Men and Wives (31 page)

“I do not know how much I am justified in taking upon myself. But I advocate that Mrs. Bellamy should unburden her mind.”

“Oh, yes, advocate! Your lawyer's word!” said Camilla. “You won't get at Matthew. There is nothing you can prove against him. No one can know he did anything. And he couldn't help it if he did. He was goaded to it. And he did love her. Better than I love you, Mother, he loved his mother. And she forced him to it, without being
able to help it, and he will carry it with him to his grave. And I could not help it; I would have given him up. If she had known it, I would have. I did not want him so much; I do not want him. It was not my fault, it was not. I could not help her not knowing. No, don't come near me.” She raised her hand to ward off Dominic's approach. “You shan't use what I say against me, against us, against him. I don't mean anything I say. I am telling you I don't. So don't you think you will. Because you shan't, you shan't.” She ended on a shriek.

“It can hardly be necessary to state, Mrs. Bellamy, that anything you may say, or may have said, will be treated in the strictest confidence.”

“You won't do anything?” said Camilla, her eyes wavering behind her hair like a child's. “You will leave him alone? But of course you will. You haven't anything against him.” She sat up and her voice changed. “I have not said anything against him. I do not know anything. I was carried away by a fearful dream I had. Something he said reminded me of it.”

There was a silence. Mrs. Christy stood with her eyes on her daughter, her features showing the quick working of her mind.

“I don't know what you mean, my child. No doubt it is a fancy, a dream, as you say. But with the feelings that led to such dreams, is it wise to marry? My daughter, do not make a mistake a second time.”

“No, no, that is a settled thing, Mrs. Christy,” said Dominic. “Whatever may be meant, or not be meant by Mrs. Bellamy's words, that emerges.”

“Then shall I write to him?” said Camilla, with simple appeal. “I don't know what to say. It will drive him mad. But I can't help it; he will have to go mad; I believe he is mad already. He behaves as if he were mad; the things he said were mad; you see they were. And I can't be married to a madman. Poor boy, he gets it from his family. His mother could not have been herself to do what
she did. They said she could not. I have my own life to think of. I can't do any good to her now. And it was what she wanted, that I should give up her son. She did not know it would drive him mad. I wish I could say it without half killing him, but I seem to have to destroy men; it seems to be my lot. If only people knew what I suffer in writing these mortal messages!”

She pushed back her hair, and took the pen and paper that Dominic put at her hand.

My poor, dear Matthew,

I don't know how to say it to you, but I must get it into words at once. You would hate my being what I am, and I can never be anything else. And I should hate your being what you are, what you told me you were, and you can never be anything else. There, I have got it down. I could not bear it and I will not bear it. So do not make the fatal mistake of persuading me; I say a fatal mistake. If you do, I cannot tell you what revenge I might take. You know I might say anything in a storm; you know I have no control of myself. I wonder if you know me well enough to see that this is my last word. If you do not, I am sorry for you, for reasons that are enough to make me sorry. I will not see you until you are married. And take my advice, and never tell that other woman what you told me.

Yours as much as I can be,
Camilla.

This Letter, Posted by Dominic, was read by Matthew at the breakfast table in the morning. He had come down after a sleepless night, and almost leapt at the message in Camilla's hand. He read it through, and suddenly sat down, as if something had let him down from a height; and looking round the table, seemed to find himself speaking.

“Well, there is an end of it now. It doesn't matter any more. Anyone may know it. I may as well tell you myself. I am tired of this covering up with silence. And Camilla does not keep things to herself; she says she does not; she means to say it.” He held out the letter, and his voice and gesture suddenly threw back to his childhood. “Mother did not take the tablet on purpose. She did not want to die. You all know that she had stopped wanting it. It was I who wanted her to die, for fear she should prevent my marrying Camilla. Camilla had begun to listen to her, and she would never have stopped listening. It would have been like Gregory. But Camilla will never marry me now. This has made her know she does not want to. I was always afraid of her finding it out. I never meant to tell her the truth, but something forced me to say it. It was not much good my doing any of it, was it? I would rather people knew; it is not the sort of thing I like to carry by myself. I do not care for it somehow, knowing it all alone. I do not like it in the night, when I do not sleep.”

