Part 11

Pamela began to laugh hysterically. She got up from the tea-table and walked to the opposite window. She reflected that it was impossible to argue with Lottie Prynne; she had no sense of humor. But the sting of the situation was this gossip of the Billops. They were related to Paul but Sidney was making it intolerable by circulating some story about the Astrys and the Belhavens. As yet Pamela only half knew it; she had forbidden Mrs. Billop to repeat it to her, but not even her prohibition would silence Sidney's foolish tongue, and, to make matters worse, he had accepted an invitation from Astry for Thursday night. They were all bidden there to dinner, and Pamela wondered if Charter would go. A woman's sixth sense told her that he loved Rachel and that there were shoals ahead. Pamela, who was happily married, found John's misery absorbingly interesting.

"Pamela, your back's charming," said Dr. Macclesfield, from the tea-table, "but Mrs. Prynne and I feel obscured without the light of your countenance."

Pamela turned, laughing. "Are you going to dine at the Astrys' Thursday night, Doctor?"

"My dear, I wouldn't miss it for the world; I want to see the parrots."

"I'm afraid of Astry," Lottie Prynne said; "he looks straight through you with those cold eyes of his. And I hate that den with the skulls and the toads and the old warming-pans."

Dr. Macclesfield choked violently. "No, no, no water!" he gasped to Pamela, "it was a crumb of macaroon."

"I don't know what to do," she said, "but I read somewhere that you ought to stand people on their heads for choking."

"How in the world could you do it?" objected Mrs. Prynne; "if they didn't balance themselves with their hands they'd topple over and choke worse than ever."

"Pamela's a mental acrobat," gasped the doctor, wiping his eyes, "you can't follow her, Mrs. Prynne."

"Here comes Paul now with Colonel Sedley and Sidney," announced Pamela, looking out of the window.

"Are Sidney's ears red?" asked the doctor maliciously.

Pamela caught his eye and laughed reluctantly, just as the three men came in. Colonel Sedley made his way to a chair by Mrs. Prynne and Paul walked over to shake hands with the doctor. Sidney, with his lank, blond hair carefully parted and a redness to his eyelids, occupied the center of the stage. He took a rare old chair and creaked in it, to Pamela's secret despair.

"I've just heard an awfully jolly conundrum," he said, looking a little more vacant than usual. "Why is an elephant like a brickbat?"

"Both good to kill fools, I reckon," said Colonel Sedley viciously.

Dr. Macclesfield tittered shamelessly.

"Neither of them can climb a tree," Sidney cried triumphantly.

"I hope you didn't invent that, Billop," said Van Citters languidly. "If you did, don't allow yourself many like it in one day."

"One before meals, Sidney, with a little pepsin," suggested Dr. Macclesfield.

"You know I think it's awfully good," said Sidney candidly. "One wouldn't guess it quickly; that's the main point."

"I thought my answer as good as yours," said Colonel Sedley.

"Oh, we don't expect soldiers to discover anything but projectiles," said Pamela. "Where have you men been this morning?" she added, measuring some fresh tea from the little caddy at her elbow.

"Playing billiards with Astry," Sidney replied promptly. "By Jove, I pity that man!"

"What do you mean, Billop?" exclaimed Sedley bluntly. "Johnstone Astry's worth five million and a half and--"

"Hush!" said Pamela suddenly, holding up her finger.

The footman pushed aside the portière and everybody looked around. Rachel Belhaven came in alone, dressed in simple gray cloth, a sable boa on her shoulders and a large, halo-like, black hat throwing the delicate oval of her face into keen relief. She greeted them all easily.

"I only stopped for a moment," she explained. "Eva 'phoned me to make sure you were all coming on Thursday; she says Johnstone was so informal she was afraid there might be a misunderstanding."

Paul turned very red. "We'll be delighted," he said sheepishly, thinking of Sidney's iniquities.

"We may all get stalled in the snow," said Sidney. "They're predicting a blizzard."

"It's clear as a bell," snapped Van Citters.

"Sidney has an inherited dread of accidents," chuckled Dr. Macclesfield. "Addie would never go to church picnics because she said there might be snakes."

Meanwhile Pamela was begging Rachel to take off her hat and stay to dinner. "I'll 'phone for Belhaven," she urged.

