CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CONFESSIONAL
The concierge sat at her window under the arch of the porte-cochère at 57 Boulevard Montparnasse. She sat gazing across its black shade to the sunny street. She was thinking. The last twenty-four hours had given food for thought.
The trams passed and repassed, people in carriages, people on foot—the usual crowd—not interesting.
But the open carriage suddenly drawn up at the other side of the broad pavement was interesting, very. For it contained the lady who had given the 100 francs, and had promised another fifty on the first of the month. She had never come with that fifty, and the concierge having given up all hope of seeing her again, had acted accordingly.
Lady St. Craye, pale as the laces of her sea-green cambric gown, came slowly up the cobble-paved way and halted at the window.
"Good morning, Madame," she said. "I bring you the little present."
The concierge was genuinely annoyed. Why had she not waited a little longer? Still, all was not yet lost.
"Come in, Madame," she said. "Madame has the air very fatigued."
"I have been very ill," said Lady St. Craye.
"If Madame will give herself the trouble to go round by the other door—" The concierge went round and met her visitor in the hall, and brought her into the closely furnished little room with the high wooden bed, the round table, the rack for letters, and the big lamp.
"Will Madame give herself the trouble to sit down? Would it be permitted to offer Madame something—a little glass of sugared water? No? I regret infinitely not having known that Madame was suffering. I should have acted otherwise."
"What have you done?" she asked quickly. "You haven't told anyone that I was here that night?"
"Do not believe it for an instant," said the woman reassuringly. "'No—after Madame's goodness I held myself wholly at the disposition of Madame. But when the day appointed passed itself without your visit, I said to myself: 'The little affaire has ceased to interest this lady; she is weary of it!' My grateful heart found itself free to acknowledge the kindness of others."
"Tell me exactly," said Lady St. Craye, "what you have done."
"It was but last week," the concierge went on, rearranging a stiff bouquet in exactly the manner of an embarrassed ingénue on the stage, "but only last week that I received a letter from Mademoiselle Desmond. She sent me her address."
She paused. Lady St. Craye laid the bank note on the table.
"Madame wants the address?"
"I have the address. I want to know whether you have given it to anyone else."
"No, Madame," said the concierge with simple pride, "when you have given a thing you have it not any longer."
"Well—pardon me—have you sold it?"
"For the same good reason, no, Madame."
"Take the note," said Lady St. Craye, "and tell me what you have done with the address."
"This gentleman, whom Madame did not wish to know that she had been here that night—"
"I didn't wish anyone to know!"
"Perfectly: this gentleman comes without ceasing to ask of me news of Mademoiselle Desmond. And always I have no news. But when Mademoiselle writes me: 'I am at the hotel such and such—send to me, I pray you, letters if there are any of them,'—then when Monsieur makes his eternal demand I reply: 'I have now the address of Mademoiselle,—not to give, but to send her letters. If Monsieur had the idea to cause to be expedited a little billet? I am all at the service of Monsieur.'"
"So he wrote to her. Have you sent on the letter?"
"Alas, yes!" replied the concierge with heartfelt regret. "I kept it during a week, hoping always to see Madame—but yesterday, even, I put it at the post. Otherwise.... I beg Madame to have the goodness to understand that I attach myself entirely to her interests. You may rely on me."
"It is useless," said Lady St. Craye; "the affair is ceasing to interest me."
"Do not say that. Wait only a little till you have heard. It is not only Monsieur that occupies himself with Mademoiselle. Last night arrives an aunt; also a father. They ask for Mademoiselle, are consternated when they learn of her departing. They run all Paris at the research of her. The father lodges at the Haute Loire. He is a priest it appears. Madame the aunt occupies the ancient apartment of Mademoiselle Desmond."
"An instant," said Lady St. Craye; "let me reflect."
The concierge ostentatiously went back to her flowers.
"You have not given them Miss Desmond's address?"
"Madame forgets," said the concierge, wounded virtue bristling in her voice, "that I was, for the moment, devoted to the interest of Monsieur. No. I am a loyal soul. I have told nothing. Only to despatch the letter. Behold all!"
"I will give myself the pleasure of offering you a little present next week," said Lady St. Craye; "it is only that you should say nothing—nothing—and send no more letters. And—the address?"
