Chapter XXIX

As the long night drifted slowly away and a cold, livid dawn grew brighter, to Amy the whole aspect of life seemed to alter with it. The last flickering colour had faded from the dream she had been weaving, and now, in the chill white light of early morning, it seemed sad and grey enough, an empty pitiful thing, threadbare and broken, curiously ugly, like all dead things. And she wondered how she had ever yielded to it. It seemed so senseless, so repulsive, so utterly futile. She had seen it in its true light more or less from the moment she had left Rusk’s room, from the moment of its last abject and irremediable failure. She felt that she would like to steal out of the house before anyone was awake and disappear never to return. But she had nowhere to go to--and, besides, it was impossible. It had been for this that she had done all that she had done; that she had quarrelled with May; that she had humiliated herself to Rusk; that she had awakened from strange and terrible dreams in the blank horrible light between night and morning--for this!

Why had she come away from Rusk’s room without speaking? She must speak to him; she must tell him what she had said to May, what she had said to her mother; she must throw herself on his mercy, and trust to his generosity not to betray her. Last night, after her mother had left her, she had felt that she must go to him, that she must confess everything to him and not leave it to come from others:--and then, at the back of it all, had there not been some half-formulated hope, some vague thought, something that the presence of her brother had doomed and darkened? The idea was ugly and horrible--such things always must be when they fail--she hated to think of it, but it kept coming back and back to her mind, and every now and again she realized it fully with a sudden sharp shock, as if for the first time. She knew above all that it must have struck _him_ in that light. Her coming away again, without having spoken, was the very worst thing she could have done. She had known that by the time she had regained her own room, but then it was too late, and to go back a second time was impossible. It was all still before her, the interview, the confession, for she would _have_ to tell him how matters stood; otherwise her mother, or, should her mother’s promise not have been kept, perhaps even her father, might speak to him first.

And then suddenly she knew that it did not really matter. Her father would insist on Rusk’s leaving the house in any case. There was nothing to be hoped, nothing to be feared either; it was all over already, and, in a little, everybody but herself would have forgotten it.

She heard the servants moving about downstairs, opening the hall-door; she heard the rattle of a milk-can. She waited wearily while another hour, another two hours, passed. Then, at the usual time, she got up and dressed herself, but she did not leave her room, and presently her mother came to her there. Mrs. Bracknel was alarmed by her appearance and secretly decided that she must consult a doctor. “Your father is waiting downstairs to see you,” she murmured anxiously. “It is about Mr. Rusk. He thinks it best----”

In those few words Amy saw everything lost, and suddenly the tension in her brain seemed to snap. “You have told him then?” she said almost indifferently.

“Yes; he is in the drawing-room now, waiting to see you.”

Amy lifted her eyes to the window. She did not look at her mother. Her face expressed a profound dullness and lassitude that were in part due to loss of sleep. “What does he want to see me about? There is nothing more--I have nothing more to tell.”

Mrs. Bracknel looked at her uneasily. “You are sure, dear, that you are keeping nothing from us?”

“I wish you hadn’t told papa,” Amy interrupted querulously. “I wish I hadn’t said anything.... I said it without thinking, and now I shall never hear the end of it.”

She stopped suddenly at the sound of a step in the passage. They both knew that it was Mr. Bracknel’s, and at the same moment his voice was raised as he called to his wife. Mrs. Bracknel, after exchanging a glance with Amy, went to the door and let him in.

“Might I ask when you intend to come down?” he began. “Do you know what time it is? Well, wait a minute, I daresay we can settle the matter here as well as anywhere else.”

He took up his customary position before the fireplace, and stood with his hands crossed behind his back, dandling the tails of his coat. The fatuity of his air sent a chill to the girl’s heart. She gave one glance in the direction of her mother, who had taken a chair near the window, and then she herself sat down and waited, motionless, and, to all seeming, utterly impassive, for her father’s inevitable question. It came almost immediately.

“What is this nonsense about you and Mr. Rusk?”

He had an air of thinking it best not to take the matter over-seriously, rather lightly perhaps, and he spoke in a brusque, self-complacent voice that sounded dismally, hopelessly pompous to his daughter. A sudden bitterness seemed to pass into her soul. “I don’t know what you’ve heard,” she answered. “There is nothing to hear.”

As she made the avowal an immense weariness, like a heavy black cloud, descended upon her mind and spirit, leaving her cold, absolutely cold. She knew that her words, and still more the tone in which they had been uttered, must strike her father as stupid and obstinate, if not positively defiant, and that they could at best only irritate him, but she did not seem to care. She was surprised to find him continue in quite a mild way, repeating the old question, which she appeared now to have been answering all her life.

“There has never been anything between you then? Yet your mother tells me you have fallen in love with him, and that you would like to marry this precious young man, whose only prospects so far as I can gather are matrimonial; that you want us to encourage him, in other words. Of course that is nonsense, but if he has done anything to try to--to--put such ideas into your head, I consider that he has behaved in a dishonourable and an underhand way; that he has taken advantage of the confidence we placed in him to--to--in short to do whatever he has done.”

