Chapter Thirteen.
Mrs Lawless was like a sick woman whose illness increased as the day advanced. She had recognised the finality of things on the night when Lawless walked out of her presence—out of her house, to return to the woman with whose lot he had thrown in his own. It was another of the mad, reckless acts that had governed his undisciplined nature. But to-day, with her mind disturbed with thoughts of death and deeds of violence, the memory of how she had let him go without exerting every effort to persuade him to reconsider his decision troubled her greatly. Why had she not humbled her pride and pleaded with him? ... Why had she let the thought that it would be derogatory to her dignity deter her from freely avowing her love for him? ... Might not the strength of her love have stood between him and this evil? ... She felt as though hers had been the hand to thrust him forth into the darkness for the second time. Once before, in the years that were gone, she had thrust him forth; and in the empty years that had succeeded she had learnt bitterly to regret the hard unforgivingness of that act. Her one cry then had been: “I didn’t understand... Oh! if only I could have the chance again.” The opportunity had been given her, and she had failed to recognise it. “He was so cold,” she excused herself. “I was afraid of him.” And then: “I could not have prevented him from doing what he had made up his mind to do... My power over him is dead...”
In that knowledge lay the bitterness of the sting...
In the afternoon, according to her promise, Julie Weeber arrived. She was somewhat diffident of intruding, uncertain how Mrs Lawless felt the news of Van Bleit’s arrest. Julie shared the popular belief that it would be a grievous shock to the woman whose name had been bandied about in connection with his for months. To make sure, she inquired of the native who opened the door to her whether Mrs Lawless were receiving.
“I would come another day, if it were more convenient,” she said.
“Missis is expecting you,” he answered, and showed her into the drawing-room.
Zoë Lawless was seated in a low chair near one of the windows, with her hands lying idly in her lap. She was very pale. Julie decided that she looked ill, and imagined that she understood the reason of her pallor.
“I came,” she explained, “because I said I would. But if you’d rather have me some other day, I’ll go away again.”
“I’d rather that you stayed,” Mrs Lawless answered, rising and shaking hands. “You see, I’m lonely. Why should you condemn me to my own society to-day?”
“I thought perhaps—”
Julie stammered and came upon an awkward pause, whereupon Mrs Lawless went quickly to her assistance.
“I know,” she said. “This shocking news is all so fresh. But, obviously, I cannot assist my friends by becoming a recluse, can I? We won’t speak of the subject, if you don’t mind. It is sufficiently painful to make the discussion of it depressing. My sympathy with Mrs Smythe is great. She is very fond of her cousin, and feels this deeply. And I am very fond of her... Sit here—will you?—with your back to the light. It’s more restful.”
Julie sat down wondering. She was beginning to reconstruct her ideas. There was nothing in Mrs Lawless’ manner to bear out the supposition that she was in love with Van Bleit. She did not suspect that Mrs Lawless was intentionally correcting her error, nor did she guess how her assumption of the truth of the common report embarrassed her hostess. This ugly misapprehension had struck at her on three separate occasions that day. It was strange that she had not realised before the construction that might be put on her friendship with Van Bleit. She wondered whether Lawless had shared the same belief. And then she remembered how in her first interview with him he had warned her against the man. Why, if he was so entirely indifferent, need he have concerned himself about her acquaintance?
She looked up suddenly and surprised Julie’s inquisitive eyes studying her intently. The girl smiled.
“It’s awfully sweet of you to have asked me to come and see you,” she said. “I’ve wanted to know you—oh! for ever so long.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know—unless it is because you are so beautiful. Women do admire other women whatever’s said to the contrary. I’ve watched you motoring past our house... I saw you pass this morning.”
She did not add that she had thought how sad she looked.
“Yes,” Mrs Lawless answered. “I went to see Mrs Smythe. If my thoughts had not been so occupied with other matters I would have stopped and driven you out with me then. It’s rather selfish to let you cycle out here when I have a car.”
“Oh no!” Julie contradicted eagerly. “I make nothing of this journey.”
“Nevertheless, I shall drive you next time. I want you to come out often. You play tennis, of course? There is a beautiful lawn there—wasting... Nobody plays on it.”
She pointed through the window to a stretch of green sward which the Hottentot gardener kept surreptitiously watered during the dry season, so that whatever else suffered from the long droughts the grass was always green.
“I should like that,” Julie said. “Do you play?”
“Not much. I’m a lazy person. But I have thought I should like to get a few young people out for a game occasionally. I enjoy looking on. If you would bring Mr Bolitho, I could manage to make up the numbers.”
Julie did not answer immediately. She sat looking out into the garden with heightened colour and vaguely perplexed eyes. She wondered why Mrs Lawless should have singled out Teddy Bolitho from the host of young men who would all have been willing to come. She wished that she had mentioned any name rather than his.
“You don’t like my plan?” Mrs Lawless said quietly.