“Matthew, Matthew, what are you saying? You do not know. It is a delusion that you have. You have felt it all too deeply,” cried Godfrey, rising and going to his son. “It is nothing to do with you that your mother died. What are we all coming to, that you should have been
brought to this? There, there, my poor child, your father understands.”

“No, you do not understand yet,” said Matthew, disengaging his arm. “You still think I did not do it, that Mother did it herself. But it was I who put the tablet there. I got it from Dufferin's room. It looked like the sleeping tablets. I shall have to tell you a great many times.”

“Tell us just what you did,” said Jermyn, coming to his brother. “What was it exactly that happened? If you tell me, it will help you to see that you did not do it.”

“I put a poisonous tablet with the ones she had for sleeping,” said Matthew, in a suddenly surly tone. “That is what I did, since you want to know exactly. And I gave it to her with one of the others, when I went to her room that last night. She asked me to put off my marriage, and I knew that would mean it would never happen, that Camilla would escape. That is simple enough, isn't it? The tablets looked very much the same.”

“My boy, my boy!” said Godfrey.

“Then Mother did not want to die?” said Griselda, who had been sitting with her eyes on Matthew's face.

“No, she did not. She did not think of it. It was I who thought of it,” said Matthew, falling back into his strange simplicity. “It was an easy thing to do. It worked just as I thought it out.”

“My God!” said Godfrey, putting his hand to his eyes.

“He may have thought it out, or something like it, in his brain,” said Gregory in a deliberate, quiet tone, “and then imagined himself doing it afterwards. These troubles have set our minds running on such things. That is what it must be.”

“Now let us have an end of this,” said Rachel. “Yes, that is what it is, of course. It simply goes without saying. Matthew must come upstairs and rest. This will not go out of his head until he sleeps. Jermyn, send a message to Antony to ask him to come this moment. It would save trouble to keep him in the house until this matter has
stopped reverberating. Griselda, don't sit with your eyes on your brother like that. There is nothing to frighten you in his getting a delusion through sleeplessness and shock and love trouble all at once. Godfrey, come and take his other arm; he is not steady on his feet. You see, this is just an echo of Harriet.”

“I am not going upstairs. I am not going to sleep,” said Matthew, looking at Rachel with calm, obstinate eyes. “I do not sleep nowadays. And it is not worth while to get back into the way of sleeping. I shall not have much more time. I shall be glad to come to grips with it now. Dufferin will believe me, when I explain how I used his keys. He knows I understand what he had, and that Mother did not. And Jermyn believes me too.” He gave a natural, cynical laugh. “I can see he does. He believed me easily. And I do not mind. I am glad it has all come to an end.”

“Buttermere, can't you go out of the room? Must you keep meandering about, doing nothing?” said Godfrey. “Can't you learn when you can do something and when you can't?”

Buttermere vanished with more than his usual noiselessness.

“You are too late, Father. He had heard it all,” said Matthew with another normal laugh. “We may trust Buttermere.”

“Yes, yes, we may,” said Godfrey, keeping his eyes on Matthew's face, and forcing himself to talk in his usual manner. “Yes, you are right, Matthew. Do you begin to feel more yourself, my boy?”

“I am quite myself, Father.”

Godfrey's eyes showed fear.

“I will go and tell Buttermere to be ready to let Dufferin in,” said-Gregory, looking at Rachel. Rachel followed him into the hall.

“Gregory, Matthew has a delusion. You see that is what it must be, what of course it is. See that everyone knows it is that. He is like his mother, and may have inherited
mental unsoundness from her, and the rush of troubles has been too much for his brain. Antony must be told just that when he comes into the house. Wait here for him, and say those words to him from me.”

