Like a man in a dream, he opened the gate, stole unsteadily up the path, and plied the little knocker with a shaking hand. And all the while, he was trying confusedly to think what he should say to her, while in the background of his consciousness there lurked a dim hope that she might recognize him despite the transformation.
A few seconds passed. Then a light footstep in the hall, at the sound of which his heart seemed to stand still. The door opened and there she stood, his dearest Molly, his own beloved wife, garbed in a simple black dress, and looking pale and tired, but sweeter and more lovely than ever. At the sight of her, a flood of passionate love surged through him; a wild impulse to take her in his arms and kiss the roses back into her cheeks. It was but a momentary impulse, instantly chocked, not only by reason but by something in the way in which she looked at him. She greeted him cordially enough, but yet there was in her manner something new to him; a quiet self-possession with, perhaps, just a shade of chilliness.
He took the proffered hand with a deep sense of anticlimax. She had not recognized him. Of course she had not. How could he have expected it? But the initial failure left him with all his difficulties before him. He could do no more than wait and see if any opening offered. "Go and sit down, Ronald, while I make the tea," she said in a friendly, matter-of-fact tone, still with that faint suggestion of coolness "I won't be a minute. You know the way. No, you don't, though. You have never been in this house before. It's in here."
She threw open the door of the dining-room and bustled away towards the kitchen, leaving him to enter alone. He stepped in through the open doorway and stood for a few seconds at the threshold, looking, with a lump in his throat, at the familiar room—his own room, where he had passed so many delightful hours, and where he now stood, a mere visitor, almost a stranger.
He ran his eye over the table, fondly taking in all the little, trivial details; the foolish little flower vases, the cake-basket, the biscuit-box, the jam-jars; all set out in correct array just as he, himself, had set them out on that dies irae in the irrevocable past when Fate, in the garb of a postman, had delivered his summons. And yet Fate had not been unkindly. For its messenger had forestalled another kind of summons, uttered in the King's name to the jingling of hand-cuffs. The reflection came to him as an opportune reminder just as Molly entered with the teapot and hot-water jug on the little tray.
She took her seat at the head of the table and he drew up his chair; but as he did so, he noted that it was not his own particular chair, in which he had always been used to sit. That was drawn back against the wall. And the place that was "laid" for him was not his customary place, but was on the opposite side of the table. It was a small matter but it defined his position as a visitor. "It is nice of you to come and see me, Ronald," she said, as she poured out the tea. "I couldn't write to you because I didn't know your address. I suppose you saw it in the papers?"
"Yes," he replied. "It was a dreadful shock, even to me. I can't bear to think of what it must have been to you."
She made no comment on this, and he continued: "I would have written sooner but I thought it better to wait until the—er—the—"
"Yes," she replied quietly, "I understand. It was on Saturday. In Fairfield churchyard. I brought him from Crompton. Everybody was awfully kind, especially the police."
She finished a little unsteadily with a catch in her voice, and Andrew, deeply moved, stole a furtive glance at her, marvelling admiringly at her quiet dignity and self-restraint. She made no parade of grief nor showed any outward sign other than the pale, weary face, the set composure of which smote him to the heart.
For some time neither of them spoke. She sipped her tea mechanically, seeming to be wrapped in thought while he searched his mind frantically for some suitable words but could think of none. At length she asked: "When did you see him last?"
He started, and his gorge rose at the lie that he would have to tell. But he made it as near the truth as he could. "I think," he faltered, "it was about two years ago, when I met him by chance in London."
"I remember," said she. "He told me he had met you. But I thought you might have seen him recently. I noticed that he had drawn a cheque for you—I am his executrix, you know—so I thought you might have met. He never mentioned the cheque to me."
"No," stammered Andrew, "I suppose he would not. It was a—a loan, you know, to enable me to—a—to pay a deposit. But I must refund it as soon as I can."
"You needn't worry, Ronald," she replied. "I don't suppose he intended you to repay it. At any rate, there is nothing to show that it was a loan, and if there were, I, as executrix, can use my own discretion in regard to debts. And I shall do what he would have wished me to do."
"That is very good of you, Molly," he said. "But things are different now. I ought to repay that loan when I am able to—though," he added, with a sudden realization of his present plight, "I don't know when that will be."
"As to that, Ronald," she said, in the same curiously quiet, level tone, "you know there is something to come to you when the will has been proved; or had you forgotten?"
He did know, of course; but he had completely forgotten until this moment. Now he gazed at her in dismay as she went on, without raising her eyes from her teacup: "There is a legacy of five hundred pounds. It was a separate insurance that he made in your favour in case he should die before you. He knew that his death would rob you of a faithful and generous friend, and this was to compensate you."
Andrew was thunderstruck. Here was an appalling complication! This money would presently be paid to him. He could not refuse it without disclosing the whole deception. Yet to accept it was to commit a blatant fraud on the Insurance Society; a fraud for which, if it were discovered, he could be sent to penal servitude. And that was not all. There was the principal insurance, which would be paid to Molly with his connivance. The whole affair was plainly and grossly fraudulent.
