Beyond

“I don’t think he’ll trouble you again.”

Gyp’s gratitude was qualified by a queer compassion. After all, his offence had only been that of loving her.

Fiorsen had been taken to her room, which was larger and cooler than his own; and the maid was standing by the side of the bed with a scared face. Gyp signed to her to go. He opened his eyes presently:

“Gyp! Oh! Gyp! Is it you? The devilish, awful things I see – don’t go away again! Oh, Gyp!” With a sob he raised himself and rested his forehead against her. And Gyp felt – as on the first night he came home drunk – a merging of all other emotions in the desire to protect and heal.

“It’s all right, all right,” she murmured. “I’m going to stay. Don’t worry about anything. Keep quite quiet, and you’ll soon be well.”

In a quarter of an hour, he was asleep. His wasted look went to her heart, and that expression of terror which had been coming and going until he fell asleep! Anything to do with the brain was so horrible! Only too clear that she must stay – that his recovery depended on her. She was still sitting there, motionless, when the doctor came, and, seeing him asleep, beckoned her out. He looked a kindly man, with two waistcoats, the top one unbuttoned; and while he talked, he winked at Gyp involuntarily, and, with each wink, Gyp felt that he ripped the veil off one more domestic secret. Sleep was the ticket – the very ticket for him! Had something on his mind – yes! And – er – a little given to – brandy? Ah! all that must stop! Stomach as well as nerves affected. Seeing things – nasty things – sure sign. Perhaps not a very careful life before marriage. And married – how long? His kindly appreciative eyes swept Gyp from top to toe. Year and a half! Quite so! Hard worker at his violin, too? No doubt! Musicians always a little inclined to be immoderate – too much sense of beauty – burn the candle at both ends! She must see to that. She had been away, had she not – staying with her father? Yes. But – no one like a wife for nursing. As to treatment? Well! One would shove in a dash of what he would prescribe, night and morning. Perfect quiet. No stimulant. A little cup of strong coffee without milk, if he seemed low. Keep him in bed at present. No worry; no excitement. Young man still. Plenty of vitality. As to herself, no undue anxiety. To-morrow they would see whether a night nurse would be necessary. Above all, no violin for a month, no alcohol – in every way the strictest moderation! And with a last and friendliest wink, leaning heavily on that word “moderation,” he took out a stylographic pen, scratched on a leaf of his note-book, shook Gyp’s hand, smiled whimsically, buttoned his upper waistcoat, and departed.

Gyp went back to her seat by the bed. Irony! She whose only desire was to be let go free, was mainly responsible for his breakdown! But for her, there would be nothing on his mind, for he would not be married! Brooding morbidly, she asked herself – his drinking, debts, even the girl – had she caused them, too? And when she tried to free him and herself – this was the result! Was there something fatal about her that must destroy the men she had to do with? She had made her father unhappy, Monsieur Harmost – Rosek, and her husband! Even before she married, how many had tried for her love, and gone away unhappy! And, getting up, she went to a mirror and looked at herself long and sadly.

XX

Three days after her abortive attempt to break away, Gyp, with much heart-searching, wrote to Daphne Wing, telling her of Fiorsen’s illness, and mentioning a cottage near Mildenham, where – if she liked to go – she would be quite comfortable and safe from all curiosity, and finally begging to be allowed to make good the losses from any broken dance-contracts.

Next morning, she found Mr. Wagge with a tall, crape-banded hat in his black-gloved hands, standing in the very centre of her drawing-room. He was staring into the garden, as if he had been vouchsafed a vision of that warm night when the moonlight shed its ghostly glamour on the sunflowers, and his daughter had danced out there. She had a perfect view of his thick red neck in its turndown collar, crossed by a black bow over a shiny white shirt. And, holding out her hand, she said:

“How do you do, Mr. Wagge? It was kind of you to come.”

Mr. Wagge turned. His pug face wore a downcast expression.

“I hope I see you well, ma’am. Pretty place you ‘ave ‘ere. I’m fond of flowers myself. They’ve always been my ‘obby.”

“They’re a great comfort in London, aren’t they?”

“Ye-es; I should think you might grow the dahlia here.” And having thus obeyed the obscure instincts of savoir faire, satisfied some obscurer desire to flatter, he went on: “My girl showed me your letter. I didn’t like to write; in such a delicate matter I’d rather be vivey vocey. Very kind, in your position; I’m sure I appreciate it. I always try to do the Christian thing myself. Flesh passes; you never know when you may have to take your turn. I said to my girl I’d come and see you.”

