He spoke with such authority and ease that she did not even question his insinuations, or doubt them. She stared at him with pale terror, her big loose mouth fallen open in an expression of complete confusion and dismay.
“Even if I did not wish to prosecute you, Lilybelle, you would return home without your famous ‘marriage lines.’ You would be neither maid nor wife. Have you considered there might be a child, Lilybelle? What then? You could not go to your home under those circumstances.” He leaned towards her and said, softly: “It would be the streets, then, for you, my lass.”
She cried out, frantically: “A hundred pounds, sir!”
James shook his head. “Not a penny, Lilybelle.”
Completely demoralized, now, she wrung her big calloused hands in her muff, and began to sniffle. “I’ve been hardly done by, Mr. Turnbull, me as was a respectable girl, even if I don’t know my letters and my sums! You’ve got to remember that!”
“You’ve done ‘hardly’ by my son, too, my dear girl,” said James, though now his treacherous heart was touched by her distress. Yes, this business of being ruthless was too much for a hermit. He decided that he did not like it. “You humbugged a drunken lad into marrying you. You want to deny this? Remember, Lilybelle, who you are! Remember that my son’s friends will rally to him, and not to you. Have you ever been before the Assizes, Lilybelle?”
She was wild with terror. She retreated precipitately. But James forced himself to his feet, and halted her flight with an outstretched hand.
“That’s no good, Lilybelle, your running away. Come back. We have other things to discuss.”
She came back, her eyes fixed on him, hypnotized with fear. She trembled violently. He sank back in his chair and surveyed her blandly.
“Let us talk of all this, Lilybelle, quietly, like sensible people. You have married my son, drunken though he was, and not knowing what he did. That is done. You are his wife. I propose that you remain his wife.”
She could not believe her ears. She gazed at him, stupefied.
“I will be frank about John, Lilybelle. He is a young fool, and a wastrel. I have given him money, because I did not wish to trouble myself with disciplining him, and watching his expenditures.” Now he spoke with an air of great candor, while the girl, still trembling, listened, only half understanding. He added, abruptly: “My dear, why did you marry him? I want the truth, now, and nothing but the truth.”
She opened her mouth to whimper lies, but meeting that steadfast and bright gray gaze, she bowed her head and whispered: “It’s no use, sir. He—he was a fine gentleman. He—he quite swept me off my feet.”
“But you were drawn to him, eh? From the very beginning.”
She nodded her bowed head.
“You liked him, and he appeared to be a fine gentleman, perhaps some one of your own class, but more prosperous, eh?”
Again, she nodded.
“And you thought such a marriage would be advantageous?”
She wept loudly in answer.
“Well, then,” said James, “we are getting somewhere. So, you liked him, and he appeared to like you. You had much in common. Excellent! This forms a basis for a very sound marriage, indeed. So, you will remain John’s wife.”
“He don’t want me, sir,” she stammered, through her sobs, and now she lifted her head and looked at him with real grief. “And I’m not a one to force myself—”
“And, not wanting to ‘force’ yourself, Lilybelle, you decided the next best thing was money?”
He was touched, and a little pleased. He reached towards her and took her strong young hand, turned it over, and looked at its callouses. She looked down at him as he did so, weeping as openly and loudly as a child, and with a child’s simplicity. Then he glanced up at her, still retaining her hand, and smiling.
“Lilybelle, how would you like to go to America, with Johnnie?”
“America,” she repeated. But the word evidently only stupefied her.
“Yes, to America. They tell me it is a remarkable place. You would do well there, you and Johnnie. Yes, you are much alike. You would be excellent for him. You would be able to keep him under control. I am sure of this. You will make him a good wife, Lilybelle.”
He stood up, then, and with only a little repugnance, and much sadness, he drew the girl to his frail chest. She dropped her head on his shoulder, all her defiance gone, and sobbed loudly and without restraint. And he smoothed those coarse but vital red curls with a thin hand suddenly tender, sorry for her. What will become of them? he asked himself. Am I wise in this? Or is this just my old inertia asserting itself? How much that we do is the result of wisdom, and how much only laziness and negative denial of more vigorous conduct?
