It was to a priest rather than to a man that he made full
confession of his grievous sin. He did not attempt to mitigate it
or to throw upon another a share of the blame. From that attitude
he did not vary a hair's breadth. Meea culpa; mea maxima culpa.
That was the burthen of his avowal.
I, knowing the strange mingling in his nature of brutality and
sensitiveness, of animal and spiritual, and knowing something of
the unstable character of Althea Fenimore, may more justly, I
think, than he, sketch out the miserable prologue of the drama.
That she was madly, recklessly in love with him there can be no
doubt. Nor can there be doubt that unconsciously she fired the
passion in him. The deliberate, cold-blooded seducer of his
friend's daughter, such as Boyce, in his confession, made himself
out to be, is a rare phenomenon. Almost invariably it is the woman
who tempts--tempts innocently and unknowingly, without intent to
allure, still less with thought of wrong--but tempts all the same
by the attraction which she cannot conceal, by the soft promise
which she cannot keep out of her eyes.
That was the beginning of it. Betty, whom he loved, and to whom he
was engaged, was away from Wellingsford. In those days she was
very much the young Diana, walking in search of chaste adventures,
quite contented with the love that lay serenely warm in her heart
and thinking little of a passionate man's needs--perhaps starting
away from too violent an expression of them--perhaps prohibiting
them altogether. The psychology of the pre-war young girl
absorbed, even though intellectually and for curiosity's sake, in
the feminist movement, is yet to be studied. Betty, then, was
away. Althea, beata possidens, made her artless, innocent appeal
for victory. Unconsciously she tempted. The man yielded. A touch
of the lips in a moment of folly, the man blazed, the woman
helpless was consumed. This happened in January, just before
Althea's supposed visit to Scotland. Boyce was due at a Country
House party near Carlisle. In the first flush of their madness
they agreed upon the wretched plan. She took rooms in the town and
he visited her there. Whether he or she conceived it, I do not
know. If I could judge coldly I should say that it was of feminine
inspiration. A man, particularly one of Boyce's temperament, who
was eager for the possession of a passionately loved woman, would
have carried her off to a little Eden of their own. A calm
consideration of the facts leads to the suggestion of a half-
hearted acquiescence on the part of an entangled man in the
romantic scheme of an inexperienced girl to whom he had suddenly
become all in all.
Such is my plea in extenuation of Boyce's conduct (if plea there
can be), seeing that he raised not a shadow of one of his own. You
may say that my plea is no excuse for his betrayal; that no man,
even if he is tempted, can be pardoned for non-control of his
passions. But I am asking for no pardon; I am trying to obtain
your understanding. Remember what I have told you about Boyce, his
great bull-neck, his blood-sodden life-preserver, the physical
repulsion I felt when he carried me in his arms. In such men the
animal instinct is stronger at times than the trained will.
Whether you give him a measure of your sympathy or not, at any
rate do not believe that his short-lived liaison with Althea was a
matter of deliberate and dastardly seduction. Nor must you think
that I am setting down anything in disparagement of a child whom I
once loved. Long ago I touched lightly on the anomaly of Althea's
character--her mid-Victorian sentimentality and softness, combined
with her modern spirit of independence. A fatal anomaly; a
perilous balance of qualities. Once the soft sentimentality was
warmed into romantic passion, the modern spirit led it recklessly
to a modern conclusion.
The liaison was short-lived. The man was remorseful. He loved
another woman. Very quickly did the poor girl awaken from her
dream.
"I was cruel," said Boyce, fixing me with those awful black
spectacles, "I know it. I ought to have married her. But if I had
married her, I should have been more cruel. I should have hated
her. It would have been an impossible life for both of us. One day
I had to tell her so. Not brutally. In a normal state I think I am
as kind-hearted and gentle as most men. And I couldn't be brutal,
feeling an unutterable cur and craving her forgiveness. But I
wanted Betty and I swore that only one thing should keep me from
her."
"One thing?" I asked.
"The thing that didn't happen," said he.
