‘WE must think of where we are going to live,’ Lady Car said; ‘we have never discussed that question. The world is all before us where to choose——’
The boat lay faintly rocking upon the little wavelets from which the ruddy reflection of the sunset was just fading. The beautiful outline of the mountains on the Savoy side stood out blue and half-cold against the glowing west, the Dent du Midi had still a flush of rose colour upon its pinnacles, but had grown white and cold too in the breadth of its great bosom. Evening was coming on, and, though there was still little chill in the air, the sentiment of the September landscape was cold. That suspicion of coming winter which tells the birds so distinctly that it is time to be gone breathed a hint to-night into human faculties more obtuse. Carry threw her shawl round her with a little shiver which was quite fantastic and unnecessary. She did not really mean that it began to be cold, but only that something had made her think of a fireside.
He was seated in front of her with his oars resting idly in the rowlocks. It was a lovely night, and they were close to their temporary home, within a few minutes of the shore. ‘Where we are going to live?’ he said. ‘Then you don’t think of going to your own house.’
She started a little. He would never have found it out had they been on solid ground, but the boat responded to every movement. It was only from this that he knew he had startled her, for she recovered herself immediately, and said, ‘Would you like that, Edward?’ in a voice which she evidently meant to be as easy as usual, but from which consciousness was not altogether banished.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘my love, it will be the time of year for Scotland, and I suppose there is plenty of game; but I neither like nor dislike, Car. I have not thought about it. I suppose I had taken it for granted that your own house would be the place to which you would go.’
‘I never thought of it as my own home,’ she said, in a low, hurried tone, which he could scarcely hear. ‘Oh, no, no. I could not go there.’
‘Well,’ he said cheerfully, ‘then of course we sha’n’t go there. I don’t care where we go; wherever you are, there is my home. I had not known one till I had you: it is for you to choose.’
She said nothing more for a time, but leant a little over the side of the boat, putting down her hand into the darkening ripples. ‘After all, the lake is as warm as if it were summer still,’ she said. It was she who had introduced the subject, but something had blown across her, a breath from the past, which had taken all the pleasure out of it. She shivered a little again, with a contradictoriness of which she was unaware. ‘There must have been snow somewhere, I think, up among the hills.’
‘It is you who are blowing hot and cold, Carry,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘I think myself it is a perfect evening. Look at the last steamer, passing along against the line of the hills, with its lights, and crammed with tourists from stem to stern. Shall we go in? There’s time enough before it gets here, but I know you don’t like the wash.’
‘I don’t like anything that agitates the water, or anything else, perhaps.’
‘Not so bad as that; it is I who am most tolerant of the dead level. You like a little agitation, or commotion, or what shall I call it?’
‘Do you think so, Edward? No, I love calm; I am most fond of peace, the quiet lake, and the still country, and everything that goes softly.’
‘My love,’ he said, ‘you like what is best always, and the best has always movement in it. You never liked monotony. Let things go softly, yes, but let them go; whereas I can do very well without movement. I like to lie here and let the water sway us where it pleases; you want me to take the oars and move as we will.’
‘Yes,’ she said, with a soft laugh, ‘perhaps I do. You see through me, but not altogether,’ she added, with another hasty movement, betrayed once more by the boat.
‘No, not altogether,’ he said, with a look which, in the gathering dimness of the twilight, she did not perceive. Besides, his head was turned away, and his mind also. She hoped indeed he did not, he would never divine the almost horror that had sprung up in her at the idea which he had taken so calmly, that of going back to what he called her own house. Her own house! it had never been hers. She thought that she would never go back then to a place full of the old life that was past, thank God! yet never could be quite past so long as her recollection so ached at the thought of it. It seemed to Lady Car that if she went back she might find that he was still there, and that everything that had been since was but a dream.
