The Dark Flower

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But they were gone at last--with their "Thanks so much!" and their
"Delightful evening!"

And those two were face to face for another night.

He knew that it must begin all over again--inevitable, after the stab of
that wretched argument plunged into their hearts and turned and turned
all the evening.

"I won't, I mustn't keep you starved, and spoil your work. Don't think
of me, Mark! I can bear it!"

And then a breakdown worse than the night before. What genius, what
sheer genius Nature had for torturing her creatures! If anyone had
told him, even so little as a week ago, that he could have caused such
suffering to Sylvia--Sylvia, whom as a child with wide blue eyes and
a blue bow on her flaxen head he had guarded across fields full of
imaginary bulls; Sylvia, in whose hair his star had caught; Sylvia, who
day and night for fifteen years had been his devoted wife; whom he loved
and still admired--he would have given him the lie direct. It would have
seemed incredible, monstrous, silly. Had all married men and women such
things to go through--was this but a very usual crossing of the desert?
Or was it, once for all, shipwreck? death--unholy, violent death--in a
storm of sand?

Another night of misery, and no answer to that question yet.

He had told her that he would not see Nell again without first letting
her know. So, when morning came, he simply wrote the words: "Don't come
today!"--showed them to Sylvia, and sent them by a servant to Dromore's.

Hard to describe the bitterness with which he entered his studio that
morning. In all this chaos, what of his work? Could he ever have peace
of mind for it again? Those people last night had talked of 'inspiration
of passion, of experience.' In pleading with her he had used the words
himself. She--poor soul!--had but repeated them, trying to endure them,
to believe them true. And were they true? Again no answer, or certainly
none that he could give. To have had the waters broken up; to be plunged
into emotion; to feel desperately, instead of stagnating--some day he
might be grateful--who knew? Some day there might be fair country again
beyond this desert, where he could work even better than before. But
just now, as well expect creative work from a condemned man. It seemed
to him that he was equally destroyed whether he gave Nell up, and with
her, once for all, that roving, seeking instinct, which ought, forsooth,
to have been satisfied, and was not; or whether he took Nell, knowing
that in doing so he was torturing a woman dear to him! That was as far
as he could see to-day. What he would come to see in time God only knew!
But: 'Freedom of the Spirit!' That was a phrase of bitter irony indeed!
And, there, with his work all round him, like a man tied hand and foot,
he was swept by such a feeling of exasperated rage as he had never
known. Women! These women! Only let him be free of both, of all women,
and the passions and pities they aroused, so that his brain and his
hands might live and work again! They should not strangle, they should
not destroy him!

Unfortunately, even in his rage, he knew that flight from them both
could never help him. One way or the other the thing would have to be
fought through. If it had been a straight fight even; a clear issue
between passion and pity! But both he loved, and both he pitied. There
was nothing straight and clear about it anywhere; it was all too
deeply rooted in full human nature. And the appalling sense of rushing
ceaselessly from barrier to barrier began really to affect his brain.

True, he had now and then a lucid interval of a few minutes, when the
ingenious nature of his own torments struck him as supremely interesting
and queer; but this was not precisely a relief, for it only meant, as in
prolonged toothache, that his power of feeling had for a moment ceased.
A very pretty little hell indeed!

All day he had the premonition, amounting to certainty, that Nell would
take alarm at those three words he had sent her, and come in spite of
them. And yet, what else could he have written? Nothing save what must
have alarmed her more, or plunged him deeper. He had the feeling that
she could follow his moods, that her eyes could see him everywhere, as a
cat's eyes can see in darkness. That feeling had been with him, more or
less, ever since the last evening of October, the evening she came back
from her summer--grown-up. How long ago? Only six days--was it possible?
Ah, yes! She knew when her spell was weakening, when the current wanted,
as it were, renewing. And about six o'clock--dusk already--without the
least surprise, with only a sort of empty quivering, he heard her knock.
And just behind the closed door, as near as he could get to her, he
stood, holding his breath. He had given his word to Sylvia--of his own
accord had given it. Through the thin wood of the old door he could hear
the faint shuffle of her feet on the pavement, moved a few inches this
way and that, as though supplicating the inexorable silence. He seemed
to see her head, bent a little forward listening. Three times she
knocked, and each time Lennan writhed. It was so cruel! With that
seeing-sense of hers she must know he was there; his very silence would
be telling her--for his silence had its voice, its pitiful breathless
sound. Then, quite distinctly, he heard her sigh, and her footsteps move
away; and covering his face with his hands he rushed to and fro in the
studio, like a madman.

