The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
the nightingale sings, at the corner of the troco-ground, close to Camp
the First and Old Camp. The upper servants came, and Chaplin and
Hariburt from the house-stables, and Chifney and the head-lad--and some
of the gardeners. Poor, old Wenham drove up in his donkey-chair from
the west lodge. Julius was there, of course. We did all things decently
and in order."
Honoria's voice ceased. She sat stroking the dear hand she held and
smiling to herself, notwithstanding a chokiness in her throat, for she
had a comfortable belief the situation was saved.
Then Clara entered, prepared to encounter remonstrance, bearing a tray.
"It's all right, Clara," Miss St. Quentin said. "Lady Calmady is quite
ready for something to eat. I've been telling her about Camp."
And Katherine, sitting upright, with great docility and a certain
gentle shame, accepted food and drink.
"Since you wish it, dearest," she said, "and since Julius must not be
left alone in a quite empty house."
"Our kingdom of heaven stays with us then?" Honoria exclaimed joyously.
"Such as it is--poor thing--it will do its best to stay. I thought I
had cried my eyes dry forever, long ago. But it seems not. You and Camp
have broken up the drought."
"I have not hurt you?" Honoria said, in sudden penitence.
"No, no--you have given me relief. I was ceasing to be human. The
blessed Thomas was right--I grew very selfish."
"But you're not displeased with me?" Honoria insisted. Lady Calmady's
playfulness had returned, but with a new complexion.
"Ah! it is a little soon to ask that!" she said. "Still I will go north
with you a fortnight hence--go to Ormiston. And by then, perhaps, you
may be forgiven. Open the casement, dearest, and let in the wind. The
air of this room is curiously dead. Give my love to Julius and Ludovic.
Tell them I will come into the Chapel-Room after dinner
to-night.--What--my child, are you so very glad?--Kiss me.--God keep
you.--Now I will rest."
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH M. PAUL DESTOURNELLE HAS THE BAD TASTE TO THREATEN TO UPSET
THE APPLE-CART
Helen de Vallorbes rose from her knees and slipped out from under the
greasy and frayed half-curtain of the confessional box. The atmosphere
of that penitential spot had been such as to make her feel faint and
dizzy. She needed to recover herself. And so she stood, for a minute or
more, in the clear, cool brightness of the nave of the great basilica,
her highly-civilised figure covered by a chequer-work of morning
sunshine streaming down through the round-headed windows of the lofty
clere-storey. As the sense of physical discomfort left her she
instinctively arranged her veil, and adjusted her bracelets over the
wrists of her long gloves. Yet, notwithstanding this trivial and
mundane occupation, her countenance retained an expression of devout
circumspection, of the relief of one who has accomplished a serious and
somewhat distasteful duty. Her sensations were increasingly agreeable.
She had rid herself of an oppressive burden. She was at peace with
herself and with--almost--all man and womankind.
Yet, it must be admitted, the measure had been mainly precautionary.
Helen had gone to confession, on the present occasion, in much the same
spirit as an experienced traveler visits his dentist before starting on
a protracted journey. She regarded it as a disagreeable, but politic,
insurance against possible accident. Her distaste had been increased by
the fact that there really were some rather risky matters to be
confessed. She had even feared a course of penance might have been
enforced before the granting of absolution--this certainly would have
been the case had she been dealing with that firm disciplinarian and
very astute man of the world, the Jesuit father who acted as her
spiritual adviser in Paris. But here in Naples, happily, it was
different. The fat, sleepy, easy-going, old canon--whose person exuded
so strong an odour of snuff that, at the solemnest moment of the
_confiteor_, she had been unable to suppress a convulsive sneeze--asked
her but few inconvenient questions. Pretty fine-ladies will get into
little difficulties of this nature. He had listened to very much the
same story not infrequently before, and took the position amiably,
almost humorously, for granted. It was very wicked, a deadly sin, but
the flesh--specially such delicately bred, delicately fed, feminine
flesh--is admittedly weak, and the wiles of Satan are many. Is it not
an historic fact that our first mother did not escape?--Was Helen's
repentance sincere, that was the point? And of that Helen could
honestly assure him there was no smallest doubt. Indeed, at this
moment, she abhorred, not only her sin, but her co-sinner, in the
liveliest and most comprehensive manner. Return to him? Sooner the dog
return to its vomit! She recognised the iniquity, the shame, the
detestable folly, of her late proceedings far too clearly. Temptation
in that direction had ceased to be possible.
Then followed the mysterious and merciful words of absolution. And
Helen rose from her knees and slipped out from beneath the frayed and
greasy curtain a free woman, the guilt of her adultery wiped off by
those awful words, as, with a wet cloth, one would wipe writing off a
slate leaving the surface of it clean in every part. Precisely how far
she literally believed in the efficacy of that most solemn rite she
would not have found it easy to declare. Scepticism warred with
expediency. But that appeared to her beside the mark. It was really
none of her business. Let her teachers look to all that. To her it was
sufficient that she could regard it from the practical standpoint of an
insurance against possible accident--the accident of sin proving
actually sinful and actually punishable by a narrow-minded deity, the
accident of the veritable existence of heaven and hell, and of Holy
Church veritably having the keys of both these in her keeping, the
accident--more immediately probable and consequently worth guarding
against--that, during wakeful hours, some night, the half-forgotten
lessons of the convent school would come back on her, and, as did
sometimes happen, would prove too much for her usually victorious
audacity.
