Chapter 6

"Since twenty years."

"Twenty years in which you have not seen your friend."

"I know that that looks strange. But when one shuts oneself away into a cloister one shuts out friends."

"Does one?"

"You won't trust me?"

"I don't know anything about you, except that you have made my mother ill and that you want something of me."

"My dear young man I, at all events, know one thing about you very clearly, and that is that I trust you."

"I want nothing of you," said Augustine, but he still smiled, so that his words did not seem discourteous.

"Nothing? Really nothing? I am your mother's friend, and you want nothing of me? I have sought her out; I came today to see and understand; I have not made her ill; she was nearly crying when we came into the room, you and I, a little while ago. What I see and understand makes me sad and angry. And I believe that you, too, see and understand; I believe that you, too, are sad and angry. And I want to help you. I want you, when you come into the world, as you must, to bring your mother. I'll be waiting there for you both. I am a sort of fairy-godmother. I want to see justice done."

"I suppose you mean that you are angry with my father and want to see justice done on him," said Augustine after a pause.

Again Lady Elliston sat suddenly still, as if another, an unexpected bullet, had whizzed past her. "What makes you say that?" she asked after a moment.

"What you have said and what you have seen. He had been making her cry," said Augustine. He was still calm, but now, under the calm, she heard, like the thunder of the sea in caverns deep beneath a placid headland, the muffled sound of a hidden, a dark indignation.

"Yes," she said, looking into his eyes; "that made me angry; and that he should take all her money from her, as I am sure he does, and leave her to live like this."

Augustine's colour rose. He turned away his eyes and seemed to ponder.

"I do want something of you, after all; the answer to one question," he said at last. "Is it because of him that she is cloistered here?"

In a flash Lady Elliston had risen to her emergency, her opportunity. She was grave, she was ready, and she was very careful.

"It was her own choice," she said.

Augustine pondered again. He, too, was grave and careful She saw how, making use of her proffered help, he yet held her at a distance. "That does not answer my question," he said. "I will put it in another way. Is it because of some evil in his life that she is cloistered?"

Lady Elliston sat before him in one of the high-backed chairs; the light was behind her: the delicate oval of her face maintained its steady attitude: in the twilit room Augustine could see her eyes fixed very strangely upon him. She, too, was perhaps pondering. When at last she spoke, she rose in speaking, as if her answer must put an end to their encounter, as if he must feel, as well as she, that after her answer there could be no further question.

"Not altogether, for that," she said; "but, yes, in part it is because of what you would call an evil in his life that she is cloistered."

Augustine walked with her to the door and down the stone passage outside, where a strip of faded carpet hardly kept one's feet from the cold. He was nearer to her in this curious moment of their parting than he had been at all. He liked Lady Elliston in her last response; it was not the wish to see justice wreaked that had made it; it was mere truth.

When they had reached the hall door, he opened it for her and in the fading light he saw that she was very pale. The Grey's dog-cart was going slowly round and round the gravel drive. Lady Elliston did not look at him. She stood waiting for the groom to see her.

"What you asked me was asked in confidence," she said; "and what I have told you is told in confidence."

"It wasn't new to me; I had guessed it," said Augustine. "But your confirmation of what I guessed is in confidence."

"I have been your father's life-long friend," said Lady Elliston; "He is not an evil man."

"I understand. I don't misjudge him."

"I don't want to see justice done on him," said Lady Elliston. The groom had seen her and the dog-cart, with a brisk rattle of wheels, drew up to the door. "It isn't a question of that; I only want to see justice done _for_ her."

All through she had been steady; now she was sweet again. "I want to free her. I want you to free her. And--whenever you do--I shall be waiting to give her to the world again."

They looked at each other now and Augustine could answer, with another smile; "You are the world, I suppose."

"Yes; I am the world," she accepted. "The actual fairy-godmother, with a magic wand that can turn pumpkins into coaches and put Cinderellas into their proper places."

