CHAPTER XXVI
If Eve could have mended her idol discreetly and permanently, so that for the outward world it would still present the same uncompromising surface, so that no inquisitive or bungling touch could bring to light the grim, disfiguring fracture which it had sustained, it is probable that she would have chosen this part, and hidden the grief of her life from the eyes of all save those who were so inseparably connected with the tragedy of that autumnal afternoon. But it was so completely shattered, the pieces were so many; and, worst of all, some of them were lost. To forget! What a world of bitter irony was in the word! And she could not even bury her illusions quietly and unobserved of uncharitable eyes; there was the sordid necessity of explanation to be faced, the lame pretexts to be fashioned, and the half-truths to be uttered, which bore an interpretation so far more damning than the full measure which it seemed so hard to give.
Mrs. Sylvester, whose jealous maternal instincts continued to be on the alert hardly less keenly after her daughter's marriage than before, had soon detected something of oppression in the atmosphere; an explanation had been demanded, and the story, magnified somewhat in its least attractive features by Eve's natural reticence, had gone to swell the volume of similar experiences recorded in Mrs. Sylvester's brain. That she felt a genuine sorrow for Rainham is certain, for the grain of her nature was kindly enough beneath its veneer of worldly cleverness; but her grief was more than tempered by a sense of self-congratulation, of unlimited approval of the prudence which had enabled her to marry her daughter so irreproachably before the bubble burst. Indeed, the little glow of pride which mingled quite harmoniously with her nevertheless perfectly sincere regret, was an almost visible element in her moral atmosphere, as she emerged from the door of her daughter's house after this momentous interview, drawing her furs about her with a little shiver before she stepped into her well-appointed brougham. She had the air of saying to herself, "Dear me, dear, dear! it's very sad, it's very terrible; but I! how clever I have been, and how beautifully I behaved!" There was nothing particularly novel from her point of view in the story which she had just extracted from her reluctant daughter; the situation called for an edifying, comfortable sorrow, but by no means for surprise. It was what might have been expected—though this (which was somewhat hard) did not render the episode any the less reprehensible.
And it was this feeling which had predominated during the lady's homeward drive, and the half hour's tête-à-tête, before dinner, which she had utilized for an exchange of confidences with her son.
"I didn't know that there had been an—an exposure," he said, as he stood, a stiff, uncompromising figure, before the fire in the little drawing-room. "But I had an idea that it was inevitable from—from certain information which I have received. In fact, I have been rather puzzled. You must do me the justice to remember that I never liked the man—though he had his good points," he added a little awkwardly, as inconvenient memories of the many kindnesses which he had received at Rainham's hands thrust themselves upon him. "But I'm afraid he's hardly the sort of person one ought to be intimate with. Especially you, and Eve. Of course, for her it's out of the question."
"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Sylvester decisively; "and they haven't seen him since, I need hardly say. In fact, they haven't even heard of him. They haven't told a soul except me, and of course I sha'n't tell anybody," the lady concluded with a sigh, as she remembered how difficult she had found it to drive straight home without breaking the vow of secrecy which her daughter had exacted from her.
Whatever Mrs. Sylvester may have thought, it is certain that the interview, from which she enjoyed the impression of having emerged so triumphantly, had brought anything but consolation to her daughter, whose first impulse was to blame herself quite angrily for having admitted to her secret places, after all so natural a confidante.
Nor had Eve repented of this feeling. As time went on she found her mother's somewhat too obviously complacent attitude more and more exasperating, and she compared her want of reserve very unfavourably with her husband's demeanour (it must be owned that he had his reasons for a certain reticence). Against Colonel Lightmark, also, she cherished something of resentment, for he, too, more especially in collaboration with her mother, was wont to indulge in elderly, moral reflections, which, although for the most part no names were mentioned, were evidently not directed generally and at hazard against the society of which the Colonel and Mrs. Sylvester formed ornaments so distinguished.
Upon one afternoon, when Christmas was already a thing of the past, and the days were growing longer, it was with considerable relief that Eve heard the outer door close upon her mother, leaving her alone in the twilight of the smaller portion of the double drawing-room. She was alone, for Mrs. Sylvester had been the last to depart of a small crowd of afternoon callers, and Dick was interviewing somebody—a frame-maker, a model, or a dealer—in the studio. She sat with a book unopened in her hand, gazing intently into the fire, which cast responsive flickers over her face, giving a shadowed emphasis to the faint line which had begun to display itself, not unattractively, between her eyebrows and the irregular curve of her brown hair. She was growing very weary of it all, the distraction which she had sought, the forgetfulness of self which she had hoped to achieve, by living perpetually in a crowd. Indeed, to such a point had she carried her endeavours, that Mrs. Lightmark's beauty was already becoming a matter of almost public interest. She was a person to be recognised and recorded by sharp-eyed journalists at the play-houses on "first nights"; her carriage-horses performed extensive nightly pilgrimages in the regions of Kensington and Mayfair; and she had made a reputation for her dressmaker. And already she realized that her efforts to live outside herself were futile; moments like these must come, and the knowledge that, in spite of her countless friends and voluminous visiting list, she was alone.
