by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER XXIX.
THORNS AND ROSE PETALS.
He remained stooping and staring up at her, realising the implicationof her words only very slowly.
Then it grew clear to him.
As she saw understanding dawning in his face, she uttered a cry ofconsternation. She came forward and sat down upon the little bedroomchair. She turned to him and began a sentence. "I," she said, andstopped, with an impatient gesture of her hands. "_Oh_!"
He straightened himself and stood regarding her. The basket of roseslay overturned between them.
"You thought these came from someone else?" he said, trying to graspthis inversion of the universe.
She turned her eyes, "I did not know," she panted. "A trap.... Was itlikely--they came from you?"
"You thought they came from someone else," he said.
"Yes," she said, "I did."
"Who?"
"Mr. Baynes."
"That boy!"
"Yes--that boy."
"Well!"
Lewisham looked about him--a man in the presence of the inconceivable.
"You mean to say you have been carrying on with that youngster behindmy back?" he asked.
She opened her lips to speak and had no words to say.
His pallor increased until every tinge of colour had left his face. Helaughed and then set his teeth. Husband and wife looked at oneanother.
"I never dreamt," he said in even tones.
He sat down on the bed, thrusting his feet among the scattered roseswith a sort of grim satisfaction. "I never dreamt," he repeated, andthe flimsy basket kicked by his swinging foot hopped indignantlythrough the folding doors into the living room and left a trail ofblood-red petals.
They sat for perhaps two minutes, and when he spoke again his voicewas hoarse. He reverted to a former formula. "Look here," he said, andcleared his throat. "I don't know whether you think I'm going tostand this, but I'm not."
He looked at her. She sat staring in front of her, making no attemptto cope with disaster.
"When I say I'm not going to stand it," explained Lewisham, "I don'tmean having a row or anything of that sort. One can quarrel and bedisappointed over--other things--and still go on. But this is adifferent thing altogether.
"Of all dreams and illusions!... Think what I have lost in thisaccursed marriage. And _now_ ... You don't understand--you won'tunderstand."
"Nor you," said Ethel, weeping but neither looking at him nor movingher hands from her lap where they lay helplessly. "_You_ don'tunderstand."
"I'm beginning to."
He sat in silence gathering force. "In one year," he said, "all myhopes, all my ambitions have gone. I know I have been cross andirritable--I know that. I've been pulled two ways. But ... I boughtyou these roses."
She looked at the roses, and then at his white face, made animperceptible movement towards him, and became impassive again.
"I do think one thing. I have found out you are shallow, you don'tthink, you can't feel things that I think and feel. I have beengetting over that. But I did think you were loyal--"
"I _am_ loyal," she cried.
"And you think--Bah!--you poke my roses under the table!"
Another portentous silence. Ethel stirred and he turned his eyes towatch what she was about to do. She produced her handkerchief andbegan to wipe her dry eyes rapidly, first one and then the other. Thenshe began sobbing. "I'm ... as loyal as you ... anyhow," she said.
For a moment Lewisham was aghast. Then he perceived he must ignorethat argument.
"I would have stood it--I would have stood anything if you had beenloyal--if I could have been sure of you. I am a fool, I know, but Iwould have stood the interruption of my work, the loss of any hope ofa Career, if I had been sure you were loyal. I ... I cared for you agreat deal."
He stopped. He had suddenly perceived the pathetic. He took refuge inanger.
"And you have deceived me! How long, how much, I don't care. You havedeceived me. And I tell you"--he began to gesticulate--"I'm not somuch your slave and fool as to stand that! No woman shall make me_that_ sort of fool, whatever else--So far as I am concerned, thisends things. This ends things. We are married--but I don't care if wewere married five hundred times. I won't stop with a woman who takesflowers from another man--"
"I _didn't_," said Ethel.
Lewisham gave way to a transport of anger. He caught up a handful ofroses and extended them, trembling. "What's _this_?" he asked. Hisfinger bled from a thorn, as once it had bled from a blackthorn spray.
"I _didn't_ take them," said Ethel. "I couldn't help it if they weresent."
"Ugh!" said Lewisham. "But what is the good of argument and denial?You took them in, you had them. You may have been cunning, but youhave given yourself away. And our life and all this"--he waved aninclusive hand at Madam Gadow's furniture--"is at an end."
He looked at her and repeated with bitter satisfaction, "At an end."
She glanced at his face, and his expression was remorseless. "I willnot go on living with you," he said, lest there should be anymistake. "Our life is at an end."
Her eyes went from his face to the scattered roses. She remainedstaring at these. She was no longer weeping, and her face, save aboutthe eyes, was white.
He presented it in another form. "I shall go away."
"We never ought to have married," he reflected. "But ... I neverexpected _this_!"
"I didn't know," she cried out, lifting up her voice. "I _didn't_know. How could _I_ help! _Oh_!"
She stopped and stared at him with hands clenched, her eyes haggardwith despair.
Lewisham remained impenetrably malignant.