And so it seemed that Althea accepted the inevitable. The placid,
fatalistic side of her nature asserted itself. Pride, too, helped
her instinctive feminine secretiveness. She lived for months in
her father's house without giving those that were dear to her any
occasion for suspicion. In order to preserve the secrecy Boyce was
bound to continue his visits to Wellings Park. Now and then, when
they met alone, she upbraided him bitterly. On the whole, however,
he concluded that they had agreed to bury an ugly chapter in their
lives.
Yes, it was an ugly chapter. From such you cannot get away, bury
it, as you will, never so deep.
"And all the time remember," he said, "that I was mad for Betty.
The more shy she was, the madder I grew. I could not rest in
Wellingsford without her. When she came here, I came. When she
went to town, I went to town. She was as elusive as a dream.
Finally I pinned her down to a date for our marriage in August. It
was the last time I saw her. She went away to stay with friends.
That was the beginning of June. She was to be away two months. I
knew, if I had clamoured, she would have made it three. It was the
shyness of the exquisite bird in her that fascinated me. I could
never touch Betty in those days without dreading lest I might soil
her feathers. You may laugh at a hulking brute like me saying such
things, but that's the way I saw Betty, that's the way I felt
towards her. I could no more have taken her into my bear's hug and
kissed her roughly than I could have smashed a child down with my
fist. And yet--My God, man! how I ached for her!"
Long as I had loved Betty in a fatherly way, deeply as I loved her
now, the man's unexpected picture of her was a revelation. You see
it was only after her marriage, when she had softened and grown a
woman and come so near me that I felt the great comfort of her
presence when she was by, the need of it when she was away. How
could I have known anything of the elusiveness in her maidenhood
before which he knelt so reverently?
That he so knelt is the keynote of the man's soul untainted by the
flesh.
It made clear to me the tenderness that lay beneath that which was
brutal; the reason of that personal charm which had captivated me
against my will; his defencelessness against the Furies.
So far the narrative has reached the latter part of June. He had
spent the month with his mother. As Betty had ordained that July
should be blank, a month during which the moon should know no
changes but only the crescent of Diana should shine supreme in the
heavens, he had made his mundane arrangements for his fishing
excursion to Norway. On the afternoon of the 23rd he paid a
farewell call at Wellings Park. Althea, in the final settlement of
their relations, had laid it down as a definite condition that he
should maintain his usual social intercourse with the family. A
few young people were playing tennis. Tea was served on the lawn
near by the court. Althea gave no sign of agitation. She played
her game, laughed with her young men, and took casual leave of
Boyce, wishing him good sport. He drew her a pace aside and
murmured: "God bless you for forgiving me."
She laughed a reply out loud: "Oh, that's all right."
When he told me that, I recalled vividly the picture of her, in my
garden, on the last afternoon of her life, eating the strawberries
which she had brought me for tea. I remembered the little slangy
tone in her voice when she had asked me whether I didn't think
life was rather rotten. That was the tone in which she had said to
him, "Oh, that's all right."
During the early afternoon on the 25th, she rang him up on the
telephone. Chance willed that he should receive the call at first
hand. She must see him before he left Wellingsford. She had
something of the utmost importance to tell him. A matter of life
and death. With one awful thought in his mind, he placed his time
at her disposal. For what romantic, desperate or tragic reason she
appointed the night meeting at the end of the chestnut avenue
where the towing-path turns into regions of desolate quietude, he
could not tell. He agreed without argument, dreading the possible
lack of privacy in their talk over the wires.
On that afternoon she came to me, as I have told you, with her
strawberries and her declaration of the rottenness of life.
They met and walked along the towing-path. It was bright
moonlight, but she could not have chosen a lonelier spot, more
free from curious eyes or ears. And then took place a scene which
it is beyond my power to describe. I can only picture it to myself
from Boyce's broken, self-accusing talk. He was going away. She
would never see him again until he returned to marry another
woman. She was making her last frantic bid for happiness. She wept
and sobbed and cajoled and upbraided--You know what women at the
end of their tether can do. He strove to pacify her by the old
arguments which hitherto she had accepted. Suddenly she cried: "If
you don't marry me I am disgraced for ever." And this brought them
to a dead halt.
