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Winston Churchill >> A Modern Chronicle, Volume 8
A MODERN CHRONICLE
By Winston Churchill
Volume 8.
CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH A MIRROR IS HELD UP
Spring came to Highlawns, Eden tinted with myriad tender greens.
Yellow-greens, like the beech boughs over the old wall, and gentle
blue-greens, like the turf; and the waters of the lake were blue and
white in imitation of the cloud-flecked sky. It seemed to Honora, as she
sat on the garden bench, that the yellow and crimson tulips could not
open wide enough their cups to the sun.
In these days she looked at her idol, and for the first time believed it
to be within her finite powers to measure him. She began by asking
herself if it were really she who had ruined his life, and whether he
would ultimately have redeemed himself if he had married a woman whom the
world would have recognized. Thus did the first doubt invade her heart.
It was of him she was thinking still, and always. But there was the
doubt. If he could have stood this supreme test of isolation, of the
world's laughter and scorn, although it would have made her own heavy
burden of responsibility heavier, yet could she still have rejoiced. That
he should crumble was the greatest of her punishments.
Was he crumbling? In these months she could not quite be sure, and she
tried to shut her eyes when the little pieces fell off, to remind herself
that she must make allowances for the severity of his disappointment.
Spring was here, the spring to which he had so eagerly looked forward,
and yet the listlessness with which he went about his work was apparent.
Sometimes he did not appear at breakfast, although Honora clung with
desperation to the hour they had originally fixed: sometimes Mr. Manning
waited for him until nearly ten o'clock, only to receive curt dismissal.
He went off for long rides, alone, and to the despair of the groom
brought back the horses in a lather, with drooping heads and heaving
sides; one of them he ruined. He declared there wasn't a horse in the
stable fit to give him exercise.
Often he sat for hours in his study, brooding, inaccessible. She had the
tennis-court rolled and marked, but the contests here were
pitifully-unequal; for the row of silver cups on his mantel, engraved
with many dates, bore witness to his athletic prowess. She wrote for a
book on solitaire, but after a while the sight of cards became
distasteful. With a secret diligence she read the reviews, and sent for
novels and memoirs which she scanned eagerly before they were begun with
him. Once, when she went into his study on an errand, she stood for a
minute gazing painfully at the cleared space on his desk where once had
lain the papers and letters relative to the life of General Angus
Chiltern.
There were intervals in which her hope flared, in which she tasted,
fearfully and with bated breath, something that she had not thought to
know again. It was characteristic of him that his penitence was never
spoken: nor did he exhibit penitence. He seemed rather at such times
merely to become normally himself, as one who changes personality,
apparently oblivious to the moods and deeds of yesterday. And these
occasions added perplexity to her troubles. She could not reproach him
--which perhaps in any event she would have been too wise to do; but she
could not, try as she would, bring herself to the point of a discussion
of their situation. The risk, she felt, was too great; now, at least.
There were instances that made her hope that the hour might come.
One fragrant morning Honora came down to find him awaiting her, and to
perceive lying on her napkin certain distilled drops of the spring
sunshine. In language less poetic, diamonds to be worn in the ears. The
wheel of fashion, it appeared, had made a complete revolution since the
early days of his mother's marriage. She gave a little exclamation, and
her hand went to her heart.
"They are Brazilian stones," he explained, with a boyish pleasure that
awoke memories and held her speechless. "I believe it's very difficult,
if not impossible, to buy them now. My father got them after the war and
I had them remounted." And he pressed them against the pink lobes of her
ears. "You look like the Queen of Sheba."
"How do you know?" she asked tremulously. "You never saw her."
"According to competent judges," he replied, "she was the most beautiful
woman of her time. Go upstairs and put them on."
She shook her head. An inspiration had come to her.
"Wait," she cried. And that morning, when Hugh had gone out, she sent for
Starling and startled him by commanding that the famous Lowestoft set be
used at dinner. He stared at her, and the corners of his mouth twitched,
and still he stood respectfully in the doorway.
"That is all, Starling."
"I beg pardon, madam. How--how many will there be at the table?"
"Just Mr. Chiltern and I," she replied. But she did not look at him.
It was superstition, undoubtedly. She was well aware that Starling had
not believed that the set would be used again. An extraordinary order,
that might well have sent him away wondering; for the Lowestoft had been
reserved for occasions. Ah, but this was to be an occasion, a festival!