But, it should be added that another and more creditable instinct did
much to dictate Madame de Vallorbes' action at this juncture. As the
days went by the attraction exercised over her by Richard Calmady
suffered increase rather than diminution. And this attraction affected
her morally, producing in her modesties, reticencies of speech, even of
thought, and prickings of unflattering self-criticism unknown to her
heretofore. Her ultimate purpose might not be virtuous. But undeniably,
such is the complexity--not to say hypocrisy--of the human heart, the
prosecution of that purpose developed in her a surprising sensibility
of conscience. Many episodes in her career, hitherto regarded as
entertaining, she ceased to view with toleration, let alone
complacency. The remembrance of them made her nervous. What if Richard
came to hear of them? The effect might be disastrous. Not that he was
any saint, but that she perceived that, with the fine inconsistency
common to most well-bred Englishmen, he demanded from the women of his
family quite other standards of conduct to those which he himself
obeyed. Other women might do as they pleased. Their lapses from the
stricter social code were no concern of his. He might, indeed, be not
wholly averse to profiting by such lapses. But in respect of the women
of his own rank and blood the case was quite otherwise. He was
alarmingly capable of disgust. And, not a little to her own surprise,
fear of provoking, however slightly, that disgust had become a reigning
power with her. Never had she felt as she now felt. Her own sensations
at once captivated and astonished her. This had ceased to be an
adventure dictated by merry devilry, undertaken out of lightness of
heart, inspired by a mischievous desire to see dust whirl and straws
fly, or undertaken even out of necessity to support self-satisfaction
by ranging herself with cynical audacity on the side of the Eternal
Laughter. This was serious. It was desperate--the crisis, as she told
herself, of her life and fate. The result was singular. Never had she
been more vividly, more electrically, alive. Never had she been more
diffident and self-distrustful.
And this complexity of sensation served to press home on her the high
desirability of insurance against accident, of washing clean, as far as
might be possible, the surface of the slate. So it followed that now,
standing in the chequer-work of sunshine within the great basilica,
self-congratulation awoke in her. The lately concluded ceremony, some
of the details of which had really been most distasteful, might or
might not be of vital efficacy, but, in any case, she had courageously
done her part. Therefore, if Holy Church spoke truly, her first
innocence was restored. Helen hugged the idea with almost childish
satisfaction. Now she could go back to the Villa Vallorbes in peace,
and take what measure----
She left the sentence unfinished. Even in thought it is often an error
to define. Let the future and her intentions regarding it remain in the
vague! She signed to Zelie Forestier--seated on the steps of a
side-chapel, yellow-paper-covered novel in hand--to follow her. And,
after making a genuflexion before the altar of Our Lady of the
Immaculate Conception, gathered up her turquoise-coloured skirts--the
yellow-tufa quarries were not superabundantly clean--and pursued her
way towards the great main door. The benevolent priest, charmed by her
grace of movement, watched her from his place in the confessional,
although another penitent now kneeled within the greasy curtain. Verily
the delinquencies of so delectable a piece of womanhood were easily
comprehensible! Neither God nor man, in such a case, would be extreme
to mark what was done amiss.--Moreover, had she not promised generous
gifts alike to church and poor? The sin which in an ugly woman is
clearly mortal, in a pretty one becomes little more than venial. Making
which reflection a kindly, fat chuckle shook his big paunch, and,
crossing himself, he turned his attention to the voice murmuring from
behind the wooden lattice at his side.
Yet it would appear that abstract justice judged less leniently of the
position. For, passing out on to the portico--about the base of whose
enormous columns half-naked beggars clustered, exposing sores and
mutilations, shrilly clamouring for alms--the dazzling glare of the
empty, sun-scorched piazza behind him, Helen came face to face with no
less a personage than M. Paul Destournelle.
It was as though some one had struck her. The scene reeled before her
eyes. Then her temper rose as in resentment of insult. To avoid all
chance of such a meeting she had selected this church in an
unfashionable quarter of the town. Here, at least, she had reckoned
herself safe from molestation. And, that precisely in the hour of
peace, the hour of politic insurance against accident, this accident of
all others should befall her, was maddening! But anger did not lessen
her perspicacity. How to inflict the maximum of discomfort upon M.
Destournelle with the minimum of risk to herself was the question. An
interview was inevitable. She wanted, very certainly, to get her claws
into him, but, for safety's sake, that should be done not in attack,
but in defense. Therefore he should speak first, and in his words,
whatever those words might be, she promised herself to discover
legitimate cause of offense. So, leisurely, and with studied ignorance
of his presence, she flung largesse of _centissimi_ to right and left,
and, while the chorus of blessing and entreaty was yet loud, walked