Tommy, calling for Clementina the next morning; was confronted at the open door, not by Eliza, but by a demure damsel in a black frock, black apron, and a black bow in her hair, who said “Oui, monsieur,” when addressed. Tommy, still bewildered, asked whether she was a new lady’s maid. “Oui; monsieur,” said the damsel, and showed him into the Sheraton drawing-room. He sat down meekly and waited for Clementina. She came down soon, a resplendent vision, exquisitely gowned, perfectly hatted, delicately gloved, and in her hand she jingled a small goldsmith’s shop. She pirouetted round. “Like it?”
Tommy groaned. “Clementina, darling, tell me, in Heaven’s name, what you’re playing at, or I’ll go raving mad.”
“I told you that one of these days I was going to become a lady. The day has come. Don’t I look like a lady?”
“That’s the devil of it,” he laughed. “You look like an archduchess.”
They picked up Etta and met Quixtus at the Carlton where they lunched in the middle of the great gay room. The young people’s curious awe of the transmogrified Clementina soon melted away. The big, warm-hearted Clementina they loved was unchanged; but to her was added a laughter-evoking, brilliant, joyous personage whose existence they had never suspected. Quixtus went home stimulated and uplifted. He had never enjoyed two hours so much in his life.
And that was the beginning of the glory of Clementina Wing.
Day by day the glory deepened. The pyrotechnic—a flash, a bedazzlement and then darkness—was not in Clementina’s nature. She had deliberately immolated the ph?nix of dusky plumage and from its ashes had arisen this second and radiant ph?nix incarnation. She suffered, as she confessed to herself, infernally; for a new fire-born ph?nix must have its skin peculiarly tender; but she grinned and bore it for the greater glory—well, not of Clementina alone—but of God and her sex and the happiness of those she loved and the things that stood for the right.
She was fighting the interloping woman with her own weapons. She, Clementina, the despised and rejected of men, was pitting her sex’s fascinations against the professional seductress. She had won the first pitched battle. She had swept the enemy from the field. Sheer fierceness of love, almost animal, for the child, sheer pity flaming white for the man grown dear to her, sheer sex, sheer womanhood—these were the forces at work. It would have been easy to denounce the woman to Quixtus. But that might have thrown him back into darkness. Easy, too, to have held her knowledge as a threat over the woman’s head and bade her begone. But where had been the triumph? Where the glory? Whereas to scorn the use of her knowledge and conquer otherwise, therein lay matter for thrilling exultation. It was an achievement worth the struggle.
And the glory of the riot through her veins of the tumultuous Thing she had kept strangled to torpor within her! The Thing that had been stirred by the springtide in a girl’s heart, that had leapt at the parrot tulips in the early May, that had almost escaped from grip on the moonlit night at Vienne, that had remained awake and struggling ever since—the glory to let it go free and carry her whithersoever it would! Art—to the devil with it! What was Art in comparison with this new-found glory?
It made her ten years younger. It took years from the man for whose fascination she brought it into play. Hers was a double conquest, the rout of the woman, the capture of the man. Daily she battled. Sheila, the lovers, a new portrait of him which she suddenly conceived the splendid notion of painting, all were pretexts for keeping the unconscious man within the sphere of her influence. Any impression that the other had made on his heart or his mind should be deleted, and her impression stamped there in its place, so that when he met the other out of her presence, as meet her he undoubtedly must, he would wear it as a talisman against her arts and blandishments. Twice also during the dying days of the season, late that year, she went out into the great world and gave her adversary battle in the open.
It was between these two engagements that she had a talk with Huckaby.
Huckaby, doing his best to act loyally towards both parties, led a precarious moral existence. The sight of Clementina queening it in dazzling raiment about Quixtus’s house and the despairing confidences of Lena Fontaine had enabled him to form a fairly accurate judgment of the state of affairs. His heart began to bleed for Lena Fontaine. She would come to his lodgings and claim sympathy. To not a soul in the world but him could she talk freely. She was desperate. That abominable woman insulted her, trampled on her, poisoned Quixtus’s mind against her. He had changed suddenly, seemed to avoid her, and, when he found himself in her company, he was just polite and courteous in his gentle way, and smilingly eluded her. The Dinard intimacy, on which she had reckoned, had faded into the land of dreams. He was being dragged off before her eyes to some fool place up the river to be watched and guarded like a lunatic. What was she to do? Ruin would soon be staring her in the face. She had thought of upbraiding him for neglect, of reproaching him for having played fast and loose with her affections, of putting him through the ordeal of an emotional scene. Of that, however, she was afraid; it might scare him away for good and all. She wept, an unhappy and ill-treated woman, and Huckaby supplied sympathy and handkerchiefs and a mirror so that she could repair the ravages of tears.
One day Huckaby and Clementina met in the hall of the Russell Square house.
“Well,” she said. “Have you seen Mrs. Fontaine lately?”
He admitted that he had.