"I don't _want_ to know," he said, answering her dumb appeal. "Thatsettles everything. _That_!" He indicated the scattered flowers. "Whatdoes it matter to me what has happened or hasn't happened? Anyhow--oh!I don't mind. I'm glad. See? It settles things.
"The sooner we part the better. I shan't stop with you anothernight. I shall take my box and my portmanteau into that room andpack. I shall stop in there to-night, sleep in a chair or _think_. Andto-morrow I shall settle up with Madam Gadow and go. You can go back... to your cheating."
He stopped for some seconds. She was deadly still. "You wanted to,and now you may. You wanted to, before I got work. You remember? Youknow your place is still open at Lagune's. I don't care. I tell you Idon't care _that_. Not that! You may go your own way--and I shall gomine. See? And all this rot--this sham of living together when neithercares for the other--I don't care for you _now_, you know, so youneedn't think it--will be over and done with. As for marriage--I don'tcare _that_ for marriage--it can't make a sham and a blunder anythingbut a sham.
"It's a sham, and shams have to end, and that's the end of thematter."
He stood up resolutely. He kicked the scattered roses out of his wayand dived beneath the bed for his portmanteau. Ethel neither spokenor moved, but remained watching his movements. For a time theportmanteau refused to emerge, and he marred his stern resolution by ahalf audible "Come here--damn you!" He swung it into the living roomand returned for his box. He proposed to pack in that room.
When he had taken all his personal possessions out of the bedroom, heclosed the folding-doors with an air of finality. He knew from thesounds that followed that she flung herself upon the bed, and thatfilled him with grim satisfaction.
He stood listening for a space, then set about packingmethodically. The first rage of discovery had abated; he knew quiteclearly that he was inflicting grievous punishment, and that gratifiedhim. There was also indeed a curious pleasure in the determination ofa long and painful period of vague misunderstanding by this unexpectedcrisis. He was acutely conscious of the silence on the other side ofthe folding-doors, he kept up a succession of deliberate littlenoises, beat books together and brushed clothes, to intimate theresolute prosecution of his preparations.
That was about nine o'clock. At eleven he was still busy....
Darkness came suddenly upon him. It was M
adam Gadow's economical habitto turn off all her gas at that hour unless she chanced to beentertaining friends.
He felt in his pocket for matches and he had none. He whisperedcurses. Against such emergencies he had bought a brass lamp and in thebedroom there were candles. Ethel had a candle alight, he could seethe bright yellow line that appeared between the folding doors. Hefelt his way presently towards the mantel, receiving a blow in theribs from a chair on the way, and went carefully amidst Madam Gadow'sonce amusing ornaments.
There were no matches on the mantel. Going to the chest of drawers healmost fell over his open portmanteau. He had a silent ecstasy ofrage. Then he kicked against the basket in which the roses hadcome. He could find no matches on the chest of drawers.
Ethel must have the matches in the bedroom, but that was absolutelyimpossible. He might even have to ask her for them, for at times shepocketed matches.... There was nothing for it but to stoppacking. Not a sound came from the other room.
He decided he would sit down in the armchair and go to sleep. He creptvery carefully to the chair and sat down. Another interval oflistening and he closed his eyes and composed himself for slumber.
He began to think over his plans for the morrow. He imagined the scenewith Madam Gadow, and then his departure to find bachelor lodgingsonce more. He debated in what direction he should go to get, suitablelodgings. Possible difficulties with his luggage, possible annoyancesof the search loomed gigantic. He felt greatly irritated at theseminor difficulties. He wondered if Ethel also was packing. Whatparticularly would she do? He listened, but he could hear nothing.She was very still. She was really very still! What could she bedoing? He forgot the bothers of the morrow in this new interest.Presently he rose very softly and listened. Then he sat down againimpatiently. He tried to dismiss his curiosity about the silence byrecapitulating the story of his wrongs.
He had some difficulty in fixing his mind upon this theme, butpresently his memories were flowing freely. Only it was not wrongsnow that he could recall. He was pestered by an absurd idea that hehad again behaved unjustly to Ethel, that he had been headlong andmalignant. He made strenuous efforts to recover his first heat ofjealousy--in vain. Her remark that she had been as loyal as he, becamean obstinate headline in his mind. Something arose within him thatinsisted upon Ethel's possible fate if he should leave her. Whatparticularly would she do? He knew how much her character leant uponhis, Good Heavens! What might she not do?
By an effort he succeeded in fixing his mind on Baynes. That helpedhim back to the harsher footing. However hard things might be for hershe deserved them. She deserved them!
Yet presently he slipped again, slipped back to the remorse andregrets of the morning time. He clutched at Baynes as a drowning manclutches at a rope, and recovered himself. For a time he meditated onBaynes. He had never seen the poet, so his imagination had scope. Itappeared to him as an exasperating obstacle to a tragic avenging ofhis honour that Baynes was a mere boy--possibly even younger thanhimself.
The question, "What will become of Ethel?" rose to the surfaceagain. He struggled against its possibilities. No! That was not it!That was her affair.
