The Price of Things by Elinor Glyn
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Elinor Glyn >> The Price of Things
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He had had his indulgences in the two hours to Westbury, and had very
nearly let it conquer him, more than once, and now he must not only curb
all friendly words and delightful dalliance with forbidden topics, but he
must _feel_ no more passion.
He made himself read the war news and try to visualize the grim reality
behind the official phrasing of the communiques. And gradually he became
calm, and was almost startled when Amaryllis, who had been watching him
furtively and had begun to wonder if he was really so interested in his
paper, said timidly:
"Will you pull the window up a little? It seems to be growing cold."
She noticed that his lips were set firmly and that an abstracted
expression had grown in his eyes.
Then Denzil spoke, now quite naturally and about the war, and
deliberately kept the conversation to this subject, until Amaryllis lay
back again in her corner and closed her eyes.
"I am going to have a little sleep," she said.
She too had begun to realise that in more personal investigation of
mutual tastes there lay some danger. She had become conscious of the fact
that she was very interested in Denzil--and there he was, not really the
least like John!
They were silent for some time, and were nearing Frome when he spoke. He
had been deliberating as to what he ought to do? Get out and leave her,
to catch his connection to Bath, or sacrifice that and see her safely to
her destination and perhaps hire a motor from Bridgeborough?
This latter was his strong desire and also seemed the only chivalrous
thing to do when she still looked so pale, but--
"Here we are almost at Frome," he said.
Her eyes rounded with concern. It would be horrid to be alone. She had
left her maid in London for a few days' holiday.
"You change here for Bath," she faltered a little uncertainly.
He decided in a second. He could not be inhuman! Duty and desire were
one!
"Yes--but I am coming on with you. I shall not leave you until I see you
safely into your own motor. I can hire one perhaps then, to take me on
the rest of the way."
She was relieved--or she thought it was merely relief, which made a
sudden lifting in her heart!
"How kind of you. I do feel as if I did not like the thought of being by
myself, it is so stupid of me--But you can't hire a motor from
Bridgeborough which would get you to Bath before dark! They are wretched
things there. You must come with me to Ardayre; it is on the Bath road,
you know--and we can have a late lunch, and and then I'll send you on in
the Rolls Royce. You will be there in an hour--in time for tea."
This was a tremendous fresh temptation. He tried to look at it as though
it did not in reality matter to him more than the appearance suggested.
Had there been no emotion in his interest in Amaryllis, he would not have
hesitated, he knew.
Then it was only for him to conquer emotion and behave as he would do
under ordinary circumstances--it would be a good test of his will.
"All right--that's splendid, and I shall be able to see Ardayre!"
It was when they were in Amaryllis's own little coupe very close to each
other that strong temptation assailed Denzil. He suddenly felt his
pulses throbbing wildly and it was with the greatest difficulty he
prevented himself from clasping her in his arms. He tried to look out of
the window and take an interest in the park, which was entered very soon
after leaving the station. He told himself Ardayre was something which
deserved his attention and he looked for the first view of the house, but
all his will could only keep his arms from transgressing, it could not
control the riot of his thoughts.
Amaryllis was conscious in some measure that he was far from calm, and
her own heart began to beat unaccountably. She talked rather fast about
the place and its history, and both were relieved when the front door
came in sight.
There was a welcoming smell of burning logs in the hall to greet them,
and the old butler could not restrain an expression of startled curiosity
when he saw Denzil, the likeness to his master was so great.
"This is Captain Ardayre, Filson," Amaryllis said, "Sir John's cousin,"
and then she gave the order about the motor to take Denzil on to Bath.
They went through the Henry VII inner hall, and on to the green
drawing-room, with its air of home and comfort, in spite of its great
size and stateliness.
There were no portraits here, but some fine specimens of the Dutch
school, and the big tawny dogs rose to welcome their mistress and were
introduced to their "new relation."
She was utterly fascinating, Denzil thought, playing with them there on
the great bear skin rug.
