CHAPTER IX
The hansom drove swiftly along through the muddy streets. Victor sat silently by his companion. His nature was strung up to its fullest tension. First had come the exasperating blow-the discovery that his jealous surmise had been right-the wife he called wife because of those few words spoken in a registrar's office, alone, loved another man-perhaps was even secretly his. Then had come the surprise of Vera's beauty-grace-talent-and the conviction of her great passion for himself.
"I will secure her," he grimly told himself. "I must tell her-something! To know there is 'another woman' will make her irrevocably my own." It was thus he correctly or incorrectly judged womankind.
Vera leant back in the corner of the cab, and gazed-rapt, if anxious-at his dark, handsome profile, visible now and again in the moonlight which flashed white radiance upon the puddles and silvered the wet slates of the roofs. Did he love her? Could he care for her? She was ready to follow him like a little dog through the world-if necessary, through disgrace unto death. For, as her sex will do, while she had worshipped him as her hero, she had acknowledged that he could err. When he had been "wanted" by the police she knew that he was "in trouble," if through folly rather than ill-doing; and while he had left his broken-down mother without a hint as to his fate, owing her the money she had borrowed that he might not starve while in hiding, it was Vera who had kept a roof over her widowed step-mother's head-who had toiled and slaved for the lodgers all day, and danced and "walked on" at the theatre all night. Yes-unconsciously she avowed that her idol had feet of clay. But as she sat at his side, the blood raced madly through her veins-her heart beat so strongly against her chest that she could hardly breathe-she had to clench her hands so that they should not clasp his arm-bite her lips lest they should play her false in furtive kisses of the shoulder so tantalizingly near hers.
"I am a fool perhaps," she bitterly mused: "But-he is so splendid-so delightful!" She gave an involuntary sob-it was so terribly, cruelly convincing that her passion was unreciprocated, that while she was trembling and palpitating with emotion he should sit gloomily gazing out into the darkness with arms folded like Napoleon at St. Helena.
He heard it.
"You little darling, what is the matter?" he suddenly said-then his arms closed about her, she was clasped to his breast, her cold lips were warmed into life by a long, close kiss; and there she lay, in an earthly heaven, until they crossed a bridge over the Thames, now a fairy river like quivering, molten silver in the moonlight, flowing between mystic palaces whose windows glowed red in the shadowy façades, and the cab halted at the end of the street.
On his sudden and unexpected return, he had occupied the rooms vacated by a lodger called away to his mother's deathbed in Wales, in the house which was really Vera's, for she paid the rent, but which his mother literally lived by. All the rooms except a parlour and attic she let to students of the huge hospital in the neighbouring thoroughfare.
The windows of the little house all glittered white save one-that of the "front parlour."
"Mother is still up," said Vera disappointedly-to cool down and behave as a sister after that kiss was a terrible prospect! But let into the silent house by Victor's latch-key, they found the little parlour silent also, and empty, although one burner of the gasalier above the little dining table neatly laid for supper was alight.
On the table was a slip of paper: "Excuse me, I am so tired-Mother," was written on it.
Vera trembled a little. "Come, Victor, you must have some supper," she said coaxingly.
"Presently," he said, looking her over with a proprietary glance. "Take off that cloak! Wait, I will do it for you."
He went to her. As he unfastened the clasp of the old evening cloak she felt his touch upon her throat-it seemed to make her weak, almost faint. Then he flung it aside-it fell on the floor-and seating himself on the horsehair sofa he drew her down upon his knee.
"You are all mine! Do you understand?" he imperiously said; and his dark eyes had a sinister, commanding expression as they gazed into hers which frightened her a little, in spite of her unbounded faith and adoration. "All mine! I could take you-or leave you-as I please! You acknowledge it?"
She nodded. To know he cared enough to make love to her overcame any poor scraps of pride that fluttered idly in the wild gale of her passion for him.
"Yes," she murmured humbly.
"Kiss me, then-let me feel there is one woman in the world worth the taking!" he said, with scathing irony. At that moment he told himself scornfully that they might all be everlastingly banished to Sheol except this one, and he would not turn a hair. He could look coolly over the edge of space and watch their torments with less compunction than he had felt gazing at the disembowelled horses in a Spanish bull-fight.
She threw her arms about his neck, and gazed adoringly into his eyes, before she fell yieldingly into his embrace and allowed him to kiss her again and again.
