Tante Part 55

But while she spoke Franz's large and ruddy face had paled. He had drawn his hands from hers though she tried to retain them. He rose from his chair. "But, _gnadige Frau_," he said, "that is not right. No; that is wrong. He may not divorce Karen."

"How will you prevent him from divorcing her, Franz?" Madame von Marwitz returned, holding him with her eye, while, in great agitation, he pa.s.sed his hand repeatedly over his forehead and hair. "You have been seen. I have been told by those who had seen you that you and Karen were here.

Already Karen's husband must know it. And if you could prevent it, would you wish to, Franz? Would you wish, if you could, to bind her to this man for life? Try to think clearly, my friend. It is Karen's happiness that hangs in the balance. It is upon that that we must fix our eyes. My faith forbids divorce; but I am not _devote_, and Karen is not of my faith, nor is her husband, nor are you. I take my stand beside Karen. I say that one so young, so blameless, so unfortunate, shall not have her life wrecked by one mistake. With me as your champion you and Karen can afford to snap your fingers at the world's gross verdict. Karen will be with me. I will take her abroad. I will cherish her as never child was cherished. We make no defence. In less than a year the case is over.

Then you will come for Karen and you will be married from my house. I will give Karen a large dot; she shall want for nothing in her life. And you and she will live in Germany, with your friends and your great music, and your babies, Franz. What I had hoped for two years ago shall come to pa.s.s and this bad dream shall be forgotten."

Franz, looking dazedly about him while she spoke, now dropped heavily on his chair and joining his hands before his eyes leaned his head upon them. He muttered broken e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. "_Ach Gott! Unbegreiflich!_ Such happiness is not to think on! You are kind, kind, _gnadige Frau_. You believe that all is for the best. But Karen--_gnadige Frau_, our little Karen! She does not love me. How could she be happy with me? Never for one moment have I hoped. It was against my wish that the Mutterchen wrote to you that time two years ago. No; always I saw it; she had kindness only for me and friendliness; but no love; never any love. And it will be to smirch our Karen's name, _gnadige Frau_. It will be to accept disgrace for her. We must defend her from this accusation, for it is not true. Ah, _gnadige Frau_, you are powerful in the world. Can you not make it known that it is untrue, that Karen did not come to me?"

He leaned his forehead on his clasped hands, protesting, appealing, expostulating, and Madame von Marwitz, leaning slightly back in her chair, resting her cheek against her finger, scrutinized his bent head with a change of expression. Intently, almost fiercely, with half-closed lids, she examined Franz's crisp upstanding hair, the thick rims of his ruddy ears, the thick fingers with their square and rather dirty nails and the large turquoise that adorned one of them. Cogitation, self-control and fierce determination were in her gaze; then it veiled itself again in gentleness and, with a steady and insistent patience, she said: "You are astray, my friend, much astray, and very ignorant.

Look with me at fact, and then say, if you can, that we can make it known that it is untrue. You are known to be in love with Karen; you are known to have asked me for her hand. Karen makes a marriage that is unhappy; it is known that she is not happy with her husband. Did you not yourself see that all was not well with them? It has been known for long. You arrive in London; Karen sees you again; next day she flies from Mr. Jardine and takes refuge with you at your lodgings. Yes, you will say, but your mother, your sisters, too, were there. Yes, the world will answer, and she came to me to wait till they were gone and you free to join her. In a fortnight's time she seizes a pretext for leaving me--I speak of what the world will say Franz--and meets you. Will the world, will Karen's husband, believe that it was by chance? She is found hidden with you here, those who see you come to me; it is so I find you, and she is here bearing your name. Come, my friend, it is no question of saving Karen from smirches; the world will say that it is your duty as an honourable man to marry Karen. Better that she should be known as your wife than as your abandoned mistress. So speaks the world, Franz.

And though we know that it speaks falsely we have no power to undeceive it. But now, mark me, my friend; I have no wish to undeceive it. I do not see the story, told even in these terms, as disgraceful; I do not see my Karen smirched. I am not one who weighs the human heart and its needs in the measures of convention. Bravely and in truth, Karen frees herself. So be it. You say that she does not love you. I say, Franz, how do you know that? I say that if she does not love you yet, she will love you; and I add, Franz, for the full ease of your conscience, that if Karen, when she is free, does not wish to marry you, then--it is very simple--she remains with me and does not marry. But what I ask of you now is bravery and discretion, for our Karen's sake. She must be freed; in your heart you know that it is well that Karen should be freed. In your heart you know that Karen must not be bound till death to this man she loathes and dreads and will never see again. If not you, Franz, is it not possible that Karen may love another man one day? But it is you that she will love; nay, it is you she loves. I know my Karen's heart.

Tell me, Franz, am I not right in what I say?"

For some time now Franz had been looking at her and her voice grew more tender and more soft as she saw that he found no word of protest. He sat upright, still, at intervals, running his fingers through his hair, breathing deeply, near tears, yet arrested and appeased. And hope, beautiful, strange hope, linking itself to the intuitions of the dawn when he had sat above Karen's sleep, stole into his heart. Why could it not be true? Why should not Karen come to love him? She would be with him, free, knowing how deep and tender was his love for her, and that it made no claim. Would not her heart answer his one day? And as if guessing at his thoughts Madame von Marwitz added, the dimness of tears in her own eyes: "See, my Franz, let it be in this wise. I bring Karen to your mother in a few days; she will be strong enough for travel in a few days, is it not so? She will then be with you and yours in Germany, and I watching over you. So you will see her from day to day? So you will gently mend the torn young heart and come to read it. And you may trust a wise old woman, Franz, when I prophesy to you that Karen's heart will turn and grow to yours. You may trust one wise in hearts when she tells you that Karen is to be your loving wife."

She rose, and the sincerity of her voice was unfeigned. She was moved, deeply moved, by the beauty of the pattern she wove. She was deeply convinced by her own creation.

Franz, too, got up, stumbling.

"And now, Franz," she said, "we say _au revoir_. I have come and it is not seemly that you remain here longer. You go to Germany to make ready for us and I write to your mother to-day. Ah!--the dear Lise! Her heart will rejoice! Where is your room, Franz, and where is Karen's?"

There were three doors in the little sitting-room. She had entered from the pa.s.sage by one. She looked now towards the others.

Franz opened one, it showed a flight of stairs. "Karen's room is up those stairs," he said, closing it very softly. "And mine is here, next this one where we are. We are very quiet, you see, and shut in to ourselves. There is no other way to Karen's room but this, and her room is at the back, so that no disturbance reaches her. I think that she still sleeps, _gnadige Frau_; we must not wake her if she sleeps. I will take you to her as soon as she is awake."

Madame von Marwitz, with her unchanging smile, was pressing him towards the door of his own room.

"I will wait. I will wait until she wakes, Franz. Your luggage? It is here? I will help you to pack, my Franz."

She had drawn him into his room, her arm pa.s.sed into his, and, even while she spoke, she pointed out the few effects scattered here and there. And, with his torpid look of a creature hypnotized, Franz obeyed her, taking from her hands the worn brush, the shaving appliances, the socks and book and nightshirt.

When all were laid together in his knapsack and he had drawn the straps, he turned to her, still with the dazzled gaze. "But this may wait," he said, "until I have said good-bye to Karen."

Madame von Marwitz looked at him with an almost musing sweetness. She had the aspect of a conjuror who, with a last light puff of breath or touch of a magic finger, puts forth the final resource of a stupefying dexterity. So delicately, so softly, with a calm that knew no doubt or hesitation, she shook her head. "No; no farewells, now, my Franz. That would not be well. That would agitate her. She could not listen to all our story. She could not understand. Later, when she is in my arms, at peace, I will tell her all and that you are gone to wait for us, and give her your adieu."

He gazed at the conjuror. "But, _gnadige Frau_, may I not say good-bye to Karen? Together we could tell her. It will be strange to her to wake and find that I am gone."

Her arm was pa.s.sed in his again. She was leading him through the sitting-room. And she repeated with no change of voice: "No, my Franz. I know these illnesses. A little agitation is very bad. You will write to her daily. She shall have your letters, every day. You promise me--but I need not ask it of our Franz--to write. In three days, or in four, we will be with you."

She had got him out of his room, out of the sitting-room, into the pa.s.sage. The cab still waited, the cabman dozed on his box in the spring sunlight. Before the landlady Madame von Marwitz embraced Franz and kissed and blessed him. She kept an arm round him till she had him at the cab-door. She almost lifted him in.

"You will tell Karen--that you did not find it right--that I should say good-bye to her," he stammered.

