Читать книгу: «Arundel», страница 11

CHAPTER VIII
THE MOUNTAIN-TOP

Edward, from long living at Heathmoor, had little to learn about comfort, and the arrangements he had made for the two girls were of a completeness that Mrs. Hancock could hardly have rivalled, even if she had been concerned with plans for herself. He had gone up to town by the 9.6 a.m. that morning, and had shown himself but briefly at his office, devoting the rest of his time to orders and inspection. He had been to see the rooms prepared for their reception at the Savoy, bedrooms for the two girls, with a sitting-room between, had shown in a practical way that he recollected Elizabeth's ardour for sweet peas and Edith's respect for roses, had ordered tea to be ready for their arrival, a table to be reserved in the restaurant for their dinner between the acts, and an entrancing little supper to be served in the sitting-room when the opera was over. Finally, he was waiting at the station with his motor for their arrival.

It was not only the desire for their comfort that prompted this meticulous supervision, for the evening in prospect was symbolical to him of a parting, a farewell, and, with the spirit in which all farewells should be said, he wished to join hands with Elizabeth once more festally and superbly, not with lingering glances and secret signs, but to the sound of music and to the sight of a glorious drama. He had spent this last week among waves and billows of emotions, and, though his ship had not foundered, his lack of experience as a sailor in such seas had completely upset him in every other sense. But to-night, he had told himself, he would reach port; already he had rounded the pier-head, and within a few hours now he would put Elizabeth ashore. The pier was decorated for her reception, flags waved and bands played. He would part with her splendidly, and go back to his boat, where Edith would await him for their lifelong cruise in calm and pleasant waters.

He had made, so he honestly believed, the honest decision, and though honesty is a virtue which is so much taken for granted that it is ranked rather among the postulates of life than among its acquirements, honest decisions are not always made without struggle and difficulty. He felt for Elizabeth, the actual flesh and blood and spirit of her, what he had only hitherto imagined in the dreams which, a few months before, he had settled to have done with. Bitterly, and with more poignancy of feeling than he had thought himself capable of, he regretted his precipitancy in their abandonment; in a few months more he would have seen them realized, he would have had his human chance, of an attractive boy with a girl, to have made them true. But he had not waited; he had shaken himself awake, and, with full sense of what he was doing, had made love to and been accepted by the girl he knew and liked and admired. To-day he acknowledged his responsibility and had no intention of shirking it. A week of what was not less than spiritual anguish had resulted in this decision. In one direction he was pulled by honour, in the other by love. He had a "previous engagement," which, he had settled, took rank before anything else whatever. He believed, without the smallest touch of complacency, that Edith loved him, but he believed also (and again not a grain of that odious emotion entered into his belief) that had he been free Elizabeth would have accepted him. Since his deplorable lapse a week ago, she had treated him with a friendlier intimacy than ever; this, for they had had no further word on the subject, he interpreted to mean that out of the generosity of her nature she had completely forgiven him and obliterated the occurrence, and that her friendliness was meant to show how entirely she trusted him for the future. In this he was absolutely right; he was right also in the corollary he instinctively added, that she would not have adopted this attitude unless she was fond of him. She could quite correctly have kept him at arm's length, she could have continued to manifest that slight hostility to him which had previously characterized her behaviour. But she had not; she had given him a greater warmth and friendliness than ever before.

So far he could let his thoughts bear him without shame or secrecy. But there went on beneath them a tow, an undercurrent, which, though he suppressed and refused to regard it, was what had caused, in the main, the soul-storm in which he had been buffeted all this week. He believed there was more than friendliness in her regard for him, and with the terrible sharpsightedness of blind love (as if one of his eyes saw nothing, while the other was gifted with portentous vision) he had not missed the signs, little signs, a look, a word, a movement, which are the feelers of love, waving tentacles of infinite sensitiveness, that threadlike and invisible to the ordinary beholder, shrivel and spring and touch instinctively without volition on their owner's part. No one, fairly and impartially judging, could say that Elizabeth had behaved to him except with friendly unreserve. But to him she seemed to reserve much, to reserve all.

