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Thyrza

G >> George Gissing >> Thyrza




'Hope has overcome all these considerations. You kept her sister
from knowing where she was. Why, if there was not some idea of
severing her from her old associations?'

'I explained it to her in one of our talks. I showed her that her
rashness had made it very difficult to aid her.'

'You spoke of me to her?'

'Never, as I have told you. Nor has she ever mentioned you. I
pointed out to her that of course I could not explain the state of
things to the Emersons, and therefore Lydia had better not visit her
for some time.'

Egremont sat down at a distance, and brooded.

'But a contradiction is involved!' he exclaimed presently. 'How can
a girl of her character have forgotten so quickly such profound
emotion?'

'You must not forget that weeks passed between my finding her and
her going to live with the Emersons. During all that time the poor
girl was wretched enough.'

'Weeks!'

'Her cheerfulness only came with time, after that.'

'And it is your conviction that she has absolutely put me out of her
mind? That she has found sufficient happiness in the progress she
has felt herself to be making?'

'That is my firm belief. Her character is not so easy to read as
to-day's newspaper. She can suffer, I think, even more than most
women, but she has, too, far more strength than most women, a mind
of a higher order, purer consolations. And she has art to aid her, a
resource you and I cannot judge of with assurance.'

Walter looked up and said:

'You are describing a woman who might be the most refined man's
ideal.'

'I think so.'

'You admit that Thyrza is in every way more than fit to be my wife.'

'I will admit that, Walter.'

'Then I am astonished at your tone in speaking of what I mean to
do.'

'You have asked me two questions,' said Mrs. Ormonde, her face
alight with conviction. 'Please answer two of mine. Is this woman
worthy of a man's entire love?'

He hesitated, but answered affirmatively.

'And have you that entire love to give her? Walter, the truth, for
she is very dear to me.'

(In her room in London Thyrza sat, and said to herself, 'To-morrow
he comes!')

He answered: 'I have not.'

'Then,' Mrs. Ormonde said, a slight flush in her cheeks, 'how can
you express surprise at what I do?'

A long silence fell. Walter brooded, something of shame on his face
from that confession. Then he came to Mrs. Ormonde's side, and took
her hand.

'You are incapable,' he said gently, 'of conscious injustice. Had
you said nothing of this to me, I should have gone to Thyrza
to-morrow, and have asked her to marry me. She would not have
refused; even granting that her passion has gone, you know she would
not refuse me, and you know too that I could enrich her life
abundantly. My passion, too, is over, but I know well that love for
such a woman as she is would soon awake in me. I do not think I
should do her any injustice if I asked her to be my wife: shall I be
unjust to her if I withhold?'

Mrs. Ormonde did not answer at once. She retained his hand, and her
own showed how strongly she felt.

'Walter, I think it would be unjust to her if you asked her--
remembering her present mind. It is not only that your passion for
her is dead; you think of another woman.'

'It is true. But I do not love her.'

She smiled.

'You are not ready to behave crazily about her; no. But I believe
that you love her in a truer sense than you ever loved Thyrza. You
love her mind.'

'Has not Thyrza a mind?'

'You do not know it, Walter. I doubt whether you would ever know it.
Recall a letter you wrote to me, in which you dissected your own
character. It was frank and in a very great measure true. You are
not the husband for Thyrza.'

'You place Thyrza above Annabel Newthorpe?'

It was asked almost indignantly, so that Mrs. Ormonde smiled and
raised her hand.

'You, it is clear, resent it.'

He reddened. Mrs. Ormonde continued:

'I compare them merely. I don't think Thyrza will find the husband
who is worthy of her, but I think it likely that she will win more
love than you could ever give her. I have told you that she is dear
to me. To you I would give a daughter of my own with entire
confidence, for you are human and of noble impulses. But I do not
wish you to marry Thyrza. Yes, you read my thought. It is not solely
the question of love. I wish you--I have so long wished you--to
marry Annabel. To Thyrza you do not the least injustice by
withholding your offer; she is happy without you. You are entirely
free to consult your own highest interests. If I counsel wrongly,
the blame is mine. But, Walter, you must after all decide for
yourself. It is a most hazardous part this that I am playing; at
least, it would be, if I did not see the facts of the case so
clearly. Rest till to-morrow; then let us sneak again. Shall it be
so?'

Egremont left The Chestnuts and walked along the shore in moonlight.
His mind had received a shock, and the sense of disturbance affected
him physically. He was obliged to move rapidly, to breathe the air.

