Amabel Channice Part 10

She tried to gather her thoughts together, to pray for light and guidance; but, like a mob of blind men locked out from sanctuary, the poor, wild thoughts only fled about outside the church and fumbled at the church door. Her very soul seemed shut against her.

She roused herself at last, mechanically telling herself that she must go through with it; she must dress and go down to dinner and she must find something to say to Augustine, something that would make what had happened to them less sinister and inexplicable.

--Unless--it seemed like a mad cry raised by one of the blind men in the dark,--unless she told him all, confessed all; her guilt, her shame, the truths of her blighted life. She shuddered; she cowered as the cry came to her, covering her ears and shutting it out. It was mad, mad. She had not strength for such a task, and if that were weakness--oh, with a long breath she drew in the mitigation--if it were weakness, would it not be a cruel, a heartless strength that could blight her child's life too, in the name of truth. She must not listen to the cry. Yet strangely it had echoed in her, almost as if from within, not from without, the dark, deserted church; almost as if her soul, shut in there in the darkness, were crying out to her. She turned her mind from the sick fancy.

Augustine met her at dinner. He was pale but he seemed composed. They spoke little. He said, in answer to her questioning, that he had quite liked Lady Elliston; yes, they had had a nice talk; she seemed very friendly; he should go and see her when he next went up to London.

Amabel felt the crispness in his voice but, centered as she was in her own self-mastery, she could not guess at the degree of his.

After dinner they went into the drawing-room, where the old, ugly lamp added its light to the candles on the mantel-piece.

Augustine took his book and sat down at one side of the table. Amabel sat at the other. She, too, took a book and tried to read; a little time pa.s.sed and then she found that her hands were trembling so much that she could not. She slid the book softly back upon the table, reaching out for her work-bag. She hoped Augustine had not seen, but, glancing up at him, she saw his eyes upon her.

Augustine's eyes looked strange tonight. The dark rims around the iris seemed to have expanded. Suddenly she felt horribly afraid of him.

They gazed at each other, and she forced herself to a trembling, meaningless smile. And when she smiled at him he sprang up and came to her. He leaned over her, and she shrank back into her chair, shutting her eyes.

"You must tell me the truth," said Augustine. "I can't bear this. _He_ has made you unhappy.--_He_ comes between us."

She lay back in the darkness, hearing the incredible words.

"He?--What do you mean?"

"He is a bad man. And he makes you miserable. And you love him."

She heard the nightmare: she could not look at it.

"My husband bad? He is good, more good than you can guess. What do you mean by speaking so?"

With closed eyes, shutting him out, she spoke, anger and terror in her voice.

Augustine lifted himself and stood with his hands clenched looking at her.

"You say that because you love him. You love him more than anything or anyone in the world."

"I do. I love him more than anyone or anything in the world. How have you dared--in silence--in secret--to nourish these thoughts against the man who has given you all you have."

"He hasn't given me all I have. You are everything in my life and he is nothing. He is selfish. He is sensual. He is stupid. He doesn't know what beauty or goodness is. I hate him," said Augustine.

Her eyes at last opened on him. She grasped her chair and raised herself. Whose hands were these, desecrating her holy of holies. Her son's? Was it her son who spoke these words? An enemy stood before her.

"Then you do not love me. If you hate him you do not love me,"--her anger had blotted out her fear, but she could find no other than these childish words and the tears ran down her face.

"And if you love him you cannot love me," Augustine answered. His self-mastery was gone. It was a fierce, wild anger that stared back at her. His young face was convulsed and livid.

"It is you who are bad to have such false, base thoughts!" his mother cried, and her eyes in their indignation, their horror, struck at him, accused him, thrust him forth. "You are cruel--and hard--and self-righteous.--You do not love me.--There is no tenderness in your heart!"--

Augustine burst into tears. "There is no room in your heart for me!--"

he gasped. He turned from her and rushed out of the room.

A long time pa.s.sed before she leaned forward in the chair where she had sat rigidly, rested her elbows on her knees, buried her face in her hands.

Her heart ached and her mind was empty: that was all she knew. It had been too much. This torpor of sudden weakness was merciful. Now she would go to bed and sleep.

It took her a long time to go upstairs; her head whirled, and if she had not clung to the bal.u.s.ter she would have fallen.

In the pa.s.sage above she paused outside Augustine's door and listened.

She heard him move inside, walking to his window, to lean out into the night, probably, as was his wont. That was well. He, too, would sleep presently.

