The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jocelyn
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Jocelyn
Author: John Galsworthy
Release date: May 22, 2024 [eBook #73672]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Duckworth & Co, 1898
Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOCELYN ***
JOCELYN
_All Rights Reserved_
JOCELYN
BY
JOHN SINJOHN
AUTHOR OF
“FROM THE FOUR WINDS”
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.
3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1898
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
TO
JOSEPH CONRAD
THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
“_Isolation is surely the everyday condition, Union that for which we
strive so wildly and never perfectly attain; and do not these two
between them contrive all the ups and downs of life?_”
JOCELYN
_PART I_
CHAPTER I
A light laugh came floating into the sunshine through the green shutters
of a room in the Hôtel Milano. It grated on Giles Legard, who sat on the
stone terrace outside, face to face with a naked fact for, perhaps, the
first time in ten years. He uncrossed his legs, finished his coffee, and
rose listlessly, looking down the dried river bed towards the smooth
sea. He was alone with the sunlight, and it laid bare his face with a
convincing stare. The indifferent, gentle egotism of the man had
recoiled before the meaning of things for so long, that the reality
painted itself upon him harshly.
His long, sun-browned face had taken back momentarily its original
pallor, his grey eyes were contracted, his square chin and jaw thrust
forward doggedly; the thin curve of his dark moustache seemed to droop
more than usual, and the lines of weariness round his mouth and eyes
were deepened, till ridge and furrow were stamped as on a coin. His
figure, tall and well knit, looked very lean and listless.
Yet, he had awakened to the dominating fact that he had blood in his
veins--an overwhelming torrent of blood that sang in his head and
throbbed in his hands, at a touch, that mastered his reason and his
will, at a look. He was changed, absolutely changed, so that he felt he
did not know himself any longer, that his outward manner alone remained
to him--the merest superficial manner, standing as the only bar to
revelations the depth of which he was now attempting to sound.
The more effectually to cast the lead in the uncertain waters of
reality, he crossed the terrace abruptly and leant against the
half-opened French window of a large room, in the screened corner of
which a woman, dressed in white, was lying in a long invalid chair,
reading, and making pencil notes. She looked up as his shadow fell
across the light.
“Ah! Giles, I have not had the fortune to see you greatly to-day. Will
you perhaps have the goodness to give me the little green book lying on
that table? Do not stay, _je n’ suis pas bon compagnon_. It does not go
well, so that I just lie and read my Tolstoi.”
Her pale, sallow face lighted up with a smile of thanks as he put the
book within her reach.
“Have you been amusing yourself to-day, _mon cher_? Presently you shall
tell the little English friend I should like to see her.”
“Jocelyn is in the next room,” said Giles slowly.
“Ah! but not now, I have so much pain just now. Give her my love, and
tell her--later.” Her black eyes from out of their hollows glanced half
pitifully, half maliciously, at her husband, and then drooped resignedly
with a quiver of bodily pain under brows that fell obliquely away from
the furrow in the centre of her low Slav forehead.
“I’m very sorry that you’re so ill to-day. Can I do anything for you?”
said Legard. It was all he found to say, and his face in the maze of his
emotions expressed no one of them.
“Amuse yourself, _mon cher_, I have no want of anything, except to be
alone, this is one of my bad days, you know.”
Again she looked at him, and, but for the pain of the whitened lips, one
would have said she laughed. Giles turned away, but stopped at the
window irresolutely; he had found no help. Irma Legard dropped her book
with a slightly impatient gesture. A gleam of sun stealing round the
screen fell on her face--she sat up, drew the screen forward, and sank
back on her cushions with a sigh. The sound of a piano came from the
next room.
“I beg your pardon,” said Giles, “I am going,” and stepped into the
sunshine.
Through the green shutters of the adjoining room came a little petulant
tune; Giles stopped, and his face quivered; the little tune gripped some
string in his heart, it was as if the player had put her finger upon it,
and pulled it towards her. He stood there leaning against the wall, with
his hands in his pockets, and half-closed eyes. He had found the depth
of those uncertain waters; they were just of that depth, whatever it
might be, that mattered nothing. The reality of circumstance, of social
relations and duties, no longer existed, _they_ had become shadows to
him; that which was real, the only thing which had substance, was the
girl playing that tune in the shuttered room. Nothing else mattered. He
had a momentary feeling of relief, the feeling which comes to the man
whose life has been a compromise with circumstance, who has always been
afraid of stretching out his hand too far, when, for the first time, he
is conscious that his power of temporising has been taken from him--that
in his life, it is to be all, or nothing. Shikari, the great brindled
greyhound lying against the wall, paused in his occupation of lazily
snapping at flies, and stretched himself to lick his master’s hand.
“Amuse yourself, _mon cher_!” His wife’s words came into Legard’s mind,
and he laughed. He did not find things amusing.
The green shutters were opened gently, and a man stepped on to the
terrace.
“How do you do, my dear Legard?” he said in slow, suave, purring tones,
putting on a soft, grey hat; “how very fortunate to see you. I am just
off, you know.”
Scrupulously dressed after the manner of the English, Gustavus Nielsen
was unmistakably a foreigner. He was by birth a Swede, by education and
adoption a Cosmopolitan. About forty years old, of medium height and
substantial build, he carried a flaxen head stiffly upon his broad
shoulders. His pale, sandy face, of a square moulding, was marked with
innumerable little lines; one of two unfathomable eyes of a warm,
reddish brown, was protected by a gold-rimmed eye-glass; and his tawny
moustache curled walrus-like downwards to the level of his jaws. He
carried under his arm a white, green-lined umbrella.
The two men shook hands; in the looks they exchanged was all the
antagonism of an unconfessed rivalry.
“How goes the ‘system’?” said Legard. It was the most disagreeable thing
he could think of at the moment.
“Thank you,” said the other, his face immovable. “Pretty well, pretty
well, but we ‘other’ gamblers never mention it; we are afraid, don’t you
know. By the way, how is your dear wife? Give her my compliments. I am
so sorry not to see her. I have been calling on Mrs. Travis and Miss
Ley, and now I am afraid there isn’t time.”
Legard winced, he had got the worst of the exchanges.
“My wife is not very well, thank you. Good-bye, don’t let me make you
lose your train.”
“Good-bye, my dear fellow,” murmured Nielsen, putting up his green-lined
umbrella, and disappearing at a slow, square walk in the direction of
the railway station.
Left to himself, Giles returned to his moody, eager contemplation of the
closed, green shutters. The afternoon sun streamed obliquely through the
yellow sprays of a huge mimosa that hung balancing over the terrace
wall, and the scent of roses and heliotrope was heavy on the faint puffs
of air that came from the great tideless sea. Small brown lizards chased
each other up and down the smooth walls of the hotel, and a mazy,
shifting web of humming things and of butterflies wove itself over the
stony waste of the terrace.
The domination of sex veiled all these things from Legard’s senses.
Something different, something unseizably different in the pressure of a
girl’s hand, and the world was changed to him.
Constitutionally lazy, constitutionally and unobtrusively egoist, he had
come slowly to the realisation of the upheaval of foundations. It was
too far, too foreign, too altogether strange. Yet, when it had come, it
seemed to him the most natural thing to exchange a world of sun, of
sweet sounds and scents, of colour, of resigned humdrum, of bored and
gentle pleasure-seeking, for another world of fiercely passionate
longing, of ache, of delight, of absolute absorption in the one idea--a
world from which everything else was barred.
All that spring at Mentone he had accepted the one more beautiful thing
that had come into his life, as for many years he had accepted the sun,
the air, the flowers, the sea, everything that was fair in a very fair
and pleasant land. _They_ had become to him a part of his nature, so
that he no longer wondered at them, and, Englishman though he was,
gazed at the bewildered tourist with the mildly contemptuous surprise of
the Southerner, to whom these things were the merest necessities of
existence.
He had taken this one more beautiful thing as it came, without
reflection, without thought, enjoying it day by day.
He had got into the way of taking things like this. Ten years ago, at
the age of twenty-five, he had married a Polish lady, and had brought
her soon afterwards, a confirmed invalid, to a villa on the Italian
Riviera. They had never again moved far from it, it was too much
trouble. His wife was always ill, she had her writing, her friends, her
flowers. As for himself, he drifted along in an existence pleasant
enough, which slowly and surely sapped his energy, and left him a sense
of waste and of weariness that did not diminish with the passing years.
He had no particular ties with England. His father, a man of some
position in his county, died from a fall out hunting when Giles was only
four years old. The death of his mother, a very beautiful and good
woman, came just as he was leaving Eton, and left a big mark upon his
mind, strengthening the silent reserve of his nature; and yet even with
her, to whom he had been devoted, he had never spoken of things which
affected him deeply; it seemed as if the power of a complete
trustfulness were hidden from him, and reserved for something fuller and
more intimate to reveal.
At Oxford he made many friends, he was silently sympathetic to them, but
when they came to sum him up, they were forced to confess that they did
not know him, even in that ordinary degree in which youths know each
other; they liked him, but they did not know him.
When he left Oxford, he was in the position of a man with no decided
leanings or dislikes in regard to a profession, with more than
sufficient means, and with a nature which required the spur of necessity
or of some vital interest to force it to exertion. He spent some years
in travelling, generally with sport as an object; and then came his
marriage. He had never been quite able afterwards to understand how it
had come about; it had been a matter of friendship, of sentiment, of
compassion; but there it had been for ten years an accomplished fact,
bringing with it a life from which all purpose seemed to be barred.
He had pursuits; for instance, he occasionally went over to Monte Carlo
and gambled mildly, he made annual shooting trips to Algeria or Morocco,
and he was continually yachting round the coast; but of work, nothing;
of love--nothing!
There had never been anything really in common between him and his wife.
Certainly, he was always gentle and courteous to her, but there was in
her a vein of _spirituelle_, expansive _espiéglerie_, which was somehow
beyond him; it did not hit with the grey and reserved temper of his
mind, with his deeply-rooted indolence.
A man of refinement, of no vulgar instincts, of certainly the greater
logical reasoning power, he had yet always found himself _un peu bête_
in her presence, just a little commonplace--it was irritating.
He admitted to himself indeed, almost from the first, that his marriage
had been a mistake, but he did not cease to have a great admiration for
his wife’s personality, for her courage and patience under suffering,
for her wide sympathies, and the wit and charm of her manner. He
regarded her with the eye of a stranger as a very desirable and
delightful woman; he knew her to be the wrong one for himself.
He saw her side of the question also--it was a habit of his to see the
other side--and he pitied her.
He frequently analysed the situation; it did no good, but it was natural
to him.
Irma had never loved him, if she had, he would have given her love in
return, for his nature was responsive and affectionate. As it was, he
accepted the fact with gratitude. She had married him for one or other
of the unnumbered reasons for which women marry men, any one of which is
good enough till after the event.
The friction between their two natures was endless and incurable. It
never found vent. It was never openly present, secretly never absent.
Legard fell into the habit of taking things as they came, and cultivated
the superficial philosophy of indifference....
But now, standing in the sun, watching two closed green shutters, he
found that philosophy an imperfect reed to his hand.
CHAPTER II
Early frogs croaked in the _Val de Menton_, a fragrant acrid whiff of
smoke from burning eucalyptus-wood floated up from the unkempt dwellings
behind the hotel. The green shutters of the French windows were thrown
back, and a girl appeared in the space between. She stood with her head
slightly on one side, her hands in front of her, holding in them a
branch of roses. As she twisted them to this side, and that, they
reflected the sunlight through their pale yellow petals, hearts of
orange, and ruddy-stemmed foliage, and gave a suggestion of gipsy
colouring to her figure. She poised herself on the threshold of the
window, with a little swaying motion like that of a bird upon a twig.
Neither tall nor short, she had the indescribable quality of perfect
proportion. From the soft, dark brown hair rippling back from her low
forehead and drawn over the tip of the tiniest of ears, to the arched
instep thrust slightly forward under the folds of some soft,
maize-coloured gown, the paramount impression conveyed was that of
_race_--the subtle something which distinguishes the true Arab horse
even from the English thoroughbred; the something very old, quite
inseparable, ungrafted, which one may see in the purest gipsy types, the
purest Arab or Persian; that something which produces an absolute
uniformity of line and of “tone.” The oval face in repose was stamped
with a look of weariness, almost of sadness, an inherited look--as of
one having played a game with fate and lost--which is seen so often in
the Eastern, so seldom in the Western face. In the pallor of it was the
slightest browning tint, the chance outcome of a long ago gipsy strain.
She smiled as she looked quickly about her with large, soft brown eyes,
from under slightly arched, dark brows, and the lines of the mouth
curved, and took to themselves two tiny dimples at the corners. There
was no trace of the weary look in the face then; it was the very
incarnation of light and life, as she sniffed the eucalyptus smoke
luxuriously, and stretched like a little cat in the streaming sunshine.
She gave a little nod to Giles, and stooped to pat the greyhound’s head
pushed up against her dress.
“Dear boy,” she said softly, with the pretty childish lisp she used to
her intimate beasts, “Did ’oo want ’oor cake? I’ll get him his cake,
Giles.” She turned back into the room, and came out again with two large
slices of cake. She laughed while the dog ate them, and looked first at
him and then at Giles, with friendly, untroubled eyes.
“Sweet boy! How he loves cake!” she said.
Giles had not moved; he stood with his hands in his pockets, leaning
against the wall, and frowning from the sun in his eyes.
“Isn’t it a heavenly day?” said the girl, “what a pity to have to go and
spend hours in those stuffy ‘Rooms’!”
“Must you go over to ‘Monte’?” he said; “we might have gone a walk.”
Jocelyn plucked a spray of the yellow mimosa, and held it up to see if
it would go with the roses.
“Yes,” she said, “it’s such a pity; but Auntie’s dying to go, and she
won’t go alone. The poor dear’s got a new ‘system.’ She’s been studying
it all the morning, she doesn’t understand it in the least, but that
doesn’t matter, you know, she always gives it up when it comes to the
point. Are you coming over with us? Mr. Nielsen said he’d meet us in the
Gardens.” Giles bit his lips.
“Yes, I think so,” he said.
Jocelyn took a long sniff of the roses, and walked up to the terrace
wall. She stood there with her back to him, looking down on the white
houses and the ill-kept gardens, where plants straggled, and coloured
garments hung limply from lines. Presently, without turning her head,
she put her hand on Giles’s arm, and plucked his sleeve, saying--
“Look! What a wilderness! I believe I love even the untidiness of it;
there’s colour in it, anyway.” Giles quivered when she touched him; he
came close to her, and looked over her shoulder at the confused jumble
of painted buildings, green foliage, and gay rags, with the blue sea
shining beyond. With a thrill of delight he felt the touch of her
shoulder against his arm.
“What a child it is for colour!” he said; “do you care so very much for
the South?”
“I love it,” she said, with a little sigh. She twisted her fingers in
and out of each other in a way she had when she was thinking. “The only
thing I don’t care about are the people. I don’t mean the natives, I
don’t know them, I mean hotel people; all the years I’ve been abroad,
they’re always the same, wherever one goes. This place is almost worse
than any, because of Monte Carlo.”
“Do you include me?” said Giles. She gave his coat sleeve a little
friendly pull.
“Of course not; you’re different, you don’t seem to belong abroad at
all.” She turned her head slightly and looked at him.
“In spite of your laziness, you are always in earnest, you see, Giles;
you can’t help being English all through.”
“Ah!” said Giles, with a very faint smile, “it’s nice to know one’s
always in earnest, isn’t it, Shika?” And he stooped, and stroked the
greyhound’s nose.
“And you,” he said, “what about you, Jocelyn?” She moved her supple body
impatiently, and the look of defeat, which was never far away, came into
her face.
“I am sometimes in earnest,” she said slowly, “and sometimes not; it’s
always ‘sometimes’ with _me_, you know--I drift and drift.” A brown
lizard darted across the top of the wall almost under her fingers. Her
eyes shone softly.
“Sweet little beast!” she said. “I wish I were a lizard, Giles; just to
be in the sun all day, and bask, and never have anything to worry one,
or to fight against.” Giles, with his hands in his pockets, and his chin
thrust forward, was looking at her hungrily.
“You would make a very decent little lizard, you are so quick,” he said
between his teeth, “rather too nice-looking, perhaps.” He had to say
something ridiculous to hide the tenderness that came into his voice.
Jocelyn smiled; when she smiled her face was wonderfully soft, and the
tiny dimples always came to the corners of her mouth; then she sighed.
“Oh dear! it must be nearly time to go. I would much rather stay with
you, Shika,” and the greyhound, who seemed to understand, licked her
hand amicably with a wet tongue.
“Irma would like to see you--will you go to her for a minute?” Giles
brought out the words with difficulty.
“Of course I will.” She moved quickly across the terrace to the window.
Giles, still leaning against the wall, followed her with his eyes.
She knocked on the window softly, and passed through it.... That was a
curious contrast in the dim, shaded room, into which the brilliant light
filtered through the closed shutters--the dark-haired girl standing
gracefully and pliantly erect in her yellow dress, shyly twisting the
soft-petalled roses in her hands, and the shrunken, weary woman, in her
white draperies on the couch, all the life that remained to her seeming
to lie in her eyes alone; black eyes, with that peculiar mournful look
seen in monkeys’ faces, and yet with the steadfast faith of martyrs in
them--eyes that differed from most, in that they were always alight,
always expressionful.
To the immense physical difference between the two was added a vast
disparity--that between the mind of disciplined and the mind of
undisciplined impulse--and yet, each was conscious of a great liking,
somewhat shyly expressed, for the other.
Irma had a free and unenvious admiration for the girl’s supple life and
beauty; Jocelyn could not help being attracted by the elder woman’s wit,
and she had a sincere compassion for her weary suffering. They had
always a sense of pleasure in each other’s company, though, in spite of
having lived for two months in the same hotel, they had not seen much of
one another. The Legards’ villa was some five miles distant, but Mrs.
Legard always wintered in Mentone to be near her doctor.
Jocelyn bent down over the couch, and laid the saffron-centred roses
against the breast of the white dress.
“How good of you to bring me these,” came in the softest,
slightly-foreign, staccato English. “I am so glad to see you, I thought
perhaps you would not be coming to-day, and I am going away, you
know--has not Giles told you? Yes,” and she laughed almost gleefully, “I
have got my liberty from Dr. Lamotte; the spring cure is over, he
cannot do any more for me now, it seems; so I may go back to my little
villa, and my flowers and books, and my singing birds. I miss them so
here. _Mon Dieu!_ How I miss them! So, I am going to-morrow; but you
will come and see me, will you not, Jocelyn? It is not far, you know,
only about five miles. I will tell Giles he must bring you.”
“Of course I will come, I want to see the villa so much, but I am sorry
you are going.”
“Yes?” The faintest mockery seemed to ring in the word, but she put out
her hand, and took the girl’s with a caressing gesture. “I do not like
to ask your dear aunt; there is no roulette there, you know; she will
perhaps be bored. Yes, I will tell Giles; he will bring you; I do not
know if he is coming too--perhaps not.” Again in the voice and the black
eyes fixed so steadily on the girl’s, there was that indefinable spirit
of fleeting mockery; Jocelyn flushed slowly, her sensitive mind was
aware of something unpleasant, which she did not understand. There was a
light tap on the window.
“That is auntie,” she said, “I must go, I’m afraid; we are going over to
‘Monte.’”
“Good-bye, Jocelyn. Will you kiss me?” She gave the girl a look of
mingled tenderness and admiration. “You are _so_ pretty to-day.”
Jocelyn stooped for a kiss.
“Good-bye! I am very sorry you are feeling so ill; shall I stay with
you?” she said.
“_Mon Dieu!_ No! The dear aunt would certainly be bored without you; you
must go at once. _Bonne chance._ And you will come over and see me?”
“Yes,” said Jocelyn. There was a troubled look on her face, as she
turned it to the other before passing through the window.
Outside, Mrs. Travis’s figure spread, straight and full, in a cool, grey
silk gown, under a black sunshade.
She covered a good deal of ground. She had on a very smart bonnet, and
large, easy boots; the keynote of her personality was struck in the
words, “material comfort.” It was an unconscious profession with her to
pursue it, but she would have been the last to admit it. She was fifty,
with soft, well-curled fair hair going grey, and hazel-green eyes; she
had a good deal of colour. She was not a tall woman, but she impressed
one as such, there was so much dignity about her--the dignity of the old
Puritan stock--the dignity of obstinacy. She had no principle, or,
rather, she had the principles of temporary convenience, and a
lingering, superstitious remnant of a Puritan education, which compelled
her against her desires to go to church on Sundays. She was fond of
gambling; gambled badly and superstitiously, with a keen enjoyment;
objected to people believing that she did so at all; suspected the
“bank” of knowing a little too much when she lost; bore her losses, as
she bore physical pain, with the stoicism of early education; expected
the same stoicism, multiplied, in her niece. Without knowing it, she was
a perfect mistress of the art of avoiding wrinkles.
If you scratch a Russian you come to a Tartar, if you scratch a human
being you come to an animal; only in some cases you scratch more, in
others less. In Mrs. Travis’s case you scratched less. She suggested
nothing so much as a large Persian cat.
With her bright, quickly-moving, greenish eyes she observed many things,
conveying them as far as the shell which covered her reasoning
powers--if she had any. She had much instinct, no logic.
She was frequently heard to say to her niece, “You ought to think of
other people, my dear.” And she did so herself--just so far as it suited
her own convenience. She only said it to her niece in the impunity of
close relationship; in other cases she became the sublime martyr in a
smooth sulk. For the rest, she was entirely devoid of “inwardness,” was
hospitable, and a widow with no children, loved shopping and dress,
collected silver, and did it all well and economically. She did not talk
much, but smiled a great deal, a pleasant smile; when she was agitated
she puffed her lips.
She puffed them now, saying to Jocelyn--
“We shall lose our train, my dear, and we ought to play before dinner,
you know, I’m never so lucky after.” She linked her arm in the girl’s,
and walked down the terrace steps, Giles following in a feeble endeavour
to reconcile her bonnet with her boots. He was given to dissection, and
Mrs. Travis was tough under the knife.
CHAPTER III
Jocelyn Ley’s mother died when she was born. She was an only child, and
her father, who was in the army, began immediately to idolise her with
an abrupt and well-bred idolatry.
He came into some property shortly after his wife’s death, and, leaving
the service, took a place in the country, where he used to spend the
winters in hunting. In the spring and summer he would go to London, or
on a round of visits, sometimes taking Jocelyn with him. She grew up in
rather a lonely way, with dogs and horses for her companions, and her
education was of a desultory nature. She was a marvellously quick child,
the joy and despair of her governesses, who were always exceedingly fond
of her, and who found themselves perpetually obliged to leave at the
most promising moments, because Major Ley wanted his daughter to be with
him. She grew from a roundabout romp, who could never stay on her feet,
and came continually to grief, into a slim sensitive girl, very easily
hurt, shrinking like a tender plant from anything rough or unpleasant,
with a love for animals, and an innate distrust of her own kind.
When she was eighteen her father died, leaving her independent, and very
desolate.
In default of better things, he had entrusted her to his sister, for
whom he had a certain contemptuous affection. The two ladies,
marvellously dissimilar, got on fairly well together--perhaps because
they never remained for long at a time in one place, perhaps because
neither expected to understand the other, nor required much at her
hands. They had spent most of the four years since Major Ley’s death
abroad, in Italy, Spain, Germany, and above all in Paris, which Mrs.
Travis loved because of the garments to be obtained.
Jocelyn hated the grey monotony of English skies. She had a fierce love
of the sun, of lands where the colouring hit the eye, where life
_seemed_ to throb with a fuller pulse.
From her mother, in whose family there was a tradition of gipsy blood,
she had inherited a restless, moody nature, which ordained that she
should wander, just as it decreed that she should be a slave to the ebb
and flow of her emotions. She had a vast capacity for living in the
passing moment, which indicated a nature very responsive to outward
influences, and to her own physical condition.
In her, qualities, and the negations of those qualities, seemed to swing
with a beat and recoil as absolutely weighed and regulated as that of a
pendulum; they balanced each other in the scales of her mind. She
herself recognised the perpetual equation, standing apart from her moods
in a detached consciousness, regretfully indulgent, making no attempt to
control or check, rather gauging them with a peculiar pessimism, a
sympathetic insight, a tender desire to be good to herself. She extended
this desire to all the world--she loved generously to appreciate and to
be appreciated, investing herself thereby with a great quality of
attraction, not lessened by the essential pride which forbade her to ask
a favour from God or man. She never stirred a finger to attract
admiration or affection, yet without appreciation she drooped as a
flower without water....
As the train droned sleepily on its way to Monte Carlo, she leant
forward in the dust-coloured railway carriage to look at the curve of
the bay between Cap Martin and Roquebrune. She was smiling unconsciously
at the blue sea gleaming in the sunlight, the feathery, white edges of
the tiny, tideless waves, the pine-clothed cliffs rising sheer behind
the tail of the curving train, and the three sentinel palms on the rocky
point in front. Giles sat opposite her, devouring her face with
half-closed eyes. Once with an abrupt movement she touched his knees
with her own; and then it wanted all of Mrs. Travis--expansive, leaning
back, with hands folded on her lap, and quickly-glancing green eyes--to
check the mad impulse suddenly roused in him to take the girl in his
arms. He spent all the rest of the journey in wondering if she knew of
that touch.
They found Nielsen in the garden, fragrantly shaded by a pepper tree. He
was sitting on a seat smoking a cigarette, and gravely contemplating the
doings of a man, who resembled a Greek statue, and of a sheep-faced
boy, who might have stepped out of one of Jean François Millet’s
pictures. These two seemed to be committed to the levelling of a heap of
earth, which had been let fall from a cart drawn by a large,
intelligent-looking mule; they continued, however, to seem, for they did
absolutely nothing. Nielsen greeted the ladies with suave effusion; he
was a devoted admirer of Jocelyn.
“Lōōk at that man!” he said plaintively, pointing to the statue. “What a
futile thing civilisation is! You know, I have seen much more energetic
South Sea Islanders, and delightfully clean, except for palm oil, which,
after all, is only soap. But lōōk at that attitude! How bēāutiful! He
has been leaning on his spade in six different attitudes, each more
bēāutiful than the last, all this quarter of an hour, and now he is
going to get himself a drrink.” For the statue moved away, and left the
Millet boy to drag his weedy limbs and sheep-like face round and round
the earth heap in a conscientiously monotonous, do-nothing shamble.
Nielsen continued. “He has no more anything than the Fijian, except
clothes and dirt; and yet we have the habit of calling him a civilised
being, and the other a savage, don’t you see? It is all a matter of
habit, you know.”
He flicked the dust off his boots mournfully with a silk handkerchief.
Nielsen habitually gave people the impression of being affected; in
reality he was not, it was in his case merely the grafting of the
English manner upon the foreign; he impressed one as being cynical, in
reality he was kind-hearted; he appeared to be mild, in reality he was
explosive; he seemed to be continually dancing in attendance, in reality
he was an original.
He was a man of good birth, and he had seen, in his forty years, a
little of most things; he now lived by gambling on a “system.” It said
much for him that he still lived, and _well_. Many people who gambled
themselves tabooed him for that reason, oblivious of the fact, that, to
live in that way, requires a patience and self-possession wanting in
nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand.
They walked together through the gardens up to the Casino. There is a
subtly peculiar character about the Casino gardens at Monte Carlo. They
are not indeed particularly beautiful--there are many more so--but there
is a subdued and fragrant naughtiness about them, they are full of
suggestion. The aroma, acrid and penetrating, the atmosphere, vivid and
enticing, of many unrestrained personalities seems to haunt them; in the
midst of absolutely artificial surroundings one yet seems to revert to
first principles, to those mysterious laws which make the world go
round, hunting the ostrich of civilisation as it buries a lofty and
well-intentioned head from the sight of its implacably eternal pursuers.
Presently they approached the Casino steps. Mrs. Travis was a little in
advance, serenely conscious of good clothes, and puffing her lips in
pleased anticipation. Jocelyn _distraite_, and slightly bored, walked
with Nielsen, who chattered to her languidly, while Giles followed
moodily behind.
In front of them strolled two Englishmen with a curiously jerky walk.
Nielsen, commenting on them in a whisper to his companion, said
gravely--
“Lōōk, they are new arrivals--they have the Monte Carrlo walk--two steps
and a scrratch, don’t you know; all you English walk like that, you
know, when you first come, it is the drry air.”
Jocelyn smiled at him, and answered in low tones.
Giles, who had not caught the words of the whispered conversation, felt
a sudden pang; he grew very pale, and dropped a little further behind.
As Jocelyn went up the steps, she turned round and looked back for him.
The subdued strains of music came through the open doors of the
concert-room; and in the outer hall and corridors people moved up and
down with a prowling motion slightly suggestive of beasts at the Zoo;
every now and then one would slip back again into the playing-rooms.
Inside there was a hushed, jingling sound, a subdued light, a faint
scent of patchouli. People shifted continually from room to room and
round the tables, singly, or in groups of two and three talking in low
voices. A ring of faces circled each table, and watchful croupiers at
the ends and sides shepherded them apathetically with incessant energy.
Their rakes clacked against coins on the green cloths, and the drawl
“_rien n’va plus_” went continually up to the vault of the painted
ceiling.
The endless motion of fans gave an impression of great insects hovering
between the players. The faces were for the most part grave, there was
no laughter; and the walls of the rooms stared baldly at them in bright
colours, covered with painted nymphs; on couches, here and there, people
sat, idly talking, or gazing wearily in front of them. Now and then a
hum would swell up from one of the tables, and die down again into
monotony.
Mrs. Travis, who always played roulette because it afforded her the
luxury of more vacillation for her money, selected a table, and waited
till she could sit down next to a friendly and clean Austrian croupier,
whom she had habituated by a long and careful interchange of badly
pronounced “_Bonjours_” to supervise the placing of her stakes. She
proceeded to put purse, fan, and handkerchief beside her, and to take
from her pocket pencil and cards whereon to mark the numbers. Her lips
moved incessantly, her eyes glanced restlessly from the table to her
cards and back again, and occasionally she gave quick looks at the
players round--she seemed to see everything. She marked her cards
carefully, consulted them much--fingered her stakes before placing them,
often drawing them back again at the last moment. When she won, she
smiled--when she lost, she frowned; she was beautifully unconscious that
she did any of these things. As she played, the lines deepened in her
face, the colour faded--in short, she returned to first principles--a
gambler pure and simple.
Jocelyn’s proceedings were in curious contrast. She took the first empty
seat. Her eyelids dropped, her chin tilted up, her face assumed a mask
of indifference. She pushed her stakes on with the rake, carelessly, as
if they did not belong to her, she raked them in carelessly in the same
way. She backed her luck and cut her losses with nonchalance in an
orthodox fashion--gambling because other people gambled.
Giles, standing at the same table, staked feverishly on every spin of
the wheel. He kept his eyes all the time on Jocelyn. He won a good deal,
put it in his pocket, and made a motion towards her, but, receiving no
sign of invitation, went back to his place, and played with his eyes
still upon her, till he had lost all he had with him. Then he turned
away with an air of relief, and, going round, stood behind her chair,
where now and again his coat sleeve would brush against her shoulder. He
had played for a distraction without finding it.
Nielsen sat at a given table, watching the game; he looked sad,
expressionless. He played from the marked cards in his hands and the
figures in his head; he awaited combinations. He staked rarely, content
with a five per cent. profit upon his outlay of the afternoon. Presently
some one appropriated his stake--he looked at the man, mildly hurt, but
said nothing; shortly afterwards some one appropriated his neighbour’s
stake--he at once exploded in defence; with words he cudgelled the
appropriator, he cudgelled the croupiers, he brought the table about his
ears, his face grew white, his eyes red, he held on to his point and
gained it, then became once more sad and expressionless. For the rest he
gambled undeviatingly--a mere matter of business.
Presently they came away, leaving Nielsen waiting patiently for a
certain combination. As Jocelyn passed his chair he leant back, and
twisted his rather short neck round to say, in a pathetic whisper, and
with a shrug of his shoulders--
“_Ça ne va pas, ce soir_, I wait and wait, but the brread and butter
does not come, and now you are going away, that is drreadful, don’t you
know.” He had to twist back again in a hurry to mark his card with the
last number.
Jocelyn, looking back, thought that he resembled a well-groomed seal
watching a hole for fish.
Mrs. Travis, playing her new “system” with assiduous ignorance, had lost
all her own money, had borrowed Jocelyn’s, and lost that. She left the
“Rooms” stiff with anger, erect, annoyed with her croupier, whom she
believed capable of predicting the coming numbers if he would, strongly
convinced that if she had brought more money she must have won, secretly
ruffled with Jocelyn for not having more to lend her.
Very little was said on the return journey; Mrs. Travis’s quick green
eyes seemed restlessly on the watch for something to resent, Jocelyn
was tired, Giles moody. Only when they neared the hotel, he touched her
sleeve gently, saying--
“You know we are off to-morrow?”
“Yes,” she answered, “I am so sorry.”
She stopped, and a faint colour came into her cheeks.
“I shall miss our walks dreadfully, and Shika--poor boy: he won’t get
his cake. Will you remember to give it him every afternoon?”
“No,” said Giles shortly, “I’ll bring him over for you to give it.”
“Oh!” she said, drawing little circles in the dust with the end of her
parasol. He was standing in front of her, tall and straight, with his
hat off, and a very grave face. She looked up at him quickly, and held
out her hand with a smile.
“We are dining out,” she said, “I don’t suppose I shall see you again.
Good-bye, Giles.” He took her hand in his, and held it a moment, looking
very hard into her face; then he let it go, and stood quite still while
she climbed the terrace steps. She turned her head once, and he caught a
side glimpse of a tired, rather sad, little face under a shady hat.
