With an effort he collected his thoughts from these wanderings, and began to read his letters. Tom was still occupied with his paper and his cigar; but he looked up at the sound of an "Ah!" which escaped from John's lips. John had come on a letter which set his thoughts going again—a letter from Sibylla. She upbraided him playfully for not having come down to see them and Christine.
"I'm sure Christine must be hurt with you, though she's much too proud to say so. We want to keep her over Christmas. Will you come as soon as you can and stay over Christmas and as long as possible? I've not told her I'm asking you, so that she mayn't be disappointed if you can't come."
There was diplomacy in Sibylla's letter, since she knew the state of the case far better than her references to Christine implied. But John was not aware of this. His attention was fixed only on the invitation, and on the circumstances in which it came. He could not go to Milldean and take his grievance with him; it was too big and obtrusive for other people's houses—it could flourish properly only in a domestictête-à-tête. So he must stay at home. He sighed as he laid down the letter. Then his fingers wandered irresolutely to it again as he looked across at Tom Courtland, who had now ceased reading and was smoking with a quiet smile on his face.
"Anything up, old fellow?" asked Tom, noting the gravity of his expression.
"No. It's only from Mrs. Imason, asking me to go down there at Christmas."
"You go!" counselled Tom. "Better than bringing your wife back here."
There was a third course—the course favoured by the grievance. John did not speak of it, but it was present in his thoughts. He shook his head impatiently, and began to talk of general topics; but all the evening Sibylla's letter was in his mind, ranging itself side by side with the scene which he had witnessed at Tom Courtland's.
The gloomy idol he had set up in his heart was not yet cast down. But the little hands of the children had given its pedestal a shake.
The Raymores were lodging over the post-office at Milldean, in the rooms once occupied by the curate. The new curate did not need them; he was staying at the rectory, and meant, after his marriage with Dora Hutting, to build himself a little house, go on being curate, and ultimately be rector. He had a well-to-do father who had bought the advowson for him as a wedding present. His path in life was clear, visible to the very end, and entirely peaceful—unless Dora decided otherwise. So the rooms came in handy for the Raymores; and it suited Jeremy's inclination and leisure to stay the while with his sister on the hill. He had a bit of work to finish down at Milldean, while the Raymores were there. However assiduous you may be, love-making in London is liable to interruption; it must be to a certain degree spasmodic there: business, society, and such-like trifles keep breaking in. A clear week in the country will do wonders. Thus thought Jeremy, and it was his brilliant suggestion that brought the Raymores to Milldean for a month. What more obvious, since Charley was to land at Fairhaven and to stay a month in England? Spend that month in London, where things interrupted, and people stared, and old-time talk was remembered? No! Kate Raymore jumped at the idea that this wonderful month should be spent in the country, in quiet and seclusion, among old friends whose lips would be guarded, whose looks friendly, whose hearts in sympathy.
When Jeremy made this arrangement—so excellent a one that he may be pardoned for almost forgetting the selfish side of it—he had not failed to remember Dora Hutting. There had always been alternative endings to that story. Jeremy's present scheme was a variation from both of them. None the less, he had come decidedly to prefer it to either. But he had not allowed for the presence of the curate; and this circumstance, casually brought to his knowledge by Grantley Imason on the evening of his arrival, had rather disturbed him. There was another feature in the case for which he was quite unprepared. The name of the curate was a famous one—actually famous through the length and breadth of the land! This was rather a staggerer for Jeremy, who might deride, but could not deny, the curate's greatness. Certain forms of glory may appeal more to one man than to another, but all are glorious. The curate was Mallam of Somerset.
"The Mallam?" asked Jeremy.
"Yes, the Mallam," said Grantley gravely.
"By Jove!" Jeremy murmured.
"I think you ought to forgive her," Grantley suggested. "He's played twice for England, you know, and made a century the first time."
"I remember," Jeremy acknowledged, looking very thoughtful.
This was quite a different matter from the ordinary curate. Ritualistic proclivities, however obnoxious to Jeremy in their essence, became a pardonable eccentricity in a man whose solid reputation had been won in other fields.
It was not surprising that Dora carried her head very high, or that the cold politeness of her bow relegated Jeremy to a fathomless oblivion. Knowing the ways of girls, and reluctantly conscious of Mr. Mallam's greatness—conscious too, perhaps, that his own riches and fame were not as yet much in evidence—he was prepared for that. But, alas, Charlie was a cricketer too, and had infected Eva with his enthusiasm for the game. She was quite excited about Mallam. Jeremy did not appreciate this feeling as generously as he might have; yet Eva made no attempt to conceal it. She rather emphasised it; for she had come to the stage when she sought defences. After the first eager spring to meet the offered and congenial love, there comes often this recoil. The girl would have things stay as they are, since they are very pleasant, and the next step is into the unknown. She loves delay then, and, since the man will not have it for its own sake (not knowing its sweetness nor the fear that aids its charm), she enforces it on him by trickery, and makes him afraid of losing the draught altogether by insisting on his sipping it at first. She will use any weapon in this campaign, and an ardent admiration for Mr. Mallam was a very useful weapon to Eva Raymore. She said more than once that she considered Dora Hutting a very lucky girl. She thought Dora must be charming, since Mallam was in love with her. She held Mallam to be very handsome, and refused to believe—well, that his talent was so highly specialised as Jeremy tried to persuade her in words somewhat less gentle than these.
Jeremy's knowledge of girls gave out before this unexpected call upon it. He recollected how Dora had served him, and how Anna Selford had trifled with Alec Turner. He grew apprehensive and troubled—also more and more in love. He forecast complicated tragedies, and saw Mallam darkening his life wherever he turned. But the women understood—Kate Raymore, Christine, even Sibylla. They glanced at one another, and laughed among themselves. They were rather proud of Eva, who played their sex's game so well.
"Thank goodness, she's learnt to flirt!" said Christine. "A woman's nowhere without that, my dear, and I don't care whether she's married or not."
"She just adores Jeremy," Kate assured Sibylla. "Only men can't see, you know."
Sibylla laughed. She understood now better than in the days when she herself was wooed. But she blushed a little too, which was strange, unless, perchance, she found some parallel to Eva's conduct which she was not inclined to discuss with her friends. Jeremy was not the only man who went courting just now in Milldean. Nor was Kate Raymore the only woman whose heart expected a wanderer home, and trembled at the joy of a long-desired meeting. The period of Mrs. Mumple's expectation was almost done. In two or three weeks she was to go on a journey; she would come back to Old Mill House not alone. The house was swept and garnished, and Mrs. Mumple had a new silk gown. The latter she showed to Kate, and a new bonnet too, which was a trifle gayer than her ordinary wear; it had a touch of youth about it. Mrs. Mumple knew very well who was the best person to show these treasures to, who the best listener to her speculations as to the manner of that meeting. And she, in turn, was eager to listen to Kate when the news came that Charley's ship was to be in quite soon. Kate could not say much about that to anybody except to Mrs. Mumple; but she was sure that Mrs. Mumple would understand.
When on the top of all this came the announcement that Dora Hutting's wedding was fixed for that day three weeks, Christine Fanshaw was moved to protest.
