THE BLOT ON THE SNOW

The brothers got on very well at first; they sat silent or talked about things which interested neither. They were as little as possible alone.

Gradually, however, Gerard’s persistent lightheartedness produced the opposite effect of a dead weight on the other man. His very laugh, so easy, so frequent, jarred on Otto’s hearing.

“Debt is theft,” thought Otto. “How can he find it in his heart to laugh with such debts as his?” And the Baron bent once more, with a resolute sigh, over his weary pile of accounts.

Gerard, meanwhile, was manfully making the best of his return to his old home. He rejoiced to be again among the familiar surroundings, and especially he rejoiced in his mother’s company. He spent long hours in her boudoir every morning, helping her with the Memoir, and, therefore, talking much about old times. It was a difficult diversion. He did his very best to laugh.

He also did his very best to make things pleasant with Otto. Towards Ursula he could not but feel differently; he avoided her as much as possible, and she, in her eagerness to conciliate, seemed almost to be laying herself out to please him. Their relations were strained, and everybody noticed it.

“And what do you say to the baby, Gerard?” demanded Aunt Louisa.

“Nothing, aunt. One has to say, ‘Tiddie, iddie, too-tums, then,’ to babies, or something of that kind, and I don’t feel equal to it. I never say anything to babies.”

“Ah, but this is the baby,” retorted the old maid, annoyed. “However, I can understand your not caring much about him; he has definitely put your handsome nose out of joint.”

Gerard did not answer, in his sudden distress. And then, that none might harbor such horrible thoughts with any show of reason, he set himself to heroically admiring his little nephew, and the forlornness of his affectionate nature soon facilitated the task. Ursula was delighted at this rapprochement on neutral ground. She initiated her brother-in-law into many shades of infant development where the careless observer would merely have seen a blank.

They were together by the cradle in the breakfast-room on the morning of Christmas Eve. There was to be a small dinner-party in the evening, the Christmas Tree for the villagers not taking place till the following day. The Van Trossarts were coming, and Helena Van Troyen with her husband. Helena had written to say that she must bring a German friend of Willie’s.

“He is beginning to take notice,” said Ursula, for the twentieth time. “Don’t you see how he opens and shuts his little fingers?”

“But he always did that,” objected Gerard.

“He did it without any reason,” exclaimed the young mother, sagely. “He does it now when he knows there’s something near.”

Gerard laughed, Ursula laughed also; she was happy in the possession of her husband, of her little son, all the warmth of a woman’s home.

In another moment Gerard’s face had clouded over. “Ursula,” he said, with a violent effort, “there’s one thing I must ask you. I ought to have asked it a year ago. It’s wickedness letting these things rankle. Why did you make trouble between Helena and me?”

A flood of scarlet poured over her drooping face. She tried to speak, but, for only answer, fresh waves came sweeping up across the dusky damask of her cheeks. She sank down beside the cradle, hiding away from him.

“Can you not guess?” she whispered—into the baby clothes.

No; he could not guess. He had already sufficiently wronged Otto with regard to the Adeline business; all through the year he had striven to convince himself that Mademoiselle Papotier must have been mistaken. Spoiled darling of many women as he undoubtedly was, he had not enough of the coxcomb in him honestly to believe that this woman had acted solely from pique. Nor could he have uttered that explanation, though it still hovered round him.

“Gerard, I knew,” said Ursula, so low that he had to bend over her half-hidden head. “I knew. Oh, Gerard, if only you had married the other one.”

Then a long silence arose between them, for Gerard had understood. In the strange bluntness of our world-wide morality it had never entered into this honorable gentleman’s head that any one could deem Adeline’s claim on him an obstacle to his proper settlement. And now that strange “cussedness,” partly chivalric and modest, which always caused him to blow out the lights on his brighter side, checked the easy vindication that he had actually offered marriage to the foolish little dress-maker. He stood silent and ashamed. Ursula did not lift her face from the sheltering coverlet.

When at last he spoke it was to say: “In one thing I have long misjudged you, Ursula. I should like to confess that just now. I didn’t believe you about that stupid rendezvous. I have admitted to myself since then that you went, as you said, for another’s sake.” He understood that Ursula had somehow constituted herself Adeline’s protectress. “I want to confess that just now,” he repeated, contritely.

She did not thank him for telling her he no longer thought her a liar, and worse. “So you believe now,” she simply said, lifting her head at last. “You believe in my honest acceptance of Otto.” Then she rose from the floor, flushed and troubled, but with a proud curve of her neck.

“Ursula,” said the young officer, as much troubled as herself, “I thank God for the lesson you have taught me. I—if more women thought as you do, we men would be better than we are.” His young face was very solemn, he looked straight towards her. Unconsciously she laid one hand on the breast of her little sleeping child, and, with an upward flutter of her strong brave eyes, held out the other. He took it, hesitated, and then, stooping, touched it with his lips.

When he dropped it, there stood Otto, in the doorway, watching them.

He came forward into the room, pretending not to have seen.

“Well, Gerard,” he said, with forced geniality, “so here is the heir. Some day I hope this young man will sit in my seat and look after the dear old place better than I do.”

Gerard resented the palpable aim of the words.

