The Incomplete Amorist

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CHAPTER XXVI.

THE MIRACLE.

It seemed quite dark down in the forest--or rather, it seemed, after
the full good light that lay upon the summit of the rocks, like the
gray dream-twilight under the eyelids of one who dozes in face of a
dying fire.

"Don't let's go straight back to Grez," said Betty when the pony was
harnessed, "let's go on to Fontainebleau and have dinner and drive
back by moonlight. Don't you think it would be fun? We've never done
that."

"Thank you," he said. "You _are_ good."

His eyes met hers in the green shadow, and she was satisfied because
he had understood that this was her reply to his appeal to her "not to
avoid him in the little time there was left."

Both were gay as they drove along the golden roads, gayer than ever
they had been. The nearness of a volcano has never been a bar to
gaiety. Dinner was a joyous feast, and when it was over, and the other
guests had strolled out, Temple sang all the songs Betty liked best.
Betty played for him. It was all very pleasant, and both pretended,
quite beautifully, that they were the best of friends, and that it had
never, never been a question of anything else. The pretence lasted
through all the moonlight of the home drive--lasted indeed till the
pony was trotting along the straight avenue that leads down into Grez.
And even then it was not Temple who broke it. It was Betty, and she
laid her hand on his arm.

"Look here," she said. "I've been thinking about it ever since you
said it. And I'm not going to let it spoil anything. Only I don't want
you to think I don't understand. And I'm most awfully proud that you
should.... I am really. And I'd rather be liked by you than by
anyone--"

"Almost," said Temple a little bitterly.

"I don't feel sure about that part of it--really. One feels and thinks
such a lot of different things--and they all contradict everything
else, till one doesn't know what anything means, or what it is one
really--I can't explain. But I don't want you to think your having
talked about it makes any difference. At least I don't mean that at
all. What I mean is that of course I like you ever so much better now
I know that you like me, and--oh, I don't want to--I don't want you to
think it's all no good, because really and truly I don't know."

All this time she had kept her hand on his wrist.

Now he laid his other hand over it.

"Dear," he said, "that's all I want, and more than I hoped for now. I
won't say another word about it--ever, if you'd rather not,--only if
ever you feel that it is me, and not that other chap, then you'll tell
me, won't you?"

"I'll tell you now," said Betty, "that I wish with all my heart it
_was_ you, and not the other."

When he had said goodnight at the deserted door of the courtyard Betty
slipped through the trees to her pavilion. The garden seemed more
crowded with trees than it had ever been. It was almost as though new
trees from the forest had stolen in while she was at Fontainebleau,
and joined the ranks of those that stood sentinel round the pavilion.
There was a lamp in the garden room--as usual. Its light poured out
and lay like a yellow carpet on the terrace, and lent to the foliage
beyond that indescribable air of festivity, of light-heartedness that
green leaves can always borrow from artificial light.

"I'll just see if there are any letters," she told herself. "There
always might be: from Aunt Julia or Miss Voscoe or--someone."

She went along the little passage that led to the stairs. The door
that opened from it into the garden room was narrowly ajar. A slice of
light through the chink stood across the passage.

_Oh_!

There was someone in the room. Someone was speaking. She knew the
voice. "She must be in soon," it said. It was her Aunt Julia's voice.
She stopped dead. And there was silence in the room.

Oh! to be caught like this! In a trap. And just when she had decided
to go home! She would not be caught. She would steal up to her room,
get her money, leave enough on the table to pay her bill, and _go_.
She could walk to Marlotte--and go off by train in the morning to
Brittany--anywhere. She would not be dragged back like a prisoner to
be all the rest of her life with a hateful old man who detested her.
Aunt Julia thought she was very clever. Well, she would just find out
that she wasn't. Who was she talking to? Not Madame, for she spoke in
English. To some one from Paris? Who could have betrayed her? Only one
person knew. Lady St. Craye. Well, Lady St. Craye should not betray
her for nothing. She would not go to Brittany: she would go back to
Paris. That woman should be taught what it costs to play the traitor.

All this in the quite small pause before her aunt's voice spoke again.

"Unless she's got wind of our coming and flown," it said.

"Our" coming? Who was the other?

Betty was eavesdropping then? How dishonourable! Well, it is. And she
was.

"I hope to Heaven she's safe," said another voice. Oh--it was her
step-father! He had come--Then he must know everything! She moved,
quite without meaning to move; her knee touched the door and it
creaked. Very very faintly, but it creaked. Would they hear? Had they
heard? No--the aunt's voice again:

"The whole thing's inexplicable to me! I don't understand it. You let
Betty go to Paris."

