Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Oh — good-bye,” said Hester in a strange, cold voice, not moving and not holding out her hand.

  But Katharine extended her own, for she entirely refused to be treated as though she had injured her friend, just as a little while earlier, she had chosen to stay a few minutes rather than to take a hint so broad that it sounded like an order to go. She went nearer to the window.

  “Good-bye, Hester,” she repeated, holding out her hand in such a way that Hester could not refuse to take it.

  And Hester took it, but dropped it again instantly. Katharine nodded quietly, turned, nodded again to Crowdie in exactly the same way, and passed out through the open door, calmly and proudly, being quite sure that she had done nothing to be ashamed of. She knew, at the moment, that all hope of ever renewing her friendship was gone, at least for the present, and she regretted the fact to the last minute, and was willing to show that she did. Hester’s behaviour had been incomprehensible from the first, and it was still a mystery to Katharine when she left the house. One thing only was clear, and that was the woman’s uncontrollable jealousy during the little scene which had taken place. The idea of connecting that jealousy with former events never crossed the young girl’s mind, and of finding an original cause for it in the fact of Crowdie’s having sung at Mrs. Bright’s on a certain evening three weeks earlier. Still less could she have guessed that it had begun long ago, during the preceding winter, when she had sat for her portrait in Crowdie’s studio, while Hester lay extended upon the divan where she could watch her husband’s face, and note every passing look of admiration that crossed it, as he of necessity studied the features of his model. Such an idea was altogether too far removed from Katharine, in her ignorance of human nature — as far as Hester’s passion for her husband, which went beyond the limits of what the young girl had ever dreamed of in its excessive sensitiveness.

  Katharine closed the front door behind her and went out into the street. As she descended the neat white stone steps she was close to the open windows of the little sitting-room and could have heard anything which might have been said within. But no sound of voices reached her. She could not help glancing over her shoulder towards the window, as she turned away, and she could see that Hester was still standing with her back to it, as she had stood when Katharine had insisted upon taking leave of her.

  She walked slowly homewards, wondering what was taking place since she had left the two together, and going over in her mind the details of the scene. She remembered Crowdie’s face very distinctly. She was not sure that she had ever in her life seen a man badly frightened before, and it had produced a very vivid impression upon her at the time. And she recalled the picture of Hester, standing in the doorway, the pasteboard at her feet, and her hand raised to support herself against the doorway. She had heard of ‘domestic tragedies,’ as they are called in the newspapers, and she wondered whether they ever began in that way.

  CHAPTER XXX.

  HESTER CROWDIE HEARD Katharine’s footfall outside, and did not move from her position at the window until she had listened to the last retreating echo of the young girl’s light step upon the pavement. It was very still after that, for Lafayette Place is an unfrequented corner — a quiet island, as it were, round which the great rivers of traffic flow in all directions. Only now and then a lumbering van thunders through it, to draw up at the great printing establishment at the southeast corner, or a private carriage rolls along and stops, with a discreet clatter, at the Bishop’s House, on the west side, almost opposite the Crowdies’ dwelling.

  But as Hester stood in silence, with her back to the window, her eyes rested with a fixed look on her husband’s face. He was pale, and his own beautiful eyes had lost their self-possessed calm. He looked at her, but his glance shifted quickly from one point to another — from her throat to her shoulder, from her hair to the window behind her — in a frightened and anxious way, avoiding her steady gaze.

  What he had done was harmless enough, if not altogether innocent, in itself. That there had been something not exactly right about it, or about the way in which he had done it, was indirectly proved by Katharine’s own quick displeasure. But he knew, himself, how much it had meant to Hester, over, above and beyond any commonly simple interpretation which might be put upon it. His face and manner showed that he knew it, long before she spoke the first word of what was to come.

  “Walter!”

  She uttered his name in a low tone that quivered with the pain she felt, full of suffering, and reproach, and disappointment. Instantly his eyes fell before hers, but he answered nothing. He looked at his own white hand as it rested on the back of a chair.

