by Hugh Walpole
He spoke as one suffering under an unjust accusation. It was bad luck, and he wondered vaguely why Dahlia had been so interested; why should she care, unless, and the idea struck him with horror, she already regarded him as a prospective father-in-law?
Dinner was announced by the grimy little maid. Robin took the dark figure of Mrs. Feverel on his arm and made some hesitating remark about the weather — but he had the curious and unpleasant sensation of her seeing through him most thoroughly and clearly. He felt ridiculously like a captive, and his doubts as to his immediate escape increased. The gaudy drawing-room, the dingy stairs, the gas hissing in the hall, had been, in all conscience, depressing enough, but now this heavy, mute, ominous woman, trailing her black robes so funereally behind her, seemed, to his excited fancy, some implacable Frankenstein created by his own thrice-cursed folly.
The dinner was not a success. The food was bad, but that Robin had expected. As he faced the depression of it, he was more than ever determined to end it, conclusively, that evening, but Mrs. Feverel’s gloom and Dahlia’s little attempts at coquettish gaiety frightened him. The conversation, supported mainly by Dahlia, fell into terrible lapses, and the attempts to start it again had the unhappy air of desperate remedies doomed to failure. Dahlia’s pathetic glances failed of their intent. Robin was too deeply engaged in his own gloomy reflections to notice them, but her eyes filled with tears, and at last her efforts ceased and a horrible, gloomy silence fell like a choking fog upon them.
“Will you smoke, Robin?” she said, when at last the dessert, in the shape of some melancholy oranges and one very attenuated banana, was on the table. “Egyptian or Turkish — or will you have a pipe?”
He took a cigarette clumsily from the box and his fingers trembled as he lit first hers and then his own — he was so terribly afraid of cutting a ridiculous figure. He sat down again and beat a tattoo on the tablecloth. Mrs. Feverel, with some grimly muttered excuse, left the room. She watched him a moment from the other side of the table and then she came over to him. She bent over his chair, leaning her hands on his shoulders.
“Robin, what is it?” she said. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” he said gloomily. “It’s all right — —”
“Oh! do you suppose I haven’t seen?” She bent closer to him and pressed her cheek against his. “Robin, old boy — you’re not getting tired of me? You’re tired or cross to-night — I don’t know. I’ve been very patient all this time — waiting for you — hoping that you would come — longing for you — and you never came — all these many weeks. Then I thought that, perhaps, you were too busy or were afraid of people talking — but, at last, there was to be to-night; and I’ve looked forward to it — oh! so much! — and now you’re like this!”
She was nearly crying, and there was that miserable little catch in her voice. He did feel an awful cad — he hadn’t thought that she would really care so much as this; but still it had to be done some time, and this seemed a very good opportunity.
He cleared his throat, and, beating the carpet with his foot, tried to speak with dignity as well as feeling — but he only succeeded in being patronising.
“You know,” he said quickly, and without daring to look at her, “one’s had time to think. I don’t mean that I’m sorry it’s all been as it has — we’ve had a ripping time — but I’m not sure — one can’t be certain — that it’s best for it to go on — quite like this. You see, old girl, it’s so damned serious. Of course my people have ideas about my marrying — of course the Trojans have always had to be careful. People expect it of them — —”
He stopped for a moment.
“You mean that I’m not good enough?”
She had stepped back from his chair and was standing with her back to the wall. He got up from his chair and turned round and faced her, leaning with his hands on the table. But he could not face her for long; his eyes dropped before the fury in hers.
“No, no, Dahlia — how stupid of you! — of course it’s not that. It’s really rather unkind of you to make it harder for me. It’s difficult enough to explain. You’re good enough for any one, but I’m not quite sure, dear, whether we’d be quite the people to marry! We’d be splendid friends, of course — we’ll always be that — but we’re both very young, and, after all, it’s rather hard for one to know. It was splendid at Cambridge, but I don’t think we quite realised — —”
“You mean you didn’t,” she broke in quickly. “I know well enough. Some one’s been speaking to you, Robin.”
