Beyond

J >> John Galsworthy >> Beyond


Fiorsen dropped his grasp of her and recoiled against the wall. There
with his head touching one of the little Japanese trees, he stood biting
his fingers. She was already moving toward the door.

"My mother's got a key, and it's no good putting you anywhere, because
she always has a good look round. But perhaps it isn't them. Besides,
I'm not afraid now; it makes a wonderful difference being on one's own."

She disappeared. Fiorsen could hear a woman's acid voice, a man's,
rather hoarse and greasy, the sound of a smacking kiss. And, with a
vicious shrug, he stood at bay. Trapped! The little devil! The little
dovelike devil! He saw a lady in a silk dress, green shot with beetroot
colour, a short, thick gentleman with a round, greyish beard, in a grey
suit, having a small dahlia in his buttonhole, and, behind them, Daphne
Wing, flushed, and very round-eyed. He took a step, intending to escape
without more ado. The gentleman said:

"Introduce us, Daisy. I didn't quite catch--Mr. Dawson? How do you do,
sir? One of my daughter's impresarios, I think. 'Appy to meet you, I'm
sure."

Fiorsen took a long breath, and bowed. Mr. Wagge's small piggy eyes had
fixed themselves on the little trees.

"She's got a nice little place here for her work--quiet and
unconventional. I hope you think well of her talent, sir? You might go
further and fare worse, I believe."

Again Fiorsen bowed.

"You may be proud of her," he said; "she is the rising star."

Mr. Wagge cleared his throat.

"Ow," he said; "ye'es! From a little thing, we thought she had stuff
in her. I've come to take a great interest in her work. It's not in my
line, but I think she's a sticker; I like to see perseverance. Where
you've got that, you've got half the battle of success. So many of these
young people seem to think life's all play. You must see a lot of that
in your profession, sir."

"Robert!"

A shiver ran down Fiorsen's spine.

"Ye-es?"

"The name was not DAWson!"

There followed a long moment. On the one side was that vinegary woman
poking her head forward like an angry hen, on the other, Daphne Wing,
her eyes rounder and rounder, her cheeks redder and redder, her lips
opening, her hands clasped to her perfect breast, and, in the centre,
that broad, grey-bearded figure, with reddening face and angry eyes and
hoarsening voice:

"You scoundrel! You infernal scoundrel!" It lurched forward, raising a
pudgy fist. Fiorsen sprang down the stairs and wrenched open the door.
He walked away in a whirl of mortification. Should he go back and
take that pug-faced vulgarian by the throat? As for that minx! But his
feelings about HER were too complicated for expression. And then--so
dark and random are the ways of the mind--his thoughts darted back to
Gyp, sitting on the oaken chest, making her confession; and the whips
and stings of it scored him worse than ever.


X


That same evening, standing at the corner of Bury Street, Summerhay
watched Gyp going swiftly to her father's house. He could not bring
himself to move while there was still a chance to catch a glimpse of her
face, a sign from her hand. Gone! He walked away with his head down. The
more blissful the hours just spent, the greater the desolation when they
are over. Of such is the nature of love, as he was now discerning. The
longing to have her always with him was growing fast. Since her
husband knew--why wait? There would be no rest for either of them in an
existence of meetings and partings like this, with the menace of that
fellow. She must come away with him at once--abroad--until things had
declared themselves; and then he must find a place where they could live
and she feel safe and happy. He must show he was in dead earnest, set
his affairs in order. And he thought: 'No good doing things by halves.
Mother must know. The sooner the better. Get it over--at once!' And,
with a grimace of discomfort, he set out for his aunt's house in Cadogan
Gardens, where his mother always stayed when she was in town.

Lady Summerhay was in the boudoir, waiting for dinner and reading a book
on dreams. A red-shaded lamp cast a mellow tinge over the grey frock,
over one reddish cheek and one white shoulder. She was a striking
person, tall and well built, her very blonde hair only just turning
grey, for she had married young and been a widow fifteen years--one of
those women whose naturally free spirits have been netted by association
with people of public position. Bubbles were still rising from her
submerged soul, but it was obvious that it would not again set eyes
on the horizon. With views neither narrow nor illiberal, as views in
society go, she judged everything now as people of public position
must--discussion, of course, but no alteration in one's way of living.
Speculation and ideas did not affect social usage. The countless
movements in which she and her friends were interested for the
emancipation and benefit of others were, in fact, only channels for
letting off her superfluous goodwill, conduit-pipes, for the directing
spirit bred in her. She thought and acted in terms of the public good,
regulated by what people of position said at luncheon and dinner. And it
was surely not her fault that such people must lunch and dine. When her
son had bent and kissed her, she held up the book to him and said:

"Well, Bryan, I think this man's book disgraceful; he simply runs his
sex-idea to death. Really, we aren't all quite so obsessed as that. I do
think he ought to be put in his own lunatic asylum."