Her mother? Dick? After all, they were only in the position of occupying somewhat exceptionally prominent places on the visiting-list.
As for her husband, after all these long months of married life, she could not say that she knew him. She regarded him with a kind of admiration of his personal, social attractions, in which she recognised him as fully her equal, with a kind of envy of the genius, which she could not entirely comprehend, but which seemed to make him so vastly her superior. And yet there was a shadow of doubt about it all: there had been sinister flashes, illumining, dimly enough, depths which the marital intimacy still left unfathomed, making her wonder whether her husband's candour might not mask something more terrible than forgotten follies, something that might prove a more real and irremovable barrier between them than even that indefinable want of a mutual horizon, of common ground upon which their traditions could unite themselves.
So long as Dick had remained cheerfully masterful, and picturesquely flamboyant, without even an occasional betrayal of the bitterness which makes the one attribute savour of insolence, and the other of oppression, his wife had regarded him as exactly fulfilling the part for which he had obviously been cast—of a good-humoured, ornamental, domestic tyrant, to be openly obeyed and covertly coerced. A husband who assisted her acquisition of social laurels; who gave her more money than she asked for; who designed for her the most elaborate and enviable dresses—yes, her mother certainly had reasons for declaring him a paragon! But still Eve was vaguely conscious of a defect, a shortcoming. It was all very well so far as it went, but the prospect was by no means unbounded. And, then, had he not also designed gowns for Mrs. Dollond, and succeeded (there was a sting in this) where success was somewhat more difficult of achievement?
Now, moreover, he had begun to carry an aggrieved air—an air which suggested that he pitied himself, that he considered that he had been unfairly dealt with, that he was entitled to assume the attitude of an innocent, injured victim of some blindly-dealt retribution. What did that mean? The only explanation which his wife could find for this symptomatic manifestation had its origin in the unhappy episode of which the memory was always on the threshold of her solitary thoughts, and, perhaps, of his. She began to feel, with a certain compunction, that Dick must resent the circumstances which obliged him practically to sever his acquaintance with a man who had indisputably figured for so many years as his nearest friend; and she asked herself sometimes whether the circumstances in question did not, in effect, centre in herself.
Although the world was as yet far from being an open book for her, it was conceivable that Philip Rainham (even if one judged by appearances) had done nothing which need necessarily cast him beyond the pale of the unregenerate society of bachelordom. It never occurred to her that, so far as she herself was concerned, a renewal of the old relation was among possible things: if she had met Philip in public she would have made it clear to him that he was no longer on the same plane with her; that, from her point of view, he had practically ceased to exist.
It was only when she was alone, and pleasant, bitter memories of the old days recurred, that she owned to herself how hard it was to think of this intimacy as severed by a rule of moral conduct no less inexorable, and even more cruel, than death. And yet there were moments—and this was one of them—when her husband's bearing seemed more portentous, when the explanation she had found possible seemed no longer probable, and uncomfortable doubts as to the real meaning of his uneasiness assailed her mind.
A fragment of burning coal fell with a clatter into the grate: she welcomed the interruption, and for the moment abandoned her thoughts, only, however, to enter upon them again by a different path.
"I wonder why I don't hate him?" she asked herself, almost wistfully. (She was not now thinking of her husband.) "I ought to hate him, I suppose, and to pity her. But I pity him, I think, and I hate—her."
The fire still crackled cheerfully, and she began to feel its heat oppressive; she let her hands fall with a gesture half of contempt, half of despair, and then rose abruptly, and walked into the darkness of the larger room, from the unshuttered windows of which she could see the dark bulk of her husband's studio looming against the gray, smoke-coloured sky.
While she stood, leaning with something of a forward tilt of her gracile figure, upon the ledge of the low, square window, the side door of the studio opened, letting a flood of light out upon the lawn, and with absent eyes she saw that her husband's visitor was taking his leave. Presently the door closed; the broad rays which had shone coldly from the skylight of the building died out, so abruptly that the change seemed almost audible; and simultaneously she heard her husband's careless step in the long glazed passage, half conservatory, half corridor, which led from her domain to his. He came in, softly humming an air from a comic opera, and then paused, peering into the darkness for an instant before he distinguished his wife's shape in dusky relief against the pale square of window.
"Don't light the room!" she said quickly, as she saw him stretch his hand towards the little button which controlled the electric light; "we can talk in the dark."
He stopped with his hand on the porcelain knob, breaking off his ditty in the middle of a bar.
"By all means, if you like," he said, "though I should prefer to see you, you know."
Then he dropped luxuriously into an easy-chair by the side of the fire, which continued to exhibit a comfortable, glowing redness.
But very soon Lightmark became aware of a certain weight of apprehension, which took from him the power to enjoy these material comforts; unattractive possibilities seemed to hover in the silent darkness, and his more subtile senses were roused, and brought to a state of quivering tension, which was almost insupportable. His wife moved, and he felt that she had directed her eyes towards him, though he could not see her; and he winced instinctively, seeking to be first to break the silence, but unable to find a timely word to say. The blow fell, and even while she spoke he felt a quick admiration for the instinct which had enabled him to anticipate her thought.
