The pain he caused her hand recalled her to herself. A look of bewilderment crossed her face, and then she realized his suspense and said, gravely, "You may come again."
He kissed the hand he held, and, as he did so, he knew for the first time that she loved him. But he could not speak of love after what he had just told her. He looked back when he reached the door, and saw her standing where he had left her. She had raised the hand he had kissed to her lips.
That was three days ago. Since then he had not dared to go and see her. He could not ask her to marry him when he was within a few days of the time when he was bound in so-called honor to give Lord Newhaven satisfaction. He certainly could not be in her presence again without asking her. The shadows of the last weeks had suddenly become ghastly realities once more. The roar of Niagara drowned all other sounds. What was he going to do? What was he going to do in the predicament towards which he had been drifting so long, which was now actually upon him? Who shall say what horror, what agony of mind, what frenzied searching for a way of escape, what anguish of baffled love crowded in on Hugh's mind during those last days? At the last moment he caught at a straw, and wrote to Lord Newhaven offering to fight him. He did not ask himself what he should do if Lord Newhaven refused. But when Lord Newhaven did refuse his determination, long unconsciously fostered, sprang full-grown into existence in a sudden access of passionate anger and blind rage.
"He won't fight, won't he! He thinks I will die like a rat in a trap with all my life before me. I will not. I offered him a fair chance of revenging himself—I would have fired into the air—and if he won't take it is his own look-out, damn him! He can shoot me at sight if he likes. Let him."
Chapter XXXII
*
On ne peut jamais dire.
"Fontaine je ne boirai jamais de ton eau."
If we could choose our ills we should not choose suspense. Rachel aged perceptibly during these last weeks. Her strong white hands became thinner; her lustreless eyes and haggard face betrayed her. In years gone by she had said to herself, when a human love had failed her, "I will never put myself through this torture a second time. Whatever happens I will not endure it again."
And now she was enduring it again, though in a different form. There is an element of mother-love in the devotion which some women give to men. In the first instance it had opened the door of Rachel's heart to Hugh, and had gradually merged, with other feelings, and deepened into the painful love of a woman not in her first youth for a man of whom she is not sure.
Rachel was not sure of Hugh. Of his love for her she was sure, but not of the man himself, the gentle, refined, lovable nature that mutely worshipped and clung to her. She could not repulse him any more than she could repulse a child. But through all her knowledge of him—the knowledge of love, the only true knowledge of our fellow-creatures—a thread of doubtful anxiety was interwoven. She could form some idea how men like Dick, Lord Newhaven, or the Bishop would act in given circumstances, but she could form no definite idea how Hugh would act in the same circumstances. Yet she knew Hugh a thousand times better than any of the others. Why was this? Many women before Rachel have sought diligently to find, and have shut their eyes diligently, lest they should discover what it is that is dark to them in the character of the man they love.
Perhaps Rachel half knew all the time the subtle inequality in Hugh's character. Perhaps she loved him all the better for it. Perhaps she knew that if he had been without a certain undefinable weakness he would not have been drawn towards her strength. She was stronger than he, and perhaps she loved him more than she could have loved an equal.
"Les esprits faibles ne sont jamais sincères." She had come across that sentence one day in a book she was reading, and had turned suddenly blind and cold with anger. "He is sincere," she said, fiercely, as if repelling an accusation. "He would never deceive me." But no one had accused Hugh.
The same evening he made the confession for which she had waited so long. As he began to speak an intolerable suspense, like a new and acute form of a familiar disease, lay hold on her. Was he going to live or die. She should know at last. Was she to part with him, to bury love for the second time? Or was she to keep him, to be his wife, the mother of his children?
As he went on, his language becoming more confused; she hardly listened to him. She had known all that too long. She had forgiven it, not without tears; but still, she had forgiven it long ago. Then he stopped. It seemed to Rachel as if she had reached a moment in life which she could not bear. She waited, but still he did not speak. Then she was not to know. She was to be ground between the millstones of four more dreadful days and nights. She suddenly became aware, as she stared at Hugh's blanching face, that he believed she was about to dismiss him. The thought had never entered her mind.
