by E. Nesbit
Ida Helmont held out her hand for the letter.
‘Not yet,’ I said, and I went to the window. The dull red of a London sunset burned on the paper, as I read in the pretty handwriting I knew so well, and had kissed so often:
DEAR: I do – I do love you; but it’s impossible. I must marry Arthur. My honour is engaged. If he would only set me free – but he never will. He loves me foolishly. But as for me – it is you I love – body, soul, and spirit. There is no one in my heart but you. I think of you all day, and dream of you all night. And we must part. Goodbye – Yours, yours, yours,
ELVIRA
I had seen the handwriting, indeed, often enough. But the passion there was new to me. That I had not seen.
I turned from the window. My sitting-room looked strange to me. There were my books, my reading-lamp, my untasted dinner still on the table, as I had left it when I rose to dissemble my surprise at Ida Helmont’s visit – Ida Helmont, who now sat looking at me quietly.
‘Well – do you give me no thanks?’
‘You put a knife in my heart, and then ask for thanks?’
‘Pardon me,’ she said, throwing up her chin. ‘I have done nothing but show you the truth. For that one should expect no gratitude – may I ask, out of pure curiosity, what you intend to do?’
‘Your brother will tell you—’
She rose suddenly, very pale, and her eyes haggard.
‘You will not tell my brother?’
She came towards me – her gold hair flaming in the sunset light.
‘Why are you so angry with me?’ she said. ‘Be reasonable. What else could I do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Would it have been right not to tell you?’
‘I don’t know. I only know that you’ve put the sun out, and I haven’t got used to the dark yet.’
‘Believe me,’ she said, coming still nearer to me, and laying her hands in the lightest touch on my shoulders, ‘believe me, she never loved you.’
There was a softness in her tone that irritated and stimulated me. I moved gently back, and her hands fell by her sides.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘I have behaved very badly. You were quite right to come, and I am not ungrateful. Will you post a letter for me?’
I sat down and wrote:
I give you back your freedom. The only gift of mine that can please you now.—
ARTHUR
I held the sheet out to Miss Helmont, but she would not look at it. I folded, sealed, stamped, and addressed it.
‘Goodbye,’ I said then, and gave her the letter. As the door closed behind her, I sank into my chair, and cried like a child, or a fool, over my lost play-thing – the little, dark-haired woman who loved someone else with ‘body, soul, and spirit’.
I did not hear the door open or any foot on the floor, and therefore I started when a voice behind me said:
‘Are you so very unhappy? Oh, Arthur, don’t think I am not sorry for you!’
‘I don’t want anyone to be sorry for me, Miss Helmont,’ I said.
She was silent a moment. Then, with a quick, sudden, gentle movement she leaned down and kissed my forehead – and I heard the door softly close. Then I knew that the beautiful Miss Helmont loved me.
At first that thought only fleeted by – a light cloud against a grey sky – but the next day reason woke, and said:
‘Was Miss Helmont speaking the truth? Was it possible that—’
I determined to see Elvira, to know from her own lips whether by happy fortune this blow came, not from her, but from a woman in whom love might have killed honesty.
I walked from Hampstead to Gower Street. As I trod its long length, I saw a figure in pink come out of one of the houses. It was Elvira. She walked in front of me to the corner of Store Street. There she met Oscar Helmont. They turned and met me face to face, and I saw all I needed to see. They loved each other. Ida Helmont had spoken the truth. I bowed and passed on. Before six months were gone, they were married, and before a year was over, I had married Ida Helmont.
What did it, I don’t know. Whether it was remorse for having, even for half a day, dreamed that she could be so base as to forego a lie to gain a lover, or whether it was her beauty, or the sweet flattery of the preference of a woman who had half her acquaintance at her feet, I don’t know; anyhow, my thoughts turned to her as to their natural home. My heart, too, took that road, and before very long I loved her as I never loved Elvira. Let no one doubt that I loved her – as I shall never love again – please God!