"Madame knows it—by what she says."
"Yes, but I want to know if the address you have is the same that I have. Hotel Chevillon, Grez sur Loing. Is it so?"
"It is exact. I thank you, Madame. Madame would do well to return chez elle and to repose herself a little. Madame is all pale."
"Is the aunt in Miss Desmond's rooms now?"
"Yes; she writes letters without end, and telegrams; and the priest-father he runs with them like a sad old black dog that has not the habit of towns."
"I shall go up and see her," said Lady St. Craye, "and I shall most likely give her the address. But do not give yourself anxiety. You will gain more by me than by any of the others. They are not rich. Me, I am, Heaven be praised."
She went out and along the courtyard. At the foot of the wide shallow stairs she paused and leaned on the dusty banisters.
"I feel as weak as any rat," she said, "but I must go through with it—I must."
She climbed the stairs, and stood outside the brown door. The nails that had held the little card "Miss E. Desmond" still stuck there, but only four corners of the card remained.
The door was not shut—it always shut unwillingly. She tapped.
"Come in," said a clear, pleasant voice. And she went in.
The room was not as she had seen it on the two occasions when it had been the battle ground where she and Betty fought for a man. Plaid travelling-rugs covered the divans. A gold-faced watch in a leather bracelet ticked on the table among scattered stationery. A lady in a short sensible dress rose from the table, and the room was scented with the smell of Hungarian cigarettes.
"I beg your pardon. I thought it was my brother-in-law. Did you call to see Miss Desmond? She is away for a short time."
"Yes," said Lady St. Craye. "I know. I wanted to see you. The concierge told me—"
"Oh, these concierges! They tell everything! It's what they were invented for, I believe. And you wanted—" She stopped, looked hard at the young woman and went on: "What you want is a good stiff brandy and soda. Here, where's the head of the pin?—I always think it such a pity bonnets went out. One could undo strings. That's it. Now, put your feet up. That's right, I'll be back in half a minute."
Lady St. Craye found herself lying at full length on Betty's divan, her feet covered with a Tussore driving-rug, her violet-wreathed hat on a table at some distance.
She closed her eyes. It was just as well. She could get back a little strength—she could try to arrange coherently what she meant to say. No: it was not unfair to the girl. She ought to be taken care of. And, besides, there was no such thing as "unfair." All was fair in—Well, she was righting for her life. All was fair when one was fighting for one's life—that was what she meant. Meantime, to lie quite still and draw long, even breaths—telling oneself at each breath: "I am quite well, I am quite strong—" seemed best.
There was a sound, a dull plop, the hiss and fizzle of a spurting syphon, then:
"Drink this: that's right. I've got you."
A strong arm round her shoulders—something buzzing and spitting in a glass under her nose.
"Drink it up, there's a good child."
She drank. A long breath.
"Now the rest." She was obedient.
"Now shut your eyes and don't bother. When you're better we'll talk."
Silence—save for the fierce scratching of a pen.
"I'm better," announced Lady St. Craye as the pen paused for the folding of the third letter.
The short skirted woman came and sat on the edge of the divan, very upright.
"Well then. You oughtn't to be out, you poor little thing."
The words brought the tears to the eyes of one weak with the self-pitying weakness of convalescence.
"I wanted—"
"Are you a friend of Betty's?"
"Yes—no—I don't know."
"A hated rival perhaps," said the elder woman cheerfully. "You didn't come to do her a good turn, anyhow, did you?"
"I—I don't know." Again this was all that would come.
"I do, though. Well, which of us is to begin? You see, child, the difficulty is that we neither of us know how much the other knows and we don't want to give ourselves away. It's so awkward to talk when it's like that."
"I think I know more than you do. I—you needn't think I want to hurt her. I should have liked her awfully, if it hadn't been—"
"If it hadn't been for the man. Yes, I see. Who was he?"
Lady St. Craye felt absolutely defenceless. Besides, what did it matter?
"Mr. Vernon," she said.
"Ah, now we're getting to the horses! My dear child, don't look so guilty. You're not the first; you won't be the last—especially with eyes the colour his are. And so you hate Betty?"
"No, I don't. I should like to tell you all about it—all the truth."