He called for tea, and led the girl back to her chair. With his own hands he removed her bonnet and her jacket. And as he did so, she smiled up at him pathetically.
Yes, it was a strong young thing, this, a proper mate for Johnnie.
CHAPTER 7
Eugenia sat in her quiet and gloomy chamber with her needlework. Though she had thrust aside the heavy draperies on either side of the great tall window, very little gray light penetrated into the misty dimness of the room. The canopied bed, prim and white and smooth as a bank of snow, was only a shadow in the far corner. The high ceiling was fretted with the faint rosy bars of the fire which burned almost silently on the black hearth. As she worked, the girl was hardly conscious of what she was doing. At moments she lifted her smooth brown head as if listening. But she did not hear the roaring lash of the rain that assailed her windows, nor the wind which rattled them furiously.
Her “indestructible calm,” as James fondly called it, was not disturbed this morning. But a shrewd observer would have detected a faint quick glow in those pale cheeks, coming and going like a reflection of the fire. Her small and delicate body retained its stillness, as always, its tremendous control and poise. The little feet on the footstool did not move restlessly. She sat, as always, very straight and elegant, her brown velvet gown falling in heavy rich folds from the curve of her dainty thighs and marvellously slight waist.
The room was chilly. Over her shoulders was laid a brown Cashmere shawl. She bent her head over her work. The needle flashed precisely in her little pale fingers, so transparent and bloodless. Once or twice she smiled. It was then that she would lift that proud small head and stare at the fire, the smile and the glow in her cheeks quickening. Authority, inflexibility and pride, always so evident in her, were softened this morning into something, which, if gender, was still strong and determined.
She heard the hollow booming of the house about her, coming from a distance. Her mother still slept. It would be an hour before Martha would awaken with her petulant demands. In the meantime, Eugenia waited. She waited for her cousin John, to whom she had written the evening before. The embroidery increased and brightened under her fingers, blooming softly in its delicate design. She did not see it. In her mind she saw only the strangest and most exciting things, novel and delightful. She saw her cousin’s strong dark face and restless black eyes. Visualizing him, then, there was just the faintest sound of a caught breath in the dank dimness of the chamber.
Fog rolled up to the windows in weird shapes like spectres, curiously peering within. It deadened even the few street sounds of Russell Square. When a dray passed, the echo only reached Eugenia’s little white ears, and it was like an echo rising up from a bottomless pit. Nevertheless, it seemed to her that the chamber was full of rich warm things, moving in excitement and mysteroius gaiety. The mirror over the fireplace reflected the gray wet windows and the fog shapes. But for Eugenia, as she glanced at it absently, it was full of colourful visions.
There was a tapping at the door, and she sprang up with more eagerness than she had displayed in many years. She ran to the door, and flung it open. A housemaid in cap and white apron stood there, tenuous in the gloom. The wench stared at her young mistress, gaping, for Eugenia’s aspect, so eager, warm and flushed, w
as a strange and unusual one to her. She stammered that Master Turnbull awaited Miss MacNeill in the drawing-room.
“Yes!” breathed Eugenia, and now the round white throat fluttered. She flashed by the staring housemaid, and glided like a brown swift vision down the stairway, her hooped skirts billowing about her, the brown shawl streaming. But once at the threshold of the drawing-room, she was forced to pause, putting her little trembling hand to her heart, her breath catching. Then, summoning all her decorum, she advanced, with a smile, into the room, arching her smooth and shimmering head, her manner serene.
John, who was standing with bent head near the fire, turned slowly as he heard her light and gliding footstep. He had bathed, replaced his dishevelled linen with fresh, and had combed his hair. But his inner despair and wretchedness and sick hopelessness could not so easily be disguised. Pale, distraught and sunken-eyed, he stared speechlessly at his cousin, advancing with so much smiling tranquillity in his direction.
