of polite
applause that greeted the stout lady's elephantine bow.
At the other end of the room Hicks noticed with some surprise that
Brenda drew her watch from her belt, and consulted it with particular
attention. She was counting the number of hours since she had last
seen Theodore Trist, with signs of travel still visible on his dress
and person, just starting off on a new journey, without rest or
respite. It was now midnight. She had never thought that he would
return the same night--in fact, she was sure that he had not intended
to do so. And here he was--calm, thoughtful, almost too cool as
usual, without sign of fatigue or suggestion of hurry. His dress was
faultless, his appearance and demeanour politely indifferent.
'I hope,' said Hicks meaningly, 'that you are not growing weary. It
is early yet.'
He looked round the room, with a pleasant nod for an acquaintance
here and there whom he had not seen before.
'Oh no,' said Brenda lightly in reply. 'I just happened to wonder
what the time might be. I hope it was not rude.'
He laughed forgivingly, still looking about him.
'Ah!' he exclaimed in an altered tone. 'Is that not Trist? Dear old
Theo Trist!'
'Yes.'
Brenda had apparently followed the direction indicated by her
companion's gaze, and was now looking towards the new-comer with an
inimitable little smile which completely quashed all attempts to
divine whether she were surprised, or pleased, or politely interested.
Trist was making his way slowly across the room, exchanging greetings
here and there. Brenda, in her keen observant way, conceived a
sudden idea that his manner was not quite natural. Although of a
kindly spirit, Trist was not a genial man with a smile full of
affection for the merest acquaintance; and the girl, in some vague
way, felt that he was shaking hands with men and women who were
profoundly indifferent to him. Indeed, he seemed to go out of his
way to do so.
'When did you get home?' she heard someone ask him; and the reply was
delivered in clear tones, audible at a greater distance than Trist's
voice usually was, as if with intention.
'This afternoon,' he said. 'Only this afternoon. I landed at
Plymouth this morning.'
The next moment he was standing before her with his brown face bowed,
his hand extended.
'You see, Brenda,' he said, 'I have turned up again. A veritable
dove without the leaf in my mouth. I am an emblem of peace.'
Instinctively, and without knowing her motive, she answered in the
same way, conscious that it was his wish.
'I am very glad to see you back,' she said.
Then he turned to Hicks, and shook hands with more warmth than that
ethereal being had expected.
'You see, Hicks,' he said, 'I cannot resist flying at once to pay my
respects at the shrine of Art--only arrived in London this afternoon,
and here I am in full war-paint, with a flower in my coat and my
heart in my eyes. What pictures have I to admire? You may as well
tell me.'
Hicks laughed in his semi-sad way, and mentioned a few pictures of
note, which were carefully remembered by his hearer. Then Trist
turned to Brenda and offered her his arm.
'Will you come,' he said, 'and have some tea or an ice, or something?'
Brenda appeared to hesitate for a moment, then gave in with that
reluctant alacrity which is to be observed when a lady is making a
sacrifice of her own inclination.
As they moved away together through the crowded room there was a
sudden hush, and succeeding it a louder buzz of expectant
conversation. Trist looked over the heads of the people towards the
little flower-bedecked platform at the end of the room.
'Ah!' he said; 'Crozier is going to sing. Shall we wait? It is a
pity to miss Sam Crozier.'
Nevertheless he made no attempt to stop, and they passed through the
doorway into a smaller gallery, which was almost deserted.
'I am in luck to-night; everything I have attempted has been a
success. So we shall probably find the refreshment-room empty.'
She laughed in a nervous way, and her touch upon his arm wavered.
'We must run the risk,' he continued, 'of being talked about; but I
must see you alone for a few minutes. It is strange, Brenda, that we
are always getting into hot water together.'
'Oh!' she said indifferently, 'the risk is not very great. People do
not talk much about me. Alice possesses that unfortunate monopoly in
our family.'
'That is why I must see you.'
'Yes, ... I know.'
They had passed through the smaller room and out of it into a
brilliant corridor, whence a broad flight of stairs led up to the
refreshment-room.
'There is a sofa half-way up the stairs,' said Trist. 'It is a good
position, quite out of earshot, and very visible--therefore harmless;
let us occupy it!'
When they were seated, Brenda leant back with that air of grave
attention which was peculiarly hers, and which, I venture to think,
is rarely met with in women.
'When,' said Trist in a smooth and even tone, 'I got back to town, I
figuratively tore my hair, and said to myself: "Where shall I find
Brenda--where shall I find Brenda to-night?" I took a hansom back to
my rooms, changed, and then drove to Suffolk Mansions. Mrs. Wylie
told me where you were; I gave chase, and ... and I caught you.'
The girl turned her face slightly, and her childlike blue eyes sought
his with a quaint air of scrutiny.
'When,' she said, 'you left Suffolk Mansions this afternoon with
Alice, you had no intention of returning to London to-night.'
There was no mistaking the deliberation of her assertion. She was
defying him--daring him to deny.
He met her glance for a moment--no longer.
'That,' he confessed airily, after a pause, 'is so!'
'And,' continued the girl with more confidence, 'since that time your
views respecting Alice have become modified or changed in some way,
perhaps?'
He moved with some uneasiness, and appeared particularly wishful to
avoid encountering her frank gaze. He clasped his two hands around
his raised knee, and stared at the carpet with a non-committing
silence which was almost Oriental in its density.
'Brenda,' he whispered at length, 'I have had an awful scare!'
She drew in a deep breath with a little shivering sound, and
moistened her lips--first the lower, and then the upper. There was a
momentary gleam of short, pearly teeth, and the red Cupid's-bow of
her mouth reassumed its usual contour of demure self-reliance.
There was a long pause, during which the faint echo of distant
applause came to their ears.
'I wonder,' said the girl at length, 'how many men would have taken
as much trouble as you have taken to-night for the sake of such a
trifling affair as a woman's good name?'
A dull red colour slowly mounted over her white throat to her face--a
painful blush of intense shame, which she was too proud to attempt to
hide. The deliberation with which she spoke the words, and then held
up her burning face that he might see, had he wished, was very
characteristic.
Trist himself changed colour, and his firm lips opened as if he were
about to reply hastily. He checked himself, however, and they sat
through several painful moments without motion.
During that time their two souls merged, as it were, into a complete
understanding--so entire, so perfect and faithful, that no spoken
words could ever have brought its semblance into existence. He knew
that his painful task was now finished, that Brenda now understood
his reason for coming back to London at once. Moreover, he was aware
that she had divined the cause of his sudden geniality on first
arriving at the soirée, and there was no need to tell her that all
London could now find out, if it pleased, that the war-correspondent,
Theodore Trist, had arrived home from the East that afternoon, and
was seen by many in the evening at a public place of entertainment.
But Brenda was not content with divination of motives. It was her
evil habit to proceed to analysis, and in this pastime she made a
mistake. Trist's motive in running away, as it were, from the
dangerous proximity of a desperate and beautiful woman was clear; and
although a large majority of men would, under the circumstances, have
had the generosity to do the same, she was pleased to consider this
act a most wondrous thing--her reason for doing so being that she was
convinced that Trist loved her sister with all the cruel and taciturn
strength of his nature. This was an utter mistake, and Theo Trist
was unaware of its existence.
Ah! these little mistakes! We spend a small portion of our lives in
making them, and the rest in trying to repair.
'Give me,' said Brenda, 'her address, and I will go to her to-morrow.'
'She is at the Castle Hotel, Burgh Ferry, Suffolk. There is a train
from Liverpool Street Station leaving at ten o'clock to-morrow for
Burgh Station, which is four miles from Burgh Ferry.'
'I have heard of the place,' said Brenda composedly. 'Have you been
there and back this evening?'
'Yes. I just had time to install Alice comfortably in the hotel,
which is really nothing more than an inn, and is the largest house in
the village. I have a list for you--here it is--of things that Alice
would like you to take to her to-morrow.'
Brenda took the paper and glanced at it rapidly.
'It is a long one,' she said with a short, hard laugh. 'Is she quite
resigned to burying herself alive for a short time?'
'Ye--es.... I put things rather strongly. She has consented to
communicate with her husband through Mrs. Wylie, with the view of
coming to some sort of agreement.'
The girl drew a sharp breath of relief.
'There ... were ... a good many tears,' added Trist rather unevenly.
'I would suggest a good supply of books,' he said a moment later in a
practical way. 'It is a dreadfully dull little place (which makes it
safer), and too much thinking is hardly desirable at the present
time.'
'It is questionable whether much thinking is profitable at any time.'
Trist looked at her in a curious, doubtful way, and then he rose from
his seat.
'I will take you home now,' he said, 'if you are ready. It is nearly
one o'clock.'
She rose a little wearily, and, lifting her gloved hand, skirmished
deftly over her hair in order to make sure that it had not become
deranged. He noted the curve of her white arm, and the quick play of
her fingers, while he stood erect and motionless, waiting. No
passing light of emotion was visible in his eyes, which possessed a
strange, unreflective power of observation. That round white arm was
looked upon as a beautiful thing, and nothing more. And she was a
trifle weary. Her face betrayed no sign of mental or natural anxiety.
Then she took his arm, and they passed down the splendid stairs
together. Co-heirs to a truly human inheritance of sorrow, they bore
their burden without complaint or murmur, with a self-reliance
behoving children of an acute civilization. For civilization will in
time kill all human sympathy.
'I will go home with you,' said Trist, 'because some precautions are
necessary in order to escape observation on your journey to-morrow,
and I have several suggestions to make.'
CHAPTER IX.
IN CASE OF WAR.
As the winter settled over Europe--here with gloom and fog, there
with bright keen frosts and dazzling snow--the feeling of anxiety
respecting affairs in the East slowly subsided. The general
conviction was that Russia would not move against her hereditary
Moslem enemy until the winter was over; for even hatred, sturdy weed
though it may be, is killed by cold.
Theodore Trist, fresh from those mysterious Oriental lands which are
so much more romantic from a distance, gave no opinion upon the
matter, because he was a practical business-man, and fully aware of
the market value of his observations.
By ten o'clock on the morning following the soirée of the Ancient
Artists, he alighted from a hansom cab opposite the huge office of
the journal to which his pen was pledged. A few moments later he was
shaking hands uneffusively with the editor. This gentleman has been
introduced before, and men at his age change little in appearance or
habit. His vast head was roughly picturesque as usual, his speech
manly and to the point.
'Glad to see you back,' he said, in a business-like way. 'Sit down.
None the worse, I hope?' he added, in a softer tone, and accompanied
his observation with a keen glance. 'None the worse for the smell of
powder again?'
'No,' was the answer. 'That smell never did any man much harm.'
The editor smiled, and drew some straggling papers together upon his
desk.
'I want,' said Trist, after a pause, 'to make a lot of money.'
'Ah!'
'Enough,' continued Trist gravely, 'to put into something secure, and
ensure a steady income in the piping times of peace.'
The editor clasped his large hands gravely with fingers interlocked,
and placed them on the desk in front of him.
'That,' he said, with raised eyebrows, 'is bad.'
'But natural,' suggested the younger man.
'When a man of your age suddenly expresses a desire for something
which...'
