The Vanity Box/Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXIX
It was true, as Sir Ian Hereward had said, that Harland's Hotel had no air of brightness or gaiety.
If the swift motion of the motor-cab, and the exciting thought that she was about to see Ian, had lifted for a few moments the load of oppression from Terry's breast, she felt the weight again, heavy and mysterious, as she stopped in front of the grim, unwelcoming facade.
The house had the look of an old private mansion turned into a hotel. The door was closed, and there was no smiling porter to fling it open as the cab drew up at the pavement. Terry pushed an electric bell; and somehow, as she touched it, the memory of her call at Friars' Moat swept suddenly over her, making her feel faint, almost sick. She had rung at the door then, and asked for Lady Hereward, who at that moment was lying dead in the View Tower. The footman had said "her ladyship was out, lunching at Riding Wood." Now, she would ask for Sir Ian. What would the answer be?
After a long moment, a discreet elderly servant came to the hotel door. Terry's voice sounded strangely in her ears, as she inquired if Sir Ian Hereward was in. The old man did not seem to notice anything peculiar, however, and she was glad. He replied sedately that he would find out; but Terry was sure, from the reserved expression of the pinched face, that he knew Sir Ian to be in the hotel.
She followed the lean figure to the door of a moderate-sized reception-room, furnished clumsily in mahogany of mid-Victorian date. Though it was a warm July night, the crimson rep curtains were drawn, and there was a stuffy smell of ancient upholstery in the air.
"How can Ian choose such a place to stay?" she wondered, with the irritation of growing nervousness. If she had known the reason it would not have allayed her anxiety. Sir Ian was here because he had first met the woman who was to be his wife in this house. It had seemed suitable to him to return here now.
"What name, madam, if the gentleman is in?" the servant wished to know.
Terry started slightly. Ian would not like her to send up her name, which had figured beside his in the newspapers of late.
"Tell him that the friend who was to have written him a letter this evening, was obliged to call instead, and is anxious to see him for a few moments," said Terry, slightly emphasizing the last words, lest Sir Ian should think she meant to pay a long visit.
"Very well, madam."
The old man moved a few papers and magazines on a white marble centre table, indicating occupation for the lady during his absence; and to humour him Terry sat down on the alleged easy-chair which he pulled into place. The gas lights in a huge gilt chandelier throbbed over her head, blazing in white globes; and a mirror in a gilt frame, over a hideously draped mantel, reflected the inappropriately graceful figure of the woman, as she subsided into the arm-chair by the table. Terry could observe her own image in this glass, as she sat mechanically turning the pages of an old Illustrated London News, and the crude overhead light was singularly unbecoming. It threw heavy shadows, and made hollows and lines where none existed. "I look as if I were dying," she said to herself; and then, glancing down at the open page, she started to see a portrait of Lady Hereward, as she had been many years ago, when Terry knew her first.
Involuntarily she drew her breath in sharply; and a sound at the door caused her to look up, as if guiltily.
"Ian!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet. As she rose, an inadvertent push sent the newspaper off the table to the floor. It fell as she had opened it. Both stooped confusedly to pick it up, and Sir Ian saw his wife's picture.
"Oh, God, Terry!" he cried out, as he had cried to her that first day, when she had gone to his house and asked for the woman who lay dead in the woods.
She snatched the paper from him. "It opened like that," she stammered. "I didn't mean—but you know, Ian, I had to come and see you. We must talk, just for a few minutes. Have you a private sitting-room? If you have, take me there. We can't talk here. People may be coming and going."
"Very well," he said, in a dull, almost conventional tone, not unlike that of the servant who had called him to her. His eyes were dull, too. There was no light of joy in them kindled at sight of her.
"Oughtn't I to have come?" she asked, suddenly embarrassed. "Are you sorry I have come?"
"No, no," he said. "I am surprised, that's all. I am—thinking what to do."
"I know what to do. Take me out of this room to some other," she said, her voice quivering with the nervousness she had been restraining all day. She glanced at him anxiously. Perhaps it only was the crude light, as it had been with her, but he, too, looked ill, ill enough to die.
"If you won't mind," he answered apologetically. "I have a sitting-room on this floor—not far off. Only I've been writing letters in it all day. Papers are scattered everywhere."
"As if it mattered!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Ian, if you don't take me at once—if I have to stop in this awful room one more instant, I believe I shall have hysterics."
