The Price of Things by Elinor Glyn
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Elinor Glyn >> The Price of Things
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John could not answer her. He covered his face with his hands.
"You see it is all pitiful," she continued, her voice deep and broken
with almost a sob in it. "Denzil is so like you--it was an easy
transition to find that I loved him--because I was only loving the
imaginary you I had made for myself. I cannot explain myself and do not
make any excuse. There is something in me, whenever I think of the baby,
that draws me to Denzil and makes me remember that night. John, we must
just face the situation and try to find some way to avoid as much pain as
we can. I hate to think it is hurting you, too."
"Did Denzil tell you this?" his voice was icy cold.
"No--it came to me suddenly when I heard him say a word."
"'Sweetheart'!" and now John's eyes flashed. "He called you again
'Sweetheart'!"
"No, he did not--he used the word simply in speaking of a picture--but I
recognised his voice then immediately--it is a little deeper than yours."
"When did you see Denzil?"
She told him the exact truth about their meeting and his coming to
Ardayre, and how Denzil had endeavoured to keep his word.
"He would never have spoken to me--it was fate which sent him into the
train, and then I made him speak--I could not bear it. After I
recognised him, I made him admit that it was he. Denzil is not to blame.
He left immediately and I have never seen him or heard from him since.
It is I alone who must be counted with, John--Denzil will try never to
see me again."
John groaned aloud.
"Oh God--the misery of it all!"
"John, I must tell you everything now while we are talking of these
things. I love Denzil utterly. I thrill when I think of him; he seems to
me my husband, not even only a lover. John, not long ago, when I felt
the first movement of the child, I shook with longing for him--I found
myself murmuring his name aloud. So you must think what it all means to
me, so strongly passionate as I am. But I would never cheat you, John--I
had to be honest. I could not go on pretending to be your wife and
living a lie."
Tears of agony gathered in John Ardayre's blue eyes and rolled down
his cheeks.
He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.
What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to
have used her for his own aims, however high?
"Amaryllis--you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong."
But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the
piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment.
She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she
stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.
"Of course, I forgive you, John--but I cannot cease from loving Denzil,
that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I
never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences.
John dearest, let us be friends--and live as friends, then everything
won't be so hard."
He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering
acutely--must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?
"But I love you, Amaryllis--I love you, dearest child--"
And now again she said "Alas!"--and that was all.
"Amaryllis--this is a frightful sacrifice to me--must you insist upon
it?"
Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose--and she
stood up and faced him.
"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up,
conventional girl--milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will--I
had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a
savage"--her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,--"I
_could not_ belong to two men--it would utterly degrade me, then I do not
know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul--and while he
lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to
me--fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I
must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family,
and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the
only terms I can offer you now."
John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.
Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his
brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.
"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And
when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must
love it because it is mine and an Ardayre--and the comfort of that must
fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for
the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of
life--perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."
John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow
and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips--those he told himself he
must renounce for evermore.
"Amaryllis,"--his voice was husky still, "yes--I will be your friend,
darling--and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but
it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and
living--and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped
against hope--and then when I knew that everything was impossible--I
felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't
know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I
gratified all your wishes perhaps--Ah!--I see it was very cruel. Darling,
I would have told you the truth--presently--but then the war came, and
the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand."
She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes--her one idea was now to
comfort him since she need no longer fear.
"John, if you had explained the whole thing to me--I do not know, perhaps
I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family
pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand--or his children which may
be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented--I cannot be sure. But
somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual
things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must
be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant
yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid--I don't know really. I have
only been wondering--but perhaps there are powerful currents connected
with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force
of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them."
They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear
her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his
emotion at last.
"It may be so--"
"You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand," she went on,
"then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir--and now--if the
child is a boy--"
John started.
"We neither of us thought of that."
"But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist--it is
only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too--but surely the
war cannot go on long now?"
John wondered if he should tell her what he really felt about this, or
whether it were wiser to keep her quietly in this hopeful dream of a
speedy end. He decided to say nothing; it was better for her health not
to agitate her mind--events would speak for themselves, alas, presently.
He talked quietly then of Ardayre and of his boyhood and of its sorrows;
he was determined to break down his own reserve, and Amaryllis listened
interestedly, and gradually some kind of peace and calm seemed to come
to them both, and they resolutely banished the thought of the future,
and sought only to think of the present. And then at last John rose and
took her hand:
"Go to bed now, dear girl,--and to-morrow I shall have quite conquered
all the feelings which could disturb you, and just remember always that I
am indeed your friend."
She understood at last the greatness of his sacrifice and the fineness of
his soul, and she fell into a passion of weeping and ran from the room.
But John, left alone, sank down into the same chair as he had done once
before on the night he was waiting for Denzil, and, as then, he buried
his face in his hands.