"Oh, I love you, I love you!" she murmured in her ecstasy. Unlike poor Joan, she had no burdened conscience dragging her back from the reciprocation of her lover's passion.
"You do, do you?" he asked suddenly, with one of his swift changes of mood, loosing her, and rising to his feet, taking out his cigarette case. "Suppose I were to test you, eh? Frankly, I don't believe in one of your sex!" He gave a sneering laugh, as he struck a match, and, lighting a cigarette stuck it between his lips. "Little wonder, considering that the old gentleman below sent one of his hags to work my downfall! Surely you-a woman-guessed that a woman was at the bottom of all-my-trouble?"
During that silent drive in the cab he had resolved what complexion he would put upon "that wretched business," as he termed his defalcations and consequent flight: in other words, what lies he would tell this trusting, devoted girl.
"W-What?" she stammered-turning deadly white and gazing at him as if in those words she had heard her death-sentence.
"The old game! A woman pursuing a man," he said, with scornful irony. Why would these women be so terribly tragic? It spoilt sport so abominably! "Don't be jealous! I called her a hag-and she was one! I won't tell you who she was-it wouldn't be fair. But she made a dead set at me-and I kept her at bay until my good nature let me into one of those beastly traps good-natured fellows fall into. I backed a bill for a chum, and he played me false, and left me to pay up. I borrowed money from the business, and then the governor suddenly came down upon me for it. I had to take her money and her with it. Nothing would do but I must marry her! Well, I did, and before I had had time to replace the sum I had borrowed, the governor stole a march on me, and found it out! I begged her to settle matters, but she refused! So there was nothing to do but to bolt-and remain away-live with the old cat I would not! What is the matter? She is less than nothing to me-more, I hate, loathe, and despise her!"
She had sunk back with a groan and covered her face with her hands. He seated himself and drew her passionately to him.
"Come, come, there is no harm done! I mean to have you, d'ye hear? And soon! And as my wife! What else do you think? I heard to-night there is a man in the case. I mean to be free, with a capital to make merry on for the rest of our lives! I've only to play my cards properly, and you've only to keep mum. Can you, do you think? Can you keep everything I do and say to yourself, and help me a bit now and then? If you can, you'll be my wife! If you can't, you won't. That's flat."
"You know what I think of you!" she moaned, gazing piteously at him. "You know you are the whole world to me-that I would be tortured and killed rather than betray you!"
"What is there to groan about, then?" he cried impatiently, springing up. "Upon my word, you are enough to rile a man into chucking you, that you are!"
"What is there to groan about?" she repeated bitterly. "What a question to ask-when you tell me-you are married-when there is a woman alive who has the right to call-you-husband!"
"Not for long, make your mind easy about that!" he grimly remarked. He had made an unalterable resolve that in some way or another this girl should atone to him for Joan's shortcomings-yet should herself benefit to Joan's loss: and he set himself to such a lengthened course of cajolery and fascination of his admirer then and there, that the veils of night were shifting and lifting, furtive nightbirds crept from their lairs and fled along the streets as if scared by the dawn-and the light still glowed in that window of Number Twelve, Haythorn Street.
CHAPTER X
At first Joan had been almost fearful in her new-born hope. The prospect of flight with her lover, the idea of marrying him secretly, and starting for a tour round the world, about which no one would know anything definite, seemed too splendid a prospect to be true! Then, as the days passed, and after writing an enigmatical letter to Victor at 12, Haythorn Street, the address given her by him-a letter promising to meet him in a week's time "with all prepared according to his wishes" – she had no tormenting reply, she took heart. Vansittart, in their constant, but seemingly accidental, meetings-riding, driving, at parties, and at the opera-encouraged her by promising that in one fortnight from the day they had "settled matters" their plan should be carried out. All seemed to promise to her the dawn of emancipation from the consequences of her past folly; when, awakening somewhat suddenly from sleep one morning, a terrible idea flashed upon her-she was unexpectedly confronted with a truth she had overlooked in her unreasoning passion for deliverance from Victor Mercier and freedom to belong to Vansittart.
Her marriage with Vansittart would be a bigamous one.
"Oh! Surely that was not a real marriage-that short ceremony at the registrar's," she told herself in anguish. "At all events, my uncle will make it worth Victor's while to undo it-never to take any steps to assert that he has any claim upon us. Uncle will manage it. He will have had his will-I shall be Lady Vansittart-he will be ready to do anything, proud man that he is, to prevent a family disgrace!"