He felt inexorably kept to the path he had chosen, for all the waningof his rage. He had put his hand to the plough. "If you condone this,"he told himself, "you might condone anything. There are things one_must_ not stand." He tried to keep to that point of view--assumingfor the most part out of his imagination what it was he was notstanding. A dim sense came to him of how much he was assuming. At anyrate she must have flirted!... He resisted this reviving perception ofjustice as though it was some unspeakably disgraceful craving. Hetried to imagine her with Baynes.
He determined he would go to sleep.
But his was a waking weariness. He tried counting. He tried todistract his thoughts from her by going over the atomic weights of theelements....
He shivered, and realised that he was cold and sitting cramped on anuncomfortable horsehair chair. He had dozed. He glanced for the yellowline between the folding doors. It was still there, but it seemed toquiver. He judged the candle must be flaring. He wondered whyeverything was so still.
Now why should he suddenly feel afraid?
He sat for a long time trying to hear some movement, his head craningforward in the darkness.
A grotesque idea came into his head that all that had happened a verylong time ago. He dismissed that. He contested an unreasonablepersuasion that some irrevocable thing had passed. But why waseverything so still?
He was invaded by a prevision of unendurable calamity.
Presently he rose and crept very slowly, and with infinite precautionsagainst noise, towards the folding doors. He stood listening with hisear near the yellow chink.
He could hear nothing, not even the measured breathing of a sleeper.
He perceived that the doors were not shut, but slightly ajar. Hepushed against the inner one very gently and opened it silently. Stillthere was no sound of Ethel. He opened the door still wider andpeered into the room. The candle had burnt down and was flaring inits socket. Ethel was lying half undressed upon the bed, and in herhand and close to her face was a rose.
He stood watching her, fearing to move. He listened hard and his facewas very white. Even now he could not hear her breathing.
After all, it was probably all right. She was just asleep. He wouldslip back before she woke. If she found him--
He looked at her again. There was something in her face--
He came nearer, no longer heeding the sounds he made. He bent overher. Even now she did not seem to breathe.
He saw that her eyelashes were still wet, the pillow by her cheek waswet. Her white, tear-stained face hurt him....
She was intolerably pitiful to him. He forgot everything but that andhow he had wounded her that day. And then she stirred and murmuredindistinctly a foolish name she had given him.
He forgot that they were going to part for ever. He felt nothing but agreat joy that she could stir and speak. His jealousy flashed out ofbeing. He dropped upon his knees.
"Dear," he whispered, "Is it all right? I ... I could not hear youbreathing. I could not hear you breathing."
She started and was awake.
"I was in the other room," said Lewisham in a voice full ofemotion. "Everything was so quiet, I was afraid--I did not know whathad happened. Dear--Ethel dear. Is it all right?"
She sat up quickly and scrutinised his face. "Oh! let me tell you,"she wailed. "Do let me tell you. It's nothing. It's nothing. Youwouldn't hear me. You wouldn't hear me. It wasn't fair--before you hadheard me...."
His arms tightened about her. "Dear," he said, "I knew it wasnothing. I knew. I knew."
She spoke in sobbing sentences. "It was so simple. Mr. Baynes... something in his manner ... I knew he might be silly ... Only Idid so want to help you." She paused. Just for one instant she sawone untenable indiscretion as it were in a lightning flash. A chancemeeting it was, a "silly" thing or so said, a panic, retreat. Shewould have told it--had she known how. But she could not do it. Shehesitated. She abolished it--untold. She went on: "And then, I thoughthe had sent the roses and I was frightened ... I was frightened."
"Dear one," said Lewisham. "Dear one! I have been cruel to you. I havebeen unjust. I understand. I do understand. Forgive me.Dearest--forgive me."
"I did so want to do something for you. It was all I could do--thatlittle money. And then you were angry. I thought you didn't love meany more because I did not understand your work.... And that MissHeydinger--Oh! it was hard."
"Dear one," said Lewisham, "I do not care your little finger for MissHeydinger."
"I know how I hamper you. But if you will help me. Oh! I would work, Iwould study. I would do all I could to understand."
"Dear," whispered Lewisham. "_Dear_"
"And to have _her_--"
"Dear," he vowed, "I have been a brute. I will end all that. I willend all that."
He took her suddenly into his arms and kissed her.
"Oh, I _know_ I'm stupid," she said.
"You're not. It's I have been stupid. I have been unkind,unreasonable. All to-day--... I've been thinking about it. Dear! Idon't care for anything--It's _you_. If I have you nothing elsematters ... Only I get hurried and cross. It's the work and beingpoor. Dear one, we _must_ hold to each other. All to-day--It's beendreadful...."
He stopped. They sat clinging to one another.
"I do love you," she said presently with her arms about him. "Oh! Ido--_do_--love you."
He drew her closer to him.
He kissed her neck. She pressed him to her.
Their lips met.
The expiring candle streamed up into a tall flame, flickered, and wassuddenly extinguished. The air was heavy with the scent of roses.
