The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
himself to suffer silently, even stupidly, all that might be in store.
For the bees were close upon him now, countless in number, angry,
grudging, violent. But they no longer appeared as insects. They were
human, save for their velvet-like, expressionless eyes. And all those
eyes were fixed upon him, and him alone. He was the centre towards
which, in thought and action, all turned. Nor were the dull-coloured
occupants of the _parterre_ alone in their attack. For those
gay-coloured larvae--the men and women of his own class--indolent,
licentious, full-fed, hung out of the angular mouths of the waxen
cells, above the crimson and gold of their cushions, pointing at him,
claiming and yet denouncing him. And in the attitude of these the
democratic and the aristocratic sections--he detected a difference. The
former swarmed to inflict punishment for his selfishness, uselessness,
sensuality. But the latter jeered and mocked at his bodily infirmity,
deriding his deformity, making merry over his shortened limbs and
shuffling walk. And against this background, against this all-enclosing
tapestry of faces which encircled him, two persons, and the atmosphere
and aroma of them, so to speak, were clearly defined. They were close
to him, here within the narrow limits of the opera box. Then a great
humiliation overtook Richard, perceiving that they, and not the people,
the workers, august in their corporate power and strength, were to be
his executioners.--No--no--he wasn't worth that! And, for all his
present dulness of sensation, a sob rose in his throat. Madame de
Vallorbes, resplendent in crocus-yellow brocade, costly lace, and seed
pearls, the young man, her companion--the young man of the light,
forked beard, domed skull, vain eyes and peevish mouth--the young man
of holy and dissolute aspect--were good enough instruments for the
Eternal Justice to employ in respect of him, Richard Calmady.
"Look, M. Destournelle," Helen said very quietly, "this is my cousin of
whom I have already spoken to you. But I wished to spare him if
possible, and give him room for self-justification, so I did not tell
you all. Richard, this is my friend, M. Destournelle, to whom my honour
and happiness are not wholly indifferent."
Dickie looked up. He did not speak. Vaguely he prayed it might all soon
be over. Paul Destournelle looked down. He raised his eye-glass and
bowed himself, examining Richard's mutilated legs and strangely-shod
feet. He broke into a little, bleating, goat-like laugh.
"_Mais c'est etonnant!_" he observed reflectively.
"I was in his house," Helen continued. "I was there unprotected, having
absolute faith in his loyalty."--She paused a moment. "He seduced me.
Richard can you deny that?"
"_Canaille!_" M. Destournelle murmured. He drew a pair of gloves
through his hands, holding them by the finger-tips. The metal buttons
of them were large, three on each wrist. Those gloves arrested
Richard's attention oddly.
"I do not deny it," Dickie said.
"And having thus outraged, he deserted me. Do you deny that?"
"No," Dickie said again. For it was true, that which she asserted,
true, though penetrated by subtle falsehood impossible, as it seemed to
him, to combat,--"No, I do not deny it."
"You hear!" Helen exclaimed. "Now do what you think fit."
Still Destournelle drew the gloves through his hands, holding them by
the finger-tips.
"Under other circumstances I might feel myself compelled to do you the
honour of sending you a challenge, _monsieur_," he said. "But a man of
sensibility like myself cannot do such violence to his moral and
artistic code as to fight with an outcast of nature, an abortion, such
as yourself. The sword and the pistol I necessarily reserve for my
equals. The deformed person, the cripple, whose very existence is an
offense to the eye and to every delicacy of sense, must be condescended
to, and, if chastised at all, must be chastised without ceremony,
chastised as one would chastise a dog."
And with that he struck Richard again and again across the face with
those metal-buttoned gloves.
Mad with rage, blinded and sick with pain, Dickie essayed to fling
himself upon his assailant. But Destournelle was too adroit for him. He
skipped aside, with his little, bleating, goat-like laugh, and Richard
fell heavily full length, his forehead coming in contact with the lower
step of the descent from the back of the box. He lay there, too weak to
raise himself.
Paul Destournelle bent down and again examined him curiously.
"_C'est etonnant!_" he repeated.--He gave the prostrate body a
contemptuous kick. "Dear madame, are you sufficiently avenged? Is it
enough?" he inquired sneeringly.
And vaguely, as from some incalculable distance, Richard heard Helen de
Vallorbes' voice:--"Yes--it is a little affair of honour which dates
from my childhood. It has taken many years in adjusting. I thank you,
_mon cher_, a thousand times. Now let us go quickly. It is enough."
Then came darkness, silence, rest.
