It was the close of the season: many people had left town, but festivities were still on. To a stranger the season might have seemed at its height. The Armours were giving a large party in Cavendish Square before going back again to Greyhope, where, for the sake of Lali and her child, they intended to remain during the rest of the summer, in preference to going on the Continent or to Scotland. The only unsatisfactory feature of Lali’s season was the absence of her husband. Naturally there were those who said strange things regarding Frank Armour’s stay in America; but it was pretty generally known that he was engaged in land speculations, and his club friends, who perhaps took the pleasantest view of the matter, said that he was very wise indeed, if a little cowardly, in staying abroad until his wife was educated and ready to take her position in society. There was one thing on which they were all agreed: Mrs. Frank Armour either had a mind superior to the charms of their sex, or was incapable of that vanity which hath many suitors, and says: “So far shalt thou go, and—” The fact is, Mrs. Frank Armour’s mind was superior. She had only one object—to triumph over her husband grandly, as a woman righteously might. She had vanity, of course, but it was not ignoble. She kept one thing in view; she lived for it.
Her translation had been successful. There were times when she remembered her father, the wild days on the prairies, the buffalo-hunt, tracking the deer, tribal battles, the long silent hours of the winter, and the warm summer nights when she slept in the prairie grass or camped with her people in the trough of a great landwave. Sometimes the hunger for its freedom, and its idleness, and its sport, came to her greatly; but she thought of her child, and she put it from her. She was ambitious for him; she was keen to prove her worth as a wife against her husband’s unworthiness. This perhaps saved her. She might have lost had her life been without this motive.
The very morning of this notable reception, General Armour had received a note from Frank Armour’s solicitor, saying that his son was likely to arrive in London from America that day or the next. Frank had written to his people no word of his coming; to his wife, as we have said, he had not written for months; and before he started back he would not write, because he wished to make what amends he could in person. He expected to find her improved, of course, but still he could only think of her as an Indian, showing her common prairie origin. His knowledge of her before their marriage had been particularly brief; she was little more in his eyes than a thousand other Indian women, save that she was better-looking, was whiter than most, and had finer features. He could not very clearly remember the tones of her voice, because after marriage, and before he had sent her to England, he had seen little or nothing of her.
When General Armour received the news of Frank’s return he told his wife and Marion, and they consulted together whether it were good to let Lali know at once. He might arrive that evening. If so, the position would be awkward, because it was impossible to tell how it might affect her. If they did tell her, and Frank happened not to arrive, it might unnerve her so as to make her appearance in the evening doubtful. Richard, the wiseacre, the inexhaustible Richard, was caring for his cottagers and cutting the leaves of new books—his chiefest pleasure—at Greyhope. They felt it was a matter they ought to be able to decide for themselves, but still it was the last evening of Lali’s stay in town, and they did not care to take any risk. Strange to say, they had come to take pride in their son’s wife; for even General and Mrs. Armour, high-minded and of serene social status as they were, seemed not quite insensible to the pleasure of being an axle on which a system of social notoriety revolved.
At the opportune moment Captain Vidall was announced, and, because he and Marion were soon to carry but one name between them, he was called into family consultation. It is somewhat singular that in this case the women were quite wrong and the men were quite right. For General Armour and Captain Vidall were for silence until Frank came, if he came that day, or for telling her the following morning, when the function was over. And the men prevailed.
Marion was much excited all day; she had given orders that Frank’s room should be made ready, but for whom she gave no information. While Lali was dressing for the evening, something excited and nervous, she entered her room. They were now the best of friends. The years had seen many shifting scenes in their companionship; they had been as often at war as at peace; but they had respected each other, each after her own fashion; and now they had a real and mutual regard. Lali’s was a slim, lithe figure, wearing its fashionable robes with an air of possession; and the face above it, if not entirely beautiful, had a strange, warm fascination. The girl had not been a chieftainess for nothing. A look of quiet command was there, but also a far-away expression which gave a faint look of sadness even when a smile was at the lips. The smile itself did not come quickly, it grew; but above it all was hair of perfect brown, most rare,—setting off her face as a plume does a helmet. She showed no surprise when Marion entered. She welcomed her with a smile and outstretched hand, but said nothing.
“Lali,” said Marion somewhat abruptly,—she scarcely knew why she said it,—“are you happy?”
It was strange how the Indian girl had taken on those little manners of society which convey so much by inflection. She lifted her eyebrows at Marion, and said presently, in a soft, deliberate voice, “Come, Marion, we will go and see little Richard; then I shall be happy.”
She linked her arm through Marion’s. Marion drummed her fingers lightly on the beautiful arm, and then fell to wondering what she should say next. They passed into the room where the child lay sleeping; they went to his little bed, and Lali stretched out her hand gently, touching the curls of the child. Running a finger through one delicately, she said, with a still softer tone than before: “Why should not one be happy?”
Marion looked up slowly into her eyes, let a hand fall on her shoulder gently, and replied: “Lali, do you never wish Frank to come?”
Lali’s fingers came from the child, the colour mounted slowly to her forehead, and she drew the girl away again into the other room. Then she turned and faced Marion, a deep fire in her eyes, and said, in a whisper almost hoarse in its intensity: “Yes; I wish he would come to-night.”
