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Audrey Craven

<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> But Ted's notion of morality was a question Audrey had no time to go into. A violent ring at the front-door bell recalled her to herself, and made her glance at the clock. It was a quarter-past three. She had wasted half an hour in fruitless discussion with Ted, and it left her ill-prepared for the stormy interview to follow. Her nerve gave way before the prospect of that hour with Hardy. She might have escaped it if it had not been for Ted, for she had meant to call early on her uncle and aunt, and bring them back with her to Chelsea, so that it would be impossible for Vincent to see her alone. Ted's coming had made that scheme useless. She listened. Yes, it was Vincent; she had heard his voice in the hall. "I told him between three and four. Anybody else would have known that meant half-past four." She spent ten minutes after Hardy was announced gathering herself together to meet him. She would have thought of sending for Miss Craven, an old device of hers when she wanted to avoid explanations; but Miss Craven was away. Her only hope was in some casual caller. Meanwhile Hardy was striding up and down the[Pg 189] drawing-room, waiting impatiently for Audrey. He was a little hurt at being shown into an empty room; he had expected to find the small thing sitting there to welcome him. That ten minutes was the longest he had ever spent,—it was the meeting-point in time for two eternities. As his thought leaped forward to the future it was thrown back upon the past. Then, as he gazed about him half mechanically, he was aware that his eyes were looking for the things they had been used to, and could not find them. Everything was changed in that room he had run in and out of as a boy. The familiar furniture, the signs and tokens of Audrey's daily presence, the old-fashioned knick-knacks which had delighted her mother's heart, all were gone. His aunt's portrait was no longer there; in its place hung the photogravure of the Madonna di San Sisto. Instead of the cosy corner where he had lain at Audrey's feet his last night in England, there stood a polished rosewood secretary, thrown open, showing its empty pigeon-holes. Everywhere he looked it was the same; there were new things all around him. If he could have read their secret he would have seen that that room was the picture of Audrey's soul; the persons who had by turns taken possession of it had left there each one the traces of his power. If you could have cut a vertical section through Audrey's soul, you would have found it built up in successive layers of soul. When you had dug through Wyndham, you came to Ted; when you had got through[Pg 190] Ted, you came upon Hardy, the oldest formation of all. The room was instructive as a museum filled with the records of these changes. But the specimens were badly arranged, recent deposits lying side by side with relics of an earlier period: thus the floor was covered with the bearskin given by Hardy and the Persian rugs laid down during the Art age. The rosewood secretary and a little revolving book-case by Audrey's chair marked the change wrought by Wyndham. They were part of modern history and the memory of man. Hardy, in the midst of these curiosities of natural science, was like a lay visitor without a guide: he admired, he wondered, he recognised an object here and there, but of what it all meant he had not the ghost of an idea. He left off wondering, and waited, listening for the feet that used to fall so lightly on the stairs. At last the door opened softly, and Audrey stood before him. But she stood still, looking at him as if uncertain whether to go or stay. "Audrey!" His face lit up with joy, his heart bounded. "How do you do, Vincent?" He held out his arms, and she came to him slowly, without a word. She let him hold her for an instant, closing her eyes to hide the fear in them; let him lift her veil and kiss her cheeks and mouth. Then she turned her face away, put out her hands against his chest, and pushed him from her.[Pg 191] "Audrey! What have I done?" "Oh! I don't know, I don't know!" She walked away to the looking-glass over the chimneypiece, and took off her gloves and veil. She wanted to gain time. Hardy followed her to the opposite side of the fireplace. "Whatever possessed you, Vincent, to grow that horrid beard?" He had forgotten the change in his personal appearance. He looked in the glass and was startled by his own reflection. Owing to the agony of the shock she had given him, his face was still grey and drawn. The poor fellow tried to smile, and that made matters worse. "I daresay it was a nasty shock. Did it make you feel as if I was somebody else?" "Oh no; it has not altered you much. It's not that. But—I hate beards, as you know." There was silence. Hardy was struggling with the old stifling sensation in his heart. Emotion was bad for him. "Is this all you've got to say to me, after being a year away?" She looked at him, shook her head, and played with the ornaments on the mantel-board. "Why can't you speak to me? Has anything happened? Is anybody dead?" "No; but I wish I was." "Why do you say that?" "Because——" She was trying to wring the neck[Pg 192] off a little china image now. "Oh, Vincent, don't think me very unkind! but I—I'd rather, another time, you didn't show your cousinly affection quite in that way. That's all." He covered his eyes with one hand to shut out the sight of Audrey. "No, that's not all, I see. There's something else behind that,—there must be. Has anything happened?" She bowed her head and sighed, a long shivering sigh. The china image slipped through her fingers, and was broken to bits on the hearthstone. "Audrey—what is it?" He took her by the wrists and drew her gently to him. As he touched her he saw her face whiten and her eyes dilate. "Do you remember last year when you said you loved me?