"We shall lunch at once," she told him, "and then rush through the
pictures afterwards before you start for Bath."
They both tried to talk of ordinary things for the few moments before
that meal was announced, and then some kind of devilment seemed to come
into Amaryllis--nothing could have been more seductive or alluring than
her manner, while keeping to strict convention. The bright pink colour
glowed in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She could not have accounted
for her mood herself. It was one of excitement and interest.
Denzil had the hardest fight he had ever been through, and he grew almost
gruff in consequence. He was really suffering.
He admired the way she acted as hostess, and the way the home was done.
He hardly felt anything else, though apart from her he would have been
interested in his first view of Ardayre, but she absorbed all other
emotions, he only knew that he desired to make passionate love to her, or
to get away as quickly as he could.
"Are you going to remain here all the winter?" he asked her presently, as
they rose from the table, "or shall you go to London? You will be awfully
lonely, won't you, if you stay here?"
"I love the country and I am growing to love and understand the place.
John wants me to so much, it means more to him than anything else in the
world. I shall remain until after Christmas anyway. But come now, I want
just to take you into the church, because there are two such fine tombs
there of both our ancestors, yours and mine. We can go out of the windows
and come back for coffee in the cedar parlour."
Denzil acquiesced; he wished to see the church. They reached it in a
minute or two and Amaryllis opened the door with her own key and led him
on up the aisle to the recumbent knights--and then she whispered their
history to him, standing where a ray of sunlight turned her brown hair
into gold.
"I wonder what their lives were," Denzil said, "and if they lived and
loved and fought their desires--as we do now--the younger one's face
looks as though he had not always conquered his. Stepan would say his
indulgences had become his masters, not his servants, I expect."
"Verisschenzko is wonderful--he makes one want to be strong," and
Amaryllis sighed. "I wonder how many of us even begin to fight our
desires--"
"One has to be strong always if one wants to attain--but sometimes it is
only honour which holds one--and weaklings are so pitiful."
"What is honour?" Her eyes searched his face wistfully. "Is it being true
to some canon of the laws of chivalry, or is it being true to some higher
thing in one's own soul?"
Denzil leaned against the tomb and he thought deeply: then he looked
straight into her eyes:
"Honour lies in not betraying a trust reposed in one, either in the
spirit or in the letter."
"Then, when, we say of a man 'he acted honourably,' we mean that he did
not betray a trust placed in him, even if it was only perhaps by
circumstance and not by a person."
"It is simply that'--keeping faith. If a man stole a sum of money from a
friend, the dishonour would not be in the act of stealing, which is
another offence--but in abusing his friend's trust in him by committing
that act."
"Dishonour is a betrayal then--"
"Of course."
"Why would this knight"--and she placed her hand on the marble face,
"have said that he must kill another who had stolen his wife, say, to
avenge his 'honour'?"
"That is the conventional part of it--what Stepan calls the grafting
on of a meaning to suit some idea of civilisation. It was a nice way
of having personal revenges too and teaching people that they could
not steal anything with impunity. If we analysed that kind of honour
we would find it was principally vanity. The dishonour really lay with
the wife, if she deceived her husband--and with the other man if he
was the husband's friend--if he was not, his abduction of the woman
was not 'dishonourable' because he was not trusted, it was merely an
act of theft."
"What then must we do when we are very strongly tempted?" Her voice was
so low he could hardly hear it.
"It is sometimes wisest to run away," and he turned from her and moved
towards the door.
She followed wondering. She knew not why she had promoted this
discussion. She felt that she had been very unbalanced all the day.
They went back to the house almost silently and through the green
drawing-room window again and up the broad stairs with Sir William
Hamilton's huge decorative painting of an Ardayre group of his time,
filling one vast wall at the turn.
And so they reached the cedar parlour, and found coffee waiting and
cigarettes.
There was a growing tension between them and each guessed that the other
was not calm. Amaryllis began showing him the view from the windows
across the park, and then the old fireplace and panelling of the room.
