[CHAPTER XI]
THE TELEGRAM
Mrs. Hancock was distinctly aware when, three days afterwards, she started in her motor for a drive with Elizabeth, that in order to live worthily up to Mr. Martin's pattern of the thankful, cheerful Christian life, she had to keep a very firm hand on herself and nail her smile to her pleasant mouth. Indeed, for these last few days she had to set before herself an ideal not of cheerful, but of grinning Christianity. Like a prudent manager, however, she had steadfastly saved up as an all-conquering antidote to the depression and queerness which was so marked in Elizabeth, her joyful plan that should give the girl a month more of Heathmoor and her own undivided society and a reunited tour in Egypt afterwards at Colonel Fanshawe's expense. The prospect of that, she felt sure, could not possibly fail to restore to Elizabeth her accustomed exhilaration and liveliness.
Meantime Mrs. Hancock had carefully forborne to ask either of the girls (for Edith also had exhibited symptoms of queerness) what was ailing with the serenity of life. It fitted in with the cheerful gospel to know as little as possible about worrying and annoying topics, lest their infection should mar the soothing and uplifting influence over others of a mind wholly untroubled. Two inquiries only had she made (and those were from Edward), which elicited the comfortable fact that the event of the 8th of October still remained firm, and that he had not lost any money in the City. After that she firmly shut her eyes to any possible cause of trouble, and though one (and that the correct one) actually stood immediately in the foreground of her mental vision, she by long practice in obedience to Mr. Martin's gospel had reached a pitch of absolute perfection in the feat of mental eye-closing, even as a child frightened by the dark can by an effort of will shut out terrifying possibilities by the corresponding physical feat, or firmly bury its head under the bed-clothes.
But her victory over these subtle influences of gloom and general oddity had not been gained without effort. It had been distinctly hard to maintain an equable cheerfulness with Elizabeth. Sometimes for a little the girl was quite herself with a short-lived flood of high-spirited talk; sometimes from her sitting-room Mrs. Hancock would hear a flight of brilliant song-birds on the piano. But then suddenly the flood would cease from pouring, and the flight fail in mid-air. Once just after a silence had fallen on the ringing air she had come into the drawing-room to find Elizabeth sitting with her hands still resting on the keys, and her head bowed forward over them. Her assertion that she was not ill carried conviction; her denial that anything was the matter was less easy of belief. But she said it, and since successful inquiry might lead to disturbing information, Mrs. Hancock fell back on the unimpeachable general duty of trusting everybody completely and in particular of believing what Elizabeth said.
But it required an effort to remain perfectly comfortable, for she was surrounded with people who did not appear to be so, and Edward, so it seemed to her, though he had lost no money and was going to marry Edith on the 8th of October, seemed to have been drawn into what she looked upon as a vicious circle—vicious since it was wrong, positively wrong, not to be happy and comfortable. She was not quick or discerning in the interpretation of symptoms, nor, indeed, when she suspected that anything was amiss, quick to see symptoms at all. But through her closed eyelids, so to speak, there filtered the fact that Elizabeth altogether avoided looking at Edward, but that he observed her with furtive, eager glances, that somehow seemed disappointed in what they sought. Also, though Elizabeth took spasmodic and violent spells at the piano, she never played in the evening when Edward was there, but had evinced a sudden desire to learn the new patience which Mrs. Hancock had found in a ladies' paper. Mrs. Hancock did not so much wonder at that, for this particular mode of killing time was undoubtedly of thrilling interest, and she almost thought of buying Elizabeth a little patience-table for her birthday, which occurred in October. She intended in any case to look out the article in question in the catalogue from the stores and see how much it cost. There would be no harm in that, and if it cost more than she felt she could manage, why, there would be no necessity to say anything about it. But then an admirable notion struck her—her own table was getting a little rickety; it shook when she put cards down on to it. Also it was rather small for the great four-pack "King of Mexico," which she had fully determined to learn this autumn. So Elizabeth should have her old table, and she would get a new one of size No. 1 (bevelled edges and adjustable top). That it was even more expensive did not trouble her, and she impressively told herself that she would not have dreamed of buying it had it not been that she wanted to give dear Elizabeth a present. In fact, though she bought it apparently for herself it was really Elizabeth for whom this great expense was incurred. And all these rich and refreshing rewards—namely, another month at Heathmoor, instead of the cobras and deserts of India, a tour in Egypt, and the most expensive patience-table at the stores—she would announce to her fortunate niece as they went round by the Old Mill. How all the look of trouble and depression would fade from dear Elizabeth's face as she listened to the announcement of those delicious joys, one after the other. Mrs. Hancock felt a sudden gush of thankfulness to the kind disposition of Providence that had endowed her with the ample income which she was so eager to spend in securing the happiness of others; and even while, without self-conscious commonplace, she felt herself blessed in such opportunities and the will to take advantage of them, she could not help feeling how true it was that kindness and thought for others is so laden with gain for oneself. For she herself would have a new patience-table (size No. 1, with bevelled edges), a delightful companion throughout October, after Edith had left her, while Elizabeth's father would pay her expenses in Egypt. She could not help feeling also how much more Christian and how much more Martinesque it was to stifle, smother, and destroy whatever might be the cause of Elizabeth's trouble by this perfect shower of causes for happiness, rather than inquire into it and thus run the risk of being herself unsettled and made uneasy. But it had certainly required an effort; she had to put firmly out of her mind not only Elizabeth's possible worries, but also the remembrance of the evening when she had come back from dinner with the Martins, and thought Edward's voice had sounded odd, and seen Edith's fan lying broken on the floor. That had never been explained. Edith had said subsequently that she supposed she must have stepped on it, but it was very odd she should not have noticed it, for the breaking of all those ivory sticks must have made quite a loud snap. Meantime the gong that heralded the arrival of the motor had sounded quite two minutes and Elizabeth had not yet appeared. Mrs. Hancock thought she would just speak to her on the subject of punctuality, and then wipe all impression of blame away by the recital of these prospective benefits. Elizabeth was not downstairs, and it was just possible that she had not heard the gong; Lind was told to sound it again.
