Part 8

Eva tried to answer him, to assure him that the letter was of no importance, but she could not; her tongue refused to utter the denial and she remained standing for a while as he had left her, her head resting against the white pilaster and her eyes closed. He had been dignified and almost kind and she felt humbled to the dust before his just anger. She began to be vaguely aware that she had judged him by a standard too mean for a man of his intellect and strength of character; she felt that she had given him the right to despise her and her humiliation strangled her natural impulse to defend herself at his expense. Besides, there was that letter in her pocket. How many of them had he seen? She shuddered at the thought of the blue conspicuousness of that cheap envelope with its over-powering perfume. No one could mistake one of them, and the servants had been watching them, the servants who probably knew the hand-writing. That thought thrust out the other which had clothed Astry in a new aspect.

She made her way into the house and slowly ascended the stairs to her own room. Her heart was heavy as she closed the door and locked it. Then she drew the letter out of her pocket, read it, and tore it up with keen disgust. It was from her former maid, Zélie, and it demanded five hundred dollars. There had been three of these in a month, and to each of them Eva had responded with a cheque. But money only increased the demand for money; it was like casting a piece of paper into a sucking draught of a furnace,--it was consumed in a twinkling.

Ever since Rachel dismissed the French girl, Eva had been in terror of her tongue, and then blackmail actually began. At first it was easy to pay a little, and then a little more; the sense of security was too sweet to be dear at any price. But security could not be purchased; a hundred was a mere drop in the bucket, and Zélie could dictate her terms. She was with Mrs. Billop; Mrs. Billop desired to know everything, but Zélie had been faithful to Eva, how faithful Eva could judge, but she was perishing for money, she was the sole support of aged parents, she must be paid or--she left the rest to Eva's imagination, and Eva knew Mrs. Billop. She longed extremely to be rid of Mrs. Billop and Zélie, but money was no longer plentiful; she had nearly exhausted her own cheque-book and an appeal to Astry was impossible, since their relations were strained to the breaking-point. She had borrowed heavily of Rachel, but now even Rachel asked questions. Of course there was Belhaven, but here some instinct innate in her blood stayed Eva; she was not sordid and she hated to ask Belhaven to pay the price of Zélie's silence. Moreover she felt that Belhaven was slipping away from her; he had honestly kept faith with Rachel, he had tried to let the past go, and, lately, she had even felt in his manner, his detached air, his vagrant glances, that he had ceased altogether to feel her spell, that he was eluding her. He no longer looked only at her, he no longer felt her presence in the room; he had grown distant and deeply thoughtful. Clearly she could not appeal to Belhaven.

Alone in her room Eva went over her accounts, studying them with an anxiety new to her. She wrote an eager note to one of her father's trustees suggesting a new investment that would bring greater results; then she remembered Aunt Drusilla Leven, still in her self-imposed exile. An appeal to her would, perhaps, avert the danger if Aunt Drusilla had managed to recuperate financially in the interval. Meanwhile Eva could only spare two hundred for the cormorant which is called blackmail. Only two hundred--that made five thousand in five months. The sum was appalling. Eva rebelled against it, and she rose and paced the room angrily, her cheeks red. She needed a great deal of money herself; she was wildly extravagant, and she would have to curtail her own luxuries for this. It was odious! A servant, a little French girl, a worthless creature, who was to be feared chiefly because she would not hesitate to falsify the matter from the beginning to the end and make a mountain out of a mole-hill! She would not endure it, and she tore up the cheque and wrote one for fifty and a note to say it was the last, she had paid enough.

She received no reply to this letter; no word was said, no sign made. After all, she reflected, she had won the victory; she had only needed a little courage. What a fool she had been!

Yes, what a fool, but the piper must always be paid.

