ABSENCE
"My whole life is so strange: as strange
It is, my husband, whom I have not wronged,
Should hate and harm me."—The Ring and the Book.
As once before, when the doctor visited her, Joey Ferris was busy in the garden, cutting off dead blooms. Her little boys busily waited on her, each with his small barrow, in which they collected the faded flowers which she tossed upon the path, and ran off with them down the long walks to the rubbish heap, puffing and blowing to announce the fact of their being goods trains or expresses, or light engines, as the fancy took them.
It was nearly lunch time, and Ferris was going to bring home a man who had showed signs of interest in the lead-mine scheme. As the stable clock chimed a quarter to one, the mistress of Perley Hatch straightened her back, took off her gardening gloves, rubbed her nose reflectively, and wondered whether she "ought to change."
As the doubt crossed her mind, she looked up to see some one approaching across the grass, and with a vast surprise recognised Gaunt of Omberleigh.
"Why," cried she very heartily, advancing to meet him with hand outstretched, "I am glad to see you! Didn't think you knew your way to this house! What's the news this morning? Better, I hope?"
"It seems to be astonishingly good. The change of treatment and my wife's presence, taken together, have worked a miracle. The child, who was dangerously ill, is making marked progress every day."
"Oh, well, that is some consolation for you, isn't it?" said Joey, her eyes full of sympathy, and her voice almost tender. "I think you are just the most unselfish man I have ever heard of—letting Virgie go off like that!"
"Please, Mrs. Ferris——"
"It's no use please-Mrs.-Ferrising me! Some men in your place would have said things! First she herself falls ill, and then, just as your love and care has brought her round, off she goes and leaves you on the All-alone Stone! Percy has been on the point of riding over to try and persuade you to come to us for a bit of dinner, but he has been so taken up over his mine."
"You are more than kind, Mrs. Ferris. I fear I've been a most unneighbourly neighbour for many years. Now I am going to turn over a new leaf. As a preliminary, will you give me some lunch to-day? I want to talk to Ferris about his mine. Dr. Dymock was telling me something of it."
Joey was overjoyed. "Need you ask?" she joyfully inquired. "Come to the house and wash your hands, while I tell Daniel to take your horse round. I conclude you rode over?" She fixed her guest with her shrewd, twinkling glance, and thought that he had done something to himself, she hardly knew what. Was it that he wore a new, very well-cut riding suit, with tan gaiters, and that his hair was trimmed more sprucely than usual? Or was he really younger, when you saw him close, than he appeared from a distance? Certainly he had altered in some subtle fashion, and for the better. He did not look well, though. There were black marks under his eyes, as if he had not slept.
Tom and Bill came rushing up at the moment, charging with their barrows. They were wholly untroubled with shyness, and loudly announced that Tom was a Midland express from Glasgow, and Bill a pilot engine. Gaunt stopped and gravely shook hands with each, holding the plump, earthy moist little fingers curiously in his brown, muscular grip. Then he picked up Bill by his waist, and seated him upon his shoulder. "Now you're in the look-out—the signal-box," said he. "Is the line clear?"
This was enchanting. Bill shouted to Tom to go and be the excursion and seized Gaunt's hand, drawing back his arm to represent a lever.
"I'm off'ring the 4.10 to Manton box!" he cried.
"Fancy your playing with them," said Joey, deeply gratified. "That's what Virgie did. Bill, you remember the pretty lady who came to tea and told you about little Runt? This is her husband, that she belongs to."
"Oh, are you?" cried the excursion train, turning right round upon the permanent way in horrifying fashion. "Tell us about little Runt again—do!"
"I don't know that story, Bill. I'll have to get the pretty lady to tell it to me, then perhaps I can pass it on."
"Where is she?" cried Tom. "Have you got her here?"
"No, Tom. She has gone to be with her own little sister, who is ill. I dare say she tells her stories, to pass the time while she has to be in bed, flat on her back."
"Flat on her back? Beastly!" said Tom.
"Why's that for?" asked his brother.
"Because her back was hurt when she was quite a baby. She was thrown out of a motor-car, and has always been ill."
"You'd better not let our baby go in the car, mummy," cried the little brother promptly; and Gaunt felt a movement of affection for the child whose feeling spoke so readily.
They moved across the grass towards the house, and suddenly Joey gave a pleased exclamation. "Here comes Percy!" said she brightly.
