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Audrey Craven

<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> Hardy left the house five minutes after Audrey and Wyndham. In the doorway of the dining-room he stepped on a small muslin pocket-handkerchief. It was stained here and there with specks of blood. He picked it up, kissed it, and put it in his pocket. For a long time after that he had no clear sense of anything, except, at times, of the misery that made the only difference between being drunk and sober. Yes; Hardy was carrying out the threat he had made to Audrey, with a passionate deliberation. He was "giving his whole mind to it," as he had said. He had been used to speak of the sins of his past life with that exaggeration which was part of his character; they had been slight, considering the extent of his temptation. Then he was, as it were, an amateur in evil. Now he had an object in view—he was sinning for the wages of sin. After all, there was a boyish simplicity about Hardy; otherwise the idea of living for a year alone on the Rockies, to make himself "fit to love Audrey," would hardly have occurred to him. As it was, that guileless scheme proved fatal in its re[Pg 202]sults. The loneliness, the privation, the excitement and fatigue of his sportsman's life—for with all his boasting he was a true sportsman—had roused some old hereditary impulse in his blood, and he found himself worsted by the craving for drink before he was aware of its existence in him. But the thought of Audrey was always present with him; and it kept him up. He fought himself hand to hand, and won the fight ten times for once that he was beaten. He was literally saved by hope. Happily for him, when he had finished the stores he brought out with him, it was almost as difficult to satisfy his craving as it was to annihilate it. When he came home the tendency was sleeping in him still; and though, as long as he had hope, it might have slept for ever, when hope was gone it was there, ready to take possession of him. His love for Audrey was the strongest passion in his nature. It filled the horizon of his life. He looked before and after, and could see nothing else but it. It was of the kind that deepens through its own monotony. Now that Audrey had cast him off, there was no reason for the struggle, because there was nothing more to struggle for, and nothing to live for unless it were to kill life in the act of living. That indeed was something. After the first month or so of it, he had no further interest in his present course. He chose it now as the form of suicide least likely to be recognised as such. Perhaps—who knows?—if he had had any friends[Pg 203] who would have given him a helping hand, it might never have come to this. But, in the first place, Hardy had no home that could be called a home. His mother was fond of him in her way; but she was now a hysterical invalid, abject under the influence of her second husband, and year by year his step-father's jealousy (the jealousy of a childless man) had driven the mother and son further apart. Of the Havilands, whom he would naturally have turned to, he had seen nothing for the last few months. Ted disliked meeting him, and he on his part was equally anxious to avoid Ted. That was how Katherine remained ignorant of the truth until she was enlightened by Mrs. Rogers. "It yn't my business," said that excellent woman, as she began to dust the studio one morning, in the leisurely manner that Katherine dreaded, it being the invariable forerunner of conversation, "and I don't know who's business it is, but somebody ought to look after that Mr. 'Ardy. 'Is friends ought to be written to, m'm." Katherine felt a pang of remorse. "Why? Is Mr. Hardy ill?" "I didn't say he was ill. But if I was to tell you, miss——" Here Mrs. Rogers pursed her lips, not so much to impress Katherine with her incorruptible discretion, as to excite interest in the disclosures she meant to make. "Between you and me, m'm, if somebody don't[Pg 204] stop 'im, 'ell drink 'imself to death down there some o' these days." "What do you mean? It's quite impossible—I've known Mr. Hardy all my life." "I've known 'im three months; and if I wasn't that soft-'earted, I wouldn't keep 'im a day longer, not a day I wouldn't. 'E won't sleep in 'is bed like a Christian—lies on top all of a heap like. Last week, when I was a-cleanin' out his bottom cupboard, the brandy bottles was standin' up like a row o' ninepins. This mornin' they was lyin' down flat as your fyce—empty, m'm, every one of 'em. It did give me a turn. And 'e'll order 'is dinner for eight o'clock, and not come 'ome till two in the mornin'—if 'e comes 'ome at all. 