Innocent : her fancy and his fact

by Marie Corelli

  CHAPTER V

  Lord Blythe was sitting alone in his library. He was accustomed to sitalone, and rather liked it. It was the evening after that of theDuchess of Deanshire's reception; his wife had gone to another similar"crush," but had graciously excused his attendance, for which he washonestly grateful. He was old enough, at sixty-eight, to appreciate theluxury of peace and quietness,--he had put on an old lounge coat and aneasy pair of slippers, and was thoroughly enjoying himself in acomfortable arm-chair with a book and a cigar. The book was by "EnaArmitage"--the cigar, one of a choice brand known chiefly to fastidiousconnoisseurs of tobacco. The book, however, was a powerful rival to thecharm of the fragrant Havana--for every now and again he allowed thecigar to die out and had to re-light it, owing to his fascinatedabsorption in the volume he held. He was an exceedingly cleverman--deeply versed in literature and languages, and in his younger dayshad been a great student,--he had read nearly every book of note, andwas as familiar with the greatest authors as with his greatest friends,so that he was well fitted to judge without prejudice the merits of anynew aspirant to literary fame. But he was wholly unprepared for thepower and the daring genius which stamped itself on every page of thenew writer's work,--he almost forgot, while reading, whether it was manor woman who had given such a production to the world, so impressed washe by the masterly treatment of a simple subject made beautiful by ascholarly and incisive style. It was literature of the highestkind,--and realising this with every sentence he perused, it was with ashock of surprise that he remembered the personality of the author--theunobtrusive girl who had been the "show animal" at Her Grace ofDeanshire's reception and dance.

  "Positively, I can scarcely believe it!" he exclaimed sotto-voce--"Thatchild I met last night actually wrote this amazing piece of work! It'salmost incredible! A nice child too,--simple and perfectlynatural,--nothing of the blue-stocking about her. Well, well! What acareer she'll make!--what a name!--that is, if she takes care ofherself and doesn't fall in love, which she's sure to do! That's theworst of women--God occasionally gives them brains, but they'vescarcely begun to use them when heart and sentiment step in andoverthrow all reason. Now, we men--"

  He paused,--thinking. There had been a time in his life--long ago, whenhe was very young--when heart and sentiment had very nearly overthrownreason in his own case--and sometimes he was inclined to regret thatsuch overthrow had been averted.

  "For the moment it is perhaps worth everything else!" hemused--"But--for the moment only! The ecstasy does not last."

  His cigar had gone out again, and he re-lit it. The clock on themantelpiece struck twelve with a silvery clang, and almost at the sameinstant he heard the rustle of a silk gown and a light footstep,--thedoor opened, and his wife appeared.

  "Are you busy?" she enquired--"May I come in?"

  He rose, with the stately old-fashioned courtesy habitual to him.

  "By all means come in!" he said--"You have returned early?"

  "Yes." She loosened her rich evening cloak, lined with ermine, and letit fall on the back of the chair in which she seated herself--"It was aboresome affair,--there were recitations and music which I hate--so Icame away. You are reading?"

  "Not now"--and he closed the volume on the table beside him--"But IHAVE been reading--that amazing book by the young girl we met at theDeanshires' last night--Ena Armitage. It's really a fine piece of work."

  She was silent.

  "You didn't take to her, I'm afraid?" he went on--"Yet she seemed acharming, modest little person. Perhaps she was not quite what youexpected?"

  Lady Blythe gave a sudden harsh laugh.

  "You are right! She certainly was not what I expected! Is the door wellshut?"

  Surprised at her look and manner, he went to see.

  "The door is quite closed," he said, rather stiffly. "One would thinkwe were talking secrets--and we never do!"

  "No!" she rejoined, looking at him curiously--"We never do. We aremodel husband and wife, having nothing to conceal!"

  He took up his cigar which he had laid down for a minute, and withcareful minuteness flicked off the ash.

