Bruce of the Circle A Part 23

Her voice had mounted steadily and, at the last, she rose to her feet, bending over the bewildered Ann and gesturing heavily with her right arm while the other was pressed tightly across her chest.

"That's what I come here to tell you to-night!" she cried. "That's what you know, now. But I want you to know that while I've been bad, as bad as women get, that I've been open about it; I ain't been no hypocrite; I ain't pa.s.sed as a good woman an' ... been bad--"

"Nora, stop this!"

Ann leaped to her feet and confronted the girl, for the moment furious, combative. They faced one another in the faint light that came through the windows and before her roused intensity Nora stepped backward, yielding suddenly, frightened by this show of vigorous indignation, for she had believed that her accusation would grind the spirit, the pride, from Ann.

"Why, you-u-u- ..."

Ann's hands clenched and opened convulsively at her sides as she groped fruitlessly for words.

"You go now, Nora; go away from me! What you have said has been too contemptible, too base for me even to answer!"

She walked quickly to the door, opened it and faced about with a gesture of command. Nora hesitated a moment, then, without a word, walked from the room. In the hall she paused, back still toward Ann as though she had more that she would say, as if, possibly, she considered the advisability of going further; but, if that was true, she had no opportunity then, for the door closed firmly and the lock clicked.

It was the most confused moment in Ann's life. The identification of her husband, her several trying scenes with Bayard, would not compare with it. She heard Nora's slow, receding footsteps with infinite relief and, when they were quite gone, she realized that as she stood, back to the door, she was shaking violently. She was weakened, frightened by what had pa.s.sed, and, as she strove through those minutes to control her thoughts, to marshal the elements of the ordeal through which she had come, she became possessed by the terrifying conviction that she had no defence to offer! That she could not answer the other woman's accusations, that by telling Nora she was above replying to those charges she was only hiding behind a front of false superiority, a veneer of a.s.surance that was as artificial as it was thin.

She moved to her bed with lagging, uncertain steps and sat down with a long sigh; then, drew a wrist across her eyes, propping herself erect with the other arm.

"She ... he belongs to her ..." she said aloud, trying to bring coherence to her thinking by the uttered words. "He belongs ... to her...."

A slow warmth went through her body, into her cheeks to make them flame fiercely. That was a sense of guilt coming over her, shaming her, torturing her, and behind it, inspiring, urging it along, giving it strength, was that conscience of hers.

At other times she had defied that older self; only that evening she had regained some of the ground from which it had driven her by its last a.s.sault, lifting herself above the judgments she had been trained to respect because, in transgressing them, she had experienced a free, holy joy that had never been hers so long as she had remained within their bounds. But now! That cry for escape was gone.

She had been stealing another woman's man ... and such a woman!

Never before had she faced such ugly truths as the girl had poured upon her. Of the cancerous places in the social structure she had known, of course; at times she had even gone so far as to judge herself a wide-awake, keen-seeing woman, but now ... she shuddered as the woman's words came back to her, "White or black or red or brown; but their money was all th' same color." That was too horrible, too revolting; she could not accept it with a detached point of view. Its very truth--she did not doubt it--smirched her, for she had been stealing the man of such a woman!

Oh, that conscience was finding its revenge! That day it had been outraged, had been all but unseated; but now it came back with a vengeance. She, the lawful wife of Ned Lytton, had plotted to win Bruce Bayard. No, she had not! one part of her protested, as she weakened and sought for any escape that meant relief. You did, you did! thundered that older self. By pa.s.sively accepting, as a fact, her want of him, she had sinned. By finding joy in his touch, at sight of him, she had grievously wronged not only Ned and herself but all people. She was a contaminated thing! She was as bad, worse than Nora Brewster, because, while Nora had sinned, she admitted it, had done it openly, and frankly while she, Ann Lytton, had covered it with a cloak of hypocrisy, had refused to admit her transgressions even to herself and lied and distorted happenings, even her thoughts, until they were made to appease her craven heart!

"She said it; she said it!" Ann muttered aloud. "She said that I was a hypocrite. She said ... she did not hide!" Then, for a moment, she was firm, drawing her body, even, to firmness to contend more effectively against these suggestive accusations. What matter if she were married?

What if Bayard did love an abandoned woman? What mattered anything but that she loved him?

And, as though it had waited for her to go that far to show her hand, that other self cried out: "To your G.o.d you have given your word to love this man, your husband! To your G.o.d you have promised to love no other!

To your G.o.d you have pledged him your body, your soul, your life, come what may!"