Summerhay, looking down at her gloomily, answered:

"I've got bad news for you, Mother."

Lady Summerhay closed the book and searched his face with apprehension.
She knew that expression. She knew that poise of his head, as if butting
at something. He looked like that when he came to her in gambling
scrapes. Was this another? Bryan had always been a pickle. His next
words took her breath away.

"The people at Mildenham, Major Winton and his daughter--you know. Well,
I'm in love with her--I'm--I'm her lover."

Lady Summerhay uttered a gasp.

"But--but--Bryan--"

"That fellow she married drinks. He's impossible. She had to leave him a
year ago, with her baby--other reasons, too. Look here, Mother: This is
hateful, but you'd got to know. I can't talk of her. There's no chance
of a divorce." His voice grew higher. "Don't try to persuade me out of
it. It's no good."

Lady Summerhay, from whose comely face a frock, as it were, had slipped,
clasped her hands together on the book.

Such a swift descent of "life" on one to whom it had for so long been
a series of "cases" was cruel, and her son felt this without quite
realizing why. In the grip of his new emotions, he still retained enough
balance to appreciate what an abominably desolate piece of news this
must be to her, what a disturbance and disappointment. And, taking her
hand, he put it to his lips.

"Cheer up, Mother! It's all right. She's happy, and so am I."

Lady Summerhay could only press her hand against his kiss, and murmur:

"Yes; that's not everything, Bryan. Is there--is there going to be a
scandal?"

"I don't know. I hope not; but, anyway, HE knows about it."

"Society doesn't forgive."

Summerhay shrugged his shoulders.

"Awfully sorry for YOU, Mother."

"Oh, Bryan!"

This repetition of her plaint jarred his nerves.

"Don't run ahead of things. You needn't tell Edith or Flo. You needn't
tell anybody. We don't know what'll happen yet."

But in Lady Summerhay all was too sore and blank. This woman she had
never seen, whose origin was doubtful, whose marriage must have soiled
her, who was some kind of a siren, no doubt. It really was too hard! She
believed in her son, had dreamed of public position for him, or, rather,
felt he would attain it as a matter of course. And she said feebly:

"This Major Winton is a man of breeding, isn't he?"

"Rather!" And, stopping before her, as if he read her thoughts, he
added: "You think she's not good enough for me? She's good enough for
anyone on earth. And she's the proudest woman I've ever met. If you're
bothering as to what to do about her--don't! She won't want anything of
anybody--I can tell you that. She won't accept any crumbs."

"That's lucky!" hovered on Lady Summerhay's lips; but, gazing at her
son, she became aware that she stood on the brink of a downfall in his
heart. Then the bitterness of her disappointment rising up again, she
said coldly:

"Are you going to live together openly?"

"Yes; if she will."

"You don't know yet?"

"I shall--soon."

Lady Summerhay got up, and the book on dreams slipped off her lap with a
thump. She went to the fireplace, and stood there looking at her son. He
had altered. His merry look was gone; his face was strange to her. She
remembered it like that, once in the park at Widrington, when he lost
his temper with a pony and came galloping past her, sitting back, his
curly hair stivered up like a little demon's. And she said sadly:

"You can hardly expect me to like it for you, Bryan, even if she is what
you say. And isn't there some story about--"

"My dear mother, the more there is against her, the more I shall love
her--that's obvious."

Lady Summerhay sighed again.

"What is this man going to do? I heard him play once."

"I don't know. Nothing, I dare say. Morally and legally, he's out of
court. I only wish to God he WOULD bring a case, and I could marry her;
but Gyp says he won't."

Lady Summerhay murmured:

"Gyp? Is that her name?" And a sudden wish, almost a longing, not a
friendly one, to see this woman seized her. "Will you bring her to see
me? I'm alone here till Wednesday."

"I'll ask her, but I don't think she'll come." He turned his head away.
"Mother, she's wonderful!"

An unhappy smile twisted Lady Summerhay's lips. No doubt! Aphrodite
herself had visited her boy. Aphrodite! And--afterward? She asked
desolately:

"Does Major Winton know?"

"Yes."

"What does he say to it?"