Augustine had handed her up to her seat beside the groom. He tucked her rug about her. If he had laid aside anything to meet her on her own ground, he, too, had regained it now.

"But does the world always know what _is_ the proper place?" was his final remark as she drove off.

She did not know that she could have found an answer to it.

VII

Amabel was sitting beside her window when her son came in and the face she turned on him was white and rigid.

"My dear mother," said Augustine, coming up to her, "how pale you are."

She had been sitting there for all that time, tearless, in a stupor of misery. Yes, she answered him, she was very tired.

Augustine stood over her looking out of the window. "A little walk wouldn't do you good?" he asked.

No, she answered, her head ached too badly.

She could find nothing to say to him: the truth that lay so icily upon her heart was all that she could have said: "I am your guilty mother. I robbed you of your father. And your father is dead, unmourned, unloved, almost forgotten by me." For that was the poison in her misery, to know that for Paul Quentin she felt almost nothing. To hear that he had died was to hear that a ghost had died.

What would Augustine say to her if the truth were spoken? It was now a looming horror between them. It shut her from him and it shut him away.

"Oh, do come out," said Augustine after a moment: "the evening's so fine: it will do you good; and there's still a bit of sunset to be seen."

She shook her head, looking away from him.

"Is it really so bad as that?"

"Yes; very bad."

"Can't I do anything? Get you anything?"

"No, thank you."

"I'm so sorry," said Augustine, and, suddenly, but gravely, deliberately, he stooped and kissed her.

"Oh--don't!--don't!" she gasped. She thrust him away, turning her face against the chair. "Don't: you must leave me.--I am so unhappy."

The words sprang forth: she could not repress them, nor the gush of miserable tears.

If Augustine was horrified he was silent. He stood leaning over her for a moment and then went out of the room.

She lay fallen in her chair, weeping convulsively. The past was with her; it had seized her and, in her panic-stricken words, it had thrust her child away. What would happen now? What would Augustine say? What would he ask? If he said nothing and asked nothing, what would he think?

She tried to gather her thoughts together, to pray for light and guidance; but, like a mob of blind men locked out from sanctuary, the poor, wild thoughts only fled about outside the church and fumbled at the church door. Her very soul seemed shut against her.

She roused herself at last, mechanically telling herself that she must go through with it; she must dress and go down to dinner and she must find something to say to Augustine, something that would make what had happened to them less sinister and inexplicable.

--Unless--it seemed like a mad cry raised by one of the blind men in the dark,--unless she told him all, confessed all; her guilt, her shame, the truths of her blighted life. She shuddered; she cowered as the cry came to her, covering her ears and shutting it out. It was mad, mad. She had not strength for such a task, and if that were weakness--oh, with a long breath she drew in the mitigation--if it were weakness, would it not be a cruel, a heartless strength that could blight her child's life too, in the name of truth. She must not listen to the cry. Yet strangely it had echoed in her, almost as if from within, not from without, the dark, deserted church; almost as if her soul, shut in there in the darkness, were crying out to her. She turned her mind from the sick fancy.

Augustine met her at dinner. He was pale but he seemed composed. They spoke little. He said, in answer to her questioning, that he had quite liked Lady Elliston; yes, they had had a nice talk; she seemed very friendly; he should go and see her when he next went up to London.

Amabel felt the crispness in his voice but, centered as she was in her own self-mastery, she could not guess at the degree of his.

After dinner they went into the drawing-room, where the old, ugly lamp added its light to the candles on the mantel-piece.

Augustine took his book and sat down at one side of the table. Amabel sat at the other. She, too, took a book and tried to read; a little time passed and then she found that her hands were trembling so much that she could not. She slid the book softly back upon the table, reaching out for her work-bag. She hoped Augustine had not seen, but, glancing up at him, she saw his eyes upon her.

Augustine's eyes looked strange tonight. The dark rims around the iris seemed to have expanded. Suddenly she felt horribly afraid of him.

They gazed at each other, and she forced herself to a trembling, meaningless smile. And when she smiled at him he sprang up and came to her. He leaned over her, and she shrank back into her chair, shutting her eyes.