She looked harder yet at Marion; then, with a flash of pride and her hands clasping before her, she drew herself up, and added: “Am I not worthy to be his wife now? Am I not beautiful—for a savage?”
There was no common vanity in the action. It had a noble kind of wistfulness, and a serenity that entirely redeemed it. Marion dated her own happiness from the time when Lali met her accident, for in the evening of that disastrous day she issued to Captain Hume Vidall a commission which he could never—wished never—to resign. Since then she had been at her best,—we are all more or less selfish creatures,—and had grown gentler, curbing the delicate imperiousness of her nature, and frankly, and without the least pique, taken a secondary position of interest in the household, occasioned by Lali’s popularity. She looked Lali up and down with a glance in which many feelings met, and then, catching her hands warmly, she lifted them, put them on her own shoulders, and said: “My dear beautiful savage, you are fit and worthy to be Queen of England; and Frank, when he comes—”
“Hush!” said the other dreamily, and put a finger on Marion’s lips. “I know what you are going to say, but I do not wish to hear it. He did not love me then. He used me—” She shuddered, put her hands to her eyes with a pained, trembling motion, then threw her head back with a quick sigh. “But I will not speak of it. Come, we are for the dance, Marion. It is the last, to-night. To-morrow—” She paused, looking straight before her, lost in thought.
“Yes, to-morrow, Lali?”
“I do not know about to-morrow,” was the reply. “Strange things come to me.”
Marion longed to tell her then and there the great news, but she was afraid to do so, and was, moreover, withheld by the remembrance that it had been agreed she should not be told. She said nothing.
At eleven o’clock the rooms were filled. For the fag end of the season, people seemed unusually brilliant. The evening itself was not so hot as common, and there was an extra array of distinguished guests. Marion was nervous all the evening, though she showed little of it, being most prettily employed in making people pleased with themselves. Mrs. Armour also was not free from apprehension. In reply to inquiries concerning her son she said, as she had often said during the season, that he might be back at any time now. Lali had answered always in the same fashion, and had shown no sign that his continued absence was singular. As the evening wore on, the probability of Frank’s appearance seemed less; and the Armours began to breathe more freely.
Frank had, however, arrived. He had driven straight from Euston to Cavendish Square, but, seeing the house lighted up, and guests arriving, he had a sudden feeling of uncertainty. He ordered the cabman to take him to his club. There he put himself in evening-dress, and drove back again to the house. He entered quietly. At the moment the hall was almost deserted; people were mostly in the ballroom and supper-room. He paused a moment, biting his moustache as if in perplexity. A strange timidity came on him. All his old dash and self-possession seemed to have forsaken him. Presently, seeing a number of people entering the hall, he made for the staircase, and went hastily up. Mechanically he went to his own room, and found it lighted. Flowers were set about, and everything was made ready as for a guest. He sat down, not thinking, but dazed.
Glancing up, he saw his face in a mirror. It was bronzed, but it looked rather old and careworn. He shrugged a shoulder at that. Then, in the mirror, he saw also something else. It startled him so that he sat perfectly still for a moment looking at it. It was some one laughing at him over his shoulder—a child! He got to his feet and turned round. On the table was a very large photograph of a smiling child—with his eyes, his face. He caught the chair-arm, and stood looking at it a little wildly. Then he laughed a strange laugh, and the tears leaped to his eyes. He caught the picture in his hands, and kissed it,—very foolishly, men not fathers might think,—and read the name beneath, Richard Joseph Armour; and again, beneath that, the date of birth. He then put it back on the table and sat looking at it-looking, and forgetting, and remembering.
Presently, the door opened, and some one entered. It was Marion. She had seen him pass through the hall; she had then gone and told her father and mother, to prepare them, and had followed him upstairs. He did not hear her. She stepped softly forwards. “Frank!” she said—“Frank!” and laid a hand on his shoulder. He started up and turned his face on her.
Then he caught her hands and kissed her. “Marion!” he said, and he could say no more. But presently he pointed towards the photograph.
She nodded her head. “Yes, it is your child, Frank. Though, of course, you don’t deserve it.... Frank dear,” she added, “I am glad—we shall all be glad-to have you back; but you are a wicked man.” She felt she must say that.
Now he only nodded, and still looked at the portrait. “Where is—my wife?” he added presently.
“She is in the ballroom.” Marion was wondering what was best to do.
He caught his thumb-nail in his teeth. He winced in spite of himself. “I will go to her,” he said, “and then—the baby.”
“I am glad,” she replied, “that you have so much sense of justice left, Frank: the wife first, the baby afterwards. But do you think you deserve either?”
He became moody, and made an impatient gesture. “Lady Agnes Martling is here, and also Lady Haldwell,” she persisted cruelly. She did not mind, because she knew he would have enough to compensate him afterwards.
“Marion,” he said, “say it all, and let me have it over. Say what you like, and I’ll not whimper. I’ll face it. But I want to see my child.”
She was sorry for him. She had really wanted to see how much he was capable of feeling in the matter.
“Wait here, Frank,” she said. “That will be best; and I will bring your wife to you.”
He said nothing, but assented with a motion of the hand, and she left him where he was. He braced himself for the interview. Assuredly a man loses something of natural courage and self-confidence when he has done a thing of which he should be, and is, ashamed.