"Really, Grantley," she exclaimed, "this village is a centre of love-making, of one sort or another!"
"All villages are," said Grantley, suavely tolerant, "or they couldn't go on being villages. It's life or death to them, Christine."
"That's a contemptible evasion. The atmosphere is horribly sentimental. I don't think I'm in sympathy with it at all."
"Don't talk to me then," said Grantley. "I like it, you know. Oh, you needn't fret, my dear friend! There's been lots of trouble—and there'll be lots more."
"Yes, trouble—and hatred too?"
"Oh, well, suppose we suppose there won't be that?" he suggested. "But the trouble, anyhow."
"Then everybody oughtn't to pretend that there won't! The way people talk about marriages is simply hypocrisy."
"When the bather is on the bank, it's no moment for remarking that the water is cold. And the truth is in our hearts all the time. Am I likely to forget it, for instance? Or are you likely to forget poor old Tom and that unhappy woman?"
"Or am I likely to forget myself?" Christine murmured, looking out of the window. As she looked, Dora passed by, and broad-shouldered young Mallam with her. "Oh, well, bless the children!" she said, laughing.
"It doesn't do, though, to be too knowing—too much up to all nature's little tricks," Grantley went on, as he came and stood beside her. "We oughtn't to give the old lady away. She seems a bit primitive in her methods sometimes, but, if we don't interfere, she usually gets there in the end. But we mustn't find out all her secrets."
Christine looked up with a smile and the suspicion of a blush.
"Oh, well, one can always forget them again," she said.
"With the proper assistance," he agreed, smiling. "And after all she's very accommodating. If you do what she wants, she doesn't care a hang about your private reasons."
"I call that unscrupulous," Christine objected.
"Oh, yes, the most immoral old hussy that ever was!" he laughed. "I love her for that. In her matrimonial advertisement the woman is always rich, beautiful, and amiable!"
"And the man handsome, steady, and constant!"
"So we pay the fees—and sometimes get the article."
"Sometimes," said Christine. "Of course we always suit the description ourselves?"
"A faith in one's self—secure, impregnable, eternal—is the one really necessary equipment."
"So you've found?"
"Don't be personal—or penetrating, Christine. The forms of faith vary—the faith remains."
Christine looked up at him again. Something in her eyes made him pat her lightly on the shoulder.
"Oh, it's all very well," she murmured in rueful peevishness, "but I shan't be able to stand too much happiness here."
"Think of the others," he advised, "and you'll regain the balance of your judgment."
To think of the others was decidedly a good thing. Reason dictated the survey of a wider field, the discovery and recognition of an average emerging from the inequalities. The result of such a process should be either a temperate self-satisfaction or a clear-sighted resignation; you would probably find yourself not much above nor much below the level thus scientifically demonstrated. But the ways of science are not always those of the heart, and that we are less miserable than some people is not a consolation for being more unhappy than others—least of all when the happy are before our eyes and the wretched farther off. Neither the preacher of Grantley's doctrine nor its hearer was converted. Grantley still wanted the best, and Christine, asking nothing so very great, was the more aggrieved that she was denied even what she demanded.
Kate Raymore's day came. Only Jeremy accompanied the family to meet the boat. Kate said they would want somebody to bustle about after the luggage. In truth, Jeremy seemed to her already as one of her own house. But he did not seem so to himself. Eva had been very wayward, full of admiration for Mr. Mallam, and on the strict defensive against Jeremy's approaches. He was so distressed and puzzled that he might have comforted even Christine Fanshaw, and that he was in fact exceedingly bad company for anybody. But the party did not ask for conversation. A stillness fell on them all as they waited for the boat, Kate clasping her husband's arm tight while her eyes were fixed on the approaching ship.
The boy came down the gangway and saw them waiting. He was a good-looking young fellow, tall and slim, with curly hair. Joy and apprehension, shame and pride, struggled for mastery on his face. Kate saw, and her heart was very full. His fault, his flight, his banishment, were vivid in his mind, and, to his insight, vivid in theirs too. But there was something else that his eyes begged them to remember—the struggle to retrieve himself, the good record over-seas, the thought that they were to be together again for a while without fear and without a cloud between them. Their letters had breathed no reproach, and had been full of love. But letters cannot give the assurance of living eyes. He still feared reproach; he had to beg for love, and to fear to find it not unimpaired.
"My boy!" whispered Kate Raymore as she clasped him to her arms.
"You're looking well, Charley," said Raymore, "but older, I think."
Yes, he was older; that was part of the price which had fallen to be paid, and the happiness of reunion could not avail against it. His own hand had overthrown the first glory of his youth; it had died not gradually, but by a violent death—the traces were on his face. There was a touch of awe in Eva's eyes as she kissed her brother—the awe evoked by one who had fallen, endured, and fought. He had to pay the uttermost farthing of his debt.
Yet the joy rose supreme, deeper and tenderer for the grief behind it, for the struggle by which it was won, because it came as a victory after a heavy fight. To Kate it seemed as though he had suffered for their sakes as well as for his own sin, since in sorrow over him and his banishment their hearts had come closer together, and love reigned stronger in their home. A strange remorse struck her and mingled with her compassion and her gladness as she held her son at arm's length and looked again in his eyes. It was hard to keep track of these things, to see how the good and the evil worked, to understand how no man was unto himself alone, and not to accuse of injustice the way by which one paid for all, while all sorrowed for one.
As they turned away to the carriage, Eva touched Jeremy on the arm. He turned to find her smiling, but her lips trembled.
"If I drive back with them, I shall cry, and then I shall look a fright," she whispered. "Besides they'd rather have him to themselves just now. Will you walk back with me?"
"All right," said Jeremy curtly.
His feelings, too, had been touched, so that his manner was cool and matter-of-fact almost to aggressiveness. He preferred to make nothing at all of walking back with Eva, though the way was long, and the winter sun shone over the sea and the downs, the wind was fresh and crisp, and youthful blood went tingling through the veins.
"It's cold driving, anyhow," he added, as an after-thought.
It was not cold walking, though, or Jeremy did not so find it. It was in his mind that now he had his chance, if he could find courage to use it and to force an issue. For him too Charley and Charley's sorrow had done something. They had induced in Eva a softer mood; the armour of her coquetry was pierced by a shaft of deep feeling. As they walked she was silent, forgetting to torment him, silently glad of his friendship and his company. She said nothing of Dora Hutting's good-fortune or of Mallam's good looks now. She was thinking of her mother's face as she welcomed Charley, and was musing on love. It was Jeremy's moment, if he could make use of it. But in this mood she rather frightened him, raising about herself defences different from the gleaming barrier of her coquetry, yet not less effective. He feared to disturb her thoughts, and it seemed to him that his wooing would be rude and rough.
Suddenly she turned to him.
"You'll be friends with Charley, won't you? Real friends, I mean? You won't let what—what's happened stand in the way? You see, he'll be awfully sensitive about it, and if he fancies you're hanging back, or anything of that kind——"
Her eyes were very urgent in their appeal.
