'Beatrice is coming to act as my secretary this morning,' Wilfrid said to his father, as they sat at breakfast on Monday.
'Is she?' remarked Mr. Athel, drily. 'It had struck me that you were not very busy just now,' he added, by way of natural comment.
The junior smiled.
'By the way, she has only two more engagements—then it ceases.'
'I am glad to hear it,' said his father, with much satisfaction.
'After all,' observed Wilfrid, 'you must remember that everyone knows she doesn't sing for a living. Art, you know, is only contemptible when it supports the artist.'
'Well, well, file your epigrams by all means; but we live in the world, Wilf. Criticise as smartly as you like; the danger only begins when you act upon your convictions.'
At half-past ten Beatrice arrived. She came into the study with a morning colour on her cheeks, threw off her mantle and hat, and let Wilfrid draw off her gloves, which somehow took a long time in the doing. She was full of bright, happy talk, most of it tending to show that she had already given the attention to the morning's 'leaders' which was becoming in a politician's betrothed.
'Do you smoke whilst you are at work?' she asked, descending from those high themes.
'I allow myself a few cigarettes.'
'Cigarettes? Surely that is too frivolous an accompaniment!'
'O, it is only when I am musing upon the arguments of the Opposition.'
'I see.' Beatrice took the reply quite seriously. 'But where is the blue-book you want me to digest?'
Wilfrid shook his head, looking at her with a smile.
'You think me incompetent? But at least try me. I shan't spoil anything.'
'An illustration drawn from the art of millinery, I imagine.'
'Don't be unkind. I'm afraid you wouldn't let me write your letters?'
'By Jove! an excellent idea. Here's one of the free and independent electors of G—writes to ask what my views are on the subject of compulsory vaccination. Do pen a reply and I'll sign it.'
'But what am I to say?'
'The ghost of Jenner alone knows I offer it as an opportunity to show your fitness for this post. You have applied to me for work, Miss—Miss Redwing, I think your name is?' He assumed the air of one applied to.
'It is, sir.'
'Come, come; that's far too jaunty. You don't at all understand the position of the person applying for work. You must be profoundly depressed; there must be half a tear in your eye; you must look hungry.'
'O dear—I had such an excellent breakfast!'
'Which clearly disqualifies you for the post you seek. However, Miss—Miss Redwing, I think you said?'
'I did, sir.'
'Vastly better. The applicant must always be a little ashamed of his name; they learn that, you know, from the way in which they are addressed by employers. Well, I'll give you a hint. Tell him he's an ass, or he wouldn't have needed to ask my opinion.'
'I am to put that into parliamentary language?'
'Precisely.'
'And say nothing more definite?'
'Really Miss—Miss Redwing, I begin to doubt the genuineness of your testimonials. You surely have learnt that the first essential of the art of public letter-writing is to say nothing whatever in as convincing a manner as possible.'
'But if I tell him he's a—a donkey?'
'You fear it will be deviating into truth. There's something in that. Say, then, that the matter is occupying my gravest attention, and that I hope to be able to reply definitely in the course of a few weeks.'
'Very well. Where may I sit? But I can't use a quill, dear boy.'
'Miss Redwing!'
'Oh, I forgot myself. Have you a nice, fine point, not too hard?'
'Let me see.'
Wilfrid unlocked one of the drawers in his desk. As he drew it out, Beatrice stole to him, and peeped into the drawer.
'How neat, Wilfrid!' she exclaimed. 'What a pretty pocket-book that is lying there. Do let me look at it.'
It was a morocco case, with an elastic band round it. Beatrice stretched her hand towards it, but he arrested her movement.
'No, no,' he said, playfully, 'we can't have prying. Here are the pens.'
'But do let me look at the case, Wilfrid.'
He began to close the drawer. Beatrice laid her hand on it.
'My aunt gave it me, long ago,' Wilfrid said, as if to dismiss the subject. 'Mind! I shall trap your fingers.'
'I'm sure you won't do that. But I do want to see it. The smell of morocco is so delicious. Just one whiff of it.'
'Then you want to smell it, not to see it. If you're good, you shall before you go away.'
'No, but now!—Wilfrid!'
He was pretending to squeeze her fingers in the shutting of the drawer. She would not undo her grasp.
'Why mayn't I, Wilfrid?'
She looked at him. His expression was graver than became the incident; he was trying to smile, but Beatrice saw that his eyes and lips were agitated.
'Why mayn't I?' she repeated.
'Oh, if you insist,' he exclaimed, moving back a step or two, 'of course you may.'
She took up the case, and looked at it on either side.
'There are letters in it?' she said, without raising her eyes.
'Yes, I believe there are letters in it.'
'Important, I suppose?'
'I daresay; I suppose I had some reason for putting them there.'