He was so overwhelmed by this new complication that he could only mumble incoherent acknowledgments and then once more subside into silence. Molly, having given the explanation, let the subject drop; and, since he sat in dumb confusion, she made shift to keep up some sort of conversation, with long intervals of silence, avoiding, as far as possible, any references to the tragedy or her own immediate affairs. She spoke just in the colourless way in which she might have spoken to some chance stranger who had come to make a ceremonial call.
Meanwhile Andrew, returning such banal answers as fitted the indifferent, semi-formal character of the conversation, was inwardly fermenting with suppressed emotion; with surprise, bewilderment and exasperation. The position was preposterous. The woman who was making polite conversation and so obviously, though tactfully, holding him at arm's length, was his wife! His own wife, whom he loved passionately and who loved him with answering passion! He was starving for her love, filled with a devouring desire to fold her in his arms, to cover her pale face with kisses and murmur into her ear those soft endearments that had always evoked such sweetly frank response. If only he could shake off this bewitchment, how gladly and with what lavish affection would she fall into his arms! He knew it; and yet he could only sit like a fool, talking commonplace drawing-room stuff and even doing that badly.
But he could see no way out. The opening for which he had hoped had failed to present itself. Not only had there been no glimmer of recognition, but, what was worse, she had accepted him as Ronald without a sign of doubt, or hesitation. And civil and even kindly as was her bearing towards him, she was evidently on her guard. He could see clearly that she did not trust cousin Ronald: and he realized that she had understood that gentleman's character better than he had supposed.
But this wariness on her part was a complete bar to the revelation that he wanted to make. At the first word her suspicion would light up, and, as the preposterous tale unfolded, she would listen—if she listened at all—with angry impatience to what would seem like a mere crude, silly imposture. It was useless to think of making the attem
pt, for failure seemed inevitable; and the probable consequences of failure were too appalling to contemplate.
Nevertheless, he tried to pull himself together and at least find something to say. From time to time, as they had been talking, he had caught her looking at him with a rather curious expression; an expression of faint surprise, as if she were "sizing him up" and found something in his manner a little puzzling. This he put down to his deplorably bad acting, for assuredly the real Ronald—the voluble, ready talker, suave, genial and self-possessed—would not have sat mumchance at the table opposite his pretty cousin. He must rouse himself, and, if he could not be Andrew, then he must be a reasonably convincing Ronald. "I suppose," he ventured, "you will shut up the studio now?"
"No," she answered, "I have taken it as my sitting-room."
He was slightly surprised. She had always left him in undisputed possession of the studio as a place that was entirely outside her province. "I have never seen this studio," said he (reconciling the blatant untruth to his conscience by the fiction that he was speaking in the character of Ronald). "Would you let me have a look at it presently? Andrew's pictures were always a great delight to me."
"Were they?" she exclaimed, in evident surprise. "I didn't know that you took any interest in them at all. Certainly, I will show you the studio. We will go down there as soon as we have finished tea. Can I give you another cup?"
"No, thank you," he replied. "I have finished."
"Then," said she, rising, "we may as well go now; and I shall be able to show you one or two of his later works."
As they made their way to the back door and down the garden path, Andrew was impressed by a distinct change in her manner. She was still grave and a trifle prim, but, ever since his reference to the pictures, a new note of cordiality had come into her voice. At the studio door, she produced her little key-wallet, and, taking from it the well-remembered Yale key, inserted it, turned it, and pushed the door open. "You see," she said, as they entered, glancing at him for a moment with a wan smile, "I am keeping the nest warm."
He looked round the place, choking with emotion. Everything in it hailed him in a familiar voice and called to him to come back. Nothing was changed—with one exception. Formerly, the walls had borne only a few sketches given him by brother artists, and one or two of their paintings which he had bought from Montagu. Now these had been removed, and every available space was occupied by his own work. Every finished picture of his that they possessed had been collected from the house—excepting those which he, himself, had hung in the drawing-room—and put on the wall; and a number of sketches from his portfolio had been affixed to the match-boarding with drawing-pins—carefully placed at the edges to avoid making holes in the paper—and he noted with surprise the judgment with which they had been selected. His workshop had become a one-man exhibition.
Otherwise the place was just as he had left it. The half-finished picture stood on the easel, protected by its paper dust-cover; the "models" that he had been using—an old wooden-faced clock, the dismembered remains of another clock and a number of tools and implements—were on a side table, together with the studies that he had made for the details of the picture. His big folding palette lay on the table beside the painting-chair with the brushes set out tidily on the rough wooden rack that he had made. Even the water dipper, he noticed, was full of clean water. "This is the picture he was at work on when he went away," said Molly, carefully turning back the dust-cover. "I think it was to be called 'The Clock-Jobber'. I don't know where he did the sketch for the interior, but the old man is our village cobbler. It is quite a good likeness, too."
Andrew looked at the picture with profound interest, trying vainly to realize that he had actually been working at it but little more than a week ago. The figure and part of the detail were nearly finished, but the background, the general lighting and colour scheme were only indicated. The most interesting part of the work was waiting to be done—waiting for him, who had the completed picture in his mind's eye. Would it wait for ever?
