The Climber/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
One morning, just six days later, Lucia was alone in the sittingroom of the little suite that Edgar had taken for her and himself at the Grosvenor Hotel for the night before they had planned to leave England on the cruise in the Mediterranean. She had driven there in his motor from the Prince's Gate house, and had scarcely set foot outside it since. But many different people had come to see her here, and this morning she was expecting Maud, who had asked to be allowed to come to her. But the day outside was a curtain of the densest fog; it was probable that Maud might find it impossible to get here at all. And whether her coming or her keeping away was the least faceable Lucia hardly knew. To some people suspense is worse than the worst certainty; to others, those who would put off an unpleasant scene from day to day, suspense is the more bearable. All that Lucia knew was that the suspense she was in now was more dreadful than had been the moment when, a week ago, the frenzied knocking began, and she came downstairs to find Edgar. But—yes, suspense was the more bearable than the thought of what message Maud might bring. She would have made this great pall of darkness that overhung the town of double intensity: she would have willed that it should continue for ever—anything to delay Maud's arrival.
All the days of this last week, though they had been passed without change of surroundings, were absolutely distinct to her. That was due perhaps to the fact that very few things had happened, but that each was invested with an appalling significance. It was on Thursday night that she had come here, that Edgar's valet had brought up her bag for her to her room, and had undone the straps of it, and left her. That night she had not gone to bed at all, and in spite of the hideous shock and the scene that she had been through, she sat alert and tingling. It had happened; the worst possible had happened, and it was over. But life was not in the least over; it had but begun; she had but tasted it, and she was hungry. True, there was anxiety and suspense; what had happened to Charlie she had no idea, but certainly he had been right to go away. Probably he had gone home; probably he, too, was waiting till the night should be over, and she could let him know where she was. And next morning, as soon as the hotel began to stir, she sent a note to him, just saying that she was at the Grosvenor. But the slow hours of Friday morning passed, and he did not come.
But there were other things that had to be done. Very possibly he had not gone home; a hundred other alternatives would account for his failing to answer, and meantime the hours were passing. She must at once get legal advice; tell the story which she had yet to plan and adjust and varnish to a solicitor, and send to Charlie the account of what she had invented. Her invention had never failed her yet; it would be strange if now, when she stood in her most urgent need, she could not construe something that held water. She must think; she must think furiously.
What had happened? She had come up to town a day earlier than she had originally intended, to do some shopping. Charlie had dined with her that evening in Prince's Gate; it was no use denying that. He had stopped talking to her till twelve or a little later, and then, as soon as ever he went downstairs to go away, she had gone up to bed, and had more than half undressed when she heard knocking on the front door. She had told the caretaker that neither he nor his wife need sit up, and, not knowing what this knocking was, had come downstairs to see. On the stairs she had met her hubsand; he had given her a quarter of an hour to get out of the house. His motor was outside, and she drove straight to the hotel.
For all her quickness of thought, it took her some hour or two to get this short and simple account into shape, but no sooner was it done than she wrote it out, and sent it by hand to Charlie's club. And now she applauded his prudence in not having come in answer to her first note; it was much better so.
There was a telephone in her room, and she then communicated with a firm of well-known solicitors, requesting the immediate presence of the head of it, on a matter of great importance. She had often met the man before; he had been to their house more than once, and she had liked the clever, sharp-witted Mr. Shapstone. She felt sure he would come to her at his earliest possible leisure. And before half a minute had passed her bell rang, and she listened.
"Yes, yes," she said, "I am Lady Brayton. What is it?"
The next moment she had put the receiver back into its place, and she turned white to the lips. Shapstone and Sons had already been engaged by Lord Brayton to instruct his counsel in his divorce suit. It was therefore impossible
And then she had put back the receiver. So she was really in the middle of the breakers which had wrecked so many gaudy pleasure-boats.
But it was not long before her splendid vitality rallied again. There was another firm who, she thought she remembered, had once done something for Madge. So at least a story ran; they had averted danger in some very clever way. And before the early November dusk had closed down on that Friday afternoon she found herself shaking hands with Mr. Baxter, and, soon after, telling him the story which had seemed so simple and straightforward. He was as unlike as possible to what Lucia had imagined. There was nothing ferrety or fox-faced about him; he was genial and broad-shouldered, of pink complexion, and rather like a prosperous country parson. He heard her in dead silence.
"I understand, then, that his lordship was in the house when Mr. Lindsay left it," he said, "and that he met you on the stairs some time after twelve, and very soon after Mr. Lindsay had gone down. You had gone up to bed, I think you said, and came down in—in deshabille. That is so?"
"Yes; I have told you," said Lucia.
"And do you suppose that anybody saw Mr. Lindsay leave the house?" he asked. "If not, why do you think he knocked—violently, I think you said?"