"Of course I shall be friends with him; I shouldn't dream of——"
"I'm sure you'll like him for his own sake, when you know him. And till then, for mother's sake, for our sake, you'll be nice to him, won't you?"
"Do you care particularly about my being nice to him?"
"Of course I do! We're friends, you see."
Jeremy's fear wore off; excitement began to rise in him; the spirit of the game came upon him. He turned to his work.
"Are we friends?" he asked. "You've not been very friendly lately."
"Never mind me. Be friendly with Charley."
"For your sake?"
"For our sake, yes."
"I said, for your sake."
A smile dimpled through Eva's gravity.
"'Your' is a plural, isn't it?" she asked.
"Then—for thy sake?" said Jeremy. "That's singular, anyhow."
"Oh, for my sake, then, if you think it worth while."
"I don't think anything worth while except pleasing you, Eva. I used to manage it, I think; but somehow it's grown more difficult lately."
He stopped in his walk and faced her. She walked on a pace or two, but he would not follow. Irresolutely she halted.
"More difficult? Pleasing me grown more difficult?"
"Well, pleasing you as much as I want to, I mean." Jeremy in his turn smiled for a moment; but he was in deadly earnest again as he stepped up to her and caught hold of her hands. "Now's the time," he said. "You've got to say yes or no."
"You haven't asked me anything yet," she murmured, laughing, her eyes away from him and her hands in his.
"Yes, I have, dozens of times—dozens and dozens. And I'm not going to ask it again—not in words, anyhow. You know the question."
"It's horribly unfair to—to do this to-day—to-day, when I'm——"
"Not a bit. To-day's the very day for it, and that's why you must answer to-day." A deeper note came into his words, deeper than he had commanded when he made love to Dora Hutting on these same downs not so very long ago. "I make love to you to-day because love's in your heart to-day. You're wanting to love; it's round about us, Eva."
For an instant she saw in him a likeness she had never noticed before—a likeness to Sibylla: Sibylla's ardent all-demanding temper seemed to speak in his words.
"Yes, this is the day—our day. And this day shall be the beginning or the end. You know the question. What's the answer, Eva?"
He let go of her hands, and drew back two or three paces. He left her free; if she came to him, it must be of her own motion.
"How very peremptory you are!" she protested.
Her cheeks were red now, and the look of sorrow had gone out of her eyes. Her breath came quick, and when she looked at the sea the waves seemed to dance to the liveliest music. At sea and land she looked, at the sky and at the wintry sun; her glance touched everywhere save where Jeremy stood.
"The answer!" demanded Jeremy.
For a moment more she waited. Then she came towards him hesitatingly, her eyes not yet seeking his face. She came up to him and stood with her hands hanging by her side. Then slowly she raised to his face the large trustful eyes which he had known and loved so well.
"The answer is Yes, Jeremy," she said. "For all my life and with all my heart, dear!"
"I knew this was the right day!" cried Jeremy.
"Oh, any day was right!" she whispered as she sought his arms.
A couple of hours later he burst into Grantley Imason's room, declaring that he was the happiest man on earth. This condition of his, besides being by no means rare in young men, was not unexpected, and congratulations met the obvious needs of the occasion. Sibylla, who was there, was not even very emotional over the matter; the remembrance of Dora Hutting inclined her mind towards the humorous aspect—so hard is it to appreciate the changeful processes of other hearts. But Jeremy himself was excited enough for everybody, and his excitement carried him into forgetfulness of a solemn pledge which he had once given. He wrung Grantley's hand with a vigour at once embarrassing and painful, crying:
"I owe it all to you! I should never have dared it except for the partnership that's coming, and that was all your doing. Without your money——"
"Damn you, Jeremy," said Grantley in a quiet whisper, rescuing his hand and compassionately caressing it with its uninjured brother.
The imprecation seemed to be equally distributed between Jeremy's two causes of offence, but Jeremy allocated it to one only.
"Oh, good lord!" he said, with a guilty glance at Sibylla.
"What money?" asked Sibylla.
She had been sitting by the fire, but rose now, and leant her shoulder against the mantelpiece.
Jeremy looked from her to Grantley.
"I'm most awfully sorry. I forgot. I'm a bit beside myself, you know." Grantley shrugged his shoulders rather crossly. "I won't say another word about it."
"Oh, yes, you will, Jeremy," observed Sibylla with a dangerous look. "You'll tell me all about it this moment, please."
"Shall I?" Jeremy turned to Grantley again.
"I expect the mischief's done now; but you needn't have lost your memory or your wits just because you're going to marry Eva Raymore."
"Marrying does make people lose their wits sometimes," said Sibylla coldly. Grantley's brows lifted a little as he plumped down in a chair with a resigned air. "Tell me what you mean, Jeremy."
"Well, I had to put money into the business if I was ever to be more than a clerk—if I was ever to get a partnership, you know."
"And Grantley gave you the money?"
"I'm going to pay it back when—when——"
"Yes, of course, Jeremy dear. How much was it?"
Grantley lit a cigarette, and came as near looking uncomfortable as the ingrained composure of his manner allowed.
"Five thousand," said Jeremy. "Wasn't it splendid of him? So, you see, I could afford——"
"Five thousand to Jeremy!" said Sibylla. She turned on Grantley. "And how much to John Fanshaw?"
"You women are all traitors. Christine had no business to say a word. It was pure business; he pays me back regularly. And Jeremy's going to pay me back too. Come, I haven't done any harm to either of them."
"No, not to them," she said. And she added to Jeremy: "Go and tell Christine. She'll be delighted to hear about you and Eva."
"By Jove, I will! I say, I'm really sorry, Grantley."
"You ought to be. No, you may do anything except shake my hand again."
"I can't help being so dashed jolly, you know."
With that apology he darted out of the room, forgetting his broken pledge, intent only on finding other ears to hear his wonderful news.
"It's very satisfactory, isn't it?" asked Grantley. "I think they'll get on very well, you know. He's young, of course, and——"
"Please don't make talk, Grantley. When did you give him that money?"
"I don't remember."
"There are bank-books and so on, aren't there?"
"How businesslike you're getting!"
"Tell me when, please."
Grantley rose and stood opposite to her, even as they had stood in the inn—at the Sailors' Rest at Fairhaven.
"I don't remember the date." He paused, seemed to think, and then went on: "Yes, I'll tell you, because then you'll understand. He came to me the morning of the day you—you went over to Fairhaven. While he was there, Christine's letter came. And I gave him the money because I wanted to put you in the wrong as much as I could. Oh, I liked Jeremy, and was willing to help him—just as I was ready to help old John. But that wasn't my great reason. My great reason was to get a bigger grievance against you—for the way you had treated me, and were going to treat me, you know."
"If it had been that, you'd have told me—you'd have told me that night in the inn. You must have known what it would have been to me to hear it then; but you never told me."
"I wouldn't part with the pleasure of having it against you—of nursing it against you secretly. I want you to understand the truth. Are you very angry?"
Sibylla appeared to be angry; there was a dash of red on her cheeks.
"Yes, I'm angry," she said; "and I've a right to be angry. You're good to John Fanshaw; you're good to Jeremy. Have you been good to me?"