When he came to this point I remembered the diabolical accuracy of
Gedge's story.
Boyce said: "There is one usual reason why a man should marry a
woman to save her from disgrace. Is that the reason?"
She said "Yes."
The light went out of the man's life.
"In that case," said he, "there can be no question about it. I
will marry you. But why didn't you tell me before?"
She said she did not know. She made the faltering excuses of the
driven girl. They walked on together and sat on the great bar of
the lock gates.
"Till then," said he, "I had never known what it was to have death
in my heart. But I swear to God, Meredyth, I played my part like a
man. I had done a dastardly thing. There was nothing left for me
but to make reparation. In a few moments I tore my life asunder.
The girl I had wronged was to be the mother of my child. I
accepted the situation. I was as kind to her as I could be. She
laid her head on my shoulder and cried, and I put my arm around
her. I felt my heart going out to her in remorse and pity and
tenderness. A man must be a devil who could feel otherwise. ...
Our lives were bound up together. ... I kissed her and she clung
to me. Then we talked for a while--ways and means. ... It was time
to go back. We rose. And then--Meredyth--this is what she said:
"'You swear to marry me?'
"'I swear it,' said I.
"'In spite of anything?'
"I gave my promise. She put her arms round my neck.
"'What I've told you is not wholly true. But the moral disgrace is
there all the time.'
"I took her wrists and disengaged myself and held her and looked
at her.
"'What do you mean--not wholly true?' I asked.
"My God! I shall never forget it." He stuck both his elbows on the
bed and clutched his hair and turned his black glasses wide of me.
"The child crumpled up. She seemed to shrivel like a leaf in the
fire. She said:
"'I've tried to lie to you, but I can't. I can't. Pity me and
forgive me.'
"I started back from her in a sudden fury. I could not forgive
her. Think of the awful revulsion of feeling. Foolishly tricked! I
was mad with anger. I walked away and left her. I must have walked
ten or fifteen yards. Then I heard a splash in the water. I
turned. She was no longer on the bank. I ran up. I heard a cry. I
just saw her sinking. AND I COULDN'T MOVE. As God hears me, it is
true. I knew I must dive in and rescue her--I had run up with
every impulse to do so; BUT I COULD NOT MOVE. I stood shivering
with the paralysis of fear. Fear of the deep black water, the
steep brick sides of the canal that seemed to stretch away for
ever--fear of death, I suppose that was it. I don't know. Fear
irresistible, unconquerable, gripped me as it had gripped me
before, as it has gripped me since. And she drowned before my eyes
while I stood like a stone."
There was an awful pause. He had told me the end of the tragedy so
swiftly and in a voice so keyed to the terror of the scene, that I
lay horror-stricken, unable to speak. He buried his face in his
hands, and between the fleshy part of the palms I saw the muscles
of his lips twitch horribly. I remembered, with a shiver, how I
had first seen them twitch, in his mother's house, when he had
made his strange, almost passionate apology for fear. And he had
all but described this very incident: the reckless, hare-brained
devil standing on the bank of a river and letting a wounded
comrade drown. I remember how he had defined it: "the sudden thing
that hits a man's heart and makes him stand stock-still like a
living corpse--unable to move a muscle--all his will-power out of
gear--just as a motor is out of gear. ... It is as much of a fit
as epilepsy."
The span of stillness was unbearable. The watch on the little
table by my bedside ticked maddeningly. Marigold put his head in
at the door, apparently to warn me that it was getting late. I
waved him imperiously away. Boyce did not notice his entrance.
Presently he raised his head.
"I don't know how long I stood there. But I know that when I moved
she was long since past help. Suddenly there was a sharp crashing
noise on the road below. I looked round and saw no one. But it
gave me a shock--and I ran. I ran like a madman. And I thought as
I ran that, if I were discovered, I should be hanged for murder.
For who would believe my story? Who would believe it now?"