She cowered before the thought, tearless, silent, and sat there, going through and through the same emotional experiences, always coming against the stone wall formed by her concepts of honor and morality.

In another room of the Manzanita House another woman fought with herself that night. Nora, too, stood backed against her locked door a long time after she had gained its refuge, bewildered, trying to think her way to a clear understanding of all that had happened. Its entire consequence came to her sooner than it had come to Ann. She groped along the wall to her matchsafe, scratched a light, removed the chimney from her lamp and set the wick burning. She waved out the match absently, put the charred remains in the oilcloth cover of the washstand and said to herself,

"Well, I've done it."

It was as though she spoke of the accomplishment of an end the advisability of which had been debatable in her mind, and as if there were now no remedy. What was done, was done; events of the past could not be altered, their consequences could not be changed.

She undressed listlessly, put on her nightgown and moved to the crinkled mirror to take down her hair.

"I guess that'll fix her," she muttered. "She'll get out, now...."

She looked at herself in the mirror as she began to speak, but, when her sight met its own reflection, her voice faltered, the words trailed off.

She stood motionless, scrutinizing herself closely, critically; then saw a slow flush come up from her neck, flooding her cheeks. Uneasily her eyes dropped from their reflection, then shot back with a rallying of the dark defiance that had been in them; only for an instant, for the fire disappeared, they became unsteady.

Her movements grew rapid. She drew hairpins from the coils and dropped them heedlessly. She shook out her hair and brushed it with nervous vigor; then braided it feverishly, as if some inner emotion might find vent in that simple task.

Time after time she shot glances into the mirror, but in each instance she felt her cheeks burn more fiercely, saw the confused humility increasing in her expression and, finally, her rapid breathing lost its regularity, her lips quivered and her shoulders lifted in a sob. She covered her face with her hands, pressing finger tips tightly against her eyes, struggling to master herself, to bring again that defiant spirit. But she could not; it had gone and she was fighting doggedly against the reaction, knowing that it must come, knowing what it would be, almost terror stricken at the realization.

She paced the floor, stopping now and then, and finally cried aloud:

"She _was_ stealin' him; he _is_ mine!"--as though some presence had accused her of a lie. Again, she repeated the words, but in a whisper; and conviction was not with her.

She sat down on the edge of her bed, but could not remain quiet, and commenced walking, moving automatically, almost dreamlike, distressed, flinging her arms about like a guilt-maddened Lady Macbeth. Each time she pa.s.sed the mirror she experienced a terrible desire to meet her own gaze again, but she would not, for her own eyes accused her, bored relentlessly into her heart.

"An' I called her a hypocrite," she burst out suddenly, halted, turned and rushed back toward the dresser, straining forward, forcing her gaze to read the soul that was bared before her, there in the mirror.

"You lied to her!" she muttered. "You told her dirty lies; you're throwin' him down. You're killin' her... You ...

"Oh, Bruce, Bruce!"

She turned away and let the tears come again.

"You'd hate me, Bruce, you'd hate me!"

She threw herself full length on the bed. Jealousy had had its inning.

All the bitterness that it could create had been flung forth on to the woman who had roused it and then the emotion had died. Strong as it was in Nora, the elemental, the childish, it was not so strong as her loyalty to Bayard's influence and the same thing in her that would have welcomed physical abuse from him now called on her to undo her work of the evening, to strive to prevent his love for Ann from wasting itself, though every effort that she might make toward that end would cause her suffering.

It was midnight when Ann Lytton, still motionless, still chilling and flus.h.i.+ng as thought followed thought through her confused mind, found herself in the center of her dark room. The knock that had roused her to things outside sounded again on her door, low and cautious.

"Who is it?" she asked, unsteadily.

"It's me, Nora."

The tone was husky, weak, contrite.

"Well, what do you want, Nora?"--summoning a sternness for the query.

"I ... I want to come in; I want to tell you somethin' ... if you'll let me."

Ann calculated a moment, but the quality of the other woman's voice, supplicating, uncertain, swung the balance and she unlocked the door, opening it wide. Nora stood in her long white gown, head hung, fingers nervously intertwining before her.

A pitiable humility was about the girl, and on sight of it Ann's manner changed.

"What is it, Nora? Won't you come in?"

She stepped forward, took her by the hand and gently urged her into the room, closing the door.

"Sit on the bed, Nora, while I light the lamp."

"Oh, M's. Lytton, please don't ..."--with an uneasy movement. "I'd rather ... not have to look at you...."