"It was done in malice against you—and in petty malice, I think now, though I didn't think that then."
"Doing it was no malice to me. You did it in love of me!" Her words were a challenge to him to deny; and, looking at her, he could not deny. He had never denied his love for her, and he would not now. "The wrong you did me was not in doing it, but in not telling me; yes, not telling me about that, nor about what you did for John Fanshaw either."
"I couldn't risk seeming to try to make a claim, especially when——"
"Especially when making a claim on me might have saved me! Is that what you mean? When it might have made all the difference to me and to Frank? When it might have turned me back from my madness? All was to go to ruin sooner than that you should risk seeming to make a claim!"
He attempted no answer, but stood very still, listening and ready to listen. Her voice lost something of its hardness, and became more appealing as she went on.
"They're allowed to know your good side, the kind things you do, how you stand by your friends, how you help people, how you lavish gifts on my brother for my sake. You don't hide it from them. They know you can love, and love to give happiness. There are only two people who mayn't know—the two people in all the world who ought to know, whose happiness and whose trust in themselves and in one another lie in knowing. They must be hoodwinked and kept in the dark. They're to know nothing of you. For them you find the bad motive, the mean interpretation, the selfish point of view. And you're so ingenious in finding it for them! Grantley, to those two people you've done a great wrong."
He was silent a moment. Then he asked:
"To you and the little boy, you mean?"
"No: he's too young. Anyhow, I didn't mean him; I wasn't thinking of him. You know that sometimes I don't think of him—that sometimes, in love or in hatred, I can think of nothing in the world but you, but you and me. And it's to me and to yourself that you've done the wrong."
"To you—and myself?"
"Yes, yes! Oh, what's the use of doing fine things if you bury them from me, if you distort them to yourself, if you won't let either me or yourself think them generous and good? Why must you trick me and yourself, of all the world? Oughtn't we to know—oughtn't we of everybody in the world to know? What's the good of kindness if you dress it up as selfishness? What's the good of love if you call it malice?"
"I've spoken the truth as I believed it."
"No, I say no, Grantley! You've spoken it as you would have me believe it, as you try to make yourself believe it. But it's not the truth!" She came one step nearer to him. "I used to pray that you should change," she said imploringly. "I don't pray that now. It's impossible. And I don't think I want it. Don't change; but, oh, be yourself! Be yourself to me and to yourself. You haven't been to either of us. Open your heart to both of us; let us both know you as you are. Don't be ashamed either before me or before yourself. I know I'm difficult! Heavens, aren't you—even the real you—difficult too? But if you won't be honest in the end, then God help us! But if you'll be yourself to me and to yourself, then, my dear, I think it would be enough."
He came to her and took her hand.
"No man ever loved woman more than I love you," he said.
"Then try, then try, then try!" she whispered, and her eyes met his.
There seemed in them a far-off gleam of the light which once had blazed from them on the fairy ride.
"You do think they'll be happy?" Mrs. Selford asked a little apprehensively. Her manner craved reassurance.
"Why put that question to me—to me, of all people? Is it on the principle of knowing the worst? If even a cynic like me thinks they'll be happy, the prospect will be very promising—is that it?"
"Goodness knows I don't expect the ideal! I've never had it myself. Oh, I don't see why I need pretend with you, and I shouldn't deceive you if I did. I've never had the ideal myself, and I don't expect it for Anna. We've seen too much in our set to expect the ideal. And sometimes I can't quite make Anna out." Mrs. Selford was evidently uneasy. "She gets on better with her father than with me now; and I think I get on better with Walter than Richard does."
"Young Walter has a way with him," smiled Caylesham.
"I hope we shan't get into opposite camps and quarrel. Richard and I have been such good friends lately. And then, of course——" She hesitated a little. "Of course there may be a slight awkwardness here and there."
Caylesham understood the covert allusion; the marriage might make matters difficult with the Imasons.
"The young folks will probably make their own friends. Our old set's rather broken up one way and the other, isn't it? Not that I was ever a full member of it."
"We've always been glad to see you," she murmured absently.
"On the whole I feel equal to encouraging you to a certain extent," he said, standing before the fire. "Anna will be angry pretty often, but I don't think she will be, or need be, unhappy. She doesn't take things to heart too readily, does she?"
"No, she doesn't."
The assent hardly sounded like praise of her daughter.
"Well, that's a good thing. And she's got lots of pluck and a will of her own."
"Oh, yes, she's got that!"
"From time to time he'll think himself in love with somebody. You're prepared for that, of course? But it's only his way. She'll have to indulge him a little—let the string out a little here and there; but she'll always have him under control. Brains do count, and she's got them all. And she won't expect romance all the time."
"You said you were going to be encouraging."
"I am being encouraging," Caylesham insisted.
"Oh, I shouldn't think it so bad if we were talking about myself. But when it's a question of one's child——"
"One is always unreasonable? Precisely. The nature of the business isn't going to change in the next generation. But I maintain that I'm encouraging—for Anna, anyhow. I rather fancy Master Blake will miss his liberty more than he thinks. But that'll be just what he needs. So from a moral point of view I'm encouraging there too."
"Of course you don't understand the feeling of responsibility, the fear that if she's the—the least bit hard, it may be because of her bringing up."
"Don't be remorseful, Mrs. Selford. It's the most unprofitable of emotions."
He had preached the same doctrine to Christine.
"When it's too late to go back?"
"And that's always." He looked down at her with a cheerful smile. "That's for your private ear. Don't tell the children. Walter Blake's quite great on remorse."
Mrs. Selford laughed rather ruefully.
"I suppose it'll turn out as well as most things. Do you know any thoroughly happy couples?"
"Very hard to say. One isn't behind the scenes. But I'm inclined to think I do. Oh, ecstasies aren't for this world, you know—not permanent ecstasies. You might as well have permanent hysterics! And, as you're aware, there are no marriages in heaven. So perhaps there's no heaven in marriages either. That would seem to be plausible reasoning, wouldn't it? But they'll be all right; they'll learn one another's paces."
"I can't help wishing she seemed more in love."
"Perhaps she will be when she flirts with somebody else. Don't frown! I'm not a pessimist. If I don't always look for happiness by the ordinary roads, I often discern it along quite unexpected routes."
"It's pleasant to see people start by being in love."
"How eternally sentimental we are! Well, yes, it is. But capacities differ. I daresay she doesn't know she's deficient, and she certainly won't imagine that her mother has given her away."
"I suppose I deserve that, but I had to talk to somebody. And really it's best to choose a man; sometimes it stops there then."
"Why not your husband? No? Ah, he has too many opportunities of reminding you of the indiscretion! You were quite right to talk to me. We shall look on at what happens with all the greater interest because we've discussed it. And, as I've said, I'm decidedly hopeful."
"We might have developed her affections when she was a child. I'm sure we might."
"Oh, I shall go! You send for a clergyman!"
Mrs. Selford shook her head sadly, even while she smiled. She could not be beguiled from her idea, nor from the remorse that it brought. The pictures, the dogs, and sentimental squabbling with her husband had figured too largely in the household; she connected with this fact the disposition which she found in Anna.
