Ideala Part 12

In the meantime my sister Claudia had seen Ideala, and had been pleased to find her, not looking well, certainly, but just as cheerful as usual. "It is evident the place does not agree with her," Claudia said; "but a few weeks with us will set her all right again."

They drove in the park together one afternoon, and talked, as usual, of many things, the state of society being one of them. This was a subject upon which my sister descanted frequently, and it was from her that Ideala learnt all she knew of it.

"Can you wonder," Claudia said on this occasion, "that men are immoral when ladies in society rather pride themselves than otherwise on imitating the _demi-monde_?"

"Have you ever noticed," Ideala answered, indirectly, "how frequently a word or phrase which you know quite well by sight, but have never thought of and do not understand, is suddenly brought home to you as it were? You come across it everywhere, and at last take the trouble to find out what it means in self-defence. That expression--_demi- monde_--has begun to haunt me since I came to town, and I feel I shall be obliged to look it up at once to stop the nuisance. We went to a theatre the other night, and when we were settled there I saw my husband in the stalls with a lady in flame-coloured robes. I didn't know he was in town. The rest of our party saw him, too, and the gentlemen had a mysterious little consultation at the back of the box.

Then one of them left us, but returned almost immediately, and told us the carriage had not gone, and hadn't we better try some other theatre --the piece at that one was not so good as they had supposed. But I knew they had taken a lot of trouble, entirely on my account, to get a box there, as I had expressed a wish to see that particular piece, and I said I had come to enjoy it, and meant to. I did enjoy it, too. It was so absorbing that I forgot all about my husband, and don't know when he left the theatre. I only know that he disappeared without coming near us. When we got back, Lilian came to my room and told me they were all saying downstairs that I had behaved splendidly, and I said I was delighted to hear it, particularly as I did not know how, or when, or where, I had come to deserve such praise. And then she asked me if I knew who it was my husband was with. I said, no; some alderman's wife, I supposed. 'Nothing half so good,' she answered. 'That woman is notorious: she is one of the _demimonde!_' 'Well,' I said, 'I don't suppose she is in society.' And then Lilian said, 'Good gracious, Ideala! how can you be so tranquil? You _must_ care. I think you are the most extraordinary person I ever met.' And I told her that the only extraordinary thing about me just then was a great 'exposition of sleep' that had come upon me. And then she left me; but she told me afterwards that she thought I was acting, and came back later to see if I really could sleep."

"And you did sleep, Ideala?"

"Like a top--why not? But now you are following suit with your ill- conducted people, and your _demi-monde_. I want to know what you mean by that phrase?"

Then Claudia explained it to her.

"But I thought all that had ended with the Roman Empire," Ideala protested.

Claudia laughed, and then went on without pity, describing the cla.s.s as they sink lower and lower, and cruelly omitting no detail that might complete the picture.

"But the men are as bad," said Ideala.

"Oh, as bad, yes!" was the answer.

Ideala was pale with disgust. "And we have to touch them!" she said.

Her ignorance of this phase of life had been so complete, and her faith in those about her so perfect, that the shock of this dreadful revelation was almost too much for her. At first, as the carriage drove on through the crowded streets, she saw in every woman's face a hopeless degradation, and in every man's eyes a loathsome sin; and she exclaimed, as another woman had exclaimed on a similar occasion: "Oh, Claudia! why did you tell me? It is too dreadful. I cannot bear to know it."

"How a woman can be at once so clever and such a fool as you are, Ideala, puzzles me," Claudia remonstrated, not unkindly.

She had warmed as she went on, and forgot in her indignation to take advantage of this long-looked-for opportunity to speak to Ideala about her own troubles; and afterwards, when she showed an inclination to open the subject, Ideala put her off with a jest.

"'_Le mariage est beau pour les amants et utile pour les saints,_'"

she quoted, lightly. "Cla.s.s me with the saints, and talk of something interesting."

A few days later Claudia came to me in dismay.

"What do you think?" she said. "Ideala is not coming to us at all! She says she must go back at once."

"Go back!" I exclaimed, "and why?"

"She is going to write something, for which she requires to read a great deal, and she says she must go back to work."

"But that is nonsense," I protested. "She can work as much as she likes here--I can even help her."

"I know that," Claudia answered; "but she spoke so positively I could not insist. I suppose the truth is her husband has ordered her back, and she is going to be a good, obedient child, as usual."

"Does she seem at all unhappy?"

"No, and that is the strange part of it. She has coolly broken I don't know how many other engagements to return at once, and instead of seeming disappointed, she simply 'glows and is glad.' She says nothing, but I can see it. I don't know what on earth she is up to now." And Claudia left the room, frowning and perplexed.

When I heard she was not unhappy, this sudden whim of Ideala's did not disturb me much; indeed, I was rather glad to think she had found something to be enthusiastic about. Her fits of enthusiasm were rarer now, and I thought this symptom of one a good sign. It was odd, though, that I had not seen her while she was in town. I was half inclined to believe she had avoided me.

CHAPTER XVII.

To give the story continuity it will be necessary to piece the events together as they followed. Many of them only came to my knowledge some time after they occurred, and even then I was left to surmise a good deal; but I am able now, with the help of papers that have lately come into my possession, to verify most of my conjectures and arrange the details.

