The Common Law

CHAPTER XVI

On the morning of the first day of June Neville came into his studio and found there a letter from Valerie:

"DEAREST: I am not keeping my word to you; I am asking you for more time; and I know you will grant it.

"José Querida's death has had a curious effect on me. I was inclined to care very sincerely for him; I comprehended him better than many people, I think. Yet there was much in him that I never understood. And I doubt that he ever entirely understood himself.

"I believe that he was really a great painter, Louis—and have sometimes thought that his character was mediæval at the foundations—with five centuries of civilisation thinly deposited over the bed-rock…. In him there seemed to be something primitive; something untamable, and utterly irreconcilable with, the fundamental characteristics of modern man.

"He was my friend…. Friendship, they say, is a record of misunderstandings; and it was so with us But may I tell you something? José Querida loved me—in his own fashion.

"What kind of a love it was—of what value—I can not tell you. I do not think it was very high in the scale. Only he felt it for me, and for no other woman, I believe.

"It never was a love that I could entirely understand or respect; yet,—it is odd but true—I cared something for it—perhaps because, in spite of its unfamiliar and sometimes repellent disguises—it was love after all.

"And now, as at heart and in mind you and I are one; and as I keep nothing of real importance from you—perhaps can not; I must tell you that José Querida came that day to ask me to marry him.

"I tried to make him understand that I could not think of such a thing; and he lost his head and became violent. That is how the table fell:—I had started toward the door when he sprang back to block me, and the low window-sill caught him under the knees, and he fell outward into the yard.

"I know of course that no blame could rest on me, but it was a terrible and dreadful thing that happened there in one brief second; and somehow it seems to have moved in me depths that have never before been stirred.

"The newspapers, as you know, published it merely as an accident—which it really was. But they might have made it, by innuendo, a horror for me. However, they put it so simply and so unsuspiciously that José Querida might have been any nice man calling on any nice woman.

"Louis, I have never been so lonely in my life as I have been since José Querida died; alas! not because he has gone out of my life forever, but because, somehow, the manner of his death has made me realise how difficult it is for a woman alone to contend with men in a man's own world.

"Do what she may to maintain her freedom, her integrity, there is always,—sometimes impalpable, sometimes not—a steady, remorseless pressure on her, forcing her unwillingly to take frightened cognisance of men;—take into account their inexorable desire for domination; the subtle cohesion existent among them which, at moments, becomes like a wall of adamant barring, limiting, inclosing and forcing women toward the deep-worn grooves which women have trodden through the sad centuries;—and which they tread still—and will tread perhaps for years to come before the real enfranchisement of mankind begins.

"I do not mean to write bitterly, dear; but, somehow, all this seems to bear significantly, ominously, upon my situation in the world.

"When I first knew you I felt so young, so confident, so free, so scornful of custom, so wholesomely emancipated from silly and unjust conventions, that perhaps I overestimated my own vigour and ability to go my way, unvexed, unfettered in this man's world, and let the world make its own journey in peace. But it will not.

"Twice, now, within a month,—and not through any conscious fault of mine—this man's world has shown its teeth at me; I have been menaced by its innate scorn of woman, and have, by chance, escaped a publicity which would have damned me so utterly that I would not have cared to live.

"And dear, for the first time I really begin to understand now what the shelter of a family means; what it is to have law on my side,—and a man who understands his man's world well enough to fight it with its own weapons;—well enough to protect a woman from things she never dreamed might menace her.

"When that policeman came into my room,—dear, you will think me a perfect coward—but suddenly I seemed to realise what law meant, and that it had power to protect me or destroy me…. And I was frightened,—and the table lay there with the fragments of broken china—and there was that dreadful window—and I—I who knew how he died!—Louis! Louis! guiltless as I was,—blameless in thought and deed—I died a thousand deaths there while the big policeman and the reporters were questioning me.

"If it had not been for what José was generous enough to say, I could never have thought out a lie to tell them; I should have told them how it had really happened…. And what the papers would have printed about him and about me, God only knows.

"Never, never had I needed you as I needed you at that moment…. Well; I lied to them, somehow; I said to them what José had said—that he was seated on the window-ledge, lost his balance, clutched at the table, overturned it, and fell. And they believed me…. It is the first lie since I was a little child, that I have ever knowingly told…. And I know now that I could never contrive to tell another.

"Dear, let me try to think out what is best for us…. And forgive me, Louis, if I can not help a thought or two of self creeping in. I am so terribly alone. Somehow I am beginning to believe that it may sometimes be a weakness to totally ignore one's self…. Not that I consider myself of importance compared to you, my darling; not that I would fail to set aside any thought of self where your welfare is concerned. You know that, don't you?

"But I have been wondering how it would be with you if I passed quietly and absolutely out of your life. That is what I am trying to determine. Because it must be either that or the tie unrecognised by civilisation. And which would be better for you? I do not know yet. I ask more time. Don't write me. Your silence will accord it.

"You are always in my thoughts.

    "VALERIE."

Ogilvy came into the studio that afternoon, loquacious, in excellent humour, and lighting a pipe, detailed what news he had while Neville tried to hide his own deep perplexity and anxiety under a cordial welcome.

"You know," said Ogilvy, "that all the time you've given me and all your kindness and encouragement has made a corker of that picture of mine."

"You did it yourself," said Neville. "It's good work, Sam."

"Sure it's good work—being mostly yours. And what do you think, Kelly; it's sold!"

"Good for you!"

"Certainly it's good for me. I need the mazuma. A courteous multi purchased it for his Long Branch cottage—said cottage costing a million. What?"

"Oh, you're doing very well," laughed Neville.

"I've got to…. I've—h'm!—undertaken to assume obligations toward civilisation—h'm!—and certain duties to my—h'm—country—"

"What on earth are you driving at?" asked Neville, eying him.

"Huh! Driving single just at present; practising for tandem—h'm!—and a spike—h'm—some day—I hope—of course—"

"Sam!"

"Hey?"

"Are you trying to say something?"

"Oh, Lord, no! Why, Kelly, did you suspect that I was really attempting to convey anything to you which I was really too damned embarrassed to tell you in the patois of my native city?"

"It sounded that way," observed Neville, smiling.

"Did it?" Ogilvy considered, head on one side. "Did it sound anything like a—h'm!—a man who was trying to—h'm!—to tell you that he was going to—h'm!—to try to get somebody to try to let him try to tell her that he wanted to—marry her?"

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Neville, bewildered, "what do you mean?"

Ogilvy pirouetted, picked up a mahl-stick, and began a lively fencing bout with an imaginary adversary.

"I'm going to get married," he said amiably.

"What!"

"Sure."

"To whom?"

"To Hélène d'Enver. Only she doesn't know it yet."

"What an infernal idiot you are, Sam!"

"Ya-as, so they say. Some say I'm an ass, others a bally idiot, others merely refer to me as imbecile. And so it goes, Kelly,—so it goes."