"You can't," said Miss Desmond, "no woman can. But I'll give you credit for trying to, if you'll go straight ahead. But first of all—how long is it since you saw her?"
"Nearly a month."
"Well; she's disappeared. Her father and I got here last night. She's gone away and left no address. She was living with a Madame Gautier and—"
"Madame Gautier died last October," said Lady St. Craye—"the twenty-fifth."
"I had a letter from her brother—it got me in Bombay. But I couldn't believe it. And who has Betty been living with?"
"Look here," said Lady St. Craye. "I came to give the whole thing away, and hand her over to you. I know where she is. But now I don't want to. Her father's a brute, I know."
"Not he," said Miss Desmond; "he's only a man and a very, very silly one. I'll pledge you my word he'll never approach her, whatever she's done. It's not anything too awful for words, I'm certain. Come, tell me."
Lady St. Craye told Betty's secret at some length.
"Did she tell you this?"
"No."
"He did then?"
"Yes."
"Oh, men are darlings! The soul of honour—unsullied blades! My word! Do you mind if I smoke?"
She lighted a cigarette.
"I suppose I'm very dishonourable too," said Lady St. Craye.
"You? Oh no, you're only a woman!—And then?"
"Well, at last I asked her to go away, and she went."
"Well, that was decent of her, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"And now you're going to tell me where she is and I'm to take her home and keep her out of his way. Is that it?"
"I don't know," said Lady St. Craye very truly, "why I came to you at all. Because it's all no good. He's written and proposed for her to her father—and if she cares—"
"Well, if she cares—and he cares—Do you really mean that you'd care to marry a man who's in love with another woman?"
"I'd marry him if he was in love with fifty other women."
"In that case," said Miss Desmond, "I should say you were the very wife for him."
"She isn't," said Lady St. Craye sitting up. "I feel like a silly school-girl talking to you like this. I think I'll go now. I'm not really so silly as I seem. I've been ill—influenza, you know—and I got so frightfully tired. And I don't think I'm so strong as I used to be. I've always thought I was strong enough to play any part I wanted to play. But—you've been very kind. I'll go—" She lay back.
"Don't be silly," said Miss Desmond briskly. "You are a school-girl compared with me, you know. I suppose you've been trying to play the rôle of the designing heroine—to part true lovers and so on, and then you found you couldn't."
"They're not true lovers," said Lady St. Craye eagerly; "that's just it. She'd never make him happy. She's too young and too innocent. And when she found out what a man like him is like, she'd break her heart. And he told me he'd be happier with me than he ever had been with her."
"Was that true, or—?"
"Oh, yes, it was true enough, though he said it. You've met him—he told me. But you don't know him."
"I know his kind though," said Miss Desmond. "And so you love him very much indeed, and you don't care for anything else,—and you think you understand him,—and you could forgive him everything? Then you may get him yet, if you care so very much—that is, if Betty doesn't."
"She doesn't. She thinks she does, but she doesn't. If only he hadn't written to her—"
"My dear," said Miss Desmond, "I was a fool myself once, about a man with eyes his colour. You can't tell me anything that I don't know. Does he know how much you care?"
"Yes."
"Ah, that's a pity—still—Well, is there anything else you want to tell me?"
"I don't want to tell anyone anything. Only—when she said she'd go away, I advised her where to go—and I told her of a quiet place—and Mr. Temple's there. He's the other man who admires her."
"I see. How Machiavelian of you!"—Miss Desmond touched the younger woman's hand with brusque gentleness—"And—?"
"And I didn't quite tell her the truth about Mr. Vernon and me," said Lady St. Craye, wallowing in the abject joys of the confessional. "And I am a beast and not fit to live. But," she added with the true penitent's instinct of self-defence, "I know it's only—oh, I don't know what—not love, with her. And it's my life."
"Yes. And what about him?"
"It's not love with him. At least it is—but she'd bore him. It's really his waking-up time. He's been playing the game just for counters all the while. Now he's learning to play with gold."
"And it'll stay learnt. I see," said Miss Desmond. "Look here, I like you. I know we shouldn't have said all we have if you weren't ill, and I weren't anxious. But I'm with you in one thing. I don't want him to marry Betty. She wouldn't understand an artist in emotion. Is this Temple straight?"
