And at that moment Lady Sellingworth knew she was speaking the truth.
She remembered her own madnesses, sunk away in the past, but still present to her, gripped between the tentacles of memory. Beryl, too, was then capable of the great follies which often exist side by side with great vanity. The wild heart confronted Lady Sellingworth in another.
And she felt suddenly a deep sense of pity, a sense that seemed flooded with tears, the pity that age sometimes feels for youth coming on into life, on into the devious ways, with their ambushes, their traps, their pitfalls full of darkness and fear. She was even conscious of a tenderness of age which till now had been a rare visitor in her difficult nature. Seymour Portman seemed near her, almost with her in the room. She could almost hear his voice speaking of spring with all its daffodils.
n.o.blesse oblige. In her torn heart could she find a n.o.bleness sufficient for this occasion? Seymour"s eyes, the terrible eyes of affection, which require so much and which sometimes, because of that, seem to be endowed with creative power, forcing into life that which they long to see, were surely upon her, watching for her n.o.bility, asking for it, demanding it of her.
She took Beryl Van Tuyn by the wrist and led her away from the shut door back to the fire.
"Sit down, Beryl," she said.
The girl looked at her wondering, feeling a great change in her and not understanding it.
"Why?" she said.
"I have something I must say to you."
Beryl dropped her m.u.f.f and sat down. Lady Sellingworth stood near her.
"Beryl," she said, "you think I have been and am your enemy. I must show you I am not. And there"s only one way. You say I can"t bear to see you happy. I don"t think that"s true. I hope it isn"t. I don"t think I wish unhappiness to others, but, even at my age, I still wish to have a little happiness myself. There"s never a time in one"s life, I suppose, when one doesn"t long to be happy. But I don"t want to interfere with your happiness, I only want to interfere between you and a very great danger, something which would certainly bring disaster into your life."
She stopped speaking. She was looking grave, indeed almost tragically sad, but calm and resolute. The spots of red had faded out of her cheeks. There was no fever in her manner. Miss Van Tuyn"s wonder grew as she looked at her former friend, who now dominated her, and began to extort from her a strange and unwilling admiration, which recalled to her the admiration of that past time when she had first met Alick Craven in this drawing-room.
After a long pause Lady Sellingworth continued, with a sort of strong simplicity in which there was moral power:
"Don"t be angry with me, Beryl, when I tell you that you have one of my dominant characteristics."
"What is it?" Miss Van Tuyn asked, in a low voice.
"Vanity. You and I--we were both born with great vanity in us. Mine has troubled me, tortured me, been a curse to me, all my life. It led me at last into a very horrible situation, in which the--that man who calls himself Nicolas Arabian was mixed up."
"But you said you didn"t know him, that you had never known him!"
"That"s quite true. I have never spoken to him in my life. But it was he who led me to change my life. You must have heard of it. You must have heard how, ten years ago, I suddenly gave up everything and began to lead a life of retirement."
"Yes."
"But for that man I should probably never have done that. But for him I might have been going about London now with dyed hair, pretending to be ten or fifteen years younger than I really am."
"But--if you never knew him? I can"t understand!"
"Did you ever hear that about ten years ago I lost a great quant.i.ty of jewels, that they were stolen out of a train at the Gare du Nord in Paris?"
A look of fear, almost of horror, came into Beryl Van Tuyn"s eyes. She got up from the sofa on which she was sitting.
"Adela!"
Already she knew what was coming, what Lady Sellingworth was going to tell her. She even knew the very words Lady Sellingworth was about to say, and when she heard them it was as if she herself had spoken them.
"That man stole them."
"Adela!"
"You said that he had money, that he was not obliged to work. Now you know why he has money and what his work is."
"Adela! But--but why didn"t you--"
Her voice faded away.
"I couldn"t. My hands were tied."
"How?"
"He caught me in a trap. He laid a bait for my vanity, Beryl, and I took the bait.
"But what was it?"
"He made me believe that he had fallen in love with me. I was a woman of fifty and he made me believe that! That is how vanity leads us!"
And then she told the girl all the truth about Arabian and herself, all the truth of ten years ago. Having made up her mind, having begun to do what Seymour would have called "the right thing," she did not hesitate, did not spare herself. She went on to the bitter end. But the strange, the wonderful thing was that it was less bitter than she had thought it must be. While she was speaking, while she was exposing her own folly, her own shame even, she began to feel a sense of relief. She gave the secret which she had kept for ten years to this girl who had treated her cruelly, and in the giving, instead of abject humiliation, she was conscious of liberation. Her mind seemed to be released from a long bondage. Her soul seemed to breathe more freely, like a live thing let out from a close prison into the air. A strange feeling of being at peace with herself came to her and comforted her.
"And that is all, Beryl!" she said at last. "Now, do you forgive me?"
Beryl had been standing quite still, with her eyes fixed on Lady Sellingworth. She had listened without moving. Even her hands had been still, folded together in front of her. But the colour had come and gone in her face as she had listened, as it can only come and go in a face that is young. She was very pale now. Even her lips looked much paler than usual. She stood there and did not say anything. But her eyes were no longer fastened on Lady Sellingworth"s face. She was looking down now. Lady Sellingworth could not see her eyes, but only her white eyelids fringed with long lashes which curled up at the ends.
"I had to tell you, Beryl."
Still the girl said nothing and did not move. But Lady Sellingworth saw two tears come from under her eyelids and fall down her face. Other tears followed. She did not take out her handkerchief to wipe them away.
She did not seem to be aware of them, or of any necessity for trying to stop them from coming. And then she began to shake. She shook from head to foot, still keeping her hands folded. And that--the folded hands--made her look like a tall doll shaking. There was something so peculiar and horrible in the contrast between her att.i.tude and the evident agony which was convulsing her that for a moment Lady Sellingworth felt helpless, did not dare to speak to her or to touch her. It was impossible to tell whether she was shaken by anger, by self-pity, or by the despair of youth deceived and outraged. But as she continued to weep, and as her body went on trembling, Lady Sellingworth at last could not bear it any longer. She felt that she must do something, must try to help her, and she put a hand on the girl"s shoulder gently.
"Beryl!" she said. "Beryl! I didn"t want to hurt you, but I had to tell you."
The girl suddenly turned and caught her by the arms.
"Oh, Adela!" she said, in a faltering voice. "No other woman would have--how could you? Oh, how could you?"
Her face was distorted. She looked at Lady Sellingworth with eyes that were bloodshot behind their tears.
"Both of us! Both of us!" she exclaimed. "It"s too horrible!"
She still held Lady Sellingworth"s arms.
"_I_ couldn"t have done it! I should have let you go on. I shouldn"t have written--I shouldn"t have spoken! And I have been alone with him. I have let him--I have let him--"
"Beryl!"
"No, no! It isn"t too late! Don"t be afraid!"
"Thank G.o.d!" said Lady Sellingworth.
She had no feeling of self-pity now. All her compa.s.sion for herself was obscured for the moment in compa.s.sion for the girl. The years at last were helping her, those years which so often had brought her misery.