Chapter Seventeen.
That night Blanche sat up late in the little bedroom leading out from the room where the children slept. She sat at the open window, leaning with her arms on the sill, looking out at the sea. The moon silvered the waters and touched the lazy waves where they folded over before breaking upon the sands with a white darting flame, like liquid fire glancing from wave to wave. The murmur of the sea was in her ears, and a warm salt breeze blew in through the opening and stirred the heavy tresses of dark hair that, unloosened, fell about her bare shoulders in becoming disarray. Seen thus, with the light of the moon upon it, the calm face, in its dark setting, was strangely alluring, almost disturbingly beautiful. The discontent in the sombre eyes, the weary droop of her pose, lent a pathos that harmonised with the surroundings, with the serene lonely beauty of the night, and the restless murmur of the sea.
Beneath the outward quiet of her bearing, a ferment of passionate emotions stirred incessantly. The girl’s spirit was in fierce revolt; all the pride in her nature was up in arms. Certain things which Arnott had said to her on their walk that evening brought the angry blood surging to her cheeks merely to recall. She realised clearly that to remain in her present position in his household and keep her self-respect was impossible; to do so after what had passed were to give him the right to insult her. And yet she did not want to leave. The man exercised a hypnotic fascination over her. He was the only man who had ever made love to her,—who possessed the power to quicken her pulses, and bring a gladness and a softened look into her eyes. She believed she loved him. In an undisciplined, passionate way she did love him. He satisfied the hunger-ache in her heart. He was the sole human being to discover in her qualities to admire and like. No one, man or woman, had found her sufficiently attractive to desire her friendship. Blanche hated her own sex, and for the greater part despised men. For Arnott she experienced a kind of shrinking respect. She admired his strength and virility, his temperamental and intellectual force; even his position as a man of wealth and social standing appealed to the latent ambition of her avaricious nature. Because of these advantages which she enjoyed as his wife, she envied Pamela bitterly.
In the next room the boy awoke and broke into fitful crying at finding himself alone. The girl frowned impatiently, but she did not move immediately from her position at the window. The Arnotts’ room was immediately opposite, with only the narrow space of the landing separating the bedroom doors. If the children cried in the night-time it was not her business to attend to them. Nevertheless, as the sobbing continued, she roused herself and went softly into the room, and bent over the child’s bed, across which the moonlight fell wanly, bathing the little rounded limbs in its white light. Blanche picked up the sheet which had fallen to the floor and spread it over the boy. Her face, as she hung over him, and patted the tiny shoulder soothingly, was infinitely womanly. The child was only half awake, and at her touch, lulled into a sense of security by her presence, he sunk quickly back into slumber.
As the sobbing died away the door of the room opened and Arnott entered. Seeing the girl there, he closed the door softly behind him and advanced to the bed and stood beside it, watching her as she bent over the child, with the moonlight falling upon her, revealing the white arms and bare shoulders, and the disarray of her hair. She had taken off her dress because the night was oppressive; her deshabille, and the consciousness of his gaze brought the hot colour to her cheeks. She straightened herself, and, satisfied that the child slept, turned and faced him in quick embarrassment.
“Why are you here?” she whispered. “You shouldn’t come in here. Go back.”
“I heard the child cry,” he answered. “I didn’t suppose I should find you here. Why are you not in bed?”
“I couldn’t rest,” she said. “I was sitting at my window looking out at the sea. Then the boy awoke... You shouldn’t have come in. Your wife—”
“She is asleep,” he returned... “Besides, what does it matter?”
He made a movement towards her, but she drew back quickly.
“Blanche!” he muttered.
She swept the hair from her face with a weary gesture, and stood, a drooping, dejected figure in the dim light, regarding the man with cold, resentful eyes.
“You are making life very hard for me,” she said. “Why don’t you leave me alone? To-day you have made me almost hate you. You said things which made me mad.”
“I love you,” he whispered sullenly. “I can’t help that, can I?”
