Chapter Nine.
Mrs Lawless stood on the stoep in the fading light and watched her friend drive away. In the east the intense blue of the sky had deepened to purple, and here and there a pale star lay, like a jewel in its azure setting, ready to adorn the sombre robes of night. The light breeze had dropped at sundown. There was no stir, no movement anywhere, no sound to awake the stillness. The strong scent of many flowers perfumed the languid, sensuous air which as yet gave no sign of the near approach of winter... if there can be any winter in a land where there is always sunshine, where the trees never bare their branches, and the flowers are ever in bloom.
She leaned her arms on the broad rail, and stared unseeingly before her through the foliage of the mimosa trees into the blue distance. The expression of her face was troubled, and a gleam of resentment shone in the proud eyes. So her summons was to be disregarded! His mistress claimed all his leisure, and he had no time to spare for anyone else. She had waited in three days in the hope that he would come, had spent three lonely evenings so that if he chose to call on her at night he would find her ready to receive him. And he had neither come nor sent a message. She had almost ceased to expect him, had almost ceased to wish to see him. The mood that had moved her to write to him had passed. She felt cold now, and indifferent; and the futility of the task she had thought to undertake struck her in a new and more forcible light. Was it worth it? ... Was she not wasting time that might be more profitably employed? ... Was she not harrowing her feelings to no purpose?
She went indoors and sat down at the piano and played to herself. She was a brilliant pianist, and it was a custom of long standing to soothe herself with music when her mind was disturbed. It was in her sad moments—occasionally also in her moods of anger—that she oftenest played.
The light outside faded; it grew dark in the room. A native entered, lighted the shaded lamps, and noiselessly retired. Zoë Lawless played on. She did not hear the ring at the bell that followed shortly on the servant’s exit; she was not aware that anyone had come until the door was thrown open by the same quiet servitor, who ushered in Mr Lawless, and then again retired and closed the door behind him.
Mrs Lawless turned slowly on the stool, and then stood up. She gave the visitor no greeting, and, beyond a slight bow, he made no move to greet her either. But he looked at her curiously as she stood facing him, and she observed with failing courage that his eyes were stern and hard.
“I had almost given up expecting you,” she said.
“You sent for me,” he answered curtly... “Whenever you send for me I will come.”
She regarded him long and earnestly. There was that in his speech which, despite the harshness of his manner, inclined her towards a softer mood. She no longer saw the picture which Mrs Smythe had unconsciously drawn for her of him driving with his mistress, instead she recognised a man whom life had dealt hardly with accepting obligations which another man in similar circumstances would have ignored.
“Thank you,” she said at last gently, and with a faintly wondering hesitation. “I did not know... I—felt scarcely justified in writing my request... But,”—she put self-consciousness behind her, and spoke from her heart simply, and with great earnestness—“I could not look on in silence while you deliberately spoilt your life. You were making your way in Cape Town... You could, if you chose, make it anywhere. But you are so indifferent to the world’s opinion.”
“I have never found the world’s opinion especially intelligent,” he answered bluntly. “If it were worth studying, I might study it.”
“Is it not, rather,” she returned unexpectedly, “that you are over prone to yield to the influence of the hour? ... The opinion of others has never counted for much with you.”
“You are mistaken,” he said. “It is the opinion of others that has made me what I am. In the past I have been far too susceptible of public criticism. Had I been as indifferent as you imagine I should not be the failure that you see to-day.”
She threw out a protesting hand.
“You always speak as though there was nothing ahead, as though you had shuttered all the exits of the soul... When you talk like that I feel that I cannot breathe.”
“It’s only a first impression,” he answered sarcastically; “respiration becomes easier when you grow accustomed to the shutters... There is nothing ahead. I reconciled myself to the want of outlook years ago; now I adapt,—not myself to circumstances, but circumstances to suit me. It’s astonishing how one can bend events to one’s service. The doing so contrives to add a peculiar satisfaction of its own. I don’t wish you to suppose that I’ve been sitting all these years with my head between my hands—the image is depressing. My hands have been otherwise employed. I’ve had them on the throat of life, and when it has used me spitefully I’ve pressed it hard in return. I’ve had some bad knocks, I admit; but, believe me, I’m not beaten yet. And the bruises have healed. The marks may be apparent, but there is no soreness... And those blows served a purpose too. They confirmed me in a resolve I made more than eight years ago,—to live my life independently of my fellows,—to enjoy such pleasures as the moment offered,—to deny myself no single desire that I had the means of gratifying. I have not gone back on that through all these years.”
“Not a very lofty resolve,” she said, as she sank into a chair.
“No... Not from your point of view... I suppose not.”
“And from your point of view?” she asked.
He laughed.
“You forget the shutters,” he said. “My view is enclosed. I am unable to gaze up at the heights.”
“You could open the shutters if you would,” she said in a voice that was only a little louder than a whisper.
“Perhaps I don’t wish to,” he answered.
He moved nearer to her. He did not sit down, but he leant with his arms on the back of a chair, looking at her, as he had leant the night of the ball when they had talked together on the stoep.
“I’m satisfied with things as they are,” he said. “I’ve got used to the rough and tumble of my lot. And I’ve become so thoroughly saturated with the belief that it is no concern of anyone’s what I do that it’s very unlikely I will submit to interference. I’m behaving quite abominably, I know,” he added, in response to the quick, pained flush that warmed the pallor of her skin from the smooth brow to the slender white column of her throat; “but it would be a satisfaction to me if you would only realise that I’m not worth your distress. I understand what your idea is—most good women fall into the same error. But when a man has no desire to be influenced it is waste of time to attempt it.”
