Arundel

For both girls the interval before he could answer, whether his reply was an argued negative to Elizabeth or an affirmative announcement to Edith, passed in acute discomfort, that rose and fell, like the ebb and flow of the physical pain of some deep-seated mischief, into crises of anguish and numb reactions. There was not an employment, there was scarcely a topic of conversation that did not conduct them sooner or later to an impassable road, where was a red flag and a danger signal. The hours passed in broken conversation and aching silences, with Edith sentinelled about by her fears and jealousies, Elizabeth torn with longings, and hearing amid the troubled peace of her renunciation voices that accused her of bitter cruelty to herself and to him and poured scorn on the tragic folly of her refusal. Twenty times that day she felt she could barely resist the need of telegraphing to him, cancelling her letter, and, acceding to his imperative desire, of simply taking the next train up to town, going to him, and saying, "I have come." But her will renounced him still, and her will still dominated her deeds. And all the time she knew that Edith watched her with sidelong glances that were quickly removed when her own eyes met them. Sometimes it seemed that Edith must speak, so intense was the miserable strain, but she always shied away at the last moment. Over those palpitating duellists, who never quite came to blows, presided Mrs. Hancock, unconscious and bland, foolish and voluble. She had experienced a moment's discomfort this morning, when Edith spoke to her of Edward's continued absence, but, as Mr. Martin would have her do, she dismissed it with complete success from her mind, telling herself that she had quite cleared it all up, and made Edith comfortable again. The obvious constraint that hung over the two girls she merely refused to admit into her mind. It might batter and ring at the door, and there was no need for her even to open that door a chink, and assert that she was out. She sat and knitted at her crossovers, and in the evening played patience, refusing to hear the signals of distress and trouble. Next day came a telegram from Edward to Edith announcing his arrival at half-past seven that evening, and asking, or rather supposing, that he might dine with them. It was delivered at lunch-time, and Edith, as she tore it open, glanced at Elizabeth opposite, and saw the sudden whiteness of her face, saw that she sat with her fork half-raised to her lips, then put it back on her plate again, that she waited with hand pressed to the table to control its trembling. His message gave rise to debate, for Mrs. Hancock and Edith were engaged to dine at the Vicarage that night, and a small solitary dinner had already, three hours before, been ordered for Elizabeth. There was to be a slip, a lamb cutlet – quite enough and not too much.

"Of course, it would be natural," said Mrs. Hancock, "to ask him to come and have a little dinner with you, dear Elizabeth, and then you could amuse yourselves by playing to each other afterwards till Edith and I returned. And then Edith and I could have made an excuse to get away perhaps at ten, or even five minutes before. But now your dinner is ordered; it is very provoking, and Mrs. Williams – "

Edith interrupted, watching Elizabeth narrowly. Her jealousy seemed to have divided itself into two camps. Part (and for the moment this was the stronger) allied itself with this scheme; if Elizabeth and Edward had an evening together, things (if there were things) would declare themselves; there would be an answer to that eternal question, "I want to know; I want to know!"

"That's a delightful plan, mother," she said; "and surely Mrs. Williams has got some cold beef. Edward says nobody can need more than plenty of cold beef for dinner. He and Elizabeth will enjoy an evening together; they will talk over the opera and play. And we shan't be obliged to hurry back from the Martins'."

This rather diabolical speech hit its mark. Elizabeth blushed furiously as she heard the yapping bitterness in Edith's voice. And it was not only with the rush of the conscious blood that her face flared; anger flamed at the innuendo, the double meanings.

"In fact, I needn't reply to Edward's telegram at all," said Edith, "and he will naturally come here for dinner."

Elizabeth looked up at her cousin. At the moment she completely and fervently hated her.

"Oh, that wouldn't do, Edith!" she said. "Edward would come over here all anxiety to see you, and find only me. He would be horribly disappointed and make himself very disagreeable. I shouldn't wonder if he went straight back to London again."