"Say? What can anyone say? From your point of view, or his, it's rotten,
of course. But in her position, anything's rotten."

At that encouraging word, the flood-gates gave way in Lady Summerhay,
and she poured forth a stream of words.

"Oh, my dear, can't you pull up? I've seen so many of these affairs go
wrong. It really is not for nothing that law and conventions are what
they are--believe me! Really, Bryan, experience does show that the
pressure's too great. It's only once in a way--very exceptional people,
very exceptional circumstances. You mayn't think now it'll hamper you,
but you'll find it will--most fearfully. It's not as if you were a
writer or an artist, who can take his work where he likes and live in a
desert if he wants. You've got to do yours in London, your whole career
is bound up with society. Do think, before you go butting up against it!
It's all very well to say it's no affair of anyone's, but you'll find
it is, Bryan. And then, can you--can you possibly make her happy in the
long-run?"

She stopped at the expression on his face. It was as if he were saying:
"I have left your world. Talk to your fellows; all this is nothing to
me."

"Look here, Mother: you don't seem to understand. I'm devoted--devoted
so that there's nothing else for me."

"How long will that last, Bryan? You mean bewitched."

Summerhay said, with passion:

"I don't. I mean what I said. Good-night!" And he went to the door.

"Won't you stay to dinner, dear?"

But he was gone, and the full of vexation, anxiety, and wretchedness
came on Lady Summerhay. It was too hard! She went down to her lonely
dinner, desolate and sore. And to the book on dreams, opened beside her
plate, she turned eyes that took in nothing.


Summerhay went straight home. The lamps were brightening in the
early-autumn dusk, and a draughty, ruffling wind flicked a yellow leaf
here and there from off the plane trees. It was just the moment when
evening blue comes into the colouring of the town--that hour of
fusion when day's hard and staring shapes are softening, growing dark,
mysterious, and all that broods behind the lives of men and trees and
houses comes down on the wings of illusion to repossess the world--the
hour when any poetry in a man wells up. But Summerhay still heard his
mother's, "Oh, Bryan!" and, for the first time, knew the feeling that
his hand was against everyone's. There was a difference already, or so
it seemed to him, in the expression of each passer-by. Nothing any more
would be a matter of course; and he was of a class to whom everything
has always been a matter of course. Perhaps he did not realize this
clearly yet; but he had begun to take what the nurses call "notice," as
do those only who are forced on to the defensive against society.

Putting his latch-key into the lock, he recalled the sensation with
which, that afternoon, he had opened to Gyp for the first time--half
furtive, half defiant. It would be all defiance now. This was the end
of the old order! And, lighting a fire in his sitting-room, he began
pulling out drawers, sorting and destroying. He worked for hours,
burning, making lists, packing papers and photographs. Finishing at
last, he drank a stiff whisky and soda, and sat down to smoke. Now
that the room was quiet, Gyp seemed to fill it again with her presence.
Closing his eyes, he could see her there by the hearth, just as she
stood before they left, turning her face up to him, murmuring: "You
won't stop loving me, now you're so sure I love you?" Stop loving her!
The more she loved him, the more he would love her. And he said aloud:
"By God! I won't!" At that remark, so vehement for the time of night,
the old Scotch terrier, Ossian, came from his corner and shoved his long
black nose into his master's hand.

"Come along up, Ossy! Good dog, Oss!" And, comforted by the warmth of
that black body beside him in the chair, Summerhay fell asleep in front
of the fire smouldering with blackened fragments of his past.


XI


Though Gyp had never seemed to look round she had been quite conscious
of Summerhay still standing where they had parted, watching her into the
house in Bury Street. The strength of her own feeling surprised her,
as a bather in the sea is surprised, finding her feet will not touch
bottom, that she is carried away helpless--only, these were the waters
of ecstasy.

For the second night running, she hardly slept, hearing the clocks of
St. James's strike, and Big Ben boom, hour after hour. At breakfast, she
told her father of Fiorsen's reappearance. He received the news with a
frown and a shrewd glance.

"Well, Gyp?"

"I told him."

His feelings, at that moment, were perhaps as mixed as they had ever
been--curiosity, parental disapproval, to which he knew he was not
entitled, admiration of her pluck in letting that fellow know, fears for
the consequences of this confession, and, more than all, his profound
disturbance at knowing her at last launched into the deep waters of
love. It was the least of these feelings that found expression.

"How did he take it?"

"Rushed away. The only thing I feel sure of is that he won't divorce
me."