In spite of all this, Edward, as he waited on the platform for the arrival of their train, had no doubt that he was doing right in following the demands of honour. He had killed his dreams, so to speak, when he engaged himself to Edith; to-night, to the sound of flutes and violins, he was going to conduct their funeral, and did not see that in reality he was intending to bury them alive, and that dreams are not smothered by burial; rather, like the roots of plants, they grow and flourish beneath the earth, sending up the sap that feeds their blossoms. He did not contemplate the future with dismay; he believed that both he and Edith would have a very pleasant, comfortable life together, according to the Heathmoor pattern. And with a touch of cynicism, which was unusual with him, he added, as the train steamed in, that this was more than could be said for many marriages. Then, before the train stopped, he saw Elizabeth get out and look round for him with shining, excited eyes, and his heart beat quick at her recognition of him.

The three met with jubilance, and drove straight to the Savoy, for there was not more than time to have tea and dress. The day, like the last dozen of its predecessors, had been dry and dusty, and the roadway in front of the hotel had been liberally watered. Stepping out of the motor, Edith slipped and fell heavily, her foot doubled under her. Bravely she tried to smile, bravely also she tried to get up. But the smile faded in the agony of her twisted ankle, and she was helped into the hotel.

It seemed at first that it might be a wrench of little consequence, the pain of which would be assuaged by ten minutes' rest. But all that ten minutes did for her was to give her a badly swollen ankle, and show the utter impossibility of her setting foot to the ground. Then, swathed in wet bandages, and lying on the sofa in the sitting-room, she took a peremptory line with the others.

"You two must go," she said; "and if you wait here any longer you will be late. If you aren't both of you ready to start in a quarter of an hour, I shall go myself, bandage and all, if I have to hop there."

"But you can't spend the evening alone," said Elizabeth. "And we – "

"I shan't spend the evening alone, because we shall all have supper together. Dinner, too, if you will be awfully kind, Edward, and have it up here with me instead of in the restaurant."

Edward had already yielded in his heart – yielded with a secret exulting rapture. The Fates, though at Edith's expense, were giving him a splendid farewell to Elizabeth. They would be alone together for it; he did not let his thoughts progress further than that.

"If you insist – " he began.

"Am I not insisting? My dear, it is a dreadful bore, but we must make the best of it. Be kind, and order dinner here instead, and go to dress."

Elizabeth was left alone with her cousin.

"But Aunt Julia!" she said. "What will she say?"

"I have thought of that. Mother mustn't know. You must coach me up when you come back, and – and I shall have sprained my ankle when we came back to the hotel at the end. Don't forget! Oh, do go and get ready, Elizabeth; it's all settled! I can't bear that Edward should be disappointed in not seeing 'Siegfried,' nor, indeed, that you should. It would be perfectly senseless that you should stop at home because I can't go!"

It cost Elizabeth something to argue against this. She wanted passionately to see the opera, and if a dream-wish, a fairy-wish, for a thing that was impossible could have been presented to her that morning, she would have chosen to see the awakening of Brunnhilde alone with Edward. His wild-blurted speech when he intruded upon her practising a week ago she had buried, so complete since then had been his discretion, and if she thought of it at all, she thought of it only as a momentary lapse, an unguarded exaggeration. Since then she had not defended herself against him by any coldness of manner, any unspoken belittlement of him, and they had arrived at a franker and more affectionate intimacy than ever before. She did not inquire or conjecture what his secret emotional history was. She was safeguarded enough from him by his engagement to Edith; while from herself her own integrity of purpose seemed a sufficient shield. Yet she argued against Edith's insistence on the fulfilment of the fairy-wish.

"But Aunt Julia wouldn't like it," she said.

"I can't help that!" said Edith. "I want it so much that I don't care what mother would think. Besides, she won't think anything. She will never know." Edith paused a moment and flushed.

"Besides, dear," she said, "if I asked you and Edward, or even wanted you not to go, what reason could there be for it? It would appear so – so odious – as if – I can't say it! Oh, go and dress!"

The unspoken word was clear enough, and it contained all that Elizabeth was conscious of. It would have been odious that either of them should harbour the thought that Edith could not put into words. It was sufficient.