It was a mean way of emancipating herself-to run away with Vansittart, deceiving him as to the reason of her strange desire for what was practically an elopement-to leave Sir Thomas Thorne recipient of her confession that Victor Mercier was legally her husband, and must be bribed to ignore the fact!
"But-if I cannot extricate myself in one way, I am driven to use whatever means remain," she sadly told herself. "I wish I had not got to tell lies all round! But if I must, I must!"
Every day she proposed to herself some plan of "managing" Victor Mercier, so as to keep him quiet. She hardly liked that silence of his. Although she had no idea that he had instituted inquiries, and was enlightened as to her intimacy with Vansittart, she felt as if that cessation of hostilities on his part was the calm before the storm.
Her brief encouragement was past and gone. She spent hours of silent anguish, pacing her room, cold drops upon her brow, her nervous hands wringing her gossamer handkerchiefs to shreds. Julie, finding them in wisps when she sorted the linen, wondered.
Then came the day before the date upon which she was to meet Victor, "with all prepared according to his wishes." There was an afternoon fête at the riverside residence of the Marchioness of C-. Sir Thomas was to drive her down, together with Lady Thorne and some friends. Joan had expected that her uncle would propose that Vansittart should make one of the party. She knew nothing of a brief but crucial interview which had taken place between her uncle and her lover, almost immediately after their mutual understanding.
Lord Vansittart's honour demanded that, while respecting the confidence of his future wife, and acceding with entire self-abandonment to her wishes in regard to their matrimonial affairs, he should at least defer in some way to her guardian in loco parentis. So he sought a tête-à-tête with his future uncle-in-law-he contrived to put himself in his way at the club.
It was the ordinary luncheon hour, and, after beguiling him into the empty reading-room, he began without much preface.
"I think you know-at least, I mean, I know you are aware, that I love your niece," he said. "You also know she rejected me-more than once."
"Yes, my boy-and I think you know I was deuced disappointed that she was such a silly little idiot!" warmly returned Sir Thomas.
"Well, I have some reason to flatter myself that if every one will only let everything alone, and will not interfere, I have a very good chance of making her Lady Vansittart!" He looked boldly at Joan's uncle.
"My dear boy, no one has the slightest wish to interfere! What do you mean?" asked Sir Thomas briskly.
Vansittart sighed, and shrugged his shoulders. "My dear Sir Thomas, your niece is a very extraordinary girl," he slowly said. "Once married, she will, I believe, settle down to be more like other people in her ideas, which at present are extravagance itself! But I will tell you this much-the man who refuses to fall in with them will never call her wife! Now, what am I to do? Am I to appear to outrage you by not deferring to your opinions and feelings in regard to our engagement and consequent marriage, or am I not? Dearly, passionately as I love her, I would rather give her up than behave dishonourably to you and Lady Thorne!"
"Good Lord, what nonsense!" cried Sir Thomas with a short laugh. "D'ye think I don't know that Joan is so soaked in romantic folly that she isn't capable of one single, reasonable, common-sense idea? Go on and prosper, old boy! You have my blessing upon whatever method of courtship you think best to adopt, even if it is to roll her in the mud and kick her, or climb up to her window in the middle of the night and carry her off down a rope-ladder! Upon my word, I am jolly glad that I am not the fool that every one thinks me, when I stick to it that Joan has read that Shelley and Swinburne rot until she can't tell black from white! Make her your wife your own way, Vansittart, and it shan't make any difference in her dowry, here's my hand on it!"
After such trust on the part of the man who had the giving of his beautiful niece, Vansittart continued his arrangements for the fulfilment of Joan's wishes, feeling as if treading on air.
The day of Lady C-'s garden party was showery at first. But at noon out had come a brilliant June sun, and the rain had only succeeded in freshening the rich foliage and luxuriant flowers of Wrottesley Lodge, on the Thames-a somewhat older house than the usual run of riverside dwellings can lay claim to be.
The party on the top of the coach were extremely lively. But Joan sat silent. The beauty of the day was not for her. The summer breeze stirred the chestnut blossoms and diffused their perfume until the air was honeyed with it-the suburban gardens were gay with their beds of summer bloom. As they drove into the road where the gables of Wrottesley Lodge peeped up among the sombre pines and firs which screened the house from the vulgar gaze, the Thames came in sight, its wavelets dancing in the sunlight. All seemed careless happiness-even a boy with a white apron and basket on his arm stood whistling gaily as he watched the four-in-hand tool into the drive. Only Joan's heart seemed like a stone in her breast, and all around was to her a ghastly mockery-with that wretched hopelessness flooding her young soul.