CHAPTER IV
The Legards left Mentone very early the following day; it was necessary
for Irma to drive the five miles to the villa in the cool of the
morning. Giles had failed to see Jocelyn again; he delayed the departure
as much as he could, but she was not down when they left. During the
drive he sat silently calm opposite his wife, but with a feeling of rage
and despair in his heart. He took the greatest care of her, changing her
cushions continually, and making the man drive with the utmost caution.
They arrived without incident. He had hoped that he would find some
relief and distraction in the familiar surroundings of the villa, but he
found instead that they only maddened him by bringing to his mind more
forcibly the bar set between him and Jocelyn. He asked himself, a
hundred times a day, what he was doing? what he meant to do? and he
could give himself no answer. His conscience, his sense of balance, his
honour, whatever name best fitted that feeling which struggled with his
passion, exacted from him a dying remonstrance. He tried to give himself
no time to think, to keep himself busy all day and every day, riding,
walking, or with affairs in the house; he was particularly attentive to
his wife, and he felt all the time that she knew what was passing in his
heart; and all his efforts were of no use--Jocelyn’s face was ever
before him. He wrote a note to her, in which he said that he had
business which would take him to Genoa. He went there, and stayed two
days, at the end of which time he returned more miserable than ever. In
this way a week passed without his going to Mentone.
Jocelyn missed him; she had become so used to his companionship in those
two months. She had no idea, until he had gone, how much she had
depended on him for enjoyment. She felt quite lost without him and the
greyhound. He seemed to her so different from the men, Germans,
Frenchmen, Poles, or Russians with whom she had been thrown during her
wanderings. They had danced with her, ridden with her, paid her
compliments, even asked to marry her, and one and all she had distrusted
them, with the native distrust peculiar to her. She had always felt as
if she understood Giles. It was not because he was her countryman, it
was for no defined reason; yet it had been good to be with him; to find
some one who loved, like herself, the sun and the flowers, music, the
hot, sweet-scented air, the clack of many foreign tongues in the glowing
light, and on starry evenings the murmur of the deep-hearted sea. To
know that there was some one near who felt the spirit moving in these
things, who lived in them, to whom they were not, as to her aunt, merely
the chance outside ministers of a bodily ease.... After he had gone, she
would sometimes go into the garden with her lips pursed up in a dumb
whistle, expecting every minute to see Shikari uncoil his snake-like
body from under the shade of some shrub, and come lolloping across the
grass with arched back to lick her hands; or to see Giles sitting in the
sun with a Panama hat over his eyes, and his long legs crossed.
Sometimes, as she sat indoors alone, or with her aunt, she would fancy
she smelt the smoke of his cigar on the terrace, and she would get up
and look through the shutters. She ceased to go for walks--it was so
dull by herself, and she no longer cared to go over to Monte Carlo. She
played to herself a good deal, but she found that she missed Giles’s
grave face looking at her, and a habit, which he had, of coming up from
behind and touching her on the shoulder, saying, “Play that again.” She
wanted somebody to like her music. It was no good playing when there was
nobody to care whether she played badly or well.
When she received his note she was surprised, and a little hurt, not at
the news it contained, but at the wording--it seemed to her so formal
and precise.
She sat down, and wrote him a friendly letter in return, then tore it up
in a sudden fit of childish irritation, and wrote to Irma instead,
telling her what a good time she was having.
Just a week after the Legards had gone, she found herself with Mrs.
Travis at a party given by a certain German baroness at her hotel in the
East Bay. The hot, airless rooms, opening into each other, were filled
with a cosmopolitan crowd of people, raising a gabble of words and
laughter. The majority of them discussed the health of themselves and of
their friends; a German professor, sitting at the piano, now and then
struck a chord upon it to illustrate an argument he was carrying on; a
fat, brown poodle begged incessantly, all over the room, for cakes; in a
corner two Russians with parted beards disputed in low tones over a
“system”; and an old English lady, stolidly eating an ice, complained of
toothache to a Colonial bishop, who stood beside her with his hat
clasped to his stomach. On the gravel walk outside, people paraded
vaguely, smelling at the flowers, or turning to stare at new arrivals.
There were present, in fact, all the ingredients of hotel society on the
Riviera.
Mrs. Travis, seated in a cool corner of the room, was fanning herself,
and listening with an occasional ample wriggle to the conversation of an
anæmic curate, who was endeavouring to expound his own, and to elicit
her views upon art. Having no views, she was finding it best to agree
with everything he said, while her quick eyes took in a large amount of
information about the dress and appearance of her neighbours. She
smiled a great deal at him, however, so that he was quite
pleased--considering himself appreciated--and presently brought her some
tea.
In the centre of the room a knot of people surrounded Jocelyn, two of
them talking to her eagerly in spasmodic and heavy-shouldered sentences;
they were both Germans--Jocelyn had a peculiar fascination for Germans,
they came round her like flies round honey. One of them would say--
“Do you that gomposer zo much like, ach?” The other: “Has he not
veeling, ach?” and Jocelyn contrived always to convince each of them
that she had answered him first. She did not wish to attract them, but
only to avoid hurting their feelings. She appeared delicious to them,
with her vivid yet mysterious face, and the absolute daintiness of her
gestures and her dress. Every now and then she turned to the only other
lady in the group, and tried to draw her into the talk, and, curiously
enough, she seemed delicious to her also, having the faculty, given to a
few attractive women, of not arousing the jealousy of her own kind. The
Germans were pressing her to play, and she was turning to the piano
when her eyes fell upon the figure of Giles. He was standing outside one
of the French windows with his hands in his pockets, watching her. She
gave an abrupt little movement, and sat down at the piano feeling
suddenly hot. She began turning the leaves of some music hastily, with
the idea, without knowing why, that she must hide her eyes from people.
She played a mazurka of Chopin’s, while the German professor, leaning
over, regarded her admiringly through his smoked spectacles. When she
had finished, she got up, saying, in answer to a buzz of remonstrance,
“It’s too hot to play,” and walked away to a chair, with a sudden
impatience of the people around her. She was thinking, “Why doesn’t
Giles come and talk to me?” The German professor, who had followed her
from the window, began a commentary upon composers; Jocelyn, leaning
back in her chair, listened languidly, while her eyes wandered to the
window. A tall, good-looking woman in pink was talking to Giles, who was
listening with a smile on his face. Jocelyn wondered who she was, and
made an absent remark to the professor. She observed the look of mild
surprise that lurked behind his spectacles, and caught herself up with
her habitual quickness; but the moment he began to talk again her eyes
went back to the window. Giles, bending a little forward, was holding
the curtain aside to allow his companion to pass into the open air.
Jocelyn felt a kind of dismay, as if something unpleasant and unexpected
had happened.
“_Und_ Schubert,” the German professor was saying, “how _wunderschön
mit_ his beaudiful melodies, _nicht wahr_!”
“Ah!” she answered shortly, with her eyes on the ground, “I don’t like
him at all, he is too sweet,” and was surprised at her own irritability.
When she looked up again she met Giles’s eyes. He stopped short in the
act of stepping through the window, and she felt as if something were
passing from him to her in that look. Without glancing again, she knew
that he was threading his way towards her, and the colour began to come
slowly into her cheeks. She plucked incessantly at a loose thread in her
skirt, and talked nervously. When he came up she held out her hand to
him with a smile; he took it silently in his, and stood close to her,
without joining in the talk. She felt suddenly light-hearted, and began
a gay and laughing discussion with the professor. They disputed upon the
colouring of the Riviera. The professor, a short, bearded man, with a
square figure, prominent blue eyes, and a red face, maintained that it
was too vivid.
“Dere is no zoul in it, no veeling, _nicht wahr_?” he said, “everydings
you zee at once--it is not inderesding.”
“Ah! But always to have the sun, and the beautiful clear sky, what does
anything else really matter except that, Herr Schweitzer? Besides, there
are the olives--isn’t there any soul in them?”
“Ach! The olives, dey are ingongruous, like a grey goat on an Idalian
beasant. I like more de zcenes mit de bine woods, und de rivers vlowing,
und to zee de beasts und de women in de vields.”
“Yes, I like that too, but I don’t feel as if I _lived_ there, you know,
as one does in the South.”
“_Ach! Mein fraulein_, you are English; like all de English you will
eggzitement have. For me to dake his ztick and walk in de beaudiful
woods und vields, und to zee nadure, und den berrhaps to rest, und drink
a liddle beer, and walk again, dat is ’abbiness--ach!”
He beamed at her sentimentally through his spectacles. At this moment
Mrs. Travis approached; she was greatly bored by her curate, and by the
heat, and wished to depart. Giles, with a look of relief upon his face,
went out to find their carriage; in spite of his yearning to be with
Jocelyn, it tortured him to see her talking to other people. He had come
to the party in the hope of finding her, proposing just to look at her,
and to go away. As he put them into their carriage, her hand rested
lightly on his arm, and she said--
“When are you coming over to see us, Giles?”
“To-morrow,” he answered, trembling all over. He did not take his eyes
from her face, and when she looked back at him as the carriage drove
away, she felt again as if something were passing between them.
“_Au revoir!_” she cried, waving her hand. All the way home she felt
curiously light-hearted....
After dinner that evening, she wandered alone into the hotel garden; the
endless chatter of the drawing-room irritated and annoyed her--she
wanted to be alone.
The night was breathlessly still, the scent of roses and heliotrope hung
heavily in the air, fire-flies flashed, and now and then a blue gleam of
the summer lightning rent the clear dark. For a moment the silence was
intense, then suddenly a frog croaked harshly, the cry of a peacock or a
far-off shout from the street broke the stillness and died away. Jocelyn
walked up and down one of the paths, and then stood looking into the
night with soft eyes. Her lips parted in a caress.... What a marvellous
world under those remote and silent stars! If she could but take it into
her arms and kiss it! Kiss the sweet flowers, the still air, the whole
wonderful night! It seemed more to her than ever before--fuller of
meaning and of delight. She stretched out her arms, and then pressed
them to her breast with a sudden irresponsible motion of which she was
half ashamed....
The light of a lamp streamed from an open window into the darkness, and
stretched in a band of gold over the dew-stained grass. Jocelyn turned
away; it seemed to her like a hot and intruding touch upon the purity of
the night. She drew a long breath of the warm air, feeling utterly and
unreasoningly happy--as if nothing could touch her, as if her steps were
guided by some soft gleam shining mysteriously from behind the curtain
of life. She did not seek to know why she had that strange and sweet
sensation; it was enough for her that she felt the throb of the stars,
the dumb whisper of the dreaming night. She pressed the backs of her
hands against her cheeks--they were glowing as if from kisses....
The hoarse barking of a dog rose from the distant street; with a faint
rustling the quiet garden seemed to stir resentfully, as though some
strange breath had stolen into it. Jocelyn gave a little shiver, she
twisted with her hands the muslin scarf around her neck and
shoulders--it was all limp and wet with the dew. With a sudden feeling
of discouragement she turned and went back into the house.
That night she lay awake a long while, thinking.
CHAPTER V
Giles rode over the next morning. He found Jocelyn and Mrs. Travis in
the garden of the hotel talking with a young Englishman. They came
forward to meet him, but he felt at once that in Jocelyn’s greeting
there was something foreign to her, something almost repellant. After
the first moment she did not look at him; all her attention seemed
bestowed upon the speech of the young Englishman, who stood, speckless,
descanting upon “systems,” the demerits of which he illustrated
languidly with his fingers. He was a weakly, immutable young man,
sloping from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He began it
with his forehead, and continued it all the way down; his voice
sloped--it came out of him loudly, and died away; his hands sloped--they
began large, and ended small. He never smiled--not from set purpose, but
because he had lost the art, and his eyes calculated continually out of
the monotony of a colourless face.
“‘Systems’ are all rot,” he was saying, “there are only two fellers in
Monte Carlo who make it pay, don’t y’ know, old Blore and Nielsen; an’
they don’t do it by figures, only by bein’ so ’nfernally patient.”
Mrs. Travis, sitting upright in a cane chair with her hands in her lap,
listened with attentive disapproval; she had a “system,” and did not
wish to be convinced of its inefficiency.
“But I watched Baron Zimmermann myself, and I saw him win five hundred
louis the day before yesterday, he plays a ‘system,’ I know,” she said.
“Lost it all yesterday, and more,” said the young man dispassionately.
It was his _métier_ to know everything about everybody, for which reason
Mrs. Travis respected him.
“But perhaps he wasn’t playing his ‘system’ then,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t think he would be,” a remark which was a fair specimen of
her methods of discussion. She never believed what she did not want to,
and rarely anything that she did not see with her own eyes.
“Figures are against you, y’ve only got one thing in your favour, don’t
y’ know,” said the young man languidly; “you c’n leave off playin’ when
y’ like, and the bank has to go on.” His voice ran into a whisper, and
he tilted his hat till it sloped down the back of his neck.
Giles stood a little way from them, watching Jocelyn eagerly. He caught
her looking at him two or three times with eyes that seemed to be asking
a question--eyes that were full of trouble and uncertainty. He could not
understand the change in her; recalling the friendly serenity of the
parting look she had given him the day before, he wondered with a secret
dismay. He went up to her and said--
“Will you come and look at the pony? You said you wanted to see it.”
“Yes,” she answered indifferently, and walked away with him to the
stables, leaving the young man caressing the slope of his moustache, and
calculating into vacancy. On the way to the stables she hardly talked at
all, only answering in monosyllables when he spoke to her; every now
and then she would look at him stealthily, with that same expression of
perplexity and fear. As she stood talking to the pony, with her arms
round its neck, her cheek laid against its mane, and her eyes soft under
their long lashes, Giles felt an uncontrollable rush of longing to be
near her, to touch her, and share in the tenderness of her voice and her
face. He came close, and laid his hand partly over hers upon the pony’s
head. She drew it away quickly with a look of positive fright, and the
colour rushed furiously into her face. He looked at her silently, and he
could not keep the pain and hunger out of his eyes. She went on
mechanically stroking the pony’s neck. At last he said, rather because
his feelings fought for expression than that the words were those he
wished to speak, “What’s the matter, Jocelyn? Why do you treat--?” She
stamped her foot upon the straw of the stall, and without saying a word,
went out of the stable. He stood there, biting his moustache, dumb with
pain and dismay, and the pony thrust its wet nose against the pocket of
his coat. He recovered himself a minute later, but she had gone to her
room, and though he waited a long time, he did not see her again, and at
last went away, half distracted with doubt and fear....
After that, his will made no further remonstrance. All that he thought
of, day and night, was to be near her. Conventional morality ceased to
be anything to him but a dim, murky shadow, falling at times across the
path of his longing. He was face to face with two very grim realities,
gaunt and shadowless, which hurt him, bit into his soul, absorbed his
consciousness--his great unslaked thirst, and his dread of bringing her
harm. He was unable to see issues clearly outlined under the pressure of
the throbbing passion which possessed him. All that was highest in him
was roused, all the self-sacrifice of which he was capable, all the
desire to be of use, of protecting use, to some other human being; and
by a grim irony it was aroused by that very implanted impulse in his
sensuous fibre to be at one with that other, to be all in all to her, to
rend the veil which divided her from him, body and soul. He thought of
her reverently, as something sacred and unstained, yet he would have
given ten years of his life to put his lips to hers. His will,
undermined by years of easy drifting with the tide, made feeble attempts
to grapple with the end; painfully achieved resolutions, painfully
abandoned them, finally confessed dimly that he could neither give her
up nor do anything to bring her harm.
So possessed, he made daily pilgrimage from the sunlit Italian villa
into Mentone, and every day a rising tide of passion left him a step
higher upon a thirsty beach of thankless indecision.
Shikari, the greyhound, who shared with him the daily journeying, and
who slept by his bed at night, was the only living thing that gave him
some comfort during those days when his old easy life slipped away from
him. Jocelyn’s great love of animals invested the dog with an added
attraction. Something of herself, Legard thought, seemed to stay with
the caresses and the sweet words she had lavished upon him.
There was, besides, a sense of comradeship in the touch of the brute’s
muzzle against his knee, which no human being could give, while his mind
was kicking, impotently and incessantly, against the pricks of
humanly-ordained circumstance. He managed to keep a certain hand upon
his actions; he remained calmly and wearily gentle to his wife, but
often when he looked at her, he would awake suddenly to the
consciousness that he was trying to measure the ebbing vitality in her
face and gestures, and he would turn away hating himself. Every morning
he started from the villa, and walked the five dusty miles westwards
under the blazing sun with a swinging, hardly restrained stride; every
night he came slowly and listlessly back, under cover of the dewy
darkness, his face drawn and his lips working. He used to walk both
ways, so that in weariness he might get some freedom from thought at
night. He did not always see Jocelyn. Sometimes his courage would fail
him at the last moment, and he would not even make the attempt, but
would hang about the town utterly wretched, and go back at night cursing
his cowardice. It was a part of his misery too that he could not
understand her. Some days she would hardly speak to him, would shrink if
by accident he touched her, and avoided being alone with him; at other
times she would seem as friendly and serene as in the old days; but even
then she left the impression upon him, that she had been forcing herself
not to think and feel, simply to live in the passing moment. She never
touched him if she could help it, and her eyes seldom met his; by virtue
of her woman’s quickness, they fell soft and luminous under the veil of
their dark lashes before he could read the meaning in them. And he knew
that it was all his own fault--for, do what he would, he could not hide
his feelings. At times he was cold to her, almost sullen, at others
quite silent; sometimes he could not keep back the tenderness in his
voice, then again he would be suddenly conventional and abrupt, and
always--always--he looked at her with hunger in his eyes. When he saw
her in the presence of other people he suffered tortures of jealousy, he
wanted her ever to himself. That expression of shrinking, almost of
horror, in her face, haunted him; sometimes he would go away, cursing
himself, calling himself a brute, and a beast, for bringing her a
moment’s pain--he would even resolve to give her up and never see her
again; but to no end--he could not keep away. Once, when she thought
herself unobserved, he saw her looking at him with an expression in her
eyes that he had never seen before--an expression in which wonder, fear,
pity, and something very deep, were strangely blended; his heart leaped
within him, but the next moment the look was gone, and her face was
mysterious and inscrutable as a mask. He lived upon that look for days.
In his mind he perpetually reviewed all the unconsidered trifles of
their meetings, the words spoken, and the words that seemed to hang
unspoken on her lips, the thoughts that showed in her face and the
thoughts unimaged, unconfessed--and neither her woman’s instinctive
dissimulation, nor the greatly unconscious, greatly untested barrier of
a girl’s reserve, could hide them altogether from his despairing eyes.
He searched as a thirsty man seeks water in a desert, where to find it
is life--to fail death. The knowledge that he was staking his all in
that search, and yet that, even if he found it, it must needs be
brackish, perhaps undrinkable, gave him a keenness of vision denied to
most lover’s eyes. As the days ran into weeks he grew tired and
worn-looking, and hollows began to come into his sun-burnt face. He
lived, knowing nothing with certainty, nothing of what she felt, nothing
of what he desired, nothing of the end. He lived a prey to hunger and to
doubt....
One morning, as he was coming up to the hotel, he encountered Mrs.
Travis, setting forth upon her daily visit to Monte Carlo. She told him
that Jocelyn had taken a book, and gone for a walk by herself. He
accompanied the good lady to the station, and watched her train go out,
then he took the nearest way through the outskirts of the town to a
sloping ridge which he knew to be Jocelyn’s favourite walk. The sun
blazed fiercely, and in the town the heat brooded breathlessly over the
houses, over the streets, and the dried watercourses. He passed a
company of soldiers, in blue jackets and white trousers, straggling
dustily along the road; three or four little girls on donkeys clattered
by him laughingly, bumping up and down and chattering incessantly, while
the drivers followed, flourishing sticks.
In the narrow lane of the steep ascent wild roses hung in clusters from
the hedges; and now and then he passed unkempt cottages whence came the
smell of burning wood and the barking of dogs. He came out at last upon
a ridge, running between two terraced, vine-grown valleys. The
uncertainty of his quest gave him courage, and he walked rapidly without
dwelling upon the thought whether or not she would be glad to see him;
but he had almost given up hope, and was about to retrace his steps,
when he suddenly caught sight of her sitting on a bank of thyme, a
little way down the left hand slope. Her elbows rested on her knees, and
her chin was sunk in her hands; a book lay open by her side. His heart
gave a great leap, and beat painfully; he stood still, doubting what he
should do, but the sudden ceasing of footsteps had attracted her
attention, and she looked up. He lifted his hat.
“May I come? Or shall I go back?” he said.
She looked at him startled, half rising from the ground.
“Shall I go away?” he repeated.
“It would be better,” she said; and then, as if to recall the strange
words, she held out her hand and said--
“Oh, no! Come, of course, if you like.”
He went down the slope, dry and slippery under his feet, and threw
himself at full length close to her. In the valley below the almond
trees were flushing in the sun; on the hillsides the olives glistened,
here and there a tall cypress stood like a sentinel over the scene, and
pine trees crowning the ridge behind seemed to climb towards the blue of
the sky. Cuckoos were calling, bees droning, and the tinkle of cow-bells
floated up the valley. Little flowers pushed their tiny heads up around,
and in all the still air was the scent of the thyme.
“This is the hour I love best,” said Jocelyn, “when the day is just
sleeping; resting after its climb, before it begins to go down hill
again. Listen to the bees, what a lullaby!”
She held up her finger, and sat with her head bent a little to one side,
and a smile on her lips. Giles watching her, as always, saw the smile
fade, leaving her face weary and troubled. He took up her book, and
began turning over the leaves, with the feeling that by the trivial
action he was warding off the pain which he felt was coming. Suddenly,
she said--
“What does the world want with people? They only spoil it! It is _so_
beautiful, except for our horrible, horrible selves.”
She put her hands out, as if she would push away from her something
weighty and oppressive. The motion went straight to his heart; he sat up
with an abrupt movement, and turning half away from her, clenched his
hands; feelings of grief and rage tore at him.
Presently he felt a soft pull at his sleeve. He looked at her. The
little oval face, with its large brown eyes, was so pathetic that all
bitterness left him, and he thought only of how to bring the light back
into it. He began to talk about the book, about anything that came
uppermost in his mind, and gradually the old friendly serenity came into
her face. They sat there a long time, talking and reading, while the
shadows of the pine trees lengthened, and in the slanting sun the light
mellowed on the hillside. At last Jocelyn said--
“It’s time for me to go back.”
She was rising to her feet, when her foot slipped, and she fell nearly
to the ground. Giles standing close caught her in his arms. He felt her
breath on his cheek, the soft pressure of her yielding body against
him--and his eyes blazed with the sweet emotion that leaped up in his
heart. When she was on her feet again, he held her for one second.
Suddenly her frame became rigid, she pushed him violently away from her,
and covering her face with her hands, turned, and almost ran up the
slope. Giles stood where she had left him, motionless....
Half an hour later he too went up the slope. At the turning into the
lane, Jocelyn rose from the trunk of a fallen tree on which she had been
sitting, and came up to him without a word. Her face was flushed, there
were circles beneath her eyes, and he knew that she had been crying.
With a catch in his breath, he took her hand and stroked it gently. They
went down the hill together silently.
CHAPTER VI
Giles paced up and down his verandah restlessly; he was awaiting
Jocelyn’s arrival. His wife had sent an invitation to her and to Mrs.
Travis to come and see the villa, with the suggestion that they should
afterwards drive on to Bordighera. Nielsen, who had also received an
invitation, was coming with them; the prospect of a whole day in
Jocelyn’s society having caused him for once to abandon his professional
visit to the gambling-tables.
The little grey villa hanging over the Cornice road smiled down a sheer
descent at the sea, which danced, far out, to the tune of the breeze in
lines of sapphire, and, shorewards, was ringed smoothly with a dull,
turquoise crescent of water, broken only where the foam-scud, shining in
the brilliant sunshine, flew up over the green-grey rocks. Below the
wall, on the nether side of the road, a clump of silver olives swayed
gracefully in the freshening breeze, and beyond, a group of stone pines
brooded, thoughtful and apart, at the edge of the cliff. Hanging masses
of pink geranium, and wine-coloured bougainvillea stained the greyness
of the villa walls, and rainbow roses clung in festoons round its
closed, green shutters.
Up the curved, white vista of dusty road toiled the figure of an old
man, sturdily bending under his load of palm branches. A two-horsed cart
rattled noisily downwards towards the bridge to the crack of the
driver’s lash and his shrill “yuips.” Just in front of the villa three
small brown urchins chattered busily in the dust, heaving flat stones
aimlessly along the road; and the soft, metallic note of women’s talk,
with a wailing rise at the end of each sentence, floated up from a
gaily-skirted group washing linen in the tank below. To the left, where
the road wound past a buttress of old grey masonry, palms clustered
skyward in dusty profusion; to the right, through a slanting, mauve
network of wisteria and sleepy heliotrope, one caught a glimpse of the
lichen-dotted wall of a Saracen tower, rising solid and picturesque,
pierced in the centre by a white-washed stone archway. The sea gave a
blue-green setting to the spreading foliage, to the gnarled trunks of
the balancing olives and the stems of the pines; the edging foam,
glinting white as it shot up over the rocks, seemed to throw a playful
challenge to the friends that had hung so long above in airy seclusion.
In a corner of the garden, where a pepper tree threw feathery shadows
from its hanging, frond-like leaves, and dull pink berries, on to the
grass, Shikari lay, his head between his paws, watching his master’s
restless figure out of one half-closed eye.
Presently the sound of wheels was heard coming up the road. Giles
stopped his uneasy tramp on the broad verandah, and, followed by the
dog, went and stood at the top of the crescent of trellis-roofed steps,
that led curving up to the door from the outside porch. The carriage
stopped. Jocelyn was the first to alight. She stood, for a minute,
before she mounted, looking up at him through the roses which trailed
mysteriously over her head out of shadowy masses of hanging
foliage--falling through the openings of the twisted trellis-work, they
seemed to be whispering and beckoning to her, as she stood under the
green archway.
Shikari walked gravely down the steps, and raising himself, placed a paw
on each of her shoulders.
Irma was waiting for them in a cool room on the ground floor. She looked
very ill, but she greeted her visitors with graceful cordiality. Giles
noticed that she looked at Jocelyn with a strangely wistful expression.
Nielsen, who had followed them into the room, suddenly produced from his
pocket a beautiful little china bowl, which he presented to his hostess
with his usual elaborate languor.
“I have been waiting for the chance of giving you this, my dear lady,”
he said, bowing. “It was presented to me by my dear frriend Dick Garron;
it comes from Yokohama, you know; I have been tortured,” and he spread
his hands expressively, “for fear it should be destrroyed by my cats. I
should not feel it so deeply, don’t you see, if it were destrroyed by
_other_ people’s cats.”
Irma’s tired face, yellow-white from constant pain, lighted up with a
smile. Jocelyn had brought her flowers, Mrs. Travis, chocolate; the
three characteristic gifts touched her fancy humorously. As she murmured
her gracious, foreign thanks, her eyes--like those of a souled
monkey--kept glancing from Jocelyn as she put the flowers in water, to
Giles, who leant against the door watching her. He caught one look from
his wife; there was such sadness, such depth of comprehension, such
mockery in it, that he knew once for all there was nothing to hide from
her. He dropped his eyes, and there was a moment when his feelings were
a strange mingling of shame, regret, bitterness, and compassion--a
moment of absolute physical discomfort; then he stepped across, smoothed
her cushions, and with a muttered excuse left the room.
Nielsen, an old friend with a great and sympathetic admiration for the
sick woman, had much to say, and proceeded to say it. Mrs. Travis was
busy inspecting the silver in two cabinets against the wall, examining
the pattern critically, and murmuring a constant approval. Jocelyn, left
to herself, talked to two bullfinches, who instantly became her friends.
Her nerves were on edge, the strain of the situation, whether she would
or no, was being forced upon her reason. Her aunt’s complacent comments,
Nielsen’s languid chatter, Irma’s eyes so full of meaning and knowledge,
and yet so kind, jarred her. The colour came and went in her face, and
her eyes looked restlessly about her; she revolted impatiently in a
hardly-repressed irritation against the confinement of the pretty,
dainty room, shaded by the verandahs from the powerful beat and throb of
life outside. She longed to get into the sunshine, away from the
thoughts that crowded painfully upon her mind.
She felt an immense relief when Giles’s voice summoned them to the
carriage, and she went out and drew a deep breath, with Irma’s farewell
words sounding in her ears--
“Good-bye, dear one, you are young and so beautiful; have a good time,
it is right, it is fitting.” ...
To the jingling of their ear bells, the pair of little flea-bitten greys
raised a whirling column of dust on the winding, downward road to
Ventimiglia. With every step gained from the villa, Jocelyn’s spirits
rose in the rapid motion through the warm dry air; she lost herself in
the brilliant day, in the passing glimpses of the laughing sea, in the
hot pine scent from above the road. She shook her parasol gaily, with a
smiling “_Buon Giorno_,” at a group of Italian peasant girls swinging
along, slowly and erect, to market; the flowers which she had tied round
its handle swayed and quivered, sending their perfume over to Giles, who
sat opposite her. She did not look at him; it seemed as though she had
determined to forget everything--everything but the throb of the warm
life that stirred around her.
As they rose a slight hill, they passed a man with a gun slung over his
shoulder by a strap. Side-whiskered, with a hard felt hat and a
nondescript dog, he was going out to shoot singing birds.
“_Le sport!_” said Giles, with a disgusted shrug of his shoulders.
“The brute!” said Jocelyn, her face crimson with sudden anger. “I should
like to wring his neck, only”--recovering herself slightly under the
surprise in her aunt’s and Nielsen’s faces, “it looks so dirty.”
Giles glanced at her sympathetically--he knew her great love for all
birds and animals, and understood.
“You must not be angry with the poor man,” said Nielsen, “they are not a
sportin’ people, the Italians, don’t you know.”
But Jocelyn’s feelings were still ruffled.
“I hate people who drop their final g’s,” she said.
Nielsen regarded her through his eyeglass with great consternation.
“I beg your pardon,” he said at last.
“My _dear_!” said Mrs. Travis--want of affability in _other_ people was
a crime to her, it rendered things so uncomfortable.
“Oh! You are excused,” said Jocelyn, whose sudden anger had evaporated
now that they were out of sight of the intending sportsman--“it doesn’t
matter for foreigners, you know, only you mustn’t do it again.”
She experienced a sudden compunction, and smiled at him appealingly.
Nielsen, who accepted her shrewdly as one not to be judged by ordinary
standards, liked her the better for the swift changing of her moods.
They passed through Ventimiglia and along the level road that runs to
Bordighera; past the odorous tannery, past the town’s custom-house, past
the ill-looking, outlying, roadside cafés.
A villainous Italian, with a dirty face, coming out of one of these,
took his slouch hat off to Giles, who returned him a nod.
“Who is that horrid-looking man?” said Jocelyn.
“A friend of mine,” replied Giles gravely; “he pays professional visits
to the villa sometimes; he is one of a profession the most elevated in
these parts, plays the barrel-organ.”
“_Ah! Mais ce n’est pas une profession, ça, c’est une carrière vous
savez_,” put in Nielsen, sotto voce.
They drove past the long, dull, modern street, and the picturesque town
of old Bordighera, tumbled together in lofty and evil-smelling seclusion
above. At the garden of palms beyond, the drive came to an end.
Some one suggested picnicking on the rocks below the road; they left the
carriage, and made their way down to the beach, where they lunched in
the shade of a huge, seaworn boulder.
After the things were cleared and taken back to the carriage, Giles
returned from giving directions to the coachman to find Mrs. Travis on
the verge of sleep, her mouth slightly open, her hand feebly grasping a
drooping parasol, her head nodding from side to side.
He could see Jocelyn at the water’s edge, and Nielsen moving towards
her; and he felt a great pang of jealousy.
Lighting a cigar, he strolled away from Mrs. Travis; he did not wish to
embarrass the good lady upon her awakening. With his hat over his eyes,
he leant against a rock, sending vicious puffs of smoke between his
lips, and looking down at a footprint Jocelyn had left in the sand.
CHAPTER VII
Jocelyn had strolled away by herself--she had a longing to be alone with
the sea. She did not know exactly what it was that she wanted, but it
seemed to her that the sea would give her a feeling of rest. She was
annoyed presently to find Nielsen beside her. He had humbly brought her
the service of his green-lined umbrella, and she had not the heart to
send him away, when he asked gently if he bored her.
They strolled together towards a group of rocks that jutted in a blunt,
curving point into the sea.
“I want to get on that little green rock,” said Jocelyn, pointing to the
furthermost rock separated from the others by an eddy of rippling,
shallow water. In a moment she had whipped off her shoes and stockings,
and with skirts raised to her ankles, was scrambling through the ripples
of the circling waves, up the slippery, green slope of the rock.
Nielsen regarded her proceedings from the beach with an air of comical
dismay and admiration.
“Take care, my dear young lady,” he kept on saying, rolling his r’s more
than usual. His eyeglass was damp with the interest of his glance, and
his umbrella hung uselessly over his shoulder.
“Come along,” said Jocelyn, “I thought you used to be an athlete?”
“It was not the part of the athlete in my day to climb slipperry rocks
with young ladies,” he said plaintively, gallantly removing a boot, and
standing on one leg in an amiable hesitation.
“_Mais en verité_,” he muttered to himself, drawing off the other boot
and revealing pink socks, in the toe of one of which was a decided hole;
“she is not a milk and butter Miss, _cette chère_ Jocelyn,” and he
hastily divested himself of the holey sock.
Jocelyn having reached the summit, dropped her skirts, and, shading her
face with her hand from the burning sun, looked over the hesitating
Nielsen at the lines of the bay, that curved in under the stony,
sparsely-covered mountains.
