Before their train arrived at Houston Street, Richard, as was his wont when excited to such a pitch, mentally gathered up into one swift vision all the persons and events of his life’s drama. He saw them, these events and these persons, all beautiful, all mysterious, all full of the magic of that Nameless One who, whether he were born child of Semele or child of Mary, had the power to turn the sordid tricks of chance into the music of an exultant rhythm that ‘redeemed all sorrows’.
Richard followed the tall languorous figure of his companion up the narrow stairs to their room; and as soon as they stood alone facing one another there they seemed driven by the power of the impersonal emotion within them to gain relief for their feelings in each other’s arms. Neither of them could be said to have been more responsible than the other for this disloyalty to Nelly. If anyone was to be held guilty it was the impassioned dancer who had put them both under so irresistible a spell that it seemed to bring with it its own plenary absolution.
The embrace they exchanged at that exalted moment was neither chaste nor unchaste. It was the genius of Elise as it had stirred the soul of the man — rushing to meet the same genius as it had stirred the soul of the woman!
Without any shame or remorse they drew back from one another and resumed their normal mood. And long before the clock in the Metropolitan Tower struck the dawn of Christmas Day the door was shut between them and they were monks again!
Chapter 22
It was early February. In the ditches on both sides of the narrow lane that led up from Selshurst to Furze Lodge the yellow celandines among their great cool leaves shone like stars seen through watery darkness.
In the smaller oak and hazel woods there were already a few early primroses out, throwing upon the moss-scented air of those shadowy places that faint, half-bitter sweetness which seems like the very spiritual body of the spring.
Richard had not wired from Southampton to tell his wife of his arrival, though he had written from New York to let her know the name of the ship. He only prayed that he might be lucky enough to find her alone; and it was this hope that led him to time his appearance to just that particular moment of after-lunch siesta, when it was the custom at Furze Lodge to retire to rest.
He had not been able to resist the temptation to snatch a moment en route in the nave of the familiar cathedral.
The sleeping crusader with the ‘eternally praying hands’ lay there unmoved and unchanged, his mailed feet upon the back of his marble hound.
Arriving straight from the piled-up snow of a great New York blizzard, the warm misty sunshine of the early English spring was like the breath of an amorous and beautiful god; as Richard came out from the cathedral and looked at the yellow and purple crocuses in the ancient gardens, that same indescribable sense of peace descended upon him which he had felt when, nearly a year ago, he had first set his eyes on Selshurst.
As soon as he left the secluded portion of that long West Horthing lane and emerged upon the open Downs he found the air as full of the singing of birds as it had been on the day when he discovered Littlegate. The songs of individual skylarks were lost in one ubiquitous chorus which seemed to descend upon the earth as if it were the voice of universal space, corresponding in the sphere of sound to infinite blueness in the sphere of colour.
His pulses were beating with a good deal more excitement than he had anticipated as he approached the lodge gates of Mrs Shotover’s drive. But he felt confident of the result of his interview with his wife.
The flawless beauty of the day seemed an invincible omen of success; and he had in his notebook eight hundred and fifty dollars!
He rang the bell of the front door at precisely half past two o’clock — the hour of all hours when he deemed it most impossible for Mrs Shotover to be in a state of visibility.
He asked, in a purposely low voice, whether he might see Mrs Storm at once and he repeated his name in a whisper. The servant was apparently a stranger for she gave no particular sign of surprise and, ushering him straight into the well-known drawing room, closed the door discreetly behind her. Richard walked up and down in excited perturbation. His mind called up the image of Nelly. He thought of her child, and how it would be born before April was over, or at any rate in the beginning of May — exactly a year since he had first arrived in Sussex.
It would be wonderful to have a child of his own! If it were a girl he could call it after his mother; and if it were a boy, after his father. He was sure Nelly would be willing to leave the name in his hands! He supposed Canyot would have to be its godfather and Mrs Shotover its godmother. About those little matters he could afford to be generous!
How slow she was in coming! Had that confounded maid forgotten to announce him? Perhaps she too was resting, and they were reluctant to disturb her. Well! he could wait. She would probably be up and about before the lady of the house showed herself. He surveyed the teasing knickknacks and the incredible frippery of that early-Victorian shrine. Why was it that young English women in evening dress photographed so badly? He supposed they ought to be ‘snapshotted’ on the hunting field or in walking costume. They seemed to be all chin and forehead and shoulders and elbows when adorned for civilized intercourse!
Suddenly the door opened. He sprang forward with a cry of recognition on his lips, only to step back in cold dismay at the entrance of Mrs Shotover. The lady closed the door behind her and bowed stiffly.
‘I can’t think what your purpose can be,’ she began, uttering the words very much as some pompous statesman of her youth might have addressed a recalcitrant delegacy, ‘in forcing yourself into my house. You don’t suppose for a moment, do you, that I can permit you to agitate my dear Eleanor by silly dramatic scenes? She has done with you, sir! Let me make that quite plain: she has done with you and your ill-bred vulgar behaviour.’
‘But Mrs Shotover—’
‘I won’t argue with you. It is bad for me to get angry directly after lunch. Fortunately I had lunch late today because of that idiot of a vet, making such mistakes with Bobby, else I shouldn’t have been able to tell you what I think of you.’
‘I don’t want to argue with you, Mrs Shotover. I want to see Nelly. I want to explain to Nelly that—’
‘It’s no use, my good man. I can see what you’re after. You’re after money. You’re trying to blackmail us. But let me tell you at once that though I have made your wife my heir and left her everything, it’s all tied up so that you cannot touch a penny of it! So there! The best thing you can do is to clear right off, before I am compelled to ring for Thomas.’ And the lady with a grand toss of her head opened the door for him, making a vague movement with her hands as if she were about to drive off an intrusive fowl from a precious flowerbed.
Richard stepped out into the hall; but instead of meekly picking up his hat from the hall table he made a sudden bolt up the polished stairs and, arriving at the top where all the bedrooms were, called in loud violent tones the name of his wife.
One of the doors promptly opened and Nelly appeared. She had evidently just removed her dress, for she wore a long soft bedroom gown and her hair was loose about her shoulders.
She turned very white when she saw her husband and leaned against the side of the doorway uttering his name in a tremulous voice as if she had seen a ghost.
He rushed up to her and was about to embrace her when Mrs Shotover who had closely pursued him pushed her way in between them.
The old lady dragged the girl back into her room and held her tightly there with her thin arms, muttering all the while, ‘The rascal! the bandit! the highwayman! the scoundrel! I’ll have the law on him! Why doesn’t Emma come? Where is Thomas?’