"No, I haven't to-day."
"I generally go and sit by him for a little while at this time when I'm free. Did you know that?"
"I gathered it," said Grantley.
"You've never come with me, nor offered to."
"I'm not encouraged to volunteer things in my relations with you, Sibylla."
"Will you come with me now?" she asked.
She herself could not tell under what impulse she spoke—whether it were in hope that at the last he might change, in the hope of convincing herself that he would never change. She watched him very intently, as though much hung on the answer that he gave.
Grantley seemed to weigh his answer too, looking at his wife with searching eyes. There was a patch of red on his cheeks. Evidently what she had said stirred him, and his composure was maintained only by an effort. At last he spoke:
"I'm sorry not to do anything you ask or wish, but as matters are, I will not come and see Frank with you."
"Why not?" she asked in a quick half-whisper.
His eyes were very sombre as he answered her.
"When you remember that you're my wife, I'll remember that you're the mother of my son. Till then you are an honoured and welcome guest in this house or in any house of mine."
Their eyes met; both were defiant, neither showed a hint of yielding. Sibylla drew in her breath in a long inhalation.
"Very well, I understand," she said.
He rose from his chair.
"You're going upstairs now?" he suggested, as though about to open the door.
"I'm going, but I'm not going upstairs to-night," she answered as she rose. "I shall go and write a letter or two instead."
He bowed politely as she passed out of the room. Then he sat down at the table again and rested his head on both his hands. It took long—it took a very long while. She was hard to subdue. Hard it was too to subdue himself—to be always courteous, never more than permissibly ironical, to wait for his victory. Yet not a doubt crossed his mind that he was on the right track, that he must succeed in the end, that plain reason and good sense must win the day. But the fight was very long. His face looked haggard in the light as he sat alone by the table and told himself to persevere.
And Sibylla, confirmed in her despair, bitterly resentful of the terms he had proposed, seeing the hopelessness of her life, fearing to look on the face of her child lest the pain should rend her too pitilessly, sat down and wrote her answer to Walter Blake. The answer was the promise he had asked.
The images had done their work—hers of him and his of her—and young Blake's fancy picture of himself.
"Well, have you managed to amuse yourself to-day?" asked Caylesham, throwing himself heavily on a sofa by Tom Courtland, and yawning widely.
He had dropped in at Mrs. Bolton's, after dinner. Tom had spent the day there, and had not managed to amuse himself very much, as the surly grunt with which he answered Caylesham's question sufficiently testified. He had eaten too much lunch, played cards too long and too high, with too many "drinks" interspersed between the hands; then had eaten a large dinner, accompanied by rather too much champagne; then had played cards again till both his pocket and his temper were the worse. There had been nothing startling, nothing lurid about his day; it had just been unprofitable, boring, unwholesome. And he did not care about Mrs. Bolton's friends—not about Miss Pattie Henderson, nor about the two quite young men who had made up the card-party. His face was a trifle flushed, and his toothbrushy hair had even more than usual of its suggestion of comical distress.
"Been a bit dull, has it?" Caylesham went on sympathetically. "Well, it often is. Oh, I like our friend Flora Bolton, you know, so long as she doesn't get a fit of nerves and tell you how different she might have been. People should never do that. At other times she's a good sort, and just as ready to ruin herself as anybody else—nothing of the good old traditional harpy about her. Still perhaps it works out about the same."
It certainly worked out about the same, as nobody knew better than Tom Courtland. He was thinking now that he had paid rather high for a not very lively day. The only person he had won from was Miss Henderson, and he was not sure that she would pay.
"Must spend your time somewhere," he jerked out forlornly.
"A necessity of life," Caylesham agreed; "and it doesn't make so much difference, after all, where you do it. I rather agree with the fellow who said that the only distinction he could see between—well, between one sort of house and the other sort—was that in the latter you could be more certain of finding whisky and soda on the sideboard in the morning; and now I'm hanged if that criterion isn't failing one! Whisky and soda's got so general."
The card-party at the other end of the room was animated and even a little noisy. Mrs. Bolton was prone to hearty laughter. Miss Henderson had a penetrating voice, and usually gave a little shriek of delight when she won. The two young men were rather excited. Caylesham regarded the whole scene with humorous contempt. Tom Courtland sat in moody silence, doing nothing. He had even smoked till he could smoke no more. He had not a pleasure left.
Presently Miss Pattie threw down her cards and came across to them. She was a tall ladylike-looking young woman; only the faintest trace of Cockney accent hung about the voice. She sat down by Caylesham in a friendly way.
"We hardly ever see you now," she told him. "Are you all right?"
"All right, but getting old, Pattie. I'm engaged in digging my own grave."
"Oh, nonsense, you're quite fit still. I say, have you heard about me?"
"Lots of things."
"No, don't be silly. I mean, that I'm going to be married?"
"No, are you, by Jove? Who's the happy man?"
"Georgie Parmenter. Do you know him? He's awfully nice."
"I know his father. May I proffer advice? Get that arrangement put down in writing. Then at the worst it'll be worth something to you."
Miss Pattie was not at all offended. She laughed merrily.
"They always said you were pretty wide-awake, and I believe it!" she observed. "He'll have ten thousand a year when his father dies."
"In the circumstances you mention he won't have a farthing a year till that event happens, I'm afraid, Pattie. A man of strong prejudices, old Sir George."
"Well, I'm sure I've got letters enough to——"
"That's all right. I shall watch the case with interest."
He yawned again and rose to his feet.
"Tom's pretty dull, isn't he?" asked Miss Pattie with a comical pout.
"Yes, Tom's pretty dull, certainly."
"I'm sleepy," said Tom Courtland.
"So am I. I shall go home," and Caylesham walked off to bid the lady of the house good-night.
The lady of the house came into the hall and helped him on with his coat. It appeared that she wanted to have a word with him—first about the wisdom of backing one of his horses, and secondly about Tom Courtland. Caylesham told her on no account to back the horse, since it wouldn't win, and waited to hear what she had to say about Tom.
"I'm distressed about him, Frank," she said. "You know I do like Tom, and I never saw a man so down in the mouth." Her face was rather coarse in feature and ruddy in tint, but kindly and good-natured; her concern for Tom was evidently quite genuine. "What a devil that wife of his must be!"
"She has her faults. Perhaps we have ours. Be charitable, Flora."
"Oh, you can be as sarcastic as you like. Heaven knows I don't mind that! But I'm worried to death about him, and about what she'll do. And then there's the money too. I believe he's hard up. It's very tiresome all round. Oh, I don't care much what people say of me, but I don't want to go through the court again, if I can help it."
"Which of the two courts do you refer to?" he asked, as he buttoned his coat. "Bankruptcy or——?"
"Either of them, Frank, you old fool!" she laughed.
"Send him back to his wife. You'll have to soon, anyhow—when the money's gone, you know. Do it now—before those two men come and stand opposite to see who goes in and out of the house."
"But the poor chap's so miserable, Frank; and I like him, you see."
"Ah, I can't help you against honest and kindly emotions. They're not part of the game, you know."
"No, they aren't; but they come in. That's the worst of it," sighed Mrs. Bolton. "Well, good-night, Frank. We shall get through somehow, I suppose."