It was one of those cloudless Riviera days, when, seen from behind the
sun, the coast loses all other colouring in the vivid tints of the sky
and sea. The blue of the distant Esterelles melted in the far west into
the paler blue of the heavens, and all the nearer hills and jutting
promontories were bathed in a wonderful violet ether. One ultimate snowy
peak reared itself aloft, emerging triumphant from the trammels of the
light. Looking eastwards, where the sun had already sped his course,
every line and patch of colouring was thrown into an intense relief. The
white houses stared along the stony, drab slopes. The Campanile with the
little black cross upon its summit, sprang up high over the old town of
Bordighera, against masses of glistening olives beyond. Along a far spur
of the hills an old Italian village stretched in straggling seclusion.
Jocelyn bent over to look into the turquoise pools that lapped with
white edges round the green, weed-covered rocks, and now and again
caught the shadowy gleam of a fish in the cloudy-blue water. On the next
rock to her, two picturesque bare-legged fishers angled lazily with
twelve-foot rods of stiff bamboo. The breeze caught her hair, and she
turned and looked away over the sea, drawing the soft, salt air through
her nostrils with an intense feeling of pleasure.
She was in one of her gipsy moods--it was good to set her back to the
land, to those eternal ridges of hills which forced upon her a feeling
of imprisonment; very good to turn to the sea, the salt sea, stretching
before her in blue, illimitable vastness.
A wonderful glow of life and freedom came upon her with the beating of
the soft wind against her face. She felt a wild desire to spread her
wings in a long, long flight to a freer life, like the little,
lateen-rigged fishing smack, running from the land before the wind--a
flight away from convention, and the eternal need for repression; away
from all her fears, from the horror which sometimes came over her, from
the unconfessed longing which fought against it within her breast; away,
into a solitude as great as the sea itself, where no other
individualities should besiege her own, giving her a sense of
suffocation--a solitude, where there should be no knowledge, and no
distrust.
Nielsen’s gently imperturbable voice recalled her.
“I am coming, my dear young lady; just a little patience, it is very
slipperry, don’t you see.” He was picking a gingerly way with his bare
feet from one stone to another.
“Go back,” she cried almost harshly. “I’m coming off!”
What was the use of her wild thoughts! She was bound! bound to that
undefined struggle which, whether she would or no, was always going on
within her. Her face clouded with its wonted look of defeat, and she
sighed. She waited till Nielsen was returning, and then waded back
herself.
The feelings which the sea had roused in her made her irritable.
“It’s a dull sea--the Mediterranean,” she said from one side of a rock,
putting on her shoes and stockings, “no tides, no ebb and flow; what a
monotony! I wonder it finds it worth while to break on its shores at
all!”
“You would not say that if you saw it in a storm,” came, in plaintive,
half-choked parenthesis, from the other side of the rock, where the
discreet Swede was also resuming his boots.
“It manages to break on every shore all round; I should like to know
where it parts its hair,” continued Jocelyn meditatively.
“My dear young lady, it is like the bald-headed man, don’t you know; it
does not part its hair at all, it has no hair to part in the middle,
don’t you see, only a fringe that falls on all sides.”
Nielsen appeared suddenly from round the rock, his hat in his hand,
smoothing his own well-covered, flaxen head appreciatively.
Jocelyn laughed gently. She had finished her toilet, and sat looking up
at him with her head a little on one side, and her feet drawn under her
skirts. Nielsen moved a step towards her, and his brown eyes glowed.
“Do you know you are quite charrming! May I not--“--he bent his head to
her hand.
“Please don’t!” she said impatiently.
She had lately found it difficult to take the sentimental remarks of the
enamoured Swede as a matter of course.
“Forgive me,” said Nielsen humbly, “you are so beautiful, you see!”
“I would rather you didn’t talk like that, please,” said Jocelyn.
She rose and held out her hand to him frankly; Nielsen took it in his
own, letting it go with a deep sigh.
Jocelyn restrained an inclination to laugh.
“What is that ship?” she asked, as they made their way towards the
others. Nielsen screwed his eyeglass into his eye.
“A ‘messageries’ for China and the Indies; she will call at Genoa.”
Jocelyn’s eyes followed the great, black steamer racing past. The foam
was churning up from under its bows, and along its sides. She looked at
it wistfully with wide eyes--the longing was not out of her yet. Nielsen
fastened on the look intuitively.
“If you would marry me, you should do that or anything else that you
liked,” he said suddenly, pointing to the steamer “I am not verry poor
now, you know--the ‘system’ has been verry good to me lately.”
There was an earnestness in his voice, that was in strong contrast to
its habitual suave flattery, and his allusion to the “system”--which,
with a gambler’s superstition, he never mentioned--struck Jocelyn. She
stopped and looked at him.
Yes! He was evidently in earnest; the innumerable little lines and
crow’s-feet in his face, showed cruelly in the blazing sunshine; he was
paler than usual, and he looked at her with almost a dog’s look in his
weary brown eyes. But all she said was--
“I think you spend too much time over the ‘system’!”
She had caught sight of Giles’s figure against the rock, and she felt a
sudden, physical repulsion to the man standing beside her.
“But understand,” said Nielsen, “I love you--I love you! You cannot
prevent that, you know.” He put out his hands, as if to take her in his
arms, and his face twitched.
“Are you mad?” she cried, hurrying past him. She walked swiftly over the
hard sand, and as she went a curious feeling came upon her, a feeling of
delight that was almost pain. She had forgotten Nielsen, but the words,
“I love you--I love you,” kept echoing within her; they had lost all
sound and form, they had become like the breath of an inspiration. All
her being rose in a trembling answer. A wave of crimson rushed into her
face, and as she hastened she plucked nervously at the single yellow
rose fastened in her dress. Nielsen stood still, looking after her. A
minute later, however, he was beside her again, talking commonplaces
with his usual plaintive, imperturbable drawl, his face showing no
traces of its recent emotion.
When they reached the others, Jocelyn threw herself down by her aunt,
close to a group of sea-washed rocks, through the broken crevices of
which the little waves were leaping and flashing like white fairies at
play; and when Giles came up, two minutes later, she seemed to be
listening gaily to a story Nielsen was telling.
Mrs. Travis, fanning herself, insinuated gentle complaints of the heat.
She wished to see the palm gardens, where it looked shady.
Giles led the way with alacrity; he longed to have Jocelyn to himself,
with all the concentrated longing of many hours of repression. Mrs.
Travis was soon in rapt admiration of the shrubs and flowers; and she
impressed Nielsen into her service to make a bargain in French with the
florist proprietor, for a weekly provision of flowers to be sent to
Mentone, standing by to afford assistance; she had a great and wholly
warranted faith in her powers of cheapening things.
Giles and Jocelyn strolled away from them, and were soon hidden by the
thick palm foliage. The garden wound up and down in a mass of flowering
plants and scented shrubs.
“It’s a kind of paradise,” said Giles, “rather cut and dried in parts.”
“Yes,” Jocelyn assented--“‘the trail of the florist is over it all.’ But
the scents are good; I love the dear flowers.” She plucked a spray of
roses daringly, and pinned them in the breast of her dress.
“I was always a thief with flowers, you know; I can’t help it, I _have_
to steal them.”
Presently they followed a little path running upwards at the top of the
garden. It led them on to a rocky knoll over which, in a ring of spikey
aloes and grotesque prickly pears, a shady olive spread its shimmering
branches like a tent. Jocelyn seated herself beneath it, looking down
upon the wilderness of the garden foliage. In her white skirt and pale
silver-green blouse, she looked like the spirit of the tree, as she
leant against the trunk with the yellow sunlight playing fantastically
on her through the quivering leaves.
A bare and stony hill sloped behind them, planted here and there with
vines and rose-trees, which served only to throw into a greater relief
its yellow-grey harshness. In front, the tangled masses of palms and
plants, the plain, unpretentious white houses straggling along the
shore, and the straight line of the railway running beside the sea, gave
the scene the unfinished look of some sub-tropical settlement. Across
the dipped valley, under the lee of a high, rounded hill covered with
olives and glancing green fig-trees, a little church spire rose modestly
and incongruously out of a mass of palms.
Giles, who had turned the brim of his Panama hat down, like a mushroom,
over his neck, lay on his face in the sun, looking up at Jocelyn. Her
beauty, and the impelling, passionate yearning within him, deprived him
helplessly of the power of speech. She was sitting with her hand on
Shikari’s head, smelling at the flowers in her dress, her figure swaying
a little as she hummed to herself.
Her cheeks were still flushed, and her eyes bright from that strange
emotion.
She began to sing a little Finnish song that he knew well, with notes
that suggested “sobbing” for a refrain. She had a tiny voice,
“_niedlich_,” as the Germans say. But in the middle of a verse she
stopped suddenly and pointed with her ungloved hand at a large,
yellow-fanged drover’s dog, which had appeared on the side of the knoll.
Shikari sprang up with a growl, his teeth showing. The two dogs
approached one another snarling, and before Giles could rise to prevent
them, had each other by the throat, and were rolling over and over on
the ground. He leaped hastily to his feet, and gripped Shikari hard by
the collar; getting a purchase with his foot against the other dog’s
shoulder, with a violent, pushing kick, he sent him sprawling down the
slope.
As he turned his head for a second, he saw Jocelyn holding Shikari with
her arms laced round his neck--the dog was growling and licking her face
at the same time--but in another minute the drover’s dog came up the
slope again, and, with a savage snarl, sprang at his throat.
Throwing out both hands stiffly, he caught at the brute’s neck, but his
grip slipped on the short, wiry hair, and the impetus of the dog’s
spring carried him backwards on to the ground.
Jocelyn saw his hands slip, saw him stagger, and fall; it seemed
impossible to her that he could keep those hideous fangs from his
throat. Involuntarily she threw her hands up to her eyes. She had a
mental vision of a torn throat--a gaping, jagged wound. A cloud of hot,
whirling dust rose from the dry ground, where the man and beast were
struggling. For one second of sheer horror she stood still, her face
crimson and as suddenly white, then with a little cry she ran towards
them; but the struggle was already over. The first movement of her hands
had released the greyhound. The drover’s dog had turned with his teeth
on Giles’s throat to attack his old enemy, and Giles scrambling to his
feet, had seized his stick, dealing the brute a heavy blow, which half
stunned him.
Jocelyn saw him leaning over the two dogs, a hand twisted in the collar
of each, his face very pale, his figure strained with the effort of
holding them apart; his clothes were covered with dust, and he bled
from a scratch on one hand. He released the cowed brute, who slunk away
down the hill, and stood up, breathing hard, keeping a foot on Shikari,
who growled angrily.
Jocelyn went softly up to him. Even now, seeing him erect, she hardly
dared look at his throat, so vivid was the memory of the wound that had
gleamed, red and angry, before her covered eyes.
She gave a little choke and put out her hands.
When he felt the touch of her fingers on his shoulder he faced her
suddenly. In the moments of fierce excitement, when his muscles and his
nerves had been strung and braced, all thought of Jocelyn had left him,
he had felt only the fighting fever and the consciousness of strength;
but his blood was coursing wildly through his veins, and the touch of
those fingers was like a spark to a magazine. All his passion returned
with tenfold strength.
He faced her with blazing eyes, and his lips quivered.
“Are you hurt, Giles?” she said.
Her eyes were bent on him with a strained look, the black pupils
expanding; and her lips were tremulous and parted.
“My darling!” he cried, “did you care?”
She looked at him, frightened at his words, yet wondering he should ask.
“Care? Yes.”
“I love you, Jocelyn, I love you! My God! What am I saying?”
He bent his head down to the level of her hands; one of them stole up
and smoothed his hair with a little shrinking caress. When he looked
again, her eyes were soft and wet, and he knew somehow that she had been
glad.
He was nearly choked by the joy that leaped in his heart, but the tears
in her eyes helped him to a mastery of himself.
“Dear,” he said, “I am sorry, I couldn’t help it! Forget it--forgive me,
I couldn’t help it--you are so sweet and lovely--so sweet and
lovely--after all, you knew it long ago.”
He spoke in short, broken sentences, catching his breath with gasps.
She smiled at him softly and sadly, and for one moment he caught, as in
a revelation, the love-light in her eyes. Her lips still trembled; with
her hands she brushed the dust mechanically from his clothes.
She looked swiftly up at him.
“I was so frightened,” she said, “I thought--” and covered her eyes with
her hands, shuddering.
He caught them in his, and stood looking down upon her dark head. He
could see the little fluffy hair on her neck, and her shoulders heaving
softly. He was too happy to speak; and he was afraid--afraid of the
passionate words that rose to his lips. The dry leaves of the olive tree
rustled crisply over their heads, and from the road below came the
tinkle of cowbells.
Voices broke in upon their silence. They went down in answer to Mrs.
Travis’s calling, and as they went, Giles said softly--
“Whatever comes, dear, this has been the hour of my life.”
They drove home without stopping at the villa, putting Nielsen down at
the Ventimiglia station. He had been very silent on the return journey.
He said to Jocelyn when he left them--
“I must get back to Monte Carrlo, you know, and appease the Fates for my
desertion.”
As they passed the last hill into Mentone the evening light was already
spreading, mellow and soft, over the town, and the sun was dying behind
the Esterelles. The tired little horses, toiling up the steep ascent,
nodded their heads diligently.
Jocelyn and Giles got out to walk. Half-way up, Jocelyn stopped and
stretched out her arms, saying with a sigh--
“Look! The evening is coming over everything, like a cool blessing,
gentle--gentle--”
“Yes!” said Giles. Their eyes met for one moment, and not another word
was said.
When they reached the hotel, he took his leave of them. Jocelyn turned
on the steps.
“_Buona Sera!_ my friend!” she said. “_Buona Sera!_” She gave him her
hand for a second time. Her eyes looked unnaturally large in the
uncertain light. Giles stood with his hat off till she had
disappeared--he could not speak.
CHAPTER VIII
The sun sank, leaving a pale glory of silver-green light over the
clear-cut edges of the mountain range. Masses of heavy, purple clouds
threatened the silver halo, and in the remote west, a smoky, yellow
flare lingered over the Esterelles. One little star trembled like a pure
spirit above the highest peaks, and under the Tête du Chien the closely
coiled ring of lights at Monte Carlo twinkled through the growing
darkness.
Far away, up an inland valley, a single splash of crimson light showed
where some chance fire raged unchecked among the mountain forest-growth.
Through the perfume of orange trees a floating smoke-wrack of burning
wood spent itself upon the warm air. The air was full too of early
evening sounds--the barking of dogs, the crack of a whip lash, the
hardly-caught metallic murmur of human voices, the rattle of a receding
train, and over all the croaking of the frogs, and the sighing of the
sea.
Giles swung along the road on his way back to the villa like a man in a
dream.
“_Buona Sera!--buona Sera!_”--the words rang in his ears. The blood was
coursing through his veins, and his pulses beat wildly. For the time he
was no longer conscious of that ever haunting thought, “What the devil
was he doing in that galley?” He let himself go on the flood tide of his
passion. Jocelyn’s image danced along the road in front of him. He saw
her pale face, under her shady hat, looking at him with soft, dark eyes,
through the dim shadows of every road-side tree.
He had walked, like a man possessed, up the long hill to the Pont St.
Louis. The gendarmes whom he passed at the Customs looked after him
curiously.
“_Buona Sera!_ There is one who marches, hein? Diabe enragé d’un
Anglais. _Peste!_ he has not stopped for the gambler’s leap. _Buona
Sera, signore!_” In the alternative they decided that he had broken the
bank.
“_Buona Sera!_” Over the bridge, with its sheer descent to the dim
caves on the one side, and the twinkling cottage lights on the other,
and up and still up the hill. He could smell the perfume of her dress in
every evening scent, in the salt whiffs wafted from below, in the
fragrance of the lonely pine trees above the road.
“_Buona Sera! Buona Sera!_” The words were in the distant croaking of
the frogs, on every murmur of the breaking waves.
As he drew his breath freely again after the steep ascent, he looked far
out over the cliffs, to the westward, in the still evening light, and
his thoughts flew to the girl as she had stood on the hotel steps waving
her hand to him. How he loved the delicate, dainty figure, the turn of
the slender neck, the pure line of her profile, the softly pointed chin!
He pictured her as she had sat under the olive in the afternoon, looking
up at the sky through the delicate tracery of its leaves--the creamy
white line of the pretty throat bent back, the long, supple hands lying
in her lap. He felt an intense, unreasoning delight that, for good or
evil, he had told her of his love; then an infinite, tender compassion
for her tremulous silence, for the little, swaying, helpless motion of
her head and hands, for the swift, dewy glance of her dark eyes.
She _knew_--nothing could take that from him; she _knew_, and she had
been glad to know.
Now that the keynote had been struck, all the deep chords, unstirred for
so many years in his mind, sounded with a full consonance; all the
great, unsatisfied longing hitherto unshadowed in his deeply
affectionate nature had taken to itself shape, all the vast gambling
possibility in him was fiercely aroused.
The latent force, the unspent passion of the years that he had idled
away, shallow and indifferent, in a long, unbroken compromise with life,
asserted themselves now with a fatal vehemence. He was not a man who
could love without passion. Passion would play its full part in his
love, neither more nor less; and he knew it.
In the changes that his mind rang on the situation, and the bewildered
jangling of his thoughts, the idea of recoil was the only one that did
not come to him. He would go forward, at what cost he did not know, he
did not stop to count. He hugged to himself, undiscerning of what it
meant, the defeat of the eternal compromise.
Again he moved homewards, now idling slowly along, and her words, “The
evening is coming over everything, like a cool blessing,
gentle--gentle,” sounded in his ears, and he could see again her arms
outstretched as though to take it to herself.
He came presently through the scented night to the villa, and let
himself in with a sudden, chill feeling of utter languor. He flung
himself into a long chair in the unlighted drawing-room, and, worn out,
fell fast asleep.
To Irma, as she raised the curtains that divided the room from her own
boudoir, there was the look of a wrecked man about him as he lay there.
The long figure was thrown carelessly down in its dusty, white clothes,
the neck bent slightly back, and the head rested on an arm twisted
behind him. A bar of yellow light from the half-shaded lamp she held in
her hand fell across his lean, sun-tanned face and neck, sharpening the
features, and throwing into relief the lines which seam a man’s face
when sleep follows on the fiercer emotions. She set the lamp upon a
table, and stood, leaning painfully against the wall, thinking.
Her husband! those two words were the epitome of her thoughts. She bent
forward, and gazed at him long and closely, as if she had never seen him
before. How tired he looked! After all, it was the face of a
stranger!--ten years of married life, and the face of a stranger! She
smiled, a very weary smile. A fine face, with a good brow and chin, now
that it was rid of the mask it had worn to her these ten years! She read
in its lines things she had never known were there, and _another_ woman
had brought them into the face! _That_ was the mischief of it! and the
pain! She passed her thin hand across her eyes with a sudden, swift
gesture. In her own mind, too, she was finding things she had not
suspected. She had thought it impossible she should ever feel _that_
pain, that sudden jealous spasm.
She stood quite motionless, a bent figure, thinking. The day of her
wedding came back to her, a day of indifferent obedience to her parents.
All the long vista of days since rose before her mind--a level,
monotonous line of ghosts.
Her lips trembled as if with cold; she muttered to herself in Polish, “I
have no claim upon him.” What was it to her that he should go from her?
what had it ever been? Go from her! when he had never been hers. And
yet--a vision of Jocelyn, as she had stood that morning, smiling and
graceful, talking to the birds, rose before her. A blind, wearing pain
of jealous regret was come to torture her. She thought, “It is hard!”
She moved, with one hand on her breast, to the window and stood, looking
out into the soft, hazy night. The shadow of her drooping, white-robed
figure fell across the bar of light from the flaring lamp.
Yes! He had been very good to her, very good and gentle--few men, she
thought, would have been so gentle to a helpless log, such as she had
always been. And what had she given him in return? And now--too late!
Well, it was natural, this which was happening, only she
wished--bitterly, fiercely, vainly wished--that it had not come. She
felt tired, and very far spent; he would not have had to wait long!
A faint stir of air ruffled the lace round her thin throat; a whisper
behind her said, “Jocelyn!”
She turned to see Giles sitting up, with one hand stretched out, and
rubbing his eyes with the other; as she turned he woke to his full
consciousness, and a low “Ah, you!” escaped from his lips.
Again a choking spasm of jealousy came upon her, again a vision of the
girl passed before her eyes, but she held the quiver out of her voice.
“It does not matter,” she said, but her eyes, black and mournful, looked
wild in the dim, smoky light.
Giles put his hands before his face, and bent forward in his chair.
“I am sorry,” was all he said.
Irma turned from the window, and straightened her drooping figure. She
took the lamp in her hand, and moved to the door.
“Good night, Giles! It does not matter, there is nothing to be done, you
know--nothing.”
The voice sounded staccato, level, monotonous, as if the words were
ground out of her; only her eyes, in the backward look she gave him, had
meaning.
And from the bent figure, in the darkness of the room behind her, came a
muttered word--“Nothing.”
CHAPTER IX
In her bedroom Jocelyn was thinking. The inner door stood open, and from
the next room came a stream of murmured comments, broken now and then by
a mumble, denoting pins in the mouth, or by the trickle of water into a
basin. Mrs. Travis was going to bed; she loved to relieve the monotony
of the process by discussion upon the events of the day, which never
assumed such vast proportions as when she was taking her leave of them.
Jocelyn leant, in her night-dress, against her open window, smoking a
tiny cigarette through a long amber mouthpiece. She drew at the
cigarette, and, holding it far from her, puffed vigorously through her
parted lips; the smoke, caught by the faint outdraught, blew harmlessly
away in little wreaths and clouds.
Her aunt’s voice came to her in jerky, complacent periods.
“How hot the nights are getting! We can’t stay here much longer, my
dear, nobody stays till June, it’s very late already. If it wasn’t for
my new ‘system,’ I wouldn’t stay another day--I’m sure there’s something
in it.” She appeared for a moment at the door with her arms raised
rectangularly to her back hair.
“How thin Giles is growing!” she said in an injured voice, with a shrewd
look at her niece. “It makes me quite uncomfortable to see him.”
It was a canon with her that people should be plump. She was alive to
the state of Giles’s feelings, but she resented its affecting the
outlines of his person. From much experience she felt secure of her
niece’s invulnerability, she had seen so many darts fall blunted from
her armour, one adorer more or less, even a married one, did not matter.
She always reflected, too, that Giles was a connection of her own by
marriage. Mrs. Travis possessed that order of mind which looks upon
things belonging to themselves as beyond suspicion and reproach. He was
a married man, but a connection of her own, immaculate! Nevertheless she
resented the dwindling of his bulk; perhaps she considered it indecent;
perhaps, in some mysterious way, she regarded it as the removal of her
own property. In any case a moody leanness was unpardonable; to her,
Nielsen, attentive yet well-covered, was more satisfactory.
“I shall recommend him to take cod-liver oil; I don’t think it’s right
for any man to be so thin,” she said.
Jocelyn made an impatient movement, and the frilled sleeves of her
nightdress rustled faintly against the muslin curtain. Mrs. Travis,
disappearing again into her room, continued to talk.
“To-day was quite wasted; we mustn’t gad about so much; I ought to have
been at the tables. Yes, I shall stay the month out, but the first of
June we must go; remind me to take the roses off my new bonnet.” Her
voice, overpowered by pins, ran into a mumble.
Jocelyn braced her slender, curving limbs against the wall. “Go!” The
word brought her an unpleasant shock of reminder. She threw up her head
impatiently. Her small, oval face looked very childish and young in the
loose framework of dark hair, brushed in long, rippling tresses back
over her shoulders. In the darkened room her slight figure, in its thin
white covering, was dimly outlined, and the bare feet, thrust forward as
she leaned back, gleamed in a little patch of light that came from the
other room.
Mrs. Travis came to the door. She was more comfortable than ever in her
night attire, with a comfort that threw off all attempt at decorative
disguise, solely excepting curl papers.
“You naughty girl, you’re smoking!” she said.
Jocelyn shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s for the mosquitoes, and the nerves.”
“Well, I don’t like it--my dear mother would have had convulsions if
she’d seen you. I don’t think it’s right! Shut your windows, and keep
the mosquitoes out, as I do.” She sniffed.
Jocelyn gave a prolonged puff, and flipped the cigarette out of its
holder.
“There!” she said. “Run, or the beasts will eat you, you are so good to
them.”
Mrs. Travis, with a hasty kiss, retreated rapidly, closing the door.
Jocelyn laughed, then she moved restlessly up and down the room.
Presently she came back to the window, and leaned far out into the
darkness. It was late; the town slept, vaguely stretched below in a
rambling confusion of dark shapes and corners, foliage, and dimly
burning lights. It was very still....
In the girl’s heart joy and pain were strangely blended.
The first of June! This was the seventh of May, nearly a month, that was
all! What did it mean? Whither was she being carried? If it could only
be always as it had been that evening! She had been so happy. In less
than a month she would go away! It seemed very strange, very unreal;
there was a desperate discomfort in the thought, the discomfort of
unfulfilment.
The vague, dreaming sweetness was being rudely rent away from her
thoughts--the glamour that hung like a veil over the past day. For a
moment she saw plainly all the naked, unsparing reality. She heard again
the words of the sick woman, “Have a good time, you are young, you are
beautiful--it is fitting.” The devilish, unconscious irony of them! She
felt a great sense of injustice, of hard usage at the hands of fate.
That day a wonderful sweetness had come to her. It was as if, for the
first time, life had whispered some secret of hidden meaning, had
spoken words at which the longing and the lonely restlessness of her
soul had yielded. This was love! Love!
She laughed. The mockery and hopelessness of it were so plain that she
felt its strength the more. Her eyes moved restlessly from side to side
as if seeking a way of escape--she twisted her hands silently, and
pressed them to her cheek. She loved him, and he was beyond her
reach--why? why? She chafed under the thought.
The passionate, penetrating cry of a peacock broke suddenly through the
vibrating air; it echoed painfully within her. Why should she not know
love? What had she done? She had not sought--could she help it? Why put
it away? It was sweet and good to be with him, she wanted nothing more.
Then there flashed before her the look in Giles’s eyes, as he gazed at
her after his struggle with the dog; for one most disquieting moment she
saw into them, behind them; he knew there _was_ something further,
beyond, something fundamental, burning, unknown to her, which passed by,
scorching her like a fiery breath. And for that moment she shrank back
frightened ashamed, and thrust the shutters to, to drive out the long,
fiercely wailing regret in the shrill, bird’s cry.
The figure of the Polish woman, lying in its white drapery, came before
her. A woman with haunting, unhappy eyes, ill--her friend, his wife--her
friend! She made a little impatient movement in the dark room, and
groping, turned to her bed with a shrinking desire to hide herself. She
felt as if in the presence of something contaminating and poisonous; she
shuddered, her pride revolted. She drew aside the curtains, and flung
herself upon the bed. What had she done? Why should she be treated like
this? Tears of impotent rage and self-pity filled her eyes. It was all
so new, so strange, so unreal. She drew the clothes over her, as a child
does to drive away the fear of bogies. She would not think of these
things; there seemed a safety and a refuge in the soft pillows and the
familiar cool rustle of the sheets as she turned from side to side. She
lay a long time rigid, trying not to think, vaguely uneasy, vaguely
unhappy, vaguely frightened; she was very tired too. But in spite of
herself all the mingled feelings of the past weeks came back to her. The
rude shock, so long ago now, of awakening to the knowledge that he loved
her--the horror of it; that horror, which was but sharpened by the
something in her own heart which she would not confess. All the weary
struggle and repression for days and days with no certain knowledge of
what she desired. And this was the end! He could never be hers--and she
loved him! She buried her face in the pillows, and sobbed as if her
heart would break.
After a long time, she fell into a half-conscious, restless state.
Motionless and unreasoning, she passed in succession through all the
events of the day gigantically exaggerated, blending grotesquely one
into the other; then through each one of them, startlingly distinct,
having no relation to any other thing that had ever happened to
her--visions of things, which seemed like vast, shadow-throwing rocks
one might encounter in a desert of sand. Then again, in sudden change, a
great, blurred mist of vaporous phantoms came before her. One by one
she strove to attain them--they were without form and void, and one by
one they passed her by, remote and mournful as the flight of a lapwing.
Images, carved in the air, of people she had known, of faces she had
never seen; words she had heard, words that had never been spoken,
flitted by, hovering like moths with restless wings. All that she had
ever done, seen, or heard, was before her in a dancing maze of coloured
shapes, threading singly to the centre of a blazing wheel, darting
outwards radiant to the misty circle edge, like a flight of gnats round
a fire. The lids fast-closed over her eyes seemed to enclose the world
for her, to drive down into her brain a mass of wheeling unreality. With
an effort she wrenched herself free from her pillows, tossing her bare
arms over her head. She fell back again, with one hand clasped behind
her thick, soft hair, looking up with wide eyes at the dim shape of the
curtained bed roof. It was thus that sleep presently found her....
When she awoke in the morning, a faint feeling of frightened discomfort,
a feeling that something new and dangerous was before her, vanished
with the slanting, brilliant beams of sun striking through the shutters.
She lay, quietly twisting a wisp of her tumbled hair, surprised only
that she had forgotten to plait it the night before. Then, as everything
came back to her with a rush, she wondered what she had found to so
trouble and alarm her. Giles loved her!--well, it was very sweet and
good to be loved by him, and she could not help it. She only wanted to
be with him--to know that he loved her! What harm was there! She sprang
from the bed.
The pulse of life beat very strongly this morning in the green-clothed,
quivering valley behind the town; the almond trees seemed to flush a
deeper pink; the tinkle of bells, as goats shifted dustily along the
road to a new pasture, came with fuller melody to her ears. She leaned
from the window and drew in a deep breath of the freshened air.
After all, there was nearly a month, and life was good just now--nearly
a month of a sweet companionship, and after--well--all things come to a
end!--it was not very good to dwell upon that thought, it was better to
take things as they came. She fell to wondering what time Giles would
be with them.
That morning Mrs. Travis, in pursuance of her resolve, went early into
Monte Carlo. She knew that Giles would come over, but she always shut
her eyes to the possibility of mischief, knowing that to recognise it
would mean the sacrifice of her daily visit to the gambling-tables.
Taking the greatest care never to dive below the surface, she was
enabled to persuade herself quite comfortably that her niece ran no
risk, and she consoled herself for leaving her with her habitual
reflection that Giles was a connection of her own--the elasticity of her
principles enabling her that morning to fix the relationship at some two
degrees nearer than it really was. He was also a married man, a fact
which she could twist either way as it suited her convenience, with an
equally full and just feeling of comfort. She departed, getting over the
ground at a great pace with a dignified, flat-footed gait, her head full
of enthusiasm and artificial flowers. She studied, as she went, a little
book on her “system”--without in the least understanding it, which was
immaterial, as she always abandoned it after playing it for a quarter
of an hour. She assured Jocelyn comfortably, on parting from her, that
she would be back quite early, and Jocelyn looked after her, smiling,
perfectly assured that she would be free till dinner.
Giles came soon after; his face, impassively haggard, lighted up when
Jocelyn came towards him. She had never seemed to him so beautiful and
full of life. She gave him both her hands, with the intuitive feeling
that in frank friendliness alone lay a narrow path of safety and
happiness for the days left to them. She looked at him softly, and so
took from him the bitterness which might have driven him to passionate
words. In the reaction of a long, sleepless night he had schooled
himself painfully to accept this position, but he was relieved beyond
measure not to have to take the initiative. It hurt him to see those two
hands so frankly stretched to him, but he was grateful to her, with a
dull, despairing sort of gratitude.
He had not seen his wife since the scene of the night before--the
impression left upon him by it was too strong and painful. For the
space of a short hour, he had proposed to himself not to see Jocelyn
again, to keep away at all costs, but his resolve had shrivelled, like
all his resolves, before the flame of his passion, and he had come, with
the reservation to let yesterday’s words be as if unspoken.
He spent the whole day with her, and went home in the evening humble,
and almost happy. He was worn out by the conflicting emotions of the
previous day and his sleepless night....
A fortnight of days went by, and as the sands of their hour-glass of
time ran out, the strain upon them became almost unbearable. Jocelyn’s
continual thought was, “I shall go away, and there will be the end!” But
she found that there were moments when she was dumb with the dull
craving to feel his arms round her. At other times she longed to get
away at once, anywhere away; to be free for ever, and at all costs, from
this grinding necessity for repression, from the appealing, haunting
look which Giles could not keep out of his face. With the constant
varying of her moods their meetings became daily more difficult, the
hours spent together more feverish or more dismal. Once Giles broke
through the intolerable restraint, but the piteous, frightened look that
came into her face at the first word held him mute.
Never for one moment did Jocelyn doubt herself. She would go away, and
there would be the end! But the very impossibility of union with him,
which she kept ever before her as the one barrier of safety, roused at
times in her feelings before which she recoiled ashamed, which she had
never thought that her mind could harbour--curiosity to probe her
lover’s nature to its depths, ardent longing to know, and to prove the
full meaning of the passion she saw in his eyes, felt in every touch of
his fingers. At other times she had an intense, passionless pity for the
suffering he could not hide from her. And sometimes the old horror came
over her, and she would turn from him with aversion, only to be smitten
with remorse when he had left her.
She had no one to help her in her trouble; the thought of confiding in
her aunt never even occurred to her, so completely was that lady
associated with the conventional crust of life.
In these days Giles lived only in the minutes that he was with her; the
knowledge that she loved him served but to fan the flame of his passion.
Often after he had left her, he would come back when it was dark, and,
standing in the shadow of the thick bushes along the terrace wall, watch
her bedroom window till the light within it failed.