"We sit here generally when we are alone," she said. "I like it the best
of all the rooms in the house."
"It is a fitting frame for you."
They lit cigarettes.
Denzil had many things he longed to say to her of the place, and the
thoughts it called up in him--but he checked himself. The thing was to
get through with it all quickly and to be gone. They went into the
picture gallery then, and began from the end, and when they came to the
Elizabethan Denzil they paused for a little while. The painted likeness
was extraordinary to the living splendid namesake who gazed up at the old
panel with such interested eyes.
And Amaryllis was thinking:
"If only John had that something in him which these two have in their
eyes, how happy we could be."
And Denzil was thinking:
"I hope the child will reproduce the type." He felt it would be some kind
of satisfaction to himself if she should have a son which should be his
own image.
"It is so strange," she remarked, "that you should be exactly like this
Denzil, and yet resemble John who does not remind me of him at all,
except in the general family look which every one of them share. This one
might have been painted from you."
He looked down at her suddenly and he was unable to control the
passionate emotion in his eyes. He was thinking that yes, certainly, the
child must be like him--and then what message would it convey to her?
Amaryllis was disturbed, she longed to ask him what it was which she
felt, and why there seemed some illusive remembrance always haunting her.
She grew confused, and they passed on to another frame which contained
the Lady Amaryllis who had had the sonnets written to her nut brown
locks. She was a dainty creature in her stiff farthingale, but bore no
likeness to the present mistress of Ardayre.
Denzil examined her for some seconds, and then he said reflectively:
"She is a Sweetheart--but she is not you!"
There was some tone of tenderness in his voice when he said the word
"Sweetheart" and Amaryllis started and drew in her breath. It recalled
something which had given her joy, a low murmur whispered in the night.
"Sweetheart!"--a word which John, alas! had never used before nor since,
except in that one letter in answer to her cry of exaltation--her glad
Magnificat. What was this echo sounding in her ears? How like Denzil's
voice was to John's--only a little deeper. Why, why should he have used
that word "Sweetheart"?
No coherent thought had yet come to her, it was as though she had looked
for an instant upon some scene which awakened a chord of memory, and then
that the curtain had dropped before she could define it.
She grew agitated, and Denzil turning, saw that her face was pale, and
her grey eyes vague and troubled.
"I am quite sure that it is tiring you, showing me all the house like
this, we won't look at another picture--and really I must be getting on."
She did not contradict him.
"I am afraid that you ought to go perhaps, if you want to arrive by
daylight."
And as they returned to the green drawing-room she said some nice things
about wanting to meet his mother, and she tried to be natural and at
ease, but her hand was cold as ice when he held it in saying good-bye
before the fire, when Filson had announced the motor.
And if his eyes had shown passionate emotion in the picture gallery, hers
now filled with question and distress.
"Good-bye, Denzil--"
"Good-bye, Amaryllis--" He could not bring himself to say the usual
conventionalities, and went towards the door with nothing more.
Her brain was clearing, terror and passion and uncertainty had come in
like a flood.
"Denzil--?"
He turned to her side fearfully. Why had she called him now?
"Denzil--?" her face had paled still further, and there was an anguish of
pleading in it. "Oh, please, what does it all mean?" and she fell forward
into his arms.
He held her breathlessly. Had she fainted? No--she still stood on her
feet, but her little face there lying on his breast was as a lily in
whiteness and tears escaped from her closed eyes.
"For God's sake, Denzil, have you not something to tell me? You cannot
leave me so!"
He shivered with the misery of things.
"I have nothing to tell you, child." His voice was hoarse. "You are
overwrought and overstrung. I have nothing to say to you but just
good-bye."
She held his coat and looked up at him wildly.
"--Denzil--It was you--not--John!"
He unclasped her clinging arms:
"I must go."
"You shall not until you answer me--I have a right to know."
"I tell you I have nothing to say to you," he was stern with the
suffering of restraint.
She clung to him again.
"Why did you say that word 'Sweetheart' then? It was your own word. Oh!