“I’m very glad. I hoped perhaps you would.”

Mr. Wagge cleared his throat, and went on, in a hoarser voice:

“I don’t want to say anything harsh about a certain party in your presence, especially as I read he’s indisposed, but really I hardly know how to bear the situation. I can’t bring myself to think of money in relation to that matter; all the same, it’s a serious loss to my daughter, very serious loss. I’ve got my family pride to think of. My daughter’s name, well – it’s my own; and, though I say it, I’m respected – a regular attendant – I think I told you. Sometimes, I assure you, I feel I can’t control myself, and it’s only that – and you, if I may say so, that keeps me in check.”

During this speech, his black-gloved hands were clenching and unclenching, and he shifted his broad, shining boots. Gyp gazed at them, not daring to look up at his eyes thus turning and turning from Christianity to shekels, from his honour to the world, from his anger to herself. And she said:

“Please let me do what I ask, Mr. Wagge. I should be so unhappy if I mightn’t do that little something.”

Mr. Wagge blew his nose.

“It’s a delicate matter,” he said. “I don’t know where my duty lays. I don’t, reelly.”

Gyp looked up then.

“The great thing is to save Daisy suffering, isn’t it?”

Mr. Wagge’s face wore for a moment an expression of affront, as if from the thought: ‘Sufferin’! You must leave that to her father!’ Then it wavered; the curious, furtive warmth of the attracted male came for a moment into his little eyes; he averted them, and coughed. Gyp said softly:

“To please me.”

Mr. Wagge’s readjusted glance stopped in confusion at her waist. He answered, in a voice that he strove to make bland:

“If you put it in that way, I don’t reelly know ‘ow to refuse; but it must be quite between you and me – I can’t withdraw my attitude.”

Gyp murmured:

“No, of course. Thank you so much; and you’ll let me know about everything later. I mustn’t take up your time now.” And she held out her hand.

Mr. Wagge took it in a lingering manner.

“Well, I HAVE an appointment,” he said; “a gentleman at Campden Hill. He starts at twelve. I’m never late. GOOD-morning.”

When she had watched his square, black figure pass through the outer gate, busily rebuttoning those shining black gloves, she went upstairs and washed her face and hands.

For several days, Fiorsen wavered; but his collapse had come just in time, and with every hour the danger lessened. At the end of a fortnight of a perfectly white life, there remained nothing to do in the words of the doctor but “to avoid all recurrence of the predisposing causes, and shove in sea air!” Gyp had locked up all brandy – and violins; she could control him so long as he was tamed by his own weakness. But she passed some very bitter hours before she sent for her baby, Betty, and the dogs, and definitely took up life in her little house again. His debts had been paid, including the thousand pounds to Rosek, and the losses of Daphne Wing. The girl had gone down to that cottage where no one had ever heard of her, to pass her time in lonely grief and terror, with the aid of a black dress and a gold band on her third finger.

August and the first half of September were spent near Bude. Fiorsen’s passion for the sea, a passion Gyp could share, kept him singularly moderate and free from restiveness. He had been thoroughly frightened, and such terror is not easily forgotten. They stayed in a farmhouse, where he was at his best with the simple folk, and his best could be charming. He was always trying to get his “mermaid,” as he took to calling Gyp, away from the baby, getting her away to himself, along the grassy cliffs and among the rocks and yellow sands of that free coast. His delight was to find every day some new nook where they could bathe, and dry themselves by sitting in the sun. And very like a mermaid she was, on a seaweedy rock, with her feet close together in a little pool, her fingers combing her drowned hair, and the sun silvering her wet body. If she had loved him, it would have been perfect. But though, close to nature like this – there are men to whom towns are poison – he was so much more easy to bear, even to like, her heart never opened to him, never fluttered at his voice, or beat more quickly under his kisses. One cannot regulate these things. The warmth in her eyes when they looked at her baby, and the coolness when they looked at him, was such that not even a man, and he an egoist, could help seeing; and secretly he began to hate that tiny rival, and she began to notice that he did.

