The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter XIX

At Poissy the three weeks had worn listlessly away. Margery yet remained, though the time originally set as a limit for her visit had passed. Monsieur and Madame Palffy were staying with some friends in Dresden, whom Mrs. Carnby had never seen, but whom, under the present circumstances, she whimsically described to Jeremy as being “in danger, necessity, and tribulation.”
 * Chapter XIX. Redemption.

Truth to tell, she had been forced to fall back upon her own invention for means of amusement. She was chafing under a sense of helplessness in a situation which she seemed totally unable to grasp, and a fierce impatience against the social conditions which make it possible for a man to shut off the women most deeply interested in him from the most significant features of his life and conduct. She had spent a half-hour in Margery’s room on the morning of Andrew’s departure, and there had heard as much as she cared to about the conversation in the arbour. Upon this problem she had brought to bear all her trained powers of persuasion, and at the end had the satisfaction of bringing Margery to a less intolerant attitude. The matter of inducing her to telegraph Andrew a recall she had found more difficult.

“I wouldn’t deceive you, my dear,” she said. “I’m absolutely convinced of the truth of what I say when I tell you that you’ve misjudged him. Oh yes — I know the appearances are all against him. I thought just as you do, until I had the courage to ask him out and out about the matter; but, when I did, I soon saw that the circumstances were unusual — extraordinarily so. He’s been reckless, and, if he cares for you as he pretends to, highly inconsiderate. But I believe, as firmly as I do in my own existence, that in the main essentials he’s innocent. Of course, he’s been going around with this woman — even he doesn’t deny that; but the very fact that he admits it seems to me to prove that it hasn’t been as bad as you suppose. One may go a long way with a woman without going too far. Why, Margery, I could bite my tongue off when I think what I said to you last night. Just think! — I imagined I was straightening things out, and giving you your cue! Instead, it appears that I was only giving you a wrong idea, and putting everything into a hideous mess. Why, you didn’t give him a fighting chance! You piled on him every accusation that came into your head, and then sent him off before he had a chance to explain. Why didn’t you ask him one straight question, if that was what you wanted to know? He’d have answered you — yes, and told you the truth! If there’s one thing Andrew Vane is not, it’s a liar. I was sure of that before I’d known him two minutes.”

“But there wasn’t any need to ask him,” broke in Margery. “He said of his own accord that — that there is such a woman.”

“And what else?” demanded Mrs. Carnby.

“That she wasn’t any more to him than a bird that was singing near us; that he’d never see her again if I asked him.”

“And you sent him away after that! Good heavens, my dear, that was the moment of all others when you should have said ‘I believe you!’ For he was telling you the truth— I’ll stake my intelligence on it. It was the supreme evidence of his reliance upon you, the supreme test of your love. And you failed. Appearances? Yes, of course! And what are appearances? Nothing in the world but a perpetual reminder that we’re not omniscient. Margery — you’ve got to call him back.”

Margery made no reply.

“You owe that much to him, and you owe it to me. We’ve both of us been in the wrong, and you must give us a chance to set things right. If you can’t take him as he is, then ask him to tell you exactly what his relations have been with this woman, and act on his answer as you see fit. I can’t criticise you for doing as you think right, if only you’re acting on the truth; but the truth you must have! At present you’re depending upon a lot of hearsay, upon the criminally thoughtless cynicism of a gossipy old woman, and on your own rash conclusions. My dear girl, you know I love you — love you better than anything in the world, except Jeremy? Well, then, do this for me.”

“Very well,” answered Margery wearily, “but it’s no use, Mrs. Carnby.”

That morning she telegraphed Andrew to come back to her — and there was no reply.

Thereafter the subject had not been mentioned either by the girl or her hostess. For the first time there lay a little barrier of restraint between them, which Mrs. Carnby, with all her tact, found it impossible to pass, or even clearly to define. Her customary confidence in herself stood back aghast. Any further interference, she knew, might well be set down as idle meddling. She had done her best — and failed.