“Taking it rather badly, I suppose,” she remarked with a reversion to her grim manner.
“She is miserable. As I told you, it means all the world to her—her very salvation.”
Clementina caught the note of deep pleading in his voice and fixed him with her shrewd eyes.
“You seem to concern yourself very deeply about the lady.”
Huckaby glanced at her for a moment hesitatingly; then shrugged his shoulders. Clementina was a woman to whom straight dealing counted for righteousness. He gave her his secret.
“I’ve grown to care for her—to care for her very much. I know I’m a fool, but I can’t help it.”
“Do you know anything of the lady’s private affairs—financial, I mean—how much she has honestly of her own?”
“Four hundred pounds a year.”
“And you?”
“When I take up the appointment of the Anthropological Society I shall have five hundred.”
“Nine hundred pounds. Have you any idea of the minimum rate per annum at which she would accept salvation?”
“No,” said Huckaby in a dazed way.
“Well, work it out,” said Clementina. “Good-bye.”
Her second sortie into the great world was on the occasion of a garden-party at the Quinns. Lady Quinn had asked her verbally at Quixtus’s dinner and had sent her a formal card. Knowing that Quixtus was going and more than suspecting that the enemy would be there too, she had kept her own invitation a secret. Welcomed, flattered, surrounded by the gay crowd in the large, pleasant Hampstead garden, it was some time before she saw Mrs. Fontaine. At last she caught sight of her sitting with Quixtus, at the end of the garden, half screened by a tree-trunk from the mass of guests. As soon as Clementina could work her way through, she advanced quickly and smiling towards them. Quixtus sprang to his feet and seemed to take a deep breath as a man does when he flings bedroom windows wide open on his first morning in mountain air.
“Clementina! I hadn’t the dimmest notion that you were coming! How delightful!” He surveyed her for a moment as she stood before him; parasol on shoulder. Clementina with a parasol! “Pray forgive my impertinence,” said he, “but you’re wearing the most beautiful dress I ever saw.”
It was hand-painted muslin—a fabulous thing. She laughed, turned to Lena Fontaine, demure in a simple fawn costume.
“He’s improving. Have you ever known him to compliment a woman on her dress before?”
“Many times,” said Mrs. Fontaine, mendaciously.
“It must be your excellent training,” said Clementina. She turned to Quixtus. “I’ve seen Huckaby this morning, and everything’s quite arranged for the transportation of your necessary books and specimens down to Moleham. He’ll do it beautifully even though it takes a pantechnicon van, and you won’t be worried about it at all. He’s a splendid fellow.”
“He is rendering me invaluable assistance.”
“Dr. Quixtus tells me he is quite an old friend of yours, Mrs. Fontaine,” said Clementina. “What a pity you can’t be persuaded to come down to Moleham.”
“Are you going to have a chaperon to your rather mixed house-party?”
“I should if you would honour me by coming; my dear Mrs. Fontaine—a dowager dragon of propriety. But an Admiral of the British navy is quite safeguard enough for me.”
The hostess, coming through the edge of the crowd, carried off Quixtus. The two women were left alone. Lena Fontaine turned suddenly, white-lipped, shaking with anger.
“I’ve had enough of it. I’m not going to stand it. I’m not going to be persecuted like this any longer.”
“What will you do?”
Lena Fontaine clenched her small hands. What could she do?
“Come, come,” said Clementina. “Let us have a straight talk like sensible women, and put the pussy-cat aside, if we can. Sit down. Do. There’s only one point of dissension between us. You know very well what it is—there’s no use fencing. Give it up. Give up all idea of it and I’ll let you alone. Give it all up. You can see for yourself that I won’t let you do it.”
“It’s outrageous for you to speak to me like this,” said the other, half hysterically.
“I know it is,” said Clementina coolly. “I’m an outrageous woman. Been so all my life. To do an outrageous thing is only part of the day’s work. So I just say outrageously; give it up.”
Lena Fontaine fluttered a glance at the strong face and caught the magnetism of the black glittering eyes, and remained silent. She knew that she was no match for this vital creature. She was confronting overwhelming odds. The rough fishfag of Paris who could walk straight into the mould of a great lady and carry everything contemptuously before her suddenly impressed her with a paralysing sense of something uncanny, relentless, irresistible. She was less a woman than an implacable force. For the first time in her life of Hagardom, Lena Fontaine felt beaten. The nun’s face grew drawn and haggard. Fright replaced the allurement of her eyes. She said nothing, but twisted one gloved hand nervously in the other. She was at the mercy of the victor. There was silence for some moments. Then Clementina’s heart smote her. All this elaborate wheel to break a butterfly—a very naughty, sordid, frayed and empty little butterfly—but still a butterfly!