There never was anyone like her. She was brave and beautiful, witty and wise, and beyond all measure adorable. She was the only woman in the world. There was a frankness – a largeness of heart – about her that made all other women seem small and contemptible. She loved me and I worshipped her. I married her, I stayed with her for three golden weeks, and then I left her. Why?
Because she told me the truth. It was one night – late – we had sat all the evening in the veranda of our seaside lodging, watching the moonlight on the water, and listening to the soft sound of the sea on the sand. I have never been so happy; I shall never be happy any more, I hope.
‘My dear, my dear,’ she said, leaning her gold head against my shoulder, ‘how much do you love me?’
‘How much?’
‘Yes – how much? I want to know what place I hold in your heart. Am I more to you than anyone else?’
‘My love!’
‘More than yourself?’
‘More than my life.’
‘I believe you,’ she said. Then she drew a long breath, and took my hands in hers. ‘It can make no difference. Nothing in heaven or earth can come between us now.’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘But, my dear one, what is it?’
For she was trembling, pale.
‘I must tell you,’ she said; ‘I cannot hide anything now from you, because I am yours – body, soul, and spirit.’
The phrase was an echo that stung.
The moonlight shone on her gold hair, her soft, warm, gold hair, and on her pale face.
‘Arthur,’ she said, ‘you remember my coming to Hampstead with that letter.’
‘Yes, my sweet, and I remember how you—’
‘Arthur!’ she spoke fast and low – ‘Arthur, that letter was a forgery. She never wrote it. I—’
She stopped, for I had risen and flung her hands from me, and stood looking at her. God help me! I thought it was anger at the lie I felt. I know now it was only wounded vanity that smarted in me. That I should have been tricked, that I should have been deceived, that I should have been led on to make a fool of myself. That I should have married the woman who had befooled me. At that moment she was no longer the wife I adored – she was only a woman who had forged a letter and tricked me into marrying her.
I spoke: I denounced her; I said I would never speak to her again. I felt it was rather creditable in me to be so angry. I said I would have no more to do with a liar and a forger.
I don’t know whether I expected her to creep to my knees and implore forgiveness. I think I had some vague idea that I could by-and-by consent with dignity to forgive and forget. I did not mean what I said. No, oh no, no; I did not mean a word of it. While I was saying it, I was longing for her to weep and fall at my feet, that I might raise her and hold her in my arms again.
But she did not fall at my feet; she stood quietly looking at me.
‘Arthur,’ she said, as I paused for breath, ‘let me explain – she – I—’
‘There is nothing to explain,’ I said hotly, still with that foolish sense of there being something rather noble in my indignation, the kind of thing one feels when one calls one’s self a miserable sinner. ‘You are a liar and a forger, that is enough for me. I will never speak to you again. You have wrecked my life—’
‘Do you mean that?’ she said, interrupting me, and leaning forward to look at me. Tears lay on her cheeks, but she was not crying now.
I hesita
ted. I longed to take her in my arms and say: ‘What does all that old tale matter now? Lay your head here, my darling, and cry here, and know how I love you.’
But instead I said nothing.
‘Do you mean it?’ she persisted.
Then she put her hand on my arm. I longed to clasp it and draw her to me.
Instead, I shook it off, and said:
‘Mean it? Yes – of course I mean it. Don’t touch me, please. You have ruined my life.’
She turned away without a word, went into our room, and shut the door.
I longed to follow her, to tell her that if there was anything to forgive, I forgave it.
Instead, I went out on the beach, and walked away under the cliffs.
The moonlight and the solitude, however, presently brought me to a better mind. Whatever she had done, had been done for love of me – I knew that. I would go home and tell her so – tell her that whatever she had done, she was my dear life, my heart’s one treasure. True, my ideal of her was shattered, at least I felt I ought to think that it was shattered, but, even as she was, what was the whole world of women compared to her? And to be loved like that … was that not sweet food for vanity? To be loved more than faith and fair dealing, and all the traditions of honesty and honour? I hurried back, but in my resentment and evil temper I had walked far, and the way back was very long. I had been parted from her for three hours by the time I opened the door of the little house where we lodged. The house was dark and very still. I slipped off my shoes and crept up the narrow stairs, and opened the door of our room quite softly. Perhaps she would have cried herself to sleep, and I would lean over her and waken her with my kisses, and beg her to forgive me. Yes, it had come to that now.
