The Price of Things

Chapter 13

A day or two before Denzil sailed for France he dined with Verisschenzko.

The intense preoccupation of the last war preparations had left him very

little time for grieving. He was unhappy when he thought of Amaryllis,

but he was a man, and another primitive instinct was in action in

him--the zest of going out to fight!

Verisschenzko was depressed, his country was not yet giving him the

opportunity to fulfil his hopes, and he fretted that he must direct

things from so far.

They sat in a quiet corner of the Berkeley and talked in a desultory

fashion all through the _hors d'ouvres_ and the soup.

"I am sick of things, Denzil," Verisschenzko said at last. "I feel

inclined to end it all sometimes."

"And belie the whole meaning of your whole beliefs. Don't be a fool,

Stpan. I always have told you that there is one grain of suicide in the

composition of every Russian. Now it has become active with you. Have

another glass of champagne, old boy, and then you'll talk sense again.

It is sickening to be killed, or maimed, or any beastly thing if it

comes along with duty, but to court it is madness pure and simple. It's

just rot."

"I'm with you," and he called the waiter and ordered a fine champagne,

while he smiled, showing his strong, square teeth.

"They don't have decent vodka--but the brandy will do the trick," and in

an instant his mood changed even before the cognac had come.

"It is the lingering trace of some other life of folly, when I talk like

that--I know it, Denzil. It is the harking back to long months of gloom

and darkness and snow and the howling of wolves and the fear of the

knout. This is not my first Russian life, you know!"

"Probably not; but you've had some more balanced intervening ones, or I

should have found you dead with veronal, or some other filthy thing

before this, with your highly strung nerves! I am not really alarmed

about you though, Stpan--you are fundamentally sane."

"I am glad you think that--very few English understand us--"

"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality

and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to

sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking

like fools--so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half

your brains he would never have said an i***t thing completely contrary

to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his

luck for the moment."

Verisschenzko laughed outright.

"Go ahead, Denzil--let off steam! I'm done in!"

"Well, don't be such a damned fool again!"

"I won't--how is my Lady Amaryllis?"

Denzil looked at him keenly.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her--"

"Then you know how she is?"

"I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are

acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are

aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off

to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English,

you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about

it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and--the

child's--and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I!

Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that

is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the

thing' to talk about a woman--even though it's for her benefit and

protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions

might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real

truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards

up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well."

Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth

of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak

all the same.

"Tell me what you know, Stpan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not

because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk."

"Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the

Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love--because I

feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves

you--and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this

miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen

her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!"

Denzil drank down his champagne, and then he made Verisschenzko

understand in a few words--the Russian's imagination filled in the

details.

He lit a cigarette between the course and puffed rings of smoke.

"So poor John devised this plan, and yet he loves her--he must indeed be

obsessed by the family!"

"He is--he is a frightfully reserved person too, and I am sure has frozen

Amaryllis from the first day."

"My idea was always for this, directly I went to Ardayre. I felt that

mysterious pull of the family there in that glorious house. I thought she

would probably simplify things by just taking you for a lover, when you

met, as you are her counterpart--a perfect mate for her. I had even made

up my mind to suggest this to her, and influence her as much as I could

to this end--but lo! the husband takes the matter out of our hands and

devises a really unique accomplishment of our wishes. Gosh! Denzil! it's

John who's got the common sense and the genius, not we!"

"Yes, he has--so far, but he did not reckon with human emotion. He might

have known that directly I should see Amaryllis I should fall in love

with her, and he ought to have understood that that extraordinary thing,

nature, might make her draw to me afterwards. Now the situation is

tragic, however you look at it. John will have the hell of a life if he

comes back; he can't help feeling jealous every time he sees the child,

and the tension between him and Amaryllis, now that she knows, will be

great. Amaryllis is wretched--she is passionate and vivid as a humming

bird. Every hair of her darling head is living and quivering with human

power for joy and union, and she will lead the famished life of a nun! I

absolutely worship her. I am frantically in love, so my outlook, if I

come back is not gay either. I wonder if we did well, after all, John and

I, and if the family makes all this suffering worth while? Perhaps it

would have been better to leave it to fate!" Denzil sighed and forgot to

notice a dish the waiter was handing.

"It is perfectly certain," and Verisschenzko grew contemplative, "that

the result of deliberately turning the current of events like that must

have some momentous consequence. Mind you, I think you were right. I

should have advised it as I have told you, because of that swine of a

Turk, Ferdinand--but it may have deranged some plan of the Cosmos, and

if so some of you will have to pay for it. I hate that it should be my

lady Amaryllis. All her sorrow comes from your dramatically honourable

promise. You can't make love to her now--because a man who is a

gentleman does not break his word. Now if my plan had been followed, you

would not have had this limitation and you could have had some joy--but

who knows! A false position is a gall in any case, and it would have

soiled my star, which now shines purely. So perhaps all is for the best.

But have you analysed, now that we are on the subject, what it is 'being

in love,' old boy?"

"It is divine--and it is hell--"

"All that! Amaryllis is the exact opposite to Harietta Boleski--in this,

that she attracts as strongly as Harietta could ever do physically, and

will be no disappointment in soul in the _entre actes_. _Being in love_

is a physical state of exaltation; _loving_ is the merging of spirit

which in its white heat has glorified the physical instinct for

re-creation into a godlike beatitude not of earth. A man could be in love

with Harietta, he could never love her. A man could always love

Amaryllis, so much that he would not be aware that half his joy was

because he was _in love_ with her also."

