Part 8

Suddenly he released her. He straightened himself, and moved away from her a little. Someone had entered.

Amabel dropped her hands and raised her eyes at last. Augustine stood before them.

Augustine had on still his long travelling coat; his cap, beaded with raindrops, was in his hand; his yellow hair was ruffled. He had entered hastily. He stood there looking at them, transfixed, yet not astonished. He was very pale.

For some moments no one of them spoke. Sir Hugh did not move further from his wife's side: he was neither anxious nor confused; but his face wore an involuntary scowl.

The deep confusion was Amabel's. But her husband had released her; no longer pleaded; and with the lifting of that dire oppression the realities of her life flooded her almost with relief. It was impossible, this gay, this facile, this unseemly love, but, as she rejected and put it from her, the old love was the stronger, cherished the more closely, in atonement and solicitude, the man shrunk from and repulsed. And in all the deep confusion, before her son,--that he should find her so, almost in her husband's arms,--a flash of clarity went through her mind as she saw them thus confronted. Deeper than ever between her and Augustine was the challenge of her love and his hatred; but it was that sacred love that now needed safeguards; she could not feel it when her husband was near and pleading; Augustine was her refuge from oppression.

She rose and went to him and timidly clasped his arm. "Dear Augustine, I am so glad you have come back. I have missed you so."

He stood still, not responding to her touch: but, as she held him, he looked across the room at Sir Hugh. "You wrote you missed me. That's why I came."

Sir Hugh now strolled to the fire and stood before it, turning to face Augustine's gaze; unperturbed; quite at ease.

"How wet you are dear," said Amabel. "Take off this coat."

Augustine stripped it off and flung it on a chair. She could hear his quick breathing: he did not look at her. And still it seemed to her that it was his anger rather than his love that protected her.

"He will want to change, dearest," said Sir Hugh from before the fire. "And,--I want to finish my talk with you."

Augustine now looked at his mother, at the blush that overwhelmed her as that possessive word was spoken. "Do you want me to go?"

"No, dear, no.--It is only the coat that is wet, isn't it. Don't go: I want to see you, of course, after your absence.--Hugh, you will excuse us; it seems such a long time since I saw him. You and I will finish our talk on another day.--Or I will write to you."

She knew what it must look like to her husband, this weak recourse to the protection of Augustine's presence; it looked like bashfulness, a further feminine wile, made up of self-deception and allurement, a putting off of final surrender for the greater sweetness of delay. And as the reading of him flashed through her it brought a strange pang of shame, for him; of regret, for something spoiled.

Sir Hugh took out his watch and looked at it. "Five o'clock. I told the station fly to come back for me at five fifteen. You'll give me some tea, dearest?"

"Of course;--it is time now.--Augustine, will you ring?"

The miserable blush covered her again.

The tea came and they were silent while the maid set it out. Augustine had thrown himself into a chair and stared before him. Sir Hugh, very much in possession, kept his place before the fire. Catching Amabel's eye he smiled at her. He was completely assured. How should he not be? What, for his seeing, could stand between them now?

When the maid was gone and Amabel was making tea, he came and stood over her, his hands in his pockets, his handsome head bent to her, talking lightly, slightly jesting, his voice pitched intimately for her ear, yet not so intimately that any unkindness of exclusion should appear. Augustine could hear all he said and gauge how deep was an intimacy that could wear such lightness, such slightness, as its mask.

Augustine, meanwhile, looked at neither his mother nor Sir Hugh. Turned from them in his chair he put out his hand for his tea and stared before him, as if unseeing and unhearing, while he drank it.

It was for her sake, Amabel knew, that Sir Hugh, raising his voice presently, as though aware of the sullen presence, made a little effort to lift the gloom. "What sort of a time have you had, Augustine?" he asked. "Was the weather at Haversham as bad as everywhere else?"

Augustine did not turn his head in replying:--"Quite as bad, I fancy."

"You and young Wallace hammered at metaphysics, I suppose."

"We did."

"Nice lad."

To this Augustine said nothing.

"They're such a solemn lot, the youths of this generation," said Sir Hugh, addressing Amabel as well as Augustine: "In my day we never bothered ourselves much about things: at least the ones I knew didn't. Awfully empty and frivolous. Augustine and his friends would have thought us. Where we used to talk about race horses they talk about the Absolute,--eh, Augustine? We used to go and hear comic-operas and they go and hear Brahms. I suppose you do go and hear Brahms, Augustine?"

Augustine maintained his silence as though not conceiving that the sportive question required an answer and Amabel said for him that he was very fond of Brahms.