One night he had watched long; the light behind the closed shutters
still sent a faint glow into the soft darkness. Leaning against the wall
he waited for it to die. A bat flitted past; great moths fluttered out
of the night towards the lamps at the gates; dull murmurs came from the
street, and always the frogs croaked. The scented laurel behind which he
stood gave forth a sweet, hot odour. Suddenly the shutters of the window
swung back, and in the arch of light he saw Jocelyn. She stood
motionless, with her hands clasped behind her head; the sleeves of the
loose, white garment wrapped around her fell back from her bare arms.
His heart stopped beating; the breath of the laurel was heavy in the
air, and ever afterwards its scent brought back with it the sweetness
and emotion of that memory.
As she stood, with her face lifted to the purple heaven where the pale
stars gleamed fitfully, he could see the masses of her dark hair hanging
loose upon her shoulders. He felt, as though with the yearning of his
gaze through the impassive darkness, his whole being clung to her in a
mute caress, as though her heart were beating against him, her lips
quivering upon his own; and, as if in answer, her hands fell to her
sides, and she leant forward on the balcony, looking downwards.
Breathless he watched. With a swift movement she clasped her hands
together into the darkness, and then pressed them to her forehead.
Through the sudden hush of the night he could hear her weeping; his
passion swelled in one long, dumb cry, and ebbed in a sob of pity. With
her face still buried in her hands, she turned inwards with a swaying
movement. The shutters swung slowly to, and the light died....
A cockchafer droned by him, its hum fading into the night. With a groan
he beat his fists against the wall.
CHAPTER X
Two figures came slowly down the hill from the heights of Belinda to the
Pont St. Louis. Darkness was closing in upon them. In front, vanishing
in the dusk along the white road, their donkeys, relieved of burden,
jingled homewards at an irregular gait. The girl driver, her wide,
conical Mentonese hat hanging over her arm, and a flower in her mouth,
flicked their lean haunches with her whip. She walked, fast and erect,
with a swaying of her hips, exchanging rough jests with the Gendarmes at
the Customs. The basket she carried in her hand swung gently with a
subdued rattle of empty bottles and plates.
Giles stopped on the bridge. He put his hand on Jocelyn’s arm, and the
touch of his fingers was hot upon her flesh through her light muslin
sleeve.
“There is no hurry,” he said in constrained tones which seemed to pass
through rigid lips, “it will be over soon enough; let the beasts get on,
they make too much noise.”
Jocelyn stopped too, looking anxiously into his face; it was set and
hard. He leant against the parapet of the bridge, and his profile showed
clear-cut through the dusk. One hand gripped the stone coping; she put
her own gently upon it. His tall figure quivered from head to foot at
the touch, but he kept his eyes away from her face. Presently he began
to speak in a measured, expressionless voice.
“Nice place for the end of things, isn’t it?” he said, pointing down the
precipitous drop to the dim rocks below. “I’ve known three fellows who
ended there--very good chaps; one wouldn’t choose it oneself, it can’t
be pretty;” and he laughed shortly.
“_Don’t_, dear!” said Jocelyn, and her hand tightened on his.
His face worked, and he turned to her.
“_Please_ take your hand away!”
She drew it away quickly, trembling.
“My God!” he said. “Are you made of ice, Jocelyn? Don’t you know what I
endure by day and night? Don’t you know what a man’s love is--Great
Heaven! how should you? You _can’t_ know how it tears and tortures me--”
he broke off.
Each word seemed torn from him, and each had a separate, intense value
in the still air. He looked down again at the shadowy rocks, then he
said--
“I am sorry--there--has--been--a big--mistake--I’m not man enough; come,
dear, let’s go on.”
They moved silently down the deserted road a long way. The growing
darkness hid their features from each other. Now they passed through a
thick grove of olives that stretched below the road, in banks, to the
top of the cliff.
Giles stopped.
“Look!” he said. On the far horizon of the dark sea there was a crimson
flare, as of a ship on fire.
“The moon is rising. Sit down a minute, child, and rest, you must be
tired.”
She seated herself on a lower bank. The moon rose slowly, the crimson
changing to yellow, the yellow to white. Giles stood beside the girl,
looking down on her. The wonderful southern night throbbed around them,
the still air was warm and full of scent; through the olive branches the
stars gleamed, there was no sound save the faint, far-off murmur of the
town, and the sough of the sea below.
The moon rose to the level of the olive bank; and Giles saw that she was
crying, crying silently, pitifully.
He flung himself down at her feet, and kissed them, crying--
“Don’t, my darling, don’t! it hurts me--it hurts me.”
He clasped his hands on her knees, and she bent her head down upon them.
A great trembling passed through his frame; it seemed to him an eternity
that passed, while the hot moisture of her tears burned his hands. His
face was close to her hair; with every noiseless sob it was the nearer
to his lips. He kissed the dark head softly.
Presently she raised her eyes to his, dark and wet with tears. Her lips
were trembling. The moonbeams fell upon his face, white, tense, and
passionate; on hers, tender, pitiful, and tear-stained.
“I _want_ to be good to you, dearest. What does anything matter while
you are so wretched? What can I do? What can I do?”
He sprang to his feet, and reeled backwards.
“Don’t torture me, my darling! You don’t know what you’re saying,” he
said in a hoarse whisper, then very deliberately and aloud, “You must go
home--go on alone for a minute, I’ll come.” The words sounded hollow in
his own ears, he had a feeling that some one else, not himself at all,
had said them. He put his hands over his eyes and muttered indistinctly,
“God help me!” with a short choking gasp.
The perfume of her dress and hair was wafted to him, mingled with the
night scents, in the intoxicating stillness under those dark branches;
he reeled a little, then he saw that Jocelyn too was on her feet. She
stood before him quite close, her figure swaying, her breast heaving. In
her eyes was an infinite pity; they fastened on his, intent and
searching, they seemed trying to read his soul. She put out her hands.
He moved with a writhing, helpless gesture, and seized them in his own.
With the touch of those burning hands, with the fastening of his eyes on
hers, there came a change in the girl’s face, the strained look went out
of her eyes, they seemed to swim and burn; no longer questioning, they
gave him back look for look. Her lips parted slightly in a sigh.
“Sweetheart!” She leaned towards him.
In that second, with his lips almost touching hers, knowing that if they
touched there could be no holding back and no recall, everything passed
before him. He saw himself. He saw what he was doing. Like a drowning
man he saw all that had gone before, all that was coming, stretched
grimly into a dim future. He saw her mind--the pity in it, the
reflection of his own passion. He saw his wife. He saw _all_
things--love, pity, and honour. He weighed them in the scales, they were
all as nothing.
A short, sobbing breath of wind sighed through the olives.
Their lips met.
_PART II_
CHAPTER XI
Nielsen sat at one of many little marble-topped tables outside a café.
It was dark, and the lights of the street avenue shone dubiously on
either side through the foliage of the lime trees. From the interior of
the café, at his back, the dull clack of dominoes and the flap of
waiters’ slippered feet against the boarded floor came gently to his
ears, with the occasional sharper sounds of men’s voices. Through the
widely-opened doors and windows stray whiffs of rough, black tobacco,
and of garlic, made their way to his nose. The thin strains of harp and
mandolin quavered drawlingly into the warm air from a _cantina_ lower
down the street, and frogs croaked hoarsely in chorus from the bed of
the dried watercourse under the bridge.
Nielsen sipped his coffee, smoking quietly. He leant slightly forward,
with his shoulders squared, his knees apart, and the rim of his hat
pulled forward on his high forehead.
The café was nearly opposite the Hôtel Milano, which stood back from the
road in its own garden. Nielsen watched the windows of the hotel, and
the vague silhouettes of people’s figures against the lighted verandah.
The lines of his pale, squarely-moulded face expressed a gently weary
resignation, and he remained undisturbed by the wheeling of mosquitoes
and the perpetual futile appearances of the unkempt Italian waiters.
That afternoon he had seen Jocelyn for the first time since the day at
Bordighera. On that occasion he had been in earnest, with an earnestness
that, upon reflection, had caused him surprise. He was aware that he
would repeat his conduct under similar circumstances, but the idea of
marriage had become so foreign to him in the course of his broken
existence, that he was compelled to look upon himself as having deviated
from the path of sanity. He had, moreover, been making love to women,
more or less harmlessly, for so long, that an acquired cynicism informed
him that these things were all a matter of degree, the end of the
affair requiring a greater or less absence of the object of attraction.
Man of the world, he acutely recognised that without a sustained and
zealous siege he had no chance with Jocelyn; he salved his vanity by
thinking that, with it, success was possible--even probable. In this way
rebuff lost its sting, painful exertion became unnecessary.
The girl had a great attraction for him. She was always “in the
picture,” her graceful personality was never marred by her surroundings.
She had no taint of “insularity.” Without self-sufficiency, she seemed
sufficient unto herself. All this appealed to the cosmopolitan in him.
It was not too much to say, that she more nearly approached the _persona
grata_ of his fastidious imagination than any woman he had ever met. She
was therefore dangerous, he reflected in her absence--in her presence he
did not reflect at all, want of reflection in the presence of women
having become habitual to him. At this particular moment he was
profoundly puzzled.
He had found Jocelyn singularly absorbed, silent and unresponsive. She
pleaded headache. Certainly she looked ill, but he had a disquieting
feeling that there was something on her mind. She had sat dumb while he
talked with her aunt, detailing gossip of the inner life of Monte Carlo,
which the soul of that lady loved. When he spoke to her, she was
_distraite_, and returned monosyllabic answers. He was not vain enough
to attribute her manifest discomfort to his own presence, and, for the
first time since he had known her, he came away without feeling the
power of her attraction, experiencing instead a sensation of uneasiness
and of curiosity, that was purely benevolent, and very characteristic.
He had dined at the café, and sat in the dusk waiting till the time for
his return train.
A man walking hurriedly on the other side of the street went up through
the gates of the hotel garden. Nielsen followed the figure negligently
with his eyes, and saw it pass and repass the end of the verandah, and
then stand motionless for a long time in the shadow of a tree. The faint
inquisitiveness he felt in his movements died away presently in the
countless, inconsequent reflections of one not compelled by
circumstances to think steadily of any given thing. He yawned, looked
at his watch, and throwing away his cigarette stepped out of the circle
of light into the road leading to the railway station. As he did so, the
man came suddenly down the garden path at a great pace, gesticulating
with his clenched hands, passed close without seeing him, and hurried
away in the direction of the town, muttering to himself. Nielsen stopped
abruptly in recognition. He called after him--
“Hallo! Legard!” The man turned.
“Ah!” he said, “Good-night!”
His face was momentarily in the full glare of the café lights; the hat
was slouched over it, but the line of his moustache was visible, black
against the lower part. The movement of turning had seemed mechanical,
the words sounded leaden. In another moment he was gone, walking faster
than before, his shoulders hunched up to his ears in a way that
suggested pain, and his hands thrust suddenly deep into his pockets as
if to keep them still.
Nielsen stood looking after him.
“When a man talks to himself aloud, it is bad!” he said to himself.
“When he talks, and clenches his hands _comme ça_, ah! that is very
bad! That man is suffering!” He shrugged his shoulders, pointing
mechanically with his stick after the figure.
“Yes, yes--I know. I do not like him, but I am sorry for him--he suffers
verry grreatly.” He shook his head gravely, as he turned into the
station.
* * * * *
That supreme point, when for a time human nature recoils before
suffering in a great lassitude, had not been reached by Giles Legard.
Four days of torture had left him still capable of feeling.
Into his bedroom in the little grey villa the moon struck keenly and
coldly; there was no other light. He had thrown off coat and waistcoat,
and sat motionless, with his head bent on his arms folded across the
back of his chair. Upon the table in front of him was a torn envelope
and a half sheet of paper, folded and re-folded with innumerable
creases. The room was empty of all other furniture except the bed,
beside which, on a great rug of deerskin stretched over the bare
panelling of the floor, Shikari lay, his head between his paws. In the
bright moonlight all colours in the room gave way in a harsh
contrasting of black and white, and outside the sea gleamed through the
tops of the ghostly olives in silver ridges. Every now and then a
loosened tendril of creeper swayed with the breath of a newly-born sea
wind across the widely-opened casement. From his wife’s bedroom
underneath came an occasional sound of hollow coughing.
Legard sat with his back turned to the window. The moonlight over the
sea brought to him an agonising spasm of memory.... In return for an
hour of mad, intoxicating passion, he had bartered everything! He took
up the sheet of paper, looking at it dully as he twisted it in his
hands. He had bartered everything! The thought was old, it seemed to him
centuries since he had first realised it. Everything! There was not a
shred left to him of his honour, or his self-respect; that did not seem
to matter, he was beyond feeling it. But in that single hour of madness
he had taken the happiness of the woman he loved--and with it his
own--taken it, as it were, in his two hands, and flung it into the dust.
Taken her well-being, her reserve, and her pride, and flung them
brutally into the dust.
He read the letter mechanically again and again.
“I have tried, but I cannot see you. When you came near everything
seemed to cry out at me. It is better that you should keep away--for you
and for me. I cannot answer for myself.” That was all. No hope! No
single stroke of the pen brought relief to his aching spirit.
He held the sheet of paper to catch the full of the moonlight; and her
face rose above it, as he had seen it the one time since that night--a
delicate, oval face, cold as the moonlight itself; averted and
unseizable eyes, profound and dark, with the lids drooping over them and
circles of black beneath; lips drawn together, cruelly set; cheeks
colourless; between the brows a slight furrow; and over all the waving
dark hair gathered back from the low forehead.
As nearly as a man may read the soul of a woman, he had read hers, with
a vision supernaturally sharpened by pain. He had seen in her face the
shame, the agony of violated reserve, the bitter wounding of her
pride--the pride, which for no single moment had foreseen that ending.
He had known that she was thinking, “I am a thing apart, but for the
accident of concealment, a thing of shame.” He had recognised that in
the reaction of her feelings there was a physical repulsion to himself,
a desire to hurt because she had been hurt. He had understood what it
was costing her to go about as usual, and keep her vizor down to the
world. He had known in her a courage he did not possess himself, an
untameable pride. All this he had seen in that face. That which he had
not seen was the mysterious weakness of woman, the greatest and the most
pitiful of all qualities.
He rose from his seat, went into his dressing-room, and poured some
brandy from a shooting flask. When he had drunk it he came back again to
his bedroom. He walked up and down once or twice softly, clenching his
hands, and mechanically taking care that his footsteps made no noise on
the bare, slippery floor. Then he put his hand into the breastpocket of
his coat, took out a revolver, and dropped it into the table-drawer. As
he did so he gave a queer little laugh. He had carried it about with
him for three days, and it was like parting with an old friend. It had
been comforting to feel the weight of it in his pocket, with the thought
that there was always that escape from the grinding torture of the
slowly moving hours.
He shut the drawer with a bang of finality. The brandy had cleared his
brain, and he saw that for several reasons the end was not that way. He
must see it out. He began to perceive also that it was a grimmer and a
harder thing than he had imagined for a human being to abandon hope; and
yet, as the bang of the shut drawer echoed in the silent room, he felt
that it was even more grim and hard to go on living. He knew all the
time that, of those two thoughts, he would never find out which was the
truer, because of a deeply-rooted instinct, cowardly-heroic, which would
drive him to live while he was sane.
He threw himself at full length upon the floor, pressing his face into
the soft rug, and Shikari woke up to lick his outstretched hands. The
moonlight passed on over the house and left him there.
Some time in the dense darkness he crawled to his knees, and bowed
himself against the bed in a prayer, unconvinced, faithless, and
voiceless, a mere straining after rest in the hard pressure of his face
against the cool covering of the bed, after peace in the touch of his
knees upon the floor.
He fell asleep so. When he woke it was with a vague contempt of himself
that had no sting in it, and, half-dressed as he was, he fell asleep
again upon the bed in sheer exhaustion.
CHAPTER XII
The sun staring into his room awoke him. As he stretched himself, the
sight of his own half-dressed figure brought him with a cruel jerk to a
sense of reality.
Yet, in spite of the agony of returning consciousness, there was a glow
of resolution in his mind, another dawning of hope. He shrank before the
acknowledgment of it. To his indolent, pleasure-loving nature, a
resigned acceptance of the worst meant relief. He resented the renewed
vitality which brought suspense, and a fresh struggle against the
abandonment of hope. With every movement of his muscles in the morning
air came another balancing of the possibilities. Effort of any sort,
other than the purely physical, was painful to him; he shrank from
beginning again a mental contest against overpowering odds, and all the
time the struggle was renewing itself within him. It was his nature to
shrink from obstacles, and to hate the rough of life, yet when he
encountered it, something in him always forced him forward against his
will. He began to calculate the earliest minute at which he might see
Jocelyn.
He dressed hastily, swallowed some coffee and a roll, and ordered his
pony. While waiting for it he paced restlessly up and down the little
garden. Once, when he passed her window, he saw his wife’s figure moving
feebly from her bedroom to her sitting-room. He had heard her talking,
had heard her cough, had even heard her laughing, but it was all he had
_seen_ of her for three days. He turned away hastily, and walked down
into the road to wait....
Four hours later the bay pony, very tired, stopped with a jerk before
the villa door. The afternoon sun struck hotly on to the white road, and
the palm trees by the Saracen tower were waiting dejectedly for the
wind, that hung in the black clouds over the sea, to free them from
their dusty covering. Giles got off, he staggered slightly, and wiped
his forehead as he gave the reins to the slim, dark Italian boy, who
appeared like a mournful shadow from an unexpected corner to take
them--then throwing his head back he walked into the house.
Shortly, this was what had happened to him in the four hours.
He had ridden at a pace alternately very fast and very slow to the Hôtel
Milano. At the gate of the hotel garden the German proprietor was
standing, a large, grave man, with a military back. The ladies, he said,
had gone to Monte Carlo, would Monsieur not come in and rest himself
from the heat, and wait, for the ladies would surely be back very
presently. Monsieur would not! The ladies would certainly return for the
luncheon at half-one. Yes! there was a train from Monte Carlo at twelve
o’clock; it was now eleven. Would not Monsieur, perhaps, drink
something--there was some very good hock newly arrived. Monsieur would
not! It was very hot! _Aufwiedersehn!_
As Giles dug his heels into the pony’s sides and clattered up the street
towards the Cornice Road, the German proprietor, bowing his long,
bearded face towards his gaunt chest, looked gravely after him.
“Mein Herr Legard is no longer the same man, I think,” he said slowly
to his little French wife, in an interval of her flower gathering. “He
used to be so calm, so nonchalant; now he does everything
_augenblicklich_, with his mouth shut and his brows down. He is ill, I
think, or he has lost money.”
“_Que t’es bête, mon cher!_” said Madame compassionately, a rose in her
mouth, and her small, fat, French hands full of carnations.
Legard rode into Monte Carlo, he could not wait for the chance of their
returning for lunch. He came upon them walking down from Smith’s bank to
the station. He had the privilege of shaking hands with them. Mrs.
Travis was slightly in front--she had always a conviction that trains
wished to elude her. After a glance at his face, she discreetly
increased her pace and disappeared into the station, perceiving from its
expression that she would be more comfortable away from him.
Giles was alone with Jocelyn for two seconds. He had her hand in his, a
perfectly cold, motionless hand. He looked at her eyes, they were half
closed and averted; a furrow was between her brows, and her lips were
pressed together. He could hardly prevent himself from crying out.
Jocelyn turned her eyes to his face for one second, the face of a man in
purgatory, with the corners of the mouth drawn back from the clenched
teeth, the chin square, the jaw quivering, the eyes deep-sunk and
staring. The expression of her own face did not change, it was at once
shrinking and repellant. He dropped her hand with a gasp, and sat
motionless on the pony, looking after her as she walked into the
station. He sat there until he saw the train go out, but she did not
come back.
Then he rode slowly home along the dusty road, at the pony’s own pace,
bending over its neck, and staring in front of him like a man in a
dream....
When he had thrown the reins to his servant he went up the steps to the
house. At the top of the winding, rose-hung passage, he turned. A vision
of Jocelyn, standing at the foot and looking up at him with the roses
whispering above her, was for an instant before him; then it was gone,
and there stood only an Italian boy, in nankeen clothes, and a
wide-brimmed hat, holding the ends of the pony’s reins, and looking up
at his master with mournful black eyes. Legard spoke in his gentle
voice. It was characteristic of him that in his trouble his
consideration for others did not lessen.
“Jacopo, we shall take the yacht and go shooting.”
Jacopo’s apathetic, olive-coloured face lighted up for a moment. He was
a silent, ubiquitous boy, and devoted to his master.
“Si, Signore!”
“We start directly--you must be ready to-night.”
The boy stroked the pony’s nose solemnly with his dark fingers. Giles
had chosen him because he was fond of animals--a rare thing in an
Italian.
“For where, Signore?” he said.
“I don’t know yet; somewhere where there is something to shoot. Pack for
cold weather and for hot. We shall be away a long time perhaps. Take
Shikari, and put in a rug for him. That’s all, I think. Do you want any
money?”
“No, Signore.”
Jacopo threw the reins on the pony’s neck and departed, whistling a
little tune. The pony followed him like a dog.
Legard stayed a moment at the top of the steps, passing his hand over
his brow, and trying to conjure up again the girl’s image, then he went
into the house and began mechanically to overhaul his guns.
For a little while he felt the relief it would be to have done with it
all--a merciful span of time that was gone as soon as it was come--then
a great horror of loneliness, and a sense that the sands of his life had
run out, came over him. He leant his face against the frame of the gun
cabinet, feeling sick and cold. He _could_ not live without her!
A great wave of pity for her carried him a little beyond that thought.
Her eyes with the shrinking look in them were always before him. At
whatever cost he would not crown the disgrace of his manhood by forcing
himself upon her! The instinctive revolt within him against brutality of
any sort, which was at once the strength and the weakness of his
character, forbade that. To that instinct he must be true! He clung to
it with the despairing clutch of a man who had lost other things which
he had thought secure. He would go away! He would see her once again,
that very day, as a matter of form--he did not confess to any hope--just
as a matter of form. He was, in fact, unable, even then, to despair. He
went to the sideboard, drank some wine, and ate some fruit--he could not
get anything solid down--and went about his preparations mechanically.
The thought came into his mind that, since he was going away, he must
see his wife. He poured out the rest of the wine, drank it, and lit a
cigarette. If it had to be done, it might as well be done at once. He
sat down, and smoked the cigarette steadily through, with a sense of
effacing his emotions. When he had finished it he got up and knocked at
her door.
There was no answer. He opened it gently and went in.
CHAPTER XIII
In the room there was a faint, sweet, sickly smell of flowers and of
drugs, the scent that pervades the rooms of invalids. The sun was still
blazing outside, and through the drawn Venetian blinds three long
streaks of warm light forced their way, and fell across the white figure
lying on the couch. Bars of golden air, breathing with innumerable tiny
sparks of dust--they seemed in the hushed room to be the only living
things. Even the flowers drooped, like beings that had given up their
souls to the woman with the ashen yellow face, whose breathing scarcely
stirred the white swansdown ruffle thrown across her chest. Over the
bullfinch’s cage was drawn a grey silk covering that quivered faintly at
the opening of the door. The oaken furniture seemed to shrink dark and
ill-defined into the corners of the room.
It was so still there that Giles paused, and his heart gave a queer
thump. He shut the door noiselessly, and bent his head, looking into his
wife’s face. His tall, thin figure had a great dignity in the dim light.
She was not dead, as he had thought, she was asleep. On the little table
by the couch were the book she had been reading--Tolstoi’s “The Kingdom
of God is within You”--three roses, a medicine glass, and bottle.
Giles’s eyes fastened on the roses; by some twist of fate they were
Jocelyn’s favourites, the sunset-coloured Riviera roses. A bar of light
fell across two of them, so that they gleamed and glowed at him; the
third was in shadow, the colour drained from its petals by the blight of
the grey room. It seemed to him as an omen, and he shivered. He took the
rose, and turned its face to the sunlight. His wife sighed huskily in
her sleep.
Giles stepped back, he thought she would wake, but she did not. He
listened to her breathing, it was faint and strained; and but for the
faint, irregular monotony of it she might have been dead. She was very
far from death, as it seemed to him, with the insistent pain of
Jocelyn’s suffering, and the lurking shadow of possible shame ever
present to his mind.
A faint sound of voices rose in the outer corridor, and footsteps
creaked coming down the passage towards the door. Giles stepped behind a
screen, which sheltered the couch from a French window opening on the
garden. His nerves were so jarred and unstrung that he recoiled from the
idea of meeting any one, and having to talk in his wife’s presence. The
clasp of the window was not fastened; it was slightly ajar. He waited,
prepared to step out if any one came.
The door was opened softly, and he heard a whispered conversation in
French.
“Madame is asleep, Monsieur.”
“Ah! then do not wake her for the world! I will call again later. It is
of no consequence. I will take a little walk. Thank you, Pauline; shut
the door gently.”
Giles recognised the peculiarly soft, purring tones of Nielsen’s voice.
The door closed softly, and through the flower-covered trellis work, he
watched the Swede’s square figure as he tiptoed his way down the steps.
He noticed black clouds creeping fast towards the coast from over the
sea, and the olives below the road beginning to sway a little. He saw
very clearly, and with a childish feeling of irritation, Nielsen’s
broad, wrinkled face, with its great tawny moustache and gold-rimmed
eyeglass, lifted towards the sky at an angle which bared his short neck.
His brain was in an exhausted state of nervous excitement, rendering it
as receptive of outward impression as a photographer’s plate; everything
he saw and heard was graven upon it indelibly.
When Nielsen had disappeared, Giles turned back to his wife’s couch. The
bars of sunlight were gone. She was still sleeping heavily; would she
never wake, and let him get this over?
He fingered the medicine glass mechanically, there were a few drops of
moisture at the bottom. He smelled it--the sickly-sweet, unmistakable
smell of morphia--and put it down with a faint quiver of disgust. The
drug she took every day to make her sleep. He looked at the bottle
nearly full of a white liquid, with a kind of fascination. A tenth of it
would kill him! An easy death, that! He felt with indignation that the
bottle had no business to be there; his wife always put it under her
cushions before going to sleep, for fear of a mistake--he had seen her
many times. Fingering the cool, slippery round of the glass, he looked
mechanically about him for the medicine that she took the instant she
woke, heavy and dazed from the morphia. It should be there ready, it was
always there! There was no bottle upon the table except the wrong one,
that which should have been under her cushions.
A thought flashed through his mind, a vivid vision snatched from the
future. What if--! He stood up, hardly breathing, his hands behind his
back, looking down upon his wife. Her first waking act! Half
conscious--the wrong bottle!--the wrong....
He drew a deep breath, turned suddenly upon his heel, and passed swiftly
through the window.
The humming of insects and the long droning sigh of the coming wind was
in the breath of the warm air as he stepped out. A creeper went
swish-swish over his head, and a loosened spray of jessamine beat him in
the face. Its sweet, subtle scent penetrated his senses, and gave him a
queer feeling as if his heart were contracting within him, and the cool
beat of the leaves against his face felt like the touch of fingers,
forcing him back. He pulled the window to, very gently. A chance had
been sent!
A chance had been sent! He had a dim vision of black clouds driving over
the sky, olives swaying in a long line in front of him, and there was
the road, long, white, and dusty, and he knew that what he had to do was
to get down it, as far and as fast as he could. To get down it, before
he began to think. He began to run--he had no hat on, and he knew it,
but he knew that it was not his business to inquire into the reason why
he had no hat, it was to get over the ground quickly.
He found that he _was_ thinking as he went, but upon quite trivial
matters. He thought of a little shop at the bottom of the road, where he
could buy himself a hat, a peasant’s hat like Jacopo’s; he hoped it
might be clean. He thought of the weather; it looked like breaking up,
the clouds made a curious effect over the sea. He thought at a great
pace, as fast as he could, and his thoughts left no mark whatever on
his mind.
His tall figure striding along, bareheaded, with coat flying open,
created no small astonishment in Nielsen’s mind, who, seated on the edge
of the water-tank under the olives opposite, was waiting with his usual
surface apathy to renew his visit at the villa. Remembering the scene of
the night before, he made no attempt to attract Legard’s attention, but
sat fingering his long moustache, and staring patiently after him, with
mixed feelings of curiosity and commiseration.
Giles passed the shop without stopping--he was so busy keeping his mind
unoccupied--and he had to turn back to buy himself a hat. He had
exhausted his power of trivial reflection now, and he tried to think of
Jocelyn. He would see her--he must see her! And as he walked he found
that her image, to which he trusted to save himself from thought, danced
elusively just out of the reach of his mind’s eye.
He walked swiftly, a man haunted by the hidden, ugly shape of an unborn
remorse. At a turn in the road he came suddenly upon Jocelyn herself.
CHAPTER XIV
She was sitting on a stony bank covered with wild thyme, just above the
road; her soft mauve blouse and the little stone-coloured toque on her
head were in exact tone with their setting. Over her knees hung a long,
bright spray of gladiolus flowers.
In the suddenness of the meeting, the grave dejected look on her bent
face smote Giles with the vehemence of a blow. Now that what he had set
himself to attain was unexpectedly within his reach, he felt as if he
could not face her.
He stopped. Had she seen him? Should he go back? He half turned in his
painful indecision, shuffling his feet on the dusty road.
Jocelyn raised her head. He could see her face, the eyes stared at him,
unnaturally soft and large, and there was a pitiful curve at the corners
of her mouth.
He felt no more indecision or dread, he felt nothing but the
helplessness and pathos of her face. He brushed his hand over his eyes,
walked across the road, and stood close to her, with his head bent down
and his face hidden under the wide-brimmed peasant’s hat.
Without saying a word she put out her hand, and her slender fingers fell
like bars of ice across his burning palm. Then she said--
“Will you come with me up the hill a little? If there is peace anywhere,
it will be among the olives.”
His heart beat violently, giving him a sense of suffocation.
They left the dusty road, and mounted the banks silently, twisting in
and out up the narrow path over slopes covered with yellow broom and
magenta gladiolus, with snowy garlic flower, purple vetch, and masses of
mauve wild thyme. The scent from the pine needles and the sage-plant
rose from the cooling earth as the heat of the vivid, glaring day gave
way under the clouds driven up by the rising wind.
At first, as they climbed the steep ascent, a rush of relief, a joyous
flowing of his blood at being near her again, carried him away past all
power of reason and doubt. It was happiness, just to see her slender
figure swaying, as she mounted two paces in front of him, to hear her
lightly-drawn breath, to catch the perfume of her hair, the half glimpse
of her profile as the path twisted. But long before they stopped there
had come a returning agony of doubt. What would she say when she at last
spoke? What were they to be to each other in the future? Had he sinned
beyond forgiveness? With one step he felt a mad spasm of hope, with the
next the dull throb of a blank despair; and always with him, like the
cloud left by a bad dream, was the grim shadow of his wife’s awakening
beside the little table, in that darkened room.
They were high up now among the olives, and neither had spoken. A
gloomy, purple hue had spread like a pall over the broken ridges of the
mountains, which ran inland to the west. It shaded up from the
surf-girt, murky sea, and deepened on the sides of the hills till it
crowned the summit with a hard, blue line against the veiled sky. Upon
the remote greyness of the westward sea the hidden sun threw a narrow
streak of yellow light. Where the sun had travelled, far as the gloomy
horizon, the violet waters brooded in long, broken ridges, and inshore
little white waves hissed at the borders of shallow, turquoise pools.
The wind was sighing a mournful tune in gentle crescendo through the
patient olives, whose knotted stems creaked a sad accompaniment. In the
sinister colouring the vivid green of a tiny fig-tree made a single
bright spot whereon the eye rested gratefully.
At the foot of a little tower, grey, ruined, and flanked by two towering
cypresses, Jocelyn stopped, and, leaning against the broken stair,
looked long and steadily over the sea. One small singing-bird was
lifting the feeble requiem of the day’s departed glory, and from the
valley came an occasional crowing of cocks; these, and the sigh of the
wind, were the only sounds. Presently she spoke--
“I like that angry white blaze on the sea,” she said. Giles heard the
even tones of her voice with wonder, but they served to steady him.
“Yes, it’s beautiful.” He was standing beside her, a tall figure,
holding his hat in his hand, and taking deep breaths like a man that has
come to the surface of water, after a long dive. He found it difficult
to believe that he was actually at her side talking commonplaces, and he
made a great effort to brace himself to meet what was coming. His
impulse was to fling himself at her feet, but he stood straight and
stiff, gnawing his moustache, and clenching his hands. Presently Jocelyn
said, without looking at him--
“We have something to say to each other, haven’t we?”
“Yes. What made you come?”
“Your face at the station.”
“Ah!”
To both of them the interchange of question and answer seemed very
strange and unreal. There was another silence. Of the two faces, side by
side, staring visionless over the sea, the man’s showed the ravages of
emotion most; perhaps because he was older, perhaps because it was his
nature to take things harder. The little bird still lifted its voice;
there was a curious pathos in the feeble twittering.
Jocelyn said suddenly, lifting her eyes to his--
“I have suffered so. I have cried till I think I shall never cry again.
Forgive me, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I didn’t want to hurt you so. I
couldn’t help it. Poor eyes!”
Her hand stole up, and touched his face. With the words and the touch of
her hand, his self-control suddenly left him, and he shook with dry,
silent sobs, burying his face deep in his hands. It was characteristic
of him that he broke down most at the touch of tenderness.
Jocelyn pulled his head down on to her shoulder, stroking his hair and
his cheek with her fingers, and murmuring--
“There, there!” as a mother cries to her child. All the hardness had
gone out of her face, it was very tender, and her eyes were pure and
deep-coloured with a wonderful pity.
Making a great effort, Giles mastered himself; he put his arms round
her, and stood rocking himself to and fro gently, his face buried in
her hair. There was no passion in his embrace, only pity, and gradually
peace.
It was a long time before either spoke again.
“My darling, forgive me!” he said at last in a faint, husky whisper,
barely heard in the moaning of the wind.
“Dear, there is nothing to forgive--it was my fault--I tempted you.”
