She did not answer at once, and, raising his eyes, he saw that now she was looking at him. "Bareheaded. Yes," she a.s.sented. And she repeated, "As he was when he was killed, Bevis."
"Did he look pale?--unhappy?"
"Very calm," she said.
"Nothing more?" He had his reasons; but, alas, she had hers.
Her eyes dwelt on him as she answered: "Yes. Something more. Something I did not know. Something Cicely did not know." She measured what he kept from her, with what a depth of melancholy, seeing his hope; as he, abandoning hope, measured what she had, till then, kept from him. "They told me that Malcolm was shot through the heart, Bevis. It was not only that. I don"t know why they felt it kinder to say that. They told you the truth. There was something more. You do know," she said. Her eyes were on his and he could not look away, though he felt, sickening him, that a dull flush crept revealingly to his face.
"I know what?" he repeated, stupidly.
"How he was killed. That"s what Cicely saw."
"She got it from my mind," he muttered, while the flush, that felt like an exposure of guilt, dyed his face and, despite his words, horror settled round his heart. "She"s a _clairvoyante_. She got the khaki from us both and the wound in the head from me."
Now her eyes dropped from him. He had revealed nothing to her, except his own hope of escape. He had brought further evidence; but it was not needed. She was a creature fixed and frozen in an icy block of certainty.
"A wound in the head," she repeated. "A terrible wound. That was what Cicely saw. He must have died at once. How did you know, Bevis? You were not with him."
"Alan Chichester told me," said the young man hoa.r.s.ely. "The other was true too. The shot in the breast would have been enough to kill him. It was instantaneous; the most merciful death. And he was not disfigured, Tony."
She rested pitying eyes upon him. She pitied him. "His features were not touched; not on the side he turned to her," she answered. "But Cicely saw that half his head was shot away."
His busy mind, while they spoke, was nimbly darting here and there with an odd, agile avoidance of certain recognitions. This was the moment of moments in which to show no fear. And his mind was not afraid.--Clairvoyance; clairvoyance; it repeated, while the horror clotted round his heart. As if pushing against a weight he forced his will through the horror and went back to his place at the other end of the mantelpiece; and, with a conscious volition, he put his hand on hers and drew it from the shelf.
"Tony dear," he said, "come sit down. Let us talk quietly."--Heaven knew they had been quiet enough!--"Here; let me keep beside you. Don"t take your hand away. I shan"t trouble you. Listen, dear. Even if it were true, even if Malcolm came--and I do not believe he comes--it need not mean that we must part."
She had suffered him to draw her down beside him on the leathern divan and, as she felt his kindly hand upon her and heard his voice, empty of all but an immense gentleness, tears, for the first time, rose to her eyes. Slowly they fell down her cheeks and she sat there, mute, and let them fall.
"Why should you think it means he wants to part us?" he asked in a gentle and exhausted voice. He asked, for he must still try to save himself and Tony; yet he knew that Miss Latimer had indeed done something to him; or that Malcolm had. The wraith of that inscrutability hovered between him and Tony, and in clasping her would he not always clasp its chill? The springs of ardour in his heart were killed. Never had he more loved and never less desired her. Poor, poor Tony. How could she live without him? And wretched he, how was he to win her back from this antagonist?
He had asked his question, but she knew his thoughts.
"He has parted us, Bevis. We are parted. You know it, too."
"I don"t! I don"t!" Holding her hand he looked down at it while his heart mocked the protestation. "I don"t know it. Life can cover this misery. We must be brave, and face it together."
"It can"t be faced together. He would be there, always. Seeing us."
"We want him to be there; happy; loving you; loving your happiness."
"It is not like that, Bevis." She only needed to remind him. The reality before them mocked his words. "He would not have called to us if he were happy. He would not have appeared to Cicely. He is not angry. I understand it all. He is trying to get through, but it is not because he is angry. It is because he feels I have gone from him. He is lonely, Bevis; and lost. Like the curlew. Like the poor, forgotten curlew."
