They went out to walk together. Looking over the wide prospect from the top of the Downs, the soft English landscape, homely, peaceful, Otway talked of Russia. It was a country, he said, which interested him more the more he knew of it. He hoped to know it very well, and perhaps--here he grew dreamy--to impart his knowledge to others. Not many Englishmen mastered the language, or indeed knew anything of it; that huge empire was a mere blank to be filled up by the imaginings of prejudice and hostility. Was it not a task worth setting before oneself, worth pursuing for a lifetime, that of trying to make known to English folk their bugbear of the East?
"Then this," said Olga, "is to be the end of your life?"
"The end? No, not even that."
On their return, he found himself alone with Mrs. Hannaford for a few minutes. He spoke abruptly, with an effort.
"Do you see much of the Derwents?"
"Not much. Our lives are so different, you know."
"Will you tell me frankly? If I called there--when I come south again--should I be welcome?"
"Oh, why not?" replied the lady, veiling embarrassment. "I see." Otway's face darkened. "You think it better I shouldn't. I understand."
Olga reappeared, and the young man turned to her with resolute cheerfulness. When at length he took leave of his friends, they saw nothing but good spirits and healthful energy. He would certainly see them again before leaving England, and before long would let them know all his projects in detail. So he went his way into the summer night, back to the roaring world of London; one man in the multitude who knew his heart's desire, and saw all else in the light thereof.
For three days, Mrs. Hannaford and her daughter lived expectant; then arrived in answer to the letter left behind at Hammersmith. It came through Dr. Derwent's solicitor, whose address Mrs. Hannaford had given for this purpose. A curt, dry communication, saying simply that the fugitive might do as she chose, and would never be interfered with. Parting was, under the circumstances, evidently the wise course; but it must be definite, legalised; the writer had no wish ever to see his wife again. As to her suggestion about money, in that too she would please herself; it relieved him to know her independent, and he was glad to be equally so.
For all that, Lee Hannaford made no objection to receiving the portion of his wife's income which she offered. He took it without thanks, keeping his reflections to himself. And therewith was practically dissolved one, at least, of the innumerable mock marriages which burden the lives of mankind. Mrs. Hannaford's only bitterness was that in law she remained wedded. It soothed her but moderately to reflect that she was a martyr to national morality.
She was pressed to come and stay for a while in Bryanston Square, but Olga would not accept that invitation. Her mother's affairs being satisfactorily settled, the girl returned to her fixed purpose; she would hear of no further postponement of her marriage. Thereupon Mrs. Hannaford took a step she feared to be useless, but which was the only hope remaining to her. She wrote to Kite; she explained to him her circumstances; she asked him whether, out of justice to Olga, who might repent a hasty union, he would join her (Mrs. Hannaford) in a decision to put off the marriage for one year. If, in a twelvemonth, Olga were still of the same mind, all opposition should be abandoned, and more than that, pecuniary help would be given to the couple. She appealed to his manhood, to his generosity, to his good sense.
And, much to her surprise, the appeal was successful. Kite wrote the oddest letter in reply, all disjointed philosophising, with the gist that perhaps Mrs. Hannaford was right. No harm in waiting a year; perhaps much good. Life was a mystery; love was uncertain. He would get on with his art, the only stable thing from his point of view.
From her next meeting with her lover, Olga came back pale and wretched.
"I must go and live alone, mother," she said. "I must go to London and work. This life would be impossible to me now."
She would hear of nothing else. Her marriage was postponed; they need say no more about it. If her mother would let her have a little money, till she could support herself, she would be grateful; but she must live apart. And so, after many tears it was decided. Olga went by herself into lodgings, and Mrs. Hannaford accepted her brother's invitation to Bryanston Square.
CHAPTER XIII
Piers Otway spent ten days in Yorkshire. His father was well, but more than ever silent, sunk in prophetic brooding; Mrs. Otway kept the wonted tenor of her life, apprehensive for the purity of the Anglican Church (assailed by insidious papistry), and monologising at large to her inattentive husband upon the godlessness of his impenitent old age.
"Piers," said the father one day, with a twinkle in his eye, "I find myself growing a little deaf. Your stepmother is fond of saying that Providence sends blessings in disguise, and for once she seems to have hit upon a truth."
On a glorious night of stars, he walked with his son up to the open moor. A summer breeze whispered fitfully between the dark-blue vault and the grey earth; there was a sound of water that leapt from the bosom of the hills; deep answering to deep, infinite to infinite. After standing silent for a while, Jerome Otway laid a hand on his companion's shoulder, and muttered, "The creeds--the dogmas!"
They had two or three long conversations. Most of his time Piers spent in rambling alone about the moorland, for health and for weariness. When unoccupied, he durst not be physically idle; the passions that ever lurked to frenzy him could only be baffled at such times by vigorous exercise. His cold bath in the early morning was followed by play of dumb-bells. He had made a cult of physical soundness; he looked anxiously at his lithe, well-moulded limbs; feebleness, disease, were the menaces of a supreme hope. Ideal love dwells not in the soul alone, but in every vein and nerve and muscle of a frame strung to perfect service. Would he win his heart's desire?--let him be worthy of it in body as in mind. He pursued to excess the point of cleanliness. With no touch of personal conceit, he excelled the perfumed exquisite in care for minute perfections. Not in costume; on that score he was indifferent, once the conditions of health fulfilled. His inherited tone was far from perfect; with rage he looked back upon those insensate years of study, which had weakened him just when he should have been carefully fortifying his constitution. Only by conflict daily renewed did he keep in the way of safety; a natural indolence had ever to be combated; there was always the fear of relapse, such as had befallen him now and again during his years in Russia; a relapse not alone in physical training, but from the ideal of chastity. He had cursed the temper of his blood; he had raved at himself for vulgar gratifications; and once more the struggle was renewed. Asceticism in diet had failed him doubly; it reduced his power of wholesome exertion, and caused a mental languor treacherous to his chief purpose. Nowadays he ate and drank like any other of the sons of men, on the whole to his plain advantage.
A day or two after receiving a letter from Mrs. Hannaford, in which she told him of her removal to Dr. Derwent's house, he bade farewell to his father.
To his hotel in London, that night, came a note he had expected. Mrs. Hannaford asked him to call in Bryanston Square at eleven the next morning.
As he approached the house, memories shamed him. How he had slunk about the square under his umbrella; how he had turned away in black despair after that "Not at home"; his foolish long-tailed coat, his glistening stovepipe! To-day, with scarce a thought for his dress, he looked merely what he was: an educated man, of average physique, of intelligent visage, of easy bearing. For all that, his heart throbbed as he stood at the door, and with catching breath, he followed the servant upstairs.
Before Mrs. Hannaford appeared, he had time to glance round the drawing-room, which was simpler in array than is common in such houses. His eye fell upon a portrait, a large crayon drawing, hung in a place of honour; he knew it must represent Irene's mother; there was a resemblance to the face which haunted him, with more of sweetness, with a riper humanity. Whilst his wife still lived, Dr. Derwent had not been able to afford a painting of her; this drawing was done and well done, in the after days