Part 32

Her voice faded into an exhausted silence. He knew that her mind was clouded with a rising mist of old memories, old doubts and struggles. He could not wholly understand, and yet the recognition of an immeasurable, fearlessly born suffering came to him with her broken, fevered murmurs.

He bowed his face upon her hands.

"My mountain heights—oh, Sigrid, they have been low enough—if you knew how low—"

"I know everything—everything—"

He was silent. The certainty, serene and complete, broke in a shaft of light through his darkness. He lifted his face to hers. Her eyes were closed. Her fair head had fallen a little on one side in an attitude of great weariness. Slowly, in answer to his imperative appeal, her eyes opened. They were at first dim and expressionless as though she withdrew her sight from some inner vision.

"Everything—Sigrid?"

"Everything," she answered.

"Barclay—"

"He told me—but I knew more—I knew everything. Because I loved you I understood."

A fine, contemptuous smile touched her suffering lips. "I knew Anne, too. I knew how she had chosen—"

He got up, driven to his feet by an intolerable knowledge.

"Then you shielded me—"

"Do you grudge me that little comfort?" she whispered. Then as he stood staring down at her, she made a little helpless effort to touch his hand. "Bracelet—brother—you mustn't be too proud—"

"Oh, God—" he burst out. "It isn't that—don't you know I love you too—and you've suffered—"

"I've lived as I wished to live," she said with a sudden thrilling clearness, "and when I couldn't help you any more—when I saw that it was all useless I made an end—my end. I didn't mean to tell you—I meant to leave you a perfect memory—and to go silently. But you called me back. You made me—if you love me—you will be glad."

She struggled up on to her elbow, gasping for breath, and he saw the greyness creeping to her cheeks. He turned to fetch fresh stimulants, but she clung to him with an incredible strength.

"No—stay with me, Tristram—these must be perfect minutes—we've earned them—they're ours—there's nothing to regret—a happy death—it's what we live for—I'm happy—madly happy. Stay with me, Tristram—don't leave me in all this darkness—"

He dropped to his knees beside her. He slipped his arm beneath her shoulders, holding her in an embrace of desperate tenderness. She threw back her head, smiling.

"Kiss me, Tristram."

Their lips met. She fell back with a short sigh and lay still, her mouth a little open as though in the midst of a laughing triumph she had fallen asleep. But presently she stirred and drew closer to him.

"Happy, Tristram?"

"Yes," he answered.

And indeed all anguish, all fear had gone from them both. They had gone down together into a sea in which there was no thought, no memory, no desire. The coming night enclosed them, shielding them from the future.

"It's because I'm dying—" Then suddenly she laughed softly, contentedly. "Those steps—in the fast movement—no one—no one has ever dared them—no one has ever danced like that—it was a great triumph—the greatest—"

He bent and touched her forehead with his cheek, soothing her. She smiled a little as though in gratitude, and sighing, fell asleep.

He did not move. He knelt there listening to her breathing. It hypnotized him, drowning his consciousness in its sweet, unbroken rhythm. It conveyed no meaning to him. He had passed out of the regions of hope and dread into the serenity of resignation.

Far off, in some other world, he heard the whisper of rain, the patter of heavy drops in the dust-laden street. He heard voices—exultant, hysterical. A pregnant coolness crept into the suffocating quiet. He knew that the drought had broken—that the rains had come.

But it was another world. In this world there was nothing but himself and this one woman.

He bent lower to catch a murmur from her parted lips. One small hand still rested on his breast, clinging to him. Its hold was greater than death—stronger than the threat of life. It drew him down with her into her peace.

She awoke as the grey, rain-swept dawn crept sullenly through the open doorway. Only little by little had she fought back the engulfing oblivion. The shadow of the man standing beside her, watching her, had loomed huge and unreal. But now she saw his face and knew him.

"Tristram!" she whispered.

He seemed to draw himself up to a greater height. His features were haggard and painted with the livid pallor of the light.

"A messenger has gone to Gaya," he said. "They will send Smithy with a litter—"

"Tristram—I'm going to live?"

"Yes," he said, "the danger is over."