"Well, I must be off," said Sir Hugh. "I hope your heart will ache ever so little for me, Amabel, when you think of the night you've turned me out into."

"Oh--but--I don't turn, you out,"--she stammered, rising, as, in a gay farewell, he looked at her.

"No? Well, I'm only teasing. I could hardly have managed to stay this time--though,--I might have managed, Amabel--. I'll come again soon, very soon," said Sir Hugh.

"No," her hand was in his and she knew that Augustine had turned his head and was looking at them:--"No, dear Hugh. Not soon, please. I will write." Sir Hugh looked at her smiling. He glanced at Augustine; then back at her, rallying her, affectionately, threateningly, determinedly, for her foolish feints. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Write, if you want to; but I'm coming," he said. He nodded to Augustine and left the room.

IX

It was, curiously enough, a crippling awkwardness and embarrassment that Amabel felt rather than fear or antagonism, during that evening and the morning that followed. Augustine had left the room directly after Sir Hugh's departure. When she saw him again he showed her a face resolutely mute. It was impossible to speak to him; to explain. The main facts he must see; that her husband was making love to her and that, however deep her love for him, she rejected him.

Augustine might believe that rejection to be for his own sake, might believe that she renounced love and sacrificed herself from a maternal sense of duty; and, indeed, the impossibility of bringing that love into her life with Augustine had been the clear impossibility that had flashed for her in her need; she had seized upon it and it had armed her in her reiterated refusal. But how tell Augustine that there had been more than the clear impossibility; how tell him that deeper than renouncement was recoil? To tell that would be a disloyalty to her husband; it would be almost to accuse him; it would be to show Augustine that something in her life was spoiled and that her husband had spoiled it. So perplexed, so jaded, was she, so tossed by the conflicting currents of her lesser plight, that the deeper fears were forgotten: she was not conscious of being afraid of Augustine.

The rain had ceased next morning. The sky was crystalline; the wet earth glittered in Autumnal sunshine.

Augustine went out for his ride and Amabel had her girls to read with. There was a sense of peace for her in finding these threads of her life unknotted, smooth and simple, lying ready to her hand.

When she saw Augustine at lunch he said that he had met Lady Elliston.

"She was riding with Marjory and her girl."

"Oh, she is back, then." Amabel was grateful to him for his everyday tone.

"What is Lady Elliston's girl like?"

"Pretty; very; foolish manners I thought; Marjory looked bewildered by her."

"The manners of girls have changed, I fancy, since my day; and she isn't a boy-girl, like our nice Marjory, either?"

"No; she is a girl-girl; a pretty, forward, conceited girl-girl," said the ruthless Augustine. "Lady Elliston is coming to see you this afternoon; she asked me to tell you; she says she wants a long talk."

Amabel's weary heart sank at the news.

"She is coming soon after lunch," said Augustine.

"Oh--dear--"--. She could not conceal her dismay.

"But you knew that you were to see her again;--do you mind so much?" said Augustine.

"I don't mind.--It is only;--I have got so out of the way of seeing people that it is something of a strain."

"Would you like me to come in and interrupt your talk?" asked Augustine after a moment.

She looked across the table at him. Still, in her memory, preoccupied with the cruelty of his accusation, it was the anger rather than the love of his parting words the other day that was the more real. He had been hard in kindness, relentless in judgment, only not accusing her, not condemning her, because his condemnation had fixed on the innocent and not on the guilty--the horror of that, as well as the other horror, was between them now, and her guilt was deepened by it. But, as she looked, his eyes reminded her of something; was it of that fancied cry within the church, imprisoned and supplicating? They were like that cry of pain, those eyes, the dark rims of the iris strangely expanding, and her heart answered them, ignorant of what they said.

"You are thoughtful for me, dear; but no," she replied, "it isn't necessary for you to interrupt."

He looked away from her: "I don't know that it's not necessary," he said. After lunch they went into the garden and walked for a little in the sunlight, in almost perfect silence. Once or twice, as though from the very pressure of his absorption in her he created some intention of speech and fancied that her lips had parted with the words, Augustine turned his head quickly towards her, and at this, their eyes meeting, as it were over emptiness, both he and she would flush and look away again. The stress between them was painful. She was glad when he said that he had work to do and left her alone.

Amabel went to the drawing-room and took her chair near the table. A sense of solitude deeper than she had known for years pressed upon her. She closed her eyes and leaned back her head, thinking, dimly, that now, in such solitude as this, she must find her way to prayer again. But still the door was closed. It was as if she could not enter without a human hand in hers. Augustine's hand had never led her in; and she could not take her husband's now.