I went into the room – I went towards the bed. She was not there. She was not in the room, as one glance showed me. She was not in the house, as I knew in two minutes. When I had wasted a precious hour in searching the town for her, I found a note on my pillow:
‘Goodbye! Make the best of what is left of your life. I will spoil it no more.’
She was gone, utterly gone. I rushed to town by the earliest morning train, only to find that her people knew nothing of her. Advertisement failed. Only a tramp said he had seen a white lady on the cliff, and a fisherman brought me a handkerchief, marked with her name, which he had found on the beach.
I searched the country far and wide, but I had to go back to London at last, and the months went by. I won’t say much about those months, because even the memory of that suffering turns me faint and sick at heart. The police and detectives and the Press failed me utterly. Her friends could not help me, and were, moreover, wildly indignant with me, especially her brother, now living very happily with my first love.
I don’t know how I got through those long weeks and months. I tried to write; I tried to read; I tried to live the life of a reasonable human being. But it was impossible. I could not endure the companionship of my kind. Day and night I almost saw her face – almost heard her voice. I took long walks in the country, and her figure was always just round the next turn of the road – in the next glade of the wood. But I never quite saw her, never quite heard her. I believe I was not all together sane at that time. At last, one morning, as I was setting out for one of those long walks that had no goal but weariness, I met a telegraph boy, and took the red envelope from his hand.
On the pink paper inside was written:
Come to me at once I am dying you must come IDA
Apinshaw Farm Mellor Derbyshire.
There was a train at twelve to Marple, the nearest station. I took it. I tell you there are some things that cannot be written about. My life for those long months was one of them, that journey was another. What had her life been for those months? That question troubled me, as one is troubled in every nerve by the sight of a surgical operation, or a wound inflicted on a being dear to one. But the overmastering sensation was joy – intense, unspeakable joy. She was alive. I should see her again. I took out the telegram and looked at it: ‘I am dying.’ I simply did not believe it. She could not die till she had seen me. And if she had lived all these months without me, she could live now, when I was with her again, when she knew of the hell I had endured apart from her, and the heaven of our meeting. She must live; I could not let her die.
There was a long drive over bleak hills. Dark, jolting, infinitely wearisome. At last we stopped before a long, low building, where one or two lights gleamed faintly. I sprang out.
The door opened. A blaze of light made me blink and draw back. A woman was standing in the doorway.
‘Art thee Arthur Marsh?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Then th’art ower late. She’s dead.’
II
I went into the house, walked to the fire, and held out my hands to it mechanically, for though the night was May, I was cold to the bone. There were some folks standing round the fire, and lights flickering. Then an old woman came forward, with the northern instinct of hospitality.
‘Thou’rt tired,’ she said, ‘and mazed-like. Have a sup o’ tea.’
I burst out laughing. I had travelled two hundred miles to see her. And she was dead, and they offered me tea. They drew back from me as if I had been a wild beast, but I could not stop laughing. Then a hand was laid on my shoulder and someone led me into a dark room, lighted a lamp, set me in a chair, and sat down opposite me. It was a bare parlour, coldly furnished with rush chairs and much-polished tables and presses. I caught my breath, and grew suddenly grave, and looked at the woman who sat opposite me.
‘I was Miss Ida’s nurse,’ said she, ‘and she told me to send for you. Who are you?’
‘Her husband—’
The woman looked at me with hard eyes, where intense surprise struggled with resentment.
‘Then may God forgive you!’ she said. ‘What you’ve done I don’t know, but it’ll be hard work forgivin’ you, even for Him!’