Ferris was advancing, accompanied by a young man who, though he wore a country suit, had the air of London about his hat and his boots. He was a distinguished-looking, tall fellow, and Gaunt, as he set Bill upon his feet upon the grass, knew that he had seen him before. As the stranger drew near their eyes met, and the same look of half-recognition appeared in both faces.
Ferris's cordial welcome to Gaunt was somewhat flamboyant. He wrung his hand a little too often and too vehemently. Then he introduced his friend, Mr. Rosenberg. That cleared up the mystery, as far as Gaunt was concerned. Instantly he saw the gallery flooded with summer sunshine, the glimmering floors, the mellow canvases, the figure of the beautiful girl, bending over the inscription at the foot of the marble cupid.
To Gerald Rosenberg memory had come without difficulty. The occasion when he first set eyes on Gaunt was a critical moment in his life—how critical he hardly knew at the time. The same picture was stamped upon his own brain: the picture of Virginia beginning to descend the staircase, and of his own turning of the head with a consciousness of being watched—of meeting face to face a pair of eyes, ironic, intent, challenging.
"This is our neighbour, Gaunt of Omberleigh," Ferris was jovially proclaiming. "Luckiest man in the county; just married the most lovely girl I ever saw in my life."
Gaunt! That was the name of Virginia's husband! She had said that her future home would be Derbyshire! Was this—this man—her husband? He grew quite pale.
"Was it you," he stammered, "you who married Miss Mynors?"
Gaunt assented. The eyes of the two men once more met. "I saw you," slowly said Rosenberg, "at Hertford House, when I went there to meet my sister and her friend. You were in the Gallery."
"I was; and I saw Miss Mynors."
Gerald felt the blood rush to his head. "For the first time?"
Gaunt again assented mutely. He was filled with exultation. Unhappy and uncertain as he was, insecure as he knew his tenure of his prize, at least she was his at present, at least he might claim this one triumph.
"Fell in love at first sight, and no wonder!" cried Ferris, with enthusiasm. "Isn't he the luckiest chap on earth? I really don't think I have ever seen anybody quite as lovely as Mrs. Gaunt."
"You are right—that is the almost universal opinion. I congratulate Mr. Gaunt," said Gerald, rallying his composure.
How all the crises of our lives come upon us unaware! How little had he guessed, that day in the Gallery, that, although he had a good chance then, it was his last! His father, in persuading him to flee temptation, had urged the probability of a future recurrence of opportunity. "She won't run away," he had said. And behold! even as he spoke, the chain of gold was being forged to bind captive the innocent girl.
Gaunt was speaking to Joey. "Great as is Virginia's beauty," Gerald heard him say, "it is the least part of her charm. It is her character which is so fine, so exceptional. She is pure gold throughout."
Young Rosenberg looked at him with a lingering gaze of hatred. Had he known in what a crucible the gold of Virginia's nature had been and was still being proved, the hate would have intensified perhaps to the point of sending his fingers to the husband's throat. This man had apparently been certain, where he was doubtful. Was Virginia as fair within as without? Could she have wholly escaped the taint of her mother's ignoble nature? His father had thought not. In his indecision he had let slip the treasure which another man had promptly gathered. As they walked slowly towards the house, his mind was filled with the two ideas—first, that all was over, so far as he was concerned, and, also, that in the course of the next few hours he might possibly see her whose dove's eyes had haunted him ever since that fatal day in the valley of decision—the day when he had decided upon retreat.
Then he began by degrees to grasp what the others were speaking of. He learned that the sudden and dangerous illness of Pansy had called Virginia to London, and that Gaunt had allowed her to go without him. Also he learned that she had suffered with a bad knee, and that her husband was anxious lest she should now be doing too much. He listened as in a dream, his mind slowly assimilating all these rapid happenings; and by degrees he realised that, if she were in London without Gaunt, he could easily see her, if he could ascertain her address.
The conversation soon turned to the projected lead-mine, in which Mr. Rosenberg senior had been asked by a friend in the financial world to take a director's place. The party were to meet Mr. Rosenberg's own expert, and Ferris's, at Branterdale cavern that afternoon. Joey was coming too.
She drove their guest over in the car, Percy electing to ride with Gaunt, whom he was most anxious to propitiate. On the way, it was quite easy for Gerald to ask Joey where in London Mrs. Gaunt was staying.