The two came back to dine at the end of the first act, full to the brim of music, intoxicated with the beady ferment of sound and drama, and both a little beside themselves with excitement. At present the music, and that alone, held them; in the flame of their common passion each as yet paid little heed to the other, except as a sharer in it. Elizabeth hardly touched any food; she was silent and bright-eyed, exploring her new kingdom. But with Edward, the return to the hotel, to the common needs of food and drink, above all, to Edith, took him poignantly back into the actual world again. Once again, more vividly than ever before, his choice which he told himself was already decided, was set before him as he sat with Elizabeth silent and strung-up on the one side, with Edith intelligently questioning him, with a view to subsequent catechism of herself on the other. Her questions seemed idiotic interruptions; he could barely make courteous narrative – "And then Mime told him about his youth. And then he began to forge the sword. Yes, it was Palstecher who played Siegfried – he was in excellent voice…"

He did not revoke his choice, but he ceased to think of it. He wanted only, for the present, to hasten the tardy progress of the hands of the clock to the moment when it would be time for him to go away again alone with Elizabeth. But the aspect of this evening, as his farewell to her, was ousted in his mind by the prospect of the next hour or two. He thought less of what it symbolized; more and growingly more of what it was. But even as no thunderstorm bursts without the menace of gathering clouds, so the thickening intensity of his emotions warned him with utterly disregarded caution, that forces of savage import were collecting. Had a friend laid the facts, the possibilities, the danger before him, and asked his opinion as to what a man should do under such circumstances, unhesitatingly would he have advised, without regard to any other issue, that he should not go back alone with Elizabeth. Let him take a waiter from the hotel, a stranger out of the street, rather than trust himself alone to keep a steady head and a firm foot in those precipiced and slippery places. Had he believed that Elizabeth had no touch of more than pleasant friendly feelings towards him, he might have been justified in believing in himself. But – and this was the very spring and foundation of his excitement, his expectancy – he did not so believe. He fancied, rightly or wrongly, that she had shown signs of a warmer regard for him than that. But still, as unconvincingly as a parrot-cry, he kept saying to himself, "Edith trusts me, and therefore I trust myself." He did not even feel he was doing a dangerous thing; he felt only that he had an irresistible need to be with Elizabeth in the isolation of the darkened house when Brunnhilde awoke.

The performance, viewed artistically, was magnificent. From height to height mounted the second act, till the sounds of the noonday, the murmurs of the forest, grew from the scarcely audible notes to the full triumphant symphony of sunlight and living things, pervading, all-embracing, bringing the voice of all nature to endorse heroic deeds, and at the same time to bring to the hero the knowledge of his human needs. To him, even as to Siegfried, it woke in his heart the irresistible need of love, of the ideal mate, of the woman of his dreams, who sat beside him. Once only, as the clear call of the bird rang through the hushed house, did Elizabeth take her eyes off the stage, and turned them, dewy with tears and bright with wonder, on him. She said no word, but unconsciously moved her chair a little nearer his and laid her ungloved hand on his knee.

He had one moment's hesitation – one moment in which it was in his power to check himself. There was just one branch of a tree, so to speak, hanging above the rapids down which he was hurrying, and it was just possible, with an effort, to grasp it. He made no such effort. Deliberately, if anything in this fervour of growing madness could be called deliberate, he let that moment go by; deliberately he rejected the image of Edith awaiting their return, and, all aflame, acquiesced with his will in anything that should happen. Deliberately he cast the reins on the backs of his flying steeds, and not again did the sense that he had any choice in the matter come to him. The last atom of his manliness was absorbed in his manhood. Elizabeth's hand lay on his knee, the fingers bending over it inwards. Gently he pressed them with his other knee, and he felt her response. She had but sought that touch to assure herself she was in tune with him, one with him over this miracle that she was looking at; but on the moment she felt there was more than that both in that pressure of her hand and her own response to it. But she was too absorbed, too rapt to care; nothing mattered except Siegfried, and the fact that she and Edward were together and beating with one heart's-blood about it.