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘my wife—’
‘Tell you!’ The bitter contempt in the woman’s tone did not hurt me. What was it to the self-contempt that had gnawed my heart all these months. ‘Tell you! Yes, I’ll tell you. Your wife was that ashamed of you she never so much as told me she was married. She let me think anything I pleased sooner than that. She just come ’ere, an’ she said, “Nurse, take care of me, for I am in mortal trouble. And don’t let them know where I am,” says she. An’ me being well married to an honest man, and well-to-do here, I was able to do it, by the blessing.’
‘Why didn’t you send for me before?’ It was a cry of anguish wrung from me.
‘I’d never ’a sent for you. It was her doin’. Oh, to think as God A’mighty’s made men able to measure out such-like pecks o’ trouble for us womenfolk! Young man, I don’t know what you did to ’er to make ’er leave you; but it muster bin something cruel, for she loved the ground you walked on. She useter sit day after day a-lookin’ at your picture, an’ talkin’ to it, an’ kissin’ of it, when she thought I wasn’t takin’ no notice, and cryin’ till she made me cry too. She useter cry all night ’most. An’ one day, when I tells ’er to pray to God to ’elp ’er through ’er trouble, she outs with your putty face on a card, she does, an’, says she, with her poor little smile, “That’s my god, Nursey,” she says.’
‘Don’t!’ I said feebly, putting out my hands to keep off the torture; ‘not any more. Not now.’
‘Don’t!’ she repeated. She had risen, and was walking up and down the room with clasped hands. ‘Don’t, indeed! No, I won’t; but I shan’t forget you! I tell you, I’ve had you in my prayers time and again, when I thought you’d made a light-o’-love of my darling. I shan’t drop you outer them now, when I know she was your own wedded wife, as you chucked away when you tired of her, and left ’er to eat ’er ’eart out with longin’ for you. Oh! I pray to God above us to pay you scot and lot for all you done to ’er. You killed my pretty. The price will be required of you, young man, even to the uttermost farth
ing. Oh God in Heaven, make him suffer! Make him feel it!’
She stamped her foot as she passed me. I stood quite still. I bit my lip till I tasted the blood hot and salt on my tongue.
‘She was nothing to you,’ cried the woman, walking faster up and down between the rush chairs and the table; ‘any fool can see that with half an eye. You didn’t love her, so you don’t feel nothin’ now; but some day you’ll care for someone, and then you shall know what she felt – if there’s any justice in Heaven.’
I, too, rose, walked across the room, and leaned against the wall. I heard her words without understanding them.
‘Can’t you feel nothin? Are you mader stone? Come an’ look at ’er lyin’ there so quiet. She don’t fret arter the likes o’ you no more now. She won’t sit no more a-lookin’ outer winder an’ sayin’ nothin’ – only droppin’ ’er tears one by one, slow, slow on ’er lap. Come an’ see ’er; come an’ see what you done to my pretty – an’ then you can go. Nobody wants you ’ere. She don’t want you now. But p’raps you’d like to see ’er safe under ground afore yer go? I’ll be bound you’ll put a big stone slab on ’er – to make sure she don’t rise again.’
I turned on her. Her thin face was white with grief and rage. Her claw-like hands were clenched.
‘Woman,’ I said, ‘have mercy.’
She paused and looked at me.
‘Eh?’ she said.
‘Have mercy!’ I said again.
‘Mercy! You should ’a thought o’ that before. You ’adn’t no mercy on ’er. She loved you – she died loving you. An’ if I wasn’t a Christian woman, I’d kill you for it – like the rat you are! That I would, though I ’ad to swing for it afterwards.’
I caught the woman’s hands and held them fast, though she writhed and resisted.
‘Don’t you understand?’ I said savagely. ‘We loved each other. She died loving me. I have to live loving her. And it’s her you pity. I tell you it was all a mistake – a stupid, stupid mistake. Take me to her, and for pity’s sake, let me be left alone with her.’
She hesitated; then said, in a voice only a shade less hard: ‘Well, come along, then.’