He spoke with apparent indifference, and turned to light a cigarette. Beatrice put back the case, and closed the drawer.
'Here is note-paper,' Wilfrid said, holding some to her.
She took it in silence, and seated herself. Wilfrid at tempted to pursue the jest, but she could not reply. She sat as if about to 'write; her eyes were drooped, and her mouth had set itself hard. Wilfrid affected to turn over papers in search for something, still standing before the table.
'You find it difficult to begin,' he said. 'Pray call him "dear sir." Society depends upon that "dear."'
'A word easily used,' remarked Beatrice, in a low' voice, as if she were thinking.
He cast a glance at her, then seated himself. He was at the side of the table, she at the end. After a moment of silence, she leaned forward to him.
'Wilfrid,' she said, trying to smile, 'what letters are those, dear?'
'Of what possible moment can that be to you, Beatrice?'
'It seems—I can't help thinking they are—letters which you value particularly. Might I not know?'
He looked away to the window.
'Of course, if you tell me I am rude,' Beatrice continued, pressing her pen's point upon the table, 'I have no answer.'
'Well, yes,' he replied at length, as if having taken a resolve, 'they are letters of—that I have put apart for a special reason. And now, shall we forget them?'
His tone was not altogether suave; about his nostrils there was a suspicion of defiance. He forced himself to meet her gaze steadily; the effort killed a smile.
'We will cease to speak of them,' Beatrice answered, implying a distinction.
A minute later he saw' that she laid down her pen and rose. He looked up inquiringly.
'I don't feel able to do anything this morning,' she said.
Wilfrid made no reply. She went to the chair on which her hat and mantle lay.
'You are not going?' he asked, in a tone of surprise.
'I think so; I can't be of use to you,' she added, impulsively; 'I have not your confidence.'
He let her throw the mantle over her shoulders.
'Beatrice, surely this is not the result of such a trifle? Look!' He pulled open the drawer once more and threw the pocket-hook on to the table. 'Suppose that had lain there when you came into this room alone. Should you have opened it and examined the contents?'
'I should not—you know it.'
'Very well. You would simply have taken it for granted that I was to be trusted to look after my own affairs, until I asked someone else's aid or advice. Is not that the case at present?'
A man more apt at dissimulation would have treated the matter from the first with joking irony, and might have carried his point, though with difficulty. Wilfrid had not the aptitude, to begin with, and he was gravely disturbed. His pulses were throbbing; scarcely could he steady his voice. He dreaded a disclosure of what might well be regarded as throwing doubt upon his sincerity, the more so that he understood in this moment how justifiable such a doubt would be. After the merriment of a few minutes ago, this sudden shaking of his nerves was the harder to endure. It revived with painful intensity the first great agitations of his life. His way of speaking could not but confirm Beatrice's suspicions.
'We are not exactly strangers to each other,' she said, coldly.
'No, we are not; yet I think I should have forborne to press you on any matter you thought it needless to speak of.'
She put on her hat. Wilfrid felt his anger rising—our natural emotion when we are disagreeably in the wrong, yet cannot condemn the cause which has made us so. He sat to the table again, as if his part in the discussion were at an end.
Beatrice stood for some moments, then came quickly to his side.
'Wilfrid, have you secrets from me?' she asked, the tremor of her voice betraying the anguish that her suspicions cost her. 'Say I am ill-mannered. It was so, at first; I oughtn't to have said anything. But now it has become something different. However trifling the matter, I can't bear that you should refuse to treat me as yourself. There is nothing, nothing I could keep from you. I have not a secret in my life to hide from you. It is not because they are letters—or not only that. You put a distance between us you say there are affairs of yours in which I have no concern. I cannot bear that! If I leave you, I shall suffer more than you dream. I thought we were one. Is not your love as complete as mine?'
He rose and moved away, saying—
'Open it! Look at the letters!'
'No, that I can't do. What can it be that troubles you so? Are they letters that I ought not to see?'
He could bear it no longer.
'Yes,' he answered, brusquely, 'I suppose they are.'
'You mean that you have preserved letters which, as often as you open that drawer, remind you of someone else?—that you purposely keep them so near your hand?'
'Beatrice, I had no right to destroy them.'
'No right!' Her eyes flashed, and her tongue trembled with its scorn. 'You mean you had no wish.'
'If I had no right, I could scarcely have the wish.'
Wilfrid was amazed at his own contemptible quibbling, but in truth he was not equal to the occasion. He could not defend himself in choice phrases; in a sort of desperate carelessness he flung out the first retort that offered itself. He was on the point of throwing over everything, of declaring that all must be at an end between them; yet courage failed for that. Nor courage only; the woman before him was very grand in her indignation, her pale face was surpassingly beautiful. The past faded in comparison with her; in his heart he doubted of its power.
Beatrice was gazing at him in resentful wonder.