They looked away from one another, finding no word of comfort. The glamour of the night dropped from them. They had drunk of death, and of that intoxicated hour nothing remained but the bitter aftermath of life—an anti-climax, tragic and pitiful, half-grotesque, a little sordid.

And as two travellers who have reached what seemed their journey's end only to find the desert stretched before them, they faced the grey, unending road of their future.

CHAPTER X

ANNE CHOOSES

Outwardly the scene was commonplace enough. Women, for all their supposed emotional weakness, have for the greater part a knack of facing the graver crises with a deliberate and almost prosaic calm. And for one woman at least in that quiet room the moment could not have been more bitter, more fraught with ugliness and humiliation. Yet she sat very straight, very composed, tearing down the sanctity of her life without a quiver.

"You must think it very strange of me to come to you like this," she said, "but I had the feeling that, whatever else you would do, you would be frank with me. And I must know the truth. I must know where I stand. I must know what you are to my husband, Mrs. Barclay."

She looked straight at her companion as she spoke. She was not conscious of her own insolence. Her words had been forged in a fortnight's agony and had cost too much in their utterance to allow consciousness of any hurt but her own. Moreover, to her the pale, delicate-faced woman opposite her had no claim to her consideration. She was "one of those others" whom the remnant of man's prime favourite, the Victorian female, passes with gathered skirts. For in Anne's catalogue of humanity there were as yet only two varieties of her sex, the sexually virtuous and the sexually immoral. They were accordingly good women or bad women, no matter what other failings or qualities they might possess. Or, in a word, a woman's loyalty to her husband, prospective or actual, was all that mattered in Anne's eyes.

Mrs. Barclay, she knew, was a bad woman.

Sigrid regarded her thoughtfully from beneath the shadow of her hand.

"You are insulting me, Mrs. Tristram," she said, "but I do not think you mean it. I think you are unhappy, and that is excuse enough. Won't you explain exactly what you mean?"

"I'm sure you know," Anne answered unsparingly. "You were always—I don't know how to express it—but it seemed to me—to a great many people—that you tried to entangle my husband—before our marriage—. I could have borne that. I knew my husband so well. In many ways he is careless and unconventional. He doesn't recognize evil easily. But now—now it's different." She halted, fighting the tremor in her voice. It was the first trace of emotion that she had shown, and, in spite of her prim brutality, it was curiously pathetic. "Since the—the scandal in the temple—I've felt I couldn't bear it any longer. People have talked—they think—oh, I know—though they hide it from me—and I can't do anything. I can't because I don't know—"

"You don't know what?"

"Whether it's true."

"Wouldn't it be best—fairer—to ask your husband?"

There was a moment's silence. The splash of the rain on the trees of the compound sounded dismally in the room's stillness. Sigrid shifted her position. She leant forward a little as though to look closer into her visitor's face. The small white hand on her knee clenched itself. But Anne turned her face away from the intent, weary eyes. She bit her lips desperately.

"I can't—" she said. "I can't—that's just it—"

A tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it away flurriedly, but the knowledge of her weakness broke down the wall of pride and anger which she had built up in her loneliness. "I can't because I sent him away. We'd quarrelled—no, it wasn't a quarrel—it was something worse than that—and—and he let me choose—and I told him to go. I was very wicked—very unjust. A wife's business is to forgive everything. I see that. But it's too late. He's gone, and now—now I've no one—"

It was not what she had meant to say. She had meant to be grave and dignified and judicial, and instead she was crying quietly. But now that the dam was broken her pent-up unhappiness flooded over her irresistibly. She had been intensely lonely. She had no great friend to turn to, and her instincts tended to a stern reserve where marital relations were concerned. She had hidden her growing fears and remorse under a cloak of indifference. Then had come the wild story of the temple, of Sigrid Barclay's night spent in Tristram's hut, of her supposed dangerous illness, of her apparently swift recovery. Then Gaya had begun to whisper, and those whisperings had been more than she could bear. She had meant only to seek the truth—instead she had poured out her overladen heart to the woman she most hated.

Sigrid got up slowly and went to the verandah. She stood for a minute with her raised hand resting on the lintel, gazing out into the rain-soaked gardens. The moist air was full of fragrance and reviving life. When she turned at last there was a splash of colour in her pale cheeks.