"That's the only gospel left to this age, Flora. Good-night."
He had not been able to help poor Mrs. Bolton much; he had not expected to be able to. That things could not be helped and must be endured was, as he had hinted, about the one certain dogma of his creed. The thing then was to endure them as easily as possible, to feel them as little as one could either for oneself or for other people. There was Flora Bolton's mistake, and a mistake especially fatal for a woman in her position. She would probably have been much happier if she had not been just as ready to ruin herself as she was to ruin anybody else—if she had, in fact, been the old traditional harpy through and through.
In truth it was not the least use distressing himself about Tom Courtland. Still he was rather worried about the affair, because Tom, again, was not thoroughly suited to the part he was now playing. Plenty of men were, and they demanded no pity. But poor old Tom was not. He could not spend his money without thinking about it; he could not do things without considering their bearings and their consequences; he could not forget to-morrow. He had none of the qualifications. His tendencies were just as little suited to the game as were Flora Bolton's honest and kindly emotions. Tom was pre-eminently fitted to distribute the bacon at the family breakfast and to take the children for their Sunday walk; to work away at his politics in a solid undistinguished way, and to have a good margin in hand when he came to make up the annual budget of his household. But Lady Harriet had prevailed to rout all these natural tendencies. A remarkable woman, Lady Harriet!
Suddenly Caylesham saw ahead of him a figure which he recognised by the light of the street lamps. It was John Fanshaw going in the direction of his home. It was rather late for John to be about, and Caylesham's first idea was to overtake him and rally him on his dissipated hours. He had already quickened his steps with this view, when it struck him that, after all, he would not accost John. It might look as if he wanted to be thanked for his loan. Anyhow John would feel bound to thank him, and he did not desire to be thanked. So he fell behind, and followed in that fashion till his road home diverged from John's. But the encounter had turned his thoughts in a new direction. Tom and Lady Harriet were no more in his mind, nor was Flora Bolton. He was thinking about Christine as he turned into his flat, and being sorry that she had felt so much dislike to taking the money from him. It was all right that she should dislike it, but still he was sorry for her. Christine's small dainty face had always kept so much of the child about it that it had the power of making him very sorry for her just because she was sorry for herself, apart from any good reasons at all. His feelings, however well schooled they might be, would not easily have faced a great distress on Christine's face. But as he got into his dressing-gown the sombre hue passed from his mind. Either there was nothing to worry about, or it was no good worrying. Everybody would get through somehow.
John Fanshaw pursued his homeward way heavily and slowly. He had gone straight from the Courtlands' house to the quietest of his clubs, and sent a messenger to his wife to say that he was going to dine there, and that she was not to sit up in case he were late back. He wanted to think the thing over, and he did not want to see Christine. He could not even try to doubt; Harriet Courtland's passionate taunt and her passionate remorse—her remorse most of all—had carried, and continued to carry, absolute conviction; and memory, hideously active and acute, still plied him with confirmatory details. After these six years he remembered things which at the time he could hardly have been said to know; they emerged from insignificance and took on glaring meanings. How had he been so blind? Yet he had been utterly blind. He had had many quarrels with Christine—over money and so forth; he had blamed her for many faults, sometimes justly, sometimes not. This one thing he had never suspected—no, nor dreamed of her. It seemed to shatter at one blow all his conceptions of their married life. He was confused and bewildered at the thought of it—so it cut away foundations and tore up deep-grown roots. Christine do that? Orderly, cool, sarcastic, self-controlled Christine! She seemed the old Christine no more. He did not know how to be towards her. He would hate to have her near him—she would not seem to be his.
He found himself wishing he had known of the thing at the time. It would have been a fearful shock, but by now he would have grown used to it. Something would have been done, or, if nothing had been done, the thing would have become ancient history—a familiar fact to which they would have adjusted themselves. It was awful to be told of it now, when it seemed too late to do anything, when the wound was so old, and yet the smart of it so fresh!
And she had been such a good wife—yes, on the whole. Their bickerings had been only bickerings, and he had often been as much to blame as she. On the whole, she had been such a loyal friend and such a comforting companion. He had liked even her acid little speeches—on the whole. He had always thought her not very demonstrative perhaps, but very true—true as steel. Cold perhaps—he had felt that and resented it sometimes—but always true. He had never had a misgiving as to that in all his married life.
When he got home he went straight to his study and sat down at his writing-table. It was one o'clock, and Christine would have gone to bed—he was glad of that. He made an effort to collect his mind, because the immediate question was not of what Christine had done, not of the blow to him, not whether he wanted to see Christine or even could bear to see her, not of the change all his life and all his ideas had undergone. There was plenty of time to think of all that later on. He must think now of the other thing—of how he stood and of what he was going to do.
He took out his keys and unlocked the despatch-box that stood on the table. After pausing to take a drink of whisky and water, he opened the upper drawer and drew forth Caylesham's cheque for fifteen thousand pounds. It had been post-dated to the Monday—it was already Monday now. In nine hours it was to have been credited to his account at the bank, ready to answer his obligations, to discharge his commitments, to reassure his creditors, to drive away all the clouds which had obscured the fair fame of his firm. Caylesham's cheque and Grantley's were to have been salvation. Grantley's alone was no use. And Caylesham's—he held it in his fingers and looked at it with a poring scrutiny.
Twice he reached for an envelope, in the mind to send it back—to send it back either with the truth or with a lie. Once he took hold of either end, as though to tear it across. But a paralysis fell on his fingers. How should he send back, how should he destroy, that all-potent little slip of paper? It meant credit, honour, comfort, peace—perhaps even life. His imagination pictured two scenes—going to the City, to his office, next day, with that slip of paper; and going without it. The sketch was enough—his thoughts were too busy to fill in the details. One picture meant a gradual ascent from out of all his troubles; the other, a fall into a gulf of calamity unfathomable. His hands refused to destroy or to send back the cheque.
But if he kept it, used it, owed salvation to it—what would that mean? The question bewildered him. He could not make out what that would mean as regarded either himself or Caylesham or Christine—least of all what it would mean as regarded Christine. He was duly conscious that the act would be in some sort a condonation. A condonation going how far? Imposing what attitude and what course of conduct on him? How far would it condition his bearing towards Caylesham, how far affect his estimate of himself? Above all, how far dictate his relations to Christine? He knew very well what would come of destroying the cheque or of sending it back. He could not reason out what he would stand committed to if he kept and used it.
Ah, this horrible question could not have arisen, either, if he had known of the thing at the time. It was fearful to be told of it now.
"It's a terrible situation for a man to be placed in—terrible!" he said aloud.
The thought flashed across his mind that he could pretend not to know. He could give Lady Harriet a caution; he could tell her he attached no importance to her words; she would take the hint and be glad. Caylesham would suspect nothing. He could keep the cheque. And Christine? Could he make that pretence to Christine?
He was sitting shrunk low into his chair, the cheque still in his fingers, when the door opened softly, and Christine came in. She had heard him open and close the front door, and had wondered why he did not come upstairs. His delay, taken with his staying out all the evening, made her ask whether anything had happened. She was in a white dressing-gown, which she had thrown on when she got out of bed, and little slippers of white fur. She looked very small, very dainty, very childish; her hair was like a child's too, brushed smoothly away from the forehead.