'E's out now Lord knows where." "I don't want to hear any more. You're very likely mistaken." "I wish I was, miss. But you'll not deceive me, I'm that upset with it all. And my fear is, miss, 'e'll drive away my old lydy on the first floor, with 'is goings on." Katherine left the room, too deeply grieved to bear Mrs. Rogers's professional loquacity. That night she was able to realise the truth of what she had been told. She had gone out to dine with some new acquaintance; Ted had called for her to take her home, and they were walking back along the Embankment, when they came suddenly upon Hardy. He was standing under a gas-lamp, talking[Pg 205] to somebody, or rather listening to somebody talking. He turned his back on them as they passed, but there was no mistaking his figure in the glare of the false daylight. As for his companion, Katherine was aware of something in satin skirts which the gaslight ran over like water—something that smelt of musk and had hair the colour of brass. She walked on without a word, sick at heart. This was the first time she had been brought face to face with the hideous side of life. Like many good women, she thoroughly realised the existence of evil in the abstract; but evil incarnate in a person—it was hard to associate that with any one she knew as she had known Vincent. Her artistic nature was morbidly sensitive to impressions taken in through the eye, and nothing could have so forced home the truth as that little scene, suddenly flashed on her out of the London night. But now that she had seen, it was not the horror that she felt, but the pity of it. She remembered Vincent's face when she had shown him Audrey's picture. Her thoughts went further back. She remembered him a boy, playing with her in a lordly manner, as befitted his sex; or a young man, coming and going in her father's home with frank, brotherly ways. She remembered how she had grudged the time she gave him, and the relief she felt when he left off coming. But she could not remember anywhere the least sign of what he had become. Something ought to be done—she could not clearly[Pg 206] say what. Writing to his people, as Mrs. Rogers had suggested, was out of the question. She knew too well the state of things in his home. To be sure, there was his uncle, Sir Theophilus Parker, whom he had expectations from; but for that very reason the old gentleman was the last person whom it would be advisable to inform of Vincent's conduct. Relations failing, there remained his friends; and she only knew two of these—herself and Ted. All that was most fine and sensitive in her nature cried out against the burden she knew she would have to lay on it. But her humanity was so deeply moved by the tragedy she had twice been an unwilling spectator of, that she never so much as dreamed of asking, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Doubtless she could have found plenty of excellent people to tell her she was not. Her only difficulty was with Ted. Nothing could be done till he had got over his nervous dread of meeting Vincent. Katherine had no precise idea of what had passed between her brother and Audrey, and how far Vincent had been connected with it; but she had gathered from Ted's silence all that she wanted to know. Whatever Audrey had said or done, there was an end of her as far as he was concerned. It was from the boy's silence, too, that she realised the extent of his suffering. Before the inevitable thing had happened, he had done nothing but talk of Audrey, sometimes with melancholy, more often in the jocular strain adopted by self-conscious persons[Pg 207] to carry off some ridiculous fatality. Anger following suspense had driven him to think of suicide; but now that it was all over with him, he had no idea of killing himself. Katherine had never been much afraid of that, and as yet none of the other things she had dreaded had happened; but it was evident that the boy's nature had been deeply affected, and that the shock was a moral one. It was not Audrey's unfaithfulness that had hurt him so much as her untruthfulness. Ted thought so little of himself in some ways that he could have understood the one, and therefore forgiven it. The other was the unpardonable sin; it injured what he loved better than himself—his idea of Audrey. Katherine did not know this, but she saw that the present time was the moral turning-point in his life, and that his pain was the sort that shapes character for good or for evil. But, after all, she knew very little of the elements that went to make up Ted's character. His imagination, as she had pointed out to Audrey on a memorable occasion, had been developed long before his heart, and out of all proportion to it. It had so happened that all at once the passionate part of his nature had been roused and shaken before it was half-formed. She asked herself what line would be taken now by those forces of feeling set free so violently and so abruptly checked? Well, at any rate Audrey's conduct had not had the effect of driving brother and sister apart. It had[Pg 