Black is White 51

Black is White 51

She switched on the light in the big lamp, but instead of taking the

chair indicated, sank into one on the opposite side of the table, with

the mellow light full upon her lovely, serious face.

 

“Sit there,” she said, signifying the chair he had requested her to

take. “Please sit down,” she went on impatiently, as he continued to

regard her forbiddingly from his position near the window.

 

“I shall be better able to say what I have to say standing,” he said

significantly.

 

“Do you expect me to plead with you for forgiveness?” she inquired, with

an unmistakable look of surprise.

 

“You may save yourself the humiliation of such-----”

 

“But you are gravely mistaken,” she interrupted. “I shall ask nothing of

you.”

 

“Then we need not prolong the------”

 

“I have come to explain, not to plead,” she went on resolutely. “I want

to tell you why I married you. You will not find it a pleasant story,

nor will you be proud of your conquest. It will not be necessary for

you to turn me out of your house. I entered it with the determination to

leave it in my own good time. I think you had better sit down.”

 

He looked at her fixedly for a moment, as if striving to materialise

a thought that lay somewhere in the back of his mind. He was vaguely

conscious of an impression that he could unfathom all’ this seeming

mystery without a suggestion from her if given the time to concentrate

his mind on the vague, hazy suggestion that tormented his memory.

 

He sat down opposite her and rested his arms on the table. The lines

about his mouth were rigid, uncompromising, but there was a look of

wonder in his eyes.

 

She leaned forward in her chair, the better to watch the changing

__EXPRESSION__ in his eyes as she progressed with her story. Her hands were

clenched tightly under the table’s edge.

 

“You are looking into my eyes, as you have looked a hundred times,” she

said after a moment. “There is something in them that has puzzled you

since the night when you looked into them across that great ballroom

in London. You have always felt that they were not new to you, that you

have had them constantly in front of you for ages. Do you remember when

you first saw me, James Brood?”

 

He stared, and his eyes widened.

 

“I never saw you in my life until that night in London, I------”

 

“Look closely. Isn’t there something more than doubt in your mind as you

look into them now?”

 

“I confess that I have always been puzzled by by something I cannot

understand in--but all this leads to nothing,” he broke off harshly. “We

are not here to mystify each other, but to------”

 

“To explain mysteries, that’s it, of course. You are looking. What do

you see? Are you not sure that you looked into my eyes long, long ago?

Are there not moments when my voice is familiar to you, when it speaks

to you out of------”

 

He sat up, rigid as a block of stone.

 

“Yes, by Heaven, I have felt it all along! To--day I was convinced that

the unbelievable had happened. I saw something that------” He stopped

short, his lips parted.

 

She waved her hand in the direction of the Buddha.

 

“Have you never petitioned your too--stolid friend over there to unravel

the mystery for you? In the quiet of certain lonely, speculative hours

have you not wondered where you had seen me before, long, long before

the night in London? In all the years that you have been trying to

convince yourself that Frederic is not your son has there not been the

vision of------”

 

“What are you saying to me? Are you trying to tell me that you are

Matilde?”

 

“If not Matilde, then who am I, pray?” she demanded.

 

He sank back frowning.

 

“It cannot be possible. I would know her a thousand years from now. You

cannot trick me into believing--but, who are you?” He leaned forward

again, clutching the edge of the table. “I sometimes think you are a

ghost come to haunt me, to torture me. What trick, what magic is

behind all this? Has her soul, her spirit, her actual being found a

lodging--place in you, and have you been sent to curse me for------”

 

She rose half--way out of her chair, leaning farther across the table.

 

“Yes, James Brood, I represent the spirit of Matilde Valeska, if you

will have it so. Not sent to curse you, but to love you. That’s the pity

of it all. I swear to you that it is the spirit of Matilde that urges

me to love you and to spare you now. It is the spirit of Matilde that

stands between her son and death. But it is not Matilde who confronts

you here and now, you may be sure of that. Matilde loved you. She loves

you now, even in her grave. You will never be able to escape from that

wonderful love of hers. If there have been times--and God help me, there

were many, I know--when I appeared to love you for myself, I swear

to you that I was moved by the spirit of Matilde. I--I am as much

mystified, as greatly puzzled as yourself. I came here to hate you, and

I have loved you; yes, there were moments when I actually loved you.”

