Chapter Twenty One.
Parted.
The next year passed slowly and heavily. In the spring Jean had an illness which made it necessary for her to spend several months on the sofa—a decree which she accepted with extraordinary resignation. Nothing could have demonstrated so powerfully the change which the last seven years had wrought in her physical condition as this willingness to be shut off from social life.
“I’ve been so tired,” she confided in Vanna, letting her head fall back on the pillow, and closing her eyes with a long-drawn sigh, “so tired, that it’s been a struggle to get through each day. It’s bliss to be lazy, and to feel that one is justified. When I wake up in the morning and remember that I needn’t get up for breakfast, I could whoop with joy. The doctor expected me to rebel. Goodness! I wonder how many thousand tired women would hail such a prescription—to lie in bed until eleven; dress quietly, and go down to the sofa; read amusing books; have a friend to tea; sleep again, to be fresh for the husband’s return; to bed at nine; and you must not be worried! My dear, it’s Heaven begun below! I don’t say I should like it as a permanency, but as a change from general servants’ work (which is plain English for a middle-class wife and mother) it is highly refreshing. We’ll have to get an extra maid, of course. I’ve worked like a slave to keep the house as it must be kept if I’m to have any peace in life. We have such heaps of silver and in town it needs constant cleaning, and the mending is everlasting, and the making for the children, and the shopping, and helping in the nursery to set nurse free to do some washing. The laundry bills are ruinous; but you must have children in white! It’s a nuisance having to spend more. It always happens like that with us. Just as we say, ‘the next quarter must be lighter; we shall need nothing new,’ bang comes another big drain, and sends us back farther than ever. Money is a trial! You don’t half realise how much you are saved by having a comfortable income, Vanna. That’s a big blessing, and you ought to be thankful for it.”
Vanna considered. No! she was not actively thankful. When at any special moment the subject was brought before her, she could indeed realise the benefit of a sufficiency of money, which enabled her to choose and carry on the work which was most congenial; but as a rule the accustomed good was calmly taken for granted, and brought no feeling of joy. She made a mental note, and passed on to the consideration of Jean’s problem.
“Couldn’t you contrive to reduce work while you are laid up, dear? Lock up all the silver that is not absolutely needed, and let the children wear coloured overalls. I’d make them for you, of a pretty, becoming blue, which would save half their washing. You might shut up the drawing-room, too. You can’t entertain, and you are comfier here in the den. It would be so nice if you could avoid extra help. Another servant in the house would be a trial.”
But Jean only smiled with indulgent patronage.
“Oh, my dear, I can’t upset everything. And I shall need some one to wait upon me, and run up and down. It would be very poor economy to save a few pounds, and be worried to death. You have no idea how difficult it is to get any rest when you are the mother of a family. One day—I’ve often intended to tell you about this, and make you laugh!—you know how you have told me how lonely and sad you feel when you are ill, and lie all day alone in your room, never seeing a soul except when your meals are brought up. Well, at the beginning of this attack I awoke one morning with a crashing headache. I struggled up, hoping it would go off after breakfast, but it grew worse. Robert brought me in here and tucked me up on the sofa, and ordered a ‘quiet day.’ He said it was such a comfort to think that I could be quiet, and need do nothing but lie still and rest. He could not have borne to go away and leave me ill if he had not been sure of that. Dear, blind bat! He had not been gone five minutes when cook arrived for ‘orders.’ There was nothing in the house except the bit of mutton, and she thought that was going bad. Would I like to look at it? She stood there gazing before her in that calm, detached way they have—it is so maddening!—never making one single suggestion, while I wrestled with it all—children’s dinner, kitchen dinner, dining-room dinner, kitchen supper, to-morrow’s breakfast... I was so worn out that I forgot all about my own lunch. So did she! After she went it took about ten minutes before the horrible throbbing in my head calmed down to what it had been before, and by that time nurse appeared to say that Joyce had some spots on her chest, and did I think it was wise for her to go out? Would I be able to keep her for an hour while she promenaded with Lorna? Lorna got so fratchety if she was in all day. I investigated the spots. I sent for the doctor, and said they were all to stay in, and nurse was cross, and slammed the doors all day long. I lay down again, and sniffed smelling-salts, till cook came back to say the fishman was very sorry, but he had no smelts, and what would I have instead? After that I slept for a good quarter of an hour, till a parcel arrived with tenpence to pay. I had only a sovereign in my purse, and no one had change. There was nothing for it but to get the keys and go upstairs to my bureau. After that the piano-tuner arrived. He comes once a quarter, and picks his visits with demoniacal cunning for the very worst times in the whole three months. Mason hadn’t the sense to send him away, and I didn’t know he was there until the awful arpeggios began. Then I worked myself into a fever trying to decide whether I should send him away, whether he would charge twice over if I did, whether it would be bad for the piano, whether he would be long, whether I could bear it if I covered my head. At last the strum, strum, on one note began, and I rang and told Mason to send him away at once, and she was cross. Half an hour later some one sent a note with, ‘bearer waits reply’ on the envelope, and I had to sit up and write. The doctor came at twelve, and said Joyce was perfectly well, but I looked feverish; couldn’t I lie down and rest? I could not look at lunch, which was just as well, as there was none for me, and Joyce fell off her high-chair just over my head, and I thought she was killed. She screamed for an age, and I forgot my own head, thinking of hers; but afterwards! I cried to myself with sheer pain and misery, and I thought of your ‘long, solitary day’ with such envy. The afternoon was the same story, and when Robert came home he was so disappointed to find me worse! I didn’t tell him my experiences; he doesn’t see the humour of them when they affect me, but I said miserably to myself, ‘some day I’ll tell Vanna, and we’ll laugh.’ Dear me, what a comfort it is to have a woman friend!”