"Being a bit hard isn't a bad thing for your happiness," Caylesham added as a last consolation.
Anna herself came in. No consciousness of deficiency seemed to afflict her; she felt no need of a development of her affections or of being more in love with Walter Blake. On the contrary she exhibited to Caylesham's shrewd eyes a remarkable picture of efficiency and of contentment. She had known what she wanted, she had discerned what means to use in order to get it, and she had achieved it. A perfect self-confidence assured her that she would be successful in dealing with it; her serene air, her trim figure and decisive movements gave the impression that here at least was a mortal who, if she did not deserve success, could command it. Caylesham looked on her with admiration—rather that than liking—as he acknowledged her very considerable qualities. The thing which was wanting was what in a picture he would have called "atmosphere." But here again her luck came in, or, rather, her clear vision; it was not fair to call it luck. The man she had pitched upon—that was fair, and Caylesham declined to withdraw the expression—at the time when she pitched upon him, was in a panic about "atmosphere." He had found too much of it elsewhere, and was uneasy about it in himself. He was not asking for softness, for tenderness, for ready accessibility to emotion or to waves of feeling. Her cleverness had turned to account even the drawback which made Caylesham, in the midst of his commendation, conscious that he would not choose to be her husband—or perhaps her son either.
"You'll make a splendid head of the family," he told her cheerfully. "You'll keep them all in most excellent order."
She chose to consider that he had exercised a bad influence over Walter Blake, and treated him distantly. Caylesham supported the entire injustice of her implied charge with good-humour.
"You're not fond of excellent order, I suppose?" she asked.
"In others," said he, smiling. "May I come and see it in your house sometimes? I promise not to disturb it."
"I don't think you could."
"She taunts me with my advancing years," he complained to Mrs. Selford.
Anna's disapproval of him was marked; it increased his amusement at the life which lay before Walter Blake. Blake would want to disturb excellent order sometimes; he would be indulged in that proclivity to a strictly limited extent. If Grantley Imason were a revengeful man, this marriage ought to cause him a great deal of pleasure. Caylesham, while compelled to approve by his reason, could not help deploring in his heart. He saw arising an ultra-British household, clad in the very buckram of propriety. Who could say that morality did not reign in the world when such a nemesis as this awaited Walter Blake, or that morality had not a humour of its own when Walter Blake accepted the nemesis with enthusiasm? Yet the state of things was not unusual—a fair sample of a bulk of considerable size. Caylesham went away smiling at it, wondering at it, in the depths of his soul a trifle appalled at it. It seemed to him rather inhuman; but perhaps his idea of humanity had gone a trifle far in the opposite direction.
And, after all, could not Walter Blake supply the other element? There was plenty of softness about him, and the waves of feeling were by no means wanting in frequency or volume. Considering this question, Caylesham professed himself rather at a loss. He would have to wait and look on. But would he hear or see much? Anna had evidently put him under a ban, and he believed that her edicts would obtain obedience in the future. So far as he could see now, he had a vision of the waves stilled to rest, of the gleam of frost forming upon them, of an ice-bound sea. Now he felt it in his heart to be sorry for young Blake. Not because there was any injustice. The nemesis was eminently, and even ludicrously, just. He felt sorry precisely because it was so just. He was always sorry for sinners who had to pay the penalty of their deeds; then a fellow-feeling went out to them. Of course they were fools to grumble. The one wisdom he claimed for himself was not grumbling at the bill.
He paid another visit that day, under an impulse of friendliness, and perhaps of curiosity too. He went to Tom Courtland's, and found himself repaid for his trouble by Tom's cordiality of greeting. The Courtland family was in the turmoil of moving; they had to go to a much smaller house, and to reduce the establishment greatly. But the worries of a move and the prospect of comparative poverty—there was very little left besides Harriet's moderate dowry—were accepted by Tom very cheerfully, and by the children with glee; they were delighted to be told that there would be no more menservants and fewer maids, and that they would have to learn to shift for themselves as much and as soon as possible. They were glad to be rid of "this great gloomy house," over which the shadow of calamity still brooded.
"The children don't like to pass Lady Harriet's door at night," Suzette whispered in an aside to Caylesham.
Tom himself seemed younger and more sprightly; and he was the slave of his little girls. His grey hair, the lines on his face, and the enduring scar on Sophy's brow spoke of the sorrow which had been; but the sorrow had given place to peace—and it might be that some day peace would turn to joy. For there was much youth there, and, where youth is, joy must come, if only it be given a fair chance.
"We're rather in narrow circumstances, of course," Tom explained when Suzette and the children were out of earshot. "That's because I made such an ass of myself."
"Well, don't be hard on Flora. She was a good friend to you."
"I'm not blaming her; it's myself, Frank. I ought to have remembered the children. But we can rub along, and perhaps I shall get a berth some day."
Caylesham did not think that prospect a very probable one, but he dissembled and told Tom that his old political friends ought certainly to do something for him:
"Because it never came to an absolute public row, did it?"
"Everybody knew," sighed Tom, with a relapse into despondency.
"Anyhow you won't starve," Caylesham said with a laugh. "I reckon you must have above a thousand a year?"
"It's not much; but—well, I tell you what, Frank, Suzette Bligh's pretty nearly as good as another five hundred, and I only pay her seventy pounds a year. You wouldn't believe what a manager that little woman is! She makes everything go twice as far as it did, and has the house so neat too. Upon my soul, I don't notice any difference, except that I've dropped my champagne."
"Well, with champagne what it mostly is nowadays, that's no great loss, my boy, and I'm glad you've struck it rich with Miss Bligh."
"We should be lost without her. I don't know what the children would do, or what I should do with them, but for her. One good thing poor Harriet did, anyhow, was to bring her here."
Yes; but if Harriet had known how it was to fall out, had foreseen how Suzette was to reign in her stead, and with what joy the change of government would be greeted! Caylesham imagined, with a conscious faintness of fancy, the tempest which would have arisen, and how short a shrift would have been meted out to Suzette and all her adherents. He really hoped that poor Harriet, who had suffered enough for her faults, was not in any position in which she could be aware of what had happened; it would be to her (unless some great transformation had been wrought) too hard and unendurable a punishment.
"The children are changed creatures, Frank," Tom went on. "We don't try to repress them, you know. That would be hypocrisy, wouldn't it, under the circumstances? The best thing is for them to forget. Suzette says so, and I quite agree."
Suzette, it seemed, could achieve an epitaph of stinging quality—quite without meaning it, of course. Caylesham agreed that the best thing the girls could do was to forget their mother.
"So we let them make a row, and they're to go out of mourning very soon. That's what Suzette advises."
A merciful Providence must spare even poor Harriet this! She was to be forgotten—almost by a violent process of obliteration; and this by Suzette's decree—an all-powerful decree of gentle inconspicuous Suzette's.