Giles shuddered.
“No, no!” he said, and he pressed her convulsively in his arms.
The words came presently from him with an effort--
“Tell me, darling! Is it all pity you have for me now? Is there any love
left?--tell me the truth,” but he could not look at her, he dreaded the
answer too much.
Jocelyn drew herself gently away from him, till only the touch of his
fingers rested on her arms.
“I don’t know,” she said; “it isn’t as it used to be--I can’t tell.”
He sighed.
“It isn’t as it used to be--how can it be? I think something has died in
me. But, dear--I know that if I did not love you, I couldn’t pity you.
I couldn’t be sorry for you. I’m sure of that--I could only hate you.”
“Thank God!” he said, breathing deeply. It was like the lifting of a
great weight from his chest; but as he straightened himself, the spectre
of his wife’s awakening in the darkened room suddenly started up before
him.
“Promise me,” he said with an eager ring in his voice, “_whatever
comes_, you won’t shut me quite away from you! Promise you’ll let me
share your suffering! _Promise me_--”
She shuddered, and her eyes contracted.
“I promise,” she whispered.
“Thank you, Sweet, that is sacred,” he said.
He drew her again towards him, and would have kissed her lips; but she
bent her forehead to him instead, and he kissed it reverently.
The wind was rising steadily, it swept through the trees, and whistled
mournfully in the hollows of the ruined tower.
Jocelyn was shivering in her light blouse.
“Let me go home, there is a storm coming, and I am so tired.” She spoke
like a frightened child.
He answered mechanically like a man in deep thought.
“Poor little one, yes, yes, at once.” He was holding his watch in his
hand, and looking over her shoulder down the hill side, measuring time
against distance. He was thinking there would still be a chance--his
wife might have gone on sleeping. If he could only get back to the room
in time? and he muttered to himself, absorbed in his sudden desire to
get back before it was too late.
“Yes,” he said, “we must go down before the storm breaks. Come,
darling,” and he led the way down the winding path rapidly.
When they reached the road, he said--
“Can you go home alone? You will be quite safe on the road, and I have
something to do--very important, terribly important. I must go. Let me
see you to-morrow. I will come, may I? Good-bye! good-bye! Poor child,
you look so tired.” He put his hands gently on either side of her face,
looking into her eyes.
“Remember your promise!” he said, and kissed her lips passionately;
then, as if some invisible force had plucked him from her, he turned
suddenly and walked along the road at full speed, his head bent down,
and without once looking back.
Jocelyn gazed after him surprised and trembling. The tide of her
emotions had run out and left her spent and heavy with a sense of coming
disaster.
CHAPTER XV
Once hidden by a group of trees, Giles broke into a run. The road stared
in front of him, white and implacable; the dust rose from it, choking
him. He bent forward, lifting his feet doggedly, dead tired, and with
the feeling that he would never get to the villa. There was a lull in
the wind, and a few splashes of warm rain fell upon him.
Suddenly he stopped. What was he running for? To find out if his wife
had killed herself? A mere matter of curiosity. For it came into his
mind that nothing whatever was changed. He had left her to die. He was
going back--to save her? A cold sweat broke out on his forehead, he
leant against a pine tree by the road side and rocked himself to and
fro, trying to think.
A drove of kine passed close, their bells tinkling, as one by one turned
wet muzzle, and moody, brown eyes towards him. The sound, full of
memory, of those bells was a spur to his thoughts. Nothing was changed!
A chance had been sent to him and to Jocelyn--above all, to Jocelyn! And
he was going back to set it at naught?
He had a vision of the face that he loved, as it might become, haggard
and shame-ridden, and of the faces of all the people he had ever known
drawn in a sanctimonious circle around it. He felt as if he were being
guilty of treachery. Why should he go back? He would stifle
memory--forget he had ever been in the room. It was a cowardly thought,
and he knew it. He could not get away from responsibility one way or the
other--he had to accept it. He seemed continually to see his wife’s
frail body half-raised on one bent elbow, her thin hand stretched
gropingly, the long fingers closing on the medicine bottle--her face,
the look of exhaustion upon it, and the heavy, half-closed eyes. He
began to walk forward again, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
His mind swayed, like the olive trees in the gusty wind, this way and
that. When at moments, in the blank irresolution of his thoughts, he
had glimpses of the knowledge that it was all decided--that he _was_
going back to save her if he could--he hated himself.
The sound of a horse’s gallop was in the wind that beat in his face. An
undefined feeling of guilt made him stoop to avoid notice as he walked.
The horseman passed; there was a cry in his ears, the single word
“Madame!” He looked up sharply; through a cloud of dust he had a glimpse
of flying hoofs, and of Jacopo’s body turned in the saddle, waving a
hand towards the villa.
Something had happened! What? Was he to go down to the grave with the
memory of his desertion staring him in the face? Anything was better
than this suspense. He dashed forward and arrived, breathless, and
dripping with perspiration. He ran up the steps. At the window, out of
which he had come, he stopped; it was as he had left it. He set his face
against the glass, and stared through. He could see things in the room
dimly in the grey light, her couch and figures standing beside it, the
white drapery upon it, but he could not see her face.
The same spray of jessamine trailed across his cheek, a cockchafer
buzzed against him. Was it really two hours since he had left that room?
The shrill sound of a woman’s sob came to him from within; it jarred his
nerves, so that he started and his hand knocked against the glass. A
figure inside looked up sharply with a gesture of surprise. It was
Nielsen. Giles stared back at him through the window, his face, very
white and motionless, still pressed against it. After a moment, when
nothing in the heavens and the earth seemed to move, he pushed it open,
and went in, walking unsteadily, his hands clenched convulsively on the
hat in them.
“What is it?”
“Dead!”
“Ah!” There was no movement in the room save the heaving of the maid’s
shoulders, as she crouched by the body of her mistress. The two men
faced each other staring, the minds of both busy with a thousand
thoughts, their eyes expressing nothing.
A long-drawn, quavering sob, with a gasp at the end, vibrated painfully
through the silence. Giles with an uncontrollable movement put his
hands up to his ears. Nielsen did not stir, but he frowned.
“You had better go, Pauline,” he said to the maid, “you can be of no use
till the doctor comes, then I will call you, but you must be good and
quiet, you know.” She rose, and went out, choking back her sobs.
Once more there was silence, and at the foot of the couch the men stared
at each other. Nielsen, the shorter by four or five inches, stood
gnawing his moustache, his head stiffly bent back, his hands in front of
him mechanically polishing his eye-glass; his shortsighted eyes were
narrowed and puckered with the effort of vision. Legard stared downwards
at him, his eyes deep sunk, his hands folding and refolding his hat; his
teeth were clenched, and beads of perspiration stood on his forehead.
“I don’t believe--how do you know?” he said suddenly, but without
looking at the couch.
“It is so, I have seen it too often. But look for yourself, I found her
like that.” Nielsen pointed towards the body.
“No! No!” said Giles in a harsh whisper, “that’s enough.” He covered his
eyes with his hand, and, turning away, began to walk up and down the
room. He did not once glance at the body. Nielsen watched him unobserved
with a growing feeling of perplexity and of repulsion. “Poor lady!” he
said softly, and sat down by the side of the couch. Bending forward with
his chin in his hand, he continued to watch Giles restlessly pacing up
and down the room. He was trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together
in his mind. It seemed to him singular that Legard had not asked any
questions; he appeared to know already. His mind reverted to the picture
of him hurrying away from the villa hatless and with great strides two
hours ago, and a thought struck him.
“Was your wife alive when you left her, you know--two hours ago?” he
asked suddenly.
Legard stopped short in his pacing; it was as if a sudden accusation had
been hurled at him.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “That is--.” He broke off. How did Nielsen know
he had been with her? He clenched his jaws and the snap of his teeth
together was the only sound in the silent room. For an instant he felt
like a hunted man, and he glared at the Swede, waiting for the next
question. But it did not come. Nielsen sat there, quietly nursing his
chin and looking at the floor--the answer had told him what he wanted to
know. Legard _had_ been in the room, but the servants had not known it;
he had come out like a man flying from the plague, and it was not an
hour since he had himself found Mrs. Legard dead. She had apparently
died from an overdose of morphia, for as she lay with her hand by her
side, the fingers of it were still closed upon the medicine glass.
It was a singular affair; with the discretion of experience he filed it
for reference, and sat quietly nursing his chin and looking at the
floor.
Outside, the wind moaned and raged, and a driving rain began to beat
against the windows. Inside was the stillness of death itself.
Giles had fallen into a chair with his elbows resting on the table, and
his face buried in his hands. The hunted feeling of the moment had gone
in a great indifference--a numb sensation that was creeping over him.
What did it matter? Let the fellow think what he would, he could _know_
nothing. There was nothing to know, of course--it was a matter between
him and his own conscience.
He was surprised that he no longer felt pain, remorse, or indecision,
only a dull craving for rest, and that peculiar numbness in his brain
and limbs.
There was a sound of wheels outside--then footsteps--he heard them
indistinctly through the hissing of the rain and the moaning of the
wind. The door opened, and some one came into the room.
In the dim light he had an impression of a man with a bearded face and
dark clothes, of water dripping from the sleeves of his coat and from
his hat. A doctor! Not his wife’s doctor! He was conscious, too, of the
maid’s presence, of low-voiced questions and answers in French, of
fingers pointed at himself, of a long hush, of the lifting of something
white on the couch and of its being laid gently back again.
He had an impression of being spoken to, and of answering, of the
subdued rattle of Venetian blinds drawn up, of the soft beating of the
rain against the window panes.
The group of figures round the couch seemed to shift and shift again.
There was another long hush, then a whisper in French.
“Poor fellow, he seems quite overcome!” And another voice, low also, and
of uncertain intonation, said, “_Que voulez-vous?_ it is his wife.”
In a silence, that seemed everlasting, he sat staring at a black figure
leaning over the couch and going through evolutions with a bottle,
measuring, smelling, tasting it, bending forward till his body was
right-angled, raising himself again. Then the silence came to an end in
words pronounced, distinctly and with finality, in the French tongue.
“Morphia--the bottle in her hand--she was in the habit of taking it? Ah!
Yes--failure of the action of the heart, no doubt an overdose--dead
about an hour--poor woman--not an uncommon case.”
He experienced a sensation of gratitude--the first sensation of any sort
for many minutes--the affair was not eternal, he would sometime or
another get rid of these people, and be left to himself and have rest.
He got up slowly and with effort. Again the slurred rattle of the
Venetian blinds, the rustle of a sheet drawn over the couch. Then a
moment when three figures stood stiff, awkward, dismally devoid of
action; a confused shaking of hands, a subdued unintelligible murmur, a
glimpse of retreating figures, the fluttering whish of a skirt, the
click of a closing door, and--he was alone.
CHAPTER XVI
In the early hours of the sleepy afternoon, when the June sun blazes,
and the air outside is heavy with heat, the coolest place in Monte Carlo
is the Casino.
At one of the few roulette tables where play was going on Nielsen sat,
leaning back in his chair, his eyes half closed, and one of his hands
resting upon the table.
It was only three o’clock, but he had finished work for the day. He sat
on, apparently watching the game, in reality occupied in putting
together the pieces of his puzzle. The polished floors, and even the
garish colouring of the walls and ceilings, looked soft in the mellow
light that filtered through the wire blinds set in the windows. The
glass panes had disappeared for the summer, and the cooled air was sweet
with the smell of flowers and shrubs. The murmuring of the few players,
the monotonous scrape of the croupiers’ rakes, the sing-song of their
voices, and the subdued rattle of coins on the green cloth, made a
sleepy sum of sound.
Nielsen found nothing to disturb his reflections. The long rows of
expressionless profiles, clear-cut or indefinite to this side and that,
the shifting play of light and shade on the faces opposite, all meant
nothing to him--no more than the scraping of his clerks’ pens and the
rows of their bent shoulders mean to the merchant, or the eternal coming
and going of pasty-faced assistants to the master shopman.
With him, the indifferent cry of the croupier’s voice, which announced
the gain of his fixed, daily wage, was the ending of all concern in the
tables. Sometimes he waited the whole day for it, watching the game as a
cat watches a mouse, sometimes it came in half-an-hour, but it generally
came. He knew the faces of nearly all the players; the faces of the
born-gamblers who were ruining themselves--lined faces that were for the
most part placid with a schooled placidity, and with restless eyes that
seemed to look at everything and saw nothing but the eternal shifting of
fortune; the faces of the “little” players, dilettante or careless,
reckless or timid--faces which expressed all the emotions in turn, and
which in the days when he had thought about these things had inspired
him with a deep and disheartening belief in the smallness of human
nature; the faces, too, such as you may see in any thoroughfare of life,
of those who sit and sit and keep your place for a louis--patient,
blighted faces, brightening only, and that for a second, at the sight of
a client or a coin; again, the faces of such men as himself, and those
so rare that he could count them on the fingers of one hand--of men who
came there day after day, day after day, just as a man goes to his
office or to his chambers, as habituated and as utterly indifferent to
the inner life of their surroundings as any other professional man, and
who, on leaving the doors of the Casino, shake the dust of it from their
feet and from their minds.
Of the many things to which Nielsen had at one time or another turned
his hand, journalism had had the most attraction for him. There had been
a charm in having a finger, benevolent or corrective, in the pies of
other people, which his own pies had never afforded him. He was by
nature curiously indifferent to the turn of his own affairs, curiously
alive to the weal or woe of the rest of the world. He experienced a
mental glow when dealing with the problems of other people.
At this moment he was engaged upon such an one, and he was conscious of
bringing a fettered intellect to the task. He was prejudiced against the
man upon whose actions he was seeking judgment; prejudiced by the most
hopeless of all prejudices, that of sex--jealous of him, in fact. He
endeavoured to be impartial and logical, but the thing intruded itself
upon him, hampered his reason, coloured his conclusions. He felt that
his conviction was mainly a matter of instinct with him, but he was none
the less convinced. He did not conceal from himself that he knew very
little, had failed to put the puzzle together; but the impression made
upon his mind by Legard’s conduct was vivid and painful. He felt certain
that he had been directly, or indirectly, the cause of his wife’s death.
The motive lay nakedly and glaringly exposed; the man was violently in
love with Jocelyn, he had known that by a jealous instinct for many
weeks. He did not know that Jocelyn returned that love. To his mind it
was a monstrous and a painful idea that she ever should, and as he sat
there, motionless, with the monotonous hum droning in his ears, his
red-brown eyes glowed angrily, and the fingers of his hand began to drum
the table.
His anger was personal, but he was also, and strongly, prompted by the
impersonal feeling that it was a duty to interpose, as when one sees
somebody running, blindfold, a great and unnecessary danger.
He would see Jocelyn, in some way or another he would warn her! He had
said no word of his suspicions to any one, for in spite of his own
conviction, he saw clearly that he had nothing in the nature of legal
evidence; and he was too much a man of the world to put forward what he
could not substantiate.
The funeral had taken place that morning; he had attended it with the
doctor who had been called in.
Irma had been buried in the English cemetery at Mentone. No one had been
invited, and the only other people present had been her own doctor, two
Polish friends, and Legard himself. The latter had looked worn and ill,
had spoken to nobody, and had gone away alone after the funeral. He
seemed to Nielsen, throughout the ceremony, like a man witnessing some
scene upon the stage; he had shown no emotion. There had been amongst
those present a tacit understanding that the tragic and ill-fated manner
of the death should be kept a secret. The doctors referred to it as
failure of the heart. He understood that it was desired to avert the
possible breath of scandal from her memory.
A faint stir at the table attracted his attention; a lady was sitting
down opposite to him. He was conscious of a slight shock in the
recognition of Mrs. Travis. She was bending her head forward, so that
all he caught was a view of a black and white bonnet over an abundant
fringe, and of plump, white-gloved hands arranging nervously her
gambling paraphernalia. It had seemed to himself the most natural thing
in the world to change his clothes and walk straight into the Casino
from the funeral, but he was not somehow prepared for the appearance of
a lady whom he knew to be a connection of Legard’s. After all, the
thing was business to him, pleasure to her--a very different affair, as
he reflected.
Mrs. Travis raised her head. In return for his bow he acquired the
knowledge that her sight varied with her desires. She evidently held to
the conviction that not to see was not to be seen, and held to it
firmly, with a slight deepening of the red in her cheeks, and a puffing
of her lips.
He smiled to himself, and rose gently from his seat. “_Cette chère
dame!_” he thought. He would return her lead. He knew that her departure
was fixed for the following day; he determined, therefore, to go into
Mentone and call upon her. In that way he would certainly see Jocelyn
alone. Upon reflection, he condoned Mrs. Travis’s appearance at the
tables.
He took train and went into Mentone. As he walked up from the station to
the hotel, picking his way carefully over the dusty road, a very correct
figure in grey clothes with a flower in his buttonhole, his heart began
to beat, and his breath to come a little fast. The subtle attraction
which Jocelyn had for him stirred his pulses, and shook his nerve, with
every step he took towards her. He had to stop at the entrance of the
hotel to steady himself before he went in.
CHAPTER XVII
It was the third day since Giles had left her on the Cornice Road, and
Jocelyn had not seen him since. She had been told of his wife’s sudden
death. It had seemed to her like a fable with no certain meaning in it;
but the news had left her strangely excited, full of fear and doubt,
with the feeling that she was, like a swimmer, out of her depth and
struggling in dark and uncertain waters. She longed wistfully for some
glimpse into the dim future. She felt a tremulous compassion for the
woman whose life had been so full of pain, whose end had been so sudden;
and with that compassion was mingled a sense of remorse, of bitter
regret that she had done her a great and unmerited wrong. During the
first days of her own humiliation there had been no room for that
feeling in the lonely stress of her spirit; now, when the tide of her
shame ebbed, when the unwitting cause of that shame slipped silently
and swiftly away from the reach of her secret resentment, this other
pain came. But, above all else, she had a restless yearning to see
Giles, to rest the burden of her grief and of her fear upon his
shoulders; to shake herself once more free from this nightmare of
whirling shadows and dark pitfalls, and step into the sunshine of life.
She felt that he could help her, and he alone.
As she moved softly about the room arranging flowers and books with
supple, slender fingers--Jocelyn’s fingers were always busy, moving
swiftly to their various ends--she thought for the hundredth time of the
wording of the note that was folded into her dress--
“Jacopo will have told you what has happened. I could not come
yesterday, nor to-day. I will be at the hotel to-morrow at half-past
four. I _must_ see you alone.--G. L.”
At half-past four! It was four now. The minutes seemed leaden-winged.
She wandered to the window, and stepped out on to the stone terrace
where the sun beat fiercely. She felt its fiery touch upon her face,
upon her arms and neck through the thin muslin of her dress, and her
spirits rose insensibly. Those were right who worshipped the Sun! It was
he who brought colour to the rose, song to the air, life to the blood!
He who sailed high in the heavens to warm and cherish when the world was
dark and dreary! She leaned against the window, looking up at the yellow
roses trailing above her head, and humming to herself.
Nielsen, whom the servant had shown into the room unannounced, stood
looking at her a long time. He was thinking that never in his life had
he seen anything prettier than the line of her slender, rounded throat,
and of her pointed chin thrust softly forward. Her lips were slightly
parted in the act of singing, but he could not hear her. The light went
out of her face as quickly as it had come; with a sigh she bent her
head, and moved restlessly back into the room.
Nielsen stepped forward; he had seen the bright look upon her face in
the streaming sunlight, the sudden cloud that passed over her eyes and
the droop of her mouth; and when she came to him with a smile and some
commonplace remark of greeting, he experienced a feeling of
discomfiture, a sense of having hit up against something hard and
impassable. What did he, with all his experience, know of women?--of
this girl, upon whose face he had seen a moment before the stamp of
life, and who veiled it from him impenetrably with a smile? What had he
come to see her for? To offer her a warning? To do it delicately and
diplomatically? Fool! when with the touch of her fingers upon his, cold
and light though it was, his head was going round! He saw that he had
come rather to tell her how he could never forget her, would follow her,
until some day or other she cared for him as he cared for her! The idea
that she was going away from him, out of his reach, that he would no
longer be able to come and see her daily, when he wished--was suddenly
and crushingly brought home to him, as he looked at her slender figure
in its soft, grey dress, and at the little head poised so erect and so
daintily upon it.
“Won’t you sit down?”
Again, the sense of being baffled, of encountering a barrier. Yes, he
would sit down, many thanks!
“And how is the dear aunt? And we shall lose you to-morrow, everything
that makes life endurable?” And so on, and so on, in purring tones
rolling his r’s. It was such a habit of his to talk, that he went on
uttering smooth commonplaces and looking unutterable things--feeling all
the time that he would give the world for a moment of silence in which
to steady himself, and find out exactly what he wished to say, and how
to say it.
Jocelyn had seated herself at her piano with her face half turned over
her shoulder towards him, and while she answered him her fingers touched
the notes silently. His eyes fastened on them, the swift, silent fingers
that seemed to be keeping him at bay.
It roused a sudden feeling of anger in him. He would not--was there
nothing in her he could touch, in those eyes that looked at him so
coldly? He stopped talking, breathing quickly--he felt quite out of
breath. A low chord, suddenly struck, vibrated softly through the room.
He rose half way from his seat with his hands stretched out to lay them
upon hers.
She began to speak. What was she saying? He sank back again.
“Mr. Nielsen, I want you to tell me about poor Mrs.--poor Irma’s death.
Jacopo told me you were there.”
“Ah! poor lady! a dreadful thing!” He looked at her face tense and
compassionate, and was doubtful of what he should tell her.
“But how did it happen? You _were_ there, weren’t you?” she said.
“Well, no! I was not exactly there at the time, you know. It so happened
that I came to call soon after she died. I was the first to find her.”
“But what was it? Why was it? It was so dreadfully sudden.”
“She died about three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, you know. It was
verry terrible--verry sad--the heart--” he stammered. Looking at the
white, sensitive face that hung upon his words, he had decided to lie
about that tragic ending, but it was not easy to do so to her, and he
stammered.
“Is that all?” The words were so incisive, the sentence so short that it
gave him no time.
“It was morphia,” he said with a sudden, overwhelming conviction that
lying was futile. “Poor lady! An overdose, don’t you know--she was in
the habit--”
“Morphia!” her voice took the word from his, and echoed it in a whisper,
and her eyes, large and dark, stared at him out of a face that was
suddenly very white and still.
“Yes, an overdose, you know, quite an accident--er-r--” for the life of
him he could not go on, with those frightened eyes staring into his.
There was silence, and he shifted his eyeglass methodically from one eye
to the other, because, being damp with perspiration, he could not see
through it. He tugged at his moustache--the girl’s face was so
tragically still and white.
A terrible thought had been stricken into Jocelyn’s mind--the thought of
suicide. What if she were the cause of this death--this overdose! It was
a dreadful--an inconceivable--thought! What if, knowing everything, Irma
had chosen this solution of the question! A murderess! The only motion
she made in the hideous turmoil of her spirit was to clasp her hands
together in her lap.
The sight of those interlacing fingers was very pitiful to Nielsen. He
saw that he had touched some spring of painful feeling, the depth of
which he could not sound. Why, in the name of God, had he not had the
grace to lie? His feelings were a strange jumble of disgust with
himself, perplexed pity, irritation that he could not read her feelings,
and an aching conviction that he was beyond the pale, and entered not at
all into the situation.
Jocelyn sat motionless, she would have given the world to be able to get
up and walk about the room, for swift motion of any sort, to free her
from the longing to scream that caught her by the throat, and made her
feel breathless and suffocated. Why did not this man go and leave her
alone? Alone with that thought! What was he staring at her for through
that idiotic glass? Did he think she was going to faint? She wished she
could. Why was she so tough that she was denied that relief?
She had an inclination to laugh wildly; she gave a little gasp. There
was the sound of a closing door, and the laugh died on her lips.
Nielsen, following the sudden eagerness in her eyes, turned, and saw
Legard coming in. He seemed taller than ever in his black clothes, and
his eyes looked straight past the Swede at Jocelyn.
Nielsen shot a quick glance at the girl. She stood waiting, her face was
changed--different to the face he knew; on it was a curious look that
baffled his comprehension, the eyes seemed to speak of entreaty, of
fear, and of a something unfathomable beyond. Ah! they were wonderful
eyes, wonderful! But they had forgotten his very existence.
He turned very pale, and rose from his chair, picking up his hat. He
bowed low over it and said--
“If you will excuse me--I am sure Monsieur Legard has much to say,
perhaps later--I may be permitted to bid you good-bye.” He moved slowly
to the window, and passed through it on to the terrace.
As he turned round to close the window after him, his immovable face,
pale and wrinkled in the glaring sunshine, looked in upon them with
weary, half-closed eyes. Behind that mask a consuming rage of jealousy
leapt up, and fought to find expression.
CHAPTER XVIII
Jocelyn remained standing where she was. Half-an-hour ago she would have
run to Giles and flung herself into his arms, now she stood and looked
at him, her hands clasped in front of her, waiting for the cloud of that
terrible thought to pass by and let a gleam of daylight through.
“Dear, what is it, are you ill?”
Neither his voice, low and tender, nor the look of love in his eyes, nor
the warm clasp of his hand upon her icy-cold fingers, were of any avail.
She drew her hands away from him and passed them over her brow, as if to
sweep aside her thoughts.
“Let us go out--I want air. I can’t breathe in here, come!” The words
were wild, but she was surprised at the even tones of her own voice. She
had thought, if she once opened her lips, she must scream. She took her
hat from the table and put it on, even glancing in the glass to set it
straight. Her face seemed to her very much the same as usual--that was
curious!
She led the way from the room, and into the hotel garden. Legard
followed, bewildered and heavy at heart. Jocelyn walked swiftly, taking
a little, stony path which ran winding upwards from the garden. Walls
hemmed it in, and it was rutted where the water coursed down it in the
heavy rains. It led to terraces of olive and almond trees sloping up the
hill. She stopped in the shade of an old tree; she felt giddy and faint,
and was glad to sit down. Giles threw himself beside her, waiting for
her to speak. The brown lizards chased each other among the stones.
Bees, hovering over the wild thyme, drummed softly with their wings; a
cicala churred harshly from a branch above, and from far away came the
faint, shrill strains of a goatherd’s pipe. A thin, brown haze of heat
hung over the white buildings of the town below, and the sunlight threw
delicate shadows from the trees on to the stone-strewn banks of rough
grass.
Presently Jocelyn raised her arm and rested it against the mossy stem of
the olive tree. She looked dazed, like one who had received a heavy
blow, and she kept glancing from side to side, as if trying to find the
way out of some unfamiliar place.
“When did Irma die?” she said suddenly.
Legard winced, he tried to answer steadily and without emotion, but
there was fear in his heart, fear of her reading that which lay between
him and his conscience.
“On Tuesday afternoon.”
“What did she die of, it was very sudden? Mr. Nielsen told me
that--that--she took an overdose of morphia.” She spoke with hesitation,
but hurriedly, as if afraid to give him time to deceive her. “Was it
true?” she said, without looking at him.
“Yes,” muttered Giles. He also looked away. The mind of each of them was
fixed solely upon its own grim terror, neither saw the spectre imaged in
the thoughts of the other.
“She knew--everything?” Jocelyn said. It sounded like the expression of
a conviction rather than a question.
“I don’t know--perhaps--I think so,” and he looked at her swiftly with a
catch in his breath, for the spectre of her thoughts had peeped out at
him, and he was very frightened.
“Look at me, darling!” he said pleadingly.
She looked at him, and across his mind fell the shadow of what lay
before him.
“Good God! what are you thinking?”
“I am thinking,” said Jocelyn simply, “that I killed her--that’s all.”
It was not her words that frightened him so much as her face. There was
a dead look upon it, a dreadful, weary look, of something more than
ordinary despair, of something fundamental, the expression of that
hopeless taint of inherited fatalism, which he recognised dimly, and
feared, as children fear the dark. For he could not comprehend it, his
whole nature revolted--it was the point at which their individualities
diverged. _His_ instinct was to fight for his happiness, to fight for it
with pain and trouble--_hers_ to fold her hands, and let it drift to her
or away.
It flashed across his mind that he had seen the same face somewhere,
graven in stone, dead, immutable, the face of an image. Where, he could
not say, but he had seen it. The thought frightened him the more. He was
like a man fighting a nightmare, knowing all the time that it was
something unreal, and suffering just the same. He felt that somewhere
there must be the words, the words to break the despair of her face, to
bring it back to life, to wrest the shadows from below the brown eyes
that stared before them, large, lustreless, and pitifully hopeless, if
only he could find them. Every man knows that feeling, that desperate
search for just the right words, and sometimes they do not exist. He
wracked his reason.
“My darling,” he cried, “it’s not true. Do you hear me, it’s not
true--don’t yield to such a feeling, it’s dreadful. Fight against it,
for God’s sake.”
He took her in his arms, she lay passively in them. He kissed her lips,
her eyes, her hair--she yielded soft and unresponsive. Her face never
changed.
“It was an accident. I know it, she would never have committed suicide!
never! She had strong views about that--she was too religious,
besides--” The fatuity of his words choked his utterance. Words! words!
of what use were words against the whole bent of a nature? and he
clenched his hands in despair. He would have given anything to penetrate
for one moment the mystery of her being, to enter in, and share its
isolation, to know the very springs of its instincts, that he might
learn how to fight them.
In the stillness of the waning day he sat with his head in his hands,
thinking, always thinking. The bees droned their dreamy song, and the
world was flooded with a mellow, evening light.
It was no help to him that he was fighting an unreality, it only
maddened him, made him desperate. In some moments if a man be
tender-hearted, everything else goes by the board. He could not bear the
sight of her suffering, he felt that he _must_ pierce through that
terrible calm, make her _feel_, it seemed to him a matter of life or
death. He saw that there was one chance, suicidal and desperate, a
chance that might mean the destruction of her love for him. He would
have to take it, he could not sit there looking at the weary despair of
that beloved face, feeling the tragedy she would carry away in her
heart. He _must_ tell her the truth. Half truths were no good. He must
show her the whole, naked, sordid truth. The truth which he had intended
should go down with him to the grave. Perhaps she would believe that.
Two lizards, meeting suddenly, began to fight furiously in the sunlight
within three paces of them; he noticed them, and wondered dully which
would win. Then he began to speak in a low matter of fact voice.
If he must tell her, he thought it should be in a way that would carry
conviction. The sun glared into his eyes, and he pulled his hat low upon
his forehead, with a feeling that he would, at all events, hide from her
the foreboding of defeat that was in them.
“Are you listening to me?” he said.
She bent her head, and he went on--
“I’ll tell you the truth. I never meant to tell you, but I must, because
of this dreadful idea you have in your head.” Something clicked in his
throat, but he threw up his head and that freed his voice. “D’you
remember my leaving you on the road last Tuesday? I was going back
then--to see--if I had killed her.”
Jocelyn shivered and made a motion as if she would have stopped him, but
he went on speaking fast and evenly.
“That afternoon about three o’clock I went into her room. She was
asleep--you know she took morphia every day to make her sleep. Every
day, when she woke, she had to take a dose of another medicine, I’ve
seen it dozens of times. She used to put the morphia under her cushions
before going to sleep, for fear of taking it by mistake, I’ve seen that
too. She always woke dazed, you see; she knew the danger of taking the
wrong; I remember her telling me of it once.” His voice sounded to
himself brutally matter of fact. He stared straight in front of him,
plucking up the stiff grass by handfuls. “By some accident that day she
left the morphia bottle on the table by her side, and”--he cleared his
throat--“the other medicine wasn’t there.” Even the humming of the bees
seemed to him to have ceased; he must speak the words into the silence
of a breathless world. The lizards still fought in the sunshine.
“I--I saw what would happen--I knew it would kill her. I did nothing, I
walked out of the room--I left her to die. Then I met you--you
remember?” He forced himself to look at her face. There was no sign in
it that she had even heard him.
“Don’t you see?” he cried, “_I_ killed her--” And he thought, “Have I
gone through this for nothing?”
If she would only speak--move--do something!
“Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes.” The yellow sunlight played upon her face through the leaves, but
its expression was unchanged.
He had a sudden, sickening foretaste of the knowledge that the real
suffering of man must be worked through in an isolation grim as the
grave itself. He had robbed himself for ever of any claim to her
respect, to her love, and--for no use. He wondered that she did not
shrink from him; he would have rather she did--it would have shown him
that her will was still struggling for existence. “Jocelyn,” he cried,
“for God’s sake, say something.”
“You did it for me,” she said at last, “it is all the same, you see; she
died because of our sin, what does it matter whether it was by her own
act, or by yours, or by mine? The shadow will always be
there--always--always between us, setting us apart.”
It was a relief to hear her voice, even though the words were dreadful
to hear. He got upon his feet, and paced to and fro, his face lined and
twisted with thought, his lips quivering below the line of his dark
moustache. The lizards, always fighting, darted between the stones.
“What is to be done, then?” he said, stopping in front of her, his tall,
black figure between her and the sunlight.
“You must let me go, and forget me,” she said.
“My God! I can’t,” and he threw himself at her feet, his hands clasped
on her knees, his eyes fixed on hers with a wild, despairing entreaty.
“Jocelyn--darling--I can’t--I _can’t_!” and the goatherd’s pipe sent
back a faint echo to that bitter cry.
She shivered, and her eyes contracted as if with unbearable pain; then
she put out her hand, and touched his hair, it calmed him at once, but
he clung to her.
“If you love me,” she said in a half choked voice, “be brave. I _can’t_
bear any more. I can’t face it--I must hide. I must go away, and hide
from it.”
“My darling, you promised not to shut me away.”
“I can’t help it, I can’t _share_ suffering, it’s not in me. I must bear
it by myself--I know it.”
He would have cried again in words of entreaty and reasoning, but she
stopped him, rising to her feet.