  "You have something to tell me," he remarked, quietly--"Pray go on, anddon't let me interrupt you. Do you object to my smoking?"

  "Not in the least."

  He stood with his back to the fireplace, a tall, stately figure of aman, and looked at her expectantly,--she meanwhile reclined in acushioned chair with the folds of her ermine falling about her, like aqueen of languorous luxury.

  "I suppose," she began--"hardly anything in the social life of our daywould very much surprise or shock you--?"

  "Very little, certainly!" he answered, smiling coldly--"I have lived along time, and am not easily surprised!"

  "Not even if it concerned some one you know?"

  His fine open brow knitted itself in a momentary line of puzzledconsideration.

  "Some one I know?" he repeated--"Well, I should certainly be very sorryto hear anything of a scandalous nature connected with the girl we sawlast night--she looked too young and too innocent--"

  "Innocent--oh yes!" and Lady Blythe again laughed that harsh laugh ofsuppressed hysterical excitement--"She is innocent enough!"

  "Pardon! I thought you were about to speak of her, as you said she wasnot what you expected--"

  He paused,--startled by the haggard and desperate expression of herface.

  "Richard," she said--"You are a good man, and you hold very strongopinions about truth and honour and all that sort of thing. I don'tbelieve you could ever understand badness--real, downrightbadness--could you?"

  "Badness? ... in that child?" he exclaimed.

  She gave an impatient, angry gesture.

  "Dear me, you are perfectly obsessed by 'that child,' as you call her!"she answered--"You had better know the truth then at once,--'thatchild' is my daughter!"

  "Your daughter?--your--your--"

  The words died on his lips--he staggered slightly as though under asudden physical blow, and gripped the mantelpiece behind him with onehand.

  "Good God!" he half whispered--"What do you mean?--you have had nochildren--"

  "Not by you,--no!" she said, with a flash of scorn--"Not in marriage,that church-and-law form of union!--but by love and passion--yes!Stop!--do not look at me like that! I have not been false to you--Ihave not betrayed you! Your honour has been safe with me! It was beforeI met you that this thing happened."

  He stood rigid and very pale.

  "Before you met me?"

  "Yes. I was a silly, romantic, headstrong girl,--my parents werecompelled to go abroad, and I was left in the charge of one of mymother's society friends--a thoroughly worldly, unprincipled womanwhose life was made up of intrigue and gambling. And I ran away with aman--Pierce Armitage--"

  "Pierce Armitage!"

  The name broke from him like a cry of agony.

  "Yes--Pierce Armitage. Did you know him?"

  He looked at her with eyes in which there was a strange horror.

  "Know him? He was my best friend!"

  She shrugged her shoulders, and a slight weary smile parted her lips.

  "Well, you never told me,--I have never heard you mention his name. Butthe world is a small place!--and when I was a girl he was beginning tobe known by a good many people. Anyhow, he threw up everything in theway of his art and work, and ran away with me. I went quitewillingly--I took a maid whom we bribed,--we pretended we were married,and we had a charming time together--a time of real romance, till hebegan to get tired and want change--all men are like that! Then hebecame a bore with a bad temper. He certainly behaved very well when heknew the child was coming, and offered to marry me in real earnest--butI refused."

  "You refused!" Lord Blythe echoed the words in a kind of stupefiedwonderment.

  "Of course I did. He was quite poor--and I should have been miserablerunning about the world with a man who depended on art for a living.Besides he was ceasing to be a lover--and as a husband he would havebeen insupportable. We manage
d everything very well--my own people wereall in India--and my mother's friend, if she guessed my affair, saidnothing about it,--wisely enough for her own sake!--so that when mytime came I was able to go away on an easy pretext and get it all oversecretly. Pierce came and stayed in a hotel close at hand--he wasrather in a fright lest I should die!--it would have been such anawkward business for him!--however, all went well, and when I had quiterecovered he took the child away from me, and left it at an oldfarmhouse he had once made a drawing of, saying he would call back forit--as if it were a parcel!" She laughed lightly. "He wrote and told mewhat he had done and gave me the address of the farm--then he wentabroad, and I never heard of him again--"