The man of experience foresaw. Weak kindly Tom Courtland must always have a woman to fend for him. Because Harriet had not filled that part, ruin had come. The children must have a guardian and a guide in feminine affairs. The bonds were becoming too strong to be broken—so strong that the very idea of their ever being broken would cause terror, and impel steps to make them formally permanent. Here was another sample from a bulk of goodly dimensions, one of those by no means rare cases where a woman who would not otherwise have got a husband—or perhaps taken one—passes through the stage of the indispensable spinster to the position of the inevitable wife. Caylesham saw the process begun, and he was glad to see it. It was the best thing that could happen to Tom, and for the girls the best way of piecing together the fragments of that home-life which Harriet's cruel rage had shattered. Only they were all still so delightfully unconscious of what seemed so obvious to an outsider with his eyes about him. Caylesham smiled at their blindness, and took care not to disturb Tom's mind, or to rally him about his harping on Suzette's name and Suzette's advice. He was quite content to leave the matter to its natural course. But coming, as it did, on the top of his visit to the Selfords' and of his impressions of what he had seen there, it raised another reflection in his mind. How many roads there were to Rome! And most of them well trodden. Primitive instinct or romantic passion was only one of many—anyhow if the test of predominating influence were taken. It was not the prevailing factor with Anna Selford; it would hardly count at all with Tom and Suzette. Since then the origin was so various, what wonder the result was various too! Various results were even expected, aimed at, desired. Add to that cause of variation human error and the resources of the unexpected, and the field of chance spread infinitely wide. Save for the purpose of being amusing—an end to which all is justifiable that is not actually unseemly—only a fool or a boy would generalise about the legal state which was the outcome of such heterogeneous persons, aims, and tempers. But then at the end old nature—persistent old nature—would come back and give the thing a twist in her direction, with her babies and her nursery. She made confusion worse confounded, and piled incongruity on incongruity. But she would do it, and a pretty mixture was the general result. To make his old metaphor of double harness at all adequate to the subject which it sought to express, you must suppose many breeds of horses, and a great deal of very uneven and very unsuitable pairing of them by the grooms. It was probably all necessary, but the outcome was decidedly odd.
"It's all been pretty bad. I can't bear to think of poor Harriet, and I'm not fond of thinking about myself," said Tom Courtland, rubbing his bristly hair. "But the worst of it's over now. There's peace anyhow, Frank, and at least the children were always fond of me."
"You're going to get along first-rate," Caylesham assured him. "And mind you make Miss Suzette stick to you. She's a rare woman; I can see that."
"You're a good chap, Frank. You stick to your friends. You stuck to me all through."
"Much less trouble than dropping you, old fellow."
"That's rot!"
"Well, perhaps it is. After all, if I hadn't some of the minor virtues, I should be hardly human, should I? They're just as essential as the minor vices."
"If you ever see Flora, tell her—well, you'll know what to tell her."
"I'll say something kind. Good-bye, Tom. I'm glad to find you so cheerful."
The girls came round him to say good-bye. He kissed them, and gave each of them half a crown. He used to explain that he always tipped children because in after years he was thus made sure of finding somebody to defend his character in pretty nearly any company. Since, however, this was absolutely the only step he ever took with any such end in view, the explanation was often received with scepticism. His action was more probably the outcome of one of his minor virtues.
"How kind you are to children! What a pity you're a bachelor!" smiled Suzette.
"Thanks! I don't often get such a testimonial," he said, risking a whimsical lift of his brows for Tom Courtland's eye.
He had been seeking impressions of marriage. Chance gave him one more than he had looked for or desired. Just outside Tom Courtland's, as he was going away, he ran plump into John Fanshaw, who was making for the house. There was no avoiding him this time. The men had not met since Caylesham lent John money and John learnt from Harriet Courtland the truth of what the man from whom he took the money had done. But there had been no rupture between them. Civil notes had been written—on John's side even grateful notes—as the business transaction between them necessitated. And both had a part to play—the same part, the part of ignorance. Caylesham must play it for Christine. John had to assume it on his own account, for his own self-respect. The last shred of his pride hung on the assumption that, though he knew, and though Christine was aware of his knowledge, Caylesham at least believed him ignorant.
But heavy John Fanshaw was a clumsy hand at make-believe. His cordiality was hesitating, fumbling, obviously insincere; his unhappiness in his part very apparent. Caylesham cut short his effort to express gratitude, saying, "You shall do anything in the world except thank me!" and went on to ask after Christine in the most natural manner in the world.
"She's been a little—a little seedy, and has gone down to stay with the Imasons for a bit," John explained, taking care not to look at Caylesham.
"Oh, I hope she'll be all right soon! Give her my remembrances when you write—or perhaps you'll be running down?"
"I don't know. It depends on business."
"Come, you'll take Christmas off, anyhow?"
Then John took refuge in talking about Tom Courtland. But his mind was far from Tom. He managed at last to look Caylesham in the face, and grew more amazed at his perfect ease and composure. He was acutely conscious of giving exactly the opposite impression himself, acutely fearful that he was betraying that hidden knowledge of his. Actuated by this fear, he tried to increase his cordiality, hitting wildly at the mark, and indulging in forced friendliness and even forced jocosity.
Caylesham met every effort with just the right tone, precisely the right amount of effusiveness. He had taken a very hard view of what John had done—harder than he could contrive to take of what he himself had—and had expressed it vigorously to Christine. But now he found himself full of pity for poor John. The sight of the man fighting for the remnant of his pride and self-respect was pathetic. And John did it so lamentably ill.
"You're a paragon of a debtor," Caylesham told him, when he harked back to the money again. "My money's a deal safer in your hands than in my own. I'm more in your debt than you are in mine."
"You shall have every farthing the first day I can manage it."
His eagerness told Caylesham what a burden on his soul the indebtedness was. It was impossible to ignore altogether what was so plainly shown; but he turned the point of it, saying:
"I know how punctilious you men of business are. I wish fellows were always the same in racing. I'm ready to take it as soon as you're ready to pay, and to wait till you're ready."
"I shan't ask you to wait a day," John assured him.
Enough had passed for civility; Caylesham was eager to get away—not for his own sake so much as for John's.
"By Jove, I've got an appointment!" he exclaimed suddenly, diving for his watch. "Half-past six! Oh, I must jump into a cab!" He held the watch in one hand, and hailed a cab with his stick. "Good-bye, old fellow," he said, turning away. He had seen John begin to put out his hand in a hesitating reluctant way. He would have liked to shake hands himself, but he knew John hated to do it. John made a last demonstration of ignorance.
"Come and see us some day!" he called almost jovially.
"Yes, I will some day before long," Caylesham shouted back from the step of his hansom.
As he drove off, John was still standing on the pavement, waving a hand to him. Caylesham drove round the corner, then got down again, and pursued his way on foot.
He was quite clear in his own mind that John took the thing unnecessarily hard, but he was genuinely sorry that John should so take it. Indeed John's distress raised an unusually acute sense of discomfort in him. Nor could he take any pride in the tact with which he himself had steered the course of the interview. He could not avoid the conclusion that to John he must have seemed a hypocrite more accomplished than one would wish to be considered in the arts of hypocrisy. He had hitherto managed so well that he had not been forced into such situations; he had been obliged to lie only in his actions, and had not come so near having to lie in explicit words. He did not like the experience, and shook his head impatiently as he walked along. It occurred to him that since marriage was in its own nature so difficult and risky a thing as he had already decided, it was hardly fair for third persons to step in and complicate it more. He had to get at any state of mind resembling penitence by roads of his own; the ordinary approaches were overgrown and impassable from neglect. But in view of John's distress and of the pain which had come on Christine, and on a realisation of the unpleasant perfection of art which he himself had been compelled (and able) to exhibit, he achieved the impression that he had better have left such things alone—well, at any rate where honest old duffers as John Fanshaw were involved in the case. Having got so far, he might not unnaturally have considered whether he should remodel his way of life.