“My dear,” she said, at last very gently. “I know how hard life is on a lone and defenceless woman. I know you have many reasons to hate me for preventing you from making that life softer and sweeter. But perhaps, one of these days, you mayn’t hate me so much. I’m every infernal thing you like to call me, and when I’m interfered with I’m a devil. But at heart I’m a woman and a good sort. I won’t outrage you by saying such an idiot thing as ‘Let us be friends,’ when you’ve every rational desire to murder me; but I ask you to remember—and I’ve suffered enough not to be a silly fool going round saying serious things I don’t mean—I ask you to remember that if ever you want a woman to turn to, you can count on me. I’m a good bit older than you,” she added generously, “I’m thirty-six.”
“Oh, God!” cried the other, bursting into tears, “I’m thirty-seven.”
“Impossible,” said Clementina, in genuine amazement. “You look nothing like it.” She rose and touched the weeping woman’s shoulder. “Anyhow,” she said, “I’ve a certain amount of female horse-sense that might come in useful if you want it.”
Whereupon Clementina made her way straight through the throng to her hostess, and after a swift farewell left the garden-party.
The enemy was finally routed; the confession of age, a confession of defeat. The victory had been achieved much more easily than she had anticipated. When she went home she looked with a queer smile into one of the hanging wardrobes with which she had been obliged to furnish her bedroom so as to accommodate the prodigious quantity of new dresses. Why all the lavish expenditure, the feverish preparation, the many hours wasted at great dressmakers, modistes, and other vendors of frippery—why the hairdressers, the face specialists—why the exquisite torture of tight lacing—why the responsibility of valuable jewels, her mother’s, up till then safely stored at the bank—why the renting of the caravanserai at Moleham—why the revolution of her habits, her modes of expression, her very life—why, in short, such fantastic means to gain so simple an end? Was it worth it? Clementina slammed the wardrobe door and glanced at herself in the long mirror that was exposed. She saw a happy woman, and she laughed. It was worth it. She had gained infinitely more than a victory over a poor sister of no account. Sheila came running into the room.
“Oh, what a beautiful auntie!”
She caught the child to her and hugged her close.
The legal formalities with regard to Will Hammersley’s affairs were eventually concluded; but in spite of all inquiries the identity of Sheila’s mother remained a curious mystery. No record of Hammersley’s marriage could be found, either at Somerset House or at Shanghai. No reference to his wife appeared in the papers he had left behind him. At last, a day or two before her departure for Moleham, Clementina made a discovery.
A trunk of Hammersley’s merely containing suits of clothes and other wearing apparel had remained undisposed of, and Clementina was going through them with the object of packing them off to some charitable association, when from the folds of a jacket there dropped a bundle of letters tied round with a bit of tape. She glanced idly at the outer sheet. The handwriting was a woman’s. The few words that met her eyes showed that they were love-letters. Clementina sat on an empty packing case—all Hammersley’s personal belongings had been dumped in her box-room—and balanced the bundle in her hand. They were sacred things belonging to the hearts of the dead. Ought she to read them? Yet she became conscious of a feminine intuition that they might hold a secret that would bring comfort to the living. So she undid the tape and spread out the old crumpled pages, and as she read, a tragedy, a romance as old as the world was revealed to her. The letters dated from seven years back. They were from one, Nora Duglade, a woman wretchedly married, breaking her heart for Will Hammersley. Clementina read on. Suddenly she gave a sharp cry of astonishment and leaped to her feat. There was a reference to Angela Quixtus, who was in her confidence. Clementina rapidly scanned page after page and found more and more of Angela. The writer; like most women, could not bear to destroy the beloved letters; she dared not keep them at home; Angela had lent her a drawer in her bureau. . . .
Clementina telephoned to Quixtus to come immediately on urgent business. In twenty minutes he arrived, somewhat scared. Was anything wrong with Sheila?
“I’ve found out who her mother was,” said Clementina.
“Who was she?” he asked quickly.
She bade him sit down. They were in the drawing room.
“Some one called Nora Duglade. . . . I don’t remember her.”
Quixtus passed his hand over his forehead as he threw back his thoughts.
“Mrs. Duglade . . .” he said in bewilderment, “Mrs. Duglade . . .”
“A friend of Angela’s,” said Clementina.
“Yes. A school friend. They saw very little of each other. I met her only once or twice. I had no notion Hammersley knew her. . . . Her husband was a brute, I remember—used to beat her. . . . I think I heard she had left him——”
“For Will Hammersley.”
“He died years ago . . . of drink. . . . Oh-h!” He shuddered and hid his face in his hands.
“Read these few pages,” said Clementina and she left the room very quietly.
About ten minutes afterwards she came in again. He sprang up from his chair and grasped both her hands. His eyes were wet and his lips worked tremulously.
“I found a letter from Hammersley in Angela’s drawer—it had got stuck at the back. . . . It was for the other woman, my dear——” his voice quavered into the treble. “It was for the other woman.”
She led him to the stiff sofa and sat beside him and held his hand. And she had the joy of seeing a black cloud melt away from a man’s soul.
From that hour when he ha............