"I believe it, Boyce," I said.
"Yes. You. You know something of the hell my life has been. But
who else? He had every motive for the crime, the lawyers would
say. They could prove it. But, my God! what motive had I for
sending all my gallant fellows to their deaths at Vilboek's Farm?
... The two things are on all fours--and many other things with
them. ... My one sane thought through the horror of it all was to
get home and into the house unobserved. Then I came upon the man
Gedge, who had spied on me."
"I know about that," said I, wishing to spare him from saying more
than was necessary. "He told Fenimore and me about it."
"What was his version?" he asked in a low tone. "I had better hear
it."
When I had told him, he shook his head. "He lied. He was saving
his skin. I was not such a fool, mad as I was, as to leave him
like that. He had seen us together. He had seen me alone. To-
morrow there would be discovery. I offered him a thousand pounds
to say nothing. He haggled. Oh! the ghastly business! Eventually I
suggested that he should come up to London with me by the first
train in the morning and discuss the money. I was dreading lest
someone should come along the avenue and see me. He agreed. I
think I drank a bottle of whisky that night. It kept me alive. We
met in my chambers in London. I had sent my man up the day before
to do some odds and ends for me. I made a clear breast of it to
Gedge. He believed the worst. I don't blame him. I bought his
silence for a thousand a year. I made arrangements for payment
through my bankers. I went to Norway. But I went alone. I didn't
fish. I put off the two men I was to join. I spent over a month
all by myself. I don't think I could tell you a thing about the
place. I walked and walked all day until I was exhausted, and got
sleep that way. I'm sure I was going mad. I should have gone mad
if it hadn't been for the war. I suppose I'm the only Englishman
living or dead who whooped and danced with exultation when he
heard of it. I think my brain must have been a bit touched, for I
laughed and cried and jumped about in a pine-wood with a week old
newspaper in my hands. I came home. You know the rest."
Yes, I knew the rest. The woman he had left to drown had been ever
before his eyes; the avenging Furies in pursuit. This was the
torture in his soul that had led him to many a mad challenge of
Death, who always scorned his defiance. Yes, I knew all that he
could tell me.
But we went on talking. There were a few points I wanted cleared
up. Why should he have kept up a correspondence with Gedge?
"I only wrote one foolish angry letter," he replied.
And I told him how Sir Anthony had thrown it unread into the fire.
Gedge's nocturnal waylaying of him in my front garden was another
unsuccessful attempt to tighten the screw. Like Randall and
myself, he had no fear of Gedge.
Of Sir Anthony he could not speak. He seemed to be crushed by the
heroic achievement. It was the only phase of our interview during
which, by voice and manner and attitude, he appeared to me like a
beaten man. His own bravery at the reception had gone for naught.
He was overwhelmed by the hideous insolence of it.
"I shall never get that man's voice out of my ears as long as I
live," he said hoarsely.
After a while he added: "I wonder whether there is any rest or
purification for me this side of the grave."
I said tentatively, for we had never discussed matters of
religion: "If you believe in Christ, you must believe in the
promise regarding the sins that be as scarlet."
But he turned it aside. "In the olden days, men like me turned
monk and found salvation in fasting and penance. The times in
which we live have changed and we with them, my friend. Nos
mulamur in illis, as the tag goes."
We went on talking--or rather he talked and I listened. Now and
again he would help himself to a drink or a cigarette, and I
marvelled at the clear assurance with which he performed the
various little operations. I, lying in bed, lost all sense of
pain, almost of personality. My little ailments, my little selfish
love of Betty, my little humdrum life itself dwindled
insignificant before the tragic intensity of this strange, curse-
ridden being.
And all the tune we had not spoken of Betty--except the Betty of
long ago. It was I, finally, who gave him the lead.
"And Betty?" said I.
He held out his hand in a gesture that was almost piteous.