Rachel colored; she could never conquer her inward start at the intimate association of Belhaven's name with hers. She stood in continued amazement at the miracle of their outward union and their actual aloofness. She evaded Mrs. Van Citters' urgency, however, and made her way at last to the door. Here she had to dismiss Paul with difficulty. She wanted to be alone, yet it was hard to escape an escort, especially now that it was dusk. However, she got away at last and walked swiftly out the long avenue to the suburbs. She felt an actual physical need of the long, hard climb; the exercise, the keen, cold air, the busy life of the thoroughfare, served to break the tension of her mood. She had scarcely seen her sister lately; Eva had withdrawn herself from her reach. She evaded her and refused to see her, pleading nerves, headaches, any indisposition, to escape, and Rachel felt that she understood and began herself to dread the resumption of any intimacy. Since her talk with Belhaven she had excused her sister less; she had not doubted her actual guiltlessness but she did doubt her innocence of treachery, in heart at least, to Astry. Between the actual crime and the guilt in thought there was a horrible propinquity which made Rachel shudder. She was aware of helping Eva to avoid her, but this condition of things could not last. The old relations of life remained, therefore she had immediately answered Eva's telephone message, and she was going on to her now.

In her heart Rachel hoped that Eva and Astry might yet be drawn together. She was sorry for Johnstone; it was like her to drop the thought of personal grievance in the larger considerations of justice and mercy, and she felt that Johnstone Astry had been hardly used. Since her talk with Belhaven she could not escape a horrid feeling of complicity in guilt against Astry; it made a bond between Eva, Belhaven, and herself, and it weighed heavily on Rachel's conscience. However, she was continually conscious now that Belhaven loved her; it seemed rather an increasing, than a decreasing, element in their relations. He had greatly changed and, in spite of herself, she began to like him. She saw that he blamed himself profoundly and that he clung to the thin thread of their friendship, a friendship that had grown on her side, too, during the weary months of their enforced companionship. The man was vitally changed; that he was less a coward, Rachel doubted; that he would ever transgress again she did not believe, not while his love for her held, and that thought forced home to her the sudden, unwelcome responsibility for this man's soul. He was weak; with her help he could stand,--without it? Rachel shivered; she longed to cry out with Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?"

At the top of the long hill she stopped and looked back. The city lay at her feet and she recalled, with keen distress, that night when she had stood looking out of her window before Eva came to her door. Here again were the scroll-like mystery of the lights, the long bright vista of the avenues, the distant, classic dome and the ghostly shaft of the monument. The frosty air cooled her cheek, the snow crunched under her feet; above she saw the stars, keen as knife-points in the winter sky. A feeling of ineffable sorrow and loneliness swept over her; she seemed such an atom in this vast dark universe, such an atom to possess the power to rescue that mysterious thing, a human soul. "Am I my brother's keeper?" A supreme question, deeply and intimately thrust into her life. She shuddered slightly and turned away, the mystery of her fate seeming, at the moment, unsolvable.

This thought was still with her when she approached the big, Georgian house on the hill and entered the hall where she and Astry had stood together that afternoon before her marriage. She recalled it as she crossed it and ascended the stairs. She had never been able to quite discover her brother-in-law's thought through his words; even now she was not sure. On the wide landing, where she had stood to look into the conservatory, she met him. He was coming down-stairs, his hands thrust into the pockets of his smoking-jacket and his head thrown back in a pose that was easy and characteristic. His sleepy eyelids drooped over his light eyes, his complexion had the dead whiteness that comes sometimes with light brown hair.

"Hello, Rachel, you're quite a stranger. Going up to see Eva?"

"Of course I'm going up to see Eva."

"You'll find her as charming as ever."

Rachel looked back over her shoulder, still ascending, and their eyes met; his look was a challenge. She quickened her step and left him standing there, the memory of his expression freezing an impulse of happiness that had risen in her heart.

Eva had taken Rachel's old room and was standing at the window, looking out into the darkness as her sister entered.

"I delivered your message, Eva, and they're all coming, but you'll have to excuse me."

Eva had not moved from the window and her figure in its long, loose, white kimono reminded Rachel painfully of that other dreadful scene in that same room. But now she turned her head languidly. "And Jim?" she asked.

"Of course he'll come."

The room was very still again; neither of the sisters moved or spoke; the little clock on the mantel ticked tumultuously; it raced with Rachel's heart.

Eva's voice broke the unearthly stillness. "You've been a long time coming to see us."

"I've been busy."

"Johnstone's just told me--that Charter's come back."

Rachel moved nearer to the big winged chair and laid her hand on the back. "Yes," she said slowly, "he'll be on duty here all winter."

Eva turned from the window and faced her, clasping her hands tightly together. She was very pale and her long, beautiful hair fell about her face and shoulders like a cloud of gold.

"Oh, Rachel," her voice trembled, "how hard it will be for you!"

"Don't let us talk too much about it, Eva."

But Eva came over and sank into the chair, hiding her face in her hands. "Rachel, I--I asked Belhaven to let you go."

"You asked him--to let me go?" Rachel's heart seemed to stop beating. "Eva, you don't mean that you still care so much for him?"

"No--no, not that!"

Rachel stood thinking; a sudden horror had filled her soul with agony. "Eva, I meant to have told you before--I saw you and Belhaven that day in the wood."

Eva's hands fell in her lap; a deep blush dyed her worn face as she looked up. "And you thought?"

Rachel nodded, tears in her eyes. "Forgive me!"

Eva shook her head slowly. "It's natural--I--I--oh, Rachel, I was begging him to let you go; I can't bear it, I've ruined your life and his and Johnstone's--I can never be anything to him either!"

Rachel caught her hands in hers. "Eva, you're beginning to care what Johnstone thinks?"

Eva slipped from the chair to the floor at her sister's feet. "Rachel, I can't bear it any longer; I was false and cruel, I know it now! I've never done a noble thing in my life and you've always been an angel to me, Rachel," her head sank lower. "I was going away that night with Belhaven and--at the last--I was afraid; I made you save me from Astry's anger."

Rachel's heart seemed to stop beating; she could not speak. What had she done, what had she done? And Eva was guilty!

The golden head sank lower.

"Rachel, it's almost killed me. If any one thinks it's happiness to do such a thing, it isn't. The way--the way of the transgressor is hard; God only knows how hard is the way!"

Rachel raised her gently and put her in the chair, then she knelt down beside her and held her in her arms.

"I'd gladly die if I could undo it," Eva said brokenly, "but I can't. It's like a trap; I'm caught, I can't get away from my sins."

"Eva, do you--still love him?"

"You mean Belhaven?" Eva hid her face on Rachel's shoulder. "Never, never a moment after I saw he was afraid of Johnstone!"

"Thank God!"

"What does it matter?" Eva was in despair. "What does anything matter? I can't undo it! I don't think he'll let you get a divorce; he said it wouldn't do any good. Oh, Rachel, I'm so wretched! What can I do?"

"You can tell the truth to Johnstone now, Eva."

The culprit shrank. "Oh, no, no!"

Rachel took her hands again and held them steadily. "Eva, I think you love your husband."

Eva made no answer, but she turned her face away with a little, half-stifled sob. "It wouldn't make any difference now! I've no one but you left to love me, Rachel, and I've lied about you and ruined your life!"

"Not even that must keep you silent, Eva; the truth is God's, you'll have to speak it sooner or later."

"I'm not like you, Rachel, I'm not like that; I feel as if I'd been too wicked for God to have anything to do with me."

"You poor child!" Rachel forgot the misery that had made her recoil at first from the confession, and again her sister's weakness appealed to her strength. "You've got to go to God first, Eva, and afterwards you've got to tell Johnstone."

Eva sat staring at the wall, her face pale and small as a child's, her eyes wide with misery. "Rachel, I can't--I can't see the scorn grow in his eyes, I can't!"

"You'll never be happy until you do; it's just that--the falsehood--that hurts you."

"You mean against you?"

"Never mind me; I can bear it, I can even forgive you. I mean the falsehood against your husband."

Eva looked at her wildly. "Rachel, I'll do it if it will help you, if you can get a divorce."