Vanna smiled at her affectionately. It was good to hear Jean rattle away in her old racy fashion, but her skilled eye was quick to note the signs of fragility in the lovely face, which paled and flushed with such suspicious rapidity.
“I think Sister Vanna had better apply for the vacant ‘place,’ and take possession until you are strong. Would you like to have me with you, dear? We have been having rather a strenuous time lately, and when the present inmates leave at the end of this week, I should be quite glad to shut the house and give the staff a rest. It’s a poor thing if I give my life to nursing, and can’t wait upon my one friend when she needs me. Would you like to have me?”
Needless to say, Jean was enchanted at the prospect; so was Robert when he returned at the close of the day; so also, more inexplicably, was Piers himself. Vanna had been prepared for expostulations against a proposal which would leave her less free for his visits, but none came, and their absence added to the dull weight of oppression which had hung over her ever since the evening when she had heard of Edith Morton’s engagement. Try as she would to live in the present, and avoid vain imaginings, she could not blind herself to a certain change in Piers, which seemed to increase rather than diminish. It was not a lessening of love; never had she known him more devoted, more passionately her own; but in his tenderness was an element of sorrow, of self-reproach, which chilled her heart. Piers was sorry for her! Some thing was working in his mind, the knowledge of which must give her pain. What could it be?
The revelation came one evening after she had been located for some weeks in the Gloucester ménage, and for all her forebodings, found her unprepared.
“Vanna, I have something to tell you to-night. I have been trying to say it for some time. Darling, can you be brave?”
Vanna looked at him sharply. They were sitting together on a sofa drawn up before the fire, and the kindly glow hid the sudden whitening of her cheeks. She leant back against the pillows, feeling faint and sick with the rapid beating of her heart.
“Not—very, Piers! Tell me quickly. Don’t wait.”
“Vanna, I’m going abroad.”
Her eyes dilated with surprise. This was not what she had expected. Compared with the greater dread, the announcement came almost as a relief. She struggled with the oppression in her throat and breathed a breathless, “Where?”
“To India. I have a chance. A junior partner is invalided home. I can take his place for a few years. It is the best thing—I am sure of it. I have made up my mind.”
“Is it because you are—tired of me, Piers?”
He turned upon her in passionate protest.
“Tired? Heaven knows I am tired; tired to the soul of waiting for the woman I love; of eternal fighting against self! It’s more than I can bear. I can’t go on without some change, some break.”
“You would find it easier to leave me?”
He hesitated, shrinking, then braced himself to a painful effort.
“Yes! it would be easier. You think me brutal, but I am a man. I cannot endure this life. If you cannot be my wife, I must go. It is hard to part, but it will help us both, and after a year or two we can begin afresh. I have been trying to tell you. I was thankful to know you were to be here, with Jean, for I must sail soon. In a few weeks.”
“Yes.” Vanna had a sudden rending remembrance of the moment when she sat in Dr Greatman’s consulting-room, and heard her life laid waste. Now, as then, she felt no disposition to weep or lament; the fountains of her heart were frozen, and she was numb with pain. “Yes; I suppose so. The best time for the Red Sea. You must avoid the heat... You will enjoy the voyage, Piers.”
Her frozen calm was more piteous than tears. Piers groaned, and buried his face in his hands.
“Oh, Vanna, Vanna! my poor, poor darling! What must you think of me? I have failed you after all my vows; and yet, God knows, it is because I love you, because my love is stronger than myself, that I must go! You will never understand, but can’t you believe me? Can’t you trust me still?”
“I know you love me, Piers. Will you write to me when you are away?”
“Will I write? Do you need to ask? I shall live for your letters. There will be nothing else to look for but their arrival, and being able to write back, and tell you all my thoughts. I’ll make a diary for you, dearest; write something every day, so that each mail shall bring you a small volume. We have always maintained that distance could make no difference to our love, but it does this much, darling—it silences angry words! I have made you miserable with my repinings many times these last years; but whatever I might feel, I could never endure to send a hard word travelling to you across the world. It may be happier for you, darling—more peaceful.”
She smiled—a wan, strained smile.
“I won’t try to keep you, Piers, if you want to go, but—I can’t pretend! Letters can never make up. I have been happy—happier than I even thought I could be; but Jean was right, Robert was right—it has not been fair to you. I should not have consented, but I loved you so; I was so tempted. Even now I am not sorry. No; I am not sorry! Even if I never see you again, I have had these years—six years of happiness and love, and you are still young, you have your life ahead—”
He stopped her with his lips on hers.
“You don’t meant it, you don’t believe it. Don’t hurt me, my heart! Be generous; be patient; and I’ll come back more your own than ever. It’s because I love you—because I love you—.”
That was the strain which he dinned into her ears—the one fundamental fact on which all arguments hung; but Vanna’s sore heart could find in it no solid comfort. A love which finds separation easier than loving intercourse is incomprehensible to a woman’s mind.