The whimsical fancy grew in her mind as the day progressed, and she
longed with an unaccustomed impatience for nightfall, and anticipation
had a strange taste. Mathilde, with the sympathetic gift of her nation,
shared the excitement of her mistress in this fete. The curtains in the
pink bedroom were drawn, and on the bed, in all its splendour of lace and
roses, was spread out the dinner-gown-a chef-d'oeuvre of Madame
Barriere's as yet unworn. And no vulgar, worldly triumph was it to adorn.
Her heart was beating fast as she descended the stairway, bright spots of
colour flaming in her cheeks and the diamonds sparkling in her ears. A
prima donna might have guessed her feelings as she paused, a little
breathless on the wide landing under the windows. She heard a footstep.
Hugh came out of the library and stood motionless, looking up at her. But
even those who have felt the silence and the stir that prefaces the
clamorous applause of the thousands could not know the thrill that swept
her under his tribute. She came down the last flight of steps, slowly,
and stopped in front of him.
"You are wonderful, Honora!" he said, and his voice was not quite under
control. He took her hand, that trembled in his, and he seemed to be
seeking to express something for which he could find no words. Thus may
the King have looked upon Rosamond in her bower; upon a beauty created
for the adornment of courts which he had sequestered for his eyes alone.
Honora, as though merely by the touch of his hand in hers, divined his
thought.
"If you think me so, dear," she whispered happily, "it's all I ask."
And they went in to dinner as to a ceremony. It was indeed a ceremony
filled for her with some occult, sacred, meaning that she could not put
into words. A feast symbolical. Starling was sent to the wine-cellar to
bring back a cobwebbed Madeira near a century old, brought out on rare
occasions in the family. And Hugh, when his glass was filled, looked at
his wife and raised it in silence to his lips.
She never forgot the scene. The red glow of light from the shaded candles
on the table, and the corners of the dining room filled with gloom. The
old butler, like a high priest, standing behind his master's chair. The
long windows, with the curtains drawn in the deep, panelled arches; the
carved white mantelpiece; the glint of silver on' the sideboard, with its
wine-cooler underneath,--these, spoke of generations of respectability
and achievement. Would this absorbed isolation, this marvellous wild love
of theirs, be the end of it all? Honora, as one detached, as a ghost in
the corner, saw herself in the picture with startling clearness. When she
looked up, she met her husband's eyes. Always she met them, and in them a
questioning, almost startled look that was new. "Is it the earrings?" she
asked at last. "I don't know," he answered. "I can't tell. They seem to
have changed you, but perhaps they have brought out something in your
face and eyes I have never seen before."
"And--you like it, Hugh?"
"Yes, I like it," he replied, and added enigmatically, "but I don't
understand it."
She was silent, and oddly satisfied, trusting to fate to send more
mysteries.
Two days had not passed when that restlessness for which she watched so
narrowly revived. He wandered aimlessly about the place, and flared up
into such a sudden violent temper at one of the helpers in the fields
that the man ran as for his life, and refused to set foot again on any of
the Chiltern farms. In the afternoon he sent for Honora to ride with him,
and scolded her for keeping him waiting. And he wore a spur, and pressed
his horse so savagely that she cried out in remonstrance, although at
such times she had grown to fear him.
"Oh, Hugh, how can you be so cruel!"
"The beast has no spirit," he said shortly. "I'll get one that has."
Their road wound through the western side of the estate towards misty
rolling country, in the folds of which lay countless lakes, and at length
they caught sight of an unpainted farmhouse set amidst a white cloud of
apple trees in bloom. On the doorstep, whittling, sat a bearded, unkempt
farmer with a huge frame. In answer to Hugh's question he admitted that
he had a horse for sale, stuck his knife in the step, rose, and went off
towards the barn near by; and presently reappeared, leading by a halter a
magnificent black. The animal stood jerking his head, blowing and pawing
the ground while Chiltern examined him.
"He's been ridden?" he asked.
The man nodded.
Chiltern sprang to the ground and began to undo his saddle girths. A
sudden fear seized Honora.
"Oh, Hugh, you're not going to ride him!" she exclaimed.
"Why not? How else am I going to find out anything about him?"
"He looks--dangerous," she faltered.
"I'm tired of horses that haven't any life in them," he said, as he
lifted off the saddle.
"I guess we'd better get him in the barn," said the farmer.