It seemed a long time (it was in reality but a couple of minutes) before the door opened again, and Marion said: “Frank, your wife!” and then retreated.
The door closed, leaving a stately figure standing just inside it. The figure did not move forwards, but stood there, full of life and fine excitement, but very still also.
Frank Armour was confounded. He came forwards slowly, looking hard. Was this distinguished, handsome, reproachful woman his wife—Lali, the Indian girl, whom he had married in a fit of pique and brandy? He could hardly believe his eyes; and yet hers looked out at him with something that he remembered too, together with something which he did not remember, making him uneasy. Clearly, his great mistake had turned from ashes into fruit. “Lali!” he said, and held out his hand.
She reached out hers courteously, but her fingers gave him no response.
“We have many things to say to each other,” she said, “but they cannot be said now. I shall be missed from the ballroom.”
“Missed from the ballroom!” He almost laughed to think how strange this sounded in his ears. As if interpreting his thought, she added: “You see, it is our last affair of the season, and we are all anxious to do our duty perfectly. Will you go down with me? We can talk afterwards.”
Her continued self-possession utterly confused him. She had utterly confused Marion also, when told that her husband was in the house. She had had presentiments, and, besides, she had been schooling herself for this hour for a long time. She turned towards the door.
“But,” he asked, like a supplicant, “our child! I want to see the boy.”
She lifted her eyebrows, then, seeing the photograph of the baby on the table, understood how he knew. “Come with me, then,” she said, with a little more feeling.
She led the way along the landing, and paused at her door. “Remember that we have to appear amongst the guests directly,” she said, as though to warn him against any demonstration. Then they entered. She went over to the cot and drew back the fleecy curtain from over the sleeping boy’s head. His fingers hungered to take his child to his arms. “He is magnificent—magnificent!” he said, with a great pride. “Why did you never let me know of it?”
“How could I tell what you would do?” she calmly replied. “You married me—wickedly, and used me wickedly afterwards; and I loved the child.”
“You loved the child,” he repeated after her. “Lali,” he added, “I don’t deserve it, but forgive me, if you can—for the child’s sake.”
“We had better go below,” she calmly replied. “We have both duties to do. You will of course—appear with me—before them?”
The slight irony in the tone cut him horribly. He offered his arm in silence. They passed on to the staircase.
“It is necessary,” she said, “to appear cheerful before one’s guests.”
She had him at an advantage at every point. “We will be cheerful, then,” was his reply, spoken with a grim kind of humour. “You have learned it all, haven’t you?” he added.
They were just entering the ballroom. “Yes, with your kind help—and absence,” she replied.
The surprise of the guests was somewhat diminished by the fact that Marion, telling General Armour and his wife first of Frank’s return, industriously sent the news buzzing about the room.
The two went straight to Frank’s father and mother. Their parts were all excellently played. Then Frank mingled among the guests, being very heartily greeted, and heard congratulations on all sides. Old club friends rallied him as a deserter, and new acquaintances flocked about him; and presently he awakened to the fact that his Indian wife had been an interest of the season, was not the least admired person present. It was altogether too good luck for him; but he had an uncomfortable conviction that he had a long path of penance to walk before he could hope to enjoy it.
All at once he met Lady Haldwell, who, in spite of all, still accepted invitations to General Armour’s house—the strange scene between Lali and herself never having been disclosed to the family. He had nothing but bitterness in his heart for her, but he spoke a few smooth words, and she languidly congratulated him on his bronzed appearance. He asked for a dance, but she had not one to give him. As she was leaving, she suddenly turned as though she had forgotten something, and looking at him, said: “I forgot to congratulate you on your marriage. I hope it is not too late?”
He bowed. “Your congratulations are so sincere,” he said, “that they would be a propos late or early.” When he stood with his wife whilst the guests were leaving, and saw with what manner she carried it all off,—as though she had been born in the good land of good breeding,—he was moved alternately with wonder and shame—shame that he had intended this noble creature as a sacrifice to his ugly temper and spite.
When all the guests were gone and the family stood alone in the drawing-room, a silence suddenly fell amongst them. Presently Marion said to her mother in a half-whisper, “I wish Richard were here.”
They all felt the extreme awkwardness of the situation, especially when Lali bade General Armour, Mrs. Armour, and Marion good-night, and then, turning to her husband, said, “Good-night”—she did not even speak his name. “Perhaps you would care to ride to-morrow morning? I always go to the Park at ten, and this will be my last ride of the season.”
Had she written out an elaborate proclamation of her intended attitude towards her husband, it could not have more clearly conveyed her mind than this little speech, delivered as to a most friendly acquaintance. General Armour pulled his moustache fiercely, and, it is possible, enjoyed the situation, despite its peril. Mrs. Armour turned to the mantel and seemed tremulously engaged in arranging some bric-a-brac. Marion, however, with a fine instinct, slid her arm through that of Lali, and gently said: “Yes, of course Frank will be glad of a ride in the Park. He used to ride with me every morning. But let us go, us three, and kiss the baby good-night—‘good-night till we meet in the morning.’”
She linked her arm now through Frank’s, and as she did so he replied to Lali: “I shall be glad to ride in the morning, but—”
“But we can arrange it at breakfast,” said his wife hurriedly. At the same time she allowed herself to be drawn away to the hall with her husband.
