Beyond

“I hope not.” Her pride rushed up in her. How could she ask this girl anything? She choked back that feeling, and said stonily: “Do you remember my baby? No, of course; you never saw her. HE and Count Rosek have just taken her away from me.”

Daphne Wing convulsively squeezed the hand of which she had possessed herself.

“Oh, what a wicked thing! When?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“Oh, I AM glad I haven’t seen him since! Oh, I DO think that was wicked! Aren’t you dreadfully distressed?” The least of smiles played on Gyp’s mouth. Daphne Wing burst forth: “D’you know – I think – I think your self-control is something awful. It frightens me. If my baby had lived and been stolen like that, I should have been half dead by now.”

Gyp answered stonily as ever:

“Yes; I want her back, and I wondered – ”

Daphne Wing clasped her hands.

“Oh, I expect I can make him – ” She stopped, confused, then added hastily: “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“I shouldn’t mind if he had fifty loves. Perhaps he has.”

Daphne Wing uttered a little gasp; then her teeth came down rather viciously on her lower lip.

“I mean him to do what I want now, not what he wants me. That’s the only way when you love. Oh, don’t smile like that, please; you do make me feel so – uncertain.”

“When are you going to see him next?”

Daphne Wing grew very pink.

“I don’t know. He might be coming in to lunch. You see, it’s not as if he were a stranger, is it?” Casting up her eyes a little, she added: “He won’t even let me speak your name; it makes him mad. That’s why I’m sure he still loves you; only, his love is so funny.” And, seizing Gyp’s hand: “I shall never forget how good you were to me. I do hope you – you love somebody else.” Gyp pressed those damp, clinging fingers, and Daphne Wing hurried on: “I’m sure your baby’s a darling. How you must be suffering! You look quite pale. But it isn’t any good suffering. I learned that.”

Her eyes lighted on the table, and a faint ruefulness came into them, as if she were going to ask Gyp to eat the oysters.

Gyp bent forward and put her lips to the girl’s forehead.

“Good-bye. My baby would thank you if she knew.”

And she turned to go. She heard a sob. Daphne Wing was crying; then, before Gyp could speak, she struck herself on the throat, and said, in a strangled voice:

“Tha – that’s idiotic! I – I haven’t cried since – since, you know. I – I’m perfect mistress of myself; only, I – only – I suppose you reminded me – I NEVER cry!”

Those words and the sound of a hiccough accompanied Gyp down the alley to her cab.

When she got back to Bury Street, she found Betty sitting in the hall with her bonnet on. She had not been sent for, nor had any reply come from Newmarket. Gyp could not eat, could settle to nothing. She went up to her bedroom to get away from the servants’ eyes, and went on mechanically with a frock of little Gyp’s she had begun on the fatal morning Fiorsen had come back. Every other minute she stopped to listen to sounds that never meant anything, went a hundred times to the window to look at nothing. Betty, too, had come upstairs, and was in the nursery opposite; Gyp could hear her moving about restlessly among her household gods. Presently, those sounds ceased, and, peering into the room, she saw the stout woman still in her bonnet, sitting on a trunk, with her back turned, uttering heavy sighs. Gyp stole back into her own room with a sick, trembling sensation. If – if her baby really could not be recovered except by that sacrifice! If that cruel letter were the last word, and she forced to decide between them! Which would she give up? Which follow – her lover or her child?

She went to the window for air – the pain about her heart was dreadful. And, leaning there against the shutter, she felt quite dizzy from the violence of a struggle that refused coherent thought or feeling, and was just a dumb pull of instincts, both so terribly strong – how terribly strong she had not till then perceived.

Her eyes fell on the picture that reminded her of Bryan; it seemed now to have no resemblance – none. He was much too real, and loved, and wanted. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she had turned a deaf ear to his pleading that she should go to him for ever. How funny! Would she not rush to him now – go when and where he liked? Ah, if only she were back in his arms! Never could she give him up – never! But then in her ears sounded the cooing words, “Dear mum!” Her baby – that tiny thing – how could she give her up, and never again hold close and kiss that round, perfect little body, that grave little dark-eyed face?

The roar of London came in through the open window. So much life, so many people – and not a soul could help! She left the window and went to the cottage-piano she had there, out of Winton’s way. But she only sat with arms folded, looking at the keys. The song that girl had sung at Fiorsen’s concert – song of the broken heart – came back to her.

