The black pearl
One of the sailors takes the bowl of fish. While Sylvia and Gladys
are saying good-bye to the sailors who showed them how to fish, Allan
approaches, and glancing at the steward laden with a huge box, says
simply:
“Your roses. He will take them to your lodgings.”
Then dropping his voice, he holds out his hand to the wilted flower in
my corsage. “Give me that one, will you? It is a small thing to grant,
after what you have refused.”
An expression of melancholy, of profound discouragement, steals across
his face, and acting on an impulse stronger than my will and quicker
than thought, I raise the rose to my lips before holding it out to him.
He seizes it with a low exclamation, and breathes in the kiss from the
drooping petals.
* * * * *
At the boarding house, I find Bill eagerly watching for my arrival.
“A sailor brought a big box of roses for you, Miss. Has the Prince come
in his magic boat to deliver the Princess?”
“Oh! Billy, the poor Prince is also a prisoner in the power of the
wicked witch.”
“Quick, Miss, tell me where she hangs out, and I’ll rescue him.”
He would be as good as his word, my little Australian page, who hides a
romantic soul under the speech of a larrikin.
XIX
A
“Fedora”
Take heed lest passions sway thy judgment to do aught which else free
will would not admit.
MILTON (“Paradise Lost”).
I have just received a note from Allan. He wants to see me before he
leaves for Adelaide, and asks if he may call.
Receive him here! In this dingy abode, this squalid room! Besides, what
good would result? We have said all there is to say. So I send a stiff
reply, saying that it is better he should not call, and bidding him
adieu.
Will he feel the passionate kisses imprinted on the cold words? Or see
the trace of the tear I cannot repress on the stereotyped words with
which I conclude?
Another note from Allan. Since I will not receive him at my lodging,
will I meet him elsewhere on some neutral ground. He cannot leave
without seeing me. Is it not cruelty to refuse this small boon?
“I am leaving to-morrow,” he writes, “so as to be in Adelaide on the
15th of June. Will you go with me this evening to the theatre? Fedora
is on at the Princess. You know that Australian custom permits a
lady to go with a friend unchaperoned. It will not be like a private
interview; but at any rate we can spend these last hours together
isolated by the crowd. Don’t reply. My carriage will fetch you at
7.20. I shall wait for you at the door of the theatre. Of course if you
prefer to have a chaperon bring whom you please; I have a box. But it
really is not necessary.”
“Can one refuse a glass of water to a poor prisoner, Bill?”
My little page is anxiously regarding the traces of emotion on my face.
I am so utterly desolate; my feelings are so pent up that I am fain
to partly confide in him. He is the only friend I have, and his
sympathy is sincere at any rate. His eyes, brilliant windows of the
soul imprisoned in his stunted graceless body, glow at this proof of
confidence.
Whom can I ask to accompany me? Miss Steele? She would be horrified.
To her the theatre is the house of Satan. Besides, I remember now, she
is away, at some congress probably. Mrs. Johnson? Horror! That woman
sitting between me and Allan. Absurd! Odious! Except Mrs. Forest, these
are the only women I know in Melbourne.
Well I will go alone. We will share these last moments of happiness
together. To-morrow he will be gone.
At tea, which I have alone with the landlady and Billy, I tell the
former that I am going to the theatre, and shall return late. Not to
have to sit up, she gives me the key, and says that I shall find
matches and a candle on the hall table. These insignificant details
help me to compose myself, and presently I proceed to my room to dress.
I do not want Allan to be ashamed of me. The only evening dress I have
is the rose-coloured frock I wore at the Hunt Club ball two years ago.
I have never had it on since that night. Mrs. Clarke had insisted on my
bringing it.
“Melbourne is very dressy; you are sure to be asked to some dinner or
evening.”
Poor darling, she does not know how my timidity, my pride perhaps, has
thrown me back on myself. Certainly Mrs. Forest, the only society woman
I know, would not dream of asking her children’s governess to a ball or
a dinner.
Bill rushes up frantically to tell me that the carriage is waiting. I
strongly suspect he intends to take a seat beside the coachman. Well, I
shall be glad to know him near me, the devoted little fellow.
Allan is at the door of the theatre. He thanks me for having come, and
amused by the drolleries of my funny attendant, he gives him a shilling
to go to the gallery. Everybody in Melbourne society knows each other,
and the apparition of a girl in a stage box with the “notorious” Mr.
Russell causes a certain flutter. Several lorgnettes are levelled at
us, but what matter? We are together. It is our last meeting, and I
am jealous of every moment. Not a word, not a gesture makes me regret
having come. The pallor of his face, the fire in his eyes, alone betray
the repression of his feelings.
We speak little of the play. The spectacle of the woman sacrificing
every thing for love’s sake is too fraught with the responsive emotion
of our own hearts to make any comment.
In the middle of the play, Allan leaves me, excusing himself, but
assigning no reason for his absence. Alone during the entr’acte I
catch sight of Mrs. Forest in the dress circle. I endeavour to meet
her eye, but evidently she does not want to recognise me. It troubles
me for a moment, but Allan is back, a changed man. His dejection has
disappeared; his eyes are glowing, and even before the curtain falls he
hurries me away.