—when you promised to be my wife? Do you remember how you said good-bye to me then? Now you won't speak to me. What have you been doing to make you hate me? Or what stupid idea have you got into your head about me?" "Nothing—nothing. Only—I want you to understand that what you said just now is out of the question. It can't be." "Why not? You promised; so it could be once, why not now?" "Because—because—I never really promised, you know." "You never promised! You little liar! You[Pg 193] may want to break your promise, but you can hardly say you didn't make it." "I never made it—not of my own free will. You took advantage of me; you forced me into it. You teased me till I said I cared for you, and—I didn't." "So, then, you told me a lie? You wrote lie after lie to me in your letters for a year?" She writhed away from him, but he still held her by the wrists, face to face with him, the length of their arms apart. "Let me go, Vincent! You've no right to hold me in this way. You're hurting my arm!" Unconsciously his grasp had tightened till the diamond mounted on one of her thread-like bracelets was pressed into her flesh and made it bleed. "See there!" He let her go. She sat down and put her pocket-handkerchief to her wrist. "If you tell lies, Audrey, what am I to believe? What you said then, or what you say now?" "I'm telling the truth now, because I don't want this wretched misunderstanding to go any further." "Can't you speak plainly? Do you mean this, that you don't love me?" "Yes. It's true. I don't love you; I can't—at least, not like that." "I can't believe it! It's impossible! As long as I can remember, whatever you said or did, you made me think you loved me. You said last year you'd be my wife; but that's nothing. Long before that,[Pg 194] you let me live on the hope of it, year after year. It's inconceivable that you could have done these things if you didn't care for me. Even you couldn't be such an unfeeling little fiend." "No, no; you worked on my feelings. You wouldn't let me have any will of my own. And now you want me to marry you whether I like it or not. Whatever happens, I can't do that, Vincent." "Why not?" "Must I tell you?" "Isn't that the very least you can do?" "Well—you know, Vincent, you've been very wild; you've told me so yourself a thousand times." "Is it that? You knew that long ago." "I never realised it till now. Now I know that I can only really love some one strong and good, whose goodness would help me and make me good too." Audrey's infantile irony made Hardy laugh. That laugh frightened her. "Do you think I don't know that?" he said. "What do you suppose I went out of England for? It wasn't to shoot, or to farm either. It was to get away out of the reach of temptation, to live in a pure air, and make myself pure for your sake. Do you know, Audrey, I was out there, without a soul to speak to, a year, one horrible long year, fighting the devil, waiting till I could come back and tell you that I was fit to love you. God knows I'm not all I ought to be,—who is? At least, I'm not ashamed[Pg 195] now to ask you to be my wife. Will you never forget the past?" She had hesitated before, but now Hardy's humility put her in the position of the superior, and his piteous confession gave her the words she wanted. "No. It's no use. Once for all, I do not love you; and if I did, I could not marry any man who had led the life you have." "Very well. Remember, Audrey, if I wasn't good enough for you, I was good enough as men go. Now, I'll go to the devil, and give my whole mind to it. But I've a great deal to say to you before I go. You object to my life. Good or bad, it's your own work. It's women like you who make men like me. You knew my weakness, and played on it. You could have helped me, if you'd only given me up honestly at first, as another woman would have done; but you didn't want to do that. I'd have left England long before, if you'd let me go: you knew it, and you kept me here, though you saw me going to the bad. Oh, you were an artist in your own line! You knew the effect of every word, every touch, every movement of yours, and you went out of your way to—to make goodness impossible for me. God knows why, but you liked—you liked to see me longing for what you never meant to give me. And because I didn't come out of that ordeal quite clean, you talk to me about my life, and tell me you are too good and pure to marry me. Are you really so very much better than I am, after all?"