Gregory walked up and down the hall, adopting a sauntering step when Buttermere moved into sight. When Dufferin came, he repeated Rachel's words with his eyes on his face. Dufferin stood for a long moment, meeting the eyes, and hurried into the dining-room.

Godfrey took a step towards him, as if to protest and explain, but drew back and watched the meeting with Matthew with aloof, almost furtive eyes.

“Well, come upstairs with me, Matthew. You are my patient this morning, and will do what you are told. You know better than to waste my time.”

Matthew rose and went with his friend, as if willing for his companionship, and the family stood in silence.

“Well, has Gregory told you?” said Matthew, when they reached his room. “I did it because there was nothing else to be done. She would have parted me from Camilla; it was in her mind. I had got to read her mind. And now I find it is of no good, that it is worse. Camilla has given me up because of it.” His tones hurried and stumbled and his eyes went wild. “You know Camilla was in this room with me that day Mother died, that day we knew she was dead? She sat here on this bed with me. You did not know that?” He pulled himself together and went on with a quiet smile. “I am the victim of my own plot, and I am anxious for the end to come as soon as it can. I want to get in advance of Camilla. She will never keep it to herself. She cannot carry a burden. I begin to see that many people could not. I can't get the others to believe me, but I think Jermyn does.”

“You took the tablet from my cupboard?” said Dufferin.

“Yes, you must see that I did,” said Matthew, his voice sounding tired. “You see that I must have. You know my mother did not understand what was there. She could not
have recognised the tablets if she had found them. I thought it all out. I knew she had been in your room by herself, and what would be said after what she had done before. And you know she had lost her desire for death. You knew it all. I wondered you did not think of it at the time, especially when the point was raised of my being the last person to see her alive.”

“You did, did you?” said Dufferin. “Well, of course it was plain to you. But it didn't strike anyone as a natural thing for you to do, even though you had your own ends to serve. I thought there must be some other explanation, and accepted the only one. But you are right that I see it now. You thought your mother's life a reasonable price to pay for your own safe happiness! And you think your father's and your sister's suffering a fair exchange for your own peaceful exit, now you have finished with things yourself! For a man of such a mind neither death nor any living death is a useful thing. You will find you have no fancy for death, except for your mother. Your thoughts will go to the way of escape, that come to you through her. You may as well depend on her to the end, since you have learned how to put her to your own use. You have had a delusion. You have over-deep feelings, inherited from her, and a precarious mental balance, also that heritage. And her first attempt on her life had preyed on your mind. And I am not saying that all those things did not do their part. That must help me to do what I can for you; I shall need the help. You must take shelter behind that falsehood, and spend your life in its cover. You have shown you are not the kind to come out.”

“I did not know you were cruel,” said Matthew.

“You have been kind, haven't you, in putting an end to your mother, when she had some dark years behind her, and the chance of some better ones ahead? Who knew that you were cruel in the way you are? I am not saying you did not suffer from her, but you would never have suffered death. It was your life that was in her mind. People who
think of themselves to that extent don't want their years snatched from them. It was your mother who was to lose her years. You will do no more harm, Matthew. You will fall in with what is best for other people, and its being best for you will not prevent you. You are too like your mother. The tragedy got on your mind, and you fancied yourself the author of the thing that made too deep an impression. That is a possible thing; perhaps you knew that. Now get your head clear about the truth—the truth, Matthew. And I will turn your key and take it with me, and go and explain your case to your family, as I have explained it to you. That suits your own mind very well?”

“I don't really care,” muttered Matthew.

“You have got away from the desire for justice. People don't want what they deserve, when they deserve so much. You can lie down and be ill. You are ill for that matter; you are in a very low state; that part needn't be acting. And the rest must get not to be. It is a great relief to you to be free from your burden. That is so even between ourselves. We shall never say a word of this again, if we live to be old men. Doors have ears. I saw Buttermere's face. And I see yours too. You have learnt your lesson. You haven't needed much teaching, and you will never need any more.”