He had left America with fixity of purpose. His plain duty was to go
to Thyrza and ask her to marry him. Be her position what it might,
his own was clear enough. He looked forward with a certain pleasure
to the mere discharge of so plain an obligation.

Mrs. Ormonde had studiously refrained from expressing any thought
with regard to the future in her letters. He quite expected that she
would repeat to him with a certain emphasis the fact of Thyrza's
present cheerfulness; but he did not anticipate serious opposition
to the course he had decided upon. Practically Thyrza had lived in
preparation for a life of refinement; Mrs. Ormonde, he concluded,
knew that he could act but in one way, and, though refusing to do so
ostensibly, had in fact been removing the rougher difficulties. Her
attitude now surprised him, made him uneasy.

Yet he knew his own inability to resist her. He knew that she spoke
on the side of his secret hope. He knew that a debate which had long
gone on within himself, to himself unavowed, had at length to find
its plain-spoken issue.

His passion for Thyrza was dead; he even wondered how it could ever
have been so violent. It seemed to him that he scarcely knew her;
could he not count on his fingers the number of times that he had
seen her? So much had intervened between him and her, between
himself as he was then and his present self. It was with
apprehension that he thought of marrying her. He knew what miseries
had again and again resulted from marriages such as this, and he
feared for her quite as much as for himself. For there was no more
passion.

Neither on her side, it seemed. Was not Mrs. Ormonde right? Was it
not to incur a wholly needless risk? And suppose the risk were found
to be an imaginary one, what was the profit likely to be, to each of
them?

But as often as he accepted what he held to be the common sense of
the case, something unsettled him again. The one passion of his life
had been for Thyrza. He called it dead; does not one mourn over such
a death? He would not have recourse to the old dishonesty, and say
that his love had been folly. Was it not rather the one golden
memory he had? Was it not of infinite significance?

One loves a woman madly, and she gives proof of such unworthiness
that love is killed. Why, even then the dead thing was inestimably
precious; one would not forget it. And Thyrza was no woman of this
kind. She had developed since he knew her; Mrs. Ormonde spoke of her
as few can be justly spoken of. Was it good to let the love for such
a woman pass away, when perchance the sight of her would revive it
and make it lasting?

The stars and the night wind and the breaking of the sea--the sea
which Thyrza loved--spoke to him. Could he not understand their
language? . . .

On Monday morning he took the train to London, thence northwards. A
visit to the Newthorpes after two years of absence was natural
enough.





CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE TRUTH




Mrs. Ormonde was successful, but success did not bring her unmixed
content. She was persuaded that what she had done was wholly
prudent, that in years to come she would look back on this chapter
of her life with satisfaction. Yet for the present she could not get
rid of a shapeless misgiving. This little centre of trouble in the
mind was easily enough accounted for. Granted that Thyrza could live
quite well without Walter Egremont, it was none the less true that,
in losing him, she lost a certainty of happiness--and does
happiness grow on every thicket, that one can afford to pass it
lightly? The fear lest Egremont should reap misery from such a
marriage, and cause misery in turn, was no longer seriously to be
entertained; it could not now have justified interference, had there
been nothing else that did so. Mrs. Ormonde could not rob Thyrza
thus without grieving.

But it was the happiness of two against that of one; and, however
monstrous the dogma that one should be sacrificed even to a million,
such a consideration is wont to have weight with us when we are
arguing with our conscience and getting somewhat the worst of it.
Mrs. Ormonde felt sure that Annabel Newthorpe would not now reject
Walter if he again offered himself; many things had given proof of
that. Annabel knew that Thyrza had thoroughly outlived her trouble;
she knew, moreover, that Egremont had never in reality compromised
himself in regard to her. In her eyes, then, the latter was rather
the victim of misfortune than himself culpable. If Walter eventually
--of course, some time must pass--again sought to win her,
without doubt he would tell her everything, and Annabel would find
nothing in the story to make a perpetual barrier between them. The
marriage which Mrs. Ormonde so strongly desired would still come
about.

On the other hand, in spite of arguments that seemed irresistible,
she could not dismiss the question: Does Thyrza know anything of
Egremont's by-gone passion? That she could know anything of the
compact which had run its two years, was of course impossible; but
Walter's persistence in urging that, if once she had learnt his love
for her, that, together with the circumstances of her life, would
make sufficient ground for hope--this persistence had impressed
Mrs. Ormonde. In a second long conversation the subject had been
gone over, point by point, for a second time. 'If harm come,' Mrs.
Ormonde said to herself, 'I am indeed to blame, for, though his
wishes oppose it, I had but to show doubt and he would have taken
the manly part and have gone to Thyrza.' She did not seek to defend
herself by saying--as she might well have done--that throughout
he encouraged her in her resistance. He was of firmer substance than
two years ago, yet had not become, nor ever would, a vigorously
independent man. In her hands the decision had lain--and the
affair was decided.