No sound of her any more! Gone! It was unbearable; and, seizing his hat,
he ran out. Which way? At random he ran towards the Square. There she
was, over by the railings; languidly, irresolutely moving towards home.


XIV


But now that she was within reach, he wavered; he had given his
word--was he going to break it? Then she turned, and saw him; and he
could not go back. In the biting easterly wind her face looked small,
and pinched, and cold, but her eyes only the larger, the more full of
witchery, as if beseeching him not to be angry, not to send her away.

"I had to come; I got frightened. Why did you write such a tiny little
note?"

He tried to make his voice sound quiet and ordinary.

"You must be brave, Nell. I have had to tell her."

She clutched at his arm; then drew herself up, and said in her clear,
clipped voice:

"Oh! I suppose she hates me, then!"

"She is terribly unhappy."

They walked a minute, that might have been an hour, without a word; not
round the Square, as he had walked with Oliver, but away from the house.
At last she said in a half-choked voice: "I only want a little bit of
you."

And he answered dully: "In love, there are no little bits--no standing
still."

Then, suddenly, he felt her hand in his, the fingers lacing, twining
restlessly amongst his own; and again the half-choked voice said:

"But you WILL let me see you sometimes! You must!"

Hardest of all to stand against was this pathetic, clinging, frightened
child. And, not knowing very clearly what he said, he murmured:

"Yes--yes; it'll be all right. Be brave--you must be brave, Nell. It'll
all come right."

But she only answered:

"No, no! I'm not brave. I shall do something."

Her face looked just as when she had ridden at that gravel pit. Loving,
wild, undisciplined, without resource of any kind--what might she not
do? Why could he not stir without bringing disaster upon one or other?
And between these two, suffering so because of him, he felt as if he had
lost his own existence. In quest of happiness, he had come to that!

Suddenly she said:

"Oliver asked me again at the dance on Saturday. He said you had told
him to be patient. Did you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I was sorry for him."

She let his hand go.

"Perhaps you would like me to marry him."

Very clearly he saw those two going round and round over the shining
floor.

"It would be better, Nell."

She made a little sound--of anger or dismay.

"You don't REALLY want me, then?"

That was his chance. But with her arm touching his, her face so pale
and desperate, and those maddening eyes turned to him, he could not tell
that lie, and answered:

"Yes--I want you, God knows!"

At that a sigh of content escaped her, as if she were saying to herself:
'If he wants me he will not let me go.' Strange little tribute to her
faith in love and her own youth!

They had come somehow to Pall Mall by now. And scared to find himself
so deep in the hunting-ground of the Dromores, Lennan turned hastily
towards St. James's Park, that they might cross it in the dark, round
to Piccadilly. To be thus slinking out of the world's sight with the
daughter of his old room-mate--of all men in the world the last perhaps
that he should do this to! A nice treacherous business! But the thing
men called honour--what was it, when her eyes were looking at him and
her shoulder touching his?

Since he had spoken those words, "Yes, I want you," she had been
silent--fearful perhaps to let other words destroy their comfort. But
near the gate by Hyde Park Corner she put her hand again into his, and
again her voice, so clear, said:

"I don't want to hurt anybody, but you WILL let me come sometimes--you
will let me see you--you won't leave me all alone, thinking that I'll
never see you again?"

And once more, without knowing what he answered, Lennan murmured:

"No, no! It'll be all right, dear--it'll all come right. It must--and
shall."

Again her fingers twined amongst his, like a child's. She seemed to
have a wonderful knowledge of the exact thing to say and do to keep him
helpless. And she went on:

"I didn't try to love you--it isn't wrong to love--it wouldn't hurt her.
I only want a little of your love."

A little--always a little! But he was solely bent on comforting her now.
To think of her going home, and sitting lonely, frightened, and unhappy,
all the evening, was dreadful. And holding her fingers tight, he kept on
murmuring words of would-be comfort.

Then he saw that they were out in Piccadilly. How far dared he go with
her along the railings before he said good-bye? A man was coming towards
them, just where he had met Dromore that first fatal afternoon nine
months ago; a man with a slight lurch in his walk and a tall, shining
hat a little on one side. But thank Heaven!--it was not Dromore--only
one somewhat like him, who in passing stared sphinx-like at Nell. And
Lennan said:

"You must go home now, child; we mustn't be seen together."

