He was speaking with a manner which was quite strange to her. There was a certainty in his voice, there was a gravity too. He had ceased to leave the remedy of their plight to time and chance, since, through two years, time and chance had failed them. He had been seriously thinking, and as the result of thought he had come to definite conclusions. Millie understood that there was much more behind the words he had spoken and that he meant to say that much more to her to-night. She was suddenly aware that she was face to face with issues momentous to both of them. She began to be a little afraid. She looked at Tony almost as if he were a stranger.
“Tony,” she said faintly, in deprecation.
“We must face it, Millie,” he went on steadily. “This life of ours here in this house will come to an end, of course, but how will it leave us, you and me? Soured, embittered, quarrelsome, or no longer quarrelsome, but just indifferent to each other, bored by each other?” He was speaking very slowly, choosing each word with difficulty.
“Oh no,” Millie protested.
“It may be even worse than that. Suppose we passed beyond indifference to dislike — yes, active dislike. We are both of us young, we can both reasonably look forward to long lives, long lives of active dislike. There might too be contempt on your side.”
Millie stared at her husband.
“Contempt?” she said, echoing his words in surprise.
“Yes. Here are you, most unhappy, and I take it sitting down. Contempt might come from that.”
“But what else can you do?” she said.
“Ah,” said Tony, as though he had been waiting for that question, couched in just those words. “Ask yourself that question often enough, and contempt will come.”
This idea of contempt was a new one to Millie, and very likely her husband was indiscreet in suggesting its possibility. But he was not thinking at all of the unwisdom of his words. His thoughts were set on saving the cherished intimacy of their life from the ruin which he saw was likely to overtake it. He spoke out frankly, not counting the risk. Millie, for her part, was not in the mood to estimate the truth of what he said, although it remained in her memory. She was rather confused by the new aspect which her husband wore. She foresaw that he was working towards the disclosure of a plan; and the plan would involve changes, great changes, very likely a step altogether into the dark. And she hesitated.
“We sha’n’t alter, Tony,” she said. “You can be sure of me, can’t you?”
“But we are altering,” he replied. “Already the alteration has begun. Did we quarrel a year ago as we do now? We enjoyed those evenings when we played truant, a year ago”; and then he indulged in a yet greater indiscretion than any which he had yet allowed himself to utter. But he was by nature simple and completely honest. Whatever occurred to him, that he spoke without reserve, and the larger it loomed in his thoughts the more strenuous was its utterance upon his lips. He took a seat at the table by her side.
“I know we are changing. I take myself, and I expect it is the same with you. I am — it is difficult to express it — I am deadening. I am getting insensible to the things which not very long ago moved me very much. I once had a friend who fell ill of a slow paralysis, which crept up his limbs little by little and he hardly noticed its advance. I think that’s happening with me. I am losing the associations — that’s the word I want — the associations which made one’s recollections valuable, and gave a colour to one’s life. For instance, you sang a song last night, Millie, one of those coon songs of yours — do you remember? You sang it once in Scotland on a summer’s night. I was outside on the lawn, and past the islands across the water, which was dark and still, I saw the lights in Oban bay. I thought I would never hear that song again without seeing those lights in my mind far away across the water, clustered together like the lights of a distant town. Well, last night all those associations were somehow dead. I remembered all right, but without any sort of feeling, that that song was a landmark in one’s life. It was merely you singing a song, or rather it was merely some one singing a song.”
It was a laboured speech, and Tony was very glad to have got it over.
“I am very sorry,” replied Millie in a low voice. She did not show him her face, and he had no notion whatever that his words could hardly have failed to hurt. He was too intent upon convincing her, and too anxious to put his belief before her with unmistakable clearness to reflect in what spirit she might receive the words. That her first thought would be “He no longer cares” never occurred to him at all, and cheerfully misunderstanding her acquiescence, he went on —
“You see that’s bad. It mustn’t go on, Millie. Let’s keep what we’ve got. At all costs let us keep that!”
“You mean we must go away?” said Millie, and Tony Stretton did not answer. He rose from his chair and walked back to the fireplace and knocked the ashes from his pipe. Millie was accustomed to long intervals between her questions and his replies, but she was on the alert now. Something in his movements and his attitude showed her that he was not thinking of what answer he should make. He was already sure upon that point. Only the particular answer he found difficult to speak. She guessed it on the instant and stood up erect, in alarm.
“You mean that you must go away, and that I must remain?”
Tony turned round to her and nodded his head.
“Alone! Here?” she exclaimed, looking round her with a shiver.
“For a little while. Until I have made a home for you to come to. Only till then, Millie. It needn’t be so very long.”
“It will seem ages!” she cried, “however short it is. Tony, it’s impossible.”