He made a few appreciative but critical comments on the picture, to which she listened respectfully, and then (still in the character of Ronald) said: "I suppose his pictures have always been a great interest and pleasure to you."
"No," she replied. "That is what I now look back on with astonishment and bitter self-reproach. I never interested myself in his work, though it meant so much to him. Somehow, I let it become a thing apart, outside my own life and personal interests. I used to let him go off to this studio to do his day's work, just as if he were going off to a bank or an office. I was satisfied to hear what he had done and to see the pictures when they were finished; and I feel that I didn't understand them or appreciate them a bit. They were just our livelihood; and I used to see them packed up to go to Mr. Montagu—the dealer, you know—without a pang of regret. It seems very strange now when I think of it. It was a great opportunity. I might have been his good comrade in what he cared for most. And I let it go."
As she concluded, her voice sank almost to a whisper and her eyes filled with tears. He looked at her with adoring sympathy, and a flood of affectionate yearning surged through him. The impulse to take her in his arms and kiss away her tears was almost irresistible. He could hardly restrain himself. And yet his reason held him back. He realized that this was no opportunity; that her very preoccupation with her lost husband would make her proof against the grotesque story that he had to tell.
But what an exasperating absurdity it was! She was his own wife, his sweet Molly, sweeter than ever and still more dear; and he was her loved husband for whom her poor heart was hungering. And here they stood, held apart by this preposterous make-believe! The thing was monstrous! "I suppose," she resumed, reflectively, "it was because he was so interesting in himself and so sympathetic; because he entered so keenly into all my little feminine pleasures and interests as if they were his own, that I never realized that he might want some sympathy from me in the work that he loved. And he never obtruded his own personal affairs on me. There was not a grain of egotism in his nature. And, oh! Ronald! he was such a perfect husband, such a dear companion! In all the years of our married life, never an unkind word passed between us."
"No," Andrew said, huskily, "I know how fond he was of you and how happy you made him. He would like to think of you living here with his pictures to keep you company."
"Yes," she said, "that is just what they do. When I look round at them, I feel that he isn't quite lost to me. Because each of them is, in a way, a part of himself. The little figures in them were his friends, his children. They are acting his thoughts, just as he used to express them in words. And the places—the rooms and gardens and inn-parlours—are places that he knew, because he built them up out of his own imaginings. They, too, are really part of him."
"Yes," said Andrew, "that is quite true. A picture is, in a way, a detached piece of the painter's personality, just as a book is a sort of spiritual bud or outgrowth from the mind of the man who wrote it. And I think you will find the pictures grow more friendly and intimate the longer you live with them."
"But I do!" she exclaimed. "Already, I am beginning to see them with a new eye. At first it was the little stories that they tell that impressed me most. But now I begin to see that the story was only the subject, the peg, as it were, on which the real picture was hung. And I try to see how he did them and what he was thinking about and aiming at as he worked."
"Yes," said Andrew, "that is the way to look at pictures. Try to see what the artist had in his mind, what he wanted to do and what he wanted you to see; especially the composition, the pattern of form and colour and light and shade—the effect of the picture as a whole."
"That is what I am trying to do," said she, "and I think I am getting on." She glanced fondly round at the walls and murmured: "The dear things! They grow on me from day to day."
When they had examined the unfinished painting, she brought out the portfolio and they looked through the collect
ion of sketches and studies, one or two of which he picked out to replace some of those on the wall. She adopted his suggestions readily and listened attentively to his comments and criticisms. "I didn't realize, Ronald," she said, "that you knew so much about painting. I never heard you talk about it to Andrew."
From the subject of pictures the conversation turned to her own domestic affairs, directed thereto by Andrew. But she was not very expansive and, somehow, her new-born cordiality of manner seemed to fade somewhat, especially when he ventured to proffer his assistance in setting her affairs in order. And, indeed, he was conscious of the incongruity of such a suggestion coming from the feckless, unthrifty Ronald. "I really don't need any help," she said. "Andrew had made such complete provision for me and left his affairs in such perfect order that there is hardly anything for me to do."
"Well," he said, "if I can't give you any help in that way, I hope you will let me look you up from time to time. I think we ought to see more of each other in the future than we have in the past."
She did not reply immediately, but he could see that the suggestion was not received enthusiastically, and that she was rather carefully considering her answer. At length in an earnestly apologetic tone, she replied: "Later, perhaps, Ronald, but not just at present. It was kind of you to come and I am glad you came. But it has been a painful experience. You are so dreadfully like Andrew. I had no idea you were so much alike. I suppose when I saw you together I only noticed the differences, but now everything about you reminds me of him, and I feel I can hardly bear it."
"But," he urged, "don't you like to be reminded of him?"
"In some ways," she replied. "In his pictures, for instance. But they are really himself. But this resemblance is different. There is something awful and uncanny about it, something ghostly and unreal. You've no idea, Ronald, how strangely like him you are. Even your face is his face."
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