No, no; she couldn’t – couldn’t! It was to her lover she would cling. And tears ran down her cheeks.

A cab had stopped below, but not till Betty came rushing in did she look up.

XIV

When, trembling all over, she entered the dining-room, Fiorsen was standing by the sideboard, holding the child.

He came straight up and put her into Gyp’s arms.

“Take her,” he said, “and do what you will. Be happy.”

Hugging her baby, close to the door as she could get, Gyp answered nothing. Her heart was in such a tumult that she could not have spoken a word to save her life; relieved, as one dying of thirst by unexpected water; grateful, bewildered, abashed, yet instinctively aware of something evanescent and unreal in his altruism. Daphne Wing! What bargain did this represent?

Fiorsen must have felt the chill of this instinctive vision, for he cried out:

“Yes! You never believed in me; you never thought me capable of good! Why didn’t you?”

Gyp bent her face over her baby to hide the quivering of her lips.

“I am sorry – very, very sorry.”

Fiorsen came closer and looked into her face.

“By God, I am afraid I shall never forget you – never!”

Tears had come into his eyes, and Gyp watched them, moved, troubled, but still deeply mistrusting.

He brushed his hand across his face; and the thought flashed through her: ‘He means me to see them! Ah, what a cynical wretch I am!’

Fiorsen saw that thought pass, and muttering suddenly:

“Good-bye, Gyp! I am not all bad. I AM NOT!” He tore the door open and was gone.

That passionate “I am not!” saved Gyp from a breakdown. No; even at his highest pitch of abnegation, he could not forget himself.

Relief, if overwhelming, is slowly realized; but when, at last, what she had escaped and what lay before her were staring full in each other’s face, it seemed to her that she must cry out, and tell the whole world of her intoxicating happiness. And the moment little Gyp was in Betty’s arms, she sat down and wrote to Summerhay:

“DARLING,

“I’ve had a fearful time. My baby was stolen by him while I was with you. He wrote me a letter saying that he would give her back to me if I gave you up. But I found I couldn’t give you up, not even for my baby. And then, a few minutes ago, he brought her – none the worse. Tomorrow we shall all go down to Mildenham; but very soon, if you still want me, I’ll come with you wherever you like. My father and Betty will take care of my treasure till we come back; and then, perhaps, the old red house we saw – after all. Only – now is the time for you to draw back. Look into the future – look far! Don’t let any foolish pity – or honour – weigh with you; be utterly sure, I do beseech you. I can just bear it now if I know it’s for your good. But afterward it’ll be too late. It would be the worst misery of all if I made you unhappy. Oh, make sure – make sure! I shall understand. I mean this with every bit of me. And now, good-night, and perhaps – good-bye.

“Your“GYP.”

She read it over and shivered. Did she really mean that she could bear it if he drew back – if he did look far, far into the future, and decided that she was not worth the candle? Ah, but better now – than later.

She closed and sealed the letter, and sat down to wait for her father. And she thought: ‘Why does one have a heart? Why is there in one something so much too soft?’

Ten days later, at Mildenham station, holding her father’s hand, Gyp could scarcely see him for the mist before her eyes. How good he had been to her all those last days, since she told him that she was going to take the plunge! Not a word of remonstrance or complaint.

“Good-bye, my love! Take care of yourself; wire from London, and again from Paris.” And, smiling up at her, he added: “He has luck; I had none.”

The mist became tears, rolled down, fell on his glove.

“Not too long out there, Gyp!”

She pressed her wet cheek passionately to his. The train moved, but, so long as she could see, she watched him standing on the platform, waving his grey hat, then, in her corner, sat down, blinded with tears behind her veil. She had not cried when she left him the day of her fatal marriage; she cried now that she was leaving him to go to her incredible happiness.

Strange! But her heart had grown since then.

Part IV

I

Little Gyp, aged nearly four and a half that first of May, stood at the edge of the tulip border, bowing to two hen turkeys who were poking their heads elegantly here and there among the flowers. She was absurdly like her mother, the same oval-shaped face, dark arched brows, large and clear brown eyes; but she had the modern child’s open-air look; her hair, that curled over at the ends, was not allowed to be long, and her polished brown legs were bare to the knees.