He had dreaded this moment. Beforehand, during his walk to Russell Square, he had told himself that he could not endure seeing her again, that it would be unbearable to look into those bright gray eyes, so like his father’s, so suggestive, like his, of things hated and loved and never to be understood, but only to be resented and humbly adored.
He looked at his cousin, and his heart was pierced with the most appalling anguish. He had loved her, and had resented her, feeling boorish and inferior in her presence, leaving her either with exaltation or burning irritation and humiliation. But now, as he stood before her, gazing at, but not taking her extended hand, he felt that he was dying, that he must control himself or he would burst into dreadful tears.
Eugenia was puzzled for a few moments, as she looked at that ghastly and sunken face above hers. Then she smiled, secretly. Poor darling Johnnie! He had come to tell her, then, that he was going away, that he must leave her, remembering her decision not to go with him! Ah, but she had such a delightful surprise for him! In the meantime, she would remain aloof, delicately but lovingly teasing him, until her sudden capitulation and surrender would transport him into the most delirious joy.
She seated herself with her dainty air of authority and composure, and, tilting her smooth brown head, gazed upward at him with those large gray eyes filled and dancing with firelight. He stood on the hearth, and looked down at her. The black misery of his face grew more intense. It was apparent that he was most terribly ill. Ah, but it was not to last long, she smiled to herself. And now she breathed a little faster. A hot and delicious tremor ran along her nerves. Her heart was trembling.
“John,” she said, very softly. “You received my letter, then?”
He started. Her voice called him out of his black pit of agony. Her face swam below him, its pallor warm and tremulous, the lips, usually so pale and composed, full and rosy and faintly smiling. She had always seemed to be standing at a little distance from him, even in their more familiar moments, untouchable and mysterious. But now he felt that she was closer to him than his heart and his breath, and so ineffably dear that he became frantic with his grief.
He half turned from her and put his hand over his eyes. He could not look at her. With his face still hidden by his hand, he spoke hoarsely and slowly, as if his throat had been torn, and was bleeding.
“I am going away, Eugenia.”
She was silent. He heard the dropping of coals on the hearth. Through his sheltering fingers he saw their red hearts, luminous in the gray ashes, bursting open in little showers of sparks. He heard the howling of the wind, the battering of the rain. He shivered, for a sudden icy chill beset him, crept over his body in freezing waves. He thought incoherently: I shall tell her I am going to America. But, I shall not tell her the other. When I am gone, she can learn this from my father—
Yes, that would be best. She had made her decision yesterday. She would abide by it. In all the years he had known her, she had never turned aside from a previous decision. He had found her cold obstinacy infuriating, had often flung himself out of her presence in a, flaming rage. Now, that obstinacy was his only strength. His habitual easy cowardice drew a long and quivering breath. It whispered to him that he would be allowed a last kiss from her, if he did not tell her. He would be permitted to touch that little white hand just once again, affronted and angered though she would be at his decision to leave her and go to America. For that kiss, for that touch, he would have to pay only the small price of silence.
“I am going away,” he repeated, and now his voice was stronger, if even more despairing. He dropped his hand, and looked again at her, expecting to see her face smooth and withdrawn and haughtily indifferent, as it had been only yesterday.
He was not prepared for her smile, tremulous and tender, for the quick light colour on her cheek, for the strange shy brilliance of her eyes. He was not prepared for her to rise like this, in her small and delicate beauty. Bemused, stricken, he could only stare at her, and at her extended hands, at the gentle humility of her attitude.
“John,” she said, softly, almost pleadingly, “take me with you.” And now she caught her breath on something like a joyful sob, and the brilliance of her eyes increased.
For several moments he did not understand. His mouth dropped open, with an imbecile expression. His cheeks fell inward, and his whole face became wizened. There was a sudden wild roaring in his ears.
Then, all at once, he understood. Now the agony and the horror and the grief which he had been able partly to control fell on him with unendurable torture. In a swimming darkness, he cried out, loudly and chokingly: “No! No!”
