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Audrey Craven

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<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> It was early one morning about a week after the funeral. Hardy had gone to his grave, followed last by his friends, and first by his next of kin, Audrey, and the man who had Lavernac. Audrey was still (as she always had been) his affectionate cousin. The fact was expressly stated on the visiting-card attached to the flowers wherewith she had covered his coffin. It was in Katherine's bedroom. Katherine was still in bed, waiting for Audrey to be dressed before her. Audrey was sitting at the dressing-table brushing her hair, twisting it into the big coil that shone like copper on the surface, with a dull dark red at the heart of it. She had on Katherine's white dressing-gown and Katherine's slippers. She had laughed when she put them on, they were so ridiculously large for her tiny feet. Audrey was rebounding after the pressure that had been put on her during the last ten days. The weight was lifted now. After all, she had not felt herself an important actor in that drama of death. Death himself had come and waived her coldly aside. She had been nothing in that household filled with his presence. Here again she had been overpowered[Pg 306] by one of those unseen, incomprehensible things that she could not grasp, but that crushed her and made her of no account. At times, in her misery, she had even felt a vague, faint jealousy of the dead. But since the day of the funeral her supple nature had unbent. She could talk now, and she talked incessantly, generally about Vincent. She had begun by monopolising his memory, making it a sacred possession of her own, till not even that consolation was left to Katherine. Audrey stood between her and every scene connected in her mind with Vincent; the figure of Audrey seemed to draw nearer and grow larger, until it covered everything else. Her stream of talk was blotting out the impressions that Katherine most longed to keep, giving to the past a transient character of its own. She was killing remembrance; and there came upon Katherine a fear of the forgetfulness where all things end. And now, as she lay there watching Audrey, she recalled the truth that she had lost sight of since Vincent's death—the truth that he had told her. He would have loved her—if it had not been for Audrey. She had begun to realise the intensity of the duel which had been between Audrey and her from the first. It had begun in the days when Audrey had stood in the way of Ted's career; it had gone on afterwards, when it was to be feared that she had done him still more grievous harm; and it had ended in[Pg 307] separating Katherine from Vincent, and even from his memory. Rather, that duel had neither beginning nor end. There was something foregone and inevitable about it, something that had its roots deep down in their opposite natures. It had to be. It had been from the hour when she first met Audrey until now, when the two women were again thrown together in a detestable mockery of friendship, forced into each other's arms, lying by each other's side. Audrey had been quiet for some time, and Katherine was nervously wondering when she would begin. "Katherine," she said at last, "I want you to come back with me to Chelsea to-day." The fact was, Miss Craven was in Devonshire, and Audrey was still afraid to be in the house by herself. "I couldn't, possibly. I can't leave Ted." "That doesn't matter. Ted can come too." What was Audrey's mind like? Had it no memory? "I think not, Audrey." Audrey said no more. She gave the last touches to her hair, put on her black dress, and turned herself slowly round before the looking-glass. She was satisfied with the result. It was her last day in Devon Street, so the Havilands had to be nice to her. Ted went out soon after breakfast; he was incapable of any sustained effort. Audrey did not know it, but the boy hated the house now that she was in it. Katherine had dreaded[Pg 308] being left alone with her that morning. She knew that last words would come. And they came. They were sitting together by the studio fire, talking about indifferent subjects, when suddenly Audrey left her seat and knelt down by Katherine's knees in at attitude of confession. "Katherine," she began, and her grey eyes filled with tears, "before I go, I want to tell you something——" "What is it?" "I want you to know that I really loved Vincent all the time." She waited to see the effect of her words, but Katherine set her teeth firmly and said nothing. Audrey went on, still kneeling. "I don't know what made me get engaged to Ted,—I liked him, you know, dear boy, but—I think it was because Vincent would not understand me; and he wanted to hurry things so. And you see I didn't know then how much I loved him. Then afterwards——" She stopped; she had come to the difficult part of her confession. "Well?" "Then, you see, I knew Mr. Wyndham, and he——" Another pause. "What did Mr. Wyndham do?" It was better that she should talk about Mr. Wyndham than about Vincent. "I don't know what he did, but he made me mad; he made me think I cared for him. He was so[Pg 309] clever. You know I always adored clever people; and, well—nobody could call poor Vincent clever, could they?" In spite of herself, Katherine's lip curled with scorn. But Audrey was too much absorbed in her confession to see it. "I suppose that fascinated me. Then afterwards when Vincent took to those dreadful ways—whatever my feelings were, you know, Katherine, it was impossible." Katherine could bear it no longer, but she managed to control her voice in answering. "Why do you tell me these things? Do you suppose I care to hear about your 'feelings'?—if you do feel." "If I do feel? Kathy!" "Well, why can't you keep quiet, now it's too late?" "Because—because I wanted you to know that I loved him." There was silence. Presently Audrey put one hand on Katherine's knee. "Kathy——" "I'd rather you didn't call me that, if you don't mind." "Why?" Audrey stared with large, incomprehensive eyes. "I can't tell you why." "Katherine, then—it is prettier. Do you know, I sometimes think it's better, oh, infinitely better, that he should have died."[Pg 310] Katherine rose from her seat, to end it, looking down on the kneeling figure, as she answered bitterly— "It was indeed—infinitely better." But irony, like so many other things of the kind, was beyond Audrey. "I suppose I ought to go now," she said, rising. Katherine made no answer. Audrey went away to get ready, a little reluctantly, for she had so much more to say. It had never occurred to her to be jealous of Katherine. That may have been either because she did not know, or because she did not care. She had been so sure of Vincent. Presently she came back with her hat on. She carried her bearskins in her hand, and under the shade of the broad black beaver her face wore an expression of anxious thought. "Katherine,"—she held out her cape and muff, and Katherine remembered that they were those which Vincent had given her,—"I suppose I can wear my furs still, even if I am in mourning?" There was neither scorn nor irony in the look that Katherine turned on her, and Audrey understood this time. As plainly as looks can speak, it condemned her as altogether lighter than vanity itself; and while condemning, it forgave her. "He gave them to me, you know," she said at last. Audrey's pathos generally came too late. She drove away, wrapped in her furs, and for once[Pg 311] unconscious of her own beauty, so dissatisfied was she with the part she had played in the great tragedy. Somehow her parts seemed always to dwindle this way in retrospect. That afternoon a parcel arrived, addressed to Hardy by his publishers. Katherine opened it. It contained early copies of the Pioneer-book, the book that after all Vincent was never to see. She saw with a pang her own design blazing in gold on the cover, and her frontispiece sketch of the author. Then she turned to the dedication page, and read— to her who has inspired all that there may be of good in it this book is dedicated by her affectionate cousin, VINCENT HARDY. It was an epitaph.[Pg 312] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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