'He has never had,' remarked Trist meekly.
'Which he has never had or wished for, it is suggestive of a
change--a radical change--in that man's plan of life.'
Trist raised his square shoulders slightly and respectfully.
'Now,' continued the editor, in his most solid and convincing way,
'you--Theodore Trist--are the most brilliant war-correspondent of a
brilliant and war-like generation. You are, besides that, a clever
fellow--perhaps an _exceptionally_ clever fellow. But, my friend,
there are many clever fellows in the world. It is an age of keen
competition, and the first man in the race must never look back to
see whose step it is that he hears behind him. We live in a time of
specialities, and we must be content with specialities. You are a
born war-correspondent, and I suppose your ambition is to prove that
you can do something else--write a novel, or edit a religious
periodical--eh?'
Trist laughed, and returned the gaze of a pair of remarkably bright
eyes without hesitation.
'No,' he answered. 'I am content with the mark I have made, but
there is not sufficient money to be gained at it, considering how
much it takes out of a man. I am as strong as a horse yet, but I
have noticed that there are some of us who, considering their years,
are not the men they should be. It is a desperately hard life, and
we are constantly required. If I live ten years longer, I shall be
laid on the shelf, as far as active service goes.'
The editor looked much relieved, and, moreover, made no pretence of
concealing his feelings.
'I have thought of that,' he said. 'Of course, we will take you on
the editorial staff.'
'Now...?'
The elder man raised his head, and the kindly gray eyes searched his
companion's face.
'Ah!' he said slowly. '_That_ is your game. Have you lost your
nerve?'
'No.'
'Then you contemplate some great change in your plan of life.'
'Hardly,' returned Trist, with some deliberation; 'but I want to be
prepared for such an emergency.'
'I am very sorry to hear it.'
'Why?'
'Because you are too young yet. And ... and, my boy, I don't want to
lose the best war-correspondent that ever crossed a saddle.'
The object of this honest flattery shrugged his shoulders.
'There are plenty more coming on.'
The great man shook his head.
'Do you mean to tell me,' he asked, 'that you are going to turn your
back upon a splendid career, and take up journalism? Why, my dear
fellow, even at my age I would willingly change my chair for your
saddle, and men say that I am at the top of the journalistic tree.
Come, be candid; why are you giving up active service?'
'Because I am wanted at home, and because I must find some means of
making a steady income.'
'Will you take my advice?' asked the elder man humbly.
They were like two friendly gladiators, these immovable journalists,
each conscious of the strength that lay behind the gentle manner of
the other, both anxious to avoid measuring steel.
Trist laughed good-humouredly.
'I will not promise.'
'No; that would be asking too much from a man who has made his own
way with his own hands. My advice is: do nothing until the necessity
arises. At the first rumour of war we will talk this over again. In
the meantime, let us wait on events. You will write your leaders as
usual, and I suppose you are busy with something in book form?'
'If,' answered Trist, 'there is war in Turkey, I will go, because I
told you that I would, but that will be my last campaign.'
The editor looked at him with kindly scrutiny; then he scratched his
chin.
'Why?' he asked deliberately, and with a consciousness of exceeding
the bounds of polite non-interference.
'I cannot tell you--yet.'
There was a slight pause, during which neither moved, and the
stillness in that little room which lay in the very heart of restless
London was remarkable.
The editor looked very grave. There were no papers on his desk
requiring immediate attention, but he held his pencil within his
strong fingers ready, as it were, to add his notes to any news that
might come before him. The responsibility of a great journalist is
only second to that of a Prime Minister in a country like England,
where the voice of the people is heard and obeyed. Had this man
turned his attention to politics, he would perhaps have attained the
Premiership; but he was a journalist, and from that small silent room
his fiats went forth to the ready ears of half a nation. Few men
read more than one newspaper, and we have not yet got over the
weakness of attaching undue importance to words that are set in type;
consequently the influence of an important journal over the mind of
the nation to which it dictates is practically incalculable.
'You know,' said this modern Jove at length, 'as well as I do that
there _will_ be war as soon as the winter is over.'
In completion of his remark he nodded his vast head sideways, vaguely
indicating the East.
'Yes,' was the meek answer; 'that is so--a war which will begin in a
one-sided way, and last longer than we quite expect; but I will go.'
'I fancy,' remarked the editor after some reflection, 'that Russia
will make a very common mistake, and underrate, or perhaps despise,
her adversary.'
Trist nodded his head.
'They are sure to do that,' he said; 'but I suppose they will win in
the end.'
'And you will be on the losing side again.
'Yes; I shall be on the losing side again.
Both men relapsed into profound meditation. Trist's meek eyes were
fixed on the soft Turkey carpet--the only suggestion of ease or
luxury about the room. The editor glanced from time to time at his
companion's strong face, and occupied himself with making small
indentations in his blotting-pad with the point of a blacklead pencil.
'Trist,' he said at length, 'I cannot do without you in this war.'
'The war has not come yet. Many things may happen before the spring;
but I will not play you false. You need never fear that.'
Then he rose and buttoned his thick coat; for, like all great
travellers, he wrapped himself up heavily in England. It is only
very young and quite inexperienced men who gather satisfaction from
the bravado of wearing no top-coat in winter.
'Good-bye,' he said; 'I must go up to the publishers.'
'Good-bye,' replied the editor heartily; 'look in whenever you are
passing. I hope to see you one night soon at the Homeless Club; they
are going to give you a dinner, I believe.'
'Yes; I heard something of it. It is very good of them, but
embarrassing, and not strictly necessary.'
Trist passed out of the small room into a long passage, and thence
into what was technically called the shop--a large apartment, across
which stretched a heavily-built deal counter, and of which the
atmosphere was warm with the intellectual odour of printing-ink.
The door-keeper, who persisted, in face of contradiction, in his
conviction that Mr. Trist was a soldier, drew himself stiffly up and
saluted as he held open the swing-door. It was one of those cold
blustering days which come in early November. A dry biting
south-east wind howled round every corner, and disfigured most
physiognomies with patches of red, more especially in the nasal
regions. Nevertheless, the air was clear and brisk--just the day to
kill weak folks and make strong people feel stronger.
With his gloved hands buried in the pockets of his thick coat, the
war-correspondent wandered along the crowded pavement of the Strand,
rubbing shoulders with beggar and genius indifferently.
He was not a man much given to useless reflections or observations
upon matters climatic, and so absorbed was he in his thoughts that he
would have been profoundly surprised to learn that a biting east wind
was withering up humanity. He looked into the shops, and presently
became really interested in a display of rifles exposed in the
unpretending window of a small establishment.
It is strange how the sight of those tools or instruments with which
we have at one time worked for our living affects us. The present
writer has seen an old soldier handle a bayonet in a curious
reflective way which could not be misunderstood. The ancient
warrior's face, in some subtle sense, became hardened, and his manner
changed. I myself grasp a rope differently from men who have never
trodden a moss-grown deck, and the curve of the hard strands within
my fingers tells a tale of its own, and brings back, suddenly,
ineffaceable pictures of the great seas.
Theodore Trist stood still before the upright burnished barrels which
the poet has likened to organ-pipes, and to his mind there came the
memory of their music, and the roar of traffic round him was almost
merged into the grand, deep voice of cannon. It is in the midst of
death that men realize fully the glorious gift of life, and those who
have known the delirious joy of battle--have once tasted, as it were,
the cup of life's greatest emotion--are aware that nothing but a
battle-field can bring that maddening taste to their lips again.
This contemplative man breathed harder and deeper as his eyes rested
on lock and barrel, and for some time he stood hearing nothing round
him, seeing nothing but the instruments of death.
'Yes,' he murmured as he turned away at length. 'I _must_ go to the
Russian war. _One_ more campaign, and then ... then who knows?'
CHAPTER X.
A PROBLEM.
Brenda left Mrs. Wylie at eleven o'clock, merely walking away from
the door of Suffolk Mansions without wrap or luggage. She did not
know whether she was being watched or no, but her plans were so
simple, and yet so cunning, that the question gave her little
trouble. Detection was impossible. Trist had seen to that, and his
strategy had been the subject of some subdued laughter the night
before, because Brenda complained that she felt like an army. He had
unconsciously dictated to her, in his soft, suggestive way, and so
complete were his instructions, so abject the obedience demanded,
that there was some cause for her laughing dissatisfaction. With
intelligence, education, experience, reading, and money it is no
difficult matter to evade the closest watcher, and Trist was not at
all afraid of such means as lay at Captain Huston's disposal for
tracing the hiding-place of his wife.
When Mrs. Wylie found herself left alone, she proceeded placidly to
await further events. She was convinced that, sooner or later, the
husband of her protégée would appear. Whether this questionable
honour would be conferred with bluster and righteous indignation, or
with abject self-abuse, remained to be seen. Neither prospect
appeared to have the power of ruffling the lady's serene humour. The
morning newspaper received its usual attention, and subsequently
there were some new books to be cut and glanced at. Lunch had
already been ordered--lunch for two, and something rather nice,
because Theo Trist had invited himself to partake of the lone widow's
hospitality.
In her small way, Mrs. Wylie was likely to pass an eventful day, but
the thought of it in nowise took away her interest in December's
_Temple Bar_. She was one of those happy and lovable women who are
not in the habit of adding to their grievances by anticipating them;
for it is an undeniable fact that sorrows as well as joys are
exaggerated by anticipation. Personally, I much prefer going out to
get my hair cut as soon as ever I realize the necessity. It is a
mistake to put off the operation, because the scissors seem to hang
over one's luxuriant locks with a fiendish click during the stilly
hours.
About twelve o'clock there was a knock at the door which shut off
Mrs. Wylie's comfortable suite of rooms from the rest of the house.
'Ah!' murmured the occupant of the drawing-room. 'Our violent
friend. Twelve o'clock: I must get him out of the house before Theo
arrives.'
She leant back and tapped the pages of her magazine pensively with an
ivory paper-cutter, while her eyes rested on the door.
In the course of a few moments there was audible the sound of
murmuring voices, followed shortly by footsteps.
The door was thrown open, and William Hicks made a graceful _entrée_,
finished, as it were, by the delicately-tinted flower he carried in
his gloved fingers.
Mrs. Wylie rose at once with a most reprehensively deceitful smile of
welcome. She devoutly wished William Hicks in other parts as she
offered her plump white hand to his grasp.
The artist, with passable dissimulation, glanced round the room. No
sign or vestige of Brenda! The rose was deftly dropped into his hat
and set aside. It had cost two shillings.
'Ah! Mrs. Wylie,' he exclaimed, 'I was half afraid you would be out
shopping. The wind is simply excruciating.'
'Then warm yourself at once. I am afraid I am alone.'
Hicks was, in his way, a bold man. He relied thoroughly upon a
virtue of his own which he was pleased to call tact--others said its
right name was 'cheek.'
'Afraid!' he said reproachfully, and with an inquiring smile.
'Yes--the girls are out.'
He laughed in a pleasant deprecating way, and held his slim hands
towards the fire.
'How absurd you are!' he said. 'I merely ran in to ask if a lace
handkerchief I found last night belonged to Miss Gilholme.'