He was very angry, but he knew he had no right to be so. He choked back his wrath and moved on amiably enough, and suddenly the fashion in which the tables had been turned on him struck him with its tragic comedy, and he involuntarily smiled. His sense of humour saved him from words and acts which might possibly have made the matter a pure tragedy after all. He loosed his arm from Marion’s.
“I must bid father and mother good-night. Then I will join you both—‘in the court of the king.’” And he turned and went back, and said to his father as he kissed his mother: “I am had at an advantage, General.”
“And serves you right, my boy. You had the odds with you, but she has captured them like a born soldier.” His mother said to him gently: “Frank, you blamed us, but remember that we wished only your good. Take my advice, dear, and try to love your wife and win her confidence.”
“Love her—try to love her!” he said. “I shall easily do that. But the other—?” He shook his head a little, though what he meant perhaps he did not know quite himself, and then followed Marion and Lali upstairs. Marion had tried to escape from Lali, but was told that she must stay; and the three met at the child’s cot. Marion stooped down and kissed its forehead. Frank stooped also and kissed its cheek. Then the wife kissed the other cheek. The child slept peacefully on. “You can always see the baby here before breakfast, if you choose,” said Lali; and she held out her hand again in good-night. At this point Marion stole away, in spite of Lah’s quick little cry of “Wait, Marion!” and the two were left alone again.
“I am very tired,” she said. “I would rather not talk to-night.” The dismissal was evident.
He took her hand, held it an instant, and presently said: “I will not detain you, but I would ask you, Lali, to remember that you are my wife. Nothing can alter that.”
“Still we are only strangers, as you know,” she quietly rejoined.
“You forget the days we were together—after we were married,” he cautiously urged.
“I am not the same girl,... you killed her... We have to start again.... I know all.”
“You know that in my wretched anger and madness I—”
“Oh, please do not speak of it,” she said; “it is so bad even in thought.”
“But will you never forgive me, and care for me? We have to live our lives together.”
“Pray let us not speak of it now,” she said, in a weary voice; then, breathlessly: “It is of much more consequence that you should love me—and the child.”
He drew himself up with a choking sigh, and spread out his arms to her. “Oh, my wife!” he exclaimed.
“No, no,” she cried, “this is unreasonable; we know so little of each other.... Good-night, again.”
He turned at the door, came back, and, stooping, kissed the child on the lips. Then he said: “You are right. I deserve to suffer.... Good-night.”
But when he was gone she dropped on her knees, and kissed the child many times on the lips also.
When Francis Armour left his wife’s room he did not go to his own, but quietly descended the stairs, went to the library, and sat down. The loneliest thing in the world is to be tete-a-tete with one’s conscience. A man may have a bad hour with an enemy, a sad hour with a friend, a peaceful hour with himself, but when the little dwarf, conscience, perches upon every hillock of remembrance and makes slow signs—those strange symbols of the language of the soul—to him, no slave upon the tread-mill suffers more.
The butler came in to see if anything was required, but Armour only greeted him silently and waved him away. His brain was painfully alert, his memory singularly awake. It seemed that the incident of this hour had so opened up every channel of his intelligence that all his life ran past him in fantastic panorama, as by that illumination which comes to the drowning man. He seemed under some strange spell. Once or twice he rose, rubbed his eyes, and looked round the room—the room where as a boy he had spent idle hours, where as a student he had been in the hands of his tutor, and as a young man had found recreations such as belong to ambitious and ardent youth. Every corner was familiar. Nothing was changed. The books upon the shelves were as they were placed twenty years ago. And yet he did not seem a part of it. It did not seem natural to him. He was in an atmosphere of strangeness—that atmosphere which surrounds a man, as by a cloud, when some crisis comes upon him and his life seems to stand still, whirling upon its narrow base, while the world appears at an interminable distance, even as to a deaf man who sees yet cannot hear.
There came home to him at that moment with a force indescribable the shamelessness of the act he committed four years ago. He had thought to come back to miserable humiliation. For four years he had refused to do his duty as a man towards an innocent woman,—a woman, though in part a savage,—now transformed into a gentle, noble creature of delight and goodness. How had he deserved it? He had sown the storm, it was but just that he should reap the whirlwind; he had scattered thistles, could he expect to gather grapes? He knew that the sympathy of all his father’s house was not with him, but with the woman he had wronged. He was glad it was so. Looking back now, it seemed so poor and paltry a thing that he, a man, should stoop to revenge himself upon those who had given him birth, as a kind of insult to the woman who had lightly set him aside, and should use for that purpose a helpless, confiding girl. To revenge one’s self for wrong to one’s self is but a common passion, which has little dignity; to avenge some one whom one has loved, man or woman,—and, before all, woman,—has some touch of nobility, is redeemed by loyalty. For his act there was not one word of defence to be made, and he was not prepared to make it.