“No — nobody.” He looked at her fiercely. She had hurt his pride. “As if I’d be weak enough to let that make any difference. No one has said a word — only — —”
“Only — you’ve been thinking that we’re not quite good enough for you — that we’d soil your Trojan carpets and chairs — that we’d stain your Trojan relations. I — I know — I — —”
And then she broke down altogether. She was kneeling by the table with her head in her arms, sobbing as though her heart would break.
“Oh, I say, Dahlia, don’t! I can’t bear to see you cry — it will be all right, old girl, to-morrow — it will really — and then you will see that it was wiser. You will thank me for speaking about it. Of course we’ll always be good friends. I — —”
“Robin, you don’t mean it. You can’t!” She had risen from her knees and now stood by him, timidly, with one hand on his arm. “You have forgotten all those splendid times at Cambridge. Don’t you remember that evening on the Backs? Just you and I alone when there was that man singing on the other side of the water, when you said that we would be like that always — together. Oh, Robin dear, it can’t have been all nothing to you.”
She looked very charming with her eyes a little wet and her hair a little dishevelled. But his resolution must not weaken — now that he had progressed so far, he must not go back. But he put his arm round her.
“Really, old girl, it is better — for both of us. We can wait. Perhaps in a few years’ time it will seem different again. We can think about it then. I don’t want to seem selfish, but you must think about me a little. You must see how hard it has been for me to say this, and that it has only been with the greatest difficulty that I’ve been strong enough. Believe me, dear, it is harder for me than it is for you — much harder.”
He was really getting on very well. He had had no idea that he would do it so nicely. Poor girl! it was hard luck — perhaps he had led her to expect rather too much — those letters of his had been rather too warm, a little indiscreet. But no doubt she would marry some excellent man of her own class — in a few years she would look back and wonder how she had ever had the fortune to know so intimately a man of Robin’s rank! Meanwhile, the scene had better end as soon as possible.
She had let him keep his arm round her waist, and now she suddenly leant back and looked up in his face.
“Robin, darling,” she whispered, “you can’t mean it — not that we should part like this. Why, think of the times that we have had — the splendid, glorious times — and all that we’re going to have. Think of all that you’ve said to me, over and over again — —”
She crept closer to him. “You love me really, dear, all the same. It’s only that some one’s been talking to you and telling you that it’s foolish. But that mustn’t make any difference. We’re strong enough to face all the world. You know that you said you were in the summer, and I’m sure that you are now. Wait till to-morrow, dear, and you’ll see it all differently.”
“I tell you nobody’s been talking,” he said, drawing his arm away. “Besides, if they did, it wouldn’t make any difference. No, Dahlia, it’s got to stop. We’re too young to know, and besides, it would be absurd anyway. I know it’s bad luck on you. Perhaps I said rather too much in the summer. But of course we’ll always be good friends. I know you’ll see it as I do in a little time. We’ve both been indiscreet, and it’s better to draw back now than later — really it is.”
“Do you mean it, Robin?”
She stood facing him with her hands clenched; her face was white and her eyes were blazing with fury.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I think it’s time this ended — —”
“Not before I’ve told you what I think of you,” she cried. “You’re a thief and a coward — you’ve stolen a girl’s love and then you’re afraid to face the world — you’re afraid of what people will say. If you don’t love me, you’re tied to me, over and over again. You’ve made me promises — you made me love you — and now when your summer amusement is over you fling me aside — you and your fine relations! Oh! you gentlemen! It would be a good thing for the world if we were rid of the whole lot of you! You coward! You coward!”
He was taken aback by her fury.
“I say — Dahlia—” he stammered, “it’s unfair — —”
“Oh! yes!” she broke in, “unfair, of course, to you! but nothing to me — nothing to me that you stole my love — robbed me of it like a common thief — pretended to love me, promised to marry me, and now — now — Oh! unfair! yes, always for the man, never for the girl — she doesn’t count! She doesn’t matter at all. Break her heart and fling it away and nobody minds — it’s as good as a play!”
She burst into tears, and stood with her head in her hands, sobbing as though her heart would break. It was a most distressing scene!
