Chapter VII Awakening
Moira moved about in a daze, attempting in the commonplaces of the daily routine to forget the thought of the revelation which she knew could not be long delayed. She had lain all night on the divan in the studio, listening and waiting for the return of the soldier, and at last, toward daylight, from sheer exhaustion of mind and body, had fallen asleep. When she awoke, her first impulse was to go to the room in the hallway and knock. She opened the door. The bed had not been occupied.
Slowly, thoughtfully, she went back to the studio and the business of preparing the coffee—for herself—and for Harry—when he should arrive. Her mind was filled with strange doubts,—not of him, because she had learned to have a complete, a perfect faith in this soldier that she had married, who had left New York under a cloud of uncertainties and suspicions and had come back to her spiritually reborn. The doubts in her mind were those that he had purposely created in it, and fragments of phrases that he had uttered in their moments of tenderness came back to alarm and disturb her, because if he hadn’t thought it necessary to alarm and disturb her, he would have remained silent and permitted himself to enjoy with her the hours that had been theirs together. Yes... there was something that had come to thrust itself between them—some impediment to their union. She smiled softly at the memory of the restraint in his caresses, the purity of his smile and the gentleness of his abnegation.... He had underestimated the quality of her new faith in him.
Was this shadow out of the past? Perhaps. But it wouldn’t matter. Together they would exorcise it. Only the future mattered now—their future together.
She stopped for a moment in her work of putting the studio to rights and listened. She thought that she heard a step upon the stair. She waited a while and then went to the door and peered out. No one. It was a little cruel that he had not sent her a message—a note, a petit bleu even, telling when she must expect him, whatever his appearance might bring. For this, she realized, was the “to-morrow” of which he had spoken yesterday... the day of revelations....
She tried to sing at her work but the effort was a failure. A morbid fear of the thing that was to happen, if it hadn’t already happened, obsessed and held her. Nine—ten o’clock—eleven.... With a courage born of desperation she went into her room and put on her hat. It was insupportable, the suspense. There were some things to buy. She must order them. And leaving word with Madame Toupin that she would return within the hour, she walked briskly forth, breasting the keen air and trying to smile. But even her walk was a failure, and in a short while she was back, eagerly questioning Madame Toupin. No, Monsieur le Lieutenant had not arrived. No doubt he was busy about the ceremony of the presentation of the medals. Moira inquired and Madame Toupin showed her an article in the paper about the honors to be given both French and American officers next week in the Place de la Concord. There was his name, “Henry G. Horton—Croix de Guerre.” Madame Toupin let her have the paper and she ran up to the studio, where she read it eagerly, thrilling with pride.
Of course he had his reasons for not coming to her and telling her everything. She must be patient—her faith in him unwavering. He would come to her to-night again—and whatever he told her was to make no difference in her love and faith in him—whatever he told her—she swore it.
Late that night he came. She had built a fire of fagots against the chill of the night and was sitting in the big armchair by the hearth when she heard a knock at the studio door. With a cry of welcome she rose and rushed to greet him, throwing herself impulsively into his arms.
“Harry,” she gasped happily, “at last!”
She couldn’t help noting the slight movement of recoil before her tenderness. Then, bending his head,
“Hello, Moira,” he muttered.
She helped him off with his overcoat and led him over to the fire, making him sit in the big arm-chair. He obeyed awkwardly, as one in a daze, his brows frowning. The light was uncertain, but what she saw alarmed her.
“Harry! What has happened to you?” she cried, catching him by the hands and holding them. “You’re ill—your fingers are cold—you look as though—— What has happened?”
“Nothing,” he murmured with an attempt at a smile. “Nothing at all.” But even the smile was different, as though the muscles acted in obedience to an effort.
She had struck a match to make a light.
“What—what are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m going to see what’s the matter with you. You look sick. You need medicine.”