"By your advice."

"By my advice, but also because you wanted her to be happy."

"Yes--Heaven knows I wanted her to be happy." The old man's voice was
sadder than Betty had ever heard it.

"So we found Madame Gautier for her--and when Madame Gautier dies, she
doesn't write to you, or wire to you, to come and find her a new
chaperone. Why?"

"I can't imagine why."

"Don't you think it may have been because she was afraid of you,
thought you'd simply make her come back to Long Barton?"

"It would surely have been impossible for her to imagine that I should
lessen the time which I had promised her, on account of an unfortunate
accident. She knows the depth of my affection for her. No, no--depend
upon it there must have been some other reason for the deceit. I
almost fear to conjecture what the reason may have been. Do you think
it possible that she has been seeing that man again?"

There was a sound as of a chair impatiently pushed back. Betty fled
noiselessly to the stairs. No footstep followed the movement of the
chair. She crept back.

"--when you do see her?" her aunt was asking, "I suppose you mean to
heap reproaches on her, and take her home in disgrace?"

"I hope I shall have strength given me to do my duty," said the
Reverend Cecil.

"Have you considered what your duty is?"

"It must be my duty to reprove, to show her her deceit in its full
enormity."

"You'll enjoy that, won't you? It'll gratify your sense of power.
You'll stand in the place of God to the child, and you'll be glad to
see her humbled and ashamed."

"Because a thing is painful to me it is none the less my duty."

"Nor any the more," snapped Miss Desmond; "nor any the more! That's
what you won't see. She knows you don't care about her, and that's why
she kept away from you as long as she could."

"She can't know it. It isn't true."

"She thinks it is."

"Do _you_ think so? Do _you_ imagine I don't care for her? Have you
been poisoning her mind and--"

"Oh, don't let's talk about poison!" said Miss Desmond. "If she's lost
altogether it won't matter to you. You'll have done your duty."

"If she's lost I--if she were lost I should not care to be saved. I am
aware that the thought is sinful. But I fear that it is so."

"Of course," said Miss Desmond. "She's not your child--why should you
care? You never had a child."

"What have I done to you that you should try to torture me like this?"
It was her step-father's voice, but Betty hardly knew it. "For pity's
sake, woman, be quiet! Let me bear what I have to bear without your
chatter."

"I'm sorry," said Miss Desmond very gently. "Forgive me if I didn't
understand. And you do really care about her a little?"

"Care about her a little! She's the only living thing I do care
for--or ever have cared for except one. Oh, it is like a woman to cast
it up at me as a reproach that I have no child! Why have I no child?
Because the woman whom Almighty God made for my child's mother was
taken from me--in her youth--before she was mine. Her name was Lizzie.
And my Lizzie, my little Lizzie that's lied and deceived us, she _is_
my child--the one _we_ should have had. She's my heart's blood. Do you
think I want to scold her; do you think I want to humble her? Do you
not perceive how my own heart will be torn? But it is my duty. I will
not spare the rod. And she will understand as you never could. Oh, my
little Lizzie!--Oh, pray God she is safe! If it please God to restore
her safely to me, I will not yield to the wicked promptings of my own
selfish affection. I will show her her sin, and we will pray for
forgiveness together. Yes, I will not shrink, even if it break my
heart--I will tell her--"

"I should tell her," said Miss Desmond, "just what you've told me."

The old man was walking up and down the room. Betty could hear every
movement.

"It's been the struggle of my life not to spoil her--not to let my
love for her lead me to neglect her eternal welfare--not to lessen her
modesty by my praises--not to condone the sin because of my love for
the sinner. My love has not been selfish.--It has been the struggle of
my life not to let my affection be a snare to her."

"Then I must say," said Miss Desmond, "that you might have been better
employed."

"Thank God I have done my duty! You don't understand. But my Lizzie
will understand."

"Yes, she will understand," cried Betty, bursting open the door and
standing between the two with cheeks that flamed. "I do understand,
Father dear! Auntie, I don't understand _you_! You're cruel,--and it's
not like you. Will you mind going away, please?"

The cruel aunt smiled, and moved towards the door. As she passed Betty
she whispered: "I thought you were _never_ going to come from behind
that door. I couldn't have kept it up much longer."

Then she went out and closed the door firmly.