But her longing itself became almost a prayer as she sat with closed eyes. This would pass, this cloud of her husband's lesser love. When he knew her so unalterably firm, when he saw how inflexibly the old love shut out the new, he would, once more, be her friend. Then, feeling him near again, she might find peace. The thought of it was almost peace. Even in the midst of yesterday's bewildered pain she had caught glimpses of the old beauty; his kindly speech to Augustine, his making of ease for her; gratitude welled up in her and she sighed with the relief of her deep hope. To feel this gratitude was to see still further beyond the cloud. It was even beautiful for him to be able to "fall in love" with her--as he had put it: that the manifestations of his love should have made her shrink was not his fault but hers; she was a nun; because she had been a sinner. She almost smiled now, in seeing so clearly that it was on her the shadow rested. She could not be at peace, she could not pray, she could not live, it seemed to her, if he were really shadowed. And after the smile it was almost with the sense of dew falling upon her soul that she remembered the kindness, the chivalrous protection that had encompassed her through the long years. He was her friend, her knight; she would forget, and he, too, would forget that he had thought himself her lover.

She did not know how tired she was, but her exhaustion must have been great, for the thoughts faded into a vague sweetness, then were gone, and, suddenly opening her eyes, she knew that she had fallen asleep, sitting straightly in her chair, and that Lady Elliston was looking at her.

She started up, smiling and confused. "How absurd of me:--I have been sleeping.--Have you just come?"

Lady Elliston did not smile and was silent. She took Amabel's hand and looked at her; she had to recover herself from something; it may have been the sleeping face, wasted and innocent, that had touched her too deeply. And her gravity, as of repressed tears, frightened Amabel. She had never seen Lady Elliston look so grave. "Is anything the matter?" she asked. For a moment longer Lady Elliston was silent, as though reflecting. Then releasing Amabel's hand, she said: "Yes: I think something is the matter."

"You have come to tell me?"

"I didn't come for that. Sit down, Amabel. You are very tired, more tired than the other day. I have been looking at you for a long time.--I didn't come to tell you anything; but now, perhaps, I shall have something to tell. I must think."

She took a chair beside the table and leaned her head on her hand shading her eyes. Amabel had obeyed her and sat looking at her guest.

"Tell me," Lady Elliston said abruptly, and Amabel today, more than of sweetness and softness, was conscious of her strength, "have you been having a bad time since I saw you? Has anything happened? Has anything come between you and Augustine? I saw him this morning, and he's been suffering, too: I guessed it. You must be frank with me, Amabel; you must trust me: perhaps I am going to be franker with you, to trust you more, than you can dream."

She inspired the confidence her words laid claim to; for the first time in their lives Amabel trusted her unreservedly.

"I have had a very bad time," she said: "And Augustine has had a bad time. Yes; something has come between Augustine and me,--many things."

"He hates Hugh," said Lady Elliston.

"How can you know that?"

"I guessed it. He is a clever boy: he sees you absorbed; he sees your devotion robbing him; perhaps he sees even more, Amabel; I heard this morning, from Mrs. Grey, that Hugh had been with you, again, yesterday. Amabel, is it possible; has Hugh been making love to you?"

Amabel had become very pale. Looking down, she said in a hardly audible voice; "It is a mistake.--He will see that it is impossible."

Lady Elliston for a moment was silent: the confirming of her own suspicion seemed to have stupefied her. "Is it impossible?" she then asked.

"Quite, quite impossible."

"Does Hugh know that it is impossible?"

"He will.--Yesterday, Augustine came in while he was here;--I could not say any more."

"I see: I see"; said Lady Elliston. Her hand fell to the table now and she slightly tapped her finger-tips upon it. There was an ominous rhythm in the little raps. "And this adds to Augustine's hatred," she said.

"I am afraid it is true. I am afraid he does hate him, and how terrible that is," said Amabel, "for he believes him to be his father."

"By instinct he must feel the tie unreal."

"Yet he has had a father's kindness, almost, from Hugh."

"Almost. It isn't enough you know. He suspects nothing, you think?"

"It is that that is so terrible. He doesn't suspect me: he suspects him. He couldn't suspect evil of me. It is my guilt, and his ignorant hatred that is parting us." Amabel was trembling; she leaned forward and covered her face with her hands.

The very air about her seemed to tremble; so strange, so incredibly strange was it to hear her own words of helpless avowal; so strange to feel that she must tell Lady Elliston all she wished to know.

"Parting you? What do you mean? What folly!--what impossible folly! A mother and a son, loving each other as you and Augustine love, parted for that. Oh, no," said Lady Elliston, and her own voice shook a little: "that can't be. I won't have that."

"He would not love me, if he knew."