That was the first pass of the naked swords between them; yesterday they had not come to the touch of the steel, and the first bout was distinctly in Elizabeth's favour. Elizabeth had not parried only, she had attacked. And yet it was only with foolish words that could not wound that she had thrust. Had Edith only known, her cousin was fighting for her with a loyalty that was as divine as it was human, and calling on the loyalty of her lover to be up in arms. But her assault, with its sharp double meaning, only gratified a moment's laudable savagery and she instantly turned to her aunt.

"Oh, Aunt Julia," she said, "I should so like an evening alone. Do tell Edward you are out; he can be here all Sunday. I want to write to Daddy and I want to practise. Not play, but practise."

"Well, it would put Mrs. Williams out," said Mrs. Hancock, "to know that she had to provide dinner for Edward as well, for as for letting him eat nothing but cold beef, I think she would sooner leave my service than do that. Edward is a great favourite with Mrs. Williams. Indeed, where she would get provisions I don't know, for it's early closing, and even such shops as we have here are shut. I think your plan is the best, dear, and your father wouldn't like not to hear from you, and then there's your practice as well. I'll write a note to him. Has everybody finished? And which of you would like to drive with me this afternoon?"

Elizabeth, conscious of her own loyalty, did not in the least mind having another thrust at her cousin. Edith had provoked her; Edith should take the consequences – the superficial ones. She turned to her.

"It will be a good punishment for Edward," she said, "to find that you are out. You will be paying him back in his own coin for keeping away so long. Perhaps he will come round after you get back. If I were you I should say I was tired and would not see him."

Edith looked at her with her real anxiety, making anxious, imploring signals. Elizabeth saw and disregarded them.

"Of course, it would be the worst punishment of all for him," she said, "if you let him come round expecting to find you and he found only me alone with my lamb-cutlet. But you mustn't punish him as much as that, Edith. It would be too cruel."

Mrs. Hancock had passed out of the dining-room on the quest for the longer paragraphs in the Morning Post, and for a moment the two girls faced each other. Elizabeth was still quivering with indignation at Edith's first wanton attack, the attack which sounded so friendly and pleasant a salutation and which both knew was so far otherwise. And if Edith only knew what wrestlings, what blind strivings after light Elizabeth had undergone for her…

"Don't scold him too much," she said. "He is so nice. I love Edward! Shall I drive with Aunt Julia this afternoon, or would you like to?"

Elizabeth ran upstairs to her room and locked herself in. Already she was sick at heart for her barren dexterity. She had pricked Edith with her point, made her wince, startled her into miserable silence. And what was the good of it all? It did not even for the moment allay the savage anguish of her own wound. She threw herself on her bed and sobbed.

By soon after eight she had finished her dinner and was sitting in the drawing-room, neither writing to her father nor practising. For the last half-hour she had had one overpowering sensation in her mind, which absorbed the active power of thought, and spread itself like a dense enveloping mist, obscuring all other perceptions – namely, the knowledge that in the house next door Edward sat alone, or perhaps walked in the garden, longing to catch sight of her over the low brick wall. She, too, would have spent this hour of darkening twilight outside but for fear of seeing him, or more exactly but for the longing to see him which she must starve and deny. No doubt she would have to see him, have to listen to his pleading; but it was part of her resolve that she would use all her will to hold herself apart. But the thought of him possessed her, and she could not concentrate her mind enough even to attempt to practise or to write her overdue letter. It had taken all her nervous force to arrive where she was; now, like a bird after the flight of migration, she had to rest, to let the time go by, without stirring up her activities; for any activity she roused seemed to be directed from the cause of purpose that excited it, and to be sucked into the mill-race that but ran the swifter for an added volume of awakened perception.

Soon mere inactivity became even more impossible than employment, and she opened the piano. The wonder of music, which his love had so magically quickened in her, perhaps would not desert her even now, and she set herself to study the intellectual as well as the technical intricacies of Brahms' variations on the Handel themes. If she could give them any attention at all, she felt she could give them her whole attention; it was impossible merely to paddle knee-deep in that profound and marvellous sea; you had either to swim, or not enter it at all. She bent her mind to her work, as a man bends the resisting strength of a bow. She would string it; she willed that it should bend itself to its task.