"You must tell me the truth," said Augustine. "I can't bear this. _He_ has made you unhappy.--_He_ comes between us."

She lay back in the darkness, hearing the incredible words.

"He?--What do you mean?"

"He is a bad man. And he makes you miserable. And you love him."

She heard the nightmare: she could not look at it.

"My husband bad? He is good, more good than you can guess. What do you mean by speaking so?"

With closed eyes, shutting him out, she spoke, anger and terror in her voice.

Augustine lifted himself and stood with his hands clenched looking at her.

"You say that because you love him. You love him more than anything or anyone in the world."

"I do. I love him more than anyone or anything in the world. How have you dared--in silence--in secret--to nourish these thoughts against the man who has given you all you have."

"He hasn't given me all I have. You are everything in my life and he is nothing. He is selfish. He is sensual. He is stupid. He doesn't know what beauty or goodness is. I hate him," said Augustine.

Her eyes at last opened on him. She grasped her chair and raised herself. Whose hands were these, desecrating her holy of holies. Her son's? Was it her son who spoke these words? An enemy stood before her.

"Then you do not love me. If you hate him you do not love me,"--her anger had blotted out her fear, but she could find no other than these childish words and the tears ran down her face.

"And if you love him you cannot love me," Augustine answered. His self-mastery was gone. It was a fierce, wild anger that stared back at her. His young face was convulsed and livid.

"It is you who are bad to have such false, base thoughts!" his mother cried, and her eyes in their indignation, their horror, struck at him, accused him, thrust him forth. "You are cruel--and hard--and self-righteous.--You do not love me.--There is no tenderness in your heart!"--

Augustine burst into tears. "There is no room in your heart for me!--" he gasped. He turned from her and rushed out of the room.

* * * * *

A long time passed before she leaned forward in the chair where she had sat rigidly, rested her elbows on her knees, buried her face in her hands.

Her heart ached and her mind was empty: that was all she knew. It had been too much. This torpor of sudden weakness was merciful. Now she would go to bed and sleep.

It took her a long time to go upstairs; her head whirled, and if she had not clung to the baluster she would have fallen.

In the passage above she paused outside Augustine's door and listened. She heard him move inside, walking to his window, to lean out into the night, probably, as was his wont. That was well. He, too, would sleep presently.

In her room she said to her maid that she did not need her. It took her but a few minutes tonight to prepare for bed. She could not even braid her uncoiled hair. She tossed it, all loosened, above her head as she fell upon the pillow.

She heard, for a little while, the dull thumping of her heart. Her breath was warm in a mesh of hair beneath her cheek; she was too sleepy to put it away. She was wakened next morning by the maid. Her curtains were drawn and a dull light from a rain-blotted world was in the room.

The maid brought a note to her bedside. From Mr. Augustine, she said.

Amabel raised herself to hold the sheet to the light and read:--

"Dear mother," it said. "I think that I shall go and stay with Wallace for a week or so. I shall see you before I go up to Oxford. Try to forgive me for my violence last night. I am sorry to have added to your unhappiness. Your affectionate son--Augustine."

Her mind was still empty. "Has Mr. Augustine gone?" she asked the maid.

"Yes, ma'am; he left quite early, to catch the eight-forty train."

"Ah, yes," said Amabel. She sank back on her pillow. "I will have my breakfast in bed. Tea, please, only, and toast."--Then, the long habit of self-discipline asserting itself, the necessity for keeping strength, if it were only to be spent in suffering:--"No, coffee, and an egg, too."

She found, indeed, that she was very hungry; she had eaten nothing yesterday. After her bath and the brushing and braiding of her hair, it was pleasant to lie propped high on her pillows and to drink her hot coffee. The morning papers, too, were nice to look at, folded on her tray. She did not wish to read them; but they spoke of a firmly established order, sustaining her life and assuring her of ample pillows to lie on and hot coffee to drink, assuring her that bodily comforts were pleasant whatever else was painful. It was a childish, a still stupefied mood, she knew, but it supported her; an oasis of the familiar, the safe, in the midst of whirling, engulfing storms.