He began to fumble in his pockets without any great design of finding
the handkerchief. Mrs. Wylie spared him the trouble of going
farther.'
'Bring it another time,' she said.
She knew the handkerchief trick well. It is very simple, my brother:
pick up a lace trifle anywhere about the ballroom, and with a slight
draft upon your imagination, you have a graceful excuse to call at
any house you may desire the next afternoon. If there is not one to
be found, one can easily buy such a thing, and it serves for years.
No young man is complete without it.
For some minutes William Hicks talked airily about the soirée of the
Ancient Artists, throwing in here and there, in his pleasant way, a
blast upon his individual instrument, of which the note was wearily
familiar to his listener.
At last, however, he let fall an observation which made Mrs. Wylie
forgive him, 'à un coup,' his early call.
'I met,' he said casually, 'that fellow ... Huston this morning.'
Mrs. Wylie laid aside the paper-knife with which she had been
trifling. The action scarce required a moment of time, but in that
moment she had collected her faculties, and was ready for him with
all the alertness of her sex.
'Ah! What news had he?' she inquired suavely.
'Oh, nothing much. We scarcely spoke--indeed, I don't believe he
recognised me at first.'
Mrs. Wylie raised her eyebrows in astonishment.
'He came yesterday,' she said, 'to get his wife; and Brenda has gone
away, too, so I am all alone for a few days.'
This was artistic, and the good lady was mentally patting herself on
the back as she met Hicks's glance, in which disappointment and utter
amazement were struggling for mastery.
'I do not think,' continued she calmly, 'that I shall stay in town
much longer. I am expecting a houseful of quiet people--waifs and
strays--at Wyl's Hall at Christmas, so must really think of going
home. But I will call on your mother before going. Give her my love
and tell her so.'
William Hicks was not the man to make a social blunder. He rose at
once, and said 'Good-morning,' with his sweetest smile. Then he
bowed himself out of the room, taking the two-shilling rose with him.
Mrs. Wylie reseated herself, and withheld her sigh of relief until
the door had closed. She then took up her book again, but presently
closed its pages over her fingers, and lapsed into thought.
'That young man,' she reflected, 'is finding his own level. He may
give trouble yet; but Brenda goes serenely on her way, quite
unconscious of all these little games at cross-purposes of which she
is the centre.'
The good lady's reflections continued in this vein. She leant back
with that pleasant sense of comfort which was almost feline in its
supple grace. Her eyes contracted at times with a vague far-off
anxiety--the reflex, as it were, of the sorrows of others upon her
own placid life, from which all direct emotions were weeded now.
When, at length, the sound of a bell awoke her from these day-dreams,
she rose and arranged the cheery fireplace with a sudden access of
energy.
'I wonder,' she murmured, without emotion, 'who is coming now.'
With a glance round the room to see that her stage was prepared, she
reseated herself.
Again the door opened, and this time the new arrival did not hurry
into the room, but stood upon the threshold waiting. Mrs. Wylie
looked up with a pleasant expectancy. It was Captain Huston.
The soldier glanced round the room uneasily, and then he advanced
towards the fire without attempting any sort of greeting. Mrs. Wylie
remained in her deep chair, and as the Captain came towards her, she
watched him. His unsteady hands gave his hat no rest. Taking his
stand on the hearthrug, he began at once in a husky voice.
'I have come to you, Mrs. Wylie,' he said, 'because I suspect that
you know where Alice is to be found. This game of hide-and-seek to
which she is treating me is hardly dignified, and it is distinctly
senseless. If I choose to take decided steps in the matter, I can,
of course, have her hunted down like a common malefactor.'
He spread his gaitered feet apart, and waited with confidence the
result of this shot.
'In the meantime,' suggested Mrs. Wylie, with unruffled sweetness,
'it is really, perhaps, wiser that you should remain apart. I
sincerely trust that this is a mere temporary misunderstanding. You
are both young, and, I suppose, both hasty. Think over it, Captain
Huston, and do not press matters too much. If, in a short time, you
approach Alice with a few kind little apologies, I believe she would
relent. You must really be less hard on us women--make some
allowance for our more tender nerves and silly susceptibilities.'
By way of reply, he laughed in a rasping way, without, however, being
actually rude.
'I have an indistinct recollection of having heard that before,' he
observed, with forced cynicism, 'or something of a similar nature.
The kind little apologies you mention are due to me as much as they
are to Alice. Of course, she has omitted to draw your attention to
sundry little flirtations...'
The widow stopped him with a quick gesture of disgust.
'I refuse,' she said deliberately, 'to listen to details. Alice will
tell you that I treated her in the same way. These matters, Captain
Huston, should be sacred between husband and wife.'
'Well, I suppose you have Alice's story through Brenda? It comes to
the same thing. I can see you are prejudiced against me.'
Mrs. Wylie smiled patiently, with a suggestion of sympathy, which her
companion seemed to appreciate.
'The world,' she said, 'is sure to be prejudiced against you in the
present case. You must remember that the moral code is different for
a pretty woman than for the rest of us. Moreover, the husband is
blamed in preference, because people attribute the original mistake
of marrying to him. I don't say that men are always to blame for
mistaken marriages, but the initiative is popularly supposed to lie
in their hands.'
Captain Huston tugged at his drooping moustache pensively. He walked
to the window, with the assurance of one who knew his way amidst the
furniture, and stood for some time looking down into the street.
Presently he returned, avoiding Mrs. Wylie's eyes; but she saw his
face, and her own grew suddenly very sympathetic.
He played nervously with the ornaments upon the mantelpiece for some
moments, deeply immersed in thought. There was a chair drawn forward
to the fire, at the opposite end of the fur hearthrug to that
occupied by Mrs. Wylie. This he took, sitting hopelessly with his
idle hands hanging at either side.
'What am I to do?' he asked, half cynically.
Before replying, the widow looked at him--gauging him.
'Do you really mean that?'
'Of course--I am helpless. A man is no match for three women.'
'To begin with, you must have more faith in other people. In myself
... Brenda ... Theo Trist.'
The last name was uttered with some significance. Its effect was
startling. Huston's bloodshot eyes flashed angrily, his limp fingers
clenched and writhed until the skin gave forth a creaking sound as of
dry leather.
'D--n Trist!' he exclaimed. 'I will shoot him if he comes across my
path!'
Mrs. Wylie did not shriek or faint, as ladies are usually supposed to
do when men give way to violent language in their presence. But
there came into her eyes a slight passing shade of anxiety, which she
suppressed with an effort.
'But first of all,' she said, 'you must learn to restrain yourself.
You must understand that bluster of any description is quite useless
against myself or Theo. Alice may be afraid, but Brenda is not; and
with Alice fear is closely linked with disgust. Do not forget that.'
She spoke quite calmly, with a force which a casual observer would
not have anticipated. In her eagerness she leant forward, with a
warning hand outstretched.
'And,' he muttered, 'I suppose I am to suppress all my feelings, and
go about the world like a marble statue. It seems to me that that
fellow Trist leaves his impression on you all. His doctrine is
imperturbability at any price. It isn't mine!'
'Nor mine, Captain Huston. All I preach is a little more restraint.
Theo goes too far, and his reticence leads to mistakes. You have
been misled. You think that ... your wife and Theo Trist ... love
each other.'
The soldier looked at her steadily, his weak nether lip quivering
with excitement. Then he slowly nodded his head.
'That--is my impression.'
Mrs. Wylie evinced no hurry, no eagerness now. She had difficult
cards, and her full attention was given to playing them skilfully.
She leant back again in her comfortable chair, and crossed her hands
upon her lap.
'Using primary argument,' she said concisely, 'and meeting opinion
with opinion, I contend that you are mistaken. I will be perfectly
frank with you, Captain Huston, because you have a certain claim upon
my honesty. In some ways Alice is a weak woman. It has been her
misfortune to be brought up and launched upon society as a beauty; a
man who marries such a woman is assuming a responsibility which
demands special qualifications. Judging from what I have observed, I
am very much afraid that you possess these qualifications in but a
small degree. Do you follow me?'
The man smiled in an awkward way.
'Yes. You were going to say, "I told you so."'
'That,' returned the widow, 'is a remark I never make, because it is
profitless. Moreover, it would not be true, because I never told you
so. Circumstances have in a measure been against you. You could
scarcely have chosen a more dangerous part of the world in which to
begin your married life than Ceylon. As it happens, you did not
choose, but it was forced upon you. In England we live differently.
A young married woman is thrown more exclusively upon the society of
her husband; there is less temptation. You will find it less
difficult...'
'Is married life to be described as a difficulty?' he interrupted.
Mr. Wylie did not reply at once. She sat with placidly crossed hands
gazing into the fire. There was a slight tension in the lines of her
mouth.
'Life,' she replied, 'in any form, in any sphere, in any
circumstances, _is_ a difficulty.'
After a moment she resumed in a more practical tone:
'Again, Alice is scarcely the woman to make a soldier's wife in times
of peace. War ... would bring out her good points.'
Huston moved restlessly. Mrs. Wylie turned her soft gray eyes
towards his face, and across her sympathetic features there passed an
expression of real pain. She had divined his next words before his
lips framed them.
'I am not a soldier, Mrs. Wylie.'
'Resigned...?' she whispered.
'No; turned out.'
Unconsciously she was swaying backwards and forwards a little, as if
in lamentation, while she rubbed one hand over the other.
'Drink,' continued Huston harshly; '... drink, and Alice drove me to
it.'
There was a long silence in the room after this. The glowing fire
creaked and crackled at times; occasionally a cinder fell with
considerable clatter into the fender, but neither of these people
moved. At last Mrs. Wylie looked up.
'Captain Huston,' she said pleadingly.
'Yes.'
He looked across, and saw the tears quivering on her lashes.
'Come back to me to-morrow morning,' was her prayer. 'I cannot ... I
cannot advise you yet ... because I do not quite understand. Theo
Trist is coming to lunch to-day. Will you come back to-morrow?'
'I will,' he answered simply, and left the room.
CHAPTER XI.
MRS. WYLIE LEADS.
As Theodore Trist mounted the broad bare staircase of Suffolk
Mansions, his quick ears detected the sound of Mrs. Wylie's door
being drawn forcibly to behind departing footsteps.
He continued his way without increase of speed. The person whose
descent was audible came slowly to meet him, and in a few moments
they were face to face upon a small stone-paved landing.
Neither departed from the unwritten code by which Englishmen regulate
their actions; they merely stared at each other. Trist was
unchanged, except for a slight heaviness in build--the additional
weight, one might call it, of years and experience; but Huston was
sadly altered since these two had met beneath a Southern sky. Both
were conscious of a sudden recollection of sandy plain and camp
environments, and Huston changed colour slightly, or, to be more
correct, he lost colour, and his eyes wavered. He was painfully
conscious of his disadvantage in this trifling matter of appearance,
and he had reason to remember with dread the ruthless penetration of
the calm soft eyes fixed upon him. Years before he had suspected
that Theodore Trist was cognizant of a trifling fact which had at
times suggested itself to him--namely, that, despite braided coat and
bright sword, despite Queen's commission and Sandhurst, he, Alfred
Woodruff Charles Huston, was no soldier.