208] drawn them closer together if anything. Ted seemed to find relief in Katherine's society from the torment of his own thoughts, and he had shown no desire to look for distraction abroad; indeed the difficulty was to make him go out of doors at all for necessary exercise. He would have fits of work, when nothing would induce him to stir from the easel. Another time, he would spend whole mornings lying on the floor, with his arms clasped above his head, or sitting with a book in his hands, a book which he never seemed to read. He hardly ever spoke; he was always thinking. And worse than all, he had lost his appetite and his sense of humour. Mrs. Rogers had her own theory on the subject, which she imparted to Katherine. "Miss, it's them baths as has done it. Anythin' in reason and I'll not sy no, but cold water to that igstent, m'm, it's against nature. It's my belief Mr. 'Aviland would 'ave slept and 'ad 'is dinner in 'is bath, if I 'adn't put my foot down. 'E's chilled 'is blood, depend upon it, m'm." And indeed that seemed very likely. Katherine said nothing about Hardy at the time; but the next night, when she and Ted were sitting over the fire, she began. "Ted, that was Vincent we saw on the Embankment last night." "Yes, I saw him. "Do you know, I believe he's killing himself with drinking."[Pg 209] "I know he is." "Do you think we could do anything to help him before it's too late?" He shook his head. "Oh, Ted, we might! He never used to be like this. He's got no one to speak to; we've left him by himself all this time in those horrid rooms. The wall-paper alone is enough to send anybody to the bad. We might have thought of him." "I've done nothing else but think of him for the last two months. We can't do anything. He's bound to go on like that; I don't see how he can help it. As for drinking, nothing can stop that; I've seen fellows like him before; and Vincent never did anything by halves." "It's terrible. But we ought to try—it's the least we can do." "The least I can do is to keep out of his way. He hates the sight of me." "Why?" "Don't you know? Didn't it ever strike you that Audrey was engaged to Vincent all the time?" "No. I thought he liked her, but—what makes you think that?" "I can't tell you. But any sort of affectionate advances would come rather badly from me. How's Vincent to know that I never knew?" "You may be sure he knows. He knows Audrey." Ted sighed, but he said nothing; there was nothing to be said.[Pg 210] "Would you very much mind asking him to supper to-morrow night?" "No. He won't come. But you'd better write to him yourself, or else he'll think you don't want him." She wrote a note, and Ted took it downstairs, to be ready for Vincent at such time as he should come in. The boy turned into his own room without going up again to say good-night. He had left Katherine thinking. She had been struck with his words; they had thrown a new light on his character. His tone was bitter when he told her he had been thinking of nothing but Vincent; but it was not the bitterness of selfish resentment. A shuddering hope went through her. Either there always had been things in Ted's nature which she had never suspected, or he had just begun his education by suffering—by having felt. The latter was the more probable explanation; she knew him to be capable of such absorption in pleasant sensations, that, if all had gone well with him, he might from sheer light-heartedness have remained indifferent to other people's woes. And all along he had been such an irresponsible person, but now he was actually growing a conscience, and a peculiarly delicate one too. Without any fault of his own, he had behaved dishonourably to Vincent; and apart from the blow to his own honour, it was evident that what stung him now was remorse for his infinitesimal share in the causes that had led to Vincent's ruin. In all that he had said there was no trace of any[Pg 211] lingering love for Audrey. Was it possible that the tragic spectacle of Vincent's fate had moved him too with pity and terror, for the purging of his passion? <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Hardy did not find Katherine's note till late next morning. He read it twice over with an incredulous air, and put it into the fire. He wrote a short but grateful refusal, saying truly that he was very seedy, and not pleasant company for any one at present. Not long after, he was alone, as usual, in his dingy ground-floor sitting-room. It was about five o'clock; but he had not lit his lamp yet, and he had let his fire go out, though it was cold and rainy. A gas-lamp from the street shone through the dripping window-panes, bringing a dreary twilight into the room, making it one with the melancholy of the rain-swept streets. He sat by the table, with his head in his hands, a prey to the appalling depression which was his mood when sober. For