Book Three—Chapter Twenty Three.
The first real sorrow in Esmé’s life came to her with the realisation of the fact that her influence with her husband no longer sufficed to keep him steady. Gradually, so gradually that she did not suspect it until the thing was plainly manifest, he fell back upon his former habit of intemperance and became once more the drunkard whom she had first met at the Zuurberg, and pitied and despised for the weakness of his character.
Hallam did not give in to his vice without a struggle; but with each lapse his will weakened, till eventually he ceased to fight his enemy, ceased even to consider the pain which he was aware he caused his wife.
Esmé’s grief was deep, and the humiliation of realising that the thing was becoming publicly known added to her distress. Reluctantly she withdrew from social intercourse and devoted her time entirely to him, trusting that the power of love would yet prove the stronger influence. Her love for him strengthened with her recognition of his need of her: he was her child, weak and foolish and dependent,—her man and her child, whom she had to protect from himself.
Matters grew worse. An inkling of the trouble reached Rose through an acquaintance of her husband who had been in Cape Town and had heard rumours of the state of affairs. Rose’s first impulse was to write to her sister and ask for information direct; but on reflection she decided against this course. There flashed into her mind, as once before at the time of Esmé’s marriage the same memory had disturbed her peace, the picture of George Sinclair’s face when he heard of Esmé’s engagement and the recollection of his incomprehensible agitation. Was it possible that he had known?
She determined to ask him; and on the first opportunity did so, observing him attentively while she put a direct question to him. The quick distress and the absence of surprise in his look confirmed her suspicion. He had been aware of this thing all along.
“You knew!” she said resentfully. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Good lord!” he exclaimed almost passionately. “It wasn’t for me to say anything. She knew what she was taking on. It wouldn’t have made a fraction of difference if you had done everything in your power to dissuade her. She went into it with her eyes open.”
“You mean that she realised she was marrying a drunkard?”
“Of course she realised it. I suppose she believed she could reclaim him. For a time no doubt she did. Mrs Bainbridge, I could cheerfully kill him, if that would help matters.”
“It wouldn’t,” Rose answered practically. “Don’t talk like a fool, George.”
“I love her,” he said simply, the tears welling in his eyes. “I hate to think of her life with him. It cuts me.”
“Dear old boy,” she said, with greater gentleness of manner than she often displayed, “I know. I wish from my soul that she had married you. I always mistrusted Paul. But she was fascinated with him; there was no one else in the picture for her. He may break her heart and spoil her life, but she’ll go on loving him. You could see for yourself when she was round here; she was restless without him and wanting to go home.”
“That’s not surprising in the circumstances,” he returned with bitterness. “I don’t suppose that she trusts him out of her sight for long.”
“That wasn’t it,” Rose said quietly; and added after a brief pause: “She just wanted him.”
It was better, she decided, that he should face matters and give over cherishing a hopeless attachment. She liked George Sinclair sufficiently to wish to see him happily married and settled down. He was a man who would make an admirable husband.
But Sinclair showed no inclination towards marriage. He had met the girl he wanted, and lost her; no other girl could blot out the memory of his first real love, nor take her place in his heart. It had been a big blow when she married; and the bitterness of his disappointment increased enormously with the knowledge of the disaster which threatened her happiness. In a measure he had expected it; it did not come as a surprise, only as an ugly confirmation of his fears. He believed that he could have borne his own disappointment philosophically had life gone well for her: but the conviction that she had made a mistake held with him and inflamed his resentment against Hallam.
“Well, there’s one thing,” he said, as he got up from his seat and confronted Rose with grim set face, “if he goes on at the rate he did when he was at the Zuurberg she will be a widow before many years. A man can’t fool with his constitution like that—not in this country anyhow.”
“Don’t count on that, George,” she advised. “It’s a slow poison.”
He laughed shortly.
“I’ve a feeling that my turn will come,” he said, and turned about abruptly and left the room, left the house, with a sore heart, and his sense of exasperation deepening as he thought of the girl he loved tied to a drunkard who was not man enough to conquer his particular vice.
And the girl he pitied was blaming herself for not having gone with her man into the wilds, for not having allowed him to follow the life he preferred, hunting and exploring along the unbeaten track. Had life offered him a sufficient interest this relapse might have been averted. She had relied overmuch on the strength of character which she believed was his: she had overestimated his strength, had left him to fight his battle unaided. He had wearied of the struggle and given in. From the point where he wearied she took it up, took it up with a tireless determination to win, that armed itself against all disappointments and rebuffs; and the rebuffs were many. Hallam resented her attempts at coercion.
Oddly, he did not mind her knowing of his weakness, but he objected when she allowed her knowledge to become obvious. He felt that she ought to have ignored this thing; to embarrass him by thrusting it under his notice was tactless and annoying.
He shut himself away from her more than formerly, and sat up late into the night reading in his study. Occasionally he fell asleep in his chair and remained there until the morning, to wake cramped and unrefreshed and creep upstairs in the dawn.