Part 35 (1/2)

Eve caught at the idea, only she did not wait for the Academy to open. She went for a fortnight, accompanied by an old servant of the family, who regarded her mistress's birth as quite a recent event, to Mrs. Sylvester's cottage in Norfolk.

When Mrs. Lightmark came back to town her face was still pale, but her brow wore a serener air, and her eyes had lost their look of apprehension. The woman had arisen triumphant out of the ashes of her childhood, with a heart determined to know the truth, and to face it, however bitter it might prove to be. Meanwhile, she would not judge hastily.

As she drove up Bond Street one day soon after her return to town, the advertis.e.m.e.nt of Oswyn's exhibition caught her eye. She would probably have remembered a name so uncommon if she had only heard it once, and, as it was, she had heard it several times, and a.s.sociated with it, moreover, a certain reticence which could not fail to arouse a woman's curiosity.

Later, when Mosenthal's card of invitation for the Private View arrived, she noted the day upon her list of engagements.

On the morning of Oswyn's ordeal, Eve sent a message to her husband, who was engaged with a model in the studio, to notify to him her intention of taking the carriage into town later in the afternoon; to which he had returned a gallant reply, expressing a hope that, if it would not bore her too much, she would pick him up somewhere and drive him home. Where and when could he meet her? The reply, ”At Mosenthal's at five o'clock,” did not surprise him. He did not happen to have the vaguest idea as to what was the attraction of the day at that particular gallery. It might be Burmese landscapes, or portraits of parrots; it was all one to him. It was extremely decorous in his wife to affect picture-galleries, and Mosenthal's place was conveniently near to his favourite club.

A few minutes before the appointed hour he made his way, from the new and alarmingly revolutionary club-house, where he had been indulging in afternoon tea in company with Felicia Dollond, to the gallery, outside which his horses were already waiting, and, perceiving Oswyn's name on the placards disposed on either side of the entrance, he felt only a momentary hesitation.

Oswyn would probably not be there; and, after all, why should he not inspect the man's pictures?

Before reasons had time to present themselves he had pa.s.sed into the room, and had been deferentially welcomed and presented with a catalogue by the proprietor in person.

The room was still crowded, and it was oppressively warm, with an atmosphere redolent of woollen and silken fabrics, like a milliner's shop on the day of a sale.

At first he made no effort to join his wife, whom he discerned from afar talking to a pillar of the Church in gaiters and a broad-brimmed hat.

He looked at the pictures whenever there was a break in the sequence of bows and greetings which had to be exchanged with two-thirds of the people in the room; and as he looked he was smitten with a quick thrill of admiration: he was still young enough to recognise the hand of the master. And in his admiration there was a trace of a frank envy, a certain unresentful humiliation--the feeling which he could remember to have experienced many times in the old days, when he put aside the sonnet he had just finished for some fas.h.i.+onable magazine, and took down from his limited bookshelf the little time-worn volume which contained the almost forgotten work of a poet whose name would have fallen strangely on the editorial ear.

Before long there was a general departure, and Lightmark, flushed with the triumphs of a conversation in which, in the very centre of an admiring group of his antagonist's wors.h.i.+ppers, he had successfully measured swords with a notorious wit, turned to look for his wife; and, for the first time, meeting Oswyn's eye, half-involuntarily advanced to greet him.

”This is an unexpected honour,” said Oswyn coldly, disregarding the proffered hand; ”unexpected and unwelcome!”

Then he would have turned away, leaving his contempt and hatred unspoken, but his pa.s.sion was too strong.

”Have you come to seek ideas for your next Academy picture,” he continued quickly, with a sneer trembling on his lips, ”or for the _Outcry_?”

Lightmark grew a little pale, biting his lip, and frowning for a moment, before he a.s.sumed a desperate mask of good-humour.

”Hang it, man!” he answered quickly, ”be reasonable! Haven't you forgiven me yet? Though what you have to forgive---- I only want to congratulate you, to tell you that I admire your work--immensely.”

”I don't want your congratulations,” interrupted the other hoa.r.s.ely.

”I might forget the wrong which, as you well know, you have done me; that is nothing! But have you forgotten your--your friend, Rainham?

You had better go,” he added, with a savage gesture. ”Go! before I denounce you, proclaim you, you pitiful scoundrel!”

The man's forced calm had given way to a quivering pa.s.sion; his lips trembled under the stress of the words which thronged to them; and as he turned on his heel, with a glance eloquent of loathing, he did not notice that Eve was standing close behind her husband, with parted lips, and intent eyes gleaming out of a face as pale as his own.

Lightmark recovered himself quickly, shrugging his shoulders as soon as the other was out of earshot. He glanced at his wife, who was following Oswyn with her eyes; he did not dare to ask, or even to think, what she might have heard.

”The man's mad,” he said lightly, ”madder than ever!”

CHAPTER x.x.xII

It was Margot who gave him the letter: Oswyn remembered that afterwards with a kind of superst.i.tion. She came to meet him, wearing an air of immense importance, when his quick step fell upon the bare wooden stairway which led to his rooms.

”There's a letter for you,” she said, nodding impressively, ”a big letter, with a seal on it; and Mrs. Thomas had to write something on a piece of green paper before the postman would give it to her.”