Each looked at the other with the hesitation of men who, meeting,
recognise a face, and half await a greeting of some description. In
a moment it was too late, and they passed on--one upstairs, the other
down, with unconscious symbolism--having exchanged nothing more than
that expectant, hesitating stare of mutual recognition and mutual
curiosity.
Each was at heart a gentleman, and under other circumstances, in the
presence of a third person, or with the view of sparing a hostess
anxiety, they would undoubtedly have shaken hands. But here, beneath
the eye of none but their God (who, in His wisdom, has purposely
planted a tiny seed of divergence in our hearts), they saw no cause
for acting that which could, at its best, have been nothing but a
semi-truth.
When Trist greeted Mrs. Wylie a few moments later, he detected her
glance of anxiety; but it was against his strange principles to take
the initiative, so he waited until she might speak.
After a few commonplaces dexterously handled, she suddenly changed
her tone.
'Theo,' she said with that abruptness which invariably follows after
hesitation on the brink of a difficult subject, 'there was a man in
this room ten minutes ago who announced his fixed determination of
shooting you the very next time you crossed his path.'
The war-correspondent shrugged his shoulders, and turning sharply
round, he kicked under the grate a small smoking cinder which had
fallen far out into the fender.
'That man's statements, whether in regard to things past or things
future, should be accepted with caution.'
'Then you met him on the stairs?'
'Yes; I met him on the stairs....'
'And...'
'And he did not shoot,' said Trist with a short laugh as he turned
and faced Mrs. Wylie.
Then he did a somewhat remarkable thing--remarkable, that is, for a
man who never gave way to a display of the slightest emotion,
demonstrating either sorrow or joy, hatred or affection. He took
Mrs. Wylie's two hands within his, and forced her to sit in the deep
basket-work chair near the fire with its back towards the window.
Standing before her with his hands thrust into the pockets of his
short serge jacket, he looked down at her with quizzical affection.
'Some months ago,' he said, 'we made a contract; you are breaking
that contract, unless I am very much mistaken. You have allowed
yourself to be anxious about me--is that not so?'
The widow smiled bravely up into the grave young face.
'I am afraid,' she began, '...yes, I am afraid you are right. But
the anxiety was not wholly on your account.'
Trist turned slowly away. The movement was an excess of caution, for
his face was always impenetrable.
'Ah!' he murmured.
'I am very anxious about Alice and Brenda.'
'Ah!' he murmured again, with additional sympathy.
She did not proceed at once, so he leant back in the chair he had
assumed, and waited with that peculiar patience which seemed to
belong to Eastern lands, and which has been noticed before.
'Theo,' she said at last, 'has it never struck you that your position
with regard to those two girls is--to say the least of it--peculiar?'
'From a social point of view?'
'Yes.'
'If,' he said in a louder tone, on his defence, as it were, 'I were
constantly at home, society might have something to say about it.
But, as it happens, I am never long in London, and consequently fail
to occupy that prominent position in the public esteem or dislike to
which my talents undoubtedly entitle me.'
'Fortunately, gossip has not been rife about it.'
'_Partly_ by good fortune, and partly by good management,' corrected
Trist. 'With a little care, society is easily managed.'
'A tiger is easily managed, but its humours cannot be foretold.'
This statement was allowed to pass unchallenged, and before the
silence was again broken, a servant announced that luncheon was
ready. Mrs. Wylie led the way, and Trist followed. They were both
rather absorbed during the dainty repast, and conversation was less
interesting than the parlour-maid could have wished.
Had Trist been less honest, he could have thrown off this sense of
guilt which weighed upon him. Like most reserved men, he was perhaps
credited with a more versatile intellect than he really possessed.
In his special line he was unrivalled, but that line was essentially
manly, and the _finesse_ it required was of a masculine order. That
is to say, it was more straightforward, more honest, and less
courageous, than the natural and instinctive _finesse_ of a woman.
This vague struggle with an over-susceptible conscience handicapped
Trist seriously during the _tête-à-tête_ meal, and rendered his
conversation very dull. He was quite conscious of this, and the
effort he made to remedy the defect was hardly successful. Men of
his type--that is, men of a self-contained, self-reasoning
nature--are too ready to consider themselves of that heavy material
which forms the solid background of social intercourse. Their very
virtues, such as steadfastness, coolness, complete self-reliance, are
calculated to prevent their shining in conversation, or in the
lighter social amenities. A little conversational impulse is
required, a gay lightness of touch, and an easy divergence from
opinions previously hazarded, in order to please the average
listener; but these were sadly wanting in Theodore Trist.
He was merely a strong, thoughtful man, who could think and reason
quickly enough when such speed was necessary, but as a rule he
preferred a slower and surer method. He was ready enough to proffer
an opinion when such was really in demand, and once spoken, this
would change in no way. It was the result of thought, and he forbore
to uphold a conviction by argument. Argument and thought have little
in common. One is froth drifting before the wind, the other a deep
stream running always. Trist held fixed opinions about most things,
but it was part of his self-reliant and self-sufficing nature to take
no pleasure whatever in convincing others that the opinion was
valuable. If men chose to think otherwise, he tacitly recognised
their right to do so, and left them in peace. Although he held
certain doctrines upon the better or worse ways of getting through
the span of a human life creditably, he was singularly averse to
airing them in any manner.
Now, Mrs. Wylie, in her keen womanliness, knew very well how to deal
with this man. She was quite aware that there was, behind his silent
'laisser-aller,' a clearly-defined plan of campaign, a cut-and-dried
theory or doctrine upon which his most trifling action was based.
There was an object aimed at, and perhaps gained, in his every word.
If Theodore Trist was a born strategist (of which I am firmly
convinced), and carried his principles of warfare into the bitter
strife of every-day existence, he had in Mrs. Wylie an ally or a foe,
as the case might be, whose manœuvres were worthy of his regard.
She possessed a woman's intuitive judgment, brightened, as it were,
and rendered keener, by the friction of a busy lifetime; and added to
this, she was in the habit of acting more spontaneously, and perhaps
with a greater recklessness, than came within Trist's mental compass.
These were her more womanly qualities, but her character had been
influenced through many years by the manly, upright nature of her
husband, and it was from him that she had acquired her rare doctrine
of non-interference. In woman's weaker nature there is a lamentable
failing to which can be attributed a large portion of the sorrows to
which the sex is liable. This is an utter inability to refrain from
adding a spoke to every wheel that may roll by. Interference--silly,
unjustifiable interference--in the affairs of others is woman's vice.
She can no more keep her fingers out of other people's savoury pies
than a cat can keep away from the succulent products of Yarmouth. It
has been said by cynical people that a woman cannot keep a secret,
but that is a mistake. If it be her own, she can keep it remarkably
well; but if it be the property of someone else, she appears to
consider it as a loan which must not be allowed to accrue interest.
I have tried the effect of imparting to a woman whom it affected but
slightly, and to a man whose life would be altered in some degree by
it, a piece of news under the bond of secrecy--a bond which expired
at a given date. The man held his peace and went on his way through
life unaffected, untroubled by the knowledge he possessed. I studied
him at moments when a glance or a word might have betrayed to
observant eyes the fact that he was in possession of certain
information. He looked at me calmly, and with no dangerous glance of
intelligence, subsequently talking in a manly, honest way which was
in no degree a connivance at criminal suppression. The date given
had not yet arrived, but the knowledge was fresh in his mind, and he
treated the matter in an honourable, business-like way. I knew that
my secret was buried in that man's brain as in a sepulchre.
The woman was uneasy. I could see that the secret oppressed her.
She chafed at the thought that the date mentioned was still a long
way ahead. She longed to talk of the matter to me, with a view, no
doubt, of craving permission to tell one person, who would certainly
not repeat it. By glance or significant silence she courted
betrayal; and at one time she even urged me to impart the news to a
mutual friend, in order, I take it, to form a channel or an outlet
for her cooped-up volume of thought. Finally, I discovered that she
had forestalled the date, by writing to friends at a distance, who
actually received the letters before the day, but were unable to
reissue the news in time to incriminate her.
It would appear that the same characteristic defect applies to the
retention of a secret as to the restraint from interference. Perhaps
it is a weakness, not a vice. Mrs. Wylie never sought confidences,
as women, by nature unable to retain secrets, are prone to do. Her
doctrine of non-interference went so far as to embrace the small
matter of passing details. She placed entire reliance in Theodore
Trist, and although his behaviour puzzled her, she refrained from
asking an explanation of even the smallest act. She was content that
his leading motive could only be good, and therefore felt no great
thirst to know the meaning of his minor actions.
The cynical-minded may opine that I am describing an impossible
woman. The fault is due to this halting pen. I once drew a woman
who herself recognised the portrait--a critic said that the character
was impossible and unnatural.
Mrs. Wylie was very natural and very womanly, after all. She had
almost forced Theo Trist to invite himself to lunch, and her anxiety
respecting Alice and Brenda had been made clear to him at once. She
would not interfere; but she could not surely have been expected to
refrain from suggesting to him that the world and the world's
opinion, if of no value to him, could not be ignored by two
motherless women.
She placed before him her views upon the matter, and then she
proceeded to shelve the subject; but Trist failed to help her in
this, contrary to her expectation. He was distinctly dull during
luncheon, and made no attempt to disguise his preoccupation. Mrs.
Wylie nibbled a biscuit while he was removing the outer rind of his
cheese with absurd care, and waited patiently for him to say that
which was undoubtedly on his lips.
The maid had left the room; there was no fear of interruption. Trist
continued to amuse himself for some moments with a minute morsel of
Gorgonzola; then he looked up, unconsciously trying the temper of his
knife upon the plate while he spoke.
'I had,' he said, 'an interview with my chief this morning.'
'Ah! Sir Edward, you mean?'
'Yes,' slowly, 'Sir Edward.'
Mrs. Wylie saw that she was expected to ask a question in order to
keep the ball rolling.
'What about?' she inquired pleasantly.
'I informed him that I proposed burying the hatchet.'
'You are not going to give up active service!' exclaimed Mrs. Wylie
in astonishment.
'I promised to go to one more campaign--the Russo-Turkish--which will
come on in the spring, and after that I shall follow the paths of
peace.'
Mrs. Wylie rolled up her table-napkin, and inserted it meditatively
into an ancient silver ring several sizes too large for it.
'I used to think,' she murmured, 'that you would never follow the
ways of peace.' Then she looked across the table into his face with
that indescribable contraction of the eyes which sometimes came even
when her lips were smiling.
'I am not quite sure of you now, Theo,' she added gently, as she rose
and led the way towards the door.
Trist reached the handle before her, and held the door open with that
unostentatious politeness of his which made him different from the
general run of society young men. As she passed, he smiled
reassuringly, and said in his monotonous way:
'I am quite sure of myself.'
'Not _too_ sure?' she inquired over her shoulder.
'No.'
In the drawing-room he succumbed to his hostess's Bohemian
persuasions, and lighted a cigarette. He seemed to have forgotten
his own affairs.
'About Alice,' he began--'que faire?'
For some reason Mrs. Wylie avoided meeting his glance.
'I told Alfred Huston,' she replied, after a pause, 'that I would
communicate with Alice, and that I had hopes of their living happily
together yet.'