Elizabeth heard it the second time that it boomed, and rose from where she knelt by her bed, by the side of which five minutes ago she had flung herself, following, so it seemed to her, some blind instinctive impulse. That morning there had broken over her a storm of rayless despair. For a couple of days after her final rejection of Edward, when Edith's absolute determination not to give him up voluntarily had been known to her, the apathetic quiet of the step taken, of deliberate renunciation, had been hers. But it had not been, and the poor girl guessed it, the peace that is always eventually not only the reward but the consequence of self-abnegation, but only the exhaustion that follows a prolonged mental effort. Edith's choice, apart from the tremendous significance it had for herself, was incredible and monstrous to her nature. She did not question the fact that Edith loved Edward, but the notion of love not seeking the happiness of the beloved was to her inconceivable. She could not understand it, could not in consequence have the smallest sympathy with it. But this she had to take and did take on trust, and let depend on it her own unalterable decision—that decision that, as far as she could see, took the sun bodily out of her own life. From mere weariness she had found in the dull acquiescence in this an apathy that had for a couple of days anæsthetized her. Against this insensitiveness, knowing that it was valueless, she had made pitiful little struggles, seeking now to establish some kind of sympathy and renewal of intimacy with her cousin, now to rouse herself to feel in music the passion with which it had inspired her. Instead, for the present, she found she had a shrinking abhorrence of it. Its beauty had become remote, and from its withdrawn eminence, its unassailable snow-peaks, it mocked her. It did more than mock; it reminded her of all it had done for her, how through it she and Edward had been brought together, to stand now close to each other, embracing, overlapping, yet with a thin, unmeltable ice between them.
Then in due course had come the recuperation of her vital forces, and she had awoke this morning after long and dreamless sleep to find that the anæsthesia of her mind had passed off. For a couple of minutes perhaps she had lain still in the delicious consciousness of restored vigour, and of delight in the new freshness of the early day. Then as she became fully conscious of herself again, she found that what had been recuperated in her was but her capacity for suffering, and the blackness of a vivid despair, bright black, not dull black, fell on her, more black because she knew that it was a darkness of her own making. A word from her to Edward would scatter it and let loose the morning. She had no doubt of that, no doubt that he, at her bidding, would break the fetters of his promise that bound him as easily as if they had been but a wisp of unwoven straw. She told herself and, what was the more persuasive, she could hear his voice telling her that she was committing a crime against love, that she was refusing and bidding him profane the most sacred gift of all. She told herself that she was a fool to listen to any voice but that which sounded so insistently, but there was yet a voice, still and small, that was steadfast in its message to her. It was not that she cared one jot for the ordinary external consequences of a disobedience to that; she guessed that there would be a consensus of opinion in her favour if she disobeyed. No doubt they would say it was a deplorable accident that she and Edward had fallen in love with each other, but once the accident had happened it was best to make the best of a regrettable situation. The young man had never been in love with poor Edith; he had but fallen a lukewarm victim to the influence of propinquity and Mrs. Hancock. Certainly it was very sad for Miss Hancock, but she was young, she would get over it, and probably end by making quite a good marriage.
Elizabeth cared little for either the approval or condemnation of the world in general. The thought of it was remote and stifled and insignificant. But it was Edward who called to her, called loud, called closely and low, and she must be deaf not to listen to him, not hear him even. At whatever cost she had to approve of herself.
Black, empty aching, an intolerable loneliness. She had but one desire, apart from the desire of her heart, and that was to escape from it all, to go away as quickly as possible, to be out of sight of what she might not contemplate. Far away, across leagues of hot ocean and miles of plain baking from the summer solstice, was her father. No one else in the world did she want to see, to no one else—if even to him—could she pour out her woe. He would comprehend, would approve, she knew, of all she had done, not blaming her for letting love so completely envelop her, not praising her rejection of it, but simply seeing even as she had seen, in loneliness and heart's anguish, that there was no other course possible. She knew that as thoroughly as if she had already opened her whole heart to him.