For a moment he thought she was going to break down, refuse to leave
him. Then she threw up her head, and for a second stood like that, quite
motionless, looking in his face. Suddenly stripping off her glove, she
thrust her warm, clinging hand into his. Her lips smiled faintly, tears
stood in her eyes; then she drew her hand away and plunged into the
traffic. He saw her turn the corner of her street and disappear. And
with the warmth of that passionate little hand still stinging his palm,
he almost ran towards Hyde Park.

Taking no heed of direction, he launched himself into its dark space,
deserted in this cold, homeless wind, that had little sound and no
scent, travelling its remorseless road under the grey-black sky.

The dark firmament and keen cold air suited one who had little need of
aids to emotion--one who had, indeed, but the single wish to get rid,
if he only could, of the terrible sensation in his head, that bruised,
battered, imprisoned feeling of a man who paces his cell--never, never
to get out at either end. Without thought or intention he drove his
legs along; not running, because he knew that he would have to stop the
sooner. Alas! what more comic spectacle for the eyes of a good citizen
than this married man of middle age, striding for hours over those dry,
dark, empty pastures--hunted by passion and by pity, so that he knew not
even whether he had dined! But no good citizen was abroad of an autumn
night in a bitter easterly wind. The trees were the sole witnesses
of this grim exercise--the trees, resigning to the cold blast their
crinkled leaves that fluttered past him, just a little lighter than the
darkness. Here and there his feet rustled in the drifts, waiting their
turn to serve the little bonfires, whose scent still clung in the air.
A desperate walk, in this heart of London--round and round, up and down,
hour after hour, keeping always in the dark; not a star in the sky, not
a human being spoken to or even clearly seen, not a bird or beast;
just the gleam of the lights far away, and the hoarse muttering of the
traffic! A walk as lonely as the voyage of the human soul is lonely from
birth to death with nothing to guide it but the flickering glow from its
own frail spirit lighted it knows not where....

And, so tired that he could hardly move his legs, but free at last of
that awful feeling in his head--free for the first time for days and
days--Lennan came out of the Park at the gate where he had gone in, and
walked towards his home, certain that tonight, one way or the other, it
would be decided....


XV


This then--this long trouble of body and of spirit--was what he
remembered, sitting in the armchair beyond his bedroom fire, watching
the glow, and Sylvia sleeping there exhausted, while the dark plane-tree
leaves tap-tapped at the window in the autumn wind; watching, with
the uncanny certainty that, he would not pass the limits of this night
without having made at last a decision that would not alter. For even
conflict wears itself out; even indecision has this measure set to its
miserable powers of torture, that any issue in the end is better than
the hell of indecision itself. Once or twice in those last days even
death had seemed to him quite tolerable; but now that his head was clear
and he had come to grips, death passed out of his mind like the shadow
that it was. Nothing so simple, extravagant, and vain could serve him.
Other issues had reality; death--none. To leave Sylvia, and take this
young love away; there was reality in that, but it had always faded
as soon as it shaped itself; and now once more it faded. To put such a
public and terrible affront on a tender wife whom he loved, do her to
death, as it were, before the world's eyes--and then, ever remorseful,
grow old while the girl was still young? He could not. If Sylvia had not
loved him, yes; or, even if he had not loved her; or if, again, though
loving him she had stood upon her rights--in any of those events he
might have done it. But to leave her whom he did love, and who had said
to him so generously: "I will not hamper you--go to her"--would be a
black atrocity. Every memory, from their boy-and-girl lovering to the
desperate clinging of her arms these last two nights--memory with its
innumerable tentacles, the invincible strength of its countless threads,
bound him to her too fast. What then? Must it come, after all, to giving
up the girl? And sitting there, by that warm fire, he shivered. How
desolate, sacrilegious, wasteful to throw love away; to turn from the
most precious of all gifts; to drop and break that vase! There was not
too much love in the world, nor too much warmth and beauty--not, anyway,
for those whose sands were running out, whose blood would soon be cold.

Could Sylvia not let him keep both her love and the girl's? Could she
not bear that? She had said she could; but her face, her eyes, her voice
gave her the lie, so that every time he heard her his heart turned sick
with pity. This, then, was the real issue. Could he accept from her such
a sacrifice, exact a daily misery, see her droop and fade beneath it?
Could he bear his own happiness at such a cost? Would it be happiness
at all? He got up from the chair and crept towards her. She looked very
fragile sleeping there! The darkness below her closed eyelids showed
cruelly on that too fair skin; and in her flax-coloured hair he saw what
he had never noticed--a few strands of white. Her softly opened lips,
almost colourless, quivered with her uneven breathing; and now and
again a little feverish shiver passed up as from her heart. All soft and
fragile! Not much life, not much strength; youth and beauty slipping! To
know that he who should be her champion against age and time would day
by day be placing one more mark upon her face, one more sorrow in her
heart! That he should do this--they both going down the years together!