“No,” he protested. “I’m just tired. A drink of whisky if you’ve got one——”
She went into Barry Quinlevin’s room and brought forth a bottle, a glass and a pitcher of water. With a hand that trembled a little, he poured himself a drink and took it at a draught, and then gave a gasp of relief. She had sat down near him and was regarding him with an expression of intentness and eagerness, though the pucker at her brows indicated a doubt and a fear. The gas light was at his back and she could not clearly see his face, but there was something strange about him that she had missed at his first entrance, a brooding sullenness, remote, self-centered, that even the smile could not temper with sweetness. And even while she watched he poured out another glass of whisky.
“What is it, Harry?” she asked. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m all in, I’ve had some worries. I’ll be all right.’
“Have you had something to eat?”
“Yes. I’m not hungry.”
His voice too... thin, weary, somber.
Now greatly alarmed, she caught his hand in both of hers.
“You must tell me everything, Harry. I don’t care what it is—I—I’ve got to know. You told me that you’d tell me to-day—to-night, and now you must keep your promise. I’ve tried so hard not to worry and—and when you didn’t come back to me last night, I—I was really frightened——”
“Were you?” he said, with a frown. “I was all right.”
“I’m glad. But it was cruel of you not to send me a message.”
“I couldn’t. But I’m here now, Moira. So there’s no need worrying any more.”
He put his hand over hers and leaned toward her. His words, which last night would have given her happiness, seemed somehow to mean nothing to her to-night. For his very presence in this condition was a threat against her peace of mind. And his fingers might have been wax for all that their touch meant to her.
“You—you’re trying to make things seem better than they are,” she said steadily, wondering at her own words. “I—I’m not easily deceived. Last night I knew that something had come between us. I know now that it’s still between us, Harry, whatever you say.”
He turned away toward the glass at his elbow,
“No,” he murmured, “that difficulty—has been removed.”
He couldn’t repress the smile of triumph as he took his drink, and she saw it. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.
“Come,” he went on more easily, “aren’t you glad to see me?”
“I—God knows whether I am or not. Something has happened to you—to me.... You’ve been through something terrible—since yesterday—something that has burnt the soul of you. What is it? What is it? The touch of your fingers—your voice, they come from a distance-like, with nothing of you in them. Am I ill that I should be thinking of you so? Take me in your arms, Harry, and shield me from this terror that you’re not yourself, but some one else.”
He obeyed, putting his arms around her and holding her close to him. But at the touch of his lips to hers, she struggled free and faced him by the hearth, pale as death. The look of bewilderment at her brows had intensified into a steady gaze, almost of terror at the thought that had suddenly mastered her. And yet she did not dare give utterance to it. It was so outlandish, so mad and incomprehensible.
She saw the frown of anger, quickly masked in a smile of patience as she broke away from him, and that confirmed her in her madness. She was reading him keenly now from top to toe, missing nothing. And the thought that dominated her was that the man with whom she had mated during the past weeks, the man who had passed through the shadow of death, reborn in body and spirit, the Harry that she had recently learned to love—was dead; and that this man who had come to take his place—this man—was what he might have been if God’s grace had not fallen on him. Madness? Perhaps. And yet how otherwise would the touch of his lips, which last night she had sought in tenderness, have been so repellent to her? Harry—her husband—unregenerate—the same Harry that....
She kept her gaze fixed upon him and she saw his look flicker and fade.
If this reality was Harry, her husband, then were all the weeks that had passed since she found him in the hospital merely a dream, was yesterday a dream—last night?
“I—I don’t know—what is the matter,” she said at last, passing a hand across her brows. “I—I am not well, perhaps. But you—you’re not the—not the same. I know it. The thoughts that I have of you frighten me.”
He forced a laugh and sank into his chair again, lighting a cigarette with an assumption of ease.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
She only stood staring at him, her deep blue eyes never wavering from his face, which was still averted from the light. He met that gaze once—a second time, and then looked away, but still they stared at him, wide like a child’s, but full of a dawning wisdom.
“You—you are Harry Horton—my—my husband?” she whispered in a kind of daze.
“Well, rather.”
She paused another long moment as though on the verge of a difficult decision and then spoke searchingly.