  "He died," interposed Lord Blythe, slowly--"He died--alone and verypoor--"

  "So I was told," she rejoined, indifferently--"Oh yes! I see you lookat me as if you thought I had no heart! Perhaps I have not,--I used tohave something like one,--your friend Armitage killed it in me. Anyhow,I knew the child had been adopted by the farm people as their own, andI took no further trouble. My parents came home from India to inheritan unexpected fortune, and they took me about with them a greatdeal--they were never told of my romantic escapade!--then I metyou--and you married me."

  A sigh broke from him, but he said nothing.

  "You are sorry you did, I suppose!" she went on in a quick, recklessway--"Anyhow, I tried to do my duty. When I heard by chance that theold farmer who had taken care of the child was dead, I made up my mindto go and see what she was like. I found her, and offered to adopther--but she wouldn't hear of it--so I let her be."

  Lord Blythe moved a little from his statuesque attitude of attention.

  "You told her you were her mother?"

  "I did."

  "And offered to 'adopt' your own child?" She gave an airy gesture.

  "It was the only thing to do! One cannot make a social scandal."

  "And she refused?"

  "She refused."

  "I admire her for it," said Lord Blythe, calmly.

  She shot an angry glance at him. He went on in cold, deliberate accents.

  "You were unprepared for the strange compensation you havereceived?--the sudden fame of your deserted daughter?"

  Her hands clasped and unclasped themselves nervously.

  "I knew nothing of it! Armitage is not an uncommon name, and I did notconnect it with her. She has no right to wear it."

  "If her father were alive he would be proud that she wearsit!--moreover he would give her the right to wear it, and would make itlegal," said Lord Blythe sternly--"Out of old memory I can say that forhim! You recognised each other at once, I suppose, when I presented herto you at the Duchess's reception?"

  "Of course we did!" retorted his wife--"You yourself saw that I wasrather taken aback,--it was difficult to conceal our mutualastonishment--"

  "It must have been!" and a thin ironic smile hovered on his lips--"Andyou carried it off well! But--the poor child!--what an ordeal for her!You can hardly have felt it so keenly, being seasoned to hypocrisy forso many years!" Her eyes flashed up at him indignantly. He raised hishand with a warning gesture.

  "Permit me to speak, Maude! You can scarcely wonder that I am--well!--alittle shaken and bewildered by the confession you have made,--thesecret you have--after years of marriage--suddenly divulged. Yousuggested--at the beginning of this interview--that perhaps there wasnothing in the social life of our day that would very much shock orsurprise me--and I answered you that I was not easily surprised--but--Iwas thinking of others.--it did not occur to me that--that my ownwife--" he paused, steadying his voice,--then continued--"that my ownwife's honour was involved in the matter--" he paused again. "Sentimentis of course out of place--nobody is supposed to feel anythingnowadays--or to suffer--or to break one's heart, as the phrasegoes,--that would be considered abnormal, or bad form,--but I had theidea--a foolish one, no doubt!--that though you may not have married mefor love on your own part, you did so because you recognised thelove,--the truth--the admiration and respect--on mine. I was at anyrate happy in believing you did!--I never dreamed you married me forthe sake of convenience!--to kill the memory of a scandal, andestablish a safe position--"

  She moved restlessly and gathered her ermine cloak about her as thoughto rise and go.

  "One moment!" he went on--"After what you have told me I hope you seeclearly that it is impossible we can live together under the same roofagain. If YOU could endure it, _I_ could not!"

  She sprang up, pale and excited.

  "What? You mean to make trouble? I, who have kept my own counsel allthese years, am to be disgraced because I have at last confided in you?You will scandalise society--you will separate from me--"

  She stopped, half choked by a rising paroxysm of rage.