When she said that, something seemed to break in his heart, if there were anything left to break. He sat for a little while, still looking down at the hand he held, the piteous, engulfed hand. But it was a pity not only for her, but for himself, and, unendurably, for Malcolm, in that vision she evoked, that brought the slow tears to his eyes. And then thought and feeling seemed washed away from him and he knew only that he had laid his head upon her shoulder, as if in great weariness, and sobbed.
"Oh, my darling!" whispered Tony. She put her arms around him. "Oh, my darling Bevis. I"ve broken your heart, too. Oh, what grief! What misery!"
She had never spoken to him like that before; never clasped him to her.
He had a beautiful feeling of comfort and contentment, even while, with her, he felt the waters closing over their heads.
"Darling Tony," he said. He added after a moment, "My heart"s not broken when you are so lovely to me."
Pressing her cheek against his forehead, kissing him tenderly, she held him as a mother holds her child. "I"d give my life for you," she said.
"I"d die to make you happy."
"Ah, but you see," he put his hand up to her shoulder so that he should feel her more near, "that wouldn"t do any good. You must stay like this to make me happy."
"If I could!" she breathed.
They sat thus for a long time and, in the stillness, sweetness, sorrow, he felt that it was he and Tony who lay drowned in each other"s arms at the bottom of the sea, dead and peaceful, and Malcolm who lived and roved so restlessly, in the world from which they were mercifully sunken. They were the innocent ghosts and he the baleful, living creature haunting their peace.
"Don"t go. Why do you go?" he said, almost with terror, as Antonia"s arms released him. She had opened her eyes; but not to him. Their cold, fixed grief gazed above his head. And the faint, deprecatory smile flickered about her mouth as, rising, she said: "I must. Cicely will soon be back. And I must rest again. I must rest for to-morrow, Bevis dear."
"We are all going away together? You will really rest?"
"All going away. Yes; I will rest." Still she did not look at him, but around at the room. "I shall never see Wyndwards again."
"Forget it, Tony, and all it"s meant. That"s what I am going to do. I am to travel with you?"
She hesitated; then, "Of course. You and I and Cicely," she said.
"And I may see you in London? You"ll take a day or two there before going on?"
"A day or two, perhaps. But you must not try to see me, Bevis dear." He had risen, still keeping her hand as he went with her to the door, still feeling himself the bereft and terrified child who seeks pretexts so that its mother shall not leave it. And he thought, as they went so together, that their lives were strangely overturned since this could be; for until now Tony had been his child. It had been he who had sustained and comforted Tony.
"Why do you go?" he repeated. "You can rest with me here: not saying anything; only being quiet, together."
"No, Bevis dear; no." She shook her head slowly, and her face was turned away from him. "We must not be together now."
He knew that it was what she must say. He knew the terror in her heart.
He saw Malcolm, mourning, unappeased, between them. Yet, summoning his will, summoning the claim of life against that detested apparition, expressing, also, the sickness of his heart as he saw his devastated future, "You mustn"t make me a lonely curlew, too," he said.
He was sorry for the words as soon as he had uttered them. It was a different terror they struck from her sunken face. She stood for a moment and looked at him and he remembered how she had looked the other day--oh! how long ago it seemed--when he had frightened her by saying he might get over her. But it was not his child who looked at him now. "I have broken your heart! I have broken your heart, too!" she said.
"Far from it!" he declared. And he tried to smile at her. "Wait till I get you safely to London. You"ll see how it will revive!"
The door stood open between them, and it was not his child who looked at him, answering his sally with a smile as difficult as his own. "Dear, brave Bevis," she murmured.
And, as she turned and left him, he saw again the love that had cherished him so tenderly, faltering, helpless, at the threshold of her lips and eyes.
VIII
Miss Latimer dined with him. She told him that the poor woman had died, and they talked of the Peace Conference. Miss Latimer read her papers carefully and the subject floated them until dessert. She spoke with dry scepticism of the League of Nations. Her outlook was narrow, acute, and practical. As they rose from the table she bade him good-night.
"Do you mind giving me a few moments, in the library, first?" he said.