The cigars and liquors were beside him, but he did not touch them. He seemed very far away from the ordinary details of his life: he knew he had before him hard travel, and he was not confident of the end. He could not tell how long he sat there.—After, a time the ticking of the clock seemed painfully loud to him. Now and again he heard a cab rattling through the Square, and the foolish song of some drunken loiterer in the night caused him to start painfully. Everything jarred on him. Once he got up, went to the window, and looked out. The moon was shining full on the Square. He wondered if it would be well for him to go out and find some quiet to his nerves in walking. He did so. Out in the Square he looked up to his wife’s window. It was lighted. Long time he walked up and down, his eyes on the window. It held him like a charm. Once he leaned against the iron railings of the garden and looked up, not moving for a time. Presently he saw the curtain of the window raised, and against the dim light of the room was outlined the figure of his wife. He knew it. She stood for a moment looking out into the night. She could not see him, nor could he see her features at all plainly, but he knew that she, like him, was alone with the catastrophe which his wickedness had sent upon her. Soon the curtain was drawn down again, and then he went once more to the house and took his old seat beside the table. He fell to brooding, and at last, exhausted, dropped to a troubled sleep. He woke with a start. Some one was in the room. He heard a step behind him. He came to his feet quickly, a wild light in his eyes. He faced his brother Richard.
Late in the afternoon Marion had telegraphed to Richard that Frank was coming. He had been away visiting some poor and sick people, and when he came back to Greyhope it was too late to catch the train. But the horses were harnessed straightway, and he was driven into town, a three-hours’ drive. He had left the horses at the stables, and, having a latch-key, had come in quietly. He had seen the light in the study, and guessed who was there. He entered, and saw his brother asleep. He watched him for a moment and studied him. Then he moved away to take off his hat, and, as he did so, stumbled slightly. Then it was Frank waked, and for the first time in five years they looked each other in the eyes. They both stood immovable for a moment, and then Richard caught Frank’s hand in both of his and said: “God bless you, my boy! I am glad you are back.”
“Dick! Dick!” was the reply, and Frank’s other hand clutched Richard’s shoulder in his strong emotion. They stood silent for a moment longer, and then Richard recovered himself. He waved his hand to the chairs. The strain of the situation was a little painful for them both. Men are shy with each other where their emotions are in play.
“Why, my boy,” he said, waving a hand to the spirits and liqueurs, “full bottles and unopened boxes? Tut, tut! here’s a pretty how-d’ye-do. Is this the way you toast the home quarters? You’re a fine soldier for an old mess!”
So saying, he poured out some whiskey, then opened the box of cigars and pushed them towards his brother. He did not care particularly to drink or smoke himself, but a man—an Englishman—is a strange creature. He is most natural and at ease when he is engaged in eating and drinking. He relieves every trying situation by some frivolous and selfish occupation, as of dismembering a partridge, or mixing a punch.
“Well, Frank,” said his brother, “now what have you to say for yourself? Why didn’t you come long ago? You have played the adventurer for five years, and what have you to show for it? Have you a fortune?” Frank shook his head, and twisted a shoulder. “What have you done that is worth the doing, then?”
“Nothing that I intended to do, Dick,” was the grave reply.
“Yes, I imagined that. You have seen them, have you?” he added, in a softer voice.
Frank blew a great cloud of smoke about his face, and through it he said: “Yes, I have seen a damned sight more than I deserved to see.”
“Oh, of course; I know that, my boy; but, so far as I can see, in another direction you are getting quite what you deserve: your wife and child are upstairs—you are here.”
He paused, was silent for a moment, then leaned over, caught his brother’s arm, and said, in a low, strenuous voice: “Frank Armour, you laid a hateful little plot for us. It wasn’t manly, but we forgave it and did the best we could. But see here, Frank, take my word for it, you have had a lot of luck. There isn’t one woman out of ten thousand that would have stood the test as your wife has stood it; injured at the start, constant neglect, temptation—” he paused. “My boy, did you ever think of that, of the temptation to a woman neglected by her husband? The temptation to men? Yes, you have had a lot of luck. There has been a special providence for you, my boy; but not for your sake. God doesn’t love neglectful husbands, but I think He is pretty sorry for neglected wives.”
Frank was very still. His head drooped, the cigar hung unheeded in his fingers for a moment, and he said at last: “Dick, old boy, I’ve thought it all over to-night since I came back—everything that you’ve said. I have not a word of defence to make, but, by heaven! I’m going to win my wife’s love if I can, and when I do it I’ll make up for all my cursed foolishness—see if I don’t.”
“That sounds well, Frank,” was the quiet reply. “I like to hear you talk that way. You would be very foolish if you did not. What do you think of the child?”
“Can you ask me what I think? He is a splendid little fellow.”
“Take care of him, then—take good care of him: you may never have another,” was the grim rejoinder. Frank winced. His brother rose, took his arm, and said: “Let us go to our rooms, Frank. There will be time enough to talk later, and I am not so young as I once was.”
Truth to say, Richard Armour was not so young as he seemed a few months before. His shoulders were a little stooped, he was greyer about the temples. The little bit of cynicism which had appeared in that remark about the care of the child showed also in the lines of his mouth; yet his eyes had the same old true, honest look. But a man cannot be hit in mortal places once or twice in his life without its being etched on his face or dropped like a pinch of aloe from his tongue.
Still they sat and talked much longer, Frank showing better than when his brother came, Richard gone grey and tired. At last Richard rose and motioned towards the window. “See, Frank,” he said, “it is morning.” Then he went and lifted the blind. The grey, unpurged air oozed on the glass. The light was breaking over the tops of the houses. A crossing-sweeper early to his task, or holding the key of the street, went pottering by, and a policeman glanced up at them as he passed. Richard drew down the curtain again.