"Do you not know that I love you?" she said, silently, to him, as he kissed her hand.
When he had left her a gleam of comfort came to her, the only gleam that lightened the days and nights that followed. It was not his fault if he had made a half-confession. If he had gone on, and had told her of the drawing of lots, and which had drawn the fatal lot, he would have been wanting in sense of honor. He owed it to the man he had injured to preserve entire secrecy.
"He told me of the sin which might affect my marrying him," said Rachel, "but the rest had nothing to do with me. He was right not to speak of it. If he had told me, and then a few days afterwards Lord Newhaven had committed suicide, he would know I should put two and two together, and who the woman was, and the secret would not have died with Lord Newhaven as it ought to do. But if Hugh were the man who had to kill himself, he might have told me so without a breach of confidence, because then I should never have guessed who the others were. If he were the man he could have told me, he certainly would have told me, for it could have done no harm to any one. Surely Lady Newhaven must be right when she was so certain that her husband had drawn the short lighter. And she herself had gained the same impression from what Hugh had vaguely said at Wilderleigh. But what are impressions, suppositions, except the food of suspense." Rachel sighed, and took up her burden as best she could. Hugh's confession had at least one source of comfort in it, deadly cold comfort if he were about to leave her. She knew that night as she lay awake that she had not quite trusted him up till now, by the sense of entire trust and faith in him which rose up to meet his self-accusation. What might have turned away Rachel's heart from him had had the opposite effect. "He told me the worst of himself, though he risked losing me by doing it. He wished me to know before he asked me to marry him. Though he acted dishonorably once he is an honorable man. He has shown himself upright in his dealing with me."
Hugh came back no more after that evening. Rachel told herself she knew why—she understood. He could not speak of love and marriage when the man he had injured was on the brink of death. Her heart stood still when she thought of Lord Newhaven, the gentle, kindly man who was almost her friend, and who was playing with such quiet dignity a losing game. Hugh had taken from him his wife, and by that act was now taking from him his life too.
"It was an even chance," she groaned. "Hugh is not responsible for his death. Oh, my God! At least he is not responsible for that. It might have been he who had to die instead of Lord Newhaven. But if it is he, surely he could not leave me without a word. If it is he, he would have come to bid me good-bye. He cannot go down into silence without a word. If it is he, he will come yet."
She endured through the two remaining days, turning faint with terror each time the door-bell rang, lest it might be Hugh.
But Hugh did not come.
Then, after repeated frantic telegrams from Lady Newhaven, she left London precipitately to go to her, as she had promised, on the twenty-eighth of November, the evening of the last day of the five months.
Chapter XXXIII
*
"And he went out immediately, and it was night."
It was nearly dark when Rachel reached Westhope Abbey. A great pe
ace seemed to pervade the long, dim lines of the gardens, and to be gathered into the solemn arches of the ruins against the darkening sky. Through the low door-way a faint light of welcome peered. As she drove up she was aware of two tall figures pacing amicably together in the dusk. As she passed them she heard Lord Newhaven's low laugh at something his companion said.
A sense of unreality seized her. It was not the world which was out of joint, which was rushing to its destruction. It must be she who was mad—stark mad—to have believed these chimeras.
As she got out of the carriage a step came lightly along the gravel, and Lord Newhaven emerged into the little ring of light by the archway.
"It is very good of you to come," he said, cordially, with extended hand. "My poor wife is very unwell, and expecting you anxiously. She told me she had sent for you."
All was unreal—the familiar rooms and passages, the flickering light of the wood fire in the drawing-room, the darkened room, into which Rachel stole softly and knelt down beside a trembling white figure, which held her with a drowning clutch.
"I will be in the drawing-room after dinner," Lady Newhaven whispered, hoarsely. "I won't dine down. I can't bear to see him."
It was all unreal, except the jealousy which suddenly took Rachel by the throat and nearly choked her.
