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_ The name, as Gerty saw with a clutch at the heart, had loosened
the springs of self-pity in her friend's dry breast, and tear by
tear Lily poured out the measure of her anguish. She had dropped
sideways in Gerty's big arm-chair, her head buried where lately
Selden's had leaned, in a beauty of abandonment that drove home
to Gerty's aching senses the inevitableness of her own defeat.
Ah, it needed no deliberate purpose on Lily's part to rob her of
her dream! To look on that prone loveliness was to see in it a
natural force, to recognize that love and power belong to such as
Lily, as renunciation and service are the lot of those they
despoil. But if Selden's infatuation seemed a fatal necessity,
the effect that his name produced shook Gerty's steadfastness
with a last pang. Men pass through such superhuman loves and
outlive them: they are the probation subduing the heart to human
joys. How gladly Gerty would have welcomed the ministry of
healing: how willingly have soothed the sufferer back to
tolerance of life! But Lily's self-betrayal took this last hope
from her. The mortal maid on the shore is helpless against the
siren who loves her prey: such victims are floated back dead
from their adventure.
Lily sprang up and caught her with strong hands. "Gerty, you know
him--you understand him--tell me; if I went to him, if I told
him everything--if I said: 'I am bad through and through--I want
admiration, I want excitement, I want money--' yes, MONEY!
That's my shame, Gerty--and it's known, it's said of me--it's
what men think of me--If I said it all to him--told him the
whole story--said plainly:'I've sunk lower than the lowest, for
I've taken what they take, and not paid as they pay'--oh, Gerty,
you know him, you can speak for him: if I told him everything
would he loathe me? Or would he pity me, and understand me, and
save me from loathing myself?"
Gerty stood cold and passive. She knew the hour of her probation
had come, and her poor heart beat wildly against its destiny. As
a dark river sweeps by under a lightning flash, she saw her
chance of happiness surge past under a flash of temptation. What
prevented her from saying: "He is like other men"? She
was not so sure of him, after all! But to do so would have been
like blaspheming her love. She could not put him before herself
in any light but the noblest: she must trust him to the height of
her own passion.
"Yes: I know him; he will help you," she said; and in a moment
Lily's passion was weeping itself out against her breast.
There was but one bed in the little flat, and the two girls lay
down on it side by side when Gerty had unlaced Lily's dress and
persuaded her to put her lips to the warm tea. The light
extinguished, they lay still in the darkness, Gerty shrinking to
the outer edge of the narrow couch to avoid contact with her
bed-fellow. Knowing that Lily disliked to be caressed, she had
long ago learned to check her demonstrative impulses toward her
friend. But tonight every fibre in her body shrank from Lily's
nearness: it was torture to listen to her breathing, and feel the
sheet stir with it. As Lily turned, and settled to completer
rest, a strand of her hair swept Gerty's cheek with its
fragrance. Everything about her was warm and soft and scented:
even the stains of her grief became her as rain-drops do the
beaten rose. But as Gerty lay with arms drawn down her side, in
the motionless narrowness of an effigy, she felt a stir of sobs
from the breathing warmth beside her, and Lily flung out her
hand, groped for her friend's, and held it fast.
"Hold me, Gerty, hold me, or I shall think of things," she
moaned; and Gerty silently slipped an arm under her, pillowing
her head in its hollow as a mother makes a nest for a tossing
child. In the warm hollow Lily lay still and her breathing grew
low and regular. Her hand still dung to Gerty's as if to ward off
evil dreams, but the hold of her fingers relaxed, her head sank
deeper into its shelter, and Gerty felt that she slept.
When lily woke she had the bed to herself, and the winter light
was in the room.
She sat up, bewildered by the strangeness of her surroundings;
then memory returned, and she looked about her with a shiver. In
the cold slant of light reflected from the back wall of a
neighbouring building, she saw her evening dress and opera cloak
lying in a tawdry heap on a chair. Finery laid off is as
unappetizing as the remains of a feast, and it occurred to Lily
that, at home, her maid's vigilance had always spared her the
sight of such incongruities. Her body ached with fatigue, and
with the constriction of her attitude in Gerty's bed. All through
her troubled sleep she had been conscious of having no space to
toss in, and the long effort to remain motionless made her feel
as if she had spent her night in a train.
This sense of physical discomfort was the first to assert itself;
then she perceived, beneath it, a corresponding mental
prostration, a languor of horror more insufferable than the first
rush of her disgust. The thought of having to wake every morning
with this weight on her breast roused her tired mind to fresh
effort. She must find some way out of the slough into which she
had stumbled: it was not so much compunction as the dread of her
morning thoughts that pressed on her the need of action. But she
was unutterably tired; it was weariness to think connectedly. She
lay back, looking about the poor slit of a room with a renewal of
physical distaste. The outer air, penned between high buildings,
brought no freshness through the window; steam-heat was beginning
to sing in a coil of dingy pipes, and a smell of cooking
penetrated the crack of the door.