But he was not the man to suffer a sudden conversion under the stress of emotion or of a particular impression. His unsparing clearness of vision and honesty of intellect forbade that.
"I shall get better when I'm too old for anything else," he told himself with a rather bitter smile. "I suppose I ought to thank God that the time's not far off now."
It was not much of an effort in the way of that unprofitable emotion against which he had warned Christine Fanshaw and Janet Selford; but it was enough to make him take a rather different view, if not of himself, at least of old John Fanshaw. He decided that he had been too hard on John; and at the back of his mind was a notion that he had been rather hard on Christine too. In this case it seemed to him that he was getting off too cheaply. John and Christine were paying all the bill—at least a disproportionate amount. The upshot of it all was expressed in his exclamation:
"I don't want the money. I wish to heaven old John wouldn't pay me back!"
He would have felt easier for a little more demerit in John. It is probable, though his philosophising did not lead him so far as this conclusion, that he too was a sample, and from a bulk not inconsiderable in quantity. Where it is possible, we prefer that the people we have injured should turn out to have deserved injury from somebody.
It was the eve of Dora Hutting's wedding—a thing in itself quite enough to put Milldean into an unwonted stir. Everybody was very excited about the event and very sympathetic. Kate Raymore had come to the front; not even preoccupation with Charley could prevent a marriage from interesting her. She had given much counsel, and had exerted herself to effect a reconciliation between the bride and Jeremy Chiddingfold. Into this diplomatic effort Sibylla also had been drawn, and peace had been signed at a tea-party. With the help of Christine's accomplished manner and Grantley's tactful composure, it had been found possible to treat the whole episode as a boy-and-girl affair which could be laughed at and thus dismissed into oblivion. The two principals could not take quite this view; but they consented to be friends, to wish each other well, and to say nothing about the underlying contempt which each could not but entertain for the other's fickleness. For Jeremy would have been faithful if Dora had been, and Dora could not perceive how the fact of her having made a mistake as to her own feelings explained the extraordinary rapidity with which Jeremy had been able to transfer an affection professedly so lasting and so deep. Christine warned her that all men were like that—except Mr. Mallam; and Grantley told Jeremy that Dora was flighty, as all girls were—except Eva Raymore. So peace, though not very cordial peace, was obtained, the satirical remarks which the parties felt entitled to make privately not appearing on the face of the formal proceedings.
Important though these matters might be, they were not in Sibylla's mind as she stood at the end of the garden and looked down on Old Mill House. Twenty-four hours before, Mrs. Mumple had started on her journey. Sibylla, Eva, and Jeremy had escorted her to Fairhaven. The fat old woman was very apprehensive and tremulous; anxious about her looks and the fit of her new silk gown; full of questionings about the meeting to which she went. It was impossible not to smile covertly at some of these manifestations, but over them all shone the beauty of the love which had sustained her through the years. Sibylla prayed that now it might have its reward, half wondering that it had lived to claim it—had lived so long in solitude and uncomforted. It had never despaired, however long the waiting, however much it was starved of all satisfaction, bereft of all pleasure, condemned to seeming uselessness, even unwelcomed, as one well might fear. These things had brought pain and fear, but not despair nor death. Yet Mrs. Mumple was not by nature a patient woman; naturally she craved a full return for what she gave, and an ardent answer to the warmth of her affection. None the less she had not despaired; and as Sibylla thought of this, she accused herself because, unlike the old woman, she had allowed herself to despair—nay, had been ready, almost eager, to do it, had twisted everything into a justification for it, had made no protest against it and no effort to avoid it. That mood had led to ruin; at last she saw that it would have been ruin. Was there now hope? It was difficult to go back, to retrace the steps so confidently taken, to realise that she too had been wrong. Yet what else was the lesson? It came to her in one form or another from every side—from the Courtlands, where death alone had been strong enough to thwart the evil fate; from the Raymores, where trust, bruised but not broken, had redeemed a boy's life from evil to good; even from Christine, who waited in secret hope; above all, from the quarter whence she had least looked for it—from Grantley himself, for whom no effort was too great, who never lost confidence, who had indeed lacked understanding but had never lacked courage; who now, with eyes opened and at her bidding, was endeavouring the hardest thing a man can do—was trying to change himself, to look at himself with another's eyes, to remodel himself by a new standard, to count as faults what he had cherished as virtues, to put in the foremost place not the qualities which had been his pets, his favourites, his ideals, but those which another asked from him, and which he must do himself a violence to display. Had she no corresponding effort to make? She could not deny the accusation. It lay with her too to try. But it was hard. John Fanshaw found it sorely difficult, grossly against his prejudices, and even in conflict with principles which he held sacred, to belittle his grievance or to let it go. Sibylla was very fond of her grievances too. She was asked to look at them with new eyes, to think of them no more as outrages, as stones of stumbling and rocks of offence. She was asked to consider her grievances as opportunities. That was the plain truth about it, and it involved so much recantation, such a turning upside down of old notions, such a fall for pride. It was very hard to swallow. Yet unless it were swallowed, where was hope? And if it were swallowed, what did it mean? An experiment—only another difficult experiment. For people are not changed readily, and cannot be changed altogether. Difficulties would remain—would remain always; the vain ideal which had once governed all her acts and thoughts would never be realised. She must not be under any delusion as to that. And now, in her heart, she was afraid of delusion coming again; and again disillusion must follow.
She turned to find Grantley beside her, and he gave her a telegram addressed to her. She opened it with a word of thanks.
"From John Fanshaw!" she exclaimed eagerly. "He's coming down here to-night!"
"Well, you told him to wire whenever he found he could get down, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course. But—but what does it mean?"
He smiled at her.
"I'm not surprised. Christine had a letter from him this morning. I saw the handwriting. I'm taking a very sympathetic interest in Christine, so I look at the handwriting on her letters. And she's been in a state of suppressed excitement all the morning. I've noticed that—with a sympathetic interest, Sibylla."
"I think I ought to go and see her."
"Not just yet, please. Oh yes, I hope it'll be a good day for her! And it'll be a great day for your poor old Mumples, won't it? I hope Mr. Mumple will behave nicely."
"Oh, so do I with my whole heart!" cried Sibylla.
"I'm taking a very sympathetic interest in the Mumples also, Sibylla. Likewise in Dora and her young man, and Jeremy and his young woman. Oh, and in the Raymores and Charley! Anybody else?"
Sibylla looked at him reprovingly, but a smile would tremble about the corners of her mouth.
"You see, I've been thinking over what you said the other day," Grantley went on with placid gravity, "and I've made up my mind to come and tell you whenever I do a decent thing or have an honest emotion. I shan't like saying it at all, but you'll like hearing it awfully."