The night falls faster in these regions than in the lingering North. It was almost dark already, though so short a time since the sun set. The steamer came rustling along, more audible than visible, a bustling shadow against the opal gleam of the water and the cold blue of the hills, with its little bright lights like jewels, and swift progress, throbbing along through the heart of the twilight. Lights began to appear in the windows of the tall houses along the bank. The night was gradually stealing into the vacant place of the day. The steamer came on with a rush of purpose and certain destruction, and roused her from her thoughts to a little nervous tremor. ‘I wish you would take the oars, Edward, as you say, and let us go in, please. I know it will do us no harm; but——’
‘You are frightened all the same,’ he said, leisurely settling to the oars.
‘It is like a spirit of evil,’ she cried.
He took the boat in, making haste to free her from that little nervous thrill of apprehension, though with a laugh. She was aware that she was fantastic in somethings, and that he was aware of it. It was a little imperfection that did no harm. A woman is the better of having these little follies. He felt a fond superiority as he rowed her in with a few strokes, amused at her sense of danger. And it was not till some time later, after they had climbed a somewhat rugged path to their villa among the trees, and had looked into the room where little Janet lay fast asleep, and then had supped cheerfully at a table close to the broad window, that the subject was resumed. By this time all the noises were stilled, a full moon was rising slowly, preparing to march along the sky in full majesty in the midst of the silent tranquillity of the night; there was not a breath of air stirring, not a cloud upon the blue heavens, which were already almost as clear as day by the mere resplendence of her coming over the solid mountains, with their many peaks, which ‘stepped along the deep.’ The steamer had rustled away to its resting-place, wherever that was. The tourists had found shelter in the hotels, which shone with their many lights along the edge of the lake. These big caravansaries were unseen from the villa, all that was noisy and common was out of sight; the lake all still, not a boat out, with a silver line of ripples making a straight but broken line across the large glimmer of its surface; the dark hills opposite, with a silver touch here and there, and the great open-eyed, abundant moon above looking down upon them, they and she the only things living in that wonderful space which was all beauty and calm. They sat looking out for some time without saying anything. Such a night is in itself a sort of ecstasy, especially to those who want nothing, and with whom, as with the whole apparent world stretched out before them, all is well.
‘And to think we shall have to leave all this presently and enter into the fret and care of settling down!’ he said, with a half-laugh. ‘I interrupted you, dear, to-night when you were talking of that. I suppose it was I that diverted your thoughts. Since it is not to be your Towers, where is it to be?’
‘Not my Towers,’ she said, with a little half-reproachful look at him and a sudden clasping together of her lightly interlaced fingers.
‘Well, let us say Tom’s Towers; but in present circumstances it is very much the same.’
Once more a little shiver ran over her, though there was no chill at all in the soft air that came in from the lake and the moonlight. But her voice was a little uncertain with it, as if her teeth had chattered. ‘Don’t talk of it,’ she said; ‘I want no Towers. I want not a place at all, or any quarters, but a house, a pretty house, just big enough for us and them, somewhere, wherever you would like, Edward.’
‘I shall like what you like,’ he said.
‘But that is not what I wish at all; I want you to tell me what will please you. You would like to be within reach of the great libraries, within reach of what is going on. No one can write what is to live without being within reach——’
He shook his head. ‘You are too partial in your estimate of what I am likely to do; so long as I am within reach of you—and thank God nothing can put me out of that!—I don’t know that I care for anything more.’
‘That is what I should say, Edward,’ she said, with some vehemence, ‘not you. Do you think I am such a silly woman as to wish you to be entirely occupied with me? No, no; that is the woman’s part.’
‘Well,’ he said, with his usual soft laugh, ‘mine is the feminine rôle, you know, to a great extent. Fortunately, my disposition quite chimes in with it.’
‘What do you mean by the feminine rôle?’
‘My love, I don’t mean anything. I mean that life was too many for me when you and I were parted. I was the divided half, don’t you know, “of such a friendship as had mastered time.” Being sundered from my mate, time mastered me: I took to floating, as you don’t like to do, even on the lake.’