Alarmed at her loss of that gracious self-control, 
"To humour him Terry sat down
on the alleged easy-chair which he pulled
into place"
Thank Heaven, there was not so much light here, though the room was ugly enough. Terry sighed with relief in the dimness that toned soberly with olive-green walls and curtains.
"I think it was partly the horrid crimson in there, which got on my nerves. Blood colour!" she said with a little shiver; then regretted her words, and was stabbed by the answering look of pain in Sir Ian's death-weary face.
"Oh, Ian, whatever I do and say to-night seems wrong," she cried impulsively. "But my heart is right, and it brought me here to you. It has been all to-day and yesterday exactly as if you were calling me. I could hear your voice."
"The voice of my soul has been calling you," he said. "Yet I would not have brought you here to me, in body. I am not quite so selfish as that."
"If you had not wanted me—or needed me—your soul would not have called, nor mine answered as it has."
They looked at each other. Spirit spoke to spirit, from her eyes to his, from his again to hers. She read his thought, as she might have counted shells far down under water, clear as glass.
"I know now why you asked me to write you, as a last favour, and not to stop a night in London. You were going to kill yourself," she said. "Isn't that true, Ian?"
"Yes," he answered. "It was the only thing to do."
"If you kill yourself, then you kill me also. For if you take your life I shall take mine. I have borne a good deal, but I couldn't bear that. I wouldn't even try to bear it."
"You don't know what you are saying, Terry!"
"Ah, yes, I know!"
"But you don't, I tell you, because you believe you are speaking to an innocent man. You are not. I am guilty of Millicent's death. In the sight of God I am her murderer."
"Ian!"
"You see! You did not know. Now you do know—you'll give me my freedom!"
"Not to die."
"To die, because by dying I can atone."
Terry shook her head. She hoped that he had merely worked himself up to a belief in his own guilt, through nights and days of torture beyond physical and mental endurance. But she felt that everything depended upon her, in this crisis. If God kept her brave and strong—above all, very calm—she might save him. But through God alone, she told herself with inward trembling, could she know how to do and say only the right things, now.
"Help me, God!" she prayed. "Thou hast sent me to him for a purpose. Help me to carry it out, whatever it may be."
"One doesn't atone so easily," she said aloud. "You hurt me once, dreadfully, Ian. I have got over that—won past it. Surely you wouldn't hurt me so much more cruelly, in the end? What have I done to you that you should?"
"That is all but the most terrible part of it. You have done nothing," he groaned. "I thought always that you had, till that day—the day of her death. Then she confessed. I knew the truth for the first time—the truth about you in the past."
"She—confessed? Oh, but, Ian, it's the weaker side of me that questions you! What does the past really matter, between you and me?" Terry spoke so gently that her words, as they fell, were like balm. Yet for some wounds there is no balm.
The past came up that day between my wife and me—and killed her," Sir Ian answered. He turned to the table under a green-shaded gas lamp, and pointed to a quantity of sheets of paper, closely covered with his fine, rather scholarly handwriting. "I was writing out my statement," he went on. "You will be surprised, perhaps, that I didn't do it at once—after her death. But—Terry, until a few days ago I thought it more than possible that Ian Barr was guilty. I loved the fellow and wanted to save him."
"I saw that, at the inquest," she half whispered in her suspense and the anguish of her great sympathy.
"I wasn't sure what had happened. If I had told all, I couldn't have saved him unless he were able to produce an alibi; for, with circumstantial evidence strong against him, nothing I had to say could prove his innocence. And, as I said, I thought, in a passion of rage against her he might have—caused her death. Afterward, I could guess by what I suffered myself, he would have repented bitterly, when it was too late. Will you read my statement, Terry? You will see that, though I had to refer to the past, to explain what occurred between my wife and me, I didn't bring in your name."
"It wouldn't have mattered to me if you had, dear Ian," she answered. "And besides, if you had told everything it would perhaps only make things better instead of worse for me, after the stories Major Smedley has spread, and is spreading."
"The beast!" Ian muttered. "But, because of him, this confession of mine has not cost me what it would if there were no such person as Smedley to be reckoned with. If people name the woman I have referred to in my statement, putting two and two together, from Smedley s tattle, I think it can do you no harm. Will you read?"
"I would rather hear it all from your lips, letting the story come in talk between us now," she answered, "unless you want me to read."
"I will tell you, then," he said. "I meant to write you a separate letter, the—last thing of all; posting it myself, so it shouldn't be found here. And don't think I should have left your letter, if you had written it, for other eyes to see. I would have"
"Don't talk about what you would have done!" she begged. That's all over now. You have changed your mind for the better."