BOOK VI
THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH MISS ST. QUENTIN BEARS WITNESS TO THE FAITH THAT IS IN HER
Honoria divested herself of her traveling-cap, thrust her hands into
the pockets of her frieze ulster, and thus, bareheaded, a tall, supple,
solitary figure, paced the railway platform in the dusk. Above the
gentle undulations of the western horizon splendours of rose-crimson
sunset were outspread, veiled, as they flamed upward, by indigo cloud
of the texture and tenuity of finest gauze. And those same rose-crimson
splendours found repetition upon the narrow, polished surface of the
many lines of rails, causing them to stand out, as though of red-hot
metal, from the undeterminate gray-drab of the track where it curved
away, southeastward, across the darkening country towards the Savoy
Alps. And from out the fastnesses of these last, quick with the bleak
purity of snow, came a breathing of evening wind. To Honoria it brought
refreshing emphasis of silence, and of immunity from things human and
things mechanical. It spoke to her of virgin and unvisited spaces,
ignorant of mankind and of obligation to his so many and so insistent
needs. And there being in Honoria herself a kindred defiance of
subjection, a determination, so to speak, of physical and emotional
chastity, she welcomed these intimations of the essential inviolability
of nature, finding in them justification and support of her own mental
attitude--of the entire wisdom of which she had, it must be owned,
grown slightly suspicious of late.
And this was the more grateful to her, not only as contrast to the
noise and dust of a lengthy and hurriedly-undertaken journey, but
because that same journey had been suddenly and, in a sense violently,
imposed upon one whom she held in highest regard, by another whom she
had long since agreed with herself to hold in no sort of regard at all.
Since the highly-regarded one set forth, she--Honoria--of course, set
forth likewise. And yet, in good truth, the whole affair rubbed her not
a little the wrong way! She recognised in it a particularly flagrant
example of masculine aggression. Some persons, as she reflected, are
permitted an amount of elbow room altogether disproportionate to their
deserts. Be sufficiently selfish, sufficiently odious, and everybody
becomes your humble servant, hat in hand! That is unfair. It is,
indeed, quite extensively exasperating to the dispassionate onlooker.
And, in Miss St. Quentin's case, exasperation was by no means lessened
by the fact that candour compelled her to admit doubt not only as to
the actuality of her own dispassionateness, but, as has already been
stated, to the wisdom of her mental attitude generally. She wanted to
think and feel one way. She was more than half afraid she was much
disposed to think and feel quite another way. This was worrying. And,
therefore, it came about that Honoria hailed the present interval of
silence and solitude, striving to put from her remembrance both the
origin and object of her journey, while filling her lungs with the
snow-fed purity of the mountain wind and yielding her spirit to the
somewhat serious influences of surrounding nature. All too soon the
great Paris-express would thunder into the station. The heavy,
horse-box-like sleeping-car--now standing on the Culoz-Geneva-Bale
siding--would be coupled to the rear of it. Then the roar and rush
would begin again--from dark to dawn, and on through the long, bright
hours to dark once more, by mountain gorge, and stifling tunnel, and
broken woodland, and smiling coastline, and fertile plain, past
Chambery, and Turin, and Bologna, and mighty Rome herself, until the
journey was ended and distant Naples reached at last.
But Miss St. Quentin's communings with nature were destined to speedy
interruption. Ludovic Quayle's elongated person, clothed to the heels
in a check traveling-coat, detached itself from the company of waiting
passengers, and blue-linen-clad porters, upon the central platform
before the main block of station buildings, and made its light and
active way across the intervening lines of crimson-stained metals.
"If I am a nuisance mention that chastening fact without hesitation,"
he said, standing on the railway track and looking up at her with his
air of very urbane intelligence. "Present circumstances permit us the
privilege--or otherwise--of laying aside restraints of speech, along
with other small proprieties of behaviour commonly observed by the
polite. So don't spare my feelings, dear Miss St. Quentin. If I am a
bore, tell me so, and I will return, and that without any lurking venom
in my breast, whence I came."
"Do anything you please," Honoria replied, "except be run over by the
Paris train."
"The Paris train, so I have just learned, is an hour late, consequently
its arrival hardly enters into the question. But, since you are
graciously pleased to bid me do as I like, I stay," Mr. Quayle
returned, stepping on to the platform and turning to pace beside
her.--"What a gaol delivery it is to get into the open! That last
engine of ours threw ashes to a truly penitential extent. My mouth and
throat still claim unpleasantly close relation to a neglected, kitchen
grate. And if our much vaunted _waggon-lits_ is the last word of
civilisation in connection with travel, then all I can say is that, in
my humble opinion, civilisation has yet a most exceedingly long way to
go. It really is a miraculously uncomfortable vehicle. And how Lady
Calmady contrives to endure its eccentricities of climate and of
motion, I'm sure I don't know."
"In her case the end would make any sort of means supportable," Honoria
answered.
Her pacings had brought her to the extreme end of the platform where it
sloped to the level of the track. She stood there a moment, her head
thrown back, snuffing the wind as a hind, breaking covert, stands and
snuffs it. A spirit of questioning possessed her, though not--as in the
hind's case--of things concrete and material. It is true she could have
dispensed with Mr. Quayle's society. She did not want him. But he had
shown himself so full of resource, so considerate and helpful, ever
since the news of Sir Richard Calmady's desperate state had broken up
the peace of the little party at Ormiston Castle, now five days ago,
that she forgave him even his preciousness of speech, even his slightly
irritating superiority of manner. She had ceased to be on her guard
with him during these days of travel, had come to take his presence for
granted and to treat him with the comfortable indifference of honest
good-fellowship. So, it followed that now, speaking with him, she
continued to follow out her existing train of thought.
"I'm by no means off my head about poor Dickie Calmady," she said