  He looked at her as he might have looked at some small angry animal.

  "I shall make no trouble," he answered, quietly--"and I shall notscandalise society. But I cannot live with you. I will go away at onceon some convenient excuse--abroad--anywhere--and you can say whateveryou please of my prolonged absence. If I could be of any use orprotection to the girl I saw last night--the daughter of my friendPierce Armitage--I would stay, but circumstances render any suchservice from me impossible. Besides, she needs no one to assisther--she has made a position for herself--a position more enviable thanyours or mine. You have that to think about by way of--consolation?--orreproach?"

  She stood drawn up to her full height, looking at him.

  "You cannot forgive me, then?" she said.

  He shuddered.

  "Forgive you! Is there a man who could forgive twenty years ofdeliberate deception from the wife he thought the soul of honour?Maude, Maude! We live in lax times truly, when men and women laugh atprinciple and good faith, and deal with each other less honestly thanthe beasts of the field,--but for me there is a limit!--a limit youhave passed! I think I could pardon your wrong to me more readily thanI can pardon your callous desertion of the child you brought into theworld--your lack of womanliness--motherliness!--your deliberate refusalto give Pierce Armitage the chance of righting the wrong he hadcommitted in a headstrong, heart-strong rush of thoughtlesspassion!--he WOULD have righted it, I know, and been a loyal husband toyou, and a good father to his child. For whatever his faults were hewas neither callous nor brutal. You prevented him from doing this,--youwere tired of him--your so-called 'love' for him was a mere selfishcaprice of the moment--and you preferred deceit and a rich marriage tothe simple duty of a woman! Well!--you may find excuses foryourself,--I cannot find them for you! I could not remain by your sideas a husband and run the risk of coming constantly in contact, as wedid last night, with that innocent girl, placed as she is, in asituation of so much difficulty, by the sins of her parents--hermother, my wife!--her father, my dead friend! The position is, andwould be untenable!"

  Still she stood, looking at him.

  "Have you done?" she asked.

  He met her fixed gaze, coldly.

  "I have. I have said all I wish to say. So far as I am concerned theincident is closed. I will only bid you good-night--and farewell!"

  "Good-night--and farewell!" she repeated, with a mocking drawl,--thenshe suddenly burst into a fit of shrill laughter. "Oh dear, oh dear!"she cried, between little screams of hysterical mirth--"You are so veryfunny, you know! Like--what's-his-name?--Marius in the ruins ofCarthage!--or one of those antique classical bores with their householdgods broken around them! You--you ought to have lived in theirdays!--you are so terribly behind the times!" She laughed recklesslyagain. "We don't do the Marius and Carthage business now--life's toofull and too short! Really, Richard, I'm afraid you're getting veryold!--poor dear!--past sixty I know!--and you're quite prehistoric insome of your fancies!--'Good-night!'--er--'and farewell!' Sounds sostagey, doesn't it!" She wiped the spasmodic tears of mirth from hereyes, and still shaking with laughter gathered up her rich ermine wrapon one white, jewelled arm. "Womanliness--motherliness!--good Lord,deliver us!--I never thought you likely to preach
at me--if I had Iwouldn't have told you anything! I took you for a sensible man of theworld--but you are only a stupid old-fashioned thing after all!Good-night!--and farewell!"

  She performed the taunting travesty of an elaborate Court curtsey andpassed him--a handsome, gleaming vision of satins, laces and glitteringjewels--and opening the door with some noise and emphasis, she turnedher head gracefully over her shoulder. Unkind laughter still lit up herface and hard, brilliant eyes.

  "Good-night!--farewell!" she said again, and was gone.