the last three months he had had a curious double consciousness: of himself as an actor in a phantom world, lost in some night of dreams, where the same thoughts—always, the same thoughts—thoughts that were sins—came to him in sickening recurrence; the horror of it being that the act followed instantaneously on the thought: of himself as a spectator, separate from that other self, yet[Pg 212] bound to it; looking on at all it did, ashamed and loathing, yet powerless to interfere. And, as happens in nightmares, his very dread suggested the thing he dreaded, and changed his dream to something more hideous than before—horror upon horror, still foreseen, and still foredoomed in the senseless sequence of the dream. Now these two states of mind were divided by a little clear space. The passive self was free for a while and could think. It could think—that was all. He was waked from his thoughts by a knock and a voice at the door. He answered gruffly, and as he looked up he saw Katherine standing in the open doorway, letting in a stream of light from the lamp she carried in her hand. He stared at her stupidly, blinking at the light, and hid his face in his hands again. "I beg your pardon, Vincent. I knocked, and I thought you said 'Come in.' I came to see how you were; I was afraid you were worse." "I am worse. What's more, I shall never be better." She put her lamp on the chimneypiece and stood beside him. "Don't say that; of course you'll be better. Can we do anything for you?" "No; nothing—thanks." She moved back a little, and shaded the lamp with her hands. She was afraid to disturb him, but she did not like to leave him in his misery.[Pg 213] How ill and wretched he looked in that abominable room! The lamplight showed her all its repulsive details. She had done her best for it; but in the last two months it had sunk back into something worse than its former ugliness, degraded in its owner's degradation. There was no trace now of the clever alterations and contrivances which she had devised for his comfort. The muslin curtains she had lent him were dark with smoke; the rug had slipped from the horsehair sofa; there were stains on the shabby tablecloth and carpet; and on the sideboard there was a sordid litter of bottles and glasses, pipes, tobacco-ash, and Hardy's hats. The floor was strewn with the crumpled papers and shoes that he had flung away from him in his fits of irritation. In the midst of it all she noticed that Mrs. Rogers had brought back all her terrible household goods, the pink vases, the paper screens, and the antimacassars—"To cheer him up, I suppose, poor fellow!" Hardy looked round as if he had read her thoughts. "You'd better leave me. This isn't a nice place for you." "It isn't a very nice place for anybody. You've let your fire go out. Come upstairs and get warm; we haven't seen you for ages." He shook his head sadly. "I can't, Sis, I'm much too seedy." "Nonsense! You will be, if you sit down here catch[Pg 214]ing cold." She took up her lamp, and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Come; don't keep me waiting, or I shall catch cold too." His will was in abeyance, and to her intense relief he got up and followed her. She was shocked at the change in his appearance when she saw him in the full lamplight of the studio. He was pitifully thin; his fingers, as he held out his hands to the blaze, were pale, even with the red glow of the fire through them. His eyes had lost their dog-like pathos, and had the hard look of the human animal. She got ready some strong coffee, and made him drink it. That, with the warmth and the unaccustomed kindness, revived him. Then she sat down in a low chair opposite him, with some sewing in her lap, so that he might talk to her or not, as he pleased. At first he evidently preferred to think; and when he did speak, it was as if he were thinking aloud. "I was cut by two men I know to-day. I wonder how many women there are in London who would do what you've done for me to-night?" "What have I done? I walked into your room without an invitation—I don't suppose many women in London would have done that. But is there any woman in London who has known you as long as I have?" He winced perceptibly, and she remembered that there was one.