"There was my husband's motor outside," said she. "It is probable that he recognized it. He may have spoken to the chauffeur."
Another question.
"Did you give any reason to the Duchess of Wiltshire for leaving her house a day sooner than you had planned to?"
Lucia got up.
"Yes," she said, "I—I told her that we were going abroad a day sooner than we had planned."
Mr. Baxter neatly extinguished the end of his cigarette.
"And that was the case?" he said.
Lucia did not at once reply, and he spoke again.
"You had much better tell me," he said. "It is my business to make any—any weak points stronger."
"No, it was not the case," said Lucia.
"Ah; a pity. Of course, as you say, the Duchess is your friend. But nobody knows what cross-examination is, until he has been subjected to it. Now have you anything else to tell me?"
"I think I have told you all," said Lucia.
Mr. Baxter opened his mouth a little and stared at the fire. Once or twice he asked her a question, but continued staring, as if her answers did not mean much.
At length he spoke.
"I do not see the faintest chance of a successful defence," he said. "If you wish, I will do my best. I am very sorry, but my advice to you is that you do not defend the suit."
That was Friday. In the evening her maid came from Ashdown, with piles of luggage. It was bestowed in the little anteroom of the suite; the maid occupied the bedroom that should have been Edgar's.
After her sleepless night Lucia went early to bed, and slept soundly and dreamlessly. When she awoke, after a moment of the sense of being lost, of not knowing where she was, she woke to a sense of tremendous vitality. She recalled at once and vividly the interview of the day before, and, so far from going back into the past, projected herself into the future. It was infinitely better to have done with the false and double life, even though that implied the giving up of all that had formed the subject of her ambitions. But into these ambitions, love, the one thing worth having, had never come. The ambition, the success and achievement, had been hers; she had climbed to the very top of the highest tree, and seen all the other tree-tops waving below her. Then she had sprung upward again to the sun itself, and though that leap had caused her to lose her footing, in this moment of falling through the sunny air she did not regret it. The last two or three months had given her more happiness than all the yield of the fat years; they, those few months, had given all that the fat years lacked, of which the absence made them seem so lean. Besides, she could hardly yet believe that she had lost all; she was a woman of a million friends—surely her friends would be friends still. Whatever the Divorce Court might decree, she would be silent, as Mr. Baxter had counselled, disdaining to reply. It was quite true; her story, which had seemed so smooth and pat, was only a tale fit to tell to children. How she herself would have smiled, if Madge had come to her with a history of the kind, expecting to be believed. And then, no doubt, Charlie would soon be free, even as she would. Yet, she had not thought of this before. What interpretation would be put on her proud silence, her disdaining to reply, if she married him?
And if they did not marry? But that she could not bear to contemplate. It was a thing unthinkable.
But on the intrusion of the unthinkable thought, the utter loneliness and desolation of her present position struck Lucia like a blow. Yet that, after all, was entirely her own fault, for how should anybody know what had happened, and how should anybody know where she was? This morning, according to her plans, no yesterday morning, according to—the plans she had spoken of to Mouse—she was supposed to leave town to go South. Of course, everybody thought she had done so. It was just eleven now; at this moment probably the train by which they were to have travelled was hooting the news of its departure. She wondered what Edgar had done. It would be exactly like his precision to go abroad according to the arrangements that had been made, and photograph the whole coastline of the Riviera. Well, she had done with that.
During that day she telephoned to Madge, intimating a catastrophe, and asking her to come. The answer came back that she was out of town, but was returning next day, and the message would be delivered. And all that day she sat alone; she dared not go out, for fear Charlie might come in her absence. Also, where was she to go?
Through those long lonely hours, and through the hours of Sunday, the knowledge of what had happened began to sink deeper into her mind, and she found now that, though two days ago she had said to herself that the worst had happened, the worst had but begun. At first there had been something even bracing about the shock; she was done for ever, even if the worst came to the worst, with the man she had grown to hate. Or, again, there was the chance that a lawyer might make something out of her feeble little child-story of how the evening had been passed. That hope was gone now, and though the man she hated was gone, too, she only now began to see what an immense part of her life he had taken with him. She was now no more than she had been in those dreadful incredible days at Brixham, except only that she carried now a load of infamy and disgrace.
Yet that could not be. There was Charlie; why did he not come to her?
Dusk had fallen before anyone came; soon after Lucia sprang up to greet Madge.
"Oh, Madge, I am glad to see you," she said. "I have been all alone—all, all alone. I want to tell you about it. What are they saying? Tell me what people are saying. Does anybody know yet what has happened?"
Lady Heron looked and was genuinely distressed.