“Love!” The scorn in her voice stung him. She pointed to the closed door. “In pity’s name, go now, before you compromise me utterly. Let your love show that much consideration for me.”
Without a word he turned and left the room, and she heard him enter his own room and shut the door softly behind him.
Cautious as had been his movements, Pamela was fully aroused. She lifted herself in bed, and surveyed him as he entered with wide, surprised eyes: their regard disconcerted him enormously. He had not anticipated her wakefulness; and he lied awkwardly in answer to her inquiries. She lay back again on the pillow without making any response. He wondered how long she had been awake, and whether she had heard the opening and shutting of the children’s door. He would have been wiser, he decided, had he made a truthful statement of his excursion; the unconvincing falsehood had suggested a sinister motive for his midnight wandering.
For neither Blanche nor Pamela was there any further sleep; Arnott alone slumbered dreamlessly throughout the hot hours of the brief night.
The following day they left Muizenberg. They did not return in the order in which they had arrived. Arnott motored home alone. He left earlier than the others. At breakfast he announced his intention of starting immediately, and asked Pamela if she was driving with him. To his immense relief she decided to return by train with the children. Although no reference had been made to the previous night, he was uncomfortably aware that he was convicted of lying. He resented this. He was angry with himself for having told that unnecessary lie; he was more angry with Pamela for having, as he realised she had done, detected the lie. He did not feel at his ease with her. Had she accused him openly he would have blustered and asserted his right to act as it pleased him; since she chose to ignore the matter, he felt himself at a disadvantage. She was placing him deliberately in the wrong. This incensed him. Why, he asked himself with an oath, should she adopt this self-righteous pose and snub him by her silence? He was not going to tolerate that sort of thing. He would put his foot down, put it down pretty effectively, and make her realise that he was master in his own home.
That was the attitude he assumed when absent from her; when confronted with her gentle, dignified presence he was considerably less bold. He shuffled and dissembled, and endeavoured by fitful bursts of kindness, too forced to be convincing, to sustain the fiction of his unalterable affection.
Pamela was a woman who believed in the power of silence. To upbraid a man, however deserving he were of reproof, was wasted effort; it gave him an excuse for anger,—an angry person being unreasonable, nothing is gained by exciting his ire. Nevertheless, her distrust once aroused, she became watchful and suspicious. What she observed during the next few weeks decided her that Blanche must go. She could no longer doubt that between her husband and the governess existed a secret understanding prejudicial to the happiness of all concerned.
The thing was an amazing revelation to Pamela. Though she had realised for a long while that Herbert’s love for her was no longer of the ardent quality that at one time, when separation had seemed imminent, had made their parting impossible, she had not supposed, despite the warning in his wife’s letter, despite her own bitter experience in watching the waning of his love, that he was a man of loose principles who pursued women idly for the gratification of a sensual nature. The discovery was a shock to her. She felt wounded and humiliated. It was an added degradation for her to reflect that the man she had loved so well, who had ruined her life, for whose sake she was living, according to the world’s judgment, in sin, was not the fine character she had believed him to be,—was merely a selfish profligate, hunting women for his pleasure, and carelessly breaking their lives. At least she would save Blanche from him, if that were possible. It was no easy task for Pamela to undertake. She lacked the power of the wife’s authority; and she realised perfectly that it was the lack of this power which made Arnott so brutally indifferent to her disapproval.
When she lodged her complaint he flew into a rage. It was at night when, Blanche having retired, they were alone together in the drawing-room. Arnott had been out of the room when Blanche left it; he was frequently absent from the room about that hour; Pamela knew quite well that he was in the habit of waylaying the girl on the stairs. When he entered, carrying the glass of whisky which was the ostensible reason for his absence, she met him with the announcement that she intended to part with Blanche and revert to the system of a coloured nurse for the children.
“What for?” he demanded, and reddened awkwardly.
Pamela regarded him steadily.
“I do not think it wise to have her in the house,” she answered. “You don’t need to ask my reason. You are quite aware why I consider her an unfit companion for my children.”