As soon as the weather broke, he grew restless, craving his violin, and they went back to town, in robust health – all three. During those weeks, Gyp had never been free of the feeling that it was just a lull, of forces held up in suspense, and the moment they were back in their house, this feeling gathered density and darkness, as rain gathers in the sky after a fine spell. She had often thought of Daphne Wing, and had written twice, getting in return one naive and pathetic answer:

‘DEAR MRS. FIORSEN,

‘Oh, it is kind of you to write, because I know what you must be feeling about me; and it was so kind of you to let me come here. I try not to think about things, but of course I can’t help it; and I don’t seem to care what happens now. Mother is coming down here later on. Sometimes I lie awake all night, listening to the wind. Don’t you think the wind is the most melancholy thing in the world? I wonder if I shall die? I hope I shall. Oh, I do, really! Good-bye, dear Mrs. Fiorsen. I shall never forgive myself about you.

‘Your grateful,‘DAPHNE WING.’

The girl had never once been mentioned between her and Fiorsen since the night when he sat by her bed, begging forgiveness; she did not know whether he ever gave the little dancer and her trouble a thought, or even knew what had become of her. But now that the time was getting near, Gyp felt more and more every day as if she must go down and see her. She wrote to her father, who, after a dose of Harrogate with Aunt Rosamund, was back at Mildenham. Winton answered that the nurse was there, and that there seemed to be a woman, presumably the mother, staying with her, but that he had not of course made direct inquiry. Could not Gyp come down? He was alone, and cubbing had begun. It was like him to veil his longings under such dry statements. But the thought of giving him pleasure, and of a gallop with hounds fortified intensely her feeling that she ought to go. Now that baby was so well, and Fiorsen still not drinking, she might surely snatch this little holiday and satisfy her conscience about the girl. Since the return from Cornwall, she had played for him in the music-room just as of old, and she chose the finish of a morning practice to say:

“Gustav, I want to go to Mildenham this afternoon for a week. Father’s lonely.”

He was putting away his violin, but she saw his neck grow red.

“To him? No. He will steal you as he stole the baby. Let him have the baby if he likes. Not you. No.”

Gyp, who was standing by the piano, kept silence at this unexpected outburst, but revolt blazed up in her. She never asked him anything; he should not refuse this. He came up behind and put his arms round her.

“My Gyp, I want you here – I am lonely, too. Don’t go away.”

She tried to force his arms apart, but could not, and her anger grew. She said coldly:

“There’s another reason why I must go.”

“No, no! No good reason – to take you from me.”

“There is! The girl who is just going to have your child is staying near Mildenham, and I want to see how she is.”

He let go of her then, and recoiling against the divan, sat down. And Gyp thought: ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to – but it serves him right.’

He muttered, in a dull voice:

“Oh, I hoped she was dead.”

“Yes! For all you care, she might be. I’m going, but you needn’t be afraid that I shan’t come back. I shall be back to-day week; I promise.”

He looked at her fixedly.

“Yes. You don’t break your promises; you will not break it.” But, suddenly, he said again: “Gyp, don’t go!”

“I must.”

He got up and caught her in his arms.

“Say you love me, then!”

But she could not. It was one thing to put up with embraces, quite another to pretend that. When at last he was gone, she sat smoothing her hair, staring before her with hard eyes, thinking: “Here – where I saw him with that girl! What animals men are!”

Late that afternoon, she reached Mildenham. Winton met her at the station. And on the drive up, they passed the cottage where Daphne Wing was staying. It stood in front of a small coppice, a creepered, plain-fronted, little brick house, with a garden still full of sunflowers, tenanted by the old jockey, Pettance, his widowed daughter, and her three small children. “That talkative old scoundrel,” as Winton always called him, was still employed in the Mildenham stables, and his daughter was laundress to the establishment. Gyp had secured for Daphne Wing the same free, independent, economic agent who had watched over her own event; the same old doctor, too, was to be the presiding deity. There were no signs of life about the cottage, and she would not stop, too eager to be at home again, to see the old rooms, and smell the old savour of the house, to get to her old mare, and feel its nose nuzzling her for sugar. It was so good to be back once more, feeling strong and well and able to ride. The smile of the inscrutable Markey at the front door was a joy to her, even the darkness of the hall, where a gleam of last sunlight fell across the skin of Winton’s first tiger, on which she had so often sunk down dead tired after hunting. Ah, it was nice to be at home!

In her mare’s box, old Pettance was putting a last touch to cleanliness. His shaven, skin-tight, wicked old face, smiled deeply. He said in honeyed tones:

“Good evenin’, miss; beautiful evenin’, ma’am!” And his little burning brown eyes, just touched by age, regarded her lovingly.

“Well, Pettance, how are you? And how’s Annie, and how are the children? And how’s this old darling?”