And presently afterwards Brunnhilde lay beneath the pines in her shining armour, and through the flames, the vain obstacle that barred his approach to her, came Siegfried. Of no avail to her was the armour of her maidenhood, for while she slept he loosened it, and of no avail to stay his approach was the fierceness of the flames that girt her resting-place. At his kiss – the kiss that sealed her his – the strong throb of her blood beat again in her body; the eyes that had so long been shut in her unmolested sleep were unclosed, and she sat up and saluted the sun, and she saluted the day and the earth and all the myriad sounds and sights and odours that told her she was born into life again. Siegfried had stood back in awe at the wonder and holiness of her awakening, and she turned and saw him. And once more Elizabeth turned to Edward, and their eyes met in a long glance.

To each, at that moment, to her no less than to him, it was the drama of their own souls that was unfolding in melody and love-song before them. She needed to look at him but for that one glance of recognition, for there on the stage she learned, as she saw the immortal lovers together, the immortality of love. The whole air rang with this supreme expression of it, the violins and the flutes and that glorious voice of Brunnhilde spoke for her, and it was her companion, here in the box with her, who bore the rapture higher, who completed it, made it perfect. Indeed, there was greeting in the farewell; if he said "vale" to her he sang "ave" also. But his "vale" was less now than a mutter below his breath.

She sat with her arms resting on the front of the box till the last triumphant notes rang out, and through the applause that followed she still sat there, unmoving. There was no before or after for her then; her consciousness moved upon a limitless, an infinite plane. He had left his place, and when she turned he was standing close behind her. Again their eyes met in that long look, and the question that was in his saw itself answered by the smile, shy and solemn, that shone in hers. Then, still in silence, they went out into the crowd that filled the passages.

The entrance porch was crowded with the efflux of the house, waiting for their carriages to arrive, and Elizabeth saw the surging, glittering scene with a strange, hard distinctness; but it all seemed remote from her, as if it was enclosed in walls of crystal. The crowd was no more to her than a beehive of busy, moving little lives, altogether sundered in intelligence and interests from herself and Edward. The whole world had receded on to the insect-plane; it crawled and skipped and jostled about her, but he and she were infinitely removed from it, and it aroused in her just the vague wonder of a man idly gazing at a disturbed ant-hill, hardly wondering what all the bustle was about. Here and there stood members of this throng, waiting quietly in corners, taking no part in the movement, and it just occurred to her that in a room in the Savoy Hotel there was another such member of this queer, busy little race waiting their return. But even the thought of Edith barely found footing in her mind; she was but another specimen under glass.

The night was quite fine, and in a moment or two they had made their way out of the doors and were walking down the queue of carriages to find their motor. He had suggested that she should wait while he hunted it and brought it up, but she preferred to go out of this crowded insect-house to look for it with him. The street was full also of the vague throng, that also seemed utterly unreal, utterly without significance; she would scarcely have been surprised if the lights and the people and the houses and the high-swung moon had all collapsed and melted away, leaving only a mountain-top girt with flames that rose and fell with gusts of sparkling melody. She would not be alone there; her whole self, her completed self, at least would be there – the self which she had seen so often, had criticized and belittled, which, till this evening, she had never known to be herself. Now she knew nothing else. All the rest was a mimic world, full of busy little insects.

The motor was soon found, and she stepped in, followed by Edward. She had heard him give some directions to the chauffeur about driving down to the Embankment, and going to that entrance of the hotel, and they slid out of the queue and turned. So intensely did she feel his presence that it seemed to bring him no nearer to her when he took her hand in his, when she heard him whisper —

"Brunnhilde – you awoke!"

"Yes, Siegfried," she answered.

And his arms were round her, and for one second she clung close to him as he kissed her.

Then, even while his fire burned close to her, so that it mingled with her own blaze, and while the ringing of the music that was mystically one with it drowned all other sound, the real world, the actual world, which had quite vanished from her consciousness, stood round her again, menacing, reminding, appalling. Her real self, her integrity, her honour pointed at her in amazement, in horror, so that through their eyes, and not through the eyes of her passion, she saw herself and what she was doing, and what she was permitting, and what she was rapturously welcoming. Memory, loyalty, honesty cried aloud at her, and though it seemed that she was tearing part of herself away she wrenched herself free.

"Oh, what are we doing?" she cried. "We are both mad! And you – Oh, why did you let me? Why did you make it possible for me? Let me go, Edward!"

He had seized her again.

"I can't!" he said. "You are mine, and you know it! It's you that I have dreamed of all my life! We both dreamed, and we have awoke to-night to find it is true!"