"I have undertaken what is beyond my strength," she said to herself, as she hastily dressed for dinner. "How shall I bear it when she speaks of him? How shall I go through with it?"
Presently she was dining alone with Lord Newhaven. He mentioned that it was Dick Vernon with whom he had been walking when she arrived. Dick was staying in Southminster for business, combined with hunting, and had ridden over. Lord Newhaven looked furtively at Rachel as he mentioned Dick. Her indifference was evidently genuine.
"She has not grown thin and parted with what little looks she possessed on Dick's account," he said to himself; and the remembrance slipped across his mind of Hugh's first word when he recovered consciousness after drowning—"Rachel."
"I would have asked Dick to dine," continued Lord Newhaven, when the servants had gone, "but I thought two was company and three none, and that it was not fair on you and Violet to have him on your hands, as I am obliged to go to London on business by the night express."
He was amazed at the instantaneous effect of his words.
Rachel's face became suddenly livid, and she sank back in her chair. He saw that it was only by a supreme effort that she prevented herself from fainting. The truth flashed into his mind.
"She knows," he said to himself. "That imbecile, that brainless viper to whom I am tied, has actually confided in her. And she and Scarlett are in love with each other, and the suspense is wearing her out."
He looked studiously away from her, and continued a desultory conversation; but his face darkened.
The little boys came in, and pressed themselves one on each side of their father, their eyes glued on the crystallized cherries. Rachel had recovered herself, and she watched the children and their father with a pain at her heart, which was worse than the faintness.
She had been unable to believe that if Lord Newhaven had drawn the short lighter he would remain quietly here over the dreadful morrow, under the same roof as Teddy and Pauly. Oh, surely nothing horrible could happen so near them! Yet he seemed to have no intention of leaving Westhope. Then, perhaps, he had not drawn the short lighter, after all. At the moment when suspense, momentarily lulled, was once more rising hideous, colossal, he casually mentioned that he was leaving by the night train. The reason was obvious. The shock of relief almost stunned her.
"He will do it quietly to-morrow away from home," she said to herself, watching him with miserable eyes, as he divided the cherries equally between the boys. She had dreaded going up-stairs to Lady Newhaven, but anything was better than remaining in the dining-room. She rose hurriedly, and the boys raced to the door and struggled which should open it for her.
Lady Newhaven was lying on a sofa by the wood fire in the drawing-room.
Rachel went straight up to her, and said, hoarsely:
"Lord Newhaven tells me he is going to London this evening by the night express."
Lady Newhaven threw up her arms.
"Then it is he," she said. "When he stayed on and on up to to-day I began to be afraid that it was not he, after all; and yet little things made me feel sure it was, and that he was only waiting to do it before me and the children. I have been so horribly frightened. Oh, if he might only go away, and that I might never, never look upon his face again!"
Rachel sat down by the latticed window and looked out into the darkness. She could not bear to look at Lady Newhaven. Was there any help anywhere from this horror of death without, from this demon of jealousy within?
"I am her only friend," she said to herself, over and over again. "I cannot bear it, and I must bear it. I cannot desert her now. She has no one to turn to but me."
"Rachel, where are you?" said the feeble, plaintive voice.
Rachel rose and went unsteadily towards her. It was fortunate the room was lit only by the fire-light.
"Sit down by me here on the sofa, and let me lean against you. You do comfort me, Rachel, though you say nothing. You are the only true friend I have in the world, the only woman who really loves me. Your cheek is quite wet, and you are actually trembling. You always feel for me. I can bear it now you are here, and he is going away."
*
When the boys had been reluctantly coerced to bed, Lord Newhaven rang for his valet, told him what to pack, that he should not want him to accompany him, and then went to his sitting-room on the ground-floor.