“Turkeys! You aren’t good, are you? Come ON!” And, stretching out her hands with the palms held up, she backed away from the tulip-bed. The turkeys, trailing delicately their long-toed feet and uttering soft, liquid interrogations, moved after her in hopes of what she was not holding in her little brown hands. The sun, down in the west, for it was past tea-time, slanted from over the roof of the red house, and painted up that small procession – the deep blue frock of little Gyp, the glint of gold in the chestnut of her hair; the daisy-starred grass; the dark birds with translucent red dewlaps, and checkered tails and the tulip background, puce and red and yellow. When she had lured them to the open gate, little Gyp raised herself, and said:

“Aren’t you duffies, dears? Shoo!” And on the tails of the turkeys she shut the gate. Then she went to where, under the walnut-tree – the one large tree of that walled garden – a very old Scotch terrier was lying, and sitting down beside him, began stroking his white muzzle, saying:

“Ossy, Ossy, do you love me?”

Presently, seeing her mother in the porch, she jumped up, and crying out: “Ossy – Ossy! Walk!” rushed to Gyp and embraced her legs, while the old Scotch terrier slowly followed.

Thus held prisoner, Gyp watched the dog’s approach. Nearly three years had changed her a little. Her face was softer, and rather more grave, her form a little fuller, her hair, if anything, darker, and done differently – instead of waving in wings and being coiled up behind, it was smoothly gathered round in a soft and lustrous helmet, by which fashion the shape of her head was better revealed.

“Darling, go and ask Pettance to put a fresh piece of sulphur in Ossy’s water-bowl, and to cut up his meat finer. You can give Hotspur and Brownie two lumps of sugar each; and then we’ll go out.” Going down on her knees in the porch, she parted the old dog’s hair, and examined his eczema, thinking: “I must rub some more of that stuff in to-night. Oh, ducky, you’re not smelling your best! Yes; only – not my face!”

A telegraph-boy was coming from the gate. Gyp opened the missive with the faint tremor she always felt when Summerhay was not with her.

“Detained; shall be down by last train; need not come up to-morrow. – BRYAN.”

When the boy was gone, she stooped down and stroked the old dog’s head.

“Master home all day to-morrow, Ossy – master home!”

A voice from the path said, “Beautiful evenin’, ma’am.”

The “old scoundrel,” Pettance, stiffer in the ankle-joints, with more lines in his gargoyle’s face, fewer stumps in his gargoyle’s mouth, more film over his dark, burning little eyes, was standing before her, and, behind him, little Gyp, one foot rather before the other, as Gyp had been wont to stand, waited gravely.

“Oh, Pettance, Mr. Summerhay will be at home all to-morrow, and we’ll go a long ride: and when you exercise, will you call at the inn, in case I don’t go that way, and tell Major Winton I expect him to dinner to-night?”

“Yes, ma’am; and I’ve seen the pony for little Miss Gyp this morning, ma’am. It’s a mouse pony, five year old, sound, good temper, pretty little paces. I says to the man: ‘Don’t you come it over me,’ I says; ‘I was born on an ‘orse. Talk of twenty pounds, for that pony! Ten, and lucky to get it!’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘Pettance, it’s no good to talk round an’ round with you. Fifteen!’ he says. ‘I’ll throw you one in,’ I says, ‘Eleven! Take it or leave it.’ ‘Ah!’ he says, ‘Pettance, YOU know ‘ow to buy an ‘orse. All right,’ he says; ‘twelve!’ She’s worth all of fifteen, ma’am, and the major’s passed her. So if you likes to have ‘er, there she is!”

Gyp looked at her little daughter, who had given one excited hop, but now stood still, her eyes flying up at her mother and her lips parted; and she thought: “The darling! She never begs for anything!”

“Very well, Pettance; buy her.”

The “old scoundrel” touched his forelock:

“Yes, ma’am – very good, ma’am. Beautiful evenin’, ma’am.” And, withdrawing at his gait of one whose feet are at permanent right angles to the legs, he mused: ‘And that’ll be two in my pocket.’