CHAPTER XVII
The next day they met at breakfast. John had not slept at all and was
very pale and Amaryllis's eyes still showed the deepened violet shadows
from much weeping. But they were both quite calm.
She came over to John and kissed his forehead with gentle tenderness and
then gave him his tea. They tried to talk in a friendly way as of old
before any new emotions had come into their lives. And gradually the
strain became lessened.
They arranged to go out shopping, and John bought Amaryllis a new
emerald ring.
"Green is the colour of hope," she said. "I want green, John,
because it will make me think of the springtime and nature, and all
beautiful things."
They lunched at a restaurant and in the afternoon went down to Ardayre.
John had many things to attend to and would be occupied all the
following day.
There had been no Christmas feasting, but there were gifts to be
distributed and various other duties and ceremonies to be gone through,
although they had missed the Christmas day. Amaryllis tried in every way
to be helpful to her husband, and he appreciated her stateliness and
sweet manners with all the tenants and people on the estate.
So the four days passed quite smoothly, and the last night of the old
year came.
"I don't think that you must sit up for it, dear," John said after
dinner. "It will only tire you, and it is always a rather sad moment
unless one has a party as we always had in old days."
Amaryllis went obediently to her room and stayed there; sleep was far
from her eyes. What was the rest of her life going to be without Denzil?
And what of John? Would they settle down into a real quiet friendship
when he came back, and the child was born? Or would she have always to
feel that he loved her and was for ever suffering pain?
The more she thought the less clear the issue became, and the deeper the
sadness in the atmosphere.
At last she slipped down onto the big white bear-skin rug and
began to pray.
But when the clock struck midnight, and the New Year bells rang out, a
dreadful depression fell upon her, a sense of foreboding and fear.
She tried to tell herself that she was foolish, and it was all caused
only because she was so highly strung and sensitive now, on account of
her state. But the thought would persist that danger threatened some one
she loved. Was it Denzil, or John?
Amaryllis tried to force herself from her unhappy impressions by thinking
of what she could do presently in the summer, when she would be quite
well again, though her greatest work must always be to try to make John
happy, if by then he had come home.
She heard him go into his room at about one o'clock, and then she crept
noiselessly to her great gilt bed.
John had waited for the New Year by the cedar parlour fire. The room was
so filled with the radiance of Amaryllis that he liked being there.
And he, too, was thinking of what their new life would be should he
chance to come through. The ache in his heart would gradually subside, he
supposed, but how would he bear the long years, knowing that Amaryllis
was thinking of Denzil--and longing for him--and if fate made them
meet--what then?
How could he endure to know that these two beings were suffering?
There seemed no clear outlook ahead. But, as he knew only too well death
could hardly fail to intervene, and if it should claim Denzil, then he
must console Amaryllis' grief. But if happily it could be he who were
taken, then their future path would be clear.
He could not forget the third eventuality, that he and Denzil might both
be killed. He thought and thought over them all, and at last he decided
to add a letter to his will. If he should be killed he would ask Denzil
to marry Amaryllis immediately, without waiting for the conventional
year. The times were too strenuous, and she must not be left
unprotected--alone with the child.
He got up and began the letter to his lawyer, and so the
instructions ran:
"I request my cousin Denzil Benedict Ardayre to marry Amaryllis, my wife,
as soon as possible after my death, if he can get leave and is still
alive. I confide her to his care and ask them both not to let any
conventional idea of mourning stand in the way of these, my urgent last
commands. And I ask my cousin Denzil, if he lives through the war, to
take great care of the bringing up of the child."
He read thus far, and when he came to "the child" he scratched it out
and wrote "my child" deliberately, and then he went on to add his wishes
for its education, should it be a boy. The will had already amply
provided for Amaryllis, so that she would be a rich woman for the rest
of her days.
When all this was clearly copied out and sealed up in an envelope
addressed to his lawyer, the clock struck twelve.
The silence in the old house was complete; there was no revelry for the
first time for many years, even the servants far off in their wing had
gone to rest.
It seemed to John that the shadow of sorrow was suddenly removed from
him, and as though a weight of care had been lifted from his heart. He
could not account for the alteration, but he felt no longer sad. Was
it an omen? Was this New Year going to fulfill some great thing after
all? A divine peace fell upon him, and then a pleasant sensation of
sleep, and he turned out the lights and went softly to his room, and
was soon in bed.
And then he slept soundly until late in the morning, and awoke refreshed
and serene on New Year's day.
His leave was up on the third of January and he returned to London,
but he would not let Amaryllis undergo the fatigue of accompanying
him. He said good-bye to her there at Ardayre. She felt extremely sad
and unhappy.