Day by day she saw Margery grow paler and thinner. The old gaiety was slipping from her, flashing forth at more and more infrequent intervals, like the flame of an untended lamp, brightening more feebly, ever and anon, before it dies away. But there was nothing to be said or done. The little touches of endearment and sympathy with which women often fill the place of words, passed between them, but too often these negative interpreters of their hidden thoughts caused the girl’s eyes to fill. At Mrs. Carnby’s earnest entreaty, she prolonged her visit, and was glad of the seclusion of the villa, the long idle days, the evenings at billiards or backgammon with Jeremy, and the still warm nights when, through sleepless hours, reverie had free rein. Curiously enough, and despite Andrew’s neglect of her, her former tenderness for him returned and grew. The first passion of her resentment having passed, she was learning to make the ample and even obstinate allowances of the woman who has seen love in her grasp, and had it snatched away. At the moment of her rejection of him, there had been nothing within her range of vision but the spectre of cruel and humiliating wrong. But now a thousand little appealing reminiscences came back to woo and to persuade her. The old days at Beverly; the boy-and-girl companionship wherefrom had sprung the first flower of her love; the high hopefulness of their young attitude; the bashful acknowledgment of unspoken understanding with which they parted; the long months of separation, when her unhappiness in her new surroundings was silver-shot with prescience of his coming; that coming itself, and the joyous significance of it — all these worked upon her night and day. She was learning to forget the little hints of gossip whereby she first began to doubt him, and even the terrible frankness of Mrs. Carnby’s words, which had seemed to confirm all her worst suspicions. She felt that if only she had been given the time which now was hers, she would have been able to adjust these matters, reduce the gossip to its proper place of insignificance, and see, as now she saw, the vast and supreme importance of their love. Now it was herself, not him, she blamed for his silence. She had indeed not “given him a fighting chance.” She had insulted him, and, at the end, sent him about his business with a heartless sneer. Mrs. Carnby’s words came back to her — “love is little more than forgiveness on the endless instalment plan!” — and she had not been willing to forgive him, even when perhaps there had been nothing to forgive. She would turn restlessly, watching the dawn brightening against her window. Ah, kind God, what would she not forgive him now! What difference could anything that had been make, if only she could hear his voice again, and see him bending over the music of “The Persian Garden,” and know that for all time he was hers!

“Each morn a thousand roses brings, you say: Yes — but where leaves the rose of yesterday?”

Mrs. Carnby was not alone in her perception of the change in Margery. Jeremy mentioned it, one night, as they were dressing for dinner.

“I hope there’s nothing gone wrong with Margery, Louisa.”

“I hope not,” retorted his wife, dragging savagely on the comb.

“Then you’ve noticed?”

“I’ve noticed — yes. It’s the Tremonceau woman.”

“The—”

“The most beautiful cocotte in Paris, my poor Jeremy. Thank God, you have to be told these things! It’s the old story, no more admirable because, this time, it’s a friend of ours who’s making a fool of himself. If I had my way, I’d have sign-boards stuck up at every gate of Paris, with a finger pointing inward, and the inscription ‘Mud Garden. For Children Only.’ Faugh!”

“But you don’t suppose—”

Mrs. Carnby faced her husband, her hands upon her hips, assuming a kind of brazen effrontery.

“I don’t suppose, Jeremy Carnby, that a Paris cocotte affects the company of a rich young American for the sake of his beaux yeux. I don’t suppose that a good-looking boy in his twenties affects the company of Mirabelle Tremonceau for the pleasures of her conversation. I don’t suppose that the loveliest and purest girl on earth is going to survey with emotion the unspeakable folly of the man she cares for. And I don’t suppose the man she cares for is likely to be any different from the majority of men, who decide upon marriage principally because they’re tired of the other thing. I don’t suppose anything except what’s logical, and natural — and perfectly disgusting!”

“Do you mean — Vane?” asked Jeremy.

“Yes—bat!” said Mrs. Carnby.

Jeremy wisely made no reply.