“If you are Harry—my husband—then who—who is the other?”
Harry Horton started. “The other——?”
“The other—who was here with me yesterday, who was ill in the hospital at Neuilly, wounded—the hero of Boissière wood?”
“Moira,” he said, rising, “this is serious. There has been no other here.”
“Yes,” she repeated doggedly, “the other has been here—your twin——” The word seemed born of her necessity. “Your twin,” she repeated.
He winced at the word and she saw the change in his expression.
“Tell me the truth of this thing,” she went on quickly, “he said yesterday that something was to come between us. It was you.” And then, as he made no reply, “For God’s sake, speak——”
He turned away from the light.
“I’m your husband,” he muttered hoarsely.
“Show me your wounds,” she gasped suddenly, reasoning with singular directness.
He glanced at her once, then bent forward. There upon the left side of his head in a shaved spot was a cross of adhesive tape. She touched it aimlessly with her fingers and then suddenly, before he could rise, with a quick deft movement tore it away from his skull. And quickly as he straightened she had seen enough.
There was no wound.
“What’s this deviltry?” he muttered, his face an angry red.
But the look that he met in her eyes pierced all subterfuge.
“You have not been wounded,” she gasped.
He leaned forward in his fury as though to strike her, but she stood up to him resolutely until the color faded from his face and he straightened slowly.
“Well,” he muttered with a shrug, “I haven’t.” And then, folding his arms he found her gaze. “What of it?” he asked shortly.
She glanced down at the slips of adhesive tape and then let them fall through her fingers.
“I’m glad,” she said coolly, “that you’ve decided not to carry on the lie——”
He laughed again. “Well, it looks as though it were hardly worth while.”
Already all her thoughts were beyond him.
“Who—who is the other?” she asked at last, with a cold precision that might have come from a disembodied spirit.
He waited a moment before replying and then his tone matched her own.
“I can hardly wonder at your interest after the warmth of your greeting when I came in.”
The shot told and she colored painfully.
“Who—who is he?” she repeated with an effort.
He smiled. “There’s no harm in your knowing, since you’ve guessed the rest. He’s my twin brother, Jim Horton.”
“Jim,” she gasped below her breath.
“We met in the confusion on the battlefield,” he went on. “I had been shell-shocked and he put on my uniform to lead my men——”
“Shell—shock——”
“Yes. He took my uniform. It was a fool proceeding. When I came to, everything was in confusion. He would have been courtmartialed and shot if I had turned up, so I went back to the lines and came to Paris——”
“While he won you the Croix de Guerre. And you’re going to step into his shoes——”
“They’re my shoes. It’s not my fault——”
“And he—what’s to become of him?”
“That’s his lookout. He merely disappears from the scene.”
She leaned heavily against the mantel shelf, breathing fast. But she had no reply, and so he went on unpleasantly.
“Now, perhaps you would like to explain.”
“I have nothing to explain.”
“Not the joy in your eyes when I came in? The kisses you gave me that you thought were for him?”
“I ask no forgiveness,” she said in a hollow tone.
“Of course you thought he was your husband. And he let you think so.”
“Yes. He let me think so,” she repeated, parrot-like.
And all the while her horror of her situation increased—her anger at “the other” who had dared to place her in this false position.
She saw her husband’s bony fingers clasp the chair arm.
“You were easily deceived,” he went on. “It’s hardly flattering to me. I would like to know——”
He stopped suddenly, his question in abeyance before the challenge in her eyes, aroused by the tone of his voice. She read his thought and answered him.
“He came here from the hospital night before last. He wanted to go to a pension but I would not permit it——”
“That was kind of you. But I’m not blind. And your kisses for him were warm on your lips when you greeted me.”
She paled and drooped in her shame.
“What have you to say about that?” he went on tensely. “Do you think that I’m the kind to stand by idly and see a man take my wife’s kisses?”
“No. You’re not,” she answered slowly. “You’ve already answered me.” And then, with a painful effort, “What have you done with him?”