‘Edward,’ she cried, ‘if anything could make it more dreadful to me to think of that time, it would be hearing you speak so.’
‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘there is no occasion; after all, neither time nor anything else masters one if it is not in one’s nature. You think too well of me, Carry. Some people are made to float.’
‘And what was I then?’ she said. ‘I was swept away. I could not resist the force against me. It was worse for me, oh! far worse, Edward, than for you. I was caught by the torrent: there was no floating in my case. Perhaps you will say I was made to be carried away.’
‘My darling,’ he said, ‘that’s all over and past. Don’t let us think of what is done with. Here we are now, two people, not very old, quite able to enjoy all the good things of this life, and who have got them, thank Heaven! in a large share. What would you and I have attained with all the fighting possible, compared to the happiness of being together, having each other’s constant company? And we have got that, with many pretty things besides,’ he added, with his gentle laugh.
Lady Car felt the words like a flood pouring to her lips, but she was silent; how could she speak? Did it never occur to him how these pretty things were attained—how it was that he and she sat out here by this window looking out upon Lake Leman and the moonlight in circumstances such as only rich people can secure, both of them to start with being so poor—how it was that they had been able to wander about together, a pair of lovers, for years, with all the accessories of happiness as well as the happiness itself? She clasped her slight fingers together till the pressure hurt; but she said nothing, having nothing—having far too much to say. Such thoughts had glanced across her mind before, faintly, for a moment. She could not have told why they had become so much more vivid now. It was, no doubt, because of the change which was about to take place in their life, the giving up of the wandering, the settling down. Her thoughts carried her away altogether as she sat gazing out with vacant eyes at the lake and the moonlight, forgetting where she was and that she had an answer to make to the question addressed to her. At last her husband’s gentle voice, so refined and soft, startled her back to the reality of the moment.
‘You don’t say anything, Carry. If I were of a jealous temper I might ask whether, perhaps, you were beginning to doubt? but I don’t, I don’t, my love; you need not defend yourself. We both know that is the best that life could give us, and it has come to us almost without an effort. Isn’t it so? For my part, I’ve got all I want, and the rest of the circumstances are indifferent to me—where we live or what we do—you in my house and my home—and my occupation—and my content. I want no more.’
Could anything be said more sweet to a woman? According to all the conventionalities, no—according to many of the most natural feelings, no. What could be better than each other’s constant society, to be together always, to share everything, to own no thought that was not within the charmed circle of their happiness? As he said these words slowly, with little pauses between, she took in all the sweetness of them, with a commentary in her mind that was not sweet, an impatience which scarcely could be controlled, a blank sensation as of impossibility which held back the impatience. Was there not something more to be said—something more?
Mr. Beaufort had lit his cigarette, which was so habitual to him, so completely the breath of his reflective leisure and gentleness and calm, that the most sensitive of women could not have objected to it; nothing so aggressive as a cigar ever touched his lips, as little as any lady could he tolerate a pipe. The little curl of blue smoke, the pungent but aromatic odour, the very attitude of the shapely hand holding it, were characteristic. The smoke curled softly upwards from his soft brown beard and moustache. He was a very handsome man, handsomer in his way than Carry, whose nose was a trifle too long and her mobile lips a trifle too thin. She was, indeed, a little too thin altogether, whereas he was perfect in the fullness of his manhood, just over forty, but as young and strong as, and enjoying his youth and strength more than, at twenty-five. She looked at him and was silent. Is not a man better than a woman at that age above all? Is not he more likely to have discovered the real secret of life? Was not he better able to judge than Carry, a creature who had never been wise, who had been hurried, passive, through so many horrors, and dragged out of a tragedy of awful life, to be landed at last on this pleasant shore? Surely, seeing it must be so, her troubled mind made a wild circle from the point where they had parted until this, when they were one, and for a moment, in the dimness behind his chair, it seemed to Lady Car that she saw a spectre rise. She almost thought a shadowy face looked at her over Beaufort’s head—a face black-browed, with big, light, fiery eyes, burning as she had often seen them burn—the same eyes that were closed in sleep in little Janet’s crib—the same that sometimes gloomed out from her little boy’s dark countenance. Her faithful recollection made his picture on the air while Beaufort took dainty puffs of his cigarette. He had no such ghost to daunt him, his memory was pure and calm, while hers was filled with that dreadful shadow, and with reason, for without that shadow this happiness could never have been. What a thought for a woman—what a thought! and to think that it should never once cross the imagination of the man who was enjoying all the other had lost—all and so much more, and that but for the other this happiness could never have been!
