Chapter Thirty Two.
On leaving Arnott’s room, when comforted by her presence he fell asleep and so freed her from the painful necessity of remaining beside him, Pamela returned swiftly to the waiting-room, where Dare was, and, entering, closed the door behind her, and stood leaning against it, with her hand on the knob, as though fearful that if she released it some one might intrude upon them, might perhaps induce her to return to the room from which, as soon as she had seen he slept, she had fled in cautious haste. Her face was flushed, her eyes were bright and hard, and her breath came with painful quickness, in short, spasmodic gasps.
Dare looked at her in some concern, and advancing, stood close to her, and laid his hand upon her sleeve.
“Don’t excite yourself,” he said. “Sit down, Pamela. There’s no hurry. Get a grip on yourself.”
She laughed shrilly. And the next moment she was crying, holding to his arm, and weeping on his shoulder.
“I’m a fool,” she sobbed, “a fool... I don’t know why I’m crying. Please, don’t take any notice of me. I’ll be all right in a minute.”
“Oh! my dear,” she cried presently, raising her face, and looking up at him through tear-blurred eyes, “you can’t imagine... He’s an old man, and childish. He doesn’t seem to remember—anything. He was just glad to see me... And all the time I was only conscious of an eagerness, a horrible eagerness, to get away,—to run from the room. If it’s going to be like that always—”
“It won’t,” he interposed quietly. “You’ve had a shock, I wish now I had persuaded you not to come. Sit down, Pamela. Shall I ask for anything for you?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t want any one to come in here. I’m all unnerved. I don’t know how I am going through with this.”
“Then don’t go through with it,” he said. “Chuck it. It’s not too late now.”
He led her to a chair and put her into it.
“What’s the use of making yourself miserable, like this?” he said.
She looked at him in consternation, as he stood over her and made this astounding suggestion in the quiet ordinary tones of a man offering quite simple, commonplace advice. He met her gaze steadily.
“You’ve tried,” he said. “It’s not your fault if the job is too big for your undertaking. I’ve felt all along that you didn’t appreciate fully the difficulty of the task. Give in, Pamela, and admit yourself beaten.”
“Give in now?” she cried.
“Why not?” he said.
She leaned back in the chair, her face paling; and for a second or so neither spoke. Dare remained waiting with a certain confidence for her answer. It occurred to him that she knew herself to be beaten. All the fight was gone out of her. She had the air of a creature trapped and frantically seeking a way of escape. If he pointed the way in all probability she would take it.
What decision she came to, or if she came to any decision, he had no means then of knowing. While he waited for her to speak the door of the room opened, and the matron appeared, and stood on the threshold, surveying the scene with manifest surprise. Dare glanced over his shoulder at her, but he did not move.
“Mrs Arnott is feeling a little upset,” he said.
She came forward quickly.
“Shall I fetch anything?—water?”
“I don’t think that is necessary,” he replied. And Pamela sat up with a quickly uttered protest.
“It is nothing,” she said. “Just shock. I wasn’t prepared to see such a change. I’ve never seen any one ill,—really ill, like that, before. I’m all right now. It was stupid of me to be so foolish. But,” she looked at the matron piteously, with quivering lips, “he is so altered,” she said pathetically. “He is quite old.”
The matron felt puzzled. In her long experience of sickness she had never known the patient’s appearance to be the chief concern of the relatives. She felt a little unsympathetic towards Mrs Arnott’s attitude.
“An illness like Mr Arnott’s would change any one,” she answered. “The difference will be less marked as he gains strength. Your visit seems to have done him good already. He is sleeping quite quietly and comfortably.”
“I am glad,” Pamela said simply.
She rose and turned appealingly to Dare.
“Shall we go now?”
“If you are ready,” he said.
The matron held the door open.
“You are quite sure?” she asked, as she shook hands, and looked searchingly into the frightened blue eyes of this surprising visitor, “that you won’t have something before you leave?”
“Quite sure, thank you,” Pamela summoned a wintry smile to her aid. “I am sorry to have given so much trouble,” she added. “I won’t be so foolish again.”
The matron repudiated the suggestion of trouble, and inquired if she was to expect the visitor on the morrow. Pamela hesitated for a barely perceptible moment, during which Dare looked as though he would have suggested the wisdom of refraining from making a definite arrangement. He did not, however, speak; and Pamela answered reluctantly, after a pause:
“To-morrow... Yes, I will come to-morrow.”
Out in the open air again, driving bade to their hotel, Dare asked her why she had made the arrangement.
“There wasn’t any need,” he said. “You might not feel up to it. Besides, there’s the point to be settled first. If you are going to draw back it has to be now.”
“I can’t draw back,” she answered nervously... “I can’t.”
“Can you go through with it?” he asked. “That’s the question. To draw back is quite ample. In my opinion, it is what you ought to do. Your heart isn’t in this, Pamela.”
“No,” she admitted.
She frowned faintly.
“Before I came my one fear was that he would be difficult; now that I find him wanting me I’m holding back. It’s paltry of me. I think if I had come alone I should have found it easier.”
“You mean,” he said, “that I am trying to influence you?”
“Not trying... I mean that your presence influences me. It makes me hate the thought of living with him. There is no love in my heart for him—not any. When I saw him lying there so ill, so terribly altered, I didn’t want to go near him,—didn’t want to touch him. It was horrible. I had to force myself to touch him. That is how it will be, I suppose, always. It wasn’t the sight of him so much as that thought which so unnerved me. And that woman thinks me an unfeeling brute. Dear heaven! if she only knew!”