Denzil, you cannot be so frightfully cruel as to leave me in
uncertainty--tell me the truth or I shall die!"
But he drew himself away from her and was silent; he could not make lying
protestations of not understanding her, so there only remained one course
for him to follow--he must go, and the brutality of such action made him
fierce with pain.
She burst into passionate sobs and would have fallen to the ground. He
raised her in his arms and laid her on the sofa near, and then fear
seized him. What if this excitement and emotion should make her really
ill--?
He knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. But she only sobbed the
more.
"How hideously cruel are men. Why can't you tell me what I ask you? You
dare not even pretend that you do not understand!"
He knew that his silence was an admission, he was torn with distress.
"Darling," he cried at last in torment, "for God's sake, let me go."
"Denzil--" and then her tears stopped suddenly, and the great drops
glistened on her white cheeks. Weeping had not disfigured her--she looked
but as a suffering child.
"Denzil--if you knew everything, you could not possibly leave me--you
don't know what has happened--But you must, you will have to
since--soon--"
He bowed his head and placed her two hands over his face with a
despairing movement.
"Hush--I implore you--say nothing. I do know, but I love you--I must
go."
At that she gave a glad cry and drew him close to her.
"You shall not now! I do not care for conventions any more, or for laws,
or for anything! I am a savage--you are mine! John must know that you are
mine! The family is all that matters to him, I am only an instrument, a
medium for its continuance--but Denzil, you and I are young and loving
and living. It is you I desire, and now I know that I belong to you. You
are the man and I am the woman--and the child will be our child!"
Her spirit had arisen at last and broken all chains. She was
transfigured, transformed, translated. No one knowing the gentle
Amaryllis could have recognised her in this fierce, primitive creature
claiming her mate!
Furious, answering passion surged through Denzil; it was the supreme
moment when all artificial restrictions of civilisation were swept away.
Nature had come to her own. All her forces were working for these two of
her children brought near by a turn of fate. He strained her in his arms
wildly--he kissed her lips, and ears, and eyes.
"Mine, mine," he cried, and then "Sweetheart!"
And for some seconds which seemed an eternity of bliss they forgot all
but the joy of love.
But presently reality fell upon Denzil and he almost groaned.
"I must leave you, precious dear one--even so--I gave my word of honour
to John that I would never take advantage of the situation. Fate has done
this thing by bringing us together; it has overwhelmed us. I do not feel
that we are greatly to blame, but that does not release me from my
promise. It is all a frightful price that we must pay for pride in the
Family. Darling, help me to have courage to go."
"I will not--It is shameful cruelty," and she clung to him, "that we must
be parted now I am yours really--not John's at all. Everything in my
heart and being cries out to you--you are the reality of my dream lover,
your image has been growing in my vision for months. I love you, Denzil,
and it is your right to stay with me now and take care of me, and it is
my right to tell you of my thoughts about the--child--Ah! if you knew
what it means to me, the joy, the wonder, the delight! I cannot keep it
all to myself any longer. I am starving! I am frozen! I want to tell it
all to my Beloved!"
He held her to him again--and she poured forth the tenderest holy things,
and he listened enraptured and forgot time and place.
"Denzil," she whispered at last, from the shelter of his arms. "I have
felt so strange--exalted, ever since--and now I shall have this ever
present thought of you and love women in my existence--But how is it
going to be in the years which are coming? How can I go on pretending to
John?--I cannot--I shall blurt out the truth--For me there is only
you--not just the you of these last days since we saw each other with our
eyes--but the you that I had dreamed about and fashioned as my lover--my
delight--Can I whisper to John all my joy and tenderness as I watch the
growing up of my little one? No! the thing is monstrous, grotesque--I
will not face the pain of it all. John gave you to me--he must have done
so--it was some compact between you both for the family, and if I did not
love you I should hate you now, and want to kill myself. But I love you,
I love you, I love you!" and she fiercely clasped her arms once more
about his neck. "You must take the consequences of your action. I did not
ask to have this complication in my life. John forced it upon me for his
own aims, but I have to be reckoned with, and I want my lover, I claim my
mate." Her cheeks were flaming and her eyes flashed.