These thoughts came like a wave over Carry while she sat with her fingers clasped tight, arrested, dumb, incapable of any reply. What a blessed thing that even one’s nearest and dearest cannot divine the quick thoughts that come and go, the visions that flash across us, while we sit by their side and reveal nothing! If Beaufort could have seen that black-browed spectre, and realised all that Torrance had brought for him, would he have maintained that attitude of thoughtful leisure, that calm of assured satisfaction and happiness? To be sure he did know; there was no secret in it; everybody knew. There was nothing wrong, no guilt, nothing to blush for. The shame was all fanciful, as was that sense of her husband’s strange obtuseness and want of perception which had seized upon Carry, as if they had been horrible things, when they were quite innocent, natural things, which she ought to have most desired for him. It was curious, too, to think that between two people who loved each other so, who were so entirely in sympathy, one could be so unimpressed by the feelings of the other; that the air should be so full for her of ghosts, of passion, and misery past, of the strange, horrible thought that it was by those passions and miseries that she had purchased both for him and herself this calm, and yet that he should divine nothing, but think it only a light question of locality, of where to settle down, of a desirable neighbourhood! Apparently the lightness of the decision they had to make, its entirely unimportant character, struck him as he lay back in his chair with his face towards the lake and the moonlight, and the faint blue curl of fragrant smoke rising in the air. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ he said suddenly, with a laugh, ‘to facilitate this tremendous decision. We’ll take a succession of houses in different places, and find out by experiment which we like best.’
She brought herself back to the triviality of the discussion with a gasp, as if she had fallen, and with a great effort to dismiss those other thoughts. ‘But that would be no better than travelling,’ she said, ‘of which I am a little tired. I want a home of my own, a house which belongs to no one else,’ she added, with a slight shiver, ‘but you and me, Edward, no ghosts of other people in it.’
‘Do you call their little pictures ghosts?’ he said, looking round at the dim walls, which were hung with portraits of the Swiss family to whom the villa belonged; ‘not lovely ones certainly, but quite innocent. Then, Carry my love, do just as you please. I shall come with you, like Tom and Janet, to see the new place. If you choose one that’s very ugly and out of the way, we will all protest. But, so far as I am concerned, it can’t be ugly while you are there,’ he said, putting his hands upon hers with a tender pressure. Then added, with a look of solicitude, putting away the cigarette, ‘Why, you are in a fever, Carry. Your poor little hands are like fire. I hope you haven’t taken cold on the lake.’
‘I never take cold,’ she said, smiling. ‘I suppose it is mere silliness, thinking that this time is over, and that we are going back to the world.’
‘If that vexes you, my darling, don’t let us go back to the world.’
‘Edward, you make me wild, you are so indifferent! You speak as if nothing mattered, as if we could go on and just please ourselves and think of nothing else for ever.’
‘Well, my love, I tell you nothing matters to me except yourself, and I don’t think the world would mind much. But don’t be vexed, Carry. I know the boy must go to school and all the rest of it. We’ll do our duty like men—I mean like women, which is far more thorough. And, for my part, I’m not a bit afraid of the world. Even London I can face quite tranquilly with you by my side, especially as at this time of the year there’s nobody there.’
‘Oh, Edward!’ she said, with a tender exasperation; ‘it is very soothing to be everything in the world to the man you love; and yet——’