Rachel shook her head. "I've always thought marriage too sacred to break so lightly. It hurt most to have taken the vows as I did, but it isn't only that. If I got it, Eva, all that I've done, all that I've suffered, would go for nothing, for it would publish the scandal; I couldn't save your good name."

Eva gazed at her with growing terror, her lips shaking. "Oh, Rachel, how awful! You're caught in a trap, and I did it!"

"I shan't feel that it's all in vain, I shan't even count the suffering too much, if it means that I've saved you, Eva, if I've brought you back to your husband."

Eva flung herself into her arms with a sob. "I'm not worth saving," she cried, "and I've ruined your life!"

XV

When Rachel finally got home she remembered with relief that Belhaven dined out that evening. She had forgotten it, forgotten everything but the misery of Eva's confession. But now she refused the dinner that the servants had prepared for her and asked, instead, for a cup of tea. She laid aside her furs mechanically and went into the old tap-room. Its aspect, with the fire on the hearth and the candles on the tea-table, gave her almost a shock. She had the dazed feeling of one who has been away a long time and come back to find material things unchanged.

She stood looking at the room, trying to recall its normal aspect, for its cheerfulness mocked her. Under her rule it had assumed an appearance so warm and homely and inviting that she had grown to love it, and it had touched her once when she found Belhaven there looking about him in a kind of despair.

"You've made it like home," he said to her, "and I wish you might come to be happy in it."

At the time she had found a gentle answer; now she felt that it would shrivel on her lips. He and Eva had sacrificed her to their sin and their cowardice; or was it only Eva's cowardice, her determination to escape the consequences of her own act? Yet, poor Eva! The thought of her, broken and penitent, touched the wellspring of her sister's sympathy. But the facts of life remained; how was she to meet them? How endure this tissue of falsehood? She, too, had helped deceive her brother-in-law, for however she tried to excuse herself, in the light of Eva's confession, she was party to a conspiracy to deceive the husband. She felt again the subtle, bonds of complicity in guilt against Astry, as if in the law she had compounded a felony; yet she was, for the first time, drawn toward him as her fellow sufferer. Astry and herself were the victims; they paid the piper. Then came again the pity for Eva, the sinner who so needed help and forgiveness, whom she could not betray, not even to escape the shackles that bound her.

Rachel walked to and fro across the room, and once she stopped and deftly arranged some flowers in a vase on the table; then her hand fell from them with a shudder. Belhaven had brought them to her the day before--and he loved her! It was an enormity, but it was true. She did not know that he only obeyed the instinct of self-preservation, that he sought to find his own soul.

Presently Bantry came in with the hot water for the teakettle, and some cake. She arranged the tea-table herself frequently in the absence of the footman. As she passed Rachel she stopped to touch the fold of her skirt.

"You're pale, Miss Rachel," she said reprovingly, "you ought to eat something more; you look all tired out."

"I'm well enough," smiled Rachel.

The woman shook her head; as she went out and closed the door behind her she muttered to herself. "She's wearing her heart out, poor lamb, and there's that little devil!" Bantry shook her fist fiercely in the direction of the Astrys'. Eva had never appealed to her. The Evas of this world rarely appeal to their servants.

Rachel continued her walk, absorbed in thought, the vital forces of her strong nature warring within her. She was rebelling against the circumstances of her existence, she was realizing that she had deliberately ruined her own life to shield a sister who ought to have borne her punishment. She had sacrificed Charter, too, and now John's love for her was the one comfort of her lot and its greatest misery; it was hers and she could not take it, it was hers and she must cast it off! She looked across her life and saw it desolate, sacrificed to Eva. She was caught in an inextricable tangle and she could not escape without betraying Eva. She stretched out her hands with an impotent gesture of despair. She was battling for life, for hope; her strong soul rose passionately within her and struggled for its own.

Her mind was so full of the thought of him that she was scarcely startled when Charter appeared at the threshold, unannounced.

"Bantry let me in," he explained; "she said you had just come from the Astrys' and I wanted to see you."

"I came back some time ago," said Rachel, with an effort to speak naturally.

But his calm was even more unnatural than hers. "I had to come; I don't intend to make my presence in the city an annoyance to you, but--"

"John!" she cried sharply.