It supported her through the hours when she lay, with closed eyes, listening to the pour and drip of the rain, when, finally deciding to get up, she rose and dressed very carefully, taking all her time.

Below, in the drawing-room, when she entered, it was very dark. The fire was unlit, the bowls of roses were faded; and sudden, childish tears filled her eyes at the desolateness. On such a day as this Augustine would have seen that the fire was burning, awaiting her. She found matches and lighted it herself and the reluctantly creeping brightness made the day feel the drearier; it took a long time even to warm her foot as she stood before it, leaning her arm on the mantel-piece.

It was Saturday; she should not see her girls today; there was relief in that, for she did not think that she could have found anything to say to them this morning.

Looking at the roses again, she felt vexed with the maid for having left them there in their melancholy. She rang and spoke to her almost sharply telling her to take them away, and when she had gone felt the tears rise with surprise and compunction for the sharpness.

There would be no fresh flowers in the room today, it was raining too hard. If Augustine had been here he would have gone out and found her some wet branches of beech or sycamore to put in the vases: he knew how she disliked a flowerless, leafless room, a dislike he shared.

How the rain beat down. She stood looking out of the window at the sodden earth, the blotted shapes of the trees. Beyond the nearest meadows it was like a grey sheet drawn down, confusing earth and sky and shutting vision into an islet.

She hoped that Augustine had taken his mackintosh. He was very forgetful about such things. She went out to look into the bleak, stone hall hung with old hunting prints that were dimmed and spotted with age and damp. Yes, it was gone from its place, and his ulster, too. It had been a considered, not a hasty departure. A tweed cloak that he often wore on their walks hung there still and, vaguely, as though she sought something, she turned it, looked at it, put her hands into the worn, capacious pockets. All were empty except one where she found some withered gorse flowers. Augustine was fond of stripping off the golden blossoms as they passed a bush, of putting his nose into the handful of fragrance, and then holding it out for her to smell it, too:--"Is it apricots, or is it peaches?" she could hear him say.

She went back into the drawing-room holding the withered flowers. Their fragrance was all gone, but she did not like to burn them. She held them and bent her face to them as she stood again looking out. He would by now have reached his destination. Wallace was an Eton friend, a nice boy, who had sometimes stayed at Charlock House. He and Augustine were perhaps already arguing about Nietzsche.

Strange that her numbed thoughts should creep along this path of custom, of maternal associations and solicitudes, forgetful of fear and sorrow. The recognition came with a sinking pang. Reluctantly, unwillingly, her mind was forced back to contemplate the catastrophe that had befallen her. He was her judge, her enemy: yet, on this dismal day, how she missed him. She leaned her head against the window-frame and the tears fell and fell.

If he were there, could she not go to him and take his hand and say that, whatever the deep wounds they had dealt each other, they needed each other too much to be apart. Could she not ask him to take her back, to forgive her, to love her? Ah--there full memory rushed in. Her heart seemed to pant and gasp in the sudden coil. Take him back? When it was her steady fear as well as her sudden anger that had banished him, he thought he loved her, but that was because he did not know and it was the anger rather than the love of Augustine's last words that came to her. He loved her because he believed her good, and that imaginary goodness cast a shadow on her husband. To believe her good Augustine had been forced to believe evil of the man she loved and to whom they both owed everything.

He had said that he was shut out from her heart, and it was true, and her heart broke in seeing it. But it was by more than the sacred love for her husband that her child was shut out. Her past, her guilt, was with her and stood as a barrier between them. She was separated from him for ever. And, looking round the room, suddenly terrified, it seemed to her that Augustine was dead and that she was utterly alone.

VIII

She did not write to Augustine for some days. There seemed nothing that she could say. To say that she forgave him might seem to put aside too easily the deep wrong he had done her and her husband; to say that she longed to see him and that, in spite of all, her heart was his, seemed to make deeper the chasm of falseness between them.