[Pg 215] "Ah, if you really knew me, Kathy, you'd cut me dead!" "My dear Vincent, don't talk rubbish. I do know—a good deal—and I'm very sorry; that's all. I should be sorrier if I thought it was going to last for ever; but I don't." "You are too good to me; but—if you only knew!" He sat silent, watching as she sewed. Something in his attitude reminded her of that other evening, three months ago, when he had lain back in that chair boasting gloriously, full of hope and the pride of life. He appealed to her more now in his illness and degradation than he had ever done in his splendid sanity. For he had seemed so strong; there was no outward sign of weakness then about that long-limbed athlete. "Vincent," she said presently, "what's become of the Pioneer-book? You promised to read me some of it—don't you remember?" "Yes. I shall never do anything with it now." "Oh, Vincent, what a pity! But if it's not to be printed, do you mind my seeing the manuscript?" "No; I'll let you have it some day, Sis, and you shall do what you like with it." He sank into silence again. "Where's Ted?" he asked suddenly. "He'll be in soon; he wants to see you." "Does he? How do you know that?" There was a look of suspicion in Hardy's eyes as they[Pg 216] glanced up. It was a symptom of his miserable condition that he was apt to imagine slights. "I've only his word for it, of course." "Kathy——" he hesitated. "Well?" "There's something I wanted to tell him; but the fact is, I don't think I've the pluck to do it." "Never mind, then. Tell me if you can; though I think I know, and it's all right." "No, it isn't all right. I suppose you know he was pretty well off his head about—that cousin of mine? I rather think he owed me one for being before him, as he thought. At any rate, he cut me ever since—before I took to the flowing bowl, too. You might tell him, if you think it would be any satisfaction to him to know it, that she cared rather less for me than she did for him; in fact, I believe there was some unhappy devil that she preferred to either of us. At least a third man came into it somewhere. There may be a fourth now, for anything I know." There was a brutality about his calmness which surprised Katherine; she could not realise the effect of the means he used for blunting his sensibilities. "You're quite mistaken. Ted hasn't any feeling of the sort. He simply kept out of your way because he was afraid you'd think he had behaved dishonourably; and of course he couldn't explain because of—Audrey. But it wasn't his fault. He knew nothing."[Pg 217] "I never thought he did know. Do you suppose I blamed him, poor beggar?" All the same, Hardy slunk away soon after Ted came in. When Mrs. Rogers came up with supper, she informed them that it was fine now—if you could but trust it. And "Mr. 'Ardy 'ad gorn orf like a mad thing. Temptin' Providence, I call it, without an umbrella." Ted remarked, as they sat down to supper, that he thought "Providence would have sufficient strength of mind to resist temptation; but he was not so sure about Hardy." And indeed Katherine had to own that her first experiment with Vincent was a failure. But she struggled on, experience having taught her that it is easier to do good original work of your own than to patch up what other people have spoiled. One week, drawn by some yearning for human sympathy, Hardy would come nearly every evening to the studio; then they would see no more of him for ten days or so. At times she felt that the strain of it was greater than she could bear. She had learnt to manage Vincent in his various moods, varying from humorous irascibility to hysterical penitence; but when he was out of her sight her influence was powerless. Now indeed she asked herself— "Why am I wasting my precious time and making myself miserable in this way? I've no sense of religion, and I don't love Vincent—he's simply a nuisance. It must be sheer obstinacy."[Pg 218] It was with a feeling little short of despair that she sat down to the pages of the Pioneer-book. She had determined at any cost to read the manuscript through; but she soon became fascinated in spite of herself. "Be tender to it, Sis, it's a part of myself," he had said when he handed it over to her. She thought she had detected a gleam of interest in his face, and felt that she was on the right tack. But Vincent's book was more than a part of himself, it was a fair transcript of the whole. His weakness and his strength were in it. She saw his vanity, his exaggeration; but also his sincerity, his manliness, his simple delight in simple things. Scenery on a large scale stirred a strain of rude poetry in him this was akin to the first rhythmic utterances of man. To be sure, the thing had its faults; for poor Vincent had been anxious that his book should be recognised as the work of a scholar and a gentleman. At times a spirit of unbridled quotation would seize him, and you came upon familiar gems from the classics imbedded in the text. At times, after some coarse but graphic touch, his style became suddenly refined, almost to sickliness. When he was not pointing his moral with a hatchet, he was adorning his tale with verbiage gathered from the worst authors. But if Hardy the literary artist made her laugh till she cried again, Hardy the unconscious child of Nature won her heart. If only she could make him finish what he had begun! She determined to illustrate the book: that might[Pg 219] inflame Vincent's ambition, and would certainly require his co-operation. So