"It must be an annoyance to feel that I can't behave like a rational being when I'm near you; I suppose I shan't behave like one to-day, although I came here determined to have a plain talk with you at last."

Rachel's face paled yet more. "Better not, John!"

"I must! I've tried to stop my ears but I can't; it's no use. Rachel, it's said that you married Belhaven to save your sister."

She was silent; her clasped hands quivered slightly.

Charter looked at her with love and reproach.

"I understand, I had no right to say it to you, but--Rachel, it's more than I can bear!"

His cry touched her heart as no agony of her own had ever touched it.

"You're very brave, John, I've always believed in you; you're good, you've got to help me bear it."

"Isn't that mocking me?" he asked bitterly.

"I never mocked you in my life; I've always honored you."

"I don't deserve it. I'm a scoundrel, for with every thought of my heart, with every breath I draw, I'm making love to another man's wife!"

"You mustn't do it!"

He laughed, and his laugh was so strange that it startled them both. "Your advice is good; I can't follow it, that's all. Rachel, for God's sake, tell me the truth: do you love Belhaven, did you marry him of your own free will?"

Rachel turned from him and went to the fireplace; she folded her arms and laid her head upon them. She did not remember that Belhaven had stood there on the day of their marriage. She was cruelly placed; her love for Charter seemed to be the only thing in the world. What real claim had Belhaven upon her? He had deceived her, he had traded upon her loyalty to her sister, he had accepted her sacrifice, he was only her husband in name. But what if she told Charter the truth? He was good, but if she told him the truth? She loved him with all her soul.

"I don't believe you love him," he argued; "you're wretched, I can see it. I believe these hideous stories. Rachel, I have a right to know the truth, only the truth!"

She shuddered. The truth? Oh, God, how she longed to tell him the truth; her heart leaped at the thought!

"I ask for nothing else; if you love him, if you married him of your own free choice, tell me; it will help me, it will drive me away. I'm asking for bread, Rachel, and you've given me a stone."

She was weeping now, for she dared not tell him the truth, she dared not.

"Only the truth, Rachel!"

Her tears dried, they seemed burned into her eyes, and she pressed her hands against her throat; she felt as if she must surely strangle to death.

"Did you marry Belhaven of your own choice?" John asked again and his voice cut her to the heart; it was not like him to force her into a corner, but he was battling for life himself and this vivid revelation of his love was an acute agony to her.

She raised her head; she did not look at him, and her voice was very low as she replied, "Of my own choice!"

Charter turned from her and hid his face a moment in his hands,--strong, muscular, expressive hands, they were like him.

There was an intense silence.

At last he went slowly to the door. "Forgive me, I've been a brute--good-by."

But the limit of her endurance had been reached. "John," she cried, "come back!"

He turned and faced her; he looked as he had looked at death in battle. "It's no use, Rachel; thank you for telling me the truth."

"I didn't; I lied to you."

He uttered an inarticulate sound.

"I lied to you," said Rachel steadily; "now I'm going to tell you the truth. It's wrong, but I shall do it; I shall tell you the whole truth. I married Belhaven to shield my sister from Astry's anger. Astry accused her and Belhaven, she begged me to save her from disgrace. I yielded, I married him; I never loved him, I'm only his wife in name."

"Good God, was there no one in the world to stop you? No one to save you from such madness? Rachel, did you have no thought of me?"

"I thought--" her voice broke a little; she steadied herself again, "John, let it go--I married him."

"I couldn't let it go--Rachel, you knew I loved you?"

She shook her head sadly.

"You knew it, you must have known it!"

"No woman knows it until she's told."

"Is it possible that you married him thinking I didn't? What a fool I was, what a dunce! If I had only written you! But, Rachel, there was the cholera in the camp and I was with the poor fellows all the time. I thought you knew I loved you, I only tormented myself because I wasn't sure of you!"

"We were neither of us sure, it seems; it's our poor, stupid, little tragedy, John; let it go--it's over."

"You love me?" he asked gravely.

"Yes."

They stood looking at each other. There was no light in either face, no triumphant recognition of mutual feeling; to both the situation was horrible. He understood perfectly her feelings; that the fact of her marriage was unchanged, that it constituted an insuperable barrier between them; but he could not be restrained.