Again, and this time easily, she shook herself free of him, for that in him which had struggled before, which had planned this evening as a farewell to her, came to her aid. For the moment, Elizabeth, far stronger than he in will, was wholly against him, and against him he had honourable traitors in his own house.

"We dreamed to-night of impossible things," she said; "and I have awoke again."

She began to tremble violently as the struggle to maintain that first flush of true vision seized her. It had come to her with the flashing stroke of impulse; now – and here was the difficulty – she had to keep hold of it.

"Edward, you see it as I do really!" she said. "You know we've been mad, mad! Ah, thank God, here we are!"

The motor had stopped by the hotel door, and already a porter was coming across the pavement to it.

"No, we can't leave it like this," he said. "Let's drive on for a little. Just for ten minutes, Elizabeth." He was on the near side of the carriage and tried to prevent her getting up.

"Come to your senses!" she said.

"But it is impossible to meet Edith like this!" he said. "She will see – "

He considered that for a moment. What if she did see? Was not that exactly what he desired? But Elizabeth interrupted him.

"She won't, because she mustn't," she said. "I can do my share, you must do yours. Get out, please!"

Next moment he followed her into the hotel. At the door of the sitting-room she paused a moment, feeling suddenly tired and incapable, and she looked appealingly at him as he joined her.

"Edward, do help me!" she said. "I rely on you!"

The tremendous pressure at which she had been living all day helped Elizabeth now, for reaction had not come yet, and whatever at that moment she had been set to do she would have done it with ten thousand horse-power. She made a rush of it across the room to where Edith lay, dropping fan, gloves, handkerchief on her way, and it seemed that Edward's help would chiefly consist in listening.

"Oh, my dear," she cried, "we've gone quite mad, both Edward and I! There is nothing in the world but Brunnhilde and Siegfried!"

She kissed Edith, and went on breathlessly, turning the deep tumult of her soul into the merest froth.

"Siegfried and Brunnhilde, Brunnhilde and Siegfried! I felt I was Brunnhilde, darling, and I was rather surprised that Edward did not kiss me!"

"I will now, if you like!" remarked Edward, taking his cue unerringly.

"Yes, do; you're such a dear for having taken me! Perhaps you had better not, though. It's a little late; you should have done it earlier, and besides, Edith might not like it. We must consider Edith now, after thinking about our own enjoyment all the evening. How is the ankle? I ask out of politeness, dear; I don't really care in the least how your ankle is! I only care for Siegfried! Oh, do let's have supper at once. I had no dinner to mention, and I am brutally hungry. That is the effect of emotion. After daddy was charged out pig-sticking, and was nearly killed, I ate the largest lunch I ever remember. Ah, they are bringing it! I shall never go on hunger-strike whatever happens to me! Siegfried! That wasn't quite in tune. Oh, Edith! Now help me to pull her sofa up to the table, Edward. Then she needn't move at all. And how is your ankle? I do care, really!"

This remarkable series of statements and questions could hardly be called conversation, but it served its purpose in starting social intercourse again.

Edith turned to Edward.

"Is she mad?" she asked. "And are you mad, too?"

"Yes, he has got dumb madness," said Elizabeth. "He hasn't said a word all the evening. Occasional sighs. Oh, I wish you had been there, Edith! Yes, certainly soup! For the third time I inquire about your ankle!"

Looking up, she caught Edward's eye for a moment. He was eagerly gazing at her, as Siegfried gazed at Brunnhilde – that was in some opera she had once seen in remote ages ago, in some dim land of dreams, in – And as she looked at him the stream of her babbling talk froze on her lips and her heart beat quick, and she was back again in the darkness of the motor, and she was saying to him, "Yes, Siegfried!" without thought of anything but the present moment, and of her love. Then, with a sense of coming from some infinite distance, she was back in this sitting-room again, conscious that Edith had said something, and that she had not the remotest notion what it was.

But Edward answered.

"That is capital!" he said. "I am glad it is better. Of course, you and Elizabeth will drive down in the motor to-morrow morning, so that you needn't walk at all. When will you go? I must tell Joynes at what time he is to come round."