“Give me an address, I will write to you. I promise to let you know what
becomes of me.”
“You promise to tell me truly of yourself--everything--” his voice
failed him. There was a film over his eyes, and he staggered from
giddiness as he got up.
“Yes--everything,” she said very low, and the words seemed hardly to
escape the barrier of her lips.
“Am I never to see you, never? My God! that is hard--”
“I _must_ be away from everything that reminds. I must hide. I _will_
forget. Can’t you see that I shall go mad? I _must_ have time.” Her
voice rose hysterically for the first time, and she twisted her hands.
“Yes, sweet! I know, I know--” He soothed her like a child, and, with
the need for that soothing, he felt some strength returning to him. He
knew that he must use it quickly before it left him again.
“I will send you my address to-night,” he said, “I shall go away
to-morrow. You promise to write. Go, dear, I won’t come with you.”
He caught her suddenly in his arms, and held her face to his, kissing it
passionately. The tears ran down his face and wetted her cheeks--her
eyes were dry.
“God keep you--remember I am always yours, to do as you please with.”
She did not speak. Her mournful eyes were lifted for a moment to his,
the shadow of a smile quivered pitifully on the curve of her lips, and
she was gone from his arms.
He flung himself upon the ground, and buried his face in the grass.
_PART III_
CHAPTER XIX
It was the last day of March in the following year. A day when spring
drew its breath even in London streets. The evening was drawing in, but
the daylight still crept colourless into a pretty room high up in some
mansions overlooking the river. Jocelyn Ley sat in front of the
fireplace, her elbows resting upon her knees and her chin sunk in her
hands. Between her arms a grey kitten lay on its back, blinking its
dubious eyes, and clawing the air vaguely with one paw. The spitting
flames of a wood fire leaped joyfully in a deepening blaze, and there
was a scent in the room, sweet and pungent, of burnt pastilles.
At a little table, where she could catch a full light from the bay
window, Mrs. Travis bent over the skeleton of a garment.
“If I take it in in the neck, I must let it out under the arms, and that
means taking the sleeves out,” she was saying plaintively.
Jocelyn, from her chair, murmured, “Poor dear!” She always treated her
aunt with complacent tenderness, as if she were some kind of elderly
child. At the same time, if there were anything to be decided upon, she
invariably deferred to her opinion, not from respect, but from an
inherent dislike of making herself unpleasant--which her aunt by no
means shared. Jocelyn was always plastically under the domination of the
nearest personality.
“That comes of not being in Paris,” she went on. “You _know_ you can’t
get a jacket in London for that price, which doesn’t want altering. I’ll
do it for you presently when the puss is asleep.”
Mrs. Travis, turning the garment this way and that, and screwing up her
eyes, broke into fragmentary praise of Parisian dressmakers. They were
so smart--so cheap, considering--so _chic_, pronouncing it so as to
leave upon the mind an impression of yellow fluff and broken egg-shell.
Jocelyn stroked the kitten’s furry chest softly.
“Why aren’t we in Paris?” she sighed. “I can’t think what made you take
this flat for so long! Chelsea’s nice _for_ London, but I’m so sick of
London!”
Mrs. Travis sat back in her chair with a faint rustling of silk and a
creaking of stays. She said “Oh!” in a funny little voice, fidgeted her
hands once or twice on the table, and then folded them over the garment
upon her lap. She was not really thick-skinned. If people differed or
found fault with her, she suffered severely, until she had time to see
that her own view was the right one. She never admitted herself in the
wrong. There was no credit due to her for that, she had simply never
learned how. Things might seem against her--in fact, they frequently
did--but she was always inwardly convinced that she was in the right. If
it had appeared to her that the world was flat, she would have admitted
the imparted knowledge that it was round, with a complacent “Yes--it may
be so,” but she would have known it to be flat all the same.
She had a queer method of argument too. She would admit everything with
a tentative “Yes,” propose some remedy that wildly exceeded necessity;
and when this was rejected she would fall back upon things as they were.
She had a really fine turn of obstinacy, bone-obstinacy. As to the after
effect upon her of argument, there was none.
A short and significant silence followed, while her skin hardened.
“You know I haven’t got any money,” she began at last in a smoothly
injured voice. “I can’t bear owing anything. I wasn’t brought up to it,
_and I can’t do it_.” Her green eyes seemed to deprecate the possibility
of disbelief, but there was nothing except the back of Jocelyn’s head to
deprecate, as she leant forward in her chair, and gazed at the fire with
moody eyes.
The flames licked the logs, and an occasional red spark darted forth,
trying to reach her outstretched feet. The kitten purred softly.
Jocelyn’s silence was discomfiting to Mrs. Travis; her eloquence felt
faint for lack of contradiction. She began to fan herself slowly with a
newspaper and to get a little red.
“You should think more of other people,” she began again. “You know I
can’t afford to go abroad. That horrid place has ruined me. I’ve never
had any money, to spare, since.” When Mrs. Travis lost all her money,
her Puritan education enabled her to see that gambling was
immoral--until she had some more. Just now she had some more, but not
quite enough--a tight place for her principles.
“It’s not like it used to be there. They try to get everything they can
out of one. _I don’t think it’s right._” These words with her conveyed
the acme of disapproval. She began to enlarge upon the possibility of
corrupt croupiers, weighted tables, pre-arranged cards--devices with
refutation writ large upon their faces--but very dear to her. She pouted
her lips as she spoke, her hands moved restlessly, and her green eyes
kept glancing from the back of Jocelyn’s head to her own lap--signs that
she was agitated. She ended by declaring with decision that she would
never go near the place again.
“I am glad of that,” said Jocelyn quietly. She frowned, as she gazed at
the dull glow playing fitfully on the charring logs. There was a minute
or two of silence. A hundred memories were thronging in the girl’s
mind, ghosts of long hours when the sun had blazed, mocking the torment
of her spirit, when the star-flecked vault of the heavens had looked
down, cold and pitiless, upon her shame and misery. She put her hands
over her face.
Presently there came a sudden, uneasy creak from the chair where Mrs.
Travis was sitting--one would not have ventured to predict its
meaning--and she began to speak.
“You’ve not been looking very well lately, my dear,” she said with a
little tentative cough. “I think perhaps we ought to go south for
Easter. ‘Monte’ is nice, then, just for a week.”
Jocelyn did not speak for a minute. She could not control her voice, and
it trembled when she answered--
“You can go, of course, if you want to, I shall stay here. I _hate_ the
place.” She got up. “I thought you said just now you were never going
there again!” As she spoke, she walked across to the window. Throwing it
open, she stood leaning against it, looking out over the river.
Mrs. Travis sniffed subduedly with surprise and anger. It was unlike
her niece to oppose her, it was unlike her to speak with emotion. She
collected herself in her chair. On this occasion, it must be confessed,
it took her while a person might count ten to see that she had not
contradicted herself. Then she rose from her seat, the uncompleted
garment in her hand. Throwing her feet out well in front of her, she
walked to the door, an imposing figure in black silk.
“It was entirely on your account,” she said with dignity, opening the
door, and going out with a rustle of offended petticoats.
Jocelyn, left alone, shrugged her shoulders. The grey kitten had
followed her across the room, and was rubbing its arched back against
her dress. She stooped, and picked it up.
She felt very lonely. The soft west wind driving the broken sky over the
grey, untroubled river, was sweet with the mysterious scent of growing
things, of the sap in the trees, of the earth after rain, of the flow of
life; the spring scent that seems to tell us to begin again, stirs the
blood to vague, unimaged longing, grips our hearts with a sweet aching.
It was the meeting of the lights--the buildings and chimneys loomed from
across the river like shadowy monsters, peering into the dusk with
reddening eyes. The lighted lamps on the steadfast bridges seemed to her
to fling their greetings from one to the other, daring in linked chains
the gathering gloom. She counted three barges, huge, amphibious beasts,
creeping, black and sluggish, up river against the ebbtide. The dull
hoot of a distant steamer, plying westwards, was carried now and again
to her ears on the wind. The streets murmured ceaselessly from the back,
roosting sparrows twittered sleepily in the trees, and from the square
tower of the old church came a chime of Lenten bells. She leaned over
the balcony. The bare boughs of the trees in the garden below swayed
slowly. One by one the lamps of the embankment flared up; and beyond,
under the drift of the restless sky, under the breath of the homeless
wind, the river flowed, grey and untroubled, to the sea. The river, grey
with the knowledge of the meanness and tragedy of life, untroubled in
its strength and in its constancy; a philosopher to whom men confide all
secrets, the recoil of the fainting spirit, the stirring of great
endeavours; an image of human life, unceasing in the ebbing and flowing
tides of surface emotion, whereon the traffic of living shifts to and
fro, resistless in its unseen stream which is ever compelled to that
mysterious sea where truth lies hidden, where life ends and life begins.
Tears started into the girl’s eyes. The vague solemnity of the evening,
the soft breath of spring in the air, bewildered her. She had a longing
to know what it all meant, to _feel_ the life stirring in that width of
darkened water, in the flashing, yellow lights, in the wind that fanned
her flushed face. She stretched out her arms with a sudden movement, and
thought, “Ah! not to be so terribly alone!” Surely, all that she saw,
felt, heard, could give her some companionship!
The wind fanned and passed her by, the lamps shone with a hard light,
the river flowed cold and relentless. No truth, no life, no solace! She
was alone! She turned away with an aching, as if some one had struck her
in the chest.
She sat down at her piano, and began to play, a rhapsody of Brahms. The
chords rang full and true under her slender fingers, the passionate
throb of unending life seemed to beat in them. It was as though Nature
were singing a song of full rejoicing, in the echoes of lofty mountains,
in the rustling of yellow cornfields, in the medley of river torrents,
and the hush of the unstained sea.
She played with her head bent a little forward, and with parted lips,
and her dark eyes seemed trying to reach, beyond the music of the notes,
a secret, mysterious and unfathomable. She was lost in the melody which
swelled quivering into the room. When she had played the last bar, she
left her hands nerveless and cold upon the keys. Suddenly, she bent her
head down upon them in an uncontrollable burst of weeping. It seemed to
her that all around the pulse of life was throbbing, in herself alone it
stood still....
A long ten months of a struggle to forget, spent in the daily society of
a lady, kind-hearted, but to whom an inscrutable Providence had given as
much spiritual insight as to a sack of potatoes, had told upon her
strength and her nerves. She had had no support except in her own
indomitable pride. Of acquaintances she had many; of friends, from the
wandering manner of her life, few, and those not at hand. Religion was
an empty word with her, she had never come into contact with it. She
had, indeed, a love for art, but neither energy nor strength of will to
study consistently.
From time to time she gave herself up to music, working from morning
till night at Brahms, Schumann, Chopin, or Bach to the great discomfort
of her aunt, who fidgeted in her seat at Brahms or Chopin, well-nigh
howled at Bach, and would plaintively murmur requests for “The Bee’s
Wedding,” upon which she had been brought up. She went to as many
concerts as she could, and even once persuaded Mrs. Travis to accompany
her. That lady sat through a magnificent performance with resigned
placidity, saying from time to time “Very nice” in a drooping voice; and
as they came out, gathered her black silk skirts vigorously in both
hands, and stepping, large and brisk, through the crowd, remarked with
relief, “There’ll be just time to call at Louise’s about my new bonnet!”
Jocelyn had never the heart to ask her to go again. All the same, a few
days afterwards Mrs. Travis had suddenly passed a criticism upon an
intricate passage of the music--a criticism which just missed being
masterly. An astounding lady!
At first, it seemed long ago now, when memory was roused in her, Jocelyn
had shrunk from the violent despair of her own moods; they were followed
by days of headache and exhaustion, when nothing seemed to matter at
all, except to feel well. Then would come days, and even weeks, when she
would fling herself into the life of the passing moment, and almost
forget; but always there seemed a blight over life--nothing, not even
music, had any meaning; everything passed her by and left her untouched,
with a sense of incompleteness. She recalled the old days, when each
event and each pleasure had been, as it were, stamped with its meaning
in large surface letters, and wondered.
She had kept her promise to Giles. She wrote once a month, giving him a
bare chronicle of her movements and doings, at a great cost to herself;
and yet, perhaps for that very reason, she would not willingly have
given up writing. She would think of him sometimes with pity, often
with longing, again with a wayward and inconsistent anger.
Why did he not write?
She had begged him in her first letter not to answer; and he had obeyed.
The pessimism of her native distrust always besieged her.
He could not care--no man would care for so long! She wanted him, and
she did not want him. For the last month she had not written; she had no
longer those violent moods of despair, but she had felt too profoundly
discouraged.
She had grown thinner and paler, and her face was hardly ever without
its look of defeat. Her aunt’s personality seemed altogether too much
for her in these days; she had a feeling of suffocation and of great
loneliness.
She would sit at the window sometimes for hours, watching the river,
longing to get away upon it to the sea, far away to the East, to
countries where no one knew her, where the sun was bright, and she might
begin her life again. At other times she knew that even _that_ could not
give her what she wanted, or fill the vague longing within her. The
winter months in London had been dreary and terrible, but her heart had
never ached as now, when the spring wind stirred, and the sap coursed in
the budding trees....
Presently she lifted her face, flushed and tear-stained. She went to the
glass and arranged her hair--she had a horror of public emotion. Her
aunt would be coming back! She took up a piece of work, and began
passing the needle mechanically in and out--it was almost too dark to
see.
The door was opened. She expected to hear her aunt’s smoothly offended
voice, but the servant announced--
“Mr. Nielsen!”
CHAPTER XX
Jocelyn rose from her seat, stretching out her hands, as Nielsen came
slowly forward from the door. The two peered at each other in the dusk.
The servant, going out, turned up the light, and it leaped suddenly
forth from the twisted brackets on the walls upon the man’s square
figure, and the girl’s flushed and smiling face.
Nielsen bowed low over her hand with his elaborate courtesy. There was
an air of prosperity about him. He was tightly buttoned into a smart,
grey overcoat, and wore an orchid in his buttonhole. He carried in his
hand a hat of exceptional glossiness, to which a mourning band only
succeeded in giving an additional air of festivity. His face was rather
fatter, his moustache seemed, if anything, tawnier. His eyeglass was
carefully screwed into his eye, and he regarded Jocelyn through it with
an expression of admiring benevolence.
“I am verry fortunate! verry fortunate,” he kept repeating, purring his
r’s and spitting his t’s. “What a prretty room! How well you are
looking!”
Her face was burning, and her eyes dark and soft after the flow of
tears.
“I’m very glad to see you again,” she said. “Come and sit down.” She
took the hat out of his hand, put it on the table, and turned a chair
for him to the fire, talking all the time. In the restless and excited
state of her nerves, he was a godsend to her.
“And how is the dear aunt?” he said, with his old pathetic emphasis.
Jocelyn began to laugh. She could not help it--she had been waiting for
the words. She struggled with her laughter and laughed the more. Nielsen
looked at her rather puzzled, and then began to laugh too. He had not
the least idea why, except that she looked so charming, with the bright
colour in her cheeks, with her brown eyes dancing, and her white teeth
showing as she swayed gracefully backwards and forwards in her chair.
“I am so sorry!” she gasped. “What _is_ the matter with me? Auntie’s
very well, she always is, you know. Now tell me all about yourself,
every little last thing.”
“_Place aux dames_, my dear young lady! You will have a grreat deal of
news to tell me, I am sure.”
“Oh no! I’ve _no_ news, except that I’m bored--terribly bored with
London. Now come, begin! First of all--how is the ‘system’?”
She leant forward, in an attitude of correct listening with a perfectly
grave face.
Nielsen spread his fingers, and then gave his moustache a prolonged
twist.
“Ah! _rien ne va plus!_ That is all over,” he said mournfully, with a
little shake of his head. “I am quite lost without it. _Mais que
voulez-vous?_ My uncle dies--I told you of him--my uncle--did I
not?--ah! the good old fellow! He leaves me a little--but yes, a little
fortune. Can one go on playing a ‘system’? One has one’s brread and
butter.” He spread his fingers again. “It is inconceivable, don’t you
know.”
“That’s very good news, I’m _so_ glad!”
Nielsen shrugged his shoulders gently, his head a little on one side.
“It gives me the good fortune to see you again,” he said, “but for the
rrest, I am not sure. It was a _verry_ good ‘system’; and now, you know,
I have nothing to do. I am not used to that.”
Jocelyn smiled, the death of the “system” amused her. “I don’t think you
will be idle long,” she said, “you are busy by nature.”
Nielsen bowed.
“And you?” he said. “Where have you been all this long time? _Mon Dieu!_
Is it possible it is not yet a year?”
“We came to London first. Then in August we went to Whitby, and stayed
six weeks, and got shrivelled by the winds. Then we were in Paris a
month, and we’ve been here ever since November. How long have you been
in England?”
“I arrived yesterday. I have been in Stockholm. One of my cousins had
got into a--what do you call it--a hole, _une affaire de cœur_. I had a
grreat deal of trouble to extrract him.” He talked of his cousin as if
he had been a tooth, and soon found himself giving her an account of
delicate matters in which a woman figured discreditably. Jocelyn was so
sympathetic a listener, and so devoid of prudery, that insensibly one
told her almost anything. She inspired a sense of comradeship.
He finished, however, by saying: “I suppose I should not have told you
this yarrn. It has been on my mind a grreat deal, you see, so you must
forgive me.”
At this moment tea arrived, followed by Mrs. Travis. She had changed her
costume for a robe having a breastplate of many colours, and came in
smiling affably above it. She greeted Nielsen with a smoothly dignified
cordiality. She managed at the same time, by refusing to look at her
niece above the waist, to convey to her a sense of unforgiven injury.
For a large lady she was inimitably quick of expression--she never
wasted time. She began to talk to Nielsen of old days and mutual
friends; no allusion was made to the Legards, but in the middle of the
conversation Jocelyn rose, and, on the pretence of drawing the blinds,
went to the window. She dreaded to hear Giles’s name, fearing for her
self-command.
It was almost dark now. Through the dim shapes of the tree branches the
black water was seen spangled with the reflections of lights. The deep
rumble of a heavy cart absorbed all other sounds. The wind had dropped,
and a soft grey haze was creeping downwards from the clouds.
Nielsen came over presently, and stood beside her.
“That is verry interresting,” he said. “Nothing is plain except the
black water beyond. Ah! it is like the attitude of our minds looking out
into life, don’t you know.”
Jocelyn was faintly surprised; it was a remark unlike what she knew of
him, but before she could answer he was saying good-bye.
“Good night! my dear young lady. It is verry late. If you will permit
me, I will say _au revoir_. I shall be at your disposal whenever you
wish for an escort. I hope you will take pity upon me now that I have
lost my occupation. I should like to see some pictures, and hear some
music again; it is so long since I have heard any good music. Some day I
trust you will come with the dear aunt and dine with me. I am staying at
the Grrand, don’t you know--the cooking might be better, but then in
London!”
He spread his fingers and departed.
* * * * *
During the weeks that followed they saw a good deal of Nielsen. He
generally contrived to present himself, by arrangement or otherwise, in
the course of the day. He appeared to divide his time between visiting
them, and running all over London in search of old acquaintances whom he
had known in the days when, as Bohemian and journalist, he had
maintained a hand-to-mouth existence. He had lived in London for several
years; he had shoals of these acquaintances, and the larger number of
them, from the tales which he confided to Jocelyn, seemed to have holes
in their personalities which required patching. He would get as far as
the holes in his confidences, indeed he would enlarge upon them
pathetically, but it was only by inference that she gathered the
patches. The patching, moreover, was not confined to money transactions.
He had a knack, in the service of other people, of rushing in where
angels feared to tread.
Upon one occasion, when they had been lunching with him at a
distinguished restaurant, they were mildly astounded by the waiter, who
brought them coffee, touching their host gently upon the shoulder.
Nielsen had stared at the man for a short time in a gradually dissolving
indignation, risen abruptly from his seat, shaken him warmly by the
hand, and retired with him into a corner of the room, where an animated
conversation had ensued. He had presently come back to them, to say with
his customary smooth languor--
“I am _so_ sorry, don’t you know. A dear old frriend of mine--poor
fellow!--he has had grreat misfortunes; and here _figurez vous?_--here!
he is verry badly trreated. If you will excuse me a minute?”
A few seconds later, they had a glimpse of him in perspective through
the open door, twirling his moustache, while he held a button of the
proprietor’s coat and talked to him evidently for his good. The only
words that faintly reached their ears sounded suspiciously like--“damned
scoundrrel, don’t you know?”
He rejoined them, perfectly suave and apologetic, finished his coffee
with an air of exhaustion, and paid the bill. As they left the room the
proprietor bowed before them low and obsequious. And yet, if a cabman
drove over his toes, or a crossing-sweeper bespattered him with mud, the
chances were that he would apologise to them for being in the way.
Jocelyn had a much kindlier feeling for him than she had had in the old
days. His companionship took her out of herself. She brooded less,
regained much of her spirits. She could not shake off the feeling of
being alone, of being lost in a forest of uncompanionable trees, but the
fear became more shadowy--less substantial.
They went about a good deal by themselves. Jocelyn had always been, both
by nature and education, unconventional in such matters, and now a kind
of recklessness possessed her. Mrs. Travis indeed had a high sense of
the proprieties, but she had a higher sense of comfort; she did not care
at all for music or pictures, not much for theatres, so she contented
herself and salved her conscience with those entertainments where one
ate.
As for Nielsen, he had expanded with prosperity. In his relations with
Jocelyn, he seemed to have more time, no longer any reason to cramp his
emotions into a small space. He found it pleasant to play with the
sensation of being alone in the field--with a newly-born feeling of
comradeship. Also, he was always beset with a sense of enigma, of
something in the girl which had not formerly been there--in an
impersonal sort of way he felt he would like to find out what it was;
just as, when he was a small boy, he had cut open his toys to see what
was inside. It would have been wrong to say he was not in love with her,
he was--but the attitude of his mind was leisurely.
One day they were driving down Sloane Street on their way to a theatre.
At the edge of the pavement, as they passed, a shop assistant in an
apron and grey flannel shirt sleeves was twirling a red-bristled mop. If
his life had depended on it, his puckered visage could not have
expressed a more concentrated emotion. Jocelyn plucked Nielsen’s sleeve:
“Look what a limited thing the human face is!” she said, with a sudden
little shiver. “If that man had committed a murder he couldn’t look more
dreadful, and he’s only twisting a mop!” The hansom whirled close past
the man with the sound of frequent hoofs and jingled bell, and Nielsen
only had a glimpse of a momentarily suspended mop, and a pale,
expressionless visage. Having missed the effect, he looked at his
companion’s face instead as she leaned forward in the cab. It was very
white, and the brows were drawn together as if she were in sudden pain.
He had a gleam of recollection, and for the first time since seeing her
again, all the old, painful sense of a barrier between them.
Jocelyn looked at him.
“Ah!” she said, with sudden inspiration, “you are thinking you would
like to read my thoughts, to know what’s behind the mask, but you never
will, you see. We’re all alone--always alone--aren’t we?”
She spoke quietly enough, rather like a child asking for information,
but somehow he had the impression that she was frightened. He put one of
his gloved hands soothingly upon hers. It was the first time he had
touched her except in the exchange of ordinary greeting, and he was
surprised and confused by the sudden vehemence with which she snatched
her hand away, and folding her arms, leant back in her corner of the
cab, almost as if he had struck her.
He said nothing--he had nothing to say. She was as gentle and friendly
to him as usual all the rest of the afternoon.
CHAPTER XXI
Upon one Sunday afternoon a few weeks later, Jocelyn made an expedition
with Nielsen to Watts’s Studio in the Melbury Road. It was one of the
last days of April. There was a soft grey sky, lit every now and then
with watery gleams of sun. They walked across Kensington Gardens, where
the trees were full of young, green foliage, and the earth damp with the
last of April showers. The birds were calling all round them.
Jocelyn was in one of her most vivid moods. As was usual with her when
in high spirits, words rippled from her lips in a way quite
irresponsible and very charming. She walked briskly with a springing
step, as straight as a dart, her small head thrown slightly back between
her shoulders, her eyes dancing and a smile on her lips. She always
dressed in a manner peculiar to her own desires, yet she never seemed
behind the times--a problem for analytical dressmakers. To-day she had
had the whim to put on a black dress, with some creamy lace round the
neck and in the front of the bodice. Thus attired and with a black hat,
she appealed irresistibly to Nielsen’s sense of the fitness of things.
Her small face seemed to gleam out of its black and white setting like a
jewel. He squared his figure as he walked, and held his head up with a
feeling of pride.
In the Studio groups of people stood, in a subdued light, discussing the
pictures in low tones. The spirit of allegory stared out upon them from
the walls. Imagination laid a spell upon the eye, and upon the tongue.
Jocelyn’s face had become suddenly grave and earnest. The brilliancy
went out of her brown eyes, they grew profound, dark, and reverent; her
impressionable, artistic nature was at once under the master’s
influence. She did not, indeed, lose her sense of criticism, her
discrimination, but she seemed to have become in immediate sympathy with
the painter’s views and aims, judging him, as it were, from his own
standpoint. Nielsen, on the other hand, though by no means unimpressed,
retained his own point of view. With his head a little upon one side,
and his hand caressing his moustache, he appeared to discuss with
himself the merits of each picture in an adjusted see-saw of _pro_ and
_con_. For a few minutes they became separated, and when Nielsen came
back to her side, he found her standing before the wonderful picture of
Paolo and Francesca. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her face
was very still, and there were tears in her eyes.
Nielsen said nothing, but stood and looked at the picture too.
He had never seen it before. The tragedy in it arrested him--the
measureless tragedy of that man and woman whirled through space in the
resistless rush of a linked unrest--the unspeakable, compassionate
anguish on the man’s lips, the undying love in his shadowed eyes, the
suffering, and the eternal, wistful faith of the woman’s face. If ever
the truth of life has been revealed in art, surely it is in that
picture. There, is all the joy of life, and all its suffering, endless
motion, and triumphant love.
Nielsen experienced a kind of indignation--it was unpleasantly
disturbing. He swallowed a lump in his throat and turned away abruptly,
he did not care to look at it too long. It was a relief to hear a man
behind him remark to a woman that the “glass” was going down. After all,
those were the things that mattered, luckily, more than a hundred dismal
pictures. The “glass” was going down! That was infinitely satisfactory.
He put his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, and worked them
gently up and down. He felt much better. Then he wiped his eyeglass, and
looked at Jocelyn.
She was still standing in front of the picture, looking as if she were
going to faint. All his indignation returned. He went and got her a
chair, put it down with its back to the picture, and made her sit in it.
His eyes glowed angrily, and he twisted his moustache fiercely. Then he
expressed his feelings--
“I should like to get that Monsieur Watts, and hang him on the walls of
his own studio as a--a--pr-recept.” When he had caught the word, he
hissed it from under his moustache.
“I consider it is quite indecent, don’t you know--the--the--confounded
picture has made you ill.”
A rush of colour had come into Jocelyn’s cheeks, and, as she got up from
her chair, she said--
“It’s very stupid of me! Don’t abuse the picture, please, I love it.
It’s only coming into this hot room after the walk. I’m all right now.”
She insisted on going round the studio again, and even upon discussing
the merits of the various pictures, but they both avoided the “Paolo and
Francesca,” and Nielsen knew by the tone of her voice that she was not
herself.
On the way home in a cab, she hardly spoke at all, and leant back gazing
straight in front of her. Nielsen became garrulous; he did not in the
least understand what was the matter, but he considerately wished by
chatter to divert her thoughts.
“Prrogress, civilisation!” he said, spreading his fingers out of the cab
into an inattentive space, and bending forward with puckered eyes, “Ah!
The ‘artist!’ He is nowhere. It is all ‘the man of action,’ don’t you
know. He leads the way--he is the cause. The other fellow is only the
effect, you see; he exists because there is somebody there already to
hold him out his brread and butter. Look at the Romans! Ah! There you
have the rreal Philistine. But look at his civilisation; look at his
rroads, look at his baths, he--wăshed! They were men of action, and they
held the brread and butter in their hands, don’t you know, for the other
fellows to come and eat. Look at this country! Here you have more
frreedom, more comfort, more justice than anywhere else that I have
been; and yet you are barbarous men of action, don’t you know. Not one
in a hundred of you has any sense of form or colour, but you manage to
have as much art and as much music and literature, on the whole, as any
other country. It is all a case of brread and butter, you see. You can
pay the--how do you say it--the piper, so you call the tune.”
Jocelyn shook her head gently and said, “There are two sides to that.”
“Certainly, my dear young lady, there are two sides to every
question. I am quite willing to hear the other side--but to me
music--pictures--books, they are all frrills, charrming frrills. They
don’t begin till the garment is completed. They rrise out of leisure,
and there is _not_ any leisure, don’t you see, until there is alrready a
civilisation. After all, a man must eat--that comes first.” He nodded
his head mournfully, as if the fact were painful to him.
But all his efforts to draw her into argument were of no avail; the
drive ended silently, and he left her at the door of the Mansions. He
walked away slowly eastwards, looking absently at the grey water running
through the dark arches of the bridge, and every now and then shaking
his head gravely.
Jocelyn climbed the two flights of stairs to the flat, and let herself
in with her key. She went straight to her bedroom, the thought of her
aunt’s society at that moment was intolerable to her, and she muffled
her footsteps as she passed the drawing-room.
She took off her hat and gloves, and flung herself into a chair in front
of the empty fireplace. She sat there for some minutes, rocking herself
to and fro, with her hands crossed in her lap.
She was haunted by that picture, its endless whirlwind of motion, its
anguish. In the face of Paolo something reminded her of Giles. It seemed
to her that she read in the picture, for herself and for him, the cruel
denial of rest, the resistless decree of an eternal punishment through
immeasurable space.
She sprang to her feet, and paced to and fro the length of her room,
pressing her hands to her throbbing temples. After a time, the soft
monotony of her own footsteps on the carpet soothed her; she paused in
front of the window, and flung it open. The air was sweet and warm, and
there was a faint sound of raindrops plashing gently on the young leaves
of the trees. The church clock was striking “five.” She shut her eyes
and listened--another and another echoed the refrain, till the world
seemed full of a wistful chiming. It ceased. She reached her hand out
along the window, leaning against the half-opened casement. Some drops
of rain fell upon her face.
The paroxysm of her pain had passed away, she only felt alone--very
tired, and alone.
Presently she bathed her face with cold water, changed her dress, and
went to the drawing-room pale and quite calm.
Mrs. Travis, upright in her chair, with watchful green eyes and a
silver-grey dress, was playing “Patience.” Jocelyn shivered a little.
CHAPTER XXII
Upon the same Sunday afternoon, in a small port on the eastern Spanish
seaboard, Giles Legard leant over the rail of a long, forlorn-looking,
wooden jetty. Against the black piles which upheld it the sea heaved
inwards in smooth ripples. Every now and then wisps of dark seaweed
floated by, and up the sides of the piles the green slime gleamed in the
hot sunshine. Keeping a precarious foothold on the slippery cross-beams
with his bare, brown feet, a red-capped fisher boy plucked mussels,
dropping them into a basket slung on his arm. The sea, hushed and
bright, stretched past the jetty to the town, which rose in compact
white tiers under the lee of a sandy waste of hills; on the hard line of
the eastern horizon the dim haze of an island was visible.
A brig, with sails set, was sidling out of the harbour against a head
wind. A row of fishermen and loafers, barelegged or booted, with
swarthy faces, and blue clothing, came running down the jetty,
stretching a tow-rope hove to them from the brig, and shouting in a
babel of uncouth words. Legard, with his hands in his pockets, and his
cap drawn over his eyes, turned his back against the rail, and watched
them idly.
They strained on the rope, laughing and talking in a strange medley of
words and dialects. Then, as if by consent, they ceased hauling, and
paused in relaxed attitudes, shouting irrelevantly at the brig a jumble
of foreign words. A bearded man, in a peaked cap, standing on the poop,
put his hand to his mouth, and the hail came with a steady ring over the
water, “Pūlley! Hāūley!”
The words had an inflection, as of a man speaking to children, a kind of
compassionate superiority. The chain of men strained forward again upon
the rope, and, with a clatter of feet and voices, went surging up the
pier.
“Pulley! Hauley!” Words comprehended of every nation under the sun,
words by the aid of which men make shift to go through the business of
life. They struck a chord in Legard’s heart that had not sounded for
many years. They roused in him a longing for action, and a feeling of
pride, such as one has when one reads of some gallant feat done by a
countryman. He watched the Union Jack stream out in the wind as the brig
cleared the end of the jetty with a queer feeling, that made him shuffle
his feet on the tarred boards, and swear softly to himself. Then he took
out a cigar, and bit the end very hard, looking into the distance over
the sea.
The men, broken up now into groups, lolled on the jetty sides, or
lounged back up the pier talking and spitting. They looked at him as
they passed, with dark eyes, curious or indifferent, and exchanged
remarks in low voices. He was a strange bird to them; an English
traveller did not often find his way to their town.
Gradually, under the brassy sun, the jetty resumed its look of
desolation.
Giles took his cap off, and wiped his forehead. His face, which was
tanned a deep sallow brown, had somewhat hardened and set; the features
looked as if always held in a vice of constraint. There was no trace of
the old languor in his eyes, they looked up clear and straight from
under his brows, but they had a rather wistful expression, as if always
seeking for something. His dark hair had grown very grey at the sides of
his head and on his temples. In his thin flannel suit his tall figure
looked lean to emaciation, but his muscles, from constant hard exercise,
were like whipcord. He had that day returned to the town, whence he had
started a month before on a restless wander through a wild part of
Spain.
He replaced his cap, and began to pace uneasily up and down the jetty,
stopping every now and then to take a long look under his hand towards
the town. He muttered to himself at intervals. He had begun rather to
have the habit of talking to himself--a habit which tells of much
loneliness....