“What has he done?” asked Amy dully.

“That’s for you to tell us, miss; that’s what we’re waiting now to learn.”

“I don’t know what mamma said,” Amy pursued in the same inanimate tone. “Mr. Rusk is neither dishonourable nor underhand, as you know very well, and he has done nothing at all.”

Mr. Bracknel began to show signs of annoyance. “Nothing? But what did you tell your sister? What did you tell your mother?”

Mrs. Bracknel fortunately had not thought it necessary to mention the incident of the kiss.

“I said I cared for Mr. Rusk.... And that----”

“Well--go on--and that what?”

The girl flushed faintly. “That is all.”

“But it isn’t all. Your mother says you asked her to help you to marry him. How could you ask such a thing unless he had given you some kind of hint that he would be willing to do so?”

“There is nothing definite,” Amy faltered.

“What do you mean by ‘nothing definite’?” her father asked irritably. “At one minute you say one thing, at another another. Answer plainly, can’t you? In what way has he ever made you think that he might possibly ask you to marry him?”

“I love him,” said Amy, in a low, dogged voice.

“And is that all? He has said nothing? done nothing?”

She did not answer, and for a minute or two there was silence. Mr. Bracknel, in spite of the tone he had adopted, secretly felt relieved.

“What do you find in him that is so remarkable?” he suddenly inquired, speaking in a tone that almost approached playfulness. “Why do you think him so very wonderful?”

“I don’t think him wonderful,” answered Amy.

“You would like to marry him though? You would like me to keep him? He is the only man you will ever care for? You’ve told us that two or three times, you know, so you must be quite sure of it. You don’t think him wonderful; you don’t see anything remarkable about him--just an ordinary young fellow, in fact, except that he is the only man you will ever care for.... No matter how long you may live--thirty, forty, fifty years--the only man you will ever care for.”

Amy said nothing.

“Pooh ...!” Mr. Bracknel blew out his thick lips and laughed not unkindly. “Why, you are only beginning life! Wait till you have seen something more of the world. You will find there are better men in it than this--this schoolmaster. You are only a child, and don’t know what is best for you.”

Amy lifted her eyes and let them rest on his face. She felt a sudden and irresistible desire to speak the simple, naked truth. “I am not a child,” she replied slowly. “He is the only man I have ever loved. If he asked me to go away with him, I would go, whether I was married to him or not. I went to his room last night after mamma had left me; but I had to come away because Denis was there.”

A wonderful pause succeeded this simple speech. Then Mrs. Bracknel began to weep silently, while her husband turned a deep, purplish red. Amy looked from one to the other of her outraged parents, without any visible alteration in her own countenance. “You might have spared me this, Amy,” her mother sobbed.

“I am only telling you the truth,” said Amy bitterly. “I thought you wanted to know. I don’t see that my loving him now is any more disgraceful than it would be, if I happened to be engaged to him. I only told you because papa seemed to find it impossible to believe me.”

Mr. Bracknel took a step toward his daughter that was almost threatening. “Be silent,” he cried. “You need not advertise your shamelessness any further.”

“If I am shameless it is not my fault. People can’t be ashamed simply because they want to be. I don’t understand you. You railed and stormed at Alfred because you said he had married beneath him. But Mr. Rusk is not beneath me. I have told you everything now. At any rate you know the truth.”

Mr. Bracknel’s eyes had been fixed on his wife’s face during the greater part of this surprising confession. It was as if, after all, they _didn’t_ want, had never wanted, to know the truth. “Is she mad?” he asked. “What is the matter with her?”

But Mrs. Bracknel had already risen and she now approached her daughter. She had captured a certain air of quiet, faded dignity, though her voice faltered a little as she spoke. “We had better leave you, Amy,” she said as calmly as she could. “I will come to you later.” She opened the door and her husband went out. She followed him without looking back.

When they were outside, Mr. Bracknel began to feel more at his ease. “Your children are certainly doing you credit,” he growled, as if his own share in them were at most that of an uncle. “Well,” he added impatiently, “I suppose Rusk will have to go, and the sooner the better.” The mere fact that Amy was compelling him to send the tutor away had already considerably enhanced that young man’s value in his eyes.

“But--but--what is to become of Amy? You can see for yourself how altered she is, how ill she is!”

Mr. Bracknel looked at her half contemptuously. “You may thank heaven things are no worse,” he said grimly. “Fortunately there seems to be nothing in it except her own brazenness, and as she has been that way from her childhood I suppose nothing will change her now. I don’t expect Rusk ever even gave her a thought.” Then, as if he felt a kind of compunction, he went on more kindly: “Come, come, we’ll have to send him away, and that will be an end of it. It’s a pity, for he was doing very well so far as Denis is concerned, and he seems a decent enough young fellow. But what else can we do? He can’t stay on here, unless you want to send Amy herself away, and I don’t suppose you want to do that.”