"Well, I don't exactly know," said Joey. "She went up to the Langham, but directly her mother found that out, she determined that she would go there, too. I fancy the mother's a bit of a sponge, isn't she? Anyway, Virgie thought her husband wouldn't see keeping the two of them there, so she has gone into rooms with her mother, as being less expensive, and she always writes to me from the Nursing Home in Queen Anne Street."
"So she writes to you?"
"Yes. When they first married, Mr. Gaunt hadn't got a motor, so ours came in handy. I took her about a bit. She's a perfect angel. Hard on him, poor chap! having to let her go like this, isn't it? You can see how he is fretting!"
"Is he? He looks to me an ill-conditioned brute," said Gerald shortly.
"Oh, he's quite a good sort when you know him," replied Joey kindly.
"But as a husband for her——"
"Well, why didn't you chip in?"
"One can't always follow the dictates of the heart, Mrs. Ferris. I couldn't afford to marry for love."
"Well, of course, Gaunt is much too old for her, as far as years go; but," observed Joey, with one of her flashes of intuition, "he is absurdly young in the sense of not having used up his emotions. He was jilted in his youth, so they say, and ever since has imagined that he hated women—thought himself heart-broken, and shut himself up alone until one fine day he saw her. He has all the heaped-up love of a lifetime to pour out at her feet."
"I don't doubt his sentiments. The question is, will she have any use for them?" retorted Gerald, with bitterness.
*****
It was late when Gaunt reached Omberleigh that evening. It seemed to him as though he had been away a week, for the reason that this was the day when he usually heard from Virgie, and if she wrote in her usual punctual way, there would be a letter lying in the bag upon the hall table when he came in.
There was. He opened the bag with hands that shook so that he was afraid Hemming might notice; and when he drew out the letter, "he pounced on it, like a dog on a bone," as the servant afterwards related, "and was off with it into his study before you could count two."
The scrupulously business-like letters were little enough upon which to feed the fire of a consuming passion. The point was that in every letter she recognised, by implication, his hold over her. Before taking any step she consulted him, she awaited his permission. In a way it was torture; she never let him forget that he had bought and paid for her. On the other hand, since she maintained this attitude, surely she would come back to him!
She never used any form of address at the beginning of her letters. "Osbert Gaunt, Esq.," was written above, and then followed the body of the communication. She signed herself merely "Virginia," as though the second name were too horrible, or too distasteful to write. He had never seen her full signature since she became his wife. He hungered to see her written acknowledgment of her wifehood, and with this object he had set a trap for her. He wrote a cheque which would need her endorsement, and sent it to her. This expedient failed, for she returned the cheque, saying she was in no need of more money; she had enough, and more than enough.
Each of her letters contained a small statement of account, carefully balanced. The first he had received was the one that pleased him best. There was very much to tell. She had to relate her experiences—how she went first to see Pansy, and was horrified at the change in her; how she determined to act without delay, and informed the doctor over the telephone that she meant to have another opinion. He was not pleased, but was, as Dr. Danby foretold, obliged to consent. The doctors met, and differed gravely; upon which she had formally placed herself and the case in Dr. Danby's hands. Pansy was moved that day, and from the first few hours showed symptoms of relief. Then had come the difficulty with her mother. This she had solved without applying to Gaunt. She had gone to her mother's rooms in Margaret Street, found that she and Grover could both be taken in, and had moved thither accordingly. Her exact explanations made him smile and grunt, and brought a moisture to his eyes.
To this letter there had been a postscript. Under her signature these words had been scrawled, as if on impulse:
Thank you—oh, thank you!
He had dwelt upon those words until he had half persuaded himself that she must have perceived something of his remorse, and wished to reassure him. The following letters from her had not, however, done anything to foster this idea. He longed to write and tell her to go back to the Langham, and take her mother there, to bid her choose herself a fur motor-coat, and anything else she liked, but he restrained all these impulses. He meant her to come back, if at all, as she had departed, in the full persuasion of his cruelty and harshness, to come back because her crystal honesty would not allow her to break her promise, even to him.
With this end in view, he forced himself to write to her as curtly as possible, signing himself "O. G." merely.
The missive he now held in his hand was no exception to his wife's usual style. He read it, first with his customary feeling of disappointment and heart-hunger, then with the succeeding glow of reassurance, as he reached the little account of money expended. Somehow he could read between the lines what an effort it was to her to accept his help; it was done only because Pansy mattered so infinitely more than she did; because Pansy must not suffer merely for the reason that Virginia's pride would be hurt in the process of curing her.
