by Maud Diver
CHAPTER XVII.
"Our frailties are invincible, our virtues barren; and the battle goessore against us to the going down of the sun."--R.L.S.
The rain, which had set in with such quiet determination at sunset,fulfilled its promise of continuing through the night: and thepattering on the slates that had mingled with Quita's latest thoughtsgreeted her, with derisive iteration, when she opened her eyes nextmorning. But its power to thwart her was at an end. Now that daylightwas come, nothing short of a landslip could withhold her from the thingshe craved. The thought leaped in her brain before she was fullyawake. "And after all, why should I wait till the afternoon," was herpractical conclusion. "I'll go down at eleven."
With that she sprang out of bed, and slipping on a dull bluedressing-gown, hurried into the dining-room, where she and Michaelalways met for _chota hazri_.
Here she found him, in Japanese smoking suit and slippers, smilingcontentedly over an item of his early post.
"What's pleasing you, _mon cher_?" she asked absently, depositing alight kiss on his hair. For a woman in love--and a man no less--is asroyally indifferent to the joys and sorrows of all creation aschildhood itself.
"A letter from my pretty Puritan. It is not for nothing that she hasthose straight brows, and that small resolute chin. She will not bethrust down any man's throat for all the hen-sparrows in Christendom!"
"Why--what does she say?" Quita asked, peering critically into theteapot, and wondering how it would feel to pour out Eldred's early tea!
"Listen then; and judge for yourself:
"'DEAR MR MAURICE,---There seems to have been an unluckymisunderstanding between you and mother yesterday. But I hope thisneed not make any real difference in our friendship. Because I thinkwe have always understood each other, haven't we? Of course if myparents prefer that we should not be about together quite so much,there is no help for it. But at least I would like you to know that Iam still, as I always have been, your friend (if you wish it)
"'ELSIE MAYHEW.'"
"_Tiens_! How is that for your 'child of twenty'? It is the letter ofa woman; and a woman with an exquisite sense of her own dignity intothe bargain."
Quita smiled thoughtfully as she buttered her toast.
"I am wondering how she would have answered if you had asked her," wasall she said. "I don't feel quite so certain as I did last night."
"_Ni moi non plus_. Which makes the situation just twice asinteresting. For all the Button Quail's beak and claws, I fancy Ishall see more of my Undine yet!"
With a chuckle of satisfaction, he fell to re-reading Elsie's note: andQuita, immersed in her own affairs, promptly forgot them both.
An hour later she reappeared--her whole face and form radiating thelight within; went straight to her easel, flung aside its draperies,and surveying her work of the previous day, found it very good. Butthere were certain lines and shadows that displeased her critical eye.She would study his face afresh this morning, with the twofoldappreciation of heart and brain, and surprise him with the picture whenit was nearer completion.
Just then the bearer, entering, handed her a note. She opened iteagerly--recognising Eldred's handwriting--and read, with abewilderment bordering on despair, the stoical statement of facts setdown by Lenox in the first bitterness of disappointment, ten hours ago.The shock staggered her like a blow between the eyes. Her lips partedand closed on a soundless exclamation. The abrupt change in her facewas as if a light had been suddenly blown out.
"_Mon Dieu_, . . . cholera!" she murmured helplessly, putting one handover her eyes as if to shut out the horror of it. "This is mypunishment for ever having let him go."
Then, as if in hope of discovering some mitigation of her sentence, shere-read the short letter, lingering on the last paragraph, which alonecontained some ray of comfort, some assurance of the strong love thatwas at once the cause and the anodyne of their mutual pain.
"And now, my dearest" (Lenox wrote), "what more can I say, except--beof good courage, and write to me often. The rest, and there's a gooddeal of it, can't be put upon paper. That's the curse of separation.Start a picture, and throw your heart into your work, as I must intomine. God knows when I shall see you again. But trust me, Quita, assoon as ever I can, and dare, to put an end to this intolerable stateof things.--Till then, and always, your devoted husband,----E. L."
It was the first time he had signed himself thus: and the envelope wasaddressed 'Miss Maurice'! The irony of it cut her to the quick. Tearsof self-pity, flooding her eyes, startled her back to reality; and senther stumbling towards her own room. But before she could reach it,Michael's voice arrested her.
"Come on, Quita," he shouted good-humouredly. "Where _are_ you off to?I want my breakfast."
She turned upon him a face distorted with grief.
"_Parbleu, cherie, qu'y-a-t'il a maintenant_?" he demanded, with an oddmingling of irritation and concern.
"Cholera at Dera Ishmael--Eldred's gone down this morning. . . ." Thentears overwhelmed her, and he turned sharply away. "Oh go, . . . go,and have your breakfast, Michel; and let me be. I want nothing,nothing, but to be left alone."
And vanishing into her room, she bolted the door behind her.
Maurice frowned, and sighed. In all his knowledge of her, Quita hadnever so completely lost her self-control. It was quite upsetting: andhe disliked being upset the first thing in the morning. It put him outof tune for the rest of the day. But after all . . one must eat. Andhe retraced his steps to the dining-room.
"I wish to heaven she had never discovered this uncomfortable husbandof hers!" he reflected as he went "Since he will neither marry her, norleave her alone; and it is we who have to suffer for his heroics!"
For all that, he found speedy consolation in the thought that at teno'clock a new 'subject' was coming to sit to him:--a wrinkled hag, whomhe had met on his way back from Jundraghat, bent half double under atowering load of grass, her neutral-tinted tunic and draped trousersrelieved by the scarlet of betel-nut on her lips and gums, and by agoat's-hair necklet strung with raw lumps of amber and turquoise,interset with three plaques of beaten silver;--the only form of savingsbank known to these simple children of the hills.
While hastily demolishing his breakfast, Maurice visualised his picturein every detail: and with the arrival of his model all thought of Quitaand her woes was crowded out of his mind. Yet the man was notheartless, by any means. He was simply an artist of the extreme type,endowed by temperament with the capacity for subordinating allthings,--his own griefs no less than the griefs of others,--to onedominant, insatiable purpose. And according to his lights he must bejudged.
Quita remained invisible till lunch-time, lying inert, where she hadflung herself, upon her unmade bed.
The first tempest of misery, and rebellion, and self-castigation hadgiven place to sheer exhaustion. For even suffering has itslimitations; which is perhaps the reason why grief rarely kills. Allthe springs of life seemed suddenly to have run down. Her spirit feltcrushed and broken by the obstructiveness of all about her. The strainof the past three weeks, following upon a severe shock, had told uponher more than she knew; and this morning's sharp revulsion of feelingbrought her near to purely physical collapse.
And while she lay alone through two endless hours, tracing designs fromthe cracks in the whitewashed wall, one conviction haunted her withmorbid persistence. Because she had not valued him in the beginning,because she had repudiated him in a moment of wounded pride, he wouldbe taken from her, now that heart and soul were set upon him, and shewould never see him again. It was useless to argue that the idea waschildish; a mere nightmare of overwrought nerves. It persisted andprevailed, till she felt herself crushed in the grip of a relentless,impersonal Force, against which neither penitence nor tears would avail.
Finally, worn out with pain and rebellion, she fell asleep.