"Why, John, what's kept you so late? And what are you doing here?"
She came some steps towards him, before she saw what it was that he held in his hand. Then she smiled, saying:
"You're gloating over that cheque, you foolish man!"
He raised dull slow eyes to her.
"Yes, I've got it here," he muttered.
Christine walked to the rug; his table was on one side of the fireplace, and she was within five or six feet of him.
"What are you doing with it?" she asked, with an impatient ring in her voice. She did not enjoy the sight of the cheque, and had hoped to be able by degrees to forget it.
"It's dated for Monday. I ought to pay it in in the morning."
"Well, why not? Of course you'll pay it in." A sudden hope rose in her. "Nothing's occurred to make it unnecessary?"
He shook his head heavily, and laid the paper down on the table.
"No, nothing," he said, and then his eyes rested on her again.
"John, aren't you well?" she asked.
Her littleness and her childishness made no appeal to his tender feelings. Their contrast with what she had done, with the way she had deceived and betrayed him, roused all his repulsion again, and with it came now a man's primitive fierce anger. It was impossible for him to pretend not to know.
"Go away!" he said in a thick harsh whisper. "Go to bed—I don't want you. I want to be alone."
Her eyes seemed to grow large; a fearful apprehension dawned in them.
"What's the matter? What have I done?" she asked, trying to summon her wits, wondering at what point she was attacked. Already her thoughts were on Caylesham, but she did not yet see whence suspicion could have come.
He gave her no clue. His eyes had fallen to the cheque again; he kept shuffling his legs about and fidgeting with his short stiff beard.
"Ah," she cried suddenly, "you went to Harriet Courtland's to-day! Has she said something about me? John, you wouldn't believe what she said against me?"
He made no answer. In truth she needed none. She knew Harriet Courtland, who had been her friend and in her confidence. It had not been considered safe to send Raymore, because Harriet would have taunted him about his erring son. She knew what Harriet, blind with rage, had found to taunt John Fanshaw with. She was hardly conscious of resentment against the traitor. It was all too hopeless for that, and it all seemed too inevitable. From the moment she had agreed to go to Caylesham for the money, her forebodings had told her that calamity would come. That was opening the grave. Now the dead bones had come to life. She felt as though she could not struggle against it—could not protest nor deny. She did not see how anybody could believe her denial.
"Why haven't you gone? I told you to go. In God's name, go!" he growled threateningly. "Leave me alone, I tell you."
She gathered her dressing-gown closer round her. She felt as though the cold struck through it to her body. She felt utterly prostrated—and, oh, so terribly, so helplessly sorry for poor old John! She hated leaving him alone, and wished there was somebody else there to console him. She made an advance towards him, holding out her hands.
"Don't come here! Don't come near me!" he said in a low voice.
She drew back; her eyes were on him and full of pity. Now the cheque came into her mind.
"And that?" she whispered.
"I think I shall kill you if you don't go," he said, with a sudden unsteadiness in his voice.
"Oh, I'll go!" she murmured disconsolately. "I'll leave you alone." She put her hands up before her face and gave a choking sob. "It's all no use now."
She began to walk across the room, her face covered in her hands, her dressing-gown trailing on the floor behind her. But when she had got half-way, she turned on him in a fit of weak petulance.
"I didn't want to go to him; I tried not to. I did all I could to avoid going to him. It was you who insisted. You made me go. How could I help it? I hated it! And now——" She came a step towards him, and her voice changed to a very humble sad pleading: "It's very long ago, dear John, many years ago. It was all over many years ago."
He did not speak. He motioned her away with his hand; her appeal did not seem to reach him at all. For all he did, he might not have heard it. With a long sigh she turned away, and walked unsteadily to the door. When she reached it, she turned again, and looked at him. He was putting the cheque back in the despatch-box with awkward trembling hands. She went slowly up to her room and sat down before the dying embers of the fire there.
John would send back the cheque! He must send it back now; it would be a fearful thing to keep it, knowing what he did. And if he sent it back, all that happened then would be on her head! He mustn't send it back! She started up once in a panic, ready to rush down and implore him to keep it—implore him to commit the baseness of keeping it. No, she could not do that. If she were never to speak with him again, her last word ought to be to beseech him to send it back. But to send it back was ruin. Between the remorseless alternatives of calamity and degradation her mind oscillated in helpless indecision.
Through long hours of the night John Fanshaw wrestled with himself; and when at last he crawled up to his dressing-room, flung off his coat and waistcoat, put on his slippers, and stretched himself exhausted on his bed, he declared that he could come and had come to no conclusion—that it was too hard for him. He was trying to deceive himself. There was a conclusion which he would not own, which had crept and insinuated itself into his mind, while he struggled against it and denied it to himself.
He could not send back nor destroy the cheque. Still his hands had refused that office. He could not face the City without it, could not endure the calamity and the ruin which the loss of it would mean. But neither would he face that fact and what it meant—that he was to become a party to the transaction, to recognise, to condone, and to pardon. He had no right to keep his anger, his indignation, the repulsion which made him drive Christine from his presence, if he were her accomplice. If he kept and used the cheque, what right had he to moral indignation, to a husband's just anger, to a true man's repulsion at the shame and the deceit? Yet he would not give up these things. He hugged them in his heart, even while he hugged the idea of the cheque, and all the virtue of the cheque, in his mind. He would be saved, but he would not touch the hand that saved him. That conclusion did not bear thinking of. But conclusions which do not bear thinking of are none the less thought out; they take possession of the protesting mind; they establish themselves there. Then they seek sophisms, excuses, pleas for themselves; they point to the good results which spring from them. Time and familiarity rob them of some of their ugliness; they grow habitual; they govern actions, shape lives, and condition character. John Fanshaw would have it both ways—salvation by his wife's sin, and horror at it.
So Harriet Courtland would have love and loyalty, though she bridled not her evil rage. So Mrs. Bolton would think honest and kindly emotions could flourish in a life like hers. So Grantley Imason asked all her inmost life and love of another, though the lock was kept turned on his own. So Sibylla would give the rein to impulse, and persuade herself that she performed a duty. So young Blake would seek to be made good by the enjoyment of his darling sin. Only dainty little Christine looked open-eyed at the pleasure she had won and at the ruin it had made. She saw these things clearly as she sat sleepless through the night. And when she watched her husband start for his work the next morning, though he had told her nothing, though not a word had passed between them, she knew well that Caylesham's cheque was in his pocket and would find its way to the bank that day. John would have his salvation—with or without its price.