The test of a man’s temperament is the way in which he manages himself
under trouble. Legard had managed himself in solitude. A hundred times
in those ten months he had been impelled to seek distraction in society,
dissipation, excitement--to try and forget, for it was his nature to fly
from pain; but something in him had always revolted at the last moment,
and he had shrunk back. He had, deeply rooted, the feeling that if he
even _tried_ to rid himself of his suffering and his desolation, he
would lose loyalty, the one thing which remained to him. If he gave that
up, he felt that he must go under--irretrievably under. It was not
choice so much as instinct that compelled him to hold on to his bitter,
regretful longing; and with his grip fast on _that_ plank, he felt his
head still above water. Of the memory of his wife’s death he tried not
to be mindful. At times a sudden spasm of self-loathing and of
superstitious horror caught him, as it were, by the throat, but there
was a certain gravity in his mind which helped him--the ballast of his
own egotism, his matter-of-fact conviction of the futility of regret,
and his feeling for what was of use in the future. That same feeling of
loyalty, to which he clung so tenaciously, blunted, even at times
negatived, the bite of remorse. It became a sort of painful pleasure to
him to reason the thing out with a grim analysis. The evil did not seem
to him to lie in the wrong he had done to the woman he loved, nor in the
guilty inaction by which he had sought to repair that wrong, it lay
further back, in the fibre of his own nature and the infirmity of his
will--he felt that he had suffered for it, was always suffering. If
repentance be suffering--he repented; if it be knowledge of self--he
repented, for he was getting to know his own limitations as he had never
known them before; but if it be that feeling which says, “Give me the
past again, that I may act otherwise!” he did not repent, for he was not
sure that he would act differently. The thing was over and done with, he
had behaved like a coward and a scoundrel, but regret was of no use--he
looked to the future, to the time, if it ever came, when he should see
Jocelyn again; and in long reveries over smoky camp fires, on the decks
of ships under starry skies, beneath the burning sun of the desert, and
the unfallen snow-clouds of mountains, his face became gradually and
indelibly stamped with that drawn expression of constraint. He had
wandered about unceasingly, in the Austrian highlands, in Turkey,
Algeria, Spain, anywhere, indeed, where he could get hard physical
exertion, and be unlikely to meet people. He would have gone to the
East, or to South Africa, but he would not put himself out of reach of
his letters. Time would surely have done more for him, if he would have
cut himself completely adrift, but he would not. Every month he received
a letter from Jocelyn; it was never anything but a bare record of
doings, smelling of violets, scanty and formal, and very precious to
him. It began without any prefix, ended simply “Jocelyn”--it would be
hard to say the amount of comfort he derived from that solitary and dumb
confession of a link between them....
At this moment, as he strode across and across the jetty gnawing his
moustache, the cigar, still unlit, between his fingers, he was waiting
for Jacopo’s return from the post-office. It was nine weeks since he had
received a letter, and even _he_ had not realised how much they meant to
him, till they had ceased to come. He had put off the day of his return
to the coast, in sheer dread of not getting one, and now he had not had
the courage to go and see for himself. He felt sick with suspense. He
threw away his cigar unsmoked. Two seagulls swooped on it, shrieking
discordantly. A faint, muffled sound of voices came down to him from a
group of men and women at the far end of the jetty, and the salt wind
fanned his cheek gently. He gazed towards the shore, where the world
seemed to stand still in hot, hard lines.
A figure presently detached itself at the end of the jetty, and came
towards him. He recognised Jacopo by his light clothes and wide-brimmed
hat, and by the dog with him.
He forced himself to stand still and wait, his hands crossed behind his
back, his limbs and every feature of his face quivering with the strain
of repression. He was thinking: supposing there were no letter!--what
then? There _must_ be one!
Jacopo was walking fast. In the same breath he seemed to Giles to be
years arriving, and to come with the swiftness of a wind. When he was
within fifty yards the boy’s hand went to his pocket, and the dog,
breaking from him, ran to his master and thrust his pointed nose up
against his legs.
In spite of himself he turned away, grasped the jetty rail hard, and
stood, looking, with eyes that saw nothing, at the horizon.
Jacopo came up to him, cool and silent.
“Well?” said Giles without turning.
“There are letters, Signore--three.”
Still leaning over the rail, Legard put out his hand, his fingers closed
on the letters, and he said--
“Thank you, Jacopo, you have been rather long.” He spoke with the idea
of gaining time.
“_Si, Signore_, the man at the post was very stupid.”
“You are sure these are all?”
“_Si, Signore_, sure.”
“Thank you, wait at the end of the pier till I call you.”
Jacopo moved away; Giles, clutching the letters, looked blankly after
his retreating figure. Shikari rubbed a wet nose suddenly against his
hand, and then stretched his body at full length, placing his forepaws
on the rail, and working his nostrils from side to side with a snuffle
at the unconscious sea. Giles bit his lips, raised his hand quickly, and
without glancing at the outsides tore open the letters one by one. He
dropped them unread into his pocket, lifted his cap, and ran his hand
through his hair.
Nothing! He took a rapid turn across the jetty and back again, followed
solemnly by the dog. Nothing! He muttered to himself one or two
commonplaces. “Very awkward thing! Odd! Very odd!” Words absolutely
inexpressive of his feelings, but somehow comforting.
He took Shikari’s forepaws, and drew them on to his chest, put them down
again, and took another turn across the jetty. He stood, and looked out
on the other side, and said, “My God!” in a low voice. He drew another
cigar out of his case, bit it, and put it back again.
Nothing. Nine weeks! She had ceased to write! What did it mean? Was she
ill?
He called suddenly “Jacopo!”
The boy came quickly, his slight figure in its nankeen suit, at once
alert and watchful.
“Go, and find out when there is a train to join the main line for
England. Get a carriage and horses; have the things ready--we shall
start for it at the earliest minute, do you understand?”
“_Si, Signore!_” The boy whistled to Shikari, and vanished down the pier
at a long stealthy trot.
Giles crammed his cap down over his eyes, as if he were riding at a
fence, and shut his teeth together with a snap. He _must_ act! He _must_
know. Phew! That was a relief. He twisted the slight ends of his dark
moustache fiercely upwards, and took a glance all round him.
Westwards the brig’s sails were glistening under the sun like the snow
of a mountain peak.
Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his coat he walked rapidly down
the pier.
CHAPTER XXIII
Travelling night and day, Legard arrived in London late on Wednesday
afternoon. Except upon one occasion, for a few days, he had not been in
England for twelve years. It was strange to him that every one should
talk his own language; the feel of the air, the grey irregular streets,
the soberness of costume were strange. He drove straight to the Langham
Hotel. He had a friendly recollection of it from days when he used to
come up from Eton and stop there with his mother to see the match at
Lords. It was very much the same, inside and out--quite immutable
apparently--only it seemed to him, like everything else, exceedingly
dingy.
After he had seen to the necessities of his servant and his dog, he
dined; and when he came out into the hall it was already nine o’clock.
He lit a cigar, but he found it quite impossible to sit and smoke it
quietly. He was very tired from his long journey, but he could not sit
still. He was possessed by that feeling of restlessness which haunts one
who has come a long way for a certain purpose, and finds at the end a
gap of inaction intervening. He walked out of the hotel, and stood on
the pavement staring blankly up the lighted avenue of Portland Place.
The restless roar of traffic from Regent Street attracted him, it was
companionable--it suited his mood. He began to walk slowly towards it.
The warm air was full of the smell of tobacco smoke and patchouli, and
of other odours. On either hand of the street the lamps sent forth
shafts of white or golden light upon the constant streams of passengers,
motley and white-faced, who thronged the pavements. The curve of the
quadrant bent in a clear-cut line against the impalpable loom of the
purple heavens; and, through the streets, the traffic ran like blood
through the veins of a strong man.
Giles walked on slowly, smoking. The electricity in the air, the intense
stir of life around him, made upon his tired and unaccustomed faculties
a profound impression. He felt benumbed, like a man in a nightmare. At
Piccadilly Circus he stopped, and stood, staring about him. A brake
filled with a pleasure party passed close. Girls leaning out of it swung
in their hands coloured lanterns, which lit up their flushed faces and
disordered hair. It was gone in a medley of song-snatches, rattling
hoofs, empty laughter, and twinkling lights. A string of policemen filed
by, solemn and bulky, each one a ridiculous embodiment of the
earnestness of life. Out of the blare and turmoil of the street a
fire-engine charged towards him, swaying from side to side, with the
thunder of wheels and a harsh incessant shouting.
As he stood there a woman touched him on the arm and leered up at him;
some one blew a whiff of tobacco in his face; black-hatted, shiny-booted
men languidly held the pavement with gingerly steps; in front of him the
coloured letters of an advertisement went in and out; newspaper men,
like ghouls battening meagrely upon the misfortunes of other people,
yelled dismally; and the bells of cabs and bicycles sounded swiftly,
vanishing into chaos on this side and that. Coming after the silence of
lonely places, it was strange. Every one had something to do, and was
doing it with solemn fury; even the drunken man lurching at the gutter
was earnestly drunk. It was curious after the south; yet instinctively,
and without thinking about it, he understood it very well, much better
than all that he had lived with for so many years. At this moment, with
nothing to do but wait, kill time, and deaden the suspense in his mind,
he was waiting very earnestly. He was of the same blood and the same
grain as all that mass of humanity around him, which surged ceaselessly
to and fro upon its business.
With an effort he roused himself, and made his way across Piccadilly. He
formed the resolution, suddenly, to put an end to his suspense. It would
be too late to see Jocelyn in any event, but he could at least find out
something about her, where she was, perhaps how she was. At all events
it would kill some time. He chose the slowest means of progression, and
climbed on to a Chelsea omnibus. He sat in front, leaning forward, with
his long legs drawn back under the seat, his shoulders high and square,
and his soft felt hat covering his forehead. As the ’bus rumbled along
Piccadilly in the stream of the traffic, past a narrow red streak of
stationed cab lights and the overhanging trees of the Green Park, the
driver, a man with a permanent cold, looked round at him curiously. The
tanned, drawn face, with its thin, black moustache above the set jaw,
had a queer look to his insular eyes. He would have volunteered remarks,
but, as he afterwards observed hoarsely to his mate--
“That furrin’ lookin’ gent as sat be’ind o’ me lawst trip ’ad a mug on
’im as dried the words in yer mouth. Looked as if ’e were kind o’
settin’ on ’ot bricks, ’e did, and knowed it too; a rum bird ’e was.”
“Right,” returned the mate, a cockney, “’e was English, though--asked me
the w’y to Cheeyne Walk an’ giv’ me a bob--quite the gent--there ain’t
too many of ’is sort abaout.”
“Oh! ay! A right eno’ gent--’igher rup!”
When Giles reached the Mansions he hesitated for some minutes before he
found the courage to go in. At the sound of his footsteps upon the tiled
floor, the porter, a large personage in blue, with a stolid red face,
and an evening paper in his hand, appeared from a corner and stood
under the hanging lamp, an illuminated image of matter-of-fact civility.
“What name, sir?” He had a voice that leapt out of him with unexpected
brevity, and a habit of twitching one eyelid.
Giles felt suddenly cool, and unemotional, with the calmness peculiar to
nervous organisations in critical moments.
“Does Mrs. Travis live here?” he said.
“Yes, sir, number three.”
“And, Miss Ley?”
“Yes, sir, same number.”
“Ah!” He gave his moustache a twist, but he was not conscious of any
particular feeling of relief, or indeed of any feeling except a slight
surprise at himself.
“The ladies are well, I hope?”
“Quite well, thank’ee, sir. Do you wish me to send up your name?”
“No, thank you--er--that is--I should like to write a note. Can you give
me a sheet of paper and an envelope?”
“Cert’nly, sir.” The porter, disappearing into a decorative sentry-box,
emerged with pen and paper. He set them down upon a table. Giles wrote
these words upon a sheet of paper:--“Langham Hotel, Wednesday.--May I
come and see you to-morrow at 4 o’clock? G. L.” folded it, closed it in
an envelope, and addressed it, “Miss Jocelyn Ley.” Then he stood, and
looked at the porter, whose eyelid went up and down with regularity,
giving the impression that he was continually endeavouring to relieve
the stolidity of his visage with a wink.
“You will see Miss Ley to-morrow morning?”
“I can see her, if you wish, sir.”
“Give her this, not to-night, you understand, to-morrow morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Here’s something for your trouble.” He pulled out a coin, handed it to
the porter, and turned on his heel. The porter’s voice pursued him
abruptly.
“Beg y’r pardon, sir, you giv’ me a sov’reign, sir.”
“Oh! did I? All right!”
The rustling in the trees outside was refreshing, the river consolingly
dark and profound. He muttered irrelevantly to himself: “Here endeth
the first lesson,” and leant against the stone parapet of the
embankment, looking at the rows of lighted windows, and wondering which
was hers. The dark figure of the porter, legs apart, was still outlined
in the lighted cave of the open doorway. With a feeling of being “moved
on,” Giles set his face eastwards by the side of the quiet river. Over
the busy part of the town the dark vault of the sky was powdered with
innumerable gold specks, and there was a hum, as of gigantic insects, in
the air. He walked a few paces, and became suddenly conscious of the
fact that he was dog-tired. Hailing a “hansom” he drove home in it, more
than half asleep.
When he came out of the hotel the next day, a bright sun was staining
wet patches of the pavement a ruddy orange, the air was clear, and the
streets had a freshly-washed appearance. He had some matters of business
to attend to, and he forced himself to go about them. He found
nevertheless, in the afternoon, that he was at the Mansions fully
half-an-hour too soon, and he paced restlessly backwards and forwards
along the embankment until the appointed time.
CHAPTER XXIV
When four o’clock sounded at last, he walked into the hall of the
Mansions. As he mounted the stairs his sensations were not enviable.
Would she be in? Would she see him? Alone? He felt that he would almost
rather not see her at all than in the presence of other people. His
heart beat till he felt sick, and he paused for some minutes, outside
the door, before ringing the bell.
“Is Miss Ley at home?”
The maid, a rosy-cheeked damsel with a fresh and wholesome face,
answered, “Yes, sir.”
He felt dismay and intense relief at the same moment. He pulled himself
together with an effort, and followed her.
“What name, sir?”
“Legard.”
The door was thrown open, and he heard his name pronounced into a room
which he could scarcely see from a feeling of giddiness that came over
him. The door closed behind. There was a faint scent of violets, and he
was conscious of the rustle of a skirt. He stood within the room
twisting his moustache, and staring about him with uncertain eyes.
Jocelyn had risen from a chair near the window. He took a step forward
and stopped. Her face was white, then crimson, then white again; her
hands gripped the back of the chair from which she had risen. Neither
offered to move, or to speak; they stood still, and looked fixedly at
each other, an unsparing space of conventional carpet between them.
After the first sign of emotion, Jocelyn’s face wore a mask of
discouragement. It showed dark and mysterious against the bright
sunlight behind her, and reproach seemed to be looking out of her eyes.
Giles, clutching the fold of his coat across his chest, gazed at her
with a countenance from which hunger had suddenly driven every other
emotion.
Jocelyn spoke, and her voice sounded dull and expressionless.
“Why?” she said. “What was the good?”
Giles involuntarily took a half-step forward.
“Why?” he repeated. “Why? You stopped writing--I didn’t know--how could
I----”
“Didn’t I write long enough?” she said wearily. “It didn’t seem any use
going on. I wanted to forget. I didn’t know where you were--you might
have been dead.” A sudden ring of irritability, telling of shaken
nerves, came into the tone of her voice. Giles had a swift sense of
injustice; he remembered the misery it had cost him not to answer those
letters.
“I obeyed you, I would have given the world to write.”
“You should have gone on obeying me. Why have you come back? Why?” She
spoke as if under the spur of some unbearable thought. She stamped her
foot on the soft carpet, and her dark eyes were full of resentment.
Giles winced, his head dropped upon his chest. This was the other side
of the question; she made him feel guilty of an act of brutality. He
asked himself why he had come back to torture her? Because he, a strong
man, could not bear pain! The poorness of the reason struck him for the
first time. As always, he admitted the other side at its full value
without question.
“I love you,” was all he found to say.
“You love me! But you don’t care how you hurt me.” She pressed her lips
tightly together. He could not help the swift thought, “She is cruel,”
and hated himself for it in the same breath. He put his clenched hands
against his forehead, and the words escaped him--
“Is that all? _All_--after----”
“What more do you want? What more do you expect?”
He gazed long and fixedly at her with the searching, upward look in his
eyes peculiar to them. He could see nothing behind the mask of her
resentful face. It fixed a barrier between them--impenetrable. Through
the half-open window a puff of wind strayed in, and the petals of some
flowers upon the table stirred; he heard the sheets of the open music on
the piano rustling, and the clock ticking very solemnly. During a moment
of numbness he had no other sensation. Then his mind leaped suddenly
back to painful consciousness. How beautiful she was; standing, slender
and motionless, between him and the light! How pitiless! So! It was all
over! He had only exchanged the uncertainty of misery for the certainty
of it! He made a movement with his mouth, a movement of dumb pain, and
in the spasmodic motion which intolerable suffering exacts, strode past
her to the window, and stood there, with his back to her, and his hands
over his eyes. He tried to reason. “After all,” he thought, “a man has
some pride--I’d better get away.” The subtle fragrance in the room
tortured his senses--her fragrance. He stood motionless while long
seconds crept by, and found--that he had no pride. He suffered so keenly
that his reason refused to come to his aid. He could not think of the
why or the wherefore of anything, of what it meant or did not mean; he
could _only_ feel; and he seemed to have no tongue with which to plead
for himself. It was all over! He choked back a sob rising in his
throat....
He had not heard any movement in the room, but he suddenly felt fingers
pulling at his hands. Jocelyn was standing beside him, looking at him
with pitying and mournful eyes.
“Don’t!” she said, “don’t grieve so! I’m not worth it.”
He knelt down, and clasping her knees looked up at her. She put a hand
over her eyes, with a soft movement.
“I’m not worth it,” she repeated.
Suddenly his tongue was loosed, a pent-up torrent of tender words forced
its way between his dry lips. He kissed her hands and her dress
convulsively. She stood for a moment submitting, shivering a little, a
faint colour in her cheeks, then she cried brokenly--
“Oh, get up! _Get_ up, don’t kneel to me. How _can_ you--when I am--what
I am?” and burst into a passion of sobbing. The sense of degradation
vivid in her voice wounded him like the cut of a knife. He sprang to his
feet, and took her in his arms. He was quite silent, but his lips
trembled. She grew quiet at last, till only little shudders running
through her body, pressed against his own, told him of her emotion. They
stood together at the window. In the momentary lull of his feeling, he
had dim impressions of outward things--of the blue sky and the shifting
play of white clouds, of the river dancing through the green of the
trees in glittering patches. At intervals the melodious and doleful cry
of a costermonger came to his ears through the soft air, the air that
was young with the fluttering of leaves and the chirping of birds.
The spirit of the day seemed to be calling with a whisper of invitation.
He felt a sudden hope spring up in his heart. Could her love be dead? He
put his lips down to the level of her bent head--
“Have you _no_ love for me, Jocelyn?” he said.
She did not answer, but bent her head a little lower, and he felt a
faint pressure of her fingers upon his hand, a momentary clinging which
passed, and left them cold and lifeless in his grasp. She _did_ love him
still! He felt it with a great joy. Was it possible then that she could
throw away everything that made life bright, that gave it form, and
colour, and meaning? And for what? For a shadow! Because of a memory.
The matter-of-fact temper of his mind revolted. For a shadow! After all,
nothing more!
His eyes fell upon the gleaming river.
“Come away from it all, my darling. Be my wife. Let me take you
somewhere where you can forget. If you only _will_, you _can_. The
world is so beautiful; I will give you everything. Won’t you come?” and
he raised his eyes to her face. There were the marks of tears upon it,
and her hands moved with a little gesture of helplessness, as though she
found life too heavy for her. She shook her head wearily.
“Why?” he said, seizing her hands, so that she had to turn towards him.
“Why?”
She did not answer at once, and when she did, every word went through
him.
“You want me to take _her_ place, and you say, forget? How could I?
Forget! In _her place. Ah!_ don’t ask me!”
From the living pain in her voice, he had a gleam of insight that to her
the shadow was substance, the substance only shadows, and he said in a
voice that shook, in spite of all his efforts to keep it calm and
persuasive--
“Think, darling, can it be _worse_ together than alone? Won’t you think
of _me_ a little?” He wanted to break into passionate words telling of
his starvation, but somehow he couldn’t; they refused to come, they rose
indeed to his lips, but vanished ashamed and unspoken.
“Think of you? I _do_ think of you. Do you think I don’t know, that I
haven’t thought and thought? I can’t trust myself. I should only make
you wretched--I’m not good enough. It’s too strong for me--I can’t
forget. I’m not good enough. Can’t you see what it is you’re asking of
me?”
His grasp tightened upon her hands. In spite of himself he did see her
side of the question, something of what it meant to her proud and
sensitive nature to stand in the place of the dead woman; it did not
move his passionate desire by the breadth of one single hair, but it
deprived him suddenly of the power of fighting her with words. He seemed
to see beforehand all her answers to his arguments, all the pitiless
irony of the situation. It was not _in_ him to thrust his convictions
down the throats of other people. He wished to, but he was not able. The
fatal turn of his mind was always to see the other view. He could only
say--
“For _my_ sake, dear.”
“It can’t be--it can’t be; it would kill me, perhaps both of us. I know
what would come. _Her_ place! Horrible!” She shivered as if with deadly
cold, and shut her eyes. Then she said quite calmly--
“Some day, you see, it would be too strong for me, I should leave you,
or kill myself. I can’t love as you do; if I could, perhaps it would be
different. I know myself, I’m shallow, not good enough for you.”
In the expression of her face fear, pity, and wounded pride were
strangely blended, and her voice was measured and even. He had an
immense inclination to break into harsh laughter. Not good enough for
him! What a reason! It was as if some one, holding a cup of water to the
lips of a man dying of thirst, had snatched it away, with the words,
“Don’t drink, it is not cold enough.”
He repeated the words--
“Not good enough!” In his desperation he turned away from her, and
walked up and down the room.
“So!” burst from him suddenly and very bitterly, “it was only an
episode! All our pain, all my life, all yours, for it _is_ all yours, I
tell you,--only an episode!” It was the only harsh thing he had ever
said to her--a betrayal of his inmost instinct--a treachery to his
nature. He knew it; and dropping into a chair, rested his head in his
hands, muttering, “Forgive me.”
There was a tense silence in the room.... Jocelyn came quickly from the
window. She sank upon her knees at his side.
“I can’t!” she sobbed. “I would--but oh! I can’t. _Anything_ but that!”
and she pressed her face against him.
“Not that, dearest! I _will_ be anything else to you--_anything_. I love
you! But not that--oh! _not_ that.”
What was she saying? The blood throbbed in his veins; the perfume of her
breath was on his cheek, he could feel the warmth of her body against
his knee. The whole vehemence of his passion stirred within him. The
temptation was such that he writhed; his senses reeled with the desire
to gain, and lose, all things in her embrace. His instinct told him it
was ruin for him and for her, but what did it matter?... He threw his
arms round her. She rubbed her cheek against his hand with a little
tender movement, and he felt it suddenly wet. A pure and great pity took
hold of him. “God help me!” he thought. “Not again!” He got up on to
his feet, and raised her, smoothing the loosened hair back from her
temples.
“No, no!” he said gently. “No, _no_! Anything rather----”
He felt he was talking to himself, not to her, that he was suddenly
thrust back into utter isolation; and he knew that he must get away
quickly before the maddened throbbing in his blood overmastered him.
“This will make you ill, sweet,” he said, “I had better go--yes--I’ll
write. God bless you! Good-bye!”
He did not know how he got out of the room, how he left her, or where.
Everything swam in a mist before his eyes, but at last he found himself
on the stairs, going down slowly and deliberately, and trying to pull
his gloves on to his hands. A man passed him at the foot of the stairs,
and stopped in his ascent to look after him.
CHAPTER XXV
Giles stepped outside, and turned indifferently to the left. A few paces
down the street was a public-house, he turned into it, and calling for a
glass of brandy drank it off at a gulp. As he was coming out a man
touched him smartly on the shoulder from behind. He turned round, and
saw Nielsen. He was panting slightly from emotion or haste, his eyes had
a red and angry look, and he planted his square figure firmly on the
pavement in front of Legard.
“Lōōk here, you know,” he said, “this will not do, this is not the
thing, you know, Monsieur Legard”--the words tumbled over each other
grotesquely in his anger: “_C’est une lâcheté vous savez, c’ que vous
avez fait là._”
“What?” said Giles; he stood with clenched hands before the other, and
his face was set and savage-looking.
“This, what you have done to Miss Ley, to that angel. What is it you
have said to her to make her cry? _Pardieu! C’est un peu trop fort._”
Giles’s face quivered at the words, then was instantly hard again. He
looked at the other, with his jaw thrust forward.
“What is it to you?” he said.
He felt grateful for the sensation of anger. By nature very gentle, at
this moment he felt a savage enjoyment.
“You have hurt her, I will not have it; do you understand me, you--you?”
“Ah!” said Giles, and he looked very dangerous. Each man felt that all
the old antagonism between them was being compressed into the few words
they spoke.
Nielsen continued, tugging at his moustache, his face white with anger.
“What you have done you shall not again do; I will take care of it--I.
You are not fit to speak to her, _vous êtes un lâche, vous avez tué
votr’ femme_!” The last words seemed to explode in his mouth before they
found vent--he had probably never intended to utter them.
Giles did not move, he only gritted his teeth together.
“Perhaps!” he said between them. At the word, so measured and so
strange, Nielsen’s hands dropped inertly to his sides, his face
expressed a sudden blank amazement, all his anger seemed to evaporate in
surprise. A barrel organ was playing within a few feet of where they
stood, the man, as he turned the dismal handle, grinned and kept holding
a greasy hat towards them.
Giles, taking a step forward, spoke in a low voice--
“Look here, Mr. Nielsen,” he said, “I don’t take this sort of thing from
you or any other man. Get out of my way, please, or by God, I’ll throw
you.”
He stepped past Nielsen, who involuntarily moved to one side, and made
no attempt to detain him. His face still expressed a blank astonishment,
and he was endeavouring to fix his eyeglass into his eye as a
short-sighted man does when he is puzzled. Giles strode along. The
organ-grinder muttered: “_Buon giorno, Signore_,” thrusting his hat
almost into his face, an intruding triviality which was quite acceptable
to him.
He walked quickly eastwards. The incident with Nielsen had, for the
moment, done him good; he thought grimly of the sudden change which had
come over the Swede’s broad face. It served as a temporary distraction
to his thoughts. But the next instant he was pursued again by a dull
sense of utter unhappiness. Twice he actually turned round, and began to
retrace his steps towards the Mansions, and each time his mind in the
end was bent against it by the feeling, light and unsubstantial as a
feather, that it would be ridiculous to go back now. He knew that it
formed no part of the real balancing of his reasons, for or against, but
there it was, a chance surface feeling just sufficient to turn the
scale. He thought too of Nielsen, with a sensation of jealousy--which he
knew all the time to be unreal. What was he doing there? What did his
interference mean? He tried to bring the feeling to his own support, but
it slipped away from him with the memory of the words Jocelyn had
spoken. “I love you--I will be anything to you, _anything_ but that----”
He got back to his hotel at last, having formed and reformed
resolutions a dozen times. He drank some more brandy. He felt so
miserable that he thought he could understand the Canadian Indian, who
will drink red ink because it gives him a feeling of warmth inside. A
benevolent State passes a law against the sale of red ink. There was no
law, however, to prevent _him_ from drinking brandy, except the
invincible law of his own intelligence, which he preferred to stifle for
the moment. In spite of the warmth of the weather he felt cold. He
ordered more brandy and a fire in his bedroom; he went up, sat down
before it, and shivered.
Jacopo, whose eyes glistened at the sight of the fire, came up to him
with letters. He stared at them blankly, and left them unopened.
“Will the Signore dine?”
“No, Jacopo, I am too busy.”
He looked at his own empty, outstretched hands, and felt faintly amused.
After the boy had gone he sat there a long time, staring stupidly into
the fire. Then he drank some more brandy, which seemed to have no effect
upon him, and began to stride up and down the room. He must write to
her. His ideas were all blurred and misty in his head--he could not get
them into focus. He sat down at the writing-table, and took up a pen. He
wrote a few words, crossed them out, began again, tore the sheet, took
another, and at the end of a quarter of an hour had written a whole
sentence. Then suddenly he seemed to know what he wanted to say, and
wrote steadily for a long time. This was what he said:--
“LANGHAM HOTEL,
_May 3_.
“MY BELOVED,--From my heart I thank you for the words you spoke to
me to-day. What they were to me I cannot tell you. You love me.
Whatever you choose, that is much--more than I deserve.
“Look, my darling. I can’t say what is in my heart, what I write
seems only words--words--words. I must trust to your sweet
tenderness to read into them what I feel. I want to think of _you_
first, but it’s so hard.
“If you will marry me, child, I will give my life, every beat of
it, every movement of my hands, every thought of my heart, to make
you happier, and to restore.
“I know what I am saying, and I _will_. You love me. Can’t you come
to me? Can’t you?
“If you _cannot_, I must not see you again. I know myself, and I
know you. I _cannot_ see you without having all of you, all to the
last breath of your being. I know that would be your destruction
and mine, it’s not natural, it would make you hate me at the last.
It can’t be, it mustn’t be. I could not go through again what I
went through this afternoon, without bringing that destruction upon
you and upon myself. There are limits--I know my own. If I once saw
you again I couldn’t stop myself. I should go with the tide and
carry you with me. It mustn’t be, I love you too much, but it is
hard. I daren’t stay within reach of you.
“If I do not have a word from you by 11 o’clock on Saturday
morning, I leave for Singapore by the P. and O. steamship
_Rangoon_. She touches at Malta, Brindisi, and Port Said. She will
be at the last place on the 17th. In the enclosed paper are
addresses which will find me. A word from you will bring me from
the end of the world.
“My darling, have pity on me. You are so young, and the world is
very big and beautiful, and time very merciful. Can’t you come to
me? If you love me, think of _yourself_, think of everything it
must mean to _you_.
“Send me a word of hope! Tell me to wait. I love you so. The world
is empty without you, the sun has no light, and there is no
air....”
The letter ended abruptly with those words. He made a fair copy of it,
and read it through. While writing it he had had a certain feeling of
satisfaction. He was at any rate doing something. But now, reading it,
he thought “It is cold: It will never move her.”
He sealed and addressed it, and as he did so he felt a great disgust
with it and with himself. He stood with one foot on the grate holding it
in his hand. The dying fire glowed with a sombre redness. He dropped the
letter suddenly on the table with a groan, bent his forehead against the
mantelpiece, and stared into the grate. Let it go! He could do no more.
He looked at his watch, it was already ten o’clock. He felt very cold.
There was still some brandy left and he drank it. With sudden energy he
undressed, and got into bed. He thought, “I’ll be done with it all; I’ll
get away to the East, there’s always something going on there. Lots to
see and do.” He had a momentary glow in his heart; then he thought:
“Without her! O God! Without her! It’s all empty!” And he turned his
face to the wall.
* * * * *
The next morning he sent Jacopo with his letter, telling him to give it
into Miss Ley’s own hands, and knowing that he would be obeyed. The boy
came back about noon.
“What did she say?” Giles asked.
“She thanked me, Signore.”
“She gave you no message? Did she read the letter?”
The boy shook his head mournfully. From constant living with his master
in lonely places he had an intuitive knowledge of the workings of his
mind, and his own impressionable nature was wont to adapt itself
accordingly.
“How did she look?”
“Her eyes were big and dark, Signore.”
With that presentment of her he was obliged to be content. He sent
Jacopo to take berths for Singapore, in the superstition, that if he
prepared for the worst the best might come, the same feeling that makes
a man take an umbrella out upon a fine day. No day that he had ever
spent was quite as terrible as that day of waiting. He kept buying
things for tropical use, telling himself that everything was settled,
that she could not come, but he expected her all the time. The day
dragged to its end.
She did not come.
On Saturday morning he drank brandy for breakfast--smoking was no use,
but brandy was a good thing. The last year had been of use to him, he
did not take trouble so resentfully. He was quiet under it, it seemed
more a matter of course.
The brown was fading out of his face, he was hollow-eyed, and moved like
a man recovering from an illness. He said to the hotel porter, a man who
remembered him as a boy--
“If a lady calls for me or sends a message, a young lady with dark hair
and eyes, _that_ is the name, but perhaps she won’t give a name,” and he
handed him a piece of paper with Jocelyn’s name written on it--“Wire to
me at Plymouth, Malta, Brindisi. I am going by the steamship _Rangoon_,
there are written directions.” He gave the man a ten-pound note. “It’s
important.”
The man’s countenance remained unmoved, but he was touched.
“I wish you luck, sir,” he said; “you’re not looking well, begging your
pardon.”
“Oh, I’m all right, thanks,” said Giles with a smile.
A couple of hours later he went on board. That afternoon the _Rangoon_
rounded the Foreland.
CHAPTER XXVI
In the reach of the Thames, just above Sonning Lock, a single sculling
boat drifted slowly with the stream; though it was only the second week
in May the river glowed with a soft radiance. The boat stole along under
the left bank, over a chequered pattern of light and shade thrown on the
water through the branches of the willow trees. Upon the far side of the
river the hot sun laid a band of golden light spreading on to the path
and over the green woods beyond. A slight breeze stirred with a gentle
rustling, and a few fleecy clouds stood still in the blue sky.
Nielsen, in a white flannel suit, sat squarely on the rowing thwarts.