"Mrs. Tristram, send for your husband—go to him. He is the sort of man who doesn't need to forgive."

"I can't."

"You love him—"

"I couldn't go to him until I knew—"

"—that you had nothing to forgive?"

Anne's silence answered. Sigrid studied her with no shadow of change on her own palely composed features.

"We're two women, Mrs. Tristram," she said, "and that makes many impossible things possible—it makes it possible, for instance, though we dislike one another, for us to be honest—even about the man we both love."

Anne lifted her wet, piteously twisted face.

"Then it's true?"

"It's true that I love him." She played absently with one of the little silver ornaments on the table beside her, and then added: "It is true also that I offered myself to him, though I never meant to marry him—threw myself at his head. And that he refused me—"

"He didn't care—?"

Sigrid, glancing up, caught that look of mingled disgust and hope and fear, but it was the hope and fear alone that had significance.

"He had asked you to marry him. He told me that there could only be one woman in his life—and that woman his wife."

"That is true?"

"I give you my word of honour."

Anne sat very still. The tears were dry on her cheeks. She held herself rather as she had done at the beginning.

"And then—that night—a fortnight ago—"

"Ah, the temple?" She smiled faintly. "You won't understand that so well. You see, I am a mixture of a great artist and a bad woman. And artistically I have always realized how beautiful I should be against such a background. It was an artistic freak—though I daresay the woman in me had a spiteful hope that Major Tristram might chance that way and realize all he had lost. Anyhow, my heart failed me. Your husband acted the good Samaritan; and that is the whole story."

"If that is true I have done my husband a great wrong."

"I think you have."

Anne rose with a vague little gesture. It seemed to indicate barriers over which no reproof could pass. She was quite composed now. The strain and insolence had gone out of her manner, which was faintly patronizing.

"I have to thank you for your frankness. I—I shan't ever feel quite the same to you as I have done. Indeed—I hardly understand. You say you dislike me—and yet you've told me all this—"

"That's because most unscrupulous people are good-natured," Sigrid answered with careless amusement. She helped herself to a cigarette, aware that by so doing she was living up to Anne's conception of her. "You see, it doesn't cost me anything. This particular incident is closed as far as I am concerned, and you might as well enjoy the benefit of the truth. I am conscious that I tried to hurt you, and I'm sorry."

Anne nodded.

"I'm sorry, too," she said primly. She went towards the door and there hesitated nervously. "You're—you're leaving Gaya, are you not?"

"Yes, soon. My husband's business here is finished. It is very fortunate."

"Yes—very fortunate."

She lifted her eyes to Sigrid, realizing for an instant why Gaya had called her beautiful. An incredible impulse seized her, but she thrust it down in scorn and self-disgust. She made a little tentative movement as though to hold out her hand, and then turned and went out without a word. After all, it was the only thing to do. Now that her worst fears were over she saw that the scene had been preposterous, but she was a little thrilled by her own action as conventional people are when they have ventured out of their rut. She had met sin on her own ground and worsted her. In some dim way she believed that she had fought for Tristram and his happiness. Her anger against him had died—had been transmuted into pity. She saw that behind his bigness he was weak and easily led. Well, it was her task to lead him, to protect him. She was his wife.

She drove homewards through the steady downpour with an exalted consciousness of a duty done and of a clear road before her. She knew now what she had to do. It meant sacrifice because she no longer loved, but sacrifice was a glorious prerogative. In it one found peace and happiness. She was happier already. As she passed the little tin chapel her happiness clamoured for expression, for thanksgiving. She ordered the syce to wait for her, and a moment later she was kneeling in her old place, to the right of the pathetic altar, thanking God for the light that had been granted her.

At first she did not see Meredith. There were only two side-windows through which the grey light filtered, sinking drearily on to the place's bleak unloveliness, and the figure bowed down before the altar was in shadow and motionless in its utter, almost passionate prostration. But presently he rose slowly to his feet and turned. The lower part of his body was still in darkness, but his face was in the light, lifted to it. And to Anne, who now saw him, its hideousness was sublime. She saw in it the seal of God set on His martyr. Her intuition flashed down into the depths of the man's patient soul, more seared and scarred even than those dreadful features, and the compassion which she poured out to him was other than her pity for her husband. It was understanding. In truth it was not pity, but she gave that name to it.