"If I had changed, it would not be for the better," he insisted. "When you hear all, Terry, it is you who will change. You'll admit, if you are as brave and frank as you always were, that if atonement is possible for me, it can only be through quitting this world. My confession, with what Nora Verney knows and can tell, will save Ian Barr. There can be no possible doubt of that—no fear of ultimate danger for him, or for this unfortunate Liane. Nora and Ian will be happy together, and forget their black days. I have made my will, and left Friars' Moat to him, as is only fair, considering his parentage, since I die without children. To you I've given nothing which can be put in a will, Terry. Yet I leave you my undying worship. It was yours unwaveringly, even when I believed you cruel and faithless. I could not take it from you. And it must live, it seems to me, even when I am in my grave. When I have finished the confession—it's almost done—and told you what's in it, on my soul I believe you will bid me God speed out of this world."
Tell me, then, and let me judge," Terry said, with the calmness which can dominate the soul only in supreme moments. "Sit down by me, on this sofa, and I will listen quietly, I promise."
She had felt in danger of collapsing, but she showed no sign of weakness. When they sat facing each other on the sofa, she held out her hand to him, as if to make a bridge of sympathy between their spirits; but he would not take it. "I'm not worthy of that sign of your trust," he said. "You would perhaps be sorry and drop my hand as the story went on. I couldn't bear it. It would be a sword in my heart—and, though I deserve the sword, I don't want the thrust to come from you. I told you that in God's sight I was guilty of her murder and I am."
"Begin at the beginning of the story. That is not the way," Terry said, with the gentle firmness which calmed him.
Sir Ian reflected for a moment. "I think the beginning of the story is at Mrs. Forestier's lunch. She told us you were in England, and that Maud was planning to bring you to call, as a surprise to us both. Millicent looked as if it wouldn't be an entirely agreeable surprise to her; and, Terry, it was far from agreeable to me. I worshipped you in spite of myself. I'd fought against that worship for thirteen years and more, because—because—but I'll come to the reason later. I won't say more about it now.
"Millicent and I were going to walk home. She refused Nina's offer to send us back. She wanted to walk, she said; and when we'd left the house, she explained that she had something to tell me. When she added that it was very hard to tell, and I saw that she looked pale and distressed, I asked if it couldn't wait till another time, as we had to go home to see you and Maud. No, she answered, the thing must be said before we saw you. Then she suggested that we should walk by way of the Tower. She would be thinking over all the details of a story she had to tell, and the plateau of the Tower would be a good place to tell it, for it was so quiet there, one never need be afraid of meeting anybody.
"She was sometimes a little moody and morbid, so I didn't pay very great attention to her forebodings, even when she said that perhaps when I'd heard all I would hate her. She often asked me to repeat that I was really fond of her, making me say it over and over, and I could do so with truth. I'd never made any pretence from the first, of loving her as a man ought to love his wife, but I was genuinely fond of her, and the rest couldn't be helped—as she'd known long ago, from the day we first spoke of marrying. She was staying in this hotel with her mother then. It is where I met her first. Now you know why I'm here now.
"When we got to the Tower she looked horribly tired. I never saw her look so tired, but she said it was the heat, and she would be better after she had told me everything. She sat down on a seat—a seat made out of a log, and I stood close by. Neither of us dreamed that there was any one in the Tower, yet there—in the upper room, we now know, lay Liane asleep. And in the room on the first floor were Barr and Nora Verney."
"Ian! They were there!"
"Yes. Nora told me at St. Pierre that she and Barr had heard everything. That is why he left England, rather than bear witness against me; for there's just one thing they don't know. They didn't see me go away. They think I—but I have not come to that part yet. You see, it s hard to put all this straightforwardly and connectedly, as if into paragraphs."
"Go on from the time when Milly began to tell you her story."
"That's the hardest of all. She—well, to make it as brief as I can, Terry—she confessed then and there, that she'd lied to me when I first knew her in England—lied most hideously—about you. She started by saying she wouldn't have the courage to confess, even now, after all these years, if she weren't afraid that I might find out the truth in a way worse for her than telling it with her own lips. In other words, she feared it might come to me through you. You see, she'd hoped and believed that you would spend the rest of your life in India. It was a great shock to learn you'd come home, and she'd have to meet you at once, or else perhaps rouse some suspicion that she wanted to avoid you. She had very little time to decide what to do; but, as she explained before I understood what was coming, she trusted to my affection for pardon. Her great love for me was to blame, but I could hardly reproach her for that. And we had lived for thirteen happy years together. I must remember these years, and what she had tried to be to me always, and so not to be too angry, but forgive her.