"Knew? What is there for him to know? And how should he know? You won't be so mad as to tell him?"

"It's my punishment not to dare to tell him--and to see my cowardice cast a shadow on Hugh."

"Punishment? haven't you been punished enough, good heavens! Cowardice? it is reason, maturity; the child has no right to your secret--it is yours and only yours, Amabel. And if he did know all, he could not judge you as you judge yourself."

"Ah, you don't understand," Amabel murmured: "I had forgotten to judge myself; I had forgotten my sin; it was Augustine who made me remember; I know now what he feels about people like me."

Again Lady Elliston controlled herself to a momentary silence and again her fingers sharply beat out her uncontrollable impatience. "I live in a world, Amabel," she said at last, "where people when they use the word 'sin,' in that connection, know that it's obsolete, a mere decorative symbol for unconventionality. In my world we don't have your cloistered black and white view of life nor see sin where only youth and trust and impulse were. If one takes risks, one may have to pay for them, of course; one plays the game, if one is in the ring, and, of course, you may be put out of the ring if you break the rules; but the rules are those of wisdom, not of morality, and the rule that heads the list is: Don't be found out. To imagine that the rules are anything more than matters of social convenience is to dignify the foolish game. It is a foolish game, Amabel, this of life: but one or two things in it are worth having; power to direct the game; freedom to break its rules; and love, passionate love, between a man and woman: and if one is strong enough one can have them all."

Lady Elliston had again put her hand to her brow, shielding her eyes and leaning her elbow on the table, and Amabel had raised her head and sat still, gazing at her.

"You weren't strong enough," Lady Elliston went on after a little pause: "You made frightful mistakes: the greatest, of course, was in running away with Paul Quentin: that was foolish, and it was, if you like to call foolishness by its obsolete name, a sin. You shouldn't have gone: you should have stayed: you should have kept your lover--as long as you wanted to."

Again she paused. "Do I horrify you?"

"No: you don't horrify me," Amabel replied. Her voice was gentle, almost musing; she was absorbed in her contemplation.

"You see," said Lady Elliston, "you didn't play the game: you made a mess of things and put the other players out. If you had stayed, and kept your lover, you would have been, in my eyes, a less loveable but a wiser woman. I believe in the game being kept up; I believe in the social structure: I am one of its accredited upholders"; in the shadow of her hand, Lady Elliston slightly smiled. "I believe in the family, the group of shared interests, shared responsibilities, shared opportunities it means: I don't care how many lovers a woman has if she doesn't break up the family, if she plays the game. Marriage is a social compact and it's the woman's part to keep the home together. If she seeks love outside marriage she must play fair, she mustn't be an embezzling partner; she mustn't give her husband another man's children to support and so take away from his own children;--that's thieving. The social structure, the family, are unharmed, if one is brave and wise. Love and marriage can rarely be combined and to renounce love is to cripple one's life, to miss the best thing it has to give. You, at all events, Amabel, may be glad that you haven't missed it. What, after all, does our life mean but just that,--the power and feeling that one gets into it. Be glad that you've had something."

Amabel, answering nothing, contemplated her guest.

"So, as these are my views, imagine what I feel when I find you here, like this"; Lady Elliston dropped her hand at last and looked about her, not at Amabel: "when I find you, in prison, locked up for life, by yourself, because you were lovably unwise. It's abominable, it's shameful, your position, isolated here, and tolerated, looked askance at by these nobodies.--Ah--I don't say that other women haven't paid even more heavily than you've done; I own that, to a certain extent, you've escaped the rigours that the game exacts from its victims. But there was no reason why you should pay anything: it wasn't known, never really known--your brother and Hugh saw to that;--you could have escaped scot-free."

Amabel spoke at last: "How, scot-free?" she asked.

Lady Elliston looked hard at her: "Your husband would have taken you back, had you insisted.--You shouldn't have fallen in with his plans."

"His plans? They were mine; my brother's."

"And his. Hugh was glad to be rid of the young wife he didn't love."

Again Amabel was trembling. "He might have been rid of her, altogether rid of her, if he had cared more for power and freedom than for pity."

"Power? With not nearly enough money? He was glad to keep her money and be rid of her. If you had pulled the purse-strings tight you might have made your own conditions."

"I do not believe you," said Amabel; "What you say is not true. My husband is noble."

Lady Elliston looked at her steadily and unflinchingly. "He is not noble," she said.

"What have you meant by coming here today? You have meant something! I will not listen to you! You are my husband's enemy;"--Amabel half started from her chair, but Lady Elliston laid her hand on her arm, looking at her so fixedly that she sank down again, panic-stricken.