_ PART II CHAPTER XIX. THE FURNACE
The bridal dress with its filmy veil still lay in its white box--a fairy garment that had survived the catastrophe. Dinah sat and looked at it dully. The light of her single candle shimmered upon the soft folds. How beautiful it was!
She had been sitting there for hours, after a terrible scene with her mother downstairs, and from acute distress she had passed into a state of torpid misery that enveloped her like a black cloud. She felt almost too exhausted, too numbed, to think. Her thoughts wandered drearily back and forth. She was sure she had been very greatly to blame, yet she could not fix upon any definite juncture at which she had begun to go wrong. Her engagement had been such a whirlwind of Fate. She had been carried off her feet from the very beginning. And the deliverance from the home bondage had seemed so fair a prospect. Now she was plunged, back again into that bondage, and she was firmly convinced that no chance of freedom would ever be offered to her again. Yet she knew that she had done right to draw back. Regret it though she might again and again in the bitter days to come, she knew--and she would always know--that at the eleventh hour she had done right.
She had been true to the greatest impulse that had ever stirred her soul. It had been at a frightful cost. She had sacrificed everything--everything--to a vision that she might never realize. She had cast away all the glitter and the wealth for this far greater thing which yet could never be more to her than a golden dream. She had even cast away love, and her heart still bled at the memory. But she had been true--she had been true.
Not yet was the sacrifice ended. She knew that a cruel ordeal yet awaited her. There was the morrow to be faced, the morrow with its renewal of disgrace and punishment. Her mother was furious with her, so furious that for the first time in her life her father had intervened on her behalf and temporarily restrained the flow of wrath. Perhaps he had seen her utter weariness, for he had advised her, not unkindly, to go to bed. She had gone to her room, thankful to escape, but neither tea nor supper had followed her thither. Billy had come to bid her good night long ago, but, though he had not said so, he also, it seemed, was secretly disgusted with her, and he had not lingered. It would be the same with everyone, she thought to herself wearily. No one would ever realize how terribly hard it had all been. No one would dream of extending any pity to her. And of course she had done wrong. She knew it, was quite ready to admit it. But the wrong had lain in accepting that overweaning lover of hers, not in giving him up. Also, she ought to have found out long ago. She wondered how it was she hadn't. It had never been a happy engagement.
Again her eyes wandered to the exquisite folds of that dress which she was never to wear. How she had loved the thought of it and all the lovely things that Isabel had procured for her! What would become of them all, she wondered? All the presents downstairs would have to go back. Yes, and Eustace's ring! She had forgotten that. She slipped it off her finger with a little dry sob, and put it aside. And the necklace of pearls that she had always thought so much too good for her, but which would have looked so beautiful on the wedding-dress; that must be returned. Very strangely that thought pierced the dull ache of her heart with a mere poignant pain. And following it came another, stabbing her like a knife. The sapphire for friendship--his sapphire--that would have to go too. There would be nothing left when it was all over.
And she would never see any of them any more. She would drop out of their lives and be forgotten. Even Isabel would not want her now that she had behaved so badly. She had made Sir Eustace the talk of the County. So long as they remembered her they would never forgive her for that.
Sir Eustace might forgive. He had been extraordinarily generous. A lump rose in her throat as she thought of him. But the de Vignes, all those wedding guests who were to have honoured the occasion, they would all look upon her with contumely for evermore. No wonder her mother was enraged against her! No wonder! No wonder! She would never have another chance of holding up her head in such society again.
A great sigh escaped her. What was the good of sitting there thinking? She had undressed long ago, and she was cold from head to foot. Yet somehow she had forgotten or been too miserable to go to bed. She supposed she had been waiting for the soothing tears that did not come. Or had she meant to pray? She could not remember, and in any case prayer seemed out of the question. Her life had been filled with delight for a few delirious weeks, but it had all drained away. She did not want it back again. She scarcely knew what she wanted, save the great Impossible for which she lacked the heart to pray. And no doubt God was angry with her too, or she could not feel like this! So what was the good of attempting it?
Wearily she turned to put out her candle. But ere her hand reached it, she paused in swift apprehension.
The next instant sharply she started round to see the door open, and her mother entered the room.