The door opened, and Gerty, dressed and hatted, entered with a
cup of tea. Her face looked sallow and swollen in the dreary
light, and her dull hair shaded imperceptibly into the tones of
her skin.
She glanced shyly at Lily, asking in an embarrassed tone how she
felt; Lily answered with the same constraint, and raised herself
up to drink the tea.
"I must have been over-tired last night; I think I had a
nervous attack in the carriage," she said, as the drink brought
clearness to her sluggish thoughts.
"You were not well; I am so glad you came here," Gerty returned.
"But how am I to get home? And Aunt Julia--?"
"She knows; I telephoned early, and your maid has brought your
things. But won't you eat something? I scrambled the eggs
myself."
Lily could not eat; but the tea strengthened her to rise and
dress under her maid's searching gaze. It was a relief to her
that Gerty was obliged to hasten away: the two kissed silently,
but without a trace of the previous night's emotion.
Lily found Mrs. Peniston in a state of agitation. She had sent
for Grace Stepney and was taking digitalis. Lily breasted the
storm of enquiries as best she could, explaining that she had had
an attack of faintness on her way back from Carry Fisher's; that,
fearing she would not have strength to reach home, she had gone
to Miss Farish's instead; but that a quiet night had restored
her, and that she had no need of a doctor.
This was a relief to Mrs. Peniston, who could give herself up to
her own symptoms, and Lily was advised to go and lie down, her
aunt's panacea for all physical and moral disorders. In the
solitude of her own room she was brought back to a sharp
contemplation of facts. Her daylight view of them necessarily
differed from the cloudy vision of the night. The winged furies
were now prowling gossips who dropped in on each other for tea.
But her fears seemed the uglier, thus shorn of their vagueness;
and besides, she had to act, not rave. For the first time she
forced herself to reckon up the exact amount of her debt to
Trenor; and the result of this hateful computation was the
discovery that she had, in all, received nine thousand dollars
from him. The flimsy pretext on which it had been given and
received shrivelled up in the blaze of her shame: she knew that
not a penny of it was her own, and that to restore her
self-respect she must at once repay the whole amount. The
inability thus to solace her outraged feelings gave her a
paralyzing sense of insignificance. She was realizing for the
first time that a woman's dignity may cost more to keep up than
her carriage; and that the maintenance of a moral
attribute should be dependent on dollars and cents, made the
world appear a more sordid place than she had conceived it.
After luncheon, when Grace Stepney's prying eyes had been
removed, Lily asked for a word with her aunt. The two ladies went
upstairs to the sitting-room, where Mrs. Peniston seated herself
in her black satin arm-chair tufted with yellow buttons, beside a
bead-work table bearing a bronze box with a miniature of Beatrice
Cenci in the lid. Lily felt for these objects the same distaste
which the prisoner may entertain for the fittings of the
court-room. It was here that her aunt received her rare
confidences, and the pink-eyed smirk of the turbaned Beatrice was
associated in her mind with the gradual fading of the smile from
Mrs. Peniston's lips. That lady's dread of a scene gave her an
inexorableness which the greatest strength of character could not
have produced, since it was independent of all considerations of
right or wrong; and knowing this, Lily seldom ventured to assail
it. She had never felt less like making the attempt than on the
present occasion; but she had sought in vain for any other means
of escape from an intolerable situation.
Mrs. Peniston examined her critically. "You're a bad colour,
Lily: this incessant rushing about is beginning to tell on you,"
she said.
Miss Bart saw an opening. "I don't think it's that, Aunt Julia;
I've had worries," she replied.
"Ah," said Mrs. Peniston, shutting her lips with the snap of a
purse closing against a beggar.
"I'm sorry to bother you with them," Lily continued, "but I
really believe my faintness last night was brought on partly by
anxious thoughts--"
"I should have said Carry Fisher's cook was enough to account for
it. She has a woman who was with Maria Melson in 1891--the spring
of the year we went to Aix--and I remember dining there two days
before we sailed, and feeling SURE the coppers hadn't been
scoured."
"I don't think I ate much; I can't eat or sleep." Lily paused,
and then said abruptly: "The fact is, Aunt Julia, I owe some
money."
Mrs. Peniston's face clouded perceptibly, but did not
express the astonishment her niece had expected. She was silent,
and Lily was forced to continue: "I have been foolish---"
"No doubt you have: extremely foolish," Mrs. Peniston interposed.
"I fail to see how any one with your income, and no expenses--not
to mention the handsome presents I've always given you---"
"Oh, you've been most generous, Aunt Julia; I shall never forget
your kindness. But perhaps you don't quite realize the expense a
girl is put to nowadays---"
"I don't realize that YOU are put to any expense except for your
clothes and your railway fares. I expect you to be handsomely
dressed; but I paid Celeste's bill for you last October."