“Wonderful, miss; artful as a kitten. Carry you like a bird to-morrow, if you’re goin’ out.”

“How are her legs?”

And while Gyp passed her hand down those iron legs, the old mare examined her down the back of her neck.

“They ‘aven’t filled not once since she come in – she was out all July and August; but I’ve kept ‘er well at it since, in ‘opes you might be comin’.”

“They feel splendid.” And, still bending down, Gyp asked: “And how is your lodger – the young lady I sent you?”

“Well, ma’am, she’s very young, and these very young ladies they get a bit excited, you know, at such times; I should say she’ve never been – ” With obvious difficulty he checked the words, “to an ‘orse before!” “Well, you must expect it. And her mother, she’s a dreadful funny one, miss. She does needle me! Oh, she puts my back up properly! No class, of course – that’s where it is. But this ‘ere nurse – well, you know, miss, she won’t ‘ave no nonsense; so there we are. And, of course, you’re bound to ‘ave ‘ighsteria, a bit – losin’ her ‘usband as young as that.”

Gyp could feel his wicked old smile even before she raised herself. But what did it matter if he did guess? She knew he would keep a stable secret.

“Oh, we’ve ‘ad some pretty flirts – up and cryin’, dear me! I sleeps in the next room – oh, yes, at night-time – when you’re a widder at that age, you can’t expect nothin’ else. I remember when I was ridin’ in Ireland for Captain O’Neill, there was a young woman – ”

Gyp thought: ‘I mustn’t let him get off – or I shall be late for dinner,’ and she said:

“Oh, Pettance, who bought the young brown horse?”

“Mr. Bryn Summer’ay, ma’am, over at Widrington, for an ‘unter, and ‘ack in town, miss.”

“Summerhay? Ah!” With a touch of the whip to her memory, Gyp recalled the young man with the clear eyes and teasing smile, on the chestnut mare, the bold young man who reminded her of somebody, and she added:

“That’ll be a good home for him, I should think.”

“Oh, yes, miss; good ‘ome – nice gentleman, too. He come over here to see it, and asked after you. I told ‘im you was a married lady now, miss. ‘Ah,’ he said; ‘she rode beautiful!’ And he remembered the ‘orse well. The major, he wasn’t ‘ere just then, so I let him try the young un; he popped ‘im over a fence or two, and when he come back he says, ‘Well, I’m goin’ to have ‘im.’ Speaks very pleasant, an’ don’t waste no time – ‘orse was away before the end of the week. Carry ‘im well; ‘e’s a strong rider, too, and a good plucked one, but bad ‘ands, I should say.”

“Yes, Pettance; I must go in now. Will you tell Annie I shall be round to-morrow, to see her?”

“Very good, miss. ‘Ounds meets at Filly Cross, seven-thirty. You’ll be goin’ out?”

“Rather. Good-night.”

Flying back across the yard, Gyp thought: “‘She rode beautiful!’ How jolly! I’m glad he’s got my horse.”

XXI

Still glowing from her morning in the saddle, Gyp started out next day at noon on her visit to the “old scoundrel’s” cottage. It was one of those lingering mellow mornings of late September, when the air, just warmed through, lifts off the stubbles, and the hedgerows are not yet dried of dew. The short cut led across two fields, a narrow strip of village common, where linen was drying on gorse bushes coming into bloom, and one field beyond; she met no one. Crossing the road, she passed into the cottage-garden, where sunflowers and Michaelmas daisies in great profusion were tangled along the low red-brick garden-walls, under some poplar trees yellow-flecked already. A single empty chair, with a book turned face downward, stood outside an open window. Smoke wreathing from one chimney was the only sign of life. But, standing undecided before the half-open door, Gyp was conscious, as it were, of too much stillness, of something unnatural about the silence. She was just raising her hand to knock when she heard the sound of smothered sobbing. Peeping through the window, she could just see a woman dressed in green, evidently Mrs. Wagge, seated at a table, crying into her handkerchief. At that very moment, too, a low moaning came from the room above. Gyp recoiled; then, making up her mind, she went in and knocked at the room where the woman in green was sitting. After fully half a minute, it was opened, and Mrs. Wagge stood there. The nose and eyes and cheeks of that thinnish, acid face were red, and in her green dress, and with her greenish hair (for it was going grey and she put on it a yellow lotion smelling of cantharides), she seemed to Gyp just like one of those green apples that turn reddish so unnaturally in the sun. She had rubbed over her face, which shone in streaks, and her handkerchief was still crumpled in her hand. It was horrible to come, so fresh and glowing, into the presence of this poor woman, evidently in bitter sorrow. And a desperate desire came over Gyp to fly. It seemed dreadful for anyone connected with him who had caused this trouble to be coming here at all. But she said as softly as she could:

“Mrs. Wagge? Please forgive me – but is there any news? I am – It was I who got Daphne down here.”