“Really, really, Dahlia,” said Robin, feeling extremely uncomfortable (it was such a very good thing, he thought, that none of his friends could see him), “it’s no use your taking it like this. I had better go — we can’t do any good by talking about it now. To-morrow, when we can look at it calmly, it will seem different.”
He moved to the door, but she made another attempt and put her hand timidly on his arm to stop him.
“No, no, Robin, I didn’t mean what I said — not like that. I didn’t know what I was saying. Oh, I love you, dear, I love you! I can’t let you go like that. You don’t know what it means to me. You are taking everything from me — when you rob a girl of her love, of her heart, you leave her nothing. If you go now, I don’t care what happens to me — death — or worse, That’s how you make a bad woman, Robin. Taking her love from her and then letting her go. You are taking her soul!”
But he placed her gently aside. “Nonsense, Dahlia,” he said. “You are excited to-night. You exaggerate. You will meet a man much worthier than myself, and then you will see that I was right.”
He opened the door and was gone.
She sat down at the table. She heard him open and shut the hall door, and then his steps echoed down the street, and at last there was silence. She sat at the table with her head bent, her eyes gazing at the oranges and the bananas. The house was perfectly silent, and her very heart seemed to have ceased to beat. Of course she did not realise it; it seemed to her still as though he would come back in a moment and put his arms round her and tell her that it was all a game — just to see if she had really cared. But the silence of the street and the house was terrible. It choked her, and she pulled at her frock to loosen the tightness about her throat. It was cruel of him to have gone away like that — but of course he would come back. Only why was that cold misery at her heart? Why did she feel as if some one had placed a hand on her and drawn all her life away, and left her with no emotion or feeling — only a dull, blank, despair, like a cold fog through which no sun shone?
For she was beginning to realise it slowly. He had gone away, after telling her, brutally, frankly, that he was tired of her — that he had, indeed, never really cared for her. That was it — he had never cared for her — all those things that he had promised in the summer had been false, words without any meaning. All that idyll had been hollow, a sham, and she had made it the centre of her world.
She got up from the table and swayed a little as she stood. She pressed her hands against her forehead as though she would drive into her brain the fact that there would be no one now — no one at all — it was all a lie, a lie, a lie!
The door opened softly and Mrs. Feverel stole in. “Dahlia — what has he done?”
She looked at her as though she could not see her.
“Oh, nothing,” she said slowly. “He did nothing. Only it’s all over — there is not going to be any more.”
And then, as though the full realisation of it had only just been borne in upon her, she sat down at the table again and burst into passionate crying.
Mrs. Feverel watched her. “I knew it was coming, my dear — weeks ago. You know I told you, only you wouldn’t listen. Lord! it was plain enough. He’d only been playing the same game as all the rest of them.”
Dahlia dried her eyes fiercely. “I’m a fool to make so much of it,” she said. “I wasn’t good enough — he said — not good enough. His people wouldn’t like it and the rest — Oh! I’ve been a fool, a fool!”
Her mood changed to anger again. Even now she did not grasp it fully, but he had insulted her. He had flung back in her face all that she had given him. Injured pride was at work now, and for a moment she hated him so that she could have killed him gladly had he been there. But it was no good — she could not think about it clearly; she was tired, terribly tired.
“I’m tired to death, mother,” she said. “I can’t think to-night.”
She stumbled a little as she turned to the door.
“At least,” said Mrs. Feverel, “there are the letters.”
But Dahlia had scarcely heard.
“The letters?” she said.
“That he wrote in the summer. You have them safe enough?”
But the girl did not reply. She only climbed heavily up the dark stairs.
CHAPTER IV
Clare Trojan was having her breakfast in her own room. It was ten o’clock, and a glorious September morning, and the sparrows were twittering on the terrace outside as though they considered it highly improper for any one to have breakfast between four walls when Nature had provided such a splendid feast on the lawn.
Clare was reading a violent article in the National Review concerning the inadequacy of our present solution of the housing problem; but it did not interest her.