In her room she said to her maid that she did not need her. It took her but a few minutes tonight to prepare for bed. She could not even braid her uncoiled hair. She tossed it, all loosened, above her head as she fell upon the pillow.

She heard, for a little while, the dull thumping of her heart. Her breath was warm in a mesh of hair beneath her cheek; she was too sleepy to put it away. She was wakened next morning by the maid. Her curtains were drawn and a dull light from a rain-blotted world was in the room.

The maid brought a note to her bedside. From Mr. Augustine, she said.

Amabel raised herself to hold the sheet to the light and read:--

"Dear mother," it said. "I think that I shall go and stay with Wallace for a week or so. I shall see you before I go up to Oxford. Try to forgive me for my violence last night. I am sorry to have added to your unhappiness. Your affectionate son--Augustine."

Her mind was still empty. "Has Mr. Augustine gone?" she asked the maid.

"Yes, ma'am; he left quite early, to catch the eight-forty train."

"Ah, yes," said Amabel. She sank back on her pillow. "I will have my breakfast in bed. Tea, please, only, and toast."--Then, the long habit of self-discipline a.s.serting itself, the necessity for keeping strength, if it were only to be spent in suffering:--"No, coffee, and an egg, too."

She found, indeed, that she was very hungry; she had eaten nothing yesterday. After her bath and the brushing and braiding of her hair, it was pleasant to lie propped high on her pillows and to drink her hot coffee. The morning papers, too, were nice to look at, folded on her tray. She did not wish to read them; but they spoke of a firmly established order, sustaining her life and a.s.suring her of ample pillows to lie on and hot coffee to drink, a.s.suring her that bodily comforts were pleasant whatever else was painful. It was a childish, a still stupefied mood, she knew, but it supported her; an oasis of the familiar, the safe, in the midst of whirling, engulfing storms.

It supported her through the hours when she lay, with closed eyes, listening to the pour and drip of the rain, when, finally deciding to get up, she rose and dressed very carefully, taking all her time.

Below, in the drawing-room, when she entered, it was very dark. The fire was unlit, the bowls of roses were faded; and sudden, childish tears filled her eyes at the desolateness. On such a day as this Augustine would have seen that the fire was burning, awaiting her. She found matches and lighted it herself and the reluctantly creeping brightness made the day feel the drearier; it took a long time even to warm her foot as she stood before it, leaning her arm on the mantel-piece.

It was Sat.u.r.day; she should not see her girls today; there was relief in that, for she did not think that she could have found anything to say to them this morning.

Looking at the roses again, she felt vexed with the maid for having left them there in their melancholy. She rang and spoke to her almost sharply telling her to take them away, and when she had gone felt the tears rise with surprise and compunction for the sharpness.

There would be no fresh flowers in the room today, it was raining too hard. If Augustine had been here he would have gone out and found her some wet branches of beech or sycamore to put in the vases: he knew how she disliked a flowerless, leafless room, a dislike he shared.

How the rain beat down. She stood looking out of the window at the sodden earth, the blotted shapes of the trees. Beyond the nearest meadows it was like a grey sheet drawn down, confusing earth and sky and shutting vision into an islet.

She hoped that Augustine had taken his mackintosh. He was very forgetful about such things. She went out to look into the bleak, stone hall hung with old hunting prints that were dimmed and spotted with age and damp.

Yes, it was gone from its place, and his ulster, too. It had been a considered, not a hasty departure. A tweed cloak that he often wore on their walks hung there still and, vaguely, as though she sought something, she turned it, looked at it, put her hands into the worn, capacious pockets. All were empty except one where she found some withered gorse flowers. Augustine was fond of stripping off the golden blossoms as they pa.s.sed a bush, of putting his nose into the handful of fragrance, and then holding it out for her to smell it, too:--"Is it apricots, or is it peaches?" she could hear him say.

She went back into the drawing-room holding the withered flowers. Their fragrance was all gone, but she did not like to burn them. She held them and bent her face to them as she stood again looking out. He would by now have reached his destination. Wallace was an Eton friend, a nice boy, who had sometimes stayed at Charlock House. He and Augustine were perhaps already arguing about Nietzsche.

Strange that her numbed thoughts should creep along this path of custom, of maternal a.s.sociations and solicitudes, forgetful of fear and sorrow.

The recognition came with a sinking pang. Reluctantly, unwillingly, her mind was forced back to contemplate the catastrophe that had befallen her. He was her judge, her enemy: yet, on this dismal day, how she missed him. She leaned her head against the window-frame and the tears fell and fell.