The summer weather had begun now. Laburnums and lilacs were in full flower, the air was sweet with scent and song, and to one who had borne the heavy winter with a heavy heart, but was able at last to lay down a load of care, the transition must have been like a sudden change from painful sickness to perfect health. Ideala went to the Great Hospital at once. She had written to fix a day, and Lorrimer was waiting for her. She was not taken to his room, however, as on the previous occasion, but to another part of the building, a long gallery hung with pictures, where she found him superintending the arrangement of some precious things in cabinets. Ideala looked better and younger that day in her summer dress than she had done in her heavy winter wraps on the occasion of their first meeting; but when she found herself face to face with Lorrimer she began to tremble, and was overcome with nervousness in a way that was new to her. He saw the change in her appearance and manner at a glance, and, smiling slightly, begged her to follow him, and led the way through long pa.s.sages and many doors, pa.s.sing numbers of people, to his own room. He spoke to her once or twice on the way, but she was only able to answer confusedly, in a voice that was rendered strident by the great effort she had to make to control it. He busied himself with some papers for a few minutes when they reached his room, to give her time to recover herself, and then he said, standing with his back to the fireplace, looking down at her, and speaking in a tone that was even more musical and caressing than she remembered it: "Well, and how are you? And how has it been with you since your return?"

"I am utterly shaken and unnerved, as you see," she answered; then added pa.s.sionately: "I cannot bear my life; it is too hateful."

"There is no need to bear it," he said. "Nothing is easier than to get a separation after what has occurred. Was there any witness?"

"No; and I don't think any one in the house suspects that there is anything wrong. And none of my friends know. I have never told them. I wonder why I told you?"

"You wanted me to help you," he suggested.

"I don't think I did," she said. "How could I want you to help me when I don't mean to do anything? I fancy I told you because I was afraid you would think me a little mad that day, and I would rather you knew the truth than think me mad. I don't mean to try for a separation. I can't leave him entirely to his own devices. If I did, he would certainly go from bad to worse."

"And if you don't what will become of you? I think much more of such a life would make you reckless."

She was silent for a little, then she exclaimed: "Help me not to grow reckless. I am so alone."

He took her hands and looked down into her eyes. A sudden deep flush spread over his face, smoothing out all the lines, as she had seen it do once before, and transforming him.

"It is like walking on the edge of a precipice in the dark," he said in a low voice, and his grasp tightened as he spoke.

There was something mesmeric in his touch that overpowered Ideala. She felt a change in herself at the moment, and she was never the same woman again.

"I will help you, if I can," he said, after another pause, and then he let her go.

After that they talked for some time. He tried to persuade her to reconsider her decision and leave her husband. He honestly believed it was the best thing she could do, and told her why he thought so. She acknowledged the wisdom of his advice, but declined to follow it, and he was somewhat puzzled, for the reasons she gave were hardly enough to account for her determination. They wandered away from that subject at last, however, and talked of many other things. He told Ideala of his first coming to the Great Hospital as a patient, and gave her some of the details of his own case, and told her enough of his private history to arouse her sympathy and interest; but of the nature of these confidences I know nothing. Ideala felt in honour bound not to repeat them, as they were made to her in the course of a private conversation, and she was always scrupulously faithful to all such trusts. I know, however, that he was a man who had suffered acutely, both from unhappy circ.u.mstances and from those troubles of the mind which beset clever men at the outset of their career, and sometimes never leave them entirely at peace. But this man was something more than a clever man; he was a man in a thousand. He had in a strong degree all that is worst and best in a man. The highest and most spiritual aspirations warred in him with the most carnal impulses, and he spent his days in fighting to attain to the one and subdue the other.

Ideala had never known a man like this man. His talents, his rapid changes of mood, as sense or conscience got the upper hand, and his versatility charmed her imagination and excited her interest; and he had, besides, that magnetic power over her by which it is given to some men to compel people of certain temperaments to their will. While she was with him he could have made her believe that black was white, and not only believe it, but be glad to think that it was so; and he always compelled her to say exactly what she had in her mind at the moment, even when it was something that she would very much rather not have said.

"But I am forgetting my other object in coming," Ideala broke off at last. "May I look at the books?"

Lorrimer took out his watch. "You ought to have some lunch first," he said. "If you will come now and have some, we can return and look at the books afterwards."

Ideala acquiesced, fearing it was his own lunch time, and knowing it would detain him if she did not accompany him.

Ladies not being allowed to lunch at the Great Hospital, they went, as before, to the station close by, and sat down side by side, perfectly happy together, chatting, laughing, talking about their childhood, and making those trifling confidences which go so far to promote intimacy, and are often the first evidence of affection. Now and then they touched on graver matters. He upheld all that was old, and believed we can have no better inst.i.tutions in the future than those which have already existed in the past. Ideala had begun to think differently.

"I am sure it is a mistake to be for ever looking back to the past for precedents," she said. "The past has its charm, of course, but it is the charm of the charnel house--it is the dead past, and what was good for one age is bad for another."

"As one man's meat is another man's poison?" he said.