On Tuesday, the day after Egremont's departure for the North of
England, she was still thinking these thoughts. At four o'clock in
the afternoon, having seen her children come in from the garden and
gather for tea, she went with a book to spend an hour in the arbour
where she had had that fateful conversation with Walter on the
summer night. As she drew near to the covered spot, it seemed to her
that there was a footfall behind on the grass. She turned her head,
and with surprise saw Thyrza.

With something more than surprise. As she looked in Thyrza's face,
that slight uneasiness in her mind changed to a dark misgiving, and
from that to the certainty of fear. Thyrza had never regarded her
thus; and she herself had never seen features so passionately
woe-stricken. The book fell from her hand; she could not utter a
greeting.

'I want to speak to you, Mrs. Ormonde.'

'Come in here, Thyrza. Why have you come? What has happened?'

She drew back under the shelter of leaf-twined trellis, and Thyrza
followed. Mrs. Ormonde met the searching eyes, and compassion helped
her to self-command. She could not doubt what the first words spoken
would be, yet the mystery of the scene was inscrutable to her.

'I want to ask you about Mr. Egremont,' Thyrza said, resting her
trembling hand on the little rustic table. 'I want to know where he
is.'

Prepared as she had been, the words, really spoken, struck Mrs.
Ormonde with new consternation. The voice was not Thyrza's; it had
no sweetness, but was like the voice of one who had suffered long
exhaustion, who speaks with difficulty.

'Yes, I will tell you where he is, Thyrza,' the other replied, her
own accents shaken with sympathy. 'Why do you wish to hear of Mr.
Egremont?'

'I think you needn't ask me that, Mrs. Ormonde.'

'Yes, I must ask. I can't understand why you should come like this,
Thyrza. I can't understand what has happened to make this change in
you since I saw you last.'

'Mrs. Ormonde, you do understand! Why should you pretend with me?
You know that I have been waiting--waiting since Saturday.'

Thyrza spoke as if there were no mystery in her having attached a
hope to that particular day. All but distraught as she was, she made
no distinction between the mere fact of her abiding love, which she
could not conceive that Mrs. Ormonde was ignorant of, and the
incident of her having surprised a secret.

'Since Saturday?' Mrs. Ormonde repeated. 'What did you wait for on
Saturday?'

She had a wretched suspicion. From Egremont alone that information
could have come to Thyrza. Had he played detestably false, having by
some means, at the height of his passion, communicated with the
girl? But the thought could only pass through her mind; it would not
bear the light of reason for a moment. Impossible for him to speak
and act so during these past days, knowing that his dishonesty was
certain of being discovered. Impossible to attach such suspicion to
him at all.

'I expected to see him,' Thyrza replied. 'I knew he was to come in
two years. I have waited all the time; and now he has not come. I
heard----'

She checked herself, and looked at the trellis at the back of the
summer-house. She understood now that it was needful to explain her
knowledge.

'You heard, Thyrza----?'

'That night that he was here. I had walked to look at your house. I
was going home again when he passed me--he didn't see me--and
went into the garden. I couldn't go back at once; I had to sit down
and rest. It was on the other side of the leaves.' She pointed. 'I
sat down there without knowing he would be here and I should hear
him talking to you. I heard all you said--about the two years. I
have been waiting for him to come.'

Mrs. Ormonde could not reply; what words would express what she felt
in learning this? Thyrza's eyes were still fixed upon her.

'I want you to tell me where he is, Mrs. Ormonde.'

It was a summons that could not be avoided.

'Sit here, Thyrza. I will tell you. Sit down and let me speak to
you.'

'No, no! Tell me now! Why not? Why should I sit down? What is there
to say?'

The words were not weakly complaining, but of passionate insistence.
Thyrza believed that Mrs. Ormonde was preparing to elude her, was
shaping excuses. Her eyes watched the other's every movement keenly,
with fear and hostility. She felt within reach of her desire, yet
held back by this woman from attaining it. Every instant of silence
heightened the maddening tumult of her heart and brain. She had
suffered so terribly since Saturday. It seemed as if her gentleness,
her patience, were converted into their opposites, which now ruled
her tyrannously.

