An Engagement of Convenience Part 13

As the next morning turned out fairly clear, Wyndham took his materials with him into a hansom, and rang the bell at Grosvenor Place at about ten o'clock. Not only had he decided that his misgivings were entirely morbid, but as a matter of course he had been quite open with the Robinsons about the arrangement. He had indeed explained to Alice some considerable time ago that he should in all likelihood find it necessary to make these fresh sketches on the very scene of the picture. It did not seem anything out of the way to her; she regarded it as a pure matter of work. It was sufficient that she understood his disappearance from the studio in the midst of these busy times. And as he had made it a point that she should possess a key of the new house just as she had had one of the old studio, she and her mother could come and go as they pleased in his absence, and proceed with their engrossing business of embellishing his hall and stairway.

But as he set foot in the house at Grosvenor Place after this long interval of years, Wyndham could not maintain his reasoned conviction of the simplicity and insignificance of the occasion.

He had the very real thrill of embarking on some extraordinary adventure; even of stepping outside his own existence--that theatre where he had been the spectator of his own fate, whose curtain--fire-proof --had already fallen on a played-out drama. But here was a strange theatre, with a curtain to rise, fascinating with promise of other drama to be revealed; yet the stillness and the dim light cast some spell of awe upon him.

A hand seemed to clutch at him and pull him back out of the house at the last moment. He was penetrating here against the warning of his deeper self; his heart beat fast not merely with the consciousness of imprudence, but of downright disloyalty to the settled destiny before which he had bowed his head so profoundly. The warning voice, too, was stern; but the sense of daring, of courting and facing some unknown delicious danger, lured him forward.

His lordship had already gone across to his club, the butler informed him; but he had half-expected Wyndham and had left orders in case he should present himself. As he followed the man up to the room he had used of old, he felt, despite the lofty well of the staircase, that the air hung heavy in the great house, m.u.f.fled and silent with gigantic hangings, and thick carpets underfoot. Wyndham stood at the well-known window a leisurely moment, then arranged a chair or two, and unpacked his materials. The butler helped him to open the cas.e.m.e.nt at the side of the bay and to rearrange the curtain, then asked if there was anything more he could do for him.

"Oh, would you get my hat again?" returned Wyndham, as a current of wintry air flowed in. He laughed; having forgotten he could not work uncovered.

When finally the man had complied with his request, and left him again, Wyndham looked out on the scene before him, his eye lingering for a moment on the royal gardens, then trying to catch the exact view he had painted. But as yet his mind was in too great a turmoil to concentrate itself sternly on the business in hand. "I shall be acclimatised in a minute or two," he rea.s.sured himself. "The atmosphere of this house is so oppressive--it upset me the first moment." He stood gratefully inhaling the fresher draught that streamed against his face; and when he had calmed down he took a turn or two about the room, observing it with interest. He had scarcely received any impression of it yet, but now he perceived that it was greatly changed in some respects. A new fireplace, and a mantel of a dainty cabinet-like design, replaced the former streaked framework of marble that had enshrined a great rococo grate.

The double leaf door that led to some adjoining room had had its hanging stripped away, and the beauty of panelling showed naked and unashamed.

The former carpet had gone; there were now soft Eastern rugs on the floor lying closely side by side, and covering it entirely. But though the Chippendale bookcases and the rest of the furniture had been left untouched, there was somehow a more intimate personal note about the room; accentuated perhaps by the trifles and photographs cl.u.s.tered about the mantelshelf. And then Wyndham came to an abrupt stop as if some sheet of flame had flashed by and seared him. There in the centre of the mantel, next to a tiny clock shaped like a Gothic arch, stood the silver easel bearing the framed photograph of his old Academy picture--his wedding present to Lady Betty!

Why was it here in this house? he asked himself, trembling. Had she left it behind because she esteemed it so lightly? Or was there perhaps some special significance in the fact; something his thought groped for wildly and blindly as if in panic?

He staggered back to the window, astonished to find how overcome he had been. The air revived him, and then a new and sterner spirit came upon him. Was he going to waste his whole morning by yielding himself to these idle and futile emotions? Resolutely he prepared his palette, and bent his mind by force to his task. He was pleased presently to find how exactly his eye recovered his scene; he felt he could almost lay the one he had painted over this one, and that it would fit like a transfer.

Slowly and carefully he let the view sink into him, estimating the tones, the ma.s.ses, the s.p.a.ces; peopling it in his mind with all the figures and accessories that went to build up his great symbolic representation. Then he set one of the smaller canva.s.ses on his knee, and started his note-making. Soon he was absorbed in the work, glad that he had forced himself to begin, and that the little wheels of his mind were turning so smoothly.

At eleven the butler appeared with wine and sandwiches, moved a little table over near Wyndham, and set down the tray within reach of his hand.

Wyndham was glad of this refreshment; he had been in too uncertain a mood to do more than gulp down his coffee at breakfast, and the raw air had roused a craving for some sort of sustenance--a desire for stimulation rather than a keen hunger. He swallowed a gla.s.s of the wine, then began to nibble a sandwich slowly; but his mind was still in his work. He half-knew that the great folding door at the bottom of the room had opened, that somebody had entered. But it was as in a dream, and he did not look up. He considered his results, then poured more wine, and was in the act of raising it to his lips. G.o.d! what was this gracious, willowy figure, with the wonderful sheen on the fresh hair, and the girlish rounded cheeks! She was smiling at him, her eyes strangely alight under their long, soft lashes, her lips half parted; she was advancing towards him with outstretched hand. He put back the gla.s.s on the table and rose hastily, holding his sketch suspended from one hand; but his wits left him and he stared as at a ghost.

"Lady Betty!" he stammered.

"I am not an apparition," she rea.s.sured him; "but only a simple flesh-and-blood creature. Won't you put down your picture?" She smiled again at his embarra.s.sment.

He laughed, and stood the sketch on a chair.

"Your presence certainly startled me," he confessed. "I had an idea you were thousands of miles away." They took hands--a good, comrade-like clasp. "Fortunately the idea was erroneous."

"Fortunately," she echoed, laughingly capping his gallantry.

"Oh, but how stupid I am! Forgive me!" He almost swept the hat from his head. "You see how I was scared; how ill prepared to cope with apparitions."

She laughed again. "You are to keep your hat on," she commanded. "My presence is easily accounted for; out of sheer restlessness of spirit I thought I should like to try London again--I had shunned it like the plague for ever so long. As all the nice little hotels were full, I descended on my father here, and practically appropriated this room."

"I fear I'm an intruder," he stammered.

"You had my permission; it was obtained in due form. Only I insisted my name was to be held back. I wanted to play the apparition, and my father entered into the whim of the thing. It seems like old times again."

Wyndham tried to transport himself back along the years. "I wonder whether there's anything better in life than to repeat the best moments of the past," he said pensively; "that is, if we can catch them with all the original magic in them." He saw her head drop a little; her expression was full of musing, half-sad and tender. Then he remembered that things had indeed changed since those old days, that Lady Betty had a husband! It was strange, but the apparition, besides the rest of the mischief, had momentarily driven the fact from the store of his knowledge. He had had absolutely the delusion that this was the brilliant Lady Betty, still unwed, to whom no suitor might aspire save with yachts and palaces.

"I have been calling you Lady Betty!" he exclaimed. "The delusion of old times was very strong."

"Please to keep on with the Lady Betty--I come back to it so easily. It quite pleased me when it slipped from your lips. You have stepped out of the long ago; I step back to meet you. You must still think of me as Lady Betty."

"And Lord Lakeden?" he murmured, though he felt the inquiry was rather a belated courtesy.

She stared at him, her cheeks white, her eyes growing unnaturally large.

"Your husband--I hope he is well," he explained, bewildered by this new expression that seemed to hold mingled amazement and horror.