"And your lover wants you," and Denzil wildly returned her fond caress,
"but the choice is not left to me, darling, even if you were my wife, not
John's. You have forgotten the war--I must go out and fight."
All the warmth and passion died out of her, and she lay back on the
pillows of the sofa for a moment and closed her eyes. She had
indeed forgotten that ghastly colossus in her absorption in their
own two selves.
Yes--he must go out and fight--and John would go too--and they might both
be killed like all those gallant partners of the season and her cousin,
and those who had fallen at Mons and the battle of the Marne.
No--she must not be so paltry as to think of personal things, even love.
She must rise above all selfishness, and not make it harder for her man.
Her little face grew resigned and sanctified, and Denzil watching her
with burning, longing eyes, waited for her to speak.
"It is true--for the moment nothing but you and my great desire for you
was in my mind. But you are right, Denzil; of course, I cannot keep you.
Only I am glad that just this once we have tasted a brief moment of
happiness, and--Denzil, I believe our souls belong to each other, even if
we do not meet again on earth."
And when at last they had parted, and Amaryllis, listening, heard the
motor go, she rose from the sofa and went out through the window to the
lawn, and so to the church again, and there lay on the steps of the young
knight's tomb, sobbing and praying until darkness enveloped the land.
CHAPTER XIII
A day or two before Denzil sailed for France he dined with Verisschenzko.
The intense preoccupation of the last war preparations had left him very
little time for grieving. He was unhappy when he thought of Amaryllis,
but he was a man, and another primitive instinct was in action in
him--the zest of going out to fight!
Verisschenzko was depressed, his country was not yet giving him the
opportunity to fulfil his hopes, and he fretted that he must direct
things from so far.
They sat in a quiet corner of the Berkeley and talked in a desultory
fashion all through the _hors d'ouvres_ and the soup.
"I am sick of things, Denzil," Verisschenzko said at last. "I feel
inclined to end it all sometimes."
"And belie the whole meaning of your whole beliefs. Don't be a fool,
Stepan. I always have told you that there is one grain of suicide in the
composition of every Russian. Now it has become active with you. Have
another glass of champagne, old boy, and then you'll talk sense again.
It is sickening to be killed, or maimed, or any beastly thing if it
comes along with duty, but to court it is madness pure and simple. It's
just rot."
"I'm with you," and he called the waiter and ordered a fine champagne,
while he smiled, showing his strong, square teeth.
"They don't have decent vodka--but the brandy will do the trick," and in
an instant his mood changed even before the cognac had come.
"It is the lingering trace of some other life of folly, when I talk like
that--I know it, Denzil. It is the harking back to long months of gloom
and darkness and snow and the howling of wolves and the fear of the
knout. This is not my first Russian life, you know!"
"Probably not; but you've had some more balanced intervening ones, or I
should have found you dead with veronal, or some other filthy thing
before this, with your highly strung nerves! I am not really alarmed
about you though, Stepan--you are fundamentally sane."
"I am glad you think that--very few English understand us--"
"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality
and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to
sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking
like fools--so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half
your brains he would never have said an idiot thing completely contrary
to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his
luck for the moment."
Verisschenzko laughed outright.
"Go ahead, Denzil--let off steam! I'm done in!"
"Well, don't be such a damned fool again!"
"I won't--how is my Lady Amaryllis?"
Denzil looked at him keenly.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her--"
"Then you know how she is?"
"I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are
acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are
aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off
to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English,
you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about
it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and--the
child's--and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I!
Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that
is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the
thing' to talk about a woman--even though it's for her benefit and
protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions
might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real
truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards
up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well."
Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth
of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak
all the same.
"Tell me what you know, Stepan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not
because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk."
"Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the
Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love--because I
feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves
you--and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this
miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen
her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!"
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