"As a yardstick."
"And as wooden? Well, that's better. I'm on your side. But—we've been talking without the veils on—tell me one thing. Are you sure you could get him if Betty were out of the way?"
"He kissed me once—since he's loved her," said Lady St. Craye, "and then I knew I could. He liked me better than he liked her—in all the other ways—before. I'm a shameless idiot; it's really only because I'm so feeble."
She rose and stood before the glass, putting on her hat.
"I do respect a woman who has the courage to speak the truth to another woman," said Miss Desmond. "I hope you'll get him—though it's not a very kind wish."
Lady St. Craye let herself go completely in a phrase whose memory stung and rankled for many a long day.
"Ah," she said, "even if he gets tired of me, I shall have got his children. You don't know what it is to want a child. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Miss Desmond. "No—of course I don't."
CHAPTER XXV.
THE FOREST
Nothing lifts the heart like the sense of a great self-sacrifice nobly made. Betty was glad that she could feel so particularly noble. It was a great help.
"He was mine," she told herself; "he meant to be—And I have given him up to her. It hurts—yes—but I did the right thing."
She thought she hoped that he would soon forget her. And almost all that was Betty tried quite sincerely, snatching at every help, to forget him.
Sometimes the Betty that Betty did not want to be would, quite deliberately and of set purpose, take out the nest of hungry memories, look at them, play with them, and hand over her heart for them to feed on. But always when she had done this she felt, afterwards, a little sorry, a little ashamed. It was too like the diary at Long Barton.
Consciously or unconsciously one must make some concessions to every situation or every situation would be impossible. Temple was here—interested, pleased to see her, glad to talk to her. But he was not at all inclined to be in love with her: that had been only a silly fancy of hers—in Paris. He had made up his mind by now who it was that he cared for. And it wasn't Betty. Probably she hadn't even been one of the two he came to Grez to think about. He was only a good friend—and she wanted a good friend. If he were not just a good friend the situation would be impossible. And Betty chose that the situation should be possible. For it was pleasant. It was a shield and a shelter from all the thoughts that she wanted to hide from.
"If she thinks I'm going to break my heart about him, she's mistaken. And so's He. I must be miserable for a bit," said Betty bravely, "but I'll not be miserable forever, so he needn't think it. Of course, I shall never care for anyone ever again—unless he were to love me for years and years before he ever said a word, and then I might say I would try.—And try. But fall in love?—Never again! Oh, good gracious, there he is,—and I've not begun to get ready."
Temple was whistling Deux Amants very softly in the courtyard below. She put her head out of the window.
"I shan't be two minutes," she said, "You might get the basket from Madame; and my sketching things are on the terrace all ready strapped up."
The hoofs of the smart gray pony slipped and rattled on the cobble-stones of the hotel entry.
"Au revoir: amuse yourselves well, my children." Madame Chevillon stood, one hand on fat hip, the other shading old eyes that they might watch the progress of the cart up the blinding whiteness of the village street.
"To the forest, and yet again to the forest and to the forest always," she said, turning into the darkened billiard room. "Marie, beware, thou, of the forest. The good God created it express for the lovers,—but it is permitted to the devil to promenade himself there also."
"Those two there," said Marie—"it is very certain that they are in love?"
"How otherwise?" said Madame. "The good God made us women that the men should be in love with us—and afterwards, to take care of the children. There is no other use that a man has for a woman. Friendship? The Art?—Bah! When a man wants those he demands them of a man. Of a woman he demands but love, and one gives it to him—one gives it to him without question!"
The two who had departed for the forest drove on through the swimming, spinning heat, in silence.
It was not till they reached the little old well by Marlotte that Betty spoke.
"Don't let's work to-day, Mr. Temple," she said. "My hands are so hot I could never hold a brush. And your sketch is really finished, you know."
"What would you like to do?" asked Temple: "river?"
"Oh, no,—not now that we've started for the forest! Its feelings would be hurt if we turned back. I am sure it loves us to love it, although it is so big—Like God, you know."
"Yes: I'm sure it does. Do you really think God cares?"
"Of course," said Betty, "because everything would be so silly if He didn't, you know. I believe He likes us to love him, and what's more, I believe He likes us to love all the pretty things He's made—trees and rivers and sunsets and seas."
"And each other," said Temple, and flushed to the ears: "human beings, I mean, of course," he added hastily.
"Of course," said Betty, unconscious of the flush; "but religion tells you that—it doesn't tell you about the little things. It does say about herbs of the field and the floods clapping their hands and all that—but that's only His works praising Him, not us loving all His works. I think He's most awfully pleased when we love some little, nice, tiny thing that He never thought we'd notice."
"Did your father teach you to think like this?"
"Oh, dear no!" said Betty. "He doesn't like the little pretty things."
"It's odd," said Temple. "Look at those yellow roses all over that hideous villa."
"My step-father would only see the villa. Well, must we work to-day?"
"What would you like to do?"
"I should like to go to those big rocks—the Rochers des Demoiselles, aren't they?—and tie up the pony, and climb up, and sit in a black shadow and look out over the green tops of the trees. You see things when you're idle that you never see when you're working, even if you're trying to paint those very things."
So, by and by, the gray pony was unharnessed and tied to a tree in a cool, grassy place where he also could be happy, and the two others took the winding stony path.
A turn in the smooth-worn way brought them to a platform overhanging the precipice that fell a sheer thirty feet to the tops of the trees on the slope below. White, silvery sand carpeted the ledge, and on the sand the shadow of a leaning rock fell blue.
"Here" said Betty, and sank down. Her sketchbook scooped the sand with its cover. "Oh, I am hot!" She threw off her hat.
"You don't look it," said Temple, and pulled the big bottle of weak claret and water from the luncheon basket.
"Drink!" he said, offering the little glass when he had filled it.
Betty drank, in little sips.
"How extraordinarily nice it is to drink when you're thirsty," she said, "and how heavenly this shadow is."
A long silence. Temple filled and lighted a pipe. From a slope of dry grass a little below them came the dusty rattle of grasshoppers' talk.
"It is very good here," said Betty. "Oh, how glad I am I came away from Paris. Everything looks different here—I mean the things that look as if they mattered there don't matter here—and the things that didn't matter there—oh, here, they do!"
"Yes," said Temple, making little mounds of sand with the edge of his hand as he lay, "I never expected to have such days in this world as I've had here with you. We've grown to be very good friends here, haven't we?"
"We were very good friends in Paris," said Betty, remembering the letter that had announced his departure.
"But it wasn't the same," he persisted. "When did we talk in Paris as we've talked here?"
"I talked to you, even in Paris, more than I've ever talked to anyone else, all the same," said Betty.
"Thank you," he said; "that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"It wasn't meant to be nice," said Betty; "it's true. Don't you know there are some people you never can talk to without wondering what they'll think of you, and whether you hadn't better have said something else? It's nothing to do with whether you like them or not," she went on, thinking of talks with Vernon, many talks—and in all of them she had been definitely and consciously on guard. "You may like people quite frightfully, and yet you can't talk to them."
"Yes," he said, "but you couldn't talk to a person you disliked, could you? Real talk, I mean?"
"Of course not," said Betty. "Do you know I'm dreadfully hungry!"
It was after lunch that Temple said:
"When are you going home, Miss Desmond?" She looked up, for his use of her name was rare.
"I don't know: some time," she answered absently. But the question ran through her mind like a needle drawing after it the thread on which were strung all the little longings for Long Barton—for the familiar fields and flowers, that had gathered there since she first saw the silver may and the golden broom at Bourron station. That was nearly a month ago. What a month it had been—the gleaming river, the neat intimate simplicity of the little culture, white roads, and roses and rocks, and more than all—trees, and trees and trees again.
And with all this—Temple. He lodged at Montigny, true. And she at Grez. But each day brought to her door the best companion in the world. He had never even asked how she came to be at Grez. After that first, "Where's your party?" he had guarded his lips. It had seemed so natural, and so extremely fortunate that he should be here. If she had been all alone she would have allowed herself to think too much of Vernon—of what might have been.
"I am going to England next week!" he said. Betty was shocked to perceive that this news hurt her. Well, why shouldn't it hurt her? She wasn't absolutely insensible to friendship, she supposed. And sensibility to friendship was nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary.