XI

That night was a sleepless one for Eva. Not only did the thought of that little blue note recur to her constantly, but also the remembrance of Pamela's talk about Charter. Could it possibly be true? She recalled Rachel's face that night with a new perception of its anguish. At the time she had been too much absorbed in her own misery to see her sister's distress, but now her quickened mind leaped to conclusions. Was it possible that the announcement of Mrs. Prynne's engagement had influenced Rachel, that she had taken the leap in the dark because she was hurt to the quick? If so, the return of Charter a free man and still in love with her must have been the crowning agony of it all.

Eva sat up in bed in the soft darkness of the summer night and conjured up the past weeks, and at every point she found evidence, at every turn she saw the mark of Rachel's footprints ahead of her. It has been said that it is natural to hate one whom we have deeply injured, and at first Eva had recoiled from Rachel, but now a sudden rush of feeling carried her back to the days when they had been children together and Rachel had always given up to her, always petted her. Rachel's love had been like a well that was too deep for Eva's shallow plummet to fathom. Reviewing all the events that had crowded on the heels of Astry's accusation, Eva found no crumb of comfort for herself. She had suffered loss and mortification and a keen and excruciating anxiety; she had saved herself, as it were, at the slippery edge of the chasm, but she had been forced to crawl and cling to that edge ever since. She had sacrificed her sister, but, although she had saved herself for the moment, she had not achieved security, for there was Zélie. The little French girl who had discovered how near Mrs. Astry had been to running away with Belhaven held a rod of iron over her head that not even Rachel could avert. If it fell, it would not only ruin Eva but it would involve her innocent sister in the disgrace. It was characteristic of Eva that she nearly got out of bed to write another and larger cheque for Zélie, but she had not the courage; instead she shrank back into the pillows, afraid of the darkness and the solitude, afraid that if she moved Astry might hear her.

Through her terror and anxiety, too, filtered the thought, vague at first but crystallized at last into coherent shape, that she had gained nothing at all, not even the love of Belhaven, for, when she forced him to the alternative of his cowardly marriage to save her reputation, she had lost his affection, if she had ever had it! That was a question that tore her heart, for Eva, loving admiration and worship at her shrine, was disgusted with the idea that perhaps after all she had got herself into this horrible tangle for a man who had never really loved her and who, therefore, gave her up the more easily. She had lost everything then, she argued, and not even gained her own soul. Eva was just beginning to recognize that the Way of the Transgressors is hard.

In the morning she was troubled again at the new aspect in which her husband appeared. He was grave and almost kind; if he watched her, she was not aware of it, and he made no reference to those awful blue notes. She looked at him covertly, while trying to swallow her coffee, and discovered new lines about his eyes and mouth, a certain settled gravity of demeanor that seemed to remove him further and further from her, to alienate even his admiration and the keener tribute of his jealousy; she began to be vaguely aware that she was no longer first even with him. She had never loved him, and while she thought he loved her it was pleasant to flout him, but his indifference was altogether another matter. If blessings brighten as they take their flight, Astry's love certainly increased in value as it diminished. She was conscious, too, that he talked less than had been his custom when they were first married; he had dropped into the habit of absorbing his newspaper with his coffee and she found herself in the common wifely predicament of either remaining quiescent or trying to read the news upside down across the breakfast-table. Eva, who had been spoiled all her life, chafed under this commonplace treatment; it was disgusting to find herself suddenly of no importance. She did not yet recognize the inalienable truth of the maxim that indifference is the death of love, that no human being can go on forever loving another without the shadow of a return, and that there are few so humble that they care to pick up the crumbs that fall under the table. She had treated Astry with a pretty and languid indifference; she had violated his sense of the proprieties by encouraging the love-making of other men, and she had finally, it seemed, murdered his love for her.

The situation was quite unbearable and, pushing aside her plate, she rose from the table and began to tie on a large sun-hat of lace and muslin that framed her delicate face in its soft and filmy folds.

Astry glanced up from his paper. "You'll find it warm; it's eighty-five in the shade."

She shot an indignant glance at the paper behind which he had immediately subsided. "I don't think I'll feel it!"