Vansittart had arrived early, been welcomed, fussed with, and introduced to specially charming girls by his amiable hostess. But their society talk was to him like the chatter of the apes he had seen in the jungles-he gazed at their pretty patrician features and wondered where the beauty was which, with other things, had gone to make them successes of the season. When he caught sight of Sir Thomas' well-known team of roans, he muttered an excuse to the girl he was talking to, and hurried off to help his beloved to alight.
There was a bustle-Joan was almost the last to descend the ladder. How exquisite was that high-bred little foot, he thought, in the white shoe and delicate silk-lace stocking-already he was giving lavish secret orders for a whole trousseau to be on board the yacht for her use-there must be still more costly stockings and slippers to clad those dear, pretty feet! How lovely she looked altogether-her slight, beautifully curved form draped in a thin muslin robe dotted with purple heartsease, with silken sheen showing beneath-a big black hat with feathers and pansies crowning her proud little golden head! But when he met the startled, awe-stricken, "lost" look of those great eyes, it was as if some one had given him an ugly blow on the chest.
She smiled, as he welcomed her with a passionate ecstatic gaze in his kind, devoted eyes-but the smile was a miserable imitation-and he felt it.
"Come away-from the crowd-I have something important to tell you," he whispered. She gave him a glance of horror, and turned pale. "What?" she stammered.
CHAPTER XI
That terror-stricken gaze of Joan's chilled Vansittart with a vague new dread-a fear impalpable, indefinite-still deadly in its effect upon him.
He laughed as he said, encouragingly, "I can assure you you need not trouble yourself that I have bad news-everything is going most swimmingly!" But as they threaded their way through the groups of brightly dressed girls and young men in all kinds of costumes, from whites to the severest frock-coat permissible at such al fresco gatherings, he gave a name to his misgivings in his own mind.
"I do not believe it is her brain-she is keeping something from me-she has a secret," he thought, as he talked gaily to her, the current small talk of the hour, while they traversed the rich, smooth green turf to reach the path which ran along a terrace by the river and led to the pleasance-"Lady Betty's pleasance" it had been called since the days when a Lady Betty walked there in hoops and pannier, a little King Charles spaniel waddling in her rear. "I must get it out of her! However much we may deceive our fellow creatures, we must not deceive each other."
"Where am I taking you?" he repeated brightly, in answer to her inquiry, although to him it seemed as if a sudden darkness had chased all summer brilliance from the day. "Oh, to a favourite spot of mine-a bench overlooking the river under some tree-a hawthorn, I fancy! We can talk there without any fear of being overheard. My darling-are you quite well? Are you sure you are?"
As they left the open, and were under the trees-a belt of well-grown shrubbery divided the spreading lawns from the pleasance-he stopped, and placing his hands lightly on her shoulders, gazed with such honest worship into her eyes, that she flinched and glanced away. Her lips paled and trembled.
"May I kiss you, dearest?" he almost pathetically asked-his voice faltered. In return she flung herself into his arms, and lifted her lips to his. It was a great moment to him, that abandonment of passion in his beloved-but even as their lips met, and he felt her heart beat against his own, a horrible sensation of despair mingled with the relief her spontaneous outburst had been to him.
She still clung to him after the embrace-her cheek against his shoulder-and he heard her groan.
"My love, this won't do!" he cheerily exclaimed. "You make me feel as if I had injured you somehow-that I must be a tyrant-a monster-if you repent of your bargain there is time yet, you know! Although I have the licence, and we could be married to-morrow if you chose, you can draw back. If you repent of your promise to marry me-I do not hold you to it! And remember, no one knows-"
She stirred-and rose. "No one knows?" she feverishly asked. "You managed it all-without-telling anybody?"
"Except the people I was obliged to tell to procure the special licence," he answered lightly, as he walked along at her side. "And they-well, one would as soon suspect one's lawyer, or doctor, or banker, of betraying one's confidence as the Doctor's Commons fellows! It would be absurd."
The bench he remembered was there, under the hawthorn, which was still a mass of bloom. Below a stone balustrade the river ran, wide, flowing, hastening seaward. They seated themselves. He took her hand, drew off her glove, and kissed the pink, soft palm of her delightful, delicately slender hand.