Jeremy Chiddingfold had established himself in London greatly to his satisfaction. He had hired a bedroom in Ebury Street, an attic, and had made friends with one Alec Turner, a journalist, who lodged in the same house. Alec Turner took him often to the Metropolitan Radical Club, and had proposed him for membership. Here he could eat at moderate charges, play chess, smoke, and argue about all things in heaven (assuming heaven) and earth (which, anyhow, was full of matter for argument). And at Ebury Street he was not only within easy reach of the Imasons in Sloane Street, but equally well in touch with the Selfords in Eccleston Square, and the Raymores in Buckingham Gate. A third-class on the Underground Railway from Victoria carried him to Liverpool Street, whence he proceeded to the dyeing-works near Romford, in Essex. For the dyeing-works project was taking shape. Jeremy had been down to Romford several times to look round and see what the processes were like. He had digested the article on dyeing in theEncyclopædia Britannica, and had possessed himself of theDictionary of Dyeingand theManual of Dyeing. His talk both at the Metropolitan Radical Club and at the houses he frequented was full of the learning and the terminology of dyeing—things you dyed, and things you dyed the things with, and the things you did it in, and so forth. He fascinated Eva Raymore by referring airily (and at this stage somewhat miscellaneously) to warm vats, and copperas, and lime vats, to insoluble basic compounds, to mordants and their applications, to single and double muriate of tin. You could go so far on the article without bothering about theDictionaryor theManualat all; but then Eva did not know that, and thought him vastly erudite. In fact Jeremy was in love with dyeing, and rapidly reconsidered his estimate of the Beautiful—the Beautiful as such, even divorced from Utility—in the scheme of nature and of life. On Alec Turner's recommendation he read Ruskin and William Morris, and thought still better of the Beautiful.
He soon made himself at home both at the Selfords' and at the Raymores', dropping in freely and casually, with an engaging confidence that everybody would be glad to see him and pleased to allow him to deposit his long angular body in an armchair, and talk about dyeing or the Social Armageddon. He was, however, interested in other things too—not so much in pictures, but certainly in dogs. He had country lore about dogs and their diseases, and so won Mrs. Selford's respect. He found Anna Selford's keen mind an interesting study, and delighted to tease the pretty innocence of Eva Raymore. In neither house was there a young man—no son at the Selfords', and the Raymores' house was empty of theirs; and Jeremy, in his shabby coat, with his breezy jollity and vigorous young self-assertion, came like a gust of fresh wind, and seemed to blow the dust out of the place. Mrs. Raymore, above all, welcomed him. He went straight to her heart; she was for ever comparing and contrasting him with her own boy so far away—and only just the inevitable little to his disadvantage. Jeremy, in his turn, though unconsciously, loved the atmosphere of the Raymores' house—the abiding sense of trouble, hard to bear, but bravely borne, and the closeness of heart, the intimacy of love which it had brought. Being at the Selfords' amused him; but being at the Raymores' did more than that.
And what of his broken heart? Anna Selford had heard the story and asked him once in her mocking way.
"You seem so very cheerful, Mr. Chiddingfold!" said she.
Jeremy explained with dignity. His heart was not broken; it had merely been wounded. Not only did he consider it his, and any man's, duty to be cheerful, but as a fact he found no difficulty in being cheerful, occupied as he was with the work of life, and sustained by a firm purpose and an unshaken resolve.
"Only I don't care to talk about it," he added, by which he meant, really, that he did not care to talk about it to persons of a satirical turn. Mrs. Raymore could get him to talk about it very freely, while to Eva he would sometimes (usually for short times) be so moody and melancholy as to excite an interest of a distinctly sentimental nature. It is to be feared that, like most lovers, Jeremy was not above a bit of posing now and then. He was having a very full and happy life, and, without noticing the fact, began gradually to be more patient about the riches and the fame.
None the less, affairs were in train. Selford's working partners were disposed to be complaisant about Jeremy and the dyeing-works; they were willing to oblige Selford, and found themselves favourably impressed by the young man himself. But business is business. They could give him a pittance for ever, no doubt. If he wanted that very different thing—an opening—other considerations came to the front. Good openings are not lightly given away.
In fine, Jeremy could come and try his hand at a nominal salary. If he proved his aptitude, they would be willing to have him for a junior partner; but in that case he must put five thousand pounds into the business. The sum was not a large one to ask, they said; and with all their good opinion of Jeremy and all their desire to oblige Selford, they could not, in justice to themselves, their wives, and their families, put the figure any lower.
It was rather a shock to Jeremy, this first practical illustration of the pervading truth that in order to get money you must have some first. He might give all he had in the world, and not realise five thousand pounds. He went to tea at the Raymores' that evening with his spirits dashed. He had consulted Alec Turner, but that young man had only whistled, implying thereby that Jeremy might whistle for the money too. The journalistic temperament was not, Jeremy felt, naturally sympathetic; so he laid the question before Mrs. Raymore.
To her it was the opening of the sluice-gates. She was full of maternal love, dammed up by distance and absence. She was tender and affectionate towards Eva, but her love for her daughter was pale and weak beside her feeling for her only son; and now a portion of the flow meant for far-off Charley was diverted to Jeremy. She loved and could have wept over his brave simplicity, his sincere question as to how he could speedily make five thousand pounds. He was not a fool; he knew he could not break the bank at Monte Carlo, or write a play or a novel, or get the desired sum thereby if he did; but he had the great folly which clings to men older than he was—the belief that blind impartial fortune may show special divine favour. Kate Raymore smiled and sighed.
"Have you no friends who would guarantee it—who would advance it? You could pay interest, and pay off the capital gradually," she suggested.
That was not at all Jeremy's idea.
"No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be indebted to anybody."
"But it's a pity to let the chance slip, from a feeling of that sort," she urged.
"Besides there's nobody in our family who ever had such a lot of money to spare," said Jeremy, descending to the practical. He sighed too, and acknowledged the first check to his ardent hopes, the first disillusionment, in the words: "I must wait."
When a man says that he must wait, he has begun to know something of the world. The lesson that often he must wait in vain remains behind.
"But I shall find out some way," he went on (the second lesson still unlearnt). "I've got a fortnight to give my answer in. They'll keep it open for me till then."
Eva came in, with her large learning eyes, and her early charming girl's wonder at the strength and cleverness of the young men she liked. In a very few minutes Jeremy was confident and gay, telling her how he had the prospect of a partnership in quite a little while. Oh, yes, a junior partnership, of course, and a minor share. But it ought to be worth four or five hundred a year anyhow—yes, to start with. And what it might come to—in vigorous hands, with new blood, new intellect, new energy—well, nobody could tell. Mr. Thrale's casks and vats were not really—as a potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice—comparable to Jeremy's vats and mordants and muriates. Eva was wonderfully impressed, and exclaimed, in childish banter:
"I hope you'll know us still, after you're as rich as that?"
Jeremy liked that. It was just the sort of feeling which his wealth was destined to raise in Dora Hutting. Meanwhile, pending the absence and obduracy of Dora, it was not unpleasant to see it reflected in Eva's wondering eyes. Mrs. Raymore listened and looked on with a fixed determination to lose no time in telling Grantley Imason that for a matter of five thousand pounds the happiness of a life—of a life or two—was to be had. The figure was often cheaper than that, of course; less than that often meant joy or woe—far less. Witness Charley in Buenos Ayres, over youthful folly and a trifle of a hundred and fifty! But Grantley was rich—and she did not know that he had recently lent John Fanshaw fifteen thousand pounds.