Betty went straight to her step-father and put her arms round his
neck.

"You do forgive me--you will forgive me, won't you?" she said
breathlessly.

He put an arm awkwardly round her.

"There's nothing you could do that I couldn't forgive," he said in a
choked voice. "But it is my duty not to--"

She interrupted him by drawing back to look at him, but she kept his
arm where it was, by her hand on his.

"Father," she said, "I've heard everything you've been saying. It's no
use scolding me, because you can't possibly say anything that I
haven't said to myself a thousand times. Sit down and let me tell you
everything, every single thing! I _did_ mean to come home this week,
and tell you; I truly did. I wish I'd gone home before."

"Oh, Lizzie," said the old man, "how could you? How could you?"

"I didn't understand. I didn't know. I was a blind idiot. Oh, Father,
you'll see how different I'll be now! Oh, if one of us had died--and
I'd never known!"

"Known what, my child? Oh, thank God I have you safe! Known what?"

"Why, that you--how fond you are of me."

"You didn't know _that_?"

"I--I wasn't always sure," Betty hastened to say. A miracle had
happened. She could read now in his eyes the appeal that she had
always misread before. "But now I shall always be sure--always. And
I'm going to be such a good daughter to you--you'll see--if you'll
only forgive me. And you will forgive me. Oh, you don't know how I
trust you now!"

"Didn't you always?"

"Not enough--not nearly enough. But I do now. Let me tell you--Don't
let me ever be afraid of you--oh, don't let me!" She had pushed him
gently into a chair and was half kneeling on the floor beside him.

"Have you ever been afraid of me?"

"Oh, I don't know; a little perhaps sometimes! You don't know how
silly I am. But not now. You _are_ glad to see me?"

"Lizzie," he said, "God knows how glad I am! But it's my duty to ask
you at once whether you've done anything wrong."

"Everything wrong you can think of!" she answered enthusiastically,
"only nothing really wicked, of course. I'll tell you all about it.
And oh, do remember you can't think worse of me than I do! Oh, it's
glorious not to be afraid!"

"Of me?" His tone pleaded again.

"No, no--of anything! Of being found out. I'm glad you've come for me.
I'm glad I've got to tell you everything--I did mean to go home next
week, but I'm glad it's like this. Because now I know how much you
care, and I might never have found that out if I hadn't listened at
the door like a mean, disgraceful cat. I ought to be miserable because
I've done wrong--but I'm not. I can't be. I'm really most frightfully
happy."

"Thank God you can say that," he said, timidly stroking her hair with
the hand that she was not holding. "Now I'm not afraid of anything you
may have to tell me, my child--my dear child."

* * * * *

To four persons the next day was one of the oddest in their lives.

Arriving early to take Betty to finish her sketch, the stricken Temple
was greeted on the doorstep by a manly looking lady in gold-rimmed
spectacles, short skirts, serviceable brown boots and a mushroom hat.

"I know who you are," said she; "you're Mr. Temple. I'm Betty Desmond's
aunt. Would you like to take me on the river? Betty is busy this morning
making the acquaintance of her step-father. She's taken him out in the
little cart."

"I see," said Temple. "I shall be delighted to take you on the river."

"Nice young man. You don't ask questions. An excellent trait."

"An acquired characteristic, I assure you," said Temple, remembering his
first meeting with Betty.

"Then you won't be able to transmit it to your children. That's a pity.
However, since you don't ask I'll tell you. The old man has
'persistently concealed his real nature' from Betty. You'd think it was
impossible, living in the same house all these years. Last night she
found him out. She's as charmed with the discovery as a girl child with
a doll that opens and shuts its eyes--or a young man with the nonentity
he calls his ideal. Come along. She'll spend the morning playing with
her new toy. Cheer up. You shall see her at _dejeuner_."

"_I_ do not need cheering," said the young man. And I don't want you to
tell me things you'd rather not. On the contrary--"

"You want me not to tell you the things I'd rather tell you?"

"No: I should like to tell you all about--"

"All about yourself. My dear young man, there is nothing I enjoy more;
the passion for confidences is my only vice. It was really to indulge
that that I asked you to come on the river with me."

"I thought," said Temple as they reached the landing stage, "that
perhaps you had asked me to console me for not seeing your niece this
morning."

"Thank you kindly," Miss Desmond stepped lightly into the boat. "I
rather like compliments, especially when you're solidly built--like
myself. Oh, yes, I'll steer; pull hard, bow, she's got no way on her
yet, and the stream's strong just here under the bridge. I gather that
you've been proposing to my niece."