now, every evening, in the spare time after supper, she set to work on the drawings, aided by some photographs and rough sketches made by Hardy. After a little stratagem she got him to come up and help her with suggestions, or to sit for her while she sketched him in all the attitudes of the sportsman. He was enthusiastic over the first few drawings. Perhaps his simple remarks, "H'm, that's clever!" or, "By Jove, that's not half bad!" gave her a purer pleasure than she could have derived from the most discriminating criticism. When his interest showed signs of flagging, she hit on a new means of rousing it. She began to find out that so long as she drew correctly, he looked on with a melancholy indifference, but that when she made any mistake he was always delighted to put her right. So she went on making mistakes, and then Vincent got impatient. "Look here, Sis, that's all wrong. You don't carry a rifle with the muzzle pointing towards your left ear. Here, give the thing to me!" Katherine gravely handed him another sketch— "How's that?" "That's worse. Why, you little duffer, you don't suppose I'm going to send a bullet into that bear taking aim at that angle? I should blow my boots off. I thought you could draw?" She smiled in secret. "So I can, if you'll show me which way up the things go."[Pg 220] Then they put their heads together over it, and between them they turned out some work worthy of the Pioneer-book. Ted joined in too, and began a black-and-white series of his own, parodying the acts of the distinguished sportsman: Vincent attacked by a skunk; Vincent swarming up a pine tree with a bear hanging on to his trousers' legs; Vincent shooting the rapids in his canoe—canoe uppermost; and so on. Ted was so much entertained with his own performances that he was actually heard to laugh. And when the boy laughed, the man laughed too. As for Katherine, she could have cried, knowing that a returning sense of humour is often the surest sign of hope in these cases. Laughter, flattery, and feminine wiles may not be the methods most commended by moralists and divines for the conversion of poor sinners; but Katherine seldom consulted authorities—she had the courage of her convictions. One fine morning in February she appeared in her hat and jacket at the door of the ground-floor sitting-room. "Vincent, will you come with me to the Zoo? I'm going to do some grizzlies and wapiti—from the life—for the Pioneer-book, and I want you to help me." He agreed, and they started almost gaily, with Mrs. Rogers peering up at them from the front area-window, putting that and that together with the ingenuity of her kind. It was the first of many[Pg 221] walks they had together. Ted generally went with them, but now and again he was left behind. At these times Katherine was touched by Vincent's pride in being allowed to take her about alone. He was grateful for it; he knew it was her way of showing that she trusted him. At last the series of illustrations came to an end. The two artists had raced each other: Katherine, having had the start, came in first at the finish with a magnificent design for the cover. She brought the drawings to Vincent, together with his manuscript, and showed them to him triumphantly. He remarked— "Well, they ought to print the thing, if only as a footnote to your drawings, Sis." "Will you sit down and finish it, if I undertake to find a publisher?" He promised, and he kept his word. In the mornings now he might be found working slowly and painfully at his last chapter, she helping him. So the winter wore on into spring; and Katherine, burdened with arrears of work, said to herself, "I perceive that this is going to be an expensive undertaking." But she looked back gladly on the time lost. At last, after many failures, they had succeeded in wakening Vincent to a sense of distant kinship with the life of boys and maidens. Down at the bottom of his nature there had always been an intense craving for affection, and his heart went out to Ted and Katherine. Not that he considered him[Pg 222]self fit for their blameless society. Together with the vices he had acquired there had sprung up humility, that strange virtue, which has its deepest roots in the soil of shame. But all his old yearning after goodness revived in their presence. When he was with them he felt that the cloud of foul experience was lifted for a moment from his mind; they gave him sweet thoughts instead of bitter for a day perhaps, or a night. And what of the days and the nights when he was not with them? Then, as a rule, he fell, nine times, it may be, out of every ten—who knows? And who knows whether Perfect Justice, measuring our forces with the force of our temptations, may not count as victory what the world calls defeat?[Pg 223] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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