Astry made no reply and Eva passed out of the long French window on to the piazza, but, instead of descending into the rose garden, which was situated on that side of the house, she made her way slowly across the terrace and through the tennis-court to the road. There she stood a moment considering, her white dress gathered up in both hands.

The road was shady and inviting, but it led directly past Rachel's front door and, although she was going there, she did not want to meet Belhaven. She had tried lately to avoid an encounter, and while she stood there, undecided, she was almost startled by the appearance of the postman, who stopped to hand her a letter. She took it gingerly, but a glance reassured her; it was not Zélie again, but only Pamela. Standing under the shade of a friendly locust, Eva broke the seal and glanced hastily at the careless, fashionable scrawl.

"DEAR EVA:--You looked so distressed when I went away that I can't forget it. Don't think of what I said; I don't know anything, and I'm sure Rachel never loved Charter, if she did why marry Belhaven? Don't you see how simple it is? Do take more care of yourself. We're off at seven thirty-five to-morrow, a brutal hour, but I hope it will be cooler. In haste, yours,

"PAMELA."

In spite of herself Eva smiled. Her friend's method of solving the problem was so entirely the usual method of people who try to solve the problems of others. Pamela, in an effort to comfort, was only turning the weapon in the wound, as the ignorant sympathizer will tear the heart open by uttering condolences that only strip the horror of all decent covering and accumulate the agony. Pamela's argument only furnished another reason for Eva to feel keenly distressed; she began to be convinced that Rachel had really loved Charter, while she had thrust Belhaven upon her at the very moment when she thought that her lover had forgotten her to marry Mrs. Prynne. Eva tore up Pamela's note and, scattering the bits broadcast, walked on under the trees; but she could not escape the thought that possessed her, it had become an _idée fixe_. It explained so many things, it goaded her with a hundred little pricks of pain. She scarcely noticed her path under the familiar trees, and she found none of Rachel's pleasure in a flower by the wayside or a bird in the bush. The simple, homely things of nature, the things of the Creator which comforted one sister, passed unseen by the other. Eva only observed that there was no one in the cedar grove and she entered by the little turnstile that led her to the rear of the house. She felt almost like some trespasser skulking along behind the rhododendrons, but she could not make up her mind to face the ordeal of Rachel and Belhaven together. She stopped once or twice, her graceful figure concealed by the clustering foliage, and peeped through some vista in the greenwood. The old, rambling house nestled under the trees with a peculiarly friendly and inviting aspect, and Eva perceived, with a fresh pang, how entirely Rachel had transformed it and clothed it with beauty and quaintness.

The deep-seated chairs on the wide veranda, the cool awnings, the lovely coloring of the flower-beds, all suggested the fostering hand of a woman clothed with those peculiar gifts which make home beautiful. Eva perceived it with a new keenness of vision and her heart sank as she recalled the unreal splendor of the big house that she had never loved to dwell in, which had been altogether for show and entertainment, and where she dreaded now to be alone with Astry. With this thought came another: with a sharp stab of pain, she wondered if Belhaven saw the difference, if he felt it too?

She had scarcely asked herself this question, however, when he appeared and she drew back with an involuntary start, forgetting that the rhododendrons completely screened her from his careless glance. But, after the first panic, she peeped out again and saw him lighting his cigar with the comfortable air of the habitué. He was clad in a suit of light summer flannels and wore a straw hat, and it seemed to Eva that he looked younger and taller than usual. He stood a moment on the steps and then sauntered down the driveway and disappeared through the gate. As he went he turned, looked back, and raised his hat with a courteous gesture. Eva caught her breath; then Rachel was watching him go!

