The Upas Tree by Florence Louisa Barclay (free ebooks for android .TXT) 📖

as he came in.

"Helen," he said, "do you mind if we lunch punctually at one o'clock? I am going out before two."

"Why, certainly we will," said Helen. "You must have had a very early breakfast, Ronnie. But don't overdo, darling. Remember what Dick said. Shall I come with you?"

"I would rather go alone," said Ronnie. "I want to think things over."

She rose and stood beside him.

"Ronnie dear, we seem to have lost all count of days. But, as a matter of fact, to-morrow is Christmas Day. Would you like to go home this afternoon? We can order a car for two o'clock, and be at the Grange for tea. Ronnie, wouldn't it be rather lovely? Think of the little cosy tea-table, and your own especial chair, and the soft lamp-light--"

She paused abruptly. The mental picture had recalled to both the evening on which they last stood together in that golden lamplight.

Ronnie hesitated, looking at the floor. Then he raised his eyes to Helen's. "I don't think I could bear it," he said, turned from her quickly, and went upstairs.

In his room he scribbled a note.

"My wife--I am awfully sorry, but I simply _had_ to bolt. Don't be alarmed. I have gone home to the Grange. I believe, when I am by myself in the house where we spent the three years I thought so perfect and so happy, I shall find out what is the matter; I shall get to the very root of the Upas tree.

"I know I somehow hurt you horribly on the night I reached home, by asking you to come to the studio to hear me play my 'cello; but, before God, I haven't the faintest idea why!

"You would not have said what you did, had you known I was ill; but neither would you have said it, unless it had been true. If it was true then, it is true now. If it is true now, we can't spend Christmas Day together.

"I want you to go to the Dalmains by motor, as soon as you find this, and have a jolly, restful time with them. You look worn out.

"RONNIE."

"P.S.--I am obliged to leave this in my room. I hope you will find it there. I don't even know where your room is, Helen, in this beastly hotel."

Ronnie considered his postscript; then crossed out "beastly" and substituted "large." But "beastly" still showed, pathetically, beneath the line. And, by-and-by, the heart of Ronnie's wife, from which all clouds had suddenly rolled away, understood it, and wept over it, and kissed it; and thought "beastly" a dear word! It was so quaintly like Ronnie to substitute "large" for "beastly."

All clouds had rolled away, before Helen read the note; for this is what had happened.

* * * * *


Ronnie had excused himself when lunch was half over.

Helen let him go, trying to act on Dr. Dick's advice not to worry him by seeming to watch or follow him.

So she sat on alone, finishing luncheon, and thus did not see Ronnie walk out of the front door, carrying his bag.

Soon afterwards she passed into the hall, and sat dipping into the papers and thinking over her talk with Dick.

Presently a page stepped up to her with a letter on a salver.

Her heart stood still as she saw the stamp, the post-mark, and the writing. It was from Aubrey Treherne, forwarded from Hollymead.

Helen was sorely tempted for a moment to burn it unread. She had suffered so much through a former letter in that handwriting. She suddenly realised how cruelly Aubrey's words about Ronnie had, in the light of Ronnie's subsequent behaviour, eaten into her soul.

She looked at the fire. She rose and moved towards it, the letter in her hand.

Then better counsels prevailed.

She went slowly upstairs to her sitting-room, closed the door, sat down, and opened Aubrey's letter.

It contained a smaller envelope sealed, on which was written: "Read letter first."

She opened the folded sheets.

"DEAR HELEN,

"Yes, you are right about God's Word not returning void. Your own words, I admit, only hardened me; but those at the end of your letter broke me up. I am so very far removed from light and fellowship, love and forgiveness. I doubt if I can ever get back into the way of peace.

"But, anyhow, before the great Feast of Peace upon earth, goodwill toward men, I can take a first step by fully confessing the great wrong I did to you and to your husband rather more than a month ago, on the evening which he spent at my flat.

"Possibly you have found it out already; but possibly not, as I hear he has been very seriously ill.

"The evening he was here, he was more or less queer and light-headed, but he was full of you, and of his delight in going home. I suppose this all helped to madden me. No need to explain why. You know.

"He had found a letter from you at the _Poste Restante_; but, rushing around to his publishers, etc., had not had time to read it.

"When he remembered it and found it in his pocket-book, he stood with his back to my stove, in great excitement, and tore it open; I sitting by.

"As he unfolded the large sheets of foreign paper, a note flew out from between them, and fell, unseen by him, to the floor.