“Dick,” said Frank suddenly, “you look old. I wonder if I have changed as much?”
Six months before, Frank Armour would have said hat his brother looked young.
“Oh, you look young enough, Frank,” was the reply. “But I am a good deal older than I was five years ago... Come, let us go to bed.”
And Lali? How had the night gone for her? When she rose from the child’s cot, where her lips had caught the warmth that her husband had left on them, she stood for a moment bewildered in the middle of the room. She looked at the door out of which he had gone, her bosom beating hard, her heart throbbing so that it hurt her—that she could have cried out from mere physical pain. The wifedom in her was plundering the wild stores of her generous soul for the man, for—as Richard had said that day, that memorable day!—the father of her child. But the woman, the pure translated woman, who was born anew when this frail life in its pink and white glory crept out into the dazzling world, shrank back, as any girl might shrink that had not known marriage. This child had come—from what?—She shuddered now—how many times had she done so since she first waked to the vulgar sacrilege of her marriage? She knew now that every good mother, when her first child is born, takes it in her arms, and, all her agony gone, and the ineffable peace of delivered motherhood come, speaks the name of its father, and calls it his child. But—she remembered it now—when her child was born, this little waif, the fruit of a man’s hot, malicious hour, she wrapped it in her arms, pressed its delicate flesh to the silken folds of her bosom, and weeping, whispered only: “My child, my little, little child!”
She had never, as many a wife far from her husband has done, talked to her child of its father, told it of his beauty and his virtues, arrayed it day by day in sweet linen and pretty adornments, as if he were just then knocking at her door; she had never imagined what he would say when he did come. What could such a father think of his child, born of a woman whose very life he had intended as an insult? No, she had loved it for father and mother also. She had tried to be good, a good mother, living a life unutterably lonely, hard in all that it involved of study, new duty, translation, and burial of primitive emotions. And with all the care and tearful watchfulness that had been needed, she had grown so proud, so exacting—exacting for her child, proud for herself.
How could she know now that this hasty declaration of affection was anything more than the mere man in him? Years ago she had not been able to judge between love and insult—what guarantee had she here? Did he think that she could believe in him? She was not the woman he had married, he was not the man she had married. He had deceived her basely—she had been a common chattel. She had been miserable enough—could she give herself over to his flying emotions again so suddenly?
She paced the room, her face now in her hands, her hands now clasping and wringing before her. Her wifely duty? She straightened to that. Duty! She was first and before all a good, unpolluted woman. No, no, it could not be. Love him? Again she shrank. Then came flooding on her that afternoon when she had flung herself on Richard’s breast, and all those hundred days of happiness in Richard’s company—Richard the considerate, the strong, who had stood so by his honour in an hour of peril.
Now as she thought of it a hot wave shivered through all her body, and tingled to her hair. Her face again dropped in her hands, and, as on that other day, she knelt beside the cot, and, bursting into tears, said through her sobs: “My baby, my own dear baby! Oh, that we could go away—away—and never come back again!”
She did not know how intense her sobs were. They waked the child from its delicate sleep; its blue eyes opened wide and wise all on the instant, its round soft arm ran up to its mother’s neck, and it said: “Don’t c’y! I want to s’eep wif you! I’se so s’eepy!”
She caught the child to her wet face, smiled at it through her tears, went with it to her own bed, put it away in the deep whiteness, kissed it, and fondled it away again into the heaven of sleep. When this was done she felt calmer. How she hungered over it! This—this could not be denied her. This, at least, was all hers, without clause or reservation, an absolute love, and an absolute right.
She disrobed and drew in beside the child, and its little dewy cheek touching her breast seemed to ease the ache in her soul.
But sleep would not come. All the past four years trooped by, with their thousand incidents magnified in the sharp, throbbing light of her mind, and at last she knew and saw clearly what was before her, what trials, what duty, and what honour demanded—her honour.
Richard? Once for all she gently put him away from her into that infinite distance of fine respect which a good woman can feel, who has known what she and Richard had known—and set aside. But he had made for her so high a standard, that for one to be measured thereby was a severe challenge.
Could Frank come even to that measure? She dared not try to answer the question. She feared, she shrank, she grew sick at heart. She did not reckon with that other thing, that powerful, infinite influence which ties a woman, she knows not how or why, to the man who led her to the world of motherhood. Through all the wrongs which she may suffer by him, there runs this cable of unhappy attraction, testified to by how many sorrowful lives!
But Lali was trying to think it out, not only to feel, and she did not count that subterranean force which must play its part in this new situation in her drama of life. Could she love him? She crept away out of the haven where her child was, put on her dressing-gown, went to the window, and looked out upon the night, all unconscious that her husband was looking at her from the Square below. Love him?—Love him?—Love him? Could she? Did he love her? Her eyes wandered over the Square. Nowhere else was there a light, but a chimney-flue was creaking somewhere. It jarred on her so that she shrank. Then all at once she smiled to think how she had changed. Four years ago she could have slept amid the hammers of a foundry. The noise ceased. Her eyes passed from the cloud of trees in the Square to the sky-all stars, and restful deep blue. That—that was the same. How she knew it! Orion and Ashtaroth, and Mars and the Pleiades, and the long trail of the Milky Way. As a little child hanging in the trees, or sprawled beside a tepee, she had made friends with them all, even as she learned and loved all the signs of the earth beneath—the twist of a blade of grass, the portent in the cry of a river-hen, the colour of a star, the smell of a wind. She had known Nature then, now she knew men. And knowing them, and having suffered, and sick at heart as she was, standing by this window in the dead of night, the cry that shook her softly was not of her new life, but of the old, primitive, child-like.