"Some people would be serious about it, considering—well, considering everything," Sibylla remarked, turning her face away.
"Yes, but then they wouldn't see you smile—and you've an adorable smile; and they wouldn't see the flash in your eyes—and you've such wonderful eyes, Sibylla."
He delivered these statements with a happy simplicity.
"You're not imposing on me," she said. "I know you mean it." Her voice trembled just a little. "And perhaps that's the best way to tell me."
"On the other hand, I shall become a persistent and accomplished hypocrite. You'll never know how I grind the faces of the poor at the bank, nor my inmost thoughts when Frank drops half his food on my best waistcoat."
"You're outrageous. Please stop, Grantley."
"All right. I'll talk about something else."
"I think I'd better find Christine. No, wait a minute. If you're going to do all these fine things, what have you planned for me?"
"Nothing. You've just to go on being what you can't help being—the most adorable woman in England."
"I don't know what you mean to do, but what you are doing is——"
"Making love to you," interposed Grantley.
"Yes, and in the most unblushing way."
"I'm doing the love-making, and you're doing the——"
"Stop!" she commanded, with a hasty merry glance of protest.
"You ought to be used to it. I've been doing it for a month now," he complained.
Sibylla made no answer, and Grantley lit a cigarette. When she spoke again she was grave and her voice was low.
"Don't make love to me. I'm afraid to love you. You know what I did before because I loved you. I should do it again, I'm afraid. I haven't learnt the lesson."
"Are you refusing the only way there is of learning it? How have I learnt all the fine lessons that I've been telling you?"
"I've not learnt the lesson. I still ask too much."
"If I give all I have, it'll seem enough to you. You'll know it's all now, and it'll seem enough. All there is is enough—even for you, isn't it?"
"You didn't give me all there was before."
"I had a theory," said Grantley. "I'm not going to have any more theories."
She turned to him suddenly.
"Oh, you mustn't ask—you mustn't stand there asking! That's wrong, that's unworthy of you. I mustn't let you do that."
"That was the theory," Grantley said with a smile. "That was just my theory. I'm always going to ask for what I want now. It's really the best way."
"We're friends, Grantley?" she said imploringly.
"Is that all there is? Would it seem to you enough?"
"And we've Frank. You do love him now, you know."
"In and through you."
She made no answer again. He stood with his eyes fixed on her for some moments. Then he took the telegram gently from her hand and went into the house with it, to seek Christine Fanshaw.
He left Sibylla in a turmoil of feeling. That she loved him was nothing new; she had always loved him, and she had never loved any other man in that fashion. The fairy ride had never been rivalled or repeated; and she had never lost her love for him, even when she hated him as her great enemy. It had always been there, whether its presence had been prized or loathed, welcomed or feared, whether it had seemed the one thing life held, or the one thing to escape from if life were to be worthy. Blake had not displaced it; he had been a refuge from it. Grantley's offence had never been that he did not love her, nor that he could not hold her love; it was that he loved her unworthily and claimed to hold her as a slave. Her case was not as Christine Fanshaw's, any more than her temper was the temper of her friend. And now he came wooing again, and she was sore beset. So memory helped him, so the unforgettable communion of bygone love enforced his suit. Her heart was all for yielding—how should it not be to the one man whose sway it had ever owned? He was to her mind an incomparable wooer—incomparable in his buoyant courage, in the humour that masked his passion, in the passion which used humour with such a conscious art, feigning to conceal without concealing, pretending to reveal without impairing the secrecy of those impenetrable sweet recesses of the heart, concerning which conjecture beats knowledge and the imagination would not be trammelled by a disclosure too unreserved. But she feared and, fearing, struggled. They were friends. Friends could make terms, bargains, treaties, arrangements. Friendship did not bar independence, absolute and uninfringed. Was that the way with love—with the love of woman for man, of wife for husband? No, old Nature came in there with her unchanging decisive word, against which no bargain and no terms, no theory and no views, no claims or pretensions, no folly and no wisdom either, could prevail. All said and done, all concessions made, all promises pledged, all demands guaranteed, they all went for little. The woman was left to depend on the trust she had, helpless if the trust failed her and the confidence were misplaced. If she were wrong about herself or about the man, there was no help for it. The love of the woman was, after all and in spite of all, surrender. Times might change, and thoughts and theories; this might be right which had been wrong, and that held wrong which had been accounted right. The accidents varied, the essence remained. The love of the woman was surrender, because old Nature would have it so. If she gave such love—or acknowledged it, for in truth it was given—she abandoned all the claims, the grievances, the wrongs, all that had been the basis of what she had done. She took Grantley on faith again, she put herself into his hands, again she made the great venture with all its possibilities. She had seemed wrong once. Would she seem wrong again?
There was a change in him: that she believed. Was there a change too in her? Unless there were, she did not dare to venture. Had all that she had suffered, all that she had seen others suffer, brought nothing to her? Yes, there was something. When you loved you must understand, and, knowing the truth, love that or leave it. You must not make an image and love that, then make another image and hate that. You must love or leave the true thing. And to do that there is needed another surrender—of your point of view, your own ideas of what you are and of how you ought to be treated. To get great things you must barter great things in return. There are seldom cheap bargains to be had in costly goods. Had not Grantley learnt that? Could not she? It took generosity to learn it. Was she less generous than Grantley? The question hit her like a blow. If Grantley had done as she had, would she still have loved, would she have come again to seek and to woo? Ah, but the case was not truly parallel. Grantley sought leave to reign again—to reign by her will, but still to reign. That was not what was asked of her.
Was it not? Eagerly stretching out after truth, seeking the bed-rock of deep truth, her mind, spurred by its need, soared above these distinctions, and saw, as in a vision, the union of these transient opposites. Was not to reign well to serve well, was not faithfully to obey the order of the universe to be a king of life? If that vision would abide with her, if that harmony could be sustained, then all would be well. The doubts and fears would die, and the surrender be a great conquest. When she had tried before, she had no such idea as this. Much had been spent, much given, in attaining to the distant sight of it. But if it were true? If Grantley, ever courageous, ever undaunted, had won his way to it and now came, in a suppliant's guise, to show her and to give her the treasures of a queen?
While she still mused, the little boy came toddling over the lawn to her side, holding up a toy for her interest and admiration. She caught him up and held him in her arms. Had he nothing to say to it all? Had he nothing to say? Why, his eyes were like the eyes of Grantley!
The clock of the old church struck five, and on the sound a cab appeared over the crest of the opposite hill. Sibylla, with Frank in her arms, watched its descent to Milldean, and then went into the house to put on her hat. In view of the ancient love between her and Mumples, it was her privilege to be the first to greet the returned wanderer; she alone would properly understand and share Mumples' feeling. For all her sympathy, Kate Raymore was a friend of too recent standing—she had not witnessed the years of waiting. Jeremy's affection was true enough, but Mumples feared the directness of his tongue and the exuberance of his spirits. Highly conscious of the honour done to her, somewhat alarmed at the threatened appeal to her ever too ready emotion, Sibylla went down the hill.