"Scarlett seems a fortunate person," he said, pacing up and down. "That woman loves him, and if she marries him she will reform him. Is he going to escape altogether in this world and the next—if there is a next? Is there no justice anywhere? Perhaps at this moment he is thinking that he has salved his conscience by offering to fight, and that, after all, I can't do anything to prevent his living and marrying her if he chooses. He knows well enough I shall not touch him, or sue for a divorce, for fear of the scandal. He thinks he has me there. And he is right. But he is mistaken if he thinks I can do nothing. I may as well go up to London and see for myself whether he is still on his feet to-morrow night. It is a mere formality, but I will do it. I might have guessed that she would try to smirch her own name, and the boys through her, if she had the chance. She will defeat me yet, unless I am careful. Oh, ye gods! why did I marry a fool who does not even know her own interests? If I had life over again I would marry a Becky Sharp, any she-devil incarnate, if only she had brains. One cannot circumvent a fool, because one can't foresee their line of action. But Miss West, for a miracle, is safe. She has a lock-and-key face. But she is not for Scarlett. Did Scarlett tell her himself in an access of moral spring-cleaning preparatory to matrimony? No. He may have told her that he had got into trouble with some woman, but not about the drawing of lots. Whatever his faults are, he has the instincts of a gentleman, and his mouth is shut. I can trust him like myself there. But she is not for him. He may think he will marry her, but I draw the line there. Violet and I have other views for him. He can live, if he wants to, and apparently he does want to, though whether he will continue to want to is another question. But he shall not have Rachel. She must marry Dick."
A distant rumbling was heard of the carriage driving under the stable archway on its way to the front-door.
Lord Newhaven picked up a novel with a mark in it, and left the room. In the passage he stopped a moment at the foot of the narrow black oak staircase to the nurseries, which had once been his own nurseries. All was very silent. He listened, hesitated; his foot on the lowest stair. The butler came round the corner to announce the carriage.
"I shall be back in four days at furthest," Lord Newhaven said to him, and turning, went on quickly to the hall, where the piercing night air came in with the stamping of the impatient horses' hoofs.
A minute later
the two listening women up-stairs heard the carriage drive away into the darkness, and a great silence settled down upon the house.
Chapter XXXIV
*
"The fool saith, Who would have thought it?"
Winter had brought trouble with it to Warpington Vicarage. A new baby had arrived, and the old baby was learning, not in silence, what kings and ministers undergo when they are deposed. Hester had never greatly cared for the old baby. She was secretly afraid of it. But in its hour of adversity she took to it, and she and Regie spent many hours consoling it for the arrival of the little chrysalis up-stairs.
Mrs. Gresley recovered slowly, and before she was down-stairs again Regie sickened with one of those swift, sudden illnesses of childhood, which make childless women thank God for denying them their prayers.
Mrs. Gresley was not well enough to be told, and for many days Mr. Gresley and Hester and Doctor Brown held Regie forcibly back from the valley of the shadow, where, since the first cradle was rocked, the soft feet of children have cleft so sharp an entrance over the mother-hearts that vainly barred the way.
Mr. Gresley's face grew as thin as Hester's as the days went by. On his rounds—for he let nothing interfere with his work—heavy farmers in dog-carts, who opposed him at vestry meetings, stopped to ask after Regie. The most sullen of his parishioners touched their hats to him as he passed, and mothers of families, who never could be induced to leave their cooking to attend morning service, and were deeply offended at being called "after-dinner Christians" in consequence, forgot the opprobrious term, and brought little offerings of new-laid eggs and rosy apples to tempt "the little master."
Mr. Gresley was touched, grateful.
"I don't think I have always done them justice," he actually said to Hester one day. "They do seem to understand me a little better at last. Walsh has never spoken to me since my sermon on Dissent, though I always make a point of being friendly to him, but to-day he stopped, and said he knew what trouble was, and how he had lost"—Mr. Gresley's voice faltered, "it is a long time ago—but how, when he was about my age, he lost his eldest boy, and how he always remembered Regie in his prayers, and I must keep up a good heart. We shook hands," said Mr. Gresley. "I sometimes think Walsh means well, and that he may be a good-hearted man, after all."
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