Her tone was eminently practical and business-like. Trist answered
in the same way.
'I told Alice,' he said cheerily, 'that I would ask you to
communicate with Huston, with the view of coming to some definite
arrangement. Hide-and-seek is a slow game after a time.'
'What sort of arrangement?'
'Well ... I suggested that he should agree to leave her unmolested
for a certain time, during which she could think over it.'
Mrs. Wylie's smile was a trifle wan and uncertain.
'In fact, you made the best of it?'
'Yes. What else could I do?'
The widow looked at him keenly. It was hard to believe in
disinterestedness like this; and it is a very human failing to doubt
disinterestedness of any description.
'I told Alfred Huston,' she said disconnectedly, 'that I trusted you
to do your honest best for all concerned in this matter.'
'Which statement Huston politely declined to confirm, I should
imagine.'
Mrs. Wylie shrugged her shoulders. Denial was evidently out of the
question.
'Then my name was brought in?' asked Trist in a peculiar way.
'Yes.'
'By whom?'
'By me. It would have been worse than useless, Theo, to have
attempted ignorance of your influence over the girls.'
For a second time Trist avoided meeting his companion's glance.
'I told Sir Edward,' he said, after a considerable space of time,
'that I must be allowed to remain in England for some time to come;
it seems to me that I should have done better had I asked to be sent
away on active service without delay.'
'I should hardly go so far as to say that, Theo,' remarked Mrs. Wylie
placidly; 'but I think you must be very careful. I only want to call
your attention to the light in which your help is likely to appear in
the eyes of the world.'
'You have no...'--he hesitated before saying the word 'man,' but his
listener gave a little quick nod as if to help him--'man to help you,
except me; and it seems better that there should be someone whom you
can play, as it were, against Huston's stronger cards--someone of
whom he is afraid.'
'Yes,' replied the lady with an affectionate smile; 'I quite
understand your meaning; and I think you are right, although Alfred
Huston is not an alarming person: he is very weak.'
'When he is sober,' suggested Trist significantly.
The sailor's widow was too brave a woman to be frightened by this
insinuation, of which she took absolutely no notice.
'And,' she continued, 'I am convinced that this reconciliation is
more likely to be brought about if it is left entirely in my hands.
Your influence, however subtle, will be detected by Alfred Huston,
and the result will be disastrous. Unless ... unless...'
She stopped in a vague way, and moved restlessly.
'Unless what?'
'Unless you go to Alfred Huston and convince him by some means that
there is no love between you and Alice.'
The laughter with which he greeted this suggestion was a masterpiece
of easy nonchalance--deep, melodious, and natural; but somehow Mrs.
Wylie failed to join in it.
'No,' he said; 'that would not do. If Alice and I went together, and
took all sorts of solemn affidavits, I doubt whether Huston would be
any more satisfied than he is at present. The only method
practicable is for me to hold myself in reserve, while you manage
this affair.'
He had risen during this speech, and now held out his hand.
'I have an appointment at the Army and Navy,' he said, 'and must ask
you to excuse me if I run away.'
Mrs. Wylie was left in her own drawing-room nonplussed. She gazed at
the door which had just closed behind her incomprehensible guest with
mild astonishment.
'That,' she reflected, 'is the first time that I have seen Theo have
recourse to retreat.'
CHAPTER XII.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SEA.
It very often happens that the so-called equinoctial gales are behind
their time, and do not arrive until Night has undoubtedly made good
her victory over Day. When such is the case, we have a mild
November, with soft south-westerly breezes varying in strength
according to the lie of the land or the individual experience of
farmer or townsman. At sea it blows hard enough in all good sooth,
and there may be watery eyes at the wheel or on the forecastle; but
there are no frozen fingers aloft, which is in itself a mercy. There
is a good hearty roar through the shrouds, and certain parts of the
deck are always wet, but the clear horizon and rushing clouds
overhead are full of brave exhilaration.
On land, things are dirtier, more especially under foot, where the
leaves lose all their crackle and subside odorously into mud. Water
stands on the roadways, and in ruts elsewhere; and curled
beech-leaves float thereon in vague navigation, half waterlogged like
any foreign timber-ship. The tilled land, bearing in its bosom seed
for next year's crops, or merely waiting fallow, is damp and soft and
black; men walking thereon--rustic or sportsman--make huge
impressions, and carry quite a weight on either foot. The trees
stand bare and leafless, though rapid green mouldy growths relieve
the wet monochrome of bark or rind.
Here, again, as at sea, the atmosphere is singularly gay and
translucent. Things afar off seem near, and new details in the
landscape become apparent. Any little bit of colour seems to gleam,
almost to glow, and the greenness of the meadow is startling.
Although there is an autumnal odour on the breeze, it has no sense of
melancholy. The clouds may be gray, but they are fraught with life,
and one knows that there is brightness behind. With motion,
melancholy cannot live.
The effect of this soft breeziness upon different people is apparent
to the most casual of observers. It freshens sailors up, and they
pull on their oilskins with a cheery pugnacity; tillers of the land
are busy, and wonder how long it will last; and hunting-men (provided
only the land be not _too_ heavy) are wild with a joy which has no
rival in times of peace; timid riders grow bold, and bold men
reckless. It is only folks who stay indoors that complain of
depression. For myself, I confess it makes me long to be at sea, and
although I can see nothing but sky and chimney-pots over the
ink-stand, the very shades of colour, of dark and light, are before
me if I close my eyes. It is a long rolling sweep of greeny gray,
with here and there a tip of dirty white, and the line of horizon is
hard and clear enough to please the veriest novice with the sextant.
In November, 1876, there were a few days of such weather as I have
attempted to describe, and Brenda, who spent that time on the east
coast of England, in a manner learnt to associate soft winds and
clear airs with the much-maligned county of Suffolk. All through the
rest of her life, through the long aimless years during which she
learnt to love the verdant plains with their bare mud sea-walls, she
only thought of Suffolk as connected with and forming part of soft
autumnal melancholy. She never again listened to the wail of the
sea-gull without involuntarily waiting for the cheery cry of the
snipe. Never again did she look on a vast plain without experiencing
a sense of incompleteness which could only have been dispelled by the
murmurous voice of the sea breaking on to shingle.
The human mind is strangely inconsistent in its reception and
retention of impressions. As in modern photography, the length of
exposure seems to be of little consequence. Without any tangible
reason, and for no obvious use, certain incidents remain engraved
upon our memory, while the detail of other events infinitely more
important passes away, and only the result remains.
Brenda and Alice only passed four days in the little hamlet selected
for them by Theodore Trist as a safe hiding-place; but during that
time a great new influence came into Brenda's soul.
She had always been sensitive to the beauties of Nature. A glorious
landscape, a golden sunset, or the soft silver of moon-rise, had
spoken to her in that silent language of Nature which appeals to the
most prosaic heart at times; but never until now had one of earth's
great wonders established a longing in her soul--a longing for its
constant company which is naught else but passionate love. She had
hitherto looked upon the sea as an inconvenience to be overcome
before reaching other countries. Perhaps she was aware that this
inconvenience possessed at times a charm, but not until now had she
conceived it possible that she, Brenda Gilholme, should ever love it
with an insatiable longing such as the love of sailors. On board the
_Hermione_ she had passed her apprenticeship; had, as the admiral was
wont to say, learnt the ropes; but never had she loved the sea for
its own grand incomprehensible sake as she loved it now.
Its gray mournful humours seemed to sympathize with her own thoughts.
Its monotonous voice, rising and falling on the shingle shore, spoke
in unmistakable language, and told of other things than mere earthly
joys and sorrows.
I who write these lines learnt to love the sea many years ago, when I
had naught else but water to look upon--from day to day, from morning
till night, through the day and through the darkness, week after
week, month after month. The love crept into my heart slowly and
very surely, like the love of a boy, growing into manhood, for some
little maiden growing by his side. And now, whether on its bosom or
looking on it from the noisy shore, that love is as fresh as ever.
The noise of breaking water thrills the man as it thrilled the
boy--the smell of tar, even, makes me grave.
Men may love their own country, but the sea, with its ever-varying
humours, kind and cruel by turn, exacts a fuller devotion. A woman
once told me of her love for her native country. She happened to be
a practical, prosaic, middle-aged woman of the world. We were seated
on a gorgeous sofa in a blaze of artificial light, amidst artificial
smiles, listening to the murmurs of artificial conversation.
Something moved her; some word of mine fell into the well of her
memory and set the still pool all rippling. I listened in silence.
She spoke of Dartmoor, and I think I understood her. At the end I
said:
'What Dartmoor is to you, the sea is to me;' and she smiled in a
strange, sympathetic way.
That is the nearest approach that I have met of a love for land which
is akin to the love of sea.
In Brenda's case, as in all, this new-found passion influenced her
very nature. If love--love, I mean, of a woman--will alter a man's
whole mode of life, of action, and of thought, surely these lesser
passions leave their mark as well.
Undoubtedly the girl caught from the great sea some of its patient
contentment; for the ocean is always content, whether it be
glistening beneath a cloudless sky, or rolling, sweeping onwards
before the wind in broad gray curves. Those who work upon the great
waters are different from other men in the possession of a certain
calm equanimity, which is like no other condition of mind. It is the
philosophy of the sea.
At first Brenda had dreaded the thought of being imprisoned, as it
were, in this tiny east coast fishing village with her sister. This
was no outcome of a waning love, but rather a proof that her feelings
towards her sister were as true and loyal as ever. She feared that
Alice would lower herself in her sight. She dreaded the necessary
_tête-à-têtes_ because she felt that her sister's character had not
improved, and could not well bear the searching light of a close
familiarity.
After the first hour or two, however, the sisters appeared to settle
down into a routine of life which in no way savoured of familiarity.
The last two years had hopelessly severed them, and now that they
were alone together the gulf seemed to widen between them.
Brenda was aware that some great change had come over her life or
that of her sister. They no longer possessed a single taste or a
single interest in common. Whether the fault lay entirely at her own
door, or whether Alice were partially or wholly to blame, the girl
did not attempt to decide. She merely felt that it would be simple
hypocrisy to pretend a familiarity she did not feel. Yet she loved
her sister, despite all. The tie of blood is strangely strong in
some people; with others it is no link at all.
After an uncomfortable meal had been bravely sat out subsequent to
Brenda's arrival, the younger sister announced her intention of going
out for a long ramble down the coast. Alice complained that she had
no energy, predicted that the dismal flat land and muddy sea were
about to prove fatal to her health, and subsided into a yellow-backed
novel. This was a fair sample of their life in exile.
Alice deluged her weak intellect with fiction of no particular merit,
and Brenda learnt to love the sea. For her the bleak deserted shore,
the long, low waves rolling in continuously, the dirty sweeping of
sand-banks near the shore, and the endless fields of shingle,
acquired a mournful beauty which few can find in such things.
Only once was reference made to Theodore Trist, and then the subject
was tacitly tabooed, much to the relief of Brenda. This happened
during the first evening of their joint exile. Doubtless a sudden
fit of communicativeness came over Alice just as they come to the
rest of us--at odd moments, without any particular _raison d'être_.