Had she done well, after all, to have told John the truth? Should she
have borne things as they were and waited until the end of the war? But
no, that would have been impossible to her nature. If she might not have
Denzil for her lover, she would have no other man.
John's cheerfulness astonished her--it was so uniform, it could not be
assumed. Perhaps she did not yet understand him, perhaps in his heart he
was glad that all pretences had come to an end.
They had the most affectionate parting. John never was sentimental, and
he went off with brave, cheery words, and every injunction that she was
to take the greatest care of herself.
"Remember, Amaryllis, that you are the most precious thing on earth to
me--and you must think also of the child."
She promised him that she would carry out all his wishes in this
respect and remain quietly at Ardayre until the first of April, when
perhaps he could get leave again and then she would go to London for
the birth of the baby.
John turned and waved his hand as he went off down the avenue, and
Amaryllis watched the motor until it was out of sight, the tears slowly
brimming over and running down her cheeks.
She noticed that at the turn in the avenue a telegraph boy passed the car
and came straight on. The wire was not for John evidently, so she would
wait at the door to see. It proved to be for her, and from Denzil's
mother, saying that she was en route for Dorchester, motoring, and would
stop at Ardayre on the chance of finding its mistress at home. Amaryllis
felt suddenly excited; she had often longed for this and yet in some way
she had feared it also. What new emotions might the meeting not arouse?
It was quite early after luncheon that Mrs. Ardayre was announced.
Amaryllis had waited in the green drawing room, thinking that she would
come. She was playing the piano at the far end to try and lighten her
feeling of depression, when the door opened, and to her astonishment
quite a young, slight woman came into the room. She was a little lame,
and walked with a stick. For a moment Amaryllis thought she must be
mistaken, and rose with a vague, but gracious look in her eyes.
Mrs. Ardayre held out her hand and smiled:
"I hope you got my telegram in time," she said cordially. "I felt I must
not lose the opportunity of making your acquaintance. My son has been so
anxious for us to meet."
"You--you can't be Denzil's mother, surely!" Amaryllis exclaimed. "He is
much too old to be your son!"
Mrs. Ardayre smiled again--while Amaryllis made her sit down on the sofa
beside her and helped her off with her furs. "I am forty-nine years old,
Amaryllis--if I may call you so--but one ought never to grow old in body.
It is not necessary, and it is not agreeable to the eye!"
Amaryllis looked at her carefully in the full side light. It was the
shape of her face, she decided, which gave her such youth. There were no
unsightly bones to cause shadows and the skin was smooth and ivory--and
her eyes were bright brown; their expression was very humorous as well as
kindly, and Amaryllis was drawn to her at once.
They talked about their desire to know one another and about the family,
and the place, and the war--and at last they spoke of Denzil, and Mrs.
Ardayre told of what his life was, and his whereabouts now, and then grew
retrospective.
"He is the dearest boy in the world," she said. "We have been friends
always, and now he will not allow me to be anxious about him. I really
think that as far as the frightfulness of things will let him be, he
is actually enjoying his life! Men are such queer creatures, they like
to fight!"
Amaryllis asked what was her latest news of him, and where he was, and
listened interestedly to Mrs. Ardayre's replies:
"The cavalry have not had very much to do lately, fortunately," she
remarked. "My husband has just gone back, but I suppose if there is a
shortage of men for the trenches, they will be dismounted perhaps."
"I expect so--then we shall have to use all our courage and control
our fears."
Amaryllis turned the conversation back to Denzil again, and drew his
mother out. She would like to have heard incidents of his childhood and
of how he looked when he was a little boy, but she was too timid to ask
any deliberate questions. She felt drawn to this lady, she looked so
young and human. Perhaps she was not so wonderful in evening dress, but
her figure was boyish in its slim spareness--in these serge travelling
clothes she hardly looked thirty-five!
She wondered what Denzil had told his mother about her--probably that she
was going to have a child, but nothing more.
They talked in the most friendly way for half an hour, and then Amaryllis
asked her guest if she would like to come and see the house and
especially the picture gallery and the Elizabethan Denzil hanging there.
"It is just my boy!" Mrs. Ardayre cried, when they stood in front of it.
"Eyes and all, they are bold and true and so loving. Oh! my dear child,
you can't think what a darling he is; from his babyhood every woman has
adored him--the nurse maids were his slaves, and my old housekeeper and
my maid are like two jealous cats as to who shall do things for him when
he comes home. He has that queer quality which can wile a bird off a
tree. I daresay I am the silliest of them all!"
Amaryllis listened, enchanted.
"You see he has not one touch of me in him," Mrs. Ardayre went on, "but I
was so frantically in love with my husband when he was born, he naturally
was all Ardayre. Does it not interest you, Amaryllis, to wonder what your
little one, when it comes, will look like? It ought to be pronouncedly of
the family, your being also an Ardayre."