"I didn't mean to," said Temple, pulling a racing stroke in his
agitation.

"Gently, gently! The Diamond Sculls aren't at stake. She led you on, you
mean?"

He rested on his oars a moment and laughed.

"What is there about you that makes me feel that I've known you all my
life?"

"Possibly it's my enormous age. Or it may be that I nursed you when you
were a baby. I have nursed one or two in my time, though I mayn't look
it.--So Betty entrapped you into a proposal?"

"Are you trying to make me angry? It's a dangerous river. Can you swim."

"Like any porpoise. But of course I misunderstand people if they won't
explain themselves. You needn't tremble like that. I'll be gentle with
you."

"If I tremble it's with pleasure," said Temple.

"Come, moderate your transports, and unfold your tale. My ears are red,
I know, but they are small, well-shaped and sympathetic."

"Well then," said Temple; and the tale began. By the time it was ended
the boat was at a standstill on the little backwater below the pretties
of the sluices.

There was a silence.

"Well?" said Temple.

"Well," said Miss Desmond, dipping her hand in the water--"what a stream
this is, to be sure!--Well, your means are satisfactory and you seem to
me to have behaved quite beautifully. I don't think I ever heard of such
profoundly correct conduct."

"If I've made myself out a prig," said Temple, "I'm sorry. I could tell
you lots of things."

"Please spare me! Why are people always so frightfully ashamed of having
behaved like decent human beings? I esteem you immensely."

"I'd rather you liked me."

"Well, so I do. But I like lots of people I don't esteem. If I'd married
anyone it would probably have been some one like that. But for Betty
it's different. I shouldn't have needed to esteem my own husband. But I
must esteem hers."

"I'll try not to deserve your esteem more than I'm obliged," said
Temple, "but your liking--what can I do to deserve that--?"

"Go on as you've begun, my dear young man, and you'll be Aunt Julia's
favourite nephew. No--don't blush. It's an acknowledgement of a tender
speech that I always dispense with."

"Advise me," said he, red to the ears and hands. "She doesn't care for
me, at present. What can I do?"

"What most of us have to do--when we want anything worth wanting. Wait.
We're going home the day after to-morrow. If you turn up at Long Barton
about the middle of September--you might come down for the Harvest
Festival; it's the yearly excitement. That's what I should do."

"Must I wait so long as that?" he asked. "Why?"

"Let me whisper in your ear," said Miss Desmond, loud above the chatter
of the weir. "Long Barton is very dull! Now let's go back."

"I don't want her to accept me because she's bored."

"No more do I. But one sees the proportions of things better when one's
dull. And--yes. I esteem you; I like you. You are ingenuous, and
innocuous.--No, really that was a yielding to the devil of alliteration.
I mean you are a real good sort. The other man has the harmlessness of
the serpent. As for me, I have the wisdom of the dove. You profit by it
and come to Long Barton in September."

"It seems like a plot to catch her," said Temple.

"A friend of yours told me you were straight. And you are. I thought
perhaps she flattered you."

"Who?--No, I'm not to ask questions."

"Lady St. Craye."

"Do you know," he said, slowly pulling downstream, "there's one thing I
didn't tell you. I came away from Paris because I wasn't quite sure that
I wasn't in love with _her_."

"Not you," said Miss Desmond. "She'd never have suited you. And now
she'll throw herself away on the man with the green eyes and the past. I
mean Pasts. And it's a pity. She's a woman after my own heart."

"She's extraordinarily charming," said Temple with a very small sigh.

"Yes extraordinarily, as you say. And so you came away from Paris! I
begin to think _you_ have a little of the wisdom of the dove too. Pull
now--or we shall be late for breakfast."

He pulled.

* * * * *

"Now _that_," said the Reverend Cecil that evening to his sister-in-law,
"that is the kind of youth I should wish to see my Lizzie select for her
help-mate."

"Well," said Miss Desmond, "if you keep that wish strictly to yourself,
I should think it had a better chance than most wishes of being
gratified."

CHAPTER XXVII

THE PINK SILK STORY.

To call on the concierge at Betty's old address, and to ask for news of
her had come to seem to Vernon the unbroken habit of a life-time. There
never was any news: there never would be any news. But there always
might be.

The days went by, days occupied in these fruitless gold-edged enquiries,
in the other rose-accompanied enquiries after the health of Lady St.
Craye, and in watching for the postman who should bring the answer to
his formal proposal of marriage.