'Why have you done this?' she asked. 'Why did you come to me and speak those words? What necessity was there to pretend what you did not feel?'
He met her eyes.
'I have not spoken falsely to you,' he said, with calmness which did not strengthen the impression his words were meant to convey.
'When you said that you loved me? If it were true, you could not have borne to have those letters under your eyes. You say you had no right to destroy them. You knew that it was your duty to do so. Could you have kept them?'
Wilfrid had become almost absent-minded. His heart was torn in two ways. He wished to take the letters from their case and destroy them at once; probably it was masculine pride which now kept him from doing it.
'I think you must believe what I say, Beatrice,' was his answer. 'I am not capable of deliberately lying to you.'
'You are not. But you are capable of deceiving yourself; I accuse you of nothing more. You have deceived yourself, and I have been the cause of it; for I had so little of woman's pride that I let you see my love; it was as if I begged for your love in return. My own heart should have taught me better; there can be no second love. You pitied me!'
Wilfrid was in no state of mind to weigh phrases; at a later time, when he could look back with calmness, and with the advantage of extended knowledge, he recognised in these words the uttermost confession of love of 'which a woman is capable. In hearing them, he simply took them as a reproach.
'If such a thing had been possible,' he said, 'it would have been a horrible injustice to you. I asked you to be my wife because I loved you. The existence of these letters is no proof that I misunderstood my own feeling. There are many things we cannot explain to another on the moment. You must judge the facts as you will, but no hasty and obvious judgment will hit the truth.'
She was not listening to him. Her eyes were fixed upon the letters, and over her heart there crept a desire which all but expelled other feeling, a desire to know what was there written. She would have given her hand to be alone in the room with that pocket-book, now that she knew what it contained; no scruple would have withheld her. The impossibility that her longing could ever be satisfied frenzied her with jealousy.
'I will leave you with them,' she exclaimed, speaking her' thought. 'You do not want me; I come between you and her. Read, and forget me; read them once more, and see then if you do not understand yourself. I know now why you have often been so cold, why it cost you an effort to reply to me. You shall never have that trouble again.'
She moved to quit the room. Wilfrid called her.
'Beatrice! Stay and listen to me. These letters are nothing, and mean nothing; Stay, and see me burn them.'
Irrational as it was, she could not bear to see them destroyed. In her distracted mind there was a sort of crazy hope that he would at last give them to her to burn; she might even perhaps have brought herself to take them away.
'That is childish,' she said. 'You know them by heart; the burning of the paper would alter nothing.'
'Then I can say and do no more.'
It had been like a rending of his heartstrings to offer to destroy these memories of Emily, though he at the same time persuaded himself that, once done, he would be a stronger and a happier man. In truth, they had made the chief strength of the link between him and the past; every day they had reminded him how much of the old feeling lingered in his being; the sanctity with which these relics were invested testified to the holiness of the worship which had bequeathed them. He had not opened the case since his betrothal to Beatrice, and scarcely a day passed that he did not purpose hiding it somewhere away for ever—not destroying. Beatrice's answer to his offer caused him half to repent that he had made it. He turned away from her.
She, after looking at the pocket-book still for some moments, seemed to force herself away. He heard her open the door, and did not try to stay her.
Half an hour later, Wilfrid restored the letters to their place in the drawer. If they were to be destroyed, it must now be in Beatrice's presence. With something like joy he turned the key upon them, feeling that they were preserved, that the last farewell was once again postponed. Wilfrid was not a very strong man where sacrifice 'was demanded of him.
He neither saw nor heard from Beatrice till the evening of the following day. Then it happened that they had to dine at the same house. On meeting her in the drawing-room, he gave her his hand as usual; hers returned no pressure. She seemed as cheerful as ever in her talk with others; him she kept apart from. He could not make up his mind to write. She had refused to accept such proof of his sincerity as it wag in his power to offer, and Wilfrid made this an excuse—idle as he knew it to be—for maintaining a dignified silence. Dignified, he allowed himself to name it; yet he knew perfectly well that his attitude had one very ignoble aspect, since he all but consciously counted upon Beatrice's love to bring her back to his feet. He said to himself: Let her interpret my silence as she will; if she regard it as evidence of inability to face her—well, I make no objection. The conviction all the while grew in him that he did veritably love her, for he felt that, but for his knowledge of her utter devotedness, he would now be in fear lest he should lose her. Such fear need not occupy a thought; a word, and she flew to him. He enjoyed this sense of power; to draw out the misunderstanding a little would make reconciliation all the pleasanter. Then the letters should flame into ashes, and with them vanish even the regret for the blessedness they had promised.
Wednesday morning, and still no letter from Beatrice. Mr. Athel joked about her speedy resignation of the secretaryship. Wilfrid joined in the joke, and decided that he would wait one more day, knowing not what a day might bring forth.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg