The Making of a Soul Part 50

But Toni, who always meant exactly what she said, and unconsciously expected the same sincerity of speech from others, had taken Owen literally; and although for a moment a flood of human weakness had overtaken her as she gazed at Leonard Dowson's firm signature, she never really faltered in her purpose.

When she had read the fatal letter once more, she went back into the house, and there she burned the doc.u.ment with almost mechanical forethought.

Then she went upstairs to her room and carefully packed her dressing-bag. She did not take very much. Somehow it seemed unnecessary to burden herself with many things; and when she had finished her packing and had hidden the bag in her capacious wardrobe, she went downstairs and sat by the drawing-room fire to wait until Kate saw fit to bring tea.

When, at the usual time, Kate entered, she moved across the room to light the lamps; but Toni sent her away with this part of her duty undone. To-night Toni wished to sit in the firelight. The fog had thickened in the last hour, and now it pressed against the windows like a chill, ghostly presence, hiding the garden, the river, the trees in thick and clammy folds. Looking across the room from her seat by the fire Toni shivered; and it seemed unkind of Fate to ordain that her last memories of Greenriver should be shrouded in the cold and creeping mist.

She turned back to the fire with a shiver; and sat gazing into the leaping flames, while her tea grew cold and the hands of the clock crept inexorably onwards.

At half-past five she must leave the house. True, the meeting-place was distant barely a quarter of a mile, but Owen might return early, and she had no desire to run the risk of meeting him.

A short cut over the fields would both shorten the way and minimize the danger of running into her husband; and Toni looked up, startled, when the silver clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of five.

Only thirty minutes, and her life at Greenriver would come to an end.

Never again would she roam through the beautiful old house, never sit in this charming, panelled room, with its ghostly yet alluring fragrance as of bygone lavender and roses. Never again would she wander in the garden, revelling in the beauties of colour and scent and form which made so lovely a picture in the glorious setting of turf and river.

Never again would she stroll beneath the tall trees in the summer dusk, while the owls hooted eerily and the nightingale murmured luscious love-songs to the dreaming roses. The river would know her no more; never again would her feet tread the towing-path where in the early morning she had been used to saunter, with her faithful Jock by her side----

Ah! At the thought of Jock, Toni uttered a little cry. She had forgotten him until this moment--his dear canine image blurred by a mist of thoughts and tears; but now she remembered him only too well; and her heart was pierced by the thought of his fidelity--to be, alas, so poorly rewarded. Owen would be good to him, of course. He would be well fed and kindly treated, since everyone in the house had a soft corner for the jolly, riotous, affectionate Airedale; but he would miss his own loving mistress; and Toni could not bear to think of the wistful expression his honest brown eyes would wear when he found that she had apparently deserted him.

At that moment, almost as though her thought had called him to her, she heard him at the door. He did not scratch the panel, after the manner of many of his kind, but stood upright and rattled the handle with his nose; and Toni ran to open the door, feeling a positive criminal beneath the warmth and confidence of his greeting.

She took him to the fireplace and snuggled down with him on the thick fur rug on the hearth. She gave him his saucerful of tea, and fed him recklessly with macaroons; but Jock was uneasy beneath her ministrations.

There is no friend so quick to grasp a tense situation as a dog.

Although Toni spoke in almost her usual voice, and fondled him with more than her usual affection, Jock knew quite well that there was something wrong.

Leaving the last macaroon untouched, he came and stood close by her side, looking up into her face with a puzzled, wistful expression, and presently he stood up on his hind legs and licked her face solemnly with his warm red tongue.

"Oh, Jock, you naughty boy," said Toni, between crying and laughter.

"You know you're not allowed to kiss me! But--oh, Jock, darling, how I shall miss you!"

Two great tears fell on the dog's head; and others followed. In a minute Toni was weeping her heart out; and the dog, rendered still more uneasy by this behaviour, lifted up his voice in a melancholy whine.

Suddenly Toni dashed away her tears and started to her feet with a suddenness which almost upset Jock.

"Jock, it's no use going on like this. We're a couple of idiots--at least, I'm one, and you're a darling old stupid. But it's time to go, Jock. To _go_. Do you hear? I'm leaving Greenriver, Jock, leaving my home, my husband, everything I have in the world. I'm going away, Jock, going with a man I hardly know. I shall be called wicked, and I suppose I am; but I can't help it. I've got to go--but oh, Jock, how much easier it would be to die!"

She took a last look round the beautiful room, which like most rooms looked its best in the rosy firelight; and then she went slowly out, Jock pressing closely to her side.

Up the broad stairs she went. In the gallery the Ten Little Ladies burned bravely; and as she walked between them Toni could not see their tiny flames for the tears which blurred her sight.

Very slowly she entered her room, Jock pressing beside her all the time.

It did not take long to don her thick fur coat and soft little hat. She remembered a veil, but at first forgot her gloves; and at the last moment she had to go back for the dressing-bag and for her purse, wherein reposed ten pounds given her by Owen some weeks earlier.

At last she was ready; and bag in hand she opened the door leading into the gallery and stood looking round her for one long, last moment.

Jock, puzzled, stood beside her, gazing anxiously into her face; but she did not notice him; and when at length she moved slowly away Jock fell back a pace and stole behind her down the long gallery.