"My husband!" She laughed--a weird peal that filled him with a fear as of blinding flashes to come. "Did you not know? I thought the whole world knew. I have no husband!"

He looked at her. "I don't understand," he stammered.

"I really believe you don't," she said, her face still blanched. "My married life was a short one. Lord Lakeden met with an accident on the Alps--the summer before last. He went out without a guide. The details were in all the papers. It was one of the sensations of the silly season." Again a nervous laugh, but more than ever it was full of unnatural echoes.

Instinctively Wyndham took off his hat again, and stood with his head bowed. "I am sorry. My condolences are late, but they are sincere."

"I somehow expected you would write to me at the time. Hosts and hosts wrote to me--till my head went dizzy; but never a word from you." She was speaking with greater command of herself now, but he felt in her words a world of reproach.

"I was living as a hermit at the time. I saw n.o.body for--shall I say it seemed to me a lifetime--save the poor old woman who came to turn out my studio once in every three months perhaps."

"Ah, you were unhappy!" Her face softened, telling of a swift, spontaneous sympathy.

"I was nigh starving. I never saw a newspaper unless by chance; my pennies were too precious."

"My poor friend!" Her eyes gleamed as if tears were about to come.

"I played the game up to a certain point with all my strength, but everything went against me from every quarter. I know there are men that would have risen triumphant above all these evils and difficulties. But I was not one of those men. I was beaten--smashed--utterly and hopelessly. I had not the smallest reserve of power to carry on the fight. I lived cut off from the world like a man in a tomb. I am ashamed to think that I kept myself alive----"

"No, no," she interrupted, shivering. "I can't bear it."

"I am ashamed that I did not die," he persisted. "It is the truth. It is the first time I say it either to myself or to another. In order to live I stepped below myself."

She covered her face with her hands. "I know you are misjudging. You are harsh with yourself. I hold to my faith in you."

"I lived on the earnings of my sister, who stinted herself in food and went shabbily clad that she might foster my work. Yet, for terrible months and months, I deceived her. I did no work. My will was dead. As a man I seemed to collapse physically and morally."

"You were not responsible. There is a limit to human endurance. You needed a delicious rest in some blue sunny place, in one of those earthly paradises where the orange-trees are golden in the sun. Your sister's love consecrated her sacrifice. She saved you for a great future. Her reward is yet to come."

"You see everything in so sweet a light; I can only hope that the issue will be as you say. It is on my future work that I have staked the redemption of my manhood in my own eyes. My work! That is where my real heart lies. Outside of that my life will be a mere appearance."

"But you have somebody else in your life now," she broke in, pale as death. "We heard a rumour that you were about to marry. Is it not true?"

He gasped at the bitter reminder. He hung his head. "It is true," he breathed.

"Then you have given your affections: you are happy?"

He wavered for a deep instant, the whilst her eyes rested on him gravely. "I have given my affections--I am happy." To himself he added: "I must be loyal to Alice, if indeed I have not gone too far already.

But Lady Betty has made me see the truth. I understand now what I felt only obscurely--I bartered my life to the Robinsons, kind as they are, that I might repair the hurt and wrong to Mary."

"I congratulate you from my heart." She held out her hand again with a wan smile. He took it limply; feeling he held it on false pretences, that the sudden check he had put on his impulsive outpouring had raised a barrier between them.

"But forgive me for my stupid egotism. Here am I, a great strapping fellow, pitying myself because of a very ordinary sort of dismal failure; more than commonplace by the side of the great sorrow that came to you."

"Great sorrow!" Again that wild peal of laughter. "It was a great joy, the greatest joy I have ever known. When they brought me the news, I went out into the garden of our chalet, and, sure that no eyes were upon me, I danced on the green in the sunlight--with the blood pulsing so deliciously through my veins. I was free--I was free! The world seemed so beautiful! the sky and the mountains so exquisite! Life was such a gift! I was free--free!"