He heard her cry out, confused and frightened: “John! What is it? Are you ill? John, didn’t you hear me? Johnnie, dear, I said I would go with you!”
In his terrible suffering he did not feel her hand on his arm. But he saw her face terrified and white, close to his. There were tears in her eyes. She had begun to shake him a little. Words came from her lips but he saw only their movements in the midst of chaos.
As for Eugenia, some premonition of disaster struck at her, so that her hand finally fell limply to her side. The expression on John’s face horrified her. She stepped back a pace or two, regarding him fixedly, “What is it, John?” she asked, in a faint whisper. And then, louder, in a kind of fearful frenzy: “John! What is it?”
He tried to speak. He put his hand to his throat, moved his head. He turned away from her, and rested his head on the mantelpiece, and she saw his profile, stark and drawn, his lips fallen open.
“Genie,” he said, and in that one beloved sound was all his sick anguish.
She approached him again, involuntarily drawn to him with the frightened impulse of her love. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “Yes, John? Yes?”
She was bewildered when he started, and drew away from her, his forehead still on the mantelpiece.
“It’s too late, Genie,” he whispered. “You can’t go away with me.”
A quick furrow appeared on the smooth delicacy of her brow. She lifted her head proudly, though her lips dried suddenly.
“Why not?”
His big young body appeared to shrink in the fashionable coat. He lifted his hands and pressed them against his cheeks, so that she no longer saw his face.
“I’m married, Genie,” he said, and his voice was dull and faint.
Slow and ponderous moments passed one by one. It was not for some time that he realized, in all his endless misery, that there had been a long silence in the great quiet drawing-room. He had been too engrossed with his own suffering. But becoming aware, after that prolonged silence, that she had not spoken a single word, he painfully dropped his hands and turned to her.
She had seated herself again near the fire. She sat very straight and stiff, looking at the incandescent coals. Her hands were clasped lightly on her knees. An intense coldness and composure emanated from her, and her features were rigid and very calm. There was a carved quality, too, about the folds of her brown velvet dress as it f
ell to her little instep.
She felt rather than saw his movement towards her. Still gazing at the fire, she asked, quietly: “When did you marry, John?”
“O Genie!” he cried, in his hoarse and stricken voice. “How can I tell you? It was last night, Genie, after I left you—after you told me you would not go with me—!”
She turned her head slowly towards him, with an expression of frozen incredulity. Her hands tightened convulsively on her knees.
“Last night!” she exclaimed. “Impossible!”
In spite of her control, she gasped, and her clasped hands lifted rigidly in the air, then slowly dropped.
He could not speak again. He could only look at her, at that aghast little face with the bitter lips and the outraged eyes, in which the dazzling light was like the reflection of lightning on ice. Never had he seen such an expression on that beloved face before, and it was this, even more than his own torment, which made him cry out, move towards her, sink on his knees, and lay his head on her unresponsive lap. He put his arm about her waist. He cried out again: “O Genie! Don’t look at me like that! As if you hated me. I can’t endure it, Genie!”
For a moment there was a convulsive movement throughout all her slight small body, as if she would repulse him with disgust and loathing. Then, he felt a relaxation in her, as if she had collapsed. But she said nothing, only sat there, not feeling the weight of his head, nor the frantic grasp of his arm.
“Forgive me, Genie,” he said, brokenly. He moved on his knees, as if he writhed. He kissed the soft silken velvet which covered her thigh; he rubbed his cheek against it. He put his other arm about her, pulled her desperately towards him. She resisted for an instant, then relaxed again, as if all her powers of repulsion had disappeared.
But he felt her hardness, her outrage, her unremitting cold anger. So small a thing in his hold, but unbending as steel, and as inflexible. Too, she had an unsuspected physical strength, for, despite his frantic grasp of her, she put her hands on his head and forcibly lifted it. She looked down at him with a cold and forbidding look, stern and implacable. But when she saw his face, blotched, raddled with tears and suffering, the eyes suffused and sunken, she faltered, and the hard hands on his head became gentler. But she forced him to look at her.