As he stood there holding his breath, bending to look at her, that
slurring swish of the plane-tree branch, flung against and against the
window by the autumn wind, seemed filling the whole world. Then her
lips moved in one of those little, soft hurrying whispers that unhappy
dreamers utter, the words all blurred with their wistful rushing.

And he thought: I, who believe in bravery and kindness; I, who hate
cruelty--if I do this cruel thing, what shall I have to live for; how
shall I work; how bear myself? If I do it, I am lost--an outcast from my
own faith--a renegade from all that I believe in.

And, kneeling there close to that face so sad and lonely, that heart so
beaten even in its sleep, he knew that he could not do it--knew it
with sudden certainty, and a curious sense of peace. Over!--the long
struggle--over at last! Youth with youth, summer to summer, falling leaf
with falling leaf! And behind him the fire flickered, and the plane-tree
leaves tap-tapped.

He rose, and crept away stealthily downstairs into the drawing-room, and
through the window at the far end out into the courtyard, where he had
sat that day by the hydrangea, listening to the piano-organ. Very dark
and cold and eerie it was there, and he hurried across to his studio.
There, too, it was cold, and dark, and eerie, with its ghostly plaster
presences, stale scent of cigarettes, and just one glowing ember of the
fire he had left when he rushed out after Nell--those seven hours ago.

He went first to the bureau, turned up its lamp, and taking out some
sheets of paper, marked on them directions for his various works;
for the statuette of Nell, he noted that it should be taken with his
compliments to Mr. Dromore. He wrote a letter to his banker directing
money to be sent to Rome, and to his solicitor telling him to let the
house. He wrote quickly. If Sylvia woke, and found him still away, what
might she not think? He took a last sheet. Did it matter what he wrote,
what deliberate lie, if it helped Nell over the first shock?


"DEAR NELL,

"I write this hastily in the early hours, to say that we are called
out to Italy to my only sister, who is very ill. We leave by the first
morning boat, and may be away some time. I will write again. Don't fret,
and God bless you.

"M. L."


He could not see very well as he wrote. Poor, loving, desperate child!
Well, she had youth and strength, and would soon have--Oliver! And he
took yet another sheet.


"DEAR OLIVER,

"My wife and I are obliged to go post-haste to Italy. I watched you both
at the dance the other night. Be very gentle with Nell; and--good luck
to you! But don't say again that I told you to be patient; it is hardly
the way to make her love you.

"M. LENNAN."


That, then, was all--yes, all! He turned out the little lamp, and groped
towards the hearth. But one thing left. To say good-bye! To her, and
Youth, and Passion!--to the only salve for the aching that Spring and
Beauty bring--the aching for the wild, the passionate, the new, that
never quite dies in a man's heart. Ah! well, sooner or later, all men
had to say good-bye to that. All men--all men!

He crouched down before the hearth. There was no warmth in that
fast-blackening ember, but it still glowed like a dark-red flower. And
while it lived he crouched there, as though it were that to which he was
saying good-bye. And on the door he heard the girl's ghostly knocking.
And beside him--a ghost among the ghostly presences--she stood. Slowly
the glow blackened, till the last spark had faded out.

Then by the glimmer of the night he found his way back, softly as he had
come, to his bedroom.

Sylvia was still sleeping; and, to watch for her to wake, he sat down
again by the fire, in silence only stirred by the frail tap-tapping of
those autumn leaves, and the little catch in her breathing now and then.
It was less troubled than when he had bent over her before, as though in
her sleep she knew. He must not miss the moment of her waking, must be
beside her before she came to full consciousness, to say: "There, there!
It's all over; we are going away at once--at once." To be ready to offer
that quick solace, before she had time to plunge back into her sorrow,
was an island in this black sea of night, a single little refuge point
for his bereaved and naked being. Something to do--something fixed,
real, certain. And yet another long hour before her waking, he sat
forward in the chair, with that wistful eagerness, his eyes fixed on
her face, staring through it at some vision, some faint, glimmering
light--far out there beyond--as a traveller watches a star....