The tedious days stretched before her in an endless and monotonous succession. The great rooms would be yet more silent, and more empty than they were; there would be a chill throughout all the house; the old man’s exactions would become yet more oppressive, since there would be only one to bear them. She thought of the long dull evenings, in the faded drawing-room. They were bad enough now, those long evenings during which she read the evening paper aloud, and Sir John slept, yet not so soundly but that he woke the instant her voice stopped, and bade her continue. What would they be if Tony were gone, if there were no hour or so at the end when they were free to play truant if they willed? What she had said was true. She had been merely pretending to enjoy their hour of truancy, but she would miss it none the less. And in the midst of these thoughts she heard Tony’s voice.
“It sounds selfish, I know, but it isn’t really. You see, I sha’n’t enjoy myself. I have not been brought up to know anything well or to do anything well — anything, I mean, really useful — I’ll have a pretty hard time too.” And then he described to her what he thought of doing. He proposed to go out to one of the colonies, spend some months on a farm as a hand, and when he had learned enough of the methods, and had saved a little money, to get hold of a small farm to which he could ask her to come. It was a pretty and a simple scheme, and it ignored the great difficulties in the way, such as his ignorance and his lack of capital. But he believed in it sincerely, and every word in his short and broken sentences proved his belief. He had his way that night with Millicent. She was capable of a quick fervour, though the fervour might as quickly flicker out. She saw that the sacrifice was really upon his side, for upon him would be the unaccustomed burden of labour, and the labour would be strange and difficult. She rose to his height since he was with her and speaking to her with all the conviction of his soul.
“Well, then, go,” she cried. “I’ll wait here, Tony, till you send for me.”
And when she passed the library door that night she did not even shrink.
CHAPTER V
PAMELA MAKES A PROMISE
MILLIE’S ENTHUSIASM FOR her husband’s plan increased each day. The picture which his halting phrases evoked for her, of a little farm very far away under Southern skies, charmed her more by reason of its novelty than either she or Tony quite understood. In the evenings of the following week, long aft
er the footsteps overhead had ceased, they sat choosing the site of their house and building it. It was to be the exact opposite of their house of bondage. The windows should look out over rolling country, the simple decorations should be bright of colour, and through every cranny the sun should find its way. Millie’s hopes, indeed, easily outran her husband’s. She counted the house already built, and the door open for her coming. Colour and light bathed it in beauty.
“There’s my little fortune, Tony,” she said, when once or twice he tried to check the leap of her anticipations; “that will provide the capital.”
“I knew you would offer it,” Tony replied simply. “Your help will shorten our separation by a good deal. So I’ll take half.”
“All!” cried Millie.
“And what would you do when you wanted a new frock?” asked Tony, with a smile.
Millie shrugged her shoulders.
“I shall join you so soon,” she said.
It dawned upon Tony that she was making too little of the burden which she would be called upon to bear — the burden of dull lonely months in that great shabby house.
“It will be a little while before I can send for you, Millie,” he protested. But she paid no heed to the protest. She fetched her bank book and added up the figures.
“I have three thousand pounds,” she said.
“I’ll borrow half,” he repeated. “Of course, I am only borrowing. Should things go wrong with me, you are sure to get it back in the end.”
They drove down to Millie’s bank the next morning, and fifteen hundred pounds were transferred to his account.
“Meanwhile,” said Tony, as they came out of the door into Pall Mall, “we have not yet settled where our farm is to be. I think I will go and see Chase.”
“The man in Stepney Green?” Millie asked.
“Yes. He’s the man to help us.”
Tony called a cab and drove off. It was late in the afternoon when he returned, and he had no opportunity to tell his wife the results of his visit before dinner was announced. Millie was in a fever to hear his news. Never, even in this house, had an evening seemed so long. Sir John sat upright in his high-backed chair, and, as was his custom, bade her read aloud the evening paper. But that task was beyond her. She pleaded a headache and escaped. It seemed to her that hours passed before Tony rejoined her. She had come to dread with an intense fear that some hindrance would, at any moment, stop their plan.
“Well?” she asked eagerly, when Tony at last came into their sitting-room.
“It’s to be horses in Kentucky,” answered Tony. “Farming wants more knowledge and a long apprenticeship; but I know a little about horses.”
“Splendid!” cried Millie. “You will go soon?”
“In a week. A week is all I need.”
Millie was quiet for a little while. Then she asked, with an anxious look —
“When do you mean to tell your father?”
“To-morrow.”
“Don’t,” said she. She saw his face cloud, she was well aware of his dislike of secrecies, but she was too much afraid that, somehow, at the last moment an insuperable obstacle would bar the way. “Don’t tell him at all,” she went on. “Leave a note for him. I will see that it is given to him after you have gone. Then he can’t stop you. Please do this, I ask you.”
“How can he stop me?
“I don’t know; but I am afraid that he will. He could threaten to disinherit you; if you disobeyed, he might carry out the threat. Give him no opportunity to threaten.”
Very reluctantly Tony consented. He had all a man’s objections to concealments, she all a woman’s liking for them; but she prevailed, and since the moment of separation was very near, they began to retrace their steps through the years of their married life, and back beyond them to the days of their first acquaintance. Thus it happened that Millie mentioned the name of Pamela Mardale, and suddenly Tony drew himself upright in his chair.
“Is she in town, I wonder?” he asked, rather of himself than of his wife.