‘Pasagathe, omarki kethose kolokani vorgantha pestorondikat Oni.’
“A spear hath pierced me, and the smart of the nettle is in my wound. Maker of the soft night, bind my wounds with sleep, lest I cry out and be a coward and unworthy.”
Again and again, unconsciously, the words passed from her lips
‘Vorganthe, pestorondikat Oni.’
At last she let down the blind, came to the bed, and once more gathered her child in her arms with an infinite hunger. This love was hers—rich, untrammelled, and so sacred. No matter what came, and she did not know what would come, she had the child. There was a kind of ecstasy in it, and she lay and trembled with the feeling, but at last fell into a troubled sleep.
She waked suddenly to hear footsteps passing her door. She listened. One footstep was heavier than the other—heavier and a little stumbling; she recognised them, Frank and Richard. In that moment her heart hardened. Frank Armour must tread a difficult road.
Frank visited the child in the morning, and was received with a casual interest. Richard Joseph Armour was fastidious, was not to be won at the grand gallop. Besides, he had just had a visit from his uncle, and the good taste of that gay time was yet in his mouth. He did not resent the embraces, but he did not respond to them, and he straightened himself with relief when the assault was over. Some one was paying homage to him, that was all he knew; but for his own satisfaction and pleasure he preferred as yet his old comrades, Edward Lambert, Captain Vidall, General Armour, and, above all, Richard. He only showed real interest at the last, when he asked, as it were in compromise, if his father would give him a sword. No one had ever talked to him of his father, and he had no instinct for him so far as could be seen. The sword was, therefore, after the manner of a concession. Frank rashly promised it, and was promptly told by Marion that it couldn’t be; and she was backed by Captain Vidall, who said it had already been tabooed, and Frank wasn’t to come in and ask for favours or expect them.
The husband and wife met at breakfast. He was down first. When his wife entered, he came to her, they touched hands, and she presently took a seat beside him. More than once he paused suddenly in his eating, when he thought of his inexplicable case. He was now face to face with a reversed situation. He had once picked up a pebble from the brown dirt of a prairie, that he might toss it into the pool of this home life; and he had tossed it, and from the sweet bath there had come out a precious stone, which he longed to wear, and knew that he could not—not yet. He could have coerced a lower being, but for his manhood’s sake—he had risen to that now, it is curious how the dignity of fatherhood helps to make a man—he could not coerce here, and if he did, he knew that the product would be disaster.
He listened to her talk with Marion and Captain Vidall. Her voice was musical, balanced, her language breathed; it had manner, and an indescribable cadence of intelligence, joined to a deliberation, which touched her off with distinction. When she spoke to him—and she seemed to do that as by studied intention and with tact at certain intervals—her manner was composed and kind. She had resolved on her part. She asked him about his journey over, about his plans for the day, and if he had decided to ride with her in the Park,—he could have the general’s mount, she was sure, for the general was not going that day,—and would he mind doing a little errand for her afterwards in Regent Street, for the child—she feared she herself would not have time?
Just then General Armour entered, and, passing behind her, kissed her on the cheek, dropping his hand on Frank’s shoulder at the same time with a hearty greeting. Of course, Frank could have his mount, he said. Mrs. Armour did not come down, but she sent word by Richard, who entered last, that she would be glad to see Frank for a moment before he left for the Park. As of old, Richard took both Lali’s hands in his, patted them, and cheerily said:
“Well, well, Lali, we’ve got the wild man home again safe and sound, haven’t we—the same old vagabond? We’ll have to turn him into a Christian again—‘For while the lamp holds out to burn’—”
He did not give her time to reply, but their eyes met honestly, kindly, and from the look they both passed into life and time again with a fresh courage. She did not know, nor did he, how near they had been to an abyss; and neither ever knew. One furtive glance at the moment, one hesitating pressure of the hand, one movement of the head from each other’s gaze, and there had been unhappiness for them all. But they were safe.
In the Park, Frank and his wife talked little. They met many who greeted them cordially, and numbers of Frank’s old club friends summoned him to the sacred fires at his earliest opportunity. The two talked chiefly of the people they met, and Frank thrilled with admiration at his wife’s gentle judgment of everybody.
“The true thing, absolutely the true thing,” he said; and he was conscious, too, that her instincts were right and searching, for once or twice he saw her face chill a little when they met one or two men whose reputations as chevaliers des dames were pronounced. These men had had one or two confusing minutes with Lali in their time.
“How splendidly you ride!” he said, as he came up swiftly to her, after having chatted for a moment with Edward Lambert. “You sit like wax, and so entirely easy.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I suppose I really like it too well to ride badly, and then I began young on horses not so good as Musket here—bareback, too!” she added, with a little soft irony.