Honora went behind them to witness the operation, which was not devoid of
excitement. The great beast plunged savagely when they tightened the
girths, and closed his teeth obstinately against the bit; but the farmer
held firmly to his nose and shut off his wind. They led him out from the
barn floor.
"Your name Chiltern?" asked the farmer.
"Yes," said Hugh, curtly.
"Thought so," said the farmer, and he held the horse's head.
Honora had a feeling of faintness.
"Hugh, do be careful!" she pleaded.
He paid no heed to her. His eyes, she noticed, had a certain feverish
glitter of animation, of impatience, such as men of his type must wear
when they go into battle. He seized the horse's mane, he put his foot in
the stirrup; the astonished animal gave a snort and jerked the bridle
from the farmer's hand. But Chiltern was in the saddle, with knees
pressed tight.
There ensued a struggle that Honora will never forget. And although she
never again saw that farm-house, its details and surroundings come back
to her in vivid colours when she closes her eyes. The great horse in
every conceivable pose, with veins standing out and knotty muscles
twisting in his legs and neck and thighs. Once, when he dashed into the
apple trees, she gave a cry; a branch snapped, and Chiltern emerged,
still seated, with his hat gone and the blood trickling from a scratch on
his forehead. She saw him strike with his spurs, and in a twinkling horse
and rider had passed over the dilapidated remains of a fence and were
flying down the hard clay road, disappearing into a dip. A reverberating
sound, like a single stroke, told them that the bridge at the bottom had
been crossed.
In an agony of terror, Honora followed, her head on fire, her heart
pounding faster than the hoof beats. But the animal she rode, though a
good one, was no match for the great infuriated beast which she pursued.
Presently she came to a wooded corner where the road forked thrice, and
beyond, not without difficulty,--brought her sweating mare to a stand.
The quality of her fear changed from wild terror to cold dread. A hermit
thrush, in the wood near by, broke the silence with a song inconceivably
sweet. At last she went back to the farm-house, hoping against hope that
Hugh might have returned by another road. But he was not there. The
farmer was still nonchalantly whittling.
"Oh, how could you let any one get on a horse like that?" she cried.
"You're his wife, ain't you?" he asked.
Something in the man's manner seemed to compel her to answer, in spite of
the form of the question.
"I am Mrs. Chiltern," she said.
He was looking at her with an expression that she found incomprehensible.
His glance was penetrating, yet here again she seemed to read compassion.
He continued to gaze at her, and presently, when he spoke, it was as
though he were not addressing her at all.
"You put me in mind of a young girl I used to know," he said; "seems like
a long time ago. You're pretty, and you're young, and ye didn't know what
you were doin,' I'll warrant. Lost your head. He has a way of gittin'
'em--always had."
Honora did not answer. She would have liked to have gone away, but that
which was stronger than her held her.
"She didn't live here," he explained, waving his hand deprecatingly
towards the weather-beaten house. "We lived over near Morrisville in them
days. And he don't remember me, your husband don't. I ain't surprised.
I've got considerable older."
Honora was trembling from head to foot, and her hands were cold.
"I've got her picture in there, if ye'd like to look at it," he said,
after a while.
"Oh, no!" she cried. "Oh, no!"
"Well, I don't know as I blame you." He sat down again and began to
whittle. "Funny thing, chance," he remarked; "who'd a thought I should
have owned that there hoss, and he should have come around here to ride
it?"
She tried to speak, but she could not. The hideous imperturbability of
the man's hatred sickened her. And her husband! The chips fell in silence
until a noise on the road caused them to look up. Chiltern was coming
back. She glanced again at the farmer, but his face was equally
incapable, or equally unwilling, to express regret. Chiltern rode into
the dooryard. The blood from the scratch on his forehead had crossed his
temple and run in a jagged line down his cheek, his very hair (as she had
sometimes seen it) was damp with perspiration, blacker, kinkier; his eyes
hard, reckless, bloodshot. So, in the past, must he have emerged from
dozens of such wilful, brutal contests with man and beast. He had beaten
the sweat-stained horse (temporarily--such was the impression Honora
received), but she knew that he would like to have killed it for its
opposition.
"Give me my hat, will you?" he cried to the farmer.
To her surprise the man obeyed. Chiltern leaped to the ground.
"What do you want for him?" he demanded.
"I'll take five hundred dollars."
"Bring him over in the morning," said Chiltern, curtly.