"My dear Lucia," she said, "how could you? Well, well, it is no use asking that. The thing is done. Yes, everybody knows. They are talking of nothing else. You know the world well enough to know that."
"But my friends," cried Lucia, "are they joining in it, do you mean? Are there not any who refuse to listen to such dreadful lies about me? I will tell you the whole story"
But Madge stopped her.
"Believe me, that is a mere waste of time," she said quietly. "We have to consider the situation as it is."
"But nobody knows except Charlie and me, and he knows as well as I do"
And then Lucia stopped. She saw the futility of it all. She knew the uselessness of her little child-tale.
"Who has told them?" she asked.
"Edgar, I should think; he probably told somebody, and after that—on the whole it was best that he should. It is more dreadful if the first thing that the world knows is that the proceedings have begun. Now what are you thinking of doing? Have you seen Charlie yet? Does he know where you are?"
"Yes, he knows where I am," said Lucia. "I wrote at least to his house and his club telling him."
"And he has not been?"
"No."
The unthinkable thought showed itself again. Lucia sprang up.
"Your silence frightens me, Madge," she said. "What are you thinking of? Do you mean he is going to desert me after leading me into this? It was he all along"
Madge gave a long painful sigh.
"Oh, Lucia," she said. "Don't you love anybody? Not even him?"
What do you mean?" asked Lucia. "Isn't it just because I love him that I am so miserable? I don't understand you."
Madge shook her head.
"Then I can't explain," she said. "Now, my dear, let us leave all alone that is irremediable, and see what is left. You will not stop in London, I imagine. Have you not some friends or relations in the country to whom you could go? And I suppose you will not defend the case?"
But Lucia shook her head.
"About Charlie," she said, "nothing matters but that. Oh, Madge, do you think"
And then for the first time since the crash the tears came. Slow and difficult at first, but soon growing wild and tempestuous. It was long before she in the least recovered herself, and by this time it was late.
"Now you are more yourself, dear, I must go," said Madge. "If you want to see me again, send me word, and I will come if I can."
She would come if she could! She would come if she could! After she had left those words occurred again and again to Lucia, and the meaning of them dawned on her. It was clear enough after a while: she would come if she could do so secretly. She was sure it was that which she meant.
The next day she received a note from Messrs. Shapstone, asking her the name and address of her solicitor. In case—so ran the communication—she did not propose to employ a solicitor in the divorce proceedings which were instituted against her, Mr. W. M. Shapstone, who was himself waiting below, would request a few minutes' conversation with her.
Lucia sent down to say she would see him; the last time she saw him, she remembered, he was her guest down at Brayton for a Saturday till Monday.
He was announced, and bowed slightly to her. Somehow that cut Lucia like a whip.
"Please sit down and state your business as shortly as possible," she said.
Mr. Shapstone spoke to the wall apparently, and not to her.
"Lord Brayton wishes me to tell you," he said, "that if you do not defend these proceedings for divorce, he will continue your allowance. If you defend them, he will not."
"That is, he bribes me not to put in a defence," said Lucia.
"You are at liberty to put it any way you choose," said Mr. Shapstone.
That was the first real touch of shame, of humiliation, that Lucia had felt. It was intolerable that this man, who had been her guest, who was one of the crowd whom she had chosen to honour, should inflict this on her. And she had to answer him. He, too, would put his own interpretation on the "disdainful silence."
"I am not proposing to defend the case," she said.
Mr. Shapstone rose at once.
"Thank you, that is all," he said. "Perhaps, if you would give me the shortest possible statement of that on paper, it would be satisfactory to my client. Pray send it at your leisure."
The next day passed without external incident. Lucia wrote the short statement, sent it by hand, and received a formal receipt. All these days she had received no letters; probably they had all been forwarded to the yacht at Marseilles, for Edgar always made the most careful schedule of the destinations to which they should be sent. But on Wednesday morning there was brought up to her with her early tea a letter in a hand she knew well. It was from Maud.
"Lucia, I think I had better see you. There are things that must be said or written from me to you, and I don't think I could write them. I should not propose an interview which must prove so painful if it were not that I think it necessary. I could come any time to-morrow that you may appoint. I will not write more now except just to say that my heart bleeds and aches for you. Oh, Lucia, Lucia, what misery"
And then apparently Maud's pen could do no more, and she had left it unsigned.
Lucia had appointed eleven the following morning, but long before that hour she was pacing up and down her room in a suspense that was becoming unbearable. She felt sure that Charlie had seen his wife, and yet Charlie had not seen her. She felt something had been arranged, and that Maud was going to tell her of it, that Charlie acquiesced in this arrangement whatever it was. But what in God's name could it be that kept Charlie away from her, and yet made it necessary for Maud to see her?