He sank into the armchair with a laugh. “With him? Nothing. He has gone. That’s all.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s your privilege. He has gone. He thought he had gone about far enough. And I’m almost ready to believe that you agree with him.”
“No,” she stammered, pleading against her own will, against her outraged pride. “There was a reason for what he did—an honorable reason. There must have been.”
“The marks of it are not very clear to me. If you can see anything honorable in trying to steal the love of one’s brother’s wife——”
He paused, for he saw the danger signals flying in her eyes, and tried to shrug his anger off. “What’s the use? I’m no fool. Whether he tried to win you or not, it’s clear that neither of you was over-scrupulous about me.”
She didn’t reply at once and when she did speak her words came slowly and with dignity.
“I don’t know why it is that he should have kept silent about you. He has done me a hurt—irreparable. When I visited him in the hospital, it was you that I visited, you that I went to cheer, to take my place by your side. I thanked God when I saw you that you had grown to be—what you were, what I had wanted you to be. And I loved you for what you had suffered.”
He started up from his chair.
“Moira——”
“Wait a moment,” she insisted, still struggling to give her thoughts expression. “I want you to understand. I thought that it was you who had come back to me—as I wished you to come back—in honor and pride of your service of your country. And instead of you I find—another—with your wounds, your honors—if it was your brother—in spite of the false position he’s placed me in—I honor him for those wounds as I would have honored you—and I honor him still more—because he has thought enough of his honor and of mine—to give up everything that he has won and gone out into the darkness—alone.”
At this, Harry Horton’s fury relaxed in a laugh. He poured himself out another drink.
“You can spare him these new honors.”
She glanced at him keenly but he was too angry to notice.
“He went—away—because he had to,” he muttered.
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. It was getting too hot for him.”
The meaning under his words came to her slowly. She watched him for a moment curiously, leaning toward him, studying the ugly lines at lip and brow that he no longer took pains to conceal. And then she guessed at the truth.
“What have you done with him?” she whispered.
“N—nothing.”
“You lie.” She knew no fear of him now, and leaned forward, clutching at his shoulder. “You’ve dealt unfairly with him—you’ve——” She halted in terror of her thoughts.
“He got what he deserved,” he muttered sullenly.
“What have you done?” she repeated.
“Put him where he won’t mess in my affairs again. See here, Moira,” he caught her wrists and held her, “I’m just about fed up with this. I’ve been patient about long enough. You’re my wife. And I’m going to keep you. Do you think after all I’ve suffered I’m going to stand for this kind of treatment now?”
“Let go my wrists—you’re hurting me——”
“No——” Instead, he drew her closer to him. “I don’t care about this foolishness with Jim. I think you can see that you’ve made a fool of yourself and of me. But I’m willing to forget it, if you’ll do the square thing. I’m back here and I’m back to stay—and I’m going to make you love me whether you want to or not.”
“Let me go, Harry.”
“Kiss me.”
“No.” She struggled in his arms, but he only held her the more closely. “Moira. I want you. You’re mine. You belong to me by every law——”
“No—no.”
But he mastered her, pressing her throat back and kissing her upon the lips. She lay quiet in his arms, weak from the struggle. He took her immobility for acquiescence and caught her more tightly in his arms.
“Let me go,” she gasped. “Do you hear?”
A saner man would have caught the warning note. But Harry Horton was beyond warnings. She fought with renewed strength and then, all else failing, struck him full in the face with her clenched fist.
His arms relaxed in astonishment and she sprang away, putting a small table between them.
Breathing rapidly, she saw him put his fingers to his cheek and then look at them in a bewildered way.
“I see,” she heard him muttering to himself, “so that’s the way of it——”
The blow brought him to his senses, and he stared at her for a moment as though at a person he had never seen before. Her eyes burned like a blue flame in the pallor of her face and the hand that clutched the table trembled violently. And yet it was not the fear of him that made her tremble, but the fear of herself and of the sudden dreadful awakening at the edge of the chasm that yawned between them.