They rode homeward in silence. Honora had not been able to raise her
voice against the purchase, and she seemed powerless now to warn her
husband of the man's enmity. She was thinking, rather, of the horror of
the tragedy written on the farmer's face, to which he had given her the
key: Hugh Chiltern, to whom she had intrusted her life and granted her
all, had done this thing, ruthlessly, even as he had satisfied to-day his
unbridled cravings in maltreating a horse! And she thought of that other
woman, on whose picture she had refused to look. What was the essential
difference between that woman and herself? He had wanted them both, he
had taken them both for his pleasure, heedless of the pain he might cause
to others and to them. For her, perhaps, the higher organism, had been
reserved the higher torture. She did not know. The vision of the girl in
the outer darkness reserved for castaways was terrible.
Up to this point she had, as it were, been looking into one mirror. Now
another was suddenly raised behind her, and by its aid she beheld not a
single, but countless, images of herself endlessly repeated. How many
others besides this girl had there been? The question gave her the
shudder of the contemplation of eternity. It was not the first time
Honora had thought of his past, but until today it had lacked reality;
until to-day she had clung to the belief that he had been misunderstood;
until to-day she had considered those acts of his of the existence of
which she was collectively aware under the generic term of wild oats. He
had had too much money, and none had known how to control him. Now,
through this concrete example of another's experience, she was given to
understand that which she had strangely been unable to learn from her
own. And she had fancied, in her folly, that she could control him!
Unable as yet to grasp the full extent of her calamity, she rode on by
his side, until she was aware at last that they had reached the door of
the house at Highlawns.
"You look pale," he said as he lifted her off her horse. The demon in
him, she perceived, was tired.
"Do I?"
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she answered.
He laughed.
"It's confoundedly silly to get frightened that way," he declared. "The
beast only wants riding."
Three mornings later she was seated in the garden with a frame of fancy
work. Sometimes she put it down. The weather was overcast, langourous,
and there was a feeling of rain in the air. Chiltern came in through the
gaffe, and looked at her.
"I'm going to New York on the noon train," he said.
"To New York?"
"Yes. Why not?"
"There's no reason why you shouldn't if you wish to," she replied, picking
up her frame.
"Anything I can get you?" he asked.
"No, thank you."
"You've been in such a deuced queer mood the last few days I can't make
you out, Honora."
"You ought to have learned something about women by this time," she said.
"It seems to me," he announced, "that we need a little livening up."
CHAPTER XVII
THE RENEWAL OF AN ANCIENT HOSPITALITY
There were six letters from him, written from a club, representing the
seven days of his absence. He made no secret of the fact that his visit
to the metropolis was in the nature of a relaxation and a change of
scene, but the letters themselves contained surprisingly little
information as to how he was employing his holiday. He had encountered
many old friends, supposedly all of the male sex: among them--most
welcome of surprises to him!--Mr. George Pembroke, a boon companion at
Harvard. And this mention of boon companionship brought up to Honora a
sufficiently vivid idea of Mr. Pembroke's characteristics. The extent of
her knowledge of this gentleman consisted in the facts that he was a
bachelor, a member of a prominent Philadelphia family, and that time hung
heavy on his hands.
One morning she received a telegram to the effect that her husband would
be home that night, bringing three people with him. He sent his love, but
neglected to state the names and sexes of the prospective guests. And she
was still in a quandary as to what arrangements to make when Starling
appeared in answer to her ring.
"You will send the omnibus to the five o'clock train," she said. "There
will be three extra places at dinner, and tea when Mr. Chiltern arrives."
Although she strove to speak indifferently, she was sure from the way the
old man looked at her that her voice had not been quite steady. Of late
her curious feeling about him had increased in intensity; and many times,
during this week she had spent alone, she had thought that his eyes had
followed her with sympathy. She did not resent this. Her world having now
contracted to that wide house, there was a comfort in knowing that there
was one in it to whom she could turn in need. For she felt that she could
turn to Starling; he alone, apparently, had measured the full depth of
her trouble; nay, had silently predicted it from the beginning. And
to-day, as he stood before her, she had an almost irresistible impulse to
speak. Just a word-a human word would have been such a help to her! And
how ridiculous the social law that kept the old man standing there,
impassive, respectful, when this existed between them! Her tragedy was
his tragedy; not in the same proportion, perhaps; nevertheless, he had
the air of one who would die of it.