How marvellous was this artistic vision! To the composer, the theme was like some sweet, simple landscape, a sketch of quiet country with a stream, perhaps, running through it. Then he set himself to see it in twenty different ways. He saw it with gentle morning sunshine asleep over it; he saw it congested with winter, green with the young growth of spring, triumphant in the blaze of summer, and gorgeous with the flare of the dying year. He saw it with rain-clouds lowering on its hills and swelling its streams with gathered waters; he saw it underneath the lash of rain, and echoing to the drums of thunder; he saw it beneath the moonlight, and white with starshine on snow.

Suddenly Elizabeth held her hands suspended over the keys, and in her throat a breath suspended. Through the maze of melody she had heard another sound, faint and tingling, that pierced through the noise of the vibrating strings. A bell had rung. Hearing it, she knew that unconsciously she had been listening for it with the yearning with which the eyes of the shipwrecked watch for a sail.

There were steps in the hall, a few words of indistinguishable talk, and she turned round on her music-stool and faced the door. It opened, whispering on the thick carpet, and Edward stood there.

In silence he held out both hands to her, and she rose. But she did not advance to him, or he to her.

She felt her lip trembling as she spoke.

"You should not have come," she said.

"You told me to come."

"But not to me. I told you to come to Edith."

He sat down in a chair near her.

"You have got to hear what I have to say," he said. "You have not heard it yet."

"Yes; you have written to me. I have answered you."

"I can't express myself in writing. I can only write symbols of what I mean."

"I understood your symbols very well. I am sure you understood mine."

It seemed to her that the real struggle had only just begun. Even as he had said, what he wrote had only been symbols compared to the awful reality of his presence. The short, sharp sentence that each had spoken rang with keen hostility; in each love was up in arms, battling, as with an enemy, for a victory that must be hard won.

"You speak as if you hated me for coming," he said. "If you do, I can't help it."

She raised her eyes to him.

"Oh, my dear, don't make it harder for me," she said. "It's hard enough already. I can't bear much more."

"I am going to make it as hard for you as I possibly can," said he. "I don't care what it costs you, so long as I convince you."

"You won't even convince me."

"I shall try my best. I believe your happiness as well as mine is at stake."

He paused a moment, and his voice, which had been low and quiet, like hers, suddenly raised itself.

"I want you!" he cried. "Oh, can you know what it means to want like that? I don't believe you can, or you could not resist. Do you realize what has happened? how, by a miracle of God-sent luck, we two have found each other? And you think that there can be an obstacle between us! There can't be! There is nothing in the world that is real enough to come between us. You do love me. I was wrong when I said I didn't believe you knew what it meant to want. When, for one moment, you clung to me, you knew. You were real then; you were yourself. But since then you have held up a barrier between us. I am here to tear it down."

"You can't tear it down," said Elizabeth.

"You shall tear it down yourself. I didn't know what love meant when I got engaged to Edith; that was because I hadn't seen you. Oh, I know, two years ago I had set eyes on you, but I hadn't seen you. It was obvious that I couldn't love just because I hadn't seen you. I couldn't unlock my heart without the key. And you were the key. Elizabeth, oh, Elizabeth, I worship you! Oh, my darling, what is the use of torturing me as you have been doing during these awful days! You won't go on – you won't!"

He had left his chair and was kneeling before her, with his hands clasped together on her lap. As he had said, his written words were but symbols compared to the reality; they were but as pictures of flames compared to the burning of authentic fire, as splashes of paint compared to actual sunshine. She could not speak just yet; only with the quivering semblance of a smile and eyes that were bright with tears could she answer him. But she did not shrink from him, nor move, and she laid her hands on his.

"Edward!" she said at last, and again, "Edward!"

Against some inward weight of unacknowledged conviction he allowed himself to hope, and, bending, he kissed the hands that lay on his. Not now, even, did she shrink, for she could not. It was as much as she could do not to respond. And she could not respond.

"You see, then?" he whispered. "At last you see!"

He looked up and faced the tender, inexorable love in her eyes.