After all, perhaps her distress was groundless, perhaps these two had found a way to reconcile themselves to their fate. She stood still, her lips compressed, thinking; with her old, soft self-pity, she thought her own position the hardest in the world, and that she had created the situation herself did not alleviate its misery. It was, perhaps, this very selfishness, this desire to find that no grief was as great as her own, that drove her on, for she only remained a moment in doubt; the next she was crossing the short stretch of lawn between the rhododendrons and the rear door. Sure now that Belhaven was out, she trailed leisurely across the intervening space and made her way to the front of the house.

As she had anticipated, she found Rachel in the front hall, but not even jealousy could detect any embarrassment or tenderness in her expression; instead, young Mrs. Belhaven looked deeply depressed. The sisters greeted each other with that constraint which was the natural result of their mutual knowledge. Rachel had been engaged in arranging some long-stemmed roses in a tall vase and she went on with her task, selecting them from a great cluster that lay on the table at her side. Eva picked up one or two and pressed them languidly against her face while she asked the usual desultory questions about the house and their mutual friends.

"Pamela went away this morning," she announced; "she came out yesterday to bid me good-by."

Rachel went on with the roses. "She needs a change: she's fallen off since last winter; Pamela's always in motion, like a merry-go-round."

"She thinks you look perfectly wretched."

"How complimentary! It seems we must have been taking stock of each other without any illusions on either side."

"You do look badly, Rachel, so white! You aren't ill, are you?"

"Do I look any whiter than you do? Come, Eva, we can't expect to look blooming; we've been through so much, you and I."

"I was in hopes I didn't show it; I can see that you do."

Rachel looked at her over the roses, a little vexed. "Well, you do show it."

"Do I?"

Eva went over to the mirror and gazed at her own reflection. The grace and loveliness of outline, the exquisite color of hair and eyes remained, but her face--now that she looked at it in the full light of the open door--was almost transparently pale. She sighed.

"I've gone off worse than Pamela!"

"With more cause, I'm sure," said Rachel bitterly.

"Oh, I've suffered!" Eva threw her two roses back on the table with the petulant gesture of a child, "no one knows how I've suffered!"

Rachel picked up the discarded roses and put them carefully into the vase. "Have you never thought of me, Eva?"

"That's one of the things that make it so bad, Rachel; I've thought of it often. I know it must be dreadful for you, it must be!"

"I don't think that quite expresses it."

Rachel spoke dispassionately, but as she turned and stood facing Eva, the ravages of pain were apparent in the dark shadows under the eyes, the delicately hollowed cheeks, the tightening of the sensitive lips. It had not diminished her beauty, which was less dependent on color than Eva's, and the subtle charm of her expression was deepened and accentuated; Eva felt it.

"Rachel, I'm certain that he--that he'll learn to love you better than he ever loved me; I know he hates me now!"

"Can't you let him go out of your life altogether?"

Eva shook her head slowly. "How can I? Think of all it meant to us, to you and me, Rachel! Besides, I've suffered."

Rachel looked at her with forbearance; she was unchanged after all, and she was in need of pity and help like a child.

"You'll have to bear it, Eva; I have to."

"Then--" Eva dragged the words out--"you are wretched?"

"Why do you want to dwell on it? What good does it do? We've got to bear it."

Eva caught Rachel by both arms, holding her and looking at her. "Rachel, tell me, were you in love with Charter?"

Rachel recoiled, tried to drag herself away. "Why do you want to know? What right have you to ask?"

Eva clung to her. "I must know, I must!"

But Rachel made no response; instead she eluded her sister's grasp and went to the open door. She stood there, looking out past the young hemlocks and the maples, across a field of wheat, where a flock of crows skimming low over it showed black against the golden grain. Suddenly she hid her face in her hands, and her whole slender figure, shaken with emotion, quivered from head to foot.

"You needn't tell me," said Eva's voice behind her, "I know!"

There was a long silence. The hot, August sunshine filtered through the foliage of the maples and flecked the gravel path with gold; there was a dusky haze about the horizon, while the sky overhead was vividly blue. A faint, hot wind ran over the yellow grain in long, quivering waves and the vivid atmosphere seemed to pulsate and throb with heat.

