Kitabı oku: «Double Harness», sayfa 17

CHAPTER XIX
IN THE CORNER

Christine had neither desire to avoid nor strength to refuse the encounter. Her emotions had been stirred by what she had seen at Kate Raymore's; they demanded some expression. Her heart went forth to a friend, forgetting any bitterness which attached to the friendship. The old attraction claimed her. When Caylesham said that it was quite dark and there was no reason why he should not escort her, she agreed readily, and was soon babbling to him about Eva and Jeremy. She put her arm in his, talked merrily, and seemed very young and fresh as she turned her face up to his and joked fondly about the young people. None of the embarrassment which had afflicted her visit to his flat hung about her now. She had somebody she could talk to freely at last, and was happy in his society. It was a holiday – with a holiday's irresponsibility about it. He understood her mood; he was always quick to understand at the time, though very ready to forget what the feeling must have been and what it must continue to be when he had gone. He shared her tenderness, her pity, and her amusement at the youthful venturers. They talked gaily for a quarter of an hour, Christine not noticing which way they went. Then a pause came.

"Are we going right?" she asked.

"Well, not quite straight home," he laughed.

"Oh, but we must," she said with a sigh. He nodded and took a turn leading more directly to her house.

"I hear things are much better with John. I met Grantley and he told me they were in much better shape."

"Thanks to Grantley Imason and you. Yes, and you."

"I was very glad to do it. Oh, it's nothing. I can trust old John, you know."

"Yes; he'll pay you back. Still it was good of you." She lifted her eyes to his. "He knows, Frank," she said.

"The devil he does!" Caylesham was startled and smiled wryly.

"I don't know why I told you that. I suppose I had to talk to somebody. Yes; Harriet Courtland told him – you remember she knew? He made her angry by lecturing her about Tom, and she told him."

"He knows, by Jove, does he?" He pulled at his moustache; she pressed his arm lightly. "But, I say, he's taken the money!" He looked at her in a whimsical perplexity.

"So you may imagine what it is to me."

"But he's taken the money!"

"How could he refuse it? It would have meant ruin. Oh, he didn't know when he sent me to you – he'd never have done that."

"But he knew when he kept it?"

"Yes, he knew then. He couldn't let it go when once he'd got it, you see. Poor old John!"

"Well, that's a rum thing!" Caylesham's code was infringed by John's action – that was plain: but his humour was tickled too. "How did he – well, how did he take it?"

"Awful!" she answered with a shiver.

"But I say, you know, he kept the money, Christine."

"That makes no difference – or makes it worse. Oh, I can't tell you!"

"It doesn't make it worse for you anyhow. It gives you the whip hand, doesn't it?"

She did not heed him; she was set on pouring out her own story.

"It's dreadful at home, Frank. Of course I oughtn't to talk to you of all people. But I've had two months and more of it now."

"He's not unkind to you?"

"If he was, what do I deserve? Oh, don't be fierce. He doesn't throw things at me, like Harriet Courtland, or beat me. But I – " She burst into a little laugh. "I'm stood in the corner all the time, Frank."

"Poor old Christine!"

"He won't be friends. He keeps me off. I never touch his hand, or anything."

A long-dormant jealousy stirred in Caylesham.

"Well, do you want to?" he asked rather brusquely.

"Oh, that's all very well, but imagine living like that! There's nobody to speak to. I'm in disgrace. He doesn't talk about it, but he talks round it, you know. Sometimes he forgets for five minutes. Then I say something cheerful. Then he remembers and – and sends me back to my corner." Her rueful laugh was not far from a sob. "It's awfully humiliating," she ended, "and – and most frightfully dull."

"But how can he – ?"

"One good scene would have been so much more endurable. But all day and every day!"

Caylesham was amused, vexed, exasperated.

"But, good heavens, it's not as if it was an ordinary case. Remember what he's done! Why do you stand it?"

"How can I help it? I did the thing, didn't I?"

His voice rose a little in his impatience.

"But he's taken my money. He's living on it. It's saved him. By gad, how can he say anything to you after that? Haven't you got your answer? Why don't you remind him gently of that?"

"That would hurt him so dreadfully."

"Well, doesn't he hurt you?"

"He'd never be friends with me again."

"He doesn't seem particularly friendly now."

"I feel quite friendly to him. I want to be friends."

"It does you credit then," he said with a sneer.

She pressed his arm lightly again, pleading against his anger and his unwonted failure to understand.

"It would be an end of all hope if I threw the money in his teeth. He's unhappy enough about it as it is." She looked up as she added: "I've got to live with him, you know, Frank."

Caylesham gave her a curious quick glance.

"Got to live with him?"

"Yes; all my life," she answered. "I suppose you hadn't thought of that?"