"I see more clearly than ever," she said. "Please, dear, don't interrupt me. Not by word or by look even. I can't marry you unless – unless Edith voluntarily gives you up. I can't. I can't accept love that can be mine only through your disloyalty, through your breaking a promise you have given. And I can't let you take my love on those terms. It would kill love; it would kill the most sacred thing there is. No; loyalty is as sacred. And you mustn't ask her to set you free. Love can only give, only give – it cannot ask for itself."

He got up, wild with impotent yearning, inflamed to his inmost fibre.

"But are you flesh and blood!" he cried, "or are you some – some unsubstantial phantom that does not feel?"

She rose also with fire of loyalty to meet his fire of passion, and flung out her words with a strength that more than matched his violence.

"No, I am flesh and blood," she said, "and you know that I love you. But love is holier to me than to you. I can't love you differently. We can never come together while a single thread of loyalty, of common honour, has to be snapped to let us."

He interrupted.

"Trust your heart, my darling," he said; "only trust that!"

"I do trust it. And I trust yours. You know you are battling with not me alone, but yourself. There is something within you that tells you I am right."

"My cowardice. Nothing more. My fear of unpleasant things for which my real self does not care two straws."

She shook her head at him; then advanced and laid her long hands on his shoulders.

"It is just your real self that does care," she said. "Oh, my dear, I do not mean it is your false self that loves me. But it is your false self that has been urging me to-night. Edward" – and again her lips so trembled that she could scarcely speak – "Edward, I don't want to spare you one moment of the wretchedness that has come upon us, nor would I spare myself. If we were not suffering so, we should not love so. All our suffering is part of our love. I don't know why it has happened like this, why God didn't allow us to meet sooner. And that doesn't concern us. It is so. What does concern us is not to graft our love on to disloyalty and unfaithfulness. It is in our power to do right. I can't deliberately choose to find happiness for you or for me in a crime."

"Crime!"

"Yes, the worst sort of crime, for it is one that is a crime that we should commit against each other. I don't think" – and a shadow of a smile hung round Elizabeth's mouth – "I don't think I should feel so very bad if I murdered some one whom I hate. But in this I should be murdering all that is best in the man I love."

"You are talking wildly!" he said. "Murder! What nonsense!"

"I never spoke more deliberately," said she.

Again he was stung to a frenzy of impotence.

"And you admit you love me!" he cried. "You admit it!"

"But of course. Don't – don't be so silly!"

"But I can't do it. I can't let you go!" he broke out again. "And would you have me marry Edith, you, who talk about the sacredness of love?"

Elizabeth pushed him gently away from her.

"I don't know. I haven't had room in me to think about that," she said. "It has taken me, well – all my time to think about us."

He was silent a moment,

"Do you think she will let me go, when she knows?" he asked.

"I think she does know. At least I think she guesses."

"Well?"

"I can't tell. But I think she loves you. I am sure she loves you. And it is hard to let go a person one loves."

"It's impossible!" he cried suddenly.

"She may find it so."

"I wasn't thinking of her," said he.

He stretched out his arms wide and towards her.

"Elizabeth!" he cried.

She wavered where she stood. Never yet had the balance hung so evenly, as when now he made his final appeal to her, wordless except for her own name, for into that his whole soul went. She felt dragged to him by a force almost irresistible. From him and her alike for the moment all the ties and considerations of loyalty and honour were loosed; he knew only his overmastering need, she, the intensity of a woman's longing to give herself. Had the choice been then for the first time to be made, she would have flung herself to him. But the force of the choice she had made before had already made itself firm within her.

"No, no, no!" she said, and the words were drops of blood. Then once more she had power to turn from him.

She went back to the piano to close it, and mechanically shut up the music she had been playing from. Then, though she had heard nothing, she felt that some change had come into the room. From the edge of the field of vision she saw that Edward had turned towards the door, and she looked. The door was open, and Edith stood there.

Elizabeth let the piano-lid slip from her hands, and it fell with a bang and jar of wires.

"You are back early," she said. "At least it is early, is it not? Has Aunt Julia come back?"