This eager haste to curtail the few precious minutes left to us rather
astonishes me. If it depended on me I should want to lengthen them
out indefinitely. However, I follow Allan without a murmur to the
foot of the staircase, where he leaves me for an instant to beckon
the coachman. I find myself suddenly face to face with Mrs. Forest.
I bow. Instead of responding, she turns her head aside, and with a
contemptuous sneer, remarks just loud enough for me to hear,
“These creatures are insolent enough to bow to people they don’t know.”
Good Mr. Forest sends me furtively a compassionate glance, but the blow
has struck home. When Allan finds me I am still trembling.
The carriage rolls along to Gipps-street. My companion is silent during
the drive. His hand seeks mine, but after a close clasp I withdraw it.
The encounter with Mrs. Forest has unnerved me. I shall never be able
to return to this woman who has publicly insulted me. The carriage
stops in front of my lodging.
All is in darkness, but I have the key.
When I try to open the door it resists my pressure. The bolt is shot
back, and the chain fastened.
XX
The
Storm
Breaks
“Je hais le monde lâche, hypocrite, menteur,
Qui se rit de nos pleurs, en feignant de les plaindre.
Sa vaine loi d’honneur, il me plaît de l’enfreindre.
N’ai-je point pour m’absoudre un amour immortel?
* * * * *
Aimer d’abord, c’est le devoir essentiel.”
MARTHE DUPUY.
One or two windows of the next house are opened, and curious eyes
turned upon us, but nobody stirs in the boarding house.
“Bill, Bill, open the door. It is I.” No reply.
“You’ll have to give it up. They won’t open,” says Allan. “You can’t
stay all night in the rain, before a closed door. Let me take you
somewhere.”
Almost by force he takes me back to the carriage, and giving an order
to the coachman, jumps in beside me. His voice is low and caressing
as he wraps the rugs around me, pulls off my wet gloves, and chafes
my numbed fingers with his burning palms. But I have gone through so
much, the insult, the closed door, the thought of the unknown place
to which I am being taken at this late hour, that I burst into tears.
Allan reproaches himself with being their cause, and murmurs that
they are the last I shall ever need to shed. His voice soothes me,
though a sob shakes me now and again. After some minutes, which seem
interminable, the carriage turns into a drive bordered with trees, and
stops before a brilliantly lit mansion. The hall door is thrown open,
and Allan carries rather than leads me into a small room opening off
the spacious hall. Drawing an easy chair to the fire crackling in the
grate, he kneels to pull off my satin shoes, soiled with mud during the
long wait in Gipps-street.
The soft luxury of the room, the well-trained, noiseless servants
rouse my suspicions and shaking off the torpor into which fatigue and
distress have plunged me, I exclaim, “Where are we? Whose house is
this?”
“Mine,” replies Allan, bluntly, his dark eyes ablaze in his white face.
“I don’t want to deceive you; I bribed Mrs. Johnson not to open the
door. I want to compel you against your will to be happy, to leave
Melbourne with me.”
Anger gives me strength to dominate my weakness. I rise, my body tense
as a steel blade.
“So this is a trap, then?”
“True; all is fair in a love like mine.”
“You are mistaken in me, Allan. I am not a woman to be carried by
storm.” Our eyes meet in a silent conflict of wills. His are the first
to drop. Their expression changes, grows softer.
“Don’t be afraid, Jeanne, you are as safe here as under your uncle’s
roof. My great love makes you sacred to me. But I cannot go away alone.
I cannot live without you. Jeanne, beloved, my soul, will you not
yield? You love me, I feel it. I have read it in your eyes--in that
kiss you pressed on the rose. Let us go away together to some far-off
spot, where no one will bother whether we are united by a formal
ceremony or not.”
“You will be my wife,” he continues, his ardent voice sinking into a
low, persuasive murmur; “my true mate, wife of my soul as well as the
adored of my heart.”
His hands caress me. His lips seek mine. The charm and magnetism of his
personality envelop me. It seems as if the passion of long bygone ages
had awakened and was coursing through my burning veins. With a supreme
effort of revolt, I regain mastery of myself.
“I beseech you, leave me. I appeal to your honour.”
He rises and retreats a few steps. “Ah, well, I’m ready to sacrifice
the honour you invoke. I will break my promise to the woman who bears
my name. I will demand a divorce. I shall probably get it. The proofs
are overwhelming. She will defend the suit, other names will be dragged
in; other women compromised. I shall have only a dishonoured name to
offer. But what will that matter to you? You will remain impeccable--a
statue whose white draperies are unstained. If your love is so poor
a thing, so cold and inanimate that to gain it I must lose the only
possession left to me--my word of honour--well, so be it. I submit.
I’ll start for England at once, and in a few months--money hastens
these things--I shall return to offer you the legal ceremony you
exact. But if you have one spark of generosity, if you really love me,
Jeanne, you won’t drive me to this step. You will give yourself to me
unreservedly, as a woman, strong, loving and courageous, gives herself
to the man of her choice.”
Without another word, without a look, Allan goes.
A brief order to the servant, and the clang of the hall door and the
rumble of retreating wheels fall upon my ears.
A housemaid enters and shows me to a bedroom. Silently, except for the
few necessary words of service, she helps me to undress and get into