Then, not so long after eleven, in spite of the fog, her maid came and said that Mrs. Lindsay was outside. And at the thought of Maud, who should presently come in, Maud who from the earliest days had been so true to her, so singly generous, shame, not of exposure, humiliation, but not because she was found out, at last must have touched Lucia a little, for hearing the step outside, she was not able to face her, but flung herself down on her sofa, burying her face in her hands. She heard the door open and shut, but still she could not look up; she felt Maud's presence near her, and presently on her shoulder she felt Maud's hand.
"Lucia, dear Lucia," she said. "I have come."
At that quiet, kind voice, once more Lucia wept. But she wept tears that had a little more than self-pity in them.
"I don't think I can bear it," she sobbed; "you had better go, I think. I didn't know it would be like this."
"But I have come to bear it with you," said Maud. "We have both got something to bear, and what you have to bear is so far worse."
Lucia got quieter after a while, and raised her tear-stained ft and looked at Maud for the first time.
"But what has happened to you?" she said. "You look white, so ill. You ought not to have come."
"I couldn't not come," said she. "As soon as I was able to come, I had to see you. But I was not able to come before; it would have done no good. But all that is over, I think—I pray God it is."
"All what?" asked Lucia.
"My anger, my—my hatred of you," said Maud quietly.
There was no use in doubting the simple sincerity of that. Bravely Maud tried to smile, but that was not quite in her power, for her mouth so trembled, and both sat silent again. Then Maud spoke.
"You want to know all that has happened," she said, "and I will tell you. You must give me time, though, for though tht is not much to say, it is difficult."
Again she paused.
"I have seen Charlie, of course," she said, "and he has told me everything. It was all his fault, he said, throughout. He told me how all along he made love to you, how—how before the end he fought and laughed at your scruples. He is sorry, he wished me to tell you, for all the wrong he has done to you and to me."
Again Maud paused.
"I sent for him; I said I must see him. I could not speak to a solicitor about what had happened or what was going to happen. And we have come to this arrangement. He is to go away altogether, for six months; he has gone, in fact. He is to communicate neither with you nor me. At the end of six months he will come back, and—and do what he wishes. At least, as far as my part goes he will. If he wishes to—to go to you, I will make that possible. And if he decides to come back to me, I shall take him back. Of course, he did not go until he knew that you did not intend to defend yourself."
Again there was a long pause; this time Lucia broke it.
"It was I who tempted him, and led him on," she said. "I—I. He resisted at first; oh, for a long time he resisted, but I was the stronger. You had better know that, so that if he comes back to you, it will make things easier.
"And he will come back to you," she said. "In his heart I believe he hated himself for yielding; but, but I am beautiful."
Then, at the thought of all she had lost, and of the absolute and utter blankness and loneliness that stretched in front of her, all the worst of her nature sprang to the surface, usurping the place of the best. She laughed suddenly and harshly.
"Take my leavings," she said. "Try and make them up into something that is more like a man. I was just his mistress, it appears, to be discarded at his pleasure."
And then she stopped, for she saw Maud's face of agonized despair, saw, too, the gesture of her hand, as if she would keep Lucia off. And Lucia again remembered all that Maud had been, all that she was, and out of the nethermost part of her own hardness and selfishness she called to her.
"Oh, Maud, forgive me, forgive me," she cried. "If you only knew! You are not wicked, you have not been found out, and it is all that intolerable shame that makes me like this. I want to be sorry for all the wrong I have done; I do want that. And Charlie will come back to you. I know it. And, and I hope you will be happy again. You will have your husband and your child. You love them both."
Maud smiled at her, with hands held out.
"You mustn't separate yourself then, Lucia, from me," she said. "You must bear with my wanting to be friends still, I don't think I can help that. And, dear Lucia, you have told me the fault was yours and not his. You must love somebody to be able to tell me that. And don't despair. Don't think. of the long blank years in front of you, or look back on what you have lost. Try—not now, but when you are able to, to make something of what is left. Will you kiss me?"
For a long while they clung to each other in silence.
"I will always come to you if you want me," said Maud. "And some time you will let me know what you are going to do. But send for me always. There is one thing more. Aunt Cathie wants to know where you are. She wants to see you, too, when you can bear it. And she gave me this letter to give to you."
After Maud had gone Lucia read Aunt Cathie's letter.
"My dearest Lucia,
"I have heard all that has happened, and I write to say that your room is ready for you whenever you choose to come. I see very few people now, and perhaps you might like to be somewhere, where you will not be alone, but where you can, if you wish, see nobody else but me. There will be a room for Maud, too, whenever she likes. Thank God, dear Lucia, you have such a friend. It is very wonderful to have anyone to love you like that. Come soon, dear Lucia, or rather, I hope, you will wish to come soon.
"Your loving Aunt
"Cathie."