In requital for services rendered at the Metropolitan Radical, Jeremy had introduced his friend, Alec Turner, to the Selfords. Alec had come up to town from the staff of a provincial journal, and found very few houses open to him in London, so that he was grateful. He had a native, although untrained, liking for art, and could talk about pictures to Selford, while Jeremy talked about dogs to Mrs. Selford; and both the young men sparred with Anna, whose shrewd hits kept them well on their defence. Alec went about his avocations in a red tie, a turned-down collar, and lively mustard-coloured clothes. A dress suit he assumed reluctantly when he was sent to report the speeches of prosperous Philistine persons at public dinners. He hated prosperous Philistine persons, especially if their prosperity (and consequent Philistinity) came from art or letters, and delighted in composing paragraphs which should give them a little dig. He was, however, not really ill-natured, and would not have hurt the prosperous persons seriously, even if he could have; he was anxious to declare that neither he nor anybody else could, in fact, hurt them seriously, owing to the stupidity of the public—which was incalculable. He was a decided assistance to Jeremy in enlivening the Selford household and in keeping Anna's wits busy and bright.
"I suppose nothing would induce you to be successful?" she said to him with malicious simplicity.
"Success for me means something quite different," Alec explained. "It lies in influencing the trend of public opinion."
"But the public's hopelessly stupid! It seems to me rather foolish to spend your time trying to influence hopelessly stupid people."
Jeremy chuckled. He did not see how Alec was going to get out of that.
"I spoke of the bulk. There is a small intelligent minority on whom one can rely."
"If you can rely on them already, why do they want influencing?" objected Anna.
"On whom one can rely for a hearing and for intelligent appreciation, Miss Selford."
"Then the fewer people who care what you say, the more successful you really are?"
"That's hardly the way I should put it——"
"No, I don't suppose you would," interrupted Anna. "But it comes to that, doesn't it, Jeremy?"
"Of course it does," agreed Jeremy. "The fact is, writing about things is all rot. Go and do something—something practical."
Dyeing was doing something practical.
"Oh, yes, go into business, of course, and get rich by cheating. Trading's only another name for cheating."
"Well, you're right there for once," said Anna.
"Right?" cried Jeremy fiercely. "Well, then, why isn't it cheating when he" (he pointed scornfully at Alec) "charges a ha'penny for his beastly opinion about something?"
"Oh, it's not for me to say! You must ask Mr. Turner that."
In fact the discussions were of a most spirited order, since everybody was always quite wrong, and each in turn could be rapidly and ignominiously refuted, the other two uniting in a warm but transient alliance to that end.
This young and breezy society was good for Selford and for his wife too. It gave them something to think about, and did not leave each so much time to consider the unreasonableness of the other. Tiffs became less frequent, the false sentimentalism of their reconciliations was less in demand; and as they watched Anna's deftness and brightness, they began to ask whether they had been as proud of her as they ought to be.
"She's got brains, that girl of ours," said Selford, nodding his head complacently.
"And a taking manner, don't you think, Dick?"
"Those boys find her attractive, or it looks like it, anyhow!"
"Of course she's not exactly pretty, but I do think she's rather distinguished somehow."
"Your daughter would be sure to be that, my dear Janet," he remarked gallantly.
"No, I really think she's more like you," insisted Janet amiably. "I must make an effort" (Mrs. Selford was fond of that phrase) "and take her out into society more. I don't think we're quite giving her her chance."
"Ah, you've begun to think of match-making!" he cried in playful reproof.
But it pleased him highly to think that he had, after all, an attractive daughter. He took much more notice of her than he had been used to take, and Mrs. Selford eyed her with critical affection. Decidedly the increase of human interest, as opposed to artistic and canine, was a good influence in the Selford household.
Anna soon saw how her position had improved. She was not demonstrative about it, but she appreciated it. She was also sharp enough to use it. The next time an invitation to a party came, she refused to go unless she might have a frock of her own choosing.
"I won't go if I'm to look a guy!" she said.
There was a battle over that; a battle between her and Mrs. Selford, and a tiff between father and mother to boot. For Selford was with Anna now. They won the day, and Anna, with a cheque in her pocket, went off to consult Christine Fanshaw, nursing in her heart that joy which only the prospect of being dressed really just as you'd like to be dressed seems able to excite.
"Merely a malicious desire to cut out the other girls," commented Alec loftily.
"I really don't think you ought to talk about dress," retorted Anna, eyeing the mustard suit.
But when Anna appeared in the frock which Christine had sedulously and lovingly planned, she carried all before her. She was most undoubtedly distinguished.
"Well, I suppose you've come to an age when that charming simplicity which used to suit you so well must give way to something more stylish," even Mrs. Selford admitted, capitulating and marching out—but with the honours of war.
Grantley Imason was rich; yet fifteen thousand pounds is a solid sum of money. To put that sum at John Fanshaw's disposal had not caused him serious inconvenience, but it had entailed a little contriving. To lay out another five thousand in Jeremy's service would involve more contriving, and the return of the money rested, of necessity, in a distant and contingent future. Nevertheless, when Kate Raymore suggested that the happiness of a life should be secured, he found the proposition attractive. He was a man lavish of money and appreciative of all the various pleasures of giving it away—both those of a more and those of a less self-regarding order. He enjoyed both the delight of the recipient and the sense of his own generosity and his own power. He would like Jeremy to be indebted to him for the happiness of his life—of course that was an exaggerated way of putting it, but it was a telling exaggeration. He also liked Jeremy very much for his own sake. And it would be altogether a handsome thing to do—under present circumstances a peculiarly handsome thing. For Sibylla had left him and gone down to Milldean, accompanied by the boy, without a word of friendship or a hint of reconciliation; and Jeremy's welfare was very dear to his sister. To help Jeremy, and thereby prepare for her the pleasure of seeing Jeremy prosper, to do this secretly, to have it as a private merit and a hidden claim on her, was an idea which appealed strongly to Grantley. In his imaginings she was to discover what he had done in the future, but not till after their reconciliation. Would it not have an effect then? One effect it was to have was, in plain words, to make Sibylla feel ashamed; but Grantley did not put it so simply or so nakedly as that—that would have been to recognise the action as almost pure revenge. He blinked that side of it, and gave prominence to the other sides. But that side was there among the rest, and he would suffer wrong at her hands with the more endurance the greater were the obligations she was under to him. His love for her and his quarrel with her joined hands to urge him. Commanding Kate Raymore to respect his desire for secrecy, he undertook to consider the matter. But his mind was really made up; and since the thing was to be done, it should be done liberally and splendidly. He had lent his money to Fanshaw, as Caylesham had surmised, with a very satisfactory prospect of repayment; to Jeremy he was ready to lend it on no security, careless about repayment, because he loved Sibylla and because he had so grievous a quarrel against her. It was all a part of his broad and consistent plan of conquering her by his unchanging patience, unchanging love, unchanging persistence in being just what he had always been to her from the beginning, however sore a trial her unreasonableness and her vagaries might put him to. This generosity to Jeremy would be a fine example of his chosen attitude, a fine move in the strategy on which he had staked the ultimate success of his campaign against Sibylla.