It was not the sort of thing which Caylesham was in the habit of thinking about, but he tried to follow her view.

"Yes, of course. It would be better to be friends. But you shouldn't let him get on stilts. It's absurd, after what he's done. I mean – I mean he's done a much queerer thing than you have."

"Poor old John! How could he help it?"

He glanced at her sharply and was about to speak, when she cried, "Why, where are we? I didn't notice where we were going."

"We're just outside my rooms. Come in for a bit."

"No, I can't come in. I'm late now, and – and – really I'm ashamed to tell even you. Well, I'm always questioned where I've been. I have to give an account of every place. I have to stand with my hands behind me and give an account of all my movements, Frank."

He whistled gently and compassionately.

"Like a schoolgirl!"

"How well you follow the metaphor, Frank! So I can't come in. I'll go home. No, don't you come."

"I'll come a bit farther with you. Oh, it's quite dark."

"Well, not arm in arm!"

"But doesn't that look more respectable?"

"You're entirely incurable," she said, with her old pleasure in him all revived.

"It's infernal nonsense," he went on. "Just you stand up for yourself. It's absolute humbug in him. He's debarred himself from taking up any such attitude – just as much as he has from making any public row about it. Hang it, he can't have it both ways, Christine!"

"I've got to live with him, Frank."

"Oh, you said that before."

"And I'm very fond of him."

"What?" He turned to her in a genuine surprise and an obvious vexation.

"Yes, very. I always was. We used to spar, but we were good friends. We don't spar now; I wish we did. It's just iciness. But I'm very fond of him."

"Of course, if you feel like that – "

"I always felt like that, even – even long ago. I used to tell you I did. I suppose you thought that humbug."

"Well, it wouldn't have been very strange if I had."

"No, I suppose not. It must have looked like that. But it was true – and it is true. The only thing I've got left to care much about in life is getting to be friends with John again – and I don't suppose I ever shall." Her voice fairly broke for a moment. "That's what upset me so much when I saw those silly children at Kate Raymore's."

Caylesham looked at her. There was a roguish twinkle in his eye, but he patted her hand in a very friendly sympathy.

"I say, old John's cut me out after all!" he whispered.

"You're scandalous! You always were," she said, smiling. "The way you put things was always disreputable. Yes, it was, Frank. But no; it's not poor old John who's cut you out – or at least it's John in a particular capacity. Life's cut you out – John as life. John, as life, has cut you out of my life – and now I've got to live with John, you see."

Caylesham screwed up his mouth ruefully. Things certainly seemed to shape that way. She had to live with John. John's conduct might be unreasonable and unjustifiable, but people who must be lived with frequently presume on that circumstance and behave as they would not venture to behave if living with them were optional. John really had not a leg to stand on, if it came to an argument. But arguing with people you have to live with does not conduce to the comfort of living with them – especially if you get the better of the argument. He was exceedingly sorry for Christine, but he didn't see any way out of it for her.

"Of course there's a funny side to it," she said with a little laugh.

"Oh, yes, there is," he admitted. "But it's deuced rough luck on you."

"Everything's deuced rough luck." She mimicked his tone daintily. "And I don't suppose it's ever anything worse with you, Frank! It was deuced rough luck ever meeting you, you know. And so it was that John wanted money and sent me to you. And that Harriet's got a temper, and, I suppose, that we've got to be punished for our sins." She took her arm out of his – she had slipped it in again while she talked about John as life. "And here I am, just at home, and – and the corner's waiting for me, Frank."

"I'm devilish sorry, Christine."

"Yes, I'm sure you are. You always meant to be kind. Frank, if ever I do make friends with John, be glad, won't you?"

"I think he's behaved like a – "

"Hush, hush! You've always been prosperous – and you've never been good." She laughed and took his hand. "So don't say anything against poor old John."

"I tell you what – you're a brick, Christine. Well, good-bye, my dear."

"Good-bye, Frank. I'm glad I met you. I've got some of it out, haven't I? Don't worry – well, no, you won't – and if I succeed, do try to be glad. And never a word to show John that I've told you he knows!"

"I shall do just as you like about that. Good-bye, Christine."

He left her a few yards from her house, and she stood by the door watching his figure till it disappeared in the dark. He had done her so much harm. He was not a good friend. But he was good to talk to, and very kind in his indolent, careless way. If you recalled yourself to him, he was glad to see you and ready to be talked to. A moment of temptation came upon her – the temptation to throw up everything, as Tom Courtland had thrown everything up, to abandon the hard task, to give up trying for the only thing she wanted. But Caylesham had given her no such invitation. He did not want her – that was the plain English of it – and she did not want him in the end either. She had loved the thing and still loved the memory of it; but she did not desire it again, because in it there was no peace. She wanted a friend – and John would not be one. Nobody wanted her – except John; and because he wanted her, he was so hard to her. But Frank Caylesham had been in his turn too hard on John. She was the only person who could realise John's position and make allowances for him. Yet all the light died out of her face as she entered her home.