He saw her. Even though the twilight separated them she knew he faltered. She knew the memories that had driven the dark blood into those scars. And she too remembered—all her girlhood and all her girlhood's prayers and fancies which had been born in this poor room. She was a woman now. The fancies had been foolish and childish. She had flung away reality for them. Well, she would take up her cross.

Meredith came towards her and took her outstretched hand.

"When I saw you it was as though all the old times had come back again," he said with a grave smile.

"I came in for quiet," she answered. "I wanted to—to thank God for something. And now I've found you—may I speak with you?"

He nodded silently and led her into the tiny side-room, where he changed his vestments and gave lessons to a few Pariah children who accepted his doctrine in exchange for a certain social status. He offered her the one chair, but she remained standing.

"I have just seen Mrs. Barclay, Owen," she said. "I went to see her. It may seem a dreadful thing to have done—and it was dreadful—but I know that I did right. She confessed to me."

He looked at her and then down at the papers littered on the table.

"What did she confess?"

"That some of the wretched scandal which has associated her with Tristram was true. She did try to drag my husband into a horrible intrigue. But she failed. She swore to me, and I believe it was the truth."

"I think Mrs. Barclay would speak the truth," he said meditatively.

"She is shameless," Anne retorted with a flash of scorn; "but, at least, now I know that Tristram is innocent where she is concerned. It is for that I am so thankful."

Owen Meredith drew himself up from his bowed attitude. There was something weary and apathetic in his bearing which was new to her. She felt, with a stab of pain, that he was very ill.

"Anne—don't you love your husband?" he asked.

The feverish blush in her cheeks deepened. But his eyes were grave, even to severity, and admitted no offence.

"Why, I must love him—he is my husband."

His twisted mouth was bitter.

"The one thing doesn't always imply the other, Anne. Men and women are frail. They can't always keep the terrible oaths God makes them swear."

"They can do their duty," she interrupted, "as I shall do mine."

"Duty isn't love," he said.

She lifted her head proudly.

"It is the best one can give after love has been killed."

"Has Tristram killed your love, Anne?"

She met his stern gaze unflinchingly.

"He has done something I can't forget. I have forgiven it, but I know now how wide the gulf is between us and now I can't ever forget it. That's all I can tell you."

"Anne—Anne—we must judge gently—"

"I don't judge any one but myself," she answered. "I see that I have been most to blame. I made a great mistake and I accept the consequences. I am going back to my husband."

"Going back to him?" he echoed heavily.

She nodded.

"I can do nothing here. My father's condition is unchanged. Dr. Martin is staying on, but he believes that the operation has failed. At any rate, I shall be within reach and my place is at my husband's side. I see that in many ways I could have done more to help him. Now I mean to share his life—to stand by him. I am going to Heerut."

"There's no place for a woman," Owen exclaimed.

"I think there is. I am a good nurse. I could help him. And out there I should see all that is good in him—oh, Owen, I must love and respect him if I can."

She lifted her eyes to his and for the moment in which their gaze met they acknowledged to each other the naked, hopeless truth. He turned at last with a broken laugh.

"I think hell itself must be paved with useless sacrifice," he said.

"Oh, Owen, don't talk like that—it's terrible. I can't bear it. Help me!"

"How can I help you?" he asked almost impatiently.

"Ride with me to Heerut this afternoon—take me back to Tristram."

She did not realize what she asked. She did not see his face. She was possessed with a restless feverish desire for action—to start out on the road she had chosen.

"Dear, it's not possible. The weather and the roads are too bad. You're not strong enough. A man told me this morning that the river is terribly swollen—dangerous even—"

"I am not afraid," she said proudly. "Owen, won't you help me this last time?"

"This last time?"

She faltered.

"Oh, I didn't mean that—it was just a phrase—"

"God knows, it may be the truth—of late I have felt—"

He broke off and added quickly: "Yes, of course I will take you if it can be done."

"Thank you, Owen. I knew you would always help me if you could."

"Always."

Their hands met. The tears shone in her eyes, and they were not far from his. He bent and kissed her solemnly between the wet curls on her forehead.