Ten minutes later Gyp, little Gyp, and Ossian emerged from the garden gate for their evening walk. They went, not as usual, up to the downs, but toward the river, making for what they called “the wild.” This was an outlying plot of neglected ground belonging to their farm, two sedgy meadows, hedged by banks on which grew oaks and ashes. An old stone linhay, covered to its broken thatch by a huge ivy bush, stood at the angle where the meadows met. The spot had a strange life to itself in that smooth, kempt countryside of cornfields, grass, and beech-clumps; it was favoured by beasts and birds, and little Gyp had recently seen two baby hares there. From an oak-tree, where the crinkled leaves were not yet large enough to hide him, a cuckoo was calling and they stopped to look at the grey bird till he flew off. The singing and serenity, the green and golden oaks and ashes, the flowers – marsh-orchis, ladies’ smocks, and cuckoo-buds, starring the rushy grass – all brought to Gyp that feeling of the uncapturable spirit which lies behind the forms of nature, the shadowy, hovering smile of life that is ever vanishing and ever springing again out of death. While they stood there close to the old linhay a bird came flying round them in wide circles, uttering shrill cries. It had a long beak and long, pointed wings, and seemed distressed by their presence. Little Gyp squeezed her mother’s hand.

“Poor bird! Isn’t it a poor bird, mum?”

“Yes, dear, it’s a curlew – I wonder what’s the matter with it. Perhaps its mate is hurt.”

“What is its mate?”

“The bird it lives with.”

“It’s afraid of us. It’s not like other birds. Is it a real bird, mum? Or one out of the sky?”

“I think it’s real. Shall we go on and see if we can find out what’s the matter?”

“Yes.”

They went on into the sedgy grass and the curlew continued to circle, vanishing and reappearing from behind the trees, always uttering those shrill cries. Little Gyp said:

“Mum, could we speak to it? Because we’re not going to hurt nothing, are we?”

“Of course not, darling! But I’m afraid the poor bird’s too wild. Try, if you like. Call to it: ‘Courlie! Courlie!”’

Little Gyp’s piping joined the curlew’s cries and other bird-songs in the bright shadowy quiet of the evening till Gyp said:

“Oh, look; it’s dipping close to the ground, over there in that corner – it’s got a nest! We won’t go near, will we?”

Little Gyp echoed in a hushed voice:

“It’s got a nest.”

They stole back out of the gate close to the linhay, the curlew still fighting and crying behind them.

“Aren’t we glad the mate isn’t hurt, mum?”

Gyp answered with a shiver:

“Yes, darling, fearfully glad. Now then, shall we go down and ask Grandy to come up to dinner?”

Little Gyp hopped. And they went toward the river.

At “The Bowl of Cream,” Winton had for two years had rooms, which he occupied as often as his pursuits permitted. He had refused to make his home with Gyp, desiring to be on hand only when she wanted him; and a simple life of it he led in those simple quarters, riding with her when Summerhay was in town, visiting the cottagers, smoking cigars, laying plans for the defence of his daughter’s position, and devoting himself to the whims of little Gyp. This moment, when his grandchild was to begin to ride, was in a manner sacred to one for whom life had scant meaning apart from horses. Looking at them, hand in hand, Gyp thought: ‘Dad loves her as much as he loves me now – more, I think.’

Lonely dinner at the inn was an infliction which he studiously concealed from Gyp, so he accepted their invitation without alacrity, and they walked on up the hill, with little Gyp in the middle, supported by a hand on each side.

The Red House contained nothing that had been in Gyp’s married home except the piano. It had white walls, furniture of old oak, and for pictures reproductions of her favourites. “The Death of Procris” hung in the dining-room. Winton never failed to scrutinize it when he came in to a meal – that “deuced rum affair” appeared to have a fascination for him. He approved of the dining-room altogether; its narrow oak “last supper” table made gay by a strip of blue linen, old brick hearth, casement windows hung with flowered curtains – all had a pleasing austerity, uncannily redeemed to softness. He got on well enough with Summerhay, but he enjoyed himself much more when he was there alone with his daughter. And this evening he was especially glad to have her to himself, for she had seemed of late rather grave and absent-minded. When dinner was over and they were undisturbed, he said:

“It must be pretty dull for you, my dear, sometimes. I wish you saw more people.”

“Oh no, Dad.”

Watching her smile, he thought: ‘That’s not sour grapes” – What is the trouble, then?’

“I suppose you’ve not heard anything of that fellow Fiorsen lately?”

“Not a word. But he’s playing again in London this season, I see.”

“Is he? Ah, that’ll cheer them.” And he thought: ‘It’s not that, then. But there’s something – I’ll swear!’

“I hear that Bryan’s going ahead. I met a man in town last week who spoke of him as about the most promising junior at the bar.”

“Yes; he’s doing awfully well.” And a sound like a faint sigh caught his ears. “Would you say he’s changed much since you knew him, Dad?”