Lily hesitated: her aunt's implacable memory had never been more
inconvenient. "You were as kind as possible; but I have had to
get a few things since---"
"What kind of things? Clothes? How much have you spent? Let me
see the bill--I daresay the woman is swindling you."
"Oh, no, I think not: clothes have grown so frightfully
expensive; and one needs so many different kinds, with country
visits, and golf and skating, and Aiken and Tuxedo---"
"Let me see the bill," Mrs. Peniston repeated.
Lily hesitated again. In the first place, Mme. Celeste had not
yet sent in her account, and secondly, the amount it represented
was only a fraction of the sum that Lily needed.
"She hasn't sent in the bill for my winter things, but I KNOW
it's large; and there are one or two other things; I've been
careless and imprudent--I'm frightened to think of what I owe---"
She raised the troubled loveliness of her face to Mrs. Peniston,
vainly hoping that a sight so moving to the other sex might not
be without effect upon her own. But the effect produced was that
of making Mrs. Peniston shrink back apprehensively.
"Really, Lily, you are old enough to manage your own affairs, and
after frightening me to death by your performance of last night
you might at least choose a better time to worry me with such
matters." Mrs. Peniston glanced at the clock, and swallowed a
tablet of digitalis. "If you owe Celeste another
thousand, she may send me her account," she added, as though to
end the discussion at any cost.
"I am very sorry, Aunt Julia; I hate to trouble you at such a
time; but I have really no choice--I ought to have spoken
sooner--I owe a great deal more than a thousand dollars."
"A great deal more? Do you owe two? She must have robbed you!"
"I told you it was not only Celeste. I--there are other
bills--more pressing--that must be settled."
"What on earth have you been buying? Jewelry? You must have gone
off your head," said Mrs. Peniston with asperity. "But if you
have run into debt, you must suffer the consequences, and put
aside your monthly income till your bills are paid. If you stay
quietly here until next spring, instead of racing about all over
the country, you will have no expenses at all, and surely in four
or five months you can settle the rest of your bills if I pay the
dress-maker now."
Lily was again silent. She knew she could not hope to extract
even a thousand dollars from Mrs. Peniston on the mere plea of
paying Celeste's bill: Mrs. Peniston would expect to go over the
dress-maker's account, and would make out the cheque to her and
not to Lily. And yet the money must be obtained before the day
was over!
"The debts I speak of are--different--not like tradesmen's
bills," she began confusedly; but Mrs. Peniston's look made her
almost afraid to continue. Could it be that her aunt suspected
anything? The idea precipitated Lily's avowal.
"The fact is, I've played cards a good deal--bridge; the women
all do it; girls too--it's expected. Sometimes I've won--won a
good deal--but lately I've been unlucky--and of course such debts
can't be paid off gradually---"
She paused: Mrs. Peniston's face seemed to be petrifying as she
listened.
"Cards--you've played cards for money? It's true, then: when I
was told so I wouldn't believe it. I won't ask if the other
horrors I was told were true too; I've heard enough for the state
of my nerves. When I think of the example you've had in this
house! But I suppose it's your foreign bringing-up--no one knew
where your mother picked up her friends. And her Sundays were a
scandal--that I know."
Mrs. Peniston wheeled round suddenly. "You play cards on Sunday?"
Lily flushed with the recollection of certain rainy Sundays at
Bellomont and with the Dorsets.
"You're hard on me, Aunt Julia: I have never really cared for
cards, but a girl hates to be thought priggish and superior, and
one drifts into doing what the others do. I've had a dreadful
lesson, and if you'll help me out this time I promise you--"
Mrs. Peniston raised her hand warningly. "You needn't make any
promises: it's unnecessary. When I offered you a home I didn't
undertake to pay your gambling debts."
"Aunt Julia! You don't mean that you won't help me?"
"I shall certainly not do anything to give the impression that I
countenance your behaviour. If you really owe your dress-maker, I
will settle with her--beyond that I recognize no obligation to
assume your debts."
Lily had risen, and stood pale and quivering before her aunt.
Pride stormed in her, but humiliation forced the cry from her
lips: "Aunt Julia, I shall be disgraced--I--" But she could go no
farther. If her aunt turned such a stony ear to the fiction of
the gambling debts, in what spirit would she receive the terrible
avowal of the truth?
"I consider that you ARE disgraced, Lily: disgraced by your
conduct far more than by its results. You say your friends have
persuaded you to play cards with them; well, they may as well
learn a lesson too. They can probably afford to lose a little
money--and at any rate, I am not going to waste any of mine in
paying them. And now I must ask you to leave me--this scene has
been extremely painful, and I have my own health to consider.
Draw down the blinds, please; and tell Jennings I will see no one
this afternoon but Grace Stepney."
Lily went up to her own room and bolted the door. She was
trembling with fear and anger--the rush of the furies' wings was
in her ears. She walked up and down the room with blind irregular
steps. The last door of escape was closed--she felt herself shut
in with her dishonour _
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