  “Look at me!” she said, almost sharply, with a rising intonation.

  He looked up timidly, and a slight flush appeared on his pale forehead, but not in his cheeks.

  “I don’t know why you make such a fuss about nothing,” he said, in the colourless voice of a frightened boy, caught in mischief before he has had time to invent an excuse.

  “Don’t use such absurd words!” cried Hester, with sudden energy. “It’s bad enough as it is. You love her. Say so! Be a man — be done with it!”

  “I certainly won’t say that,” answered Crowdie, regaining a little self-possession under the exaggerated accusation. “It wouldn’t be true.”

  “I’ve seen — I know!” She turned from him again and rested her forehead on her hands against the raised sash of the window.

  He gained courage, when he no longer felt her eyes upon him, and he found words.

  “You’ve no right to say that I love Katharine Lauderdale,” he said. “You saw what I did, and all I did. Well — what harm was there in kissing her hand — not her hand, her glove, when I had fastened it?”

  “What harm!” she repeated, in a low voice, without turning to him, and moving her head a little against her hands.

  “Yes — what harm was there, I ask? Wasn’t it a perfectly natural thing to do? Haven’t you seen me—”

  “Natural!” Hester turned again very quickly and came forward two steps into the room. “Natural!” she repeated. “Yes — that’s it — it was natural — oh, too natural! What else could you do? Buttoning her glove — her hand in yours — and you, loving her — you kissed it! Ah, yes, — I know how natural it was! And you tell me there was no harm in it! What’s harm, then? What does the word mean to you? Nothing? Is there no harm in hurting me?”

  “But Hester, love—”

  “And as though you did not know it — as though you had not turned white when you saw me at the door there, looking at you! If there were no harm, you needn’t have been afraid of me. You’d have smiled instead of getting pale; you’d have held her hand still, instead of dropping it, and you’d have kissed it again, to show me how little it meant. No harm, indeed!”

  “Your face was enough to scare any one, sweetheart. I thought you were ill and were going to faint.”

  He spoke softly now, in his golden voice, and threw more persuasion into the thin excuse than its words held.

  “Don’t — don’t!” she cried. “You’re tearing love to pieces with every word you say — if you know what you’re saying! I tell you I’ve seen, and I know! This is the end — not the beginning. I saw it beginning long ago — last winter, when she sat to you day after day, and I lay in my corner and watched you watching her, and your eyes lighting up, and that smile of yours that was only for me—”

  “But I was painting her portrait — I had to look at her—”

  “Not like that! Oh, no, not like that! There’s no reason, there never was any reason, why you should look at any woman like that — as you’ve looked at me. What a fool I was to let it go on, to trust myself, to believe that I could be the only woman in the world for you! And then, the other day, when you sang to her before all those people; do you remember what you once promised me? Do you remember at all that you swore to me by all you held sacred that you’d never, never sing, unless I were there to hear you? How you told me
that your voice was mine, and only for me, and for no one else, because that at least you could keep for me, though you couldn’t keep your art and make that all mine, too? And then you sang to her — I know, for they told me — you sang my song, the one I loved, from Lohengrin! Why did you do that?”

  “Why — I told you the other day — we talked of it, don’t you remember? Why do you go back to it now, dear?”

  “Because it’s part of it all,” she cried, passionately. “Because it was only one of so many things that have all led up to this that you’ve done now. I told you how I hated her, the other day, and I made you say that you hated her, too, though you didn’t want to say it. But you did, and you meant it for a little minute — just while it lasted. But you can’t hate her when she’s here — you can’t because you love her, and one can’t hate and love at the same time, though I do — but that’s different. You love her, Walter! You love her — you love her—”

  “You’re beside yourself, darling,” said Crowdie, softly. “Don’t talk like this! Be reasonable! Listen to me, sweet!”

  He knelt down beside her as she threw herself into a low chair, and he tried to take her hands. But she drew them away, wringing them as though to shake something from her fingers, and turning her face from him, as she clasped the back of the chair on the opposite side.

  “No, no!” she cried, quivering all over. “I’m not mad. I know what I’m saying — God knows, I wish I didn’t.”

  Her voice sank to a whisper, and her head fell against her hands. Crowdie laid one of his upon her arm, and she quivered again, like a nervous thoroughbred. Crowdie’s own voice was full of soft pleading as he spoke to her.

  “My sweet — my precious! Listen to me, love; don’t think I don’t love you, not even for one instant, nor that I ever loved you even a little less. Hester, look at me, darling — don’t turn your face away as though you were always going to be angry — it’s all a wretched mistake, dear! Won’t you try and believe me?”

  But Hester would not turn to him.

  “What has she got that I haven’t?” she asked, in a low monotonous tone, as though speaking to herself.

  “Nothing, beloved — not half of all you have, not a quarter nor a hundredth part—”

  “Yes — she’s more beautiful, I suppose,” continued Hester, speaking into the chair as she buried her face. “But surely that’s all — oh, what is it? What else is it that she has, and that I haven’t, and that you love in her?”

  “But I don’t love her — I don’t care for her — I don’t even like her — I hate her since she’s come between you and me, dear.”

  “No — you love her. I’ve seen it in your eyes — you can’t hide it in your eyes. You do! You love her!” she cried, suddenly raising her face and turning upon him for a moment, then looking away again almost instantly. “Oh, what has she got that I haven’t? What’s her secret — oh, what is it?”

  Crowdie bent over her shoulder and kissed the stuff of her frock softly.

  “Darling! Don’t make so much of so very little!” he whispered, close to her ear. “I tell you I love you, sweet — you must believe me — you shall believe me! I’ll kiss you till you do.”

  “No!” she exclaimed, almost fiercely. “You shan’t kiss me!”

  And she rose with a spring, and left him kneeling beside the empty chair. He struggled to his feet, cut by the ridicule of his own attitude. But he could not move easily and swiftly as she could, being badly made. She stood back, looking at him over the chair, and her eyes flashed angrily. He moved towards her, but she drew further back.

  “Don’t come near me!” she cried. “I won’t let you touch me!”

  “Hester!” His voice trembled as he uttered her name.

  “No — I know what you can do with your voice! I don’t believe you any longer — you’ve spoken to her just like that — you’ve called her Katharine, just as you call me Hester! Oh no, no! It’s all false — it doesn’t ring true any more. Go — I don’t want to see you — I don’t want to know you’re here—”

  But still he tried to get nearer to her with pleading eyes that were beginning to light up as he moved, making his feet slide upon the carpet, rather than walking.

  “Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t come near me! If you touch me — I’ll kill you!”

  Her hands went out to resist him, and her low, passionate cry of warning vibrated in the little room. Crowdie was startled, even then, and he paused, checked as though cold water had been thrown in his face. Then, very much discomfited, he turned and, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jacket, began to walk up and down, passing and repassing her as she stood back against the fireplace. Her eyes followed him fiercely, and she breathed audibly with a quick, sob-like breath, with parted lips, between her teeth.

  “I don’t know what to say to you,” he said, in a tone of a man who is at his wit’s end and is debating with himself.

  “Say nothing — go — what could you say?”

  “I could say a great many things,” he answered, growing calm again in the attempt to argue the case. “In the first place, it’s all a piece of the most extraordinary exaggeration on your part — the whole thing — pretending that a man can’t kiss a girl’s glove without being in love with her! As though there had been any secret about it! Why, the door was wide open — of course you might have come in at any moment, just as you did. And then — the way you talk! You couldn’t be more angry if I’d run away with the girl. Besides — she can’t abide me. I only did it to tease her, and she didn’t like it a bit — upon my word, you’re making a crime out of the merest chaff. It’s not like you to be so unreasonable.”

  He stopped in his walk and stood opposite to her, near the chair in which she had sat.