Now and then he dipped his sculls in the water stiffly, from the elbows,
with a motion somewhat suggestive of the “deep-sea” stroke. He had on
white shoes, and a broad white hat was pushed back from his forehead.
His eyeglass was screwed into his eye, giving his face an expression of
anxious concentration, ludicrously out of keeping with his attire and
his occupation.
Jocelyn sat opposite him in the stern; the rudder lines were crossed
idly in her lap, and she leant sideways, dangling a hand out of the boat
and making little signs of the cross in the cool water. Sometimes she
caught the young leaf of a water-lily plant, and then she would touch it
softly with her fingers as if loth to let it go. She wore a blue skirt
and a white silk blouse, which clung softly round the lines of her
figure. Her jacket was thrown over the back of the seat, and a Japanese
sunshade of a soft apricot colour lay unopened across her feet. She
looked tired and languid; on her face there was a grave pre-occupied
look, and the corners of her mouth drooped a little.
Nielsen glanced over his shoulder. At the end of the long vista of
rippling water and bending trees, the lock stretched, a black and sturdy
line across the narrowing river. In the centre of it the figure of the
lock-keeper could be seen leaning, in his shirt sleeves, over the
railing of the foot-bridge.
“Shall we go through the lock?” said Nielsen.
Jocelyn looked up.
“I don’t think there will be time,” she said, “our train goes at
half-past six. We passed a lovely backwater just now, let’s go back to
that and have tea.”
Nielsen turned the boat round, and sculled slowly up-stream. He did not
look quite at home in a boat, and he finished each stroke with a
precision suggestive of earnest endeavour. It was too early in the year
for river-folk, and with the exception of a fisherman’s punt, their boat
was the only one on the reach. Nielsen pulled through the entrance of
the backwater, and ran the boat under a willow bank which formed a
shelving islet in the centre. Jocelyn made tea. She handed Nielsen a
cup, and he sat, very silent for him, alternately sipping it and puffing
at a cigarette.
“What a heavenly day!” she said, with a sigh. Leaning back on the
cushions of her seat, she glanced from side to side as if she would
drink in to the full the calm beauty of the world. A little bird,
sitting on an osier twig, cocked its head on one side, and chirped
feebly--an answering chirp came from the branch above her head.
The rushes and the feathery grasses on the banks quivered as if the
breeze were kissing them. A cuckoo called, another answered; two
wood-pigeons flighted together across to the woods on the other side; a
distant weir murmured gently, the willow branches over her head echoed
it faintly, and the sun, breaking through the trees, made soft, white
holes of light in the running water. A spirit of perfect harmony seemed
to be looking gently at her from everywhere around. Her face clouded,
and she made a quick movement with her hands. A startled water-rat
dropped with a splash into the stream, and swam in a strenuous line for
the other bank, where it scrambled to the mouth of its hole and sat
calmly looking at her. Two swans with a brood of dusky infants paddled
majestically past, hissing faintly; they disappeared up a narrow passage
of reed-grown water, leaving tiny eddies for a memory.
A furrow came between her brows. Nielsen, watching her, wondered. He
sent a cloud of smoke through his lips.
“What is it you are thinking of?” he said at last. Jocelyn gave a little
start, as if she had been brought back from very far.
“I was wondering,” she said, “what it all means.” She clasped her hands
together, with their backs towards her. It was a motion that seemed to
embrace all that was around them, and her eyes glanced at him with a
troubled expression. The blue smoke from his cigarette was melting on
all sides into the soft air.
“Even the smoke!” she said to herself quietly.
Nielsen did not answer--he did not understand. Jocelyn rested her chin
in her hand; she was thinking: “Why isn’t there a place for me to fill?
Why am I always alone? Everything I see has a home, all the birds, and
the trees, and the beasts, everything has its mate and its place. I am
out in the cold--in the cold, always in the cold.”
Nielsen was bending slightly forward on the seat, staring at her with
his eyes screwed up. He held his cup in one hand and his cigarette in
the other, and he seemed to have forgotten the existence of both.
There was a long silence, and the boat swayed once with some unseen stir
of the water.
Jocelyn said suddenly--
“Do you believe in free will?”
Nielsen put down his cup, a little surprised at the sudden question, and
threw away the end of his cigarette; it floated gently away from them,
and stuck in some driftweed.
“Yes,” he said, “and--no.”
Jocelyn waited. He cleared his throat.
“That is a verry difficult question, but I think it is like this, don’t
you know. One to another of us, has frree will; that is, you know, in
our social relations. Looked at from the--er--the narrow point of view,
there is of course frree will, yes--frree will, and we make use of it,
as we are weak or strrong. But,” and he spread his hands, and looking
fixedly at the bank, “there is quite another point of view, don’t you
see, equally trrue; of course, we are all at the ends of long chains
of--er--of circumstance. Whatever we do, you know, is only what comes
out of that--it is all settled before, so that, of course, in that sense
there is no frree will. For instance, my dear young lady, if you choose
to do something unexpected, it is rreally the expected thing you are
doing all the time, because the chains of your circumstances and your
tempérrament would not permit you to do otherwise. I am afrraid I do not
explain what I mean verry well.”
Jocelyn did not speak, she leaned forward with her chin on her hand
gazing downwards.
Nielsen, with a puzzled look, rubbed his hands softly together. “Of
course,” he began again, “that is a verry brroad view, too brroad for
everyday wear; it is----”
Jocelyn, without looking up, interrupted him--
“And do you believe in morality?”
Nielsen sighed.
“Ah! What _is_ morrality?”
He plucked a long blade of spikey grass from the bank, and said,
twisting it in his fingers--
“What we _call_ morrality--I believe in it,” and he shrugged his
shoulders. “Certainly. Why? Because _there_ it is, don’t you know? One
can see it, it is quite thick, one can cut it with a knife. Every
peoples has its own, and every peoples disobeys it more or less, don’t
you know; that is natural.” He took out another cigarette, and began to
nod his head up and down.
“Yes, yes,” he said, continuing to nod his head. Presently he went on,
fixing his eyes on the driftweed, where the end of the cigarette was
giving up the ghost of its tobacco, and speaking to himself rather than
to her. “Ah! it is a little thing, our morrality; but there is a big
morrality, yes, yes, a _big_ morrality; over there, don’t you know,” he
pointed with his spike of grass towards the sweep of glistening water
and the woods beyond.
“Over there!” he repeated, “everrywhere! Yes, yes, Nature is verry
morral. Ah! she is big, but she is morral. She _has_ to be, you know.
Look at that grass, my dear young lady,” he said, holding up his spike
of grass, and drawing it once or twice gently through his fingers, “she
can’t play frreaks, she has got her place, you know. It is wonderful to
think, isn’t it, if that little blade of grass vanished quite away, all
the world would come undone. Ah! I think that is wonderful, _that_ is
morrality.” He lit his cigarette and puffed at it thoughtfully.
“I think you know, everry man and woman has his place according to the
big morrality--so have flies”--he went on, stabbing with his spike at an
early fly which had settled on the rim of his cup--“and in spite of
everrything they come to it at the last.” He did not see Jocelyn’s face.
A wave of colour had rushed suddenly into it, and her eyes looked eager
and startled; her lips moved--she was repeating to herself his words. A
chance current swept the disembodied cigarette gently back past the
boat, the paper and tobacco floated apart, pathetically close to each
other.
“Ah!” said Nielsen, “there you are, my frriend; when we come apart like
you, perrhaps we shall know all about it--this morrality.” He
straightened himself on his seat with a sudden jerk, and looking at
Jocelyn remarked in an apologetic drawl--
“I am afrraid I have bored you drreadfully.”
She was leaning back again on her cushions, twisting her fingers in her
lap in the way peculiar to her when she was troubled or thinking deeply.
Her face was still flushed, and her dark eye-lashes almost rested on her
cheeks. A faint scent of May-blossom drifted to them from the bank.
Nielsen threw away his cigarette. His eyes began to glow, his face
suddenly lost its habitual apathy--the attitude of his mind was no
longer leisurely. Indeed, it had not been leisurely for eight days, in
fact, since he had passed Legard upon the stairs. Legard was gone, he
had found that out, but he was still in a hurry.
His cheeks grew slightly red, a rare thing with him, and the lines
deepened about his eyes. He bent forward as far as he could upon his
seat, and the boat rocked slightly from side to side. He kept his eyes
fixed upon her face. The colour was coming and going upon it. He fancied
that her eyes were soft under their drooping lids, though he could not
see them. Did she know that he was looking at her? Could she be thinking
of him?
The long fingers were still twisting in and out of each other upon her
knee. He put out his hand and touched one of them gently.
“I am waiting,” he said; “I have been waiting so long.”
She raised her eyes, and he was astonished at them. They were so large,
and they changed as he looked at them. At first they were full of
shrinking, almost of fear, then suddenly they blazed with excitement,
which died away in a gentle look. She did not draw her hand away, she
did not seem to know that he was touching her.
“I love you,” he said. “Will you not marry me? I am always waiting.”
It was curious that, generally so full of phrase and gesture, he was
obliged to be quite simple in this matter. Her face did not change, but
the corners of her mouth shaped themselves into a queer little smile.
She did not speak at first, then she said softly--
“Wait a little longer,” and her eyes seemed to be looking at something
beyond him; “wait till to-morrow morning; I promise to tell you
then--everything comes to its own place at the last, you know.” His own
words, but they sounded strange to him, as if used in some sense, he did
not know what, which he had not intended for them. His face became
puckered with the confusion of his thoughts. He bent it forward, and
raising her hand, kissed it gently. She let him do it, but he was left
with the feeling that she had known nothing of it.
Presently she rose suddenly to her feet, and stretched herself with a
little shake, as if freeing herself from some weight. The colour rushed
into her cheeks.
“Come,” she said, “it’s time to go.”
Nielsen got out his sculls, and pushed out into the narrow stream. He
said nothing more; with the kiss he had given her hand, he seemed to
have relapsed into his usual patient resignation.
Every breath of wind had gone, the swallows were flying low, the hush of
a perfect silence lay upon the river, yet there was felt rather than
heard a mysterious singing, lost behind the veil of the blue sky--the
voice of innumerable larks.
The sun, dropping into the west, laid a touch of warm light on Jocelyn’s
cheek when she turned and, looking behind her, as the boat shot through
the narrow entrance, grasped at a drift of thistledown floating
aimlessly just out of her reach.
“That was like me,” she said to herself softly.
Nielsen, occupied with his sculls, did not catch the words. All the way
to Reading she was either moodily silent or talked with spasmodic
gaiety. She kept saying nervously, “You don’t think we shall lose the
train, do you?”
As they were walking to the station from the river, she suddenly stood
still, and said to Nielsen--
“D’you remember that picture we saw at Watts’s studio--the ‘Paolo’?”
“Yes,” he answered, “a drreadful picture.”
“It was _not_ dreadful,” she said, “it was beautiful--you don’t see the
meaning in it. I didn’t then, but I do now. There was ‘union’ in that
picture--‘union’ in spite of everything else. I never realised it
before.”
Before he could answer, she started to walk again. He did not understand
her.
It was nearly half-past eight before they got to the Mansions. Jocelyn
asked him to come in and have some supper, but she did not appear
herself, sending a message from her room to say that she was very tired,
and was going straight to bed. Mrs. Travis accepted the excuse with a
wry face--she disliked the trouble of entertaining single-handed; she
made no remonstrance, however. During the last few days, she had found
Jocelyn so variable in her moods, so silent and restless, that for the
sake of comfort she mildly accepted any conduct at her hands. It had so
happened that she had heard nothing of Legard’s reappearance, but she
had been acutely conscious of something disturbing, for which she
neither knew, nor cared to know, the reason. She never dived below the
surface.
Nielsen took his departure early. The paramount impression on his mind
as he drove back to his hotel was that of uneasy perplexity; it did not,
however, prevent him from sleeping soundly.
The next morning he rose early, and dressed very carefully. He made a
good breakfast, eating it slowly and earnestly, as if he wished to place
each morsel where it would be of the greatest service to him. During
breakfast he entered into conversation, over the top of his newspaper,
with an old gentleman at the adjoining table, to whom he gave much
useful advice as to the treatment of lumbago. He had never had it
himself. When he had finished his paper, he went out.
It was a beautiful morning, and he moved leisurely along with his square
walk, turning every now and then to look at somebody, generally a lady,
and removing his grey top-hat politely if he chanced to brush against
any one in the crowded street. He stopped at his hairdresser’s, and went
in. He had his hair cut, discussing affably with the man the political
situation, and a new instrument for crimping hair. When he came out
again he drew his gloves on to his round, freckled hands, and hailed a
hansom. He directed the man to “Wills & Segar’s,” where he bought a
beautiful bouquet of roses and lilies, and an orchid for his own
buttonhole. He lectured the florist for two minutes upon the injustice
of demanding eighteenpence for his orchid, and gave half-a-crown to a
ragged child he found on the doorstep. He told the cabman to drive him
to the Mansions. As the cab bowled down to the Embankment, his pale,
broad face under its white hat looked out over the bouquet with the
weary, anxious expression of a dog sitting on its hind legs.
Arrived at the Mansions, he went up the stairs slowly, holding his
bouquet carefully in front of him, and stopping at the top to wipe his
forehead. He felt very nervous. The maid, who let him in, looked scared
and troubled, and he detained her a moment in the passage to inquire
after her health. He was such a constant visitor that he was admitted to
the drawing-room without special announcement.
He placed his bouquet upon the table, and rubbed his hands together. A
door opened behind him, and Mrs. Travis came into the room. She was
incongruously majestic in black silk and a rose-coloured bonnet with
hummingbirds in it. She did not shake hands, but held a note out to him.
Nielsen looked at her face as he took it. It gave him the impression
that she had somehow neglected to finish it that morning. It was, so to
speak, patchy, and there were strange and sudden wrinkles round her
mouth and eyes. This was alarming to him, as no words could have been.
He bowed over her hand, and opened his note.
Mrs. Travis said nothing, but stood in front of him, puffing her lips.
His note was from Jocelyn, and it was in these words:--
“DEAR MR. NIELSEN,--What you wish of me _can never be_. You don’t
know me, or what I am. If you did, you would not ask me. I am
going away--‘to my own place.’ I am very, _very_ sorry if I hurt
you, you are so good, and so kind. Will you be like yourself, and
take care of my aunt a little? I’m afraid she will miss me at
first.--Yours ever sincerely,
“JOCELYN LEY.”
He read it over a second time. “To my own place.” What did she mean? The
words were familiar. Ah! Yes! his own words. He did not understand, but
he was dimly conscious that in some way he had ministered to his own
defeat. He looked up, and encountered Mrs. Travis’s green eyes.
“She is gone!” he said slowly, and as if he wanted to impress the fact
upon his own mind.
“Yes, she is gone!” he repeated, and he looked at Mrs. Travis’s face. It
was twitching nervously, and her eyes were not still for a moment.
“Where?” he said abruptly, and sat stiffly down in a chair. Mrs.
Travis’s hand sought her pocket.
“I don’t know,” she said at last, taking out a letter and her
handkerchief, “I have had this--a dreadful letter. She says she will
write, and that we are not to fuss about her--to fuss,” she sniffed, and
went on--
“I came down late to breakfast, and the servant told me she had gone,
the naughty girl, and taken her maid and her boxes and dressing-bag, and
left me this note. I don’t know what to do--she has her own money. Of
course I can’t do anything. It’s not right. What will people say, what
will people think?”
Nielsen heard, but he did not answer, he was thinking of other things,
and he sat staring at his bouquet with little puckers at the corners of
his brown eyes. He drummed with the fingers of one hand upon his knee.
The note had fallen out of them, and Jocelyn’s kitten, straying from a
corner, patted it furtively with a grey paw. His reverie was painful,
and yet it was tinged with a characteristic philosophy. Perhaps it did
not hurt him quite so much as he thought. She was lost to him! How
beautiful she had been! It was curious, but true, that he already
thought of her in the past tense. He smoothed his moustache. Yes! It
hurt! The kitten clawed his trousers, and climbed up on to his knee.
“Poor little cat!” he muttered. He felt sorry for the cat. It had a
forlorn little face, and it mewed, probably because his trousers were
slippery, and because he had no lap.
“Poor little cat!” This was going to be a serious business for them
both, eh? He dangled the end of his eyeglass in front of its nose. The
kitten cheered up somewhat, and bit it. Nielsen watched it with
sympathy. A bad business! He wrinkled his nose thoughtfully, and his
face looked older.
A sigh from the other end of the room attracted his attention. It came
from Mrs. Travis. She was sitting, tremblingly upright, upon the sofa,
constantly smoothing, with a large white hand, the note in her lap. Her
face seemed to have become suddenly flabby like a pudding; her cheeks
had lost much of their colour; one long end of her fringe dangled into
her left eye, and she puffed her lips incessantly. She said nothing; her
pride did not allow her to utter any word of complaint, but her green
eyes were alive with resentment. The bottom had fallen out of the chair
of her comfort, and left her--a large child, pathetic and
ridiculous--sitting upon air.
Nielsen put the kitten gently on the floor and got up. He walked across
the room, sat squarely down upon the sofa, and took her hand in his.
CHAPTER XXVII
At Port Said the _Rangoon_ was coaling. Legions of black and brown men
swarmed at her from the unkempt rafts alongside. Half naked, gleaming
with perspiration, chattering and laughing, they poured into her an
unending stream of coal.
The passengers were escaping into the town, besieged by a motley set of
rascals, masterpieces of ugliness and iniquity, with cries of “Hi, hi,
Master--Tararaboomdeay--Mrs. Langtry--Hi--Charlie--Porter, sah?--Very
good guide, dis fella, Master.” Nobody wanted them, nobody engaged them,
but they followed yelping like a pack of curs.
Legard, walking rapidly through the streets, inquiring his way here and
there, went straight to the post-office. He had received nothing at
other places, but it was a formality which he continued to observe.
There was nothing. He came out again, and stood in the street, biting
his lips, with a sick, leaden sensation of defeat, and mechanically
began to calculate the next possible place at which he might have news.
He stared about him blankly. In the sprawling, ill-kept streets the hot
wind, creeping unexpectedly round corners, raised little eddies of sand,
and crept away again, leaving them stagnant. Jews, Greeks, Turks,
infidels and heretics, lounged and loafed outside the shops, in every
variety of costume; now and then, threading stolidly between them,
parties of his fellow-passengers passed, their faces for the most part
expressive of a continual exclamation, smothered in a continual sniff.
He began to walk about, wandering idly into shops, exchanging a nod here
and there with some ship acquaintance. His thoughts were bitter, and yet
his attention was half distracted from them by the strange chatter and
movement around him.
The sea had done him good, he no longer looked ill, only very
fine-drawn. On the second day of the voyage he had given up brandy; he
used to tramp about the deck by himself, or stand in the bows with
Shikari, looking at the water hissing up the ship’s side.
His thoughts ran perpetually in one channel. If she wished it to be an
episode, let it be; he would tear her image out of his heart, drop the
past year out of his life, as if it had never been; and then--he would
suddenly have a sense of degradation, a feeling as if his heart were
shrinking within him, like a plant closing its leaves at the touch of
something rough and foreign to it; the old pain and longing would begin
again, and he would think of her as a tender, helpless child to whom he
_must_ be good, at all costs to himself--yes! to whose memory even he
must be good. He sometimes wished the thing would break him up, and let
him go comfortably to the dogs, and he felt exasperation because he
somehow knew that it would not.
He remained gently unapproachable to people on board, but he made
friends with some children, one of whom, a dark-eyed, brown-faced child,
reminded him in a mysterious way of Jocelyn. She was not in the least
like her, except that she had the same tiny dimples at the corners of
her mouth when she smiled. She left the ship, however, at Brindisi, and
he gave her his watch, to which she had taken a fancy.
He had always loved the sea, and now she served him; her many moods gave
him something outside himself to think about. The days seemed very long,
but all the time, without knowing it, he got stronger and calmer. The
great sea is a wonderful soother of sorrowing. For the time that she
takes a man into her keeping, he is not torn, but rather rocked by
sorrow, with a gentle heaving as of many waters. She brings not
forgetfulness, but sympathy. So Giles found....
When he had strolled aimlessly about the streets for some time, he went
into an hotel, and, sitting down, waited till it should please an
unwilling providence to give him lunch. Many of his fellow-passengers
were in the room, the waiters ran distractedly here and there, and
nothing seemed to result. That is a peculiarity of Port Said when ships
are in.
Two men sitting at a table near him, but hidden by a column, began to
talk.
“Beastly hole!” said the first.
He recognised the voice for that of a man of about his own age, who had
lost one of his legs, and wore a wooden one.
“When I was coming out lăst year with my friend, Lord Cardrew,” said the
other man, “we--er--hadn’t even time to go up the--er--water tower. Such
a beautiful view from it; you must come with me and see it.”
The speaker was an old fellow of sixty, travelling for his health; a man
with a tanned face, clean-shaven, but for the white moustache running in
a straight close-clipped line above a lip which displayed his rather
yellow upper teeth. A retired diplomat, a dilettante in art, tall,
dapper, a stickler for ceremony and the aristocracy, of which he was not
a member, he habitually wore a yachting cap, and pronounced the word
ghastly--găstly.
Giles had heard his private history, and knew him for a man who had
suffered much at the hands of his wife and children, and who lived
perpetually in the fear of death from a bad heart.
“_À propos_ of my friend, Lord Cardrew, there is a man on board very
like him; his name is--er--Legard. I wonder if he is one of
the--Legards. I would ask him, but he--er--never seems to speak to
anybody.”
The other voice said--
“Tall, rather dark chap, I know--seems very down in the mouth--here,
waiter, bring some ice.”
Giles shifted uneasily in his seat.
The old fellow went on--
“Poor fellow--nice-looking fellow he is too--a woman, I suppose.”
Giles rose softly from his seat and went out of the room. He experienced
a sudden feeling of shame, of disgust with himself. He told himself
bitterly that he had no monopoly of trouble, that he should make himself
a stock for the chatter of any casual bystander. Either of these two
men, who had been talking, had more claim to compassion than himself.
He strode on angrily, till, on the outskirts of the town, a desolate
expanse of sand and of brackish water confronted him in cheerless
immensity. He stood there for a long time, while the hot wind swept past
him.
A sense of his own insignificance was upon him. What did his emotions
matter? What was he? A tiny fragment in the eternal scheme, which the
scorching wind of life had dried and passed by, a fragment as hard, as
unmingled, and as lonely as the grains of sand which he rubbed between
his hands. After all, was he not himself a single grain in a wilderness
of bitter sand?
Life was a weary business; he had made a mess of his, and nothing
mattered much now! He hated himself for his lack of pluck. He turned on
his heel presently, and went back through the town, and got on board.
A gentle grime was over everything, and they were cleaning down. He shut
himself up in his cabin, and lay on his bunk trying to read. Two hours
later the _Rangoon_ got up steam and entered the canal.
He went in to dinner as usual. After all, there is a law that a man must
eat, and another law that his emotions shall not stand still, but shift
always back and forwards. He made spasmodic efforts to talk during
dinner, but he felt both dull and reckless, and they were not a success.
When he went up, the decks were cleared for dancing, an awning was
spread over them, Chinese lanterns swayed gently from poles, and, here
and there, seats were placed cunningly in dark corners.
The ship glided smoothly along the narrow belt of water, with a slight
list to port.
Giles, leaning over the rail, smoked, and watched the light of the
summer evening slowly give way, and sink into the distant sand mountains
of the West.
The band came up and began to play a waltz, and people moved uneasily
about the decks, like ducks before they take the water. The ship’s lamps
shone feebly through the twilight, and stars began to creep up into the
receding heavens. He walked forward and stood in the round of the
promenade deck, looking towards the bows. The darkness gathered; in
front the tail light of a steamer glowed like a fiery eye; the canal
banks, and here and there the outline of buildings or of fencing, showed
in sharp, black lines through the clear dusk. Over his shoulder he could
see the lanterns swinging, lonely discs of coloured lights, and catch
the gleam of white skirts. Laughter and voices, music, and the hushed
hoot of the steam-whistle sprang into the still night.
Sometimes, in a lull of the dancing, when nothing sounded but the dumb
beat of the screw, the desert wind stole softly past, and whispered in
the awning over his head. The magic of the night wrapt him, and he
thought--
“There must be something in it all. I am on the wrong tack,” and again
the whisper of the wind, and the faint cry of flighting quails, would
come to him through the darkness, seeming to speak of something hidden,
of something behind the veil, which may perhaps be reached through pain
and work and much self-sacrifice, some secret, great and universal.
“Yes,” he thought, watching the smoke of his cigar curl away, “I am on
the wrong tack.”
He thought of his life, the emptiness and waste of it. What had he ever
done for anybody? Nothing. Nothing, except bring harm. He thought of his
mother and his school-days, of what she had thought he would become--of
all the unbroken waste of his life since. What had he done? How had he
gained the right to live in a world where all things must move forward
or die? The music started again, there was a light laugh, and, as he
stood back in the shadow, a man and a girl passed him leaning towards
each other. The deck quivered under his feet with the beat of the screw.
Something stirred in him, something strenuous. He thought, “Is it too
late? is there _nothing_ in me? _nothing_ for me to do?”
The man and the girl passed again, he was whispering to her, and she
twisted a flower in her hands. Memory came to Giles with the scent from
it. He shrank back. “Without her! O God!” he thought, and pulled his cap
over his eyes.
He sat there long. The dancing ceased, but people stayed on deck,
waiting for the ship to reach Ismailia. The moon had risen, and the
lamps hung colourless in the white glory of her light. The ship seemed
to glide on a band of silver between rolling steppes of snow, but always
the wind was the breath of the fiery desert. On the main deck below, he
could see steerage passengers sleeping uneasily, tossing from side to
side with shirts open at the neck, patches of grey on the white of the
burnished ship. He looked at his watch. It was twelve o’clock. The ship
idled along, slowing down now and then with a faint hissing sound, as
the white steam escaped from her sides into the whiter air. With a
feeling of weary impatience he resented the dragging motion--it was like
his life, where nothing ever happened--a desolate and an empty waste of
time.
He had a longing to get out of it, to get to the end, to find something
to do--something incessant and exhausting, which day by day would dull
his feeling in sheer weariness. Presently he fell back again into his
chair in the shadow of the hurricane deck above, and dozed off into an
uneasy sleep. Through it he felt all the time the silent plains of
snow-white sand, the dim flash of lights, the jar of the screw, the hiss
of steam, and the striking of the ship’s bell, mingled in a misty
confusion with strange words and shapes, the fantastic creatures of his
dreams. He woke up when the ship stopped at Ismailia, heard the hurrying
of feet, the cry of voices giving orders, the prolonged blast of the
whistle; then the jar of the screw began once more under his feet, and
he dozed again.
CHAPTER XXVIII
He woke from restless and bitter dreams, feeling stiff and a little
cold. The moon was sinking in the sky, and only patches of white light
fell now upon the decks. He raised himself in his chair to look about
him. A woman was leaning against the port bulwark looking out over the
desert. As his eyes fell upon her figure he moved uneasily, and a shiver
passed through his limbs. She turned, and began to walk towards him into
the darkness of the shadow. His eyes rested on her face--and he gasped.
He thought “I am dreaming.”
She seemed like a tender vision of slumber and of memory, stepping to
him out of the night. He rubbed his eyes, and got up very gently from
his chair. She stopped, and he could see her lips quiver, she was so
close to him. He held out his hands silently--he was afraid that at some
word of his she would vanish, as she had come, into the night. She took
one step, and touched him--her lips parted.
“I have come, you see,” she said, and she leaned against him. His arms
were round her, his face was buried in her hair, but no word passed his
lips.
“I’ve come to do what you wish, after all. I couldn’t help it--something
there”--and she touched her chest with her hand--“there wasn’t any other
place for me, you see.”
She spoke like a tired child, and rubbed her cheek softly against his
shoulder. Then suddenly she raised her face, tender and mysterious in
the gloom, and kissed him on the lips. Tears ran silently down his face,
and she kissed them. She raised her arms, drew his head down to her
breast, and held it there. And, while they stood, the hot wind soughed
faintly above them; once, the bell rang out two sharp strokes, the cry
of the watchman fled weirdly into the night, and the ship slept again to
the hum of her screw and the bubble of the silver water. And now great
shadows stalked along the cold sands, like the uneasy thoughts of a
dream; and sometimes a feeble cry would speak to them out of the heart
of the desert.
Giles raised his head at last, and holding her fast in his arms
whispered, “Tell me!”
“I belong to you. I knew it when you were gone. I belonged to you ever
since--that night.” Her cheek was hot against his own, and he could feel
the beating of her heart. “I will be your wife, darling; I will do
anything you tell me, I won’t ever hurt you again.”
He could only say, “Sh!” and stroke her face gently with his hand. He
looked at it under its little, soft grey cap, as it rested against his
shoulder. Her eyes glanced up at him, large, and full of loving light,
and then drooped like a sleepy child’s under their heavy lids. He was
dumb with the passion of tenderness which filled him for the frail girl,
who had come to him from so far. How marvellously sweet to him was every
tiny trembling of her slender body, every breath that came through her
parted lips! How dear, every whisper of her voice!
He said in a husky voice: “How did you come, my little one?”
She rested a hand on his chest, and pulled at the button of his coat.
“I was afraid I shouldn’t catch you, they told me to come from
Marseilles. I was very lucky, there was a boat, and I came to Alexandria
and Cairo. When I got to Ismailia, I was just in time; I told my maid to
ask if you were on board, and then I came, and I’m so tired.”
She dropped her head on his shoulder again with a little sigh.
“I have come,” she said, “and oh! _I love you so_.”
His face quivered with a throbbing tenderness that was like pain. With
each beat of his heart the muffled footfall of the watch officer sounded
across and across the deck above; and, ghostly in the slanting light of
the moon, some dhows glided past in the tow of a tiny, puffing launch.
His arms closed round her till her heart beat against him; and a great
shudder of passion ran through his frame.
“By all the life in me, child,” he said huskily, “I will make up to you
for the past--we will wipe it out together.”
She looked up at him, and for a moment her eyes seemed to brim over
with the tenderness in them, then they gazed at him, suddenly dark and
profound, out of a sad little face. A tiny wisp of her hair fell loose
across her ear.
“Yes--if we can.” Her voice, hushed and uncertain, was like a prayer to
Fate, but her hand touched his cheek with soft fingers. “Who knows?”
The wind carried the whisper away into the remoteness of the desert.
THE END
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
Edinburgh & Lond
_EASTER, 1898_
A Selection from Messrs. Duckworth & Co.’s Announcements
_STEPHEN, LESLIE._
=STUDIES IN BIOGRAPHY.= A New Collection of Essays by LESLIE STEPHEN.
Two Vols. Extra crown 8vo, 12s.
_LANGLOIS, CH.-V., and SEIGNOBOS, CH._
=INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL STUDIES.= By CH.-V. LANGLOIS and CH.
SEIGNOBOS, of the Sorbonne, Paris. Authorised Translation by G. G.
BERRY, of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. With a Preface by Prof.
YORK POWELL. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
English Public Schools.
_CUST, LIONEL._
=A HISTORY OF ETON COLLEGE.= By LIONEL CUST, Director of the National
Portrait Gallery.
_ROUSE, W. H. D._
=A HISTORY OF RUGBY SCHOOL.= By W. H. D. ROUSE, of Rugby, and
sometime Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge. Illustrated from
Photographs, Contemporary Prints, &c. Crown 8vo, 5s.
_DE THIERRY, C._
=IMPERIALISM.= By C. DE THIERRY. With an Introduction by W. E.
HENLEY. Small crown 8vo, 2s.
_CLODD, EDWARD._
=TOM TIT TOT; or, Savage Philosophy in Folk-Tale.= By EDWARD CLODD,
President of the Folk-Lore Society. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
Dealing with a venerable Suffolk version of Grimm’s well-known
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Mr. Clodd endeavours to show that the main incident
in the story contains a world-wide and much-varied superstition, which,
confusing persons and things, has given rise to a set of curious beliefs
and customs.
_WHEELER, STEPHEN._
=WAR AND POLICY ON THE INDIAN BORDER.= By STEPHEN WHEELER, Author of
“The Ameer Abdur Rahman.” Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d.
Mr. Wheeler’s book consists of an historical summary of the relations of
the Indian Government with the tribes on the North-West and West
Frontiers from Chitral to Baluchistan, with some account of the military
expeditions undertaken for the maintenance of peace on the border. It
also deals with the geography of the country and the ethnology of the
people; with the history of the border tribes previous to the British
annexation of the Punjab and Scinde, and with the political problems
arising out of the recent disturbances. An endeavour is made to trace
the origin and development of the Forward policy, and to form an
impartial estimate of the work achieved by men of the Lawrence and
Roberts schools respectively.
_HAPGOOD, NORMAN._
=LITERARY STATESMEN.= By NORMAN HAPGOOD. Crown 8vo, 6s.
_LYTTELTON, THE HON. R. H._
=CRICKET.= By the Hon. R. H. LYTTELTON, Author of “Cricket,” in the
Badminton Library. Small crown 8vo, 1s. 6d.
_HOUSMAN, CLEMENCE._
=THE UNKNOWN SEA: A Romance.= By CLEMENCE HOUSMAN, Author of “The
Were Wolf.” Crown 8vo, 6s.
_BURROW, C. K._
=THE FIRE OF LIFE: A Novel.= By C. K. BURROW, Author of “Asteck’s
Madonna,” “The Way of the Wind,” &c. Crown 8vo, 6s.
_HUTCHINSON, T._
=WORDSWORTH’S AND COLERIDGE’S LYRICAL BALLADS, 1798.= Edited by T.
HUTCHINSON, of Trinity College, Dublin; Editor of the Clarendon
Press “Wordsworth,” &c. Small fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
ym wife=> my wife {pg 257}
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOCELYN ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