The woman before her was evidently being torn this way and that, but at last she answered, with a sniff:

“It – it – was born this morning – dead.” Gyp gasped. To have gone through it all for that! Every bit of mother-feeling in her rebelled and sorrowed; but her reason said: Better so! Much better! And she murmured:

“How is she?”

Mrs. Wagge answered, with profound dejection:

“Bad – very bad. I don’t know I’m sure what to say – my feelings are all anyhow, and that’s the truth. It’s so dreadfully upsetting altogether.”

“Is my nurse with her?”

“Yes; she’s there. She’s a very headstrong woman, but capable, I don’t deny. Daisy’s very weak. Oh, it IS upsetting! And now I suppose there’ll have to be a burial. There really seems no end to it. And all because of – of that man.” And Mrs. Wagge turned away again to cry into her handkerchief.

Feeling she could never say or do the right thing to the poor lady, Gyp stole out. At the bottom of the stairs, she hesitated whether to go up or no. At last, she mounted softly. It must be in the front room that the bereaved girl was lying – the girl who, but a year ago, had debated with such naive self-importance whether or not it was her duty to take a lover. Gyp summoned courage to tap gently. The economic agent opened the door an inch, but, seeing who it was, slipped her robust and handsome person through into the corridor.

“You, my dear!” she said in a whisper. “That’s nice!”

“How is she?”

“Fairly well – considering. You know about it?”

“Yes; can I see her?”

“I hardly think so. I can’t make her out. She’s got no spirit, not an ounce. She doesn’t want to get well, I believe. It’s the man, I expect.” And, looking at Gyp with her fine blue eyes, she asked: “Is that it? Is he tired of her?”

Gyp met her gaze better than she had believed possible.

“Yes, nurse.”

The economic agent swept her up and down. “It’s a pleasure to look at you. You’ve got quite a colour, for you. After all, I believe it MIGHT do her good to see you. Come in!”

Gyp passed in behind her, and stood gazing, not daring to step forward. What a white face, with eyes closed, with fair hair still damp on the forehead, with one white hand lying on the sheet above her heart! What a frail madonna of the sugar-plums! On the whole of that bed the only colour seemed the gold hoop round the wedding-finger.

The economic agent said very quietly:

“Look, my dear; I’ve brought you a nice visitor.”

Daphne Wing’s eyes and lips opened and closed again. And the awful thought went through Gyp: ‘Poor thing! She thought it was going to be him, and it’s only me!’ Then the white lips said:

“Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, it’s you – it is kind of you!” And the eyes opened again, but very little, and differently.

The economic agent slipped away. Gyp sat down by the bed and timidly touched the hand.

Daphne Wing looked at her, and two tears slowly ran down her cheeks.

“It’s over,” she said just audibly, “and there’s nothing now – it was dead, you know. I don’t want to live. Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, why can’t they let me die, too?”

Gyp bent over and kissed the hand, unable to bear the sight of those two slowly rolling tears. Daphne Wing went on:

“You ARE good to me. I wish my poor little baby hadn’t – ”

Gyp, knowing her own tears were wetting that hand, raised herself and managed to get out the words:

“Bear up! Think of your work!”

“Dancing! Ho!” She gave the least laugh ever heard. “It seems so long ago.”

“Yes; but now it’ll all come back to you again, better than ever.”

Daphne Wing answered by a feeble sigh.

There was silence. Gyp thought: ‘She’s falling asleep.’

With eyes and mouth closed like that, and all alabaster white, the face was perfect, purged of its little commonnesses. Strange freak that this white flower of a face could ever have been produced by Mr. and Mrs. Wagge!

Daphne Wing opened her eyes and said:

“Oh! Mrs. Fiorsen, I feel so weak. And I feel much more lonely now. There’s nothing anywhere.”

Gyp got up; she felt herself being carried into the mood of the girl’s heart, and was afraid it would be seen. Daphne Wing went on:

“Do you know, when nurse said she’d brought a visitor, I thought it was him; but I’m glad now. If he had looked at me like he did – I couldn’t have borne it.”