"If I decide to do it, I'll tell Sibylla myself, at my own time, and in my own way—remember that," he said to Kate Raymore.
She had an idea that things had not been going quite smoothly, and nodded in a wise fashion. She was picturing a pretty scene of sentiment when Grantley confessed his generosity. Of the real state of his mind she had no idea, but her own conception of the case was enough to ensure her silence.
Grantley went to work quietly, saying nothing to Jeremy, approaching the working partners through Selford, learning what they thought of Jeremy, not letting them suppose that the sum required was lightly to be come by, or was considered a small one, making, like a good man of business, the best bargain that he could for the object of his bounty. These negotiations took some days, and during those days Jeremy's heart lost something of its buoyancy, though nothing of its courage. London was having its effect on his receptive mind—the crowd, the stress, the push, the competition. Courage and brains enough to rise by? Perhaps, but not enough to rise by quickly. A walk about the streets, a look at the newspapers, the talk at the Metropolitan Radical, all taught him that. Wait and work—wait and work! That was what they all said—and they none of them said that it was easy to lay your hands on five thousand pounds.
The light of truth began to glimmer through those folds of young self-confidence. Jeremy grew sober; he was no more so gay and so assured in talking with Eva Raymore. He allowed himself to dwell less on that mythical return to Milldean with fame and riches. Now and then, it must be confessed, he had to brace himself up lest his very courage should falter. He contrived to keep it; but with it there came now a feeling new to Jeremy—a humility, a sense that he was, after all, as other men were, and neither by natural endowment nor by any rare caprice of fortune to be different from them or to find his life other than theirs. He too was not above the need of a helping hand; for want of it he too might have to tread very long and very dreary paths before he made much impression on the hill which he had set out to climb so gaily, and with so little provender for the journey. In such a mood as this he was as incapable of expecting any sudden interposition of outside aid as of refusing it when it came. He would protest, he would declare that he must refuse, but refuse in the end he could not. The fierce jealousy of his independence was cooled by his new experience of the world.
He heard first of what was being done from one of the partners down at Romford. The matter was practically concluded, he was told; in two years' time he was to have the junior partnership, and the share allotted to him at that date would be somewhat larger in consideration of the stipulated capital being paid immediately—it happened to be wanted for an extension of the buildings. Jeremy threw over work for that day, and hurried back to London—to refuse. But all the way he was thinking of the incredible difference this benevolent interposition would make.
He found Grantley in his study after lunch. The deed regulating the arrangements between the partners on the one side and Jeremy and himself on the other was before him. A look at Jeremy's face told him that Jeremy knew.
"I—I can't take it, you know," Jeremy blurted out.
"You can't escape the obligations Sibylla has brought on you by marrying me," smiled Grantley.
"Of course Sibylla's been at you—told you she couldn't be happy unless——"
"Nothing of the kind. Sibylla knows nothing about it; and, what's more, she isn't to know till I choose to tell her—till I choose, not you—that's part of the bargain, Jeremy."
Jeremy sat down. Anxious to avoid a formal talking-over of the matter, Grantley got up and lit a cigarette.
"Then why have you done it?" asked Jeremy.
Grantley shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course it's the one thing in the world for me; but—but I wanted to do it for myself, you know." Grantley still smiled on him, with a touch of mockery now. "Yes, well, I know I couldn't." He looked at Grantley in a puzzled way. "What makes it worse," he went on, "is that I've been doing you an injustice in a kind of way. I knew you were always kind and—and jolly, but somehow I thought you were a fellow who wouldn't put himself out very much for—for anybody else."
"I am not putting myself out. I like it."
"Planking down five thousand, and not knowing when you'll get it back, if you ever do? If you like that for its own sake, it's rather a rare taste."
"Now don't jaw any more," said Grantley with friendly impatience. "I was just going to sign the deed when you came in—I should have done it by now, but I must have a witness, and I didn't want to ring Thompson up from his dinner. We'll ring for him now."
"I'm not an ass," said Jeremy. "I don't think that because a man marries a woman he's bound to provide for her family—or to like them either."
"You grow in worldly wisdom."
"Yes, I fancy I do. I know a bit more about myself too. I might have worked ten years and not got this money."
"Oh, thank my forefathers! I've not worked ten years, or ten minutes either, for you!" His back had been to Jeremy. He turned round now as he said slowly, "You may consider it as a thanksoffering for my happiness with Sibylla."
"And why isn't she to know?"
"I like it better that way for the present. I'm entitled to make that condition."
Jeremy went back to his defence of himself against himself.
"A week ago I—I'd have backed myself to make it somehow. But—well, one soon learns how devilish hard it is to get what one wants. What a conceited young idiot you must have thought me when we used to talk down at Milldean!"
"You were always an excellent companion. Let's ring for Thompson and execute the deed."
Jeremy could not refuse, and could not yet consent. Grantley stood smoking airily and looking at him with a whimsical smile. Then the door opened and the butler came in, unsummoned.
"Ah, the fates decide!" exclaimed Grantley with a laugh. "Where's a pen, Jeremy?"
"For you, sir," said Thompson, holding out a salver with a letter on it.
"Oh!" Grantley laid down his pen, took the letter, and sat down at the writing-table. "Wait a minute; I want you to witness something for me," he said to the butler.
Thompson stood in serene immobility. His thoughts were far away, engrossed in a discussion he had been having with the groom as to the "form" of that same horse of Caylesham's about which Mrs. Bolton had wanted to know. Jeremy sat making up his mind to endure being helped, and poignantly remorseful about the view he had taken of Grantley. The view was earnestly disclaimed now; the help seemed very fine and wonderful. He did so want hope, scope, a chance, a start, and that all his talk of what he would do should not come to naught. In turn Dora, Eva, and Anna passed through his mind, each bringing her own influence to bear, giving him a new picture of the future. And why refuse? If ever a gift had been freely, grandly offered, this was. Would it not be even churlish to refuse? Reasons or no reasons, his heart and his hand went out instinctively; he could not refuse the beginning of all things.
Giving his head a restless little jerk as at last he accepted this decision, he chanced to turn his eyes on Grantley's face. Their attention was caught and arrested by it. There was something strange there. The cheeks were rather pale, the jaw set rigidly. Grantley read his letter with a curious engrossment—not hurriedly nor off-hand, as a man generally reads when other business is at a standstill till he reaches the end. He turned back, it seemed, once or twice, to look at another sentence again. Jeremy could not stop staring at him. Even Thompson awoke to the fact that he was being kept waiting a long while, and that the groom would probably finish the beer and go away, leaving their important discussion unfinished and the proper odds unascertained.
Grantley had recognised Christine Fanshaw's large irregular handwriting, and had expected nothing more serious than an invitation to dinner. But he was not reading an invitation to dinner now.