The rain fell during all these days. Sometimes a pale evening sunset would light the western horizon under lifted clouds and she could walk out and up and down the paths, among her sodden rose-trees, or down into the wet, dark woods. Sometimes at night she saw a melancholy star shining here and there in the vaporous sky. But in the morning the grey sheet dropped once more between her and the outer world, and the sound of the steady drip and beat was like an outer echo to her inner wretchedness.

It was on the fourth day that wretchedness turned to bitter restlessness, and that to a sudden resolve. Not to write, not even to say she forgave, might make him think that her heart was still hardened against him. Her fear had blunted her imagination. Clearly now she saw, and with an anguish in the vision, that Augustine must be suffering too. Clearly she heard the love in his parting words. And she longed so to see, to hear that love again, that the longing, as if with sudden impatience of the hampering sense of sin, rushed into words that might bring him.

She wrote:--"My dear Augustine. I miss you very much. Isn't this dismal weather. I am feeling better. I need not tell you that I do forgive you for the mistake that hurts us both." Then she paused, for her heart cried out "Oh--come back soon"; but she did not dare yield to that cry. She hardly knew that, with uncertain fingers, she only repeated again:--"I miss you very much. Your affectionate mother."

This was on the fourth day.

On the afternoon of the fifth she stood, as she so often stood, looking out at the drawing-room window. She was looking and listening, detached from what she saw, yet absorbed, too, for, as with her son, this watchfulness of natural things was habitual to her.

It was still raining, but more fitfully: a wind had risen and against a scudding sky the sycamores tossed their foliage, dark or pale by turns as the wind passed over them. A broad pool of water, dappling incessantly with rain-drops, had formed along the farther edge of the walk where it slanted to the lawn: it was this pool that Amabel was watching and the bobbin-like dance of drops that looked like little glass thimbles. The old leaden pipes, curiously moulded, that ran down the house beside the windows, splashed and gurgled loudly. The noise of the rushing, falling water shut out other sounds. Gazing at the dancing thimbles she was unaware that someone had entered the room behind her.

Suddenly two hands were laid upon her shoulders.

The shock, going through her, was like a violent electric discharge. She tingled from head to foot, and almost with terror. "Augustine!" she gasped. But the shock was to change, yet grow, as if some alien force had penetrated her and were disintegrating every atom of her blood.

"No, not Augustine," said her husband's voice: "But you can be glad to see me, can't you, Amabel?"

He had taken off his hands now and she could turn to him, could see his bright, smiling face looking at her, could feel him as something wonderful and radiant filling the dismal day, filling her dismal heart, with its presence. But the shock still so trembled in her that she did not move from her place or speak, leaning back upon the window as she looked at him,--for he was very near,--and putting her hands upon the window-sill on either side. "You didn't expect to see me, did you," Sir Hugh said.

She shook her head. Never, never, in all these years, had he come again, so soon. Months, always, sometimes years, had elapsed between his visits.

"The last time didn't count, did it," he went on, in speech vague and desultory yet, at the same time, intent and bright in look. "I was so bothered; I behaved like a selfish brute; I'm sure you felt it. And you were so particularly kind and good--and dear to me, Amabel."

She felt herself flushing. He stood so near that she could not move forward and he must read the face, amazed, perplexed, incredulous of its joy, yet all lighted from his presence, that she kept fixed on him. For ah, what joy to see him, to feel that here, here alone of all the world, was she safe, consoled, known yet cared for. He who understood all as no one else in the world understood, could stand and smile at her like that.

"You look thin, and pale, and tired," were his next words. "What have you been doing to yourself? Isn't Augustine here? You're not alone?"

"Yes; I am alone. Augustine is staying with the Wallace boy."

With the mention of Augustine the dark memory came, but it was now of something dangerous and hostile shut away, yes, safely shut away, by this encompassing brightness, this sweetness of intent solicitude. She no longer yearned to see Augustine.