“Most likely,” Millie replied. “Why?”
“I think I must try to see her before I go,” said Tony, thoughtfully; and more than once during the evening he looked with anxiety towards his wife; but in his look there was some perplexity too.
He tried next day; for he borrowed a horse from a friend, and rode out into the Row at eleven o’clock. As he passed through the gates of Hyde Park, he saw Pamela turning her horse on the edge of the sand. She saw him at the same moment and waited.
“You are a stranger here,” she said, with a smile, as he joined her.
“Here and everywhere,” he replied. “I came out on purpose to find you.”
Pamela glanced at Tony curiously. Only a few days had passed since Warrisden had pointed out the truants from the window of Lady Millingham’s house, and had speculated upon the seclusion of their lives. The memory of that evening was still fresh in her mind.
“I want to ask you a question.”
“Ask it and I’ll answer,” she replied carelessly.
“You were Millie’s bridesmaid?”
“Yes.”
“You saw a good deal of her before we were married?”
“Yes.”
They were riding down the Row at a walk under the trees, Pamela wondering to what these questions were to lead, Tony slowly formulating the point which troubled him.
“Before Millie and I were engaged,” he went on, “before indeed there was any likelihood of our being engaged, you once said to me something about her.”
“I did?”
“Yes. I remembered it last night. And it rather worries me. I should like you to explain what you meant. You said, ‘The man who marries her should never leave her. If he goes away shooting big game, he should take her with him. On no account must she be left behind.’”
It was a day cloudless and bright. Over towards the Serpentine the heat filled the air with a soft screen of mist, and at the bottom of the Row the rhododendrons glowed. As Pamela and Tony went forward at a walk the sunlight slanting through the leaves now shone upon their faces and now left them in shade. And when it fell bright upon Pamela it lit up a countenance which was greatly troubled. She did not, however, deny that she had used the words. She did not pretend that she had forgotten their application.
“You remember what I said?” she remarked. “It is a long while ago.”
“Before that,” he explained, “I had begun to notice all that was said of Millie.”
“I spoke the words generally, perhaps too carelessly.”
“Yet not without a reason,” Tony insisted. “That’s not your way.”
Pamela made no reply for a moment or two. Then she patted her horse’s head, and said softly —
“Not without a reason.” She admitted his contention frankly. She did more, for she turned in her saddle towards him and, looking straight into his face, said —
“I was not giving you advice at the time. But, had I been, I should have said just those words. I say them again now.”
“Why?”
Tony put his question very earnestly. He held Pamela in a great respect, believing her clear-sighted beyond her fellows. He was indeed a little timid in her presence as a rule, for she overawed him, though all unconsciously. Nothing of this timidity, however, showed now. “That was what I came out to ask you. Why?”
Again Pamela attempted no evasion.
“I can’t tell you,” she said quietly.
“You promised.”
“I break the promise.”
Tony looked wistfully at his companion. That the perplexing words had been spoken with a definite meaning he had felt sure from the moment when he had remembered them. And her refusal to explain proved to him that the meaning was a very serious one — one indeed which he ought to know and take into account.
“I ask you to explain,” he urged, “because I am going away, and I am leaving Millie behind.”
Pamela was startled. She turned qui
ckly towards him.
“Must you?” she said, and before he could answer she recovered from her surprise. “Never mind,” she continued; “shall we ride on?” and she put her horse to a trot. It was not her business to advise or to interfere. She had said too much already. She meant to remain the looker-on.
Stretton, however, was not upon this occasion to be so easily suppressed. He kept level with her, and as they rode he told her something of the life which Millie and he had led in the big lonely house in Berkeley Square; and in spite of herself Pamela was interested. She had a sudden wish that Alan Warrisden was riding with them too, so that he might hear his mystery resolved; she had a sudden vision of his face, keen as a boy’s, as he listened.
“I saw Millie and you a few nights ago. I was at a dance close by, and I was surprised to see you. I thought you had left London,” she said.
“No; but I am leaving,” Stretton returned; and he went on to describe that idyllic future which Millie and he had allotted to themselves. The summer sunlight was golden in the air about them; already it seemed that new fresh life was beginning. “I shall breed horses in Kentucky. I was recommended to it by an East End parson called Chase, who runs a mission on Stepney Green. I used to keep order in a billiard room at his mission one night a week, when I was quartered at the Tower. A queer sort of creature, Chase; but his judgment’s good, and of course he is always meeting all sorts of people.”
“Chase?” Pamela repeated; and she retained the name in her memory.
“But he doesn’t know Millie,” said Stretton, “and you do. And so what you said troubles me very much. If I go away remembering your words and not understanding them, I shall go away uneasy. I shall remain uneasy.”
“I am sorry,” Pamela replied. “I broke a rule of mine in saying what I did, a rule not to interfere. And I see now that I did very wrong in breaking it. I will not break it again. You must forget my words.”
There was a quiet decision in her manner which warned Tony that no persuasions would induce her to explain. He gave up his attempt and turned to another subject.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 396