"I have just heard from Sibylla—from Milldean. She encloses a letter for you, which she says I am to send on to youto-morrow. She insists that I am not to send it before; and if I won't do as she asks, I am to burn it. You arenotto have it to-day. I cannot disobey her in this; but she says nothing about my telling you she has sent a letter; the only thing is that I must not deliver it to you till to-morrow. I had no idea you had let her go down to Milldean alone. How could you let her do this? There is one other thing I must say to you. Walter Blake was to have dined here to-night. This morning he wired excuses, saying he was going for a cruise in his yacht. You must consider what that means. I beg you not to wait for the letter, but to go to Milldeanthis afternoon. Say nothing of having heard from me. Just go as if it was by accident; say you got your work done sooner than you expected, or anything you like; but go. I believe you'll be sorry all your life if you don't go. Let nothing stop you, for your own sake, and still more forhers.—C.F."
That was the letter; the sentence he had turned back to re-read was the one in which Walter Blake's movements were mentioned.
Grantley looked across to Jeremy.
"Have you heard from Sibylla since she went to Milldean?" he asked.
"Not a line. But she doesn't write much to me."
Again Grantley looked at the paper. Then he laid it down and took up his pen.
"Now for the deed," he said, and drew it to him.
He signed. Thompson fulfilled the formality for which he was required, and then left them alone. Jeremy did not break out into new thanks. That unexplained something in Grantley's face forbade him.
"I can only say that I'll try to justify your extraordinary kindness," he said soberly.
Grantley nodded absently, as he rose and put Christine's letter into the fire. It was better there—and there was no danger that he would forget the contents.
"I say, there's no bad news, is there?" Jeremy could not help asking.
"No news at all, good or bad," answered Grantley, as he held out his hand. "Good-bye and good luck, Jeremy."
Jeremy took his hand and gripped it hard, emotion finding a vent that way. Grantley returned the pressure more moderately.
"Remember, under no circumstances, a word about it to Sibylla!" he said.
"I give you my honour."
"Good."
He released Jeremy's hand and turned away. He had much self-control, but he could not be sure of what was showing on his face.
Jeremy had his great good-fortune, but his joy was dashed. Grantley looked like a man whom heavy calamity finds unprepared.
"All the finer of him to sign the deed then and there," Jeremy muttered as he left the house. "Whatever has happened, he didn't forget his word to me."
But it had not been of Jeremy or of his word that Grantley had been thinking when he signed. His signature was a defiance of his wife and of his fate.
An instinct of furtiveness, newly awakened by the suggestion of Christine Fanshaw's letter, had led Grantley Imason to send no word of his coming. He hired a fly at the station, and drove over the downs to Milldean. It was a wild evening. A gale had been blowing from the south-west all day, and seemed to be increasing in violence. A thick rain was driven in sharp spats against the closed windows. The old horse toiled slowly along, while the impatient man chafed helplessly inside.
At last he stopped at Old Mill House and dismissed the carriage. Mrs. Mumple's servant-girl came to the door, and said her mistress was up at his house, and was, she thought, to stay there all night. Grantley nodded, and began to trudge up the hill. He had no thought but to seek and find Sibylla. It was now between seven and eight, and dusk had fallen.
He saw a light in the dining-room windows. He walked into the hall and took off his hat. A servant saw him and ran to help him. Saying briefly that he would want some dinner, he went into the dining-room. Mrs. Mumple sat there alone over a chop.
"You come home, Mr. Imason!" she exclaimed. "Sibylla didn't expect you, did she?"
"No, I didn't expect to come. I didn't think I could get away, and it wasn't worth wiring. Where is Sibylla?"
"How unlucky! She's gone away—to Fairhaven. She didn't expect you. She's to sleep the night there."
He came to the table and poured himself out a glass of sherry. He was calm and quiet in his manner.
"To sleep at Fairhaven? Why, who's she going to stay with?"
"Mrs. Valentine. You know her? She lives by the church—a red house with creepers."
Mrs. Valentine was, as he knew, an old, but not an intimate, acquaintance. He shot a keen glance at Mrs. Mumple's simple broad face.
"I'm here to look after baby. But of course since you've come——"
"No, no, you stay here; and go on with your dinner. They'll bring something for me directly."
He pulled up a chair and sat down.
"To sleep at Mrs. Valentine's? Has she often done that before when I've been away?"
"She used to as a girl sometimes, Mr. Imason; but no, never lately, I think—not since she married."
There were no signs of disturbance or distress about Mrs. Mumple. Grantley sat silent while the servant laid a place for him and promised some dinner in ten minutes.
"Has Sibylla been all right?"
"Oh, yes! A little fretful the last day or two, I think. But Mr. Blake came over from Fairhaven yesterday, and she had a nice walk with him; and she was with baby all the morning."
"All the morning? When did she go to Fairhaven?"
"I think it was about three o'clock. It's a terrible evening, Mr. Imason."
"Very rough indeed."
"The wind rose quite suddenly this morning, and it's getting worse every minute."
Grantley made no answer. After a pause the old woman went on—
"I've got some news."
"News have you? What news?"
He was suddenly on the alert.
She glanced at the door to make sure the servant was not within hearing.
"Very great news for me, Mr. Imason. My dear husband's to come home three months sooner than I thought. I got a letter to say so just after Sibylla started."
"Oh, really! Capital, Mrs. Mumple!"
"It's only a matter of six months now. You can't think what I feel about it—now it's as near as that. I haven't seen him for hard on ten years. What will it be like? I'm full of joy, Mr. Imason; but somehow I'm afraid too—terribly afraid. The thought of it seems to upset me, and yet I can't think of anything else."
Grantley rubbed his hand across his brow. Old Mrs. Mumple's talk reached him dimly. He was thinking hard. This sleeping at Mrs. Valentine's sounded an unlikely story.
Mrs. Mumple, in her turn, forgot her chop. She leant back in her chair, clasping her fat hands in front of her.
"We shall have to pick up the old life," she went on, "after seventeen years! I was thirty-five when he left me, and nearly as slight as Sibylla herself. I'm past fifty now, Mr. Imason, and it's ten years since I saw him; and he's above sixty, and—and they grow old soon in there. It'll be very different, very different. And—and I'm half afraid of it, Mr. Imason. It's terribly hard to pick up a life that's once been broken."
The servant brought in Grantley's dinner, and Mrs. Mumple pretended to go on with her chop.
"Nurse said I was to tell you Master Frank is sleeping nicely," the servant said to Mrs. Mumple, as he placed a chair for Grantley.
That was a strange story about Mrs. Valentine.
"We must have patience, and love on," said Mrs. Mumple. "He's had a grievous trial, and so have I. But I don't lose hope. All's ready for him—his socks and his shirts and all. I'm ahead of the time. I've nothing to do but wait. These last months'll seem very long, Mr. Imason."
Grantley came to the table.
"You're a good woman, Mrs. Mumple," he said.
She shook her head mournfully. He looked at the food, pushed it away, and drank another glass of sherry.
"Don't think I've no sympathy with you, but—but I'm worried."
"Nothing gone wrong in town, I hope, Mr. Imason?"
"No."
He stood there frowning. He did not believe the story about Mrs. Valentine. He walked quickly to the bell and rang it loudly.
"Tell them to saddle Rollo, and bring him round directly."
"You're never going out on such a night?" she cried.
"I must"; and he added to the surprised servant, "Do as I tell you directly."
"Where are you going?" she asked wonderingly.
"I'm going to Mrs. Valentine's."
"But you've no cause to be anxious about Sibylla, Mr. Imason; and she'll be back to-morrow."