So he, Edward, also belonged to his world, not to the world of the mountain-top and the ring of flame. Of course he did; he was going to marry Edith on October 8th, and it was not yet certain if she herself would be there or not. She would be leaving about then for India – it depended on whether she could get a passage by the boat that left Marseilles on the 15th. She felt like a child saying over to itself some absurd nonsense rhyme. July, August, September, then October – "Thirty days hath October." It did not sound right. Quail – yes, why not quail? So little while ago she lay on her mountain-top, and Siegfried loosed her armour and kissed her.

Supper was over, and Edith was saying something to her about her looking very tired. She was suggesting that she should go to bed. For herself, she was going to sit up a little longer and have a chat with Edward, for he had to coach her thoroughly in the opera, since Mrs. Hancock was never to know – at least, not at present – the true history of the evening.

Elizabeth found herself laughing at that; it seemed so unnecessary to say that Mrs. Hancock must never know the true history of the evening. Nor must Edith herself ever know the true history of the evening – never, never. There was no question of "not for the present" about that. But that Mrs. Hancock should not know the mere fact that she and Edward went to the opera alone seemed a ludicrous stratagem, laughable.

"What a tangled web we are going to weave all about nothing," she said. "I warn you, Edith, I shall be sure to forget, and let it out!"

"Oh, mother would be horrified!" said Edith. "You must take care!"

Elizabeth sat down and took one of Edward's cigarettes. Somehow, her revulsion of feeling against him had altogether vanished, and her yearning for him was stealing back again like pain that has been temporarily numbed and begins to reassert itself. The dream, the impossibility was that on October 8th he was going to marry Edith. It was quite incredible, a mere piece of nonsense that she had heard down at some dream-place called Heathmoor, where everybody was fast asleep. It was just part of the dreams of one of them, of Aunt Julia, perhaps, who certainly had no pains or joys, only comforts. She herself had to humour the dream-people, saying things to those drowsy people (of whom Edith was one) which really had a meaning, but not for them.

"But have we really done anything so awful?" she asked. "Is it highly improper that Edward and I should go to the opera together? There were about two thousand people there to chaperone us, and a lot of them were so respectable – bald men and stringy women!" She laughed again. "Did you see the one just behind us, Edward?" she said. "I'm sure you did! She had been out and got caught in a sudden shower of diamonds. She was peppered with them. There were several on her forehead, and I think one on her nose. Oh, dear!"

"And why that?" asked Edith.

"Because I feel quite mad, and because I am afraid I shall recover. I suppose I shall go to Heathmoor again to-morrow. There will be Lind there, and Mr. Martin, and, and – Any other place would be as bad. It isn't that Heathmoor is more impossible than London or India, or any other place would be. Yes, I'll remember that you sprained your ankle after the opera – about now, in fact; and then I helped you to bed, and then I went to bed myself, exactly as I'm going to do! Oh, I'm so tired! Good-night, Siegfried and Brunnhilde! Edward, you are a darling for taking me!"

Next minute she was alone in her bedroom, and there shot through her like fire a pain, agonizing and contemptible, which she had never known before; the intolerable torture of jealousy seized her, and she writhed in its grip. As clearly as if the scene was before her eyes, she knew what was happening next door. She could almost hear Edith saying in that quiet, sincere voice of hers, "Now we shall have a little time alone, Edward. I thought dear Elizabeth was never going. Is she not queer and excited to-night?" And she would hold out her hand to him, and he would sit on the edge of her sofa holding it in his, and he would bend to kiss her, not once, not once only. They would whisper together the words that were natural and proper between pledged lovers, the words that but an hour ago he was burning to say to her. Now, she made no doubt, he was glib with them to Edith. And yet an hour ago she had wrenched herself away from his arm and his kiss with horror and upheaval of her nature. Of that horror there was nothing left now in the hour of the first onslaught of jealousy. Now it was inconceivable to her that when he had offered her what she longed for, the thought of which, given to another, made her writhe with jealousy, she could have rejected it. She had repulsed him for wanting to give her what her whole heart cried out for, and what was hers, though he had already sworn it away to another. He had not met her, then; he did not know that she was ordained for him, even as he for her. And now, just because he had promised like a child, not knowing what he promised, he was giving all that by right was hers to a girl whom he did not love.