IV.—The Real One
OTHER people's tragedies have so often been comedies to me, that I do not much want to write about my own tragedy. Perhaps, after all, my tragedy was only a comedy. I did not—needless to say—kill myself; I did not break my heart. Well, one cannot do that without giving one's self away; and women are not over eager to give themselves away. It seems as if everything in the world must stop, but as a matter of fact nothing does stop; you come down next morning; you eat breakfast and luncheon and dinner. It was all a maddening mistake, and you had better forget it, and you try to think of some way to make yourself forget it or to make it not matter so much. That is probably comedy.
And after a time you do forget it, and it does not matter so much. Perhaps just that is tragic—to be brought low and to be lifted up, and to be unable to prevent either. The necessity for thinking other wise at one time made me read more philosophy than I could understand. I do not do that any more. This is the story that I tell—reluctantly.
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We were stopping with the Marshes for the New Year. The house was full—crowded. Agnes Marsh had been a friend of mine since I was a baby, and I had been particularly pleased to accept this invitation because I was to meet the man whom she had promised to marry, Gaston Travers. How smilingly we always commence upon the things that are going to hurt us most in the end.
I arrived in the afternoon. Some of the men turned up at tea-time, practically asleep, of course, with the open air exercise that they had just gone through. Gaston Travers did not appear. I did not see him until a few seconds before he took me in to dinner. My first impression was that Agnes must have had a good deal of pluck. He was not a handsome man, though he had points; but he was evidently a very strong man, and he looked rather cruel. I had understood from a semi-dormant male in the afternoon that Travers was emphatically a sportsman, and I was beginning to wonder if I knew anything about any thing that he could possibly know any thing about, when he turned towards me and began to talk.
Briefly, he talked about me, and either by intuition, or by a few seconds' observation, or by Agnes, or by some other information received—as the police call it—he had managed to know a good deal about me. Now much as I like talking about me, I have been sufficiently educated to know that it cannot be done for many consecutive minutes. So I had the conversation turned on to him. He told me very little; all of it was totally unexpected; if it was said with any intention at all it was said with the intention of removing any preconceived notion that I might have formed of him. I called to mind that a semi-dormant young man, with no final g's and no motive to lie, had gaped out to me the fact that Gaston Travers was a good sportsman, and I was much puzzled.
Whether I would or no, Gaston Travers interested me, and I hoped—almost unconsciously—that he would talk to me again in the drawing-room. He did not speak one word to me afterwards until he said good night, which he did hesitatingly, as if he was not quite sure whether he had ever seen me before or not. Yet he had talked to me—and me alone—all through dinner. I wonder if he meant that to be clever, or if it just came so naturally, to him. Any woman would know that it was really very effective.
Agnes came to my room that night on purpose to talk about Gaston Travers. She put her small toes up on the brass fender, and her small head back on the silk cushions; she was perfectly comfortable, and wearing a loose tea-gown; and she was very much in love. She came to talk, and she did most of the talking; if she showed any sign of finishing the description of her betrothed, I put in one gentle enticing question, and made her talk more. But I hardly knew why I did it.
What did I learn? He was said to have a violent temper, but Agnes did not believe it. It was true that he was fairly good at most forms of sport; he had told Agnes that this had been a necessity, in order that he might be allowed to talk about things which were not sport. She knew she was going to marry an enigma, and it was half the charm. He was never bored—seemed to be interested in everything and everybody—more especially everybody. She had made him take me in to dinner, because he liked women who—something complimentary. She said one queer thing: “If Gaston had been born in another class—not ours—the class that makes odious public love in Kew Gardens and on Hampstead Heath, I wonder what he would have done?”
I said, “Very much as others did of his class, but with more success.”
Agnes looked inquiringly at me.
“I mean, of course,” I went on, “that he would have married Agnes Marsh, while the other men would only have wanted to marry Agnes Marsh.”
She rose and made a mock curtsey.
“I mean it—even if he had been born in another class he would have had fine judgment.”
“I am not afraid of his judgment; I am horribly afraid of his impulses. Good night, darling Cynnie. It's quite too late.”
Agnes Marsh is very pretty, and she has money, and yet she is far from being a fool.
When Agnes had gone I thought a good deal; I decided to make mamma have a recalling telegram for us on the morrow; no, there was nothing wrong, but I had a hideous feeling that I was on the verge of things which I did not want to happen. It was long before I slept.
I was very late down to breakfast, only one person was later, and that was Gaston Travers. He took up our conversation just where we had left it at the end of dinner the night before, apparently quite unconscious that a period had intervened during which he had seemed to be unaware of my existence. He talked ardently. He appeared to wish me to think that he was much interested in me. The least things in his behaviour showed it. As we sat there Agnes came in, and said something by way of badinage.
It was quite harmless, but it was a small mistake. As soon as she had said it she knew that it was a mistake, and I knew it, and Gaston Travers knew it. And he was not a man that liked small mistakes; he preferred the larger kind.
That day I, being an idiot, postponed the idea of a telegraphic recall. The reason which I gave myself was that there was a dance coming on which I was anxious not to miss. In the evening I saw very little of Gaston Travers. He took old Lady Felmersham in to dinner; she is a wicked, malicious old woman, and it was both silly and rude of Gaston to neglect her as fully and deliberately as he did.
In the drawing-room, before the men came in, Lady Felmersham fastened herself on to me.
“Pity now, isn't it—Agnes going to marry a deaf-mute? Now don't you think he ought to go into a home and see if something can't be done? Speaks, does he? Ah, I hadn't noticed it. I suppose I'm wrong, as usual. But still, it is a pity that he doesn't speak English. And, of course, he wouldn't expect everybody to speak Hindustani as fluently as you must have done last night.”
