CHAPTER VIII
Slowly there stole into Kincaid's life a new zest. He began to be more eager to walk round to the Lodge; was often reluctant to rise and say "good-night"; even found the picture of the little lamplit room lingering with him after the front door had closed. Formerly the visits had been rather colourless. Despite her affection for her son, Mrs. Kincaid was but tepidly interested in the career that engrossed him. She was vaguely proud to have a doctor for a son, but she felt that his profession supplied them with little to talk about when he came; and the man felt that his mother's inquiries about his work were perfunctory. A third voice had done much for the visits, quickened the accustomed questions, the stereotyped replies into the vitality of conversation.
Kincaid did not fail to give Miss Brettan credit for the brighter atmosphere of the villa. But winter was at hand before he admitted that much of the pleasure that he took in going there was inspired by a hearty approval of Miss Brettan. The cosiness of the room, with two women smiling at him when he entered—always with a little, surprise, for the time of his coming was uncertain—and getting things for him, and being sorry when he had to leave had had a charm that he did not analyse. It was by degrees that he realised how many of his opinions were directed to her. His one friendship hitherto had been for Corri; and Corri was not here. The months when his cordial liking for Mary was clear to him, and possessed of a fascination due very largely to its unexpectedness, were perhaps the happiest that he had known.
The development was not so happy; but it was fortunately slow. He had gone to the house earlier than usual, and the women were preparing for a walk. Mary stood by the mantelpiece. There was something they had meant to do; she said she would go alone to do it. He lay back in the depths of an arm-chair, and watched her while she spoke to his mother, watched the play of her features and the quick turn of her cheek. Then—it was the least significant of trivialities—she plucked a hairpin from her hair, and began to button her glove. It was revealed to him as he contemplated her that she was eminently lovable. His eyes dwelt on the tender curve of her figure, displayed by the flexion of her arm; he remarked the bend of the head, and the delicate modelling of her ear and neck. These things were quite new to him. He was stirred abruptly by the magic of her sex. The admiration did not last ten seconds, and before he saw her again he recollected it only once, quite suddenly. But the development had begun.
In his next visit he looked to see these beauties, and found them. This time, being voluntary, the admiration lasted longer. It was recurrent all the evening. He discovered a novel excellence in her performance of the simplest acts, and an additional enjoyment in talking with her.
Thoughts of her came to him now while he sat at night in his room. The bare little room witnessed all the phases of the man's love—its brightness, and then its misgivings. He had no confidant to prose to; he could never have spoken of the strange thing that had happened to him, if he had had a confidant. He used to sit alone and think of her, wondering if God would put it into her heart to care for him, wondering in all humility if it could be ordained that he should ever hold this dear woman in his arms and call her "wife."
He would not be in a position to give her luxury, and for a couple of years certainly he could not marry at all; but he believed primarily that he could at least make her content; and in reflecting what she would make of life for him, he smiled. The salary that he drew from his post was not a very large one, but his mother's means sufficed for her requirements, and he was able to lay almost the whole of it aside. He thought that when a couple of years had gone by, he would be justified in furnishing a small house, and that he might reasonably expect, through the introductions procured by his appointment, to establish a practice. It would be rather pinched for them at first, of course, but she wouldn't mind that much if she were fond of him. "Fond" of him! Could it be possible? he asked himself—Miss Brettan fond of him! She was so composed, so quiet, she seemed such a long way off now that he wanted her for his own. Would it really ever happen that the woman whose hand had merely touched him in courtesy would one day be uttering words of love for him and saying "my husband"?
He wrestled long with his tenderness; the misgivings came quickly. After all, she was comfortable as she was—she was provided for, she had no pecuniary cares here. Had he the right to beg her to relinquish this comparative ease and struggle by his side oppressed by the worries of a precarious income? Then he told himself that they might take in patients: that would augment the income. And she was a dependant now; if she married him she would be her own mistress.
He weighed all the pros and cons; he was no boy to call the recklessness of self-indulgence the splendour of devotion. He balanced the arguments on either side long and carefully. If he asked her to come to him, it should be with the conviction he was doing her no wrong. He saw how easy it would be to deceive himself, to feel persuaded that the fact of her being in a situation made matrimony an advance to her, whether she married well or ill. He would not act impatiently and perhaps spoil her life. But he was very impatient. Through months he used to come away from the Lodge striving to discern importance in some answer she had made him, some question she had put to him. It appeared to him that he had loved her much longer than he had; and he had made no progress. There were moments when he upbraided himself for being clumsy and stupid; some men in his place, he thought, would have divined long ago what her feelings were.
He never queried the wisdom of marrying her on his own account; the privilege of cherishing her in health and nursing her in sickness, of having her head pillowed on his breast, and confiding his hopes to her sympathy; of going through life with her in a union in which she would give to him all her sacred and withheld identity, looked to him a joy for which he could never be less than intensely grateful while life endured. He ceased to marvel at the birth of his love, it looked natural now; she seemed to belong to Westport so wholly by this time. He no longer contrasted the present atmosphere of the villa with the duller atmosphere that she had banished. He had forgotten that duller atmosphere. She was there—it was as if she had always been there. To reflect that there had been a period when he had known no Mary Brettan was strange. He wondered that he had not felt the want of her. The day that he had met her in Corri's office appeared to him dim in the mists of at least five years. The exterior of the man, and the yearnings within him—Kincaid as he knew himself, and the doctor as he was known to the hospital—were so at variance that the incongruity would have been ludicrous if it had not been beautiful.