Gaunt, forbidding, full of purpose, she walked in, and set her candle down beside the one that Dinah had been about to extinguish.
"Get up!" she said to the startled girl. "Don't sit there gaping at me! I've come here to give you a lesson, and it will be a pretty severe one I can tell you if you attempt to disobey me."
"What do you want me to do?" breathed Dinah.
She stood up at the harsh behest, but she was trembling so much that her knees would scarcely support her. Her heart was throbbing violently, and each throb seemed as if it would choke her. She had seen that inflexibly grim look often before upon her mother's face, and she knew from bitter experience that it portended merciless treatment.
Mrs. Bathurst did not reply immediately. She went to a little table in a corner which Dinah used for writing purposes, and opened a blotter that lay upon it. From this she took a sheet of note-paper and laid it in readiness, found Dinah's pen, opened the ink-pot. Then, over her shoulder, she flung a curt command: "Come here!"
Dinah went, every nerve in her body tingling, her face and hands cold as ice.
Mrs. Bathurst glanced at her with a contemptuous smile. "Sit down, you little fool!" she said. "Now, you take that pen and write at my dictation!"
Dinah shrank at the rough words. She felt like a child about to receive corporal punishment. The vindictive force of the woman seemed to beat her down. Writhe and strain as she might, she was bound to suffer both the pain and the indignity to the uttermost limit; for she lacked the strength to break free.
She did not sit down however. She remained standing by the little table.
"Mother," she said through her white lips, "what do you want me to do?"
She could scarcely keep her teeth from chattering, and Mrs. Bathurst noted the fact with another grim smile.
"What am I going to make you do would be more to the purpose, my girl, wouldn't it?" she said. "Sit down there, and you'll find out!"
Dinah leaned upon the little table to steady herself. "Tell me what it is I am to do!" she said.
"Ah! That's better." A note of bitter humour sounded in Mrs. Bathurst's voice. "Sit down!"
She thrust out a bony hand, and gripped her by the shoulder, forcing her downwards.
Dinah dropped into the chair, and sat motionless.
"Take your pen!" Mrs. Bathurst commanded.
She hesitated; and instantly, with a violent movement, her mother snatched it up and held it in front of her.
"Take it!"
Dinah took it with fingers so numb that they were almost powerless.
"Now," said Mrs. Bathurst, "I will tell you what you are going to do. You are going to write to Sir Eustace at my dictation, and tell him that you are very sorry, you have made a mistake, and beg him to forget it and marry you to-morrow as arranged."
"Mother! No!" Dinah started as if at a blow; the pen dropped from her fingers. "Oh no! I can't indeed--indeed!"
"You will!" said Mrs. Bathurst.
Her hand gripped the slender shoulder with cruel force. She bent, bringing her harsh features close to her daughter's blanched face.
"Just you remember one thing!" she said, her voice low and menacing. "You've never succeeded in defying me yet, and you won't do it now. I'll conquer you--I'll break you--if it takes me all night to do it!"
Dinah recoiled before the unshackled fury that suddenly blazed in the gipsy eyes that looked into hers. Sheer horror sprang into her own.
"Oh, but I can't--I can't!" she reiterated in an agony. "I don't love him. He knows it. I ought to have found out before, but I didn't. Mother--Mother--" piteously she began to plead--"you--you can't want to make me marry a man I don't love? You--you would never--surely--have done such a thing yourself!"
Mrs. Bathurst made a sharp gesture as if something had pierced her. She shook the shoulder she grasped. "Love!" she said. "Oh, don't talk to me of love! Do you imagine--have you ever imagined--that I married that fox-hunting booby--for love?"
A great and terrible bitterness that was like the hunger of a famished animal looked out of her eyes. Dinah gazed at her aghast. What new and horrible revelation was this? She felt suddenly sick and giddy.
Her mother shook her again roughly, savagely. "None of that!" she said. "Don't think I'll put up with it, my fine lady, for I won't! What has love to do with such a chance as this? Tell me that, you little fool! Do you suppose that either you or I have ever been in a position to marry--for love?"
Her face was darkly passionate. Dinah felt as if she were in the clutches of a tigress. "What--what do you mean?" she faltered through her quivering lips.