John was waiting for her. His mind was full of how well things were going in the City. In the old days this would have been one of their merry, happy, united evenings. He would have told her of his success, and "stood" a dinner and a play, and brought her home in the height of glee and good companionship, laughing at her sharp sayings, and admiring her dainty little face. All this was just what he wanted to do now, and his life was as arid as hers for want of the comradeship. But he would not forgive; it seemed neither possible nor self-respecting. That very weak point in his case, with which Caylesham had dealt so trenchantly, made him a great stickler for self-respect; nothing must be done – nothing more – to make her think that he condoned her offence or treated it lightly. It was part of her punishment to hear nothing of the renewed prosperity in the City, to know nothing of his thoughts or his doings, to be locked out of his heart. This was one side; the other was that obligation to make full disclosure of all she did, and of how her time was spent. She must be made to feel the thing in these two ways every day. Yet he considered that he was treating her very mercifully; he was anxious to do that, because he was all the time in his heart afraid that she would throw Caylesham's money – the money which was bringing the renewed prosperity – in his face.

She faced the punishment with her usual courage and her unfailing humour. There was open irony in the minuteness with which she catalogued her day's doings; she did not sit down, but stood on the other side of his writing-table, upright, and with her hands actually behind her – because she liked the schoolgirl parallel which Caylesham had drawn. John saw the humour and felt the irony, but he was helpless. She did what she was told; he could not control the manner in which she did it.

"And then I walked home – yes, walked. Didn't take a bus, or a tram, or a steam-engine. I just walked on my two legs, going about three miles an hour, and oh, yes, taking one wrong turn, which makes me five minutes later than I ought to be. Quite a respectable turn – just out of the way, that's all. May I go and get myself some tea?"

He did so want to tell her about the successes in the City. And in fact he admired the courage and liked the irony. They were her own, and of her. Doing justice was very hard, with that provoking dainty face at once resenting and mocking at it. But justice must be done; his grievance should not be belittled.

"I'm not stopping you getting yourself tea. Is it a crime to ask where my wife's been?"

"It's mere prudence, I'm sure. Only what makes you think I should tell you the truth?"

She had her tea now – a second tea – and was sipping it leisurely.

"At any rate I know your account, and if I heard anything different – "

"That's the method? I see." Her tone softened. "Don't let's quarrel. What's the good? Had a good day in the City?"

"Just like other days," grunted John.

"Nothing particular?"

"No."

"There never is now, is there?"

He made no answer. Opening the evening paper, he began to read it. Christine knew what that meant. Saving what was unavoidable, he would talk no more to her that evening.

The wound to her vanity, her thwarted affection, her sense of the absurdity of such a way of living together, all combined to urge her to take Caylesham's view of the position, and to act upon it – to make the one reply, the one defence, which was open to her. The very words which she would use came into her mind as she sat opposite to John at dinner. Living on Caylesham's generosity – it would be scarcely an exaggeration to say that. And from what motive came the bounty? It would not be hard to find words – stinging words – to define that. John could have no answer to them; they must shame him to the soul. At every sullen short word, at every obstinate punitive silence, the temptation grew upon her. Knowing that she knew all, how could he have the effrontery to behave in this fashion? She steeled herself to the fight, she was ready for it by the time dinner was done and they were left alone, John sitting in glum muteness as he drank his port, Christine in her smart evening frock, displaying a prettiness which won no approving glances now. It was insufferable – she would do it!

Ah, but poor old John! He had been through so many worries, he had so narrowly escaped dire calamity. He had been forced into a position so terrible. And they had been through so many things together; they had been comrades in fair and foul weather. What would be the look in his eyes when he heard that taunt from her? He would say little, since there would be little to say – but he would give her a look of such hopeless fierce misery. No; in the end she was responsible for the thing, and she must bear the burden of it. Caylesham's view might be the man's view, perhaps the right view for a man to take. It could not be the woman's; the wife was not justified in looking at it like that. No, she couldn't do it.

But neither could she go on living like this. Her eyes rested thoughtfully on him. He was looking tired and old. Poor old John! He wanted livening up, some merriment, a little playful petting to which he might respond in his roughly jocose, affectionately homely fashion – with his "old girl" and "old lady" and so on. He never called her "old girl" now. Would she hate it as much now? She longed for it extraordinarily, since it would mark happiness and forgetfulness in him. But it seemed as if she would never hear it again. Suddenly she broke out with a passionate question:

"Are we to live like this always?"