"No, by George; I don't suppose even he would have that impudence!"
And Winton was silent, trying to penetrate the future. "Well," he said
suddenly, "it's on the knees of the gods then. But be careful, Gyp."

About noon, Betty returned from the sea, with a solemn, dark-eyed,
cooing little Gyp, brown as a roasted coffee-berry. When she had been
given all that she could wisely eat after the journey, Gyp carried her
off to her own room, undressed her for sheer delight of kissing her from
head to foot, and admiring her plump brown legs, then cuddled her up
in a shawl and lay down with her on the bed. A few sleepy coos and
strokings, and little Gyp had left for the land of Nod, while her mother
lay gazing at her black lashes with a kind of passion. She was not
a child-lover by nature; but this child of her own, with her dark
softness, plump delicacy, giving disposition, her cooing voice, and
constant adjurations to "dear mum," was adorable. There was something
about her insidiously seductive. She had developed so quickly, with the
graceful roundness of a little animal, the perfection of a flower. The
Italian blood of her great-great-grandmother was evidently prepotent in
her as yet; and, though she was not yet two years old, her hair, which
had lost its baby darkness, was already curving round her neck and
waving on her forehead. One of her tiny brown hands had escaped the
shawl and grasped its edge with determined softness. And while Gyp gazed
at the pinkish nails and their absurdly wee half-moons, at the sleeping
tranquillity stirred by breathing no more than a rose-leaf on a windless
day, her lips grew fuller, trembled, reached toward the dark
lashes, till she had to rein her neck back with a jerk to stop such
self-indulgence. Soothed, hypnotized, almost in a dream, she lay there
beside her baby.

That evening, at dinner, Winton said calmly:

"Well, I've been to see Fiorsen, and warned him off. Found him at that
fellow Rosek's." Gyp received the news with a vague sensation of alarm.
"And I met that girl, the dancer, coming out of the house as I was going
in--made it plain I'd seen her, so I don't think he'll trouble you."

An irresistible impulse made her ask:

"How was she looking, Dad?"

Winton smiled grimly. How to convey his impression of the figure he had
seen coming down the steps--of those eyes growing rounder and rounder at
sight of him, of that mouth opening in an: "Oh!"

"Much the same. Rather flabbergasted at seeing me, I think. A white
hat--very smart. Attractive in her way, but common, of course. Those two
were playing the piano and fiddle when I went up. They tried not to let
me in, but I wasn't to be put off. Queer place, that!"

Gyp smiled. She could see it all so well. The black walls, the silver
statuettes, Rops drawings, scent of dead rose-leaves and pastilles and
cigarettes--and those two by the piano--and her father so cool and dry!

"One can't stand on ceremony with fellows like that. I hadn't forgotten
that Polish chap's behaviour to you, my dear."

Through Gyp passed a quiver of dread, a vague return of the feelings
once inspired by Rosek.

"I'm almost sorry you went, Dad. Did you say anything very--"

"Did I? Let's see! No; I think I was quite polite." He added, with a
grim, little smile: "I won't swear I didn't call one of them a ruffian.
I know they said something about my presuming on being a cripple."

"Oh, darling!"

"Yes; it was that Polish chap--and so he is!"

Gyp murmured:

"I'd almost rather it had been--the other." Rosek's pale, suave face,
with the eyes behind which there were such hidden things, and the lips
sweetish and restrained and sensual--he would never forgive! But Winton
only smiled again, patting her arm. He was pleased with an encounter
which had relieved his feelings.

Gyp spent all that evening writing her first real love-letter. But
when, next afternoon at six, in fulfilment of its wording, she came to
Summerhay's little house, her heart sank; for the blinds were down and
it had a deserted look. If he had been there, he would have been at the
window, waiting. Had he, then, not got her letter, not been home since
yesterday? And that chill fear which besets lovers' hearts at failure of
a tryst smote her for the first time. In the three-cornered garden
stood a decayed statue of a naked boy with a broken bow--a sparrow was
perching on his greenish shoulder; sooty, heart-shaped lilac leaves hung
round his head, and at his legs the old Scotch terrier was sniffing. Gyp
called: "Ossian! Ossy!" and the old dog came, wagging his tail feebly.

"Master! Where is your master, dear?"