"I could tear her from my life. I had no alternative. In the
tearing I hurt her cruelly. To know it was not the least of the
burning hell I lit for myself. But I couldn't tear her from my
heart. When a brute beast like me does love a woman purely and
ideally, it's a desperate business. It means God's Heaven to him,
while it means only an earthly paradise to the ordinary man. It
clutches hold of the one bit of immortal soul he has left, and
nothing in this world can make it let go. That's why I say it's a
desperate business."
"Yes, I can understand," said I.
"I schooled myself to the loss of her. It was part of my
punishment. But now she has come back into my life. Fate has
willed it so. Does it mean that I am forgiven?"
"By whom?" I asked. "By God?"
"By whom else?"
"How dare man," said I, "speak for the Almighty?"
"How is man to know?"
"That's a hard question," said I. "I can only think of answering
it by saying that a man knows of God's forgiveness by the measure
of the Peace of God in his soul."
"There's none of it in mine, my dear chap, and never will be,"
said Boyce.
I strove to help him. For what other purpose had he come to me?
"You think then that the sending of Betty is a sign and a promise?
Yes. Perhaps it is. What then?"
"I must accept it as such," said he. "If there is a God, He would
not give me back the woman I love, only to take her away again.
What shall I do?"
"In what way?" I asked.
"She offered to marry me. I am to give her my answer to-morrow. If
I were the callous, murdering brute that everyone would have the
right to believe I am, I shouldn't have hesitated. If I hadn't
been a tortured, damned soul," he cried, bringing his great fist
down on the bed, "I shouldn't have come here to ask you what my
answer can be. My whole being is infected with horror." He rose
and stood over the bed and, with clenched hands, gesticulated to
the wall in front of him. "I'm incapable of judging. I only know
that I crave her with everything in me. I've got it in my brain
that she's my soul's salvation. Is my brain right? I don't know. I
come to you--a clean, sweet man who knows everything--I don't
think there's a crime on my conscience or a foulness in my nature
which I haven't confessed to you. You can judge straight as I
can't. What answer shall I give to-morrow?"
Did ever man, in a case of conscience, have a greater
responsibility? God forgive me if I solved it wrongly. At any
rate, He knows that I was uninfluenced by mean personal
considerations. All my life I have tried to have an honourable
gentleman and a Christian man. According to my lights I saw only
one clear course.
"Sit down, old man," said I. "You're a bit too big for me like
that." He felt for his chair, sat down and leaned back. "You've
done almost everything," I continued, "that a man can do in
expiation of offences. But there is one thing more that you must
do in order to find peace. You couldn't find peace if you married
Betty and left her in ignorance. You must tell Betty everything--
everything that you have told me. Otherwise you would still be
hag-ridden. If she learned the horror of the thing afterwards,
what would be your position? Acquit your conscience now before God
and a splendid woman, and I stake my faith in each that neither
will fail you."
After a few minutes, during which the man's face was like a mask,
he said:
"That's what I wanted to know. That's what I wanted to be sure of.
Do you mind ringing your bell for Marigold to take me away? I've
kept you up abominably." He rose and held out his hand and I had
to direct him how it could reach mine. When it did, he gripped it
firmly.
"It's impossible," said he, "for you to realise what you've done
for me to-night. You've made my way absolutely clear to me--for
the first time for two years. You're the truest comrade I've ever
had, Meredyth. God bless you."
Marigold appeared, answering my summons, and led Boyce away.
Presently he returned.
"Do you know what time it is, sir?" he asked serenely.
"No," said I.
"It's half-past one."
He busied himself with my arrangements for the night, and
administered what I learned afterwards was a double dose of a
sleeping draught which Cliffe had prescribed for special
occasions. I just remember surprise at feeling so drowsy after the
intense excitement of the evening, and then I fell asleep.
When I awoke in the morning I gathered my wits together and
recalled what had taken place. Marigold entered on tiptoe and
found me already aroused.
"I'm sorry to tell you, sir," said he, "that an accident happened
to Colonel Boyce after he left last night."
"An accident?"
"I suppose so, sir," said Marigold. "That's what his chauffeur
says. He got out of the car in order to sit by the side of the
canal--by the lock gates. He fell in, sir. He's drowned."
