There had been one who would have had it all out of her in a trice. But he was remote, a part of her childhood. She hardly called him to mind at this hour. It was dangerous work to think of him, she knew--and her old fort.i.tude stood by her, which said, Turn your mind resolutely away from that which may influence your judgment. Senhouse was not a stoic; he was an epicurean, she now considered. She wanted something flintier than Senhouse. He might have tried to dissuade her; but her mind was now made up. She intended to marry Nevile.
She breakfasted alone, and immediately afterwards went upstairs to write her agreement. The thing was to be gone through with, and the sooner the better.
"MY DEAR NEVILE," she wrote, "if it can ever be right to marry without love, it must be in my case. I don"t blame you in the least for what happened. It was as much my doing as yours--and I still think that I was right. And now I think that it is right to fulfil one"s bargain--as it would have been if I had married you. If I had been married to you, I should not have left you unless you told me to go, and I don"t think that I ought to now. If you really wish it, you shall marry me when you please, and I will do my duty by you always. Whatever arrangements you make will suit me quite well; but the less fuss we make the better. I am sure that you will think so too. Don"t come to see me for a few days if you don"t mind. I want to think.--Yours affectionately, SANCHIA."
It was not a very gracious letter, it must be owned. So young and so untender! One would have said that the man must be a courageous lover who would take marriage on such terms; but either Ingram was very much in love, or honestly hoped to be loved again. I incline to the opinion of Bill Chevenix, to whom he showed it. "Nevile, old chap," he said, "you take her on any terms. You"ve no idea how set up you"ll feel by everybody saying you"ve done the square thing. I tell you frankly that she"s too good for you. Look how she"s shaped in Charles Street! As if she"d been born to it. And never once--never once--allowed to anybody that she"s been in the wrong. Not to a soul. And neither you nor I believe that she has-- nor did old Dosshouse, or whatever his name was." Ingram knew quite well to whom he so airily referred.
"I shall have landed that chap once for all, anyhow," he said.
"Landed him!" cried the other. "Why, bless you, didn"t you know? He landed himself two years after you did. He"s married."
"Married, is he?" Ingram asked, not thinking of Senhouse in particular.
"Who did he marry?"
"He married a rather pretty woman, a widow, a Mrs. Germain."
Ingram looked sharply up. "I"ll take my oath he didn"t. I met her the other day. She"s Mrs. Duplessis."
Chevenix stared at him. "Why, I know the chap. Where did you meet her?
Where do they live?" he asked his friend.
But Ingram had other things to think of, and returned to his letter. "I shall take this as she means it, Bill. She wants me to go slow--I can take a hint. She shall have her head. When I get her down to Wanless we shall be all right. The place isn"t fit to live in now, you know. I was up there last week--and found everything going to pot. Not a horse fit to ride--not a sound one amongst "em. Plantations all to pieces--gardens--tenants in arrears--oh, beastly! She"ll have it all to rights in no time, and she"ll simply revel in it. She"ll come round--you leave that to me. If _I_ can"t get a girl round I ought to."
Chevenix listened, and judged. He knew his Ingram pretty well, and took his confidence, like his confidences, for what they were worth. "Where did you say that the Duplessis lived?"
"I think she"s in a hotel. It might be Brown"s. I believe it _is_ Brown"s.
What d"you want her for?"
"Think she knows some of my people," said Chevenix, and presently took himself out of the Coffee Tree Club.
But Sanchia, her day"s work done, went--not to church, but to Bloomsbury.
Entering the portals of the Museum, she swam to the portico, full of her cares. But smoothly, swiftly, she went, with that even, gliding gait peculiar to her kind, which has precisely the effect of a swan breasting the stream. Past the door, she turned to the left, not glancing at the aligned Caesars, scarcely bowing to Demeter of the remote gaze. In that long gallery, where the Caryatid thrusts her bosom that her neck may be the prouder to the weight, she saw the objects of her present pilgrimage-- beaten, blind, and dumb, immovable as the eternal hills, the Attic Fates; and before them at gaze, his arms folded over his narrow chest, Morosine the Pole.
Whether she had sought him here or not, she did not falter in her advance.
Smoothly, swiftly, and silently she came to him and stood by his side. He turned his head, looked sharply at her pale face and sad eyes, then resumed his meditation before the Three. Neither of them had a care to speak.