Julie looked up.
“Yes... Yes, I do,” she said. “I was only—thinking. Of course Teddy Bolitho would come—anybody would, if you asked them. And it’s heavenly playing on a grass court; there are so few in the Colony. It’ll spoil it, though.”
“I would rather it were spoilt with use than wasted,” Mrs Lawless said... “We waste so much.”
She had risen, and now, moving nearer to the girl, she laid a strong, well-shaped hand upon her shoulder.
“Don’t you make waste too,” she added gently. “I did when I was young... and it leaves me full of vain regrets. Some people think that youth is the best gift of the gods: but it is far from a perfect gift; for the proper appreciation of it is withheld. It is only when the gift is withdrawn that we realise all that it meant. If one could have one’s youth a second time, one would get the full value of the hours. You’ve got it now—that priceless gift; and you are inclined to be careless of it.”
“I wonder why you say this to me?” Julie murmured.
“Because I’ve been looking on. You say you have observed me... Interest is usually mutual. I have certainly felt interested in you.”
Julie coloured awkwardly, and looked down. She wondered whether Mrs Lawless had observed her friendship for the man whose name was the same as her own, and if she disapproved of it.
“I don’t think it altogether depends on oneself what one makes of one’s youth,” she said.
“There is much to be said for that argument,” Mrs Lawless answered. “But I could wish you had not found it out so soon.”
Julie looked up quickly.
“You mustn’t pity me,” she said. “I wouldn’t retrace one step of the past... It’s the future I would alter, if I could.”
“And how can you tell,” Mrs Lawless inquired, “what the future holds?”
The girl smiled drearily.
“I know very well what it doesn’t hold,” she answered. “That’s as far as I care to go.”
And then suddenly her wandering gaze fell on a photograph that stood in a silver frame on the piano, and she became silent, regarding it with an intensity that drew Mrs Lawless’ eyes to the object that excited her interest.
“You recognise it?” she said, and there was a quality in her voice such as Julie had never heard in any voice before. “That was taken before—he left the Army.”
It was a portrait of Lawless in regimentals, younger and handsomer than the man Julie knew; but there was lacking in the younger face something which the older face possessed. Julie could not determine what that something was.
“Yes, I recognise it... But I miss—the scar,” she said.
She blushed violently. It was the scar that had appealed so strongly to her youthful imagination. And then, raising her glance furtively to see whether her embarrassment were observed, she was profoundly disconcerted at the sight of the tears that were standing in the other woman’s eyes. Mrs Lawless moved away.
“I don’t know,” she said, “why I put that portrait there to-day... There’s a connection, I suppose, between it and one’s wasted youth. The portrait stands for waste... It is the sight of it that has set me thinking back.”
She crossed to the piano and lifted the frame as though her purpose were to remove it. Then, changing her mind, she set it again in its place, and came slowly back.
“I wonder what you think of my getting you here and depressing you with my reminiscences,” she said in a lighter tone. “It wasn’t my intention. I suppose it’s due to reaction following the shock of recent events. We’ll flee from gloomy subjects, shall we? ... Come out with me. I want to show you my garden...”
Whether it was owing to Mrs Lawless’ display of emotion, or the unexpected sight of the photograph in her room, or to both reasons combined, added to the strange new quality in her voice when she spoke of the portrait’s original, Julie conceived the idea that she too loved this man with the dominating personality,—the strangely aloof manner,—the air of quiet detachment that made him at once a figure attractive and unapproachable, so that women, while desirous of knowing him, hesitated to solicit an introduction. It was not strange that she should love him—that to Julie was a natural, almost an inevitable, consequence of knowing him—but it was incredible that he could remain indifferent to her regard. The only explanation she could arrive at was that he was ignorant of it. Julie understood at last the tragedy that occasionally looked out from Mrs Lawless’ beautiful eyes; and in her sympathy with her the pain at her own heart grew less. She had no thought of competing against this peerlessly lovely woman. It was unaccountable to her by the light of her new understanding that Lawless should have troubled to show any interest in her at all. She wondered whether, if she ever saw him again, she would find the courage to tell him the secret she had surprised...
That evening, after Julie had left her, Mrs Lawless took the portrait of Lawless from the piano, and sat with it in her hands examining it closely. She was wondering whether the woman he had gone away with now was the same woman he had wrecked his happiness for eight years ago—wondering in a quite impersonal, dulled sort of way. The thing was past remedying and altogether beyond her control. She remembered that in the past it had been the wound to her self-esteem she had felt the most bitterly. Her feelings had changed during the long years. She experienced little of the grief, the anger, the disgust that had moved her then. Her present sorrow was less a selfish emotion than sorrow for the man because of the waste he was making of life. She scarcely considered the woman outside her connection with Lawless, save, after the tragedy of the previous night, to be relieved that, since she was to influence him, she had removed him from other influences of a more actively dangerous nature. She was glad that he was out of Cape Town, otherwise she knew he would have been concerned in the affair that had cost one life and might yet cost another.