Grantley was convinced that she, at least, was innocent of any plot. Simple sincerity spoke on her face, and all her thoughts were for herself and her dearly cherished fearful hopes.
"I must see Sibylla on a matter of urgent business to-night," he said.
"It'll be hardly safe up on the downs," she expostulated.
"It'll be safe enough for me," he answered grimly. "Don't sit up for me; and look after the baby." He smiled at her kindly, then came and patted her hand for a moment. "Yes, it would be hard to pick up a life that's once broken, I expect," he said.
She looked up at him with a sudden apprehension in her eyes. His manner was strangely quiet; he seemed to her gentler.
"There, I mean nothing but what I say," he told her soothingly. "I must go and get ready for my ride."
"But, Mr. Imason, you'll take something to eat first?"
"I can't eat." He laughed a little. "I should like to drink, but I won't. Good night, Mrs. Mumple."
Ten minutes later he was walking his horse down the hill to Milldean, on his way to Fairhaven. But he had little thought of Mrs. Valentine; he had no belief in that story at all. It served a purpose, but not the purpose for which it had been meant. What it did was to remove the last of his doubts. Now he knew that Christine's suggestion was true. He was going to Fairhaven not to find Sibylla at Mrs. Valentine's, but to seek Sibylla and Blake he knew not where.
He thought not much of Sibylla. He had taught himself to consider his wife incalculable—a prey to disordered whims, swept on by erratic impulses. This whim was more extraordinary, more disorderly, more erratic than any of the others; but it was of the same nature with them, the same kind of thing that she had done when she determined to hold herself aloof from him. This blow had fallen entirely and utterly unforeseen, but he acknowledged grimly that it had not been unforeseeable. He thought even less of young Blake, and thought of him without much conscious anger. The case there was a very plain one. He had known young Blake in the days when aspirations did not exist, and when the desire to be good was no part of his life. He took him as he had known him then, and the case was very simple. Whatever an attractive woman will give, men like Blake will take, recking of nothing, forecasting nothing, careless of themselves, merciless to her whom they are by way of loving. In regard to Blake the thing had nothing strange in it.
Here too it was unexpected, but again by no means unforeseeable.
No, nothing had been unforeseeable; and in what light did that fact leave him? What flavour should that give to his meditations? For though he rode as quickly as he could against the gale and the rain which now blinded and scorched his eyes, his mind moved more quickly still. Why, it set him down as a fool intolerable—as the very thing he had always laughed at and despised, as a dullard, a simpleton, a dupe. He could hear the mocking laughter and unashamed chuckling, he could see the winking eyes. He knew well enough what men had thought of him. They had attributed to him successes with women; they had joked when he married, saying many husbands would feel safer; they had liked him and admired him, but they had been of opinion that he wanted taking down a peg. How they would laugh to think that he of all men had made such a mess of it, that he had let young Blake take away his wife—young Blake, whom he had often chaffed for their amusement or instructed for their entertainment! Imason had got a pretty wife, but he couldn't keep her, poor old boy! That would be the comment—an ounce of pity to a hundredweight of contempt, and—yes, a pound of satisfaction. And it would be all true. Somehow—even allowing for Sibylla's vagaries and unaccountable whims, he could not tell how—somehow he had been a gross dupe, a blockhead blindly self-satisfied, a dullard easily deluded, a fool readily abandoned and left, so intolerable that not all his money, nor his houses, nor his carriages could make it worth while even to go on with the easy task of deceiving him. He was not worth deceiving any more; it was simpler to be rid of him. In the eyes of the world that fact would be very significant of what he was. And that same thing he was in his own eyes now. The stroke of this sharp sword had cloven in two the armour of his pride; it fell off him and left him naked.
Could he endure this fate for all his life? It would last all his life; people have long memories, and the tradition does not die. It would not die even with his life. No, by heaven, it would not! A new thought seized him. There was the boy to whom he had given life. What had he given to the boy now? What a father would the boy have to own! And what of the boy's mother? The story would last the boy's life too. It would always be between him and the boy. And the boy would never dare speak of his mother. The boy would be kept in ignorance till ignorance yielded, perforce, to shame. His son's life would be bitterness to him, if it meant that—and bitterness surely to the boy too. As he brooded on this his face set into stiffness. He declared that it was not to be endured.
He came to where Milldean road joined the main road by the red villas, and turned to the right towards Fairhaven. Here he met the full force of the gale. The wind was like a moving rushing wall; the rain seemed to hit him viciously with whips; there was a great confused roar from the sea below the cliffs. He could hardly make headway or induce his horse to breast the angry tempest. But his face was firm, his hand steady, and his air resolute as he rode down to Fairhaven, sore in the eyes, dripping wet, cold to the very bone. His purpose was formed. Fool he might be, but he was no coward. He had been deluded, he was not beaten. His old persistence came to his rescue. All through, though he might have lost everything else, he had never lost courage. And now, when his pride fell from him, and his spirit tasted a bitterness as though of death, his courage rose high in him—a desperate courage which feared nothing save ridicule and shame. These he would not have, neither for himself nor for his boy. His purpose was taken, and he rode on. His pride was broken, but no man was to behold its fall. In this hour he asked one thing from himself—courage unfearing, unflinching. It was his, and he rode forward to the proof of it. And there came in him a better pride. In place of self-complacency there was fortitude; yet it was the fortitude of defiance, not of self-knowledge.
He rode through the gale into Fairhaven, thinking nothing of Mrs. Valentine's house, waiting on fate to show him the way. Just where the town begins, the road comes down to the sea, and runs along by the harbour where a sea-wall skirts deep water. A man enveloped in oilskins stood here, glistening through the darkness in the light of a gas-lamp. He was looking out to sea, out on the tumble of angry waves, stamping his feet and blowing on his wet fingers now and then. It was no night for an idle man to be abroad; he who was out to-night had business.
"Rough weather!" called Grantley, bringing his horse to a stand.
The man answered, not in the accents of the neighbourhood, but with a Cockney twang and a turn of speech learnt from board schools and newspapers. He was probably a seaman then, and from London.
"Terribly severe," he said. "No night to keep a man on the look-out."
He looked at Grantley, evidently not knowing him.
"A bad night for a ride too, sir," he added; "but it's better to be moving than standing here, looking for a boat that's as likely to come as the Channel Squadron!" He spat scornfully as he ended.
"Looking for a boat?"
For the moment Grantley was glad to talk; it was a relief. Besides he did not know what he was going to do, and caught at a brief respite from decision.
"Aye," the man grumbled, "a boat to come from Portsmouth. Best luck for her if she's never started, and next best if she's put in for shelter on the way. She'd never make Fairhaven to-night."
"Then what's the good of looking for her?"
"Because I get five shillings for it. The owner's waiting for her—waiting at the Sailors' Rest there." He pointed to the inn a hundred yards away. "She was to have been here by midday, and he's in a hurry. Best for him if she doesn't come, if he means to sail to-night, as he says he does." He paused and spat again. "Pretty weather for a lady to go to sea, ain't it?" he ended sarcastically.
The fates were with Grantley Imason. They sent guidance.