"How soft it is, dear little hand!" he said tenderly. "Do you know what the supposed experts say of a soft palm, or skin? That the possessor is morbidly sensitive and sympathetic! I have thought that of you, darling! I have wondered, sometimes, whether you are not indulging in melancholy retrospect-thoughts of your dead parents' troubles, or something! If so, nothing could be more foolish and useless! Can we recall the past? No! it is dead-there is nothing in this world so dead! Are we not taught that our great Creator Himself will not meddle with it? Darling, you make me cruelly anxious, and that is a fact, by your gloom! Do you think I do not know-feel-share your secret suffering? While I cannot guess what it is, I can hardly endure your evident unhappiness-I could bear it, if I only knew! Joan, Joan-I am almost your husband; as we are to be married so soon, you might confide in me! Child! My dearest-my almost wife-tell me! I can help you, I must be able to help you, and I will! Don't you, won't you, believe me?"
His words-his passion-pattered harmlessly upon her preoccupied being. She had an idea-by a subterfuge to place her awful position before him, and hear what he would say to it.
"Of course I believe you!" she dreamily said. "I know you would help me if you could! But how can you? It is a foolish and stupid, rather than a wrong, action of mine, in the past! You yourself say that God Himself does not meddle with the past! No! He does not! We have to suffer the consequences."
"But-one may deal with the consequences, darling," he tenderly said. "Tell me-all-exactly as it is! Won't you? I knew there was something rankling in your mind. I can assure you we shall both be the happier for trusting each other. Come, out with it!"
"How can I put it to you without betraying-her?" she mournfully began, her strained eyes fixed on a beautiful clump of lilies, which seemed to mock her with their modest stateliness, their spotless purity-she, in her own idea, irrevocably defiled by her tie to Victor Mercier-her body smirched by his embrace, her poor cold lips fouled by his detested kiss. "It was-a dear, intimate friend, at school. I loved her so, that I believed in her feelings. I helped her in a secret love affair-with-a young man."
"Well, that was quite natural-there was no great harm in that, I am sure!" he exclaimed, heartily, beginning to be half ashamed of his secret doubts, and telling himself he ought to have remembered with what difficulty a girl brought up in a boarding-school learns life and its meaning, how a school-girl is handicapped when she starts real existence in the world.
"There was harm in it, although I did not think so at the time!" she went on, bitterly. "For she married him secretly-and no sooner had she done so, than he was taken up by the police for something or another-and ran away. She never heard anything of him until the other day, when he turned up. Oh, poor, unhappy girl! What is to be done for her? Cannot you understand that I, who helped to her undoing, am miserable?"
"My dearest child, we cannot go about the world bearing the consequences of other people's folly. It is not common sense, we have plenty of troubles of our own!" he said, almost chidingly. He felt just a little hurt that his love had not been strong enough to balance her vicarious suffering. The terrible truth that she was speaking of herself never once occurred to him. "Your friend married this man, not you! She must suffer for it. She had better make the best of her bad bargain-and really must not worry you! It is positively inhuman to do so!" He spoke with slight indignation. She shuddered.
"But surely-there must be some way to rid her of him?" she asked, striving with all her might to still her inward anguish, and speak collectedly.
"Oh yes, if she does not shrink from a public scandal," he said, somewhat dryly. "The young lady can apply for a divorce. How long since his desertion? Four years?" He shrugged his shoulders. "She had better employ detectives to find out his doings during those years. But she ought to consult lawyers! – What? She would not do that? Why not?"
"She will kill herself rather than do that-and her death will be on my-soul!" said Joan, solemnly. She looked her lover full in the face. Why was it that at that moment in imagination he seemed to hear a bell tolling and to see a churchyard with a yawning grave-towards which a funeral procession was making its way? He gave a short laugh, which was more a sob. What a grip this girl had upon his emotions!
"What power you have over me, you girlie!" he said, chokingly. "You seemed to make me see all sorts of things … Darling, if money is of any good to your friend-I should only feel too thankful to be of any help-What? It is of no use?"
"It is of no use!" cried she, in a helpless tone. "None! … And you mean to tell me-that that few minutes in a registrar's office-can only be undone-publicly-in the divorce court?"
"There is only one other thing that can free her, my dear child-death!" he said, seriously. "People seem to forget that when they rush into matrimony. But-my darling-" he looked anxiously into her half-averted face-"do you mean to say that this entanglement of your friend's is all you have on your mind-all? Joan" – he grasped her hands-"trust me-your husband-almost your husband-anything you may tell me-will be sacred!"