The miserable shuffling waiter had removed all traces of their simple
evening meal, and Brenda was looking between the curtains across the
sea, which shimmered beneath the rays of a great yellow moon. Alice
had taken up her novel, but its pages had no interest for her just
then. She had appropriated the only easy-chair in the room, and was
leaning back against its worn leather stuffing with a discontented
look upon her lovely face. Her small red mouth had acquired of late
a peculiar 'set' expression, as if the lips were habitually pressed
close with an effort.
'Theo,' she said, without looking towards the tall, slim form by the
window, 'has changed.'
Brenda moved the curtain a little more to one side, so that the old
wooden rings rattled on the pole. Then she leant her shoulder
against the framework of the window, and turned her face towards the
firelight. Her gentle gaze rested on the beautiful form gracefully
reclining in the deep chair. She noted the easy repose of each limb,
the proud poise of the golden head, and the clearcut profile showing
white against the dingy background. There was no glamour in her
eyes, such as would have blinded the judgment of nine men out of ten;
but there was in its place the great tie of sisterly love.
Brenda, looking on that beauty, knew that it was the curse of her
sister's life. Instead of envying her, she was mentally meting out
pity and allowance.
'I suppose,' she said, without much encouragement in her manner,
'that we have all changed in one way or another.'
'But Theo has changed in more than one way.'
'Has he?'
'Yes. His manner is quite different from what it used to be; and he
seems self-absorbed--less energetic, less sympathetic.'
Brenda did not answer at once. She turned slightly, and looked out
of the window, resting her fingers upon the old wooden framework.
'You see,' she suggested, 'he has other interests in life now. He is
a great man, and has ambition. It is only natural that he should be
absorbed in his own affairs.'
Mrs. Huston raised her small foot, and rested the heel of her slipper
on the brass fender, while she contemplated the diminutive limb with
some satisfaction.
'I have met one or two great men,' she said meditatively, 'and I
invariably found them very much like ordinary beings, rather less
immersed in 'shop,' perhaps, and quite as interesting--not to say
polite.'
Brenda winced.
'Was Theo not polite?'
'Hardly, my dear.'
As Mrs. Huston delivered herself of this opinion, with a faint tinge
of bitterness in her manner, she turned and looked towards her
sister, as if challenging her to attempt a palliation of Trist's
conduct.
Brenda neither moved nor spoke. The moonlight, flooding through the
diamond panes of the window, made her face look pale and wan. There
were deep shadows about her lips. Without, upon the shingle, the sea
boomed continuously with a low, dreamlike hopelessness.
I wish I were a great artist, to be able to paint a picture of that
small parlour in an east coast village inn. But there would be a
greater skill required than the mere technicalities of art. These
would be needed to deal successfully with the cross-lights of utterly
different hues--the cold, green-tinted moonlight, the ruddy glow of
burning driftwood washed from the deck of some Baltic trader; and the
reflection of each in turn upon quaint old bureaux, bright with the
polish of half a dozen generations; gleaming upon Indian curio, and
shimmering over the glass of dim engravings. All this would require
infinite skill; but no brush or pencil could convey the old-day
mournfulness that seemed to hang in the atmosphere. Perhaps it found
birth in the murmuring rise and fall of restless waves, or in the
flicker of the fire, in the quick crackle of the sodden wood. My
picture should be called 'The Contrast,' and in the gloom of the low
ceiling I should bring out with loving care two graceful forms--two
lovely faces.
The one--the more beautiful--in all the rosiness of young life,
glowing in the firelight. The other, pale and wan, with an exquisite
beauty, delicate and yet strong, resolute and yet refined. Of two
working in the field, one is taken, the other remaineth. Around us
are many workers, and of every two we look upon, one seems to have
the preference. One has greater joy, the other greater sorrow; and,
strive as we will, think as we will, argue as we will, we can never
tell 'why.' We can never satisfy that great question of the human
mind. Life has been called many things: I can express it in less
than a word--in a mere symbol--?--a note of interrogation, the
largest at the compositor's command.
In this great field of ours, where we all work blindly, many are
taken, and many left. Moreover, those who would wish to go remain,
and those who cling to work are taken. She who grindeth best passeth
first.
Brenda never answered her sister's challenge. She turned her eyes
away, facing the cold moonlight, staring at the silver sea with eyes
that saw no beauty there.
'O God!' she whispered, glancing upwards into the glowing heavens
with that instinct which comes alike to pagan and Christian, 'send a
great war, so that Theo may go to it.'
CHAPTER XIII.
CROSS-PURPOSES.
Mrs. Wylie had undertaken the task of reconciling Alice Huston and
her husband without any great hope of success. The widow's married
life had been an exceptionally happy one, but even in her case there
had been small drawbacks, mostly arising, it is true, from the
untoward work of fate, but, nevertheless, undoubted drawbacks, and
undeniably appertaining to married life.
It would have been hard to find two people less calculated to
assimilate satisfactorily than Alice and Alfred Huston; and yet there
was love between them.
The weak-minded soldier undoubtedly loved his wife: as for her, it
would be hard to give a reliable opinion. She was, I honestly
believe, one of those beautiful women who go through life without
ever knowing what love really is.
With another woman for his helpmate, Huston might reasonably have
been expected to reform his ways. With another husband, Alice might
have made a good and dutiful wife.
Assuredly the task that had fallen upon Mrs. Wylie's handsome
shoulders was not overburdened with hope. She was, however, of an
evenly sanguine temperament, and I think that it is such women as she
who help us men along in life--women who trust for the best, and work
for the best, without any high-flown ideals, without poetic notions
respecting woman's influence and woman's aid; who, in fact, are
desperately practical, and make a point of expecting less than they
might reasonably get.
Mrs. Wylie was by no means ignorant of the fact that a reconciliation
between such a couple as Mr. and Mrs. Huston was not calculated to be
of a very permanent or deeply-rooted character; but she had lived a
good many years in a grade of society which delights to watch the
inner life of others. She had seen and heard of so many unsuitable
matches, which, having been consummated, had proved the wonderful
power of love. It is only the very young and inexperienced who shake
their heads upon hearing of an engagement, and prophesy unhappiness.
No man can tell to what end love is working. The wise are silent in
such matters, because there are some mistakes which lead to good, and
some wise actions of which the result is unmitigated woe.
The widow therefore held her peace, and set to work as if there could
be but one result to her efforts. She communicated with Alice Huston
in her hiding-place, with Captain Huston at the club of which he was
still a member, and with Trist by word of mouth. Brenda was, so to
speak, in the enemy's country. Her reports were therefore to be
received, but no acknowledgment could be made. In this respect she
was like a spy, because she was without instruction from
headquarters, and, nevertheless, had to act and report her action.
Her first and, indeed, only communication reached Mrs. Wylie the
morning after her interviews with Theo Trist and Captain Huston. It
was only a few words scribbled on the back of a visiting card, and
slipped into an envelope previously addressed and stamped:
'Whatever you do, keep Theo and Alice apart.'
Mrs. Wylie turned the card over and read the neatly-engraved name on
the other side. Then she read the words aloud, slowly and
thoughtfully, once more:
'Whatever you do, keep Theo and Alice apart.'
'Brenda knows,' reflected the practical woman of the world, 'that
Huston is jealous of Theo. She also knows that I am quite aware of
this jealousy. It would be unnecessary to warn me of it; therefore
this means that Brenda has discovered a fresh reason.'
She broke off her meditations at this point by rising almost
hurriedly, and walking to the window. For a considerable time she
watched the passing traffic; then she returned to the fire-place.
'Poor Brenda!' she murmured--'my poor Brenda! And ... Alice is so
silly!'
The connection between these two observations may be a trifle obscure
to the ordinary halting male intellect; but I think I know what Mrs.
Wylie meant.
Later on in the day she sent a note to Captain Huston, requesting him
to come and see her, and by the same messenger despatched a few words
to Theo Trist--her reserve force--forbidding him to come near.
'My reserves,' she said to herself as she closed the envelope
energetically, 'are thus rendered useless; but Brenda is reliable. I
must do as she tells me.'
Captain Huston received the widow's note at his club. It was only
eleven o'clock, and, consequently, there was plenty of time before he
need put in an appearance at Suffolk Mansions. He was an idle man,
and, like all idle men, fond of lounging about the streets gazing
abstractedly into shops, and getting generally into the way of such
foot-passengers as might have an object in their walk.
There is no haven for loungers in London except Piccadilly in the
morning, and to this spot the soldier turned his steps. After
inspecting the wares of a sporting tailor, he was preparing to cross
the road with a view of directing his course down St. James's Street,
when someone touched him on the shoulder.
Huston turned with rather more alacrity than is usually displayed by
a British gentleman with a clear conscience, and for some seconds
gazed in a watery manner at a fair, insipid face, ornamented by a
wondrous moustache. There was a peculiarity about this moustache
worth mentioning. Although an essentially masculine adornment, it,
in some subtle way, suggested effeminacy.
'Mr. ... eh ... Hicks,' murmured Huston vaguely, and without much
interest.
Hicks forgave magnanimously this Philistine want of appreciation.
'Yes, Captain Huston. How are you?'
'I? ... Oh! I'm all right, thanks.'
There was a faint suggestion of movement about the soldier's left leg
as if intimating a desire to continue on its way towards St. James's
Street; but this was ignored by Hicks in his own inimitable way.
'I caught sight of you the other day,' he said graciously; 'and I
also had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Huston at Mrs. Wylie's.'
'Oh yes,' vaguely.
The soldier made a violent effort, pulled himself together, and
stepped into the road. The artist stepped with him, and,
furthermore, slipped his gloved hand within his companion's arm with
a familiar ease which seemed to say that they would live or die
together until the passage was safely accomplished.
'How _is_ Mrs. Huston?' inquired he when they had reached the
opposite pavement.
That lady's husband looked very stolid as he answered:
'Quite well, thanks.'
He mentally wriggled, poor fellow, and in sympathy his arm became
lifeless and repelling. Hicks removed his hand from the
unappreciative sleeve.
'Do you know,' he asked pleasantly, 'whether Trist happens to be in
town?'
Huston began to feel uncomfortable. He was afraid of this society
prig, and honestly wished to save his wife's name from the ready
tongue of slander.
'I don't,' he answered abruptly--'why?'
This sudden question in no way disconcerted Hicks, who met the
soldier's unsteady, and would-be severe, gaze with bland innocence.
'Because I happen to know a Russian artist who is very anxious to
meet him, that is all.'
'Ah! I have seen him since I came home, but I could not say where he
is now.'
If Hicks had been a really observant man (such as he devoutly
considered himself to be), he would have noticed that his companion
raised a gloved finger to his cheek, and tenderly pressed a slight
abrasion visible still just on the bone in front of the ear.
'He is generally to be heard of,' said the artist in that
innocently-significant tone which may mean much or nothing, according
to the acuteness or foreknowledge of the listener, '... he is
generally to be heard of at Suffolk Mansions. That is to say, when
Brenda is staying there.'