What he hardly guessed was the constant vexation, of the pin-prick kind, which Virginia was then enduring from her mother. Grover was a good sort, but she was neither young nor active, and she did object to being maid to two ladies. Moreover, her own mistress, Mrs. Gaunt, was the most considerate of her sex, but Mrs. Mynors was "quite another pair of shoes." As usually happens in such cases, the considerate party was made the victim of the maid's ill-humour, while the inconsiderate brought her mending and renovating with smiling face and got it all done, free of charge, the while she made scornful comments upon Grover's attainments, and wondered how Virgie could stand such a woman about her for a moment.
The nursing home at which Pansy was now placed was just as expensive as the one she occupied formerly. Therefore it was surprising to Gaunt to find that, although both Virginia and her mother were now in town, not to mention Grover, instead of Mrs. Mynors alone, the total spent in a week was less than in those preceding by quite a noticeable amount.
The letter of to-day was an exception in containing a postscript. It was apparently of the least interesting description. A small item in the accounts was marked with an asterisk, and at the foot of the page Virginia had written:
When I come back, I can explain this.
The words sent a thrill through every nerve of the man reading.
"When I come back!"
He leaned forward, seizing old Grim by her ears, and rubbing his hands up and down her neck in the way she loved. "When she comes back, old girl," he whispered. Then he broke off. His eye had wandered round the dreary, untidy, ill-arranged den. Was it a home to which to bring such a bride as his? Was there anything he could do to improve it?
Slowly he rose, and limped into the little sitting-room which he had called hers. There were one or two small articles of her personal possessions left about in it. He wondered whether he could have it done up by the time of her return. He distrusted his own taste profoundly. What did girls like?
He remembered the drawing-room at Perley Hatch, which the Ferrises had recently repainted and papered. No! That was not his idea. He felt that Virginia would never like big bunches of floral decoration all over her walls.
Then he remembered the little room in which Mrs. Mynors had received him at Wayhurst. Tiny as it was, how its charm, its dainty elegance had impressed him! He closed his eyes and recalled its aspect. Ivory paint—yes, that was all right; and walls of a warm, sunny golden brown. How would that suit her? Acting on impulse he rang the bell, and said he wanted to speak to Mrs. Wells.
The housekeeper, when consulted, was delighted with the idea. It had apparently presented itself to the mind of the servants' hall long ago. She would send down a boy at once, to telephone from Manton into Derby for a man to come over the following morning to take the order.
"The furnishing I must leave until Mrs. Gaunt returns," said Gaunt, in a depressed way. "I can see that this stuff is all wrong, but I can't see what she would put in its place."
"Oh, as to that, sir. If it's a question of what Mrs. Gaunt would like—why, I can tell you that myself, and you won't have far to seek, for we've got it all in the house at this moment," was Mrs. Wells's surprising answer.
"Got it in the house?"
"In the lumber-room, sir. Your great-aunts, the Miss Gaunts, turned all the old things into the lumber-room, after their father died, about fifty years ago, and refurnished great part of the house, so I'm told. There's a great many things up there, and Mrs. Gaunt, when she saw them, she went into raptures over them. Said they was as old as Adam, which I could hardly believe——" She broke off abruptly, for Gaunt, her morose master, had laughed aloud, and the circumstance was startling.
"Adam's period," he hastened to apologise. "Yes, go on, please. If you showed the lumber-room to Mrs. Gaunt, why have you never mentioned it to me?"
The good woman's eyes grew very round. "Why, sir, you was here when I came," said she. "I concluded you knew all about it. My part was only to see as the things didn't perish, for I have a kind of liking myself for all them antiquities."
Gaunt's eyes were still dancing over the Adam joke; and his wandering gaze had strayed to the mantel, and realised that this was of the same period. Doubtless what made these walnut carved whatnots and arm-chairs look so wrong was their silent clash with the fine simplicity of the dental moulding. As his eye wandered over the faded pink wallpaper, with its brown, green and blue roses, he suddenly perceived, like a man whose eyes are newly opened, that the room was moulded for panels. It struck him that this was the treatment required.
"So Mrs. Gaunt liked the things?"
"Indeed, yes, sir. She said how she would like to use them. I can show you the exact pieces she picked out, sir."
"Come along," said Gaunt impetuously. Here was a glorious idea. Here was something to fill in blank days of waiting! Virgie should find her own room at least habitable; incomplete, of course, and waiting for her touch, but not impossible as at present. It would welcome her, when she came back—when she came back!
Would she come?