If the world had only been one large Trojan family there would have been no problem. The trouble was that there were Greeks. She did dimly realise their existence, but the very thought of them terrified her. Troy must be defended, and there were moments when Clare was afraid that its defenders were few; but she blinded herself to the dangers of attack. “There are no Greeks, there are no Greeks.” Clare stood alone on the Trojan walls and defied that world of superstition and pagan creeds. With the armour of tradition and an implicit belief in the watchword of all true Trojan leaders, “Qui dort garde,” she warded the sacred hearths; but there were moments when her eyes were opened and signs were revealed to her of another world — something in which Troy could have no place; and then she was afraid.
She was considering Harry, his coming, and his probable bearing on present conditions, and she knew that once again the Trojan walls were in danger. It seemed to her, as she sat there, cruelly unfair that the son of the House, the man who in a little while would stand before the world as the head of the Trojan tradition, should be the chief instrument in the attempted destruction of the same. She had not liked Harry in the old days. She had always, even as a girl, a very stern idea of the dignity of the House. Harry had never fulfilled this idea, had never even attempted to. He had been wild, careless, undisciplined, accompanying strange uncouth persons on strange uncouth adventures; he had been almost a byword in the place. No, she had not liked him; she had almost hated him at one time. And then after he had gone away she had deliberately forgotten him; she had erased his name from the fair sheet of the Trojan record, and had hoped that the House would never more be burdened by his undisciplined history. Then she had heard that there was a son and heir, and her one thought had been of capture, deliverance of the new son of the House from his father’s influence. She was not d
eliberately cruel in her determination; she saw that the separation must hurt the father, but she herself was ready to make sacrifice for the good of the House and she expected the same self-denial in others. Harry made no difficulties. New Zealand was no place for a lonely widower to bring up his boy, and Robin was sent home. From that moment he was the centre of Clare’s world; much self-denial can make a woman good, only maternity can make her divine. To bring the boy up for the House, to tutor him in all the little and big things that a Trojan must know and do, to fit him to take his place at the head of the family on a later day; all these things she laboured for, day and night without ceasing, and without divided interests. She loved the boy, too, passionately, with more than a mother’s love, and now she looked back over what had been her life-work with pride and satisfaction. She had tried to forget Harry. She hoped, although she never dared to face the thought in her heart, that he would die there, away in that foreign country, without coming back to them again. Robin was hers now; she had educated him, loved him, scolded him — he was all hers, she would brook no division. Then, when she had heard that Harry was to come home, it had been at first more than she could bear. She had burst into wild incoherent protests; she had prayed that an accident might happen to him and that he might never reach home. And then the Trojan pride and restraint had come to her aid. She was ashamed, bewildered, that she could have sunk to such depths; she prepared to meet him calmly and quietly; she even hoped that, perhaps, he might be so changed that she would welcome him. And, after all, he would in a little time be head of the House. Robin, too, was strongly under her influence, and it was unlikely that he would leave her for a man whom he had never known, for whom he could not possibly care.
It was this older claim of hers with regard to Robin that did, she felt, so obviously strengthen her position, and now that Harry had really returned, she thought that her fears need not trouble her much longer — he did all the things that Robin disliked most. His boisterousness, heartiness, and good-fellowship, dislike of everyday conventionality, would all, she knew, count against him with Robin. She had seen him shrink on several occasions, and each time she had been triumphantly glad. For she was frightened, terribly frightened. Harry was threatening to take from her the one great thing around which her life was centred; if he robbed her of Robin he robbed her of everything, and she must fight to keep him. That it would come to a duel between them she had long foreseen, she had governed for so long that she would not easily yield her place now; but she had not known that she would feel as she did about Robin, she had not known that she would be jealous — jealous of every look and word and motion. She had never known what jealousy was before, but now in the silence of the golden, sunlit room, with only the twittering of the birds on the lawn to disturb her thoughts, she faced the facts honestly without shrinking, and she knew that she hated her brother. Oh! why couldn’t he go back again to his sheep-shearing! Why had he come to disturb them! It was not his environment, it was not his life at all! She felt that they could never lead again that same quiet, ordered existence; like a gale of wind he had burst their doors and broken their windows, and now the house was open, desolate, to the world.