Her glance fell under his direct, steady look, and the embarrassed colour that had flamed into her cheeks retreated and left them whiter than before. She put up a hand for a second as if to screen her eyes from the light, and he knew that she was pressing back the starting tears.
“I know,” she said very low, and without looking at him, “that I’ve no right to interfere. But whatever you say,—whatever you think, we can none of us act independently of our fellows. When we do wrong we are bound to hurt someone—as well as ourselves.”
There was a brief silence during which both still figures remained so rigidly quiet that the subdued ticking of the dresden clock on the mantelpiece sounded intrusively loud in the stillness. Then Lawless moved abruptly.
“You mean,” he said, “that I am hurting you.”
“Yes... You are hurting me.”
He straightened himself and walked away to the window, where he stood looking out at the quiet night. A young moon shone like a white curved flame in the purple dome, casting its pure reflection on the misty beauty of the garden that, like a picture painted without colour, lay motionless under the starry heavens,—patches of black shadow, and splashes of white where the pale flowers showed in clusters in the uncertain light.
“I never thought of it touching you,” he said after a pause. “I suppose... the scandal—”
“Oh! the scandal!” She looked up with a quick resentment in her eyes. “Can’t you get deeper than just the part that shows?”
“In this instance,” he returned quite quietly, “it’s the part that shows which matters—only the part that shows. If I were doing this thing secretly I should be reckoned decent living, and be well considered of my fellows. And it would never have offended your susceptibilities, nor disgusted other women whose feelings I have not a jot of respect for. You simply wouldn’t have known... It appears to me that it is the part that shows which means everything.”
She answered nothing. She sat still, watching him, with her fine eyes clouded and disapproving, and her lips closed in a thin, determined line of scarlet that looked the more brilliant because of the set whiteness of her face. He swung round suddenly and faced her.
“I might have anticipated this,” he said. “But, oddly enough, I never took you into consideration. After all, you’ve a right to complain... The same name! ... Yes, it’s awkward—very... and unpleasant.”
He crossed the room and stood in front of her chair, looking down at her with an almost hostile expression in his sombre eyes.
“In your opinion,” he asked, a hard resentment in his voice, “is there any reason why I should especially consider you?”
She looked back at him steadily. “Have I not already acknowledged that my interference is unjustifiable?”
“True!” he allowed, and thought for a moment.
“One condition alone would give you any right to take exception at anything I do,” he added—“and that is such an unlikely condition that we need not reckon it in... But, however dead I may be to all sense of honour and decency, I have still sufficient perception to realise that the situation is—uncomfortable for you. It shall cease to annoy you. I leave Cape Town this week.”
The expression of glad hopefulness that had momentarily lighted her eyes died out as suddenly as it had kindled. She understood him perfectly. Because this thing was humiliating to her he was going to remove it from her path. That much he would concede—and that was all.
“You are going away?” she said in a low voice, leaning towards him.—“And you will take your mistress with you?”
“And I take my mistress with me,” he answered firmly... “Yes.”
She winced. He was standing so close to her chair that she could not rise without touching him. She sat farther back, and leant her dark head against the cushions as a woman who is weary might do. This was but another of the many bitter moments she had endured on his account. An icy coldness crept over her and seemed to grip her heart. She had battled with her pride so fiercely and persistently, setting up an ideal of duty to be followed despite every difficulty, with this man’s salvation as its ultimate aim; and at the very outset she owned herself defeated. She could not plead with him; a certain intolerant hardness in her nature awoke and set a seal on her lips. If he was so lost to all fine thinking, to all sense of decent living and restraint, let him go with this woman who was a fitting companion for the ill-spent hours. She would not undertake so futile a mission as to attempt to dissuade him.
“If that is final,” she remarked at last, “there is nothing more to be said.”
“It is final,” he answered.
He moved away. She did not rise, but she turned her head and looked after him, the proud eyes darkened with trouble that was not caused only by distress at what he purposed doing, but by her lack of power to hold him back.
At the door he paused, and glanced quickly in her direction.
“This interview has been unsatisfactory,” he said abruptly. “I have disappointed you. I regret it, because on a former occasion when I solicited an interview you were more considerate. If you didn’t send for me solely with a view to improving my morals, but were content to accept me as I am, the result might be more satisfactory for both of us. Good-night.”
He went out and shut the door sharply behind him, and Mrs Lawless, sitting still where he had left her, listened to the bang of the hall door, and to the crunching of his steps upon the gravelled path as he walked past the drawing-room windows to the gate. She heard the gate open and swing to after him, and then followed silence—silence so profound, so prolonged, that to the woman seated alone in the quiet room it was an immense relief when presently the sound of a concertina floated in through the open windows from the direction of the servants’ quarters. The sound broke the tension. She moved slightly, and her eyes lost their fixed expression. She plucked at a soft fold of the silken tea-gown with nervous fingers, and listened absently to the strains that drifted towards her on the evening air. A Kaffir was singing in a rich, deep voice to his own untaught accompaniment.
“All de world am sad an’ dreary everywhere I roam.”
The haunting, familiar air with its tender pathos, its hopelessness, its strange beauty, moved her to an extraordinary degree, perhaps because she was so deeply moved already. A sob caught her throat, and the unaccustomed tears started to her eyes for the second time that evening. As before, she put up a hand to press them back, but they pushed their way under her lids and between the restraining fingers, and coursed rapidly down her cheeks...
“Oh! darkies, how my heart grows weary!”
The sob was louder this time...
“Oh! darkies, how my heart grows weary!”
Swiftly she turned and buried her face in the cushion of the chair and wept unrestrainedly.