To his deep surprise and increasing disquietude, no answer came. Was the
Reverend Cecil dead, or merely inabordable? Had Betty despised his offer
too deeply to answer it? The lore learned in, as it seemed, another life
assured him that a woman never despises an offer too much to say "No" to
it.

Watch for the postman. Look at Betty's portrait. Call on the concierge.
(He had been used to dislike the employment of dirty instruments.) Call
on the florist. (There was a decency in things, even if all one's being
were contemptibly parched for the sight of another woman.) Call and
enquire for the poor Jasmine Lady. Studio--think of Betty--look at her
portrait--pretend to work. Meals at fairly correct intervals. Call on
the concierge. Look at the portrait again. Such were the recurrent
incidents of Vernon's life. Between the incidents came a padding of
futile endeavour. Work, he had always asserted, was the cure for
inconvenient emotions. Only now the cure was not available.

And the postman brought nothing interesting, except a letter, post-mark
Denver, Col., a letter of tender remonstrance from the Brittany girl,
Miss Van Tromp.

Then came the morning when the concierge, demurely assuring him of her
devotion to his interests, offered to post a letter. No bribe--and he
was shameless in his offers--could wring more than that from her. And
even the posting of the letter cost a sum that the woman chuckled over
through all the days during which the letter lay in her locked drawer,
under Lady St. Craye's bank note and the divers tokens of "_ce
monsieur's_" interest in the intrigue--whatever the intrigue might
be--its details were not what interested.

Vernon went home, pulled the table into the middle of the bare studio
and wrote. This letter wrote itself without revision.

"Why did you go away?" it said. "Where are you? where can I see you?
What has happened? Have your people found out?"

A long pause--the end of the pen bitten.

"I want to have no lies or deceit any more between us. I must tell
you the truth. I have never been engaged to anyone. But you would
not let me see you without that, so I let you think it. Will you
forgive me? Can you? For lying to you? If you can't I shall know
that nothing matters at all. But if you can forgive me--then I shall
let myself hope for impossible things.

"Dear, whether it's all to end here or not, let me write this once
without thinking of anything but you and me. I have written to your
father asking his permission to ask you to marry me. To you I want
to say that I love you, love you, love you--and I have never loved
anyone else. That's part of my punishment for--I don't know what
exactly. Playing with fire, I suppose. Dear--can you love me? Ever
since I met you at Long Barton" (Pause: what about Miss Van Tromp?
Nothing, nothing, nothing!) "I've not thought of anything but you. I
want you for my very own. There is no one like you, my love, my
Princess.

"You'll write to me. Even if you don't care a little bit you'll
write. Dear, I hardly dare hope that you care, but I daren't fear
that you don't. I shall count the minutes till I get your answer. I
feel like a schoolboy.

"Dear it's my very heart I'm sending you here. If I didn't love you,
love you, love you I could write a better letter, tell you better
how I love you. Write now. You will write?

"Did someone tell you something or write you something that made you
go away? It's not true, whatever it is. Nothing's true, but that I
want you. As I've never wanted anything. Let me see you. Let me tell
you. I'll explain everything--if anyone _has_ been telling lies.

"If you don't care enough to write, I don't care enough to go on
living. Oh, my dear Dear, all the words and phrases have been used
up before. There's nothing new to _say_, I know. But what's in my
heart for you--that's new, that's all that matters--that and what
your heart might hold for me. Does it? Tell me. If I can't have your
love, I can't bear my life. And I won't.--You'll think this letter
isn't like me. It isn't, I know. But I can't help it. I am a new
man: and you have made me. Dear,--can't you love the man you've
made? Write, write, write!

"Yours--as I never thought I could be anyone's,

"Eustace Vernon."

"It's too long," he said, "most inartistic, but I won't re-write it.
Contemptible ass! If she cares it won't matter. If she doesn't, it won't
matter either."

And that was the letter that lay in the locked drawer for a week. And
through that week the watching for the postman went on--went on. And the
enquiries, mechanically.

And no answer came at all, to either of his letters. Had the Concierge
deceived him? Had she really no address to which to send the letter?

"Are you sure that you posted the letter?"

"Altogether, monsieur," said the concierge, fingering the key of the
drawer that held it.

And the hot ferment of Paris life seethed and fretted all around him. If
Betty were at Long Barton--oh, the dewy gray grass in the warren--and
the long shadows on the grass!

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