That was the preamble, and I had no inkling yet of what was to come. Only, I said to myself: 'Poor girl, she little knows how far from happy those years have been to me. At best (though I've none but the kindliest feeling toward her) my life by her side has been just endurable. There's all the difference between happiness and resignation that there is between a dull gray sky and a blue one, radiant with sunshine.'
"I thought that, but I meant to keep the thought from her, as I always had. A few minutes later, however, I blurted it out, with tremendous consequences. God forgive me! I can never forgive myself."
"Go on from the place where you left off," Terry's gentle voice soothed him again, like rain as it falls upon a parched desert.
"Well, we were by way of being distant cousins; and I knew, all those years ago, when I had to leave you, and go back to England, that she was your most intimate friend, although you were much younger. I couldn't resist talking of you to her, after we met—she and I—and she soon guessed how the land lay. One day she asked if I were really in love with you, and I answered 'yes,' but that you didn't want our engagement announced till your nineteenth birthday. Millicent seemed to hesitate, on hearing this, but presently said there was a thing it was her duty, as my cousin, to let me know, rather than that my life should be spoiled. Before I could answer, she warned me that you had no intention of marrying me. You had written her all about the affair, she said, and she couldn't help being indignant about the way you had acted. You were her friend, but I was her cousin, and blood was thicker than water. 'Terry was only playing you off against some one else, my poor Ian,' Milly explained. 'She wanted Lord Hatherley, and was trying to bring him to the point of making him jealous of you.'
"Of course I answered that she must be mistaken. I had perfect faith in Miss Ricardo. 'In justice to me, you must read Terry's letter,' she exclaimed; and with that, before giving me time to think, she whipped a letter out of her pocket. I could have sworn on my life that it was your handwriting—your writing that made my heart beat to see, even on an envelope. I oughtn't to have read one word, but she gave it to me open in the middle and I couldn't help catching sight of my name and Hatherley's, close together. That's no excuse, I know. But hardly conscious of what I was doing, I read on and on, until sentence after sentence seemed branded on my brain in letters of fire. Apparently you were telling Milly all about our acquaintance, and saying it was so 'silly of Captain Hereward to be taken in by my nonsense, that really he'll deserve all he gets.' The letter went on to explain that you were going to 'let me down lightly,' by allowing our correspondence to fizzle out slowly. You put me off by one excuse or another, which I was green enough to take seriously, not realizing that you were bored to death by my solemn face and puritanical ways. It was always a great effort to keep from shocking me, I was such a grim old stick. Fool that I was—I believed then—believed what I thought were your own words. My miserable vanity was wounded to the quick. I had always heard you were a flirt. It was true, I said to myself. You should never be bored by hearing from me again. And that same day I proposed to Millicent."
As he finished the story, he covered his face with his hands, his breath coming hard and fast. Terry touched him softly on the shoulder.
"I don't blame you, Ian," she said, "if it seemed to be my handwriting."
"I could have sworn to it," he groaned. "I never doubted from that day, till the afternoon when Millicent confessed that she had written the letter herself—imitating your writing after much practice—'to disgust me with you,' as she said, 'because she loved me, and felt she must die if I didn't belong to her.' Well," and Sir Ian laughed bitterly—"the rest was easy, for she was a clever woman, and I was a mad fool in those days. After that, she had her way. Nothing mattered, I thought. You know what happened. I never wrote to you again. I sent back two letters unopened, and—I married my cousin Millicent, as soon as I could. I fancied her a sweet, saintly sort of being, and I told myself I ought to think I was lucky if she liked me enough to take me as I was, burnt up with love for a girl I believed unworthy. She realized that I didn't care for her in the right way, but she said she would do her best, and win my whole heart. What true happiness could we have expected?
"She told me everything, sitting there by the View Tower, breaking down and sobbing, begging me to hear her excuses, and how she had been dying for me, how she had been tempted—when I interrupted. I don't know what I said, but I remember crying out that she had done a thing no man could forgive—that she'd made me a dishonourable brute to the one woman I ever loved; that I'd never cared for her, never been happy with her for a moment, and that now I loathed her from the bottom of my heart. I think I said my life had been without a single ray of joy; but that now, knowing what I knew, it would be worse than hell if I went on living with her. I couldn't do it, I warned her. 'For God's sake, don't make a scandal,' she implored. 'Anything but that! Spare me that.'