The old house was very still. From the shut-off regions behind the green baize door came, now and then, the murmur of voices; but for the most part Greenriver lay hushed in lamp-lit, flower-scented silence.

Never had the big hall looked so attractive as now, in the mellow light of the wood fire on the capacious hearth. On the oval oak table a big jar of chrysanthemums stood out, white and copper and mauve, against the panelled wall; and a sombre corner was lightened by the pink and cream blossoms of a tall azalea sent in that morning by an attentive gardener.

Over everything lay the sense of a great peace and tranquillity. The oak settee with its big, bright cushions, the tapestries hung on the dark walls, the flowers, the books strewn here and there, the big tiger-skin hearthrug, the enormous basket-chairs covered, too, with skins of tiger and leopard--never had the hall looked so alluring, so safe, so inviting to its mistress as on this foggy autumn night when she was about to leave its shelter.

With a long shudder Toni descended the last step of the great staircase, and drifted slowly across the hall in the direction of the front door.

Jock, following, pressed a little too closely against her, and turning, Toni saw, the faithful little friend whom she was about to leave gazing at her with a human appeal in his honest face.

"Take me! Let me go with you where you go! Why go out into the dim cold night alone, when you can have beside you one to protect you and give you love?"

She could almost fancy he said the words; and two great tears fell swiftly as she bent and patted him with her free hand.

"No, Jock darling, I can't take you." She sobbed as she spoke. "I must leave you behind--with all the other things I love."

Jock, understanding the finality of her tone, whined uneasily, and wagging his tail besought her to reconsider her decision. But Toni could bear no more. With a quick, pa.s.sionate movement she opened the big door hurriedly, and, heedless of his whining, pa.s.sed through blindly into the night, pulling the door to after her with the miserable, hopeless feelings of a traitor in her heart.

Pausing for an instant she heard Jock sniffing interrogatively beneath the door; and knew he was hoping desperately that it would open to give him freedom; but with the tears running down her face she went slowly down the steps and was swallowed up by the cold, wet fog which lurked, ghost-like, round the house.

Leonard Dowson was waiting for her, impatiently, feverishly, by the car; but one glance at her warned him that this was no time for lover-like protestations.

He helped her in, covering her with the big fur rug he had had the forethought to bring; and then, with a delicacy which could only have been taught him by love, he left her alone in the interior of the car and mounted the seat beside the chauffeur.

Even now he could hardly believe his good-fortune. With all his education, his later Socialistic tendencies, his conviction that one man was as good, primarily, as another, and that only brains and application counted in the race of life, he could never bring himself to look on Toni as an ordinary human being, inferior to him by reason of her s.e.x, her less scientific brain, her lack of the power, mental and physical, which was, to him, the prerogative of manhood.

Other women he might judge contemptuously or admiringly, as the case might be. But he could never consider Toni as a woman like those others--possibly because to him she was not _a_ woman, but--mystical distinction!--_the_ woman. In a vague, unreasoning way he recognized Toni's limitations. She was not clever, not even what he called well-educated. She would never fill any important position in the world, would never shine in any public capacity, would never seek to usurp man's prerogatives, and would be content to live quietly in some little corner of the world without longing to dash into the battlefield of human desires and human conflicts, as other women were doing every day.

But through it all Toni was the one woman he loved, the woman who represented to him all that was loveliest and best of her s.e.x; and this narrow-chested, narrow-minded and quite unattractive young dentist had this much of greatness in his soul, that he could love a woman completely.

The car was running smoothly through the streets of a little town when there was a loud report, which even Toni, roused from her half-dazed stupor, recognized as the bursting of a tyre; and the next instant Leonard appeared at the door of the car, concern and apprehension in his face.

"I am so sorry--one of the front tyres has burst, and the man will have to repair it as well as he can in the fog."

"Where are we?" asked Toni idly, seeing beyond the figure of Dowson a few blurred lights as of houses or shops.

"Luckily we are at Stratton," said Leonard more cheerfully. "Right in front of some sort of an hotel, too. Won't you come in a moment and get warm? It's too foggy and damp for you to wait out here."

Without speaking Toni threw aside the rug and stepped out of the car.

The raw, chilly air pierced her to the bone, even through the thick fur of her coat; and she shivered as she stood there, looking pathetically young and slight to the eyes of the man beside her.

"Come into the 'Red Lion,' or whatever they call it." He put a hand, rather timidly, on her sleeve, and Toni allowed him to lead her towards the entrance of the hotel, whose lamps shone bravely through the fog, making blurred splashes of yellow light in the murky grey gloom.

Opening the door, Leonard led her into the cheery entrance hall; and the next minute a stout, motherly-looking woman bustled out of a small side-office, and asked what might be the visitors' pleasure.

Leonard explained that a slight accident to their car would delay them a few moments; and since the night was so inclement, he had persuaded the lady to come inside, in search of fire and lights.

The stout landlady grasped the situation immediately, and led the way up a short flight of stairs to a sitting-room on the first floor, where a bright fire burned, and thick red curtains, closely drawn, successfully excluded the clammy fog, and created an atmosphere of well-being and good cheer.

"Wouldn't the lady like a cup of tea or coffee, sir?" The woman had noted Toni's pallor. "It can be ready in a moment--and a sandwich or two as well?"