You"re walking? Come with me, then; I"m just taking the dogs round the square. Do you love dogs too? I am sure you must. You have the eyes of the dog-lover. I don"t know how I could live without mine; they understand when no one else does. I didn"t write, because I think letters are such soulless things, don"t you? They are the tombs of the spirit--little tombs for failed things--too often. I"ve thought of you, and felt for you--so much; but I couldn"t write. And now I must tell you that I agree with you with all my heart. Love"s the _only_ thing in life, isn"t it?" Mrs. Mallison smiled, pressing Althea"s arm affectionately. Althea remembered to have heard that Mrs. Mallison had made a most determined _mariage de convenance_ and had sought love in other directions; but, summoning what good grace she could, she answered that she, too, considered love the only thing.
"You didn"t love him enough, and you found it out in time, and you told him. How brave; how right. And then--am I too indiscreet? but I know you feel we are friends--you found you loved some one else; the reality came and showed you the unreality. That enchanting Mr. Kane--oh, I felt it the moment I looked at him--there was an affinity between us, our souls understood each other. And so deliciously rich you"ll be, not that money makes any difference, does it? but it is nice to be able to do things for the people one loves."
Althea struggled in a maze of discomfort. Behind Mrs. Mallison"s caressing intonations was something that perplexed her. What did Mrs.
Mallison know, and what did she guess? She was aware, evidently, of her own engagement to Franklin and, no doubt, of Franklin"s engagement to Helen and its breaking off. What did she know about the cause of that breaking off? Her troubled cogitations got no further, for Mrs. Mallison went on:
"And how happily it has all turned out--all round--hasn"t it? How horrid for you and Mr. Kane, if it hadn"t; not that you"d have had anything to reproach yourselves with--really--I know--because love _is_ the only thing; but if Helen and Gerald had just been left _plantes la_, it would have been harder, wouldn"t it? I"ve been staying with them at the same house in the country and it"s quite obvious what"s happened. You knew from the first, no doubt; but of course they are saying nothing, just as you and Mr. Kane are saying nothing. They didn"t tell me, but I guessed at once. And the first thing I thought was: Oh--how happy--how perfect this makes it for Miss Jakes and Mr. Kane. They"ve _all_ found out in time."
Althea grew cold. She commanded her voice. "Helen? Gerald?" she said.
"Haven"t you mistaken? They"ve always been the nearest friends."
"Oh no--no," smiled Mrs. Mallison, with even greater brightness and gentleness, "I never mistake these things; an affair of the heart is the one thing that I always see. Helen, perhaps, could hide it from me; she is a woman and can hide things--Helen is cold too--I am never very sure of Helen"s heart--of course I love her dearly, every one must who knows her; but she is cold, unawakened, the type that holds out the cheek, not the type that kisses. I confess that I love most the reckless, loving type; and I believe that you and I are unlike Helen there--we kiss, we don"t hold out the cheek. But, no, I never would have guessed from Helen. It was Gerald who gave them both away. Poor, dear Gerald, never have I beheld such a transfigured being--he is radiantly in love, quite radiantly; it"s too pretty to see him."
The vision of Gerald, radiantly in love, flashed horridly for Althea. It was dim, yet bright, scintillating darkly; she could only imagine it in similes; she had never seen anything that could visualise it for her.
The insufferable dogs, like tethered bubbles, bounded before them, constantly impeding their progress. Althea was thankful for the excuse afforded her by the tangling of her feet in the string to pause and stoop; she felt that her rigid face must betray her. She stooped for a long moment and hoped that her flush would cover her rigidity. It was when she raised herself that she saw suddenly in Mrs. Mallison"s face something that gave her more than a suspicion. She didn"t suspect her of cruelty or vulgar vengeance--Gerald"s aunt was quite without rancour on the score of her jilting of him; but she did suspect, and more than suspect her--it was like the unendurable probing of a wound to feel it--of idle yet implacable curiosity, and of a curiosity edged, perhaps, with idle malice. She summoned all her strength. She smiled and shook her head a little. "Faithless Gerald! So soon," she said. "He is consoled quickly. No, I never guessed anything at all."
Mrs. Mallison had again pa.s.sed her arm through hers and again pressed it. "It _is_ soon, isn"t it? A sort of _cha.s.se-croise_. But how strange and fortunate that it should be soon--I know you feel that too."
"Oh yes, of course, I feel it; it is an immense relief. But they ought to have told me," Althea smiled.
"I wonder at that too," said Mrs. Mallison. "It is rather bad of them, I think, when they must know what it would mean to you of joy. When did it happen, do you suppose?"
Althea wondered. Wonders were devouring her.
"It happened with you quite suddenly, didn"t it?" said Mrs. Mallison, who breathed the soft fragrance of her solicitude into Althea"s face as she leaned her head near and pressed her arm closely.
"Quite suddenly," Althea replied, "that is, with me it was sudden.
Franklin, of course, has loved me for a great many years."
"So he was faithless too, for his little time?"
Althea"s brain whirled. "Faithless? Franklin?"
"I mean, while he made his mistake--while he thought he was in love with Helen."
"It wasn"t a question of that. It was to be a match of reason, and friendship--everybody knew," Althea stammered.
"_Was_ it?" said Mrs. Mallison with deep interest. "I see, like yours and Gerald"s."
"Oh----" Althea was not able in her headlong course to do more than glance at the implications that whizzed past. "Gerald and I made the mistake, I think; we believed ourselves in love."
"_Did_ you?" Mrs. Mallison repeated her tone of affectionate and brooding interest. "What a strange thing the human heart is, isn"t it?"
"Very, very strange."
"How dear and frank of you to see it all as you do. And there are no more mistakes now," said Mrs. Mallison. "No one is reasonable and every one is radiant."