  “I’m not unreasonable,” she answered. “And you know I’m not. You know what you meant—”

  “I meant nothing!” cried Crowdie, with sudden energy. “You’ve got an absolutely wrong idea of the whole thing from beginning to end. You began by saying that I stared at her last winter, when I was painting her. Of course I did. Do you expect me to turn my back on my sitter, and imagine a face I can’t see? It’s perfectly absurd. I looked at her, and stared at her, just as you’ve seen me stare at Mrs. Brett, who’s young and quite as handsome as your cousin, and at Mrs. Trehearne, who’s old and hideous. You’re out of your mind, I tell you! You’re ill, or something! How in the world am I to paint people if I don’t look at them? As for having sung the other night, I couldn’t help it. It was aunt Maggie’s fault, and Katharine told me not to, when she heard I’d made a promise—”

  “I know — the little snake!” exclaimed Hester. “She knew well enough that was the best way—”

  “She didn’t know anything of the kind. She spoke perfectly naturally, and merely didn’t want me to displease you—”

  “Then why did you do it?” asked Hester, fiercely. “It wasn’t to delight poor dear old mamma, nor to charm four or five men, most of whom you hate — was it? Then it was for Katharine, and for no one else—”

  “It was not for Katharine,” answered Crowdie, with emphasis. “It wasn’t for any one of them. I sang to please myself, because I didn’t choose to have them laugh at me, as though I were a boy out of school—”

  “You mean that you didn’t choose to let them think that you cared enough for me to give such a promise — to keep your voice for me, instead of singing about in other people’s houses like a mere amateur, who pays for his supper with a song. You were afraid they’d laugh at you if you said you cared for me, and for what I’d asked of you — and you were really afraid, because you didn’t really care. Oh, I know now — I see it all, and I know! You can’t deceive me any longer.”

  “I tell you, you’re utterly and entirely mistaken!” cried Crowdie, angrily. “You’re making a mountain out of a mole hill. You’re losing your temper over it, and working yourself into a passion, till you don’t know what’s true and what isn’t. It’s madness in you,
and it isn’t fair to me. When have I ever looked at another woman—”

  “It had to begin some time — so it’s begun now — in the worst way it could begin, with Katharine Lauderdale!”

  “I hate Katharine Lauderdale — her and the sound of her name! How often must I say it before you’ll believe me?”

  “Oh — saying it won’t make it true! Do you think I didn’t see your face — just now?”

  “I don’t know what you thought you saw — but I know what there was to be seen, and if you weren’t beside yourself with jealousy you wouldn’t have thought twice about it. I never knew what jealousy meant before—”

  “And you don’t now. I’m not jealous of her — I hate her. I despise her for trying to steal you from me, but since she’s got you — since you love her so that you’ll lie for her, and be a coward for her, and be angry for her — just as it suits you — oh no, indeed! I’m not jealous of Katharine. That’s quite another thing. Jealous! And you reproach me, and cast it in my teeth, because I say I hate her, when she’s taken everything I cared for in this earth, everything I had! Ah — I could kill her! But I’m not jealous. One must care for oneself to be jealous; one must be wounded, hurt, insulted, to be jealous! Do you think I want you, if you don’t want me? How little you’ve ever understood me!”

  She drew herself up, leaning back against the shelf of the mantelpiece, and her lips curled scornfully, though they trembled a little, and she fixed her eyes upon his face with a strange, frightened fierceness, like that of a delicate wild animal driven to bay, but determined to resist. Crowdie met her glance steadily now, leaning with both hands upon the back of the chair between them and bending his body a little, in the attitude of a man who means to speak very earnestly.

  “I don’t think any one could understand you now,” he began, in a quiet, but determined tone. “I can’t, I confess. But I know you’re not yourself, and you don’t know what you’re saying. I’m not going to argue as to whether you’re jealous of Katharine Lauderdale, or not. It’s too absurd! You’ve no right to be, at all events—”