Captain Huston's dull eyes were for a moment actually endowed with
life. He stroked his drooping moustache, which was apparently placed
there by a merciful Providence for purposes of justifiable
concealment, and his moral attitude became visibly milder. He had
just begun to realize that his own private affairs might not, after
all, be of paramount importance to the whole of society.
'Is there,' he asked with military nonchalance, 'supposed to be
something between Trist and Brenda?'
Hicks laughed, and, before replying, waved his hand gracefully to a
friend in the stock-jobbing line, who had previously crossed the road
in order to be recognised by him in passing.
'Oh no,' he answered cheerfully; 'I did not mean that at all. Now
that I think of it, however, you were quite justified in taking it
thus. They have always been great friends--that was all I meant.
Their mothers were related, I believe.'
Captain Huston looked slightly disappointed. He did not, however,
display such eagerness to walk either faster or slower, or in some
other direction, now.
'Trist,' he observed as he opened his cigar-case sociably, 'is a
queer fellow. Have a cigar?'
'Oh, I never smoke, you know--never. No, thanks.'
The captain grunted, and put his case back with a suppressed sigh.
He had not known, but hoped. Then he waited for a reply to his
leading and ambiguous remark.
'Yes,' mused Hicks at length; 'he is. I dined with him the night he
left for the Servian frontier.'
This detail, interesting as it was, had but slight reference to the
general characteristics of Theodore Trist. Huston tried again after
he had lighted his cigar.
'One never knows where one has him.'
Hicks looked mildly sympathetic. He even gave the impression of
being about to look in his pockets on the chance of finding the
war-correspondent there.
'No; he is always on the move. I was once told that the Diplomatic
Corps call him the Stormy Petrel, because he arrives before the
hurricane.'
'And sits smiling on the top of the waves afterwards, while we poor
devils sink,' added the soldier with a disagreeable laugh.
'He has not the reputation of being a coward,' said Hicks, who
despised personal courage as a mere brute-like attribute.
The man of arms did not like the turn of the conversation.
'No; I believe not,' he said rather hurriedly, as if no man could be
a coward. 'What I don't like about him is a certain air of mystery
which he cultivates. It pleases the women, I suppose.'
'That,' suggested the other calmly, 'is probably part of his trade.
If he talked much there would be nothing original left in him to
write! All these diplomatic fellows get that peculiar reticence of
manner--a sort of want of frankness, as it were. That is the great
difference between art practised by the tongue, and art stimulated by
the eye and created for the pleasure of the eye.'
Huston looked at the burning end of his cigar with bibulous
concentration. He knew absolutely nothing about art, and cared less.
It is just possible that, in his hideous ignorance, he doubted the
purity of the pleasure vouchsafed by the pictorial productions of the
artist at his side.
'_We_,' continued Hicks, with a deprecating wave of the hand, 'can
always be frank. The bolder we are, the higher we aim, the ... eh
... the better.'
'Yes ... yes,' murmured Huston. 'But tell me--what made you think
that Trist was out of town?'
'Oh, nothing!' airily. 'Nobody stays in town at this time of the
year unless they can't help it; that is all! But I suppose these
newspaper men hardly think of the seasons. They do not seem to
realize the difference between summer and winter--between joyous
spring and dismal autumn. I saw a man sketching the other day in a
cold east wind on the Thames Embankment. He was only a "black and
white" man, you know; but he seemed to know something about drawing.
His fingers were blue.'
Like many weak-minded people, Alfred Huston was subject to sudden
fits of obstinacy. He felt now that Hicks wished to lead him away
from the subject originally under discussion, and in consequence was
instigated by a sudden desire to talk and hear more of Theodore Trist.
'That is another thing,' he said, 'about Trist that I do not like.
He pretends to despise personal discomfort. It is mere affectation,
of course, and on that account, perhaps, all the more aggravating.'
'Carried away by enthusiasm, I suppose?'
The soldier laughed.
'Trist never was carried away by anything. He sits on a box of
cartridges, and writes in that beastly note-book of his as if he were
at a review. If all his countrymen were being slaughtered round him
he would count them with his pencil and take a note of it.'
Hicks gave a few moments' careful attention to the curl of his
moustache. Then he glanced curiously at his companion's vacant
physiognomy. There was evidently some motive in this sudden attack
on Trist. Both these men distrusted the war-correspondent, but were
in no way prepared to test the value of that force which is said to
arise from union. They distrusted each other more.
Presently they parted, each absorbed in his own selfish fears as
before. Here, again, was Vanity and her hideous sister Jealousy. If
one of these be not found at the bottom of all human misery, I think
you will find the other. With these two men both motives were at
work. Each was jealous of Trist, and neither would confess his
jealousy to the other; while Vanity was wounded by the
war-correspondent's simple silence. He ignored them, and for that
they hated him. His own path was apparently mapped out in front of
him, and he followed it without ostentation, without seeking comment
or approbation.
William Hicks was, as Mrs. Wylie had said, finding his own level. He
was beginning to come under the influence of a vague misgiving that
his individuality was not such as commands the respect of the better
sort of women. In his own circle he was a demi-god; but the
gratification to be gathered from the worship of a number of
weak-kneed uncomely ladies was beginning to pall. In fact, he had
hitherto been intensely satisfied with the interesting creature
called William Hicks; but now there was a tiny rift within the lute
upon which he always played his own praises. He had not hitherto
realized that man is scarcely created for the purpose of being
worshipped by the weaker sex, and lately there had been in his mind a
vague desire to be of greater account among his fellow-men. Of
athletics, sport, or the more manly accomplishments he knew nothing;
indeed, he had up to this period despised them as the pastime of
creatures possessed of little or no intellect; now he was at times
troubled by a haunting thought that it would have been as well had he
been able to play lawn-tennis, to ride, or shoot, or row, or
drive--or even walk ten miles at a stretch. This was not the outcome
of any natural taste for healthy exercise, but a mere calculation
that such accomplishments carry with them a certain weight with
energetic and well-found young ladies. The curse of jealousy has a
singular way of opening our eyes, _mes frères_, to sundry small
shortcomings of which we were not aware before. When I saw Angelina,
for instance, dance with young Lightfoot in former days, my own
fantastic toes suddenly became conscious of clumsiness. Hicks was
jealous of Theodore Trist, and while, in a half-hearted way,
despising the sturdy philosopher's soldier-like manliness, he could
not help feeling that Brenda Gilholme admired Trist for this same
quality. He was fully satisfied that he was in every other way a
superior man to the war-correspondent, although the latter had made a
deep mark upon the road he had selected to travel; but he wished,
nevertheless, that he himself could assume at times the quiet
strength of independence that characterized Trist's thoughts and
actions.
The young artist was celebrated in his own circle--that is to say,
among a certain coterie of would-be artistic souls, whose talents ran
more into words than into action. They admired each other aloud, and
themselves with a silent adoration wonderful to behold. Most of them
possessed sufficient means to live an idle, self-indulgent life in a
small way. Such pleasures as they could not afford were conveniently
voted unprofitable and earthly. They hung upon the outskirts of the
best society, and were past-masters in the art of confusing the terms
'having met' and 'knowing' as applied to living celebrities. Among
them were artists who had never exhibited a picture, authors who had
never sold a book, and singers who had never faced an audience. The
vulgar crowd failed to appreciate them, and those who painted and
sold, wrote and published, sang and made money, tolerantly laughed at
them. Hicks was clever enough to know that his mind was in reality
of a slightly superior order, and weak enough to value its
superiority much more highly than it deserved. He was undoubtedly a
clever fellow in his way, but a moderate income and a doting mother
had combined to kill in him that modicum of ambition which is
required to make men push forward continuously in the race of life.
Had he been compelled to work for his daily bread, he might have been
saved from the clutches of London society; but as a rising young
artist, with pleasant manners and some social accomplishments, he was
received with open arms, and succumbed to the enervating round of
so-called pleasure. He continued to be 'rising,' but never rose.
Hicks did not confess deliberately to himself that he was in love
with Brenda Gilholme, but he made no pretence of ignoring the fact
that she occupied in his thoughts a place quite apart. He respected
her, and in that lay the great difference. The unkempt and
strangely-attired damsels who were pleased to throw themselves
mentally at his feet were not such as command respect. In his heart
he despised them a little; for contempt is invariably incurred by
affectation of any description.
And so each went on his way--the idle soldier, the vain artist, and
the absorbed journalist, each framing his life for good or
evil--pressing upward, or shuffling down, according to his bent;
each, no doubt, peering ahead, as sailors peer through rime and mist,
striving to penetrate the blessed veil drawn across the future. Ah!
Let us, my brothers, thank God that, despite necromancer, astrologer,
thought-reader, or chiromancer, we know absolutely nothing of what is
waiting for us in the years to come. Could we raise that veil, life
would be hell. Could we see the end of all our aims, our ambitions,
our hopes, and our 'long, long thoughts,' there would be few of us
courageous enough to go on with this strange experiment called human
existence. Could we see the end, no faith, no dogma, no _fanaticism_
even, would have power to prevent us questioning the existence of the
Almighty, because we could never reconcile the beginning to that end.
The question would rise before us continuously: 'If such was to be
the end, why was the beginning made?' And turn this question as you
will, explain it as you may, it is ever a question. The only
safeguard is suppression. The question is not asked because life is
so slow that the beginning is almost forgotten in the climax; and
while we live through the earlier chapters, the last volume is
inexorably closed.
CHAPTER XIV.
A SOCIAL CONSPIRACY.
About ten o'clock on the evening of the third day after the meeting
with Captain Huston, William Hicks entered a large and crowded
ball-room with his usual pleasant condescension.
The dance was of a semi-parliamentary character, and although the
society papers were pleased to announce that all the 'best' people
were out of town, there was a crowd of well-dressed men and women
round the door when Hicks made his appearance. There were many
greetings to be exchanged, a few diplomatic dances to be asked for,
and then the artist leisurely stroked his golden moustache as he
looked critically round the room.
His smiling face contracted into gravity for a moment, and it was
only after a pause that he continued his investigations.
'Trist!' he murmured to himself. 'Trist _here_? What is the meaning
of that? Is it war, I wonder? Or is Brenda coming? I will find
out.'
Presently he moved away, and after some time joined a group of
grave-faced elderly men, among whom Theo Trist was standing. There
were politicians among these gentlemen, and several faces were of a
distinctly foreign type, while more than one language could be heard.
Hicks looked a trifle out of his element amidst such surroundings,
and the foreign languages troubled him. No one looked towards him
invitingly--not even Trist, who was talking with a broad-shouldered
little man with a large head, and a peculiar listless manner which
stamped him as an Oriental. Hicks did not even know what language
they were speaking. It was not European in sound or intonation.
Here and there he caught a word or a name.
Once he heard Trist mention the name of a Russian general then
scarcely known. Though the pronunciation was rather different from
that of most Englishmen, Hicks recognised the word 'Skobeleff,' and,
glancing towards the smaller man, he saw upon his long, mournful
features a singular look of uneasiness.
There was something fascinating about the man's face which attracted
the artist's attention, and he stood gazing with a greater fixity
than is usually considered polite. Without looking towards him, the
Oriental was evidently aware of his attention, for he spoke to Trist,
who turned with deliberate curiosity.
'Ah, Hicks!' he said, 'how do you do?'