"No. I telephoned for the car, and left almost immediately after dinner. My ankle began to hurt again."

The reaction after her struggle had begun in Elizabeth. Though it was for Edith's advantage she had done battle, it was not for Edith's sake, and the sight of her cousin suddenly filled her with bitter resentment. She felt perfectly sure also that this reason for her return was wholly fictitious; she had come back like this for an entirely different purpose. Elizabeth feigned an exaggerated sympathy.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, "and surely, Edith, it is madness to stand like that. I am sure you are in agonies. Of course you will go to bed at once. Shall not I ring for Filson? And then I will telephone and ask Dr. Frank to come round immediately. Is it very bad? Poor dear! But anyhow you have the pleasure of seeing Edward. You did not expect to find him here, did you? Did you?"

Goaded and self-accused of a foolish attempt at deceit, Edith turned to her.

"Yes, I did," she said, "I thought it extremely probable."

"Ah, and can it have been for the sake of finding him here as much as for the sake of your ankle, which I see you still continue to stand on, that you came back? Edward, do you hear? Edith expected to find you here. So she is not disappointed. And I'm sure her ankle feels much better."

It was scarcely possible to believe that this jeering, scoffing girl was the same who five minutes before pleaded with her lover with such womanly strength, such splendid self-repression, or that she could have thus battled for the rights of her whom she now so bitterly taunted. And indeed the mere identity of Edith was but a casual accident; Elizabeth had ranged herself on the side of a principle rather than the instance of it. For the rest, after the scene in which she had called upon every ounce of her moral force to aid her, she had nervously, entirely collapsed with a jar like that of the fallen piano-lid. Then her collapse spread a little farther; the angry fire that burned in her for this pitiful subterfuge went out, and, swaying as she stood, she put her hands before her eyes.

"I'm giddy!" she said. "I'm afraid I'm going to faint!"

Edward took a quick step towards her, but she waved him aside and fell on to the sofa. Edith looked at her without moving.

"You will be all right if you sit still a moment," she said, "and then I think it is you who had better go to bed. As Edward is here, I want to talk to him privately. Leave her alone, Edward; she is better left alone."

He paid no attention to this, and went to the sofa.

"Can I do anything for you?" he said. "Can't I get you some water, or some brandy?"

Elizabeth sat up.

"I shall be all right," she said. "I will just sit here a minute or two. Then I will go. Edith wants to talk to you. She – she has not seen you for so long."

Slowly her vitality returned, and with it for the second time that day the aching sense of the uselessness of her bitter, ironical words to her cousin, of the sheer stupidity of their wrangle. If Edith chose to tell a foolish tale about her ankle, it concerned nobody but herself. It did not matter, for one thing only in the world mattered. And with regard to that, for the present, she felt a total apathy. She had done her part; nobody, not even herself, could require anything more of her. She felt hugely and overwhelmingly tired, nothing more at all. She got up.

"I shall take your advice, Edith, and go to bed," she said. "If there is anything you want to tell me afterwards, please come up to my room. Good-night, Edward!"

Not till her steps had passed away up the stairs did either of the two others speak. Edith's face, firm, pretty, plump, showed not the slightest sign of emotion. She stood in front of the empty fire-place, waving her feather fan backwards and forwards opposite her knee, looking at it.

"I think you had better tell me what has happened," she said. "Or if you find a difficulty in doing that I will tell you. You imagine that you have fallen in love with Elizabeth."

An answer seemed superfluous. After a little pause she apparently thought so too, and went on, still in the same quiet, passionless tone.

"I have often watched you and her," she said. "She has used her music as an instrument to encourage you and draw you on – "

"That is not so!" said Edward.

"Of course you are bound to defend her. It is manly of you, and what I should expect from you. But that does not matter."

"Yes, it does matter," said he. "Throughout the fault has been entirely mine. You have got to believe that. You do not understand her at all if you think otherwise."

"I do not want to understand Elizabeth. Her nature and mine are so far apart that I do not attempt to understand her. What is perfectly clear to me is that she knew that you and I were engaged, and she has tried to come between us. So far I understand her, and for me that is far enough."