“I don’t know – perhaps a little less jokey.”

“Yes; he’s lost his laugh.”

It was very evenly and softly said, yet it affected Winton.

“Can’t expect him to keep that,” he answered, “turning people inside out, day after day – and most of them rotten. By George, what a life!”

But when he had left her, strolling back in the bright moonlight, he reverted to his suspicions and wished he had said more directly: “Look here, Gyp, are you worrying about Bryan – or have people been making themselves unpleasant?”

He had, in these last three years, become unconsciously inimical to his own class and their imitators, and more than ever friendly to the poor – visiting the labourers, small farmers, and small tradesmen, doing them little turns when he could, giving their children sixpences, and so forth. The fact that they could not afford to put on airs of virtue escaped him; he perceived only that they were respectful and friendly to Gyp and this warmed his heart toward them in proportion as he grew exasperated with the two or three landed families, and that parvenu lot in the riverside villas.

When he first came down, the chief landowner – a man he had known for years – had invited him to lunch. He had accepted with the deliberate intention of finding out where he was, and had taken the first natural opportunity of mentioning his daughter. She was, he said, devoted to her flowers; the Red House had quite a good garden. His friend’s wife, slightly lifting her brows, had answered with a nervous smile: “Oh! yes; of course – yes.” A silence had, not unnaturally, fallen. Since then, Winton had saluted his friend and his friend’s wife with such frigid politeness as froze the very marrow in their bones. He had not gone there fishing for Gyp to be called on, but to show these people that his daughter could not be slighted with impunity. Foolish of him, for, man of the world to his fingertips, he knew perfectly well that a woman living with a man to whom she was not married could not be recognized by people with any pretensions to orthodoxy; Gyp was beyond even the debatable ground on which stood those who have been divorced and are married again. But even a man of the world is not proof against the warping of devotion, and Winton was ready to charge any windmill at any moment on her behalf.

Outside the inn door, exhaling the last puffs of his good-night cigarette, he thought: ‘What wouldn’t I give for the old days, and a chance to wing some of these moral upstarts!’

II

The last train was not due till eleven-thirty, and having seen that the evening tray had sandwiches, Gyp went to Summerhay’s study, the room at right angles to the body of the house, over which was their bedroom. Here, if she had nothing to do, she always came when he was away, feeling nearer to him. She would have been horrified if she had known of her father’s sentiments on her behalf. Her instant denial of the wish to see more people had been quite genuine. The conditions of her life, in that respect, often seemed to her ideal. It was such a joy to be free of people one did not care two straws about, and of all empty social functions. Everything she had now was real – love, and nature, riding, music, animals, and poor people. What else was worth having? She would not have changed for anything. It often seemed to her that books and plays about the unhappiness of women in her position were all false. If one loved, what could one want better? Such women, if unhappy, could have no pride; or else could not really love! She had recently been reading “Anna Karenina,” and had often said to herself: “There’s something not true about it – as if Tolstoy wanted to make us believe that Anna was secretly feeling remorse. If one loves, one doesn’t feel remorse. Even if my baby had been taken away, I shouldn’t have felt remorse. One gives oneself to love – or one does not.”

She even derived a positive joy from the feeling that her love imposed a sort of isolation; she liked to be apart – for him. Besides, by her very birth she was outside the fold of society, her love beyond the love of those within it – just as her father’s love had been. And her pride was greater than theirs, too. How could women mope and moan because they were cast out, and try to scratch their way back where they were not welcome? How could any woman do that? Sometimes, she wondered whether, if Fiorsen died, she would marry her lover. What difference would it make? She could not love him more. It would only make him feel, perhaps, too sure of her, make it all a matter of course. For herself, she would rather go on as she was. But for him, she was not certain, of late had been less and less certain. He was not bound now, could leave her when he tired! And yet – did he perhaps feel himself more bound than if they were married – unfairly bound? It was this thought – barely more than the shadow of a thought – which had given her, of late, the extra gravity noticed by her father.

In that unlighted room with the moonbeams drifting in, she sat down at Summerhay’s bureau, where he often worked too late at his cases, depriving her of himself. She sat there resting her elbows on the bare wood, crossing her finger-tips, gazing out into the moonlight, her mind drifting on a stream of memories that seemed to have beginning only from the year when he came into her life. A smile crept out on her face, and now and then she uttered a little sigh of contentment.