"'We can remain under the same roof, if you choose,' I said, 'though I'd rather go away and never see your face again. But whatever you decide, nothing can induce me to live with you again as your husband.'"
"That seemed to strike her to the soul. 'Kill me, if you like!' she moaned, sobbing the most agonizing sobs. Even then I ought to have been sorry for her, outraged as I was. But my heart seemed seared. I could feel no pity.
"'You deserve to die,' I answered. And then I turned and went away, leaving her there alone. How I could do it, I don't know, but I did. I was hardly human. Those were the last words we spoke to each other. I walked home mechanically, not caring where I went, or what I might do, until—I saw you. You know now what I was suffering, Terry. To come on you like that, just after I had found out the truth—such a truth! But even so, there is no excuse for me—none."
"We're not seeking excuses, Ian, you and I," Terry said. "I knew you were suffering. But of course I could not guess. I, too, had suffered. I am glad, now, that I suffered—because I can better understand you."
"You are an angel," he answered, dry-lipped. "I never deserved you. Well, so much the worse for me! We talked, you and I, at the house. Millicent did not come. As your influence slowly humanized me, I began to feel—a little a very little—remorse for my harshness to her; for, after all, as she said, her sin had been for love's sake. I asked myself what I would do, if I were a woman, and in her place. The answer came quickly. I would take my own life. I thought that was what she would do, and when I grew obsessed with the idea, I went to look for her at the Tower. She had opened the door, somehow, and gone in. As I expected, she was dead. Her face was awful to see. Never have I ceased seeing it for an instant since. I remembered her words, 'no scandal!' and I decided that it would be better for her sake—for yours, too, since any true explanation of the scene which had brought about her death would involve telling our story—I decided it would be better to hide the revolver, which was lying near her hand.
"My only idea then was that she had killed herself because of my words. I didn't recognize the revolver as Ian Barr's, but I knew I had seen it, and fancied she might have owned the thing, without mentioning it to me. Now, I am sure she must have taken it from his house, since it seems certain it was his—how long ago, I can't say. She went to see him, I know, and accused him of villainy to Liane. Perhaps she took it then, Heaven knows why."
"Maybe with a good motive," suggested Terry. "She must have spoken very hardly to Mr. Barr to induce him to resign his place—which meant his postponing his marriage indefinitely, if not giving it up. No doubt she thought she was doing her duty. But maybe, seeing the revolver, she feared, as he was a passionate man, he might end his life with it, and it would be partly her fault. Then, afterward, very likely she carried it about on the lonely walks which Maud says she often took."
"Possibly you are right. She could have had it in that hand-bag with her handkerchief and purse. I saw the bag, and her gloves, lying on the table. I thought she had laid them there deliberately before taking her life. I didn't notice then her jewelry being gone, or think about it at all. The look on her face was my punishment—though not enough, not enough! I didn't believe, as others did afterward, that she had seen her assassin after falling. I thought she had looked up, as if to Heaven, with a last prayer for mercy, as she died there alone, knowing herself hated by me, whom she loved; and I think so still. But, when things began to come out at the inquest, I half changed my mind. I fancied that, after all, Ian Barr might have come while she was in the Tower. And I kept that idea in my head, till Nora Verney swore to me the other night that she and Barr were together till long after the shots were fired. Then I went back to my old opinion again. And I know that I am right. Millicent died by her own hand, because I had crushed her desire to live. But, because I crushed it, I am guilty of her death, and I am not fit to live. I must atone. Am I not right?"
"You are right. You must atone," Terry answered.
"Thank you for your courage. I trusted you to tell me the truth."
"But you must atone by a life of repentance for a moment of madness—not by dying. If you die, you will be guilty of my death and your own, even more than Millicent's. For her you did not mean to kill. I could not live if you took your own life, Ian, because I love you, even as you have loved me. I have always loved you, in spite of all, in spite of myself."
He bent down and kissed the hem of her dress. "I am not worthy to do this," he said. "Oh, Terry, I am haunted, haunted. If I don't die, how shall I lay her ghost?"
"Live, Ian, for me; and by God's aid, I will help you to lay that ghost," Terry promised him, inspiration in her eyes, and a love stronger than death or sorrow. "Milly has forgiven you," she said. "And I—have never had anything to forgive."