Gaston Travers is certainly very dark; and I was very angry.
“Ah, Lady Felmersham, you flatter us both. He only spoke English to me. But with you—well, every one knows that French is the language for compliments.”
“Well, I spent fifteen years in Paris, without speaking a word of English, and that gave me a sort of smattering; I would have tried to follow him, if, as you say, they used to talk French on his plantation, but he didn't risk it. Where is the Swannee River?”
“Ah, here he comes! Mr. Travers, Lady Felmersham wants to know all about your plantation, or something or other of that kind.”
One does not embarrass Lady Felmersham; one might as well try to embarrass a cast-iron elephant. He sat down by her side, and chattered pleasantly enough; I heard allusions to forestry and the price of timber, and soon they were both laughing a rood deal. Lady Felmersham, I must own, talks wittily when she pleases, and she knows her way out of most things.
But when Gaston took my hand to say good-night he did not say good-night. He said, in a low voice, “Thank you.”
I looked down. “And for what?”
“Surely,” he said, “the situation was obvious. But do not try to punish Lady Felmersham again. Still—thank you.”
When Agnes came to my room that night, it was deplorable, but I was quite deathly tired, and positively could not talk—had to go to bed at once. Then she kissed me—yes, kissed me just then—and said she was sorry, and seemed to be thinking, and went off to her own room. “Now then,” I thought to myself, “when will Lady Felmersham get an opportunity of talking to mamma? And when she gets it, what will she say?” I felt sure that she would pay me out, and I was rather afraid that I had put the weapon into her hand.
But nothing of the kind happened. This was explained by something that Gaston Travers said to me next day: “Would you like,” he inquired, “to see Lady Felmersham jump through hoops, fire a pistol at the word of command, and pick out any card that the audience may select? Oh yes, I assure you, she is now perfectly docile. And she will not bite—that is certain.”
“How was it done?”
“Oh, we happened to have a little chat about Paris together this morning. The conclusion of the matter was that if she did not do me a bad turn, I would not do her a worse. Only we did not put it quite so crudely.”
“I know that she is angry with me, but how could she do you a bad turn?”
I said that, but it was unpardonable; I knew of course more or less what the answer would be; Lady Felmersham had watched us both very closely, and would have connected our names in her own inimitably unpleasant way. He did not give me the answer directly, but came to it after some minutes' confidential talk. We were alone in the smaller drawing room; the dressing-bell had rung and every one else had vanished, but we went on talking. Parler d'amour, c'est faire l'amour, I suppose. We were both of us standing by the mantelpiece, looking into the fire. A servant came into the room, looked slightly aggrieved by our presence there, and went out again.
Gaston glanced at the clock. “Can you dress in twelve minutes?” he said.
“No,” I said; “couldn't we have the universe put back half an hour?”
“Personally,” he answered, “I can dress in five minutes. And yet I should like to have the universe put back very much more than half an hour.”
The hurry of dressing left me no time to think. That evening Gaston Travers gave half his attention to Lady Felmersham and the other half to Agnes. I avoided Agnes as much as possible. I justified everything with ease, but I was abjectly miserable. I had fits of anger with myself.
The dance was in the town hall at Selbridge; it was in aid of some hospital in which the Marshes were much interested. So we nearly all went, and were to keep together. I gave Gaston a couple of waltzes. He danced well, and they were horrible dances. I hated them. We had hardly begun the second before I stopped him; he took me out on to the staircase, and I sat down. I wanted to die. I wanted to get right away where no one could see me, and then die. I suppose that I must have looked queer, because he bent over me and asked me if I was ill.
He himself was very white, and his hands shook a little.
“No, thank you, Mr. Travers, not at all. But I am rather tired of this—and I am going back.” I remember that I was half hysterically amused at the sound of my own voice; it seemed so bright and metallic.
He looked round; we were alone on the staircase.
“It is of no use,” he said; “it is not my fault, and it is not your fault. But it is of no use to ignore it any longer. I do not care, I must speak. At least I do care, but I cannot help speaking. Cynthia! Cynthia!”
I rose hurriedly, half breathless. I think I put one hand on his arm. “Ah no!” I cried, “don't! It's speaking that makes things so real. Stop—let it end here. It must end here. Do you want to kill Agnes? I tell you that you love her—you love her best in the world. And you are right—you'll know how much sweeter and gentler and better she is than all other women. She is good; and I'm bad and treacherous.”
“It is too late,” he protested; “I have already spoken. And you knew it—must have known it long before I spoke.”
“No,” I said. “I've been wicked, but I'm not going to be wicked any more. If—if you love me at all, say good-night and good-bye now. And”
I held out my hand to him. “I may not take you down-stairs? Good-night and good-bye, dear, then. If we had met sooner—but you are right, and it's best not to talk about it. Good-bye.” He bent over my hand and kissed it.
I remember all the small details that followed. Mamma was not at the dance, and I wanted to return alone, so I told no one that I was going. None of the carriages were there, and I had a cab fetched from a hotel. It was a four-wheeler, with one of those candle-lamps in it. I put my gloves and fan down on the faded crimson cushions, and kicked off my slippers. The maidenhair in my dress was all black and wilted. I blew out the lamp to make it dark. Then I cried for a long time; in between my sobs the rattle of the cab seemed to be repeating words that he had said.
We left next morning.
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Gaston married Agnes. He was killed by an accident in the hunting-field three months afterwards. Within a year of his death Agnes married again.