“Look here!” he said. “I can’t stand this. If you feel all that about it you have no right to go on. It’s no fairer on him than on you. It’s no kindness to him.”
“I am not acting from any motive of kindness towards him,” she answered. “I’m paying the debt—and making him pay—which we owe to the children we brought into the world. That is my only reason for going on with this. I can’t draw back. I wish I could—even now.”
The motor stopped before the hotel entrance. Dare got out and helped her to descend.
“I’m coming up to the balcony,” he said. “I want to talk.”
Pamela went inside and passed up the stairs to her room. She took off her hat and gloves, and went out on to the balcony, and sat in the shade, waiting for him. He was not long in joining her. He drew a chair up close to hers and sat down.
“Now,” he said, “we’ll dispose of this matter finally. My time is short. I intend to take the evening train to Johannesburg, unless, of course, you change your mind; and then—”
“You’ll take the evening train, dear,” she said quietly.
He glanced at her sharply.
“You mean that?” he said. “That’s your final answer, Pamela?”
“Yes; that’s my final answer.”
“So be it,” he replied, and looked away again, out across the busy, sunny street.
“It doesn’t alter anything,” he added presently, speaking in sharp, crisp tones that disguised whatever emotion swayed him at the moment. “Matters stand between us as they were. When you find life too hard, you’ll send for me. I shall be able to judge from the tone of your letters how things go with you. In the meantime—save for one occasion—we shall not meet again.”
Pamela drew a deep breath, and for a time sat very still, her white face tense and miserable, her eyes staring blankly into space. In her mind, like a refrain, his words were repeating themselves again and again, conveying, somehow, little sense of meaning:
“In the meantime—save for one occasion—we shall not meet again.”
Abruptly their full significance broke upon her. She turned to him quickly.
“What occasion?” she asked.
Dare sat back in his seat, contemplating her gravely.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “all the way coming up, and again this morning, about the girl—Blanche Maitland. We haven’t finished with her,” he added, noting Pamela’s startled look. “Of course if you had decided differently, that would have been a matter we need not have concerned ourselves with. As things are, however, we have got to put it beyond her power to do you any injury. There is only one way that I can see to prevent that. Your marriage must take place as soon as possible.”
“But,” Pamela began, and paused dismayed... “I couldn’t bear—”
“No,” he interposed quickly. “I know what you are feeling. We’ll manage it as secretly as possible. It may be necessary to move him from that place. I think it will be necessary. We’ll need to take the doctor into our confidence—to a certain extent. We’ll suppress the former marriage altogether, I think.”
“Oh!” she said, and covered her eyes with her hand, and remained quiet.
He watched her keenly.
“If you leave it to me,” he said, “I think I can manage it so that you won’t find it very humiliating. Then, if the girl turns up, you are better prepared to face her. I fancy there won’t be much difficulty in squaring her. She isn’t out for revenge.”
He leaned forward and laid a hand warmly upon hers.
“Is it too much altogether to face, dear?” he asked. “I think it will be best for you... God knows, I don’t wish you to do it! I’d rather a thousand times you followed my suggestion. If you won’t do that, then the other course it seems to me is the only means of safeguarding your position. After all, it is merely hastening things a bit. You always intended legalising the marriage.”
“Yes,” she said, and was silent, thinking. “I know you are right,” she added after reflection. “I’ll do whatever you think wise. But I feel that I ought not to let you undertake this too. I am fairly heavily in your debt already; and there is no return that I can make.”
Dare smiled at her.
“There is no question of debt or gratitude between us,” he replied. “I promised to see you through. I am going to do that. Afterwards...”
The sound of the luncheon gong filled in the pause. Dare got up, without completing the sentence, and putting his hand within her arm walked with her through her room into the corridor.
“I have to go out after lunch,” he said. Though he did not explain his reason for going, she felt that it was about her business. “I shall probably only get back in time to fetch my suit case, and say good-bye. I wonder—will you be on the balcony, so that I shall be able to find you?”
“I’ll be there,” she answered, “in the same place, outside my room.”
And so, with the imminent prospect of coming separation hanging over them, they went into luncheon together, and loitered over the meal, talking fragmentally, as people do who have discussed everything of vital interest and have come down to the bedrock of commonplace things.
“You’ll wire me,” he said once, returning to the subject occupying both their minds, “if you find yourself in any doubt or difficulty? It’s nothing of a journey between this and Johannesburg.”
She promised; and Dare, satisfied on this point, went on with his meal Pamela could not eat. She trifled with the food which the waiter put on her plate, and watched Dare, thinking of the many meals she would take in that room without him; thinking of the lonely hours she would spend, missing his companionship, missing him,—the lonely years, when the only link between them would be the chain of letters she had promised to interchange... those, and memory.
The future loomed so bleak and empty that she was afraid to look forward. Always she pictured herself shrinking, shrinking ever from the pathetic sight of suffering,—from the shadow of the man that had been, and the duty that would tie her continually to his side. Pamela had yet to learn that there is no path, upon the fingerpost of which Duty is clearly inscribed, so difficult for the traveller’s reluctant steps but that beauty is to be met along the road, and peace waits at the finish.