And with a last long pressure of the hand she said: "I will tell her, Franz. We will talk much of you, Karen and I. Trust me, I am with you both. In my hands you are safe."

The cab rolled away and Franz's face, from under the round hat and the quill, looked back at the triumphant conjuror, dulled and dazed rather than elated, by the spectacle of her inconceivable skill.

CHAPTER XLIII

Karen lay sleeping in the little room above. She had slept so much since they had carried her, Franz, and the two women with kind faces, into this little room; deep draughts of sleep, as though her exhausted nature could never rest enough. Fever still drowsed in her blood and a haze of half delirious visions often accompanied her waking. They seemed to gather round her now, as, in confused and painful dreams, she rose from the depths towards consciousness again. Dimly she heard the sound of voices and her dream wove them into images of fear and sorrow.

She was running along the cliff-top. She had run for miles and it was night and beside her yawned the black gulfs of the cliff-edge. And from far below, in the darkness, she heard a voice wailing as if from some creature lost upon the rocky beach. It was Gregory in some great peril.

Pity and fear beat upon her like black wings as she ran, and whether it was to escape him or to succour him she did not know.

Then from the waking world came distinctly the sound of rolling wheels, and opening her eyes she looked out upon her room, its low uneven ceiling, its coloured print of Queen Victoria over the mantelpiece, its text above the washhand-stand and chest of drawers. On the little table beside her bed Onkel Ernst's watch ticked softly. The window was open and a tree rustled outside. And through these small, familiar sounds she still heard the rolling of retreating wheels. The terror of her dream fastened upon this sound until another seemed to strike, like a soft, stealthy blow, upon her consciousness.

Footsteps were mounting the stairs to her room. Not Franz's footsteps, nor the doctor's, nor the landlady's, nor Annie the housemaid's. She knew all these.

Who was it then who mounted, softly rustling, towards her? The terror of the dream vanished in a tense, frozen panic of actuality.

She wished to scream, and could not; she wished to leap up and fly, but there was no way of escape. It was Tante who came, slowly, softly, rustling in silken fabrics; the very scent of her garments seemed wafted before her, and Karen's heart stopped in its heavy beating as the door handle gently turned and Tante stood within the room.

Karen looked at her and Madame von Marwitz looked back, and Madame von Marwitz's face was almost as white as the death-like face on the pillow.

She said no word, nor did Karen, and in the long stillness delirium again flickered through Karen's brain, and Tante, standing there, became a nightmare presence, dead, gazing, immutable. Then she moved again, and the slow, soft moving was more dreadful than the stillness, and coming forward Tante fell on her knees beside the bed and hid her face in the bed-clothes.

Karen gave a strange hoa.r.s.e cry. She heard herself crying, and the sound of her own voice seemed to waken her again to reality: "Franz! Franz!

Franz!"

Madame von Marwitz was weeping; her large white shoulders shook with sobs. "Karen," she said, "forgive me! Karen, it is I. Forgive me!"

"Franz!" Karen repeated, turning her head away on the pillow.

"Karen, you know me?" said Madame von Marwitz. She had lifted her head and she gazed through her tears at the strange, changed, yet so intimately known, profile. It was as if Karen were the more herself, reduced to the bare elements of personality; rocky, wasted, alienated.

"Do not kill me, my child," she sobbed, "Listen to me, Karen! I have come to explain all, and to implore for your forgiveness." She possessed herself of one of the hot, emaciated hands. Karen drew it away, but she turned her head towards her.

Tante's tears, her words and att.i.tude of abjection, dispersed the nightmare horror. She understood that Tante had come not as a ghastly wraith; not as a pursuing fury; but as a suppliant. Her eyes rested on her guardian and their gaze, now, was like cold, calm daylight. "Why are you here?" she asked.

Madame von Marwitz's sobs, at this, broke forth more violently. "You remember our parting, my child! You remember my mad and shameful words!

How could I not come!" she articulated brokenly. "Oh, I have sought you in terror, in unspeakable longing! My child--it was a madness. Did you not see it? I went to you at dawn that day to kneel before you, as I kneel now, and to implore your pardon. And you were gone! Oh, Karen--you will listen to me now!"

"You need not tell me," said Karen. "I understand."