"What do I mean?" Mrs. Bathurst broke into a sudden brutal laugh. "Ha! What do I mean?" she said. "I'll tell you, shall I? Yes, I'll tell you! I'll show you the shame that I've covered all these years. I mean that I married because of you--for no other reason. I married because I'd been betrayed--and left. Now do you understand why it isn't for you to pick and choose--you who have been the plague-spot of my life, the thorn in my side ever since you first stirred there--a perpetual reminder of what I would have given my very soul to forget? Do you understand, I say? Do you understand? Or must I put it plainer still? You--the child of my shame--to dare to set yourself up against me!"
She ended upon what was almost a note of loathing, and Dinah shuddered from head to foot. It was to her as if she had been rolled in pitch. She felt overwhelmed with the cruel degradation of it, the unspeakable shame.
Mrs. Bathurst watched her anguished distress with a species of bitter satisfaction. "That'll take the fight out of you, my girl," she said. "Or if it doesn't, I've another sort of remedy yet to try. Now, you start on that letter, do you hear? It'll be a bit shaky, but none the worse for that. Write and tell him you've changed your mind! Beg him humble-like to take you back!"
But Dinah only bowed her head upon her hands and sat crushed.
Mrs. Bathurst gave her a few seconds to recover her balance. Then again mercilessly she shook her by the shoulder.
"Come, Dinah! I'm not going to be defied. Are you going to write that letter at once? Or must I take stronger measures?"
And then a species of wild courage entered into Dinah. She turned at last at bay. "I will not write it! I would sooner die! If--if this thing is true, it would be far easier to die! I couldn't marry any man now who had any pride of birth."
She was terribly white, but she faced her tormentor unflinching, her eyes like stars. And it came to Mrs. Bathurst with unpleasant force that she had taken a false step which it was impossible to retrace. It was then that the evil spirit that had been goading her entered in and took full possession.
She gripped Dinah's shoulder till she winced with pain. "Mother, you--you are hurting me!"
"Yes, and I will hurt you," she made answer. "I'll hurt you as I've never hurt you yet if you dare to disobey me! I'll crush you to the earth before I will endure that from you. Now! For the last time! Will you write that letter? Think well before you refuse again!"
She towered over Dinah with awful determination, wrought up to a pitch of fury by her resistance that almost bordered upon insanity.
Dinah's boldness waned swiftly before the iron force that countered it. But her resolution remained unshaken, a resolution from which no power on earth could move her.
"I can't do it--possibly," she said.
"You mean you won't?" said Mrs. Bathurst.
Dinah nodded, and gripped the table hard to endure what should follow.
"You--mean--you won't?" Mrs. Bathurst said again very slowly.
"I will not." The white lips spoke the words, and closed upon them. Dinah sat rigid with apprehension.
Mrs. Bathurst took her hand from her shoulder and turned from her. The candle that had been burning all the evening was low in its socket. She lifted it out and went to the fireplace. There were some shavings in the grate. She pushed the lighted candle end in among them; then, as the fire roared up the chimney, she turned.
An open trunk was close to her with the dainty pale green dress that Dinah had worn the previous evening lying on the top. She took it up, and bundled the soft folds together. Then violently she flung it on to the flames.
Dinah gave a cry of dismay, and started to her feet. "Mother! What are you doing? Mother! Are you mad?"
Mrs. Bathurst looked at her with eyes of blazing vindictiveness. "If you are not going to be married, you won't need a trousseau," she said grimly. "These things are quite unfit for a girl in your station. For Lady Studley they would of course have been suitable, but not for such as you."
She turned back to the open trunk with the words, and began to sweep together every article of clothing it contained. Dinah watched her in horror-stricken silence. She remembered with odd irrelevance how once in her childhood for some petty offence her mother had burnt a favourite doll, and then had whipped her soundly for crying over her loss.
She did not cry now. Her tears seemed frozen. She did not feel as if she could ever cry again. The cold that enwrapped her was beginning to reach her heart. She thought she was getting past all feeling.
So in mute despair she watched the sacrifice of all that Isabel's loving care had provided. So much thought had been spent upon the delicate finery. They had discussed and settled each dainty garment together. She had revelled in the thought of all the good things which she was to wear--she who had never worn anything that was beautiful before. And now--and now--they shrivelled in the roaring flame and dropped into grey ash in the fender.
It was over at last. Only the wedding-dress remained. But as Mrs. Bathurst laid merciless hands upon this also, Dinah uttered a bitter cry.
"Oh, not that! Not that!"
Her mother paused. "Will you wear it to-morrow if Sir Eustace will have you?" she demanded.
"No! Oh no!" Dinah tottered back against her bed and covered her eyes.
She could not watch the destruction of that fairy thing. But it went so quickly, so quickly. When she looked up again, it had crumbled away like the rest, and the shimmering veil with it. Nothing, nothing was left of all the splendour that had been hers.
She sank down on the foot of the bed. Surely her mother would be satisfied now! Surely her lust for vengeance could devise no further punishment!
She was nearing the end of her strength, and she was beginning to know it. The room swam before her dizzy sight. Her mother's figure loomed gigantic, scarcely human.
She saw her poke down the last of the cinders and turn to the door. There was a pungent smell of smoke in the room. She wondered if she would ever be able to cross that swaying, seething floor to open the window. She closed her eyes and listened with straining ears for the closing of the door.
It came, and following it, a sharp click as of the turning of a key. She looked up at the sound, and saw her mother come back to her. She was carrying something in one hand, something that dangled and east a snake-like shadow.
She came to the cowering girl and caught her by the arm. "Now get up!" she ordered brutally. "And take the rest of your punishment!"
Truly Dinah drank the cup of bitterness to the dregs that night. Mentally she had suffered till she had almost ceased to feel. But physically her powers of endurance had not been so sorely tried. But her nerves were strung to a pitch when even a sudden movement made her tingle, and upon this highly-tempered sensitiveness the punishment now inflicted upon her was acute agony. It broke her even more completely than it had broken her in childhood. Before many seconds had passed the last shred of her self-control was gone.
Guy Bathurst, lying comfortably in bed, was aroused from his first slumber by a succession of sharp sounds like the lashing of a loosened creeper against the window, but each sound was followed by an anguished cry that sank and rose again like the wailing of a hurt child.
He turned his head and listened. "By Jove! That's too bad of Lydia," he said. "I suppose she won't be satisfied till she's had her turn, but I shall have to interfere if it goes on."
It did not go on for long; quite suddenly the cries ceased. The other sounds continued for a few seconds more, then ceased also, and he turned upon his pillow with a sigh of relief.
A minute later he was roused again by the somewhat abrupt entrance of his wife. She did not speak to him, but stood by the door and rummaged in the pockets of his shooting-coat that hung there.
Bathurst endured in silence for a few moments; then, "Oh, what on earth are you looking for?" he said with sleepy irritation. "I wish you'd go."
"I want your brandy flask," she said, and her words came clipped and sharp. "Where is it?"
"On the dressing-table," he said. "What have you been doing to the child?"
"I've given her as much as she can stand," his wife retorted grimly. "But you leave her to me! I'll manage her."
She departed with a haste that seemed to denote a certain anxiety notwithstanding her words.
She left the door ajar, and the man turned again on his pillow and listened uneasily. He was afraid Lydia had gone too far.
For a space he heard nothing. Then came the splashing of water, and again that piteous, gasping cry. He caught the sound of his wife's voice, but what she said he could not hear. Then there were movements, and Dinah spoke in broken supplication that went into hysterical sobbing. Finally he heard his wife come out of the room and close the door behind her.
She came back again with the brandy flask. "She's had a lesson," she observed, "that I rather fancy she'll never forget as long as she lives."
"Then I hope you're satisfied," said Bathurst, and turned upon his side.
Yes, Dinah had had a lesson. She had passed through a sevenfold furnace that had melted the frozen fountain of her tears till it seemed that their flow would never be stayed again. She wept for hours, wept till she was sick and blind with weeping, and still she wept on. And bitter shame and humiliation watched beside her all through that dreadful night, giving her no rest.
For she had gone through this fiery torture, this cruel chastisement of mind and body, all for what? For love of a man who felt nought but kindness for her,--for the dear memory of a golden vision that would never be hers again. _