"You know, Stpan, men, women and every one talk a lot of nonsense about

other interests in life mattering more, and there being other kinds of

really better happiness, but it is pure rot; if one is honest one owns

that there is no real happiness but in the satisfaction of love. Every

other kind is second best. It is jolly good often, but only a _pis aller_

in comparison to the real thing.

"And when people deny this, believing they are speaking honestly, it is

simply because the real thing has not come their way, or they are too

brutalised by transient indulgences to be able to feel exaltation.

"So here's to love!" and Denzil emptied his glass. "The supreme God--"

_"Ainsi soit il,"_ and Stpan drank in response. "Our toast before has

always been to the Ardayre son, and now we drink to what I hope has been

his creator!"

They were silent for some moments, and then Verisschenzko went on:

"When the state of being in love is waning, affection often remains, but

then one is at the mercy of a new emotion. I'd be nervous if a woman who

had loved me subsided into feeling affection!"

"Then define loving?"

"Loving throbs with delight in the flesh; it thrills the spirit with

reverence. It glorifies into beauty commonplace things. It draws nearer

in sickness and sorrow, and is not the sport of change. When a woman

loves truly she has the passion of the mistress, the selfless tenderness

of the mother, the dignity and devotion of the wife. She is all fire and

snow, all will and frankness, all passion and reserve, she is

authoritative and obedient--queen and child."

"And a man?"

"He ceases to be a brute and becomes a god."

"Can it last, I wonder?" and again Denzil sighed.

"It could if people were not such fools--they nearly always deliberately

destroy the loved one's emotion by senseless stupidity--in not grasping

the fact that no fire burns without fuel. They disillusionise each other.

The joy once secured, they take no pains to keep it. A woman will do

things when the lover is an acknowledged possession, which she would not

have dreamed of doing while desiring to attract the man--and a man

likewise--neither realising that the whole state of being in love is an

intoxication of the senses, and that the senses are very easily wearied

or affronted."

"Stpan--what am I going to do about Amaryllis? If I come back, it will

be hell--a continual longing and aching, and I want to accomplish

something in life; it was never my plan to have the whole thing held and

bounded by passion for a woman. A hopeless passion I can understand

facing and crushing, but one which you know that the woman returns, and

that it is only the law and promises you have made which separate you, is

the most awful torment." He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment.

His face was stern. "And her life too--how sickening. You say you are

going down to Ardayre to see Amaryllis--you will tell me how you find

her. I have not written--I am trying not to feel."

"Are you interested about the coming child? I am never quite certain how

much it matters to a man, whether we deceive ourselves and feel sentiment

simply because we love the woman, whether the emotion is half vanity, or

whether there is something in the actual state called parenthood? How do

you feel?"

Denzil thought of his musings upon this subject after he had seen

Amaryllis at the Carlton.

"It is hard to describe," he answered now, "it is all so interwoven with

love for Amaryllis that I cannot distinguish which is which, or how I

feel about the state in the abstract. Women have these mysterious

emotions, I believe, but I do not think that they come to the average

man, but if he loves it seems a fulfilment."

"I have two children scattered in Russia, begotten before I had begun to

think of things and their meanings. I have them finely educated--I loathe

them. I sicken at the memory of the mothers; I am ashamed when I see in

them some chance physical likeness to myself. But how will you feel

presently when you see the child, adoring the mother as you do? What will

it say to you, looking at you with your own eyes, perhaps? You'll long to

have some hand in the training of it. You'll desire to watch the budding

brain and the expanding soul. You'll be drawn closer and closer to

Amaryllis--it will all pull you with an invisible nature chain--"

"I know it,--that is the tragedy of the whole thing. Those delights will

be John's--and I hate to think that Amaryllis will be alone for all these

months--and yet I believe I would prefer that to her being with John. I

am jealous when I remember that he has rights denied to me--so what must

he feel, poor devil, when he remembers about me?"

"It is quite a peculiar situation. I wonder what the years will

develop it into."

"If the child is a girl, the whole thing is in vain."

"It won't be a girl--you will see I am right. When will you and John get

leave, do you suppose?"

"I don't know, but about Christmas, perhaps, if we are alive--"

"Do you want to see her again, then?"

"I long always to see her--but by Christmas--it would be nearly five

months. I don't think I could keep my word and not make love to her--if I

saw her--then."

"You will wish to hear about her--?"

"Always."

After this they were both silent while the cheese was being removed.

Verisschenzko was thinking profoundly. Here was a study worthy of his

highest intuitive faculties. What possible solution could the future

hold? Only one--that of death for either of the men concerned. Well,

death was busy with England's best--it was no unlikely possibility--and

as he looked at Denzil he felt a stab of pain. Nothing more splendid and

living and strong could be imagined than his six foot one of manhood,

crowned with the health of his twenty-nine years.

"I hope to God he comes through," he prayed. And then he became cynical,

as was his habit, when he found himself moved.

"I am on the track of Harietta, Denzil. She has a new

lover--Ferdinand Ardayre."

"What a combination!"

"Yes, but who the officer was at the Ardayre ball I cannot yet trace.

Stanislass is quite a _gaga_--he spends his time packed off to play

piquet at the St. James'--he has no _bosse des cartes_,--it is his

burdensome duty."

"He does not feel the war?"

"He is numb."

"What will you do if you catch her red-handed?"

"I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a

fitting end."

"I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman--even a spy."

Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes.

"My want of civilisation will serve me--if ever that moment comes."

Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the

time.