[Pg 196] She sat still at first, with her eyes half closed, afraid to look up, afraid to move or speak, waiting for something to happen, for some one to come and stop Vincent. But the scourging voice went on with a relentless brutality, laying bare the secret places of her soul, its unconscious hypocrisy, its vanity, its latent capacity for evil. She answered the closing question with an inarticulate sound like a sob. It might have softened him, if he had not been deaf to everything but his own passion. "Don't suppose I flatter myself I'm the only victim. How about that young fool Ted Haviland?" She sprang to her feet. Fear, that had made her lie to Ted, made her tell the truth to Hardy. That fear was deep-rooted; it dated from the days when they were children and Vincent had the mastery in all their play. "Oh, Vincent, promise me, promise me, you won't do anything to Ted! It's all true about our engagement, but it was more my fault than his." "I can't believe that, Audrey. I'm very far from blaming him. I've no doubt you treated him as you did me." He sat down exhausted. Audrey, seeing the change of position, not the sudden collapse that prompted it, was in despair. "Won't you leave me alone now, Vincent? Haven't you said enough?" "Not yet. Let me think a bit." He leaned back and closed his eyes. He had so[Pg 197] much to say, and now he had no words to say it with. Audrey looked at the clock; it was half-past four. Would he begin again? She almost wished he would; it would be better than this silence—better than that frowning forehead, with the terrible accusing thoughts behind it. Would no one come? Would he never go? Hardy had found words and was beginning to rouse himself, when in answer to her prayer the door was thrown open. Her deliverance had come in the shape of Langley Wyndham. Hardy's eyes followed her. A moment before she had sat white and trembling, shrunk up into herself before the storm of his accusation; now, for that instant, her face became beautiful as he had never seen it before. There was something dramatic in her movement as she rose and went forward to meet Wyndham. There was no mistaking her manner and the tremor of her voice as she spoke to him. Hardy knew his rival before he saw him. "My cousin Mr. Hardy; Mr. Langley Wyndham." The men looked at each other and bowed stiffly. Wyndham wondered. The scene they had just gone through had left its mark on Hardy's face and Audrey's. The student of human nature congratulated himself on the inspiration which had prompted him to call at this crisis. The cousin suggested interesting complications in his heroine's life: judging by the set of his lower jaw, she must have had a[Pg 198] bad quarter of an hour with him. He would have to reconstruct that drama from the fragments preserved. When Wyndham sat down, Hardy sat down too. He suspected Audrey of having invited this man in order to get rid of himself. She wanted him to go. A savage jealousy made him determined to stay and spoil her pleasure. But Audrey, with Wyndham beside her, had recovered her presence of mind. Unable to endure the situation longer, she was about to risk a bold stroke, by which she would at once revenge herself on Vincent, escape from the torture of his society, and assure herself of Wyndham's friendship. After the preliminary commonplaces, she watched her opportunity till she could arrest Wyndham's eyes with hers, throwing into their expression all that she knew of pathos and appeal. Then she rose and held out her hand to Hardy, saying with distinct deliberation— "I'm afraid you must excuse me now, Vincent; I have to take Mr. Wyndham to call on my uncle Dean Craven." The look that she turned on Wyndham said plainly, "You see I'm desperate. If you haven't enough chivalry to back that up, I'm done for." Happily for her, this time Wyndham's chivalry was equal to his intelligence. He answered in the most natural manner possible[Pg 199]— "If Miss Craven is ready, I am. As I'm rather late, I think we'd better take a hansom." They left Hardy stupefied with astonishment. As they drove towards Charing Cross, she turned to Wyndham and said— "Forgive my making use of you. Had you any other engagement?" "I have no engagements." "I am glad. It was the only thing I could think of to get rid of him. If you had left me, he would have stayed; if I had gone out by myself, he would have followed. But it was good of you to stand by me like that." "Not at all. I'm delighted to call on Dean Craven, still more delighted to be of service to you." "Thank you." They said no more till, as they came in sight of the Hôtel Metropole, he turned to her with a smile— "Do you remember Mr. Jackson?" "Mr. Jackson?—Mr. Jackson?" She shook her head. "Oh yes, of course I do. At Oxford, that night? Whatever put him into your head, of all people?" "Dean Craven, I suppose. Ridiculous association of ideas." "Mr. Jackson—I wonder why such people exist." "So do I. Do you know, I've hated Mr. Jackson with a deadly hatred for the last month." "Why, whatever has he done?"[Pg 200] "Nothing. But if it hadn't been for him I should have known you a year ago." The hansom drew up. She sank back into her corner and held out her hand. "I'll say good-bye now. I'm not equal to seeing them, after all. You can tell them you've seen me, and that I meant to call." "Very well. Is he to drive you straight home?" "Yes, please. But tell him to go the longest way round, by Fulham—or anywhere." He said good-bye, got out, and gave the order to the driver. As the hansom turned up Northumberland Avenue, he caught a side view of the pathetic little face through the window. Then she was whirled away from him, towards Fulham—or anywhere. He stood looking after her till the sound of the horse's bells was lost in the roar of Charing Cross. Then he remembered that he had once said she would be "capable of anything."[Pg 201] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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