"Indeed yes, I am very curious. And how we all hope that it will
be a son!"
"Is there a portrait of your husband here? Denzil says they are alike."
"There is one in my sitting room; it is going to be moved in here
presently, when mine is done next year. It is by Sargent, almost the last
portrait he painted. Let us go there now and see it."
"But there is no likeness," Mrs. Ardayre exclaimed presently, when they
had gone to the cedar parlour and were examining the picture of John.
"Can you discover it?"
"I thought they were very alike once--but I do not altogether see it
now."
Mrs. Ardayre smiled. "I cannot, of course, think any one can compare with
my Denzil! And yet I am not a real mother at all! I am totally devoid of
the maternal instinct in the abstract! Children bore me, and I am glad I
have never had any more. I adore Denzil because he is Denzil. I loved my
husband and delighted in being the mother of his son."
"There are the two sorts of women, are not there? The mother woman and
the mate woman--we have to be one or the other, I suppose. I hardly yet
know to which category I belong," and Amaryllis sighed, "but I rather
think that I am like you--the man might matter even more to me than the
child, and I know that the child matters to me enormously because of the
man. It is all a great mystery and a wonder though."
Beatrice Ardayre looked up at the portrait of John; his stolid face did
not give her the impression that he could make a woman, and such a
fascinating and adorable creature as Amaryllis, passionately in love with
him, or fill her with mysterious feelings of emotion about his child!
Now, if it had been Denzil she could have understood a woman's committing
any madness for him, but this stodgy, respectable John!
Her bright brown eyes glanced at Amaryllis furtively, and she saw that
she was looking up at the picture with an expression of deep melancholy
on her face.
There was some mystery here.
She went over again in her mind what Denzil had told her about Amaryllis.
It was not a great deal. He had arrived at Bath that time looking very
stern and abstracted, and had mentioned rather shortly that he had come
down with the head of the family's wife in the train, and had gone on to
Ardayre with her, after meeting them the previous night at dinner for the
first time.
He had not been at all expansive, but later in the evening when they had
sat by her sitting room fire, he had suddenly said something which had
startled her greatly:
"Mum--I want you to know Amaryllis Ardayre. I am madly in love with
her--she is going to have a baby, and she seems to be so alone."
It must be one of those sudden passions, and the idea seemed in some way
to jar a little. Denzil to have fallen in love with a woman whom he knew
was going to have a child!
She had said something of this to him, and he had turned eyes full of
pain to her and even reproach.
"Mum--you always understand me--I am not a beast, you know--I haven't
anything more to say, only I want you to be really kind to her--and get
to know her well."
And he had not mentioned the subject again, but had been very preoccupied
during all his three days' visit, which state she could not account for
by the fact of the war--Denzil, she knew, was an enthusiastic soldier,
and to be going out to fight would naturally be to him a keen joy. What
did it all mean? And here was this sweet creature speaking of divine love
mysteries and looking up at the portrait of her dull, unattractive
husband with melancholy eyes, whereas they had sparkled with interest
when Denzil was the subject of conversation! Could she, too, have fallen
in love with Denzil in one night at dinner and a journey in the train!
It was all very remarkable.
They had tea together in the green drawing room, and by that time they
had become very good friends.
Mrs. Ardayre told Amaryllis of the little old manor home she had in
Kent--The Moat, it was called, and of her garden and the pleasure it
was to her.
"I had about twelve thousand a year of my own, you know," she said, "and
ever since Denzil was born I have each year put by half of it, so that
when he was twenty-one I was able to hand over to him quite a decent sum
that he might be independent and free. It is so humiliating for a man to
have to be subservient to a woman, even a mother, and I go on doing the
same every year. All the last years of his life my husband was very
delicate--he was so badly wounded in the South African War, you know--so
we lived very quietly at The Moat and in my tiny house in London. I hope
you will let me show you them both one day."
Amaryllis said she would be delighted, and added:
"You will come and see me, won't you? I am going up to our house in Brook
Street at the beginning of April, and I am praying that I may have a
little son about the first week in May."
Just before Mrs. Ardayre went on to Dorchester, she asked Amaryllis if
she had any message to send Denzil--she wanted to watch her face. It
flushed slightly and her deep soft voice said a little eagerly:
"Yes--tell him I have been so delighted to meet you, and you are just
what he said I should find you!--and tell him I sent him all sorts of
good wishes--" and then she became a little confused.
"I should so love a photograph of you--would you give me one, I wonder?"
the elder woman asked quickly, to avoid any pause, and while Amaryllis
went out of the room to get it, she thought:
"She is certainly in love with Denzil. It could not have been the first
time he had seen her--at the dinner--and yet he never tells lies." And
she grew more and more puzzled and interested.
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