Ossian poked his long nose into her calf, and that gave her a little
comfort. She passed, perforce, away from the deserted house and returned
home; but all manner of frightened thoughts beset her. Where had he
gone? Why had he gone? Why had he not let her know? Doubts--those hasty
attendants on passion--came thronging, and scepticism ran riot. What did
she know of his life, of his interests, of him, except that he said he
loved her? Where had he gone? To Widrington, to some smart house-party,
or even back to Scotland? The jealous feelings that had so besieged her
at the bungalow when his letters ceased came again now with redoubled
force. There must be some woman who, before their love began, had claim
on him, or some girl that he admired. He never told her of any such--of
course, he would not! She was amazed and hurt by her capacity for
jealousy. She had always thought she would be too proud to feel
jealousy--a sensation so dark and wretched and undignified,
but--alas!--so horribly real and clinging.

She had said she was not dining at home; so Winton had gone to his club,
and she was obliged to partake of a little trumped-up lonely meal. She
went up to her room after it, but there came on her such restlessness
that presently she put on her things and slipped out. She went past St.
James's Church into Piccadilly, to the further, crowded side, and began
to walk toward the park. This was foolish; but to do a foolish thing
was some relief, and she went along with a faint smile, mocking her
own recklessness. Several women of the town--ships of night with sails
set--came rounding out of side streets or down the main stream,
with their skilled, rapid-seeming slowness. And at the discomfited,
half-hostile stares on their rouged and powdered faces, Gyp felt a
wicked glee. She was disturbing, hurting them--and she wanted to hurt.

Presently, a man, in evening dress, with overcoat thrown open, gazed
pointblank into her face, and, raising his hat, ranged up beside her.
She walked straight on, still with that half-smile, knowing him puzzled
and fearfully attracted. Then an insensate wish to stab him to the heart
made her turn her head and look at him. At the expression on her face,
he wilted away from her, and again she felt that wicked glee at having
hurt him.

She crossed out into the traffic, to the park side, and turned back
toward St. James's; and now she was possessed by profound, black
sadness. If only her lover were beside her that beautiful evening, among
the lights and shadows of the trees, in the warm air! Why was he not
among these passers-by? She who could bring any casual man to her side
by a smile could not conjure up the only one she wanted from this great
desert of a town! She hurried along, to get in and hide her longing.
But at the corner of St. James's Street, she stopped. That was his club,
nearly opposite. Perhaps he was there, playing cards or billiards, a few
yards away, and yet as in another world. Presently he would come out,
go to some music-hall, or stroll home thinking of her--perhaps not even
thinking of her! Another woman passed, giving her a furtive glance. But
Gyp felt no glee now. And, crossing over, close under the windows of
the club, she hurried home. When she reached her room, she broke into
a storm of tears. How could she have liked hurting those poor women,
hurting that man--who was only paying her a man's compliment, after all?
And with these tears, her jealous, wild feelings passed, leaving only
her longing.

Next morning brought a letter. Summerhay wrote from an inn on the river,
asking her to come down by the eleven o'clock train, and he would meet
her at the station. He wanted to show her a house that he had seen; and
they could have the afternoon on the river! Gyp received this letter,
which began: "My darling!" with an ecstasy that she could not quite
conceal. And Winton, who had watched her face, said presently:

"I think I shall go to Newmarket, Gyp. Home to-morrow evening."

In the train on the way down, she sat with closed eyes, in a sort of
trance. If her lover had been there holding her in his arms, he could
not have seemed nearer.

She saw him as the train ran in; but they met without a hand-clasp,
without a word, simply looking at each other and breaking into smiles.

A little victoria "dug up"--as Summerhay said--"horse, driver and all,"
carried them slowly upward. Under cover of the light rugs their hands
were clasped, and they never ceased to look into each other's faces,
except for those formal glances of propriety which deceive no one.

The day was beautiful, as only early September days can be--when the
sun is hot, yet not too hot, and its light falls in a silken radiance on
trees just losing the opulent monotony of summer, on silvery-gold reaped
fields, silvery-green uplands, golden mustard; when shots ring out in
the distance, and, as one gazes, a leaf falls, without reason, as it
would seem. Presently they branched off the main road by a lane past
a clump of beeches and drew up at the gate of a lonely house, built
of very old red brick, and covered by Virginia creeper just turning--a
house with an ingle-nook and low, broad chimneys. Before it was a
walled, neglected lawn, with poplars and one large walnut-tree. The
sunlight seemed to have collected in that garden, and there was a
tremendous hum of bees. Above the trees, the downs could be seen where
racehorses, they said, were trained. Summerhay had the keys of the
house, and they went in. To Gyp, it was like a child's "pretending"--to
imagine they were going to live there together, to sort out the rooms
and consecrate each. She would not spoil this perfect day by argument or
admission of the need for a decision. And when he asked: