"What else could you have done?" said Bertha, with a sigh of relief. "When it comes to horror and tremblings!"
There was a light in her eye which seemed the precursor of a smile; but her voice was not unsympathetic, and Rosamund knew that one of Bertha Cross smiles was worth more in the way of friendship than another's tragic emotion.
"Have patience with me," she continued, "whilst I try to explain it all. The worst of my position is, that so many people will know what I have done, and so few of them, hardly any one, will understand why. One can't talk to people about such things. Even Winnie and fatherI'm sure they don't really understandthough I'm afraid they're both rather glad. What a wretched thing it is to be misjudged. I feel sure, Bertha, that it's just this kind of thing that makes a woman sit down and write a novelwhere she can speak freely in disguise, and do herself justice. Don't you think so?"
"I shouldn't wonder," replied the listener, thoughtfully. "But does it really matter? If you know you're only doing what you must do?"
"But that's only how it seems to me. Another, in my place, would very likely see the must on the other side. Of course it's a terribly complicated thinga situation like this. I haven't the slightest idea how one ought to be guided. One could argue and reason all day long about itas I have done with myself for weeks past."
"Try just to tell me the reason which seems to you the strongest," said Bertha.
"That's very simple. I thought I loved him, and I find I don't."
"Exactly. But I hardly see how the change came about."
"I will try to tell you," replied Rosamund. "It was that picture, 'Sanctuary,' that began it. When I first saw it, it gave me a shock. You know how I have always thought of himan artist living for his own idea of art, painting just as he liked, what pleased him, without caring for the public taste. I got enthusiastic; and when I saw that he seemed to care for my opinion and my praiseof course all the rest followed. He told me about his life as an art studentParis, Rome, all that; and it was my ideal of romance. He was very poor, sometimes so poor that he hardly had enough to eat, and this made me proud of him, for I felt sure he could have got money if he would have condescended to do inferior work. Of course, as I too was poor, we could not think of marrying before his position improved. At last he painted 'Sanctuary.' He told me nothing about it. I came and saw it on the easel, nearly finished. Andthis is the shocking thingI pretended to admire it. I was astonished, painedyet I had the worldliness to smile and praise. There's the fault of my character. At that moment, truth and courage were wanted, and I had neither. The dreadful thing is to think that he degraded himself on my account. If I had said at once what I thought, he would have confessedwould have told me that impatience had made him untrue to himself. And from that day; oh, this is the worst of all, Berthahe has adapted himself to what he thinks my lower mind and lower aims; he has consciously debased himself, out of thought for me. Horrible! Of course he believes in his heart that I was a hypocrite before. The astonishing thing is that this didn't cause him to turn cold to me. He must have felt that, but somehow he overcame it. All the worse! The very fact that he still cared for me shows how bad my influence has been. I feel that I have wrecked his life, Berthaand yet I cannot give him my own, to make some poor sort of amends."
Bertha was listening with a face that changed from puzzled interest to wondering confusion.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed when the speaker ceased. "Is it possible to get into such entanglements of reasoning about what one thinks and feels? It's beyond me. Oh they're bringing the tea. Perhaps a cup of tea will clear my wits."
Rosamund at once began to speak of the landscape by Leader, which hung near them, and continued to do so even after the servant had withdrawn. Her companion was silent, smiling now and then in an absent way. They sipped tea.
"The tea is doing me so much good," Bertha said, "I begin to feel equal to the most complicated reflections. And so you really believe that Mr. Franks is on the way to perdition, and that you are the cause of it?"
Rosamund did not reply. She had half averted her look; her brows were knit in an expression of trouble; she bit her lower lip. A moment passed, and
"Suppose we go into the garden," she said, rising. "Don't you feel it a little close here?"
They strolled about the paths. Her companion, seeming to have dismissed from mind their subject of conversation, began to talk of Egypt, and the delight she promised herself there.
Presently Bertha reverted to the unfinished story.
"Oh, it doesn't interest you."
"Doesn't it indeed! Please go on. You had just explained all about 'Sanctuary'which isn't really a bad picture at all."
"Oh, Bertha!" cried the other in pained protest. "That's your good nature. You never can speak severely of anybody's work. The picture is shameful, shameful! And its successor, I am too sure, will be worse still, from what I have heard of it. Oh, I can't bear to think of what it all meansNow that it's too late, I see what I ought to have done. In spite of everything and everybody I ought to have married him in the first year, when I had courage and hope enough to face any hardships. We spoke of it, but he was too generous. What a splendid thing to have starved with himto have worked for him whilst he was working for art and fame, to have gone through and that together, and have come out triumphant! That was a life worth living. But to begin marriage at one's ease on the profits of pictures such as 'Sanctuary'oh, the shame of it! Do you think I could face the friends who would come to see me?"
"How many friends," asked Bertha, "would be aware of your infamy? I credit myself with a little imagination. But I should never have suspected the black baseness which had poisoned your soul."
Again Rosamund bit her lip, and kept a short silence.
"It only shows," she said with some abruptness, "that I shall do better not to speak of it at all, and let people think what they like of me. If even you can't understand."
Bertha stood still, and spoke in a changed voice.
"I understand very wellor think I do. I'm perfectly sure that you could never have broken your engagement unless for the gravest reasonand for me it is quite enough to know that. Many a girl ought to do this, who never has the courage. Try not to worry about explanations, the thing is done, and there's an end of it. I'm very glad indeed you're going quite away; it's the best thing possible. When do you start?" she added.
"In three days.Listen, Bertha, I have something very serious to ask of you. It is possibleisn't it?that he may come to see you some day. If he does, or if by chance you see him alone, and if he speaks of me, I want you to make him thinkyou easily canthat what has happened is all for his good. Remind him how often artists have been spoilt by marriage, and hintyou surely couldthat I am rather too fond of luxury, and that kind of thing."
Bertha wore an odd smile.
"Trust me," she replied, "I will blacken you most effectually."
"You promise? But, at the same time, you will urge him to be true to himself, to endure poverty"
"I don't know about that. Why shouldn't poor Mr. Franks have enough to eat it he can get it?"
"Wellbut you promise to help him in the other way? You needn't say very bad things; just a smile, a hint"
"I quite understand," said Bertha, nodding.
CHAPTER 13
Warburton had never seen Godfrey Sherwood so restless and excitable as during these weeks when the business in Little Ailie Street was being brought to an end, and the details of the transfer to Bristol were being settled. Had it not been inconsistent with all the hopeful facts of the situation, as well as with the man's temper, one would have thought that Godfrey suffered from extreme nervousness; that he lived under some oppressive anxiety, which it was his constant endeavour to combat with resolute high spirits. It seemed an odd thing that a man who had gone through the very real cares and perils of the last few years without a sign of perturbation, nay, with the cheeriest equanimity, should let himself be thrown into disorder by the mere change to a more promising state of things. Now and then Warburton asked himself whether his partner could be concealing some troublesome fact with regard to Applegarth's concern; but he dismissed the idea as too improbable; Sherwood was far too good a fellow, far too conscientious a man of business, to involve his friend in obvious riskespecially since it had been decided that Mrs. Warburton's and her money should go into the affair. The inquiries made by Mr. Turnbull had results so satisfactory that even the resolute pessimist could not but grudgingly admit his inability to discover storm-signals. Though a sense of responsibility made a new element in his life, which would not let him sleep quite so soundly as hitherto, Will persuaded himself that he had but to get to work, and all would be right.