Part 44 (1/2)

When the coffee arrived a decanter of cognac accompanied it. Richard had got into the habit of using the latter rather freely of late. He needed a stimulant in view of the conversation that was before him. The conversation was difficult to begin. For a quarter of an hour he strayed over subjects, each of which, he thought, might bring him to the point.

A question from Alice eventually gave him the requisite impulse.

'What's the bad news you've got to tell me, d.i.c.k?' she asked shyly.

'Bad news? Why, yes, I suppose it is bad, and it's no use pretending anything else. I've brought you down here just to tell it you. Somebody must know first, and it had better be somebody who'll listen patiently, and perhaps help me to get over it. I don't know quite how you'll take it, Alice. For anything I can tell you may get up and be off, and have nothing more to do with me.'

'Why, what ever can it be, d.i.c.k? Don't talk nonsense. You're not afraid of _me_, I should think.'

'Yes, I am a bit afraid of you, old girl. It isn't a nice thing to tell you, and there's the long and short of it. I'm hanged if I know how to begin.'

He laughed in an irresolute way. Trying to light a new cigarette from the remnants of the one he had smoked, his hands shook. Then he had recourse again to cognac.

Alice was drumming with her foot on the floor. She sat forward, her arms crossed upon her lap. Her eyes were still on the fire.

'Is it anything about Emma, d.i.c.k?' she asked, after a disconcerting silence.

'Yes, it is.'

'Hadn't you better tell me at once? It isn't at all nice to feel like this.'

'Well, I'll tell you. I can't marry Emma; I'm going to marry someone else.'

Alice was prepared, but the plain words caused her a moment's consternation.

'Oh, what ever will they all say, d.i.c.k?' she exclaimed in a low voice.

'That's bad enough, to be sure, but I think more about Emma herself. I feel ashamed of myself, and that's the plain truth. Of course I shall always give her and her sisters all the money they want to live upon, but that isn't altogether a way out. If only I could have hinted something to her before now. I've let it go on so long. I'm going to be married in a fortnight.'

He could not look Alice in the face, nor she him. His shame made him angry; he flung the half-smoked cigarette violently into the fire-place, and began to walk about the room. Alice was speaking, but he did not heed her, and continued with impatient loudness.

'Who the devil could imagine what was going to happen? Look here, Alice; if it hadn't been for mother, I shouldn't have engaged myself to Emma. I shouldn't have cared much in the old kind of life; she'd have suited me very well. You can say all the good about her you like, I know it'll be true. It's a cursed shame to treat her in this way, I don't need telling that. But it wouldn't do as things are; why, you can see for yourself--would it now? And that's only half the question: I'm going to marry somebody I do really care for. What's the good of keeping my word to Emma, only to be miserable myself and make her the same? It's the hardest thing ever happened to a man. Of course I shall be blackguarded right and left. Do I deserve it now? Can I help it?'

It was not quite consistent with the tone in which he had begun, but it had the force of a genuine utterance. To this Richard had worked himself in fretting over his position; he was the real sufferer, though decency compelled him to pretend it was not so. He had come to think of Emma almost angrily; she was a clog on him, and all the more irritating because he knew that his brute strength, if only he might exert it, could sweep her into nothingness at a blow. The quietness with which Alice accepted his revelation encouraged him in self-defence. He talked on for several minutes, walking about and swaying his arms, as if in this way he could literally shake himself free of moral obligations.

Then, finding his throat dry, he had recourse to cognac, and Alice could at length speak.

'You haven't told me, d.i.c.k, who it is you're going to marry.'

'A lady called Miss Waltham--Adela Waltham. She lives here in Wanley.'

'Does she know about Emma?'

The question was simply put, but it seemed to affect Richard very disagreeably.

'No, of course she doesn't. What would be the use?'

He threw himself into a chair, crossed his feet, and kept silence.

'I'm very sorry for Emma,' murmured his sister.

Richard said nothing.