And while she sat there musing on these matters with the photograph in her hands, the door of the room opened, and to her astonishment Colonel Grey was announced. He followed quickly on his name, as though anticipating and anxious to prevent a refusal on her part to receive him, offering an apology for intruding on her as he entered.
Mrs Lawless laid the photograph face downwards on the sofa and rose to greet him. Her face expressed her surprise; his was grey and tired and haggard, and his blood-shot eyes looked like the eyes of a man who has not slept.
“I fear I have disturbed you,” he said. “I’m sorry to intrude, but I wish to see you.”
“You have disturbed me doing nothing,” she answered composedly. “I was wearied of my thoughts. Sit down and tell me what you wanted to see me for... Will you take anything?” she added, on a sudden thought, as he dropped wearily into a chair. “You look tired.”
“Thank you, no,” he answered. “I am less tired than worried. But I won’t distress you by going into that. I quite understand that the subject is painful to you, and for that reason I regret to inflict my company on you.”
Mrs Lawless looked slightly impatient. This man too! ... Was everyone she met to say the same thing to her, only in different words?
“Please disabuse your mind of any such impression,” she said. “Of course I feel sympathy with the trouble of my friends, but your presence cannot possibly increase my distress. Why should it?”
“I feared you might hold me responsible for what has occurred,” he said simply. “And the sight of me cannot fail to call up painful thoughts. I do not profess to be other than an enemy of the man you regard as a friend. You know too much of the matter for me to impose on you—even if I wished to do so. I can only say that I regret that our interests are opposed.”
She smiled faintly.
“You take rather much for granted, I think,” she said. “Why should you suppose I am interested in the matter at all? Women do not usually meddle in such dangerous and discreditable enterprises—you will forgive me for speaking of this as I feel... I cannot see that it is creditable to be concerned in this business of yours.”
“Perhaps not,” he said. “But then, again, perhaps you don’t fully understand. And aren’t you judging a little by results?”
“I think it is reasonable to draw conclusions from results in most instances,” she answered.
“From final results,” he returned... “But not at this stage.”
“I had hoped this was the last stage,” she said.
“I had hoped it might be,” he returned with some grimness of manner... “But we haven’t won yet.”
“Nor lost?”
“We can’t lose, Mrs Lawless. It has to be a fight to the finish.”
He regarded her fixedly. As was usual when in her presence, the distrust which he entertained for her at other times vanished to yield to a liking and confidence which he admitted with some reluctance, but which he was unable to subdue. Hers was a magnetic personality, and this in conjunction with her beauty robbed a man of his wits. At his age he should be impervious to the charm of women. But man is never too old to be influenced by the sex.
“It’s rather a big check we’ve come upon,” he resumed, after a momentary pause. “I’m sadly in need of assistance... That’s why I have come to you.”
She opened her eyes wide in astonishment.
“You never supposed that I might assist you?” she said.
“I am hoping you will,” he answered... “in a way in which only you can. I want you—if you will be so kind—to furnish me with Mr Lawless’ present address. He ought to be here, on the spot.”
She sat very still for a while, looking beyond him out through the window.
“Isn’t one broken head and one life sufficient?” she asked presently in a low, strangely controlled, unemotional voice. “It seems to me that your view of things is out of proportion, Colonel Grey, when you can sacrifice the lives of men for a packet of scandalous letters.”
“That means,” he said, “that you decline to give me the information?”
“I have not the information to give,” she answered with dignity.—“I should certainly not give it, if I had. ... My one fear is that Mr Lawless will hear of this affair and return.”
“I could wish I shared your belief,” he replied. “But I fancy you may ease your mind on that score... And there is less danger in this than you imagine... the dog that bites is chained.”
He eyed her narrowly as he referred thus to Van Bleit’s arrest; but he could make nothing of the calm, unchanging face, the quiet eyes that looked steadily back into his.
“You hate that man,” she said slowly. “You will—hang him, if you can.”
He sat forward and peered at her queerly from under his bent brows. He had half expected when he went there that evening that she would make an appeal to his clemency on behalf of the man against whom he would appear as principal witness. That she did not, spoke well for her pride and self-control. Such courage and restraint moved him to admiration. She hid her feelings magnificently, he decided, ignorant of how little she had to conceal.
“You think so,” he said, rising, and standing, hat in hand, in front of her, preparatory to taking his leave after his fruitless errand. “I should have thought you might have perceived that until I have got possession of the letters I have nothing to gain by his death. Denzil has the packet in his keeping, I believe. If I can get hold of it before the case comes on, Van Bleit shall account for the life he has taken.”
“And that is your reason for coming to me for the address?” she observed.
“That,” he answered bluntly, “is my reason. I want Grit Lawless for the job.”