“Who knows?” he replied, lightly. “He may never have money to keep it up. If he has brothers and sisters, the estate goes to pieces anyhow. What’s the use of your struggling and wasting your life for an idea? Why not sell a couple of farms and have done?”

“That’s what you would do,” said Otto, grimly; “sell the whole thing.”

“Yes, I should, if I really wanted the money.”

“I know you would,” shouted Otto, breaking loose, glad of the pretext. “I know you would, you spendthrift! Spendthrift and profligate, you would do anything—for pleasure.”

His eye flashed from one to the other, and Ursula read the flash.

She remained standing quite still, her hand on the baby’s coverlet. Gerard shrugged his shoulders. “My dear fellow, don’t be so angry. I shall sell nothing,” he said, and walked into the adjoining room. Otto, already ashamed of himself, went out by the passage-door.

The baby was fast asleep, breathing heavily. Ursula remained standing still.

The room was very silent. Presently a quick spasm of trembling shook her, and with a frightened glance to right and left, she hurried away down the vestibule, out into the wintry morning.

She ran swiftly along the avenue and turned into the high road, taking the longest route to the village because it had lain straight in front of her. The gaunt ice-rimmed trees in the pallid air swam round about her through a mist of her own creating; the desolate plain, stretching white and cold, seemed to mock her with its snow-bound loneliness. She shuddered as she ran.

Near the turnpike she stopped. She would meet a human being there, the turnpike man. He would touch his cap. Not that. She shrank back.

And in the pause she asked herself where she was going. To her father, of course, home to her father’s consistent love—the one thing in this world she could forever rely on. Home, to the old home, to weep out her agony upon one faithful breast.

And even as she pictured to herself for a moment what she would do when she reached the comfort of that embrace, she felt that she could not do it. There are valleys of the shadow through which a true-hearted woman must take her way alone.

She stood, a black speck in the surrounding bleakness. The turnpike man, peeping through his little window by his cosey stove, wondered lazily why she did not come on.

At last she turned, and, slowly retracing her steps, branched off into the park. Her one aspiration now was to get away from all possible contact with sympathy. She went stumbling, as fast as she could, over the uneven, snow-laden ground, deeper, only deeper into the silence of the wood. Her foot caught in invisible roots, she hurt herself without perceiving it. Her eyes were dry and hard, despite the cloud behind them.

Gasping for breath, she sank down in the snow and leaned up against a tree. All around and beyond her was the absolute desertion she had longed for, stretching away in an unending sameness of confused black pillars, whose naked tracery bore the pellucid vault of heaven. The dull glitter, all-pervading, lighted up her forest “sanctuary”; not a sound was heard, except when, once, a snapped twig came rustling to the ground.

Her husband had doubted her honor. Even supposing he had done so for the moment only, during the briefest flash of thought. What did that matter? He had doubted her. Other words and acts now came falling into their places, deepening an impression never before perceived. She brushed them away indignantly; she wanted none of these. It was enough.

She could never go back to him. How could she see him? How speak to him? How could daily contact be possible between a husband and the wife whom, for one instant only, his thought had sullied? He who thinks thus once may at any hour pollute his thoughts anew. Priest and priestess cannot kneel again in the temple one of them has desecrated; no repentance, no forgiveness can wipe away the stain across the marble god. She hung staring in front of her, and the soaking snow crept upwards on her dress.

She had no wish to do anything tragic, to make any scene or scandal. Only she felt that she could not go back to her husband’s welcoming smile. It was not the insult to herself, although that drenched her cheek with purple; it was the new horror that had arisen between them as if a toad were seated in his heart. Gerard’s wickedness of loose living was not as bad as this. Oh, men were horrible, horrible!

Something moved on the white ground in front of her, so close that she could not but notice it. A red-breast, half frozen, hopped near in a flutter of perky contemplation, wondering, perhaps, if she was alive. She pitied the poor little forsaken creature, and felt in her pocket, with a sudden movement that scared him, for some morsel of bread which she knew could not possibly be there.

And as she sat, hopelessly waiting, she could not tell for what, the distant boom of the village clock came faintly trembling towards her in one long stroke, the half-hour.

Half-past—what? Previous warnings must have reached her unheard. She looked at her watch. Half-past twelve. And at noon little Otto would have cried out for her, dependent upon his mother for the very flow of his life.

She started to her feet, and commenced running as best she could among the trees. Constantly she stumbled in her haste; once she fell prone into a yielding snowdrift. She hurried on breathlessly—a clearing showed her the house; she rejoiced to see it. How long the time still seemed till she had reached the step! In the hall her husband crossed her path. She shrank aside: the wailing of the child, above the nurse’s vain attempts at hushing, already fell upon her ear.

Otto remarked with astonishment the condition she was in, but he said nothing. Gerard’s voice could be heard in the distance, amid the clash of billiard balls. He was teaching Harriet to play.

“Go,” said Ursula, roughly, to the nurse. She flung to the door of the nursery, and, violently, locked it. Then she took the screaming child to her breast. Her teeth were firm set; her whole face was hard and rigid, but her eyes were very tender.

Half an hour later she went down to lunch. Her guests were talking and laughing. Otto came forward immediately to speak about the afternoon’s arrangements. The Van Trossarts must be fetched from the station. The Dowager beckoned her aside.

“My dear,” said the Dowager, “the butcher has forgotten the cutlets.”