"Ah, no: ah, no:" said Madame von Marwitz, laying her supplicating hand on the sleeve of Karen's nightdress. "You do not understand. How could you--young and cold and flawless--understand my heart, my wild, stained heart, Karen, my fierce and desolate and broken heart. You are air and water; I am earth and fire; how could you understand my darkness and my rage?" She spoke, sobbing, with a sincerity dreadful and irrefragable, as if she stripped herself and showed a body scarred and burning. With all the forces of her nature she threw herself on Karen's pity, tearing from herself, with a humility far above pride and shame, the glamour that had held Karen's heart to hers. Deep instinct guided her spontaneity. Her glamour, now, must consist in having none; her n.o.bility must consist in abas.e.m.e.nt, her greatness in being piteous.

"Listen to me, Karen," she sobbed, "The world knows but one side of me--you have known but one side;--even Tallie, who knows so much, who understands so much--does not know the other--the dark and tortured soul. I am not a good woman, Karen, the blood that flows in my veins is tainted, ambiguous. I have sinned. I have been savage and dastardly; but it has always been in a madness when I could not seize my better self: flames seem to sweep me on. Listen, Karen, you are so strong, so calm, how could you dream of what a woman's last wild pa.s.sion can be, a woman whose whole soul is pa.s.sion? Love! it is all that I have craved. Love!

love! all my inner life has been enmeshed in it--in craving, in seeking, in destroying. It is like a curse upon me, Karen. You will not understand; yet that love of love, is it not so with all us wretched women; do we not long, always, all of us, for the great flame to which we may surrender, the flame that will appease and exalt us, annihilate us, yet give us life in its supremacy? So I have always longed; and not grossly; mine has never been the sensual pa.s.sion; it has been beauty and the heights of life that I have sought. And my curse has been that for me has come no appeas.e.m.e.nt, no exaltation, but only, always, a dark smouldering of joylessness. With my own hand I broke the great and sacred devotion that blessed my life, because I was thus cursed.

Jealousy, the craving for a more complete possession, for the ecstasy I had not found, blind forces in my blood, drove me on to the destruction of that precious thing. I wrecked myself, I killed him. Oh, Karen, you know of whom I speak." Convulsively, the blackness of her memories a.s.sailing her in their old forms of horror, Madame von Marwitz sobbed, burying her face in the bed-clothes, her hand forgetting to clutch at Karen's sleeve. She lifted her face and the tears streamed from under her closed lids. "Let me not think of it or I shall go mad. How could I, having known that devotion, sink to the place where you have seen me? Be pitiful. He needed me so much--I believed. My youth was fading; I was growing old. Soon the time was to come when no man's heart would turn to me. Be pitiful. You do not know what it is to look without and see life slowly growing dark and look within and see only sinister memories. It came to me like late sunlight--like cool, sweet water--his love. I believed in it. I loved him. Oh--" she sobbed, "how I loved him, Karen!

How my heart was torn with sick jealousy when I saw that his had turned from me to you. I loved you, Karen, yet I hated you. Open your generous heart to me, my child; do not spurn me from you. Understand how it may be that one can strike at the thing one loves. I knew myself in the grasp of an evil pa.s.sion, but I could not tear it from me. I even feared, with a savage fear that seemed to eat into my brain, that you responded to his love. Oh, Karen, it was not I who spoke those shameful words, when I found you with him, but a creature maddened with pain and jealousy, who for days had fought against her madness and knew when she spoke that she was mad. When I had sent him from me, when he was gone from my life, and I knew that all was over, the evil fury pa.s.sed from my brain like a mist. I knew myself again. I saw again the sweet and sacred places of my life. I saw you, Karen. Oh, my child," again the pleading hand trembled on Karen's sleeve, "it has not all been misplaced, your love for me; not all illusion. I am still the woman who has loved you through so many years. You will not let one hour of frenzy efface our happy years together?"

The words, the sobbing questions that waited for no answer, the wailing supplications, had been poured forth in one great upwelling. Through the tears that streamed she had seen Karen's face in blurred glimpses, lying in profile to her on its pillow. Now, when all had been said and her mind was empty, waiting, she pa.s.sed her hand over her eyes, clearing them of tears, and fixed them on Karen.

And silence followed. So long a silence that wonder came. Had she understood? Was she half unconscious? Had all the long appeal been wasted?

But Karen at last spoke and the words, in their calm, seemed to the listening woman to pa.s.s like a cold wind over buds and tendrils of reviving life, blighting them.