'Mr. Egremont is not in London,' Mrs. Ormonde said at last. She
dreaded the result of any word she might say. She was asking herself
whether Walter ought not to be summoned back at once. Was it too
late for that?

'Not in London? Then where? You saw him on Saturday?'

'Yes, I saw him.'

'And you would not tell him where I was, Mrs. Ormonde? You spoke
like you did that night. You persuaded him not to come to me--when
I was waiting. I forgave you for what you said before, but now you
have done something that I shall never forgive----'

'Thyrza----'

'There's nothing you can say will make me forgive you! Your kindness
to me hasn't been kindness at all. It was all to separate me from
him. What have you told him about me? You have said I don't think of
him any more. You made him believe I wasn't fit for him. And now you
will refuse to tell me where he is.'

'Thyrza!'

Mrs. Ormonde took the girl's hands forcibly in her own, and held
them against her breast. She was pale and overcome with emotion.

'Thyrza, you don't know what you are saying! Do force yourself to be
calmer, so that you can listen to me.'

'Don't hold my hands, Mrs. Ormonde! I have loved you, but I can't
pretend to, now that you have done this against me. I will listen to
you, but how shall I believe what you say? I didn't think one woman
could be so cruel to another as you have been to me. You don't know
what it means, to wait as I have waited; if you knew, you'd never
have done this; you wouldn't have had the heart to do this to me.'

'My poor child, think, think--_how_ could I know that you were
waiting? You forget that you have only just told me your secret for
the first time. I have seen you always so full of life and gladness,
and how was I to dream of this sudden change?'

Thyrza listened, and, as if imperfectly comprehending, examined the
speaker's face in silence.

'I am not the cruel woman you call me,' Mrs. Ormonde went on. 'I had
no idea that your happiness depended upon meeting with Mr. Egremont
again.'

'You had no idea of that?' Thyrza asked, slowly, wonderingly. 'You
say that you didn't know I loved him?'

'Not that you still loved him. Two years ago--I knew it was so
then. But I fancied----'

'You thought I had forgotten all about him? How could you think
that? Is it possible to love any one and forget so soon, and live as
if nothing had happened? That cannot be true, Mrs. Ormonde. I know
you _wished_ me to forget him. And that is what you told him when
you saw him on Saturday! You said I thought no more of him, and that
it was better he shouldn't see me! Oh, what right had you to say
that? Where is he now? You say you arc not cruel; let me know where
I can find him.'

There was but one answer to make, yet Mrs. Ormonde dreaded to utter
it. The girl's state was such that it might be fatal to tell her the
truth. Passion such as this, nursed to this through two years in a
heart which could affect calm, must be very near madness. Yet what
help but to tell the truth? Unless she feigned that Egremont's
failure to come on Saturday was her fault, in the sense Thyrza
believed, and then send for him, that this terrible mischief might
be undone?

If only she could have time to reflect. Whatever she did now, in
this agitation, she might bitterly repent. Only under stress of the
direst necessity could she summon Egremont back; there was something
repugnant to her instinct, something impossible, in the thought of
undoing all she had done. Egremont's position would be ignoble.
Impossible to retrace her steps!

'I have no wish to prevent you from seeing him, Thyrza,' she said,
making her resolve even as she spoke. 'He is not in London now, but
he will be back before long, I think.'

'Is he in England?'

'Yes; in the North. He has gone to see friends. You don't know that
he has been in America during these two years?'

Something was gained if Thyrza could be brought to listen with
interest to details.

'In America? But he came back at the time. How could you refuse to
keep your promise? What did he say to you? How could he go away
again and let you break your word to him in that way?'

Mrs. Ormonde said, as gently as she could:

'I didn't break my word, Thyrza. I gave him your address. He had it
on Friday night.'

She, whose nature it was to trust implicitly, now dreaded a deceit
in every word. She gazed at Mrs. Ormonde, without change of
countenance.

'And,' she said, slowly, 'you persuaded him not to come.'

Mrs. Ormonde paused before replying.

'Thyrza, is all your faith in me at an end? Cannot I speak to you
like I used to, and be sure that you trust my kindness to you, that
you trust my love?'

'Your love?' Thyrza repeated, more coldly than she had spoken yet.
'And you persuaded him not to come to me.'

'It is true, I did.'

Mrs. Ormonde had never spoken to any one with a feeling of
humiliation like this which made her bend her head. Thyrza still
looked at her, but no longer with hostility. She gazed with wonder,
with doubt.

'Why did you do that to me, Mrs. Ormonde?'

There was heart-breaking pathos in the simple words. Tears rushed to
the listener's eyes.

'My child, if I had known the truth, I should have said not a word
to prevent his going. I did not know that you still loved him, hard
as it is for you to believe that. I was deceived by your face. I
have watched you month after month, and, as I knew nothing of your
reason for hope, I thought you had found comfort in other things.
Cannot you believe me, Thyrza?'

'And you told him that?'

'Yes, I told him what I thought was the truth. Thyrza, I _have_ been
cruel to you, but I had no thought that I was so.'

Thyrza asked, after a silence:

'But you told him where I was living?'

'I told him; he asked me, and I told him, as I had promised I
would.'

Thyrza stood in deep thought. Mrs. Ormonde again took her hands.

'Dear, come and sit down. You are worn out with your trouble. Don't
repel me, Thyrza. I have done you a great wrong, and I know you
cannot feel to me as you did; but I am not so hard-hearted that your
suffering does not pierce me through. Only sit here and rest.'

She allowed herself to be led to the seat. Her eyes rested on the
ground for a while, then strayed to the leaves about her, which were
golden with the sunlight they intercepted, then turned again to Mrs.
Ormonde's face.

'He knew where I lived. How could you be sure he wouldn't come to
me?'

Mrs. Ormonde sunk her eyes and made no reply.

'Did he promise you that he would never come?'

'He made me no promise, Thyrza.'

'No promise? Then how do you know that he won't come?'

A gleam shot to her eyes. But upon the moments of hope followed a
revival of suspicion.

'You say you can't prevent me from seeing him. Tell me where he is
--the place. You won't tell me?'

'And if I did, how would it help you?'

'Cannot I go there? Or can't I write and say that I wish to speak to
him.'

'Thyrza, I asked no promise from him that he wouldn't go to you. I
don't think you would really try to see him, knowing that he has
your address.'

'You asked no promise, Mrs. Ormonde, but you persuaded him! You
spoke as you did two years ago. You told him I could never make a
fit wife for him, that he couldn't be happy with me, nor I with
him.'

'No; I did not speak as I did two years ago. I know you much better
than I did then, and I told him all that I have since learnt. No one
could speak in higher words of a woman than I did of you, and I
spoke from my heart, for I love you, Thyrza, and your praise is dear
to me.'

That fixed, half-conscious gaze of the blue eyes was hard to bear,
so unutterably piteous was it, so wofully it revealed the mind's
anguish. Mrs. Ormonde waited for some reply, but none came.

'You do not doubt this, Thyrza?'

Still no answer.

'Suppose I give you the address, do you feel able to write, before
he has----?'

There was a change in the listener's face. Mrs. Ormonde sprang to
her, and saved her from falling. Nature had been tried at last
beyond its powers.

Mrs. Ormonde could not leave the unconscious form; her voice would
not be beard if she called for help. But the fainting fit lasted a
long time. Thyrza lay as one who is dead; her features calm, all the
disfiguring anguish passed from her beauty. Her companion had a
moment of terror. She was on the point of hastening to the house,
when a sign of revival cheeked her. She supported Thyrza in her
arms.

'Thank you, Mrs. Ormonde,' was the latter's first whisper, the tone
as gentle and grateful as it was always wont to be.

'Can you sit alone for a minute, dear, while I fetch something?'

'I am well, quite well again, thank you.'

Mrs. Ormonde went and speedily returned. Thyrza was sitting with her
eyes closed. They spoke only broken words. But at length Mrs.
Ormonde said:

'You must come into the house now, Thyrza. You shall be quite alone;
you must lie down.'

'No, I can't stay here, Mrs. Ormonde. I must go back before it gets
too late. I must go to the station.'

Even had Thyrza's condition allowed of this, her friend would have
dreaded to lose sight of her now, to let her travel to London and
thereafter be alone. After trying every appeal, she refused to allow
her to go.

'You must stay here for the night, Thyrza. You must. I have much
more to say to you. But first you must rest. Come with me.'

Her will was the stronger. Thyrza at length suffered herself to be
taken into the house, and to a room where she could have perfect
quietness. Mrs. Ormonde alone waited upon her, brought her food, did
everything to soothe body and mind. By sunset, the weary one was
lying with her head on the pillow. On a table within her reach was a
bell, whose sound would at once summon her attendant from the next
room.

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