Presently Morosine said, "I knew that you would be here." He kept his face towards the mystery, and so did she when she echoed him. "Did you know that? You know me, I think."
"I believe that I do. You have come here for strength. You will get it."
Ruefully enough she answered, "I wish I could believe that."
"You have it in you already. These great ladies will call it out. I wish you had been here, say, the day before yesterday. They might have helped you."
"But they did help me," she said. "They were with me. I remembered what we had talked about before them."
He nodded his head. "I had intended that you should. I was rightly inspired."
"Without them," she went on, "I don"t know what I should have done. It seems absurd to say so, but--"
He interrupted. "It"s not absurd at all--to you and me. If it"s absurd, then Art is pastry-cook-stuff: sugar and white-of-egg. The man who fashioned these things had walked with G.o.d. Here are his secrets, revealed to you and me."
She followed her own thoughts, not his. "I came to--day because I have made up my mind. I wanted them to confirm me--to say that I was right. If you weren"t here, I should go up to them and whisper to them, as I"ve seen women do to the Madonna abroad. I should tell them everything."
He looked at her keenly. "Do it now. I"ll leave you."
She smiled faintly. "No, don"t leave me. I couldn"t do it now. But I meant to when I came in."
"You didn"t think that I might be here?" He watched her.
"No. I remember that you said we were to meet on Thursday. And I have a great deal to think of; I"m in great trouble."
"I know you are," he said. "I fear to be impertinent; but if I can help you---"
She gave him a grateful look. Her trouble was very real, and made almost a child of her. "I should value your advice. It would help me to have it-- even if it couldn"t change my intentions."
"You shall have it, a.s.suredly," he said. "Shall we find a seat?"
"No, no. I would rather stop where we are. Perhaps they"ll hear us." They looked at each other and smiled at a shared sentiment.
"Tell me, then," he said.
"He wants me to marry him," she said hurriedly, "and I think that I must.
All my people wish it, and my friends--I mean those who have known me for a long time. I don"t mind very much about most of them; but one of my sisters--Vicky--who was always my closest friend, expects it--and it would break my father"s heart if I did not do it. The others don"t count; but those two do. And there are other things--one other person who would think I am doing right."
"Would you"--Morosine spoke slowly, addressing the statues--"would you consider the possibility of marrying any one else?"
She spoke as one in a trance. "No--I couldn"t--I shouldn"t dare. Besides, there is no possibility--there would be Papa and Vicky again. That would never satisfy them. And then I feel that it"s my punishment--if I deserve punishment, as they all imply that I do. At any rate, it"s part of my bargain. I began this thing, and I must go on with it, at all costs to myself. I mustn"t think of myself in it at all. I"m only part of the world"s plan; but I happen to know that I am; and so I must go where I am called to go. I must follow my Destiny, just as I did at first. That time I followed it against everybody"s opinion; this time I must follow against my own will. Don"t you agree with me?"
Morosine reflected in silence. Then he said, "Yes, I agree with you. I recommend you to follow your determination."
Her eyes looked blankly at him; for the first moment he thought her disappointed, but he corrected his impression in the second.
"I"m glad you agree with me," she said. "I should have been disappointed if you hadn"t."
He smiled. "You are stronger than you think. You can suffice to yourself.
But I hope that I shall never disappoint you."
"I have no fear of that," she said, young again and confident. She thanked the Immortal Three with her eyes, and turning to Morosine, asked him, "Shall we go?" They went together. Pa.s.sing the Demeter of Cnidos, her swinging hand touched his. He held his breath. Her face, sharply in profile, was as pure and pale as a silver coin. Her breast held her secret. To her own heart she voiced the cry, "Have I done well, dear one?
Have I done well? Do you approve of me? Do you?" It may be that Senhouse heard her in his Wiltshire hills.
XI
Nevile Ingram was capable of fine ideas, we have seen, and could sometimes carry them out. He had had a moment of generosity, with Sanchia"s letter in his hand, and held in the main to his expressed intentions. When he went to see her, at the end of three rigorous days, he behaved like a gentleman. She entered the room where he awaited her, pale for his embrace: he came to meet her, put his hand upon her shoulder, and, stooping, kissed her lightly. "My dear," he said, "I"ll deserve you yet;"