CHAPTER V
THE PARIAH
Habit assisted them; the irresponsible chatter of the ballroom sprangautomatically to their lips; the appearance of enjoyment never failedfrom off their faces; so that no one at Lennon House that nightsuspected that any swift cause of severance had come between them. HarryFeversham watched Ethne laugh and talk as though she had never a care,and was perpetually surprised, taking no thought that he wore the likemask of gaiety himself. When she swung past him the light rhythm of herfeet almost persuaded him that her heart was in the dance. It seemedthat she could even command the colour upon her cheeks. Thus they bothwore brave faces as she had bidden. They even danced together. But allthe while Ethne was conscious that she was holding up a great load ofpain and humiliation which would presently crush her, and Feversham feltthose four feathers burning at his breast. It was wonderful to him thatthe whole company did not know of them. He never approached a partnerwithout the notion that she would turn upon him with the contemptuousname which was his upon her tongue. Yet he felt no fear on that account.He would not indeed have cared had it happened, had the word beenspoken. He had lost Ethne. He watched her and looked in vain amongsther guests, as indeed he surely knew he would, for a fit comparison.There were women, pretty, graceful, even beautiful, but Ethne stoodapart by the particular character of her beauty. The broad forehead, theperfect curve of the eyebrows, the great steady, clear, grey eyes, thefull red lips which could dimple into tenderness and shut level withresolution, and the royal grace of her carriage, marked her out toFeversham's thinking, and would do so in any company. He watched her ina despairing amazement that he had ever had a chance of owning her.
Only once did her endurance fail, and then only for a second. She wasdancing with Feversham, and as she looked toward the windows she sawthat the daylight was beginning to show very pale and cold upon theother side of the blinds.
"Look!" she said, and Feversham suddenly felt all her weight upon hisarms. Her face lost its colour and grew tired and very grey. Her eyesshut tightly and then opened again. He thought that she would faint."The morning at last!" she exclaimed, and then in a voice as weary asher face, "I wonder whether it is right that one should suffer so muchpain."
"Hush!" whispered Feversham. "Courage! A few minutes more--only a veryfew!" He stopped and stood in front of her until her strength returned.
"Thank you!" she said gratefully, and the bright wheel of the dancecaught them in its spokes again.
It was strange that he should be exhorting her to courage, she thankinghim for help; but the irony of this queer momentary reversal of theirposition occurred to neither of them. Ethne was too tried by the strainof those last hours, and Feversham had learned from that one failure ofher endurance, from the drawn aspect of her face and the depths of painin her eyes, how deeply he had wounded her. He no longer said, "I havelost her," he no longer thought of his loss at all. He heard her words,"I wonder whether it is right that one should suffer so much pain." Hefelt that they would go ringing down the world with him, persistent inhis ears, spoken upon the very accent of her voice. He was sure that hewould hear them at the end above the voices of any who should standabout him when he died, and hear in them his condemnation. For it wasnot right.
The ball finished shortly afterwards. The last carriage drove away, andthose who were staying in the house sought the smoking-room or wentupstairs to bed according to their sex. Feversham, however, lingered inthe hall with Ethne. She understood why.
"There is no need," she said, standing with her back to him as shelighted a candle, "I have told my father. I told him everything."
Feversham bowed his head in acquiescence.
"Still, I must wait and see him," he said.
Ethne did not object, but she turned and looked at him quickly with herbrows drawn in a frown of perplexity. To wait for her father under suchcircumstances seemed to argue a certain courage. Indeed, she herselffelt some apprehension as she heard the door of the study open andDermod's footsteps on the floor. Dermod walked straight up to HarryFeversham, looking for once in a way what he was, a very old man, andstood there staring into Feversham's face with a muddled and bewilderedexpression. Twice he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Inthe end he turned to the table and lit his candle and Harry Feversham's.Then he turned back toward Feversham, and rather quickly, so that Ethnetook a step forward as if to get between them; but he did nothing morethan stare at Feversham again and for a long time. Finally, he took uphis candle.
"Well--" he said, and stopped. He snuffed the wick with the scissors andbegan again. "Well--" he said, and stopped again. Apparently his candlehad not helped him to any suitable expressions. He stared into the flamenow instead of into Feversham's face, and for an equal length of time.He could think of nothing whatever to say, and yet he was conscious thatsomething must be said. In the end he said lamely:--
"If you want any whiskey, stamp twice on the floor with your foot. Theservants understand."
Thereupon he walked heavily up the stairs. The old man's forbearance wasperhaps not the least part of Harry Feversham's punishment.
* * * * *
It was broad daylight when Ethne was at last alone within her room. Shedrew up the blinds and opened the windows wide. The cool fresh air ofthe morning was as a draught of spring-water to her. She looked out upona world as yet unillumined by colours and found therein an image of herdays to come. The dark, tall trees looked black; the winding paths, asingular dead white; the very lawns were dull and grey, though the dewlay upon them like a network of frost. It was a noisy world, however,for all its aspect of quiet. For the blackbirds were calling from thebranches and the grass, and down beneath the overhanging trees theLennon flowed in music between its banks. Ethne drew back from thewindow. She had much to do that morning before she slept. For shedesigned with her natural thoroughness to make an end at once of all herassociations with Harry Feversham. She wished that from the moment whennext she waked she might never come across a single thing which couldrecall him to her memory. And with a sort of stubborn persistence shewent about the work.
But she changed her mind. In the very process of collecting together thegifts which he had made to her she changed her mind. For each gift thatshe looked upon had its history, and the days before this miserablenight had darkened on her happiness came one by one slowly back to heras she looked. She determined to keep one thing which had belonged toHarry Feversham,--a small thing, a thing of no value. At first she chosea penknife, which he had once lent to her and she had forgotten toreturn. But the next instant she dropped it and rather hurriedly. Forshe was after all an Irish girl, and though she did not believe insuperstitions, where superstitions were concerned she preferred to be onthe safe side. She selected his photograph in the end and locked it awayin a drawer.
She gathered the rest of his presents together, packed them carefully ina box, fastened the box, addressed it and carried it down to the hall,that the servants might despatch it in the morning. Then coming back toher room she took his letters, made a little pile of them on the hearthand set them alight. They took some while to consume, but she waited,sitting upright in her arm-chair while the flame crept from sheet tosheet, discolouring the paper, blackening the writing like a stream ofink, and leaving in the end only flakes of ashes like feathers, andwhite flakes like white feathers. The last sparks were barelyextinguished when she heard a cautious step on the gravel beneath herwindow.
It was broad daylight, but her candle was still burning on the table ather side, and with a quick instinctive movement she reached out her armand put the light out. Then she sat very still and rigid, listening. Fora while she heard only the blackbirds calling from the trees in thegarden and the throbbing music of the river. Afterward she heard thefootsteps again, cautiously retreating; and in spite of her will, inspite of her formal disposal of the letters and the presents, she wasmastered all at once, not by pain or humiliation, but by an overpoweringsense of loneliness. She
seemed to be seated high on an empty world ofruins. She rose quickly from her chair, and her eyes fell upon a violincase. With a sigh of relief she opened it, and a little while after oneor two of the guests who were sleeping in the house chanced to wake upand heard floating down the corridors the music of a violin played verylovingly and low. Ethne was not aware that the violin which she held wasthe Guarnerius violin which Durrance had sent to her. She onlyunderstood that she had a companion to share her loneliness.
The Four Feathers Page 5