He thought—she did not, however—that she was referring to that first letter he sent home to his people, when he consigned her, like any other awkward freight, to their care. He flushed to his eyes. It cut him deep, but her eyes only had a distant, dreamy look which conveyed nothing of the sting in her words. Like most men, he had a touch of vanity too, and he might have resented the words vaguely, had he not remembered his talk with his mother an hour before.
She had begged him to have patience, she had made him promise that he would not in any circumstance say an ungentle or bitter thing, that he would bide the effort of constant devotion, and his love of the child. Especially must he try to reach her through love of the child.
By which it will be seen that Mrs. Armour had come to some wisdom by reason of her love for Frank’s wife and child.
“My son,” she had said, “through the child is the surest way, believe me; for only a mother can understand what that means, how much and how far it goes. You are a father, but until last night you never had the flush of that love in your veins. You stand yet only at the door of that life which has done more to guide, save, instruct, and deepen your wife’s life than anything else, though your brother Richard—to whom you owe a debt that you can never repay—has done much in deed. Be wise, my dear, as I have learned a little to be since first your wife came. All might easily have gone wrong. It has all gone well; and we, my son, have tried to do our duty lovingly, consistently, to dear Lali and the child.”
She made him promise that he would wait, that he would not try to hurry his wife’s affection for him by any spoken or insistent claim. “For, Frank dear,” she said, “you are only legally married, not morally, not as God can bless—not yet. But I pray that what will sanctify all may come soon, very soon, to the joy of us all. But again—and I cannot say it too prayerfully—do not force one little claim that your marriage gave you, but prove yourself to her, who has cause to distrust you so much. Will you forgive your mother, my dear, for speaking to you?”
He had told her then that what she had asked he had intended as his own course, yet what she had said would keep it in his mind always, for he was sure it was right. Mrs. Armour had then embraced him, and they parted. Dealing with Lali had taught them all much of the human heart that they had never known before, and the result thereof was wisdom.
They talked casually enough for the rest of the ride, and before they parted at the door Frank received his commission for Regent Street, and accepted it with delight, as a schoolboy might a gift. He was absurdly grateful for any favours from her, any sign of her companionship. They met at luncheon; then, because Lali had to keep an engagement in Eaton Square, they parted again, and Frank and Richard took a walk, after a long hour with the child, who still so hungered for his sword that Frank disobeyed orders, and dragged Richard off to Oxford Street to get one. He was reduced to a beatific attitude of submission, for he knew that he had few odds with him now, and that he must live by virtue of new virtues. He was no longer proud of himself in any way, and he knew that no one else was, or rather he felt so, and that was just the same.
He talked of the boy, he talked of his wife, he laid plans, he tore them down, he built them up again, he asked advice, he did not wait to hear it, but rambled on, excited, eager. Truth is, there had suddenly been lifted from his mind the dread and shadow of four years. Wherever he had gone, whatever he had been or done, that dread shadow had followed him, and now to know that instead of having to endure a hell he had to win a heaven, and to feel as if his brain had been opened and a mass of vapours and naughty little mannikins of remorse had been let out, was a trifle intoxicating even to a man of his usual vigour and early acquaintance with exciting things.
“Dick, Dick!” he said enthusiastically, “you’ve been royal. You always were better than any chap I ever knew. You’re always doing for others. Hang it, Dick, where does your fun come in? Nobody seems ever to do anything for you.”
Richard gave his arm a squeeze. “Never mind about me, boy. I’ve had all the fun I want, and all I’m likely to get, and so long as you’re all willing to have me around, I’m satisfied. There’s always a lot to do among the people in the village, one way and another, and I’ve a heap of reading on, and what more does a fellow want?”
“You didn’t always feel that way, Dick?”
“No. You see, at different times in life you want different kinds of pleasures. I’ve had a good many kinds, and the present kind is about as satisfactory as any.”
“But, Dick, you ought to get married. You’ve got coin, you’ve got sense, you’re a bit distinguished-looking, and I’ll back your heart against a thousand bishops. You’ve never been in danger of making a fool of yourself as I have. Why didn’t you—why don’t you—get married?”
Richard patted his brother’s shoulder.
“Married, boy? Married? I’ve got too much on my hands. I’ve got to bring you up yet. And when that’s done I shall have to write a book called ‘How to bring up a Parent.’ Then I’ve got to help bring your boy up, as I’ve done these last three years and more. I’ve got to think of that boy for a long while yet, for I know him better than you do, and I shall need some of my coin to carry out my plans.”
“God bless you, Dick! Bring me up as you will, only bring her along too; and as for the boy, you’re far more his father than I am. And mother says that it’s you that’s given me the wife I’ve got now—so what can I say?—what can I say?”
It was the middle of the Green Park, and Richard turned and clasped Frank by both shoulders.
“Say? Say that you’ll stand by the thing you swore to one mad day in the West as well as any man that ever lived—‘to have and to hold, to love and to cherish from this day forth till death us do part, Amen.’”
Richard’s voice was low and full of a strange, searching something.
Frank, wondering at this great affection and fondness of his brother, looked him in the eyes warmly, solemnly, and replied: “For richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health—so help me God, and her kindness and forgiveness!”