"I put my foot on it. I gathered, from extracts he read me from the letter, that this note was of importance.

"When he found in a postscript that you mentioned an enclosure, he hunted everywhere for it; not thinking, of course, to look under my foot.

"He then concluded, on my instigation, that, after all, you had not enclosed any note.

"At the first opportunity I transferred it to my pocket, made an excuse to leave the room, and read it.

"Helen, believe me, had I known beforehand the news that note contained, I don't think I could have been such a fiend.

"But once having done it, I carried it through. I allowed your husband to go home in total ignorance of the birth of his son. It was I who put the word 'astonishing' into his telegram; and, in my letter to you, I led you to suppose I had heard the news from him.

"I don't know exactly what I expected to gain from all this. But, in a condition of mad despair, I seemed playing my very last card; and I played it for all it was worth--which apparently was not much!

"I did plenty of other devilish work that night--chiefly mental suggestion. This is the only really confessable thing.

"The letter your husband never saw, is in the enclosed envelope. He will like to have it now.

"Thus, as you see, the Word has not returned unto you void. It brings you the only reparation I can make.

"AUBREY TREHERNE."

Helen tore open the sealed envelope, and found her little pencil note, the tender outpouring to Ronnie, written three days after her baby's birth.

So Ronnie never saw it--he never knew! He came home without having the remotest idea that she had been through anything unusual in his absence. He had heard no word or hint of the birth of his little son. Yet she had called him utterly, preposterously, altogether, selfish, because he had quite naturally expected her to be as interested as ever in his pursuits and pleasures.

Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie!

* * * * *


She flew to his room, hoping he had not yet gone out.

On the table she found a note addressed to herself.

She tore it open, read it--- then went back into the sitting-room, and pealed the bell.

"Send my maid to me at once, and the hall-porter."

They arrived together.

Helen had just written a long telegram to her housekeeper.

She spoke to the hall-porter first.

"Send off this telegram, please. Then procure the fastest motor-car you can find, to run me over to Hollymead this afternoon. We can be ready to start in half-an-hour's time."

Then she turned to her maid.

"Jeffreys, we go home for Christmas after all. Mr. West has gone on by train. We must pack as promptly as possible, and start in half-an-hour. We may perhaps get home before him. I doubt whether he can catch anything down from town before the five o'clock."

She flew to her room, pressing Ronnie's sad little note to her heart. All the world looked different! Ah, what would it be, now, to tell him of his little son! But she must get home before him. Supposing Ronnie went upstairs alone, and found the baby!


CHAPTER XVIII


THE FACE IN THE MIRROR

Ronnie caught the three o'clock train from town, at Huntingford, as the porter had predicted.

No carriage was at the station, so he had a rather long walk from Hollymead to the Grange.

It was a clear, crisp evening and freezing hard. He could feel the frost crackle under his feet, as he tramped along the country lanes.

When he came in sight of the lodge, it reminded him of an old-fashioned Christmas card; the large iron gates, their grey stone supports covered with moss and lichen and surmounted by queer rampant beasts unknown to zoology, holding in their stone claws oval shields on which were carved the ancient arms of Helen's family; the little ivy-covered house, with gabled roof and lattice-windows, firelight from within, shining golden and ruddy on the slight sprinkling of frosty snow.

As he passed in at the gate he saw the motherly figure of Mrs. Simpkins, a baby on her arm, appear at the window, lifting her hand to draw down the crimson blind. Before the blind shut in the bright interior, Ronnie caught a glimpse of three curly heads round a small Christmas-tree on the kitchen-table. Simpkins, in his shirt-sleeves, was lighting the topmost candle.

Ronnie walked on beneath the chestnuts and beeches, up the long sweep of the park drive, a dark lonely figure.

He was very tired; his heart was heavy and sad.

It had been such a cheery glimpse of home, through the lodge window, before the red blind shut it in. Simpkins was a lucky fellow. Mrs. Simpkins looked so kind and comfortable, with the baby's head nestling against her capacious bosom.

Ronnie turned to look back at the brightly-lighted cottage. The ruddy glow from the blind, fell on the snow. He wondered whether there was a Upas tree in that humble home. Surely not! A Upas tree and a Christmas-tree could hardly find place in the same home. The tree of Light and Love, would displace the tree of subtle poison.

He turned wearily from the distant light and plodded on.

Then he remembered that, in her last letter, Helen had said: "Ronnie, we will have a Christmas-tree this Christmas." Why had Helen said that? He had fully intended to ask her, but