So it was that when, at the end of the three weeks, Mr. Thomas Radwalader came down to spend the day, he found his hostess in a fine glow of suppressed impatience. She seized the first moment when they were alone to question him. They were old friends. He never laid claim to much in the way of morality in the presence of Mrs. Carnby, and it is a characteristic of this attitude that the person adopting it is frequently his own worst critic, and has more credit allowed to him than he deserves. Even the devil is not so black as he is painted, and if he will have the audacity to do most of the painting in question himself, he is more than likely to find that, in the opinion of others, his complexion will be comfortably free from blemishes. Radwalader’s smooth assumption of an indefinite kind of laxity, set at ease rather than aroused Mrs. Carnby’s suspicions of him.

“He can’t be so very bad,” she told herself, “or he wouldn’t talk so much about it.”

For unnecessary admissions are a sedative to gossip, just as unnecessary concealments are a stimulant.

“How’s Mr. Vane?” demanded Mrs. Carnby abruptly.

“Why, I was about to ask you,” answered Radwalader. “I thought he was quite a protégé of yours. I’ve not seen much of him, myself, of late. He’s made new friends, and of course I was never much more than a preliminary guide to Paris. I fancy he can find his own way about, nowadays.”

“I’ll warrant he can!” exclaimed Mrs. Carnby, “and into society none too good, at that!”

“How so?”

“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean! Of course, you’re bound to shield him. You men always do that, don’t you? You put your intoxicated friends to bed, and send discreet telegrams to their wives, to say they’ve been called out of town on business. That’s not forgery — it’s friendship. And when one of you’s going to the bad, the rest of you stand around and say: ‘Poor old chap! Don’t let his family suspect what we know.’ Oh, I wasn’t born yesterday, Radwalader! You may as well tell me what I want to know: it isn’t much. Is he still trotting about with that Tremonceau woman?”

“Now, Mrs. Carnby!” protested Radwalader. “Is that a fair question?”

“Perhaps not,” said Mrs. Carnby dryly, “but you’ve answered it already, so never mind! Let me tell you that I’m quite through with Andrew Vane. He didn’t even have the grace to answer a telegram that Margery Palffy sent him, three weeks ago, asking him to come down.”

“Three weeks ago?” repeated Radwalader reflectively. “But, Mrs. Carnby, he was here three weeks ago. We all were — don’t you remember?”

“Naturally I remember,” said Mrs. Carnby impatiently, “but there were urgent reasons for his return. Now, don’t tell me you don’t know that!”

“Know it? How should I know it? Vane doesn’t confide his private affairs to me. Do you mean that—”

“I mean that Margery had made a great mistake, in the course of a conversation they had on the last evening he was here — a mistake which imperilled the happiness of them both, and which it was of the utmost importance to set right. At the time, perhaps, he showed himself to be the victim of an unjust accusation; but since, he has shown himself to be a cad. If you’ve never known — but I’d not have believed it of you — that Margery was in love with him, and that he’s pretended to be in love with her, then it’s time you did!”

“What a pity!” observed Radwalader. “I wish I’d known all this before: I might have done something. But, after all, it’s just as well. It wouldn’t have done for Miss Palffy to humiliate herself; and the little Tremonceau—”

“Is his mistress?” put in Mrs. Carnby.

“Of course,” said Radwalader, with a skilful sigh. “There’s no doubt whatever about that.”

“I’d have wagered a good bit on his innocence!”

“When you wager anything on the innocence of a young man who’s been the close companion of Mirabelle Tremonceau for six weeks or so,” answered Radwalader, “it’s nothing less than a criminal waste of money.”

“Then he’s not only a cad,” said Mrs. Carnby angrily, “but a liar as well; and, as I’ve said already, I’m through with him!”

She was more than astounded when, two mornings later, a telegram was handed her at the breakfast-table. It was from Andrew, and requested permission to come down at once and spend one night.

“I think I’ll leave you to answer that,” she observed to Margery, who was alone with her at table, Jeremy having gone up to town by the early train. “The boy’s waiting.”

She tossed the despatch across the table as she spoke.

She was more astounded still when Margery looked up at her with the first spontaneous smile which Mrs. Carnby had seen upon her lips for many days.