He did not seem startled; he answered slowly and ponderously; "What have you to complain of? Do I say anything? Do I reproach you? Have I made a row? Look at what I might have done! Some people would think you were very lucky."

"It makes you miserable as well as me."

"You should have thought of all that before."

He took out a cigar and lit it, then turned his chair half-way round from the table, and began to read his paper again. Christine could not bear it; she began to sob softly. He took no visible notice of her; his eyes were fixed on a paragraph and he was reading it over and over again, not following in the least what it meant. She rose and walked towards the door; he remained motionless. She came back towards him in a hesitating way.

"I want to speak to you," she said, choking down her sobs and regaining composure.

He looked up now. There was fear in his eyes, a hunted look which went to her heart. At the least invitation she would have thrown herself on her knees by him and sought every means to comfort him. She was thinking only of him now, and had forgotten Caylesham's gay attractiveness. And in face of that look in his eyes she could not say a word about Caylesham's money.

"I'm going away for a little while, John. I'm going to ask Sibylla to let me come down to Milldean for a bit."

"What do you want to go away for?"

"A change of air," she answered, smiling derisively. "I can't bear this, you know. It's intolerable – and it's absurd."

"Am I to blame for it?"

"I'm not talking about who's to blame. But I must go away."

"How long do you want to stay away?"

"Till you want me back – till you ask me to come back." He looked at her questioningly. "It must be one thing or the other," she went on.

"It's for me to decide what it shall be."

"Yes; which of the two possible things. It's for you to decide that. But this state of things isn't possible. If you don't want me back, well, we must make arrangements. If you ask me to come back, you'll mean that you want to forget all this wretchedness and be really friends." Her feeling broke out. "Yes, friends again," she repeated, holding her arms out towards him.

"You seem to think things are very easily forgotten," he growled.

"God knows I don't think so," she said. "Do you really think that's what I've learnt from life, John?"

"At any rate I've got to forget them pretty easily!"

She would not trust herself to argue lest in the heat of contention that one forbidden weapon should leap into her hand.

"We can neither of us forget. But there's another thing," she said.

He would not give up his idea, his theory of what she deserved and of what morality demanded.

"You may go for a visit. I shall expect you back in two or three weeks."

"Not back to this," she insisted.

He shrugged his shoulders and held the paper up between them.

"If you don't want me back, well, I shall understand that. But I shan't come back to this." She walked to the door, and looked back; she could not see his face for the paper. She made a little despairing movement with her hands, but turned away again without saying more, and stole quietly out of the room.

John Fanshaw dashed his paper to the ground and sprang to his feet. He gave a long sigh. He had been in mortal terror – he thought she was going to talk about the money. That peril was past. He flung his hardly lighted cigar into the grate and walked up and down the room in a frenzy of unhappiness. Yes, that peril was past – she had said nothing. But he knew it was in her heart; and he knew how it must appear to her. Heavens, did it not appear like that to him? But she should never know that he felt like that about it. That would be to give up his grievance, to abandon his superiority, to admit that there was little or nothing to choose between them, – between her, the sinner, and him, who profited by the sin, whose salvation the sin had been, who knew it had been his salvation and had accepted salvation from it. No, no; he must never acknowledge that. He must stick to his position. It was monstrous to think he would own that his guilt was comparable to hers.

He sank back into his chair again and looked round the empty room. He thought of Christine upstairs, alone too. What a state of things! "Why did she? My God, why did she?" he muttered, and then fell to lashing himself once more into a useless fury, pricking his anger lest it should sleep, setting imagination to work on recollection, torturing himself, living again through the time of her treachery, elaborating all his grievance – lest by chance she should seem less of a sinner than before, lest by chance his own act should loom too large, lest by chance he might be weak and open his heart and find forgiveness for his wife and comrade.

"By God, she had no excuse!" he muttered, striking the table with his fist. "And I – why, the thing was settled before I knew. It was settled, I say!" Then he thought that if things went on doing well he would be able to pay Caylesham sooner than the letter of his bond demanded. Then, when he had paid Caylesham off – ah, then the superiority would be in no danger, there would be no taunt to fear. Why, yes, he would pay Caylesham off quite soon. Because things were going so well. Now to-day, in the City, what a stroke he had made! If he were to tell Christine that – ! For a moment he smiled, thinking how she would pat his cheek and say, "Clever old John!" in her pretty half-derisive way; how she would —

He broke off with a groan. No; by heaven, he'd tell her nothing. His life was nothing to her – thanks to what she'd done – to what she had done. Oh, he did well to be angry! – Even to think of what she had done – !

So he struggled, lest perchance forgiveness and comradeship should win the day.