"Rachel, I can't bear it, it's too much--and I did it--I did it all!"

Poor Rachel turned and went back to the table and began mechanically to arrange and rearrange the roses. "It's no use to talk of it, Eva; it's over and done with now!"

"No, it isn't, it can't be! You've got to face it and so have I--" Her voice broke with self-pity, but her grief for Rachel was quite as sincere. She looked at her in anguish--"You must hate me!"

"Do you think hate made me do it?"

"No, you were an angel, but you're human; you must hate me now!"

"No, I don't hate you, but--sometimes--I've been very angry with you, Eva. God knows I wish you'd never done it!"

"You've every right to hate me," the penitent lamented. "I--I lied about you to save myself."

Rachel could endure no more; she covered her ears with her hands. "Oh, Eva, please go away, let me be; I can't stand it!"

Eva looked at her a moment in silence and then ran out of the house. She went home blindly, not feeling the heat, and following the shade of the woodpath by instinct. Before her went the anguished face of Rachel; she knew at last that she had ruined her sister's life, she had lost all, and gained nothing. She had set out gayly on the Way of the Transgressors; with bleeding feet she was coming slowly and painfully back from the Way.

Astry was alone in the library when his wife entered it an hour later and he rose and put down his book. Something in her face warned him that a climax had been reached. Eva flung her big white hat on the table and sank into a chair.

"Take me away, please, to-morrow," she said. "I can't stand it here a moment longer."

Astry turned to the window and deliberately lit his pipe, but his hand shook as he struck the match. Was this an appeal for help? Was she coming back to him to save her?

"We'll go to-morrow," he said, and his voice was almost kind. His old anger against her had died down to ashes, he no longer felt the rage and jealousy of passion; the small figure in the chair and the bent, golden head looked almost childish, and he no longer hardened his heart.

XII

Belhaven came back from town rather late in the afternoon. He had ridden out on the front seat of an open car, talking in a desultory way to the gripman, chiefly because it seemed to afford him a perverse pleasure to disregard the large sign overhead which forbade conversation with the motorman. He was in a mood to enjoy breaking all rules in a puny effort to feel independent. For, if the truth be told, he had felt for months as if Astry had caught him and chained him up, much as the infidel Turks used to chain their Christian captives to the oars when their galleys went into battle.

Not even a long day at the club had relaxed his mood and he was far from feeling as gay and debonair as he had appeared to Eva when she had observed him through the leaves of the rhododendrons. He was deeply vexed with himself, ashamed of the part he had played, disgusted that he had sacrificed so much for a feeling that had proved to be so ephemeral, that he had given up his own freedom and even his self-respect to shield a woman who could toss him aside, at the first alarm, as easily as she would have discarded a soiled glove.

These reflections had become, of late, so habitual that Belhaven found it difficult to control his passionate resentment; like Eva herself, he was engrossed with the spectacle of his own misery, but he longed, more keenly than she did, to visit it on some one else. It added nothing to the joy of the situation either to be well aware of Astry's scorn. It did not require a very delicate perception to understand his attitude, and the bare politeness with which he treated Belhaven made the latter long to strangle him. It amazed him even now, in his moments of blind fury, that he had ever been afraid to encounter Astry's anger, for it seemed to him that he hungered exceedingly for an opportunity to avenge the contemptuous scorn of the other man's manner. To use the metaphor that came uppermost in Belhaven's own mind, he longed "to have it out with him," and the very impossibility of any outbreak that would lead to exposure made it all the more maddening. He could not speak now without betraying Eva, and it seemed to be his lot in life to swallow the polished insults of Eva's husband.

The heat of the August afternoon did not tend to decrease the heat of his mood, and Belhaven, having left the tram at the corner of the avenue, walked slowly along in the dust of the highway, using his stick to knock off the heads of the wayside flowers with a vicious stroke that was at least a small vent for an irritation that had reached the limits of his endurance.