"Every one is radiant and reasonable too, I hope," said Althea. Her head still whirled as she heard herself a.n.a.lysing for Mrs. Mallison"s correction these sanct.i.ties of her life. Odious, intolerable, insolent woman! She could have burst into tears as she walked beside her, held by her, while her hateful dogs, shrilly barking, bounded buoyantly around them.
"It"s dear of you too, to tell me all about it," said Mrs. Mallison.
"Have you seen Helen yet? She is just back."
"No, I"ve not seen her."
"You will meet? I am sure you will still be friends--two such real people as you are."
"Of course we shall meet. Helen is one of my dearest friends."
"I see. It is so beautiful when people can rise above things. You make me very happy. Don"t tell Helen what I"ve told you," Mrs. Mallison with gentle gaiety warned her. "I knew--in case you hadn"t heard--that it would relieve you so intensely to hear that she and Gerald were happy, in spite of what you had to do to them. But it would make Helen cross with me if she knew I"d told you when she hadn"t. I"m rather afraid of Helen, aren"t you? I"m sure she"ll give Gerald dreadful scoldings sometimes. Poor, dear Gerald!" Mrs. Mallison laughed reminiscently.
"Never have I beheld such a transfigured being. I didn"t think he had it in him to be in love to such an extent. Oh, it was all in his face--his eyes--when he looked at her."
Yes, malicious, malicious to the point of vulgarity; that was Althea"s thought as, like an arrow released from long tension, she sped away, the turn of the square once made and Mrs. Mallison and her dogs once more received into the small house in an adjacent street. Tears were in Althea"s eyes, hot tears, of fury, of humiliation, and--oh, it flooded over her--of bitterest sorrow and yearning. Gerald, radiant Gerald--lost to her for ever; not even lost; never possessed. And into the sorrow and humiliation, poisonous suspicions crept. When did it happen? Where was she? What had been done to her? She must see; she must know. She hailed a hansom and was driven to old Miss Buchanan"s house in Belgravia.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
Helen was sitting at her writing-table before the window, and the morning light fell on her gracefully disordered hair and gracefully shabby shoulders. The aspect of her back struck on Althea"s bitter, breathless mood. There was no effort made for anything with Helen. She was the sort of person who would get things without seeking for them and be things without caring to be them. She had taken what she wanted, when she wanted it; first Franklin, and then--and perhaps it had been before Franklin had failed her, perhaps it had been before she, Althea, had failed Gerald--she had taken Gerald. Althea"s mind, reeling, yet strangely lucid after the shock of the last great injury, was also aware, in the moment of her entrance, of many other injuries, old ones, small ones, yet, in their summing up--and everything seemed to be summed up now in the cruel revelation--as intolerable as the new and great one.
More strongly than ever before she was aware that Helen was hard, that there was nothing in her soft or tentative or afraid; and the realisation, though it was not new, came with an added bitterness this morning. It did not weaken her, however; on the contrary, it nerved her to self-protection. If Helen was hard, she would not, to-day, show herself soft. It was she who must a.s.sume the air of success, and of rueful yet helpless possessorship. These impressions and resolutions occupied but an instant. Helen rose and came to her, and what Althea saw in her face armed her resolutions with hostility. Helen"s face confirmed what Mrs. Mallison had said. It was not resentful, not ironically calm.
A solicitous interest, even a sort of benignity, was in her bright gaze.
Helen was hard; she did not really care at all; but she was kind, kinder than ever before; and Althea found this kindness intolerable.
"Dear Helen," she said, "I"m so glad to see you. I had to come at once when I heard that you were back. You don"t mind seeing me?"
"Not a bit," said Helen, who had taken her hand. "Why should I?"
"I was afraid that perhaps you might not want to--for a long time."
"We aren"t so foolish as that," said Helen smiling.
"No, that is what I hoped you would feel too. We have been in the hands of fate, haven"t we, Helen? I"ve seemed weak and disloyal, I know--to you and to Gerald; but I think it was only seeming. When I found out my mistake I couldn"t go on. And then the rest all followed--inevitably."
Helen had continued to hold her hand while she spoke, and she continued to gaze at her for another moment before, pressing it, she let it fall and said: "Of course you couldn"t go on."
Helen was as resolved--Althea saw that clearly--to act her part of unresentful kindness as she to act hers of innocent remorse. And the swordthrust in the sight was to suspect that had Helen been in reality the dispossessed and not the secretly triumphant, she might have been as kind and as unresentful.
"It"s all been a dreadful mistake," Althea said, going to a chair and loosening her furs. "From the very beginning I felt doubt. From the very beginning I felt that Gerald and I did not really make each other happy.
And I believe that you wondered about it too."
Helen had resumed her seat at the writing-table, sitting turned from it, her hand hanging over the back of the chair, her long legs crossed, and she faced her friend with that bright yet softened gaze, interested, alert, but too benign, too contented, to search or question closely. She was evidently quite willing that Althea should think what she chose, and, this was becoming evident, she intended to help her to think it. So after a little pause she answered, "I did wonder, rather; it didn"t seem to me that you and Gerald were really suited."
"And you felt, didn"t you," Althea urged, "that it was only because I had been so blind, and had not seen where my heart really was, you know, that your engagement was possible? I was so afraid you"d think we"d been faithless to you--Franklin and I; but, when I stopped being blind----"
"Of course," Helen helped her on, nodding and smiling gravely, "of course you took him back. I don"t think you were either of you faithless, and you mustn"t have me a bit on your minds; it was startling, of course; but I"m not heart-broken," Helen a.s.sured her.
Oh, there was no malice here; it was something far worse to bear, this wish to lift every shadow and smooth every path. Althea"s eyes fixed themselves hard on her friend. Her head swam a little and some of her sustaining lucidity left her.