  For a moment he stood inert where she left him--then sinking into achair he covered his face with his hands. So he remained for sometime--silently wrestling with himself and his own emotions. He had torealise that at an age when he might naturally have looked for atranquil home life--a life tended and soothed into its natural declineby the care and devotion of the wife he had undemonstratively but mosttenderly loved, he was suddenly cast adrift like the hulk of an oldbattleship broken from its moorings, with nothing but solitude anddarkness closing in upon his latter days. Then he thought of thegirl,--his wife's child--the child too of his college chum and dearestfriend,--he saw, impressed like a picture on the cells of his brain,her fair young face, pathetic eyes and sweet intelligence ofexpression,--he remembered how modestly she wore her sudden fame, as achild might wear a wild flower,--and, placed by her parentage in adifficulty for which she was not responsible, she must have sufferedconsiderable pain and sorrow.

  "I will go and see her to-morrow," he said to himself--"It will bebetter for her to know that I have heard all her sad littlehistory--then--if she ever wants a friend she can come to me withoutfear. Ah!--if only she were MY daughter!"

  He sighed,--his handsome old head drooped,--he had longed for childrenand the boon had been denied.

  "If she were my daughter," he repeated, slowly--"I should be a proudman instead of a sorrowful one!"

  He turned off the lights in the library and went upstairs to hisbedroom. Outside his wife's door he paused a moment, thinking he hearda sound,--but all was silent. Imagining that he probably would notsleep he placed a book near his bedside--but nature was kind to his ageand temperament, and after about an hour of wakefulness and sadperplexity, all ruffling care was gradually smoothed away from hismind, and he fell into a deep and dreamless slumber.

  Meanwhile Lady Blythe had been disrobed by a drowsy maid whom shesharply reproached for being sleepy when she ought to have been wideawake, though it was long past midnight,--and dismissing the girl atlast, she sat alone before her mirror, thinking with some pettishnessof the interview she had just had with her husband.

  "Old fool!" she soliloquised--"He ought to know better than to play thetragic-sentimental with me at his time of life! I thought he wouldaccept the situation reasonably and help me to tackle it. Of course itwill be simply abominable if I am to meet that girl at every bigsociety function--I don't know what I shall do about it! Why didn't shestay in her old farm-house!--who could ever have imagined her becomingfamous! I shall go abroad, I think--that will be the best thing to do.If Blythe leaves me as he threatens, I shall certainly not stay here bymyself to face the music! Besides, who knows?--the girl herself may'round' on me when her head gets a little more swelled with success.Such a horrid bore!--I wish I had never seen Pierce Armitage!"

  Even as she thought of him the vision came back to her of the handsomeface and passionate eyes of her former lover,--again she saw theromantic little village by the sea where they had dwelt together as inanother Eden,--she remembered how he would hurry up from the shorebringing with him the sketch he had been working at, eager for her eyesto look at it, thrilling at her praise, and pouring out upon her suchtender words and caresses such as she had never known since those wildand ardent days! A slight shiver ran through her--something like a pangof remorse stung her hardened spirit.

  "And the child," she murmured--"The child--it clung to me and I kissedit!--it was a dear little thing!"

  She glanced about her nervously--the room seemed full of wanderingshadows.

  "I must sleep!" she thought--"I am worried and out of sorts--I mustsleep and forget--"

  She took out of a drawer in her dressing-table a case of medicinalcachets marked "Veronal."

  "One or two more or less will not hurt me," she said, with a pale,forced smile at herself in the mirror--"I am accustomed to it--and Imust have a good long sleep!"

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  She had her way. Morning came,--and she was still sleeping. Noon--andnothing could waken her. Doctors, hastily summoned, did their best torouse her to that life which with all its pains and possibilities stillthrobbed in the world around her--but their efforts were vain.

  "Suicide?" whispered one.

  "Oh no! Mere accident!--an overdose of veronal--some carelessness--quitea common occurrence. Nothing to be done!"

  No!--nothing to be done! Her slumber had deepened into that strangestillness which we call death,--and her husband, a statuesque and rigidfigure, gazed on her quiet body with tearless eyes.

  "Good-night!" he whispered to the heavy silence--"Good-night! Farewell!"