“Look here!” he said. He placed the glass he carried on a table, and approached the sofa on which she was seated, and stood leaning against the head of it, looking at her angrily. “You’re fond of taking that tone lately. I don’t like it. What the devil do you mean by your insinuations?”
“Need we discuss,” she said, “what is so flagrant and abominable? You know what I mean. You have given me every occasion lately for distrusting you.”
“I suppose you are jealous?” he said. “Good Lord!”
He tapped the floor irritably with his foot, and eyed her for a second or so in silence. Then he leaned suddenly towards her.
“Suppose I insist on her remaining?” he asked, his face on a level with hers. “Suppose I put my foot down? ... You’ve no right to object.”
Pamela’s expression froze as she stared bade into his angry eyes. Not at once did she grasp the magnitude of the insult he flung at her; as his meaning broke fully upon her, she whitened to the lips.
“Ah! dear heaven!” she cried, and drew bade as though he had struck her. “To think that you should say that to me,—that you should hold me so cheaply in your thoughts! How dare you?”
“Cheap!” he sneered. “Women are cheap—and ungrateful. I’ve given you everything you wanted; I’ve denied you nothing... I’ve been generous. It has been a fair exchange. If there are things you don’t like, you’ve got to put up with them. You’ve got to stand this sort of thing.” He worked himself into a rage. “You and your damned jealousy!” he shouted. “I’ve had enough of it. I can’t be decently civil to a girl but you take it in the light of a personal slight. I won’t hear any more of this tom-foolery. The girl stays. I won’t be brow-beaten in this fashion.”
“Very well,” Pamela said. Despite her quiet manner, her voice broke; she was trembling from head to foot. “In that case, it is I who will go. If I had realised three years ago the position in which you held me, I would have left you then. Although to part then would have caused me pain, it would have left untarnished my faith in you. You’ve killed that.”
He made a grab at her and caught her by the shoulder and shook her roughly.
“By heaven!” he cried. “You tempt me to strike you. So you would leave me, would you? What do you suppose will become of you and the children without my protection? ... You’ve lived with me for eight years,—you’ve had everything I could give you; and in a moment of beastly jealousy you talk as lightly of leaving me as though I were nothing to you. What are you going to do if you leave my protection?”
“I earned my own living before I met you,” she answered.
“You hadn’t the children then,” he reminded her.
“No,” Pamela admitted, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t you think they have a right to be considered?” he demanded. “You are not so damned selfish as to deny that, I imagine. If you leave my home, you ruin their future.”
He was quick to see his advantage. He did not wish her to take the step she threatened. Social ostracism in two countries was rather much for a man, who has passed his youth, to face complacently. He had come to a time of life when the comforts of a home are indispensable; knocking about the world, even if accompanied by a mistress, did not appeal to his fastidiousness. Her threat had taken him by surprise; he had not considered this possibility; it found him unprepared. He pressed his point more insistently.
“You’ve got to consider them,” he persisted. “If things leak out it will be beastly awkward for them when they are older. You’ve no right to make them suffer. You’ve no right to force poverty on them as well as disgrace. And it will be poverty. If you leave me, I will do nothing for you, nor for them.”
At that she turned her face and regarded him fixedly.
“If I leave you,” she said, “I wouldn’t desire you to do anything for me,—but I can compel you to provide for the children.”
He stared at her. He apprehended her meaning fully, and his face went a dull red.
“So you’ve sunk to that?” he said. “You’d show up well—wouldn’t you?—as prosecutrix in a case of bigamy.”
He moved away, and stood with his back to her, trying to master his anger, trying to resist the devil in him which tempted him to murder her. At that moment he hated her as passionately as at one time he had loved her. It would have given him immense satisfaction to have hurt her, to have seen her wince under his hands.
“Oh! you hold a trump card in that knowledge,” he muttered. “It was clever of you to have thought of that.”
Pamela made no response. She remained perfectly motionless, looking miserably away from him, staring unseeingly straight before her. Arnott glanced at her contemptuously, and flung out of the room.