“Please ask him to come,” she said.

“Oh, my dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Carnby, “do be careful! Remember how much has happened. If only you’d let me advise you!”

“You’ve advised me once already, fairy godmother,” said Margery, laughing.

“Heaven help me, so I have!” replied her hostess. “Do you mean it, Margery?”

“I was never more in earnest,” answered the girl, turning suddenly grave again. So Mrs. Carnby sent the required answer. All that morning she was more puzzled than ever she had been in the whole course of her life. It was certain that the girl’s mood had changed. The doubtful shadow in her eyes had given place to a clear glow of confidence, and her laugh was free from any suggestion of restraint. That in itself was curious. Depression, melancholy, even resentment, were to be expected as a result of the news that Andrew Vane was on the point of entering her life once more. Of late he had shown himself in a more unfavourable light than ever, and yet in her eyes, her smile, her light-hearted animation there was something akin to a suggestion that he had been fully exonerated from suspicion, rather than freshly and more significantly subjected to it. She was emphatically happy — and Mrs. Carnby could not comprehend. The thought, indeed, came to her that the explanation which Andrew had denied her, these three weeks past, had been given to Margery, in some fashion as yet unexplained. But this theory was wholly incompatible with his bearing when he arrived at noon. He looked wretchedly ill, and was prey to a visible embarrassment. He took her hand, but did not meet her eyes, and the credit she was beginning to accord him gave way, once more, to anger. As a result, her greeting was conspicuously cool. After dinner he and Margery played billiards, while Jeremy dozed, with the Temps over his placid face, and Mrs. Carnby did more to ruin a piece of embroidery than she had done to further it in the past six months. Suddenly the good lady retired to her room, with a violent and fortuitous headache. She had relinquished any attempt to fathom the situation: she had frankly thrown up the sponge!

“Shall we take a walk in the garden?” asked Andrew.

When they were alone with the silence and the stars, his hand sought hers.

“Margery!”

“Andy!”

“I’ve simply come to say good-by, my dear. You were quite right; I’m not worthy of you. I’m going back to the States as soon as I can get away. All I want you to remember is this. I’ve been careless — reckless — wholly at fault from the beginning to the end — but I’ve loved you always, my dearest — always — always! I won’t go into all the miserable details. Paris has made a fool of me, that’s all. I’m not the first idiot to throw away his chance of happiness because of the big city over there, and I’m not the first to pay the penalty I deserve. Once, perhaps, I had the right to demand something at your hands; but now I’ve no right to ask for anything. I ask for nothing! I’ve come to beg for your forgiveness, and to say good-by. Will you forgive me, Margery?”

“I want to ask you just one question,” said Margery steadily. “When I accused you of — of that— the other night, was I right or wrong?”

“Wrong,” said Andrew Vane; “but now—”

Suddenly she leaned toward him, stopping his speech with her soft and open palm.

“I’ve thought of another question,” she said. “Do you love me — now?”

“Love you?” answered Andrew. “Ah, Margery!”

“Then I wish to hear no more. The past is the past, do you hear? I love you! I’ve learned much in these few weeks. I love you, and I need you. You can’t leave me now. I’ve been so weary for you, my love! Ah, whatever there has been between us in the past, don’t let anything stand between us now!”

“But you don’t understand,” faltered Andrew. “Things have changed. There is much that you have to forgive me — much that I have to explain—”

“As to what I have to forgive you,” answered Margery, “I think there is also much for you to forgive me; and as to what you have to explain — oh, explain it later, Andy — explain it, if you like, when we—”

“Are married!” exclaimed Andrew. “No! Things must be made clear now. I’ve transgressed, my love — transgressed beyond hope of forgiveness. What would you say if you knew—?”

“I know already!” answered the girl. “I know more than you think — and I forgive it all. Oh, Andy, don’t make it too hard for me! Help me — won’t you?”

Suddenly, with a realization of what all this meant, he opened his arms, as to a child, and, like a confiding child, she went into them.

“I love you,” she whispered. “That’s all — I love you!”

“My love — my love — my love!” said Andrew.