When Mary saw that he had begun to care for her, it was with the greatest tremor of insecurity that she had experienced since the date of her arrival. She had foretasted many disasters in the interval, been harassed by many fears, but that Dr. Kincaid might fall in love with her was a contingency that had never entered her head. It was so utterly unexpected that for a week she had discredited the evidence of her senses, and when the truth was too palpable to be blinked any longer, her remaining hope was that he might decide never to speak. Here the meditations of the man and the woman were concerned with the same theme—both revolved the claims of silence; but from different standpoints. His consideration was whether avowal was unjust to her; she sustained herself by attributing to him a reluctance to commit himself to a woman of whom he knew so little. She clung to this haven that she had found; her refusal, if indeed he did propose to her, would surely necessitate her relinquishing it. Mrs. Kincaid might not desire to see her companion marry her son, but still less would she desire to retain a companion who had rejected him. It had been as peaceful here as any place could be for her now, felt Mary; the thought of being driven forth to do battle with the world again terrified her. She wondered if Mrs. Kincaid had "noticed anything"; it was hard to believe she could have avoided it; but she had evinced no sign of suspicion: her manner was the same as usual.
With the complication that had arisen to disturb her, the woman perceived how prematurely old she was. Her courage had all gone, she told herself; she said she had passed the capability for any sustained effort; and it was a fact that the uneventful tenor of the life that she had been leading, congenial because it demanded no energy, had done much to render her lassitude permanent. Her pain, the rawness of it, had dulled—she could touch the wound now without writhing; but it had left her wearied unto death. To attempt to forget had been beyond her; recollection continued to be her secret luxury; and the inertia permitted by her position lent itself so thoroughly to a dual existence that, to her own mind, she often seemed to be living more acutely in her reminiscences than in her intercourse with her employer.
From the commencement of the tour, which had started in the autumn of the preceding year, she had kept herself posted in Carew's movements as regularly as was practicable. It was frequently very difficult for her to gain access to a theatrical paper; but generally she contrived to see one somehow, if not on the day that it reached the town, then later. She knew what parts he played, and where he played them. It was a morbid fascination, but to be able to see his name mentioned nearly every week made her glad that he was an actor. If he could have gone abroad or died, without her being aware of it, she thought her situation would have been too hideous for words. To steal that weekly glimpse of the paper was her weekly flicker of sensation; sometimes the past seemed to stir again; momentarily she was in the old surroundings.
There had been only two tours. After the second, she had watched his "card" anxiously. Three months had slipped away, and between his and his agent's name nothing had been added but the "Resting."
At last, after reading from the London paper to Mrs. Kincaid one day, she derived some further news. A word of the theatrical gossip had caught her eye, and unperceived by the lady, she started violently. She had seen "Seaton Carew." For a minute she could not quell her agitation sufficiently to pick the paper up; she sat staring down at it and deciphering nothing. Then she learnt that Miss Olive Westland, and her husband, Mr. Seaton Carew, encouraged by their successes in the provinces, had completed arrangements to open the Boudoir Theatre at the end of the following month. It was added that this of late unfortunate house had been much embellished, and a reference to an artist, or two already engaged showed Mary that Carew was playing with big stakes.
Henceforth she had had a new source of information, and one attainable without trouble, for the London paper was delivered at the Lodge daily. As the date for the production drew near, her impatience to hear the verdict had grown so strong that the walls of the country parlour cooped her; she saw through them into the city beyond—saw on to a draughty stage where Carew was conducting a rehearsal.
The piece had failed. On the morning when she learned that it had failed, she participated dumbly in the chagrin of the failure. "Yes" and "No" she had answered, and seen with the eyes of her heart the gloom of a face that used to be pressed against her own. She did not care, she vowed; her sole feeling with regard to the undertaking had been curiosity. If it had been more than curiosity she would despise herself!
But she looked at the Boudoir advertisement every day. And it was not long before she saw that another venture was in preparation. And she held more skeins of wool, and watched with veiled eagerness this advertisement develop like its predecessor. Recently the play had been; produced, and she had read the notice in Mrs. Kincaid's presence. When she finished it she guessed that Carew's hopes were over; unless he had a great deal more money than she supposed, the experiment at the Boudoir would see; it exhausted. There was not much said for his performance, either; he was dismissed in an indifferent sentence, like his wife. High praise of his acting might have led to London engagements, but his hopes seemed to have miscarried as manager and as actor too.
When Kincaid went round to the house one evening, the servant told him his mother had; gone to her room, and that Miss Brettan was sitting with her.
"Say I'm here, please, and ask if I may go up." Mary came down the stairs as he spoke.
"Ah, doctor," she said; "Mrs. Kincaid has gone to bed."
"So I hear. What's the matter with her?"
"Only neuralgia; she has had it all day. She has just fallen asleep."
"Then I had better not go up to see her?"
"I don't think I would. I have just come down to get a book."
"Are you going to sit with her?"
"Yes; she may wake and want something."
They stood speaking in the hall, outside the parlour door.
"Where is your book?" he said.
"Inside. I am sorry you have come round for nothing; she'll be so disappointed when she hears about it. May I tell her you'll come again to-morrow?"
"Yes, I'll look in some time during the day, if it's only for a moment. I think I'll sit down awhile before I go."
"Will you?" she said. "I beg your pardon." She opened the door, and he followed her into the room.
"You won't mind my leaving you?" she asked; "I don't want to stay away, in case she does wake."
It was nearly dark in the parlour; the lamp had not been lighted, and the fire was low. A little snow whitened the laburnum-tree that was visible through the window. It was an evening in January, and Mary had been in Westport now nearly two years.
"Can you see to find it?" he said. "Where did you leave it?"
"It was on the sideboard; Ellen must have moved it, I suppose. I'll ask her where she's put it."
"No, don't do that; I'll light the lamp."
She lifted the globe while he struck a match. It was his last, and it went out.
"Never mind," he said; "we'll get a light from the fire."
"Oh," she exclaimed, "but I'm giving you so much trouble; you had better let me call the girl!"
A dread of what might happen in this darkness was coming over her. "You had better let me call the girl," she repeated.
"Try if you can get a light with this first," he said—"try there, where it's red."
She bent over the grate, the twist of paper in one hand, and the other resting on the mantelpiece. He leant beside her, stirring the ashes with his foot.
It flashed back at her how Tony had stood stirring the ashes with his foot that night in Leicester, while he broke his news. A sickening anxiety swept through her to get away from Kincaid before he could have a chance to touch her. The paper charred and curled, without catching flame, and in her impatience she hated him for the delay. She hated herself for being here, lingering in the twilight with a man who dared to feel about her in the same way as Tony had once felt.
She rose.
"It's no use, doctor; Ellen will have to do it, after all."
"Don't go just yet," he said; "I want to speak to you, Miss Brettan."
"I can't stay any longer," she said. "I——"
"You'll give me a minute? There's something I have been waiting to say to you; I've been waiting a long while."
She raised her face to him. In the shadows filling the room, he could see little more than her eyes.
"Don't say it. I think I can guess, perhaps.... Don't say it, Dr. Kincaid!"
"Yes," he insisted, "I must say it; I'm bound to tell you before I take your answer, Mary. My dear, I love you."
Memory gave her back the scene where Tony had said that for the first time.
"If you can't care for me, you have only to tell me so to-night; it shall never be a worry to I you—I don't want my love to become a worry to you, to make you wish I weren't here. But if you can care a little ... if you think that when I'm able to ask you to come to me you could come.... Oh, my dear, all my life I'll be tender to you—all my life!"
He could not see her eyes any longer; her head was bowed, and in her silence the big man trembled.
The servant came in with the taper, and let down the blinds. They stood on the hearth, watching her dumbly. When the blinds were lowered, she turned up the lamp; and the room was bright. Kincaid saw that Mary was very pale.
"Is there anything else, miss?"
"No, Ellen, thank you; that's all."
"Mary?"
"I'm so sorry. You don't know how sorry I am!"
"You could never care—not ever so little—for me?"
"Not in that way: no."
He looked away from her—looked at the engraving of Wellington and Blucher meeting on the field of Waterloo; stared at the filter on the sideboard, through which the water fell drop by drop. A heavy weight seemed to have come down upon him, so that he breathed under it laboriously. He wanted to curtail the pause, which he understood must be trying to her; but he could not think of anything to say, nor could he shake his brain clear of her last words, which appeared to him incessantly reiterated. He felt as if his hope of her had been something vital and she had stamped it out, to leave him confronted by a new beginning—a beginning so strange that time must elapse before he could realise how wholly strange it was going to be. Even while he strove to address her it was difficult to feel that she was still very close to him. Her tones lingered; her dress emphasised itself upon his consciousness more and more; but from her presence he had a curious sense of being remote.
"Good-night," he said abruptly. "You mustn't let this trouble you, you know. I shall always be glad I'm fond of you; I shall always be glad I told you so—I was hoping, and now I understand. It's so much better to understand than to go on hoping for what can never come."
She searched pityingly for something kind; but the futility of phrases daunted her.
"I had better close the door after you," she murmured, "or it will make a noise."
They went out into the passage, and stood together on the step.
"It's beginning to snow," he said; "it looks as if we were going to have a heavy fall."
"Yes," she said dully, glancing at the sky.
She put out her hand, and it lay for an instant in his.
"Well, good-night, again."
"Good-night, Dr. Kincaid."
As he turned, she was silhouetted against the gaslight of the hall. Then her figure was with-drawn, and the view of the interior narrowed—until, while he looked back, the brightness vanished altogether and the door was shut.