"I shall miss you most awfully," said she with the air of one flaunting a flag.
"I wish you'd go home," he said. "Haven't you had enough of your experiment, or whatever it was, yet?"
"I thought you'd given up interfering," she said crossly. At least she meant to speak crossly.
"I thought I could say anything to you now without your—your not understanding."
"So you can." She was suddenly not cross again.
"Ah, no I can't," he said. "I want to say things to you that I can't say here. Won't you go home? Won't you let me come to see you there? Say I may. You will let me?"
If she said Yes—she refused to pursue that train of thought another inch. If she said No—then a sudden end—and forever an end—to this good companionship. "I wish I had never, never seen Him!" she told herself.
Then she found that she was speaking.
"The reason I was all alone in Paris," she was saying. The reason took a long time to expound.—The shadow withdrew itself and they had to shift the camp just when it came to the part about Betty's first meeting with Temple himself.
"And so," she said, "I've done what I meant to do—and I'm a hateful liar—and you'll never want to speak to me again."
She rooted up a fern and tore it into little ribbons.
"Why have you told me all this?" he said slowly.
"I don't know," said she.
"It is because you care, a little bit about—about my thinking well of you?"
"I can't care about that, or I shouldn't have told you, should I? Let's get back home. The pony's lost by this time, I expect."
"Is it because you don't want to have any—any secrets between us?"
"Not in the least," said Betty, chin in the air. "I shouldn't dream of telling you my secrets—or anyone else of course, I mean," she added politely.
He sighed. "Well," he said, "I wish you'd go home."
"Why don't you say you're disappointed in me, and that you despise me, and that you don't care about being friends any more, with a girl who's told lies and taken her aunt's money and done everything wrong you can think of? Let's go back. I don't want to stay here any more, with you being silently contemptuous as hard as ever you can. Why don't you say something?"
"I don't want to say the only thing I want to say. I don't want to say it here. Won't you go home and let me come and tell you at Long Barton?"
"You do think me horrid. Why don't you say so?"
"No. I don't."
"Then it's because you don't care what I am or what I do. I thought a man's friendship didn't mean much!" She crushed the fern into a rough ball and threw it over the edge of the rock.
"Oh, hang it all," said Temple. "Look here, Miss Desmond. I came away from Paris because I didn't know what was the matter with me. I didn't know who it was I really cared about. And before I'd been here one single day, I knew. And then I met you. And I haven't said a word, because you're here alone—and besides I wanted you to get used to talking to me and all that. And now you say I don't care. No, confound it all, it's too much! I wanted to ask you to marry me. And I'd have waited any length of time till there was a chance for me." He had almost turned his back on her, and leaning his chin on his elbow was looking out over the tree-tops far below. "And now you've gone and rushed me into asking you now, when I know there isn't the least chance for me,—and anyhow I ought to have held my tongue! And now it's all no good, and it's your fault. Why did you say I didn't care?"
"You knew it was coming," Betty told herself, "when he asked if he might come to Long Barton to see you. You knew it. You might have stopped it. And you didn't. And now what are you going to do?"
What she did was to lean back to reach another fern—to pluck and smooth its fronds.
"Are you very angry?" asked Temple forlornly.
"No," said Betty; "how could I be? But I wish you hadn't. It's spoiled everything."
"Do you think I don't know all that?"
"I wish I could," said Betty very sincerely, "but—"
"Of course," he said bitterly. "I knew that."
"He doesn't care about me," said Betty: "he's engaged to someone else."
"And you care very much?" He kept his face turned away.
"I don't know," said Betty; "sometimes I think I'm getting not to care at all."
"Then—look here: may I ask you again some time, and we'll go on just like we have been?"
"No," said Betty. "I'm going back to England at the end of the week. Besides, you aren't quite sure it's me you care for.—At least you weren't when you came away from Paris. How can you be sure you're sure now?"
He turned and looked at her.
"I beg your pardon," she said instantly. "I think I didn't understand. Let's go back now, shall we?"
"For Heaven's sake," he said, "don't let this break up everything! Don't avoid me in the little time that's left. I won't talk about it any more—I won't worry you—"
"Don't be silly," she said, and she smiled at him a little sadly; "you talk as though I didn't know you."