 

Her voice died away into a whisper. For many seconds they sat looking

into each other’s eyes, neither possessing the power to break the

strange spell of silence that had fallen upon them.

 

“No, it is not Matilde who confronts you now, but one who would not

spare you as she did up to the hour of her death. You are quite safe

from ghosts from this hour on, my friend. You will never see Matilde

again, though you look into my eyes till the end of time. Frederic may

see, may feel the spirit of his mother, but you--ah, no! You have seen

the last of her. Her blood is in my veins, her wrongs are in my heart.

It was she with whom you fell in love, and it was she you married six

months ago, but now the curtain is lifted. Don’t you know me now, James?

Can your memory carry you back twenty--three years and deliver you from

doubt and perplexity? Look closely, I say. I was six years old then,

and------”

 

Brood was glaring at her as one stupefied. Suddenly he cried out in a

loud voice. “You are you are the little sister? The little Thérèse?”

 

She was standing now, leaning far over the table, for he had shrunk down

into his chair.

 

“The little Thérèse, yes! Now do you begin to see? Now do you begin to

realise what I came here to do? Now do you know why I married you? Isn’t

it clear to you? Well, I have tried to do all these things so that I

might break your heart as you broke hers. I came to make you pay!”

 

She was speaking rapidly, excitedly now. Her voice was high--pitched and

unnatural.. Her eyes seemed to be driving him deeper and deeper into the

chair, forcing him down as though with a giant’s hand.

 

“The little, timid, heart--broken Thérèse who would not speak to you,

nor kiss you, nor say goodbye to you when you took her darling sister

away from the Bristol in the _Kartnerring_ more than twenty years ago.

Ah, how I loved her, how I loved her! And how I hated you for taking

her away from me. Shall I ever forget that wedding night? Shall I ever

forget the grief, the loneliness, the hatred that dwelt in my poor

little heart that night? Everyone was happy, the whole world was happy;

but was I? I was crushed with grief. You were taking her away across the

awful sea, and you were to make her happy, so they said, _aie_, so said

my beloved, joyous sister.

 

“You stood before the altar in St Stephens’s with her and promised,

promised, promised everything. I heard you. I sat with my mother and

turned to ice, but I heard you. All Vienna, all Budapest said that you

promised naught but happiness to each other. She was twenty--one. She

was lovely; ah, far lovelier than that wretched photograph lying there

in front of you. It was made when she was eighteen. She did not write

those words on the back of the card. I wrote them, not more than a month

ago, before I gave it to Frederic. To this house she came twenty--three

years ago. You brought her here the happiest girl in all the world. How

did you send her away? How?”

 

He stirred in the chair. A spasm of pain crossed his face.

 

“And I was the happiest man in all the world,” he said hoarsely. “You

are forgetting one thing, Thérèse.” He fell into the way of calling her

Thérèse as if he had known her by no other name. “Your sister was not

content to preserve the happiness that------”

 

“Stop!” she commanded. “You are not to speak evil of her now. You will

never think evil of her after what I am about to tell you. You will

curse yourself. Somehow I am glad that my plans have gone awry. It gives

me the opportunity to see you curse yourself.”

 

“Her sister!” muttered the man unbelievingly. “I have married the child

Thérèse. I have held her sister in my arms all these months and never

knew. It is a dream. I------”

 

“Ah, but you have _felt_, even though------”

 

He struck the table violently with his fist. His eyes were blazing.

 

“What manner of woman are you? What were you planning to do to that

unhappy boy--her son? Are you a fiend to------”

 

“In good time, James, you will know what manner of woman I am,” she

interrupted quietly. Sinking back in the chair, she resumed the broken

strain, all the time watching him through half--closed eyes. “She died

ten years ago. Her boy was twelve years old. She never saw him after the

night you turned her away from this house. On her death--bed, as she was

releasing her pure, undefiled soul to God’s keeping, she repeated to

the priest who went through the unnecessary form of absolving her,

she repeated her solemn declaration that she had never wronged you by

thought or deed. I had always believed her, the holy priest believed

her, God believed her. You would have believed her, too, James Brood.

She was a good woman. Do you hear? And you put a curse upon her and

drove her out into the night. That was not all. You persecuted her to

the end of her unhappy life. You did that to my sister!”