"Dick," she said quietly, without moving from her place by the window, "have you seen him since——?"
There was no need of names; he did not even notice the omission.
Could she see his face, he wondered, in the firelight?
"No!" he sighed, "no!"
She came nearer to him, so near that he could hear her breathing, the touch of her fingers upon the back of a chair; and presently she spoke again:
"You think there was no excuse for him?"
"Ah—for excuse! She was pretty, you know!"
He got up, and stood facing her for a moment in the darkness, and then, while she appeared to consider, glanced at his watch, and made a suggestion of movement towards the door.
"Only a minute, Dick," she said, in the same set voice. "You will do me the justice to admit that I haven't alluded to this before. But I have been thinking—I can't help it—and I want to know——"
"To know?" he echoed impatiently.
"To know your position—our position; what you had to do with it all."
"What is the good? What difference can it make?"
"It's the doubt," she said—"the doubt. I thought you might like to explain."
"To explain? Good Lord! what have I to explain? Is it not all settled, all clear? My dear child, let us be reasonable, let us forget; it's the only way."
There was less of anger in his voice, but if Eve could have seen his eyes in the firelight, she might have noticed that they were very bright, and their pupils were contracted to hard, iridescent points.
"How can it be settled," she asked wearily, "while there is this shadow of doubt? And to forget—Heaven knows I have tried!"
Dick shrugged his shoulders tolerantly.
"What do you want me to say?—to explain?"
"Could you not have warned him, Dick? Did you not see it coming? She, that woman, was she not your model? Did he not meet her at your studio? Was not that the beginning of it all? Ah, can you say that you were not to blame?"
She spoke fast, following question with question, as if she anticipated the answer with mingled feelings of hope and fear, and there was more of entreaty than of denunciation in her last words.
"It's such an old story," he rejoined, with an air of feeble protest. "How could I foresee what would happen? And," he added, hardening himself, "they did not meet for the first time at my studio; on the contrary, it was he who brought her to me, and I suspected nothing. What more can I say? Surely it is all plain enough!"
Eve sighed. It seemed to her husband that she was on the whole disappointed, and he felt that, while he was about it, he might have given himself a freer hand, and made himself emerge, not only without a stain upon his character—the expression occurred to him with a kind of familiar mockery—but with beaten drums and flying colours.
He reflected that this was another example of the folly of attempting to economize. At the same time he was gently thrilled by what he owned to himself was a not ignoble emotion: that sigh seemed to speak so naturally and pathetically of disillusionment, it was such a simple little confession of a damaged ideal. It did not occur to him to suspect that the character of which his wife had formed too proudly high an estimate was his own.
"Don't you think you might trust me?" he said presently in a milder, almost paternal tone, magnanimously prepared for a charming display of penitence, which it would be his duty rather to encourage than to deprecate.
"To trust you?" replied Eve quickly. "Haven't I the appearance of trusting you? Don't I accept your explanations?"
It was Lightmark's turn to sigh. His wife moved away, with an air of dismissing the subject.
"It is quite dark; it must be time to dress for dinner. Please turn on the light." Then she added as she left the room, without waiting for an answer: "And you, do you find it so easy to forget?"
When Lightmark was alone, he stood for a few minutes before the fire in meditation; then he clenched his fist viciously.
"Confound the girl, and him, too! No, poor devil! he meant well. It was just the senseless, quixotic sort of thing one would have expected of him. But I don't know that it has done much good. It has made me feel a sneak, though I've only been lying to back him up. Why couldn't he let it alone? There would have been a storm, of course, but it would soon have blown over, and no one else need have known."
He stopped in front of a mirror—he had been pacing up and down the room—and found himself looking rather pale in the soft, brilliant glow of the incandescent lamps. Moreover, the clock pointed to an hour very near that for which the carriage had been ordered.
While he was dressing for dinner, it occurred to him—it was not for the first time—that, after all, it would take very little to render Rainham's bungling devotion, and his own meritorious aberrations from the path of truth, worse than nugatory. For what if Kitty should split?—so he elegantly expressed his fears—what if the girl, of whom he had heard nothing since the day of that deplorable scene, should break loose, and throw up the part which she had undertaken upon such very short notice?
Decidedly, he felt that he was abundantly justified in resenting the false position into which he had been thrust; the imposture was too glaring. Would it not even now be well to remodel the situation with a greater semblance of adherence to facts—to make a clean breast of it? The crudity of the idea offended him; the process would necessarily be wanting in art. But possibly it was not yet too late to substitute a story which, if it caused him temporary discomfort, would at least leave him more certain of the future, the master of an easier, a less violently outraged conscience.
At dinner the taciturnity, bordering on moroseness, of a talker usually so brilliant led his host to surmise that Lightmark had ruined a picture, his hostess to conclude that he had quarrelled with his wife. He came home early, and occupied the small hours of the morning in forming an amended plan of campaign, of which the first move took the shape of a somewhat voluminous letter, addressed to Philip Rainham.