The way of the spirit

Prologue

The last pitiful shifts of shame, the last agonised doublings of despair when the net is about the head and the victor’s trident at the throat—who can enjoy the story of such things as these? Yet because they rough-hewed the character of Rupert Ullershaw, because from his part in them he fashioned the steps whereby he climbed to that height of renunciation which was the only throne he ever knew, something of it must be told. A very little will suffice; the barest facts are all we need.

Upon a certain July evening, Lord and Lady Devene sat at dinner alone in a very fine room of a very fine house in Portland Place. They were a striking couple, the husband much older than the wife; indeed, he was fifty years of age, and she in the prime of womanhood. The face of Lord Devene, neutral tinted, almost colourless, was full of strength and of a certain sardonic ability. His small grey eyes, set beneath shaggy, overhanging eyebrows that were sandy-coloured like his straight hair, seemed to pierce to the heart of men and things, and his talk, when he had anything to say upon a matter that moved him, was keen and uncompromising. It was a very bitter face, and his words were often very bitter words, which seems curious, as this man enjoyed good health, was rich, powerful, and set by birth and fortune far above the vast majority of other men.

Yet there were flies in his silver spoon of honey. For instance, he hated his wife, as from the first she hated him; for instance, he who greatly desired sons to carry on his wealth and line had no children; for instance, his sharp, acrimonious intellect had broken through all beliefs and overthrown all conventions, yet the ghost of dead belief still haunted him, and convention still shackled his hands and feet. For he could find no other rocks whereon to rest or cling as he was borne forward by the universal tide which at last rips over the rough edges of the world.

The woman, Clara, Lady Devene, was physically magnificent; tall, with a regal-looking head, richly coloured, ivory-skinned, perfectly developed in every part, except perhaps her brain: Good-natured, courageous after a fashion, well-meaning, affectionate, tenacious of what she had learned in youth, but impulsive and quite elementary in her tendencies and outlook; one who would have wished to live her own life and go her own way like an amiable, high-class savage, worshipping the sun and the stars, the thunder and the rain, principally because she could not understand them, and at times they frightened her. Such was Clara, Lady Devene. She was not imaginative, she lived in the present for the present. She never heard the roll of the wheels of Fate echoing, solemn and ceaseless, through the thin, fitful turmoil of our lives, like the boom of distant battle-guns that shape the destinies of empires discerned through the bray of brass bands upon an esplanade.

No; Clara was not imaginative, although she had a heart, although, for example, from year to year she could grieve over the man whom once she had jilted or been forced to jilt (and who afterwards died of drink), in order to take her “chance in life” and marry Lord Devene whom she cordially disliked; whom she knew, moreover, to be self-seeking and cross-souled, as each in his or her degree were all his race from the first remembered Ullershaw down to himself and his collaterals. Ultimately, such primitive and unhappy women are apt to find some lover, especially if he reminds them of their first. Lady Devene had done so at any rate, and that lover, as it chanced, was scarcely more than a lad, her husband’s heir and cousin, a well-meaning but hot-hearted youth, whom she had befooled with her flatteries and with her beauty, and now doted on in a fashion common enough under such circumstances. Moreover, she had been found out, as she was bound to be, and the thing had come to its inevitable issue. The birds were blind, and Lord Devene was no man to spread his nets in vain.

Lady Devene was not imaginative—it has been said. Yet when her husband, lifting a large glass of claret to his lips, suddenly let it fall, so that the red wine ran over the white table-cloth like new-shed blood upon snow, and the delicate glass was shattered, she shivered, she knew not why; perhaps because instinct told her that this was no accident, but a symbol of something which was to come. For once she heard the boom of those battle-guns of Fate above the braying of the brass band on her life’s tawdry esplanade. There rose in her mind, indeed, the words of an old song that she used to sing—for she had a beautiful voice, everything about her was beautiful—a melancholy old song, which began:

“Broken is the bowl of life, spilled is its ruby wine; Behind us lie the sins of earth, before, the doom Divine!”

It was a great favourite with that unlucky dead lover of hers who had taken to drink, and whom she had jilted—before he took to drink. The memory disturbed her. She rose from the table, saying that she was going to her own sitting-room. Lord Devene answered that he would come too, and she stared at him, for he was not in the habit of visiting her apartments. In practice they had lived separate for years.

Husband and wife stood face to face in that darkened room, for the lamps were not lit, and a cloud obscured the moon which till now had shone through the open windows.

The truth was out. She knew the worst, and it was very bad.

“Do you mean to murder me?” she asked, in a hoarse voice, for the deadly hate in the man’s every word and movement suggested nothing less to her mind.

“No,” he answered; “only to divorce you. I mean to be rid of you—at last. I mean to marry again. I wish to leave heirs behind me. Your young friend shall not have my wealth and title if I can help it.”

“Divorce me? You? _You?_”

“You can prove nothing against me, Clara, and I shall deny everything, whereas I can prove all against you. This poor lad will have to marry you. Really I am sorry for him, for what chance had he against you? I do not like to see one of my name made ridiculous, and it will ruin him.”

“He shall not marry me,” she answered fiercely. “I love him too well.”

“You can settle that as you like between you. Go back to your reverend parent’s house if you choose, and take to religion. You will be an ornament to any Deanery. Or if you do not choose—” and with a dim, expressive gesture, he waved his hand towards the countless lights of London that glimmered beneath them.

She thought a while, leaning on the back of a chair and breathing heavily. Then that elementary courage of hers flared up, and she said:

“George, you want to be free from me. You noticed the beginning of my folly and sent us abroad together; it was all another plot—I quite understand. Now, life is uncertain, and you have made mine very miserable. If anything should chance to happen to me—soon, would there be any scandal? I ask it, not for my own sake, but for that of my old father, and my sisters and their children.”

“No,” he replied slowly. “In that sad and improbable event there would be no scandal. Only foolish birds foul their own nests unless they are driven to it.”

Again she was silent, then drew back from him and said:

“Thank you, I do not think there is anything to add. Go away, please.”

“Clara,” he answered, in his cold, deliberate voice, “you are worn out—naturally. Well, you want sleep, it will be a good friend to you to-night. But remember, that chloral you are so fond of is dangerous stuff; take enough if you like, but not too much!”

“Yes,” she replied heavily, “I know. I will take enough—but not too much.”

For a moment there was deep silence between them in that dark room. Then suddenly the great moon appeared again above the clouds, revealing their living faces to each other for the last time. That of the woman was tragic and dreadful; already death seemed to stare from her wide eyes, and that of the man somewhat frightened, yet remorseless. He was not one of those who recoil from their Rubicon.

“Good-bye,” he said quickly; “I am going down to Devene by the late train, but I shall be back in town to-morrow morning—to see my lawyer.”

With a white and ghost-like arm she pointed first to the door, then through the window-place upwards towards the ominous, brooding sky, and spoke in a solemn whisper:

“George,” she said, “you know that you are a hundred times worse than I, and whatever I am, you have made me, who first forced me to marry you because I was beautiful, and then when you wearied of me, treated me as you have done for years. God judge between us, for I say that as you have had no pity, so you shall find none. It is not I who speak to you from the brink of my grave, but something within me.”