Then he turned again to his unemotional companion and made a remark,
which was received apathetically.
Hicks had not wished to make his advent so prominent. It now
appeared as if he had sought out Trist for some special purpose, to
make some important communication which could not brook delay.
Trist evidently read his action thus, for he left the group of
statesmen and joined him. Hicks was equal to the occasion.
'You remember,' he said confidentially, as he touched his companion's
sleeve and they walked down the room together--'you remember what I
once told you about the Hustons?'
Trist's meek eyes rested upon the speaker's face with a persistence
which was not encouraging to idle gossip.
'The night I left for Servia?' he inquired.
Hicks nodded his head.
'Yes. I remember.'
The artist paused, and his gloved fingers sought the beauteous
moustache. Trist's calm eyes were not easy to meet. They were so
unconsciously scrutinizing.
'Well, I saw Huston the other day,' he said at length. 'He has not
improved in appearance. In fact, I should say that there is some
truth in the story I repeated to you.'
There was no encouragement forthcoming, but Hicks was not lacking in
assurance. He was a true son of the pavement--that is to say, an
individual radical. His opinion was, in his own mind, worth that of
Theodore Trist.
'There are,' he continued, 'other stories going about at present. Do
you not think ... Trist ...--I mean, had we not better, for Brenda's
sake, settle upon a certain version of the matter and stick to it?
You and I, old fellow, are looked upon by the general world as
something more than ordinary friends of Alice and Brenda. Mrs. Wylie
is not going out just now. They have no one to stick up for them,
except us. If you know more than you care to confess, I am sorry if
I am forcing your hand....'
He paused again, and again his companion preserved that calm
non-committing silence which he knew so well how to assume. He held
a hand which could not have been forced by a player possessing ten
times the power and ten times the cunning of William Hicks.
'But, Trist, I know what the London world is. Something must be
done.'
Trist shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly.
'Silence,' continued Hicks significantly, 'in this case would be a
mistake. I don't mind ... your knowing that it is not from mere
curiosity that I am doing this. Brenda ... I want to save ... her
... from anything unpleasant.'
At this point Trist appeared to relent. It was not until afterwards
that Hicks realized that he had learnt absolutely nothing from him.
'What do you think ought to be done?' he asked gently.
The question remained unanswered for some time, and then it was only
met by another.
'Is Brenda coming to-night?'
'Yes.'
'And Alice?'
'No.'
They walked through the brilliant rooms together, each wondering what
lay behind the eyes of the other, each striving to penetrate the
thoughts of the other, to divine his motives, to reach his heart.
'I really think,' said Hicks at length, 'that it rests with you. You
must say what is to be done, what story is to be told, what farce is
to be acted. It seems to me that you know more about it than I do.
Somehow I have lately dropped out of Mrs. Wylie's confidence, and ...
and Brenda has not spoken to me about her sister.'
'But,' said Trist, 'I know nothing of what you refer to as the common
gossip of ... of all these.'
He indicated the assembled multitude with a gesture which was
scarcely complimentary. Hicks looked uncomfortable, and bit his red
lip nervously.
'Don't be hard on us,' he pleaded with an unnatural laugh. 'I am one
of them.'
'Tell me,' said Trist with a sudden gravity of manner, '... tell me
what they are saying.'
'Well ... it is hardly fair to ask me.'
'Why?'
'Because you will not thank me for having told you. We ... we don't,
as a rule, give the benefit of the doubt, you know.'
The elder man turned and looked at his companion with a slow smile.
'My dear Hicks,' he said, 'it is many years since I gave up caring
what the world might say, or expecting the benefit of the doubt.'
'For yourself?'
'Yes; for myself. What do you mean?'
'I mean that they are not giving Alice the benefit of the doubt
either.'
They happened just then to be near two chairs placed invitingly
within an alcove by a soft-hearted hostess who had not yet forgotten
her flirting-days.
'Let us sit down,' said Trist, indicating these chairs.
'Now,' he continued in a calm voice when they were seated, 'tell me
what the world is saying about Alice.'
Hicks was not devoid of a certain moral courage, and for once in his
life he was actuated by a motive which was not entirely selfish.
'They say,' he answered boldly, 'that she ran away from her husband
to join you.'
To some natures there is a vague enjoyment in imparting bad news, and
the dramatic points in this conversation were by no means lost to
William Hicks, who was a born actor. His listener, however, received
the news without the slightest indication of surprise or annoyance.
He merely nodded his head and murmured:
'Yes; what else?'
'Oh ... nothing much--nothing, at least, that I have heard, except
that Huston was supposed to have followed her home and caught her
just in time. He is also said to have announced his intention of
shooting you at the first convenient opportunity.'
Hicks ceased speaking, and waited for some exclamation of disgust,
some heated denial or indignant proof of the utter falseness of the
accusations made against Alice Huston. None of these was
forthcoming. Theo Trist merely indicated his comprehension of the
cruel words, and sat thinking. Beneath that calm exterior the man's
brain was very busy, and as he raised his head with a slight pensive
frown Hicks recognised for the first time the resemblance to the
great Corsican which was currently attributed to the
war-correspondent.
'Suppose,' said Trist at length, 'suppose that I were to walk
arm-in-arm into this room with Huston. Would that do?'
'Can you manage it?' inquired the artist incredulously.
'I think so; if I can only find him. Suppose Huston were to dance
with Brenda, and we were all to give it out that Alice is staying
with her father in Cheltenham or somewhere.'
Hicks' first inclination was towards laughter. The proposal was made
so simply and so readily that the whole affair appeared for a moment
merely ludicrous.
'Yes,' he said vaguely; 'that will do; that will do very well. But
... is Huston invited?'
'I will manage that.'
There was a peaceful sense of capability about this man before which
all obstacles seemed to crumble away. Hicks felt slightly
dissatisfied. His own part was too small in this social comedy. The
conduct of Brenda's affairs was slipping from his grasp, and yet he
could do nothing but submit. Trist had unconsciously taken command,
and when command is unconscious it is also arbitrary.
'I will go now and bring Huston,' he added presently, and without
further words left his seat.
Hicks caressed the golden moustache, and watched him as he moved
easily through the gay, heedless throng--a sturdy, strong young
figure, full of manhood, full of purpose, the absurdly meek eyes
shunning rather than seeking the many glances of recognition that met
him on his way.
He went up to his hostess, and with her came apparently straight to
the point, for Hicks saw the lady listen attentively and then
acquiesce with a ready smile.
Nearly half an hour elapsed before Brenda arrived. She was one of a
large party, and her programme had been in other hands before Hicks
became possessed of it. He glanced keenly down the column of
hieroglyphics. The initials were all genuine, but three dances had
been kept by a little cross carefully inserted. Hicks obtained two
waltzes, and returned the card with his usual self-satisfied smile.
He knew that Brenda expected Trist, although she was not looking
round as if in search of anybody. But he was fully convinced that
there was some mystery on foot. One dance, he had observed, which
was marked with a cross, was a square. Trist and Brenda had met by
appointment--not as young men meet maidens every night in the year at
dances for purposes of flirtation, or the more serious pastime of
love-making, but to discuss some point of mutual interest.
As a rival Hicks had no fear of Theodore Trist, who, he argued, was a
very fine fellow in his way, but quite without social
accomplishments. He was a good dancer--that point he generously
admitted--but beyond that he had nothing to recommend him in the eyes
of a clever and experienced girl like Brenda, who had had the
advantages of association with some of the most talented men of her
day, and intimacy with himself, William Hicks. There was only that
trivial matter of athletic and muscular superiority, which really
carried no great weight with a refined womanly intellect. In a
ball-room Theodore Trist, with his brown, grave face, his absorbed
eyes, and his sturdy form, was distinctly out of place. He had not
even a white waistcoat, wore three studs in the front of his shirt,
and sometimes even forgot to sport a flower in his coat. His very
virtues (of an old fashion), such as steadfastness, truth, and
honesty, prevented him from shining in society. Fortunately,
however, for his own happiness he was without vanity, and therefore
unconscious of his own shortcomings. It is just within the scope of
possibility that he was moved by no ambition to shine in society.
While the first bars of the waltz were in progress, Hicks found
Brenda. He had little difficulty in doing so, because he had been
watching her. Moreover, she was dressed in black, which was a rare
attire in that room. In choosing this sombre garb she had made no
mistake; the style suited exactly her slim, strong young form, and in
contrast her neck and arms were dazzling in their whiteness.
They began dancing at once, and Hicks was conscious that there was no
couple in the room so perfectly harmonious in movement, so skilled,
so intensely refined.
'Trist,' he said presently in a confidential way, 'has been here.'
'Indeed!' was the guarded reply, made with pleasant indifference.
'Yes ... Brenda, he and I had a little talk, and, in consequence, he
will be absent for some time, but he is coming back.'
'What,' she inquired calmly, 'did you talk about?'
All this time they were dancing, smoothly and with the indefatigable
rhythm of skilled feet.
'It has come to my knowledge,' he replied, 'that gossip has connected
the names of Alice and Trist, and there are foolish stories going
about concerning Huston, who is said to be searching for Trist with
the intention of shooting him. Trist has gone to bring Huston here;
they will come into the room arm-in-arm. We arranged it, and I think
no further contradiction is required.'
Had she winced he would have been aware of it, because his arm was
round her yielding waist, and her hand was within his. She turned
her head slightly as if to assist him in steering successfully
through a narrow place; and he, glancing down, saw that her face was
as white as marble, but her step never faltered. She drew a deep
unsteady breath, and spoke in a grateful voice.
'It is very good of you ... both,' she said simply.
They continued dancing for some time before the silence was again
broken.
'Some day, Brenda,' whispered Hicks, while preserving with immaculate
skill an indifferent face before the world, 'I will tell you why I
was forced to interfere even at the risk of displeasing you. Some
other time, not now.'
A peculiar contraction seemed to pass over her face, and it was only
with an effort that she smiled while acknowledging a passing bow from
a girl-acquaintance.
Soon afterwards she began talking cheerily on a safer subject; and
despite all his experience, all his cleverness, William Hicks could
not bring the conversation round again to the topic she had shelved.
Her spirits seemed to rise as the evening progressed. There was a
task before her, the dimensions of which were soon apparent. Almost
everyone in the room had heard something of Alice, and the only
contradiction possible, until Trist and Huston arrived, lay in the
brave carriage of a cheerful face before them all.
There was a clock upon the mantelpiece of a small room where
refreshments were set forth, and the merits of this secluded retreat
were retailed by her to more than one of her partners. The pointers
of the dainty timepiece seemed to crawl--once or twice she listened
for the beat of the pendulum. Midnight came, and one o'clock. Still
there was no sign of Theodore Trist. At two o'clock her chaperon
suggested going home, and Brenda was compelled to apologize
laughingly to several grumbling young men, who attempted to cut off
her retreat at the door.
The spacious hall was full of departing guests; through the open door
came the hoarse confusing shouts of policemen and footmen. Brenda
pressed her hands together beneath her opera-cloak and shivered.
Theodore Trist never returned, and his absence passed unnoticed by
all except William Hicks, who waited till the end.
END OF VOL. II.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
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