And she? Would she die? What would become of her? When she thought of the
long days and months and years that stretched ahead of her, she felt that
her soul would not be able to survive the process of steady degradation
to which it was sure to be subjected. For she was a prisoner: the
uttermost parts of the earth offered no refuge. To-day, she knew, was to
see the formal inauguration of that process. She had known torture, but
it had been swift, obliterating, excruciating. And hereafter it was to be
slow, one turn at a time of the screws, squeezing by infinitesimal
degrees the life out of her soul. And in the end--most fearful thought of
all--in the end, painless. Painless! She buried her head in her arms on
the little desk, shaken by sobs.
How she fought that day to compose herself, fought and prayed! Prayed
wildly to a God whose help, nevertheless, she felt she had forfeited, who
was visiting her with just anger. At half-past four she heard the
carriage on the far driveway, going to the station, and she went down and
walked across the lawn to the pond, and around it; anything to keep
moving. She hurried back to the house just in time to reach the hall as
the omnibus backed up. And the first person she saw descend, after Hugh,
was Mrs. Kame.
"Here we are, Honora," she cried. "I hope you're glad to see us, and that
you'll forgive our coming so informally. You must blame Hugh. We've
brought Adele."
The second lady was, indeed, none other than Mrs. Eustace Rindge,
formerly Mrs. Dicky Farnham. And she is worth--even at this belated stage
in our chronicle an attempted sketch, or at least an attempted
impression. She was fair, and slim as a schoolgirl; not very tall, not
exactly petite; at first sight she might have been taken for a
particularly immature debutante, and her dress was youthful and rather
mannish. Her years, at this period of her career, were in truth but two
and twenty, yet she had contrived, in the comparatively brief time since
she had reached the supposed age of discretion, to marry two men and
build two houses, and incidentally to see a considerable portion of what
is known as the world. The suspicion that she was not as innocent as a
dove came to one, on closer inspection, as a shock: her eyes were tired,
though not from loss of sleep; and her manner--how shall it be described
to those whose happy lot in life has never been to have made the
acquaintance of Mrs. Rindge's humbler sisters who have acquired--more
coarsely, it is true--the same camaraderie? She was one of those for
whom, seemingly, sex does not exist. Her air of good-fellowship with men
was eloquent of a precise knowledge of what she might expect from them,
and she was prepared to do her own policing,--not from any deep moral
convictions. She belonged, logically, to that world which is disposed to
take the law into its own hands, and she was the possessor of five
millions of dollars.
"I came along," she said to Honora, as she gave her hand-bag to a
footman. "I hope you don't mind. Abby and I were shopping and we ran into
Hugh and Georgie yesterday at Sherry's, and we've been together ever
since. Not quite that--but almost. Hugh begged us to come up, and there
didn't seem to be any reason why we shouldn't, so we telephoned down to
Banbury for our trunks and maids, and we've played bridge all the way. By
the way, Georgie, where's my pocket-book?"
Mr. Pembroke handed it over, and was introduced by Hugh. He looked at
Honora, and his glance somehow betokened that he was in the habit of
looking only once. He had apparently made up his mind about her before he
saw her. But he looked again, evidently finding her at variance with a
preconceived idea, and this time she flushed a little under his stare,
and she got the impression that Mr. Pembroke was a man from whom few
secrets of a certain kind were hid. She felt that he had seized, at a
second glance, a situation that she had succeeded in hiding from the
women. He was surprised, but cynically so. He was the sort of person who
had probably possessed at Harvard the knowledge of the world of a Tammany
politician; he had long ago written his book--such as it was--and closed
it: or, rather, he had worked out his system at a precocious age, and it
had lasted him ever since. He had decided that undergraduate life, freed
from undergraduate restrictions, was a good thing. And he did not, even
in these days, object to breaking something valuable occasionally.
His physical attributes are more difficult to describe, so closely were
they allied to those which, for want of a better word, must be called
mental. He was neither tall nor short, he was well fed, but hard, his
shoulders too broad, his head a little large. If he should have happened
to bump against one, the result would have been a bruise--not for him.
His eyes were blue, his light hair short, and there was a slight baldness
beginning; his face was red-tanned. There was not the slightest doubt
that he could be effectively rude, and often was; but it was evident, for
some reason, that he meant to be gracious (for Mr. Pembroke) to Honora.
Perhaps this was the result of the second glance. One of his name had not
lacked, indeed, for instructions in gentility. It must not be thought
that she was in a condition to care much about what Mr. Pembroke thought
or did, and yet she felt instinctively that he had changed his greeting
between that first and second glance.